A short story by Robert Carlin (Son to James and Katherine Carlin) writing on his life compiled March 6, 1980.

 

I was born in Kandiychi, Minnesota, October 1896.  In 1898 my parents, baby sister (Mildred) and I moved to the millsite at Kault. My father James A. Carlin had been in B.C. several years prior to moving the family.  Our first house was quite close to the CPR rail Line.  I was on the veranda one day when a train was passing, the whistle blew a loud blast which frightened me, causing me to fall off and break my leg.  So this meant a trip to Kamloops.  My mother took me there via C.P.R. freight train, riding in the caboose. It was possible in those days in case of emergency to request this service - the C.P.R. was very obliging.

 

The doctors also used the C.P.R. freight or passenger trains, whichever came first, to answer their calls.  The roads then were just rough wagon trails, therefore the railway was the major link between towns.

The main method of travel in those days was the C.P.R.  We used to go to Kamloops occasionally, but got most of our supplies form the company store and as Salmon Arm developed, we shipped there also.  It was quite a drive with horses as the old road was all humps and hollows.  It was a whole days trips for Kault to Salmon Arm and back again.  When we began the farming in Kault and Tappen we used to churn butter and take it in to the S.A.F.E.  That was one of my jobs, to churn the butter after schooled and take it to Salmon Arm on Saturday. We churned about a hundred pounds a week.

 

My father was a superintendent of the Kault sawmill and area logging camps, and did most of his traveling by saddle horse.  We did not farm at Kault (where the Inn resides today) during the time he was in the lumber and logging business. The company had a variety of camps and when the timber petered out, the camps were moved to other areas.  I can remember three camp foremen.  Jack McKenzie's camp was at Carlin, right where Joe Sternberg now lives. (Dairy farm approx. 5km from the Inn).  McKenzie made that his future home and farm.  They logged off all that area above and around Carlin.  then there was Wm. Peacock's camp and sawmill, which was at the base of the hill where Wuori's now live.  The White Lake area was logged from this camp.  Peacock, after the logging was finished, farmed in the Notch Hill area.  Norman McLeod filled in as relief foreman.

 

My uncle, Michael Carlin and Fred Jones formed the Columbia River Lumber Company.  They owned a large mill at the Golden and smaller ones at Kault and Carlin (this is where Fraser Beach is now).  In order to have a inn at Peacock's camp they requested the C.P.R. to put in a siding and from it the company built a switch-back down the hill to Sternberg's place.  The track continued from there along the valley to Wuori's, which is maybe a couple of miles.  The C.P.R. named Carlin siding after my uncle, Michael Carlin.

When the Columbia River Lumber Company bought out the Genella Brothers they operated the steamboat Thompson for quite a few years.  It had originally been designed for passenger service and with the top deck on it, it wasn't satisfactory for towing logs in a high wind, so the Columbia River Company built the Florence Carlin.  It was built at the mill which was located on what is now Fraser's Beach.  It was constructed by Ed Woods who was a master steamboat builder.  He did a very good job.  I can remember being on the first trip the boat made.  For lunch we had cold tomatoes and bread and butter (what kids remember!).  The boat performed well; it was a paddlewheeler with a special device for towing logs.  The tow line went right over the back of the boat and was controlled from the pilot house.  The boat could be steered with the weight of the boom.

The horses hauled the logs to the top of the hill above Peacock's camp and from there the logs went down a chute into a pond near the mill.  A steam locomotive hauled the cars of lumber from the mill up the switchback to the siding.  Two carloads was the limit because of the steep grade.

 

There was no room for a passing track at Kault, so the C.P.R. bought one, 1 1/2 miles northwest of Kault and this was called Tappen siding (this area is still called Tappen).  It was named after the contractor who built that section of the railway.

The one C.P.R. wreck that I witnessed at Tappen was about 1912 or 13.  There was no operator at that time at Tappen.  Mr. Davis at Notch Hill was the operator at that time at Tappen.  Mr. Davis at Notch Hill was the operator on night duty that night He had been working long hours and had already received an order for an eastbound train to meet a westbound train at Tappen siding, when the brakeman or engineer on the eastbound train came in and asked for orders.  He said "I haven't got anything for you."  The train was hardly out of the Notch Hill yard when he remembered that he did have an order for him and knew he was in hot water.  The west bound train did have orders for a meet and was just about ready to pull into the Tappen switch when they saw the other train coming and naturally they figured it would stop.  The engineer and fireman on the eastbound had jumped and the fireman on the westbound had jumped out but the engineer was jumping when he was caught between the tender and the cab.  There were to carloads o cattle spilled, a carload of sugar was spread all over the country and a carload of settler's effects was smased and ruined.  They had to kill a lot of the cattle because they had broken legs and were otherwise badly hurt, while others were roaming and had to be rounded up.  Ted Joliffe was the name of the engineer who was killed.  The wreck was right on the line of our property and the Tappen Indian Reserve.  The first we knew that wreck had happened, was when I went at 6 AM to bring the cows form pasture.  The wrecking crews didn't arrive until several hours later.

