Beautiful British Columbia: Our September 2024 Holiday, Part Two

A motel and a Seventh Day Adventist church in Hope,
British Columbia. All rights reserved.

On the second day of the holiday, I woke up at around 5:30 a.m. Mist was creeping through the Hope Lookout mountain above the motel, and it reminded me of First Nations legends of bears and witches; it wasn't hard to imagine supernatural beings.

A faint rain was tapping at the windows. A few of the fellow motel guests were already up and about early, lights in their rooms if they hadn't already set off.

We walked up to the church, discovered a stencilled cut-out parking lot gate with the design of a family of deer behind it. From the Private Property forest beside it, a woman in a beanie came out of the sea of fallen maple leaves with her dog. The fragrance of woodsmoke hung in the air.

At the foot of the hill, on the other side of the highway, we investigated the Mile Zero post, and a sign that Emil Anderson Construction had put up to commemorate the building of the Hope-Princeton Highway in the 1940s. Interned Japanese-Canadian labourers had also had to help construct the highway.

I wasn't sure what "rip rap" meant, on the sign, so I asked an orange-vested technician who was just lowering a wire into a rectangular pit in the lawn nearby. He took a moment to reflect, then answered that "rip rap" are large boulders, adding that they are used to strengthen river banks, for example. On the other side of the historical information, a sculpted relief artwork showed two workers using old-fashioned methods of hand-drilling granite.

When we reported our findings to Uncle Pu afterward, he remarked dryly that in his day, nobody would have thought of considering the Highway as a historic site. It had just been built!

WE DROVE OFF soon afterward, along the Coquihalla River Highway. Warning signs told us of avalanches and dangerous winter conditions, and we also ended up behind a logging truck or two: long strips of bark flagging behind the tree trunks in the wind rather like the hair of a corpse in a horror movie, and blue squiggles of paint that marked the trunks' ends. Speed limits went up to 110 km/h, but we had to slow down for construction zones.

It was remote enough that we saw the first signs that any drivers who run out of gasoline are in for a rough time: "Check fuel. No station ahead for 110 km." But it was also populated enough that groups of children were gathered at random points, presumably waiting for their school bus.

Pictograms showed that bicycles were meant to ride along designated portions of the highway. But, as these portions looked identical to the usual, narrow, unshielded highway margin to me, I wrote in my notes that the 'trails' were "not terribly enticing." The other wildlife, besides cyclists and logging trucks, to which highway signage alerted us were mule deer. But we were also warned of a forest fire danger.

We crossed "19 MILE CREEK" and then the "SKAGIT RIVER," the latter of which the family had met in 1998 when we started a road trip across the United States; and the Similkameen River kept us company on our journey as well.

A few highway signs (e.g. "CHECK YOUR SPEED") might be designed purely to keep long-haul truck drivers awake and stimulated. 

TRUCK DRIVING is a dangerous job. Many trucks passed along the highways and many signs explained varying dangers unique to large vehicles, so I learned to appreciate the profession, and the challenges of keeping grocery, lumber, etc. stores in remote parts of Canada well stocked, a bit more.

We saw one or two accident sites during our road trip. Not far from Hope, there was an "OIL SPILL" sign at a bend in the highway. Behind it, truck wheels were lying upside down behind the triangular concrete barriers of the roadside. A few metres on I remember seeing twisted wreckage of the truck's white cab.

Right after, in my notes: "brake check for trucks; runaway lane; truck trailer flipped on side beside highway."

The brake checks are side lanes; truck drivers pull into them to pause and test their brakes. The runaway lanes are roads that split off of the highway. According to the Wikipedia entry "Runaway truck ramp," the problem is that trucks can accelerate too much if going downhill, and brakes can fail through overheating or through wear & tear. So truck drivers are permitted to divert onto the runaway lanes, gradually letting their vehicle run out of (metaphorical) steam.

