Summerland

ABC Wednesday
November 18th, 2015

The letter is S for Summerland

"There no cloud shall dim the sky, in that happy home on high,

In that heavenly Summer Land, in that heavenly Summer Land."

excerpt from a spiritualist hymn

Said to have been the inspiration for the name of the town, certain to
 entice settlers to come west to a heavenly Summerland 
(and there were a lot of Baptists in early Summerland!)

and still are....  here is the Baptist church - a fine

church with a great men's choir in which our oldest son sings !

Originally the area was called Nicola Prairie after Grand Chief Nicola of the Okanagan Nation - successful hunter/gathers who had been in the area for many hundreds of years.

A few major First Nations trails passed through Nicola Prairie in the early days, and

they were used by fur traders and later miners on their way to the gold rush.

The excellent grasslands along the route attracted ranchers and orchardists.

The first Summerland town site was incorporated in 1906, on Okanagan Lake

where the sternwheeler boats delivered goods and people imported fruit to market.

When the population ran out of growing room houses and businesses began

appearing on the flat lands above and a land deal was negotiated with the First Nation's

people from Siwash Flat, making room for a new townsite which became the

Summerland of today, - a pretty and cheerful town with leafy boulevards and

a wonderful combination of history, arts, culture, wineries, and the fruit industry.

An  extinct volcanic mountain dominates the skyline - Giant's Head, so named

because of it's resemblance to a face on one side of the mountain.

The clay cliffs that line the road leading to Summerland from Penticton

make a magnificent entrance.

The town itself is surrounded by sumptuous orchards and wineries

Lots of wineries!!!

There is a self-guided walking tour of the original town site on the shores of Okanagan Lake,

and more up Giant's Head and in the surrounding hills.

Summerland is the site of a provincial Agricultural Research Station,

with beautiful lawn and gardens - a lovely place to picnic and explore.

There is a Marina and sail boats to accompany it....

Zia's restaurant in an old stone house of pioneer vintage, where we love to lunch or dine....

The main street...

and the piece de resistance - a steam railway!!!

 The Spirit of Summerland

A restored 1912 steam locomotive pulls the combination of vintage rail cars and open observation cars through the farmland of Prairie Valley, around the base of Giant's Head Mountain, ending on Trout Creek Bridge, the tallest on the KVR at 240 feet, 

providing excellent views of Trout Creek Canyon.

There are special events from May until September featuring a Great Train Robbery

and at Christmas the Train Morphs into a Santa Express.

Videos below that celebrate these events.....

Summerland is within travelling distance for tea, here in Keremeos!!

Click here for more great Ss with thanks to Roger and Denise
and all helpers, saintly or sinful.

Photos all from Sir Google

November 16th, 2015

....amd Life is Eternal and Love is Immortal,

and Death is only an horizon, 

and an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight....

                                                                      Rossiter Raymond

Rest in Peace,  my love

Revelstoke

ABC Wednesday

November 11th, 2015

First of all R is for Remembrance Day  

and secondly, the letter is R for Revelstoke

An area rich in bears  - brown, black and grizzly bear habitat.  Hence their welcome sign!

A major winter destination, Revelstoke is not one of those chic, 'cookie-cutter' ski villages.  For more than a hundred years it has been a railroad town. and before the railroad came to town it was very nuch a wild west town complete with general stores, hotels, brothels and saloons.

Originally it was called Farwell, after the surveyor who laid out the town.  However, when the Canadian Pacific Railway reached here they disputed Farwell's claim to the land, locating their station and yards east of his land and in 1886 the name of the settlement was changed to Revelstoke, to honour Lord Revelstoke, whose banking firm provided the funds to ensure the completion of the railway from  coast to to coast.

..

Just down the track from Revelstoke is Craigallachie, where the Last Spike was driven, joining East to West, and where there is a small railway car museum and a gift shop to draw tourists to this historic spot

When Charles' Lancaster crew visited western Canada for their last reunion in 1997 there were two or three railway buffs amongst them, and they stopped to see the Mountaineer go through and to heft the hammer representing the one which drove the Last Spike!

To get back to Revelstoke and its early years.... the town was once one of the largest and most prominent communities in the interior of the province, mostly due to its importance as a railway centre.  Steamboat traffic from the south connected with the CPR making this an important transportation centre.  The city has many sophisticated facilities, - an opera house, a fully equipped YMCA gym, and many large businesses and department stores.

The town still maintains its traditional ties with the CPR and has a strong connection to the railway industry, but today mining, forestry, government services and tourism play a strong role in Revelstoke's economic success.

