As ever I was in awe of the tenacity of the pine trees and larches growing on the steep sides or revegetating the scree slopes. At Golden we could see the ski runs which will be full in about a month's time if the weather plays ball and the Autumn colours were well & truly resplendent on the western side of the Rockies. As I looked out of the window I was constantly reminded of the stories we had read in the museums of Banff - about the men building the railway in all weathers, the First Nation peoples hunting & gathering in the rich valleys, and of the wild life who make their homes in the forests or lakes of the region. It was almost as if I could read the history in the rocks and vegetation.
Maybe my sense of history was heightened by the fact that I was reading 'The Geography of Blood' [Author: Candace Savage] as we travelled, often crying about the loss suffered by First Nation peoples through the process of colonisation. We had read and heard quite a bit about the Nakoda (Stoney) Nation [Official] whilst passing through Alberta (particuarly in Banff) as they had been banned from the national park, despite their hunting grounds being almost entirely within the park, and were only welcomed back in 2010. So much loss and pain ........ taking generations to recover from.
I must say that I was amazed by the loooong descent into Revelstoke as can be seen by the cross-section below. It just seemed to go on forever - pity the brakes!
At Kamloops houses stretched up the eroded hillsides over looking the town - really heavily disected hills revealing patches of brown/grey soils. As we waited at the station I looked up at the overlapping roads carrying rush hour cars and thought 'madness'! As we drove out of Kamloops the land was end of Summer dry - brown grass, dry lupins with various types of trees ranging through-out BUT interspersed with lots of vehicle dealerships, CostCo, Tim Hortons, McDonald, Boston Pizza etc.
And then again, we hit vast pine forests fenced along #1 highway.
Looking at plastic (cups, bags etc) blowing along the road it reminded me to check out how Canada was doing with respect to waste ..... wifi is a marvellous thing during a long bus ride & one gets to wondering! Here's an article on Canada’s waste probem: in 2009 she ranked 15 out of 17 countries on municiapl waste production, averaging 777kg/person when the average over the 17 countries was 578kg. ..... as we've seen while travelling, there are just too many things in non-recycable containers in Canada!!
As we neared Merritt we noticed the valleys were deep green, watered by pivot irrigators - such a contrast to the earlier dry. Merritt like most towns along the highway had rows of hotels/motels - Comfort Inn, Best Western, Howard Johnson - all along the in & out of the town. The settlements are usually spread out along the highway - ribbon development is the term we Geographers use - with big-box malls on the outskirts so everyone has to drive to connect, to get anywhere.
As we continued on our way the highway was again fenced by deer fences and the vegetation at the lower slopes were coloured red-gold-green. The slopes above were obviously avalanche prone, covered in scree. And then the road began it's steep sweeping descent passing turn-offs to Portia where the highway was partly cantilevered over the gorge [highway cam] . Other turn-off roads were dirt or partly tarmaced roads heading off to goodness knows where - into forest villages off Sowaqua Creek road - seems like a great heritage trail in the area meandering beside a river.
The sun by this time was setting in front of us as we headed into Hope to drop people off. We quite liked the look of the town but felt that the best times to visit would be either at the height of Summer or during ski season as it looked a bit quiet when we passed through - that between seasons feel [Hope tourism]. There we also saw sign that stated 'Yale First Nation Government', which got us to wondering whether it had something to do with Yale University in the US, but no - the Yale First Nations are a band located in the Hope area with over-lapping land claims under a 20 year treaty process. Interesting to compare the treaty resolution processes used across Canada and the process iwi continue to work through in NZ.
As we continued on to Vancouver we passed combine harvesters working under light just out of Chilliwack - another town in which people were dropped off - then we could see little except when entering towns like Abbotsford. At Langley heaps of people got off .... and I had a feeling we were nearly there as the built up area increased. We arrived at Coquitlam Greyhound station just after the expected time to find Terry waiting patiently for us. With a welcoming bear hug we were ushered to his car & off to be greeted by Pat, her Mum and their cute wee dog, Molly. Time to relax!
We had completed our Greyhound experience across Canada; now our BC adventures were beginning.
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