Author's note: Original map by RAND McNALLY, butchered by Lee. A Wood
LAKE | BEACH |
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I made many trips through the Rogers Pass; Autumn, Spring, Summer, and Winter.
The following pictures were taken during those trips.
Some of the pictures were taken while I was facing East.
Basically I have arranged them from East to West.
![]() LEAVING ALBERTA | ![]() THE ENTRANCE TO THE YOHO NATIONAL PARK IS ALSO THE; EASTERN BOUNDARY OF B. C., THE WESTERN BOUNDARY OF ALBERTA, THE WESTERN BOUNDARY OF BANFF NATIONAL PARK, AND THE SUMMIT OF THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE - PEAK OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. |
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![]() | ![]() WAPTA LAKE, IN YOHO NATIONAL PARK, FORMED BY THE WATERS OF CATARACT BROOK AND BLUE CREEK, IS THE HEADWATERS FOR THE KICKING HORSE RIVER |
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![]() DOWN TO FIELD, B. C. | ![]() KICKING HORSE RIVER |
This part of the river is a popular place for cross country skiers and hikers in the winter.
They like to calculate their paths over the blocks of snow created by the crisscrossing waters.
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![]() FIELD, B. C. | ![]() |
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![]() SOON TO BE THE HOME OF A MAJOR MUSEUM | ![]() |
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![]() LEAVING FIELD | ![]() |
![]() `07/5 A MUD SLIDE CLOSED THE HIGHWAY HERE THE LAST OF IT IS BEING CLEARED AWAY | ![]() MAYBE THEY SHOULD BUILD A SNOW SHED HERE FOR ALL THE IMPATIENT MOTORISTS |
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![]() GLACIER NATIONAL PARK | ![]() | ![]() |
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The following pictures were taken between May and August of `07 from the Trans Canada Highway that was completed in 1962.
Going West down Ten Mile Hill.
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![]() NOTE THE CORNER INTO THE RUNAWAY LANE IF YOU WERE GOING FAST ENOUGH TO NEED A RUN-AWAY LANE YOU WOULD BE GOING TOO FAST TO TURN A CORNER. | ![]() |
These next pictures were taken after the upgrade was completed.
Notice the difference in the rock cuts.
The new rock cuts are on the same mountain but above the old cuts.
![]() FROM THE TOP OF `TEN MILE' HILL | ![]() A MORE INTELLIGENT RUN-AWAY LANE |
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![]() HOW MANY HOURS TO CUT ALL THAT ROCK? | ![]() |
![]() HOW DID THEY HANG THAT SIGN UP THERE? | ![]() NOTE HOW THE `PARK BRIDGE' BLENDS INTO THE HIGHWAY AT `TEN MILE HILL' |
![]() BELOW WERE THE OLD ROAD AND THE CONSTRUCTION CAMP FOR THE NEW BRIDGE | ![]() THE NEW ROAD ABOVE THE OLD ROAD |
![]() TEN MILE HILL | ![]() |
The first 20 kilometers East of Golden are; narrow, steep, and winding. This stretch of highway has been a death trap for many a motorist.
Not unlike other highways in B.C. that are built into solid rock and are much too expensive, and/or impracticable to widen, and/or straighten.
However, after much pressure from people who don't know how to drive, the government, at great expense to us poor taxpayers are attempting to rebuild this section of road.
Personally, I believe it would be much cheaper to teach people how to drive.
But what do I know? I'm only a professional driver who has been driving these roads for over 40 years.
I first came through this stretch of road when it was first being built. We spent many an hour, sitting in our car, while they blasted the rock to make the road that today is too dangerous.
How happy were the motorists in 1962 when PM (Prime Minister) the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker opened the Rogers' Pass, and they no longer had to traverse the Big Bend Hwy.
The Big Bend was; not paved, only open in the summer, and took 8 hours to traverse.
The following pictures were taken of the construction of the Park Bridge on Ten Mile Hill
PARK BRIDGE 2007
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The next 15 kilometers into Golden were, at the time of this writing, still very narrow and treacherous.
Since then it has been repaved, and, maybe, rebuilt.
