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Tuesday 10am - 5pm Wednesday 10am - 5pm Thursday 10am - 5pm Friday 10am - 5pm Saturday 10am - 5pm

http://www.nicolavalleymuseum.org/

Nicola Valley Museum & Archives, 1675 Tutill Court. PO Box 1262, Merritt, BC (2026)

08/09/2026

CBC Radio 860, the local rebroadcast of CBC One in Kamloops turned 65 years old a week ago. The radio was a vital piece of public infrastructure throughout communities in the early 20th century. Throughout the 1920’s, political debate centred around whether or not Canada should adopt the American style of commercial broadcasting, or adopt the British model of a publicly funded broadcaster. The later was eventually chosen, and starting in the late 1920’s, CBC Radio began broadcasting across the airwaves in communities across Canada.

Throughout this time, Merrittonians also began to adopt the radio. When news came that Merritt could receive radio transmissions from Vancouver and Calgary, the necessary equipment was purchased and installed so local Merrittonians could listen in on their own radios. In 1923, the Merritt Herald installed a radio receiver that could pick up transmissions from San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, and Calgary, and public listening parties were held.

However, for as much as Merrittonians enjoyed radio, they did not have their own radio station throughout the first half of the 20th century. It would take the population boom of Craigmont Mines, and many years of public pressure by the Board of Trade to spur the federal government into installing a radio booster within the community. At the same time, CFJC Kamloops began constructing broadcast towers between Kamloops and Merritt to connect Merritt to the CFJC Network.

The plans for installing the radio booster were set to go early in the year, however a number of delays kept on pushing it back and concern began to mount that Merritt would become the only community in Canada to have a television station before a radio station. Continued public pressure, and pressure from the Board of Trade kept the federal government’s feet to the fire and the necessary equipment was installed in July, 1961.

Finally, on August 1st, 1961, CBC Radio Merritt, or CBC 860, premiered on the Merritt airwaves. The first schedule was:

6am: Records with news and comments

7:45am: Religious Period

8am: News, sports and comments and music till 9:00

10am: A special programme for housewives

12:15pm: Report on the New Party Convention in Ottawa with comments and direct reports from Ottawa

1:45pm: Programme Resume

2:30pm: News and Trans-Canada Matinee

4:30pm: Tempo, music, news and features

7pm: National News with reports and commentary

8pm: Business Barometre

9pm: Summer Music Festival

10pm: News from Vancouver

Below is the ad from August 2nd, 1961, welcoming Merritt into the fold of CBC.

The Nicola Valley Museum and Archives is open from Tuesday until Saturday from 10am until 5pm, if you have any questions about the history of Merritt or the Nicola Valley please stop on by, give us a phone call, or send us an email!

08/05/2026

Peter Duncan was born on July 4th, 1897 in Lytton, BC. At some point in his young life, he moved to Quilchena where he took up working as a cowboy for Douglas Lake. He appears to have made quick friends as by October 1915, he was joining Joe Coutlee and a number of other indigenous men on a trek into the Coquihalla Mountains. Duncan enlisted with the 174th Battalion (The Rocky Mountain Rangers) of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Kamloops on February 7th, 1916.

In the leadup to the battle of Vimy Ridge, Canadian forces began launching offenses to secure additional trenches and land prior to the assault in April. On March 1st, 1917, Duncan was involved in one of these raids and was wounded. He appears to have been shot in the shoulder by a German gun. He was retrieved and received initial care before being transferred to the No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, whose Commanding Officer was Lieutenant-General John McCrae, known for being the author of the poem “In Flanders Fields”. He was then transferred to the No. 10 Stationary Hospital in Seaford for recovery until he was redeployed in France in November, 1917. While his wound healed, he appears to have never regained full mobility in the arm.

On April 9th, 1918, possibly during the first day of the Fourth Battle of Ypres. Duncan was once again seriously wounded, this time being shot in the mouth, which would give him a cleft palate. He was quickly transferred to No. 7 Hospital in Étaples, France before being transferred back to England to the No. 4 Canadian General Hospital in Basingstoke, England. While being attended to in Basingstoke, the First World War came to an end.

