About

About the History & the Creators of The Kootenay Mountain Seed Bank. The Kootenay Mountain Seed Bank has an old history. It all started in 1893. Bob Greenstone at the young age of 22 left Swansea for the first time. Swansea is in South West Wales and it was the key centre of the copper industry. In the 1800’s it produced 25% of the world’s copper, hence it’s nickname ‘Copperopolis’. He left to work in the silver rush of the Kootenay Mountains of Canada.

 

 

A Young Man’s Journey

Bob’s father worked hard at the smelters and his father health was quickly deteriorating. His lungs badly damaged from inhaling all the fumes from the furnaces. He desperately needed expensive medicine just so he could breath. Bob heard about the silver rush and decided to head to the Kootenays in British Columbia, Canada to help save his dad’s life. But during his boat voyage across the Pond, his father passed away at the young age of 46.

Creators of The Kootenay Mountain Seed Bank

Bob settledown working as a miner in the Kootenays. He married in 1895 to a simple but beautiful brunette named Catherine. Her father also worked hard in the mines and he loved to smoke pot after a hard days work. Catherine had a green thumb and she was already making hybrid cannabis from the native plants, the same way her mother taught her to breed corn. She would pollinate the females from the strongest males and she would pull the weaker females. This is how the seed bank got it’s roots, way back in the 1800’s.

Original Kootenay Mountain Landrace Strains from the 1800’s

All the cannabis plots growing in the Kootenay Mountains are still the original ones from 1895. Some plots were lost due to infrastructure taking over some of the land and some new plots were added since, but many of the original plots still exist today. Original plots from Bob and Catherine Greenstone. These original native hybrid landraces are still available in our shop as well as some newer hybrids mixed with strains from Vancouver Island.