Today we will take you on a short tour in a little village to view a type of mural you may not have witnessed before - Stone Murals. These murals were created with local flagstone of appropriate colours in such a manner as to create a visual image.
The map below guides you through town from the first, an Elk, to the seventh, that of a Salmon fighting its way up the Salmo River.
The images below of six of the murals are in order, from north to south. The last, the Salmon mural, was created several years after we toured Salmo so we have no photos of it.
As you tour the town you will also come across more conventional murals, such as:
On the back of the museum there is a 22' by 28' mural of a placer miner. This was the first stone mural to be completed in Salmo, completed in 1990. Since that time six more stone murals have been completed, the subject matter consisting of the gold mining history of Salmo and area, the forestry industry and local wildlife.
Salmo, Erie, and Ymir were small mining towns that grew up along the right-of-way of the Historic Nelson/Fort Shepherd Railway in the Gold Rush years of 1896 and 1897.
Placer miners panned for gold in local creeks since Joseph Morel discovered gold on the Pend d'Oreille River in 1855. In the mid 1880's and 90's there was a flurry of staking activity when promising outcroppings were discovered on Kootenay mountains. As an industry, gold mining has long since been supplanted by lumbering, now by far the most economically important activity in and around Salmo.
Text alongside the images below is from the
Village of Salmo website.
Stone Murals
Take a short walking tour around Salmo and visit our seven unique flagstone murals depicting Salmo’s mining history. The “rock project” began in 1990 when quarry owner Iris Lamb was looking for a way to rejuvenate stone sales. That was when the Stone Masonry Training Institute opened. Stone murals artist Charlotte Planidin and student masons used the rock by number technique to place the different coloured stones.
From the Village of Salmo
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Salmo Community Services has two
Bighorn Sheep on one side of the building and an elk on the other side. Both animals are very common in Salmo and the surrounding area. |
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The mural on the back side of the Salmo Hotel has two miners on it. The mural gives a good impression of mining as it was in this area in the 19th and 20th centuries. The rock in the ore cart is actually real ore that was donated by Maxine & Doug Lukey. This mural was completed in May.
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On the back of the museum there is a 22' by 28' mural of a placer miner. This was the first mural to be completed in town. The construction was part of a government funded project prior to the Kootenay Stone Masonry Institute projects. This mural is also part of a mining exhibit complete with a cabin and a push cart and rail.
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This mural located at the corner of 4th & Davies has two life sized springboard loggers on the side of the building. This is a prime example of the type of logging that was done in the past. This mural, created in 1990, was the first project of the Kootenay Stone Masonry Training Institute.
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The laundromat features a larger than life Grizzly Bear. Grizzly Bears are very common in this area and can often be seen in the wild. Unfortunately there aren’t as many Grizzly Bears around now due to over hunting. This mural, constructed in November 1990, was the second project of the Kootenay Stone Masonry Institute.
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