At the beginning of 2016 we told you about a project to research lost creeks and flowing underground water in New Westminster.
The project, under Mike McPhee of Douglas College, has progressed well, and in the near future a lot of the information will be available online and through other sources. An overview will be presented at the New Westminster Historical Society this month.
One of the intriguing aspects of this research is the number of references that come up for which we cannot yet accurately identify a particular location. For instance, in the late 1870s the Penitentiary was drawing its water from a spring on the hillside. There were comments made that the asylum should possibly use the same source.
It is possible that this water was not connected to the Glen Creek but higher on the hill. A map of the B.C. Penitentiary site shows a spring up the hill near the corner of today’s Eighth Avenue at Cumberland. Could this be it? Was this spring known to First Nations of the area or the Royal Engineers whose camp was at the later Pen site? We do have stories of people drinking cold water from this site in the 1940s and 1950s.
There were likely many small water sources to be found in the earlier half of this city’s existence. Up near the high school site, close to the 10th Avenue and Eighth Street corner, there was a spring in the ditch on the Burnaby side, and it flowed quite profusely at certain times of the year. A man remembered getting water from that spring in the early 1900s. He would take a bucket and collect water to take to his grandparents’ home nearby, and he remembered this as being cold and wonderfully clear. He also remembered filling an old canteen, and with that and a sandwich he would venture into the cemetery across 10th Avenue to have a picnic under the trees.
There was another well-used spring on the edge of Sapperton near the bottom of Holmes Street on Craig Street. This water was used by people of the area, especially from 1910 to about 1950. Again we have stories of containers being filled and carried home.
At the New Westminster Historical Society meeting on June 15, starting at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the New Westminster Public Library on Sixth Avenue, a presentation will explore this project and many of the “water stories” that have been identified.
Maybe you have another memory of such things to add? Another lost creek or underground water source
