DOIN’ THE SHU’

We’ve driven five hours over the Coquihalla Highway from Vancouver to the Shuswap Lake Region to ‘do the Shu’. Centrally-located in BC, the Shuswap is easy-access for Albertans who are a five-hour drive east. For those in Kamloops or Kelowna, it’s an hour’s drive north or east.

The Shuswap is oft-hyphenated with another community or region such as Kamloops, Columbia, or Okanagan, due to the spindly long reaches of the lake’s arms. We are grateful to the Secwepemc People, a Nation of 17 bands, for the name (whose ‘Shuswap’ meaning suggests a ‘coming together of the waters’) and the chance to play.

The waters of Shuswap Lake are high, peaking this very weekend at near-record levels.

I ask the young lady at the Children’s Discovery Centre at the R.J. Haney Heritage Village and Museum in Salmon Arm: “How would you describe the shape of the lake?”
“It’s a wonky ‘H’,” she says. (Wonky because it’s an ‘H’ turned on its side with a cinched belt.)

Whichever direction is taken, one should choose a Shuswap time of day, time of year and timing of weather for the multiple adventures that await you. We have chosen the shoulder season of late spring. Watching the local weather on The Weather Network on an hour-to-hour basis has proven accurate at this changeable time of year. We’re also watching out for the legendary Shuswaggi, a 25-foot-long serpentine-lake-creature, waving its tail, friendly-like.

As for the shape of the lake — the more I look at my map, the more I envision wonky ‘Lady H’, resting her arm on a chaise lounge, her long hair in the marshes of Salmon Arm Bay. That may be because we’re lounging over lunch at the Sprig of Heather Restaurant on the site of the R.J. Haney Heritage Village, savouring cups of locally-sourced tomato vegetable soup. Renowned rhubarb crisp à la mode follows.

Thanks to Salmon Arm Bay Nature Enhancement Society (SABNES) conservation work, we visit the bird sanctuary and spend one rainy afternoon walking the longest-wooden-curved-inland wharf in North America to catch Western Grebes in their ‘walk-on-water’ mating dance.

Red-winged (and Yellow-headed) Blackbirds, Great Blue Herons, Osprey, Ring-billed Gulls (with over a thousand nests on Christmas Island along Raven Trail), six kinds of swallow, 14 types of warblers, and a host of 300 species (63% of all BC birds) serenade the wetland with their songs and calls. I see my first Ruddy Duck with his astonishing blue beak, as if he’d just dipped it in a can of turquoise paint.

With all this talk of water and waterfowl, you might wonder whether we’ve acquiesced to the aqueous. On the Shuswap, one can paddle anything from a kayak to a houseboat and still find time for excellent fishing. However, we’ve chosen to pedal over paddle, to taste some of the region’s flavours while pumping up our leg muscles. Today, we are power-assisted e-bikers.

Shuswap Tourism has put together visitor guides, such as a ‘Trail Guide’ for mountain bikers, hikers, equestrians, snowshoers and snowmobilers, Nordic, back country and ski touring types; a ‘Motor Touring Guide’, a ‘Taste the Shuswap Guide’ and a ‘Wineries Guide’ (with recommendations for breweries and cideries). Our reference is a ‘Cycle Touring Guide’ which directs the rider where to park and the streets to follow along the route. It rates the distance and the difficulty (easy, moderate or difficult).

We’ve got time (minus one drizzly day) to try one circular route and two out-and-backs (O&B). After settling into our 108-square-foot ‘Tiny Home’ at The Shamrock and Thistle Ranch with Air BnB hosts Shelley and John Hayes, we head to the tourism office in Salmon Arm, 10 minutes away, to top up our maps and check out points of interest in order to optimize our time.

Salmon Arm-to-Yankee Flats is our first O&B. It comprises part of an annual 100-kilometre-Bike-for-Your-Life-Century-Ride, which follows four valleys around Mt. Ida. We’re doing one broad valley, skirting Mt. Ida’s volcanic rock, which looks like it dripped down yesterday rather than tens of millions of years ago. Likewise, one would never know that just over 20 years ago a forest fire raged in this valley. Now green and lush, we admire the views and climb up onto the flats before descending to Silver Creek General Store. We pick up a bottle of Pinot Grigio from nearby Ovillo Winery to pair with dinner back at the ranch.

