1

Abruptness in the change from the Depression to a war with regard to employment opportunities in 1940 was amazing. Mills were busy. Birch logs were needed for airplanes. Freighting increased and because young men were joining the forces there was a shortage of laborers. Rationing of nearly all commodities seemed to be the only obstacle to a much higher standard of living. Scrap metal of every sort was required for the war effort. It was probably for this reason that the idled Bonnington was released to allow most of her metal parts to be purchased by the Finning Tractor people. No record is available as to where the more refined fixtures were taken by the CPR but the boat was stripped then sold to Frank Sutherland to be refitted as a barge.
Nakusp had two gas stations in the early 1940's in spite of the shortage of gasoline. In this respect most towns were serviced by a bus proving that roads had taken the majority of traffic away from rail and water travel.
Fred was just as astonished as local residents at the arrival of Asian Canadians to their communities. They were unfamiliar faces in the Kootenay and now were coming in such great numbers. His first contact was on the Minto when a sizable group boarded on route to Nakusp. They disembarked there, were loaded into open trucks and driven off to the Slocan Valley. It made him feel uncomfortable. These were city people. Well educated and civil in every way. I guess he was embarrassed. As it turned out many of these men were the saviors of the forest industry, now filling in for employees who had joined up.
When fighting ceased in 1945 few people envisioned the surge in commercial and industrial enterprise that was to follow. Tooling up for the war had produced an efficiency never before seen. All these techniques would go into the creation of peacetime products.