CRANBROOK

CRANBROOK
Cranbrook's population: 19,364

Cranbrook is a city straddled between the Rocky Mountain Trench (to the east) and the Purcell Mountains (to the west) about 108 kilometres east of Creston.

The history of Cranbrook dates back to when it was used as a camping and ranchland area for the Ktunaxa First Nations people. About 1,000 years ago the ancestors of this tribe, came here to fish and to hunt bison in the eastern sections of the Rockies. The site of where Cranbrook is located today, was originally called Joseph's Prairie, referring to an old Ktunaxa Chief.

The modern era of Cranbrook's history begins when a rancher and early settler by the name of James Baker, who came from Cranbrook, Kent County, England, surveyed the area and acquired land from the Ktunaxa, to help build Cranbrook to what it is today. In 1898, Baker, already a polician at this time, was helpful in delivering a railway by convincing the Canadian Pacific Railway to establish their Crowsnest Line to go right through Cranbrook, in order to make it the railway's administation centre. Because of this, Fort Steele, 10 miles to the northeast, a busy gold rush boom town at this time, had to be bypassed.

Cranbrook became incorporated in November of 1905.

Cranbrook celebrates its history with the railway through the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel, which presents a numerous amount of exhibits dedicated to railcars of the 1920s especially built for the Canadian Pacific Railway and for the Spokane International Railway. There are also several cars and cabooses that date back from anywhere as early as the early 1900s to the late 1930s. The museum can be found near downtown, right along the main highway near Baker and King Streets.

Speaking of highways, Cranbrook serves as the adminstative center of southeastern British Columbia and the entire Kootenay Region of the province as it is the area's biggest town, population-wise. Because of this, Cranbrook is a major transportation and stopover corridor for tourists and travellers, moreover, it boasts several motels, fast food restaurants, gas stations, 2 large shopping malls and bix box stores. This area of Cranbrook, about 2 miles long, mostly around Cranbrook Street, is known as “the Strip”. The city limits of Cranbrook are pretty much situated and located among 3 major highways (#3, #95 and #95A). It is also not far from both of the Alberta and United States border lines.

Cranbrook is also the largest city (and the only city classified as such) straddled along the Mountain Time Zone west of the British Columbia/Alberta border and the third largest along the Crowsnest Highway Corridor from Hope to Medicine Hat, (only the latter and Lethbridge are larger with an approximate population of 87,000 and 62,000 respectively).

The Kooternay Ice of the Western Hockey League (WHL) play their home games at Western Financial Place. This 4,500-seat arena is also home to a recreation centre complete with a wave pool, swimming pool, sauna, and waterslide. Established in 1996 in Edmonton, where they originated from before they relocated to Cranbrook, this hockey team won the 2002 Memorial Cup and won the Western Hockey League Championship on 3 different occasions; 2000, 2002 and 2011.

Several of National Hockey League's finest have called Cranbrook home including hockey players Rob and Scott Neidermayer, Tom Renney, and Jon Klemm.

Cranbrook's climate is claffied as “humid-continental” where it is mostly warm and dry in the summer and mild and warm in the winter. With over 2,200 hours of sunshine year-round, Cranbrook, has the distinction of being Canada's Sunniest City. Also, Cranbrook enjoys about over 100 days of being frost free and very seldom does it experience fog that lingers over it from hours on end.

During the winter months, most of the precipitation that falls is mostly that of snow.

The mountains block substantial amounts of precipitation, therefore Cranbrook experiences no less than 50 millimetres of rainfall annually making it an ideal location for many outdoor activities including mountain biking, skiing, hiking, and gardening.

Temperatures here average 20 degrees Celcius in the summer and about -10 degree during the winter months. On occasion, depending on the season, the thermometer will reach 30 degrees both plus and minus, but very rare does it happen.

Cranbrook is twin city to Coeur d’Alene, a city of about 40,000, located in north Idaho.

CLEARWATER

Is a small town located on the Yellowhead Highway (Highway #5), about 140 kilometers north of Kamloops.

Even though Clearwater dates back to around the mid-1800s when the valley was first inhabited by the Okehl First Nation band who hunted, fished in the area’s nearby waterways until they were defeated by the Chilcotin First Nations in 1870. Battle Mountain, Fight Lake and Fight Creek, located nearby are all named from this point of time.

