Kilby Historic Site is a beautifully preserved group of old buildings near the town of Harrison Mills some 100 kms from Vancouver. On a sleepy weekend in September I drove over there on a whim. The drive to Kilby through Highway 7 was pleasant. I like that route as its away from heavy traffic and also passes through some amazing scenery. The area around Harrison Mills used to be the home of the Scowlitz and Chehalis people from time immemorial. Then during the 1850s, when the area was being colonized by the British, Harrison Mills saw a surge in population due to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. 1890s saw the beginning of settlement of long term residents. A number of mills were built around this time. These days, Harrison Mills, is just a small farming community of around 400 people with lots of farms and greenery around.
The name of the site, Kilby, comes from the famous General store opened by Thomas and Eliza Kilby around 1900. That building which still stands today is the main highlight of the complex. After checking in at the reception which is housed in a pretty quaint cottage, and after a nice old lady gave me a brief overview of the layout of the complex, I made by way to the Kilby General store. The approach to the store is over boardwalks, the reason for which I later found out, was because of the frequent flooding of this area. As I stepped into the store, I was immediately transported some 100 hundred years back. The store is splendidly preserved, one of the best I have seen. I walked around here looking at the all the things in the displays and counters. There was everything here, from needles to rice. I was soon met by a man dressed in a costume of that era who gave me a brief history lesson of the area. He also showed me some great pictures from an old album. I absolutely loved his story telling and enthusiasm. He also told me about one of the famous residents of Harrison Mills, Maud Menten, who lived here as a kid and later went on to become one of the first women in medicine in Canada.
After looking around the store front I made my way into the back and to the top floor, where there used to be a hotel called Manchester Hotel. There were three rooms inside, if I remember correctly, all preserved the way they used to look back then. It reminded me of western movies I used to watch as a kid. One of the sections here was dedicated to Sasquatch or Bigfoot sightings. British Columbia is a hot spot for Sasquatch sightings and this area is at the core of it.
From here I then went downstairs to the ground floor or the basement. There I saw a fascinating furnace which had a network of ducts coming out of it. It turns out HVAC technicians refer to this type of furnace as an ‘Octopus furnace’. As I was looking around here I heard the sound of a train approaching, on the tracks which run just in front of the store and quickly ran outside to see which train it was, mostly expecting it to be a freight train or very less likely a passenger VIA rail train. It turned out to be neither. It was a Royal Canadian Pacific train. Till that moment I was only aware of 2 railways which carried passengers; Via Rail and Rocky Mountaineer. Now I found about this third railway. I later googled it to check the routes and prices. The prices are absolutely insane and killed any hopes I was beginning to have of traveling in it anytime.
From the General Store I walked over to the other buildings one by one which were all good but not as interesting as the store. There is an Orchard shed, a Milk house, a stable, a chicken coop, a small cottage which houses the washrooms on site, a log cabin, an implement shed and other smaller structures. There were other people too, enjoying the nice pleasant weather. Some kids were feeding the chickens and other animals. The feed can be purchased at the reception. After my stroll was completed, I went and sat in the nice cozy dining area in the reception cottage and had a nice cup of hot chocolate to wrap up my visit.