![]() KICKING HORSE RIVER | ![]() YOHO BRIDGE 2006 |
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![]() LARGE NETS PREVENT ROCK FROM FALLING ON CARS NEVER STOP, OR PARK, ALONG SUCH AREAS | ![]() |
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![]() | ![]() THE CONSTRUCTION HASN'T SEEMED TO HAVE BOTHERED THESE ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHEEP |
![]() | ![]() GOLDEN |
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![]() LEAVING GOLDEN | ![]() |
![]() REMAINS OF A SAWMILL CENTER CALLED, `DONALD' | ![]() |
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![]() APPROACHING THE SUMMIT - WEST BOUND | ![]() |
![]() GLACIER PARK LODGE | ![]() APPROACHING THE SUMMIT - EAST BOUND |
When our school class took a bus trip, I, and a couple of fellow students, climbed the hill behind the memorial. We buried a small time capsule, an empty soda bottle with a note in it.
I have no idea if any of us have ever returned to the spot. I know I don't remember the exact spot, nor what the note said.
![]() | ![]() THE ROGERS PASS WAS COMPLETED IN 1962 THIS CENOTAPH MARKS THE OCCASION PRIME MINISTER JOHN DIEFENBAKER CUT THE RIBBON MY FATHER AND MOTHER ATTENDED THE CEREMONY ![]() ![]() ![]() SLIDE AREAS ARE VERY BEAUTIFUL DO NOT STOP TO TAKE PICTURES THEY ARE VERY DANGEROUS AREAS ![]() ![]() ONE OF MANY SNOW SHEDS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SUMMIT - SNOW SHEDS ALLOW ROCK AND/OR SNOW TO PASS OVER THE ROAD, AND VEHICLES ![]() MOST OF THE SNOW SHEDS ARE LIT, DAY AND NIGHT SOME AREN'T, SO BE SURE TO USE YOUR HEADLIGHTS |
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![]() THIS LITTLE VALLEY, IN THE `70S, WAS THE SCENE OF A TREMENDOUS WIND. THOUSANDS OF TREES WERE BLOWN DOWN | ![]() ENTERING MOUNT REVELSTOKE NATIONAL PARK |
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![]() APPROACHING REVELSTOKE | ![]() |
![]() | ![]() REVELSTOKE |
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ON THE EAST END OF THE BRIDGE AND THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY IS A SMALL PARK
I didn't meet the man who made this but I remember seeing it when it was raw wood, unpainted, and sitting in its original location near `Boat Encampment', which was the half way point between Golden and Revelstoke, on the Big Bend Highway.
I would have been about 8, give or take a couple of years, at the time.
This is not the original woodenhead, nor is it even wood. This is a fiberglass replica.
(Like the `Mr. PG in Prince George) it has had to be replaced with modern materials and doesnt have the same look as the original.
The original woodenhead, carved in the early `50s rotted away many years ago.
![]() WOODENHEAD | ![]() |
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![]() LEAVING REVELSTOKE - WEST BOUND | |
![]() LOOKING SOUTH ALONG THE COLUMBIA RIVER | ![]() LOOKING NORTH ALONG THE COLUMBIA RIVER |
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![]() ENTERING REVELSTOKE - EAST BOUND | ![]() |
![]() | ![]() THERE IS A TRAIN ON THE TRACKS |
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![]() THE EARLY MORNING SUN DAPPLES THE BUGS ON MY WINDSHIELD | ![]() THERE IS A TRAIN TUNNEL ON THE FAR END OF THE SNOW COVERED LAKE |
![]() TOO EARLY FOR THE SUN TO REACH THE BOTTOM OF THE CANYON | ![]() |
Years before the Roger's Pass was even conceived of, my family and I made a trip over the Big Bend Highway, the road between Golden and Revelstoke. It was, basically, a logging road, and only open in the summer.
I don't recall which type of vehicle we had but it was pulling a small trailer that had once been a luggage cart at the airport in Edmonton.
After we had passed `Boat Encampment' which was the peak of the bend in the river and about half way through the Selkirk Mountains, a wheel came off the trailer.
We had to walk back and find the wheel and it took a lot of looking because we were looking on the wrong side of the road.
The strange thing was that the wheel came off the passenger side of the trailer and ended up on the driver's side of the road.
Now this was a good thing because the passenger side of the road was a steep cliff, several hundred feet down to the Columbia River. The driver's side of the road was a sheer wall gong up, hundreds of feet.
