1909 Brick Courthouse Located In Kamloops British Columbia (Heritage Building - 4 Pictures)

Above Photo: 1909 Brick Courthouse Kamloops, British Columbia.

As my wife and I continued our travels in November 2015 throughout British Columbia, our next stop was at my daughter’s home. It is always nice to be there visiting with my daughter, son-in-law and my two grandchildren.

Since we were in Kamloops, and knowing some of the history there, I figured this was a good time to check out some of their heritage sites.

At our first stop, it was the 1909 brick courthouse located at 7 Seymour Street West. It is just beautiful and is a must see when traveling to Kamloops. I took a lot of photos of the courthouse, and I hope you will enjoy looking at them. I also visited other placed in Kamloops, so I will be posting photos and information on these as well over the winter months.

Above Photo: 1909 Brick Courthouse Kamloops, British Columbia.

The information directly below came off a plaque that was on display in from to the courthouse.

Kamloops Old Heritage Courthouse.

7 Seymour Street West.

One of Kamloops’ most notable and well known heritage buildings is the grand brick and stone three-story building located on the edge of the city’s West End.

In 1883, Kamloops became a judicial seat for the County of Yale, and a new courthouse was needed. A wood frame courthouse and jail was built across the street at the corner of 1st Avenue and Victoria Street West. In 1905, when Kamloops was established as a judiciary seat, yet another courthouse was needed and that was when plans for this brick courthouse were developed.

Above Photo: 1909 Brick Courthouse Kamloops, British Columbia.

Architects Honeyman and Curtis designed the courthouse. They also designed several other courthouses in B.C., but they are especially known for their work on the Empress Hotel in Victoria. The elaborate stained glass windows were designed by C. Bloomfield, who also designed the windows of the BC Legislative Buildings.

The Court House was built using local brick and imported granite and slate. It is Provincial Gothic in style and features a slate roof, rolled copper roof ridge, balustrades, parapeted gables, turret, cupola, oriel windows, cornerstone quoins and accents, and heraldic arms. Inside there is a ceramic mosaic entrance floor, oak and fir doors, and juror’s box.

Above Photo: 1909 Brick Courthouse Kamloops, British Columbia.

Location map for 1909 Brick Courthouse Kamloops British Columbia.

Heritage Walking Tour - City of Kamloops - PDF File: 

http://www.kamloops.ca/pdfs/brochures/HeritageWalkingTour.pdf

Additional Information from Canada's Historic Places - Old Kamloops Courthouse.

http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=12791

When planning your vacation to Kamloops, please visit 

Tourism Kamloops, British Columbia Homepage at: 

http://www.tourismkamloops.com/the-old-courthouse-cultural-centre

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CN Railway Bridge And Scenery From Around Houston British Columbia (8 Pictures)

Above Photo: Picture taken from Houston, British Columbia of the Telkwa Mountain range.

Yesterday, November 23, 2015 I had a little time to kill as I dropped my wife off at the doctors, so I thought I would make a quick trip around town to see what might make a good photo.

I revisited a couple of areas to show how winter’s icy grip is starting to settle in with the Bulkley River starting to ice over. 

Above Photo: Picture taken from Houston, British Columbia of the snow capped 

Telkwa Mountain range.

The CN Railway bridge always has looked like a nice place to snap a photo from, so I did.

Above Photo: The CN Railway bridge and the Pleasant Valley Highway bridge over the icy 

Bulkley river in Houston, British Columbia.

I am 64 years of age and I have seen a lot of wonderful places across this great province of ours, but you don’t ever have to go far from home to see the beauty that is

surrounding us all in British Columbia. 

Above Photo: Picture taken from Houston, British Columbia of the snow capped 

Telkwa Mountain range and the icy Bulkley river.

I truly love this province and what it has to offer us all, and if you are wondering where to go on your next holiday, come visit us in Houston, B.C. 

Above Photo: Picture taken from Houston, British Columbia of the Bulkley river, Highway 16 and the CN Railway bridge.

Above Photo: Picture taken from Houston, British Columbia of the icy Bulkley river, Highway 16 and looking back towards the town.

Above Photo: The CN Railway bridge taken from the Pleasant Valley Highway bridge over the icy 

Bulkley river in Houston, British Columbia.

