Skip to main content
Ingenium Logo

You are leaving IngeniumCanada.org

✖


This link leads to an external website that Ingenium does not control. Please read the third-party’s privacy policies before entering personal information or conducting a transaction on their site.

Have questions? Review our Privacy Statement

Vous quittez IngeniumCanada.org

✖


Ce lien mène à un site Web externe qu'Ingenium ne contrôle pas. Veuillez lire les politiques de confidentialité des tiers avant de partager des renseignements personnels ou d'effectuer une transaction sur leur site.

Questions? Consultez notre Énoncé de confidentialité

Ingenium The Channel

Langue

  • Français
Search Toggle

Menu des liens rapides

  • Ingenium Locations
  • Shop
  • Donate
  • Join
Menu

Main Navigation

  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners

Donkeys and Snow Chutes at Summit Lake, B.C.

This article was originally written and submitted as part of a Canada 150 Project, the Innovation Storybook, to crowdsource stories of Canadian innovation with partners across Canada. The content has since been migrated to Ingenium’s Channel, a digital hub featuring curated content related to science, technology and innovation.

Share
Nov 17, 2015
Categories
Rail Transportation
Media
Article
Profile picture for user Arrow Lakes Historical Society
By: Arrow Lakes Historical Society
Nakusp, B.C.
The view from the Summit Lake Mill (Nakusp), B.C., in the 1910s
The view from the Summit Lake Mill (Nakusp), B.C., in the 1910s

Summit Lake is located midway between Nakusp on the Upper Arrow Lake, and Rosebery on Slocan Lake, in the West Kootenay of southern British Columbia.

In 1908, when George Robinson was building the Summit Lake Lumber Company mill there, conditions were ideal for the undertaking! There was flat land for a townsite and mill. The Nakusp and Slocan Railway ran along the lakeshore. The lake itself would transport logs to the mill. It was expected they would cut over one hundred million feet of standing timber. A double mill was built to produce telegraph poles on one side, and ties on the other. Several innovations unique to the time were used in logging operations at Summit Lake.

One was high lead yarding. Once a tree is cut, it must be yarded, or transported, to a central landing. High lead yarding uses the lifting power of high lines to move logs. A specially chosen spar tree would be climbed by a logger, who limbed and topped it – a hazardous undertaking indeed! Then blocks and cables, to be used in moving the logs, were attached to the spar. Power was provided by a steam donkey, a machine with straps, cables, and winches. The steam donkey could move itself around from place to place, as needed. High lead logging was common at the West Coast, but not inland. In the West Kootenay of those days, Summit Lake was only one of two logging shows that used the high lead system.

Once at the landing, logs still needed to be moved to the lake, where they would be towed to the mill. Initially, the loggers laid down rails of small logs to the water. Horses pulled logs on cars with hollow wheels, which could run on the wooden rails. This system had a few problems! Sometimes the loaded car got going too fast, and ran into the horses. Sometimes the cars jumped right off the rails. This led to the laying of steel rails. Logs were loaded onto cars with brakes, which coasted down to the water. Horses pulled the empty cars back up the slope.

Chutes were used to carry logs down steeper mountainsides to the lake. They usually would be made of greased wood. In the winter, Summit Lake could receive up to three metres of snow. Early loggers used the white stuff to make a unique snow chute for log transport. First, they tramped down a path to the water. Then, on a mild day, they would lead a horse pulling a log down the path. When the path froze, they could shoot logs down. As snow continued to fall, the walls of the chute rose higher and higher. The heat of friction from a log sliding down would melt the chute; then it would freeze again.

The Summit Lake mill burned in March 1920. A lucrative pole business was established on the site in 1921. This business once sent a 102-foot flagpole out, on three railcars, on its way to England!

In 1925, a fierce forest fire burned everything at Summit Lake except for the Railway station. The steel rails stayed there until being torn up for scrap metal during World War II.

Logger at top of spar tree, Summit Lake (Nakusp), B.C.

The steam donkey engine at Summit Lake, (Nakusp), B.C.

Hollow-wheeled cars, about 1913, Summit Lake logging (Nakusp), B.C.

102-foot flagpole leaving Summit Lake logging (Nakusp), B.C., early 1920s

Tags
Innovation Storybook
Author(s)
Profile picture for user Arrow Lakes Historical Society
Arrow Lakes Historical Society

The Arrow Lakes Historical Society has extensive archive material for the Arrow Lakes and Trout Lake regions of BC, Canada.

