Idaho Peak FSR - Looking for Public Feedback....

The information below is from the Selkirk Natural Resource District road safety information page on the BC Gov website. We would encourage you all to read through the offered options and email your feedback to the included address. We have reached out to our members to help shape our own feedback as a stakeholder but feel it is important to engage as many interested folk as possible. Since the FSR was closed to the public, we and eager volunteers have endeavoured to keep the trails on Idaho Peak open to hikers and bikers but it has certainly been a struggle! Kudos to all those who have self-powered to the peak in the last five years!

'The Idaho Lookout FSR has been closed since June of 2020 due to fill slope failures and culvert washouts. The Selkirk District is currently doing engagement on options that are being considered to reestablish access to Idaho Lookout.

The options were developed in conjunction with the Ministry of Forests Engineering Branch, along with input from the Selkirk Resource District Engineering department. Ground truthing and feasibility studies have been completed over the last couple of years to identify the most reasonable options to reestablish access to Idaho Lookout.'

For location information and proposed routes, view the link at the bottom. In case it is not clear from the maps, options 2 and 3 would take out much of the existing trails H-Road and Choices.

The current options are:

Option 1 – A new bridge installed that would cross Carpenter Creek 2.5 km downstream of the current Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MoTI) access to Sandon. There would be 4.3 km of new road construction before the road would connect with the current FSR at 4.5 km

Option 2 – A new bridge installed crossing Carpenter Creek, and the road would connect with the MoTI access road to Sandon approximately 100 m from Highway 31A. There would be ten kilometres of new road, including fourteen switchbacks before the road would reconnect with the existing FSR

Option 3 – This would be the same new bridge as Option 4, and there would be 8.7 km of new road built with fifteen switchbacks and four gulley crossings, before reconnecting with the existing FSR

Option 4 - Repair the FSR in its current location where is has failed. This would also require private land acquisition that the road is currently in trespass on

Option 5 - Close and discontinue the FSR. This would require full road deactivation to the end of the FSR and Idaho Lookout would no longer be accessible

Public can provide comments for review on the planned work by email to FOR.SelkirkDistrictOffice@gov.bc.ca until February 28, 2025

Idaho Peak Options Summary - Map.pdf

Download PDF • 823KB

BC Heritage Week Event!

'和趣味 / Wa shumi: Japanese hobbies in Sandon, 1942–44'

This year's BC Heritage Week theme is 'Pastimes in Past Times.' Please join the Sandon Historical Society for a Heritage Week event exploring the various Japanese hobbies – or 和趣味 (*Wa shumi*) – that were practiced during the Nikkei internment in Sandon, 1942–1944. The event will be held at Sandon's K&S Station on BC Family Day; Monday, February 17, at 1 pm. We will briefly discuss the internment in Sandon before turning to the Wa shumi that were practiced within the Japanese-Canadian community there and other area internment sites in the 1940s.

While some hobbies may be familiar such as haiku, origami and judo, we will introduce other lesser known pastimes practiced in Sandon such as shigin, go and kendo. There will be some demonstrations and attendees can try their hand at several activities after the presentation.

Seating in the K&S Station will be limited so most folks should be prepared to stand and, while it will be heated inside, please dress warmly.

On behalf of the Sandon Historical Society, we hope to see you there!

The Alamo

Located appr. four miles west of Sandon along the old CPR grade - now Galena Trail - is the former community of Alamo. It began as a settlement surrounding the first concentrator mill built in the Slocan. Alamo had a post office, hotels, shops and all the usual amenities to be found in a community of 200 or more.

In 1918 Clarence Cunningham, an inventive, generous and much-loved local mining man, purchased the Alamo, Idaho and Queen Bess mines. He built a new concentrator mill, the finest in the country, and he became a millionaire over the next few years. Cunningham even built a beautiful mansion complete with English gardens on a bench above Alamo.

The Alamo mill was equipped to custom-mill ore that was brought in on the railway, and was constantly busy with Cunningham's own ore and that of others. An indication of the respect Cunningham was accorded was that when most other area mines were forced to stop production during a strike, Cunningham's men refused to walk out on him. Despite all his cleverness, wealth and the devotion of his workers, however, disaster loomed for Cunningham. As the 1930's dragged on, the Great Depression caused most mining activity in the Slocan to wither. Desperately, Cunningham invested more and more of his fortune in an effort to keep his mines active. It was said that if a man came to Cunningham with a 'hard luck story' he would not turn him away without a meal and a few dollars in his pocket. Sadly, Cunningham himself eventually died penniless.

Today, Alamo is a ghost town. Cunningham's great mill collapsed and the remains burned in 2018 leaving rusted metal machinery exposed. You can see the impressive site beside the cable car crossing on the Galena Trail.

The beautiful mansion above burned down many years ago although the collapsed stable block is still there. In a nod to the once beautiful gardens, daffodils pop up in the spring and then a large patch of striking, fragrant, yellow day lilies bloom on the bench with views of the New Denver glacier - the perfect spot for a picnic! On the second photo you can see the Old Sandon Road, now a trail, that ran between New Denver and Three Forks above the mill site and mansion.

The Alamo site can be reached by a half hour walk or bike ride along the old CP rail bed of the Galena Trail from Three Forks.