Local History

A Young Boy’s Fatal Accident in 1949 and a Trophy in his Memory

/ Peter Klopp / Leave a comment

 

The Story of the Danny Devlin Memorial Cup

Adapted from newspaper clippings at the Arrow Lakes Historical Society

Daniel Edward Devlin, five-year old son of Mr. and Mrs. W. Devlin of Fauquier met a tragic death Tuesday afternoon while playing on some saw logs decked on the beach. A log rolled and crushed him and he was rushed to the Arrow Lakes Hospital but he died en route. From a newspaper clipping of Thursday, April 14, 1949

Danny

Funeral services for Daniel Edward Devlin were held on Good Friday at 2:30 p.m. in the Community Hall, Rev. Hartley officiating. A large crowd of sorrowing friends and relatives were present to honor the memory of the sturdy, lively little fellow and the many floral tributes were token of their esteem.

Hymns sung were: “When He Cometh” and “Safe in the Arms of Jesus”. Mrs. Morrison acted as accompanist.

Burial was in the new Fauquier cemetery. Daniel Edward is the first to be laid to rest there. Pall bearers were Peter and Frank Bilinski, Raymond McTaque and Bill Maitland.

Daniel Edward Devlin, son of Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Devlin, was born at New Westminster, April 27, 1943.

In a brief interview with his surviving brother Alan Devlin, I heard that Daniel liked the school (now the clubhouse at the Fauquier golf course)on the hillside, which was located not too far from the present Fauquier ferry landing. Even though he was not yet of school age, he often showed up at recess and lunch to play with the older kids. After his tragic death it was Mr. Wilkin, the principal and teacher of the Fauquier School, who came up with the idea of instituting a memorial cup for the school district.

Daniel was a very likable little chap and endeared himself to all those who came in contact with him. In donating the cup, Mr. Wilkin said in his letter, “We should like to have our little friend, still move in spirit among his friends and therefore we will promote a competition among the schools to foster the friendly play so characteristic of Daniel.”

The Danny Devlin Memorial Trophy

The Danny Devlin Memorial Trophy

From then on, at the end of each school year, a softball tournament was being held and the trophy named after the little boy, the Devlin Cup, was awarded to the winning school team of the district. For forty years Daniel’s memory was kept alive through this trophy. Then district school restructuring  and greater interest in soccer put an end to the softball tournament.

It is my hope that this post will make a small contribution in keeping Daniel’s memory alive.

Like-minded People of Applegrove Road – Conclusion

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF APPLEGROVE ROAD

By late Bill Laux

In 1969 Elsje De Boer and her husband from Calgary bought the old Aspinall place at the Fauquier end of Applegrove Road. Starting in 1976 they used it for summer outings. The following year Elsje had Bill Jeffries build a sleeping cabin on the place. In 1987 her son built her a permanent house and after Jim Huth and Bill Laux completed the interior finishing, she moved in.

The Arrow Lake that attracted Like-Minded People on Applegrove Road

The Arrow Lake that attracted Like-Minded People on Applegrove Road

In 1979 Robin and Dorothy Huth, from Calgary, with the Madills and Stevensons were able to buy lakefront lot 8099 from Weinberg, a Portland, Oregon real estate speculator. This man had for years had an agent in Victoria instructed to put a $50 bid on every piece of waterfront property in British Columbia that came up for Tax Sale. By the time of the dam construction in 1967 it turned out that he owned between 100 and 200 properties on Arrow Lake. Robin Huth and his son, Jim, were able to put in a steep, many switch backed road to access it from Applegrove Road. In 1980 Jim and Rae Ann Huth built a lakefront cabin at the foot of this road and moved in. Jim began building his parents a house nearby. The Madills, rejecting the difficulties of the access road, bought in Fauquier instead. The Stevensons went to New Zealand.

