Talk:Kootenays

Economics section edit/expansion needed; POV, accuracy

Originally settled by miners and foresters, the district now includes an important fruit growing section (Creston Valley) and numerous commercial centers, including Trail, Nelson, Cranbrook, Kimberley, Fernie, Castlegar, and Creston.

Well, the area was originally settled by the Ktunaxa and Sinixt, for starters, but the "foresters" got there right around the same timeas the orchardists (1880s-1990s), partly because the opening of the CPR, and its rival lines in nearby parts of WA, ID and MT (1880s), and also because the great Slocan silver-galena rush and the accompanying boom in the Boundary Country (which sometimes, as lately with the Kettle-Granby Rivers flooding, is considered to be the Kootenays; or at least Grand Forks and Christina Lake are, though Rock Creek and Greenwood generally aren't). Trail is an industrial centre as well as a commercial centre; I'll come back to this later but it's obvious this whole article needs to be brought to wiki standard; and clarified. Sounds to me like a contributing author here is from Creston, by the boosterish sound of the text above.Skookum1 16:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)