Meeting the relatives

I've been in contact with my father's first cousin Dorothy for some time now, emailing back and forth, trying to find out about my Canadian relatives and finding out about how our families are connected. For the past 40 years, she has been travelling to Mara Lake, about 2 hours from Big White, to meet up with her sisters.  So, this year she asked if we wanted to go along too, so it seemed like a great opportunity to meet them, en masse, without having to travel halfway round Canada!
My grand father on my dad's side was one of four siblings and the other three all emigrated to Canada in the 1920's.  The only reason my grand father didn't go too was that he had already met my grand mother and she refused to leave England!  My great Uncle Fred settled on a farm on the Canadian prairies and these are his descendants.

This is Dorothy on the left, with her sister Jean in the middle and her sister Fay on the right.  Dorothy lives in Calgary, Jean lives in Vancouver and Fay still lives not far from where her father settled on the prairies.  Mara Lake is 'roughly' half way between them.

 The bloke on the right is Jean's only son Michael, which makes him my second cousin, and the little girl in the middle is his daughter Ava, who's just three years old.  She is Ned, Charlie and Lucy's third cousin.  Pretty hard to explain all that!

 Ned, Charlie and Lucy with their 'new' cousin!

Ava took a bit of a shine to Ned, she kept saying 'hello boy' to him!  I think he was flattered the first time!!

San Drift Lakes

I know I keep writing about the vastness and remoteness of Canada but I really do find it staggering. Take San Drift lake, as the crow flies it's about 20 miles from Big White, not far really except the only way of getting there is down logging roads, un-maintained, un-tarmaced, made from nothing more than dirt, cutting through the forests with the odd sign of human life when there are patches of active logging.  You definitely do not want to break down, there are animals out there that you can only dream of, bears, wolverines, cougars, moose, most of which would have you for breakfast.  Not the moose maybe, they'd just kill you for the sheer hell of it because they're soooo stupid!  Not even the loggers would provide a safe haven, they are men not to be messed with!
One of Lucy's friends at school was having a birthday and she wanted to go camping for her birthday, but had asked if we would go and spend the day at the lake.  Good job she didn't ask us to camp as there's not a cats chance in hell I'd camp out there!!
So, with no mobile signal and with no sat nav or map we set off!  Just relying on old fashioned paper directions!  Luckily, we made it with no problems at all and it was such a lovely spot, peaceful and so pretty.  We roasted weiners on an open fire, played hide and seek, ate cake and drank beer in front of the lake.  Awesome!

 Lucy and her friend Tosh

Track meet in Grand Forks

Grand Forks is the administrative centre of School District 51.  When Big White first wanted to open a school and approached their local town of Kelowna, the school district there said they would prefer to bus the children to Kelowna rather than have a school on the mountain.  So, Big White approached the district in the other direction who said they had loads of remote schools and one more wouldn't be a problem!  So, Grand Forks is the school district that controls Big White school, and the children were invited to a track meet there, with all the other school from the district. However, Grand Forks is 3 hours away so an early start was required....5am to be precise.  The journey was beautiful, the road follows the Kettle Valley river the entire way, but in the 3 hours we were on the road, we travelled through the village of Beaverdell, the small town of Rock Creek, another village of Midway, which sits on the border to the United States, and Greenwood, which boasts to be Canada's smallest city with a whopping population of 708!  That's it, in 3 hours we came across 4 settlements no bigger than Upottery...crazy!
However, despite the distances travelled we all had a great day, glorious weather and the children got to run on grass...little things!

Big White senior class.