Duncan was transferred to the No. 5 Canadian General Hospital in Liverpool just ahead of his transfer back to Canada. He came back to Canada aboard the HMCHS Araguaya, a Canadian Naval Hospital ship which would dock in Halifax. He would receive treatment in Halifax before spending some time back home in the Nicola Valley on route to Vancouver for further treatment.

Peter Duncan would be formally medically discharged from the Canadian Military in May 1919. After that he returned back to the Nicola Valley and continued to live in the Douglas Lake area and became a very well-known man with many friends across the valley. Although he had limited mobility in his arm, he would become employed by the Province as a bridge builder for a period of time.

On July 18th 1931, Duncan was a passenger in a vehicle heading down Blackwell Hill into Merritt. The driver of the vehicle was intoxicated and was driving too fast. Duncan attempted to warn the driver that he was going too fast for an upcoming turn and when the driver didn’t slow down, jumped out of the vehicle before it drove off the embankment and into the Weaver farmyard. Mr. Weaver immediately called for aid and their initial attention was paid to the driver of the vehicle. The driver managed to walk away with simply bruises, but Duncan broke his back jumping from the car.

Duncan was rushed to the Nicola Valley General Hospital and at first was entirely paralyzed from the neck down. However, a week later, he was able to once again control his limbs, but he was never able to make a full recovery. One year after the accident, it was reported in the Herald that Duncan was able to walk from the hospital into town once per week, and while he could walk down stairs, he was unable to walk up them.

It appears that he would eventually be transferred to Shaughnessy Hospital in Vancouver, where he would remain in treatment for the next 30 years, passing away at the hospital on December 13th, 1964. He is buried at the Pineridge Cemetery.

Below is a photo of Peter Duncan, date unknown.

The Nicola Valley Museum and Archives is open from Tuesday until Saturday from 10am until 5pm, if you have any questions about the history of Merritt or the Nicola Valley please stop on by, give us a phone call, or send us an email!

08/02/2026

The NVMA will be closed on Tuesday, August 4th, because of BC Day. We apologize for any inconvenience.

07/26/2026

100 years ago, in 1926, BC and the Merritt area were hit with a series of forest fires. There was a great deal of hope at the start of the year, 1925 had been a disastrous year for forest fires in the country, and the hope was that better public awareness would keep the fires to a minimum. At the time, it was estimated that the vast majority of forest fires were human rather than naturally caused. In order to curb human started fires, the Department of the Interior announced Fire Prevention Week in April of 1926 to raise awareness about the impact of forest fires, which at the time was more related to the economic downsides of forest fires. They were concerned that fires meant a reduction of timber for logging, the closing of railway tracks, and of reduced tourism as a result of smoke and fire. This was the consensus view at the time of the impact of these fires, and could be seen in a 1920’s award winning paper by a student that was published in the Merritt Herald that described a tree that was viewed by many as being able to be turned into a logs, railway ties, and other lumber products only to be burnt down by teens that didn’t put out their fire properly.

The City of Merritt tried to get ahead by banning the practice of burning garbage openly on May 1st 1926, saying that it had to be burnt in an iron barrel with a mesh on top to reduce the amount of embers that could spark their own fires.

The first major fire that happened in the Valley that year was the Canford Mills Fire in May 1926, which we covered many years ago. The fire was believed to be caused by faulty electrical wiring. The fire quickly ripped through the mill, destroying it before the fire departments were able to reach the mill. The fire also kicked up embers that drifted across the valley, starting six fires between Canford and Merritt, all of which were quickly extinguished, but the Herald noted that many residents kept a vigilant eye out all night looking for any other fires that might’ve started.

As the heat and drought of the summer began to take hold, the forests around the Nicola Valley became primed for fire. A series of small fires began to appear in the middle of July, but as the Nicola Valley’s winds picked up, the series of fires soon got out of control. One fire began near Kingsvale, believed to have been started by a spark form the rail line, and quickly grew as the wind pushed it down towards Voght Valley. Another fire was started at McKenzie Lake, believed to have been started by a cigarette tossed out of a vehicle. There were also a series of fires near Pot Hole Lake, as well as fires near Blakeburn and Coalmont which threatened the mining communities. As these fires burned the city of Merritt was blanketed in smoke so dense that it obscured the hills surrounding town, as it did earlier this week.

