The history of Alberta and British Columbia is chock full of stories of boom and bust towns and of grand dreams and plans gone awry. One of the most unusual I have ever come across is a tragically failed venture known as Walhachin.
104 years ago an American engineer named C.E. Barnes dreamed a dream of creating a paradise on the dry benches above the Thompson River near Ashcroft, BC. His grand irrigation vision was one that has become reality in many places round the world such as Israel and California. It is one in which redirected water can breathe new life into dry land and transform sage brush and desert into lush greenery.
In Barne's case it was an arid plateau about 14 miles from Cache Creek, B.C.  He began by incorporating, in Victoria, a company called The B.C. Horticultural Estates. 4500 acres of crown land at $1 per acre was acquired and this energetic and enthusiastic man began his miraculous transformation.
The estate’s directors were enthralled with the vision of a great green valley blossoming in the desert. In 1909 the town was named Walhachin (which means "Land of the Round Rock" in the Nlaka’pamux (Thompson Indian language). However, when a thirty page pamphlet was printed in England, the name Walhachin was interpreted to mean "Bountiful Valley". The land chosen was well connected with two railways running through the property. The CPR was on the south side of the Thompson with its whistle stop called "Penny's" and the CNR was on the river’s north shore. There was also a horse drawn ferry for transport across the river.
While the Thompson had lots of available water for Barne's dreamland it lay 300 feet below the plateau he wanted to develop. Economics at the time made pumping up that water out of the question. So Barne's civil engineering talents were put to work building a dam on Deadman Lake and a huge wooden flume from it that descended 7 miles to the property. In all he constructed 17 miles of flumes and ditches from various dams, creeks and springs to Walhachin.
The property was promoted in England and targeted the young sons of well-to-do parents, offering a life of adventure and simple work cultivating the land. Their payback was of course the profits from the sale of the fruits of their labor so to speak. Their elaborate brochure's introduction read:"Fruit growing in your Province has acquired the distinction of being a beautiful art as well as a most profitable industry....No expense has been spared to make the system of irrigation one of the finest in the Province..."
Walhachin was laid out on the south side of the river complete with a general store, packing warehouse, school, a magnificent hotel with 3 rotundas and small houses for the settlers. 16,000 fruit trees were planted in long rows by trained orchardists. Seventy young Englishmen went for the first promotional campaign and chose to either plant crops until the orchards bore fruit or worked on the enormous "Snohoosh" flume from Deadman's Lake.
Land was divided up into five and ten acre plots at $350 per acre with young fruit trees or $300 without. Corn, tomatoes, onions, beans and even tobacco flourished and as the water began to come down the sluices the slope changed from sandy brown to a shimmering green.