Eric Arnold, a millwright from Squamish, bought lakeshore lot 8098, probably from Weinberg, about this time and built a small house on float logs, which he moored at the lakeshore. Unfortunately, a storm the next year wrecked the unprotected structure. His wife was not comfortable in so isolated a location, so the Arnolds left.

Jim and Rae Ann Huth left about 1990 for Vancouver Island and Robin and Dorothy lived in happy near-seclusion in their lakeshore home until medical problems required a move to Salmon Arm. They sold it as a retirement property to a German couple, Sabine and Karl-Heinz Mocikat, about 2000. Jim and Rae Ann’s cabin was rebuilt to a house by Bob and Monique Gellatly, an Ontario couple, who lived there for a few years, while he worked locally as a plumber. It was later bought as a summer place by Borowski, an engineer from Calgary, who is building a second house on it,

The first telephone line came up Applegrove Road in 1979 and BC

Hydro followed when the Burmeisters from Germany bought the Bruner place from Peter Makar’s wife in 1990. They had the lovely “cedar tunnel,” a true scenic treasure, felled on the lower part of the Applegrove Road and hydro poles run into their place. The Burmeisters set up resort accommodations down on the lake and operate as Kokanee Bay Resort and Farm.

In 1994 the Hydro lines were extended up Applegrove Road to Glasheens, Nila Campbell an4 Eichenauers. Jimmi Mead stuck with her solar power as she still does.

Lillian Liberty bought part of the old Sherwood property next to Lee Helle in 1989 and had a house built with a magnificent view of the lake below and Edgewood opposite. Like many earlier Applegrove residents she depends on solar and water power for electricity.

View from Taite Creek South to Helle's Lakeshore Propery

View from Taite Creek South to Helle’s Lakeshore Propery

In 1994 the Highways Department was still insisting on calling and signing Applegrove Road as “Fauquier Upper Road,” a vague and meaningless name. Bill Laux, having got agreement from all the landholders along the road, petitioned Highways for a change of name, as the Applegrove Site was still Iisted on B.C. Government maps. On November 23,1994, Highways conceded, and “Fauquier Upper Road” became officially “Applegrove Road” and was so signed.

Hydro power was extended from Burmeisters to Bumpus and Laux in 1996 and the days of kerosene lamps, carrying messages to town by horseback and noisy diesel generators were now over for them.

A new couple, Marney and Zane Kushniryk bought Nila Campell’s “Retreat Centre” in 1999 and moved in the next year to build two unique and secluded rental cabins as a source of income.

Ken and Denise Douglas arrived about the same time, buying one of the Haugland lots above Elsje De Boer’s.

Canadians, Americans, Germans, Dutch, there is still a strong and unique degree of like-mindedness among most of the residents of Applegrove Road. For nearly a hundred years the dusty road to Taite Creek and beyond has supported a succession of groups of homesteaders, communitarians and others eager to invent their own ways of living. They value the area for what it is, an unspoiled and undeveloped area of mountain slope and lakefront, whose residents still grow much of their food and live as their convictions have told them they must.

A Colorful Personality of the Kootenays

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The Gunner of Galway

Article from the Arrow Lakes Historical Society

Another real character but withal a very able man was a Scot from Galway who became known as The Gunner from Gal­way. The Gunner was a miner, not of the pick and shovel variety but a promoter and owner of mines. When he first arrived in the Kootenays at the turn of the century he drank considerably and when under the influence sang an unlimited number of verses of a song called the Gunner from Galway, hence his nickname.

1918 Paddlewheeler S.S. Slocan docked on Slocan Lake, East of the Arrow Lakes 1918 - Photo Credit: CBT.org

Paddlewheeler in 1918 docked on Slocan Lake, East of the Arrow Lakes – Photo Credit: CBT.org

Shortly after his arrival in the Kootenays he began prospecting in the Slocan dis­trict for mineral claims. One weekend he became violently intoxicated and was arrested. The magistrate sentenced him to a term in the provincial jail, but since there was no lock-up in the Slocan district he was sent to Nelson. The trip involved a short train journey and the prisoner was put in charge of a rookie policeman. To everyone’s astonishment, when the pair reached Nelson the culprit had on the policeman’s uniform and delivered the policeman as the prisoner.

