CPR’s Branchline Below Water A Story of the Now-Submerged Arrow Lake Track

As a specialist in western history, lately I find pleasure in visiting railway sites now diminishing in public memory — becoming history even as I write for Branchline.

Just by living long enough, one seems to acquire a sort of wisdom or knowledge of value, at least for those of like ilk.

I find myself in an era wherein I can still find retirees with memories of places I recognize, or know, but sometimes never visited during its years of activity.

Some topics have become exhibits in museums — an indicator of my own advancing age! Just by living long enough, one seems to acquire a sort of wisdom or knowledge of value, at least for those of like ilk.

My self-perception is that of being a mere raconteur of rails, a scribe of steam, or a distiller of detail. So herein I present a historic railway, disappeared from British Columbia’s beautiful Columbia valley.

This story is about the CPR branchline which once ran from my hometown of Revelstoke to the head of the Arrow Lakes.

Arrowhead was a small town on the northeast shore of a widening of the Columbia River, 27 miles south of Revelstoke. It was the northern limit of year-round steam navigation on those large interior lakes. Steamboats operated by the CPR were once part of a service which linked lakes and towns between the national mainline and the southerly Crowsnest line. The longest water route was from Arrowhead to Robson, opposite the modern city of Castlegar, a distance of 127 miles.

Earlier, other steamers even operated south into Washington State. At each dock, passengers and freight were trans-loaded to trains bound for Revelstoke or for Nelson, respectively. There was also a branchline to Trail, site of a smelter, much later named Cominco, and purchased by the CPR.

This transportation system was built gradually, timed to serve population growth plus mining and lumbering enterprises which drove early development in southeastern BC. Factors such as terrain and climate caused setbacks, but prospects of profit steadily drove the CPR to ongoing investment, especially in competition with rival US road, the Great Northern.

They duplicated similar services within the same territory, but naturally took profit to their home country, much to the consternation of the CPR Board of Directors.

Steamboats on the Columbia River came up from the United States as early as 1865; SS Forty-Nine delivering supplies and gold prospectors to the ‘Big Bend’ country, upriver from Revelstoke. This same vessel was later used by CPR surveyor Walter Moberly to ferry supplies to his crew at the mouth of Eagle Pass in late 1871 (opposite the as-yet-unnamed Revelstoke). It was another 14 years before supplies would come up from Washington State for CP railway construction.

Hardrock mines soon developed along the mainline (Field and Illecillewaet, BC being early examples), and also in the Kootenay region to the south. Everybody figured to get rich, if not in mining, then in smelting ore. English financiers blew in a smelter at Revelstoke worth over $50,000 in 1891.

Everybody figured to get rich, if not in mining, then in smelting ore.

Newspaper editors urged entrepreneurs on with lyrical entreaties: “Nearly every stream running into the Columbia carries float gold.” (Inland Sentinel, 19 October 1889).

This bit of ‘news’ was two decades past the former placer rush, but no matter. Even editors in other regions wanted to promote ambitious projects as evidence of regional progress:

The table below shows the main features of the route by mileage from Revelstoke to Arrowhead.

Meantime, the new smelter was experiencing erosion from the Columbia River, which eventually undercut its property so badly the whole damn works washed into the river in 1898. Steamboating also proved problematic, what with ice obstructions, fast-flowing high water, and hidden sandbars.

The public wanted more convenience and shippers wanted to keep product moving, especially sacks of ore bound for other smelters in the south. The river between Arrow Lake and Revelstoke soon proved unsuitable for year-round transportation:

Such a vague report shows little editorial idea of what is really happening. Work ceased for the winter on the 10th of November that year. Shortly thereafter, an accident emphasized that transportation complaints had validity:

Then, on 2 February 1894, train service was suspended to Greenslide. The river had become too low for navigation, and boats could not operate. For a period, all supplies bound for southern points had to be teamed to the head of the lake for hand-bombing onto steamboats up bow-landing gangplanks. River service to Greenslide resumed in April, as did track work.

So, cautiously, the CPR agreed to build a branchline, but not as far as the Kamloops editor advocated. The number of railway charters granted in those days, in addition to wild Board of Trade proposals, is beyond comprehension. One speculator even proposed an independent railway from the Kootenays to Hudson Bay! Still waiting for industry to provide profitable freight, the CPR placed a terminal at Wigwam, today little more than a mudflat:

Ever vigilant to scraps of speculation, the Kamloops paper seized on this observation from those who must be ‘in the know’:

Then, properly reported a week later:

Construction crews were housed in bunk cars, but sometimes in tent camps. Field investigation by this author in the spring of 2023 revealed a former encampment, today completely forested, where still stands a stone oven. It’s calculated to be 129 years old. Older and younger examples found elsewhere in BC indicate where construction progress paused long enough to make an oven’s erection worthwhile. Or maybe where camp cooks were particularly generous to helping masons!

