The community of Creston, B.C. has resisted joining the rest of Canada in the bi-annual switch between standard and daylight-savings time – and for brokers, that hour difference has proven to be an occasional 60-minutes minor misadventure.
“Absolutely we do,” says Charlene Everitt, the manager of the Western Financial Group office in Creston, B.C., when asked if the brokerage has to do the mental math every time a meeting is booked with people living outside of the town limits. “When people are coming in we have to, and when people are going out we have to. Half of the time we are on the same time as Cranbrook, and half the time we’re on the same time as the west.”
The B.C. town has refused to recognize daylight-savings time since its introduction during the First World War. Ironically, Creston did adopt Pacific Daylight Savings back in 1918 (along with the rest of the country) as an energy-saving measure; but the locals liked it so much that no one bothered to turn the clocks back to standard time… for 96 years.
The time differential can throw a monkey wrench, albeit minor, when corporate comes to visit, says Everitt.
“Especially when we have people coming in from our head office, and Alberta; quite often people don’t know where the time change is,” she told Insurance Business. “Our bosses will come down from Cranbrook and sometimes forget we are on a different time, and they’ll have to wait an hour.”
And the all-seeing. all-knowing Internet doesn’t help much either.
“Online, it shows Creston as one or the other,” says Everitt.
Residents who prefer the status quo cite Fort St. John in northern B.C., Saskatchewan and Arizona as examples of jurisdictions that do fine without changing their clocks. But none of those rely so heavily on outside districts with competing time zones. (continued.)
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When British Columbians voted in favour of DST during a 1952 plebiscite, Creston ignored it. When Alberta eventually adopted it 1971, Creston again stood firm. And in 1972, when Creston voted on embracing Pacific Standard Time, including DST, the result was a tie. The clocks didn’t change.
The big regional hospital 100 kilometres away in Cranbrook is on Mountain Time. The lake ferry across Kootenay Lake to Balfour crosses time zones mid-route. Porthill, Idaho, 10 kilometres due south, is on Pacific Time.
“We’ve had a few missed ferries,” says Everitt.
According to one report, there is a local motion before town council to hold a referendum in the fall that would have Crestonians changing clocks twice a year along with most of the rest of the country.
“I had heard that it was cancelled,” says Everitt, “and that it wouldn’t be going to a referendum. But I don’t know.”
But being born and raised in Creston, Everitt has grown used to being unique – but it doesn’t mean she doesn't have a temporal preference.
“I’ve lived here all my life, so on the one hand it isn’t really an issue;” she says.”But I would like to see us go on to Mountain Time, just for convenience.”
