Peace River Block News, April 1973An original script by Vancouver Playwright Lois Kerr is the Mile Zero Players entry in the Peace River regional drama festival. The festival begins Friday, April 13 at 7:30 p.m. and there will be two plays presented on Saturday–The Effect of Gamma Rays on the Man in the Moon Marigolds,… Read More

By Elizabeth WhyteThe Elizabeth Whyte School of Dancing was founded in 1945, shortly after I came to Dawson Creek. My husband, who was in the R.C.A.F., had been sent to Dawson Creek on a temporary posting to the Northwest Staging Route. When I started the first dancing school north of Edmonton, I thought it was… Read More

By E. Smith, Daily Colonist Reporter: Friday, August 18, 1972When you think of starting life on a homestead farm outside Dawson Creek, in British Columbia’s Peace River country, you don’t often think in the same breath of London, Florida, the Bahamas or Montreal — to say nothing of Victoria. Yet all these places, and many… Read More

By D. CalverleyNot the best writer, but probably the best-known writer in the Peace Country was A.M. (Maynard) Bezanson. His book, Sodbusters Invade the Peace, published in 1954 became instantly popular, both in the country he wrote about, and wherever people had heard of the building of the Alaska Highway or the world prize-winning grains… Read More

By Dorthea H. CalverleyThere were writers who raved about the Peace Country, and writers who raved at it. The late Harry Giles did neither, but for many years he wrote about it. Mr. Giles had a faculty for true reporting that served the area well. For a time he worked at the Peace River Block… Read More

By Dorthea CalverleyIn pioneer days, he-men did not apologize for reading verse, or for writing it. Publication — if there was any, was usually oral. The annual Christmas concert, weddings and other social gathering s were often enlivened with recitations of original compositions in which humour and pathos enjoyed almost equal attention. Ballads commemorating individual… Read More

By Dorthea CalverleyEvery pioneer woman was a “craftswoman”. She had to be! The products of her handiwork would never hang in museums even if they could be spared from the needs of the household. These ranged from knitted socks and mittens to tailored suits and overcoats made over from “hand-me-downs”. At early local fairs, some… Read More

By Dorthea H. CalverleyPart 1: Historical In pioneer days the knitting of socks, mitts, toques, sweaters, and children’s stockings was almost a necessity. Not that commercial articles were not available via Eaton’s & Simpson’s catalogues and stores or trading posts, but they cost more than the home produced article. When “cash money” was sorely needed… Read More

Taken from a Women’s Institute PublicationNow that spring is here, it is time that someone came to the rescue of the lady who was having problems with natural dyes. Recipes given here are for one pound of virgin wool that has been washed and dried to rid it of all natural oils. Before dyeing, use… Read More

Dawson Creek Fall Fair 1939The twenty-one Women’s Institutes of the B. C. Peace River Block held an outstanding demonstration and exhibit of handicrafts in connection with the recent Dawson Creek Fair and Seed Exhibit. Mrs. Spencer Tuck, the energetic secretary of the district board, personally visited twelve of her scattered and hard to get to… Read More