White settlement began in 1860 when settlers, prospectors, and pioneers traveled to this valley via saddle train in search for gold in the Cariboo. Prior to the beginning of the 20th century, Clearwater was first known as Raft River and in 1916, tracks for the Canadian Pacific Railway were laid out in order to provide easier access to transport supplies to communities near and far and to replace the steamboats that once plied the waters of the Thompson River and to which traveled as far north as Vavenby.

The community is the home base and main gateway to Wells Gray Provincial Park and this is the main reason why tourism plays a major roll in Clearwater’s economy. The park has about 5,000 square kilometers of lakes, rivers, and waterfalls including the world-famous and Canada’s fourth largest waterfall; the Helmcken Falls. A huge tourist appeal, the falls are famous when during the winter months, they form a beautiful and spectacular 50 meter tall-long (sometimes higher when the winters are cold and bitter) ice cone. One of the reasons why Wells Park Provincial Park was created in 1939 was because of the protection of Helmcken Falls.

The falls were created from deposits of volcanic rock in the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field that were placed down in the wide valley of the Murtle River. Shortly afterward, layers of fresh lava created flats areas, then which were shaped into its current upright cliff configurations from massive glacial flooding during the last ice age that happened around 10,000 years ago.

Clearwater is unique in a way in the fact that it doesn’t really have much of a downtown or town centre, however there are three main parts of the community the tourist or traveler will see including the old village beside Thompson River, the new townsite on the far side of the Clearwater Bridge, and the highway part of town which is where most of Clearwater’s gas stations, restaurants, tourist information centre, and hotels are all located on.

Clearwater is named for the nearby river of the same name.

CLEARWATER’S POPULATION: 3,897

HOUSTON

HOUSTON

Is a small town located near the geographic center of British Columbia, on the Yellowhead Highway (Highway #16) at the junction and confluence of the Morice and Bulkley Rivers, about 64 kilometers east of Smithers.

Previously known as Pleasant Valley, Houston established in the early 1900s, as a tie-cutting hub for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and is named, not after the major port city in Texas, but named after John Houston; a famous newspaper journalist in the area.

The town is also a huge recreation hotspot with several activities including golfing, biking, hiking, canoeing as well as downhill and cross-country skiing. Houston is located roughly 460 kilometers east of Prince Rupert and 320 kilometers west of Prince George and because of this Houston with a population of roughly 3,000 people has become a key supply and service center for the entire Bulkley Valley.

Houston is home to the world’s largest fly-fishing rod due to the fact the town is a center for Steelhead fishing activity.

Houston’s economy includes the forest industry, mining, and tourism.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Houston’s population: 3,163

DUNCAN

DUNCAN

Is a small-sized city, situated in the Cowichan Valley on the east side of Vancouver Island located approximately halfway between Nanaimo and Victoria.

William Chalmers Duncan, settled on 40 hectares of land near Cowichan Bay in 1864, with a gathering of several settlers. After participating in several gold rushes he settled near where most of where downtown Duncan presently sits. Ironically his son, Kenneth became Duncan’s first-ever mayor. It soon became a whistle-stop along the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway when it built a station here in 1887 and a post office opened in 1908. Formerly known as Alderlea, it was incorporated on March 4, 1912, when it separated from the nearby district of North Cowichan, its first population boom began between 1898 and 1908 when a flurry of mining activity near Mount Sicker drove several prospectors to the area.

Mining still continues in Mount Sicker to this day, but only intermittently. Today Duncan has rallied on tourism as its main economic mainstay because of 41 totem poles that have been erected all over the city. Due to this, Duncan is known as “the City of Totems”.

Not only home to the British Columbia Hockey League’s Cowichan Valley Capitals, Duncan is also home to the world’s largest hockey stick. Measured at 62 meters (205 feet long) and perched on a front entrance of the Island Savings Centre, 2040 seat multi-purpose facility which includes a movie theater, this stick was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2008 to be the world’s largest and was one of the main attractions of Expo ’86 in Vancouver.

In 2012, Duncan will celebrate 100 years of being an incorporated community. 

Duncan’s population: 4,583

MONTE LAKE

MONTE LAKE

Is a small unincorporated lakeside community, located 40 kilometers southeast of Kamloops, at the south end of the lake of the same name and along Highway #97, a highway that sets out towards the Okanagan Valley.

It was established in the 1920s, when Wilf Hanbury established a sawmill run by the Ponderosa Pine Lumber Company. The mill was then later sold off to Crown Zellerbach Canada Limited, a small forest products company based in San Francisco. For almost 30 years, a settler by the name of Henry Buff operated another mill at the south end of the lake from 1952-1980. In 2005, this mill was bought by Monte Lake Forest Products Limited who operate a 250-employee post/rail yard treatment facility producing high quality products such as orchard props, rail posts and poles.

