One Sunday morning in February 1943 the Co-op building stood alone in a block of burnt rubble — a forlorn sight. Not one pane of glass was left, the doors were all either blown off or torn off, the three chimneys were sheared off flush with the roof and the stucco walls were smoked and… Read More

The first written records of the association show that five directors were elected at a local Dawson United Farmer meeting (held April 9, 1921) and met at William Neve’s farm on April 13, 1921. The five directors were W. Cusack, S. Ravelli, E.L. Hauger, G.C. Wertenbaker and J. McDiarmid. At this meeting the name of… Read More

It was in 1927 when a young boy named Fred Newby walked into the old Dawson Creek Co-op and asked for a job. The store was at the old town site then, a frame building affair which was later to be moved to the new site. Fred had come into the Dawson Creek area in… Read More

“Prices got so high we could not afford to buy anything, they were way out of sight.” These were the words of a charter member of the Co-op, Mr. Silvio Ravelli. He was one of five men who sat down to decide what could be done to bring reasonable prices to the farmers of the… Read More

From telegraph line… …to automatic dialing In 1914 a single telegraph line as far north as Fort St. John served as communications for much of the Peace River. The first organized service was started in the early 1930’s when a switchboard was installed in a building north of the Cooperative. The Government Telephone and Telegraph… Read More

Courtesy of Mr. Alex Caldwell formerly of Pouce Coupe and formerly with the Northwest Communications System who enlisted the help of Mr. D. S. Robertson of the Ministry of Transport, Department head of the Northwest Communications System and Mr. A. Roberts presently of Pouce Coupe who set the research in motion and finally made the… Read More

From the Memoirs of Mr. Gordon CummingsBy Dorthea H. CalverleyNone of us who turned our radio sets to Dial 1350 that night in December 1947 had the slightest idea of the struggle that had made it possible. We had become blase’ about strangers arriving in town, after the hectic years of the great “Boom”, although… Read More

 By C.F.E. Carpenter, Public Relations DepartmentReferring to your memorandum of March 26, the Pouce Coupe office of the Canadian Bank of Commerce opened on October 2, 1916 as a full-time branch under the management of W. R. Cruikshank. That branch was given sub-branch status on December 15, 1930, and is in effect today operating, as… Read More

By Ruby Stevenson Credit Unions were first discussed by a group of farmers in the Lakeview [or Lake View] district. Two books were read — Poor Man’s Prayer by George Boyle and Credit Unions by Roy Bergengren. All the available information on Credit Unions from the extension departments of both the University of British Columbia and… Read More

By Fire Chief William Foster When Dawson Creek was incorporated as a village on May 26, 1936 the only fire protection the community had were a few fire extinguishers, which the businessmen had purchased themselves. When a fire occurred, nearly everyone turned out to assist in extinguishing the blaze. In October 1936 the village commissioners agreed… Read More