The other day I hiked 10k with my sister, my nieces and a friend to the 2,250m top of well-named Granite Mountain and gazed with awe at the surrounding peaks and mountainous skyline. We stood for a photo where my niece Holly poses brides and grooms for dramatic wedding shots after hauling them up the steep and rocky track by foot or on quad bikes. She showed me where one of the models for her red sheet photo series had posed for her and my legs turned to jelly just thinking about the treacherousness of it - a scantily dressed female robed in a flowing red sheet perched on the edge of a hundreds-of-feet high sheer wall of granite. My niece Becca gave her another photo op on a similar ledge, which added to my jelly-leggedness.
Life with my Canadian family is always eventful. Next day, my brother-in-law, Peter, took a rare day off to get us all up to a wilderness park lake with their motor boat. Bearing in mind that the boat had been purchased as a reject and not been on the water for at least two years, this was a dicey idea. An adventure in the making, picnic and survival gear prepared, we set off on the long trek up into the park. It’s worth pointing out here that this Wells Gray Park is the size of Wales with just 20 miles of road into it. The road stops at the start of Clearwater lake and from then on the only way into the park is by boat. They don’t call it a wilderness park for nothing. To give a sense of the scale of things here, the park is a mere dot on the map of British Columbia. This is BIG country!
At the boat launch I stood around looking to see where I might be helpful but realising that my knowledge of boating was rather limited, I left it to the apparently more knowledgeable crew to get the craft into the water. Duly packed with all the gear plus my pregnant niece Holly, Peter reversed down the boat launch. The ominous sound of a ratchet alerted us to the boat having decided to launch itself prematurely and slide off the trailer onto the slipway. The propellor hit the concrete with a hard metal sound and a disaster was unfolding before our eyes. In these situations the screeching of bystanders isn’t particularly helpful so it’s a good thing that Adam, having got to the lake before us with Becca and their own boat, was there to help out, catching the ratchet to pull the boat back onto the trailer. Such a scary moment, seeing Holly’s imminent danger of being tipped out of the thing.
Finally in the water, a narrowly-escaped pregnant Holly, engaged with her father and Adam to get the motor running. Once again I sat back, taking in the scenery and watching with interest as the trio wrestled with a particularly obstinate machine. Meanwhile kayakers came and went from the little wooden dock. I saw them holding their breath to avoid inhaling fumes from the coughing and unco-operative motor boat that we had dragged unceremoniously into the peace of this vast, wild, clear and beautiful lake.
We took off from the dock without warning as the motor suddenly came to life. Adam, half dockside and half boat-side had to leap out of the way, shove his own little Becca-contained boat out the way too as our craft shot noisily and smokily out across the water. With Peter at the helm, for a few minutes we contemplated the adventures awaiting us further up the lake, and then the engine burned out.
Dreams are often a reflection of the very-nearly disasters of the day. Drifting off to sleep with thoughts of how fortunate we were to have lost the engine so close to the launch site with Becca and Adam available to tow us back in, I shivered thinking about how differently it might have gone. Had we been further up into the park with nothing but a pair of oars to get us back I pictured my sister, my niece, my brother-in-law and I, all with our different ideas of how to deal with the situation, coming inevitably to verbal blows, with our young German companion, Kat, calling desperately into the vastness for help.
As it happened we did enjoy the rest of the day once the boat was back securely on the trailer. We watched salmon jumping at Bailey’s Chute and stared with awe into the canyon below the spectacular Helmcken Falls. A good day was had by all, for sure…..except maybe Peter whose fit-bit registered a significant spike in his stress levels.
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| Helmcken falls is 141m high (463ft) |
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