Monte Lake and its neighbor to the northeast, Monte Creek, are both the French word “montee” which in turn means a “height of land” where it was in this area that the early fur traders crossed over from Thompson River to the Okanagan Valley.

Monte Lake is unincorporated and farming and logging are the main supporters to the community’s economy.

Monte Lake’s population: 68

WARFIELD

WARFIELD

Is a small village, located between Rossland and Trail in the Kootenay Region, and also not far from the Canada/United States border.

An early sawmill was built here in the early 1900s, and was established and built by George Merry, an early settler. When a fertilizer plant owned by Cominco (Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company; now Teck Resources) was established here in 1919, it absorbed a neighboring and nearby sawmill settlement of Annable. A majority of Warfield’s residents work at either the fertilizer plant or at Trail’s zinc-lead smelter, which also is owned by Teck Resources.

Warfield was incorporated on December 8^th of 1952 and is named after Carlos Warfield, a business associate of Frederick Augustus Heinze, who built Trail’s for-mentioned smelter in 1896. Warfield is also known as a suburb of Trail and is basically known as “The Jewel in the Kootenays”.

Warfield’s population: 1,729

CASTLEGAR

CASTLEGAR

Is a small city located near the south end of Arrow Lake at the confluence of the Kootenay and Columbia Rivers.

Castlegar is supposedly named from the Galway County, Ireland town of the same name of where Edward Mahon, who founded the town, came from, despite the fact that some locals theorize that Castlegar gets its name from a large and nearby castle-shaped rock formation that overlooks the city and Columbia River, furthermore the word “gar” in Castlegar is a Gaelic word for rock.

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Its beginnings as a town started on September 5, 1811 when David Thompson arrived in a location of where the city presently sits and camped near the end of the Kootenay River. A plaque dedicated to this event and to David Thompson can be found on the east bank of the Columbia River overlooking the city.

The city of Castlegar was planned in 1897 and five years later, in 1902, a bridge was constructed by the Canadian Pacific Railway in order to place railway tracks to Trail. Afterward the railway put in a boxcar station at the settlement of Waterloo (which was first settlement in the area and where the southern limits of Castlegar are located). In 1904, because Ontario has a town of the same name, it was renamed and changed to Kinniard Station, in honor of Lord Kinniard, a former shareholder of the Canadian Pacific Railway, in order to avoid any confusion. In 1908, the Doukhobors, a group of Russian Pacifist immigrants, came here to the town’s flatlands near the Columbia River from Saskatchewan, to farm and to help construct the first of 7 bridges Castlegar currently has. During the late-1930s, Castlegar experienced its first population boom when a road from here to Trail was completed and paved. The boom continued in the 1950s and the 1960s, when an airport, 2 schools, a pulp mill and numerous nearby dams (including Hugh Keenleyside) were opened for operation. A village from 1946-1966, a town from 1966-1974, Castlegar officially became a city in 1974, after it merged and amalgamated with Kinniard and has since stayed that way.

Castlegar is home to the Castlegar Rebels of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League where they play their games at the Castlegar and District Community Complex. Founded in 1975, this hockey team has won a championship 3 different times; the 1976-77, 1977-78 and 1995-96 hockey seasons.

The Greater Castlegar area which as a approximate population of about 16,000 people, includes areas and communities such as Robson, Genelle, Pass Creek, Thrums, Shorearces, Blueberry Creek, Ootischenia, and Brilliant.

Castlegar’s weather is relatively mild and pleasant, it expreiences mild and dry summers with cold and dry winters. Summer average temperatures can range anywhere from 25 to 28 degrees celcius with a low average at around the 14-18 degree Celcius range, while winter temperatures can range to a maximum of -1 degrees with a low of -5 degrees. It is a mostly dry and barren town and this is the reason why Castlegar recieves less than 80 millimeters of precipitation annually with more than 1,900 hours of sunshine a year. However having said that, it is not unusual to see fog to often linger over the town during most of the morning during the spring months around the mountains as well as the 2 rivers and it is also common to see thunderstorms here during the same period of time.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Castlegar’s population: 7,259

CACHE CREEK

CACHE CREEK

Is a small junction community located in the semi-arid southern interior of British Columbia, 352 kilometers northeast of Vancouver, and 85 kilometers west of Kamloops on the junction of Highways #1 (Trans-Canada) and #97.