We put the wheel back on the hub. Father drove slow while I watched out the back window. When I saw the wheel moving over the hub, I would tell dad and he would swing the car the other way and the wheel would go back on. However this only worked a couple of times, until we were in a narrow corner where father couldn't turn the car and the wheel came off again.
The problem was that there was a hole in the end of the hub where a cotter pin should be.
The pin had worn away. A motorist who stopped to help us look for the wheel suggested using a nail, and he happened to have one.
Merrily, we proceeded on our way.
Looking out the back window I could see the wheel coming off and I told dad but he thought I was joking, "The nail will hold it, It can't get off now."
The wheel came off.
The wheel had bent the nail and slid over top of it.
We put it all back together, straightened the nail, and kept our eye on it until we got to Revelstoke.
In Revelstoke we found a shop and had a nut welded onto the hub.
On our way to Sicamous Father would tease me, "Have a look out and see if the wheel is still on." I didn't look.
Several miles West of Revelstoke, just East of Griffin Lake, was a small lake on the driver's side of the car.
The wheel came off the trailer and disappeared into the lake.
We dragged the trailer into a turn out beside the lake and loaded all our stuff into the car.
For years, every time we went past the lake, the little trailer was still sitting there.
A BEAUTIFUL VILLAGE BETWEEN TWO BEAUTIFUL LAKES In British Columbia, between Revelstoke and Salmon arm, due West of Calgary, Alberta, is Sicamous, smack dab on the Trans Canada Highway.
For a few brief moments one is awe struck by the spectacular view of water and mountains and a quaint little community nestled along the shore of what is a channel connecting Mara Lake to the Shuswap lakes.
CLANWILLIAM LAKE?
GRIFFIN LAKE
APPROACHING 3 VALLEY GAP
THREE VALLEY MUSEUM
3 VALLEY CHATEAU & RESTAURANT
3 VALLEY LAKE
THREE VALLEY LAKE, 3 VALLEY GAP, &
3 VALLEY LAKE CHATEAU
A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE CABIN ON THE END OF THE LAKE
A LOVELY HOME ABOVE
19 MILE OVERHEAD
TAFT, B. C.
ALMOST DUE NORTH OF TAFT, WASHINGTON
BOTH ARE SIMILAR,
CONSTRUCTION BELOW THE ROAD
MILES FROM ANYTHING ELSE
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT EITHER IS FOR
APPROACHING
THE
ENCHANTED
FOREST
I HAVEN'T STOPPED IN FOR MANY YEARS
BUT I HAVE HAPPY MEMORIES OF PREVIOUS VISITS
ENCHANTED FOREST - A WORTHWHILE STOP
PERRY RIVER - APPROACHING BEARDALE
BEARDALE CASTLE
SKYLINE TRUCK STOP - CRAIGELLACHIE, BC
THE BURNERS
AN OLD BEE HIVE BURNER
TURNED INTO A NEIGHBORHOOD PUB
MALAKWA
CAMBIE, B. C. ?
EAGLE RIVER
WELCOME TO SICAMOUS
At least it used to be until they built the new bridge.
Now traffic goes whizzing by on the new bypass and doesn't see other than the few
traffic oriented businesses, ie. truck stops, motels, etc., that have sprung up
along the new frontage road, until they pop out of the trees onto the bridge.
I say community because it was not a town.
It was not even big enough to be a village.
It was what is known as unincorporated, which is good because then the provincial Gov't. pays for street maintenance, etc.
ENTERING SICAMOUS
NOT A FIRE - JUST THE SETTING SUN
![]() SICAMOUS IS KNOW AS THE HOUSEBOAT CAPITAL OF THE WORLD |
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In the early `60's the Government had made plans to build a canal from Enderby, through Armstrong, to Vernon.
This would connect the Shuswap River with the Okanagan lake.
They were also going to dredge the Shuswap River from Enderby to Mara Lake.
This would have put Enderby in the middle of a pleasure waterway that would stretch from Kamloops to Penticton.
My father, at this time, owned an insurance agency.
He insured a new company called Twin Anchors Marina.
Twin Anchors built a home, office, and assembly plant on the river, not far from our house in Enderby.
Eventually Twin Anchors moved to Sicamous.
Wilderness and camping was not new to my sibling and I. Our father often took us out of the city to pick wild berries, mom made a most delicious choke cherry jelly, or to tour the neighbouring province.
