MONTE CREEK

MONTE CREEK
Is a tiny and rural community, located on the South Thompson River, 30 kilometers east of Kamloops on the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway #1). Monte Creek was formally known as Duck and Pringles after 2 pioneers; Jacob Duck and Alex Pringle, started a ranch in 1862 in addition to the Brunswick House Hotel that was operational here for 25 years from 1884 to 1909. In 1906, notorious and famous train robber, Billy Miner held up a Canadian Pacific Railway (CNR) Station and came away with a mere 15 dollars in cash, and after a 80-kilometer chase, he was captured in Douglas Lake, near Merritt and sentenced to 25 years in prison in New Westminster. In 1982, a biography about his story was told in a feature Canadian film called “The Grey Fox”. Today, Monte Creek is basically a junction community as the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway #1) goes from here to Chase, Salmon Arm, Revelstoke and eventually the Alberta border. Highway #97, on the other hand, goes southward from here to communities such as Falkland, Vernon, Kelowna, the rest of the Okanagan Valley and eventually the Canada/United States border crossing, located just 4 kilometers south from Osoyoos. Both Monte Creek and Monte Lake nearby, take their name from “montee” meaning height of land in French. It was in this region that the early fur brigades of the Hudson’s Bay Company crossed over the Thompson River Valley into the Okanagan Valley.

MONTE CREEK’S POPULATION: 65