Radium Hot Springs

Mr. Affleck created the small townsite of Radium—quite a big subdivision, around two or three

hundred lots. In the Radium area, the ground was very dense, gravelly, so hard that we even cut

the survey posts in two. They were normally thirty inches long, but it was so hard pounding that

they would not go into the standard depth.

I have fond memories of the piece of land we were working on. It was called a kettle—like, a

kettle on the stove—and it was created in the area when the glacier passed, when the whole area

was covered in ice. This kettle was quite large.

I suggested that we make a park in the subdivision. Mr. Affleck liked the idea, so we made a

park out of this kettle. It might have been twenty or thirty feet deep and a couple hundred feet

around. You would not want to put houses down in this hollow. All the rest of the land was dead

flat, with not even a hill.

I guess this was the start of the village of Radium Junction. There are an awful lot of tourist

facilities there now, including gas stations and motels and everything else associated with

tourism. But the park in the little kettle was created when I worked for Mr. Affleck.