Every employee from the lumber mills and the coal mines, as well as every available man were called out to fight these fires. Construction was halted or greatly slowed as workers filled out to fight the fires across the valley, and similarly, ranchers began struggling to find people to employ for the haying season. This happened because the government had the authority to draft firefighters from civilians and not complying with the order levied a fine. This happened during the 1926 fire season when four men, William Lawson, Alex Reid, Daniel Sullivan, and P. Welsh were rounded up for not reporting to fire camp, and each received a $25 fine (nearly $450 in today’s money).

While some of the smaller fires were able to be contained relatively quickly, a massive fire broke out at Chapperton Lake in early August. It was at this fire where two firefighters, George Disher and Alex Proudfoot, were attacked by a black bear that was likely injured by the fire and attacked the two men who were working the fire line, which we covered almost exactly one year ago.

Meanwhile, in the Kamloops area there were six major fires burning out of control, which forced Kamloops to call for reinforcements from the Lower Mainland simply to give their fire fighters a break. The fires across the province were so bad that it was said that when one was travelling between Kamloops and Banff, there was smoke and fires along both sides of the railtrack the whole way.

The sheer number of fires began to effect the wildlife, bear sightings on ranches became far more frequent as the fires pushed the wildlife down the mountains and towards more populated areas. There was one case where a rancher killed three separate black bears that wandered onto their property in one day.

As the summer came to a close, so too did the fires as fortunately, an early frost quickly began to dampen the fires across the province, and the handful that remained in the back country were allowed to burn themselves out. This all came at a fortunate time as the provincial firefighting budget had been completely exhausted.

There are no photos of the forest fires, but I have included an ad from the following year, 1927, from the Forest Service about Campfire Permits to help prevent forest fires.

The Nicola Valley Museum and Archives is open from Tuesday until Saturday from 10am until 5pm, if you have any questions about the history of Merritt or the Nicola Valley please stop on by, give us a phone call, or send us an email!

07/18/2026

Happy Legion Day! Thank you to all who came out to the Legion. Today we’ll be taking a look at a former Legion President. Charles Edward Whalley was born on December 19th, 1884 in New Brighton, Liverpool, UK. He came to Canada with his parents and lived in Saskatchewan before moving to Vancouver. While in Vancouver he served three and a half years with the 6th Duke of Connaught’s Own Rifles. In 1902, at the age of 18, Whalley developed Peritonitis, the inflammation of the peritoneum as a result of TB which had to be operated on to be removed. A persistent cough and abdominal pains plagued him ever since.

He ended up working as a placer miner in Alaska during the start of the First World War, and would end up walking over 100 kilometers to Dawson City to enlist in the war at the age of 33 in the summer of 1916. He ended up serving as a sapper with the Canadian Engineers. Whalley was gassed twice during the war, first on March 15th 1917 and secondly on September 17th, 1917. After the two attacks he developed a cough that persisted for a long time.

His time towards the end of his military service was marred by illness. He was repeatedly admitted for TB throughout 1917 which would eventually lead to his discharge in May of 1918 for no longer being fit to serve, and was taken to a Sanitorium in Victoria for recovery. After being discharged, Whalley used the Soldier Settlement Act to purchase a ranch in the Coldwater area where he ran a hog farm, logged, and did some hauling. In May of 1920, it was reported that he was travelling to Aspen Grove to transport a one-and-a-half-ton gas-powered engine from a mine in the Princeton area to its new owners who were located 300 kilometers north of Edmonton.

After the price of pork plummeted in the early 1920’s, Whalley would sell his ranch and purchase the City Dairy from John Blackwell in 1924, and became well known as Merritt’s Dairyman, selling milk, cream, and later ice cream across the Merritt area. His affliction with TB in his younger years appears to have stayed with him throughout his life, as in 1927 he arranged for his cows to be tested with TB, and while they passed, he also ensured that every jersey cow he bought was also tested for TB prior to delivery. This was very unusual for the time, but it was praised by the Merritt Herald for ensuring that his milk was free of potential disease that could infect the children of the area.

