King of the Mountain

By GG Koe

The year is 1948 I’m 4 years old, and have run away from home for the first time on my quest to become “King of the Mountain”.
Based on the actual antics of a young boy and his friends, “King of the Mountain” offers an autobiographical experience of growing up in the West Kootenays between 1948 to 1962. From camping trips, to hunting expeditions, to mischievous pranks, and unruly gangs, King of the Mountain allows the reader to step back in time to the 1950’s, gaining insight into what life was like before social media, cell phones, and television.

Anyone raised, or living in the West Kootenays will have to smile, as they share in the escapades of this mischievous child through adolescence; and hopefully find some solace in reminiscing about their own childhood memories as they read through the wonderfully crafted stories of adventure and triumph, sadness and sorrow, and of a boy coming of age in the town of Nelson, B.C.

The book provides reference to many well-known locations, local people, historical information, and urban legends. Included are pictures from both the Nelson archives and the author’s personal collection to enhance the reader’s enjoyment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GG Koe
• Release date: Aug 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310101663

GG Koe

GG Koe was born in Edmonton, AB and raised in Nelson, BC. This is where he came to love the outdoors and dreamt of adventuring. He has pursued an avid life of exploration and travel, and loves the wilds of British Columbia. He has an interest in folk lore, also reflected in his writings.His first novel, The Ring of Light, was published in 2014, and he is currently working on other books in this series. He has written numerous professional articles.Since his retirement, he currently lives with his wife in Mission, BC, where he pursues his passion in writing.

Book preview

King of the Mountain

GG Koe

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 GG Koe

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Foreword

This book is my recollection of my experiences and exploits as a boy growing up in the West Kootenays. Names, places, or locales have not been changed. I offer my most humble apologies to those I may have offended in the process of growing up and my forgiveness to any who may have wronged me. I trust there are no longer any hard feelings. I certainly hold none.

This is not a complete record. Interpretation of events may be influenced by my memory, which may be limited or biased at times and there may be incidents that I have forgotten or omitted. Some incidents, I chose not to write about because of their potential to embarrass or indict.

Dad was right when he said that Nelson was a fine place to raise children. It offered an incredibly rich, natural, and interesting environment. The town and its people were very tolerant of my antics, especially the local police in my teenage years and I consider myself lucky to have lived in such a great place. My thanks, to all who helped me on my journey to adulthood.

Special thanks to Laura Fortier, Archivist at the Nelson and District Museum, who assisted in procuring permission for the five photos from the General Collection and the Nelson Daily News Collection.

I would also like to recognize the editing of my sister, Maeve, my wife, Carryl, and my friend, Keith, who read numerous drafts. Their suggestions have greatly improved this work.

Chapter 1

Some people claim to remember specific details from birth; I am not one of them. My earliest childhood recollection was sitting on the front porch of my house watching a house float by on the west arm of Kootenay Lake followed by what must have been a boathouse or garage. I can still see that house tilted in the water at a steep angle and slowly rotating in the force of the current. I wondered if there were people inside and imagined them clinging to the roof yelling for help. I must have watched for hours thinking the house would sink before it slowly floated from view, leaving me to imagine what happened when it was caught by the current further down the lake and either smashed into the cliffs or pulled over one of the spillways of the dam. This was the spring of 1948 and I was waiting for my fourth birthday.

My parents feared that Anderson Creek, which was several blocks west of our house, might flood and damage some of Bogus Town in the flood. Thankfully, this didn't happen. A few days later, Dad took me for a drive in his Model A Ford up the west arm of Kootenay Lake. He pointed out the house where we had lived before we moved to Fairview. It seemed strange to me that I had no recollection of this dwelling, but I was very glad to no longer be living there. Trees surrounded by debris stood like sentinels, in the muddy water flooding the yard which was now part of the lake with only the trees holding the house from floating away like the house I had previously seen.

I do not remember seeing the old Nasookin, one of the early paddle wheelers that had serviced Kootenay Lake since 1913. She and been withdrawn from service and tied up at Midge Creek before slipping her moorage and floating downstream to the City Wharf, where she had been secured. When the water receded, she subsequently broke her keel on a concrete wall that lay hidden in the murky water beneath her hull. I think that my father was very wise to relocate us to Fairview.

Nasookin from Nelson Archives

Touchstones Nelson: Museum of Art and History

Nasookin wheelhouse now on North Shore of Kootenay Lake

Dad in front of his Model A Ford that he used to take us to look at the flood

My first home in Edmonton before moving to Nelson

Mom and me at the house on Kootenay Lake before the flood

Dad told me that this was not the first time the lake had flooded. He said that the 1948 flood and subsequent flooding of the Columbia River were tiny compared to the flood of May 30, 1948 which ultimately destroyed Vanport City, in Oregon, killing fifteen people, and later led to the Columbia River Treaty in 1964, marking a major milestone Nelson's history.

