Seriously.
From Michael Kluckner:
Interesting news that the Highline Houses in North Bend, BC, are for sale for $1 by the Fraser Valley Regional District, including the land! Title transfer will occur after the houses have been rehabilitated to an acceptable heritage standard.
The newspaper article from the Hope Standard, and information on the houses, is here.
The buildings are the best, almost only, survivors from the early years when North Bend was a divisional point on the Canadian Pacific Railway. The houses have been boarded up for years; as the article states, the Regional District has been paying insurance on the houses and is seeking an innovative solution to the problem of keeping them in the community.
North Bend BC: June 1951.
Counting trees up Scuzzy Creek for Jimmy Pogue’s BCFS survey crews. My introduction to Canada! Those hard seat CPR colonial coaches were no good for long distances.
We disembarked at North Bend and set up camp in the woods just outside of town ready for a dawn climb up Scuzzy. Early morning the train’s whistle gave us a good start.
In those days it was not unusual to count massive cedars that were sapling when Jesus roamed the earth!
Our Hugh Graham was the Engineer for the CPR that did the Canyon run for 50 years. The family lived in one of the houses for many years before they moved to Vancouver. We visit there and have made photographic records of the gravesites at Boothroyd, Florence, and Inkasaph.
Is there a growth plan for the area? Wouldn’t turning the area into a resort/retirement community be a more sustainable way to make he houses attractive for investment? Is Boston Bar the kind of place a young family might rent a cottage in the summer and not touch the car for a month, walking and biking around cosy narrow local streets, if not hiking the hills?
It looks like Boston Bar has a population of ~800, akin to little Swiss hiking villages of the Lower Engadine.