Roads in the Cariboo can be named for pioneers, animals, birds and even sawmills.
One block east from the Lone Butte General Store off Highway 24 is Netherlands Road. It used to be about one mile long, heading north and ending at Netherlands Overseas Mill.
The Dutch owners Nicolaas Van Drimmelen, Kaes Brouwer, and it's rumoured Queen Juliana was involved, bought the E&M Sawmill in 1952 from Charlie Ashley. Then they and built the first Netherlands Overseas Mill in Lone Butte.
The Netherlands mills expanded into several British Columbia communities, including Chase, Williams Lake, Merritt and Prince George, which is still operational.
Carmen Vandyk of 108 Mile says that her grandfather, Bart Vandyk, brought his young family to Canada from Ouderderk, Holland in 1952. Hewas instrumental in getting all the mills up and running.
Fred Peeters, longtime Lone Butte resident and now in his nineties, worked at the mill in the 1950s and stayed there for a number of years.
He has many stories about Vandyk, reported to be a big man, a hard worker and a hard drinker who was like a roving field man with the Netherlands operation.
The Lone Butte operation ran for a number of years, then they moved the sawmill to Exeter Road in 100 Mile House, keeping the planer mill going in Lone Butte until the late '50s or very early '60s.
The original office is now part of a residence, but besides an old building that was used as a bunkhouse, nothing remains of the mill.
