2012 - Celebrating Exploration & Discovery in the Monashee
How well do you know our local history?
150 years
October 28, 2011
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The strange road
to discovery….
By Don Elzer
This past spring
the old roof, on my very old print shop which houses my relatively ancient printing equipment failed. This caused a refreshing Spring downpour to become a key element of change for a building what had become a storage area and one that I had largely avoided because of the nature of the storage.
Thirty years of paper.
Publishers keep copies of everything they published, the longer they publish the more paper there is and paper and downpours generally don’t go well together – particularly if the downpour is inside of a building.
I had been content on letting nature take its course, choosing to allow the summer to dry out everything. So come August I watched several episodes of Indiana Jones in order to examine closely just how he navigated through dark and hideous places in order to rescue antiquities.
I had wondered if there would be snakes.
Nevertheless I made my way into the old building and began carting out many boxes of archives, pillaging walls and bringing about the destruction of areas no longer worth saving.
To my surprise, deep into the dark abyss I found several bundles of the Monashee 100 Year Almanac which I had published 1991 to celebrate Lumby’s 100 year centennial of incorporation. I opened a copy and began to browse until I sunk into a deep reminiscent read.
People who know me understand how I become easily distracted by events such as this. It will be the reason why the clean up of the printshop will take a decade – not because it’s a big job, but because there’s so much to read along the way.
My diversion mixed with some minor arithmetic caused me to discover that the years 1862 and 1863 translate into important dates beginning in 2012.
2012 marks 150 years of gold exploration and discovery in the Monashee. This gives Cherryville a great opportunity to define itself as one of the oldest, if not the oldest community in the Okanagan. While we may never know the exact date and time when gold was first discovered glittering in the sandbar, we know that in 1862 the first whispers of gold being discovered at Cherry Creek had reached the provincial government, and that the discovery was important enough, that by 1863 the province which was then a provincial colony and not yet part of Canada, had commissioned bridge and road contracts to better manage the influx of activity which included 200 miners who had begun working placer claims.
2012 also marks the 100th anniversary of the BC Forest Service and the 50th anniversary of Monashee Provincial Park.
So I have set out to produce another Almanac. The Monashee 150 Year Almanac will be a commemorative print publication that follows in the footsteps of the Monashee 100 Year Almanac, published 20 years ago.
It’s my hope that we as a collection of communities in the Monashee can explore our past, and tell our stories. 2012 provides an opportunity to create a vision for the next 150 years by celebrating our accomplishments, recognizing our failures and capturing our dreams for the future.
Bring to life our regions history, explore it’s mysteries and riddles and discover the storyteller within.
Advertise in the 2012
Monashee 150 Year Almanac
Please join us so that we can compile and produce this commemorative publication that’s a keeper, one that celebrates some of the lesser known stories about this great region that bridges the Okanagan with the Kootenay and represents one of BC’s great adventure playgrounds.
Contact us at the Discovery Centre
250-547-9812
Download an advertising rate sheet.
The Monashee 100 Year Almanac published in 1991 to celebrate Lumby’s 100 year centennial of incorporation.
2012 marks 150 years of gold exploration and discovery in the Monashee. This gives Cherryville a great opportunity to define itself as one of the oldest, if not the oldest community in the Okanagan. While we may never know the exact date and time when gold was first discovered glittering in the sandbar, we know that in 1862 the first whispers of gold being discovered at Cherry Creek had reached the provincial government, and that the discovery was important enough, that by 1863 the province which was then a provincial colony and not yet part of Canada, had commissioned bridge and road contracts to better manage the influx of activity which included 200 miners who had begun working placer claims.
2012 also marks the 100th anniversary of the BC Forest Service and the 50th anniversary of Monashee Provincial Park.
2012: 150 Years of Discovery in the Monashee
150 Years:
Did you Know?
Did you know that for 50 years after the discovery of gold at Cherry Creek that the Upper Shuswap River was known as the Spallumcheen River? The original name came from the Okanagan people and it was changed to “Shuswap” by a Victoria public servant in the early 1900’s.
Did you know that in the 1880’s the Canadian Pacific Railway had planned to create a branch line from Revelstoke to Cherry Creek? The branch line was completely surveyed, in fact Railway Creek above North Fork was named after the survey. Mining companies at Cherry Creek convinced the CPR that rich silver ore discoveries were so great that the line would be profitable. Alas, technical problems prevented the mother lode of silver from being found – and the railway was scuttled.