In those days getting to Sicamous, though it is located on the TCH (Trans Canada Highway) was not a simple trip. The Roger's Pass had not yet been built and the trip between Golden and Revelstoke took some eight to ten hours on; arduous, narrow, rough, often corduroy, road. When we first visited the house, the realtor, based in Enderby, BC. took us by boat up Mara Lake, from Grindrod, to Sicamous. The road from Grindrod to Sicamous did not exist at that time.
When we moved to this lovely house, the second most Southern abode on the lake, South of town, we used camping gear as our furniture wouldn't arrive until late September.
North of the highway was the industrial section with sawmills and a pole yard.
When we lived in Sicamous there was no road between Sicamous and Grindrod (Okanagan Valley).
After two hitches and thirty-five years of service my father had retired, as a Corporal, from the Force.
In the late afternoons my mother would load us children and a hot supper, corn on the cob, roast beef, and boiled potatoes, kept warm in a pressure cooker, into the car and we would have a picnic, with my father, in the pole yard, where he was in charge of the boiler that kept the tank car warm.
Where we lived there were few houses and even fewer people.
There was a boy about my age that lived in the cabin and we chummed around, swimming and hiking.
As I stated earlier the Trans Canada Highway passed through town from Revelstoke to Salmon Arm.
You could go back to Calgary, in the summer.
In the fall, after the paving was done, they moved the boiler from the pole yard to the highway, South of our house, where they were building bridges.
It got cold in Sicamous, not as cold as in Alberta, but it was a damp cold so it felt just as cold.
The school was a two room wooden building with a pot bellied stove in each room.
The washroom consisted of a little wooden house on
the far side of the playground. In our room we had one teacher and grades one to
four. Each morning our teacher would have each row stand
up and she would check to see if we had brushed our teeth, combed our
hair, and
had brought a hanky. J. was the second crush of my life. One day the teacher, from the next room, brought in
a bat hanging from a tree branch. My room, at home, was directly beneath that of my
parents and was heated by a gas space heater which glowed and hissed
all
night. My father made friends with some people who lived
closer to town. In the summer the adults up and down the beach
would try to clean their section of beach by piling the wood that had
drifted
in during high water. Sicamous is only thirty miles from Revelstoke which
gets the highest snowfalls in B. C. Where from I know not, but my father acquired a
huge stove for the kitchen. In the kitchen was a double sink. In the spring we would lay a trail of bread crumbs from the beach to our house.
My father cleared some small trees along the driveway and cut it into firewood for the stove.
The nearest doctor was thirty-five miles away, in Salmon Arm, and the road in daylight was treacherous.
Different from any other stitches I ever had, these were made of metal.
My father had actually moved to Sicamous to take up the position of police magistrate but in such a small community there probably weren't enough law breakers to support the position, which is probably why my father was working at other jobs as well.
After only 1 year of living in paradise our family moved back to Edmonton.
Now, Sorrento would be the place to live.
Warm lake in the summer, snow in the winter, green in the spring (actually, green all year) and red in the fall.
I almost got a job there, a few years ago, selling real estate, but the wife (W4) wouldn't move out of the big (shitty) city.
These next pictures were taken in 2010 and added to this page in 2011,
Adams Lake can't be seen from Hwy. 1.
You have to cross a bridge and go North a few miles.
Just North of where I was standing is a large sawmill - ADAMS LAKE LUMBER
And a bit further North is a government camp site.
It is a good road but watch for logging tucks.
When I was little we camped at Silvery Beach.
In the middle of the night we could hear the steam engines hooking on to the through freight, to help it climb Mt. Chase.
The day was sunny, but it was hard to get this picture along Highway 1.
I was trying to get the dust that was blowing across the road. There were times when I couldn't see the pavement in front of me.
Reminds me very much of Lethbridge, Alberta.
And people wonder why I would never live in Kamloops.
I did actually, for 2 weeks. Wind and dust. I had enough of that when, as a youngster, I lived on the prairies.
This entire area, from Savona to Cache Creek, was, once, the world's largest orchard.
The heart of the operation was a town called Walhachin ( Land of the Round Rock ).
The black line that can be seen in many places, along the hillsides, and cliffs, is the remains of boards that once formed a flume to carry water for irrigation (The ghosts of Walhachin).
From the flume to the river, the hillsides were covered with apple trees.
When the second World War started, so many men enlisted in the army, there was not enough workers left to maintain the orchards.
Thank you for visiting Lee's `HIGHWAY 1 NORTH' Page.
THIS SCHOOL HAS GROWN A LOT SINCE I WENT THERE
THIS USED TO BE THE TRANS CANADA HIGHWAY
THIS STREET NOW ENDS AT THE WATER
BUT IT USED TO LEAD TO A WOODEN BRIDGE
I BELIEVE THIS USED TO BE THE FIRE HALL
MY SISTER AND I WON MANY PRIZES
AT THURSDAY NIGHT BINGO
AT FIRST GLANCE IT LOOKS LIKE A HALLOWEEN STORE
THE NEW BRIDGE, BUILT IN 1962 63
A school mate of mine, Raymond I. of Enderby, B.C., driving for
Baird Brs. of Enderby, helped supply the sand and rock for the decking.
Another school mate of mine, Brian B. of Sicamous, who, like I,
was a new SCUBA diver, was helping, beneath the waves.
He had to leave one of his flippers behind when it got caught between two forms.
THE NEW TRANS CANADA HIGHWAY BRIDGE,
ABOVE THE CPR BRIDGE, CROSSES THE CHANNEL
BETWEEN MARA AND SHUSWAP LAKES
BRIDGE TO SILVER SANDS BEACH AND SUBDIVISION
SILVER SANDS BEACH ON SHUSWAP LAKE
OUR DRIVEWAY MEANDERED THROUGH THE TREES
TO A LARGE HOUSE ON THE BEACH OF MARA LAKE
NOT SURE IF THIS WAS OUR DRIVEWAY BUT IT IS CLOSE TO IT
A pole yard is a yard where they make and store poles.
Poles are made from logs (Logs are made by cutting the branches and tops off of trees, after you cut them down) that are long enough and straight enough to be used to hold up power and / or phone lines.
Such logs are turned into poles by simply stripping off the bark, after which some poles are treated with a preservative such as creosote.
In the pole yard was a siding, a spur line from the railroad, where the poles were loaded onto railcars.
When we first moved to Sicamous there was a tank car filled with liquid asphalt sitting on the siding in the pole yard.
Asphalt is loaded into tank cars at the refinery at, from 550 to 900, degrees F. (I have no idea what that is in C. I failed Russian 101 ).
Below 500 degrees asphalt starts to solidify.
It makes it difficult to pave streets if you can't get the asphalt out of the tank cars.
To keep the asphalt liquid they connected a portable boiler to the tank car.
Guess who they got to fire the boiler.
My father worked as a powder man, blasting the rocks along the shore of the lake to build the Northern end of Hwy 97 A. As we were one of the last houses along the road South of town we would be warned to open our windows before a blast was set off (To avoid window breakage due to compression from the blast.). Us children would immediately head for the lake.
When we saw; the smoke, and the boulders, fly from the cliff face we would stick our heads underwater and listen to the sound of; the blast, and the rocks hitting the water. Then, quickly, we would rise out of the water and listen to the sound of the blast reverberating between the surrounding mountains.
THE RAILWAY BRIDGE SWINGS OPEN
TO ALLOW THE PASSAGE OF HOUSEBOATS
Follow this shore line for 1 Km. and you will find the house where I lived when I was 10.
APPROACHING SICAMOUS - EAST BOUND
IMAGINE THIS ROAD, AFTER DARK,
NARROWER, NO PAVEMENT, OLD CAR,
MY FATHER RUSHING ME TO THE HOSPITAL
We had packed our belongings and moved out of the city.
Now when I say moved that should conjure up visions of packing your goods and trundling along the street to a new residence where you would unpack.
I don't recall the packing or the trundling but I do remember starting school and still sleeping in sleeping bags because our furniture hadn't arrived.
So, for me, we hadn't really moved, we were just on an extra long camping trip.
I also remember the arrival of our furniture.
A large, yellow, tractor trailer (MacCosham Van Lines) that had one hell, I wasn't allowed to use that word then, (isn't growing up great?) of a time negotiating our long, narrow, twisting, drive way.
I also remember how upset my mother was when the truck finally had to drive in, rather than back in, and then turn around in mom's garden.
The driveway came into the back of the house from the road.
