Told in the hills
John Claude White's bungalow above the lake
In 1889 the British posted John Claude White to Gangtok as the first Political Officer of Sikkim, a job he held until 1908. In the years after the Chogyal Thutob Namgyal was sidelined, White ran much of the state's day-to-day administration, reorganising land revenue, forests and roads. Aritar, on the trade path to Tibet and close to the Darjeeling district border at Rhenock and Pedong, was a useful place for a post. In 1895 he had a dak bungalow built here, a rest house where officials could break a journey.
Two years later, in 1897, Sikkim's first police outpost and its first treasury were set up on the same premises. That is why the bungalow turns up in local histories as a small piece of how modern Sikkim came to be governed. White wrote about these years in his 1909 book, Sikhim and Bhutan: Twenty-one Years on the North-East Frontier. Today the building, known locally as Ari Bangla, still stands on its ridge, and the walk up to it gives a fine view over the lake.
Aritar's people are older than the bungalow. Local histories, summarised on Wikipedia, say Lepcha families were the first settlers in the Rhenock area and Bhutia families from Tibet founded villages here, Aritar among them, from the mid-16th century. Nepali-speaking Gorkha families came later, many from the late 19th century. Today the village is a mix of all three, the gompa above the lake follows the Kagyu tradition, and Nepali is what you will hear in the tea shops.
Pinned to the board
Did you know
Sikkim's first police outpost and first treasury were opened in 1897 on the premises of the Aritar dak bungalow, built two years earlier.
Mankhim, on the hilltop above Lampokhari, has a temple of the Rai community, a Kirati people, at about 6,500 ft.
John Claude White, who built the Aritar dak bungalow, is also credited with introducing apple growing to Lachung and Lachen in North Sikkim.
