FOREST GROVE

FOREST GROVE

Is a small community located in the South Cariboo region of British Columbia.

The community is known as an outskirt to 100 Mile House, due to the fact that 100 Mile House is located just 10 minutes southwest.

The Forest Grove General Store features everything a typical grocery store can sell including groceries, lottery tickets, video rentals, and even an in-store bakery and a café.

Forest Grove is named after the town of the same name in Oregon, where Oliver Phillips, an early settler came from.

Theresa Luke, a rower, who won a silver medal at woman’s 8-Rowing during the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia back in 1996, is originally from Forest Grove. Ranching and recreational activities contribute to the economy of Forest Grove, which is unincorporated which also attracts a number of retirees who enjoy the community’s stress-free as well as its relaxing, and laid-back atmosphere as well as its enjoyable and pleasant climate it endures year-round. There are also numerous lakes in the surrounding area to relax and enjoy including Ruth, Canim, Buffalo, Mahood, Hendrix, and Hawkins and travelers can also approach Wells Gray Provincial Park, British Columbia’s second- largest provincial park from here.          

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Forest Grove’s population: 331

NAKUSP

Nakusp is a village overlooking the east side of Upper Arrow Lake in southeastern British Columbia, about halfway between Revelstoke and Castlegar.

Coming from an Okanagan First Nations word for “closed in” or “come together”, referring to where Upper Arrow Lake closes in or narrows, Nakusp was established in 1893 as a western stop on the Nakusp and Slocan Railway and in the process, giving Nakusp the distinction of a major shipping and transport center for ore deposits. However, this did happen because shipments of ore were discovered more south redirected through the lakes of Slocan and Kootenay and were shipped to smelters at Nelson and Trail, respectively. The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) continued to preserve a shipbuilding business in the community, and even after 1915, continued to serve restricted service until 1954.

Since the early 1900s, logging and fruit growing, and some small-scale mining have contributed to the wealth of Nakusp. For the reason that Nakusp Hot Springs, a small community-owned health resort, north of the community, Nakusp is fast becoming one of British Columbia’s key tourist destinations.

Nakusp first became a village in 1964.

Nakusp’s population: 1,736

ROCK CREEK

ROCK CREEK

Is a small and unincorporated community, located 19 kilometers west of Midway on the Kettle River at the junction of Highways #3 (Crowsnest Highway) and 129-kilometer long Highway #33.

Rock Creek was the site of a gold rush from the Dewdney Trail era from 1860-1861 and at that time, the community boomed with hotels and saloons.

After the gold rush, the prospectors and gold miners left for the gold rush in the Cariboo in 1862. However, mining continued until the 1930s. When it became a materialized permanent settlement in the 1880s and in the early 1900s, Rock Creek then became a center for agriculture activity especially for growing different varieties of fruit including apples.

In the community today travelers will find a general store, 2 gas stations, convenience store, trading post, pub, hotel and café.

Rock Creek’s population: 318

FOUNTAIN

Fountain is an unincorporated rural area and First Nations reserve, about 22 kilometers north of Lillooet on Highway #99 in the semi-arid, Fountain Valley. Fountain lies at the southern apex of the double horseshoe-shaped bend at the Fraser Canyon of where both of the Fraser and Yalakom Faults meet. Both of these faults created the Fountain ridge, which rises above the community and forms a natural wall between it and the town of Lillooet. The climate of Fountain is extremely desert-like with temperatures that are slightly warmer and hotter than that of Lillooet’s that exceed almost 35 degrees Celcius. Known vegetation is Ponderosa Pine, Cacti, Sagebrush and tumbleweed. Fountain is referred to the huge fountain-like rapids that cut a creek and a small flat into a deep gulch and then cascade into the Fraser River below.

FOUNTAIN’S POPULATION: 165

NEW DENVER

NEW DENVER

Is a small incorporated community positioned on the shores of beautiful Slocan Lake, about 48 kilometers south of Nakusp in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia.

First established in 1892 by numerous miners and entrepreneurs, it was originally known as El Dorado in the hopes that the gold in the area would make it rich, as the El Dorado of the same name in Colorado, (the legendary city of gold). However, it wasn’t meant to be as both silver and lead were found to be the strength of the economy, and it was re-named after another city in Colorado; Denver. It has been said that both New Denver and Denver, Colorado share the same geographic characteristics. During the 1890s, it became a service for the surrounding areas around the Sandon area. 

