Unless you have known her for many years, you could meet her on a sidewalk and never know that you had just met a person of Golden’s local history. And, as well, a person of B.C. history.
For one thing, she’s a little older than when she was young. Age sometimes hides earlier adventures and achievements. She used to work in a lawyer’s office and, in those days, lawyers often needed evidence in divorce cases, evidence that could only be gathered by breaking into houses at night to see who was sleeping with who. That sort of thing, a pretty nervy task, was often on her ‘to do’ list.
And in that same lawyer’s office, the seeds were planted in her mind that she could become a notary public, and she became one. In fact, she became the first woman notary public in British Columbia, as well as the youngest. And then she led one of the first separation movements in Canada, long before the separation issues in Quebec, and nearly six decades before the current separation movement in Alberta.
And you wouldn’t know any of this if you just met her on the sidewalk in town.
She wouldn’t tell you. It just wouldn’t come up in a conversation with her in 2026.
But in the spring of ’74, she’d have surely brought it up.
She’s Davene Dunn, and she’s been to a few rodeos.
One was her leadership of a proposal of separation from British Columbia, and a joining with Alberta, which was on everyone’s mind in Golden and made national news across Canada that spring. It wasn’t something she did alone; she had lots of help, much of it from others who also still live here in Golden.
It was in reaction to some of the policies of the new NDP government in BC, a government that had just been elected in 1972 and which had implemented many policies that were very foreign to BC residents. Not that its presence in BC political life had just begun; that had been well known, and feared, since the early ’40’s.
In fact, while the Liberals and Conservatives had been at each other’s throats through the ’20’s and ’30’s, they joined together to form what was called the Coalition Party in the ’40’s, totally as a plan to keep the CCF, the forerunner of the NDP, out of power. And it worked until 1972.
The NDP was a while figuring out which of its policies it would give life to after its election, but by ’74 it had kicked out all the auto insurance companies in the province and established ICBC, the government insurance company that still exists, and which, with its near-monopoly on auto insurance, writes most of the auto insurance in the province.
It had also established the Agricultural Land Commission, which again still exists in a form which is very similar to when it was set up by the NDP in 1974.
But policies such as the ones above didn’t make everyone in the province happy. Especially not those along the eastern border in places such as our town, Golden. And with our proximity to Alberta, and with many former Alberta residents having taken up root here, many of the residents in Golden were ready to leave BC and join Alberta. Hence the name ‘Alberta Bound.’
And one resident was Davene Dunn, one of those former Albertans, and who today, in 2026, fifty-two years later, knows more about the challenges of seceding from a province than most of us, and also much more than those currently trying to achieve it in Alberta.
You know, of course, that ‘Alberta Bound’ did not succeed in moving us into the Wild Rose province since we’re still in BC, but a similar movement to the one presently arising in Alberta has also occupied the minds of our residents right here in Golden.
And why did it not succeed here?
Davene knows why.
I’m not concerned here with the legal issues or the processes of what steps are required of a province in order to satisfy our Canadian Constitution in a matter of separation. There was no Canadian Constitution in ‘74, so it wasn’t an issue. I’m only concerned with the political side of it, the challenge of convincing citizens to support separation of a province from the country. How do you do that in the community halls of a small town or in the fields or barns of a western province?
Because it isn’t easy.
Some things were relatively easy.
It was easy to send flowers to Premier Peter Lougheed, the Alberta politician who would, if the movement grew large enough, have to extend a welcoming hand. And the flowers were sent. It was even easy to convince some people in neighbouring communities, also in southeastern B.C., to join the cause. Some in Fernie did. Some in Cranbrook did. ‘Alberta Bound’ had made the national news and some in other towns were making calls here every day. Not that they developed the fervour that Golden did, but there was interest there as well.
So what challenges could ‘Alberta Bound’ not overcome that will likely be an issue in today’s Alberta?
One would certainly be the politics of it. How do you convince people who have always been citizens of any country to change their minds? Patriotism, often not part of our beings, and not something that everyone may want to wear on their sleeves, can become real when people are asked to abandon the country of their roots. And personal things like pensions become part of it as well. What would happen to people’s pensions if the country changed? Who would protect property rights?
Patriotism, pensions and property. All serious things.
All big issues in Golden in ’74.
And big issues in Alberta in ’26.
The other likely, and probably insurmountable issue, was the realities of daily life. Most people have to go to work every day, have to take care of the kids and mow the grass. The time and effort that it takes to change a major part of a functioning society is huge and probably takes greater failures on the part of the government in charge to achieve. People have to be really mad at the government before they are willing to secede in large numbers.
Alberta has somewhat more of a track record in doing that, although not to the extent of changing countries, than most provinces do. It elected an unknown party, Social Credit, to govern it in 1935, in a huge landslide, and the Socreds did so for thirty-six years. It even convinced British Columbia to follow it in 1952, piling up another 40 years of provincial party rule.
But ballot box change is easier to achieve than separation.
It was in Golden in the ‘Alberta Bound’ time, over fifty years ago, and it most likely will be in Alberta with the current separation movement as well.
