353:
happened in their backyard. The railway's track-grade is still extant through the community, and the portion of it along
Hayward Lake is now a walking trail; some of its trestles still stand in ruins, partly demolished to keep people from climbing on them. The trail is part of a 10 km (6.2 mi) circuit around the lake which returns to Ruskin Dam on the east side of the lake, which was built by prisoners from the correctional centres in Mission. The older rail grade, from before the dam was built, can also be discerned below Ruskin Dam, with tracks rising out of the water a mile or so below Stave Falls Dam.
51:
248:
operating in 1912. Because their main market was in the United States and not the depressed local market. Stoltze went from strength to strength right from the start. The company owned tree-limits but could soon count on a continuous supply of cedar when
Abernethy-Lougheed won the contract for 8,000 acres of timber at Stave Lake in 1914. In the 1920s Stoltze was the largest shingle mill in British Columbia. Stoltze's success depended heavily on the employment of in particular Japanese workers in the woods and in the mill. The 1930 depression hit the mill hard and it closed during the Second World War.
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314:, named after one of the company's engineer, and is about 4.5 miles in length. A small employees' village or camp adjacent to the facility is also referred to informally as Ruskin Dam. Before the project, there had been a hunting and fishing lodge still in use as a private residence, and a couple of small farms.
340:
In 1899, the year when Heaps took over the Ruskin mill, the Stave Lake Power
Company was formed and subsequently obtained permission from the province to use the water of the river at the Stave Falls to generate electric power. It took more than a decade to make that a reality. Only in December 1911
273:
Already the
Canadian Co-operative Society had a general store and later Heaps had one in their building, together with the postoffice. The shop continued to be in that building even after Heaps stopped their Ruskin operation. In 1924, the Cash Grocery store to a new building on the north side of the
297:
For their community events the residents of Ruskin assembled in the schoolhouse or occasionally in the Heaps building. When in 1916 the old schoolhouse was replaced by a two-room building, the residents pulled the old structure across the street and made it their community hall. That first building
256:
After the First World War, Japanese started farming in Ruskin; mostly growing raspberries and strawberries. In the 1930s there were about thirty registered
Japanese landowners in Ruskin. Some seventy-five percent of the Ruskin population was Japanese. Photos of school classes of that time show that
369:
The community built by the hydro company adjacent to Ruskin Dam is formally the Ruskin
Townsite per the District of Mission's licensing of its local water supply; Ruskin Crescent is the main loop forming the townsite. The former postal code V0M 1R0 was "RR No. 1, Ruskin" and including Wilson Road
352:
in 1910, connected the CPR line at Ruskin with the construction site. The traffic generated by the activities around the Stave Falls dam convinced the CPR to approve the building of a rail station at Ruskin that same year – one of the many things by which the residents of Ruskin profited from what
189:
The entire area on both sides of the Stave River, including
Whonnock and Ruskin, was originally referred to as Stave River. Over time the settlers gave distinctive names to the places where they lived in that large area. For Ruskin the opening of a post office made its name official. That happened
172:
The area generally understood as Ruskin goes beyond those boundaries. Ruskin in a social sense straddles the municipal border of Maple Ridge and
Mission. In that close-knit community there was and is no border separating residents from Maple Ridge from those in Mission. Residents who lived and are
211:
At first the
Canadian Co-operative Society was a success. In 1897 the co-operative counted 54 members, most living close to the mill. There they had built homes and barns and a boarding house. Aside from the sawmill and a logging operation, the members had set up a general store, a smithy, and a
215:
The year 1898 was the last year of the co-operative in Ruskin. In the traditional way, logs were pulled by horses or oxen to Stave River and floated down to the mill but due to a rainless summer the Stave River dried up and logs could not be moved to the mill. Lacking money and facing potential
257:
not more than a handful of the students of the Ruskin elementary school were of
European origin. The Japanese settlers had their own community hall on 280th Street. There were Japanese logging operations in the area and a couple of small Japanese sawmills. That all ended with the expulsion and
247:
As Heaps's operation came to an end, a shingle mill started operations on the Stave River less than half a mile upriver from the ruins of the Heaps mill and just across the municipal border line in Mission. Stoltze Manufacturing Co. was American-owned. Their shingle mill at Stave River started
227:
Heaps & Co. turned the small Ruskin mill into a progressive operation. They started expanding and upgrading the mill and horse or oxen logging was replaced by steam and railway logging. Heaps built a logging rail line that grew northwest until it reached Dewdney Trunk Road and down a short
238:
The Heaps mill at Ruskin burned down in the winter of 1904/1905 and was rebuilt, only to burn down again in 1910. Plans to rebuild the mill failed when no money could be raised by the company. There were plans and promises for a new and even larger mill but Heaps's Ruskin logging and lumber
288:
After Heaps took over the operation of former Ruskin Mills the school moved to a location on 96th Avenue at the foot of 284th Street. That is where the school stayed until it was closed in 1998. After that Ruskin students attended the Whonnock Elementary School.
