Oakley Island

Feature type: island
Province: British Columbia
Location: Horseshoe Lake

John Tom Oakley was in the line-up file for one of the first homesteads in the valley. With his wife, son and daughter, they lived on a farm two miles east of McBride. He was the first to use power machines, and broke his land with a steam engine. A 1936 newspaper report states that “flooding of the Fraser obliterated Horseshoe Lake and flooded Oakley Island. A hay stack and a granary building at Oakley’s floated away.”

His son Harold was president of the McBride Farmers’ Institute in 1935.

References:

  • Robson Valley Courier. Weekly newspaper published by Pyramid Press of Jasper from1969–88.
  • Wheeler, Marilyn. The Robson Valley Story. McBride, B.C.: Robson Valley Story Group, 1979

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