As far as I saw, even 6% slopes cause problems for trucks: evidently, mammoth vehicles are sensitive machines in their own way.

THE FURTHER AWAY from the coast we sped, the more Texas-style terrain, typical of British Columbia's Interior, we met. Instead of the Douglas fir and cedar forests of the rain-soaked Coastal areas, we began to see livestock fences (I sketched one; it looks like barbed wire) in ranch land, sun-bleached golden grass, sagebrush, and dark green pine trees. It's rattlesnake country, too. Fortunately we didn't meet any.

WE LANDED in Princeton (no, not that Princeton) around 9:45 a.m.. Uncle Pu remembered having eaten fried chicken beside the highway in the 1970s. Being a bad niece, I privately thought this was no reason to expect a nice breakfast in the same spot 50 years later. But I was wrong.

We parked near a pick-up truck on the other side of the fence from a roadside inn, and walked in to the family restaurant near the former chicken spot. It had a splendid cowboy-style breakfast menu.

It looked like six table nooks were already occupied, one of them by an invisible baby that occasionally raised a ruckus. It was nice to listen to the conversations. It seemed as if a lot of diners were regulars. One or two of them wore plaid shirts, and a man wore a black cowboy hat. Two motorcyclists came in later, laying aside their helmets. On the TV beside us, sportscasters were discussing an ice hockey game: a Canadian touch. The cook was rattling away somewhere in the kitchen, out of sight.

We ordered coffee. We put in creamer from the little plastic tubs on the table. And I ordered a cheddar omelette, opting for brown toast over sourdough or white.

The three-egg omelette arrived with two slices of toast (buttered and cut into triangles), grated potato hash browns, and an orange slice with a sprig of parsley as garnish. Uncle Pu ate hotcakes, and my brothers ordered sausages and bacon with eggs (over easy) as well.

J. thought that he was duty-bound to finish the glass jar of maple syrup that was handed to him with his pancakes (I think it was a litre) that the waitress brought. But in retrospect, I'm not sure.

Our waitress came around and topped up everyone's coffee, two or three times. In general I thought she was tremendously hardworking and efficient.

I was agog. Last time I went to Canada I still thought that I'd die if I needed to live in the countryside for more than a few months at a time. But this time it was not hard to picture myself living out on a farm, coming in to town once or twice per week to eat breakfast at the restaurant....

I'd probably still make a poor country dweller. But the main realization of the Canadian journey was that I don't like my life in Berlin as much as I'd thought. It might not only be the restricted lifestyle while the anaemia was in force that disenchanted me. I think that the city feels like more of a wasteland since many friends have moved away, and I don't have many routines that bring me into regular contact with the friends who do still live here.

Regardless of cause, small signs had been nagging at me before that all is not well, for example that my houseplants have almost all died even though I was at home to take care of them; in retrospect I was right to worry. I'm hoping that being enrolled as a proper student will be the change that I need, but I guess that daydreams are also fun to have.

AFTER BREAKFAST we drove onward to fruit orchard country. It wasn't growing any lusher, old wooden mining shacks were dug into desiccated slopes, and a sign warned us "CAUTION BIGHORN SHEEP," a species I'd never have bumped into on the Coast. But at Keremeos we disembarked from the car as Uncle Pu pulled us to the roadside, and we ambled through a fruit stand. We found plums, Concord grapes, pears, apples, and even cherries. The stand also sold gourd vegetables and corn cobs and chili peppers, tourist items like maple syrup bottles and Ogopogo sauce, and bags in woven fabrics made by Indigenous artists. (Other markets advertised peaches and nectarines.)

I walked behind the fruit stand to look at the apple trees, which were all relatively short and so densely packed with fruit that it was clear that they were specially bred and pruned for commercial use. Big, dusty wood tubs, stacked nearby, were used to gather the fruit. There was also a long vegetable patch. On the other side of the highway, a moisture-less slope of what looked like fine, dark grey volcanic silt rose above the asphalt.