 

My first school was at Tappen siding.  The teacher, Miss Preston, was quite a character and lived in a small log cabin nearly opposite where the Tappen Co-op store now is.  One night there were some your fellows (Howard family) who thought they would scare the life out of her.  They came around there raising heck, but she had a shot gun in the cabin and told them "If you fellows break in here you'll get loaded with shot for sure."  They never came back again.  She was an elderly woman and really a good teacher, and taught school there for a few years.  We would walk from Kault along the railroad track to Tappen siding, and that is where we went to school for a few years until the other school was built on what is no called Bolton Road, just up the hill from the Tappen Esso (just  1/4 mile from the Inn).  My four sisters, brother and I all attended that school.  I am the oldest and Doreen (Mrs. Pat Carroll of Tappen) is the youngest; Mildred Dooling now lives Cranbrook; Evelyn McMormick and Kathleen are in Vancouver and my brother Howard lives on Salt Spring Island.

 

My father bought property at Grindrod (between Salmon Arm and Enderby) in the early 1900's, it was mostly bush country at the time, but there were some settlers and farms in the area.  He acquired the land because there was valuable timber on it.  For several seasons he had a logging camp there, until they had logged off the best part of the timber.  All the logging then was done with horses, they would skid the logs in the winter time and pile them on the river bank.  When spring and high water came they drove the logs down river to Mara and Shuswap lakes, then boomed the logs and by towboat to the Adams River Lumber Company at Chase or wherever was the best price.

 

There were some serious setbacks in Grindrod.  I remember one winter when there was quite a crew of men who had cut and hauled 1,000 cords of wood which was piled at a small siding about 2 1/2 miles north of where  the Grindrod station was.  It was right in the heat of the summer , and they had started loading one car with the wood, when a big forest fire came up, burnt all the wood, burnt the car that was being loaded, also burnt out several small farms and one family had to run for their lives.  The family was the Knappe family who lived about 1/2 mile from the small siding.

 

Prior to World War I father sold the property (1300 acres) to North Coast Land Company of Vancouver for $50.00 an acre with a $10,000.00 down payment.  The Company's first project was to subdivide the property into various lots, including laying out the Grindrod townsite.  When the company finished the surveying they named the property "Carlin Orchards."  They did considerable amount of advertising and commenced selling lots with small down payments.  Sales weren't too brisk and the company commenced having financial problems.  The company was not keeping up with their payments, so father had to take legal court action to reclaim the property.  After regaining title he gradually began to develop some of the land, but one of the major portions was under water. He figured that it would be a good plan to drain this slough as it would make valuable land.

 

In order to do this quite a bit of preparation had to be done. Permission from the C.P.R. was required in order to put a ditch under the track that would drain the slough.  It was some time before father could get this permission. He did however, and I don't remember how long it took to complete the ditch (which was all dug by hand) but I do know that a certain portion of the ditch had to be dug to a considerable depth to get the properly level.  The ditch was about a mile and half in length.  The pipe, made of cedar, was 3 feet in diameter and manufactured by I.R. Reilly & Company at Kault.  It was made of cedar 2" x 6", tongued, grooved and beveled to make a pipe, and it fit perfectly.  To my knowledge that pipe is still operating today draining the same creek that runs through the property.

 

At that time there was no power machinery for cultivating, it was done with horses, and they were sinking so much in the wet ground that father decided to develop a pad shaped to fit the horse's feet, with specially made clamps to fasten the pads to the horse's iron shoes.  It took a little while for the horses to get accustomed to using these pads, but that was how the ground was first cultivated.  It took a few years to bring it into production, but in later years it did produce marvelous hay crops, and we sued to drive our cattle from Tappen and Kault through Salmon Arm (generally arranged to be through in early morning) and over to Grindrod and fed them there during the winter months.

 

At another time in later years father developed rangeland on the north end of the property, approximately 300 acres.  He rented this as well as the now cultivated drained slough, which was a sizeable piece of land, to Mr. Stickland Sr. who farmed there and was top cream shipper for years.  On this rangeland they used to pasture the dry cows and young stock, and as cattle have to have salt, father went to the local store in Grindrod and purchased coarse salt and took it back to the range.  (Just previous to this the store had changed hands.)  A few days later they went to check the cattle and just within a few feet of the salt (it turned out to be crude nitrate of soda) there were 36 head of dead cattle.  Mr. Stickland had also salted some pork with the same supposed-to-be salt, and as the family were having this pork for lunch, they rushed home (saddles horses) expecting to find all family members dead.  Luckily they hadn't eaten yet.

 

There was court action, father was awarded damages, but not compensation for the cattle, as the store owner went into bankruptcy.

