How Kootenay Emerged from its Wild State. 23 1 



horseback ride of some five hundred miles over the worst trails 

 imaginable, through Idaho and Washington, until the Oregon Short 

 line to Portland, in Oregon, was reached, where a coast steamer 

 could be taken to Victoria. By no other means could the coast 

 country of B.C. be reached at that time from Kootenay. During 

 the winter months Wildhorse was entirely shut off from the 

 world. In consequence of this the two M.P.F. had to start for 

 Victoria in the autumn so as to reach Victoria when the House 

 opened in January. 



The election which preceded my visit led to a remarkable 

 imbroglio which made it an historical one. Ten of the eleven 

 voters, so the story goes, had split into two equal parties, while the 

 eleventh, upon whom rested the fate of the election, was kept for a 

 week before the important day in such an incapable condition by 

 both parties that the returning officer refused to accept a vote 

 given by such a " corpse." As the law required that the senior 

 member should be elected by a majority, and there was no 

 majority, there could necessarily be no senior, and hence also no 

 junior member ! 



Bad as this was, worse was to follow, for presently an express 

 rider brought the paralysing news that the election of the whole 

 country depended upon the Kootenay members, the two parties 

 being very evenly matched. Another election became necessary. 

 The result was a matter of indifference to the population of 

 Wildhorse in comparison to one entirely unforeseen upshot. This 

 was nothing less than an appalling whiskey famine, which lasted 

 more than six months. To this day the survivors will tell you with 

 deep pathos how, for one whole winter, the camp had to " go dry." 

 But now let me get back to the tale I have got to tell about 

 the Kootenay Lake country or West Kootenay. In the spring of 

 1882 three roving prospectors had betaken themselves in a boat 

 they had knocked together out of whipsawed boards from Dick 

 Fry's ranch at Bonner's Ferry, in Idaho (then the only white 

 man's habitation in the Kootenai Valley), down the Kootenai 

 and Kootenay River to Kootenay Lake, where they proposed to 



