Elida Peers | Contributed
Diversion Dam, seen in the central background here, is one of the oldest dams in the province and was heralded as a significant engineering feat when completed in 1912.
This snowy Jordan River photo was taken in a late 1920s winter, and there’s likely even more snow in this scene today, about seven miles from the river mouth.
The dam was built as a reinforced concrete hollow structure, almost 900 feet long and 126 feet high. Building the dam took 300 men one year, while 1,000 men were involved in the hydro construction project.
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In recent decades, concerns about earthquake preparedness have meant considerable work has taken place since then.
In the foreground, we see the famous Jordan River flume in its 1926 reconstruction. Built of Douglas-fir, it was eight feet wide and six feet deep and wound its way for five miles along steep hillsides of the Jordan River Valley, carrying water from Diversion Dam down to the forebay. We’re told the water took one and one-quarter hours to reach the forebay.
Cliff Banner, a centenarian who worked at the plant many years ago, reminisced: “… in places, the territory was quite flat, but in the big bend area, it was straight rock bluff with a 20-to-100-foot drop on the low side – the flume with its footings just clung on the rocks in places – it had all been built by hand … considered quite a feat.”
It was VI Power Company, a subsidiary of B.C. Electric, which had undertaken the enterprise in 1909. Duncan Irving Walker was the engineer hired to carry out the massive endeavour. DI Walker was an impressive force in building the Jordan River dam and went on to build the Jordan River hotel. Still, it was long gone before B.C. Hydro took over B.C. Electric in 1962.
In Walker’s efforts, he had been aided by his wife, Katharine Maynard, who was also an impressive personality. Katharine Maynard Walker outlived her husband and continued her long life as a pioneering social force in Jordan River.
Interestingly, Katharine Maynard Walker’s mother was the pioneering photographer Hannah Maynard, well-known in early B.C. photography history, and is currently being recognized in a Victoria film production.
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Elida Peers is the historian of the Sooke Region Museum. Email historian@sookeregionmuseum.com.