We passed wineries as well as fruit stands after that, as we neared Kelowna.

I've never been to Kelowna except to the airport, but my grandfather worked there for a few years as a professor of German literature at Okanagan College, his new doctorate from UBC in hand. At first he lived in a rental apartment, but then he bought a plot of land on a pine forest slope at the southern periphery of Kelowna. On that land my father (with help) built a two-story wooden house that unfortunately burned down decades later, in a forest fire around 2003.

Its main bridge was replaced around 2008, and I wrote in my notes "a ton of urban development, new high-rises, subdivisions." What's there now seems, architecturally speaking, rather at war with whatever vestiges of nature, landscape, or 20th-century architecture remain.

Road construction work at Okanagan Lake

At any rate we drove the car back down toward Okanagan Lake and then stopped by the beach at Cache Creek. It seemed to be a fishing spot, and back in the 70s and 80s had been a favourite haunt of my grandparents. I read the warning signs to see if there were any problems with water quality, but they mentioned nothing. A film of brown organic debris or growth on the smooth stones in the water, which was lukewarm even in September, suggested that maybe I was right to be wary. But the temperature was pleasant. A few little fish visited me in the shallows, while a larger fish hopped further out. Ge. even went swimming.

AFTERWARD WE DROVE to the Orchard Park shopping mall.

Wild geese were migrating and flew behind the trees near the parking lot. The brothers sorted out a Canadian telephone contract, as I walked back and forth along the tarmac and the two drought-nipped plane trees that were out of their element in a roadside planting. Ambulance sirens went up and down the street and I felt rather anxious, unhappy about being in a city again and being exposed to daily symptoms of the miseries of others.

Then we went over to the mall proper.

My uncle and I walked around, seeing Roots and Old Navy and Aritzia and other clothing retailers, Purdy's Chocolates, a Shoppers Drug Mart, and a man who looked bored as he waited for someone to buy pierogis from his Ukrainian stand. I made eye contact. (Ever since working in a Christmas market, I try to smile at salespeople now and then.) And I think we both half-smiled; not sure if he also had the sense that here were two transplanted Europeans adrift abroad, as he had no way of knowing where I was from.

The mall wasn't busy, or it was too large to tell that it was busy. The brothers went to Tim Hortons, and we met them there as they were just finishing their doughnuts and drinks.

IN THE AFTERNOON we drove out of Kelowna, along the Shuswap River, toward Cherryville, which is small and unpopulated enough to be unincorporated.

We drove through Lumby first. As the biggest settlement near Cherryville, Uncle Pu thought it was likeliest we'd find a place to stay overnight there. Having driven through and gotten an idea, we proceeded to our adventure.

My grandfather had lived in Cherryville, in a remote wood house amongst the hippies in a forested, farmed area. It was a green and pleasant territory, with pale blue chicory flowers at the roadside, and a sign "Watch for Livestock." Looking at the rural plots of land, rattling along fine gravel roads, as we struggled to see any sign of our grandfather's house and only Gi. managed to see a glimpse of the roof, J. remarked ironically, "Can't argue it's been gentrified."

In fact, the gravel roads were wreaking havoc on the formerly gleaming white expanse of our minivan, and I was worried that the windshield would crack or the paint be irrevocably scratched.

Adding to the natural idyll, however, my uncle and brothers sighted an owl.

WE THEN ROAMED the forest service roads to find the trail to a hiking path that my uncle remembered walking along in the 1970s ... once. The charm of it, he said, was that the hiking path leads you to the top of the tree line, where the forest ends and the bald rock begins.

I was a skeptical niece again, thinking privately that vague recollections of 70s wilderness aren't a reliable basis for 2020s walking tours. This time I will say it was justified.

We found out that the Kate Creek Forest Service Road was out of commission, past a certain number of kilometres, and that some bridges were out, based on a sign. That road looked like it was the likeliest to bring us near the hiking path, so that was a bad precondition for our plan.