Above Photo: Picture taken from Houston, British Columbia of a train crossing the 

CN Railway bridge.

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Thompson River Canyon In British Columbia (14 Pictures/Video)

Above Photo: Below is the Thompson River In British Columbia.

One thing I have always enjoyed is traveling along Highway 1 (Trans Canada Highway) through this dry climate. It is so different from here in Houston, B.C. where we are surrounded by green coniferous trees. 

In this drier area what you will see are tumbleweeds, rugged pine and mountains of rock. Also when driving the Highway, keep an eye out for sand hoodoos, as seen in some of my pictures.

Above Photo: Sand hoodoos above the Thompson River.

Above Photo: Blow up of the sand hoodoos picture above the Thompson River.

There isn't much in the way of precipitation throughout the year. Summer temperatures can exceed 35°C (110°F) and in the winter months normally it doesn't seem to get the really cold temperatures and there is very little snowfall.

In one of the pictures my wife took from the car is a Canadian Pacific Railway train traveling through the area. Also on the other side of the river runs the Canadian National Railway. 

Above Photo: Empty Canadian Pacific Railway coal train.

I did manage to take a short video of a empty Canadian Pacific Railway coal train and I posted it to YouTube. You can find the video clip at the below web address.

Canadian Pacific Railway coal train video:

https://youtu.be/eaUyKE7GZ1c

If you enjoy camping or stopping for a picnic lunch, then there is a beautiful area right along side the Thompson River called Goldpan Provincial Park.

Above Photo: Thompson River Canyon and the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Goldpan Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located on the Trans-Canada Highway between Lytton and Spences Bridge, on the Thompson River. The park has camping above the highway and a picnic area and riverfront below.

Goldpan Provincial Park website.

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/goldpan/

Directions to Goldpan Provincial Park (Map)

Above Photo: Picture shows how dry it is with tall dry grass and pine trees.

Canadian Northern Pacific's Last Spike.

Canada's third trans-continental rail link was completed near Basque on January 23, 1915. In a simple ceremony the last spike was driven, witnessed by a small group of engineers and workmen.

The line later became part of the Federal Government's consolidated 

Canadian National Railways system.

Province of British Columbia. (1967)

The below text is from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_River

At Kamloops, the combined Thompson River river flows 15 km from the confluence of the North and South Thompson Rivers before reaching Kamloops Lake, which is roughly 30 km in length, ending at the town of Savona. From there it flows in a meandering course westwards through a 

broad valley area. 

Above Photo: A twisted dried out Pine tree.

At Ashcroft, the Thompson Canyon begins and the river turns southwestward to its confluence with the Fraser. The river is paralleled by the Trans-Canada Highway, the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian National Railway.

Above Photo: A twisted dried out Pine tree and low cloud ceiling.

From Ashcroft to Lytton, the river is completely confined within Thompson Canyon, making for spectacular scenery. The Thompson River joins the Fraser River in Lytton. There is a striking stretch of dark black cliffside just downstream from Ashcroft and visible from the Logan Lake-Ashcroft highway is officially-named the Black Canyon. 

Just below the town of Spences Bridge was the site of a major rail disaster in the early 20th Century. Communities along this section are Bighorn, Shaw Springs, and Goldpan.

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Highway 97 Older Buildings From Williams Lake To Prince George British Columbia (Pictures)

Above Photo: Between Williams Lake and 

Prince George, British Columbia along Highway 97.

Continuing on our trip from mid November 2015  and in-between Williams Lake and Prince George, British Columbia along Highway 97 are the last of my old building photos. There are so many buildings I would have liked to stop at, but we had to move on as darkness creeps in faster these days.

Above Photo: Blow Up - Between Williams Lake and 

Prince George, British Columbia along Highway 97.

In 2016 we will again follow the same route and take photos of what I missed, and a lot more new ones. Also it would be nice to take a trip down throughout the Kootenay region of British Columbia. This is one area of the province I have never visited, plus I owe my friends Wayne and Jayne radio hosts for EZ Rock Trail a lunch.

With winter starting to get a foot hold in my home town of Houston, B.C., 

the snowfall photos should be great. 

Above Photo: Between Williams Lake and 

Prince George, British Columbia along Highway 97.

