MONTROSE

^{Montrose is a small village, located just 7 kilometers east of Trail along Highway #3B, on a hill that ascends towards a gorge known as Beaver Valley.}

^{Originally known as Wood’s Flats, its present name comes from a Scottish eastern coast resort town of where a former lawyer that lived at nearby Trail, came from. Its history goes back to the 1950s, when it became incorporated as a village and when it was constructed as a retirement community for Trail employees who worked in that town’s Smelter.}

^{Just a few short years after its incorporation, the community of Montrose became more accessible to commuters when construction of the Montrose Cutoff, an extension of Highway #3B from Trail to Fruitvale was built, this highway improvement project reduced and cut travel time to and from Trail down to 10 minutes from 45. Moreover, Montrose is an attractive place for residents who commute to either Fruitvale or Trail for work.}

^{With its beautiful location in the Western Kootenay region, Montrose is a hiker paradise, particularly with the Antenna Trail which provides a great view of Montrose as well as a great lookout and view of the Beaver and Columbia River Valleys.}

^{There are services for travelers available in Montrose including gas, post office, corner store, public works yard, and an auto repair facility.}

Montrose's population: 1,012  

LITTLE FORT

LITTLE FORT

Is a small hamlet, located at the junction of Highways #24 and the Yellowhead Highway (Highway #5) and along the North Thompson River.

It is known as the hub of the North Thompson Valley. Little Fort relies on traffic on the Yellowhead Highway, while relying on traditional industries like hay farming, and fishing resorts. The community is located approximately halfway between Clearwater and Barriere and is named after a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post fort that was an outpost of Fort Kamloops. Abandoned since 1952, the post was essentially a small cabin located on the eastern banks of the North Thompson River.

The settlement has a gas station, campground, restaurant, pub, café, supermarket, fly tackle shop, craft store, liquor store and other amenities as well as a aerial tramway that operates across the North Thompson River.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Little Fort’s population: 444 

LONE BUTTE

LONE BUTTE

Is a small community situated 20 kilometers southeast of 100 Mile House and located on Highway #24 in the Cariboo region of British Columbia.

Lone Butte was once a busy town for ranchers who settled in the area from the late-1800s, to the 1950s and used to be bigger than that of nearby Cariboo towns such as 100 Mile House, Clinton and 70 Mile House and even had sawmills, stockyards, hotel, small hospital, school and its own railway station for the Pacific Great Eastern Railway to carry passengers to and from the community. Today’s version of Lone Butte is quieter that it once was; it is an unincorporated community that features a café, pub, a few shops, a restaurant, gas station, general store, community hall and a small art gallery.

Named after a hardened plug of an ancient and extinct volcano that stands predominately 250 meters over the town towards the east and where hikers can climb it for an impressive view of the surround area, Lone Butte also attracts many fisherman to the area thanks to many lakes located close by including that of Irish, Deka, Sheridan, Bridge, Horse and Hathaway Lakes.

One other attraction in Lone Butte is the Pacific Great Eastern Railway’s (which merged to become the British Columbia Railway in 1972) last standing wooden water tower, where during the 1920s, the railway used it to top off its fleet of steam locomotives.

Lone Butte’s population: 317

BALFOUR

BALFOUR

Balfour’s population: 479

^{Balfour is a small community overlooking the West Arm of Kootenay Lake, 34 kilometers northeast of Nelson in the southeast corner of British Columbia.}

^{Balfour’s history dates back to 1889 when it was originally a site of a port for steamboats that ran across the lake. The Canadian Pacific Railway opened a 50-room resort hotel and during the First World War (WWI), the hotel was used temporarily as a hospital for veterans who fought in the war. The hotel closed in 1920. There are a couple of amenities that serve travelers and tourists alike, including a couple of pubs, a school, marina, several beds and breakfasts, and a golf course.}

^{There is even a car ferry terminal that is used for a ferry that operates on Kootenay Lake to the small settlement of Kootenay Bay. A 45-minute ferry ride, it known for being “North America’s longest free ferry ride”.}

^{Balfour is named after former United Kingdom Prime Minister James Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), and is sometimes referred to as Balfour Bay.}

^{The two vessels that operate at the ferry terminal are the 80-car and 250 passenger capacity MV Osprey 2000 (the largest of the two) and the 28 car and 150-passenger capacity MV Balfour (used only during the summer months for additional sailings).}

SICAMOUS

SICAMOUS

Sicamous’ population: 2,827

^{Sicamous is a small town nestled at the foot of the Eagle Valley, between the lakes of Shuswap and Mara, as well as the junction of Highways #1 (Trans-Canada) and Highway #97A.}

^{The first settlers in Sicamous were from Finland and during the 1800s; the Shuswap First Nations went through here to cross the Rockies in order to hunt buffalo in the plains. During the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, Sicamous was laid out as a permanent townsite. Sicamous also began as the headquarters for the North Okanagan Farm Products and revolved around the 1892 construction of the Shuswap and Okanagan Railway.}

^{With its mild and moderate climate and the warm sandy beaches of Shuswap Lake, tourism has been a flourishing economy for Sicamous for the last decade and bills itself “the Houseboat Capital of Canada”, due to its massive and large fleet of Houseboat rentals in Canada. Other important economies in Sicamous include the forest industry with sawmills in Malakwa and Salmon Arm, and some degree of agriculture.}

Although Sicamous is located along Shuswap Lake it is however not located on the main lake itself as it is located along near the junction of the Anstey and Salmon Arms of the lake. Shuswap Lake consists of 4 arms, (Anstey, the main lake, Salmon and Seymour Arms).

Sicamous was incorporated officially as a district municipality in 1989, and the name comes from the Okanagan First Nations word, shick-a-mows meaning “in the middle” in reference to Sicamous Narrows, a small canal or creek-shaped body of water which separates or drains Shuswap Lake from Mara Lake. 

CRESTON

Is a town tucked in a wide, fertile valley of the Kootenay River, south of Kootenay Lake and just a few minutes from the Canada/United States border crossing.

Named after the town of the same name in Iowa, Creston was first settled by the Ktunaxa (Kootenai First Nations) people who lived here for over 11,000 years. Exploration of this area began in 1808 when David Thompson, passed through here from Creston on his way down the Columbia River. Afterward when gold was rumored to be found on Wild Horse Creek, near Fort Steele in the mid-1860s, Creston soon became home to many miners, homesteaders and settlers. The first settler arrived in the-1880s, and soon afterward 2 railways (Canadian Pacific Railway and the Great Northern Railway), were built. The railways were built to provide better access to several mines in the Kootenay region especially those of around the Nelson and Kaslo areas. At the beginning of the 20th century, Creston soon became an important distribution center for the surrounding valley and because mining wasn’t an important economic commodity here, the town relied heavily on agriculture and forestry in its early days. Beer brewing, food processing, and tourism are now important supporters for the economy for Creston. In addition, Creston is home to the largest and most important grain elevators, south of the Peace River. In order to avoid a longer route to Nelson, the Crowsnest Highway (Highway #3) known to most people here as the Salmo-Creston Highway or as the Kootenay Pass Skyway, was constructed in the 1960s, where Creston is the eastern terminus. As a result, Creston became a town in 1966 after being a village before that since 1924.

Creston is also known for having the most concentration of breeding ospreys in Canada and the significant colonies of terns and is home to a massive 17,000 acre wildlife area for several species of waterfowl, bird, reptile and fish as well as some types of plants.

The climate here is classified as continental, which is characterized by air masses which originate from the Pacific Ocean coast. Sometimes although very rare, temperatures in Creston can range around -20 to the -30 range and despite the fact that Creston does have cold winter days, an early spring (usually around late March to mid-April) is likely to occur. On summer days the thermometer may reach up to +30 degrees on some days and the first frost is usually not expected to happen until around the first days of fall.

Due to its location near the Canada/United States border, most of the businesses established in Creston accept American currency and in a similar contrast, Porthill an Idaho town just south of the border, accepts Canadian currency and items such as gasoline are sold by the litre. Unlike other communities in southeastern British Columbia that are in the Mountain Time Zone such as Cranbrook, Fernie, and Sparwood, and like Yahk 44 kilometers east of here, Creston does observe Daylight Savings Time which during the summer months, Creston possesses the same time as Vancouver and during the winter months, the same time as Calgary.

Creston’s population: 4,816

YALE

^YALE

Yale's population: 169

Yale is a tiny and historic village, located in the Fraser Canyon and Trans-Canada Highway (Highway #1), 24 kilometers north of Hope.

^{Long been inhabited by the Yale First Nation, Yale dates back to 1848 when the Hudson’s Bay Company operated a fort and became a mainland terminus for sternwheelers paddling up and down the Fraser River. During the Cariboo Gold Rush of the 1860s, Yale almost immediately became a gold rush town with saloons, gambling houses, stores and bar rooms and a population of 20,000. This boom was a result of gold been found on a river sand bar 2 miles south of town.}

^{All of the hustle and bustle soon made Yale (at the time a population of 20,000 people), the largest town north of San Francisco and west of Chicago (this distinction, however was later shared by several towns in British Columbia including Barkerville, Lillooet, Quesnel Forks and Greenwood). Also during the Cariboo Gold Rush, Yale became the starting terminus and point for the Cariboo Wagon Road, all the way to Barkerville in the North Cariboo.}

^{Yale prospered for the next 20 years after the gold rush when the Canadian Pacific Railway was constructed during the 1880s.}

^{Unfortunately, as gold quickly ran out, so to did Yale’s glory and its population soon dwindled but its has since recovered today to be a tourism, forestry and service community for the Fraser Canyon. It has a gas station, motels, pioneer cemetery, museum, and the St. John the Devine Church, which is one of the province’s oldest churches still on its orginal foundation.}

^{Yale was named in 1847 after James Murray Yale (1796-1871), whom at the time, was a supervisor of the Fort Langley Hudson’s Bay Company.}

^{The Fraser River is named after Simon Fraser, one of British Columbia’s most well-known explorers whom in 1808, camped near here while on his famous trek along the Fraser River to the Pacific Ocean near Vancouver.}

^{One final interesting fact, Yale is one of 4 main communities that begin with “Y”. The others are Yahk, Youbou, and Ymir. All of them are unincorporated and have a population of less than 1,000 people.}