Hiking the Hope Trail, 1930s Style

Planning on an extended hike this summer? Light-weight backpacks, freeze-dried food, bug repellent? Hiking has gotten, if not easier, then at least more comfortable.

Here’s a pack list from 1931 to consider: 

• Tea or coffee, 1/2 lb., sugar 1 lb., Rye Crisp, 1 pkg. (12 oz.), bacon, 1 lb., milk, 4 small tins, jam, 1 lb., cheese, 1/2 lb., chocolates, 4 cakes, bread, 2 loaves.
• 1 tin cup, 1 candle, 1 blanket, 1 box matches, 1 cake soap, 1 towel, 2 – 5 lb. lard pails, fishing hooks, string.
• 1 fork, 1 knife, 1 spoon, 1 plate.
• Money – sufficient for return fare on train plus $1.00

The list above was the pack checklist prepared by Reverend John C. Goodfellow to be used by the younger participants for a 4-day excursion from Princeton to Hope in July 1931. The weight of the pack was 25 pounds. The participants then returned to Princeton by train. I’m not sure what the lard pails were for – perhaps hauling water? And, seeing them carried like this, I suspect they were used in place of a (yet to be manufactured) water bottle. And, as the list below notes, the lid was meant to be used as a fry-pan!

The adults were expected to carry a heavier pack of 30 to 40 pounds. Below is a list created a few years later by Rev. Goodfellow (from the Goodfellow 2023.025 collection at the Princeton & District Museum):

Amazingly, Rev. Goodfellow led a group of young people over the mountains from Princeton to Hope every summer from 1929 until 1947. His preferred campsites were Strawberry Flat, Cayuse Flat, Cedar Flat, and Camp 25 (at the Hope end).

The Princeton Star, covered the 1931 hike in some detail. In early July, Rev. Goodfellow – along with Rev. A. Carlyle, and Rev. A. W. Robinson – led twelve young men on a trek of some 60 miles (approximately 96.5 kilometres) over the mountains to Hope. The youngest member of the group was Jack Goodfellow, the oldest son of Rev. Goodfellow. He was nine and this was his second “crossing.” 

The first time Rev. Goodfellow, an avid outdoorsman, naturalist, and local historian, hiked the sixty some odd miles over the mountains was in August 1928, a year after arriving in Princeton to be the new pastor at St. John’s United Church. On his first trip, aided by a map by Wilfred Freeman, he was in the company of Dr. Garnet Harvey Kearney (a physician in Oliver) and Allen “Mac” MacDonald (an Oliver resident but formerly with the Kettle Valley Railway staff in Princeton). Oh, and Mac’s dog, “Mugs.”

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Thanks to the generous donation of Chris Goodfellow, the grandson of Rev. John C. Goodfellow, the Princeton and District Museum & Archives Society is honored to be the repository of a large portion of Rev. Goodfellow’s files and work. Cataloguing and accessioning is ongoing  – stay tuned!

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References:

Princeton Star, August 2, 1928, page 1; August 9, 1928, page 5; June 25, 1931, page 1; July 9, 1931, page 1; July 16, 1931, page 6; Cox, Doug, comp. The Best of the Western News / Advertiser: a pictorial collection of our Okanagan roots. Penticton, BC: Skookum Publications, 1992; Michael Kluckner. Vanishing British Columbia. UBC Press/University of Washington Press, 2005; “Foundation Mine, aka Camp Defiance, on the Dewdney Trail” by Michael Kluckner: webpage here