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Archie Beatty (on tractor) and Ernie Geneau (on combine), combining wheat on George Ramseier's farm.
September, 1944
Nick's Island, west of Creston, BC

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Crops were excellent, and yields were high. Wheat fields were getting forty or fifty bushels per acre.

Grant Christenson recalls his father's pride at harvesting 3,300 pounds of peas per acre one year: "They got it seeded in March, there was an early spring, but then they had a late frost and it froze all the peas off and they had to do a lot of reseeding. He sent one of the guys out, the peas had all turned black the week before. He went out, started ploughing them under, then came back and said 'You'd better come out and have a look, they've all started growing again.' They'd all re-sprouted. That was the best pea crop we ever had, and Dad was always out there trying to do it again."

Tractor-pulled combines, like this one, and other harvesting machines worked on every farm in the Valley.

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Ad in the Creston Review, for women to feed and help the men who were working on the dykes.
9 April 1943
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Farm workers were in constant demand: men were needed to work in the fields; women to prepare the meals to feed the men, or to work in the packing sheds sorting the seeds and grains harvested from the flats.

"When I was sixteen, I went out to work on the Creston Reclamation [Creston Dyking District]. Then they dyked Nick's Island. So I went down on the first of April, I was about eighteen, and cooked for the men. I lived there since 1939 until about 1962, and cooked for any men that were working on the farm or were working on the dykes."
- Margaret Berg

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Margaret Berg and her daughter Marion, bringing a snack out to the men combining on the flats.
September, 1944
Nick's Island, west of Creston, BC

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Harry Ostendorf grew up in Creston, before joining the military during the Second World War. He was granted embarkation leave after completing his basic training and before being sent overseas. He spent this leave in Creston, and went to work on George Ramseier's farm on Nick's Island. Here, he and Eli Alexander take a break for coffee brought out to them by Margaret Berg.

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George Ramseier operating a 1941 Massey-Harris self-propelled combine, on his farm on Nick's Island.
September, 1944
Nick's Island, west of Creston, BC
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Not all the farmers were successful. Some, according to Bill Piper and Grant Christenson, tried to farm the reclaimed land "prairie-style," in big blocks that worked in the homegenous soil of the prairie provinces but failed to take into account the heterogenous quality of the Creston flats. These farmers quickly left the Valley.

In addition, not all the land had been sold in 1934-1935. There was plenty available for new-comers to the Valley, like George Ramseier who arrived in 1942, bringing with him this 1941 Massey-Harris combine. It was one of the earliest self-propelled combines produced, and the first one in the Creston Valley.

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People kept their machinery on top of the dykes or on higher ground during the floods.
1948
Creston Valley, BC
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Memories of the floods remained strong, and farmers kept a close eye on the snowpack in the mountains, the weather forecast, and the level of the water.

"It depended on what the snowpack and the water signs were; years that you thought would get excessively high, you'd move everything to higher ground."
- Bob Rogers

Each farmer had his own way of telling when the river would reach its peak. For Clarence Christenson, it was a C-shaped clearing on Thompson Mountain, on the east side of the Valley: when the snow had melted on the back of the C, high water was two or three days away.

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Bob Comfort's cattle swimming in flood waters.
1943
Creston Dyking District, near Creston, BC

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Localised flooding did occur occasionally, especially in the areas which were not protected by dykes. Here, Bob Comfort's cattle swim for higher ground in 1944. The Comfort farm was on the eastern edge of the flats, immediately below Creston, and not included in the Creston Dyking District. The area is still marshy today.

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A view of the Creston Flats in 1947.
1947
Creston Valley, BC

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Despite the setbacks during this period, the farmers on the flats began to feel more secure behind their protective dykes. By 1947, the farms were flourishing; dirt roads stretched across the flats; houses and outbuildings were beginning to spring up in places no one had ever dared build before.