Jenny Jardine – Whistler Museum and Archives Society

Why Is That Named Horstman?Why Is That Named Horstman?

May 18, 2021 Whistler Museum 0 Comments

Over the past few months we have received quite a few donations of artefacts and archival records at the Whistler Museum, including scale models, archival films, and photographs in various forms. One recent donation included a copy of a land title of an early 20th century Alta Lake resident whose name is well known throughout the valley: Harry Horstman.

*Harry Horstman at his Mt. Sproatt cabin. Jardine/Betts/Smith Collection.*

Harry Horstman moved west from Kansas at some point prior to 1912. He staked a mining claim on Mount Sproatt, where he spent much of his time searching for copper and iron (and possibly dreaming of gold). He also preempted two parcels of land, one between Nita and Alpha Lakes and another at the other end of Alpha Lake. Preemption was a method of acquiring Crown Land from the government for agriculture or settlement; preemption did not take into account indigenous claims to land, and the land that Horstman preempted is part of the unceded territory of the Squamish Nation and the Lil’wat Nation. According to this recent donation, Horstman’s property at the south end of Alpha Lake was known as Lot 3361 and was made up of 150 acres, more or less.

Horstman kept a small farm on his property near Nita Lake where, according to Jenney Jardine, he had fifty to sixty chickens, “all sorts of potatoes and rhubarb and gorgeous cauliflowers.” He sold eggs and fresh produce to Rainbow Lode and other Alta Lake residents to supplement his income from prospecting. Part of his property on Alpha Lake was acquired by Thomas Neiland, who moved to Alta Lake with the Jardine family in 1921 to set up a forestry business. It is not, however, clear how much of the 150 acres were used by Neiland or whether Horstman made use of the rest of the land.

*Harry Horstman serves coffee at the first Alta Lake Community Club picnic. Philip Collection.*

While some Alta Lake residents, such as Jenny Jardine’s brother Jack and railway section foreman Fred Woods, got to know Horstman relatively well, others described him as an “odd man” and may have seen him mostly from a distance. According to Pip Brock, Horstman “didn’t enjoy people that much,” though he was part of the Alta Lake Community Club in the 1920s and was even put in charge of the coffee at their first picnic.

In 1936, Horstman sold his Nita Lake property to Russ Jordan, who reportedly bought the approximately 160 acres for $2000. When Horstman began to find the physical labour of prospecting too much, he retired to his cabin on Alpha Lake, presumably on his property on the south end of the lake. He remained there until about 1945, when his neighbours on today’s Pine Point, Dr. and Grace Naismith, arranged for Horstman to move to a nursing home in Kamloops.

*Presumably Dr. and Grace Naismith outside their house on Pine Point on Alpha Lake. Philip Collection.*

Harry Horstman died in 1946 and was buried in Kamloops, though his name can still be found throughout Whistler, most notably the Horstman Glacier on Blackcomb Mountain. In an interview in the 1980s, however, Jack Jardine expressed his confusion as to why Horstman’s name was given to a glacier on a mountain Horstman was never known to climb.

Jenny Jardine at Alta LakeJenny Jardine at Alta Lake

January 7, 2020 Whistler Museum 3 Comments

In the museum collections is one photograph of a New Year’s celebration held at the Alta Lake School in 1937. We don’t know who all of the people in the photo are, but a few names are written on its back, including the name of Jenny Jardine. Although Jenny and her family attended social events at the school (Jenny was even in charge of the refreshments for a time), she never attended the school as a pupil. We know a lot about Jenny’s life in the valley through her memoir, letters with Florence Petersen, and oral history interviews with the museum.

New Years celebrations held at the Alta Lake School House – Jenny Jardine is pictured far right. Philip Collection.

Jenny was born in Kelowna in December 1912. Her parents, Lizzie Laidlaw and John Jardine, had met aboard the ship that brought their families from Scotland to Canada and married a few years later. Jenny was their first child, followed by Jack eighteen months later. Lizzie and the children remained in Kelowna when John went to fight in the First World War, moving to Vancouver after he was wounded at Mons and sent to Vancouver General Hospital. When he was released, John found work on the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE) and the family settled in Squamish.

John was killed when a speeder he was riding on collided with a train and Lizzie moved her family back to Kelowna, where their third child, Bob, was born. They soon relocated again, moving to North Vancouver where Lizzie was offered work keeping house for Thomas Neiland, a friend of John’s. In 1921, the entire household moved to Alta Lake, where Neiland planned to start his own logging business.

Formal portrait of Thomas and Lizzie Neiland taken in the 1940s. Betts/Smith/Jardine Collection.

Jenny was only 8 1/2 when here family moved to Alta Lake. She had attended school in Squamish, Kelowna, and North Vancouver, but at the time there was no school in Alta Lake. She and her brother Jack were enrolled in correspondence courses, but learning by correspondence in the 1920s was frustrating to say the least. After Lizzie married Thomas Neiland and had another son Tom Neiland, keeping Jenny and Jack at their studies became more of a struggle. According to Jenny, however, her mother did ensure they all learned how to read and that became “the road to other things.”

