Fire & bikes (page 3)
“Sometimes I like to strap on a headlamp and scare hikers
into thinking a train’s coming,” he quips.
AFTERBURN
Getting there The Kelowna and Penticton airports offer regular flights from Vancouver. Both
cities are between four and five hours by road from Vancouver.
Staying there
B&Bs are
thriving in the Okanagan. For Penticton and the surrounding South Okanagan region, log on
to www.bbokanagan.com. For Kelowna and the north, visit www.bcsbestbnbs.com. Those with a
taste for history will enjoy the Naramata Heritage Inn & Spa or
Kelowna’s Hotel Eldorado. A full listing of accommodations
can be found on the web at www.visittheokanagan.com.
Playing there
The trestles of Myra Canyon
reopened on June 22. Thanks to the Myra Canyon Trestle Restoration Society, 12 wooden trestles
have been rebuilt and two steel ones repaired since work began in 2004. Monashee
Adventure Tours (888-762-9253) offers all-season exploration of the
Trans Canada Trail, by snowshoe in winter and by bike, kayak and foot in summer. The
Red Rooster Winery and Hillside Estate Winery & Bistro are on Naramata Road. For a complete list of Okanagan wines, festivals and other special
events, visit www.okanaganwines.ca.
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Later, we puff into the Red Rooster Winery. After turning off
the right-of-way and cycling up a short hill, we’re greeted by a
naked man carrying a suitcase. It makes sense that a winery
featuring local art on its labels would provide safe haven for
Frank “The Baggage Handler,” an outdoor sculpture by Michael
Hermesh that created controversy when first displayed in a
Penticton roundabout. The strenuous public debate reached
a head when someone, as Kruger puts it, “broke off his manhood.”
We pass the roundabout that was Frank’s first home on our
way to lunch at the Hooded Merganser Bar & Grill, a concrete
modern affair mounted on piles in the shallows of Okanagan
Lake. I tuck into poached wild B.C. salmon.
The next day, we cycle along the western shore of Skaha
Lake beside brilliant red sumac and glassy calm water. A carp
meanders the shallows near the shore; a loon cuts a V through
the water. A western screech owl lands in a nearby poplar.
Each day begins and ends with a ride in a support van, without
which I’d spend far more time grinding than exploring. As
we drive along the highway, it’s hard to believe that there’s
much past the drab sandbanks of Canada’s only true desert, at
the northern tip of the Sonoran. Yet the back roads hold many
surprises. We stop to examine roadside rocks bearing aboriginal
pictographs, thousand-year-old figures of hunters and bison
drawn in red ochre mixed with bear fat. Passing through a
rural community, Kruger points out the book-lending institution,
“See that row of green mailboxes? The library is the little
white cabinet on the end.”
And it’s thanks to the van that we’re able to squeeze in a visit
to the 188-metre-long Trout Creek Bridge. The tallest on the KVR,
at 73 metres, this engineering marvel was, in its time, North
America’s highest steel-truss bridge. When builders laid down
the final span, it came to within a pinky’s width of perfection,
testament to the chief engineer’s skill.
I hang my arms over the railing and lose myself in the rows
of vines carpeting the slopes below. McCulloch could surely not
have anticipated that one day this bridge would stretch over
rolling vineyards, just as Kruger likely never foresaw that his outings
would involve more tastings than trestles. I’m thankful that
some things are worth preserving.
Masa Takei is a freelance journalist and screenwriter based in
Vancouver. Photographer Darryl Leniuk lives in Vancouver.
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