APPLE LAND: OKANAGAN AND KOOTENAY LAKES
I
On Monday, September 29th, the Prince of Wales returned to Vancouver
and took car to New Westminster, the old capital of British Columbia
before picturesque Victoria assumed the reins.
New Westminster was having its own festival that day, so the visit was
well timed. The local exhibition was to begin, and the Prince was to
perform the opening ceremony. Under many fine arches, one a tall
torii, erected by Chinese and Japanese Canadians, the procession of
cars passed through the town, on a broad avenue that runs alongside the
great Fraser River. Drawn up at the curb were many floats that were to
take part in the trades' procession through the town to the exhibition
grounds. Most of them were ingenious and attractive. There were
telegraph stations on wagons, corn dealers' shops, and the like, while
on the bonnet of one car was a doll nurse, busy beside a doll bed.
Another automobile had turned itself into an aeroplane, while another
had obliterated itself under a giant bully beef can to advertise a
special kind of tinned meat.
All cars were decorated with masses of spruce and maple leaf, now
beautiful in autumn tints of crimson and gold. And Peace and
Britannia, of course, were there with attendant angels and nations,
comely girls whose celestial and symbolical garments did not seem to be
the right fashion for a day with more than a touch of chill in the air.
Through this avenue of fantasy, colour and cheery humanity the Prince
drove through the town, which seems to have the air of brooding over
its past, to the exhibition ground, which he opened, and where he
presented medals to many soldiers.
II
From New Westminster the Royal train struck upward through the Rocky
Mountains by way of the Kettle Valley. It passed through a land of
terrific and magnificent scenery. It equalled anything we had seen in
the more famous beauty spots, but it was more savage. The valleys
appeared closer knit and deeper, and the sharp and steep mountains
pinched the railway and river gorges together until we seemed to be
creeping along the floor of a mighty passage-way of the dark,
aboriginal gods.
Again and again the train was hanging over the deep, misted cauldron of
the valley, again and again it slipped delicately over the span of
cobweb across the sky that is a Canadian bridge. In this land of steep
gradients, sharp curves and lattice bridges, the train was divided into
two sections, and each, with two engines to pull it, climbed through
the mountain passes.
This tract of country has only within the last few years been tapped by
a railway that seems even yet to have to fight its way forward against
Nature, barbarous, splendid and untamed. It was built to the usual
ideal of Canada, that vision which ignores the handicaps of today for
the promise of tomorrow. Yet even today it taps the rich lake valleys
where mining and general farming is carried on, and where there are
miles of orchards already growing some of the finest apples and peaches
in Canada.
On the morning of Tuesday, September 30th, the train climbed down from
the higher and rougher levels to Penticton, a small, bright, growing
town that stands as focus for the immense fruit-growing district about
Okanagan Lake.
Here, after a short ceremony, the Prince boarded the steamer
_Sicamous_, a lake boat of real Canadian brand; a long white vessel
built up in an extraordinary number of tiers, so that it looked like an
elaborate wedding-cake, but a useful craft whose humpy stern
paddle-wheel can push her through a six-foot shallow or deep water with
equal dispatch. And a delightfully comfortable boat into the bargain,
with well-sheltered and spacious decks, cosy cabins and bath-rooms, and
a big dining saloon, which, placed in the very centre of the ship with
the various galleries of the decks rising around it, has an air of
belonging to one of those attractive old Dickensian inns.
On this vessel the Prince was carried the whole length of Okanagan
Lake, which winds like a blue fillet between mountains for seventy
miles. On the ledges and in the tight valleys of these heights he saw
the formal ranks of a multitude of orchards.
A short distance along the lake the _Sicamous_ pulled in to the toy
quay of Summerland, a town born of and existing for fruit, and linked
up with the outer world by the C.P.R. Lake Service that owned our own
vessel.
All the children of Summerland had collected on the quayside to sing to
and to cheer the Prince, and, as he stood on the upper deck and waved
his hat cheerfully at them, they cheered a good deal more. When he
went ashore and was taken by the grown-up Olympians to examine the
grading and packing sheds, where the fruits of all the orchards are
handled and graded by mechanical means, prepared for the market, and
sold on the co-operative plan, the kiddies exchanged sallies with those
waiting on the vessel, flipped big apples up at them, and cheered or
jeered as they were caught or missed.
The _Sicamous_ went close inshore at Peachland, another daughter town
of Mother Fruit, to salute the crowd of people who had come out from
the pretty bungalow houses that nestle among the green trees on a low
and pretty shore, and who stood on the quay in a mass to send a cheer
to him.
At Okanagan Landing, at the end of the lake, he took car to Vernon, a
purposeful and attractive town which is the commercial heart of the
apple industry. Indeed, there was no need to ask the reason for
Vernon's being. Even the decorations were wrought out of apples, and
under an arch of bright, cherry-red apples the Prince passed on to the
sports ground, and on to a platform the corner posts of which were
crowned with pyramids of apples, and in the centre of which was a model
apple large enough to suit the appetite of Gargantua.
In front of this platform was a grand stand crowded with children of
all races from Scandinavian to Oriental, and these sang with the
resistless heartiness of Canada. The Oriental is a pretty useful asset
in British Columbia, for in addition to his gifts of industry he is an
excellent agriculturist.
After the ceremonies the Prince had an orgy of orchards.
Fruit growing is done with a large gesture. The orchards are neat and
young and huge. In a run of many miles the Prince passed between
masses of precisely aligned trees, and every tree was thick with bright
and gleaming red fruit. Thick, indeed, is a mild word. The short
trees seemed practically all fruit, as though they had got into the
habit of growing apples instead of leaves. Many of the branches bore
so excessive a burden that they had been torn out by the weight of the
fruit upon them.
