Yarrow is a small community located 90 kilometres east of Vancouver within the City of Chilliwack in British Columbia, Canada. It is in the Fraser Valley at the foot of Vedder Mountain. The village was first settled by Mennonites in the late 1920s, following the draining of

Sumas Lake Sumas () is a city in Whatcom County, Washington, United States. It had a population of 1,307 as of the 2010 census. Sumas is located adjacent to the Canada–U.S. border and borders the city of Abbotsford, British Columbia. The Sumas-Huntingd ...

and the reclamation of the former lake bed for agriculture.

Geography

Yarrow is at the foot of the Skagit Range of the Cascade Mountains on the

Vedder River Vedder is a Dutch and Low German surname. ''Vedder'', related to Dutch ('father'), meant 'uncle' (father's or mother's brother) in Middle Dutch and Eastern dialects of Dutch. Notable people with the surname include: * Adam Swart Vedder (1834–190 ...

, near the latter's confluence with the Fraser, which traverses the

Lower Mainland The Lower Mainland is a geographic and cultural region of the mainland coast of British Columbia that generally comprises the regional districts of Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley. Home to approximately 3.05million people as of the 2021 Canadia ...

, of British Columbia. The

Lower Mainland Ecoregion The Lower Mainland Ecoregion is the biogeoclimatic region that surrounds Vancouver, British Columbia, comprising the eastern edge of the Georgia Depression and extending from Powell River, British Columbia on the Sunshine Coast to Hope at the east ...

is part of the

Pacific Maritime Ecozone The Pacific Maritime Ecozone, as defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone, spanning a strip approximately 200 kilometres wide along the British Columbia Coast, then narrowing along the b ...

.Environment Canada
Ecoregions of Canada - Lower Mainland
Ecological Framework of Canada. Retrieved on: 2014-08-18 The village of Yarrow lies between Vedder Mountain to the south and Sumas Mountain to the northwest. The climate is temperate with most of the precipitation falling in the winter months as rain. The summer is warm and relatively dry. The fertile

upper Fraser Valley The Fraser Valley is a geographical region in southwestern British Columbia, Canada and northwestern Washington State. It starts just west of Hope in a narrow valley encompassing the Fraser River and ends at the Pacific Ocean stretching from the ...

supports the growth of many varieties of fruit, vegetables and herbs. Yarrow's economy is thus primarily agricultural and includes dairy farms, poultry production and field crops ( cole crops

blueberries Blueberries are a widely distributed and widespread group of perennial flowering plants with blue or purple berries. They are classified in the section ''Cyanococcus'' within the genus ''Vaccinium''. ''Vaccinium'' also includes cranberries, bi ...

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

and hay).

History

The property that was to later become the village of Yarrow was first owned by

Volkert Vedder Volkert may refer to: People *Edward Charles Volkert (1871–1935), American painter *Georg Volkert (1945–2020), German footballer *Stephan Volkert (born 1971), German rower *Volkert Doeksen (born 1963), Dutch money manager *Volkert van der Graaf ...

, who pre-empted, or alienated, it from

Crown land Crown land (sometimes spelled crownland), also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch, who personifies the Crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it. ...

, beginning in 1862. During the 1860s, Vedder and his sons Adam and Albert amassed a total of 960 acres. With a further Crown grant in 1878, the Vedder Lands eventually totalled 1,200 acres.Yarrow Research Committee (2002). Yarrow, British Columbia: Mennonite Promise. Vol I, ''Before We Were the Land's'', 92-93. In 1910, the

British Columbia Electric Railway The British Columbia Electric Railway (BCER) was an historic railway which operated in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Originally the parent company for, and later a division of, BC Electric Company (now BC Hydro), the BCER assumed contro ...

constructed a line from Vancouver to nearby Chilliwack that skirted the edge of

. One of the stations along this line was named Yarrow. The townsite was built on land reclaimed, in part, from

. In the early 1920s, the provincial government built dykes to channel the

through the Vedder Canal to the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...

. This dyking project, which was completed in 1924, opened 12,000 acres (49 km²) of land for agriculture to the west of Yarrow. By 1928, much of the land was owned by

Chauncey Eckert Chauncey may refer to: * Chauncey (name), both a given name and a surname. Places in the United States * Chauncey, Georgia * Chauncey, Illinois * Chauncey, Michigan * Chauncey, Ohio * Chauncey, West Virginia * Chauncey Peak, a mountain near ...

. That same year, a group of ethnic Dutch-German Mennonites, who had fled persecution in the Soviet Union, began buying lots of this land from Eckert. They created a Mennonite community that flourished from the late 1920s until the early 1960s. As many Mennonites began to assimilate into mainstream Canadian culture, they moved away from the rural village of Yarrow, and subsequent settlers were of many different ethnic backgrounds. Today, Yarrow functions mainly as a semi-rural suburb of Chilliwack.

Yarrow Days

On the first weekend of June, residents of Yarrow celebrate their community with Yarrow Days. Festivities begin at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, with a parade down Yarrow Central Road that starts at the Yarrow Community School on Wilson Road and ends at the Yarrow Mennonite Brethren church. Booths located in the park display local crafts, clothes, and homemade food. Particularly popular are the bake-sales and barbecues by members of the local churches, offering ethnic and traditional wares. Performers provide entertainment as residents and visitors make new friends and renew acquaintances. Local merchants offer specials in the nearby shops. Events include a barbecue and dance at the Community Hall on Saturday night and a pancake breakfast at the hall and church service in the park on Sunday morning.

Yarrow Ecovillage

References

Notes

External links

Yarrow Ecovillage websiteYarrow's Pioneers and Settlers
{{Chilliwack Neighbourhoods , state=expanded Neighbourhoods in Chilliwack Lower Mainland Mennonitism in Canada