Train Trip to Sinclair Mills
Timeline of Thursday, November 8, 2018
Train Trip to Sinclair Mills, Timeline of Thursday, November 8, 2018
Train Trip to Sinclair Mills
Timeline of November 8, with Ecole Franco-Nord
1. Railway Station, Prince George Where Mme. Linda lived until she was 12 - right across from train station, now a store?
The star on the train cars and grafitti
2. Railway Bridge - built in 1913, longest in British Columbia
3. Goat Island, first Railway Island then Goat Island when Mr. Johnson had a farm on it. When the bridge was being built 600 lived in tents and worked on the island. It was bigger and they built the bridge over the island.
4. Foreman Flats - first farm - 160 acres given by Government to whoever wanted to commit to growing crops for 3 years. "Pre-Emption" 1909 - also a big sawmill - burned down - cabins and mills - Armand Denicola walked to Connaught School - his car on top of the Pineview Auto Wreckers
-named after first supervisor on the GTP
-first potato farm
-first a mill to build railway tires - many fires, mills and cabins burned, would find charred remains
-all flooded before the Skin Lake Spillway in 1957
-Martin Caine - contracted with GTP employed 80 railway ties
5. Shelley - named after English poet
Lheidli T'enneh Band relocated here on both sides of the river - 1913 - now about 100 members living both sides
-huge sawmill, school, post office, general store - no bus, some kids came by boat and walked across the river when it was ice
-sawmill built 1933 by local railway contractor and logger Sinclair McLean
-school - 1 room, 40 students, teacherage, outhouses, fire drills out windows into snow
6. Willow River - So many people from other countries - settled along the East Line - Willow River included. Italy, Poland, British, Yugoslavia, Portuguese etc. Originally going to be called Willow City - once the biggest sawmill north of Vancouver
1916 - sawmill moved to Giscome - had a hospital, jail, police station, barbershop, 2 ski jumps, 14 room hotel and a church
-first school was a tent - 1914 - 24 in one small room, and had to get water from a creek up the road and outhouses
-elephants sighted in the Willow River as the Circus came to town in the 50's and needed to cool down so were brought to a safer river to bathe.
- sad canoeing accident in 1974 with 9 dying in canoeing accident
-named because of many Willow Swamps
-Cindy Lou McLean's death in the 40's? Closed Mill to find her body, 300 looked but never found
7. Giscome
-named after a Jamaican looking for gold further north - John Giscombe and Henry? MadDames
-people wanted to name it Eaglet Lake as a much prettier name, and there was a Aboriginal legend of a 7' eagle that was killed there
-Harold Mann was a brother of the big mill owner, built 17 miles of plank road to Newlands
-a huge mill, population 1000 at one time, many single men lived there in a boarding house for 300 men
-largest producer of white spruce in Canada
-Giscome Green Rock crushing plant
-big Northwood Pulp and Timber bought out all the mills eventually (1966) in Giscome, and closed 45 years ago - most mill houses, auctioned off and moved to Willow River, and the mill demolished. Can still see the foundations of the mill.
-had a cafe, police station, pool hall, barbershop, two churches, hospital and a royal produce store.
8. Newlands
-mostly agriculture and farming
-Home of Mme. Janie, and husband Andrew and Hope Farms
- years ago instead of seeing lots of cows in the fields would be many, many moose!
-had two schools at one time and a train station for the CNRailway - grades 1 - 8 - where did the older kids go? Boarded in Prince George and took the train home on weekends.
At one time 100 pelple live here, in logging and sawmills.
-apparently Newlands famous for it's strawberries at one time
-people would visit up and down the line from to Aleza Lake and Giscome for dances, go in snow sleighs and walk up and down the tracks
9. Aleza Lake
-lots of shadow houses - shadows of the past - tell a story - 1920, 200 people lived here
-right near the Forestry Station (I haven't seen it) - started in 1924
-got rid of the tree stumps by blowing them up
-there was a beach for villagers, cemetary, ball diamond and a covered skating rink, store, post office, school, hotel, beer parlour, dance hall, community hall, church, train station - wouldn't it be fun to go back in time and take a look
-the only way to get food, other than fish, hunt, grow was on the train.
- the big event was to come down to the stationl to see who got off - it was a real lifeline
-trappers came out every spring after spending winter in the bush - brought a baby bear to raise
-speeder pumped by hand for forestry stations use - called a trapezoid
-at the Trick lumbermill, 40 men lived in bunkhouses - when there was sort of a road to Sinclair Mills, Ambrose's Trick Dad, didn't even have to steer his car, just let him push the gas, and sit back, stay in the ruts - his brother would drive on the ice on the Fraser - lived to tell the tales
-three miles of plank rd. 3 Lakes here, ox bow
-beehive burner to get rid of the chips, sawdust and waste
-no running water, heat by coal and outhouses, heat by coal
clothes hung outside, cupboards were wooden apple boxes, lots of bears!
-bars segregated, natives not allowed to be in bars
-girls had to wear skirts to school -made clothes from flour sacks -3 Lakes here, ox bow
10. Upper Fraser
-1936 - Upper Fraser Spruce Mills - lots of accidents and death
-Northwood bought mill - large - closed 1999 - mill buildings demolished 204
-postoffice still - 80 people get mail today from the area
-was a large school!
-some Japanese interred WW11 along the PG Valemount Corridor
-previous known as Mile 194 and Hudson Bay Spur
-closest railway point east to access to Fraser River
-to Huble advertised weekly passenger and freight - motorboat passage to Giscome Portage which connected waterways to the Peace Country in 1914
-5yrs later, wagon rd from PG after train as rod to Summit opened
-became a passenger stop WW!! before just freight
-lots of moose on the track, delay the trains, also charged trains and children
-small mill 1928, lots of accidents, 250 people worked there
-huge fires - truck now at museum
-Northwood bought mill - 1999
-closed 2003
-had a royal produce, cafe, school
-1983 - 138 elementary kids, pop 500
11. Hansard
-south of the river - named after a lawyer for GTP
-sawmill town reached by a pontoon reaction ferry
-to go across, honk your horn madly and get on the ferry
-one child in school here, 15 year old Marie Hanson - never late, never missed a day of school
-now humungous bridge, after the train bridge
12. Dewey
-name then changed to Cornell Mills and McGregor
-nothing there now, see Ray Olson's pics on face book as to where the mill might have been
-Dewey Sawmills - closed in 1925 - small community, horses skidded lumber to the mill
-32 people voted in June 24 election
-Dewey changed name to Cornel Mills in 1950 due to confusion with Dewdney, then 1960's to McGregor - River
Ray's experience with fire death and the bones
-steamships until the bridge open - couldn't get under
-10 houses for married men and 2 story bunkhouse for single men
13. Sinclair Mills
-hospital as GTP being builld
-named after a construction engineer
-lots of pre-emptions - advertised as a "perfect place for settlers"
-not a GTP station there, just Hutton and Dewey
-in 1924 mill was the largest on the East Line
-fires always a concern
-bunkhouse became restaurant and hotel - burned for good in 1989
-had a train station but not an original stop
-Japanese were interred here in Sinclair Mills, Giscome, Upper Fraser, - 1943
-18 may have worked there - see Ray's book, after being brought up for the coast
-1975 sold as a complete town with buildings and houses
-mill shut down 1966, Northwood concentrated on other mills - wrong side of river from Road
-had 2 schools, 1 room is still standing, 1 km east of site (will have to find)
-51 students in 1951
-1940 - teacher earned $50.00 per month
-shh, listen to the quiet, for people from Vancouver getting off the rain