The Silvery Slocan Museum recalls the Slocan Mining boom heyday with artifacts and collections that are well over 100 years old. Located in downtown this museum is a heritage building and was at one time (from 1897 to 1969 to be exact), a bank

With the silver mining boom taken place here during the early 1900s, New Denver soon became the service center for the surrounding Slocan mining boom and once had a population of about 2,000 residents. With the mining soon collapsing after the First World War (WWI), which left the community with no real economic benefactor, New Denver almost achieved the status of being another British Columbia ghost town.

During World War 2 (WWII), and the attack of Japan invading the Hawaiian town of Pearl Harbour, many Japanese Canadians (about 2,000 of them) were interned here from the coast. Many of them still live in New Denver to this very day. A remembrance of this period is told in a couple of memorials in town dedicated to many of the internees.

Today, some small-scale mining, logging, and tourism have helped New Denver economically survive and prosper.

Highway #31A, a minor 47-kilometer-long east-west route connects New Denver with Highway #6 via passing through several ghost towns in the process (Three Forks, Sandon, and Retallack etc.) east towards its end with Kaslo.  While Highway #6 south goes from New Denver south towards Silverton, Nelson, Salmo and eventually the Canada/United States border crossing at the tiny hamlet of Nelway, while Highway #6 north on the other hand goes from here to communities such as Nakusp and Lumby before reaching its western end at the city of Vernon.

After its population declined, New Denver became incorporated as a village in 1929, despite a population of fewer than 600 residents.

       

New Denver’s population: 512

LAC LA HACHE

LAC LA HACHE

Is a small ranching and retirement community along Highway #97, 26 kilometers north of 100 Mile House in the Cariboo region. Known as the “longest town in the Cariboo”, this community began as a stopping place on the Cariboo Wagon Road on the way to Barkerville, during the Cariboo Gold Rush days of the 1860s. The community is named after a fur trader who dropping his axe into the lake and is known in French translation as “Axe Lake” There area several lodges around the vicinity of the area including Kokanee Bay, Lac La Hache Provincial Park, Fircrest Resort, Crystal Springs, as well as Mount Timothy Ski Resort.

LAC LA HACHE’S POPULATION: 245

ERICKSON

ERICKSON

Is a small unincorporated community located just 4 kilometers east of downtown Creston and in a wide, fertile valley.

Named after E.G. Erickson, a superintendent of the Canadian Pacific Railway at Cranbrook for 4 years from 1904 to 1908.

Because of the surrounding valley’s continental climate where the community is located in, Erickson has a number of fruit stands that line Highway #3 and because of this agriculture is a suitable economic activity here.

 Erickson’s population: 456

TRAIL

TRAIL

^{Trail is a small-sized city, straddled on the Columbia River, 18 kilometers north of United States border and 28 kilometers south of Castlegar in the southeast corner of British Columbia.}

^{Founded in 1890 by Colonel Eugene Topping and Frank Hanna as a landing for steamboats where it was used as a shipping point for ore mined from the Le Roi Mine in nearby Rossland, to be shipped here to smelters at the Montana town of Butte. In 1896, American entrepreneur F.A. Heinze opened an ore smelter above the townsite to treat and extract ore from the mines at Rossland. A couple of years, just before the First World War (WWI), The Canadian Pacific Railway bought the smelter and later combining it to form the Consolidating Mining and Smelting Company (later Cominco and now Teck Resources).}

^{The smelter than became the largest non–ferrous smelting operation in the world, as well as making the entire Kootenay region, of where the city of Trail is located, economically dependant on the Cominco operations. Producing over 700,000 tonnes of concentrate a year, Teck Resources also conducts tours of this smelter to visitors as well. There are exhibits and video presentations describing the methods and practice of mining exploration.}

^{Trail is known for its sporting and Italian heritage and in fact, in 2005 Trail was named British Columbia’s number one sports town with athletes such as, Jason Bay (baseball player), Ray Ferraro (hockey player), Barrett Jackman (hockey player) have lived here past and present.}

The city is also home to the Trail Smoke Eaters, a British Columbia Junior Hockey League team who play their games at the Trail Memorial Centre (also known as the Cominco Arena), a 2,537 seat multi-purpose facility. There have been 2 variations of this hockey team. They started out in 1926 as a senior team and won many championships including 2 World Ice Hockey Championships and have won more championships in the senior level than any other team in Canada.