Its name apparently comes from a hidden or cache used by the fur traders from either the Hudson’s Bay Company or its main rival, the Northwest Company when during the early and middle stages of the 19^th century the fur traders used a nearby creek by the name of Rivière de la Cache. Cache is a French word meaning “a hiding place”. Also during this period of time, Cache Creek was once a busy place as it played a pivotal role as an ending point for stagecoach lines and it was a busy community prior to 1986 when the $250,000,000 Coquihalla Highway was constructed. Nevertheless due to it being located along 2 busy highways, several fast food restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and a 9-hole golf course among other amenities, the town still is heavily reliant on travelers passing through town.

Cache Creek has a notorious and dubious reputation for being one of British Columbia’s hottest and driest places with the climate and landscape being semi-arid, bone dry-like conditions and having low-precipitation with an annual rainfall of only 10 centimeters with temperatures that at times exceed +35 degrees Celsius during the summertime months. Along with nearby towns such as Spences Bridge and Ashcroft, Cache Creek is located in an area that is known to have and experience a hot and dry summer, and a cold and dry winter. This is due to the surrounding area’s low elevation (about 900 meters above sea level) and the fact that it is protected from large amounts of precipitation (especially heavy rainfall and snowfall) by the nearby mountains. 

                                                                     

Cache Creek’s population: 1,037

KAMLOOPS

KAMLOOPS
Is a large city, located in the semi-arid interior of British Columbia about 431 kilometers northeast of Vancouver and on the north and south sides of the Thompson River. The city’s climate in known to be the hottest of all of British Columbia’s interior with a winter that is usually very mild and very short with the occasional cold snap and a temperature that seldom measures around -30 degree Celcius, as well as a average summer temperature of 28 degrees Celcius, and well over 2,000 hours of sunshine annually. Many native plants and animals that thrive in this type of climate live in Kamloops including cacti, rattlesnake, black widow spiders, ponderosa pine and the Lewis’ woodpecker. The city is also located at the confluence of the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway #1) and the Coquihalla/Yellowhead Highway (Highway #5). The History of Kamloops dates back to when first Europeans settled in the area around the early 1800s. In 1812, a trading post on the south side of the river junction built by David Stewart, a member of the Pacific Fur Company. Pacific Fur Company left Kamloops when the Northwest Company established Fort Thompson northeast of the river junction. 9 years later, Northwest Company merged with the Hudson’s Bay Company and took control of Fort Thompson and soon Kamloops was born with construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway during the 1860s Gold Rush which resulted in further growth and made Kamloops incorporated in 1893 with a population of 500. There are many industries in Kamloops include Cement plants, pulp and plywood mills, in addition to a small international airport. The Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League (WHL), play their games at the Interior Savings Center, 6-400-seat, multi-purpose facility that is located in downtown on a street named after a famous Kamloops-born hockey player. Other key attractions in Kamloops include, Sun Peaks Ski Resort, shopping at Aberdeen Mall, and Kamloops Wildlife Park that is home to several animals including bald eagles, small mammals, elk, deer, bears, and moose. Thompson Rivers University (formally known University College of the Cariboo), offers students with flexible access to distance learning as well as several diploma programs.
KAMLOOPS’ POPULATION: 80,376

70 MILE HOUSE

70 MILE HOUSE

Is a small community situated along Highway #97 in the South Cariboo region of British Columbia and at the southern edge of the Cariboo Plateau, about 38 kilometers south of 100 Mile House.

Like most other communities in the Cariboo region (i.e. 100 Mile House and 150 Mile House) it is named after its distance from the Old Cariboo Wagon Road from Lillooet, which was Mile 0. 70 Mile House was much busier than it is today, when a roadhouse was built in 1862 during the Cariboo Gold Rush, but burned down to the ground in the 1950s.

Today’s version of 70 Mile House is very quiet, but travelers will see a store, a pub, a couple of restaurants, and several provincial parks nearby including Green Lake and Chasm. 70 Mile House is an unincorporated community but the general store in town also sells gasoline for travelers.

The Old Cariboo Road was built in 1859 from the head of Harrison Lake at the once-bustling town of Port Douglas to Alexandria, a former steamship landing, just south of Quesnellemouth (now known today as Quesnel) via Lillooet and Pavilion Mountain towards Clinton. The road should not be confused with the Cariboo Wagon Road which was built in 1862 from Yale to Barkerville via the Fraser Canyon and Cache Creek.

