Steelhead

Area description

A remote area up in the heights of northern Mission, Steelhead did not form as a community as soon as most other parts of the Mission district. It is accessed by the Dewdney Trunk Road, and it roughly comprises the area east of the Stave Falls dam and south of Cannell Lake and Hoover Lake. Surrounded by high hills and subject to heavy rainfall and snow, it is sparsely populated even today.

The dense forests around Stave Lake provided extensive timberland holdings for logging operators and lumbermen. Logging was in full swing by 1914, when flumes were was built from Steelhead down to the Stave River to convey logs to a mill at Ruskin. Eventually large sawmills, shingle mills and tie mills were to flourish in Steelhead itself, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s.

By 1915 it was enough of a community to need a post office, and the name ‘Steelhead’ was chosen. This was because a logging railway on the west side of the Stave River had its terminus up at the Stave Falls dam site, and so Steelhead was at the head of the steel.

Steelhead, although a small settlement, several schools, a general store, and a church. Its first hall (1928) burned soon after completion; its second hall (1956) was demolished in 1979. It was not until 2016 that the community had a meeting-place once again with the opening of a fine new building.