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\n<\/span>The <\/span>Slocan Enterprise <\/em>of Feb. 13, 1929, reported:\u00a0<\/span>For the first time since 1916 skaters made a trip to Evans Creek and return to the lake. E. Palmquist, D. Hird, John Greenwood, Pete Strand, and F.M. Hufty made the return trip in less than an hour last Wednesday.<\/span>
\nHenning von Krogh quoted several accounts from the Arrow Lakes News<\/em> in his recent book, The Boats of Slocan Lake<\/em>.\u00a0Feb. 15: The extreme cold spell the last two months finally conquered Slocan Lake and it is now frozen over solidly from Slocan City to Bannock Point a few miles of Silverton. The Str. Rosebery<\/em> has experienced considerable difficulty in maintaining its passenger and freight schedule during the past week and has been several hours late on each trip. This is the first time in 13 years the lake has frozen over and local skaters are taking full advantage of the sport it offers large numbers are daily out skating, Sunday especially being a popular date, with no less than 75 people being on the frozen expense between here and Evans Creek.<\/span>
\nFeb. 27: Ice conditions on the Slocan Lake necessitate the routing of mainline traffic via Kaslo and all regular traffic on the lake has been suspended for the present. The pickle-boat, Rosebery<\/em>, is trying hard to keep the channel open but has hardly enough power to push herself through open water without bucking ice with a light barge. The last regular trip was run last Monday morning when over 80 passengers were packed into the boat and kept there for over seven hours, the good ship took that much time to get to Rosebery on account of the heavy ice. Loaded barges have been too heavy for the tug to move through the ice and as a result, the people up the lake have been unable to get in their regular goods and are also suffering from a lack of fuel. A freight train came in [to Slocan City] from Nelson Saturday and unloaded the barges taking the freight back to Nelson from where it was to be shipped into the Slocan via Kaslo.<\/span>
\nMarch 8: The ice punched a hole in CPR barge No. 30 on Slocan Lake last week and only quick work on the part of the crew of the Str. Rosebery<\/em> saved the barge from sinking. The hole was repaired but the barge, which was being used as an ice breaker is unfit to again buck ice and the new barge No. 14 is now being used for that purpose. The heavy ice still continues to give trouble and the tug and ice-breaker were 24 hours in making the trip to Silverton last week, leaving here Friday at noon and arriving at Silverton Saturday noon. It is expected the mainline service via Slocan Lake will resume Wednesday morning.<\/span>
\nMarch 13: Service has been fully restored on the Slocan Lake and the boat is running within an hour or so of its regular schedule despite the fact that it handles an icebreaker on each trip. The warm weather the past week has softened the place up the lake and it is not likely that it will be hard enough to hinder the boat to any extent.<\/span>
\nJohn Norris adds in <\/span>Old Silverton<\/em>, p. 233 that \u201cAll the mines had water trouble as pipes froze up and snow buried buildings. In April, Walter Sheeler was able to report \u2026 that ice had left the lake, although snow still made work difficult at the mines.\u201d
\n<\/span>1930.<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>Did the lake freeze? Yes.\u00a0The evidence:<\/span> This was the third consecutive year the lake froze.<\/p>\n
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\nAgain, I quote <\/span>The Boats of Slocan Lake<\/em>, quoting the <\/span>Arrow Lakes News<\/em>:
\n<\/span>Jan. 29: The Rosebery<\/em> broke her rudder stock in heavy ice on Jan. 8 only four days after the cold wave descended on the Kootenay. She was hauled up on the way at Rosebery, teams of horses being employed for this purpose, and a special crew rushed up from Nelson shipyard to make repairs in the shortest possible time. On January 15 she was relaunched and again in service battling the ice and direct freight and passenger service between Nelson and the Slocan was resumed.<\/span>
\nUnder Captains Kirby and Reid, the latter from the Okanagan, who [are] relieving each other, the Rosebery<\/em> is now going night and day and Sundays in an unremitting campaign against a great ice field that covers the lake for the lower 10 miles of its length. Saturday, she was practically frozen in the ice at Slocan City but broke her way out.<\/span>
\nYesterday the Rosebery<\/em> made her regular trip from Slocan City to Rosebery and last night started down with one ice-breaking barge with which to double the width of the channel so she can maneuver today with a loaded car barge on a northbound trip.<\/span>
\nSince writing the above, news has come that the Rosebery<\/em> got stuck in the ice a few miles north of Slocan, the ice proving too thick to combat \u2026<\/p>\n
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\nFeb. 5: The people of the Slocan now have one of the largest and best skating rinks in the province. It extends from Slocan City to the head of the lake, about 30 miles, and is from one to two miles in width. It is perfect ice with occasional air holes. If the skater drops into one of the air holes, there will be no funeral expenses, as the lake never gives up its dead.<\/span>
\nThe tug Rosebery<\/em> and a car barge are ice-anchored near Cape Horn, a few miles from Slocan City. Coal is being hauled by a team to the Rosebery and a gang of men have been put to work sawing a channel to Slocan City, some job with 10 to 12 inches of ice.<\/span>
\nThe Nelson Daily News<\/em> of March 3, 1930, reported that ice was causing more trouble.
