Kaslo

Kaslo, BC, incorporated as a village in 1959, population 1026 (2011c), 1072 (2006c). The Village of Kaslo is located 70 km north of Nelson, overlooking KOOTENAY LAKE. It was established in 1892 to service the silver-mining boom sweeping the Kootenays. The origin of the name is unclear. Incorporated as a city the following year, it was destroyed in 1894 by the great flood on the Kootenay-Columbia system but immediately rebuilt. Mining declined at the end of World War I, but fruit farming and logging grew in the 1920s. In 1942, 964 JAPANESE CANADIANS were relocated to Kalso. Lumbering was spurred by the need for housing and other services. Kaslo protested the removal of this energetic community to NEW DENVER, BC, in 1946. With a declining population, Kaslo reincorporated as a village.

The present population is supported mainly by logging, sawmilling, mining and catering to the increasing flow of tourists exploring the region's excellent fishing and sightseeing. The world's oldest intact passenger sternwheeler and a national historic site, the SS Moyie is berthed at Kaslo. She was in service on Kootenay Lake for 59 years.