Wall of Teddy Bears - facing the old Kettle Valley Railway at the Carmi Railway Station less than 10 miles north of Beaverdell BC. Isabelle lives in what was once the Station Master's House which celebrated it's 100th anniversary in the year 2000. The old house which was originally on the other side of the railroad grade, was moved to its present location in 1907. Isabelle was kind enough to give me a guided tour of her home which is still heated with an old wood burning heater located in the basement.

Isabelle proudly tells me that, "This old heater keeps the whole house toasty warm in the winter, and the original cement foundation hasn't a crack in it. The whole house is as sound now as it was when it was first built over a hundred years ago."

Very little has been changed in the house, all of the hard wood floors are still intact, albeit a little creaky, they still retain their original beauty. It was part of the agreement when Isabelle bought the house more than 10 years ago, that the windows, doors and main structure would remain unchanged and historically intact. Another importatnt comfort in the winter months, is the satellite Television disc perched upon the Teddy Bear wall, helping to keep her in touch with the rest of the world.

Isabelle's interest in BC History has also helped to collect automotive artifacts such as old license plates and other British Columbia back country memorabilia such as old board games and a spinning wheel, kerosene lamps and the Teddy Bear collection to decorate the inside of her house to be proudly displayed when visitors come calling.

Outside the house there is an old cast iron stove that was so heavy and awkward that to take it out of the house it had to be dismantled and reassembled outside. She says that the squirrels love to duck in and out of the doors and vents, occasionally stopping to chatter at one or two of the stuffed Teddy Bears that are perched on the stove top. After all, this is Teddy Bear Ranch, and everywhere you look, are Teddy Bears.

Unfortunately, most of the other Carmi architectural history is gone. The old one-room Schoolhouse has been torn down and a new prefab log house has replaced it a couple of years back, while the Carmi Hotel burned to the ground several years ago. All of the houses and general store on Dale avenue have been torn down and new buildings such as the prefab log houses have been erected. The other demolition was of the old Carmi Sawmill which was deemed a safety hazard and pulled down a few years ago.

In 1910, Trapper Smith's hotel and a number of crude houses collectively made Carmi a town. Unfortunately, the Carmi Mine was relatively short lived and ceased operations by 1940, making most of the town's inhabitants abandon everything and move on to greener pastures.

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The Carmi mining claim was first staked in 1896 by J.C. Dale. Development work initially consisted of opencuts and a shallow shaft. The claim was sold in 1900 to London, England interests, who conducted further work under Carmi Mining Co. The B.A. Fraction claim was located in the same year. The Carmi and B.A. Fraction claims were Crown granted to E.H. Thurston and associates in 1901, the same year as the first production. In 1904, a 5-stamp mill was erected and had a capacity of 20 short tons per day. In 1913, the claims were leased to A. Robinson from F. J. Finnucane. Further work was done and ore shipments made between 1913 and 1915. The mine closed briefly in 1916 and 1917. Further work was resumed by new owners and lessees in 1918 and 1919. Construction of a new oil flotation concentrator was started. In 1922, optioning interests formed Carmi Gold Mining Co. Work ceased in 1928. Canadian-American Mines Ltd. acquired the Carmi, Butcher Boy and 18 other claims in 1932. The underground workings were extended between 1932 and 1933, with several ore shipments made. Canadian-American Mines Ltd. assets were taken over by Carmi Gold Mines Ltd. in 1934 and further underground development work was completed. Between 1935 and 1937, lessees J. Kerr and R. Legiest made additional ore shipments. Highland-Bell Ltd. leased the property in 1939. A small amount of development work was done and the lease given up. The former lessees resumed work and made a final ore shipment in 1940. Since this time, the Carmi and B.A. Fraction claims have been acquired by J.V. Hinks and J.A. Olinger. Options have been held by International Minerals and Chemical Corp. (Canada) Ltd in 1970 and by Husky Oil and G.V. Lloyd Exploration Ltd. in 1970 and 1971. Vestor Explorations Ltd. optioned the property in 1974. In 1981, Kelvin Energy Ltd. was owner of the Carmi claims, surrounding the Carmi occurrence. An 8-hole diamond drill program was conducted, three of which tested for the Carmi veins below the old workings.

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The Kettle Valley Railway, a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was constructed in 1910-1916 to provide an all-Canadian railway communication between the Kootenay mining region in the southern interior of British Columbia and the B.C. coast near Vancouver. The 500 km (300 mile) long railway commenced at Midway, at the western terminus of the CPR’s Crowsnest Pass railway (the Columbia and Western Railway) in the Kootenay Mining Region, and ran westward across three mountain summits (the Monashee Mountain Range, the Interior Plateau, and the Cascades Mountains), and through two deep valleys (the Okanagan, and the Tulameen), to the Fraser River Valley. It established an uninterrupted rail communication from the Kootenays to the Coast by connecting with the CPR mainline in the Fraser River Valley.