Whalley was heavily involved in community efforts throughout his life, he was a charter member of the Legion when it was first formed in 1928 and would end up joining the board in 1932 and became the 6th President of the Legion in 1938. He was also heavily involved with the Hospital Board, donating a lot of money and charity auctions over the years. He became a Lifetime Member of the Hospital Association, and while he was never on the board, he attended many board meetings. He also sat as the Chairman of the Agriculture Committee for around 15 years, starting in the early 1930’s before he’d retire in the mid 1940’s. He also served as the Ranch Supervisor for the Mosquito Control Board and oversaw the mosquito control efforts on ranch lands to ensure that it was being done in a manner that wouldn’t harm the cattle. He was also heavily involved with the Nicola Valley Farmer’s Institute, being elected to the Presidency in 1942.

Whalley also appears to have had a great reverence for Christmas. For over 20 years, Whalley delivered stockings of candy and nuts to school children ahead of Christmas at no cost. In 1928, Whalley hosted Santa Claus at his Dairy where 75 children visited and got gifts from Santa. He was also a frequent donator to the Christmas Relief Funds during the Great Depression.

Whalley retired due to health concerns from the dairy industry in the fall of 1942, although he would continue selling ice which him and his crew sawed out of the lakes around the Nicola Valley until retiring in 1949. Charles Whalley would pass away from a short illness on December 16th, 1951, at the age of 68 at the NVGH. His obituary read that his gruff exterior masked his true kindly nature, and that he had many friends an no enemies.

Below is a photo of Whalley’s Dairy truck, along with a man who could be Whalley, but he is unidentified. I have also included an article from the Merritt Herald that the editor seemed to have a lot of fun with, describing Whalley getting into a car accident trying to avoid a pig in the road in January 1940.

As an addendum to the story; Whalley, the community in Surrey, is named after Charlie’s brother, Arthur Whalley who started a service station, a general store, and tourist cabins in the area.

The Nicola Valley Museum and Archives is open from Tuesday until Saturday from 10am until 5pm, if you have any questions about the history of Merritt or the Nicola Valley please stop on by, give us a phone call, or send us an email!

07/12/2026

Richard “Dick” Trodden was born in Drummond, Quebec on February 17th, 1855. During the 1870’s, Quebec entered an era of economic stagnation and depression that Dick lived through as a young man. He remembered that during this time, a barrel of flour cost around $10 if one could manage to scrounge up enough money to afford it. Dick would leave Quebec in 1877 for Winnipeg where he began working on the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1878, Dick would lose his index finger on his right hand while working on the railway at St. Boniface in Winnipeg.

Dick continued to work on the railroad through the prairies before taking a job in Moose Jaw as a car repairer in 1883. He worked for a bit on the construction of the Kicking Hose Pass of the CPR before travelling through the US and arriving in Yale on October 18th, 1884 where he went back to work as a car repairer.

While staying at the Dominion Hotel in Kamloops in 1887, a man named Dan Adams came in looking for people to work on the construction of the first bridge across the South Thompson River. This bridge would eventually come to be known as The Red Bridge that would be destroyed by arson in September 2024. Dick agreed to take the job and stayed with them until the work was complete. From then on, Dick’s career began to focus on road and bridge construction. He began travelling across the pacific northwest, to Montana, Washington, and throughout the District of Yale, constructing roads and bridges wherever he could get contracts. He was credited with saving Ashcroft’s bridge in 1907. As the bridge was nearing completion, the spring runoff caused the Thompson to surge and threatened to destroy the nearly competed bridge. Trodden and one of his employees managed to obtain some cables to brace the bridge and kept it from being swept away.

He also did a large amount of work in the Nicola Valley during his time as the government road builder, constructing the road from Nicola to Kamloops, building bridges on the Gavelin estate, repairing roads in Aspen Grove, and helping repair the bridge that crosses the Nicola River along Voght street.

He was known for being a tough, but caring boss. In his obituary, stories were recalled of him once walking several miles to Lytton and back to get a bottle of medicine for one of his employees. He would often do the riskiest jobs himself rather than allowing his men to do it. But he still demanded every ounce of labour from his men because, he did everything he could to ensure that his men were given a proper rate of pay.

