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Music
Canoe Route
Schools
Local Picnic Spots
Plants in qathet
Agriculture

History of Classical Music in the qathet Region

The qathet Region has a strong musical tradition, beginning in the earliest days of the Powell River Mill workers.

The first formal community band, the Powell River Community Band, was created in 1926 and debuted in May at a baseball game. The Powell River Digester reported that the band’s aim was “to give pleasure to the people of the town” through their music. Despite a brief disbandment of the original group, the Powell River Community Band was revived in 1968. It has since changed its name to the qathet Concert Band, and remains a key feature of the qathet music scene to this day.

The first orchestra of the region, known as the Powell River Concert Orchestra, formed in 1925. There were various small orchestral groups (who mostly played at dances) active up until the late 1960s, but by the 1970s there was no community orchestra in the qathet Region. It is only recently, in 2021, that a new orchestra, called the qathet Symphony Orchestra, was formed.

In 1945, the first Powell River Music Festival was held. It was a local competition for amateur musicians to compete and showcase in. It featured numerous divisions such as “Strings Open” and “Pianoforte Open”. In 2013, it added dance divisions and changed its name to the Powell River Festival of Performing Arts.

In 2003, the Powell River Academy of Music established the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific (SOAP). The Academy enrolled students from all over the world who hoped to become professional musicians. SOAP was suspended in 2012, but the Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy (PRISMA) was soon established to fill the void.

Since beginning in 2013, PRISMA has continued without interruption (despite the pandemic), and continues to build on a strong tradition of classical music in the qathet Region.

The composer, Harold Mathews, spent 8 years as the choir master for the St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Townsite. He briefly had his own school of music for 11 years in the Powell River Mill Supply Store. Over his career as a prominent music instructor, he taught various classes and private lessons reaching over 250 students.
qMAS Object ID#: 1995.62.1

Powell Forest Canoe Route

From a historical perspective, the route has been around a lot longer than most realize. Many of the trails cross or are based on former logging railroad grades. Evidences of the logging industry, which dates back to the 1920s, are still visible at several points along the trails.
Powell River Town Crier May 1st, 1995 (Page 20)

The man behind the map

“We wanted to go into the logging roads to explore and find places. I found all the maps were divided and they were always cutting right through somewhere or we were folding big maps and joining them together to find places. There was no overall map.”
Gerhard & Singrid Tollas Oral History #2008.281.133

Chief Billy Mitchell constructing a dugout canoe from a red cedar tree.

A dugout canoe is a canoe made from a hollowed out tree. It is formed from a solid piece of wood, traditionally using the hand tools of an axe, hammer, adze, box scraper, and wedge. The material of choice is often a red cedar tree.

Dugout canoes have been used by the Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years. They were used for trading, fishing, traveling, and even occasionally as war canoes.

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James Thomson Elementary School

James Thomson opened as the Wildwood School in 1923. When the original school was raised and the basement was added in 1931, it was named after James Thomson, an early settler and long-time resident in Wildwood. The current main building was built in 1955.

Henderson Elementary School

The above photo is from 1916. The school shown in the picture was located where Henderson Park is now. Henderson opened in this location in 1914. In 1957, it moved to its current location.

While it was an elementary school when it was founded and is an elementary school now, between 1919 and 1930 Henderson offered high school classes.

Favourite Picnic Spots: Second Beach and Willingdon Beach

Quotes from the Powell River Digester, Vol. 7, No. 7, July 1928 (Pages 1 & 3)

Second Beach was a popular picnic spot in the qathet Region, where “hundreds of Powell Riverites and their friends have wiled away many pleasant hours on picnics and beach parties. Diving floats, bathhouses, picnic stoves and tea rooms assured the necessary equipment for tea and toast on shore, or an afternoon’s frolic in the water.”

Another popular picnic site was Michigan Beach (now Willingdon Beach). In 1928, houses at the beach were torn down, along with a pier used for creating log booms. A bathing house and playground were built, and equipment was moved there from Second Beach. This was “accomplished in time for the early summer rush of swimmers and picnic parties,” turning Willingdon Beach into “a Mecca for Saturday and Sunday outings and picnickers.”

Pleasure Parties of 1912

Paragraphs excerpted from the Powell River Digester, Vol. 13, No. 7, July 1937 (Page 12)

“In the photograph on this page we see what Rod Le May, pictorial artist of Townsite’s early days, calls the ‘First Pleasure Party,’ leaving Powell River for ‘Michigan’ twenty-five years ago. In May, 1912, Powell River’s first newsprint machine came into production; and we may assume the boys and girls of our little village were celebrating the big event. Anyway, practically the whole townsite is on a picnic, and picnics in those days were serious affairs. No jumping in a car and going to your favorite resort.”
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“It was the custom of the great and good men who controlled the railroad to place their locies at the disposal of Powell River’s little family group for an afternoon’s outing. And on the flats piled all the gay lads and lassies of the district with their bottles of pop and sticks of chewing gum. They were in hilarious fettle—for, by gum, they were going to picnic ‘way down at Michigan.”

Native or Invasive? by Joelle

Blackberry fest large panel by Joelle

Native and Invasive Plants by Joelle

Myrtle Grove Goat Dairy Farm

Myrtle Grove Goat Dairy was founded by Tom and Gertie Lambert in 1926 in what is now Paradise Valley. The farm had humble origins, but it soon expanded to become the biggest goat dairy in Canada.

The Early Days

Setting up a farm was hard work. In order to legally retain the land, it had to be cleared within the first five years. In 1918, Tom and Gertie Lambert were helped by a natural forest fire that moved through the valley; however, stumps still had to be blasted out and burned. They put up a number of buildings on the farm with hired help.

At the start, Tom delivered the goat milk using a Ford Model T. The Lamberts later bought a manufactured panel truck—the first one in the town.

The Only Woman on the Goat Farm

Setting up the farm may have been difficult, but running it was just as hard. Each day, Gertie Lambert had to milk twenty-three goats, clean their udders, feed them, and care for the other animals. She was also responsible for preserving foods and cooking all the meals for her family and the farm hands. She managed to keep a flower garden as well, and would sometimes help herd the farm’s over 100 goats.

On top of all her duties at the farm, Gertie was able to make time for photography, taking many pictures with her Brownie camera and developing them herself.

A Billy Goat for Billy-Goat Smith

In 1931, the Lamberts sold a billy-goat and two does (female goats) for $60 to Billy-Goat Smith, a well-known local figure.

Billy-Goat Smith lived in a remote area up Powell Lake. He became a recluse after his boat was wrecked in a storm in 1937. Many colourful rumours circulated about Billy-Goat (whose real name was Robert Bonner Smith), including that he had been a contract killer in the US and had fled to Canada to avoid punishment. When he died, the Lambert family was asked to take his goats back, but they refused because they already had plenty.