B.C. Rockies Roadtrip: Pierre, the Queen and the Stargazer (part 5)

Posted on 15. Jul, 2009 by Kerry Banks in BC

courtesy chiloa; wikimedia.org

We are motoring south on Highway 95 and Tom is telling us that he once worked for Pierre Trudeau. “I used to have to get him a red rose for his lapel every day,” says Tom. I can’t say that I am buying this story, but I nod like I am. Joe, who is evidently not a Trudeau fan, mentions the one-finger salute that the prime minister gave to protesting strikers from his train car in Salmon Arm. ”Yes, but less widely remembered is that the protestors were shouting anti-French slogans at the train,” I note. “Still, all in all, another heart-warming piece of Canadiana.”

Continuing the Canadiana theme, at Joe’s urging we pull into a Tim Horton’s. He returns a few minutes later carrying a coffee and a bag of donuts. “They don’t move like they do in Toronto,” he says, between mouthfuls.

Back on the road, Tom tells us about a recurring dream he has been having in which he is dating the Queen of England. “This is the queen as she looked in the 1950s,” he quickly points out. At any rate, Tom is waiting for the queen in his car. She gets in and says, “Tom, I can’t take it anymore. I want to leave the palace and hang out with you.”

But Tom replies stoically: “No Liz, you’re the queen and I’m just a little guy. It would never work out.”

None of us know quite what to make of this. I offer some helpful advice. “You know Tom, they say that all the characters in your dreams are parts of your own personality. Maybe you want to be the Queen, or maybe a queen.”

Any further probing of Tom’s subconscious is abandoned when Joe poses a football trivia question. “Which NFL player was Howard Cosell referring to on Monday Night Football when he said, “Look at that little monkey run.” Joe is disappointed that I know the answer. Cosell was referring to Washington Redskins receiver Alvin Garrett, who was black. That controversial 1983 remark ultimately caused Cosell to leave Monday Night Football a few months later.

Why Howard Cosell’s name has popped into Joe’s mind in the midst of the B.C. Kootenays is a mystery, but it provokes a round of sports trivia that causes Janice to groan in frustration. Tom laughs at her discomfort. “This isn’t turning out be much fun for you is it Janice?”

courtesy Hollylewi; wikimedia.org

Flanked by 3,000-metre snow-capped peaks, we roll through the Columbia Wetlands. Considered the last intact portion of the Pacific flyway, the 27,000-hectare expanse was designated a wetland of international importance in 2005. In spring and fall, the area attracts up to 60,000 mallards, 20,000 northern pintails, 10,000 swans, 15,000 sandhill cranes and 50,000 Canada geese.

We pull over to admire the panorama of the glittering green floodplain and get into a conversation with an aboriginal woman. She is wearing pigtails, a straw cowboy hat, a grey T-shirt, baggy, checkered purple shorts and pink Crocs. She is here trying to find some friends who are re-creating explorer David Thompson’s exploration of the region by canoe in the early 1800s. “They have one token white guy to play David Thompson,” she says. “He should be easy to spot.” She shakes her head and chuckles, “That David Thompson, he wouldn’t know where he was going. He would have had to ask his squaw wife.”

A bit of revisionist history? Well, Thompson was married to a Métis woman named Charlotte Small, and she did accompany him on some of his expeditions. Their marriage lasted 58 years, the longest Canadian pre-Confederation marriage known, and they had 13 children together, so this was definitely no summer fling. Still, during his many years of surveying, the man the Natives called “the Stargazer” mapped more than 3.9 million square kilometres of North America, so I’m guessing he must have had some sense of direction. Unfortunately, Canada’s greatest geographer died blind, penniless and in virtual obscurity in 1857 in Montreal.

Our final destination today is Island Lake Lodge near Fernie, but we have time to make a few stops along the way. The first is Radium Hot Springs. I’m not sure that naming your town after a radioactive element was a wise business decision, but the springs are popular. There are two large pools, one with hot water for soaking (usually around 39°C), the other a two-thirds-size Olympic swimming pool that is kept at about 29°C. There is also a hot-tub sized pool that has been dubbed the “Plunge Pool,” because the water can be hot – right from the source at 44°C – or cold, right from a creek running beneath the pools.

After we enter the complex, Joe pulls out his tape recorder, approaches one of the employees and says, “Well, the first question I have to ask is how many people have you saved?”

While he asks his questions, I wander off to check out a tourist shop that looks like it has been preserved in amber since the 1960s. Feeling nostalgic for the family road trips of my youth, I buy myself an Eskimo Pie.

Later, we stop for lunch in Invermere, which is also known as Calgary’s “Whistler.” The permanent population of the town is only 4,000, but on summer weekends it swells to 40,000. This may be why it takes us about an hour to be served lunch. Joe doesn’t appear to mind. Excited by the fact that so many of the people working in these parts are from southern Ontario, he is now interviewng everything that moves.

Hit man? courtesy Riley Banks

After eating, André and I don our sunglasses and walk off to explore, eventually ending up gazing at a statue of David and Charlotte Thompson. When we come back, Tom says, “Geezuz, everyone is staring at you guys. You look like a couple of hit men.” I’m wearing a green sports jacket, a black shirt and black slacks, while André is clad in a black track suit. I guess it doesn’t take much to stand out in Invermere.

(To be continued …)

Lead image by sallylondon; flickr.com

Tags: Columbia Wetlands, Invermere, Radium Hot Springs, Roadtrips