Dear Member:

We wish to extend to all of you a good New Year! And hope that you are keeping well.

1. Archives office at BC Hydro building. We are working hard at our downtown office and have once again received help last year with funding from the BC Gaming Commission to help us pay for operating costs and some supplies. The Village has forgiven our taxes the last few years, which lightens the load considerably. However, insurance is $900 per year, but the cost of the lease from Hydro is reasonable.

2. We continue to provide information whenever requested to people looking for data about pioneers who once lived in our area and to others working on books, grants
and thesis’s. Most of the time we can help with information needed.

3. We reprinted our book 'Port of Nakusp' before Christmas last fall and are pleased with the results. Unfortunately, the costs were high because the first printing was 15 years ago and by a different printer, so cost was over $50 and we are selling at $60.

4. We hope to reprint our most popular book 'Circle of Silver' this year. We will need to obtain many grants including the CBT Initiative grant. Please remember to vote for us!

5. We will be obtaining a laptop and projector through help from a new Heritage grant so that we can do PowerPoint presentations of history and to feature our many wonderful slides of the early days of sternwheelers and so on.

Trip last year - went on the planned trip to the Mennonite settlement and gravesite –along with a couple doing research for a book on the Mennonites that we met at the office one day. They had maps and knew the area well. Annette Devlin did a lot to help as well We will approach Roca Mines at Trout Lake about a tour hopefully this year.

Lastly, we hope that you will keep up your membership with our Society. To receive help from BC Gaming, we have to show that we have enough people interested in keeping our society going through memberships. We would have to close the office or stop printing books, if we lost this help with our office costs.

Our AGM will be at the Seniors hall on the 24th of April from 2-5 p.m. and after a short meeting and election, Greg Nesteroff will be showing a video of the West Kootenay for us to view. Also the Baker Street Barbershop Quartet from Cranbrook will be putting on some entertainment for us. The bass singer is Cliff Green – who was born and raised here! Marie Gregory was his sister.

There will also be refreshments available. We hope to see you there! If you wish to bring along a friend, all are welcome.

If you have not been to our archives office for a visit and/or to check on your family information, we would be happy to see you. If you have any archive items or information that you would like to donate to the archives, we would appreciate receiving them.

Don’t forget that members can borrow books from the Della Parent Research Library, and there are special old and fragile books in the Edna Daney Special Collections that you can see only at the office. There are many artifacts we would be pleased to show you from the Bessie Vaughan Originals Room and we would like to update your family information that we keep in the Bob Swigart Newspaper Files.

Memberships are - $5 per year.
Life Memberships are $50.

Meetings are held at our office during the day 2:30 p.m. - monthly - 3rd Thursdays.

Our office hours are year long - Tuesdays and Thursdays 10-3 except for 2 weeks during the Christmas season.

Address is Box 819 Nakusp BC V0G 1R0

Phone/fax 250-265-0110 Email alhs@netidea.com

Alternate phone 250-265-3323