Plateau
Press

Edited by
Wayne Norton and Naomi Miller

The Forgotten Side of the Border:
British Columbia's Elk Valley
and Crowsnest Pass

Contains 248 pages, and includes 40 black and white photographs, index, map and bibliographical information.

ISBN 0-9698842-2-2

Priced at $19.95

The Crowsnest Pass and the Elk Valley are part of a geographic region that stretches from Calgary, Alberta to Cranbrook, British Columbia to Spokane, Washington. Yet the economy, politics and social structure of the region have always set it apart from its neighbours in Alberta, the United States and the rest of British Columbia. Consequently, the often unique historical experience of the area is usually neglected by writers of B.C. history.

Locally, much physical evidence of the past has recently been lost. Newer residents and tourists are presented with few reminders of what once occurred and who once lived in these narrow valleys.

With more than forty photographs-many published for the first time-The Forgotten Side of the Border is a collection of memoirs and articles on topics both familiar and forgotten, delightful and disconcerting. Topics include the champion Fernie Swastikas, the internment camp of World War One, rumrunners, and the Ghostrider of Hosmer Mountain. The book provides a glimpse into the lives of the people of the Elk Valley and the Crowsnest Pass that will surprise even those most familiar with the history of the area. The BC Historical News noted: "We are greatly indebted to this group [of writers] and to their editors for this compilation."


Table of Contents below

Forgotten Side of the Border: Contents

Part One: The Valley and the Pass

An Impossible Curse: The Ghostrider on Hosmer Mountain -Noel Ratch

James Baker and William Fernie: The Politics of Development in the Crowsnest Coalfields
-Jeremy Mouat


Michael Phillipps: Prominent Kootenay Citizen -Naomi Miller

Prosperity and Recession Before the 1930s -Bill Sloan

"Workers of the World, Unite": Celebrating May Day -Tom Langford

The Crows Nest Southern Railway -David Davies

Communities Divided: The Internment Camps of World War One -Wayne Norton with Ella Verkerk

Booze Across the Border -Gary Montgomery

Part Two: Historic Communities

Teenager at Crowsnest: A Memoir -Fred Persello

Corbin: A Short and Bitter Existence -Michael Saad

Elkford: History of a Wilderness Community -Noel Ratch

Mining Disasters and Rescue Operations at Michel before World War Two -Michael Saad

Memories of Middletown -Reno Fabbro

The Michel-Natal District Hospital -Lois Halko with Helen Bachlet

Community Sports at Michel-Natal Before 1945 -Michael Saad

The Balmer Mine Disaster of 1967 -John Kinnear

Sparwood: A Community Transplanted -Jim Bertoia

The Boom Years of a Mining Town -Fred and Sandy Lightfoot

Fred Alderson: The Hosmer Hero -John Kinnear

The Coal Creek Literary and Athletic Association Clubhouse -Wayne Norton and William Milburn

Childhood Remembered: A Coal Creek Memoir -Grace Arbuckle Dvorak

Community and Conflict: The Impact of the 1902 Explosion at Coal Creek -Andrew Yarmie

"Fair Manipulators of the Twisted Hickory": Women's Hockey in Fernie, 1919-1926 -Wayne Norton

The Historic Hotels of Fernie -Wayne Norton

Elko: Gateway to the South -Marjorie Fitzpatrick and Glayda Wilkinson


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