In September 1876, gold was discovered west of Nelson at Forty-Nine Mile creek, precipitating a short-lived gold rush. Prospectors searching the surrounding area found silver instead of gold, and in 1886 the Silver King Mine was staked on Toad Mountain. A mining camp quickly grew on the shores of Kootenay Lake and gave birth to the city of Nelson, which became incorporated on March 18, 1897. Because the town primarily served the Silver King, it was designated as the Queen City of the Kootenays. The son of the first mayor, John Huston, still roamed the streets when I was a boy.

Nelson established one of the first municipal police forces in BC on April 17, 1897 and still has this force today. There was not much crime at the turn of the century and the new police force primarily focused on disorderly conduct, assault, excessive drinking, and theft. Brothels were initially situated on the east end of Baker Street, which was the main thoroughfare of the town, until public pressure had them relocated to Lake Street. At that time prostitutes required special permission from the Chief of Police to even go out in public during the day.

One urban legend had it that the police would throw rocks at a brothel on Lake Street knowing the madam would call them. When the madam complained they came and investigated, knowing full well that the madam would thank them for their prompt response by inviting them in for a free beer.

To alleviate public pressure, the police also conducted regular raids on the brothels and fined the inhabitants. There was another local urban legend that one madam was so irritated by these raids that she offered to buy new uniforms for the police force if they agreed to leave her establishment alone. City Council was rumored to have accepted her kind offer.

By the 1900's, Nelson had several fine hotels, a Hudson's Bay Company Store, and an electric streetcar system, with track running down the middle of Baker Street still present when I was a boy. The Silver King Mine and Kootenay Forest Products helped support the town, serviced by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) and Great Northern (GN) or Burlington Northern Railway, as it was also known. Nelson became the repair facility for the CPR. Sternwheelers such as the SS Moyie and Nasookin plied Kootenay Lake from 1898 to 1957. Settlers moved in and English immigrants planted lakeside orchards. Names like Lord Nelson, Stanley, and Trafalgar along with the granite post office and courthouse gave the town a distinctly English flavor, which must have appealed to Dad's heritage.

Money was very tight in the 40's during the period of recovery following the Great Depression. The house on Kootenay Lake was not for sale and Mom didn't want to live so far out of town, since she didn't have any means of transportation. In the summer of 1945, my parents moved to a house in Fairview because it was a 'rent-to-own' with an agreement for sale for $6,000.00 with money paid in rent applied to the purchase price.

Me and Bunny in 1945 at our new house in Fairview

Dad surveying our new neighborhood at Fairview

Our house in Fairview today

It was an old house that had been built in 1912. It was a very small two-bedroom house with a porch on both ends and sold in 2012 as a two-bedroom starter home, with a list price of $274,900.00!

Our house in Fairview was located on the corner of Fifth and Davies Streets. At that time, development did not extend much above Sixth Street. Higher up on the mountain, there were some abandoned farms, a gravel pit, and a wilderness that later became my playground. It was not uncommon to wake up in the morning to see deer grazing in our yard or discover cougar tracks in the snow crossing the front lawn, which I often followed hoping to catch a glimpse of the cat that had left them.

Soot from the Kootenay Forest Products beehive burner fell like snow on my mother's laundry hanging on the clothesline in our back yard during the summer where I played with my friend, Keith, in an old rubber dinghy filled with water. Planes would fly over and drop advertising flyers that often landed in our yard. I particularly enjoyed gathering them and triumphantly taking them in to Mom.

My family in 1946

The seasons changed magically. The heat and thunder of summer gave way to crisp mornings with frost on the ground. The mountains faded from the green of summer to the yellow, orange, and red of fall. A haze hung in the air as the sweet smell of burning leaves heralded the coming of winter. The first snows usually fell on Christmas Eve and within a couple of weeks there would be a foot of snow in our yard for caves and forts. Mom always helped me roll huge snowballs, which I stacked to make a snowman that stood for months guarding our front yard.

Patches of grass slowly emerged from the melting snow in spring and water cascaded down the gutters on Davies Street like a small creek, which I tried to stop with massive snow dams, but it wasn't possible to stop the change of the seasons. I loved to watch the jays gorge on rotting fruit clinging to the branches of the trees and then stagger around drunk on our lawn. The trees bloomed white and pink, filling the yard with bees and other insects. Swallows and bluebirds returned to gorge on the mosquitoes, bringing with them the heat of summer.

Our house, white, small and nondescript, stood on a double lot overlooking the lake. The top part of the front lawn was an extension on the side of the driveway. The yard was always full of birds - sparrows, swallows, bluebirds, jays, crows and robins. There were two peach trees and a Becker walnut tree in the front yard, which Mom was very proud of, claiming it was a rare local hybrid. Narrow flowerbeds bordered the lawns and a river rock wall ran along the north side of the house facing the lake, elevating the front yard from Fifth. The back yard was gently sloping and contained three cherry trees, a pear tree, and a plum tree bordered by a rickety old wood and wire fence. Raspberries and blackberries grew in profusion along the fence line bordering the boulevards hiding the weeds extending to the cement sidewalks on the sides of the street. There was a large grape trellis on the front of the house, which Dad regularly tended. Every summer, I had all the fruit I could eat, but Mom made me save some for her canning and jams.

