The Town of Hudson's Hope, British Columbia is located on Highway 29 midway between Chetwynd and Fort St. John, 64 km north of Chetwynd or 90 km west of Fort St. John. Located along the Peace River, Hudson's Hope has a population of approximately 1100 people.

Hudson's Hope is the third oldest European community in British Columbia. Fur traders arrived in the area in the late 1700's. In 1805 the Hudson's Bay Company established a trade post in Hudson's Hope. In 1913, there were only 40 settlers living near Hudson's Hope. Alwin Holland is the first teacher to come to the area in 1919 and opened a school in 1922. Alwin Holland Park is named after him, located on the Peace River 3 km south of Hudson's Hope.

Leo & Ethel Rutledge Scholarship

Ethel Haines was born in Norfork, England in 1911. She came to Canada with her mother and brother in 1928, her father having died in the First World War. Ethel lived in Edmonton for 2 years before answering an ad to help the wife of the telegraph operator in Hudson’s Hope.  So, in June of 1930 Ethel arrived in Hudson’s Hope. As a pretty, unmarried woman in a community of few single women, she was very popular.  A young trapper, Leo Rutledge was the lucky man to win her approval and they were engaged to be married in August of that year.

Leo was born in 1911 in Boise, Idaho but moved to Norway, his mother’s home, when his father died.  He was raised in Norway until he was 10 and moved to the Peace River country in 1921 when his mother re-married.  He lived in Grande Prairie until leaving home in 1929, where he was going to become a trapper in the North. However the first boat out, was going in the other direction, so Leo decided to go along for the ride. The 161.9’ long, 37’ wide ‘D. A. Thomas’, was one of two steam paddle wheelers that traversed the Peace River from Fort Vermillion in Alberta to Hudson’s Hope in British Columbia. Leo got on at the Peace River crossing and off at Hudson’s Hope, which at that time had a Hudson’s Bay fur post, some fur traders and some trappers. He decided that this was as good a place as any to start his trapping career. His first job however started out as a teamster, handling horses and horse teams to build a cut line to Fort St. John. Leo then met newly arrived Ethel and married her in Hythe Alberta, on March 13th, 1931.

Leo & Ethel built their first house on the banks of the Peace River, at that time you either built your own or froze to death. They used wood stove for heat, had no refrigeration and used oil or gas lamps for light. For transportation to Fort St. John they had the paddle wheeler in the summer and sleigh & horse teams on the ice in winter.  In 1932 they had their first child Valerie, their son Leo Jr. was born 6 ½ years later and Linnet was born 3 ½ years after that, all in the Fort St. John hospital, which based on the mode of travel of the day was a feat in itself.

During the next 15 years, Leo worked his trap line all winter, which was registered as the ‘Clearwater’, (90 miles up the Peace River).  He would come back home for a month in March and be off to work his beaver traps until the end of May.  The summer was spent on survey parties and in the fall he would guide for big game outfitters. Leo even spent a year helping to build the Alaska Highway in 1942.

Needless to say, Leo was a very busy man and Ethel was a very busy woman, as she had to look after the children, plant the garden, can fruit, vegetables, meat, jams and jellies. Ethel managed the farm and the farm hands and at one point home schooled the children.

Around 1945, Leo gave up his trap line and started his own big game outfitters. As part of a group of guides and outfitters in the Peace-Liard region, a question of territory was settled when these men resolved the issue by getting together to form the Northern Guides Association.  They drew borders on a map, which outlined each outfitter’s territory, which they then signed. These territories are still relevant today.  In 1961 Leo was secretary, then president of the Northern Guides Association, later called the Guide Outfitters Association of BC. In the mid 80’s, Leo wrote a book, commissioned by the Guide Outfitters Association called ‘That Some May Follow’ a history of Guide and Outfitting in BC. 

Leo also wrote many articles for local papers, was President of the Northern British Columbia Guides Association, the British Columbia Guide-Outfitters Association, Director of the British Columbia Wildlife Federation, Director of the Sierra Club of Western Canada, Director of Peace Valley Environmental Association, member of the Peace-Liard Regional Problem Wildlife Management Committee, member of the BC Guide- Outfitters Association’s Senior Executive Committee, member of Save the Valley Committee, a member of the Northern BC Advisory Council to Alaska Highway Gas Pipeline, and a Director on the Hudson’s Hope Library Board.

Leo is a born environmentalist and conservationist and has dedicated his life to this endeavour.  He was an active member in BC’s Northeastern Land and Resource Management Planning Table in 1994. He was the founder and President of CONCERN (Consider our northern community, environment and resources now), to identify indiscriminate development by mining and petroleum interests, especially around the Prophet River Country. Leo made a film of the Rocky Mountain Trench, which he hoped to generate public awareness of the area, which would lead to the establishment of a park along the Peace-Liard Range. In the early 80’s, as a citizen Leo opposed the building of the Site C dam project not because it affected his land but because it affected the whole valley.

In response to an interview from the Northerner, regarding the destruction of the environment, Leo offered the following analogy.
“In viewing the Peace Valley’s tapestry, a beholder might stand in awe before its splendour – convinced it is quite beyond price.  Whereas another, should it serve his purpose, might muster his helpers, each an expert in showing, according to the methodologies of his own discipline, why each Valley thread, when plucked out and analyzed in isolation, is really very ordinary – and worth but little or nothing.  That its contribution to the whole is “insignificant” and that, therefore, when viewed threat by shredded thread, the Valley is really no more than a patchwork of “insignificants”.           

Having lived for over 70 years in the Peace River country of British Columbia, Leo and Ethel have both contributed to its history. Ethel wrote numerous articles over the years, and eventually wrote a book in 1991 titled ‘The Little Ranch in the Valley’, and had it reprinted in 2000. This delightful book presents an insight into the early years of their life on the Peace.

For their 70th wedding anniversary on March 13, 2001, the Municipal District of Hudson’s Hope dedicated this scholarship in their honour, now known as the ‘Leo and Ethel Rutledge Scholarship’.    

Leo passed away on July 6, 2005. Ethel currently resides with her daughter in Fort St. John.