The letter from Milton Red Mellow on Thursday, January 11, 2017 was not entirely correct.
I am not doubting what RCMP Office Sontag was all about, but it was not him involved in the VW explosion.
The constable in question was the infamous Hands-Up Hughie, Sgt. Pepper, Huggie, Hughie Stewart, who was here from 1971 to 1977, not the 1950s. Sontag was long gone.
It was in April of 1974 when the youth of Kimberley decided to deal with this totally extreme cop. 1,000 people signed a petition. The two-minute fuse was lit, five sticks of Forcite explosives blew up the 1969 yellow VW. The blast made the bug into a mushroom, shattered windows on the house and blew a cupboard off the kitchen wall.
Stewart said there were 13 sticks used. They did probably come from deep in the Sullivan Mine.
The man charged in the incident got three months in Oakalla prison. I talked to him six months ago.
Stewart left three years later, to Vancouver.
Now Fred Sontag, i remember him as a big man, brush cut, not well liked at all, a bully — lets nail the guy who had a couple drinks in the local parlour, and rough him up. I could only wish he would have tried that with my old man. The last time I saw him was on the corner of Spokane St. and Wallinger. If I remember, I heard he lost his arm somehow. That was many years ago.
Sorry, Red, I had to correct you, you were right on the location though. Also I knew Jack and John Roth at the Sullivan Mine, good people.
One further note: Hughie was on the scene when ‘Bigfoot’ ravaged Wycliffe in September of 1976.
Brian Crowe
Kimberley