There was a garden near the back lane in which Dad grew vegetables. I remember him constructing a storage shed beside this garden next to the neighbor's garage. Between our house and the neighbor was an old trellised fence covered in vines that divided the yards. I used to peer though the gaps in the vines, wondering what the neighbours were like. We were on speaking terms, but really didn't associate much with them. A stone path ran along the fence behind the house where I used to pick violets for Mom because she loved to put them in a vase to fill the house with fragrance.

Dad and me shoveling snow in our driveway in 1947

Between our house and the neighbors was a huge rock. During the summer, I frequently lay on it in the cool shade of the house and put my ear to the stone. I could hear the sound of flowing water and was sure I was listening to an underground stream. In my mind, the only stream that could be flowing there had to come from Anderson Creek and I dreamed of following the channel beneath that stone when the water was low. Many times I attempted excavating that stone in search of that creek, but the ground was much too rocky for my little hands. Dad probably thought the neighborhood dogs made all those holes and filled them in without comment. In retrospect, I was probably listening to the sewer line, as the rock lay directly between the bathrooms of the houses.

The gravel alley south of our house was full of puddles where I sailed little paper boats that Mom taught me how to make from sheets of newspaper. I loved to examine the intricate designs in the fresh ice formed on the puddles in winter, which I slid and jumped on until the ice cracked. Bushes growing on the sides of the alley offered many secluded places to play and explore hidden away from the rest of the world. Saskatoon berries provided snacks in summer and snowberries provided ammunition for my pee shooter and berry fights.

Mom said, Berries white, run in fright. Berries red, run in dread. Berries blue, they're for you.

I knew better than to try to eat the snowberries.

Our house was heated with coal and had a dirt basement. The door to the basement exited under the front porch. Trellises surrounded the porch at the front of the house and the shaded area under the front steps was a particularly good place to catch bugs and spiders, serving as my personal garden in later years. I was very proud of the tomatoes that I grew beneath those steps, even though they did not ripen well in the shade of the porch and were sometimes a little green when I ate them.

At times, the whole house creaked and groaned as it settled on the mountainside. Whenever there was an unusual noise or things went missing, my parents commented, It must be the Bogeyman.

I asked Mom, What's a Bogeyman?

She smiled and replied, He's the little man who lives in the basement.

I didn't like the idea of a little man living in our basement making the house groan and taking our stuff. I often looked for him when I was in the basement accompanied by my parents, but I never saw him. I carefully closed the door to my room every night and leaned a piece of wood against the door with a can containing small rocks placed on top of the wood so that the can would fall if the door were opened and the noise would waken me in time to protect my toys.

As I got older, my job was to bring the coal up from the basement for the kitchen stove. There was no light on the stairway and the basement was always totally dark. To get the coal from the basement, I propped open the kitchen door so that the light from the kitchen flooded the top part of the stairs. Then I peered down the stairs into the darkness below to be sure that there was no sign of the 'Bogeyman', imagining him hiding there in the dark, just waiting to grab me.

When I didn't see him, I quietly descended the stairs in the dark being careful not to make any noise; and then felt my way across the cool dirt floor until I reached the wooden landing in front of the coal bin. Once on the wooden landing, I stood on tiptoe and waved my arms around in the dark trying to feel the string hanging from the light. This was the scariest time for me, because I was in the dark with my back to where the Bogeyman must be hiding and I had the coal bucket in one hand and my other arm in the air searching for the dangling string, so I wouldn't be able to defend myself or easily escape in that position.

Once I found the string in the dark and quickly clicked on the light, I felt a little safer, as I could see the Bogeyman if he came after me. There was a similar light inside the coal bin. I broke the coal with a sledgehammer that was left in the coal bin and loaded the broken pieces into the bucket. I was sure that the noise from the sledge would wake up the 'Bogeyman', which made me even more frightened on my journey back upstairs. I turned off the light in the coal bin and moved out onto the wooden landing where I prepared myself. Then, I turned off the second light and ran as fast as I could up the stairs. Despite the relatively heavy bucket of coal, I always was much faster than the 'Bogeyman'.

The fire in our furnace would always go out over night and the house was often quite chilly in the morning when Dad got up to get the fire going in the old kitchen wood stove. I usually lay in bed where it was nice and warm until I smelled the coffee and porridge that Dad was making in the kitchen. I didn't mind eating porridge every morning doused in huge quantities of milk and smothered with sugar, but Dad often forgot to put salt in the porridge when he was cooking it and when this happened it tasted awful. When Dad forgot the salt, I tried to cover up the taste by eating pieces of toast smothered in Mom's homemade jam.

Mom and Dad didn't have enough money to buy cereal and they tried to be as frugal as possible. Because of this I thought that we should go hunting, but Dad never would hunt or shoot animals because of his experiences in