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At the beginning of World War I irrigated horticulture was firmly established in the Okanagan Valley. By this time, all of the major corporate irrigation systems were in place; for almost a decade land development companies had been advertizing irrigated orchard lots across Canada and in Great Britain. Some of the earliest companies had disposed of all or most of their lands. One or two of the later ones were beginning to sell irrigated lots when war was declared. Whatever the ultimate success or failure of these companies (or their subsidiary irrigation companies), by 1914 corporate land development had set the geographic limits of orcharding in the valley. In 1913 the provincial Water Rights Branch estimated that more than 37,000 acres of land were being irrigated between Vernon and Osoyoos. (Table 2)1 Two year later A. R. Mackenzie reported to the provincial government on the irrigated lands developed by six of the largest land companies in the Vernon and Kelowna areas. (Table 3)2 The considerable discrepancy between the figures in these tables, Reflects partly the fact that the latter is a record of company lands only. Furthermore, when Mackenzie made his survey the war had begun to take its toll of the local labour, and although orchards could not be safely abandonned, irrigated hay flats, grain fields, and commercial garden plots could be left unused or converted to pasturage with little capital loss. In any event Mackenzie's total for 1915 indicates irrigated lands that land companies brought to market between roughly 1906 and 1912 and represents, therefore, a substantial shift in the scale, pace, and direction of the region's agricultural economy. Finally, Mackenzie projected the demand for irrigation water on company lands to 1925, clearly feeling the trend to commercial orcharding would only strengthen over the years. The distribution of irrigated land just before World War I can be roughly determined by plotting the water records presented to the provincial Board of Investigation between 1910 and 1913.3 Cumulative maps for the Kelowna and Vernon areas, which may be considered typical of the region, clearly show the outward expansion of irrigation as land development companies purchased and sub-divided the land adjacent to the growing towns (Maps 7 and 8).4 Expansion moved upslope as the benchlands became the new focus of the region's orchard development. The scale and extent of this new agricultural economy and the speed with which it was set in place, dramatically reworked the regional landscape. Within a decade, often in a year or two, huge tracts of benchland and more gently sloping valley sides were transformed from open range and parkland forests to small, neatly manicured orchards. One of the most graphic examples of this shift was in the Glenmore Valley, north of Kelowna. Before 1900 the area was known as Dry Valley and early photographs of the district attest to the aptness of the name (Photo 10).5 A few years after the Central Okanagan Land and Orchard Company began to develop the valley around 1910, the barren tract had been renamed "Glenmore" and sported acre after acre of newly planted fruit trees (Photo 11).6 The Company's map of the area indicates how completely rangeland could be made over when supplied with irrigation water Map 9).7 The delivery of irrigation water to the new orchards required the construction of a maze of flumes, concrete canals, syphons, and earth ditches (Photo 12 and 13).8 These were new and highly visible elements on the land, and they seemed further to strengthen the image of economic prosperity and stability generated by the thousands of acres of young fruit trees. In addition, the scale of corporate irrigation schemes required massive amounts of lumber, cement, and pipe. Wagonloads of these goods were common sights in valley towns and made ideal promotional photographs (Photo 14).9 As the benches were cleared and orchards planted, the parched Okanagan landscape greened - and stayed green all summer. This was a lush deciduous green that marked the boundary between the ponderosa pine and bunchgrass of the wilderness and the symmetric orchards of agrarian civilization. A. E. Ashcroft, one of the valley's earliest civil engineers, waxed elequent about this demarcation, "There is no sight so arresting as the contrast afforded by the vivid green of a field of alfalfa surrounded by the desolate looking sage and cactus characteristic of the "Dry Belt" of this province."10 He could as easily have substituted "of an apple orchard." The irrigated lands in the Okanagan at the beginning of World War I had been created remarkably quickly. Maps 10 - 17, drawn from water records compiled for the Provincial Board of Investigation, show where and when local supplies of irrigation water were secured. Again, the Kelowna and Vernon areas are considered to be typical of the region. The first water records in the valley were taken out in the early 1870's. Although neither relict landscape features nor maps of these irrigation works remain, they undoubtedly were small works intended to water household gardens and orchards. All of the water records in the 1870's were strategically located on or adjacent to lakes or creeks for quick and easy access (Maps 10 and 11).11 In the 1880's the pace of water record applications increased, (Table 4)12 perhaps in response to the perceived threat to resource access posed by increased settlement as the C. P. R. mainline neared completion, perhaps the reflection of an overall increased awareness of the need for irrigation water. Yet the pattern of water records in the 1880's is almost identical to that of the previous decade (Maps 12 and 13).13 In the 1890's grants for water records were more than tripple the number issued in the previous ten years (Table 4). By the late 1890's a few of the large lowland ranches were being subdivided and the new owners were applying for water. In addition, the Shuswap and Okanagan Railway was opened to Okanagan Landing in 1891 and settlers began to pour into the valley. When the water records granted to these settlers are plotted, the resulting maps show a continuation