^{The junior version of this hockey team has been around since 1969, however unlike the senior team, haven’t seen that much success although it did win championships in the KIJHL (Kootenay International Junior Hockey League) 4 different times. They officially became a member of the British Columbia Hockey League in 1995 after a 4 year existence in the now-defunct Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League. The history of hockey in Trail is told in the Sports Hall of Memories and on a mural, both located at the vicinity of the arena.}

^{During the summer months, the city of Trail often enjoys a hot and dry summer with temperatures that can exceed 35 degrees Celsius. The reason for this dry and year-round climate is that Trail is located on lower-level elevation (about 440 meters above sea level) compared to places such as Rossland, as well as the Beaver Valley areas of Montrose and Fruitvale, (whom receive more precipitation especially in the winter they receive a heavier amount of snow), are more higher up. Despite this, Trail still can receive a fair dusting of winter snowfall. In addition, it is common for Trail to receive an occasional thunderstorm that can often originate from the south, from the Spokane Valley area into the valley during the spring and summer months. During the fall months of late-September, October and November, a cold air inversion brings thick, dense and heavy fog into the city during the overnight and morning hours of the day and can last all day.}

^{Trail became incorporated as a city on July 14, 1901 and is named after nearby Trail Creek which in turn is named after the famous Dewdney Trail, a 747-kilometre long trail that originates in Hope and ends at Wild Horse Creek, near Fort Steele where it was a factor in powering the new colony of British Columbia in the 1860s, moreover it also helped construct mining towns and small towns during the Gold Rush era during the same time. Today, most of the trail (about 80% of it precisely) has been incorporated into today’s version of the Crowsnest Highway (Highway #3).}

   

TRAIL’S POPULATION: 7,696

VALEMOUNT

VALEMOUNT

Is a small community located in the northeast sector of the province of British Columbia, at the north end of Kinbasket Lake, 278 kilometers east of Prince George and along Highway #5 (Yellowhead Highway). The community is surrounded by beautiful scenery, as well as 3 mountain ranges; the Cariboo, Monashee, and Rocky. Valemount began as a Canadian National Railway station in 1927 and used to be known as Swift Creek and has become one of British Columbia’s prime and major tourist and recreation destinations because of its close location to both of Jasper and Robson National Park. At an elevation of 3,954 meters (12,972) Mount Robson is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies and the second largest of British Columbia behind that of Mount Fairweather near the Alaska/British Columbia borders. Logging is playing a huge roll in Valemount’s economy, which was incorporated as a village in 1962 and is named for its location in the mountains (vale amid the mountains). Vale is also another word for wide river valley.

VALEMOUNT’S POPULATION: 1,081

BOSTON BAR

Boston Bar is an unincorporated village, located 66 kilometers north of Hope in the Fraser Canyon, just east of the Fraser River.

Boston Bar dates back to the days of the 1858 Gold Rush. It was established as a mining camp near the Nlaka’pamux (Thompson) village of Quayome, just west across the Fraser River from the present location of where Boston Bar sits today. It was at this time that Boston Bar became a stopover point for fur traders and miners heading north to Barkerville in search for gold.

The term “Boston Bar” comes from the local first nations people who referred the miners as “Boston men”. The miners came to British Columbia by ship from America’s east coast (mainly from the Massachusetts area) to mine gold in the river’s sandbar during the Gold Rush.

When construction of the Canadian Pacific Railways in 1885, Boston Bar moved to its new site east across the river and the old site became known as North Bend. From 1940 until 1986 an aerial tramway originally crossed the Fraser River to and from North Bend until was it replaced by a new bridge, the Cog Harrington Bridge.

Since the Coquihalla Highway from Kamloops to Hope via Merritt was first opened to traffic in 1986, Boston Bar has since seen a steady decrease in population.

In North Bend, tourists will find a cemetery that commemorates the original Boston Bar settlement. Also a park in Boston Bar near the Pig's Ear Saloon/Charles Hotel property, commemorates the history of both the North Bend and Boston Bar communities, along with a story of the aerial ferry.

