| These two views of John Dunlop's store - evidently taken
on the same day by their numbering and by the vehicle depicted - bely the
unique location of this enterprising establishment, which lay miles upon
miles from the nearest other settler - other than Durban's Ferry, a few miles
downstream (behind the viewer). Today's Road 40 along Carpenter Lake
is a couple of hundred feet up the mountainside at right; the old road and
what's left of this house deep beneath the chilly waters of the reservoir.
The store, which also carried gas (of course), was ideally located for business
at something of a midway point between the goldfield towns and the railway
basetown at Shalalth. Travellers from the outside world would have
just come in via the torturous steeps and switchbacks of Mission Mountain,
necessarily needing a break from the road as well as food and drink and gas
- and quite likely some repairs, major or minor; conversely people coming
down from the goldfield towns would need a stop just before making the crossing
of the river and the ascent and descent of Mission Mountain. I seem
to recall being parked outside it for a nap while Dad went in for a while
- on more than one occasion - but I was pretty young then, as I was born
in '55 and the lakewaters rose in '58. I suspect there were legendary
cardgames played and mountainman's tales told in this place, as in other
cabins along the goldfield roads. The Dunlop family remained a pioneer
founding family of the non-native community in Lillooet, and the proprietors
of the store were well-known to all who lived in the district in the old
days. |
BC Archives # NA-04644
|
