Ralph Edwards (LEFT), Trumpeter swans (RIGHT): Wikimedia Commons
Ralph Edwards was looking for a place where he could build a homestead that was surrounded by mountains, and first reached Lonesome Lake in British Columbia in the winter of 1912. The nearest settlement was roughly 40 miles away, and Edwards spent his first years there largely on his own. Edwards remained at Lonesome Lake until 1966, which gave him more than five decades there. The wintering flock at Lonesome Lake had grown to about 600 birds by the 1960s, according to Post Alley.
He eventually built a home, established a farm and married Ethel Hober, who joined him in the wilderness. Their three children grew up at Lonesome Lake, where the family also became closely involved with the survival of the trumpeter swan. The place that began as his remote homestead is now part of the landscape of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. The feeding was not a casual task, as corn had to be transported into the remote valley, often by packhorse. Members of the Edwards family took turns to maintain the supply through winter, when natural food could become scarce. The Edwards family became known for their work with the species, and Ralph Edwards was later portrayed in Leland Stowe’s book Crusoe of Lonesome Lake .
The BC Parks Foundation says that Edwards received a 153-acre tract at Lonesome Lake in 1913 through a homesteading program, about a year after he first reached the lake. Lonesome Lake lies in the Atnarko-Kliniklini trench system in the Coast Mountains, southeast of Bella Coola, and the BC Parks Foundation describes the property as being about 69 kilometres southeast of Bella Coola and surrounded by the wilderness of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. British Columbia’s official geographical names database says that Edwards named the lake Lonesome Lake after arriving there in the winter of 1912 and finding no other living creatures in sight.
He spent the next decade clearing land and building a home and rarely left the property. He returned after serving in the First World War, married Ethel and raised their three children there. The same record credits Ralph and Ethel Edwards with doing more to protect trumpeter swans from extinction than anyone else.
