14

Guy Constable
1920
Creston Valley, BC

15

"In 1929 my father [Guy Constable] and a man named Howard Amon, an American, formed the Kootenay Valley Power and Development Company, and they attempted to reclaim the entire present day Reclamation Farm."
- Bill Constable

A meeting was held in Spokane, Washington, to present the project to farmers from throughout the northwestern United States. The Piper, Rogers, and Christenson families, among others, attended, and were persuaded to visit Creston and see the land for themselves.

16

Smoke from a forest fire above Corn Creek
1929
West Creston, west of Creston, BC

17

Clarence Christenson was one of those who visited the Creston Valley in 1929. He later told his son, Grant, that "the Valley was so smokey from forest fires, they couldn't see the river."

"I don't think my dad ever saw the land he was going to farm," says Grant. "I don't think they even saw the river. They might have crossed it once or twice, but they didn't see how it lay in relation to the land they were going to reclaim.

"Dad often said that if they had seen it, they probably wouldn't have come. They didn't know what they were getting in to."

18

Aerial view of the Creston Valley, looking north from below the international border.
1929
Creston Valley, BC

19

In 1930, several families came to begin farming on the 7,000 acres of the original Reclamation Farm.

"The bottom land is now being sold to bona fide farmers. None of the land will be sold to investors or speculators, the Canadian government insisting that it be taken over by farmers who will immediately put it under culti- vation."
- Creston Review, April 29, 1929.

"They all come out of the south. One come from south of Moscow, Idaho, that would be Christensons. My Dad come from south of Walla Walla, and that group was Piper, Garritson, Starks, Kirk, Maris, and then Dad's brother. For some reason they come from two different areas, either from the involvement of Howard Amon or Klockman."
- Bob Rogers

20

Newspaper article announcing plans to seed wheat on Reclamation Farm.
26 April 1929
Creston Valley, BC

21

Hope and enthusiasm ran high. Grand predictions were made, regarding the size and yields of the crops that would be planted.

"For the first time in local history the Creston district is this year to have grain farming on quite an extensive scale. If favorable weather prevails about 3000 acres on the old Reclamation Farm on Kootenay Flats will be cropped principally to wheat."
- Creston Review, April 26, 1929.

22

Grant Christenson explains the arrangement the farmers made to buy the land:

"Instead of buying land they had to buy shares in this Kootenay Power and Development Company. When you bought these shares in that entitled to to farm; depending on how many shares you bought, you got so many acres you got to farm. They never actually really ought the land, but the deal was that when they paid for the shares then this piece of land would be signed over to them. I think the shares were fifty cents apiece, and you had to buy $95.00 worth of shares to get an acre of land. They had to pay 10% down, then pay a sixth of the crop every year to Mr. Amon on their loan. Mr. Amon had made a deal with the Alberta and British Columbia Exploration Company, he had bought the land from them, on time, so he was getting money from the farmers, paying part of it off to Alberta and BC, and whatever was left was used for an attempt at dyking."

23

Dragline brought in to work on the Creston Valley dykes.
1935
Creston Valley, BC

24

By several accounts, the farmers were more interested in their crops than in dyking; they simply did not realise the potential power of the river. "The philosophy was, 'don't worry about a little seepage, because there's lots of land,' " says Bill Piper. "They didn't realise the damage the seepage could cause or that it represented big problems with the dykes. Economics played a part in it too; even if they'd known what to do, they couldn't have afforded it."
Nevertheless, some work on the dykes went ahead.

"The work of reclaiming several thousand acres of Kootenay bottom land will begin this month. Four large dragline dredges are expected to arrive within the next two weeks to begin the work of throwing up the dikes and digging the ditches."
- Bonners Ferry, reported in the Creston Review, April 12, 1929.

25

Dredges were used to construct dykes on the Kootenay Flats.
1935
Creston Valley, BC

26

"Here was the dredge which they put in the river and they took dirt out of the river, the bottom of the river, and lowered it and built dykes. So they did two things: they built dykes and they lowered the river level with this dredge. It later sank right at Porthill."
- Bill Constable

27

Dredge used for building dykes along the Kootenay River.
1935
Creston Valley, BC