Sometime afterward the Gunner went on a bit of a spree in Toronto and was admitted to hospital for treatment. He recovered favorably and one Sunday morning was allowed up in his dressing gown to walk in the corridor. The visiting physicians in those days wore frock coats and silk hats, which they removed in the lobby and donned suitable garb for the ward visit. The Gunner spotted one of the doctor’s outfits. With his thirst still not under control he commandeered the frock coat and silk hat and slipped out the back stairs. Right before him was a horse-drawn milk delivery wagon with the driver absent. The Gunner, always a resourceful man, mounted the cab and drove into town, where he was later apprehended.

These and many other escapades are truly told of this remarkable man. Upon his return, however, he had changed mightily and I don’t think he ever went on a spree again but settled down as a regular mining operator. He was a close friend of the late John McMartin of cobalt fame and, in conjunction with other mining men, operated successfully more than one mining property in the Sheep Creek district of B.C.

The Gunner continued his mining operations for many years and then moved to Manitoba where he became interested in the Flin Flon district. He evidently still prospered, for he lived in a suite in the Fort Gary Hotel, where he died. Many friends and acquaintances mourned his passing, for despite his eccentricities the Gunner from Galway made an excellent contribu­tion to mining development in Canada.

Like-minded People of Applegrove Road – Part III

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LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE

A BRIEF HISTORY OF APPLEGROVE ROAD

By late Bill Laux

In 1962, another pair of Americans, Bill and Adele Laux, arrived. They were joined by their friends, Jack and Janie Wise, who had been running a production art studio in Mexico. The four of them bought the Scribe property from the dispersed Quaker group and set up Vaki Studios to produce batik wall hangings most of which they sold in the US.

Burmester Horse Ranch with Log Boom in Front

Burmeister Horse Ranch with Log Boom in Front (former Funk property)

In 1962 or 1963 Columbia Cellulose, which held the Tree Farm License, extended the Applegrove road across Taite Creek and down to Octopus Creek to open up more timber harvesting areas. They were obliged to lease and then purchase the right of way, where it crossed the Gebelein property.

Applegrove Road from Fauquier to Taite Creek is a public road, maintained by the Department of Highways. From Taite Creek south it is a Forest Industrial Road owned and maintained by the holder of Tree Farm Licence 23.

Richard Eichenauer, from Germany and New York, arrived in 1964 – and shortly joined Mead and Freedman on their property. Richard and Jimmi married and raised a daughter, Cedra, who now lives in Nakusp.

The buildinq of the dam in 1967 and the consequent flooding wiped out Appleqrove completely and submerged most of the old orchards along the lakefront. It did in fact destroy the small farm and orchard economy that the first settlers had created. What was to follow, once high-speed paved roads to the Okanagan and Calgary were in place, was something none of the Arrow Lakes residents had imagined. Their valley was now considered to have “recreational” or “retirement” potential and at once their taxes reflected this change.

That might be the future, but for the time being life along Applegrove Road continued much the same. Some changes had to be made. The Fauquier lakeshore road that served the Orcutt and Laux properties was fIooded out and the power line that served them was removed as well. Lauxs and Orcutts rebuilt Len Funk’s old horse trail to connect themselves to Applegrove Road. Potockis, Hell and Gebelein moved back uphill to new locations above the new high water line.

The era of the Hippies came next. Each week idealistic young people from the cities would make the trek up Applegrove Road weekly seeking like-minded others and that mythical plot of free land where everything would be peace and love. Just as with the wandering Albertans in the 1910s, those willing to work on the Applegrove homesteads were fed and sheltered until they had enough and moved on. Some stayed for a few weeks, some for a summer.

