A chance to retell it
The People of the Harrison
by Daphne Sleigh
Harrison Mills: Fraser Heritage Society (book for sale at Kilby Historic Site), 2021 (1st printing 1990)
$24.95 / 9780973538519
Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes
*
This past summer was spent travelling close to home. As crossing the border to the south became less and less appealing, and our Lower Mainland businesses were seeking custom, perhaps more than ever, it made sense to explore my own backyard as it were. Family trips tended to go slightly east of Vancouver, to Chilliwack, to Langley, and, for a few days’ stay, Harrison Hot Springs. It was while finding a bed for the night at the historic Harrison Hot Springs Resort, and meandering the halls of the nearly one-hundred-year-old hotel, that I caught the archive photography lining the halls, and gained more of an appreciation of the history of tourism in Harrison by the lake.
A day trip to nearby Kilby Historic Site (est. 1906) found my family petting pigs, learning how to make butter on the farm, and picking through the old packaging of goods displayed in the museum housed in the Kilby General Store. It was while leaving that I saw a pile of Daphne Sleigh’s history The People of the Harrison, recently republished. Often you come across a history, written by a devoted local historian, for sale in the gift shop, and this time I’d decided to buy a copy, and read about how this place, Harrison Mills, and a tourism industry at Harrison, came to be.
Daphne Sleigh has made a good effort in addressing the Indigenous past of the region in this updated version of her book. Her preface not only expresses her delight in seeing her local history book having a new lease, but it also includes, and notes, changes in how Indigenous names are perceived since 1990 when the original book was self-published. “The most significant change is in the use of the name ‘Sq’ewlets’ for “Scowlitz” and ‘Sts’ailes’ for ‘Chehalis.’” It would appear that Daphne Sleigh also has made note of the growing population of the Harrison area in the previous thirty years, including during a recent housing boom, and saw an opportunity to add to newcomers’ knowledge of the area’s history by providing an updated version of her book. This is an enviable opportunity for any historian.
Although Sleigh adeptly describes historic figures such as Acton Kilby and notes the early industry of the area at places such as Rat Portage Mill, it’s the description of the development of tourism that appealed most to me, given my stay at the time in Harrison Lake’s famous hotel. There are thorough descriptions of the transformation of the lakeshore from St. Alice Hotel to the Harrison Hot Springs Resort.
No small contribution is the addition of maps created by Sleigh’s husband Francis, including that of a wide map featuring the watershed of the Harrison River, noting the entire length of the lake, an insert of the now-gone road-building community of Port Douglas (located at the north of Harrison Lake) in the 1860s, Harrisonmouth in the early 1870s, later Harrison Mills in the 1910s, noted changes in Harrison Hot Springs in the 1890s to the 1930s and Morris Valley in the 1900s, pointing out the location of pre-emptions by new settlers.
Which leads nicely into mentioning the historian’s meticulous development of the stories of settlers such as George Morris, whose story was pieced together using “scanty records.” Sleigh adds her refreshing take on the lonely settler’s wish to find union with a partner from the local First Nations community, and noting how the results of that union are present today. “Like most of the early rural settlers he would probably have looked for a wife among the Indigenous women of the district, and this assumption is supported by a brief reference to Morris and a Sts’ailes wife in the same historical article which told of Hans and his fish-curing business. This information – which is the only reference to Morris outside of the official records – evidently came from the same First Nations people who supplied the other stories to the writer of the article. Interestingly, there is a Morris family among today’s Sq’ewlets people, but their family tree does not reach quite far enough back into the 19th century to establish a connection,” writes Sleigh. Although that connection may not be watertight, it makes for satisfying reading, noting Sleigh’s sleuthing in to the past, looking for those similarities and peaceful connections between settlers and First Nations.
There were also connections made between Morris Valley farmers and the fledgling tourism centre being created at Harrison Lake, as they would supply the St. Alice Hotel with milk, eggs, and butter. Other industries would cause the communities nearby to bloom: salmon hatcheries, mining, logging, and lumber mills would create employment. This originated prior to the roads travellers enjoy today. There are hints throughout the book as to how those roads came to be, routes extended through the trade from these farms, such as the Morris Valley Road and Dewdney Trunk. But it was a reminder that, in the latter part of the 19th century, “the Morris Valley settlers remained in isolation.”
In as much as this book is an overview of Harrison’s history, aspects of which having been described in recent books by historians Nancy Marguerite Anderson and Daniel Marshall, this is a thorough and valuable history, for its delving into the newspapers of the time and its collection of titles in the source notes, including the tales set in the area by popular historical novelist of the time Bertrand Sinclair. This newer edition of The People of the Harrison also has much value in how it does as the title suggests: it investigates and describes the lives of the people, Indigenous or settler, that have made the area home, and does so in the historical contexts of their lives, which were far more difficult than ours today.
As I wandered the halls of the historic buildings of the Harrison Hot Springs Resort last summer (noting its 100th anniversary was to take place in 2026), I noted the photos framed with care in the hallway leading to the in-house nightclub The Copper Room, which was first opened in 1950. How much of a treat must it have been to have travelled from Vancouver and arrived in a jitney to enjoy a getaway at Harrison Lake in the 1920s or 1930s. Daphne Sleigh’s book, along with the archive photography on display at the resort, made me wonder about what peoples’ lives were like in those days, what their struggles were during The Great Depression, and take note of how a simple jaunt east for us today would have been a grand adventure for early Vancouverites.
*
The latest book by Trevor Marc Hughes is The Final Spire: ‘Mystery Mountain’ Mania in the 1930s. He wrote the story of the first ascent of Canada’s tallest peak, Capturing the Summit: Hamilton Mack Laing and the Mount Logan Expedition of 1925. He is currently the non-fiction editor for The British Columbia Review and recently reviewed books by Michael J. Fox and Nelle Fortenberry, John Firth, Richard Butler, Wade Davis, David Bird (ed.), and Ian Kennedy. He lives in Vancouver
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster