The first immersion into BC (other than a physical lake and Phillips' beer or three) came in the form of a redux of my West Coast Trail adventuring of years ago.
The West Coast Trail takes 5 nights, which deep introspective analysis has shown is one more than I really enjoy sleeping in a tent and eating dried food for. I actually anticipated this and tried to beg off for a smaller trip, but my masochistic friend who feels the need to escape his real life for the longest time possible overruled me. The weather was fine more than it wasn't, and all was going smoothly up until the last day.
We got up late and leisurely, leaving camp (Camper bay) at 11:30am in the sunshine. We'd made a game, being 30-something reasonably strong guys, of how many people we could pass while hiking, while still stopping to enjoy views/take pictures/etc., and today's goal was 10. As we counted up the passers-by, and enjoyed the food-free nature of our emptied bags, I got a bit ahead of my friend. As I approached a couple who were standing to the side of the trail I did the late trip analysis - what do their boots look like, how is their hair, do they have mud on their hands/shirts/so on... I reasoned they must have just started and asked them if that was the case. Their non-immediate answer led to my tagging on a "....or are we just catching up to you?" at the end of my query. This was apparently the case, which I didn't think much of. Later, I learned that they had camped at the same site more or less the whole trip, and that we had passed them every single day. My friend said they had left camp more than three hours earlier than us that last day, and we caught up to them in just over an hour. We were moving.
As inevitably happens I had to wait up for my friend, so I chose a sun-dappled wood bridge over a watery ravine. I did another round of pointedly observing and enjoying the BC wilderness, listening for the eventual trudging sound that accompanied his arrival. It was then that he called out that the boat off of the trail, which one must make, was going to leave in about 40 minutes. After some disbelief on my part, it was clearly time to go and go we did. I arrived at the ferry landing, after seeing the ferryman starting his boat and calling out to him from a bluff or two en route, some 2 minutes late and so he was gone. It was then that the grand borrowing (temporary theft) scheme was formulated.
The parks Canada trail workers had come over in a canoe complete with paddles, life jackets...all the things one might need, and the river was narrow enough to throw a golf ball over. The answer was obvious - take the canoe over, drop the things, bring it back to its original location, and swim back over. We talked about this as we rested, for some 15 minutes, before it was go time. The canoe was brought down to an area for loading, I went back up the beach and started to undress for swimming...when the ferryman came back. After some castigating, and accepting a few dollars, we were back in the embrace of 'civilization'. That this came in the form of watching a drunken midday party involving dogs, swearing, golf cart doughnuts, loud heavy metal, and more dogs didn't matter - it was shower and pub time. Bliss.
The second of my two intentional adventures involved going to a concert (Weezer) in Vancouver (where so much marijuana smoke was in the air that the thought of it increasing post-legalization boggled the mind) and driving to visit friends and increase my knowledge of an area previously hazy to me - the 'interior'.
The route was Coquitlam-Kelowna-Nakusp-Salmon Arm-Kelowna-Salt Spring Island. Driving to Kelowna via the Coquihalla exposed me to midsummer heat in Merritt, a place I stopped for gas and food; in the time it took to eat a couple sushi rolls (clearly, what one must eat while in a blasted semi-desert) it became so hot in the car that my iPod refused to function. I don't want to live in Merritt.
Kelowna was more comfortable, if no less hot. The trouble with Kelowna is that it seems replete with young nouveau-riche who want nothing more than to work out, dye their hair, and spend too much on fashionable food and drinks lakeside. A friend called them "Kelownafornians", an apt if awkward to spell term, and derided them as only a local can. The rolling dry hills and giant lake of Kelowna appealed to me, but due to the populace I can confidently say I don't want to live in Kelowna.
Nakusp I visited because a fellow Seoul teacher said she lived there and I had no idea what she was talking about. It really is a town in BC, and it looks like this:
It followed the mountainous template of lake+flat area+elevation=cute town, and was an agreeable place to visit for a couple days. One could imagine the static nature of the one-street town while listening to tales of rebellious youth staying up late to hang out on the park benches near the Overwaitea and immediately see the quiet appeal. The main adventure came on the second evening, in the form of a destination at the end of a long, terribly bumpy road into the woods - one gross enough that I saw fancy low-slung cars quitting entirely and turning around.
Nakusp is known as a gateway of sorts to hot springs, and so we drove off interminably slowly into the woods to find them. After the trip, and some hiking down to the springs area, we found the following:
A happily rushing river right next to a decreasingly-warm series of hot spring pools, all of which were full of...
French Canadians gearing up for Shambhala, complete with mad max-style leather vests, multi-coloured dreadlocks, and an addled sense, in conversation, that Vancouver Island (where I come from) is a 'magical place, man'. As I relaxed in the muddy hot pool, a young man called out the availability of 5-6 very illegal "party favours" available for anyone interested. I didn't partake because not only do I not do acid, I didn't want to make the terrible drive back in anything but an attentive state. As it got darker I left the pool, cleaned the essence of 'la belle province' off in the river, and, after an acrobatic slip where I gouged my ankle on a rock in the said dirty hot spring water (bringing to mind all manner of exciting possible infections) got my friend to head back to the car. As I looked back over my shoulder at the hot springs one more time, it was apparent that the ladies of the group were delaying their toplessness until our departure. Apparently my friend and I were drug-selling cool, but not nipple cool. I bet they had a fine night.
My last morning in the Kootenays I decided to visit the nearby hamlet of New Denver, on Slocan lake, to see the Nikkei Internment centre. It's a remnant of where Japanese Canadians were sent to while away their time during and after WWII, and provided many scenes like this:
Tagging along were my friend, her mother, and her mother's old pug dog. I took many pictures with the goal of eventually enlivening SS11 classes, for example with primary documents:
It was an interesting cultural/historical accompaniment to the interior trip, something lacking since the vacuousness of Kelowna was made concrete in my mind.
After leaving Nakusp I visited a friend in Salmon Arm, saw another play an excellent show in Kelowna, and headed back to the coast with a box of Okanagan peaches. Since then it's been a mishmash of trying to consume the peaches (I'm just fine on the peach front for a while now, thanks), selecting a new apartment in Seoul, and generally trying to relax as hard as possible before the school year starts. I've had about all the BC-style bbq, beer, fruits, lake fishing, and downtime I could possibly fit into 7 weeks, and I don't regret any of it. Could probably do with a bit of cardio, though...
It's refreshed my desire to eventually reside in BC, and expanded the lens of possibility when it comes to areas of BC. The Kootenays seem speckled with cute lake towns that would be fine places to live, and if I could excise 50% of the population Kelowna, too, is a slice of perfection. Now it's back to Haebangchon, and taking the bus every day. The Christmas holidays are planned, as are some spring ones, and it's time to return to work.
