The Vrooms of the Foothills, Volume 3: When the Work’s All Done This Fall

About 1915, this photo taken looking northwest shows the abandoned tipple for one of the four coal mines operating at Beaver Mines, AB, in the early 1900s. The tipple was at the bottom end of a chute that started at the mouth of a coal mine about half-way up a hill on the west side of Beaver Mines Creek Valley.

This remarkable close-up is of the huge wooden railway trestle that spanned Mill Creek Valley at Mountain Mill, circa 1911. The railway right of way at the east end of the trestle shows clearly. The photo is taken looking almost straight east from the west side of the valley. The right of way was built of soil and rock hauled by local men driving mule teams. The Mountain Mill Church built in 1906 is in the right foreground. The dirt road leading to Pincher Creek and making an ‘S’ curve on the west side of the valley shows in the foreground. (Map 7)

The swift water of Mill Creek turned the water wheel which powered the first grist mill in Alberta built at Mountain Mill in the fall of 1880, shown here. Later, diverted water operated the McLaren sawmill. The location of the grist mill and sawmill are on Map 7.

In spring 1938, ten-year-old twin brothers Robin and Ramon LaGrandeur (‘circled’ riders) are helping to trail a herd of cattle from the IV Ranch east of Pincher Creek to a summer range deep in the foothills southwest of Pincher Creek. Their destination was the Castle River Forest Reserve marked by Table Mountain in the background.

The above pictures show the two boilers that were in the powerhouse of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Park. They are being hauled during the hotel’s construction from the rail head at Hillspring, AB, in May 1927. In the top picture, a boiler is pulled over snow-covered ground by a team of eight horses driven by one man.

Henri “Frenchy” Riviere’s dog team at his Victoria Peak ranch (Map 4) hitched to an umiak in 1921. Frenchy successfully crossed timber wolves and huskies. From this cross-breeding, and using the largest and strongest pups from successive litters, he built up his famous dog team. When fully grown, these dogs could also carry loads of up to 60 pounds each, serving Frenchy as pack dogs in the mountains in the wintertime.

The silent movie “Eternal Love” starring the famous John Barrymore, Sr. and Camilla Horn may have been filmed as early as 1922 in the mountains near Lake Louise in Banff National Park. The movie, which was set in the Swiss Alps, told a forlorn love story.

Experienced mountain guides were needed to carry the filming equipment and the movie stars, using saddle and pack horses, up to the lofty filming sites. Some of those guides were old time cowboys Ira Lum (left) and my Dad, Ralph Vroom (centre), sit sharing their adventure stories with John Barrymore, Sr. (right).

Adventure films involving wild animals appealed to the silent movie audiences of the 1920s. A need developed for tamed wild animals to act in these movies. As well as taking trained black bears to Los Angeles to work in the film White Fang, Frenchy Riviere took this tamed timber wolf. “Lady Silver” took the role of the female wolf, 'Lady Jule'. She is seen here lying on stone steps in her enclosure on Frenchy’s Victoria Peak ranch in 1926 (Map 4).

When the Beaver Mines School was in my Uncle Harold and Aunt Ruby Vroom’s (Map 3) chicken coop, it was nicknamed “the Chicken Coop School”. 1939-1940 students (left to right) Back row: Robert Foster, Mrs. Eda Foster, Joan Kovatch, Wallace “Waddy” Foster holding his mare “Goldie ”; Front row: Alan Foster, Vada Hill, May LaGrandeur, Gladys Foster, Mary LaGrandeur.

In this undated photo, Mrs. Joe Primeau works at her spinning wheel at their home east of the Alberta Ranch on a sunny afternoon. All fireside crafts require a lot of time, patience and skill. One of the more demanding activities was spinning raw sheep’s wool into yarn.

John G. "Kootenai" Brown sits in a car owned by Sarah “Lu” Nielson in front of his home across the road from Lake Linnet, Waterton Park, in 1913 (Map 6). Lu lived in Waterton in the summers but spent the winters in Cardston, AB. While Lu was in Cardston, she and Rose Harker wrote articles for The Lethbridge Herald. They also sold subscriptions to the newspaper. For her sales efforts, one year Lu won this Ford as a prize for the

Here I am at age seventeen leading the 1944 Pincher Creek and District Fair and Rodeo parade. I’m riding a beautiful sorrel horse with white markings and adorned with a simple studded martingale.

Not too many careers were open to women before WWII. Boarding high school students from rural areas was one way women earned extra money. Here Nora Mansfield of the Fishburn, AB, district poses on the verandah of Mrs. Phil Grey’s boarding house in Pincher Creek

In Trenton, ON, just before going overseas in 1942, Geordie Annand, RCAF, is ready for the worst. He’s wearing his flying gear complete with parachute.

Geordie became a member of the exclusive “Silk Worm Club” when his life was saved by his parachute (made of silk in WWII) after being shot down over Germany.

Marjorie Clements (Link) stands in front of the home of her parents, Harry and Margaret Clements, in Pincher Creek in 1933. Marjorie was my first teacher and one of my favourite teachers. She was teaching at Coalfields School when I started on my sixth birthday on January 8, 1933. She and Dave Link eloped the summer of 1934 so Marjorie did not teach me a second year.

Etta B. Platt (centre) of Waterton Park and two girls from New York City in Glacier National Park, 1937. Etta is wearing a leather touring suit she made for herself. By 1940, Mrs. Platt had painted this car a silver colour. The locals called it “the Silver Streak.” Etta was very self-sufficient. She could change a flat tire and did all the tune-ups on her car. Author’s Collection

Annie Hescott (married Emil Jack in 1911) was raised in the Spread Eagle district north of Waterton Park. She was passionate about photography. Like Etta McRae and Connie Holroyd, Annie developed her own photos. The Hescott family travelled by team and wagon to go camping in Waterton Park every summer.

In the fall of 1924, George and Betsy Annand and their children, Betty and Geordie, moved permanently into Waterton Park. They built a log home and dairy barn on the north shore of Middle Waterton Lake where they operated the Waterton Lakes Dairy until 1927 (Map 6). It was the only continuously operated dairy ever located in the Park.

Bert Riggall, an entrepreneur who was one of Alberta’s foremost mountain guides, outfitters and photographers, stands with a client on the edge of a deep canyon in the heart of the Rocky Mountains in southwest Alberta. Bert was very knowledgeable about the names of flora and fauna in the Rocky Mountains of S.W. Alberta and S.E. BC.

In the 1920s, 30s and 40s, Robert W. “Bob” Hewitt driving his peddler’s wagon was always a welcome sight to farm and ranch families. When he was 12 years, Mr. Hewitt lost one arm in a coal mine accident. But, he was an enterprising soul and became a Watkins Dealer. He worked 30 years as the ‘Watkins man’ supporting his wife, Selina and two children, Esther and James.