THE FRUIT RANCHERS

In the early 1900s scores of settlers arrived in the Kootenays with plans to grow fruit and get rich. In many cases what they found was not what they had expected. In some cases what they found was not what they had been sold! Susan’s poignant tale includes stories of the struggles and disappointments suffered by these early pioneers and tells, too, about some of their few victories.  

Excerpt:
“The hard work of clearing land for fruit trees kept people’s minds off the fact that, even with unlimited funds, the best of luck, and a lot of hard work, they would not be blessed with a marketable crop for at least four years.  It took that long for fruit trees to come into production.

Photo by Anne Schweitzer
Apple packing at Crawford Bay, circa 1919

Meanwhile they turned their plows to interim crops grown between the rows if fruit trees.  Berries did well - black and red currants, raspberries, strawberries and gooseberries all thrived in newly broken ground.

“Reality struck in other realms, too. Without money coming in, one needed to grow food to eat and raise a few animals for meat and milk and eggs. All too soon men and women who had pictured themselves working, standing upright reaching for perfect orbs of colourful fruit, found themselves  spending more and more time hunkered down on all fours  -  weeding carrots, bending over prickly berry bushes and stooped over manure forks in makeshift barns - as well as working on their orchards. No, it wasn’t turning out quite like the coloured pictures on the Canadian Pacific Railway brochures said it would.  But, by now, many of these pioneers had no choice but to stay and make the best of it.”