Travel Destinations
 
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The Cootenay - Columbia Region
 The Kootenay-Columbia Region comprises the southeastern angle of British Columbia, with an area of about 40,000 square miles. The topography is mountainous, since the area includes the Rocky Mountain, Purcell, Selkirk and Monashee ranges, with their intervening trenches and transverse valleys. Transportation routes and practically all settlements are confined to these narrow lowlands. Because of the greater elevation of the mountain masses, the climate, on the whole, is more humid than that of the Fraser Uplands. Forests cover the mountain slopes to elevations of over 6,000 feet. Some of the valleys, however, are relatively dry, and irrigation is necessary for successful farming. Kirk1 has pointed out the correlation of elevation, moisture supply and vegetation in the Rocky Mountain Trench.
The region contains about eight percent of the population of the province. Mining is the most important industry. From Wells in the Cariboo Mountains, southeastward to Kimberley in the Purcell Mountains, through to Fernie in the Rocky Mountain area, mining dominates the scene. The early settlements were all mining camps, many of them have practically become "ghost towns", although a few, with larger resources, have become the small cities of the present day.
Lumbering is important locally, and the tourist trade continues to increase. Some farming is carried on in the valleys, while the lower slopes of the mountains are used, as well as the valleys, for the grazing of cattle and sheep.
There are few Canadian landscapes with more variety, or with such unique and welldifferentiated geographic personality. The "sea of mountains", topped by ice fields and snow capped peaks, the great longitudinal trenches with their rivers and lakes, the scattered farming settlements, power plants, mines and small cities combine to form one of the most scenic regions in North America, if not in the whole world.
The Doukhobors
The numerous Doukhobor settlements of the Kootenay, Columbia and Kettle valleys are a peculiar feature of the cultural landscape. These Russian-speaking people came, first, to the Canadian prairies in the 1890's. A little later, a number of them moved to the interior valleys of British Columbia, believing that the isolation would help them to preserve, intact, their religious tenets and their peculiar communal way of living. All real estate is owned, and all outside business is done, by the community, through its leaders. Canadian ideas have been rather slow to penetrate the community, even though school attendance is compulsory.
One sect, "the Sons of Freedom", has caused a great deal of trouble, burning homes, schools and other public buildings, and staging nude parades in the nearby settlements. Their actions are repudiated by the community, which is unable to exercise any control over them.
There are, also, many independent Doukhobors. Although still holding similar religious beliefs, they have left the community to follow a more Canadian way of life as independent farmers, or as industrial workers in the nearby towns.
Doukhobor settlements are conspicuous by reason of their house type. The houses resemble the large, square, plain, two-storey wooden farmhouses common in Eastern Ontario. They stand in pairs, while behind them is a large quadrangle, enclosed by one-storey sheds, which also contain living quarters. Each of these "villages" usually has a population of about forty persons, constituting a multiple-family group. Each village is presided over by a headman, who is responsible to the community headquarters.
The community headquarters, located at Brilliant, overlooks the junction of the Kootenay and Columbia Rivers. Here, in addition to residences, halls and offices, a large packing and canning plant was built by the community. The tomb of Peter Verigin, former leader of the colony, sits on the hillside above.
Although they have attempted to carry on somewhat the same type of irrigated farming as other settlers in these valleys, their agricultural techniques have been rather primitive, and the full development of their lands has been retarded. The presence of this unassimilated group is, also, to be regarded as a distinct problem in the social organization of the region.
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