Kettle Valley Railway

The Kettle Valley Railway was built to service the growing mining industry in the Southern Interior region of British Columbia and the core portion runs from Penticton, past the mountains of Kelowna, through Beverdell, finishing south of Big White in Midway.  It was built in 1915 but parts of it had already begun to be abandoned by 1961, with the final segment falling into disuse in 1989.  We decided to investigate the segment known as Myra Canyon.  It's located just south of Kelowna and has 18 wooden trestles and 2 tunnels in order to traverse the deep canyon.  12 out of the 18 trestles have been replaced due to the 2003 fire that lasted for 2 months and swept through the Okanagan Mountains. We had always fancied taking the children biking along the trestles, as it's flat and the scenery is spectacular but having investigated it on foot there isn't a cats chance in hell that I'll go anywhere near it with Lucy on a bike.  The drop down one side is hundreds of feet, sheer cliffs and with no barrier.  Apparently there is some woman in Kelowna who is famous for being the only woman to have ever survived a fall in to Myra Canyon!  So, unanimous vote, even the boys didn't fancy it and panicked just walking along as Lucy is skipping looking behind her rather than in front! The only person who still seemed up for it was Jamie....huh!!!

You can get to the Canyon from either end,  this is the June Springs end...not so scary, but not so interesting either!

 The view of Kelowna.

So, then we headed to the other end where the trestles are much closer together, and the views much more impressive.  You can see them weaving around and through the mountains, a very majestic sight.

Not sure what's up with Lucy!

There's a trestle spanning that gorge in the distance..honest!

Commander Chris Hadfield

Chris Hadfield has inspired a whole generation of children to explore space and space travel here in Canada, and I gather his youtube downloads from the international space station have ben watched by children all over the world, not just Canada.  Big White Community School has gone space crazy too, completing their space project this week and being avid watchers of all things Chris Hadfield...even Lucy now wants to be an astronaut.  The whole school went to Vernon to the space museum and had an amazing time eating space food and trying on space outfits.  Ned came home saying that officially, according to science, Sunday was the first day of the week.  'That's interesting' I said "because in the Bible, Sunday is the last day of the week because it's a day of rest."...'Yes, but Mummy, I'm talking about real life".   Touche!!
For those of you who haven't seen Chris Hadfield in action, I strongly recommend you watch his downloads on youtube from the Canadian Space Agency, we loved them and here are two of my favourites, both musical. The first is his final download, recreating the Bowie classic, and the second is him playing along with the Bare Naked Ladies down here on earth....amazing!

School trip to Beaverdell

The children have been pen-palling with the children from the small town of Beaverdell which has a junior class the same size as ours.  Beaverdell used to be a prosperous town due to the discovery of silver in the mountains nearby in 1897.  The mine continued to produce silver ore continuously for over 90 years until it was closed in 1990.
Now, it is a shadow of it's former self with a population of ex-miners and their families with nothing to do and no-where to go.  It sits on the side of Highway 33 and is the only town between Kelowna and Grand Forks... a distance of 82 miles!
So, off we went on our school trip having been warned about what we might find, and more importantly the social problems encountered by many of the children.  But, we all had a great time, the Big White children were so excited to see grass and flowers (little things!) that they didn't notice the junk yards and litter.  They all went for a long walk that ended with a ball game and a barbecue ...something that is still impossible up at Big White due to the 3 feet of snow that we still have!  The children were delightful and were great hosts, a good day had by all.

 

Sparkling Hill

Look where I went.....lucky me!
Sparkling Hill Resort is a spa hotel about an hour from Big White and it nestles in the mountains overlooking Lake Okenagan just outside Vernon. The hotel was built and is owned by the Swarovski Family and it is adorned with over 3.5million crystals in virtually every element of the property.  It is the first building in the world with crystal architecture!
Big White season pass holders were offered a deal for one night dinner, bed, breakfast and all use of the spa facilities for $195 for 2, which seemed too good an offer to refuse, so, Judy and I packed our bags for a night of luxury.  Our room was amazing with spectacular views, the en-suit was covered in shimmering crystals, and we spent at least 3 hours enjoying the spa facilities.  The food was delicious, both dinner and breakfast and we had a bottle of wine on the house... we totted up that we ate and drank all $195 so the room and spa were free!!