Lindup, British Columbia

Railway

Lindup, like Longworth to its northwest, and Guilford to its southeast, was an original train station (1914) on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway^[1][2] (the Canadian National Railway after nationalization). The name, an early medieval English surname,^[3] was possibly selected from the list prepared by Josiah Wedgwood (submitted at the request of William P. Hinton, the railway's general manager).^[4]

Lindup was situated at Mile 75.0, Fraser Subdivision^[5] (about Mile 164.5 during the line’s construction). In 1912, Magoffin (McGoffin alternate spelling) & Berg subcontracted at Mile 162.^[6] The next year, their steam shovel at Mile 163 was one of the largest on the line.^[7] A camp existed at Mile 166.^[8] Just east of the station site is Lindup Creek, formerly called Tank Creek, because the water tower stood there.^[9]

A 1926 forest fire brought down nearby telegraph wires.^[10] The following year, a fire burning on both sides of the tracks from Hutton to Guilford threatened the station building and the railway dispatched a crew to protect the company property.^[11] While attempting to board a railway cable car at Lindup, a work train employee slipped and a wheel crushed his ankle. The injured foot required amputation in hospital.^[12]

The section crew (track maintenance) included brothers^[13] Joseph (Joe) and Armand Denicola. Joe was section foreman and later roadmaster (supervised section foremen within a territory).^[14] Joe Bugyinka, another member, lost his first wife, who in 1934 inadvertently consumed poisonous mushrooms she had picked locally.^[15]

Built in 1914, the standard-design Plan 100‐152 (Bohi’s Type E)^[16][17] station building was transported in 1947 by railway flatcar to Penny,^[18] and exchanged for the latter’s^[19] Plan 110‐101 converted sectionmen’s bunkhouse. In 1960, this smaller structure was relocated to Eddy.^[20]

In 1952, when a westbound passenger train smashed into two boxcars on the passing track, the impact shattered the empty one and extensively damaged the partly loaded one. A railway employee suffered minor injuries. The boxcars apparently rolled onto the mainline during shunting operations the previous night.^[21]

A flag stop by 1957,^[22] scheduled passenger services ceased around 1960,^[23][24] but way freight stops possibly continued until that service ended in 1977.^{[25] [5][26]}

Forestry & Hunting

In the 1920s, a hunter for caribou in the vicinity observed the plentiful moose population.^[27] While hunting, a resident lost a hand, when a falling loaded rifle accidentally discharged.^[28]

The narrow strip of accessible spruce forest bordering the railway that stretched some 100 miles east of Prince George was known as the East Line.^[29] In 1929, J.B. Turnbull conducted summer logging one mile south of Lindup.^[30] Across the river to the north, Jack Smedley ran a logging camp.^[31] In 1928, Edward (Ed) V. & Elsie Chambers arrived from Foreman with their four oldest children (Bernice, Jim, Marie and Lillian). Lindy, Jean and Bette were later born in Lindup. Ed ran a 25-man logging camp that produced telegraph poles. Non-payment for a two-railway-car consignment to Nogle Co. during the Great Depression bankrupted his business.^[32] Unable to settle his business debts, the remaining cedar poles stacked at the siding were seized and sold by sheriff’s sale.^[33] In 1934, the family relocated to the Mile 72 Relief Camp.

In 1934, loggers Joseph Pastor and Joseph Kobra, Hungarians,^[34] were sentenced to one month's imprisonment for assaulting a police officer in the discharge of his duty.^[35] In an unrelated offence, Kobra was sentenced to two months imprisonment at hard labor for relief fraud during 1931.^[36] He continued to flout the law by running his three-wheeled homemade speeder on the railway line.^[37] Pastor, followed by Kobra, resettled in Penny.

The summer of 1938, a transient walking the railway track started a forest fire between Longworth and Lindup, prompting a precautionary temporary evacuation of the latter. The blaze quickly spotted, a crew of 100 volunteers (largely drawn from Longworth) brought it under control.^[38]

During 1949-52, Torsten Berg operated the only mill to exist in the community. Milling the high quality spruce from north and east of the railway line, he subcontracted to Charles Howarth of Guilford Lumber to supply planks for the podium used at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1952.^[39][40] When Berg relocated his small sawmill to Longworth the following year,^[41] the remnants of the population dispersed.

Community

Recipients collected their mail from either Longworth or Penny.^[42] The population peaked at about 50 in 1929, but dwindled into the Great Depression, and was almost a ghost town by the mid-1940s.^[43] Children attended school in either Longworth or Penny, a four-to-five-mile walk each way for most students.^[44][45] When Penny, a settlement and station not foreseen by the original GTP planners, took root, it shadowed Lindup’s future.

Relief Camps

The Aleza Lake to Tête Jaune highway-construction relief project began in 1931. The seven camps between Aleza Lake and McBride housed 500 workers. Nearby relief camps operated at Miles 72 and around 76.5 (occupying the former GTP construction camps at the then Miles 162 and 166).^[46] In 1934, the partial remains of a man were found in bush near Lindup. Wildlife had torn apart the victim, a former Penny relief camp resident, who had apparently committed suicide.^[47]