Arrowhead townsite was initially surveyed in 1895 and soon became a trading centre for miners, loggers, and farmers. The first building erected was the Lakeview Hotel, followed by a general store, drug store, bank, two churches, a school, and a hospital by 1905. Boat crews are recorded in community directories of the era, but train crews were always based out of Revelstoke.

By March 1896, a 60-foot x 30-foot station plus a 60-foot x 24-foot freight shed were put up. Track to the wharf had a 2% grade so boats could unload at any lake level. While ballasting wasn’t yet complete, the line was deemed safe if trains kept below 12 mph.

No sooner was everything going swimmingly than in July 1896, the Columbia’s spring freshet flooded the line.

The Miner newspaper at Nelson reported SS Nakusp as busy on the Arrow Lakes. The Columbia & Kootenay Steam Navigation Company built the tug Columbia in 1896 to power rail barges on Arrow Lake to relieve steamboats of this duty. Completion of the Arrowhead branchline didn’t negate navigation troubles, however.

No sooner was everything going swimmingly than in July 1896, the Columbia’s spring freshet flooded the line. The Illecillewaet River bridge washed away, and damage was so severe the line didn’t reopen until the end of September. To compensate for the traffic interruption, the Nakusp again ran all the way to Revelstoke. Periodic, but damaging flooding was to become an ongoing problem throughout the region.

By the look of such reports, the CPR had regained confidence lost during the economic depression of 1893-97. This period is recognized as the worst in US history, and caused collapses in the rail industry in particular, which had grown irrationally, driven by the interests of wealthy classes in a monopolistic environment.

The CPR survived, and at the end of 1896, announced it would acquire all the boats and plant of the Columbia & Kootenay Navigation Co., thus positioning itself to dominate the shipping trade. This topic would fill a book, and it has. Read Robert D Turner’s 1984 title Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs: An illustrated history of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s British Columbia Lake and River Service.

As it had done with its mainline and marine operations, the CPR moved in concentric inclusions. For example, it established hotels for stay-over passengers at Revelstoke, and later, a resort hotel at Balfour on Kootenay Lake.

Significant to this story is Hotel Revelstoke (1897-1927). It stood on the bench of land behind the present station. To reach lake-bound coaches, transferring passengers walked down a staircase and along the platform to a spur track which still exists today. Railroaders called it “the South Hole.” But it didn’t point in any such direction. Few now know this is where southbound trains once assembled prior to embarkation.

Such reportage was a revival of the boosterism which had put one fourth of all US rail mileage into receivership during ‘the Panic’ of 1893-97. Might you recall the phrase “irrational exuberance” popularized by former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan in 1996? Same warning applies here, in 1898.

The CPR was under constant pressure to extend the Arrowhead line eastward, through valleys containing Trout and Kootenay Lakes. It was mostly a “build it and they will come” philosophy. CP did build a short line between Lardeau and Gerrard, but it was out of service much of its lifespan and abandoned in 1942. In this instance, it was real estate speculators and mining promoters who lost their investments. Cooler minds focused elsewhere:

By this time the CPR was advertising the wonderful land of the Arrow Lakes in the Vancouver area in hope of attracting farmers and ranchers. The town was growing in conjunction with a boom in lumbering:

It joined several other sawmills already operating in the general area. The prosperity they brought made the wait for the railway worthwhile. In 1905, one of the mills had a daily output of 140,000 feet of lumber. Across the lake at Galena Bay, the Arrow Lakes Lumber Co. built a logging railway in support of their mill at Arrowhead. Saw and shingle mills, plus pole yards, continued to be a part of Arrowhead’s economy until the community was abandoned in the late 1960s.

Then, wouldn’t you know it, a new disaster struck. In their rush to wealth, nobody had adequately prepared the civic water and sewer systems. Pipes had been laid, but no hydrants installed.

In their rush to wealth, nobody had adequately prepared the civic water and sewer systems.

In classic western form, the citizens burned da joint down around their ears without a hose in stock. Such a story was repeated time after time around BC, starting with the CPR’s own accidental ignition of the entire City of Vancouver in 1886. Twenty-one people died that time; none at Arrowhead:

The railway was not affected. Rebuilding proceeded immediately, and the editor of Revelstoke’s Mail-Herald commented that all three hotel rebuilds were done with oh-so-shiny electric light! Unfortunately, the 1906 event wasn’t the only fire to destroy part of town or its mills.

Many also trapped fur to maintain year-round cash flow (winter fur being of highest quality).

