Warfield is a village at the bottom of the Rossland hill, immediately west of

Trail A trail, also known as a path or track, is an unpaved lane or small road usually passing through a natural area. In the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, a path or footpath is the preferred term for a pedestrian or hiking trail. ...

, in the

West Kootenay The Kootenays or Kootenay ( ) is a region of southeastern British Columbia. It takes its name from the Kootenay River, which in turn was named for the Kutenai First Nations people. Boundaries The Kootenays are more or less defined by the Koot ...

region of southern

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Settlement

Warfield was named after Carlos Warfield, a business partner of Fritz Augustus Heinze, who built the Trail smelter. Annable, Mickey Mouse Town, and Minnie Mouse Town are among its six distinct neighbourhoods. In the 1930s, the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company (CM&S) built a residential area to house employees. Warfield incorporated as a village in 1952.

Fertilizer farm

In 1919, CM&S bought a tract of land at Warfield to supply cheap produce for its workers, and show that pollution from the Trail smelter was not as significant as critics claimed, but the farm proved the converse. Following the installation of a pollution control device in 1925, the captured dust was taken to a plant built at the farm that converted the material into a variety of fertilizers. By 1931, the company produced hydrogen, nitrogen, ammonia, ammonia sulphate, phosphite and phosphoric acid-based products. By 1941, the Warfield plant output of ordinance-grade ammonium nitrate was directed to munitions during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. In addition, the US military needed heavy water for the Manhattan Project. The only two sources in the world were

Vemork Vemork is a hydroelectric power plant outside Rjukan in Tinn, Norway. The plant was built by Norsk Hydro and opened in 1911, its main purpose being to fix nitrogen for the production of fertilizer. At opening, it was the world's largest power pl ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

, under German occupation, and Trail, where electrolytic hydrogen was a by-product of the CM&S sulfur recovery process. CM&S was directed by the federal government to build a heavy water plant at Warfield, which was funded by the US, and operated from 1943 to 1956. A 14-storey concrete building in the midst of the fertilizer complex has evidenced the strategic project. WARFIELD- sign

Rossland CP line

In 1896, Warfield was one of two intermediate stations opened. In 1966, Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) abandoned the Rossland spur west of Warfield.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by Statistics Canada, Warfield had a population of 1,753 living in 798 of its 828 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 1,680. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Government

On the

provincial level Provincial may refer to: Government & Administration * Provincial capitals, an administrative sub-national capital of a country * Provincial city (disambiguation) * Provincial minister (disambiguation) * Provincial Secretary, a position in Can ...

, Warfield is a part of the electoral district of Kootenay West (provincial electoral district). The riding, which has traditionally voted for the

British Columbia New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party of British Columbia (BC NDP) is a social-democratic provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada. As of 2017, it governs the province. It is the British Columbia provincial arm of the federal New Democrati ...

, is currently represented by NDP MLA

Katrine Conroy Katrine Conroy (' Thor-Larsen; born 1957 or 1958) is a Canadian politician who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in the 2005 provincial election. She represents the electoral district of Kootenay West as a member of t ...

. In the House of Commons of Canada, Warfield is represented in the electoral district of

South Okanagan—West Kootenay South Okanagan—West Kootenay (french: Okanagan-Sud—Kootenay-Ouest) is a federal electoral district in British Columbia. It encompasses a portion of British Columbia previously included in the electoral districts of British Columbia Southern ...

. Created prior to the 2015 General Election, the seat is currently held by

NDP NDP may stand for: Computing * Neighbor Discovery Protocol, an Internet protocol * Nortel Discovery Protocol, a layer two Internet protocol, also called SONMP * Nondeterministic programming, a type of computer language Government * National ...

Member of Parliament

Richard Cannings (British Columbia politician) Richard J. "Dick" Cannings (born March 31, 1954) is a Canadian biologist, author and politician. He was elected as the South Okanagan—West Kootenay Member of Parliament in the 2015 Canadian federal election for the New Democratic Party, and r ...

School District

The current school district for Warfield is School District 20 Kootenay-Columbia. Currently, Warfield offers one elementary school and one preschool.

Schools

Climate

Warfield has a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...

(

Dfb DFB may refer to: * Deerfield Beach, Florida, a city * Decafluorobutane, a fluorocarbon gas * Dem Franchize Boyz, former hip hop group, Atlanta, Georgia * Dfb, Köppen climate classification for Humid continental climate * Distributed-feedback ...

) with warm, sometimes hot summer days along with cool nights and moderately cold, snowy winters with annual snowfall averaging .

References

External links

* {{authority control Villages in British Columbia Populated places in the West Kootenay British Columbia populated places on the Columbia River