Powell River BC, The Lost Loco of Spring Lake

I will start this post by saying I dont recall who I hear some of these stories from, but I hear them often enough that I have located some interesting things in my life over the years here in Powell River, this one story I love and is actually so popular in the world of lore that I have heard it from people as far away as the Netherlands.

During the big fire of about 1926 ish, the Spring Lake Camp was wiped out, however the rumours and stories I have heard through the years is that they left behind a small loco. After the fire there is no record of recovering it, and no record of the number or name of the loco, but the stories persist. I think everyone who ventures out into the backwoods has heard these stories, I myself have taken about a dozen trips out to see if I can locate it. Once back in about 1983 I was in the bush with a old friend and we were crossing over to a unknown spar he had on an old railroad map when we came across thick, large pieces of steel, some with large bolts, others with large rivets but nothing larger than a small motorcycle tire in size but large enough we could not carry it out. Although years later I have not been able to find these pieces, although I know the location is between Spring Lake and Nanton Lake, below Lewis Lake, we have always suspected that the loco exploded and fell down the ravine we were in.

UPDATED: Sept 5 2009

Its always nice when we come across people who actually were in the areas when things happened or at least not long after they did. I am never fazed by the stories people tell and how more times than not they are 2 or 3 different stories combined to make one, sometimes though we can connect the dots and see if there is something that we can find out of it. Recently I had a conversation with a gentleman who’s father used to travel the backcountry looking for good shakeblock area’s, and since most of the easy access shakeblocked areas were almost cleaned out this gentleman apparently went up areas not so close to road access. Now in this particular version of the story he was near Ireland Lake, and up on an old railgrade which made it easy to walk and in a thick vegetation area, he claimed to have come across a small locomotor, not 20 feet in length and lying on its side. Now his father told the story that the locomotor appearred to have been burnt, but he was not sure if it was the cause of a runaway or a forest fire, but that it simply was there. Now this of course was in or about 1947, so this story has been modified some over the years I am sure, but for those out looking for the Spring Lake lost locomotor, maybe this is it, go take a look if your in the area, I know I will when I am.