It is also the location of the Revelstoke Dam, constructed on the Columbia River.

But you have not yet seen the beauty of Revelstoke.

A birdseye view.....

Revelstoke has long been a skiing town.  Norwegian immigrants brought skiing and ski jumping to Revelstoke and by 1910 several ski jumping hills had been built around the town.  Due to the heavy snowfall in the area the town is home to four heli-skiing and two cat-skiing operations with numerous backcountry skiing lodges.

In the summer these same hills are covered with wildflowers and mountain bikers.....

In the town itself the railroad aspect makes itself known in the famous Railroad Museum.

and the picturesque streets

 Revelstoke National Park, and Mount Revelstoke

How to get to this wonderful spot

More interesting Rs here, with many thanks to Roger, Denise

and their uber reliable helpers.

Reading/Re-reading

So what am I reading these days while the wind blows the falling leaves, and the hazel nut tree out my window drops her skirts in a lovely crisp golden pile, and I wait for a sunny day to add them to the compost for next springs wonderfully rich rewards?

Well, at the moment I am immersed in Jeffrey Archer's latest Clifton series book - "Mightier than the Sword".  Not an all at one sitting book, but one that keeps you coming back for another chapter, - or maybe two. I expect it is going to end in a cliff-hanger, as the last one did, and I will close it with a sigh of expectation, hoping that Mr. Archer is busy writing his next tale about the Cliftons and Barringtons.  The trouble with series, when getting ancient one never knows if one will be around when the next book comes out if the author is not right (write) on the bit and sharp about the next release date.  There is something to be said for the Serial, - monthly, or even weekly!!

I find this with the Gabaldon books, - that poor child was imprisoned for three years underground before Diana relieved the suspense in her last Outlander book.......

When I am feeling more pensive I read an essay from "Irish Willow", which arrived by post a couple of weeks ago.  It is very difficult to get Chris Arthur's books here in Canada, but it is worth the expense of having the writings sent from the UK.  A reviewer, David Robinson (Scotland on Sunday) describes them as 'thoughtful and perceptive'  - 'Seamus Heaney's poetry in prose' and Kimberly Myers compares him to Loren Eiseley (who has had a place on my shelves for ages and ages) and again, Seamus Heaney, two writers who illustrate the 'physical and metaphysical connections between the animal and human worlds'.

As the years go by  I am made more and more aware of the wildlife in the Chilcoton country where some of the family live, and the connection the animals there have with the humans who live in harmony with them, mean them no harm and encourage and enjoy their company on a daily basis.

The whiskey jacks who eat from their hands, the little white crowned sparrow who spent the winter indoors with our youngest son after getting left behind in the snow and cold when the general migration left, - the deer that follow behind, and the bear family that are so at home and picnic on dandelions and lawn grass.  The chipmunks and squirrels who gather for hand-outs.   To say nothing of the beavers for whom said son cuts down trees and leaves them in available spots to be dragged into the creek (and leave the favoured aspens standing).

It holds a great appeal for me, this connection, the friendship and trust that can be fostered with wildlife, and I think, oh really, what are we but a more advanced species.....

I have also been reading a newly issued book written by a great - granddaughter of Frank Xavier Richter, a prominent Similkameen Valley pioneer.who emigrated from what is now the Czech Republic.  Much of his story is familiar to me through articles in the Okanagan Historical Society annuals, and from stories and aquaintance with the many descendants who are scattered throughout the Similkameen, the Okanagan and further reaches of British Columbia.

When Frank first came to the Lower Similkameen (1862) he established a large ranch, an orchard and a relationship with Lucy Simla, a member of a north Okanagan Indian Band, and together they had five sons, all avid sportsmen and skilled with horses.  It was a happy and prosperous union.  However in the way of the west and as the population increased many men who had raised families with Indian women turned away to marriage with white women.  Frank Richter. after his family of boys were grown, left Lucy and married Elizabeth Loudon.  To his credit he took care of Lucy for the rest of her life and acknowledged the boys in every way as his sons, and they in their turn took good care of their mother and led worthy, adventurous and prosperous lives.  It is a great tale, and I keep turning pages back and forth and making notes, and remembering Charles' friendship with these men and their families.

And always on my table, next to my journal, John O'Donohue's 'Bless the Space Between Us'......

To learn from Animal Being

Nearer to the earth's heart,

Deeper within its silence

Animals know this world

In a way we never will.

We who are ever

Distanced and distracted

By the parade of bright

Windows thought opens;

Their seamless presence

Is not fractured thus.

