Wolfenden Road (Brisco)

The Wolfenden brothers cleared land and put up some log buildings, earning money with a trapline.

Long time Brisco residents may be familiar with the name Wolfenden, either from members of the Wolfenden family, or the name of a short road off of Highway 95 just south of “town”.

The problem with the Wolfendens is that there are quite a number of them from a few different branches of the family, so we definitely won’t be getting to all of them. But we’ll start with order of appearance, which means that we should start with the two brothers, Archie and Stanley.

Archie and Stanley Wolfenden

Born 3 June 1883 in Liverpool, England, Archie Wolfenden came to Canada – to Gleichen Alberta – either in 1907,¹ or 1909.² Previous to this he had joined the British Army, at age sixteen, and served in the cavalry during the South African War.³ After spending some time living the cowboy life in Alberta, Archie moved further west, getting work with the Columbia Valley Irrigated Fruitlands Company just outside of Wilmer.⁴ Through contacts there, he decided to move to the Spillimacheen area, which is where he was living in time for the 1911 Canadian Census. At the time he lists his occupation as a farmer/labourer. ⁵

In the year before this, Archie’s younger brother Stanley followed him to Canada. Stanley was born 20 November 1891, also in Liverpool, and he seems to have arrived sometime in 1910, however I wasn’t able to find his name on the 1911 Canadian Census (this isn’t surprising: the 1911 census is notoriously difficult to read). On the 1921 Census Stanley reports having arrived in Canada in 1908.⁶ Upon his arrival, Stanley worked on the steamboats under Captain Francis P. Armstrong. ⁷

The Wolfenden Homestead

In 1910 both Stanley and Archie filed pre-emptions for land up Spillimacheen Creek, near to the Giant mine. Archie filed notice to pre-empt first, putting his name down for Lot 7499 on 7 September 1910.⁸ This is very close to the Giant, and he reportedly chose the land on the advice of homesteader Tom Jones, who was heavily involved in the development of the mine. Stanley submitted his own notice to pre-empt land on 29 October 1910 for adjacent Lot 7500.⁹ Of the two lots, only Stanley went on to receive a Crown Grant for the property, which he obtained in 1923.¹⁰

Archie and Stanley Wolfenden on their homestead, 1910. Windermere Valley Museum and Archives C688.

The Wolfenden brothers cleared land and put up some log buildings (likely on Stanley’s lot), earning money with a trapline. Archie gave up the life in 1914, when he purchased eleven acres of the Ernie Cobb homestead at Brisco, upon which he contracted George Morrison to build a general store. This is the Brisco General Store – the date for this is a bit uncertain, with different sources giving different dates: either 1912 or 1914.¹¹ I lean towards 1914.¹²

Stanley lasted a bit longer, staying upon his Spillimacheen lot until he enlisted in the 225th Battalion as part of the First World War on 16 May 1916.¹³ At the time he reports being single and a rancher: Ernie Cobb was recruited at the same time.¹⁴

Stanley Goes to War

Stanley arrived in England in February 1917 with the 225th Battalion, and was transferred to the 54th Canadian Infantry Battalion (the Kootenay Battalion) that May before leaving for France.¹⁵ He was wounded multiple times, the first time in September 1917 with a gunshot wound to his right knee. He returned to his unit in April 1918 and was wounded again, on 8 August 1918. This time a bullet passed into the foot of his right leg just above the ankle and out of the thigh just above the underside of his knee. His medical report also states a wound on his left ankle and left groin. The left side wounds healed well enough, but the length of the wound on the right leg, combined with a lack of antibiotics, resulted in gangrene on his right thigh. He lost a great deal of muscle in his right leg from this injury, with limited movement and strength. He was also treated at this time for “V.D.G” (gonorrhea).¹⁶ This was the end of the war for Stanley: he was invalided to Canada in August 1919.¹⁷

While in England, however, Stanley met his future wife, Eva Claydon. She followed Stanley back to Canada, where the two were married on 8 June 1920 at Rev. Thatcher’s residence in Galena. Born in Maldon, Essex, England, Eva was then aged 24, the daughter of Oscar Claydon and Gerrude Sunner.¹⁸

Archie Starts a Family

Archibald, meanwhile, had a more pleasant experience during the war, getting married in September 1915 to Olive Gertrude Esch/Milligan. Olive had been born in Ontario on 12 September 1895,¹⁹ or perhaps 1897, ²⁰ and after her father died in 1899, her mother remarried Robert Milligan, who adopted Olive and her two siblings. Olive’s family moved to Golden in 1900, at which time her father was a lumberman working up the Spillimacheen and Bugaboo rivers.²¹ They moved to Spillimacheen in 1903, and Olive attended the Galena school until the family moved to Vancouver Island in 1911.²²

Archie and Olive met in 1913 when she came to visit her sister, Pearl Dolan, at Spur Valley. They were married in Cranbrook on 10 September 1915.²³

Archie and Olive went on to sell the Brisco store in 1921 to William Blair and to purchase the Fortress Ranch (Lot 1089) from widow Annie Mitchell.²⁴ By this time they had three children (Winston, Jim, and Olga May – a fourth, Elsie, seems to have been a “woops” baby born in 1930).