As tourists or travelers drive from Boston Bar to Yale, 42 kilometers south, there are 7 tunnels in the Fraser Canyon that drivers and travelers alike will encounter. Constructed in the 1950s, as part of a highway project through the Fraser Canyon, the tunnels are China Bar, Ferrabee, Hell’s Gate, Alexandria, Sailor Bar, Saddle Rock, and Yale. At 610 meters long, the China Bar Tunnel is one of North America’s longest tunnels while the Hells’ Gate Tunnel (101 metres long) is the only tunnel that does not have lights.

Despite being an unincorporated community, Boston Bar offers many worthwhile and sufficient amounts of amenities for travellers. This includes 2 gas stations, accommodations, restaurants, bowling alley and a library. It is serviced by Greyhound's passenger and frieght service. It also serves as a gateway to several recreational areas including Blue Lake and the Nahatlatch River and the Mehatl Valley.

Boston Bar's population: 601

RICHMOND

RICHMOND

Is a large city, located at the southwestern end of Fraser River, right south of Vancouver.

Part of the Metro Vancouver area, its history and origins date back to 1862, when Hugh McRoberts purchased a farm and doing so he named the property, Richmond View, after a town in his native Australia (however it is unclear which one it is since there are about 5 Richmonds in Australia). During the late 1800s, a salmon cannery opened in the neighboring community of Steveston and at its pinnacle, it had 49 canneries and by the 1950s, also attracted many Japanese Canadians. In 1889, Richmond was connected to the mainland by a bridge (The Marpole Bridge, replaced in 1957, by the Arthur Laing Bridge) and when the 20^th century began, it was linked with other communities by a railway link.

The Vancouver International Airport, located in Richmond on Sea Island, opened in 1931 and has since become the biggest airport of all of western Canada, in terms of handling both domestic and international flights.

After the Second World War (WWII), many Chinese immigrants began to inhabit a large portion of Richmond’s population and because of this Aberdeen Center, built in 1990, became the first of several shopping centers to cater to the Chinese community.

Richmond’s climate is similar to that of Vancouver’s, but receives less amounts of rain (about 30% less to be exact than Vancouver), due to it been further located away from the mountains than Vancouver, although during the winter months, most of the precipitation falling in Richmond more the form of snow and is more vulnerable to fog because of its location near the ocean and the Fraser River. On the other hand though, the summer months, however are more are more milder and warmer with temperatures that exceed +20 degrees Celsius  (sometimes +30 but very rare).

In the 1950s, most of the land was protected from outpouring of flooding by a system of dykes due to the city being close to a delta and thus preventing the city from being especially susceptible and prone to massive flooding in particular when the ocean and river are both at high tide.

Richmond is considered a suburb of Vancouver and with neighborhoods such as Lulu Island, Burkeville, Sea Island, Steveston and Lansdowne just to name a few, it occupies most of the southwest corridor of the Lower Mainland and it ranks as the 4^th largest populated city of all of British Columbia and 25^th largest in all of Canada, and was incorporated as a city on November 10^th, 1879 but reincorporated again in December, 111 years later. Its economic base includes fishing, agriculture, manufacturing and warehousing.

In 2009, Richmond became an important and viable transportation hub for residents who travel to Vancouver to work, when the new Canada Line Rapid Transit System was built, thus cutting down travel time from at least 1 hour on the bus or car to downtown Vancouver to an easy 25 minute commute during the times of the day when traffic in Vancouver is at a complete standstill.

Richmond’s population: 174,461 

LIKELY

LIKELY

Is a small community, 94 kilometers east of Williams Lake in the Central Cariboo region of British Columbia on a side and an unmarked road off Highway #97, just east of 150 Mile House. It is where the Quesnel River enters Quesnel Lake. Likely was once a prosperous gold mining camp and had very rich gold finds in the Cariboo district. Likely today still relies on mining exploration especially with a open-pit mine found nearby, but is mainly a tourism town especially fishing, hiking and the history of the area. One notable attraction nearby is the ghost town of Quesnel Forks (sometimes spelled as “Quesnelle Forks”) which is 8 kilometers, northeast of Likely was an important mining town in its own right, especially with Chinese miners. Likely is named after John Likely, known by his famous nickname “Pluto John”, a gold prospector.

LIKELY’S POPULATION: 375