In running westward from Midway, the Kettle Valley Railway passed through the mining centres of Beaverdell and Carmi, crossed over the Okanagan Highlands of the Monashee Mountain Range, to Penticton in the Okanagan Valley, and beyond over Trout Creek Canyon to West Summerland, crossed the Interior Plateau of the Cascades Mountains, to Princeton and Coalmount in the Tulameen Valley, and then ascended into the Cascades Mountains to Brodie Junction. There the rail line branched both northwards down the Coldwater River Valley to Merritt where it joined an existing CPR branch line (the Nicola Branch), leading westward to the CPR mainline at Spences Bridge in the Thompson River Valley, and also southwards along the Coquihalla River Valley to connect, via the narrow Coquihalla Pass through the Hope Mountains, with the CPR mainline at Odlum in the lower Fraser River Valley, near Hope. The headquarters of the railway was at Penticton in the Okanagan Valley.

The surviving engineering works and the routing of the extant railbed, which winds through a highly mountainous terrain with numerous grades and curves, and imaginative alignments, are the most distinguishing extant features of the Kettle Valley Railway. In British Columbia, the mountain ranges run in a north-south direction, and railways in crossing the province were routed to follow river courses and passes through the mountains, with settlements springing up subsequently along the rail line; whereas the Kettle Valley Railway did not. It was constructed to provide a direct Kootenays to Coast rail connection across the southern interior of the province, and had to be routed to link existing mining centres up in the mountains and potential areas for settlement and development in the intervening valleys.

For most of its route the Kettle Valley Railway follows a sinuous route through an exceptionally rugged terrain, as it winds around and over mountains, twists through narrow canyons, and ascends and descends through numerous significant changes in elevation. Indeed, there are few straight or level sections of any great length over the full length of the railway. For much of its length in the mountainous areas the rail line runs through sparsely populated or uninhabited land. In the Okanagan Highlands and the upper Tulameen Valley, the mining towns have all but been deserted following the closures of the mines, and in the Coquihalla and Coldwater valleys up in the Cascades Mountains, there is little settlement.

"McCulloch's Wonder"
In a truly outstanding feat of railway construction engineering, KVR Chief Engineer Andrew McCulloch managed to locate, layout, and construct a railway directly through the Myra Canyon by seemingly hanging the supporting engineering works around the rim of the canyon, several thousand feet above the canyon floor. The railway swung into the canyon, just west of Myra Station, on a 0.40% ascending grade, and was literally shaped and fitted to the contours of the canyon walls in winding around the U-shaped canyon and across two large gaps in the canyon walls where the East Canyon and West Canyon (Pooley) creeks had cut deep cleavages. In a distance of but six miles, twenty major wood trestles were constructed to carry the rail line across wide gaps, deep cleavages, and depressions in the canyons walls; and all were built on a curve, or tangents to a curve, with from 7 to 12 degrees of curvature to conform to the natural contours of the canyon walls, and thereby minimize rock excavation on the sections between the trestles. Indeed, one trestle, at Mile 87.4, was built in an S-configuration, with a 12 degree right turn followed by a 12 degree left turn to conform to the winding configuration of the canyon wall in proceeding from east to west at that location.

In all cases, the curvature of the rail line was minimized through long graceful curves across several trestles, and by turning the rail line gradually throughout the length of the longer trestles. The largest of the wood frame trestles, the trestle at Mile 87.9 crossing the West Canyon Creek, was a stupendous structure, 750' long and 182' high, and turned the rail line almost 90 degrees over its entire length at the head of the canyon, while not exceeding a curvature of 12 degrees anywhere along its entire length. Although the Myra Canyon trestles were not the largest ever constructed on a Canadian railway, they were of a comparable size, and in their location, configurations, number, and alignments, the trestles in the Myra Canyon were impressive engineering works, and are unmatched today on any other six-mile section of a Canadian railway.

On the whole length of the railway through the Myra Canyon only two tunnels and three deep rock cuts were required; and they were built either on curves or tangents to curves to conform to the alignment of the rail line winding around the canyon walls. However, they were substantial works. The East Tunnel at Mile 85.7 was 375' long on a 12 degree curve; the West Tunnel at Mile 86.4 was 277.5' long on a 7 degree curve ; and the rock cuts at Mile 84.7 and Mile 86.7 were 30' to 40' deep and bisected solid rock outcrops on the canyon walls. In each case, these works were left as blasted out of the rocks, devoid of any masonry adornment or dressing of the rock face beyond some scaling to remove loose rock.

Overall, the construction and positioning of the trestles greatly minimize the amount of rock excavation that would otherwise have been require to route a railway through the canyon. Indeed, it seemed to some observers that the whole length of rail line through the Myra Canyon was but a continuous line of trestles. Moreover, the line was carried almost on a level throughout the canyon. It had a slight 0.40% ascending grade from the eastern entrance to a 4,179' elevation summit level at a trestle at Mile 85.9, the highest summit level on the Kettle Valley Railway, and a slight 0.40% descending grade running westward from the summit.

No sooner was the rail line open than the awe-inspiring works high up on the mountain side in the Myra Canyon were recognized as constituting a phenomenal feat of railway engineering and construction; and McCulloch’s assistant engineers began to refer to the Kettle Valley Railway as "McCulloch’s Wonder".

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