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The transition from what we call the horse and buggy days to the era of the automobile had begun. This also had to include the very beginnings of moving from boat and rail travel as well. One of the main reasons this transition was slower on the Arrow Lakes had to do with its location and also the lack of density in population. People were scattered in pockets quite distant from each other over 120 miles of rugged and forested land. Areas north of Nakusp and south of Edgewood, it was determined, would never be conjoined by a highway. For this reason continuation of boat travel in some form would be maintained per a former agreement with the Federal Government.
The swift water in the channel between Upper and Lower Arrow Lakes, a rather unique geological formation, created a separation both in transportation systems and industrial emplacements. As we have seen, the small boat, Columbia II, was engaged to serve the Lower Lake in an auxiliary fashion while the Minto and Bonnington, in spite of operating on the full run, the Bonnington never toiled during low water or winter conditions.
This separation between the lakes also applied to logging and saw milling. Tug boats, unable to pull booms up through the heavy current of the Narrows meant timber for Upper Lake mills had to be harvested, only from Demars and north.
Having uncontested rights to all the timber on the Lower Lake meant the Edgewood Lumber Co., now well established at Castlegar, could expand unimpeded by any outside competition. Conversely the Quance & Carlson mill at Nakusp entertained the same luxury. It was a resurrection of sorts of a previous lumber industry so strongly defined at Arrowhead, but now on a much smaller scale.