Campbell River is 25 kilometres east of Strathcona Provincial Park, BC's oldest at 96 years of age. The park is a bit bigger than Te Urewera National Park, if that helps anyone. Just under 2,500 square kilometres for the others, about 8% of Vancouver Island. The highest peaks of the Vancouver Island Ranges lie within Strathcona. Our first foray into the park was with Paul, a Montreal student working the BC summer and Hersh, Sarah's PW ulti friend from way back, and my friend from when I met him at Jericho Beach second day in Canada.
We entered the park from the road to Gold River, hiking the trail running alongside Elk River. Our destination was Landslide Lake, at the base of
Mount Colonel Foster, 4th highest of the range at 2,135m (and considered the "unrivalled alpine climbing mecca" of BC by Philip Stone, Island Alpine.) The mountain was named after some battler; Landslide earned its with the 7.2 Richter earthquake of 1946, when one of Colonel Foster's shoulders slid into the lake. The displaced water scythed a way down the upper Elk Valley, sluicing to bedrock near the lake. The walk in was easily paced. Paul, in one of many frequent unrobings, whipped 'em off to shower beneath ribbons of falling water.We pitched camp by the river and progressed onwards and upwards. The final stretch took us over the exposed bedrock under reclamation, mosses, lichen, the odd dwarf tree toughing it out. Sarah pointed out White pine afflicted with blister rust. We hopped a few streams and found the lake in sight, and beyond, the imposing granite face of Colonel Foster. Taking in our surroundings, the four of us shared yerba mate sitting on a rock by the water. The scar of 1946 was plainly evident, with young trees encroaching on a broad section of cleared mountainside. We made our way around Landslide Lake to a smaller lake higher up, at the base of the mountain face. The lake was iced over, except at its exit point. Sarah and Paul were brave enough to dunk, but not slow coming out either.
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We tripped into the interior of BC later in the summer, lured by music and friends, with a Subaru to name. The road looped through Mt Washington, for a wine festival that became a chalet blender drinks session, Victoria, where Sarah's sister Katy was moving into a new house, and across on the Queen of Oak Bay to Vancouver and mackerel Korean-style. We met Trish and Regan, another BC-NZ connection, in Squamish and drove fresh country for me, along the 99 through Whistler and Pemberton. We camped at a BC Hydro site (the province's power monopoly) and cooked up a feed while 20-30 kids had a party next door. It was probably the metal blasting out of car speakers that got them booted out. The old lady running the site steamed up in her old Ford pick-up, and she was pissed, ranting about their drinking and swearing. I nearly got chucked out for suggesting they were doing normal things for teens. She ended up calling the RCMP, while we sat back and watched bats flitting through the light emitted by her truck, hunting. After things cooled down, we slept under the stars, watching Perseids meteors trailing across the night sky.
Next day we drove to Salmon Arm, via a welcome swim in the Thompson River. The dry hills of the Okanagan region in summer recalled Central Otago. Red conifers signified pine beetle kill: the scale and spread of the infestation is awesome and awful. We drove straight to our destination, the Salmon Arm Roots & Blues festival. The diversity of music was impressive. Personal favourites were Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective, a mostly Belizean band singing to maintain their Garifuna culture. The Collective travelled with a 79 year old Garifuna legend, an aged dude in hat and suit who sang a song a day in strong voice. Other elements of the festival included Amazones, African women drummers from Guinea; Galant tu perds ton temps, five women singing Quebecois songs accompanied by a big, red-bearded percussionist who tapdanced and played spoons and a suitcase like a drum; Los de Abajo, a Mexico City ska-punk-salsa outfit full of beans; and the best fusion of them all, Ellika & Solo, a Swedish woman on fiddle and a Senegalese dreadhead playing the 21 strings of a kora. Michael Franti and Spearhead were the Friday night headliners, and they closed the night with energy. Franti's a consummate performer, a worker of the crowd. Spearhead were tight; the drummer was bursting with quick staccato lyrics, and the bass player plucked a mean blade. The last act we saw at the festival was Xavier Rudd, an Australian, who sat on stage surrounded by drums, a few didgeridoos, some electronic devices and other noisemakers, a guitar never far from his hands. I thought of Ganga Giri, though Xavier had a few more candle burners in his repertoire.
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I've experienced more bonfires by the shores of lakes and ocean this summer than in living memory. S'mores have been sweet. The water - river, lake, ocean - has been refreshing, despite the inconsistent nature of the season. And yesterday, as September brings a Pacific high hanging over the Island, I cruised Quadra Island, biking roads and trails east to views of Cortes and Read Islands and the Coast Mountains backdrop. Dropping south west to the Cape Mudge lighthouse, I found a log by the water and sat back, watching the boats fishing in the channel, the tug and barge passing by, looking across the water at Campbell River. On the ferry back, a guy from Quebec and I got talking. A pair of out-of-towners, we agreed on the sweetness of BC.