The front of the ranch style house faced Mara Lake.
The road from the pole yard to our house was gravel, it went past the school and past our house but not much further, and it was hard to ride on my bicycle.
My bicycle didn't have gears and it had wide, fat tires.
But at least there were no hills.
One day as I was riding home my father passed me in his car and tooted his horn, which startled me and I went into the ditch.
To this day I never honk my horn when passing a bike, or (especially) a horse, but I always slow down and go wide, if possible.
On one side of us we could make out a cabin through the trees and on the other side we could make out a house.
Both were empty most of the year as they were summer and weekend residences for people from Revelstoke, during the summer.
One day we went hiking to a place that my neighbour knew about, a forestry lookout on top of the mountain behind our house.
What a beautiful climb, what a beautiful view.
We were gone for hours and we hadn't told anyone where we were going.
When I got home I got `the belt'.
My parents had no idea where we had gone and they had the police looking for us.
You could carry on to Vancouver but it was a tortuous journey.
We never went.
You could go West to Salmon Arm and then South to Vernon and Kelowna via Enderby and from Enderby you could go North as Far as Grindrod but there was no road from Grindrod to Sicamous, but they were working on it.
My father would work nights stoking the boiler to keep the concrete from freezing.
Sicamous gets a lot more snow than Alberta so I couldn't ride my bike to school.
The students would take turns bringing in the wood for the stove.
By recess time the sides of the stove would be
glowing cherry red.
By noon, the ink in
our ink bottles would be thawed out around the edges. We could dip our
pens.
By early afternoon the room would
be warm enough that we could take our scarves off and later we could
take our
coats off, just about the time we put them back on to go home.
It had
two doors, one for girls and one for boys.
In my sister's room they had one
teacher and grades five to eight.
In
the spring they started to build a new school and we got to use it for
the last
month of school.
The row with the
best participation would get a star on the chart.
I
never brought a handkerchief.
Not because I forgot, though I said I did, but because I knew
the pretty
girl behind me, would ask me, before the teacher, and would then give
me a
tissue so our row wouldn't lose points.
She lived on the lake, North of us.
The
only time I ever saw her was in school.
After
it had been passed around the room so that everyone could see, our
teacher
finally came to the realization, that it was still alive and went,
screaming,
out of the room.
The bat continued to
sleep.
My sister would use the cover of
the hissing to sneak down the stairs and scare me.
One evening, after my parents were asleep, the window above my
bed partly
open for fresh air, my sister crept down the stairs.
As she entered my room she looked up to see a terrifying face in
my window.
I don't know who screamed
first, the cougar or my sister but definitely the cat's scream was
louder.
It not only woke up my parents but
also the
neighbours, we were told the next day.
To this day you can't scare me.
If you sneak up on me, which is pretty hard
to do as I have good hearing and fantastic peripheral vision, I may
jump if you
say boo, but it is only to play the game.
We lived in a forest and wild animals; bear, deer, and cougar
were constantly coming down our driveway, and through our carport, to
the lake,
to drink.
I suppose we did the usual things that most people
do when they first move to a beach property: collect sea shells, not
too many
on a fresh water beach, though my sister would wade out to the drop
off, the
point where the bottom of the lake would drop into the deep, and find
clams;
collect driftwood; fish.
My father would rent an old boat with an inboard
Briggs and Stratton motor and we would putt along with fishing lines
dragging
in our wake (boring).
I can still see the scar on my leg where I brushed against the exhaust pipe which ran through the side of the boat.
My sister and I had a much more practical, and
entertaining, way of fishing.
Besides
which it was quieter and non polluting.
Father made us a wooden frame to which was stretched a piece of
mosquito
netting.
We would stand waist deep in
the lake.
Bread squeezed into the
netting would act as bait.
Holding the
netting about a foot below the surface we could watch the minnows and
fingerlings
swim into the net, we could also feel them nibbling at our legs.
Then quickly lifting the net we would have a
screen covered with little fish.
I have
no idea what we did with them, after we caught them, probably put them
in jars
like most children do with spiders and bees.
They had two boys, one
of whom was my age and we chummed around.
His father worked for the railway and we would sometimes
accompany him,
early in the morning, when he would go to the round house and start the
fires
in the huge boilers of the steam engines.
How I miss the haunting refrain of the old steam whistles.
At that time they were widening the Trans Canada
Highway and about a half mile down the road from us a construction
company had
set up a camp.
Huge Euclid trucks
without mufflers would wake us up at five in the morning when they
started
warming up their engines for the days work.
Also at that time they were building the road along
the lake between Sicamous and Grindrod.
My father was hired to be the powder man.
It
was his job to stick the dynamite in the holes and blow the
rocks off the cliff.
Before my father
would explode the charge he would drive to the houses in the
neighbourhood and
warm them to open their windows so the blast wouldn't break the glass.
That was the cue for us children to run to
the lake.
Standing shoulder deep in the water we could look
down, or is that up, the lake and see the outcrop of mountain where my
father was
working.
Suddenly the entire area would
be obscured by a rolling cloud of dust and debris.
Huge rocks would shoot soundlessly out of the cloud, light
travels much faster than sound, and sail through the air to drop into
the water
making big sprays of water.
We would bend our knees and slip quietly beneath
the surface of the water.
There we
would hear the rumble and roar of the explosion followed by the patter
of
debris falling on the surface and then the hard splashes as the big
rocks and
boulders fell into the lake.
Quickly raising our heads out of the water we would
hear a repeat performance, sound travels
faster in water than it does through air.
The sound of the blast would be repeated
as the noise hit the mountain on the far side of the lake, and repeated
again
as the echo would bounce off the mountain above the construction,
and yet again as it
traveled back across the water a second time.
A symphony of kettle
drums
orchestrated by my father with natural acoustics.
Each night, while
us children swam in the clear water, each family would have a fire on
the
beach.
Inevitably neighbours would
gather, marshmallows would be roasted, and friends would be made.
It was this way that I met my first
foreigners.
Three families had moved North from the United
States of America and bought beach homes North of us.
One
of the boys was my age and we spent a lot of time
together.
He had a canoe and we spent
some time paddling it around but we spent more time trying to sink it.
We would fill it full of water and rocks and
settle it to the bottom of the lake.
We
would swim down, wrap our legs around the cross members, and play
submarine for
as long as we could hold our breath.
One weekend his cousin came up from the States,
nothing to do with the movie `My American Cousin', that was filmed two
or three
lakes South of us, and several years later.
His
cousin could water
ski, boy could he.
He would come flying
in towards the dock, let go of the tow rope a split second before he
hit the
wharf, jump up, turn around, and sit down on the dock.
He tried to teach me to water ski, time and time
again they tried to pull me off the wharf and all I would accomplish
was
lowering the level of the lake by drinking half of it.
Finally we gave up and went for lunch.
After
lunch we skipped the wharf and tried
lifting me from the water.
I was up and
away first try.
Zooming across the
lake.
What a thrill, what
exhilaration.
What depression, as I sit
here writing this and realize that only twice more in my life did I
ever water
ski and the memories don't bring back the carefree happy feeling of
that first
time.
I think my whole life has been
downhill, despite the stitches in my forehead, since that one year we
spent at
the lake.
In the winter the lake would freeze
over
and we would shovel snow.
Much too much
snow to shovel off the area for a rink so we would shovel paths then
skate
and / or play tag along the narrow criss crossing corridors. When you
caught up
to someone you tagged them by pushing them, off the path, into the snow.
Four
burners and an oven that used propane and four burners and an oven that
used
wood.
The kitchen and my room are all I
remember of the interior of the house.
We partially filled one side with water and
tried to raise two baby ducks.
There had been a terrible storm the night before and friends of our parents who lived down the lake saw a mother duck go berserk and start stomping on her brood.
They only managed to rescue two.
We tried to hand feed them but after a couple of days one died, although maybe our cat got it.
The second one, being lonely, wouldn't eat anymore and it too passed away.
Baby ducks would work their way right up to our door and eat out of our hands.
The mother would stay at the bottom of the stairs and glare at us.
My sister and I were relegated the job of bringing it into the house.
Because I had played around all day it was after supper and after dark and my father insisted I finish my chores.
I was still playing around with the boy next door, we were throwing rocks into the woods and pretending to scare out ghosts, then we would run from the ghosts.
I threw a rather big rock into a dark area and heard the crashing in the brush as the rock broke small branches.
This obviously chased out some rather scary spooks and I went running down the lane yelling "Ghost, ghost".
