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Fintry - Lives, Loves and Dreams: The story of a unique Okanagan landmark

by Stan Sauerwein with Arthur Bailey

202 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #00-0113; ISBN 1-55212-448-7; US$20.00, C$22.50, EUR16.50, £11.50

A history of the Shorts' Creek Delta at Fintry, British Columbia. The book covers periods from pre-history to the present.

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about the book      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book Fintry - Lives, Loves and Dreams chronicles the memorable people, the secret loves and the engaging history of the Shorts' Creek delta. Containing visitor maps, photographs and interesting anecdoates, this readable account covers Fintry from pre-history to the present. It follows a trail of dreams through Fintry's incarnations as an enigmatic millionaire's private estate and school for orphans, to the grand plans for an international resort. Media reviews Millennium book project captures Fintry's history from the Capital News (Kelowna), Wednesday October 11, 2000 (A18-A19) by Judy Steeves, Staff Reporter     A verdant delta of flat land created by the rushing waters of a little creek has acted as a magnet over the decades, attracting stubborn people with dreams that inevitably are smashed before they leave.     Fintry, a 360-hectare plot of Westside lakeshore, waterfall, canyon and upland wilderness, was purchased in 1995 by the Central Okanagan Regional District and province as parkland for $7.68 million.     Public ownership was the culmination of nearly two centuries of a parade of white men's private visions for this isolated point of land jutting into Okanagan Lake, following an unknown length of time when it was part of the domain of the Native people.     It oozes history.     So it's no wonder that Westbank author and freelance writer [Stan] Sauerwein and Fintry resident [Arthur] Bailey chose to collaborate on a chronicling of some of the characters who made their mark on the province, the valley and Fintry in particular over the past few decades.     It was published with the partial financing support of the Canada Millennium Partnership Program and private donations. A portion of the revenue from each copy sold goes to the Central Okanagan Heritage Society to assist in ongoing restoration projects.     The property and the ghosts of the people who've populated it are fascinating enough, but Sauerwein has woven the stories of their lives, loves and dreams into an even more compelling tale, at the centre of which is just a simple little parcel of land.     It initially was visited by fur traders in the early 1800s as they traversed what was originally a trail used by the Okanagan Native people on the west side of Okanagan Lake and styed at the delta at Shorts' Creek. It became part of the Okanagan Fur Brigade Trail, a route for transporting trade goods and furs from Northern B.C. to the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River.     Gold miners followed, and eventually Thomas Dorling Shorts took out the first pre-emption on Fintry in 1883, 129 ha at the mouth of what was then called Biche Creek.     That began what turned out to be an extremely colourful century of life on the delta.     From Captain Shorts, renowned for the unusual and often unsafe contraptions with which he ferried people and supplies up and down Okanagan Lake with irregularity, the delta was purchased by a pair of "sporting dilettantes" with British titles.     However, the most memorable mark on Fintry was made some 20 years later when a wealthy Scot named James Cameron Dun-Waters purchased the spit of land, turning it into an estate for growing some of the valley's first fruit, Ayrshire dairy cattle and as a base for hunting expeditions.     The granite manor house, inventive irrigation system and unique octagonal dairy barn he built remain today as part of the new park, remnants of this valley's history.     Sauerwein, with the help of Bailey, has also chronicled in fascinating detail, Fintry's tangled but sometimes glittering history as a pawn in the game of real estate development and in the entertainment industry. ********** Fintry's colourful history now in black and white from the Westside Weekly (Okanagan Valley), Wednesday September 27, 2000 by Dorothy Brotherton     Stan Sauerwein feels a novel brewing. The colourful lives he's written about in his latest non-fiction book beg for a romantic treatment.     "There's a good novel, a fine romance, in some of these stories," said Sauerwein.     That may come next. For now, the book he has completed is called Fintry: Lives, Loves and Dreams. It chronicles the history of a spit of land that juts into Okanagan Lake midway between Kelowna and Vernon.     It is the first area history that pulls together all the bits and pieces of accounts written over the past century or so, and weaves them into a chronological whole.     First Nations' chiefs, lords, premiers, prospectors, the idle rich and the humble poor, visionaries and speculators, stubborn pioneer women and eccentric pioneer men - all have had a part in taming the Shorts' Creek Delta, on which Fintry is formed.     Or is it tamed? Under Sauerwein's pen the land itself becomes the most colourful character. It defies civilizing. It lures an enigmatic millionaire and a school for orphans, it hosts a trail of dreams. It spurns plans for everything from a hunting lodge to an international resort, until it reaches its current status as a B.C. park.     Sauerwein spent a year writing the book. He has fun with the character of Thomas Shorts, High Admiral of the Okanagan, who tries to sell Fintry for $75, after convinced it could only grow cabbages, but he can't find a buyer. A short time later he is offered $4,0000 for it.     Sauerwein has fun exploding some of the myths surrounding the Laird of Fintry, James Dun-Waters and speculating about why he apparently did not marry the love of his life.     But Sauerwein has the most fun on a "hectic trip to Scotland to track down and verify some stories, to follow the steps of Dun-Waters when he went back to Scotland."     "Katie is so fascinating. She stuck by him," says Sauerwein, smiling obliquely, as if he knows or suspects more to Dun-Waters' friendship with Catherine Stuart than records reveal.     But again the land obscures the people. Sauerwein jumps into his own narrative about Stuart to say, "So many firsts happened at Fintry - telephone, power, Ayrshire cattle, a curling rink - the province actually started up the strata title act as a result of Fintry."     Referring to attempts by the Bailey and Graham families to turn Fintry into an international resort, Sauerwein says, "It was as if Fintry would not have it.     "It seems fitting that it's become a park - this special little place in the valley will be enjoyed by my children and children's children."     Sauerwein poured over journals, historic records, military archives, government documents and interviewed people who remember some of the Fintry pioneers. The book is heavy with annotation, and reads like a lively history.     He says it's not a textbook, not scholarly, but it is history and probably as close as a person can get to what actually happened in those bygone days.

