There are two entrances to Kaslo and two welcome signs. This one is just south of town on Highway 31, about 100 or so feet north of Balfour Avenue.
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.
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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 paddlewheeler 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, a firehall and other buildings 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.