I/
My wife and I both came from Saskatchewan.
e were raised in
Saskatchewan.
Coming out because of ill health we had to quit
farming back in saskatchewan in 1947 and came out to lliite
Ro ck B.C.. vIe were there for seven or eight years where we
were aarveLous Ly healed and felt the call of God to come in
the lords work and wer-e felt the call to come to a place
called Hazelton, which we knew nothing about. 1 hen we arrived
in Hazelton which was thirty years ago this month on June 26,
1955. We came up here with a car with a trailer, a '52 Heteor
vli th a trailer loaded with some of our belongings shipping the
rest up by transport.
When we arrived here at Hazelton, Rev.
R.G. Veil vies the pastor at the Pentecostaland we came in to
take his place. Ive live in his horner.f'o
r-, at that time, which
was his home and we paid at that time for af'ew months. $25.00
a month rent for this home. It was heated at that time by sawdus t burnt and -e later returned it to wood burning. vIe finally purchased thie home which we have lived in now for the
p st thirty years. But the reason why we came to Hage l.ton
was because we had a real call of God upon our hearts. Especially to dark feces and we loved our Indian people and
found there was a great wo rk to be done. l'ihenwe arrived here
there were quite a nQmber of churches at that time in this
area. There was the Roman C~atholic, the Angelican, the Salvation Army, the Nennonite Brethern, the United Church, and
some other churches had come in since that time.
t that time
cars •.
rere the order of the day. In fact, most of our Indian
people had purchased ne•.
r cars about that time. \-ThenI look
at Hazelton now after thirty years we see such a change in it.
It's a 'beautiful town now with alot ot new houses and new
paint jobs. vlhen we arrived here there •.
rer-e mostly all old
houses, there were no pavement and no sidewalks.
The was
filled with horses at that time. Many times we had to chase
the horses off the streets to drive downtown;
Of course we
had a car at that time. The one we came up with. vhich didn't
last too long. Up in this country, because the roads at that
time were very rough.
Yes there was a hotel in town. ~<lhatthey called a hotel. It
burnt down later on, it be Lo nged to Sargents, Sar-gerrt.t s hotel
we called it. I don't remember if there was a liquor store.
But, I do know that Hazelton has certainly improved and has
gro •.
m a,tre~endous lot since the time when we came here. Of
cours e there was electricity here when came.
at York at that time was the mayor af the town.
t that time
I beleive it v ras much easier to find a job than it is even no•.
t;
It seemed that most people were working in those days.
nd I
had no trouble to finding a job. We came up here with the
monthly salary wh i.ch they had prmni.sed to give if they had at
$30.00 a month. Of course the wages when we work on the job
we re , I think the first job I worked on was a $1.35 per hr.
I worked on building the new powerhouse and the highway dep't.
maintainance place and we worked on the old telephone office
I guess it was. It was in town. And then the old Hudson Ba;
store, we did alot of o~d jobs and so on.
The grocery bill was alot less than what it is now, but we
found that it gone up. The prices have gone up in groceries
as the price has gone up in wages.

When we first got here I read a book about the Skeena people I was
all excited about it, someone wrote about the Hazelton area. So
when I went to visit the hospital I was telling the folks I had
just read the book, found it so interesting.
She said so and so
is nothing but a pack of lies.
The road to Ki t.wanga was just a trail the first year we were here.
Ot.he rw.i.s
e people had to come across on the middle of the bridge.
They would boat in the summer and cross the ice in the winter.
They
lost a lot of babies because people couldn't get to a doctor.
So the only hospital around the whole area was here in Ha'7elton'Z
Yes, they probably had to come to meet them.
wasn't too many phones was there?

In those days there

The villages had no power in those days.
You carryon

from there. Where did you get at?

O.K. Ide arrived here thirty years ago. There were plenty of moose
in this area , Each fall I was able to bag a moose to put in the
deep freeze, for our winter meat, for which we llere very thankful.
The roads are certainly a lot different to what they are now. The
roads especially out to the villages were very very rough and very
icy in the winter times.
In those villages, most of the villages
they had no electricity, no power. So they had no radios. We do
remember going out to, especially the village of Ki twancool, wh i ch
the road was in terrible condition.
The old car didn't last. vIe
used to get a new car every two years.
They only lasted two years
before the body was shaken up badly on them. There was no roads out
to the Ki twancoo L village, but the first winter we were here they
opened up a new road, the backroad which is still along the Skeena
Ri ver and up by Visserman' s farm now, and on to Ki t.wanga and on to
Kitwancool.
Otherwise the only .••
'faythey had of coming in from the
Ki twancoo L vill&.ge was by train over the Skeena at Skeena Crossing.
Or they came when it WdS frozen in the winter time, or by ferry or
boat in the sumnertime.
Of course the ferry was running at Ki twanga
in those days. There was many times the ferry couldn't run because
the river was either too high and too many logs going down the
wa ter, or too 1tlindy. Sometimes then the water then would get too
low. And the ferry couldn't/wouldn't run very good because of the
low vrat.er-s,
vle were very thankful when they put the backroads in
even though it vies a rough road.
Was the ferry privately

owned?