It was a marvellous pageant of fruit in mass. And the apples
themselves were of splendid quality, big and firm and glowing, each a
perfect specimen of its school. We were able to judge because the
land-girls, after tossing aprons full of specimens (not always
accurately) into the Prince's car, had enough ammunition left over for
the automobiles that followed.
Attractive land girls they were, too. Not garbed like British
land-girls, but having all their dashing qualities. Being Canadians
they carried the love of silk stockings on to the land, and it was
strange to see this feminine extremity under the blue linen overall
trousers or knickers. They were cheery, sun-tanned, laughing girls.
They were ready for the Prince at every gate and every orchard fence,
eager and ready to supplement their gay enthusiasm with this apple
confetti.
The Prince stopped here and there to chat with fruit growers, and to
congratulate them on their fine showing. Now he stopped to talk to a
wounded officer, who had been so cruelly used in the war that he had to
support himself on two sticks. Now he stopped to pass a "How d'y' do"
to a mob of trousered land-girls who gathered brightly about his car,
showing himself as laughing and as cheerful as they.
The cars left the land of growing apples and turned down the lake in a
superb run of thirty-six miles to Kelowna. This road skirts fairyland.
It winds high up on a shoulder above Long Lake, that makes a floor of
living azure between the buttresses and slopes of the mountains. Only
when it is tired of the heights does it drop to the lake level, and
sweeping through a filigree of trees, speeds along a road that is but
an inch or two above the still mirror of Wood Lake, on the polished
surface of which there is a delicate fret of small, rocky islets. So,
in magnificent fashion, he came to Kelowna, and the _Sicamous_, that
carried him back to the train.
III
Through the night and during the next morning the train carried the
Prince deeper in the mountains, skirting in amazing loops, when the
train seemed almost to be biting its tail, steep rocky cliffs above
white torrents, or the shining blue surfaces of lakes such as Arrow
Lake, that formed the polished floor of valleys. Now and then we
passed purposeful falls, and by them the power houses that won light
and motive force for the valley towns from the falling water. There
are those who fear the harnessing of water-power, because it may mean
the spoiling of beautiful scenery. Such buildings as I saw in no way
marred the view, but rather added to it a touch of human
picturesqueness.
Creeping down the levels, with discretion at the curves, the train came
in the rain to Nelson on Wednesday, October 1st. Rain spoilt the
reception at Nelson, a town that thrives upon the agricultural and
mining products of the hills about. There seemed to be a touch of
mining grey in the air of the town, but, as in all towns of Canada, no
sense of unhappiness, no sense of poverty--indeed, in the whole of
Canada I saw five beggars and no more (though, of course, there may
have been more). Of these one man was blind, and two were badly
crippled soldiers.
There are no poor in Nelson, so I was told, and no unemployed.
"If a man's unemployed," said a Councillor with a twinkle in his eye,
"he's due for the penitentiary. With labourers getting five dollars a
day, and being able to demand it because of the scarcity of their kind,
when a man who says he can't find work has something wrong with him ...
as a matter of fact the penitentiary idea is only speculative. There's
never been a test case of this kind."
I don't suppose there have been many test cases of that kind in the
whole of Canada, for certainly "the everyday people" everywhere have a
cheerful and self-dependent look.
At Nelson the Prince embarked on another lake boat, the _Nasookin_,
after congratulating rival bands, one of brass, and one (mainly boys)
of bagpipes, on their tenacity in tune in the rain. Nelson gave him a
very jolly send-off. The people managed to invade the quay in great
numbers, and those who were daring clambered to the top of the freight
cars standing on the wharf, the better to give him a cheer.
As the boat steamed out into the Kootenay River scores of the nattiest
little gasoline launches flying flags escorted him for the first mile
or so, chugging along beside the _Nasookin_, or falling in our wake in
a bright procession of boats. Encouraged by the "movie" men they waved
vigorously, and many good "shoots" of them were filmed.
At Balfour, where the narrow river, after passing many homesteads of
great charm nestling amid the greenery of the low shore that fringes
the high mountains, turns into Kootenay Lake, the Prince went ashore.
Here is a delightful chalet which was once an hotel, but is now a
sanatorium for Canadian soldiers. Its position is idyllic. It stands
above river and lake, with the fine mountains backing it, and across
the river are high mountains.
Over these great slopes on this grey day clouds were gathered, crawling
down the shoulders in billows, or blowing in odd and disconnected
masses and streamers. These odd ragged scarves and billows look like
strayed sheep from the cloud fold, lost in the deep valleys that sit
between the blue-grey mountain sides.
The Prince spent some time visiting the sanatorium, and chatting with
the inmates, and then played golf on the course here. The C.P.R. were,
meanwhile, indulging themselves in one of their habitual feats. The
lakes make a gap in the line between Nelson, or rather Balfour siding,
and Kootenay Landing at the head of the water. Over this water-jump
the whole train, solid steel and weighing a thousand tons, was bodily
carried.
Two great barges were used. The long cars were backed on to these with
delicate skill--for the slightest waywardness of a heavy, all-steel car
on a floating barge is a matter of danger, and each loaded barge was
then taken up the lake by a tug grappled alongside.
At Kootenay Landing the delicate process was reversed, and all was
carried out without mishap though it was a dark night, and the
railwaymen had to work with the aid of searchlights. Kootenay Landing
is, in itself, something of a wonder. In the dark, as we waited for
the train to be made up, it seemed as solid as good hard land can make
it. But as the big Canadian engine came up with the first car we felt
our "earth" sway slightly, and in the beam of the big headlight we saw
the reason. Kootenay Landing is a station in the air. It is built up
on piles.