 

The last piece of the Grindrod property was sold to E. Darbyshire.  He sold it to the present owner.

 

We were on our way to put up hay in Grindrod the day the World War I broke out.  We had our haying equipment loaded on two wagons and were in Salmon Arm when we heard that war was declared.  The town was all excitement wondering what was going to be the next move.

 

During the first World War, I went to Minnesota where my mother's brother-in-law was employed with the Great Northern Railway.  He got me a job in the railway shops in St. Paul.  I can still remember the firsts day at work.  In those days forging and mechanical jobs were done by manpower.  I was put on with two big husky fellows to pound steel out with big sledge hammers.  I guess they figured they would tire this guy out pretty quick;  I was given a twelve pound sledge hammer.  I really stayed with it, so it wasn't long before they gave me another easier job.  I never forgot that. I stayed there until I joined the American army and was overseas for a year.

 

Families that were prominent in the Tappen area were the Dilworth and Reilly families.  Mrs. Clair Morrow of Salmon Arm is one of the Reilly girls.  The oldest boy, Bob, is in Vancouver.  Mr. Isaac Reilly and his brother Tom operated a sash and door factory at Kault that did practically all the sash and door glassed windows and turned all kind of cedar decorations for houses for years.  The old time houses had a lot of wooden decorations on them.  Reilly's got their cedar logs from the Columbia River Lumber Co. but did their own sawing for the required sizes and did all their own sanding.  It was all operated by steam.

 

Our social life was all community effort.  Before we had a hall we would meet in each others homes for parties and dances.  The only music I can remember was on the old cylinder records which slipped onto a long arm and the needle arm came down on them.  They were Edison machines.

After the hall was built in Tappen there were dances held there.  The Loffmark brothers from Chase supplied the music the majority of the time.  Leo played the violin and Walter the piano and guitar.  They were paid $10.00 a piece and they generally stayed at our place as they had to come over on the train from Chase, arriving 9:30 PM.  The next morning they would catch the eastbound train at about 10:30.

 

A tennis club was formed at Tappen and the court was on C.P.R. property not too far from Tappen station.  They got a carload of coal cylinders from Revelstoke and leveled it and rolled it down to make a tennis court.  Racquets, balls and nets were not as expensive as they are today.  Baseball was played on the fields but most suitable fields had to be used for raising crops so there weren't too many available to play on.  We had a boxing club too.

 

In my early teens one of the first hockey games that I remember playing in Salmon Arm was on a rink where the snow was cleared off in front of the wharf.  I can't remember who played on the Tappen team, I would expect it would be the Farrell boys among others....but I remember some of the Salmon Arm players, one was Percy Ruth, I forget what position he played, but he was quite active in his early days.  Another was Bob Fortune.  He wasn't much of a hockey player, but he was a really good skater.  The next rink that I remember was over where Fletcher swimming pool is now.  They had a fenced in area there where we played hockey for several years.  There wasn't any arena in those days.

 

My mother used to take quite an interest in the Tappen Women's Institute.  They used to exhibit in the Agricultural Hall which was just above where the present arena is now.  That building went up in 1912.  The upstairs was the main dance hall in Salmon Arm for years.  All big dances and balls were held in the upper story and the lower level was used for exhibits at the Fall Fair.  Gradually other halls were built around the town.

 

We used to put plays on in the Tappen area.  Mr. and Mr.s Byng were very interested in plays, and for a group of us young people in Tappen plays became an annual affair as long as the Byngs were there.  I wasn't much of an actor but I do remember singing about three little owls in a row row row!  Sometimes we put on plays in the old Rex theater up above Bedford's Drug Store.  Matt Carroll owned the building and Mr. Bedford rented it for some years.  There was a show put on there every year.  I never participated very much in that .

 

A 24th of May event was a picnic which took place for a number of years.  It was a community gathering only for Tappen but people from Canoe and especially people who lived around the lake.  They could come in by boat.  There weren't that many from Salmon Arm.  There were races and games for the children like sack races and other games, and some boxing.  We made our own ice cream in a big five gallon freezer right on the picnic grounds with ice we had cut ourselves on the lade the previous winter.  Everybody supplied the ingredients and took a turn on the handle.  It was all fun that everybody enjoyed.

 

 

 

I worked in Calgary for two years for Maclin Motors (Ford dealer).  During that period the Model A came on the market, quite an improvement over the old Model T.  From there I went to Powell River for 11years, was a charter member of the first credit union in BC, Powell River No. 1.   I held book No. 6.

 

I came home from Powell River owing to father's illness and mother unable to mange on her own.  I farmed the property opposite the Tappen Co-op store form 1943 until 1964, when I sold it to Bissett Brothers, and a few years later sole the old home, where we lived, to Raymond Kunzli from Rosemere, Quebec.  I have now been a resident of Salmon Arm since 1967.