Vimy Park Centennial Gazebo - Kaslo, BC - Community Commemoration on Waymarking.com

They built their gazebo large enough to accommodate many types of functions, including housing bands for concerts in the park. Of very substantial timber, I'd say it came out quite nicely, making a welcome addition to a nice family oriented park.

Now as much a tourist town as anything, Kaslo began in the early 1890s as a mining supply and shipment hub for silver mines in the Slocan region. Its location on Kootenay Lake was ideal for trans-shipment of supplies and ore between trains running to the mines and paddle-wheelers which steamed up and down the lake, providing connections to the outside world. Almost destroyed by flooding of the lake in 1894, its boom years were still ahead and it quickly rebuilt and prospered until the mines played out and were abandoned. In the early 20th century fruit growing in the Kootenays replaced the lost revenue from the mining industry, continuing until the 1940s, when an insect borne disease (Little Cherry Disease) devastated the cherry orchards while competition from better situated areas and falling demand for other fruits spelled the end of large scale fruit growing in the area.

Fortunately for Kaslo, though now a town much diminished in size, it was able to stay alive through lumbering, now the major industry in the Kootenays. The fact that Kaslo has retained many old original buildings from its heyday has turned it into a tourist destination. Kaslo is home to both Canadian National and British Columbia Heritage sites, such as the S.S. Moyie, the oldest intact paddle-wheeler in the world, and its wooden city hall, the last of its type still in use in Canada. It is also home to several turn of the century churches which have become British Columbia Heritage Buildings.

The village of Kaslo has been called One of the prettiest towns in Canada. Though somewhat isolated, well up Kootenay Lake from Nelson and Balfour, BC, its setting by Kootenay Lake in the Purcell Mountains really is well worth the journey.

Located on the shores of Kootenay Lake, Vimy Park boasts a children's playground, a covered picnic area, a baseball field, a charming gazebo and a public campground. The park is the site, each year, of the annual May Days Celebration and the Maypole Dance, a tradition that has been kept alive in Kaslo, without missing a single year, since 1892. The park was dedicated in 1924 by Lord and Lady Byng. Lord Byng was the Governor General of Canada at the time. The beautiful gazebo in the centre of the park was built to celebrate Kaslo´s Centennial in 1993.
From Kaslo Public Services

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