185:
in 1885. The Whonnock First Nation claimed land along the Fraser River between the Stave River and Whonnock Creek as theirs but this land was not included in the Whonnock Indian Reserve and was released for settlement.
298:
burned down in 1922—the date shown on the front of the hall today—and was replaced by the present structure, opened in 1924. The hall is owned and operated by Ruskin Community Hall Association, incorporated in 1930.
269:
The mills and the businesses of Ruskin were and are all in the south-east corner of Ruskin close to where the Stave River joins the Fraser River, close to the rail tracks and since 1930 present-day Lougheed Highway.
274:
railway tracks, where it served the community for more than half a century. The building was demolished for the widening of Lougheed Highway. A small shop, mostly combined with a gas station serves the area today.
207:
Although nothing in the constitution and bylaws of the Society alludes to the formation of an utopian Ruskin socialist colony, some leading members sympathized with and discussed Ruskin's social ideas frequently.
203:
Members of the Canadian Co-operative Society, formed in Mission, BC, in 1895, gave the name Ruskin Mills to a sawmill and to the settlement they established at the mouth of the Stave River in present-day Ruskin.
309:
is in the District of Mission, standing at the narrowest point of what had been the Stave River canyon, was completed in 1930 for purpose of hydroelectric power generation. The dam's reservoir is named
235:(CPR) rail track, on the shore of the Fraser River, was Heaps office building that also accommodated the general store and post office as well living quarters for senior staff and their families.
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shoemaker's shop. They also ran a dairy and a vegetable farm. Not less than thirty students—mostly the members' children—attended the first school in Ruskin in the spring of 1897.
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The Ruskin railway station, built in 1910, stood here until there were no longer enough passengers to warrant a stop of the scheduled trains. The building was dismantled in 1961.
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Lumber remained the main industry of Ruskin. With the station also the resident CPR agent disappeared, whose services the industry thought to be "absolutely essential."
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as far as Wilson Street, which is the continuation of what Maple Ridge designates as 287th Street (formerly 34th Avenue). The falls is a dry falls now, below
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still living along the western shore of the lower Stave River, even if they live in the municipality of Mission, consider their neighbourhood as Ruskin.
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805:
491:
Approval for removal of the station building: Order No. 104565 Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada, 29 May 1961, Archives and Library Canada.
165:. The border to the south is the Fraser River and to the north the point where Whonnock Creek crosses the Mission borderline. Ruskin touches the
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337:; the Stave Falls Powerhouse is immediately below the main dam, which is the western pair of the two. It is now a museum and visitor centre.
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Corporation of the District of Maple Ridge to Mr. C.W. Rump, Board of Transport Commissioners, Ottawa. Archives and Library Canada.
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bankruptcy the Society surrendered its assets to E.H. Heaps & Co. who had supplied the machinery for the mill on credit.
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did their successor, the Western Canada Power Company, see power starting to flow from the Stave Dam plant.
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146:. It was named around 1900 after of the English art critic, essayist, and prominent social thinker
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in 1942. With the Japanese began and ended any significant type of agriculture in the community.
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by the Whonnock Creek and the Whonnock Reserve, and on the east side with the municipality of
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Most members moved away. Only a few members stayed and worked at the mill for a year or so.
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operations went in receivership after the building boom in Vancouver crashed in 1913.
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at the tip of the southwest corner where the Stave River flows into the Fraser River.
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Permanent white settlers only came to the Ruskin area after the inauguration of the
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No. 19, Winter 2012-2013, "Short writings on Local History." Published before in
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No. 19, Winter 2012-2013, "Short writings on Local History." Published before in
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No. 19, Winter 2012-2013, "Short writings on Local History". Published before in
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is a rural, naturally-treed community, about 35 mi (56 km) east of
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321:(actually two dams flanking what is now technically an island), built over
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157:. In that context Ruskin borders on its west side with the community of
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Post Offices and Postmasters, Library and Archives Canada, Item 4070
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553:, Canadian Federation of University Women Maple Ridge Branch, 1972.
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Ruskin is one of the historical communities of the municipality of
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with the nomination of a postmaster on January 1, 1898.
1190:
Populated places in the Fraser Valley Regional District
639:
536:
BC Hydro website "Hayward Lake" recreation area page
574:, translated and published by W.T. Hashizume, 2006.
