Situated in the beautiful Slocan Valley, about 2/3 of the way up Slocan Lake, New Denver and area are becoming both a tourist destination and a retirement area for those looking for an easy, laid back small community lifestyle. The town has less than 600 residents at last count, so they don't need a huge town hall, but in the summer they do have a lot of tourists passing through, all with a silly question or two to ask.
A quaint old one-time silver mining town, the village of New Denver soldiers on, having lost much of its original raison d'etre, the silver which flowed from dozens of nearby mines. Today it is supported by lumbering, some mining and tourism. If you were to ask a local, especially a long time local, what they thought of the village and the area in general, the likely response would be that they would never, ever, want to live anywhere else. This says all one needs to know about the quiet, pastoral and idyllic life to be had in a place such as this.
Silvery Slocan Heritage Tour
Silver outcroppings on Kootenay Lake were noted in 1844 by the Hudson's Bay Company, however prospecting did not begin until 1882. Rapid development of mines and the towns that supported them quickly followed. We invite you to discover the diversity of our celebrated mining history by following the Silvery Slocan Heritage Tour.
New Denver
By April 1892, just 7 months after the discovery of high-grade silver near Sandon. 500 prospectors were camped at present day New Denver. Hotels stores, bars, restaurants. churches and laundries were quickly erected. Soon after, New Denver became the governmental and residential centre serving the mining district. Sternwheelers, boats and paths connected the community with the rest of the Kootenays until 1894, when the Canadian Pacific Railway began construction of the Nakusp and Slocan branch line to Sandon. With the decline in production of the Slocan area mines, the population of the town similarly decreased.
In 1942, New Denver became the West Kootenay administrative centre of the British Columbia Security Commission in charge of relocating people of Japanese descent from the West Coast. Almost two thousand Nikkei lived in small two-family houses built in the New Denver area during the war. Since the Fifties, mining and forestry have remained dominant industries.
From the Roadside Heritage Marker