The Editor,
A visit to last Sunday's Ioco Ghost Town Day resurrected a past lifestyle that many of us will never know.
Visitors were greeted with the sights, sounds and even the smells of an old company townsite on Burrard Inlet. In times past, employees lived and worked in isolated locations with no roads to connect them to distant towns. Everything they needed, from groceries and recreation to accommodation, was provided by the company and this was the world they lived in.
On a sunny Sunday, visitors to the Ioco townsite were entertained by a bluegrass band on the old lawn bowling green while browsing the stalls of the outdoor market and displays. It was a thrill to ride in cars from the 1930s while getting a tour of the former townsite. The gassy smells from these old cars reminded some of the very reason this place existed in the first place as the products that were produced here were fuels for the vehicles to run on. A highlight of the day was a production put on by talented actors portraying people who once lived here.
If there are ghosts still in the old townsite, then their spirits were raised as much as those of the visitors on Ioco Ghost Town Day.
Cliff Kelsey, Coquitlam