At any rate we found Sugar Lake, which is the reservoir for a hydroelectric dam.

Being the reservoir of a dam brings with it dangers to life and limb: sudden changes in water levels, hazardous debris, etc.

What we saw was a jewel-green, placid body of water that might have sprung from a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. A motel/RV park at one side transplanted it into the modern age, but otherwise it was embedded in forest. Ripples flowed across the water where fish released bubbles, hinting at a paradise for fishermen.

We'd hoped to stay at the motel, but it became clear that wasn't happening. The individual houses were being put up for sale; it looked like the owners were giving up the old business. Besides, the motel's rules were that we'd need to book a week at a time.

SO WE DROVE back to Lumby. It was bliss when our wheels hit an asphalted road once more.

We turned in at a motel at one end of town. A pair of deer antlers were nailed to a long building beside a restaurant, at the entrance to the highway. Then, further in: a two-level brown motel with dark wood siding, and hanging planter baskets of petunias in keeping with the floral decorations on the old-fashioned lamp-posts in the village proper. Beside it, a creek trickled away in the underbrush to one side, as another watercourse roared through a rocky channel on the other.

The motel seemed popular: trucks and motorcycles and cars etc. filled the parking lot. There was a freewheeling, beer-swilling Friday evening mood. In retrospect there might have been a sports game on the adjoining field.

WHEN WE'D SETTLED IN, we walked over to a nearby Chinese restaurant. A waitress, so young that I felt like I was complicit in child labour, was tending to the two or three tables of guests including us. She was handing over paper take-out bags to men (at least one of them wearing the ubiquitous plaid flannel shirt, as far as I recall) who came in to pick up their telephone or online orders, too. Sometimes a woman drifted in from the kitchen. I vaguely remember colourful patterned vases and artificial cherry tree branches as the decor over the bar counter.

We ordered a Dinner for Five. It came with egg rolls, deep fried prawns, breaded almond chicken, chop suey, ginger beef, fried rice, and chicken chow mein, as far as I recall. So it was Chinese-North American fusion food. We also had pots of green tea.

Besides I saw Shirley Temples on the menu, and ordered the drink for the first time since I was five or six years old: This Shirley Temple was dense red cherry syrup at the bottom, golden pineapple juice at the top, served in an ice cream sundae-style glass. It also had two maraschino cherries with stems in it (I know these cherries are not everyone's cup of tea, but I like them); and it was everything I wanted. 

As we left the parking lot I took a photo of a vintage pick-up truck from the 1940s or 50s, and then we walked back to the motel.

GE. AND I were sharing a room with two queen-size beds: microwave, TV, refrigerator, a bathroom with a tub that had a thick ring of green oxidization around the drain. When I used the shower, the wet orange-hued floor tiles became so slippery that I wondered if they were made of soapstone.

It was awkward when we first dropped off our bags in the room, as we heard loud panting sounds coming from a TV on the other side of the wall. We froze and stared at each other in Munch-esque horror. At first Ge. offered that I could switch rooms with J. But it soon turned out that it was a violent action movie, instead of the boudoir alternative. (I wrote "extremely loud" and "could feel rumbling in the ground" in my notes.) It stopped before 10 p.m., at which point the fellow motel guest switched to listening to anodyne pop oldies. The experience still reinforced for me that I would not like to travel alone.

[Note added Nov. 16, 2024: After checking my notes, it turns out that I remembered this day as being more eventful than it was; this adventure actually happened the following night:] Between 2 and 3 a.m. I woke up to feel an insect scuttling up my leg. I flung aside the bedclothes, stuck out my leg, and gave a kick that launched the bug into the atmosphere, then went back to sleep. I didn't think the insect was a scorpion or a venomous spider, but I didn't know for sure. Fortunately I saw a tiny ant wandering around a vinyl floor in another motel room the next day, and figured that one of its buddies had been the culprit.