Dick would eventually retire and lived in Spences Bridge along with his sister for many years. However, in 1935, changes to the electoral boundaries shifted and removed the communities of Spences Bridge and Lytton outside of the district of Yale and into the district of Lillooet. This greatly incensed Dick as someone who had lived and worked in the Yale district for many years. He was quoted as imagining “what would be the feelings of the revered dead who passed out in Yale if they could wake up and find themselves in the electoral riding of Lillooet. [he] can imagine no worse fate for his old friends than for that to happen.” He had always said that it was his goal to die in the district of Yale, and therefore when the boundary was moved, he moved with it, packing up and moving to Merritt which remained within the District of Yale. Although the full quote was not used in full in the Merritt Herald, due to him swearing profusely in the full quote, he was quoted as saying “I have lived these long years in YALE and I am going to die in there.” Although the boundaries would eventually shift back later in the decade, Dick continued to live in Merritt.

Throughout his time in Merritt, he got the distinction as being the driver of the Clenes Car, the first car in British Columbia that arrived to the province in 1902, and was being stored in Merritt. He had the chance to drive the vehicle in the Golden Jubilee Parade in Vancouver in May of 1936. He also drove it in a parade in Kamloops in 1937, and in the Rodeo Parade here in town in 1938.

He was also regarded as a character in town, in February 1939, he bought a 50-cent ticket to the local dance that supported children’s hockey. He was quoted as saying that he doesn’t dance, never had danced, never would, and didn’t believe in dancing… But he wanted to help fund the training and teaching of hockey and good sportsmanship.

After many months of sickness, Richard Trodden succeeded in his goal of dying in the district of Yale as he passed away in Merritt on September 17th, 1940 at the age of 85. His body was interred next to his sister’s in Lytton.

Below are two photos, the first is of Dick Trodden driving the Clenes Car in the Vancouver Golden Jubilee Parade, the second photo is of, from left to right, George Isitt Jr., George Isitt Sr., Ernie Thomas, and Dick Trodden with the Clenes Car. The Clenes Car is now stored and on display at the Kamloops Museum!

The Nicola Valley Museum and Archives is open from Tuesday until Saturday from 10am until 5pm, if you have any questions about the history of Merritt or the Nicola Valley please stop on by, give us a phone call, or send us an email!

07/05/2026

The original gristmill in Nicola that was established by Clapperton in 1872 was destroyed by a flood 1875 and was eventually transformed into a house that A. E. Howse would live in when he originally arrived in the Nicola Valley. However, when Clapperton abandoned the gristmill, there lacked a communal place where farmers in Nicola could turn their wheat into flour.

It would be many years that the farmers around Nicola would go without a mill, until talks began to circulate over a decade after the destruction of the original mill. A. E. Howse decided to take on the job in 1890 and managed to raise $1,500 from farmers to construct a new mill. Rather than building the mill in the traditional “gristmill” style, that being processing the wheat by grinding it between one stationary stone and one rotating stone, like the two that we have on display here at the museum, Howse elected instead to build the second roller mill in BC, and the first in the interior. The roller mill was set up with two stones placed vertically that rotated around a central pole. Roller mills proved to produce higher quality flour than the gristmill counterpart, along with it being more efficient.

On top of the newly developed roller mill, Howse’s mill was two stories and also contained a grain elevator that transported the grain onto the second floor for it to cleaned, dusted, and separated. It also contained a dust collector, loading dock, and was accompanied with a dam and bridge along the Nicola river that powered the belts that drove the mill.

The total cost for the mill was $14,500, $2,000 over Howse’s original estimates, but it was completed months earlier than expected. The mill could also produce 50 barrels of flour per day, which equates to 9.500lbs or nearly 4,500kg of flour, which was 20 barrels more than had been expected.

Below are two photos, the first is of is of the dam and the mill building circa 1900, the second is of Nicola from 1899, where you can see the dam and the mill on the left side of the photo.

The Nicola Valley Museum and Archives is open from Tuesday until Saturday from 10am until 5pm, if you have any questions about the history of Merritt or the Nicola Valley please stop on by, give us a phone call, or send us an email!

06/28/2026

Another school year has come to a close, and with it, the doors of Collettville Elementary School have closed for the last time, as the decision to close down the over 60-year-old school was made earlier this year. Today we’ll take a look back at the opening of Collettville Elementary and how it came about.