of the pattern already established (Maps 14 and 15).14 Some outward expansion is evident, particularly in the Kelowna area. But, essentially, this was a time of in-filling available lowland that had access to water, transportation routes, and community services. During the first decade of the 20th century, applications for water records continued apace. In 1909, however, more powerful water legislation was passed and water application approvals dropped from 85 in 1908 to 29 in 1909, and to only 6 in 1910.15 Examination of the provincial Board Of Investigation records shows that of the records granted in the Kelowna and Vernon areas between 1871 and 1911 thirty percent (30%) and twenty percent (20%) respectively were taken out or taken over by land development companies. These percentages somewhat belie the scale and impact of company involvement. When the company lands are mapped, however, the dimensions of their undertakings becomes more clear (Maps 16 and 17).16 Furthermore, the company lands were largely benchlands, removed by distance and elevation from traditional supplies of irrigation water. These lands required long and expensive gravity irrigation systems that cost the six largest land development companies in Kelowna and Vernon over 1.8 million dollars to install.17 In terms of the capital investment in mining, forestry and fishing this was not a large sum, but it does represent a successful, significant and organized strategy used to develop a natural resource. Indeed, the stunningly quick shift from cattle and grain to orcharding was catazysed by companies looking for a high return on investment. Until the late 1890's the Okanagan, in the broadest terms, was not unlike many other North American agricultural frontiers - land was open to pre-emption, markets were distant, settlers were few and scattered, labour was expensive, and transportation links were poor. Irrigation in the Okanagan ( as in Washington, Oregon, and southern Alberta at the time) depended on works that were short and cheaply built, and that served private gardens, hay flats and grainfields.18 By the turn of the century, however, circumstances had changed. The C. P. R. had taken over the Shuswap and Okanagan Railway's line to Okanagan Landing. This link, combined with the launching of the S. S. Aberdeen in 1892 and the S. S. Okanagan in 1907, provided a reliable service capable of shipping perishable goods long distnaces cheaply and quickly. The few large orchards in the region prior to company development were in full bearing and found good markets for their produce in Eastern Canada, on the prairie, and in the lower mainland. In 1895, for example, Okanagan growers shipped roughly 2000 boxes of fruit out of the region.19 The organization of land companies coincided with these developments. Although such companies were common in other parts of the greater Pacific Northwest, the costs and scale of attendant irrigation in the Okanagan were unique. Irrigation development came late to the Okanagan and, initially, many company systems had to serve widely scattered locations. Both of these conditions resulted in high construction and maintenance costs.20 The Okanagan after 1900 was not a poor man's frontier. At the height of the land boom irrigated orchard lots were selling for as much as $350.00 per acre. In addition, the Okanagan Valley drew irrigated horticulture later than American counterparts and thus benefited from technological developments and management strategies adumbrated in the United States. In addition, Okanagan irrigation schemes did not receive the financial backing of railway companies as did enterprises in Washington, Oregon and Alberta. Rather, Okanagan settlers used their own funds and enlisted family support to finance both land purchases and the construction of irrigation works.21 The Okanagan attracted a different type of settler to its irrigated orchard lands than did the American orchard lands to the south or, for the most part, the wheatlands of the prairies. Okanagan land development companies set up sales offices in Great Britain and pictured the region as "The most favored by nature of all the famous valleys of British Columbia..."22 and orcharding as having "acquired the distinction of being a beautiful art as well as a most profitable industry ... [offering] the opportunity of living under such ideal conditions as struggling humanity had only succeeded in reaching in one or two of the most favoured spots upon the earth."23 The start-up costs of orcharding were high and many potential settlers could not afford them. In about 1912 E. M. Carruthers estimated the amount of money required to start an orchard was roughly &1500 and added, "This is the minimum needed, if he (the orchardist and his family) intends to live with any comfort."24 Yet hundreds of settlers, a great many of middle class, English background, purchased company lots. At the centre of this growth was a corporate assessment that irrigation water could be procured at a cost that could be borne by large numbers of small family orchards. Yet, though irrigation systems were put in place quickly, they required an enabling framework of legislation, water management practices, capital, and technology. Without such support the land companies and the orcharding economy they promoted would necessarily fail. The provincial government controlled water laws that related to irrigation. Various Acts of the 1890's permitted corporate development of irrigation works, but the rights and responsibilities of irrigation companies were defined poorly if at all. It was not until 1908, for example, that land and irrigation companies could consider water stored behind company dams as private property. Of all the legislation prior to the establishment of publically managed Irrigation Districts, the amendments of 1908 relating to storage were perhaps the most critical. Without the assurance of the control of such water, investment capital for dams would not have been forthcoming. The company management of irrigation water, critical to the success or failure of individual orchardists, was recognized by provincial statutes. Water rights were appurtanent to the land and, as