I ran into a stone. My neighbour had thrown a small stone, towards a clump of bush.
Winding, narrow, with many steep hills.
My father was not pleased with having to negotiate it after dark.
Five small, nail like, objects were put through the lacerated skin of my forehead.
Later the ends were cut off and the middles were left to be absorbed by my body.
The lumps are gone now after all these years but it took a long time.
For nearly twenty years I could run my hand over my forehead and count the little lumps in the skin though there was no scar left on my head.
While in Sicamous he also worked as a finishing carpenter, building kitchen cupboards in peoples homes.
At the time we moved from Sicamous the TCH was a summer route only through to Alberta, and not advisable for large trucks.
Our furniture truck went from Sicamous to Salmon Arm, then South, to go East.
SHUSWAP LAKE
CANOE
Federated Co-Operatives Ltd Canoe Lumber & Plywood
NOTE THE OLD BEE HIVE BURNER IN THE MIDDLE
AT ONE TIME ALL LARGE MILLS HAD ONE
THE SPARKS FLYING OUT OF THE TOP CAUSED
MANY FOREST FIRES
EVENTUALLY THEY WERE OUTLAWED
JUNCTION OF HWY. 97B - TO ENDERBY
APPROACHING SALMON ARM
A LAKE CLOSE TO A LAKE
THE SMALL ONE COVERED WITH ICE
IN SUMMER THE SMALL LAKE HAS A COLOURFUL FOUNTAIN
LEAVING SALMON ARM
REMNANTS OF A ONCE THRIVING SAW MILL
TAPPEN
TAPPEN SALVAGE AND LOG HOME
WHITE POST AUTO MUSEUM
TAPPEN VALLEY
DOWN HILL TO SORRENTO
SHUSWAP LAKE
BOATWORLD - THIS SIGN IS SO BRIGHT AT NIGHT
I WOULD BE SURPRISED IF IT HAS NEVER CAUSED AN ACCIDENT
LAKESIDE, VIEW, PROPERTY - PRICELESS
TURN OFF AND OVERPASS TO ADAMS LAKE
ADAMS LAKE
EAST SHORE - SOUTH OF WOOLFORD PT.
SILVERY BEACH RESORT
OVERPASS - HWY. 97 GOES SOUTH TO MONTE LAKE
DUST SWIRLS BLOCK THE VIEW OF THE HOO DOOS
APPROACHING KAMLOOPS
THE BRIDGE IS HWY. 5 NORTH TO JASPER - THE PLUME
IS STEAM FROM THE PULP MILL WEST OF KAMLOOPS
HWY. 5 EXITS TO THE RIGHT, TO GO TO JASPER
BELOW - THE THOMPSON RIVER
APPROACHING HWY. 1, FROM HWY. 5
HWY. 1 WEST, & EAST, BOUND SCALES
HWY. 1 - JUST WEST OF THE JUNCTION WITH HWY. 5
KAMLOOPS LAKE
THE END OF THOMPSON LAKE
THE LITTLE PENINSULA IS THE TOWN OF SAVONA
WORLD'S LARGEST SAWMILL
SAVONA
WORLD'S LARGEST SCRAP YARD
MOSTLY OLD EQUIPMENT FROM A NEARBY MINE
THE THOMPSON RIVER SEPARATES
THE WORLD'S TWO LONGEST RAILWAYS
SOUTH SIDE OF HIGHWAY 1
FRESHLY IRRIGATED
NORTH SIDE OF HIGHWAY 1
THIRSTY FIELDS
IRRIGATION IN 1912 - A FLUME (AN OPEN WOODEN PIPE)
A STRAIGHT LINE ALONG THE HILLS AND CLIFFS
PART OF A MODERN IRRIGATION SYSTEM
SILHOUETTED BY THE SETTING SUN
BLACK PLASTIC PROTECTS A CROP OF GING SENG FROM
THE HOT SUN - THIS REGION HAS BECOME FAMOUS
FOR ITS GING SENG - EVEN CHINESE PREFER IT TO THE
ONCE POPULAR KOREAN RED
JUST EAST OF CACHE CREEK
LOOKING NORTH TO JUNCTION OF HIGHWAYS 1 AND 97
LOOKING SOUTH TO JUNCTION OF HIGHWAYS 1 AND 97
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