We have such a great province and it seems around every corner we find 

something wonderful to look at.

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Fraser Canyon British Columbia (Photos)

Above Photo: The Yale Tunnel, 286 metres long, just 1.5 km east of Yale.

The Fraser Canyon is an 84 km landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser Canyon" is often used to include the Thompson Canyon from Lytton to Ashcroft, since they form the same highway route which most people are familiar with, although it is actually reckoned to begin above Williams Lake, British Columbia at Soda Creek Canyon near the town of the same name.

Above Photos: My wife took a couple of pictures when driving through the tunnels.

Geology:

The canyon was formed during the Miocene period (23.7–5.3 million years ago) by the river cutting into the uplifting Interior Plateau. From the northern Cariboo to Fountain, the river follows the line of the huge Fraser Fault, which runs on a north-south axis and meets the Yalakom Fault a few miles downstream from Lillooet. 

Exposures of lava flows are present in cliffs along the Fraser Canyon. They represent volcanic activity in the southern Chilcotin Group during the Pliocene period and the volcanic vents of their origins have not been discovered.

Above Two Photos: The mighty Fraser River winds it’s way through the canyon far below.

Geography:

The canyon extends 270 kilometres (170 mi) north of Yale to the confluence of the Chilcotin River. Its southern stretch is a major transportation corridor to the Interior from "the Coast", with the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways and the Trans-Canada Highway carved out of its rock faces, with many of the canyon's side-crevasses spanned by bridges and trestles. 

Above Photo: Spawning salmon statues mark the ends of the Alexandra Bridge.

Prior to the double-tracking of those railways and major upgrades to Highway 1 (the Trans Canada Highway), travel through the canyon was even more precarious than it is now. During the frontier era it was a major obstacle between the Lower Mainland and the Interior Plateau, and the slender trails along its rocky walls - many of them little better than notches cut into granite, with a few handholds - were compared to goat-tracks.

North of Lytton, it is followed by BC Highway 12, then from Lillooet to Pavilion by BC Hwy 99 (the farther end of the Sea-to-Sky Highway, though not carrying that name in this area). The British Columbia Railway (the BC Railway is now owned and operated by the CN) line follows the same stretch of canyon from Lillooet to just beyond Pavilion. 

Above Photo: A deep canyon with a small fast moving creek at the bottom. 

It eventually flows into the Fraser River.

Between there and the mouth of the Chilcotin River there are only rough ranching roads, and the terrain is a mix of canyon depths flanked by arid benchland and high plateau. Between Pavilion and Lillooet, the river's gorge is at its maximum depth, with the river throttled through a series of narrow gorges flanked by high cliffs, though still flanked above those cliffs by wide benchlands which stand on the foreshoulder of the mountain ranges flanking the gorge.

Hells Gate:

At Hells Gate, near Boston Bar, the canyon walls rise about 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) above the rapids. Fish ladders along the river's side permit migrating salmon to bypass a rockslide that diverted the river during the blasting of the Canadian Northern Railway line in 1913. The area around Hell's Gate carries the name Black Canyon, which may either be a reference to the colour of the rocks when it rains, or the name of a community built on the cliffsides here during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. 

Above Photo: Cisco Bridges - CPR bridge (black) in foreground, CNR bridge (orange arch) in background. Photo facing upriver. Also a railway tunnel to the left side of the picture.

Today there is a specially-built air-tram, like the kind used in ski resorts, which takes tourists down to Hells Gate, where visitors may view the fish ladders as well as the boiling rush of the Fraser's waters. A set of tourist pavilions with shops and café now occupies the site of the workmen's housing seen in the accompanying image.

View of Hells Gate looking across to east bank, with a CPR steam locomotive in background passing old railway housing, c.1945

At Siska, a few minutes south of Lytton, there are the Cisco bridges—a pair of railway bridges at the throat of a rocky gorge. From south to north, the Canadian Pacific has been on the west side of the canyon, while the Canadian National has been on the east side. Here Cisco (Skiska), the two railways switch sides: the CP—(520-foot (160 m))-long truss bridge—crosses to the east, the CN—on a 810-foot (250 m) steel-arched bridge over the CP—is now on the west. 

