Beaverlodge & District Historical Association. — 1988. — 7 cm of textual records.
Agency History
The Beaverlodge & District Historical Association was founded to preserve and publish the history of the Beaverlodge area. In 1974 they published “Beaverlodge to the Rockies”, containing the history of and family stories from the rural communities of Albright, Appleton, Bush Lake, Elmworth, Gimle, Halcourt, Hayfield, Hazelmere, Hinton Trail, Lower Beaverlodge, Mountain Trail, Rio Grande, Two Rivers and West End, as well as the Old Town, the New Town and Rural Beaverlodge. The editor for this project was E. C. Stacy, assisted by associate editors Madelon Truax, Percy Hunkin, and Evelyn Stacey, and artist Euphemia McNaught. They were “highly pleased with the public response to Beaverlodge to the Rockies” but were soon back at work, writing the “Supplement to Beaverlodge to the Rockies” in 1976 with the acknowledgement “that there was not complete coverage of the district” and a supplement was needed “so that more of the regional history can be recorded.” This time, associate editor Audrey Lowe and cartographer Isabel Perry joined the team. Because of their dedication to the history of the area, archival material was being donated to the Historical Association, some of it relating to the Monkman Pass Highway. This story of a highway south of Beaverlodge built by volunteer labour during the Great Depression caught the attention of Madelon Truax, who wrote a book called “People of the Pass” with the assistance of her sister, Beth Sheehan. In 1988 the Historical Association assisted with the publication of this book as well.
Custodial History
The records were deposited at South Peace Regional Archives in 2011 by Betty Gaudin, president of the Beaverlodge Cultural Centre.
Scope and Content
The fonds consists of the proofs for “People of the Pass” written by Madelon Truax and Beth Sheehan in 1988. There are two sets of proofs. One is on 11 x 17 sheets of paper, one section per chapter, but with no photographs or page divisions. This set appears to have been used for proof-reading and corrections. The second set of proofs are 20 x 24 in. sheets of paper folded in 8ths and printed both sides to make 16 pages. There are 19 sections of 16 pages each, with photographs included throughout, to make up the 144 pages in the book. The proofs are accompanied by some loose sheets, including a list of the 274 photographs used in the book, coded to indicate who they came from, and designs for the front and back covers and introductory pages. There are also four photographs: a postcard of Kinuseo Falls by R.E. Leake used for the front of the book; Madelon & Garnet Truax in 1986; Everett, Beth, Kells and Moira Sheehan in 1987; and Beth with “the oven” at a winter camp at Two Lakes in 1986.
“People of the Pass” is the story of the people who dreamed of, engineered, and laboured on the Monkman Pass Highway through the Rocky Mountains southwest of Beaverlodge. This road was built with volunteer labour during the depression and, although it was never improved to become an all-weather road, it is a monument to industry and courage. The book was published by the Beaverlodge Historical Society and printed by Menzies Printers.
Notes
Title based on the contents of the fonds.