We’ve all driven past it on our way to Calgary and thought, “That looks like an interesting place to stop.”
But, how many of us have actually put on the brakes and pulled over to discover the historical wonders of Three Valley Gap?
Located on the Trans-Canada Highway just 19 kilometres west of Revelstoke, Three Valley Lake Chateau Ltd. and Three Valley Gap Heritage Ghost Town are nestled in the spectacular Eagle Pass on the sparkling waters of the Lake of Three Valleys, surrounded by the mighty Monashee Mountains.
In 1956, Gordon and Ethel Bell purchased the property, which, at the time was swampland, in order to capitalize on the construction of a portion of the Trans-Canada highway (from 1956 to 1962), which cut through Roger’s Pass.
This route was a shortcut across the big bend of the Columbia River from Revelstoke to Donald, which was discovered on May 29, 1881, by Maj. Albert Bowman Rogers, a surveyor working for the Canadian Pacific Railway.
It was the Bells’ dream to create a motel and museum to cater to motorists along the new highway.
What started as a seven-seat restaurant and seven-unit hotel and tiny museum has now grown into a destination resort with more than 200 rooms, a cafeteria, a heated indoor pool and whirlpool, meeting and banquet facilities and a ghost town that houses the couple’s large collection of antiques.
The resort is a family affair still being managed by descendents of Gordon and Ethel.
The town consists of more than 25 historic buildings — some original buildings moved from their locations and brought to the town; other replicas of actual historic buildings constructed onsite.
Some of the buildings include: Wagon and buggy shop, Monashee Mining Co., Antique auto museum, railway roundhouse, St. Stephen’s Church, Hotel Bellevue, Golden Wheel Saloon, Craigellachie School House, watchmaker & jewellery store, blacksmith shop, bottle house, Trapper Joe’s Cabin, C.B. Hume & Co., Barbershop, general merchants, Colarch’s Tobacco Shop, jail & sheriff’s office, Frank’s Furniture Repair Shop and a shoe repair shop.
The crowning glory of Three Valley Gap is the Railway Roundhouse.
This more-recent addition to the ghost town has the distinction of being the largest fully operational covered roundhouse in North America.
With 24 bays, a back shop, pattern shop and a railway coach repair and carpentry shop, visitors stepping into this building are transported back in time to the glorious era of steam locomotion.
Steam locomotives were first developed in Great Britain during the early 19th century and dominated railway transport until the middle of the 20th century, when they were superseded by electric and diesel locomotives.
Steam locomotives could only travel in one direction, so they needed a way to turn around. To do that, they built circular roundtables and enclosed them in a building called a roundhouse. The roundhouses were also where the day-to-day maintenance of steam locomotives would take place.
This included regular greasing and oiling, cleaning of the alkali from the boiler tubes and cleaning the flues.
By the end of the era of steam in the 1950s, there were more than 10,000 roundhouses in North America. Today, fewer than 100 remain.
HOW TO GET THERE — Three Valley Lake Chateau Ltd. and Three Valley Gap Heritage Ghost Town are located on the Trans Canada Highway, 19 kilometres west of Revelstoke.
The resort is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. until Oct. 13, when it closes for the winter, so you have 10 days to visit this year. For more information, go online to 3valley.com or call 1-888-667-2109. To watch a video and to discover other interesting places in B.C., go online to teresathetraveler.ca.
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