The Basin Record Newsletter Vol.6 Issue 1

Published by the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History CBIRH Newsletter : Vol. 6 No.1 Kimberley and Rossland A Mirror of Development and Growth In April, 2017 the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History (CBIRH) received $265,000 in project funding to examine the common elements shared by two Kootenay communities – Rossland (West Kootenay) and Kimberley (East Kootenay). Major co-operating partners in this undertaking are the Kimberley District Heritage Society and the Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre which are contributing more than 3,000 historical photographs from their collections. The research will explore common elements of these communities such as resource development and depletion, the desire each community had for survival and change, and the results that are seen today. The rich history and energy of both communities will be celebrated. The project will strive to build a sense of common identity across mountain ranges, a sense that Basin culture is real and unifies us. The results of this project will be made available to the public through a series of temporary displays to be placed in Rossland, Kimberley and Cranbrook. As well, two large digital exhibits with accompanying text will be created. These electronic exhibits will be kept on-line for everyone’s use at www.basininstitute.org . The funding partners for this work are B.C’s Ministry of Social Development & Social Innovation along with the East Kootenay Employ- ment Centre. THE CBIRH has also supplied funding. In-kind partners are the two museums who have so generously made available to the public significant portions of their historic photo collections. This project is intended to make community history more popular and appealing by making new resources available for public examination. We hope to expose the world to the tenacity and vision that has brought both Kimberley and Rossland forward into a new economy and culture. “A Mirror” will let us all reflect on the roots of our hardworking mining existence and its transformation into the outdoor playground of today. 926 Baker St #3, Cranbrook, BC V1C 1A5 | Telephone: 1-844-550-9150 | E-mail: info@basininstitute.org Yearbooks for the Basin Record The “Legacy of Learning” project remains one of the strongest growing collections at the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History (CBIRH). With the help of School District #5, every copy of the Mount Baker Viewpoint has been cataloged, and each one is gradually making its way to the website. While the published year- books currently include selections from Cran- brook, Fernie, Waldo, Sparwood, and Elkford, there are still hundreds of yearbooks from a dozen schools yet to track down. If you should happen to live in the Columbia Basin region and want to see your yearbook made famous on the internet, the good folks at CBIRH would be happy to oblige. The Viewpoint has been published every year since 1920, even going so far as to produce up to four volumes per year in its early days as a school newspaper. Paid for by advertisements from local shops and businesses, the original Viewpoint was a full school effort and a community product. With few photographs, the early Viewpoint strove to inform the public on the happenings of the school year. A typical issue included sections devoted to sports, literary efforts, a social page, poetry, and jokes. As with anything worth retaining, the Viewpoint has adapted to the changing times, slowly morphing from the newsletter it was into the yearbook it is, complete with a photographic rendering of every student in any given year. As one skims from volume to volume, it is hard not to become lost in the whirlwind of eras, styles, and a spirit of the times. Each year sees new additions to the makeup of what the Viewpoint sees as its duty to offer. By 1925, five years into its life, the editorial staff included a page for the signing of autographs. Three years later, in 1928, a photo of the graduating class was included as part of the Viewpoint roster. It wasn’t until 1945 that group photos of the junior classes were included, and not until 1963 that individual school photos of the junior classes were adopted to replace the group shots of each separate division. With the outset of the forties, the Viewpoint saw the beginning of the end to its quarterly print- ings, instead becoming a single annual issue printed at the end of year. Today, we are more familiar with the glossy pages and digital photographs we’ve come to expect in a yearbook. Few people take the time out to write a poem specifically for the Viewpoint , and there is so seldom a proper editorial letter. What can be found in the “Legacy of Learning” project is all the wonder and intrigue of the past, complete with a few familiar faces (should you happen to be local) and a number of dated but hilarious jokes. Taken from the pages of the humor section of the 1926 Graduation edition of the Viewpoint : ‘A sign we would like to see in our classrooms- “Smoking in two rear rows.”’ Oh how the times have changed. Visit the CBIRH website today to take a look back through nine decades of local school history. On the home page, select the category “Collections” and scroll down to collection #2250; you will find articles, as well as most editions of Viewpoint . The jokes may be off-colour, but the excitement is crystal clear.