We can help you do any area research, including all the towns on the Arrow Lakes and the Lardeau, Trout Lake, Ferguson and Camborne.

Our archives also have maps, slides, photos, documents, ledgers and much more.

https://alhs-archives.com/

Related Stories

The first float-equipped Curtiss JN-4 Canuck, August 1919, Vancouver, British Columbia. CASM, 5245.

A tale of air, water, and fire: A peek at the aeronautical activities of Hoffar Motor Boat Company of Vancouver, British Columbia, 1915-27, part 4

The aerostatic railway / balloon railway proposed by Friedrich Volderauer. Salvatore Pannizzi, “Mountain Railways.” The Wide World Magazine, July 1898, 304.

The world’s most scenic railway journeys, hosted by you know who – Season 7, Episode 7 – The Aerostatischen Bahn / Luftballon-Eisenbahn of Friedrich Volderauer

Various aspects of the activities surrounding the launch of the ice railway between Longueuil, Québec, and Hochelaga / Montréal, Québec. Anon., “Montreal – Incidents at the opening of the ice railway bridge.” Canadian Illustrated News, 14 February 1880, 104.

Hauling freight on thin ice: The ice bridge railway between Longueuil, Québec, and Hochelaga / Montréal, Québec, Part 2

The gaily decorated W.H. Pangman locomotive and the flat cars it towed during the first crossing of the Saint Lawrence River between Hochelaga / Montréal, Québec, and Longueuil, Québec, January 1880. R. Richou, “Un chemin de fer sur la glace.” La Nature, 28 April 1883, 349.

Hauling freight on thin ice: The ice bridge railway between Longueuil, Québec, and Hochelaga / Montréal, Québec, Part 1

A Woolery Machine Company runway de-icing device in action at Cologne-Wahn airport, Cologne, West Germany. Anon., “Ancillary Review – Flame-throwing – On Ice.” The Aeroplane and Commercial Aviation News, 28 February 1963, 29.

Come on, PB, light my fire. Try to set the ice on fire: A peek at the American firm Woolery Machine Company and some of its ideas and products

Black and white photograph of 6 uniformed Black porters standing in a line in front of a train. Some porters are smiling and looking at each other.

The Face of the Rails: Black Porters in Canada

An image looking down the centre of a large room with two rows of locomotive and rolling stock artifacts.

Experimental Collection Engagement with the Locomotives and Rolling Stock Collection

A scan of drawing J-35-L-326, one of our largest, illustrating a 4-6-2 type steam locomotive.

Discover the Canadian Pacific Railway Steam Locomotive Drawing Collection

A painting depicts a castle-like building at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

Living in two worlds: Celebrating the Park Car Murals

The very first electric streetcar operated by Telegraphen-Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske, Berlin, German Empire. Anon., “The first electric railway in Berlin.” Canadian Illustrated News, 9 July 1881, 21.

A streetcar named Straßenbahn Groß-Lichterfelde, or, How Telegraphen-Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske put in service the world’s first electric streetcar

A tight shot of a bookshelf, crowded with a plant, photographs, a stereo speaker, and some books visible on these shelves.

Ingenium celebrates #LibraryShelfie Day from home in 2021

Image is a black-and-white photograph showing the first Canadian contingent of troops standing at attention before a train car.

Remembering in black and white: Wartime photographs just released in Ingenium’s Digital Archives

Footer

About The Channel

The Channel

Contact Us

Ingenium
P.O. Box 9724, Station T
Ottawa ON K1G 5A3
Canada

613-991-3044
1-866-442-4416
contact@IngeniumCanada.org
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Channel

    • Channel Home
    • About the Channel
    • Content Partners
  • Visit

    • Online Resources for Science at Home
    • Canada Agriculture and Food Museum
    • Canada Aviation and Space Museum
    • Canada Science and Technology Museum
    • Ingenium Centre
  • Ingenium

    • Ingenium Home
    • About Ingenium
    • The Foundation
  • For Media

    • Newsroom
    • Awards

Connect with us

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest Ingenium news straight to your inbox!

Sign Up

Legal Bits

Ingenium Privacy Statement

© 2023 Ingenium

Symbol of the Government of Canada
  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners