1

Stability in any situation or place during the war was rare. It was more disruptive than beneficial, mainly because money had to be directed towards military needs, which left civil and domestic matters low priorities. Canada's participation in the war, something totally new for the nation, presented a challenge to both the government and industrialists. A whole new set of rules came into play regarding investments, responsibilities, duties and opportunities. The rather smooth, steady upward movement that arrived with forestry, mining, transportation and land development would either level off or take a retrograde step through this transition.

One of the seemingly positive steps in the years 1914-15 came with the completion of the Kettle Valley Railway through to Vancouver. The railway, considered by the CPR a better answer to all the freight and passenger traffic along the southern section of the Province, was in the end a fiasco. For the Arrow Lakes, the news was just as bad. Formally the connecting link between southern Alberta, lower BC and the transcontinental railway at Revelstoke, the Arrow Lakes steamer route had now became a branch line. Business would be cut to a trickle compared to its former engagements. Prices for most minerals, not surprisingly, rose considerably causing a bit of resurgence in the Lardeau where mining had faded drastically compared with the early Nineteen-hundreds. Arrowhead too hung on tenaciously with one mill running and the CPR's commitment to shipping and railway activity. Around the corner at Comaplix a final blow was administered, again in a mysterious way. All the stock of lumber, the town and the SS Revelstoke that was conveniently packed near the lumber piles and slabs, was consumed in flame by way of seven fires strategically placed to assure total destruction. Because the water flume had been cut, no means of fighting the blaze was available. Now Comaplix was a ghost town.

Gradual disintegration of the CPR steamers on the Arrow Lakes started in 1916 when the SS Kootenay got stranded in the ice for 6 weeks. Her hull, badly compromised, relegated the vessel to spot duty and eventual retirement. The next year, after the SS Rossland sank at the Nakusp shipyard, she was broken beyond repair, dispensed with and floated up to the Hall Brothers' ranch across from Arrowhead.

2

SS Bonnington at Deer Park - July 17, 1915
17 July 1915
Deer Park

3

Renata 1920's
circa 1920's
Renata, BC

4

SS Bonnington Diningroom
1915
Arrow Lakes, BC

5

Edgewood Townsite
circa 1915
Edgewood, Lower Arrow Lakes

6

Prisioners of War in Edgewood
1915
Edgewood, Lower Arrow Lakes

7

Arrowhead from Mountaintop
1915
Arrowhead, BC

8

Race at Arrowhead
1915
Arrowhead, BC

9

SS Kootenay Frozen in Ice
1916
Burton, BC

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Fred had been watching the construction of a new wharf at Arrowhead and was not fully aware of the circumstances under which this job would later serve. He soon learned that the Duke of Connaught, Canada's Governor General, who was coming to the end of his term, would be making a final trip across the country in July of 1916. Scheduled to leave Revelstoke for Arrowhead and then down the Arrow Lakes on the Bonnington, the sortie was designed partly to encourage Canadians to support the war effort to their upmost ability.

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Duke of Connaught Visits
1916
Arrowhead, BC

12

Lindsley Poleyard
1916
Nakusp, British Columbia, Canada

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Continuing on a cursory inspection of lumbering around Nakusp, Fred hopped on the Nakusp & Slocan train to view the Summit Lake logging site. He knew sawmill operations required booming facilities. The lake, about 12 miles (19.31 km) from Nakusp had everything. A flat area for the mill, a railway close by, a huge timber resource surrounding the area, a lake for towing and a top notch Swedish crew to cut the timber.

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Mill at Summit
1916
Summit Lake