No, it was a go ve rnmerrt ferry, it was a free ferry. It was run by
the. current of the river.
There was also a ferry at Cedarvale.
So
we could go, there was a backre ad from Ki t.wan=a to the opposite side
of the river on Cedarvale.
\'Ie sOl'1etimeswould take a drive through
there even though it WbS a rough road.
\'Ie Li.ke this

country. vJe still love this country.
It's just such a
beautiful place to live. It's the most beautiful place we have lived
in since we have come to B.C •• vIe still like it here. VIe love our

Indian people.
How old would you have been when you arrived here?
I was fourty-fi ve years old when we arrived here. Hany people
laugh at me saying, If I was just a young man. l1y wife was fourtythree. So now we're quite a ways up in our seventys.
\'le'
re not so
active
as we have been over the years. ~'ie remember in those days
the old hospital was here and Dr. VIhi ting was of the doctors and
nurses and have done ever since. At that time we had the telephone
office.
As I said before we painted Lt , It was down in Old Town
just across from the commun i ty hall, the Tri-town theatre now, was
the old community hall.
In the old community hall we used to have
our rallys. Even I remember having the Rememberance Day meeting
there on the 11th of November.
The weat.he r had got real co.Ld , In
those years were colder than what they are now. Sometimes we got a
trenendous lot of snow.
This one November 11th it was 18 degrees
be Low zero on the old fabrenheit.
vIe went down to the Rememberance
Day rally down there and they even had a parade down town. Everybody prittin' near froze at that time. But that community hall "'0.6
used for most of the activities in the community.
Across the street was the telephone office.
Jean Sterritt was the
operator along with some of the younger folks at the time.
\-Ie appreciated

all the people here in this community that gave us
such a hearty welcome and we remember some of the old timers-that
had gone on since then and some have moved away. But we still have
good fellowship with all the pastors of all the churches and are
very thankful for the way we were received as strangers in this area.
We feel that our work here as yet is not altogether complete even
though we are retired from school maintainance job. I got to know
most of the principals and school teachers and all the schools
around in this Ha~elton area, which is the Terrace school district
#88.
\Then the lord so marvelously healed me of cancer and my husband of
very seriQus asthma.
It put a burden on our hearts to come in the
mission field. ~'le didn't know where we were going when they told
us there was aa opening at Hazelton for the pastor for the Pentecostal
Church. VIe didn't know where Hazelton or if there was a Hazelton in
B. C. • We had a calling for the Indian people. I'Ie didn't there was
a Indian in Hazelton.
But as the lord revealed it to me as I was
praying.
One day when we came here we saw the same sight as I saw
in a vision.
It confirmed to us that we are in place where God
want.ed us to be and it has proven that. As a pastor you generally
stay in one place for two or three or four or five years and then
.nove on, but our calling is still as gr-eat, as ever and vie are still
here even though not in full time work. We still enjoy being with
our. people everyone
of them. We f re so geatful to God for making
up the vlay for us. Many t.hf.ngs have happened since we 've been here,
so r-rowf'u.L ones and happy ones. vIe thank God that we can join in with
the sorrow of our peopleand the happiness of our people because we
experienced all these. v.Ie are so thankful that Hazelton has turned
into a real place of beauty.
Go dovm through the tovm now and it's
al-l.&.n~w
homes, nevI ~eop+e1 green lawns. Every things got a real;
WftQ~vQQl ~scall
It. Llf~ea up face? Face lifted up? Sqme with

the vi llar~es vte are so greatful

things are going as they are.

Jack never mentioned that we had a daughter with us when we came
and she married an Indian fellow and raised a fa~ily. Ire lost him
and then we lost their oldest boy. Through it all it just dr-aws us
closer to the lord and closer to our Indian people who go through
the same SOrr01'lSas well as the white people.
At one time we were going to Africa, but it vlasn't Africa that God
was calling us to, it was up to Hazelton.
We are thankful for the
beautiful calling of the lord and all that he means to us.
The Royal Bank wasn+t there.
The Sargents I store was the old Sargents
store.
Iremember going to that old store and meeting Bill Sargent
and George Ingram.
They wer-e working in the store and Bobby llen.
They we re young men then, running that store. Of course since then
they've built a new store and the Bank is built where the old store
used to stand.
Hazelton has certainly improved.
There was a little
Bank when we came, it was a log building right down by the river. It
was just a log place.
The river used to come up high in those days.
I guess they moved some of those places away from the bank.
They built a new Hudson Bay-store.

