I find old log houses fascinating. We noticed the old Koeneman house immediately after we moved to McBride. Not only was it a well built old house but it was nestled nicely on a rise beside the Fraser River with beautiful views of both McBride Peak and the Cariboo Mts on the other side of the valley. Even though it was in fairly good shape, it hadn’t been lived in for some time and was beginning to have some structural problems.
The Koeneman’s were an early pioneering farm family in the Robson Valley. I have always heard that Fred Koeneman (I think that was his name) used to also work as a fire lookout, spending a lot of his summer days up in the lookout on McBride Peak (that is the mountain you see in the background). I also heard that our home is situated it what was originally a potato field owned by Koeneman’s.
In the 1980’s the Robson Valley Art Council took up the Koeneman House as a project. They had hopes of doing some restoration and using the building for sales of locally produced arts and crafts. They secured a grant, and dug and built a cement basement as a new foundation to the building, however the building was never really used as a store, because the Art Council never had the money, time, and organization required to pay personnel to run the place.
Eventually the building was taken over by the Regional District (sort of a county government). They took over the whole property and the whole thing is now Koeneman Park. I took this photo yesterday while walking the dog in the park.
Look at my paintings: www.davidmarchant.ca
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