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Excerpts

In a fashion reminiscent of his time in Scotland, Dun-Waters relied on his manager to run the estate, but on occasion participated in the farm labour. Dun-Waters, it was reported often, didn't put on airs. He was just as likely to be seen in dungarees held at the waist as he was in any other attire. One such "visit" to physical labour was recalled by Crawford Twiss.

At the time, Godwin had men digging ditches and two new farm hands were joined one morning by an older, but evidently fit fellow. He took to the pick and shovel without complaint. It was a hot summer day under the relentless Okanagan sun and the two younger workers soon began to transfer their frustration with the rock and gravel to their employer, a mysterious Scot they had never seen. Amongst themselves they complained about the work and the pay offered them for the effort. No doubt, on a rest break from the back-bending chore they gaxed north at the 'big house' and compared bilious assumptions about the owner who was at that moment probably sitting in the shade sipping something cool. Both men concluded the Scot had probably never soiled his hands with honest labour but regularly dirtied them counting his money.

The farm hands rested in the ditch, assured of being hidden from view until Godwin appeared.

"We're in for it now," they might have said to each other as Godwin strode towards them, but when he passed and stopped instead at the older man to ask permission on some detail of the Fintry operation, they were flabbergasted. Dun-Waters apparently approved Godwin's request, looked at the two workers and just smiled. It was typical of the private jokes he enjoyed playing on the unsuspecting.

While he was a gentleman, schooled in proper conduct, Dun-Waters was also known to forget the strict decorum of his upbringing. Twiss recalls:

"You'd be sitting in his sitting room 'round the fire and he'd probably come in late from some of his pursuits. He'd walk right through the sitting room there with a towel around his waist...to the bathroom. He says: 'I know you people don't mind.' He says: 'We've all seen birthday suits before, but I'm going to have my bath.' He wasn't at all bashful in anything he did."

In the early years, the Fintry fruit crop was the primary focus of endeavour, although Dun-Waters also maintained a small herd of Herefords on the old Attenborough property and he ran a herd of approximately 100 brood mares.

Twiss remembered how Dun-Waters was particularly fond of clearing land. Perhaps it was seeing the land made arable and productive that pleased him. In fact, he enjoyed the process so much that to allow him the individual satisfaction of clearing land on his own, he purchased a Creston Stump-puller. The device enabled him, by use of leverage, to work a stump out of the ground singlehandedly.

"That was his main hobby - to have a wonderful finish when he pulled out the stump that he'd been pulling."

**********

After Auld completed his advertising campaign, he suggested that Fintry Estates Ltd. 'arms-length' themselves from the marketing by hiring a separate group to handle the sales effort. McDonald agreed with Auld and put Stan James in charge.

Auld's full-page ads were booked in newspapers across the country and the U.S., in several languages, as soon as the property survey was received by Fintry Estates Ltd.

"$10 secures your homesite in the sunny Okanagan," the newspaper ad began. "To live in a home of your own design, beside the sparkling blue waters of a lake famed the world over for its colorful water sports - this is a prospect so inviting most Canadians will scarcely have dared entertain it. Yet today, you can own a homesite in this location for less than the price of a pack of cigarettes a day!"