\nIce conditions have again tied up boat service on the Slocan lakes [sic] between Slocan City and Silverton. Canadian Pacific Railway officials announced last night that the service between Silverton and Slocan City had been cut off. A service from Silverton and New Denver to Rosebery for connection with the train to Kaslo and Nakusp will be continued Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week. Thus, a person wishing to reach New Denver and Silverton on the lake must travel via Kaslo.<\/span>
\nThe <\/span>Daily News <\/em>of Jan. 21, 1930, also wrote, erroneously, that \u201clast year for the first time in recorded history Slocan Lake froze.\u201d Memories were short, I guess, for it had frozen one year prior to that and in the least three other years since 1891
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\n1937.<\/strong> Did the lake freeze? Yes.\u00a0The evidence: From the Arrow Lakes News, Jan. 28, 1937, as quoted in the same paper of Jan. 18, 2007:
\n<\/span>Yielding to the longest continuous stretch of zero and near-zero weather for a number of years, the Slocan and Arrow Lakes have frozen over. A week ago the CPR steamer Rosebery was able to make its round of Slocan Lake points but Wednesday saw a sheet of ice cover the lower end of the lake from Slocan City for 10 miles, while the upper end was also reported iced over with the whole lake looking very still. By the end of the week, a thick sheet of ice surrounded the Rosebery and her barge up at their berth at Slocan City. Sailing of the Rosebery was cancelled Monday and some other way is sought to give Slocan lake towns freight service.
\n<\/span><\/em>This story in the Calgary Herald of Feb. 1, 1937, identified five of the seven confirmed years to the point that the lake froze, missing only 1907 and 1928<\/em>.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
However, I checked the Nakusp Silver Standard<\/em> for that period and found no mention of ice on the lake. Perhaps this is actually 1937. <\/em><\/p>\n What is not apparent from the story above is that Andy Avison apparently saved Sandy Harris and T. Nelson, who came to help, but got into trouble themselves. Avison was recognized later that year with the Gilt Cross. This is from The Vancouver Sun<\/em>, Nov. 15, 1950.<\/p>\n 1957.<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>Did the lake freeze? Yes.\u00a0The evidence: In the second volume of his unpublished autobiography, Daylight in the Swamp<\/em>, Irv Anderson recounts working aboard the tugboat Iris G<\/em>: The weather turned very cold towards the end of that January \u2026 Now the lake was freezing enough so that we could use but the steel barge, which necessitated extra trips. One day we were stuck for five hours off Cape Horn while we ran around with the light boat breaking new channels. I recall one particularly cold night we ran all night long in the channel to keep it open. We were relieved when the weather finally broke in mid-February and the ice would dissolve under a warm south wind. Above and below courtesy of Aline Winje<\/span><\/p>\n Henning von Krogh also found the following in the Slocan Swami <\/em>newsletter: Jan. 16, 1979: [T]he lake is frozen over fairly solidly from Slocan up to the Silverton viewpoint, Silverton bay is lightly frozen and there are pads of ice floating between Silverton and New Denver. In the ten years we have been in New Denver this is only the second time that the lake has frozen so much \u2026 <\/em> Summary.<\/strong> Ice has formed in appreciable quantities on Slocan Lake at least ten times since 1891: in 1899, 1907, 1916, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1937, 1950, 1957, and 1979. It may have also happened in 1901-02, 1938, 1942, 1948, and 1970. It probably didn\u2019t happen in 1894. It did not happen in 1898.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SLOCAN LAKE This gem of a lake provides the best kayaking in the WK. It is 39 km long and up to 2 km wide. Because it is very deep, up to 970 feet, it rarely freezes in the winter. … Continue reading