As Ruby Nobbs implies, another economic shift was happening, one which accelerated toward and during World War I. Before WW I, one mill at Arrowhead was said to be the largest in the British Empire. But big mills on the coast, which provided cheaper lumber nearer to markets, were also coming on-stream. The frequency of commercial and industrial fires around the Arrow Lakes were often combustions of convenience. By 1920, public roads were infiltrating the hinterland. The trend in employment became subsistence farming and small mills.

A bit of employment fun occurred in 1936, when the Gaumont-British Picture Corp. came from England to film a movie about the construction of the CPR. Hundreds of local ‘extras’ obtained parts in crowd scenes. One location involved a cowboy chase near Greenslide, using the original CPR locomotive that made the first crossing of the country (see Branchline cover, Sept/Oct 2022). Watch the original film on YouTube under the title Silent Barriers, but know it has no historical authenticity, despite including familiar characters.

The last man who ran steam on the Arrowhead branchline was the late Jack Buller, who died in 2023 at age 98. He was on the fireman’s spare board in 1946-49, and shared these memories of firing CP 444:

Jack’s description of fun, but rough track, is indicative of the declining use of steam transportation generally. SS Minto, built in 1898, was one of two last operating paddlewheelers in the Pacific Northwest, the other being sister ship SS Moyie on Kootenay Lake. Minto now made two round trips each week between Robson and Arrowhead. She had room for seven automobiles, and if any were going to Beaton, on the northeastern arm of the lake, the steam tug Beaton would push them there on a barge. The insidious invasion of the infernal combustion engine was well advanced by 1931. Passenger coaches on Arrowhead trains were discontinued with the retirement of the Minto in April 1954.

No record has been found when the first diesel electric locomotive came south, but kids at the time still remember it. Students were dismissed from class to witness this wonder of the modern age. Likely the unit was one of the pair of Alco S-4 road switchers delivered to Revelstoke in the late summer of 1952. They were CP 7113 and CP 7114.

By the 1960s, Arrowhead’s population had been halved, and the main drag consisted of a general store, restaurant, and post office. CP’s 1959 Timetable no. 113, too, indicated serious decline. Slow orders dominated the route. Management could foresee the inevitable and obviously declined to spend money on maintenance. During this period, there is a story of a southbound train crew arriving at a low trestle over the Akolkolex River (near Wigwam) which raised their ‘spidey senses’. After talking over the risk, two of the crew walked over to solid ground beyond. The remaining guys set their engine in low throttle, then disembarked as it trundled across alone, they walking the track behind — hoping to hell the pair ahead managed to stop their deliberate runaway!

The last revenue run to Arrowhead was in October 1968. The locomotive was CP 7113, a switcher operated by my own father for many years in the Revelstoke yard.

In 1964, Canada and the USA signed the Columbia River Treaty to build dams on the river for flood control and power generation. As part of this agreement, BC Hydro built the Hugh Keenleyside Dam near Robson, site of the former steamship dock. The dam gates closed on June 9, 1969, and the reservoir immediately began to fill. Arrowhead was abandoned before inundation. Some 2,000 people were displaced throughout the valley and their resentment still reverberates.

BC Hydro’s no-salvage policy during the reservoir clearing meant that what couldn’t be burned was buried. Still, there is a cemetery above high water at Arrowhead, and some streets can be discerned with the help of a map. The railway bed and some wood and rock structures still protrude when the lake is low, but the rails, ties, and telegraph wires were removed. Native forest regenerated over much of the town, but domesticated trees still persist—watch for fruit-eating bears in the fall! Access is by boat from Shelter Bay (ferry site on Highway 23 South).

The railway bed and some wood and rock structures still protrude when the lake is low, but the rails, ties, and telegraph wires were removed.

The CPR fleet of passenger steamboats included many venerable names, and it wasn’t uncommon to see three sternwheelers in view simultaneously. Minto was the last in service on the Arrow Lakes in 1954, and suffered a Viking funeral during subsequent reservoir filling. However, her sister SS Moyie operated until 1957, and is well preserved as a National Historic Site at Kaslo, BC (Kootenay Lake). Don’t miss it.

The Revelstoke to Arrowhead branchline is not merely a historical footnote but a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who dared to conquer the rugged terrain of British Columbia’s interior. It reflects the enduring importance of steam transportation in Canada and serves as a reminder of the rich history and scenic beauty that can still be explored today.

This ‘ghost line’ still lives, connecting the past to the present and perhaps inspiring future railfans to explore CP’s pioneering spirit for themselves.

Credits

Rarely is a story like this the effort of an author alone. I’ve been helped along the way by friends going back 60 years: Brian Gadbois, Gordon Jones, and Ida-Mae Hayek (née Hampton). Ralph Beaumont and Jeri Danyleyko sieved photo archives on my behalf. DJ Meridew provided his own photos and newspaper clippings. Robert D Turner and Mary Ann Zarichuk served as proofreaders. And to dear old Revelstoke, itself . . . thanks for the memories.