With B.C. moving to abolish the twice-a-year time change, Creston’s long-standing tradition of staying on one clock suddenly feels more relevant than ever.
Tammy Bradford, Creston Museum curator and CEO, said the province’s decision is a humorous bit of validation for the town.
“We’ve joked for years that the rest of the province just needs to figure it out and do it right, like Creston has been doing all along. So, welcome to the way of doing it right, everybody, west of us!”
Creston has long marched to the beat of its own clock, a tradition Bradford said dates back more than 100 years.
The town first opted out of daylight saving time in 1918, shortly after it was introduced nationally as a wartime energy-saving measure.
“The very first time Creston decided not to do daylight saving time was back in the spring of 1918,” Bradford said. “CPR hadn’t adopted it yet, so Creston stuck with the train schedule.”
She said the decision was rooted in practicality. At the time, the Canadian Pacific Railway dictated much of daily life and schedules.
“The railway was kind of the time setter for the community. Everything came in on train, everybody went out on the train.”
It was also rooted in geographic logistics. Creston sits at the south end of Kootenay Lake, and Bradford said passengers travelling toward Nelson or Proctor often switched from trains to steamships, which meant exact clock changes didn’t matter in town.
“It made more sense to decide where the time change happened on the lake rather than in town,” Bradford said.
“If you were on a four- or five-hour steamship trip, it didn’t really matter what time you left – the train would be waiting at the other end.”
Bradford also noted that Creston had a brief brush with controversy in 1916, when the CPR temporarily switched the town to Pacific Time.
“So when in 1916, the CPR switched us over to Pacific Time, people were grumbling that it didn’t make a lot of sense, that we were much more connected to the east,” she said.
“There was a much stronger connection east of us than there was west. A lot of the fruit and produce that was being grown here was being marketed into the Crow’s Nest Pass and into the prairies. So people were complaining that it disrupted those schedules.”
By the fall of 1918, the CPR reverted back to standard time, but Creston didn’t — a decision that has been in place ever since.
“So, yeah, we’ve never really done it except for that first time in the summer of 1918 and then just stayed with Mountain Time from then on.”
The decision wasn’t controversial. Bradford said residents were already used to following the sun rather than the clock.
“The prevailing opinion was that ‘we’re farmers. We’re getting up at sunup, and we’re working till sundown, and it doesn’t matter what time it says on the clock, our time is by the sun’.”
Staying on one clock became part of Creston’s identity. Bradford said it inspired local marketing campaigns touting the town’s independent streak.
“There have been marketing campaigns, promotional things about the place where, you know, we do our own thing. We have our own little time zone. And it’s fun.”
Bradford said while the province finally catching up is validating, for her it is also bittersweet.
“I guess there’s a bit of validation, or at least a humorous bit of validation. Though, again, speaking for myself, it’s also a little bit sad,” she said.
“Creston’s had this unique time zone for so long, it’s a little sad to see that no longer the case. But it’s good to be trendsetters.”
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