Left to right: Jenny Jardine, Flossie the dog, Jack Jardine, Tom Neiland Jr. and Bob Jardine in Lizzie Neiland’s garden at 34 1/2 mile, about 1930. Betts/Smith/Jardine Collection.

In her memoirs, Jenny said that, during her early life at Alta Lake, most employment in the valley was “cutting railway ties, making and shipping telephone poles, prospecting, trapping, and renting a few cabins to summer visitors.” There was also some work at an iron ore operation and on the railway. By the time she was 12, Jenny was working for her step-father out in the woods, driving horses, cutting poles and ties, and hauling and piling the lumber.

(L-R) Sue Hill, Kay Hill, Charlie Chandler, Wallace Betts holding daughter Louise, Charlie Lundstrom, and ‘Sporty’ the dog on Alta Lake docks, 1939. J Jardine Collection.

Jenny met Wallace Betts through her brother Tom, who had met Betts at one of the logging camps in the area. After their marriage in 1937, Jenny and Wallace moved quite a few times, often in the Alta Lake area. They lived for a time at Parkhurst, and at the Iron Ore Spur where Jenny remembered she learned to knit socks. Their first two children, Louise and Sam, were born in Vancouver but spent time with their grandmother Lizzie at her house in what is now Function Junction.

The Jardine/Neiland children hauling logs to the portable sawmill at 34 1/2 mile with the aid of horses, 1926. From left to right: Jenny, Jack, Bob and Tom Jr. Betts/Smith/Jardine Collection.

Jenny’s life at Alta Lake, like that of the rest of her family, was not easy. She later wrote that as children, “We loved living at Alta Lake, but those [logging] outfits and NSF (non-sufficient funds) cheques and no schools were not what we needed.” Jenny felt education was very important and, according to her daughter Louise, learning became “one of the most important activities of her life.” She passed on this belief to her children, and was very proud that all four of her children graduated from universities.

Tales from Alta Lake

Hard Times in Whistler: the Jardine-Neiland Family – (pt.2)Hard Times in Whistler: the Jardine-Neiland Family – (pt.2)

March 24, 2012 Whistler Museum 0 Comments

This is part two of a post on the Jardine-Neiland family. For part one, please click here.

In early July 1922 the export log prices of cedar logs collapsed and so did Thomas Neiland’s business – he had to file for bankruptcy. The family pulled up stakes and went back to North Vancouver. Later that month, Lizzie gave birth to their son, Thomas Neiland Jr. at the age of 40. For three months, Thomas looked for work in Vancouver. Eventually persuaded by both a lack of employment and his wife’s desire to return to Alta Lake, he gained financing under her name.

The family returned to their Alpha Lake cabin, and in 1923 they moved into an old loggers cabin at 34 ½ mile that was being sold by the crown, and this became their home for the next 20 or more years. The house came with cases of milk, bags of dried beans, and slabs of bacon – according to Jenny, “the latter very much like a bit of leather.” Today, 34 1/2 mile is Whistler’s Function Junction.

Jardine-Neiland property at 34 1/2 mile (Function Junction)

Life for the Jardine-Neiland family was precarious. The children remember their mother saying, “It’s a case of feast or famine.” Sometimes business was booming, but at other times, particularly during the Great Depression, the family would have to survive on the damages payments paid to the children from the death of their father.

Jenny and Jack never went to school again after they left North Vancouver in 1921 – Jenny was eight and her brother was only six. They began working in the logging industry at the ages of twelve and ten. Although they did do lessons by correspondence, they rarely had the time or energy left to study. In her memoirs, Jenny recalls:

“I started to work out in the woods when I was 12, driving a horse – a big Clyde with a white face. Pa [Thomas Neiland] got a portable saw mill and set it up on the lower field…that meant log so many days and cut ties and lumber so many days. I lifted the slabs off as the circular saw slabbed them…We had correspondence school lessons to work on but somehow there was too many other things to do, so lessons were only done at night or if it rained.”

Life was somewhat easier for the younger children, Bob and Tom, as the school at Alta Lake opened in 1932, affording them a proper education.

Children hauling logs — The Jardine/Neiland children hauling logs to the portable sawmill at 34 1/2 mile with the aid of horses, 1926. From left to right: Jenny, Jack, Bob and Tom Jr.

They had their mother to thank, as she instigated the building of the first school in the area. In 1931, a school assessment appeared on the tax notice even though there was no school. Lizzie had three sons and one daughter of school age. Bob recalled: “When she got the tax notice of $7.50 she got real worked up as money in those days was tight. She started a movement to look into the possibility of building a school.”

children in garden — Left to right: Jenny Jardine, Flossie the dog, Jack Jardine, Tom Neiland Jr. and Bob Jardine in Lizzie Neiland’s garden at 34 1/2 mile, about 1930.