560:, Treeline Publishing, Harrison Hotsprings, 1990.
1176:
1215:Neighbourhoods in Maple Ridge, British Columbia
403:"Charles Whetham and the Ruskin Co-operative,"
199:Ruskin Mills: The Canadian Co-operative Society
525:BC Hydro website, "Stave Falls Visitor Centre"
228:distance along the east side of Kanaka Creek.
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625:
556:McCombs Arnold M. and Wilfrid W. Chittenden,
572:History of Haney Nokai (Farmers Association)
565:Station Normal: The Power of the Stave River
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380:"A brief history of the Whonnock Reserve."
370:from there all the way up to Dewdney Trunk.
25:Rural community in British Columbia, Canada
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1040:
632:
618:
567:, Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver (2001)
446:"BC's largest single mill was in Ruskin,"
510:"Ruskin society celebrates its history."
350:British Columbia Electric Railway Company
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437:Various contemporary newspaper articles.
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1185:Populated places in Greater Vancouver
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1200:Populated places on the Fraser River
551:Maple Ridge, a History of Settlement
317:Higher up on the Stave River is the
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348:, an electric railway built by the
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600:Maple Ridge Museum and Archives
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719:Mountain resort municipalities
563:Stanley, Meg and Hugh Wilson,
477:"Destruction of a Community,"
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333:, one of the two dams forming
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1195:Utopian communities in Canada
1164:Maple Meadows Industrial Park
1064:Maple Ridge, British Columbia
585:Whonnock & Ruskin history
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301:
1020:WikiProject:British Columbia
259:Japanese-Canadian internment
70:Location in British Columbia
7:
709:Indian government districts
558:The Fraser Valley Challenge
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605:Mission Community Archives
142:on the north shore of the
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1210:Mission, British Columbia
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996:Category:British Columbia
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243:Stoltze Manufacturing Co.
183:transcontinental railroad
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233:Canadian Pacific Railway
819:district municipalities
704:District municipalities
676:Counties (court system)
463:"The Halls of Ruskin,"
177:Settlement and history
98:49.20000°N 122.43333°W
806:Census agglomerations
724:Resort municipalities
714:Island municipalities
293:Ruskin Community Hall
265:Commerce and industry
815:Detached communities
103:49.20000; -122.43333
18:For other uses, see
1071:Main neighbourhoods
94: /
1062:Neighbourhoods in
656:Regional districts
346:Stave Falls Branch
327:Dewdney Trunk Road
252:Japanese community
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1093:Webster's Corners
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791:Greater Vancouver
570:Yasutaro Yamaga,
454:, 9 October 2012.
428:, 25 August 2010.
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801:Greater Victoria
661:School districts
642:British Columbia
640:Subdivisions of
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512:Maple Ridge News
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411:, 27 March 2012.
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331:Blind Slough Dam
128:British Columbia
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781:Greater Kelowna
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420:"Ruskin Hotel"
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481:, 5 March 2014
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79:Coordinates:
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1143:South Bonson
1133:Kanaka Creek
1112:
1078:Port Hammond
1013:
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957:Walnut Grove
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887:Fort Langley
649:Subdivisions
595:Looking Back
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144:Fraser River
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1157:Other areas
942:Stave Falls
912:North Delta
847:Brackendale
739:Ghost towns
686:Communities
465:The Outpost
323:Stave Falls
231:Across the
167:Stave River
155:Maple Ridge
148:John Ruskin
101: /
89:122°26′00″W
1179:Categories
1138:Cottonwood
952:Tsawwassen
947:Swartz Bay
937:Silverdale
932:Saanichton
867:Cloverdale
837:Aldergrove
771:Chilliwack
762:Abbotsford
357:References
335:Stave Lake
307:Ruskin Dam
302:Ruskin Dam
86:49°12′00″N
1123:Thornhill
882:Dollarton
877:Deep Cove
862:Chemainus
319:Stave Dam
140:Vancouver
1108:Whonnock
1103:Yennadon
972:Winfield
967:Whonnock
962:Westbank
776:Kamloops
734:Villages
159:Whonnock
123:Province
872:Crofton
842:Ardmore
827:Agassiz
817:within
786:Nanaimo
766:Mission
163:Mission
114:Country
1128:Albion
1113:Ruskin
977:Yarrow
927:Ruskin
902:Ladner
892:Hatzic
832:Albion
699:Cities
284:School
136:Ruskin
117:Canada
64:Ruskin
32:Ruskin
20:Ruskin
1088:Haney
922:Oyama
729:Towns
344:The
1181::
150:.
1055:e
1048:t
1041:v
764:–
633:e
626:t
619:v
22:.
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