With the official opening of Craigmont Mines in 1961, Merritt was undergoing a lot of changes. The influx of people had caused a housing shortage, resulting in the opening of The Bench subdivision, the new hospital was under construction, a new wastewater treatment plan was under construction, and downtown Merritt was being revitalized. At the same time the Merritt School Board was under pressure as well, as the new families coming to town brought with them their children that needed to go to school.

In January, 1963, a school referendum was held, to allow the school board to take out a loan to build two new elementary schools, Bench Elementary and Collettville Elementary, as well as work on adding more classes to Diamondvale and MSS, and building more office space for the School Board. The referendum was easily passed, with 76% voting in favour of allowing the school board go ahead with the construction of the new schools.

Tenders were called for the twin schools in May of 1963 and registration of students for the following school year began even before the first shovels were in the ground. Construction was hoped to start in mid-June soon after the tenders were chosen, but by the end of the month they were still waiting for approval. It would take until the following month for the tenders to be approved by the Province, and awarded to Wilson Construction Co. out of Vancouver who submitted a tender of just under $115,000 (approximately 1.15 million in today’s money) to build both the Bench and Collettville Schools.

Construction was underway over the whole summer, but they would not be completed in time for the opening of the school year. Central Elementary being one of the main elementary school in the area, and with Diamondvale Elementary already at capacity, was faced with having a total of 640 students on the first day of school until Bench and Collettville could be completed. The school converted the lunch room as well as three additional rooms in the basement into classrooms just ahead of the school year to accommodate the students. Fears persisted into the start of the school year that the new schools and school additions still would not be enough to house the number of students that were expected over the coming years.

Construction began stalling on the new schools over the fall, particularly in Bench school which had plumbing issues that stemmed from the new sewer lines that were being run up to the new Bench subdivision. But on December 5th, 1963, Collettville Elementary was declared open and the students were moved to their new school immediately.

Below are a few photos, the first photo is from March 1965 of the exterior of Collettville. The second photo was taken in late July 1963 of the foundation of Collettville. The third image is of a comic that ran in September 1963 in reference to the overcrowding and additional rooms needed for the additional students. The last photo is from January 1964, shortly after the students moved into their new school, and it is of Mr. Johnson’s grade 7 & 8 class.

The Nicola Valley Museum and Archives is open from Tuesday until Saturday from 10am until 5pm, if you have any questions about the history of Merritt or the Nicola Valley please stop on by, give us a phone call, or send us an email!

06/20/2026

Tomorrow marks the 30th annual Indigenous Peoples Day, and to mark that we thought we would share some photos of traditional cradle boards and how Teit wrote they were made. Teit described how the newborn baby was placed in the cradle board when they were a couple days old. The cradle board was made of birch bark and lined with buckskin. Grass, fir-twigs, and sagebrush bark would sometimes be laid at the bottom to allow for more cushioning. A plank of wood was fashioned on the back, which Teit noted was unique among the indigenous peoples of the Nicola Valley and Cook’s Ferry. A hoop that would go over the baby’s head to keep from the blanket off the baby’s face, but still allowing breathing room when they wanted to cover up the baby. When the baby was placed inside, they were enclosed with buckskin lacing. The blanket that the baby would be wrapped in was made of fawn skin with the hair remaining intact.

The cradle boards were all crafted with a packing-line fashioned on the ends of the cradle, allowing the baby to be carried horizontally across the back. When riding a horse, this also allowed for the baby to be hung on the pommel of the saddle.

Below are a few photos of cradle boards, the first is of Jenny Sam with her son, circa 1900. The second is of a woman carrying a cradle board with a baby, along with another woman and a cowboy, unfortunately no one is identified, circa 1900. And the last photo is of two Saddleman brothers, along with a woman holding a cradle board near Douglas Lake, circa 1900s. We also have a cradle board on display here at the museum!

The Nicola Valley Museum and Archives is open from Tuesday until Saturday from 10am until 5pm, if you have any questions about the history of Merritt or the Nicola Valley please stop on by, give us a phone call, or send us an email!

Nicola Valley Museum & Archives

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