We’ve had a stop by the Salmon River to watch a Common Merganser white-water-raft her brood of three chicks downstream. We thrill almost as much as the quartet, although we’re on a downhill and they are flowing north into Salmon Arm Bay, if they choose to go so far. We’re having such fun twisting and rolling along that we miss our turn and add another 10 kms to our 64-km journey. After a hot tub and shower, we’re ready for rest in our Tiny Home’s super-comfy quietude. Robin lullabies drift us to sleep.

Our second O&B, there’s no chance of getting lost from Blind Bay to Wild Rose Bay. The roses are in bloom as we skirt this part of the ‘wonky H’s’ northwest Shuswap Arm. Both Salmon and Shuswap Arms have lakeside rides; ours is a 50km round trip. We park at Blind Bay Grocery where it promises to be a warm day although Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine trees shade our way. A wonderful array of cabins and homes line our path. We look back to Blind Bay and across the lake to the towns of Scotch Creek and Celista; we look up the snow-capped mountain-sides whose creeks drain into the lake. After a dip at Shannon Beach, we’re ready for ice creams at any number of stops; ours is where we started from at the grocery store.

Our final ride is a circular route to White Lake and Notch Hill. As instructed on our map, we park at Carlin School, found on Google Map off of the Trans-Canada Highway. We like the specific instruction of how to align ourselves to the route map, which takes us up White Lake Road from the parking spot. The map has one, two or three arrows to indicate hills and this is initially a three-notcher for which our e-bikes are well-adapted.

White Lake is described as ‘Marl-velous’ due to the marl, which is a high concentration of calcium carbonate in the sediment. Shoals of white sand, hues of turquoise, and an abundance of Rainbow Trout are a direct result. There are only a few lakes like it in BC. Downhill all the way to Blind Bay, we fly, and hang a left to Sorrento (instead of the previous day’s right to Wild Rose Bay). We cross Highway No.1 up Notch Hill Road, which was once one of the steepest grades along the Canadian Pacific Railway line at 1.6 per cent.

We pass Notch Hill’s heritage buildings: their hall, church and schoolhouse (through which the Trans-Canada Highway once traversed). Pioneers of the Shuswap built the hall in 1909, and people still gather there for weddings, craft fairs and theatrical productions. We ride along frontage roads through three short tunnels before re-emerging at Carlin School to complete the 42km loop.

After a soothing hot tub, we wind our way into Barley Station Brew Pub for some Station House Blonde Ale and Shuswap Trail Ale IPA where hops grow on vines outside the door. It may seem an unlikely spot to buy preserves, but I pick up a jar of Haskap Berry Jam since the pub supports local businesses. I plop some on my morning waffles. I can almost feel the super-berry’s goodness permeating and culminating our days in the Shuswap. Tangy-sweet haskaps have three times the antioxidants of blueberries and are of a similar colour yet with a flattened shape.

More local flavour is to be found at the Sorrento Farmers’ Market on our route home. We top up our cooler with leafy lettuce, arugula and spinach. Berry season is yet to come except for haskaps, which ripen several weeks before strawberries. What isn’t found is the Shuswaggi. We never did wave back at her serpentine tail, but maybe she is just all tale — a fond part of our imaginations as we dream of returning to the Shuswap.

For IF YOU GO information, visit www.seniorlivingmag.com/articles/shuswap-riding

IF YOU GO:

Drive BC Highway No.5 (the Coquihalla) to Merritt, to Kamloops and one hour east, to Salmon Arm. Taking breaks along the way will lengthen the five-hour drive.

Check out the links:
Shuswap Tourism: https://shuswaptourism.ca/
Luxury Tiny Homes ‘Shamrock’ and ‘Thistle’: https://shamrockandthistleranch.com
R.J. Haney Heritage Village Restaurant, Sprig of Heather https://www.salmonarmmuseum.org/
Local bicycle club that maintains trails and promotes all aspects of riding: https://shuswapbike.com
Salmon Arm Bay Nature Enhancement Society: http://www.sabnes.org
The Western Grebe mating dance: https://youtu.be/M1yOTEe1jnE

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