In order to keep themselves fed, the family sometimes had to resort to shooting a “government cow” – the tongue-in-cheek name for a deer poached out of season. According to an interview with Bob Jardine in 1991, they weren’t the only ones – other Whistler pioneers, including Bill Bailiff and Charlie Chandler, went after “government cow” in times of desperation. It certainly didn’t make for a tasty meal out of season. In that interview with her brother, Jenny conceded, “…to tell you the truth, when I shot a deer, it was awful tasting.”

When Jenny got married in 1937 and had children of her own, life remained challenging. Her husband, Wallace, also worked in the logging industry and the couple moved around from place to place on various contracts – many of them in Alta Lake. They spent a winter in a “…tar paper shack with two rooms” at Parkhurst, with their year-old daughter, Louise. For more on the community of Parkhurst, see these earlier posts: “Family Life at Parkhurst Mill” and “Exploring Parkhurst: Whistler’s ‘Ghost Town’.”

Tom Neiland senior lived at 34 ½ mile until his death in 1949. Lizzie stayed on in Alta Lake for a few more years until it became too much for her, and she sold the property and moved on. She lived to be 102, passing away in 1984.

Jack Jardine left the Whistler area about 1940, and logged in various places. By the late 1940s he married a woman named Irma and built a cabin across the tracks from where his mother was living on her own. When Lizzie sold her property, Jack and Irma settled in Squamish.

Bob and Tom Jr. both served in the Air Force. Tom went on to marry a British woman, and eventually retired in Calgary. As for Bob, he married a woman from the Air Force after asking for her hand in marriage on their very first date (that story is truly worth a read, and can be found here). Bob and his wife Stella retired to Kelowna.

Bob Jardine standing next to a large felled tree on Harry Horstman’s property, 1940

In spite of the many difficulties faced by the family, life was not all hardship at Alta Lake – the children have many fond memories of the valley. When Jenny permanently moved away from the area she was terribly homesick for the mountains and wildflowers, while Bob recounted many stories of being a cheeky little boy. At the age of 71, he still recalled neighbor Mrs. Wood’s horror when her daughter Helen arrived home with hair saturated with lamp black after a friendly “hand grenade” battle

Tales from Alta Lake

Hard Times in Whistler: the Jardine-Neiland Family – (pt.1)Hard Times in Whistler: the Jardine-Neiland Family – (pt.1)

March 17, 2012 Whistler Museum 5 Comments

www.whistlermuseum.org

In Whistler, history is still being re-shaped- with every new oral history and piece of information the story of Whistler’s past becomes ever richer. While editing Florence Petersen’s upcoming book on Whistler’s pioneers, Sarah (the museum’s collection manager) connected with long-time Museum member Louise Betts (née Jardine) who has provided a great deal of insight into her family’s history. The Jardine-Neiland family was involved in early logging in the valley, and their life was not an easy one.

Although Rainbow Lodge was Whistler’s first incarnation as a tourist destination, beginning in 1914, other families faced tremendous hardship as they carved a life out for themselves in the Whistler Valley. The Jardines were no exception.

John Jardine and his friend Thomas Neiland had been working for the Pacific Great Eastern Railway in Squamish after they returned from World War I. John met an unfortunate end when a speeder he was travelling on was hit by a train in 1918. He left behind two small children and a heavily pregnant wife. John had been working 10-hour days, earning $2.50 a day, a total of between $50 and $60 per month.

Since her husband had been killed in a work-related accident his widow, Lizzie, was given a $35 per month compensation, while the children received an additional sum of 25 cents a day for each child until the age of 16. When John died, Thomas Neiland helped Lizzie to pack up her house, and she moved with her young children, Jack and Jenny, up to Kelowna to stay with her parents. While they were in Kelowna, she gave birth to Bob.

Before long, Tom Neiland offered her work, keeping house for him in North Vancouver, and the family of four was once again on the move. Tom had spent many years working as a conductor for the PGE Railway, but he had always wanted to work for himself. When the opportunity arose in 1921 to purchase a good cedar wood and start his own logging business in Alta Lake, he jumped at the chance. The land he acquired at Alta Lake was owned by two men – Dr. A.G. Naismith, a Kamloops pathologist, and Harry Horstman (for more on Horstman, click here).

At first the family lived in the Alta Lake townsite, but after eight months they moved down to a house built by Thomas Neiland by Alpha Lake; logging cedar logs to be exported to Japan.

Lizzie continued to work as a “housekeeper,” ostensibly to keep her compensation, which she only retained so long as she didn’t remarry. It appears that when she became pregnant by Tom Neiland, they decided to marry, likely due to the social pressures that existed at that time. Although she lost all of her compensation, the children retained theirs. Lizzie Jardine and Thomas Neiland, who was in his fifties, were married in the spring of 1922 in North Vancouver.