Country Roads of British Columbia by Liz Bryan

Author:Liz Bryan [Bryan, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-926613-03-1
Publisher: Heritage House
Published: 2010-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

The Quilchena Hotel, little changed in 100 years.

St. Andrew’s, or the Murray Church, one of two historic churches in Nicola.

Hoodoos and rabbitbrush along the lower Nicola River, east of Spences Bridge.

Above Quilchena, huge stretches of high grassland billow toward the Okanagan Highlands, free range for cattle and horses.

The high plateau country east of the Nicola Valley is among B.C.’s loveliest, an undulating sweep of grassland, blue with lupines in early summer, with lakes and drifts of trees in the hollows and a great sense of space and sky. On ripe summer evenings when the valley below is already in shade, up here the grass is golden in the sunset, the shadows long and the rounded curves of the surrounding hills voluptuous. Meadowlarks trill their sharp and somehow lonely songs and, along the meandering ranch roads, scurrying armies of horned larks are forever in retreat. And through this wondrous landscape, the Nicola River runs west from its birthplace in a maze of little lakes high on the plateau into Nicola Lake, a few kilometres north of Quilchena. Blanketed with high-protein grasses, the lightly forested plateau provides superb natural rangeland for cattle. It was bunchgrass “high as a horse’s belly” that first attracted John Douglas in the 1870s. He had planned to join the gold rush, but instead settled here to homestead. From these beginnings, the great Douglas Lake Ranch grew to more than 500,000 hectares. Today, it’s one of Canada’s largest and sustains its own little village for employees.

The main road to Douglas Lake follows the river from Highway 8 just north of Quilchena: an interesting modern log church marks the intersection. This is a good road to follow—it’s paved all the way. But there’s another route to Douglas Lake that is quieter, a high, wild route through the lonely grasslands of the plateau. This is the recommended way, if you don’t mind a slow and dusty 50-kilometre detour. This road leaves the highway just two kilometres north of Quilchena and it’s signposted to Stoney Lake Lodge.

The word plateau seems to suggest a fairly level expanse of country, but while the land up here is not as rugged as the surrounding highlands, it is certainly not flat. The road swoops up and around little hills and dips again into hollows, winding ahead in beautiful if dusty curves. An immense sky stretches overhead, giving a sense of prairie light. In May, the grasslands are dotted with small herds of cows and their calves, though later in the summer the cattle are driven to range in the surrounding forest lands. Herds of ranch horses roam freely, and deer and coyotes can often be seen.

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