The Kimberley Scout Troop

Ed Taylor, a Paymaster for the Consolidated Mining & Smelting Company, is credited with introducing Boy Scouts to Kimberley in the early 1920s. Scouting was a very good fit with the small mining town deep in the Rocky and Selkirk mountains. The outdoors was immediately accessible and the outdoor programmes of Scouting were relevant to the young boys’ lives. Plus which there wasn’t a lot of organized activity for young fellows at that time.

In 1926 Alf Watson, George Noble and C.T. Oughtred formed the First Chapman Camp Scout Troop. It is a sign of the interest and commitment of both the boys and the leaders that this troop immediately trained and, in the summer of 1926 hiked a marathon from East to West Kootenay and up over Kokanee Glacier to return home by boat and train to Cranbrook. Considering that some of the young fellows were only twelve years old, this was a truly remarkable sixteen day adventure.

In 1928 the First Kimberley Troop traveled by train and paddlewheeler to Ainsworth, B.C., where they made their summer camp on the shore of Kootenay Lake. They also hiked the Kokanee Glacier. The Kimberley Troop worked to have the old school house at Top Mine moved down in 1935, and then subsequently enlarged.

Then in 1940 CM&S granted the Scouts permission to use an old homestead situated on their property about four miles from Marysville on the St. Marys Lake road. Camp Stone was born, named after a president of the Kimberley Boy Scouts Association, Harry Stone. Camp Stone was used for both summer and winter activities and hikes were organized throughout the countryside. The Lake of the Hanging Glaciers, Fish Lakes, Top of the World, Mount Fisher and Dibble Glacier are only some of the arduous routes undertaken.

Scouting is an organization that has and continues to fit the Kimberley psyche. It is an active organization that still takes young boys and helps to create some of the best young men in East Kootenay. Kimberley has a proud legacy in Scouting.