Off to Golden

We left Kamloops, after the nicest visit with Karen and Chuck and family, a very dry desert like area, heading East on Hwy 1. We followed the North Thompson River up to Shuswap Lake. Just beautiful driving around the lakeshore. We passed the tiny town of Tappen where Margo and Jim live. Hard decisions on this trip - do we stop everywhere or will we ever get where we’re headed? Maybe another time. We stopped and made lunch at an old Chevron Cardlock in Salmon Arm, then passed Canoe, with a huge lumber plywood plant most evident. Sicamous, flanked by Mara and Shuswap Lakes is the Houseboat Capital of B.C., they say. Looked very inviting as we viewed it across the open railway bridge. Nearby is the Adams River where over 10 million scarlet sockeye salmon bury their eggs each October – it is one of the largest spawning grounds in the country. We looked around Cragallachie – Sister Mary Margaret`s favourite location to trap us on in Gr. 11 Social Studies. Sir Donald Smith hammered in the last spike linking a thin ribbon of steel, east to the west, of the Canadian Pacific Railway, finally opening up the west in 1858. We drove by the magnificent hotel in 3 Valley Gap, now a Heritage Ghost town of 40 relocated buildings from the 19<sup>th</sup> century lumber and mining town. It is so interesting to see the train tunnels blasted out of rock along the river and beautiful wild flowers of yellow, white and red along the roadside with purple and blue mixed in. We stopped at the Rogers Pass Info Center at the Summit, which is built like a snowshed and has great exhibits demonstrating the battle of the Engineers against sheer mountain walls, numerous avalanche areas and such severe weather, including avalanches of 325 Kms per hour, that the attempt to make a transcontinental railroad had to be abandoned the first year. 31 snowsheds were built to shield the track but this wasn`t enough as 58 men were killed trying to clear a slide in 1858 which made them decide to tunnel under Mt. MacDonald. They also built a spiral track of several loops to avoid the steep downgrade and avalanche areas. Nowhere is it mentioned that most? of these laborers were Chinese, bought in to do this menial and dangerous job. We bought our Nat. Park Passes and Heritage Site passes here for $72.60 each for Seniors which gives us access to 27 Parks and 78 Heritage Sites across all of Canada. Thanks to Kathy and Bill for this info. It is so green here, no pine beetles. We arrived at the Husky Station in Golden at 3:30 and called it a great day. We’ve now entered into the 4^th region of B.C., the Kootenay Rockies. Renowned snow streaked mountains, evergreen valleys, flower filled meadow and wildlife, it ‘s beautiful as we’ll head into Alberta tomorrow. The other 2 B.C. regions are the Caribou Chilcotin which we go through on our way up to Northern B.C., the last region, on our way to Kitimat where Ron’s family lives.