The Fortress Rach had been established decades before by Alfred H Mitchell, who pre-empted the land in 1891.²⁵ Archie transitioned the property to cattle with both a beef and dairy herd.²⁶ He also kept a flock of sheep at large, and changed the name the Birchfield Ranch.

Archie Wolfenden passed away 13 November 1953, and is buried in the Galena Cemetery. His wife Olive (having remarried Harold Bernard in 1959), died on 20 December 1988 in Golden, and is also interned in Galena.²⁷

The Other Wolfendens

Living next door to Birchfield Ranch on the 1921 Canada Census was Archie and Stanley’s father, James, then aged 70 and having arrived in Canada the year before, in spring 1920.²⁸ James had purchased the Danny Campbell property (Lot 1088). He would sell the property in 1929 and return to England.²⁹

Joining James on his trip to Canada was his grandchild, Archie and Stewart’s newphew, Stewart Hartley Wolfenden. The age eighteen, in 1921 Stewart was working as a labourer on the Kootenay Central Railway.³⁰

In the following decades he would come and go from Brisco at various times,³¹ passing away at home in Brisco on 14 February 1983.³² Stewart married twice, and had one son, Alan.

Stanley and Eva Back in Canada

Elsewhere in Brisco in 1921, meanwhile, were Stanley and Eva, then somewhat busy with two month old daughter Jean.³³ They lived on a small property where they raised five children (a sixth died young of whooping cough). Stanley made a living farming, working for the province on road maintenance, building trails in Kootenay National Park, as a groundskeeper around Radium Hot Springs, and cutting Christmas trees.³⁴

Eva became well known to her neighbors as “Woolsey,” and helped with farming, driving the horses, and haying.³⁵ Tragically, Stanley and Eva’s new house burned down in 9 November 1951, and Eva suffered third degree burns to 52% of her body. Just over two months later, on 25 January 1952, after numerous skin grafts, she passed away.³⁶

Stanley lost another home to fire on 3 January 1962, after which he moved to the Coast where he lived with his children (Jean, then Pearl, and the Stan).³⁷ He passed away on 18 August 1975 in New Hazelton, B.C., where his daughter Pearl was then living.³⁸

A New Generation of Wolfendens

I’m not going to be able to give an overview of all of the Wolfenden children, although I will discuss Archie and Olive’s eldest, Winston, as he was a bit of a force in the valley.

Winston was born 1 April 1917 in Golden, and grew up on the family farm near Brisco. He recalls working on the farm in 1935, at which time they had a dairy herd for commercial use, and a small beef herd for themselves: “Nobody had any money in those days… You just made enough to get by.”³⁹ Through the winter of 1937/368, Winston went with Charlie Stewart to work a trap line along the south fork of Spillimacheen River. He figures, “I probably hiked 1000 miles that winter.”⁴⁰ Trapping was a valuable option in the valley during the Depression, and one of a handful of ways to make a bit of money.

Winston married school teacher Val Gillis on 10 July 1944 in Saskatchewan, where Winston was serving with the Canadian Air Force. Two years later he went into partnership with his brother, Jim, to purchase Birchfield Farm from their parents.⁴¹ In 1954, Winston had bought out Jim’s share. The property was run as a successful dairy farm, while Winston also bought and sold various properties between Brisco and Spillimacheen.⁴²

Winston is described in 1965 by Golden resident and former MLA, Thomas King, as “maybe the most progressive business farmer the valley has ever had.⁴³ Amongst his various business interests, in 1965 Winston went to France to purchase a Charolais bull and heifer calf, which were among very limited numbers permitted to be imported into Canada. The cattle, co-owned by Winston Wolfenden and Lloyd Wilder, were in quarantine for around nine months before being allowed onto Birchfield Farm,⁴⁴ where they joined other Charolais purchased in Louisiana in 1957.⁴⁵

In 1996, the Wolfendens also launched Rocky Mountain Tufa, taking advantage of a natural deposit of the porous rock on their property to become the only commercial tufa operation in North America to this material as a gardening material.⁴⁶

Winston was also a co-founder, along with Lloyd Wilder and Bill Jones, of Purcell Development Co Ltd, a mining company that went public in July 1972. The company owned a series of local claims including Silver Basin up the Bugaboos and a couple of claims up Frances Creek.⁴⁷ Purcell Development were also the ones to purchase the old Mineral King and Paradise mine properties in 1973, intending to reopen the site, but ultimately failing and going bankrupt in the process.⁴⁸

Birchfield farm passed onto the next generation in 1972, when sons Don and Alan purchased the it, carrying on the Charolais herd and becoming quite successful at it.⁴⁹

Winston and Val, meanwhile, purchased another ranch (Lot 1903) near Galena, the former XN Ranch, renamed it Win-Val Farm, and raised Maine Anjou cattle: this lasted for just four years until it was sold.⁵⁰

Winston passed away on 19 May 2017 in Invermere, then with four children, ten grandchildren, and 19 great-grandchildren.⁵¹

The name Wolfenden Road, located just south of Brisco, is first mentioned in the B.C. Public Works Report in 1921-22.⁵²

See Also

Francis P. Armstrong
Ernest Cobb
Frances Creek
Galena
Giant Mine
Mineral King Mine
Paradise Mine

Footnotes