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Basin Institute offers look into history of mountaineering
By Don Moore
The Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History has recently added a collection of photographic slides by the late Bill Hurst.
Bill was an avid gardener, a long time library volunteer, and worked as a hydrographer. His real passion was climbing mountains.
The collection begins in 1958 and ends in the 2000s. Bill climbed in the Canadian Rockies and the interior ranges as well as in the Coast Mountains and even the St. Elias range in the Yukon. Bill was involved in expeditions with the Kootenay Mountaineering Club and with the Alpine Club of Canada. For those not interested in mountaineering, there are other photos of interest such as shots taken at the Du Maurier World Cup ski races in Rossland in 1968 or some of the Second Narrows Bridge in Vancouver a day after it collapsed killing 18 ironworkers in June 1958.
“The slides almost ended up in the trash. One of our directors, Don Ohs, had gone to Bill`s house to ask about the collection. Don found out Bill had passed away and his neighbours were getting rid of his things at the request of his nephew. We were able to make contact with the nephew and he gave us permission to digitize the slides. Unfortunately, many other items such as Journals of the Alpine Club of Canada that could tell us more about Bill and his climbing were lost,” explains Anna Majkowski, executive director of the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History.
The Columbia Basin Institute is a digital archive that documents the human and natural history of the Columbia basin. Although its office is located in Cranbrook, it has networked with other museums and galleries in the Columbia basin including Moyie, Valemont, and the Kootenay Gallery of Art, History, and Science in Castlegar. The institute aims to digitally preserve the history of the entire Columbia Basin.
They have written an article on Bill Hurst and sample photos are included. A link to the article ‘Hiking The High Line’ can be found on the basin institutes home page www.basininstitute.org .
As well, the institute has about 650 of Bill Hurst’s 1,800 Kodachrome slides for viewing in collection 0047. More are added daily as Majkowski explains, “All the slides have been scanned it takes some time to enter them into our database and to ensure the accuracy of the descriptions.”
The Basin Institute is grateful to the Kootenay Columbia Cultural Alliance and the Columbia Basin Trust for assisting in funding the project.
Derryll White former executive director of the Basin Institute commented, “We would also like to inform the public that the Legacy of Learning project in partnership with School District No. 5 (Southeast Kootenay) is continuing and yearbooks, class photos, and other items continue to be uploaded to our website.”
