The remains of the flume along the Deadman Valley Road.
Water Flumes Across Southern British Columbia Article and photographs by Robert Allen, BCLS (Life Member), CLS (Retired) Orchard Irrigation Flume
I
n September 1985 while driving west from Kamloops towards Cache Creek with my father and one of my uncles, we drove past Walhachin (pronounced Wall’-asheen) and my uncle pointed out the remains of the flume on the hillside above the Trans-Canada Highway. I had probably noticed it before but didn’t really pay any attention to it. My uncle pointed out that water had been brought down the Deadman Valley and eventually crossing the Thompson River to provide irrigation
to the orchard area of Walhachin. A number of gentleman English farmers arrived in the early 20th Century with the promises of wonderful soil where apples would grow by the bushel full. Well, their dream didn’t turn out as they had hoped and when the First World War broke out, most of them left to serve their home country and most never returned. The story of Walhachin is an interesting one but not the subject of this article but if you are interested in reading more about Walhachin, I would suggest reading the book, Walhachin, Birth of a Legend. That was the first flume that I
had probably paid any attention to and I have been back to visit numerous parts of it ever since.
Log Flume I read about another flume north east of Johnson Lake and west of Adams Lake and on one of my hunting trips in the area, I had to go to look for it. It was located at N 51o 11.297’ / W 119 o 42.657’. Wet snow had fallen the night before and it was dripping off the trees and I got soaking wet while basically stumbling through the swampy ground and bush following my GPS to ground
the LINK | December 2019
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