Letter from Kaslo, 1901: The dear old Queen’s death
Below I’ve transcribed a six-page letter in my collection mailed by a woman visiting Kaslo with her mother shortly after the death of...
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Greg Nesteroff
Jun 21, 20184 min read
Buildings that weren’t: Kootenay Lake Hospital, 1910
Nelson has had three Kootenay Lake Hospitals. The first, built in 1893 near 40 High Street, had a dozen beds. According to Dr. Lorris E....
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Greg Nesteroff
Jun 17, 201813 min read
15 curious things about Peter (Lordly) Verigin’s death
The death of Doukhobor leader Peter (Lordly) Verigin in a train explosion between Castlegar and Grand Forks on Oct. 29, 1924 is the West...
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Greg Nesteroff
Jun 15, 20186 min read
New findings about Ainsworth’s oldest grave
In 2008, I wrote a story for Route 3 magazine about the Thomas (or Tomas) Higstrim grave at Ainsworth Hot Springs, which dates to 1891...
1,230 views1 comment
Greg Nesteroff
Jun 13, 20187 min read
William Randolph Hearst in West Kootenay
Did William Randolph Hearst (pictured below in a photo from Wikipedia), the larger-than-life American newspaper publisher who invented...
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Greg Nesteroff
Jun 11, 201816 min read
Chinese-Canadian and Indigenous births at Rock Creek
Between 1872 and 1923, at least 12 Chinese Canadian births occurred at Rock Creek. This was noteworthy for a few reasons. First, there...
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Greg Nesteroff
Jun 10, 20188 min read
The first Fruitvale Hotel
You’d think if fire destroyed a town’s business district, the date would be well documented. Not in Fruitvale’s case. Much of the town...
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Greg Nesteroff
Jun 6, 20189 min read
18 West Kootenay/Boundary schools named after people
There was a time (primarily in the 1950s) where it was common practice to honour individuals (usually trustees and other politicians) by...
1,525 views2 comments
Greg Nesteroff
May 29, 20182 min read
Phantom signs: Baker’s Grocery
Go for a walk on Beatty Avenue in Nelson, down by the waterfront next to the RCMP station, and you will come across this curious...
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Greg Nesteroff
May 29, 20182 min read
Rossland needs women!
John Gibb Devlin (1865-1925), alias the Gunner from Galway, was a well-known early Kootenay character. One funny story about him is how...
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Greg Nesteroff
May 24, 20181 min read
Slocan dance card, 1897
This amazing little item is in the midst of being transferred from the Touchstones Nelson archives to the Slocan Valley Historical...
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Greg Nesteroff
May 22, 20185 min read
Playmates on the border
The remarkable postcard seen below shows two friends, Anna Norris of Boundary, Wash., and Velma Shields, of Waneta, who didn’t let a...
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Greg Nesteroff
May 15, 20184 min read
Lester Patrick returns to Nelson
A previous post looked at surviving West Kootenay landmarks related to the Patrick family, hockey pioneers who lived in Nelson from...
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Greg Nesteroff
May 9, 201812 min read
The mayor of Eholt (and other imaginary titles)
It was once common for newspapers to fancifully refer to certain people (well, men) as the mayor of a place that wasn’t incorporated....
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Greg Nesteroff
May 9, 20181 min read
How could you, Mrs. Jowett?
The story of pioneer Trout Lake hotelier and prospector Alice Jowett is well told in books such as Circle of Silver as well as on the...
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Greg Nesteroff
May 4, 201810 min read
M.D. Cryderman, scenic artist for hire
Painting signs by hand has largely gone out of style but was once a common vocation. The men (and I imagine a few women) who did it for a...
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Greg Nesteroff
May 3, 20181 min read
Phantom signs: Winslow Motors
This business at 323 Vernon Street in Nelson only existed from about 1969-71. Winslow Sommerfeldt (1923-2016) was president and his son...
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Greg Nesteroff
May 3, 20184 min read
Electric cars of Kootenay/Boundary: Modern pioneers
Last of five parts Who was the first person in the Kootenay Boundary to own an electric car since their re-emergence and where was the...
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Greg Nesteroff
May 1, 20185 min read
Electric cars of Kootenay/Boundary: Home-made electric cars
Fourth of five parts Alexander Zuckerberg of Castlegar’s Zuckerberg Island had an electric car in the mid-1950s. An ingenious man, he no...
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Greg Nesteroff
Apr 29, 20187 min read
Electric cars of Kootenay/Boundary: An electric car fit for a king?
Third in a series on local electric cars The most noteworthy early electric vehicle in our area belonged to a Kootenay lumber baron, the...
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