\nOne other reference from The Vancouver Sun <\/em>of April 12, 1937: \u201cAfter several unsuccessful attempts in past weeks to break the ice on Slocan Lake between Slocan City and Silverton, the tug Rosebery<\/em> made through to the lake-head town Wednesday and brought back a barge load.\u201d
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\n1938.\u00a0<\/strong>Did the lake freeze? Undetermined.\u00a0The evidence: The Arrow Lakes Archives has the following photo with this caption: \u201cA view of the ice on Slocan Lake taken March 1, 1938, from CP wharf at New Denver. Ice 17 inches thick.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n1942.\u00a0<\/strong>Did the lake freeze? Undetermined. The evidence: It\u2019s well documented that the winter of 1942 was harsh, especially for Japanese Canadians interned in the Slocan Valley who lived in tents or hastily constructed shacks. Ron Hotchkiss describes it in Diamond Gods of the Morning Sun: The Vancouver Asahi Baseball Story<\/em><\/a>: That winter Slocan Lake froze. Between the end of October and the beginning of February, 82 inches of snow fell. The only paths were trenches that went to the nearest neighbour or to the outhouse. Roads were blocked, mail was held up and water pipes froze. Young people bundled up, and with ice skates dangling over their shoulders trudged to the skating rink.
\n<\/em>No mention of skating on the lake. This is the only reference I can find to the lake freezing in 1942. A search of the New Canadian<\/em> newspaper turned up nothing.
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\n1950.\u00a0<\/strong>Did the lake freeze? Yes.\u00a0The evidence: The Arrow Lakes News<\/em> of Feb. 9 reported that due to the build-up of ice, the CPR \u201chas placed an embargo on operations of steamers on the Arrow and Slocan Lakes until weather conditions permit more easy operations.\u201d
\nAs alluded to by Sumi Kinoshita, the icing over of the lake led to tragedy: on Feb. 19, Maurice Gordon, 14, and Tommy Steele, 12, fell through the ice at Silverton and drowned. This story appeared the next day on the front page of the Nelson Daily News:<\/p>\n
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\n1970.\u00a0<\/strong>Did the lake freeze? Undetermined.\u00a0The evidence: All I have to go on is the Valhalla Pure map mentioned at the beginning. However, the Slocan Swami <\/em>of Feb. 27, 1979, indicated the lake froze at some point in the previous ten years, so this may well have been the year.
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\n1979.\u00a0<\/strong>Did the lake freeze? Yes.\u00a0The evidence: An ad placed by the Slocan Lake Stewardship Society in the Valley Voice<\/em> on Feb. 6, 2013, stated: \u201cLocal folks say the last time the lake froze over in 1979 was because it was so calm \u2014 no wind causing ripples to break up the developing ice. The other two documented freezeovers were in 1950 and 1928.\u201d Although we now know there were many more freeze-overs, 1979 does appear to be the last such event.
\nMy mother-in-law sent me two remarkable pictures seen below, both taken that year.<\/p>\n
\nFeb. 27, 1979: After the recent downpours, the lake is beginning to look decidedly smushy and slushy all over the place \u2013 once more raises the fascinating question of when will the ice go.<\/em><\/p>\n