|
Short Break in British Columbia with Gillian Hull
Many years ago we visited friends in Eastern Canada, and decided one day we must ‘go west’. The wild mountainous landscape of the Rockies beckoned but by the time we finally went, we no longer had joints or breath to walk as we once would have done. Nevertheless we had a splendid trip, learning much about the early explorers and their courage as they traversed the vast landscapes of Western Canada.
 We flew to Calgary and gazed at the Rockies around fifty miles away. The land between was very flat and must be bitterly cold during the long winters. The new, bizzarely shaped mountains are mainly limestone, sandstone and shale and were once all on the seabed. Very obvious strata showed how they had been pushed up and tilted. Our first stop was Banff, a busy little tourist town surrounded by mountains.
We continued to Lake Louise dominated by a huge hotel built by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The lake is an intense blue like most stretches of water in the Rockies due to glacial till. Our visit began in early October, before everything starts shutting down for the long, harsh winter. Some of the trails were closed as a bear had recently entered a campground injuring several people, and not very encouraging for tourism. Everywhere there were tempting trails with elegant tall conifers, and primitive-looking mosses and lichens. We admired squirrels and chipmunks scampering through the woods.
The following day we took the Icefields Parkway to Jasper. The parkway rising to 7,000 feet is often impassable in winter. With cloud swirling round the mountains, they seemed more real than yesterday in brilliant sunshine when they resembled cardboard cutouts! A huge moose with massive head and antlers surprised us by suddenly walking across the road in front of the car.
Icefield
Stopping at the Columbia Icefield we discovered it was the largest icefield in the Rockies, covering 325 square kilometers, and feeding six major glaciers. The Athabasca Glacier is certainly awe-inspiring with its huge deep blue crevasses. The moraine was untidy and quite a moonscape which Robin compared to the Himalaya.
Descending into Jasper we found it a delightful little town in a glorious setting. The railway passes through with immensely long goods trains and trucks carrying wheat.
Driving back down the Parkway, the weather worsened and snow began to dust the conifers. As we descended it was wetter and wetter but we took time to look at the remarkable construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway as it took two spiral loops down a tremendous gradient.
Opened in 1885, it was an amazing feat in this landscape where mountains, rivers, valleys and gorges are on such a vast scale. Driving towards an arm of the Okanaga Lake, we were now in fairly well populated country, and a major fruit-growing area, but it is the driest part of British Columbia so a lot of irrigation is necessary.
The city of Vancouver has a superb setting with Stanley Park at its centre, and a background of high mountains. Vancouver is a modern high-rise city, with water everywhere one looks. It is cosmopolitain with a strong oriental feel. We admired the immensely high Lions Gate Bridge linking the city to North Vancouver.
We turned north to follow the Sea to Sky Highway up a magnificent sound whose dimensions would be twice anything similar in Scotland. Further on is the well-known ski resort of Whistler. This wilderness is just over an hour from central Vancouver.
Vancouver Island
We crossed over to Vancouver Island, where the fertile country seemed very English with deciduous trees and farmland. Victoria is the capital of British Columbia, a city of great charm and friendly people. It boasts a splendid museum explaining how, before contact with the white man, the Indian tribes developed somewhat differently. The Western Red Cedar was the basis of their way of life, used for building, for making things including clothes woven from the bark. Totem poles expressed the very personal story of a family and were immensely tall.
Our last day was spent on the island’s west coast, wild and undeveloped. We walked through huge conifers to the beach which was littered with tree trunks swept up on the shore. This landscape had an air of timelessness.
I pondered on some of the early explorers and plant hunters who brought back to Scotland some of the splendid conifers which decorate our Perthshire landscape. Walking in a grove of Douglas Firs on the island’s west coast reminded me of Archibald Menzies who first identified the tree and David Douglas who later introduced it to Britain. I felt privileged to have seen examples growing in their native habitat.
|
