Just a few minute drive from Chilliwack and a couple of miles down the road from Cultus Lake....is the little village of Yarrow.  With a beautiful picturesque setting it set amids a backdrop of panoramic mountains and Valley views. 

Yarrow was founded mostly by Dutch-Prussian-Russian-Mennonites on land reclaimed in part from Sumas Lake, after the provincial government built dykes to channel the Vedder River through the Vedder Canal to the Fraser River. Completed in 1924, this dyking project opened 12,000 acres of land for agriculture just west of Yarrow. By 1928, a new Mennonite Colony was established. The village of Yarrow nestles between Vedder Mountain to the south and the Vedder River to the north. 

                               Yarrow Station - Coffee Shop, Yummy Donnairs & Gift Shop

The property that was to later become the village of Yarrow was first owned by Volkert Vedder, in 1858. In 1910, the B.C. Electric Railway constructed a line from Vancouver to nearby Chilliwack that skirted the edge of Sumas Lake.

                       "Beautiful Things"    Unique Gift ideas and Custom Made Gift Baskets

One of the stations along this line was named Yarrow. The townsite was built on land reclaimed, in part, from Sumas Lake. In the early 1920s, the provincial government built dykes to channel the Vedder River throught the Vedder Canal to the Fraser River. This dyking project, which was completed in 1924, opened 12,000 acres of land for agriculture to the west of Yarrow.

                              Sawatzky's Imagination Corp - Showcasing Over-the-Top Creativity

By 1928, much of the land was owned by Chauncey Eckert. 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.

For a wonderful book about Yarrow - its history, pictures of people, and places - see:

• Neufeldt, Leonard N., ed. Yarrow, British Columbia: Mennonite Promise. Victoria, BC: Touchwood, 2002.

Its two volumes, Before We Were the Land's, and Village of Unsettled Yearnings, chronicle, with the aid of journals and interviews of pioneers, the rise and fall of the village of Yarrow as a stronghold of Mennonite life.

 If you or someone you know is thinking of buying or selling property in Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Langley or anywhere in the Fraser Valley Area of B.C. - or if you would like more information please give Liz  Moras a call! 604-799-0459 or e-mail at lizmoras@gmail.com.     

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