Stranded between time

Gone and time emerging

We manage seldom

To be where we are;

Whereas they are always

Looking out from

The here and now.

May we learn to return

And rest in the beauty

Of animal being,

Learn to lean low,

Leave our locked minds,

And with freed senses

Feel the earth

Breathing with us.

John O'Donohue

Out and About

Now that summer is over and people have ceased lazing on the beach and dashing here and there for long week-ends and longer holidays, and now that the apples and the grapes have all been picked (except for the ice grapes, but that's another story) and fall has put away most of its glory for another season,  things are gradually getting back to normal and people are seeing one another again at meetings and gatherings and for lunch and a quick bite of supper.

It's nice, and one of the ways of coping with this melancholy, funereal month before the Christmas season permeates with Advent and the preparations of soul and body for the merry month of December.

It's good to be back singing again - the choir (and I use the word loosely) will be leading in old wartime songs after the Remembrance Day service on the 11th, as the Legion serves up their annual helpings of beef stew or chili to warm up after the gathering at the Cenotaph.

Tentative plans for Christmas celebrations are on the agenda at every meeting I go to, - the Royal Purple will travel to Kaledan for a celebratory lunch, - the Museum friends have plans to dine at the Wrong Turn Tavern.  For all the workers at the outreach Bargain Centre a thank you get together, with FOOD, and the Apple Tarts will have turkey at the Branding Iron Bar and Grill.  There, that agenda will give cause for great stirrings and friendliness......

In the meantime I was cheered and stirred greatly by a lovely outing with eldest son and his dear wife.  Out for a most delicious lunch in Summerland, at The Stone House (sole and almonds and a wonderful lemon sauce, followed by Creme de Caramel for dessert)

And then on to a marvelous a cappello program of sacred music, A Moving Stillness. performed by the Chorealis Vocal Ensemble from various towns in the north Okanagan.  I was full, right up to HERE, with the wonderful sound of harmony and stillness that seemed to echo down the ages from when many of the pieces were first composed and performed.

I appreciated the outing so much, - wonderful company and body and soul fed so beautifully.

My family are extremely good to me, all of them in different and loving ways

and I feel so loved and cared for.

Their father would be proud of them!

Q is for Quesnel

ABC Wednesday
November 4th, 2015

The letter is Q for Quesnel

A picturesque town in the North Cariboo area of British Columbia, with a fascinating history.

Although today it is a beautiful playground  with a perfect

combination of rural charm and quiet city sophistication, Quesnel is rich

in history.

The First Nations people who inhabited this area called themselves 'Uda uketh',

which means 'People who travel by boat on water early in the morning'

but their neighbours, the Sekant people, called them the Carrier, and

this is the name by which they are commonly known.

They made Quesnel their summer fishing camp and eventually developed a trading culture with the Nuxalk people who provided nutrient rich Salmon and Ooligan Grease (a healing 

remedy made from fish oil).
 Eventually a trade route crisscrossed the plateau both west and south

of Quesnel.

While Alexander Mackenzie was traversing the territory in 1793

en route to the Pacific he encountered the Carrier First Nation camp and 

they convinced him to abandon the dangerous Fraser route and travel the

Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail along the Blackwater River .

In 1808 Simon Fraser (another explorer all Canadian children

learn about in school) camped at the junction of two rivers,

the Fraser and the Quesnel.  The Fraser River he named after himself, but

the Quesnel river he named after his lieutenant, Jules Maurice Quesnel.

In 1857 gold was discovered on the Fraser River and by 1859 the great rush

of miners had reached the Quesnel River, and due to its location Quesnel became

a major stopover and supply centre for the gold fields.

From its beginning Quesnel was a multicltural community.
 As early as 1860 Chinese miners were working the bars of the Quesnel River
and many soon turned to business.
The gold rush  attracted people from Eastern Canada,
 the US and many European countries.

And now, like many British Columbia towns, it takes advantage

of the abundant recreational opportunities the countryside offers.

Excellent fishing, reminiscent of the early summer fishing camps of the First Nations.

both rainbow and bull trout

Mountain cycling and river rafting

The countryside is beautiful and varied

Quesnel Lake

and nearby Dragon lake in the spring of the year

 Agricultural land

and hoodoos

The population celebrating Billy Barker days

and one of the main industries, besides tourism...

the West Pine Mill

how to get there.........

if you don't want to follow the gold trail, paddling up the Fraser River,
go by highway...  up past Williams Lake
and before you get to Prince George
If I remember correctly you have to take a right turn into town.

more excellent Qs here at ABC Wednesday
with thanks to Roger and Denise and any quirky helpers.