Contributed by Milt Parent
The Vipond family had, at the turn of the last century, lived and worked in the Lardeau, logging, operating mills there and later in Nakusp. One son was well remembered for his packing talent where he engineered the transport of hundreds of feet of cable by a string of horses to a mine up at Camborne. Another son, Ed, grew up in Nakusp and started work in the CPR station. After spending many years at the coast Ed put in countless hours collecting pictures and information of the Arrow Lakes to build a small archive of history for the Record Service in Victoria. His letters to old friends in Nakusp in his retirement are a great source of humour made even more interesting by the fact that he had first-hand involvement in the chronicles.
“I got permission from old George Keys to go aboard the Bonnington when she was out of service. I went into the Purser’s office and found an old tissue book of accounts. I saw where Horace Davies, the Purser, had carried an outstanding balance of $5 for all one season. This was closed out and then picked up again for the next season. This didn’t make sense to me. When I joined the audit department in 1944 I found on one of the Princess ships an account for Horace Davies. Now he used to be a big wheel and quite often gave me hell when I was working in the station. So Imet him one day and we went out for a drink. I asked him what this $5 business was all about. He said a woman came into his office this time and said she had lost her purse. She had her ticket in there and all her money. He hadn’t collected the tickets yet so he didn’t know if she had had one or not. He called in all the personnel on the boat and they started to search for it. None was found. She was heading for a place near Creston. He didn’t want to give her $5 out of his pocket so he took it out of the till. He sent in an explanation on the balance sheet but they sent him a notice back telling him he had to pay it. He wouldn’t so this showed up on every sheet for the year. Then about the third trip of the Bonnington a report was given saying that the toilet in the woman’s washroom wasn’t working. These toilets had their tanks way up above the toilet with a long chain on it. The toilet wouldn’t flush at all so he got a stepladder to look in it. Sure enough there was the purse. Horace got the purse, dried out all the contents including the ticket. He sent the remains to the powers-that-be in Montreal and they finally accepted the plea that the woman had lost her purse on the boat.”
“I used to drive ‘Old Jim’ (Jordan’s delivery horse) out to Iola Sage’s place. (Local prostitute whose house was at the east end of Broadway). This was to deliver groceries. Jim had a thing about going into reverse and when I finally got it through to him that I wanted him to back up he went into high gear, backwards, and of course Iola’s two-holer had to be right in the way and over she went. I don’t know who moved the faster, Jim and me getting out of there or Iola coming out the back door to tell me what she thought of me and all my relatives.”
“For years the sign on the Leland entrance door was spelt ‘Dinning Room.’ One time when I came out to Vancouver I went down to the mail office to see about something and I saw a sign that said ‘Sleeping and Dinning Car Dept.’ I thought this sign must have been painted by the same man.”
Burton 24th of May story. “On one occasion I got down there in someone’s launch, missed them coming home and Oscar Olson promised me a ride if I would ride on top of his gas tank which was behind the two single seats. To do this I had to blow my lungs out on a rubber tube to force gas to the engine every time we came to a hill. What a trip!” Humour came in many forms in the old days.
For a larger photo of the Vipond family, please visit us online at www.arrowlakesnews.com