There are so many new pLaces in

t.own since we came.

He've had moose through our yard here. Three moose just standing
out in the field here one morning.. Another time a big Bull ra.n up
across through the yard here and up the hill. I called Lou York,
he lived at Two Mile. He got his gun, He went around the otHer way
and he got 'em.
A got a picture of the bears.
Old mother running out of the bluff
here up the hill after her little one because her little one didn't
get through the fence. Her little one turn around an' werrt back.
So shw went up through the fence and up the hill. I got it all on
movie. A little one crying up the trees here in the back of Janzes'
hause now. Got seperated from the mother and crying half the night
till the mother came back back to get 'm. It's been exciting all
the way around.
Vlheyredidthe post office used to be?
ing down town?

Is that in Perry York's bulid-

Yes, it was in the bottom.
And who was it had the store~ The buliding
up at Two Hile? I:Ir.and HI's.?1-!:yros.
Hyros, Hatt Hyros had the sto re ; It's in that same building that
they call it the York's apartments.
The building that the Tribal
Council ••.
Matt Hyros had the store in the bottom of it. The post office was
next, door wasn't it? They were all in the same building.
1Je did they use the top part for?

Yes, apartments.

Was it just apartments?

..

Those we re out for rent?
Yeah
What type of people lived up there?

Were they loggers?

School teachers.
One time a cow moose and calf come across the Skeena and went right
through the t.own, It was in Smithers wher-e the moose when in through
the store. But they "Tent right through town and up the hill next.
They're not so plentiful anymore either.
An Old Timer told us since we ca.ne here when the river •.
ras flooding
high that those in Hazelton looked across the river and there was a
cabin with smoke still coming out the pipe, went floating past Hazelton from Glen Vowell.
It's a true story. It was still floating.
Do you know anything
in now?

about Bill Sargents'

house, the one he's living

No. That vroud'L be a very interesting house to go through I think.
That's where his dad built that house.
Did it used to be three different
I wouldn't

houses made together into one?

even know that.

Somebody older than us could tell you that.
Cause I remember hearing that one time.
Too bad grandpa ~~nning wasn't here he lived to be a hundred and one.
He told us how, when he come up from the interior from :t<1erri
tt on the
Telegraph Trail. They came with horses, mostly mules and everything
packed on their backs.
They didn't know how long it wou Ld take. They
vrou Ld have pancakes in the morning.
Any that was left over from the
crew. He would put 'em away andidry 'em out an' stack them altlaYinto
a box. He thought, VIell at least he'd have something to eat. He said
that crossing the Bulkley River at one place he said that one mule got
washed off his feet. He went bobbing dOlVonthe Bulkley River, his pack
on his back. It crawled down out the side of the bank down further.
He said in (he talked in an English way) he was speaking about the
Indians.
He told them the young bucks would be on the leeway, with
the wife behind him. There used to be 100 Ibs. of flour in barrels
those days, it wasn't in bags. He said she'd be walking with a
barrel on her back and baby walking beside her and her husband be
walldng ahead .of her. That was when he cam.e and that was years ago.
He said they come when they were out of food and he was glad he had
his old dried pancakes and soak them i~ water and eat them.
He came year's ago when there was no roads, no railways.
He come on
the Telegra~h Creek. Even yet, you can see in different places over
at South T01';non Po Lo cks ' farm, ,.•
ire and insulators are still on the

trees be Low the Bulkley (Ht. Roche de Boule I mean).
sone of the wires and insulators up on the trees.

'I'he r-e+e still

Did they have to come over Roche de Boule to come over this way?
no. The line came from Burns Lake on through here and out that vray
towards Prince Rupert, I guess. The line went, right across the
Polock's farm by Seeley Lake.
It didn't G.tend up north?
I don't know:
ators.

It's all new to us.

But I saw the wire and the insul-

It was very new and very exciting to us. We're very thrilled of it
all and the beauty of it.. It's always been my nature to be an outdoor person.
I'm interseted in other ways of living, coming from
out of the bush country myself, raised in log cabin. The native
people used to come up fron the South and stay overnight with us,
passing thI'9ugh.
This country is so much like Northern Saskatc-hewan. Except there are
~ountains.
Ithough where we kive now, they got it cut down like the
baldheaded prairies. We had alot of bush and alot of moose and bears.
That's why I love it here.
Is it true that the first moose was sighted here in this area?
you know anything about that?
You have to ask some older timer than me.

Do