70 Mile House’s population: 477

ASHCROFT

ASHCROFT

Is a historic village that looks over the Thompson River, 10 kilometers south of Cache Creek off of Highway #1 (Trans-Canada Highway).

The community was developed when the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived in 1884. When the British Columbia Express Company used Ashcroft as their headquarter city, Ashcroft was known to be the “Gateway to the Cariboo”. After the new railway was built soon it became Mile Zero of the road to the Cariboo Gold Rush as well as a major freight destination to transport supplies in the north. A quick influx of people began settling in the area and Ashcroft soon had blacksmith shops, frieght warehouses, ranches and farms. A devastating and grinding fire in 1916 and the extension of Pacific Great Eastern Railway north to Quesnel brought Ashcroft hard times and soon afterward, the town quickly lost its role as an important transport and supply center for the northern part of the province.

The community is extremely semi-arid and very hot in the summer time with temperatures that almost reach plus 40 degrees Celsius and because of this as well as its small town size, it has become a popular choice to reside for retirees. This is a direct result of Ashcroft being well protected and sheltered by effects of severe weather by nearby mountians.

The downtown core of Ashcroft features several heritage buildings that date back to Ashcroft’s early history including a fire hall that was originally built in the 1800s, but rebuilt in 1919 after a fire in 1916 destroyed the majority of the building as well as wiping out an entire block of downtown, and a museum that holds many historic significance and ties to the community’s past that contain a story on how life used to be back in the olden days.

Ashcroft was incorporated as a village on June 27^th, of 1952 and is named after the Ashcroft in Gloucestershire, England, of where the Cornwall Brothers (Henry and Clement), one of Ashcroft’s first settlers, came from. Originally gold seekers when they first arrived in Canada, they instead established a parcel of land and eventually ran a few business ventures including a sawmill, gristmill, farm and during the gold rush they sold flour to passing-through miners travelling towards Barkerville. The historic Ashcroft Manor, which was formerly a roadhouse to serve hungry and fatigued miners heading to pan for gold in Barkerville in the 1860s and is now used today mostly as a tea house and an art gallery is also named after the two brothers. When the railway arrived and named their new station “Ashcroft”, the brothers added “manor” to their home, also named Ashcroft, to differentiate it from the new town. The brothers also established the Cherry Creek Ranch, near Savona among other properties.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Ashcroft’s sister city is that of Bifuka, a town of about 5,000 people, located in Hokkaido, an island in northern Japan.

Other attractions in Ashcroft besides its heritage buildings includes a AHRA-sanctioned drag-racing complex that has a racing season from mid-April to mid-October.

Agculture is the main economic benefactor in the community and many residents who live here also work at the Highland Valley Cooper Mine between here and Logan Lake along Highway #97C.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Ashcroft’s population: 1,809

ARMSTRONG

ARMSTRONG
Is a small-sized city located in the north Okanagan region of British Columbia between the major Okanagan city of Vernon and small town of Enderby. The town is situated along 2 valleys, the north Okanagan Valley and the Spallumcheen Valley. The town dates back to the 1890s when the Shuswap and Okanagan Railway was built, and it was at this time that E.C. Armstrong, a London, England-based banker and whom the town is named after, helped finance. After the Second World War (WWII), the Dutch became an influence and began settling in Armstrong and also helped built and open the Armstrong Cheese Factory which the town is known for. Armstrong hosts a country fair and stampede that has been held annually in the town for well over 100 years. Today, the community is also known for tourism and agriculture and is the commercial center for the Spallumcheen Valley. Armstrong is measured 1,181 feet above sea level, and was incorporated as a city in 1913.

ARMSTRONG’S POPULATION: 4,241

QUALICUM BEACH

QUALICUM BEACH

Is a seaside town located just north of Parksville along the Strait of Georgia. In May of 1856, an explorer of the Hudson’s Bay Company explorer and along with several aboriginal guides found a land route across Vancouver Island to the Alberni Inlet. In 1864, fellow explorer and botanist Robert Brown led another group of aboriginal tribes `to the area and found the area deserted as the result of the smallpox epidemic of 1862. For six years from 1946 to 1952, the Doukhobours, a group of Pacifist-Russian immigrants, established a communal colony in a farming area adjacent to Qualicum Beach to work at nearby farms as well as planting and growing fruit trees. Qualicum College, a private boarding school for boys, was operational here from 1935 to the late 1970s, and was considered to be one of the best boarding schools in of its kind in Canada, in terms of happiness and providing boys with the finest preparation for life. The school building remains intact and still stands to this very day, but its future remains in doubt and in absolute limbo and its playing fields have been turned into a housing and residential development. The name Qualicum is a Coast Salish language term for “where the dog salmon run” and since the early 1980s, it has a grown into a holiday cottage and retirement community as well as a popular destination for tourists. Qualicum was incorporated as a town in 1983, and has its own airport, town hall, museum and several golf courses lined throughout the vicinity of the area.

QUALICUM BEACH’S POPULATION: 8,502

ROSSLAND

ROSSLAND
Is a small city, located in southwestern British Columbia’s Monashee Mountains at a eroded crater of an extinct volcano, about 10 kilometers west of Trail. Rossland sprang to life in the late-1890s, as a center of a gold mining district when gold was discovered by a prospector in 1890, who travelled to the goldfields more eastward on the Dewdney Trail, and in fact just before the First World War (WWI), it produced and mined 50% of all British Columbia’s gold and the town’s population peaked at 7,000. Mining declined during the 1920s, despite the fact that molybdenum; a material used as a alloying agent for steel fabrication and used mostly in the lubricant industry, has been mined in Rossland since the 1960s. Due to Trail being 5 minutes away; Rossland serves as a community for employees who work at Trail’s lead-zinc Cominco smelter. A number of Rossland’s heritage structures in the downtown core, date back to the early 1900s, and the town’s most famous landmarks; the LeRoi gold mine on Red Mountain is also one of the town’s major tourist attractions. Red Mountain where the gold was mined is now famous for downhill skiing, snowboarding and has lots of hiking trails. Rossland is named after Ross Thompson, a pioneer settler, who preempted a townsite here in 1893 and called it Thompson but because of confusion by the post office with another British Columbia town called Thompson Landing near the Arrow Lakes, it was renamed Rossland in 1895. Tourism and mining contribute to the local economy.

ROSSLAND’S POPULATION: 3,802

SPENCES BRIDGE

SPENCES BRIDGE

Is a small community located in the semi-arid interior of British Columbia, at the confluence of the Thompson and Nicola Rivers, about 296 kilometers north of Vancouver and on the junction of Highways #1 and #8. It was originally known as Cook’s Ferry, after a ferry ran across the Thompson River that was named after a man who ran it. The name was changed in 1865 after Thomas Spence built a bridge across the Thompson River. Popular industries in Spences Bridge include agriculture, featuring locally grown produce, river rafting and fishing. Highway #8 (The Nicola Highway), is a 65-kilometer stretch of road that begins in Spences Bridge and ends east in Lower Nicola, a small community, located about 10 kilometers west of Merritt. In late 2006, Spences Bridge’s only gas station shut down forcing residents who live in the settlement to fuel up in either Cache Creek, 48 kilometers north or in Lytton, 37 kilometers south.

SPENCES BRIDGE'S POPULATION: 138      

WARDNER

Wardner’s population: 195

Wardner is a small community located on the Crowsnest branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway, 35 kilometres southeast of Cranbrook, but off of the Crowsnest Highway (Highway #3).

During the 2nd and 3rd decades of the 1900s, the Crowsnest Pass Lumber Company operated a large sawmill and business here boomed. It had several amentities including hotels, schools, post office, and golf course. Unfortunately fires in the 1930s, highway improvements in the late-1940s and closing of the mill in 1962 due to lack of timber, forced the once-booming town to eventually lose most of its population to other popular centers in the region like Fernie and Cranbrook.

Construction of the Libby Dam in Montana in 1973, which in turn created Lake Koocanusa, the railway had no choice but to re-route their tracks through Fort Steele. Furthermore, the highway also had to be re-routed on a bridge over the Kootenay River in 1970 to prevent flooding. As a result, many passing motorists often will bypass Wardner on their way to either Cranbrook or Fernie as Wardner is about 2 kilometres south off the highway. Although Wardner remained unscathed to some extent, many nearby communities weren't so lucky as they were completely flooded; among them were Waldo and Krag.

The Libby Dam was built as a joint venture between Canada and the United States for two reasons 1) to eliminate spring flooding of the Kootenay River and 2) to provide hydroelectric power.

Wardner is named after James Wardner, a railway and mining industries promoter who founded many cities in Canada and the United States including that of Wardner, Idaho.

Lake Koocanusa's name comes from a concatenation of the first three letters for KOOtenay River, CANada, plus USA. It was named in a contest won by a resident of Rexford, Montana.