long as the company owned the largest acreage under the water record, it controlled access to and further development of works. Management of a public resource is susceptible, however, to public pressure, and as increasing numbers of orchardists saw their livlihoods dependent on management for short-term profitrather than long term stability, they lobbied for change. There is no evidence that corporate irrigation development was based on more than the most superficial environmental data. While growers may not have been aware of this, the results of such ignorance were quickly evident. The Water Rights Branch reported in 1913 that while there was no current shortage there was a general "scarcity of water." In 1915 Mackenzie noted that the Kelowna Irrigation Company was running a water deficit of more than 450 acre feet. Orchardists had organized a lobby group, the Western Canada Irrigation Association, as early as 1908. This body was clearly instrumental in placing the issue of public management of works before the provincial legislature and in effecting changes in that direction with the passage of the Water Act of 1914. Moreover several powerful provincial cabinet ministers had a vested interest in establishing and maintaining long-term and stable access to irrigation water, access that by World War I could not be assured by companies. Price Ellison, for example, had substantial orchard holdings in the central and north Okanagan and was provincial Minister of Finance and/or Agriculture just prior to World War I. Other influential Okanagan land holders included T. G. Shaughnessey, Premier McBride, and Lord Aberdeen. Finally, the ideas of the progressive conservation movement, favouring the long-term planning of resources and public control of resource development, were in the air. Such pressures and influences account for the government's remarkably rapid response - given the unavailability of environmental data and the constraints of World War I - to orchardists' demands for public control of water. Technologically, corporate irrigation was the fortuitous recipient of skills, strategies, and equipment developed in the northwestern United States. Although many of the companies' resident engineers were British, American engineers were everpresent speakers at W. C. I. A. conventions and were often hired by the provincial government as consultants on major surveys of works. In many ways the technological component of Okanagan irrigation seems complex because many of the companies' works were so poorly built. However, the lack of available capital and, even more importantly, the need to build quickly, rather than the lack of technical expertise compromised the efficiency and longevity of most company irrigation systems. The financial component of the Okanagan irrigation complex has been most carefully considered by David Dendy in his study, One Huge Orchard. 25 Briefly, land development companies and their subsidiary irrigation companies were financed largely by capital mobilized through family connections in Canada or Great Britain. The earliest companies appear to have turned more than respectable profits. Many later companies, however, though demonstrating fully - or near fully - subscribed stock or debentures, were in fact either over-extended or brought their land onto the market too late. By 1915 the South Kelowna Land Company had sold only 162 acres of its orchard lands.26 These components of the corporate irrigation complex converged quickly in the Okanagan Valley. Railways and sternwheelers provided quick, safe routes to large markets. At the same time, immigration to Canada was increasing rapidly, and land agents were offering attractive images of life as an orchardist in the Okanagan, marketing aimed at the English middle class. The promoters' success is reflected in the 1921 Census of Canada which shows that British people made up roughly 80 percent of the Okanagan population. These middle class immigrants swelled the population of the region, brought sufficient capital to establish themselves as orchardists, and created a regional character that is evident even today.27 Nationally, this was the start of "Canada's Century", and the provincial government echoed the sentiment by publishing floridly written settlers guides to the province's interior agricultural lands. The Okanagan, the government proclaimed, "has been appropriately named the garden of the Province, for in no portion of British Columbia is cultivation more general and successful."28 Supporting these claims, the government passed enabling water legislation, and subsequently established a water management body (the Water Rights Branch) to oversee equitable access to the resource. Seizing the opportunity were entrepreneurs capable of mobilizing capital and of organizing the large scale development projects that completely remade the regional agricultural economy and the very look of the valley. The emerging pattern of irrigated orcharding - its outward expansion and movement upslope - continued to strengthen between 1914 and 1920, albeit at a slower pace.29 During this period the Water Rights Branch was able to improve its data gathering activities, and the Board of Investigation was able to rule on most of the valley's water record claims. These duties accomplished, the broader question of public control of irrigation water could be more fairly met. This was also a time when consultants assessed the viability of many of the region's larger irrigation schemes. In their accounts, irrigating the Okanagan was a laudable task that was "founded on ignorance or misconception of irrigation requirements."30 At the same time, neither government appointed Commissioners nor the Water Rights Branch ever suggested the irrigation schemes be abandonned. When the government approved formation of the first public Irrigation District in 1920 the irrigation question did not die completely. Organization of the districts did, however, sound a note of hope to hundreds of orchardists and allowed them to turn a serious eye to their next and pressing problem - marketing.31
Chapter 5 Endnotes
IRRIGATING THE OKANAGAN |
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