To match the enticing image, Auld had carefully set up photos of a young family in swim suits, with their picnic baskets and beach umbrella, ready to enjoy their property. He added pictures of a fishing boat, complete with a man holding up what might easily be guessed as a 20 lb. trout, and a mirror-quiet lake in the background. He described Fintry in glowing terms, like a country club, making liberal use of the facilities that Dun-Waters had incorporated at the property. "It already has a large steamer dock, tennis courts, golf driving range, paddocks, boats and many other improvements. A marina, Olympic-sized community swimming poo, etc. are sson to be added. Water and electricity are included."

The ad highlighted an aerial photograph of the delta and continued by saying: "Only the best sections are being utilized for home-sites; the remainder has been left in parkland, which includes bridle paths, lakes stocked with fish and a spectacular 100 foot waterfall."

To overcome fears of a real-estate con, Auld carefully inserted an assurance that everyone who decided to make a purchase was being offered a choice homesite and that every purchase came with a 30-day money back guarantee. To prompt fast decisions, he added that the sales were limited to only three lots per person.

"On your first visit to your property you can, without obligation, exchange your lot for any other available home-site of equal value," the promotion claimed. Of course Auld didn't expect many buyers to make the trip from the windy corners of Saskatchewan to Fintry just to check on a $10 investment.

Prairie farmers, frost-bitten and tired of the cold weather, ate it all up like candy.

The sales material touted a long range plan for the community of 16,000 people at Fintry, on 4,500 to 5,000 lots within ten years and by the way their prospects responded it could very well have happened. The news media described the scheme a marvel. Even local politicians got involved extolling the virtues of the idea.

"I feel that it is certainly a marvelous asset, not only to Fintry but to both Vernon and Kelowna," pealed Vernon Mayor Frank Becker.

"We believe the area has tremendous recreational possibilities," echoed 38 year-old Stan James. He told the press that "we feel many of our sales will be to people who want to have a place for their retirement or who want a place for a summer home or recreation spot."

Within the first week of offering their $10-down$10 per month plan, the company recorded more than 1,000 lot sales. James claimed the company "had to triple office staff to keep up with the mail demand." Daily, James was opening envelopes in the handfuls, withdrawing $10 cheques and allocating spots on a first-come basis by sticking pins into the lot survey.

"They sold several hundred lots in the first 14 days," recalls Bailey, who was watching the goings-on from the sidelines, waiting for his opportunity to be called on to develop the property. "The post office had to send a special truck with the mail. They dumped it at the Howe Street office for sorting. It was just an unbelievable response!"

What the buyers didn't know of course was the location of their lot. As it turned out, Fintry Estates Ltd. had decided to sell the 'upper benches' first. None of the lots allocated initially were even on the delta. Al the sales made were from the Westside Road west.

"It was an alligator. The plan of the properties must have been 15 feet long and as a letter would come in with a $10 bill a little pin would go on this monstrous map," says Bailey. In all cases, the first wave of purchases were allocated land where neither roads, water or sewer were yet built.

When, within weeks, the number of lot sales had jumped to 3,000...

**********

To maximize revenue opportunities to be gained from the Potter's experience with animal husbandry, and to begin building the "resort" atmosphere Arthur felt was required to attract purchasers, B.C. Properties Ltd. decided to re-introduce animals to Fintry.

Helen Graham, wanting to get more actively involved in the rebuilding efforts at Fintry, took on that particular task with her own style and flare.

Dressed in her finest French designer outfits, draped in jewels and driven by a chauffeur, Mrs. Graham 'hit the stalls'. Accompanied by Wilf Potter, whose job it was to point out the best animals, she regularly ventured from the Manor House to the Valley Auction Mart. Her appearances at the livestock pens must have raised a few eyebrows because Helen always looked as though she should be visitin Sotheby's rather than a saw-dust covered corral. Nonetheless, standing shoulder to shoulder with the ranchers and farmers in their dungarees, her toy poodle (dyed purple as a joke by Arthur) bundled under her arm, she bid on the livestock that Fintry needed. Pigs were eventually found for the sty, horses for the barn, chickens for the yard and cows for the pasture land.

Understanding it was the "attraction" that was more important to the plans for development at Fintry than the animals themselves, Arthur also contracted an American designer familiar with 'free range' animal zoos, to plan a children's park. Ingrid added peacocks, swans and geese to the menagerie. In a matter of a few months, Fintry went from unoccupied silence to noisy agricultural activity.

"We weren't raising the animals for sale or anything except for turkeys. We used them for meat and eggs. Most of the rest, the horses, pigs and cows became pets. A few years later, when we had the marina operating, the boys would paint the sides of the sows with advertising. It was that fun, quirky atmosphere we were after..."

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Catalogue Information

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