During the early years of the Powell River Company Townsite, Christmas was a quiet affair.
After the last shift before Christmas, hundreds of young, single construction workers left on the Union Steamship for the bright lights of Vancouver. The overnight boat journey was one big party of drinking, gambling, singing of songs and the telling of tales.
To the majority of workers, Vancouver was home and Powell River was a place to leave as quickly as possible. The few single men who stayed behind in Townsite either held parties at the cook’s shack, had a rip-roaring time at McKinney’s Powell River hotel or played pool at Harper’s pool hall in the Sing Lee block.
The cook’s shack was not only a place to eat for the construction workers, but the headquarters of their social lives. After the last meal was served on Christmas Day, tables were cleared for card playing and an accordion or fiddle provided toe-tapping background music. In 1911, the boys passed the hat around and collected $125 to buy a piano, which became the centrepiece of their musical entertainment.
Early religious services were held in the cook’s shack and carols were sung around the newly purchased piano. Protestant services were later held at St. David and St. Paul Anglican and St. John’s Union churches, while Catholic services were held at St. Joseph’s Church. Sunday school children attended special carol services where the Powell River Company generously donated oranges and nuts from the company store.
The few families who stayed behind started the tradition of house parties throughout the holiday season. Bachelor parties were led by a dashing Joe Falconer. The young men called at every Townsite house where Christmas lights blazed their welcome and, in return for singing carols around the piano, the hostess served the bachelors with liberal helpings of turkey, plum pudding and Christmas cheer.
Powell River Company’s social committee, chaired by John MacIntyre, organized two outstanding Yuletide events: Kiddie’s Christmas Tree gift-giving and the Papermaker’s Ball.
In Townsite and surrounding areas, all children under the age of nine received an age-appropriate Christmas gift at the Christmas tree event, held first in Central Hall and later in Dwight Hall. Frank Haslam from Townsite, Ina Lloyd (McNair) from Stillwater and Stuart Lambert from Paradise Valley attended this exciting event and waited with anticipation as a jovial Saint Nicholas (John McLeod) handed down a gift from the decorated Christmas tree. Gifts included toy cars, dolls, a working bucket crane, a wooden stick horse, teddy bears, a musical merry-go-round with horses and pigs, a Tinkertoy construction kit and a horse pulling a cart.
In the early years of Townsite, the Papermaker’s Ball was held in the month of December in Central Hall. Using flash photography, Rod Le May captured the third annual ball on film in 1915. Later, this event was combined with the Scottish tradition of celebrating Yuletide festivities on New Year’s Eve.
The Papermaker’s Ball became the most important social event of the year on the Townsite calendar. The ball’s reputation for excellence in dancing and the outstanding beauty of the exquisite dresses worn by the ladies resulted in friends and families leaving Vancouver to celebrate the new year in the fledgling town of Powell River.
From the early 1920s, house parties were held on Saturday nights to practice Scottish country dancing to a windup phonograph. These informal parties led to the formation of the Old Time Dance Club, which had 270 members in the 1940s. “Ma” Alexander taught Scottish dancing to generations of Townsite families. It was this core of expert dancers that made the Papermaker’s Ball such a success.
Dresses were purchased at Madame Loukes’ exclusive 5th Avenue Dress Shop on Marine Avenue in Westview Village. Loukes sold top-of-the-line dresses purchased on buying trips to Vancouver and New York. Her taste was impeccable.
“Madame Loukes had an elite store with high-fashion goods in Westview; she had no competition in the area,” said Ruby Roscovich, who turned 100 in 2016. “She catered for an exclusive clientele of mill management and professional people. Local people wanted to dress in elegant clothes for events such as the Old Time Dance Club and the Papermaker’s Ball, which were held in Dwight Hall.”
The Papermaker’s Ball lasted a full eight-hour shift and ended at 4 am. Ladies received a dance program and a prospective partner pencilled in a requested dance. Popular dances included the Quadrille, Gay Gordons, Strip the Willow, Virginia Reel and Eightsome Reel. Couples dressed formally and danced to a live hometown orchestra; on special occasions the company shipped in an entire orchestra from Vancouver.
An added attraction in 1939 was the Powell River Company pipe band, who looked splendid in their new MacGregor tartans, as they piped in the new year.
In 1928, for the first time, the Papermaker’s Ball was held in the newly built Dwight Hall. Electric lights were used to decorate the spacious new facility, built at a cost of $125,000. The stage was decorated with a bower of coloured lights and artificial roses, while Chinese lanterns were strung around the walls. In a separate room a light supper, catered by Rodmay Hotel owner Batt MacIntyre, was served with punch.
Carnival hats, rattles, horns and noisemakers were distributed to merrymakers a few minutes before midnight. The new year was brought in with cheering, loud beeps and squeals from the noisemakers, followed immediately by the boisterous singing of “Auld Lang Syne.”
After the supper was finished, dancing continued until 4 am and ended with the home waltz to the tune of “Keep the Home Fires Burning.”
Just as dawn was breaking, after a hearty breakfast, a few hardy souls played their very first golf game of the new year on the company’s nine-hole Townsite golf course. Powell River Digester has no record of any player scoring a hole-in-one after a night of revelry at the Papermaker’s Ball.
