Names on a Cenotaph: Kootenay Lake Men in World War I

At the outbreak of war in 1914 a patriotic hysteria swept across Canada as men clamored to sign up and join the fight for God, country and empire. Among them were more than a thousand men from the beautiful Kootenay Lake region of British Columbia.

Many were fruit ranchers, mostly British immigrants who settled on the shores of the lake, along the Kootenay River, and in the Slocan Valley. They were miners, loggers and railway men. Among them were deckhands on the paddlewheelers that carried...