Bruce Tillen Interview – Negotiations
Produced by Revelstoke Museum and Archives. Filmed by Agathe Bernard.
Bruce Tillen, former Arrowhead resident, discusses the negotiation process with BC Hydro.
Title Screen: Circular logo on a black backdrop. Logo is an image of four waves turning into wheat on the left end. The title “Stories Beneath the Surface” is circled around the image in capital letters.
Interview with Bruce Tillen – a bald white man, wearing a white shirt and blue and black jacket. He is standing outside.
Revelstoke Museum and Archives logo in the bottom right hand corner.
Transcript of Narration:
Everyone knew that the uh High Arrow Dam was going to be built in Castlegar, and um, but nobody really knew too much.
BC Hydro had representatives that would come in and uh, to uh purchase the property.
Um, usually they sort of slid in and-and tried to uh meet with property owners uh independently, one-on-one.
And uh a lot of people weren’t prepared or didn’t know their prices, and consequently were rather threatened; if you don’t settle for this price we’re gonna take it anyway, or whatever.
Um, so it really was poorly done on uh BC Hydro’s and the government’s behalf, because it really did let the people of the whole valley, from Revelstoke and I don’t know too much about Valemount, but from Revelstoke all the way down to Burton, uh and throughout that whole area.
Um there’s a lot of bitterness and uh, disrupted a lot of people’s lives, because everyone was happy and it was in a great-a great fertile valley for agricultural and-and logging.