It’s fascinating to look back at old manuscripts, manuals and booklets, that describe life in and around Golden in the time before we were all born. This excerpt comes from the British Columbia Directory for 1887. “The timber in the Upper Kootenay Valley is remarkably fine, particularly the tamarack (larch), and yellow pine species. Both…

The Miner – October 7, 1897 In the year 1886 Mr. R.G. McConnell, of the Geological Survey department, made an examination of the Rocky mountain range comprised within the belt of country following the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway along the Bow and Kicking Horse valleys from Banff westward to Golden, the same district…

John Barr, born in Ontario of Irish origin, married Emma June Puffer in Ontario in about 1871. John was a farmer, who soon took up lumbering at the mill in Fenelon Falls, Ontario, where the first of their children was born. Henry Washington Barr was born in July of 1871, and he would be the…

One of the most interesting and colorful personalities emerging from the history of the past is Stephen Redgrave. As Senior-officer, Sheriff of Kootenay he served the Donald-Golden area from April 1884 until his death in March 1903. Although there has not been a great deal written about his career, through information from the British Columbia…

Written by Claire Graham for Golden Memories  Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were an interesting couple. They ran the stopping place at Wapta. They first met at Donald BC during the town’s heyday as a construction camp on the CPR mainline many years before. Mrs. Johnson was Swedish and could not speak a word of English…

The following article is from 2000 Golden Memories which was published by the Golden & District Historical Society in 2000. The mountain community of Golden has one of the oldest organized fire protection brigades in British Columbia. A community meeting was held at the Columbia House in February 1898 to discuss and form a fire…

From the Hospital Supplement of the Golden Gazette History of Hospital Care in Golden During the Last Century David Thompson of the N.W. Company was the first white man to travel through the Columbia Valley after crossing the Rockies over Hose Pass. No doubt he carried simple remedies, and when his wife accompanied him she…

In the latter half of the 1970’s the Golden Star ran a really interesting series called Nostalgia. Sometimes the stories ran several weeks in a row in order to get the information and they covered the history of the early settler families in the Columbia Valley. The following story was based on the life of…