The two railways now have an agreement to allow directional running through the canyon as far as Basque. All eastbound trains—CN, CP, and Via Rail's eastbound Canadian—run on the CP line. All westbound trains—CN, CP, Via Rail's westbound Canadian—use the CN tracks.

The above source information was provided Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_Canyon

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108 Mile House Ranch Heritage Site In British Columbia (23 Pictures)

Above Photo: 108 Mile Ranch House.

From an earlier post I spoke about a trip my wife and I went on in early November 2015, we were traveling through a number of British Columbia communities and we stopped at the 108 Mile Ranch and Heritage Site. The heritage site I referred it to being one of 

British Columbia's gems, and it truly is.

Above Photo: The 108 Mile House Heritage Site welcomes travelers.

When we stopped, it was the off season, so we were not able to tour through the buildings, but just stand looking at the buildings gives you that feeling from the past. The members of the 100 Mile and District Historical Society have out done themselves by putting together such an amazing display for us all. The hard work that has gone into building up of this site is truly remarkable. 

Above 2 Photos: In the two photographs it shows the longest log Clydesdale barn in Canada with the 108 Mile lake in the background.

Above Photo: The information sign tells you about what is in the 108 Mile House area.

The 108 Mile House Heritage Site opens on the May Long Weekend from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and runs through to Labour Day in September and I would encourage anyone who is going to be traveling through the area of the 108 Mile Ranch, stop and tour the Heritage Site, it is an amazing look at British Columbia’s past.

The Heritage site also has a great rest site, with lots of parking, clean heated washrooms, picnic tables throughout the site, so bring along a lunch and stretch your legs and enjoy this treasure.

Above Photo: 1962 Mack truck used at the Ainsworth Lumber Co. LTD. 

100 Mile House British Columbia.

The below information comes off of the 108 Mile Ranch - The Heritage site sign which is displayed in front of the Heritage site.

108 Mile Ranch - The Heritage.

The 108 began as a post house on the Cariboo Trail in 1867, the year of confederation.

During the next thirty-six years the property changed hands several times as various entrepreneurs provided services, including murder for the gold.

Above Photo: The chapel where folks got married in and where they went to worship.

In 1903 captain Geoffry Watson purchased district lot 76, a 320 acre spread as beautiful as any in the new west, which became home to a championship line of Clydesdale horses until his death, while serving in World War 1.

With the lumber boom in the 50's select fir was harvested. Stumps four and five feet in diameter remain as testimony to the dry belt giants of yesteryear.

Above Photo: These are some of the older buildings that are present on the heritage site.

It was the time of the last frontier, of wide open spaces, dark stands of evergreen and graceful groves of white-trunked aspen, of shinning lakes and the big, empty sky above. The human population was sparse, rugged pioneers scattered over a seemingly endless expanse of wilderness.

The 108 continued to sustain a mixture of cattle ranching and lumbering until 1969, when it was purchased by Henry Block.

Development:

While areas of "the ranch" were developed as residential and others as airport, resort and recreational facilities, care was taken to preserve the integrity of the landscape.

Above Photo: Some of the old equipment used around the ranch.

Fifteen hundred acres of greenbelt were set aside. A legacy of parkland unique in British Columbia, if not in the whole of Canada.

Today:

Over the years increasing numbers of people have been attracted to the lure of living in harmony with nature and to the abundance of recreational opportunities.

Above Photo: Some of the old equipment used around the ranch and the church 

where people went to worship.

Today the 108 Mile Ranch continues to grow, and to nurture a deep love for this 

land we call the Cariboo.

Above Photo: 108 Mile Ranch House.

Above Photo: Picnic tables throughout the heritage site, so bring a lunch and enjoy the sights. Also in the distance a beautiful covered bridge.

Above Photo: Besides the buildings, there is a nice paved parking area, with lots of room.

Above Photo: Picnic tables throughout the heritage site, so bring a lunch and enjoy the sights.

Above Photo: Picnic tables throughout the heritage site, so bring a lunch and enjoy the sights.

Above Photo: The rest area with heated clean restroom.

108 Mile House Heritage Site website: 

http://www.historical.bc.ca/main.html

108 Mile Ranch (This is the location of the 108 Mile House Heritage Site)

Google Maps. You can pan around to see the Heritage Site.

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