Abandoned for the last twenty-eight years, Lemon Lookout has been vandalized and left to the elements 975 m above the valley floor of B.C.'s West Kootenays. Winter winds howl through the broken windows and snow blows through the open doorway. In all seasons busy packrats run in and out. But this three-storey building, 7 km south of Slocan City, is now being completely renovated. Timothy Thickett and Stuart MacCuaig, two property owners in the valley, have successfully applied to Land and Water B.C. Inc. for a license of occupation, enabling them to preserve this heritage lookout tower.
Thickett and MacCuaig are restoring the observation floor to its former operating condition. But instead of a resident lookout person, day visitors will play at spotting and plotting the (hopefully) imaginary "smokes." They'll also view an extensive display of photographs and text about the area's flora and fauna, logging and reforestation techniques used over the past eight decades, and the history of lookouts.
Then there is the view itself: to the north and west the pristine Slocan Lake, long and narrow, nuzzles the plunging shoreline of the majestic Valhalla Wilderness Park; to the east stretch the mountains and glaciers of famed Kokanee Provincial Park; and to the south the valley spreads out to its widest inviting the viewer to "read" its history. Comfortably ensconced in the tower hundreds of metres above the valley bottom, one can see where the Japanese internment camps were located at Lemon Creek during the Second World War. Or follow the route of the meandering Slocan River, and see the full extent of the former railway (now a hiking trail) that transported tonnes of silver and lead scratched and gouged out of these very mountains.
All of this will be available for free to the tower's third-floor visitors. A fee-based shuttle service will offer rides from the highway up to the lookout tower but one needn't take it. Hikers and bikers who want to work up an appetite can hike for free up the 7 km of service road that winds over Thickett's, MacCuaig's and Crown land. Along the way they'll encounter three rest areas equipped with an outhouse, picnic table and benches. They'll see many professionally-produced signs drawing their attention to specific landforms and vegetation. These interpretive signs are being generously funded by Slocan Forest Products. It was the timber from this area that gave rise to Ike Barber's first mill in Slocan and enabled the company to grow into the present-day forestry giant.
The private sector conservation efforts of Thickett and MacCuaig will save the history inherent in this fire lookout. However, something has to pay for this preservation so a rental unit has been located in the first and second floors. This is something completely new in Canada. Nowhere else in this country can you stay overnight on the top of a mountain in a fire lookout. Thickett and MacCuaig describe their rental suite as "civilized accommodation in the wilderness."
The United States Forest Service has been offering such rentals since 1979. Today there are forty decommissioned lookouts enrolled in the rental program in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The most popular locations frequently rent out completely on the first day that reservations are accepted for the season.
Who wouldn't want to wake up to a 780 square kilometre view of lakes, rivers, valleys, glaciers and mountains?
"The setting has a lot going for it," says MacCuaig, "we're certainly not going to have any trouble attracting overnight guests, but we've run into difficulties in restoring the observation floor."
Locating artefacts particular to lookout towers is the problem. Thickett and MacCuaig are appealing to the forestry community for help in tracking down and obtaining key display items. "We need to find an Osborne fire finder. It was, and still is, essential to any operating lookout tower," says MacCuaig.
The first model, in use between 1915 and 1933, featured a sliding and rotating tube similar to a marksman's spotting scope to obtain an azimuth and vertical angle bearing on a fire. An improved version came out in 1934 and featured a front peep sight and rear cross hairs. "We'd like to display both models," MacCuaig says; "we want visitors to experience, hands on, the life of a lookout."
Another essential display item is the little glass-legged stool that was present in every lookout tower. "We could make one," MacCuaig says, "but we'd much rather have one that was actually used in a tower." Short, and barely big enough to stand on, the stool featured a glass insulator (the kind used on power lines) on each of its four legs. Standing on this low-tech device kept the lookout staff from being electrocuted during thunderstorms.
"We'd like to have an authentic 'go-to-hell' rope too," says MacCuaig. "This rope ran from the lookout cab through a hole in the wall to the telephone fuse box outside. When your hair stood on end, and your skin tingled, you'd know a zinger was about to strike. You'd jump on your stool and yank the go-to-hell rope disconnecting you from the outside world and, specifically, from the electricity-conducting telephone wire."
Thickett and MacCuaig are also looking for clear photographs of other B.C. lookouts and lookout staff, as well as interesting stories in writing from current and retired staff.
If you can help locate fire lookout items, or if you have material you could donate, please contact Stuart MacCuaig at slocany@yahoo.com or
Tim Thickett
PO Box 54
Slocan BC V0G 2C0