In 1965 the Provincial Government announced its plans for the High Arrow Dam and the reservoir to be created behind it. In the project was included $6 million for a Needles-Fauguier bridge and $7 million for a new highway from Fauquier to Passmore along the power line route. This highway would have destroyed Applegrove Road and ended the quiet and isolation of its residents. There was great relief when the Department of Highways, which was experiencing the first of many difficult winters on the new Kootenay Pass road, announced it would build over no more than 1800 meter (6000 ft.) passes. A ferry was substituted for the bridge, the road was not built and the moneys saved were diverted to the Peace River Dam project.

Looking North: Logging Truck Leaving Needles Ferry at Fauquier

Looking North: Logging Truck Leaving Needles Ferry at Fauquier

Tony and Nancy Netting bought the Gaustein place in the 1960s and began an orchard nursery and gardening enterprise. They raised three children, spending summers on the homestead and winters teaching in Kelowna. Kurt and Mary Hilger joined with the Mead and Eichenauer community and began a house. They did not finish it but sold to the Canons, Randy and Dharma, who created a unique octagon structure all lovingly hand-finished. Cannons too, left and sold to Nila Campbell, whose intention was to convert the property into a meditation and healing centre.

Martin and Shelly Glasheen joined the group as well and with great energy began developing a homestead. They raised two children and a great number of animals. As serious and ambitious mountaineers they are now planning a mountain lodge high in the Valhallas. (It is now a very successful and popular enterprise. By the name of Valkyr Adventures)

Others came, stayed a while and then moved on. One group, arriving from California in a van, took up residence in the Orcutt house and turned themselves into a Rock Band, “The Flying Hearts.”

In 1970 an American, Logan Bumpus, arrived from near Prince George with his horses. He and Ruth Orcutt married and began ranching beef cows and breeding horses on their property.

The like-minded people of the Sixties and Seventies were not all that different from the British arrivals at Applegrove in the first years of the century. All were leaving an urban and consumer-dominated society they found disturbing and were seeking a rural seclusion on which to create self-sustaining homesteads.

The following decades would bring a very different group of land-seekers. These were older, often affluent and looking for recreational or retirement properties. These were concepts that would have been unthinkable to Applegrove Road residents in the dirt-road Sixties. But with paved roads to the Okanagan and to Calgary and the extension of telephone and hydro lines, the Arrow Lakes had now become a recreational destination.

Sometime in the early years Len Funk had sold the north half of his lot, 7125, to Earnest Bruner. Bruner built a house and tried to farm the property but found the soil too sandy to hold water. The place was rented out variously until 1967 when it was bought by Peter Makar, a High School Shop Instructor from Penticton. Makar, seeing the resale potential of Arrow Lakes properties, bought several farms from persons wanting to leave the area and became the Nakusp High School shop instructor. As well, he founded Loma Lumber in Nakusp. When the lakeshore road was flooded out in 1968 Makar built a road up the steep bluff to tie into Applegrove Road.

Like-Minded People of Applegrove Road – Part II

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LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE

A BRIEF HISTORY OF APPLEGROVE ROAD

By late Bill Laux

Aspinalls had a farm at the Fauquier end of Applegrove Road, the present De Boer property. The Spillers had come from Austria in 1913 and taken up land on Heart Creek, which they reached off the Applegrove trail, which Mr. Spiller must have widened to a wagon road to access his property from the Ferry landing.

