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Infiltration Forums > Archived Canada: Alberta / BC > Sandon BC (Viewed 504 times)
surekill 


location:
Victoria, BC.
Gender: Male


I like tacos

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Sandon BC
< on 1/11/2006 7:25 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Anybody ever visit Sandon? It's a ghost town north of Nelson. I have an article here from 1971 stating that some investors wanted to open it as a tourist attraction. I wonder if that ever took off? Apparently the whole main street was wiped out in a flood in the 50's. But there are still a few buildings there. And mines as well.

anvil 


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Re: Sandon BC
<Reply # 1 on 1/11/2006 8:46 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
There's a couple of good sites that give the history of the city - search on Yahoo, or Google. I've been there around 10 times, over the past three decades. Amazing place. Reputedly had as many as 5,000 residents at its peak, just before a fire destroyed nearly all of the buildings in 1900. The community rebuilt, constructing a wooden flume to contain Carpenter Creek, which also served as one of the main streets, but Sandon would never be as prosperous again. As did so many other silver mining centres of the Slocan, Sandon's fate rose and fell with ore prices. The city went into a decades-long freefall from WWI until the WWII, when it experienced a rebirth as a Japanese internment centre. When the war ended, Sandon was depopulated again. Carpenter Creek damaged much of the nearly empty city in 1955.

There is still much to see there now, although less than 20 original buildings remain. The Silversmith Powerhouse is still in operation, generating power from a Pelton Wheel system. They have plugged back into the BC Hydro grid, and sell power to the rest of the province. City Hall has also been saved, and has been a labour of love for Hal Wright and his family, who've been working on it for about 20 years.

Great hiking trails - old rail grades, roads to abandoned mines, Idaho Peak, etc.

I highly recommend a visit, but go in late July - September, or you're liable to hit snow. The Selkirks get a lot of the white stuff, and it sticks around for a long time.
[last edit 1/11/2006 8:48 AM by anvil - edited 1 times]

surekill 


location:
Victoria, BC.
Gender: Male


I like tacos

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Re: Sandon BC
<Reply # 2 on 1/13/2006 12:26 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Cool, I'm totally going to check it out this summer.

frugalfinnagan 


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Re: Sandon BC
<Reply # 3 on 1/13/2006 12:39 AM >
Posted on Forum: Infiltration Forums
 
there are many diffrent exploring options. Halcyon was destroyed when the dam was built, but if you scuba, check it out. Do some research on the area, and you are likely to find a few things that are way sweet, like uncomercialized/undeveloped hotsprings, hiking, mountain biking, all season skiing (glacier) and the slocan valley happens to be one of the sweetest places to hitch hike in B.C. Kaslo is pretty cool as well. But it is on the other side of the mountain. There is a blues festival in Aug? i think

Team Leader 


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Uptown,downtown,all around.
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Re: Sandon BC
<Reply # 4 on 1/13/2006 12:40 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Anything left of the internment camp?

Death Sentence- Live to die (good ole one)
http://theaumc.com/forums
anvil 


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Re: Sandon BC
<Reply # 5 on 1/13/2006 5:37 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
The city itself was used to intern relocated Japanese from the coast. There was no "camp," per se, as there was in Tashme, for instance. They just took a nearly abandoned town, filled it with internees until the end of the war. By all accounts, the Japanese hated Sandon. It was the most isolated, snowbound place the Japanese were sent. New Denver was another internment centre - and I believe they have some kind of interpretive centre on internment at the museum there, as they do in Kaslo and Greenwood.

wheel 


location:
calgary
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Re: Sandon BC
<Reply # 6 on 7/23/2006 8:22 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
finally went through the valley of the ghosts. sandon still has some residents. hard to believe the burns meat company started here. the main st. is lined with electric buses, i guess someone there restores them. the one in the pic is from calgary (destination stanley park). the ruins 2km up the road of cody are very impressive.

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anvil 


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Re: Sandon BC
<Reply # 7 on 7/23/2006 11:52 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
The buses are a strange anomaly. Hal Wright, who lives there with his family, and restored City Hall, bought them and had them shipped to Sandon. They have absolutely no connection to the city, or the region.

The small pink house was the home of Gene Petersen, who lived his whole life in Sandon, and was the last residents of the community. Petersen was born in Sandon, and took it upon himself to maintain the empty community (shoveling snow from rooftops, keeping roads up, etc. He befriended young Hal Wright when he was a boy, and sort of passed on his love for the place to Hal, who took over from Petersen when he died.
[last edit 7/23/2006 11:56 PM by anvil - edited 1 times]

surekill 


location:
Victoria, BC.
Gender: Male


I like tacos

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Re: Sandon BC
<Reply # 8 on 7/24/2006 5:12 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Wow, that's amazing. Well at least you know who your neighbour is.

wheel 


location:
calgary
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Re: Sandon BC
<Reply # 9 on 7/24/2006 3:08 PM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
be warned, i think this place can be addictive. i look at the pics and just want to go back. next time we will give it the time it deserves.

Peach 


location:
Victoria
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Re: Sandon BC
<Reply # 10 on 8/17/2006 7:50 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
My wife has relatives from the area (New Denver). We were up there 3 years ago for important family business (burial), and visited Sandon. Didn't get to stay as long as I would have liked, as I am far more a history person than my wife.

Most of the rest of the history of Sandon is well covered by the web pages that are out there. It is a fascinating bit of BC history, that through hard work still exists.


Infiltration Forums > Archived Canada: Alberta / BC > Sandon BC (Viewed 504 times)

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