A few pictures from the Coquitlam 100 years, book

Recently the Coquitlam Library appears to have put up some of the pictures from the Coquitlam 100 years book, onto the web HERE

Clydesdale and handler.  LINK

               Colony Farm in the early years raised some high-class Clydesdales, some were imported from Scotland, but most were sourced in the U.S.A.

 Dairy at Colony Farm 1915   LINK

Bell tower in Colony Farm, 1921  photo: Jenny Lenihan    LINK

This is the oldest building still standing at Colony Farm, Riverview in its day it was known as the tank house, because the tower contained a large wooden water tank, all since long removed with the wooden protection, walls, and the porch clearly shown here is also long removed.

 Workers preparing land at Colony Farms 1913  LINK

Dike Breaking at Riverview Hospital 1931 (1921 more likely )  LINK

This appears to be on the Port Coquitlam side of the farm, commonly called the Wilson Farm,(which was really further north than here) the wooden building I believe was something to do with feeding the pigs, sheep, cattle at various times in its history.

Article in the GS

Article from the Georgia Strait:  Gear up for the slopes at Colony Farm park

Cheers

Sheep Paddocks trail, open house

Sheep Paddocks Trail Alignment Study

Where:   Poirier Library,  575 Poirier Street, Coquitlam
When:   4:00 PM to 8:00 PM    November 7, 2013
More Information

This has been a number of years in the brewing, as usual it will cost the taxpayer dearly to get this trail opened up again.

NA-39905  BC Archives.  Flooded CPR tracks 30 May 1948

Sheep Paddocks is the entirely flooded area in this picture above the CPR tracks, that run diagonal through this image. The present area under study is to the left of the five trees, sadly now long gone.

Washroom, about time !

After sixteen years of waiting Colony Farm park will finally have a decent public washroom. Unknown when the completion date is, but you can bet that the bureaucrats will burn through more of our money to have a party to celebrate the opening.

Separate Lambs and Ewes entrances too !
Baa

NO to Kwantlen experiments at Colony

The Natives are restless:  Coquitlam farm academy plan wilts
Not surprising that Metro not including the First Peoples in their scheming. Metro as usual did not do a good job of informing the public in general; classic fail, we know best attitude shown by the staff.  The Kwantlen preliminary concept plan that I saw, told me that they were doomed to fail anyway, failure to understand the soil conditons, past uses at Colony Farm and they wanted to grow fruit trees! "Stupido!!!"  typical desktop farmers!

 View of Essondale's Colony Farm during a flood; showing a small portion of the flooded area.

 8 June, 1948               BC Archives    I-68904

[ Note the windbreaks, all gone today, and Metro was adamant that they not be replaced ]

 Apparently there will be a meeting on November 7, at Poirier Library at 7pm, to look at options,input for the Sheep Paddock trail. Not public knowledge yet, typical!  See the Metro page that is "supposed" to keep the public informed about the Metro Parks schemes for exact tdates and times.


A large water pipeline is also in the planning stages that will have impacts on Colony Farm, read portions of this Article

And in the coming year you will notice large volumes of trucks going onto the Kwikwetlem reserve dumping their loads of spoil from the 10 Metre diameter, 2 km long Evergeen line tunnel, the truck traffic will apparently will be active up to 18 hours a day, and six trips per hour.  A lot of traffic.

Body found near the Sheep Paddocks

From the Vancouver Sun:  Homicide probed in Coquitlam's Colony Farm park
And from the Vancouver Province:
     Coquitlam cops suspect foul play after man’s body found on trail in Colony Farm area.

Coquitlam murder victim identified as Clifford Devitt
     (contains a picture of the deceased, and his bike; police are looking for information )

And the Tri-City News:  Homicide investigation at Colony Farm Regional Park.
     Update: Colony Farm Park homicide victim identified

The Coquitlam NOW:  Homicide investigation at Colony Farm Regional Park

Download a map of the park (PDF)

The Sheep Paddocks are generally the area located on the eastern side of the Coquitlam River, and northerly from the Mundy Creek slough.  (Sites A,B, and C in this image )

I hope that this is not the start of a trend. 

Park control

This Vancouver Sun article raises some good questions :
Metro Vancouver examines options to hand over control of some parks to municipalities
Some iron-clad rules would certainly be needed to be in place before a transfer of ownership, ( US to US ) could occurr.

Where are the Great Blue Herons?

Heron watchers concerned about birds' disappearance from Colony Farm
I know that I buried a young one near the Hoy Creek hatchery a few weeks ago, and a few days ago I saw another young one that has taken its place. (we usually only have one heron in the area of the hatchery)
The article talks about noise! Well I myself am thinking of moving because of all the damm noise around here.

An old image

This image is from New Westminster Archives, it is a quite early picture of the farm cottage with a large group of wannabe politicians standing in front.

Title: Conservative Convention visiting Colony Farm. - Nov 25, 1911

 New Westminster Archives ID 25053

Conservative Convention visiting Colony Farm, Mount [sic] Coquitlam. A large group of men, wearing hats and coats, in front of the Colony Farm building.
 Group contains Peter Peebles, grandfather of donor.

Interesting to me is the fact that Peter Peebles is in this photo, he was into real estate and actually owned a small portion of Colony Farm, before the government bought it from him.