Yarrow is a small community located 90 kilometres east of

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

within the City of Chilliwack in

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, Canada. It is in the

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 th ...

at the foot of

Vedder Mountain The Vedder Mountain is a branch of the Cascade Range in the Pacific Northwest, located at the southeastern edge of the Fraser Lowland in British Columbia, Canada, between the village of Yarrow, British Columbia, Yarrow and the village of Cultus Lak ...

. The village was first settled by

Mennonite Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...

s in the late 1920s, following the draining of

Sumas Lake Sumas Lake ''( Halq’eméyle'': ''Semá:th'' Lake, Nooksack: ''Semáts Xácho7'', (Level Place Lake)) was a shallow freshwater lake surrounded by extensive wetlands that once existed in eastern Fraser Lowland, located on the south side of the ...

and the reclamation of the former lake bed for agriculture.

Geography

Yarrow is at the foot of the Skagit Range of the

Cascade Mountains The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as many of those in the ...

on the

Vedder River The Vedder River, called the Chilliwack River above Vedder Crossing, is a river in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington. The name Chilliwack comes from the Halkomelem word ''Tcil'Qe'uk'', meaning "valley of ...

, near the latter's confluence with the

Fraser Fraser may refer to: Places Antarctica * Fraser Point, South Orkney Islands Australia * Fraser, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen * Division of Fraser (Australian Capital Territory), a former federal ...

, 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 the Fraser Valley. Home to approximately 3.05million people as of the 2021 ...

, 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 ea ...

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 ...

.Environment Canada
Ecoregions of Canada - Lower Mainland
Ecological Framework of Canada. Retrieved on: 2014-08-18 The village of Yarrow lies between

to the south and

Sumas Mountain Sumas Mountain is a mountain located in Whatcom County, Washington, 15 miles northeast of Bellingham and southwest of Vedder Mountain. Located in the Skagit Range, the mountain is notable for its high biodiversity and year-round hiking tra ...

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 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 Cruciferous vegetables are vegetables of the family Brassicaceae (also called Cruciferae) with many genera, species, and cultivars being raised for food production such as cauliflower, cabbage, kale, garden cress, bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sp ...

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'' with the genus ''Vaccinium''. Commercial blueberries—both wild (lowbush) ...

corn Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...

and

hay Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticate ...

History

The property that was to later become the village of Yarrow was first owned by Volkert Vedder, who pre-empted, or alienated, it from

Crown land Crown land, 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. Today, in Commonwealth realm ...

, 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 cont ...

constructed a line from

to nearby

Chilliwack Chilliwack ( ) is a city of about 100,000 people and in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is located about east of the City of Vancouver in the Fraser Valley. The enumerated population is 93,203 in the city and 113,767 in the gr ...

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 (Canada), Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of V ...

. 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 Meride ...

. That same year, a group of ethnic Dutch-German Mennonites, who had fled persecution in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, 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 The Mennonite Brethren Church is an evangelical Mennonite Anabaptist movement with Wiktionary:congregation, congregations. History The conference was established among Plautdietsch language, Plautdietsch-speaking Russian Mennonites in 1860. Durin ...

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 British Columbia