Perched on the narrow lacustrine (lake-bed silts) flats overlain by unfriendly, bony topsoil, high above the Thompson River lies the remains of a hamlet known as Walhachin. It is wedged between the river and the sagebrush-covered southern uplands midway between Savona and Ashcroft and was aptly named for, in the Skeetchestn language, Walhachin meant stony ground. It might as easily have been called Hell’s Kitchen, for its late-May (1969) temperatures, when I twice checked them around 7:00 p.m., hovered at a hellish 104° F in the shade.  I don’t know how hot it got out in the direct sunlight in the quarry. I do recall that I became thoroughly dehydrated every day and suffered from unquenchable thirst every evening.

Walhachin (pronounced: wal'-ha-sheen) was a Utopian orchard community, of more than 4,000-acres, situated in the Thompson River valley between Ashcroft and Savona. Conceived, planned, and built by Charles E. Barnes, an American Civil Engineer, relying on the financial backing of the British Columbia Development Association (BCDA), a British company,  which marketed it to wealthy English families.

 After a grand beginning it looked as though the project would live up to all that had been expected of it. A trickle of immigrants arrived in 1909, and by 1914, 180 enthusiastic residents and a labour force of similar size swelled the ranks. The Ashcroft and Kamloops news media forecast a glowing future for the village.