See more historical images and stories like this in the museum’s 2020 book Stepping Into Wilderness published with Harbour Publishing.
Photo credit: In the early 1930s, brothers Guy and Darrell Smith began developing a show garden and seed farm in the Oyster River area. The Oyster River Seed Farm, as it became known, would eventually cultivate lobelia, Canterbury bells and Iceland poppies as well as twenty acres of pansies, whose seed was shipped across Canada and to California. The Smiths sold their property, located just north of Oyster River to Barret Montford in 1949. For decades, the property was the location of the UBC Oyster River Research Farm. CDM Sillence Collection.
