Wanted: a sure foot and a keen eye
The packers, freighters and their horses

Before the arrival of the railroads in 1895, all freighting and packing work was done using horses and mules. Not only was there ore to be freighted out; but millions of pounds of food, camp supplies, building materials and ...

By a quirk of geological nature, most of the major producing mines in the Slocan are high in the mountains, at or above the 6,000 foot (1,828.8 metre) level. Because of this, transporting the ore down from the mines ...

Because the Slocan district held so many different varieties and grades of ores, smelting them was a difficult process. As a result, many of these ores had to be transported to smelters at Trail, or even further afield ...