Joe Kozek Horse Logging Near Twelve Mile, circa 1950

Joe Kozek is horse logging near Twelve Mile, south of Revelstoke. Logging took place throughout the valley. Joe Kozek and his brothers had a portable mill near Twelve Mile, and in the 1950s began operating a sawmill in Revelstoke. Members of the Kozek family are still operating the mill in 2022.

Audio interview with Walter Kozek, brother to Joe Kozek.

BC Hydro bought your farm out.

That’s my dad’s farm.

Oh, your dad’s, sorry your dad’s farm, yes.

My mother had one farm down there.

Did both of those lots then get flooded?

Yup, my brother and I, we cut all the hemlock and good logs out of it took it down to our mill and we sawed it up into lumber.  Off the land before hydro come in there and had to root all the stumps out.

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When Hydro was buying the land from my dad and Hydro was giving us, my brother and I, a thousand dollars to move the mill off the land and my dad says, “Well where you going to move the mill to?”  Between them the hydro and my dad, they agreed to give us this land. It was a little less money that my dad would get from the total. He didn’t tell us and I never asked so none of us know how much he lost to give it to us.

I see. So they made a cash compensation to him but he took less money so they would give you this 24 acres.

They gave us this land title free.

What was that like to see all that was land go underwater like that?

Kind of scary, a lot of nights I would wake up at night and dream the waters coming up, it’s up to the windows already and I’d wake up. It was just a dream, but so real.