When Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, the highly British settler population of Nelson and the Kootenays responded with enthusiasm. About 175 local men and boys enlisted and left Nelson just three weeks later. Hundreds more would join them over the next four years.
The absence of so many people greatly affected life in the Kootenays. Soldiers enlisted from diverse walks of life: miners, fruit ranchers, newspaper workers, firefighters, labourers, students. Small communities like Crawford Bay, Gray Creek, Boswell, and Longbeach saw their populations greatly depleted. Various social groups went dormant due to large amounts of their membership missing. Some of the job vacancies were stepped into by women, like the roles of ticket-takers and waiters on local sternwheelers. Some women also left to serve as nurses in hospitals closer to the front.
The people who remained home found multiple ways of supporting the war effort. Organizations like the IODE (Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire) and the Nelson Women’s Institute put on entertainment programs for recruits and soldiers on leave, fundraised for the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, and sent off parcels containing homemade preserves, tobacco, socks, playing cards, newspaper clippings, and other comforts overseas.
Nelson citizens fundraised for the Dominion war bond and Victory Loan campaigns (which gathered civilian funds for the government’s war effort), as well as the Patriotic Fund (which supported families impoverished by the main breadwinners leaving for the war) and the Daily News Belgian Relief Fund (which collected money, clothing, and blankets for Belgian refugees). Rationing was introduced in 1917, with local restaurants prohibited from serving beef and bacon on Tuesdays and Fridays (and never more than once a day) and encouraged to offer substitutes for white bread.
Newspapers like the Nelson Daily News drummed up support for the war effort by publishing the national honour rolls for soldiers, the national casualty lists (including those injured, missing in action, or taken prisoner), and letters from the front. They continuously encouraged those eligible to enlist and “defend the Empire” while demonizing and dehumanizing the people on the other side of the war.
As the war went on in Nelson, there was increasing censorship of letters published in the newspapers, especially ones that talked honestly about the carnage at the front. Citizens were encouraged to join a “Loyalty League” and report unpatriotic behaviour — speaking negatively about the war, or even expressing disinterest in who won it, could result in arrest and being charged with sedition. Rallies were held in support of conscription, even while some men and boys held off on enlisting for various personal reasons (conscription was eventually implemented in August 1917). An 1898 agreement with the federal government meant that Doukhobors were exempt from military service obligations and, due to strong pacifist convictions, most took advantage of this exemption.
Canada also interned more than 8,500 “enemy aliens” (people from enemy countries) throughout the war. The vast majority were Ukrainians who had immigrated here from regions within the Austro-Hungarian Empire (which included a large chunk of modern western Ukraine). The closest internment camp was at Edgewood (on the Lower Arrow Lake), which operated from August 1915 to September 1916 and imprisoned about 130 men. They worked on forced labour projects in the area.
By the war’s end in November 1918, many of those who enlisted or were drafted from the Kootenays had been killed, badly wounded, or taken as prisoners of war. Those who returned often carried lasting physical and mental trauma. For the people at home, the war played a unifying role, with the whole community rallying together for the war effort. But distrust and hostility towards people who did not feel the same about the war left fractures as well. For better or for worse, many of the patterns established in the First World War would be repeated during second.
Tressa Ford is assistant archivist at the Nelson Museum, Archives and Gallery. History Buff appears monthly.
