‘Time capsule’ store from Cariboo gold rush to welcome B.C. heritage site visitors

A beloved holder of Cariboo history has a new home.

The 153 Mile Store has been relocated to the 108 Heritage Site, thanks to an agreement by the 100 Mile and District Historical Society and longtime Cariboo rancher Roger Patenaude.

Built in 1900 by Louis Crosina, the store contains well over 3,800 artifacts from the end of the Cariboo Gold Rush era all the way up to 1963.

Society president Kelly Carnochan said they’re excited to take stewardship of such an integral piece of Cariboo history. She described how the society’s “jaws dropped” when they first heard about the opportunity several months ago.

“It was very overwhelming and exciting. The store is packed with so much history and it’s going to be a great asset to the heritage site,” Carnochan said. “They have boxes of old shoes from floor to ceiling, old (Indigenous) baskets traded for food. It’s just amazing.”

Patenaude said his grandfather, George Bryon Patenaude, got to know the Crosinas in the 1930s and befriended the owner of the store, Alice Lillian “Lil” Crosina. Lil was the daughter of Louis and ultimately sold her family’s ranch to the Patenaudes, but kept her father’s old store open.

In 1963 Lil died of a heart attack while behind the counter of her beloved store, and for the last 60 years the building and its contents have remained untouched. Patenaude said his family chose to keep the store closed after Highway 97 was rerouted away from it.

“It was just left as a time capsule,” Patenaude said. “Most of the stuff in the store is 100 years old, and it’s time for some professionals to look after it.”

Patenaude said he and his brothers, who have since passed away, wanted to preserve the store to honour their mother Peggy’s last wishes. When they made plans to sell their family ranch, Patenaude and his brothers started looking for a new home for the store.

While it’s a suitable fit due to the store’s Cariboo Gold Rush roots, Patenaude said the heritage site was not his first choice. Since 2015 he and members of the Williams Lake community had hoped to move the store to Pinchbeck Park just above the Williams Lake Stampede Grounds.

Walt Cobb, then mayor of Williams Lake, said their original idea was to use the store as a basis for a larger heritage site. There were plans to relocate a blacksmith shop to the area and move the Museum of the Cariboo Chilcotin into the store.

However, when an archaeological survey found several Indigenous artifacts and a potential pit house at the Pinchbeck Park site, the Williams Lake First Nation objected to the project moving forward. The 100 Mile and District Historical Society agreed to move the store to the 108 Heritage Site instead.

“It’s a huge loss for Williams Lake for sure, but I think it will be preserved (this way) and that was the main concern, that the artifacts and building be preserved,” Cobb said. “It’s one-of-a-kind in North America…”

Carnochan said the society is drawing up a plan for the transfer and will spend the next few months fundraising and applying for grants to raise the estimated $2 million to move the store from 153 Mile to the 108 Heritage Site.

“We are thinking it’s going to be placed (in the empty space) near the ice house, post house and telegraph warden’s area behind the food cantina. We’re going to have to put a basement foundation in first and it’s probably going to be $2 to $3 million in expenses to get it down here,” Carnochan said.

The actual move itself won’t happen for at least two years as the society will spend at least a year cataloguing the store’s contents and packing them before they can move the actual building.

“Maybe it’s optimistic thinking, but I think we can do it within two years,” Carnochan said. “We’re going to reassemble it the way it is and it’s going to blow probably every tourist’s mind who takes a look at it. I think the whole area should be excited and really proud of this addition to our community.”

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