Pioneering in Kootenay. 265 



Kootenay river, if not exactly impossible, at any rate very pro- 

 blematic. To expend ten thousands of pounds upon a work which 

 one feared could never fulfil either of the principal objects for 

 which it had been intended, was in itself an unsatisfactory look- 

 out, though its ulterior inutility did not affect us, for the 30,000 

 acres in the Upper Kootenay valley and the rights to the over- 

 flowed land were secured by the completion according to the 

 plans settled by the Government, and the canal became public 

 property. 



The construction of the canal itself was the easiest work, for 

 no rock or other obstruction was encountered, and as it was only 

 45ft. in width and 6yooft. in length it was really not much more 

 than a big ditch. Very different, however, was the construction 

 of the lock and flood-gates imposed upon me by the Dominion 

 Government, for as soon as the excavation got below the level of 

 the Kootenay river an immense body of sepage water was struck. 

 As the foundations of the looft. long lock had to be sunk to a 

 great depth, several large steam-pumps had to be brought from 

 the coast and rigged up to allow excavation and the laying of 

 the ground sills. This, of course, cost thousands of pounds. My 

 appeals to the Government to sanction certain very obvious 

 alterations in the construction of the lock were futile ; one of 

 those unpleasantly sudden changes in the ministry having placed 

 a new Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works in power. This 

 official turned a deaf ear to all reason, and as the resident 

 Government engineer was no sufferer by the prolongation of 

 the works, for his monthly salary was paid by us, it was useless 

 to expect any help from that quarter. This gentleman was by 

 profession and by previous training merely a land surveyor, 

 but he was the brother of the Deputy Chief Commissioner 

 of Lands and Works one of the permanent officials of the 

 administration. 



Thus it came to pass that, in defiance of reason and common 

 sense, the works had to be completed at the cost of sums which 

 might as well have been thrown into the sea. But the punishment 