The Mead-Eichenauer Property with Sauna and Pond in the Foreground

The Mead-Eichenauer Property with Sauna and Pond in the Foreground

Others, opening up the trail, took up land at each promising meadow or marshy location, which looked suitable for draining. It was, in those first years, crucial to have a hayfield while the heavily timbered lakefront land was being cleared and stumped. Gaustein took up the land along März Brook in 1920 (the present Netting property since 1966). Apple trees were planted and these early orchardists engaged in horse logging to make a living until their apples should come into production. The logs were horse-hauled to the lake shore, decked on the beach in the winter to await high water and the tug to tow them to Waldie’s mill at Robson. It seems certain that by the Twenties there was a wagon road as far as the Mosheimer Place and probably another kilometer past it to a house, which had been built on the clearing at the top of Eichenauer’s hill. The name of this settler is not known. Percy Schlag, who had an orchard in Fauquier, opened up a meadow on the south side of Heart Creek at the source of März Brook and drained it with a ditch to make a hay field. During the years when the lake shore lands had to be cleared and stumped for orchards, any mountain meadow or drainable swamp was a prize location to be preempted and   put into production for hay.

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From about 1913 Apple Packing Schools were held in the Valley to show the new orchardists how to get their fruit into commercial channels. Only perfect fruit was acceptable, no blemishes permitted. This left, especially in bad scab years, a great deal of fruit unharvested. These apples were used by many to fatten pigs for sale and most everyone made apple juice. With the addition of a bit of wine yeast, fermentation took place and hard cider was produced. August Scribe took the process farther and built a still. He located it under his pig shed to conceal the odour and took care to have a dry-hinged gate, which would squeak loudly, if anyone approached. He planted wormwood nearby to use as a flavoring, telling his customers he had made absinthe. It is said he shipped the product in cream cans to Nelson on the Minto with each can sealed with dairy stickers only to be removed by the milk inspector.

Mosheimer had his feet badly crushed in a logging accident and had to give up farming. He and his wife moved to Vernon where they opened a laundry. The property was bought by Mr. Kendricks of Needles, who leased it out for hay and pasturage. It came to be known as Kendricks Place (close to the present day Mead-Eichenauer Place). Gaustein, as well, left, though we do not know when.

All these years the slashed trail to Applegrove was still used as a route for Fauquier farmers to take their teams down to Taite Creek where from time to time horse logging jobs were available. Several wagon roads were built off Applegrove Road to reach the magnificent old-growth timber up the various creeks. One road ran up Heart Creek a short distance to reach a particularly fine stand of large cedars. Another extended Percy Schlag’s road from the south end of the Funk Meadow up and around the north end of Mineral Ridge to reach the timber on the North Fork of Taite Creek. In the early Sixties logging contractor Steiner built the Pin Road to harvest the Mineral Ridqe timber and the Heart and Pin Creek drainaqes. Applegrove became little more than a log dump.

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Low Lake Level Reveals a Thriving Forest Industry of the Past

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Log Ramp and Tree Stumps

The water level of the Arrow Lakes is always at its lowest at spring time to make room for the run-offs later in May and June. That is when the snow in the mountains begins to melt. If the season is accompanied by very warm weather and heavy long-lasting rains, then we can expect the rivers and creeks to turn into raging torrents causing wide-spread destruction. Before the lake was dammed up in 1967 and large tracts of fertile agricultural land were flooded, Fauquier’s prosperity relied primarily on the forest industry. It provided work and income for the local residents. In the 1940’s the area around the two branches of Pin Creek and Taite Creek formed the basis for a large logging operation employing many people. The loggers often lived in camps, as the distance was too large for the daily round trip to and from home. The cheapest way to ship the logs to the log mills was to haul them down to the lake, where they would roll down the log ramps into the water. Tug boats would then pull the log booms down to Castlegar for processing. This year the lake level was much lower than normal due to maintenance and repair of marinas, boat docks and other recreational facilities along the lake shore.

Today I went for a walk along the beach and took some pictures of one of the log ramps that is usually submerged as a result of the building of the Keenleyside Dam some 30 km south of Fauquier. The ramp and the tree stumps are now a relic of the past and stand in stark contrast of the natural beauty of the surrounding mountains, scenery and the beaches of the Arrow Lakes.

Lake at its Lowest Level before Spring Run-off