March 12, 2003
Bennett Highlights McDonald Family in Legislature
Victoria – With all the attention being given to independent power producers, East Kootenay MLA Bill Bennett took a moment to tell the Legislative Assembly about an IPP that has been producing electricity in the Grasmere Valley for more than 70 years.
Following is a transcript of Bennett’s statement.
B. Bennett: Today, I'm telling the great story of one of B.C. 's pioneer families and one of the province's first independent power projects. McDonald Ranch and Lumber is a three-generation family business located just above the Montana border at Grasmere. John A. McDonald of Nova Scotia, a carpenter, moved up to Fernie from his job in Nanaimo to help Fernie rebuild after the fire destroyed the town in 1906. In 1923, John bought a farm at Grasmere, which he and his family worked to supply the region with apples and potatoes, beef, Christmas trees, lumber and railway ties. In 1928 with the Grasmere Valley lit only by kerosene lanterns, Jack McDonald fed the water from Rainbow Creek through a small pelton wheel to power his small sawmill and grain grinder. This IPP powered the ranch, sawmill and McDonald homes for 30 years from 1928 until 1958.
Following in his father's footsteps, Jack's son Doug, who's now 82, and his brother Andy, constructed a concrete dam on Phillips Creek in the early 1980s, installed a 600-kilowatt GE generator and 2000 feet of used, steel 16-inch gas pipe, built 10,000 feet of wood pole distribution lines and installed the necessary substations. The government of the day told Doug that the project would cost millions to design and construct, but with a lot of hard work and innovation Doug McDonald built his Phillips Creek IPP for $90,000 and completed the circle of family history with the company and the family becoming self-sufficient again as it had been from 1928 to 1958 under his father.
Mac Hydro, as the family calls it, was British Columbia's first small hydroelectric project to tie into the B.C. Hydro grid. Now, Doug and Andy's sons Barry and Cam and their own children, run the ranch and the sawmill planer business using the hydro power from Phillips Creek. Hats off to the entrepreneurial pioneer McDonald family of Grasmere, British Columbia.
(end)
