Percy Ruth’s Conifers for the World exhibit runs from 2008-2010. It is the story of an entrepreneur, his seed business, an environmental need, harvesting innovation, and a partnership with the First Peoples of the Shuswap.
In response to a national call for several kinds of conifer seed to re-establish forests in Britain that had been denuded during WW 1, Percy Ruth started a seed collecting business in Salmon Arm. It was a first for the interior of British Columbia and that business owed its success to a friendly working relationship with the Secwepemc (Shuswap) Indian Bands. A decision was made to tap squirrel caches for cones, but Ruth needed to enlist the manpower to carry out his project. He approached band members in Salmon Arm, Squilax and Chase.
Ruth seed became popular in other countries with climatic conditions similar to those of the Shuswap including Norway, Denmark and Austria. Seed was also exported to France, Germany and Belgium. Seed that came from the Shuswap are now huge trees. Percy Ruth’s story is local, international in scope, involves members of the Secwepemc First Nation and private enterprise, and is in tune with today’s reforestation practices.
Exhibit: Walk through a display of scale model machinery used to harvest seeds from conifer cones, a display of the Secwepemc material culture collected by Ruth, and his extraction plant office, with a game of penny ante poker in progress. The time is 1947. The day is any Wednesday afternoon, after hours.
Also on display are graphic images of the workers behind Percy Ruth’s business. Photographs taken by Cliff Herring at his Squilax General Store (1945-1949) are exquisitely recreated thanks to Herring’s son Bob.
Sister and brother Yvonne and Oliver Arnouse offer their story of a time when their extended family worked collecting cones. From their perspective, Percy Ruth provided viable employment and assisted the First Nations economy.
Ministry of Forests and Range has provided a display that describes modern seed collecting methods. Featuring the local Skimikin Seed Orchards, modern seed collecting is described.
See varieties of seed courtesy of the Vernon Seed Orchard Company and antique cone drying equipment courtesy of Kamloops Quality Seed Ltd.
Call it serendipitous, but this project coincides with other interesting forestry stories. Locally, beetle infestations of the forests have had an impact on our community and jobs are being lost. Mills have closed and workers are adjusting to a new economy. The landscape is changing.
