I’ve now spent 60 some years living in this valley. I’ve come and gone a lot, to university, to jobs, but most of my life has been here. I have a lot of stories about it. Sometimes, it’s odd to drive a “mainer” in Creston and then continue out the lake road to my farm. It’s like driving through a pastiche of memories: that store used to be my uncle’s bakery, there was the Grand Theatre, that was the butcher shop, there was the Greyhound bus depot where I used to catch the bus home after basketball practice.
And driving the lake road is much the same; past the many dreams that people had, that have moved, changed, shifted. There are the rock walls built by the Pascuzzo family, the many houses built by friends, now sold or empty, driveways that were once as familiar as my own, walks I took and lands I knew. This is a nostalgic but rich experience for me and I love the depth of my life here and the stories I have to tell. If there is someone to listen.
I’ve taught memoir writing for years and I tell people everyone should write a memoir. It’s not about writing, it’s about how easily family stories or community stories, community history, get lost. We don’t really have a good way in our society to hand down stories. I have not only my own stories about living here, I have my parents’ and a few of my grandparents’ stories as well. I’m conscious of this as a responsibility — something to pass on to my grandchildren or other people who are interested.
This valley can be a hard place for newcomers to understand if they don’t know at least a bit of the history. Creston is, at its heart, a farming town and has always been a farming town since the settlers arrived. It can look a bit dull at times, but underneath, it’s a fine place. Mining and logging opened up this part of B.C. but farmers took one look at the rich uplands of Erickson, Canyon and Lister and knew they had found a good place to grow stuff. Plans were almost immediately underway to dike the Creston flats, which took a long time and failed at least twice. My mother used to catch the CPR sternwheeler just below Creston, ride it to Balfour, catch the train to Castlegar, and then ride another sternwheeler through the Arrow Lakes to Nakusp to visit her father, who, because he was a saw filer, moved from sawmill to sawmill for his work. Once, the area below Creston was a huge wetland that grew wild rice and ducks, which the Ktunaxa people harvested. Salmon ran up the Columbia River and its tributaries.
But the flats were diked and drained and then the “bird people”, as Dick Staples calls them, saw Duck Lake and called for a halt to the diking and so what we now know as Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area was born. I was going to school in Sirdar at that time in a one-room classroom with seven grades and one teacher, Miss Hazel Hare, who made us lunch every day, played her violin for us and organized fantastic Christmas concerts to which everyone came. Sirdar was once bigger than Creston, and the rail yard, the train station, the water tower and the roundtable for swinging the engines around were all still there. They made a mighty fine playground.
The hillsides from Creston to Boswell were once planted with apple orchards. The flats grew grain and hay and peas. My grandfather imported trainloads of horses to pull the combines. My father’s first job was at 12, combining peas on the Creston flats. Almost everyone grows something.
So now, as a newcomer, you have to know how to shop in Creston; not everything is in the stores. You have to find out who has the chickens, the eggs, the beef, the homegrown turkeys, the best peaches, the free apricots, plums and pears. I’ve bought a riding saddle at the hospital, organic chicken at the rec centre, and every summer, my grandson and I have to make this difficult decision driving home to the farm. Which is better, the soft ice cream at Wynndel Foods, or the ice cream cones at Stone Cold Ice Cream, where they also, incidentally, sell gravestones? And where else do you get your pizza at the sheet metal store, or your wool socks at the welder’s?
For me, the colour and attraction in Creston is not whether it has cool coffee shops (it does) or an aura of glamour. It’s in the depth and connection of the people here, families who came and settled and are still here. It takes a while to figure out that most people are related to someone else here, that they are warm and friendly but busy, that if you volunteer for anything, everyone is grateful and you can be president of whatever club it is right away.
It’s easy to be part of this community. Just be prepared to talk about gardening or the weather. Or animals. That will get you through almost any conversation. Listen to the small talk at the farmers’ market or the coffee shop to find out where to buy eggs or meat. Volunteer for something. Grow something. Soon enough, you’ll have your own fund of Creston Valley stories to tell.
Award-winning author Luanne Armstrong is a longtime resident of the Creston Valley. The Voice of Experience is a column co-ordinated by the Therapeutic Activation Program for Seniors.
