Scenic view of the road on Icefields parkway, Canadian Rockies. Photo / 123RF
Scenic view of the road on Icefields parkway, Canadian Rockies. Photo / 123RF
He's reluctant to admit it but Bruce Morris finds British Columbia almost as lovely as his homeland.
Something was wrong at Owlhead Creek, not that I noticed it. But that's men for you.
We'd got into the bed and breakfast in the hills and trees high above Sicamous late in the afternoon and the way host Deb Ritchie welcomed us you would have thought we were her best mates rather than total strangers.
Nowhere do they come chirpier or friendlier than this 50-something dynamo building an animal lover's dream with her partner on a lifestyle block just west of the Rockies.
As we tripped and weaved our way through the home-stay dogs that are part of her life and business, Deb led us to our cabin by the cows and horses and suggested we shake off the car-lag with a wander before joining her for a sundowner.
So down the dirt road we went, a short amble on a perfect early summer's day in a country designed for such pleasures. Until the mosquitoes found us. Back we charged to Deb for a dab of Deet that would give us a decent night's sleep.
When we got there, she was with three other people around the outside table and seemed a little, well, down. The chirpiness had gone, but off she went to get us some repellent and we happily retreated.
Avis, my wife, noticed what I hadn't. "She's been crying," she said. "I wonder what's wrong?"
Twenty minutes later, as we stood at the lower paddock trying to persuade the horses to play photographic models, the crack of a rifle shot gave us an answer, though it would be later over gin and tonics before things slipped into place.
By then, Deb's tears had gone. But she bit her lip a little in telling a sad tale beginning three weeks earlier when she noticed a small black bear on the side of the road. It looked a little frail, but Deb drove on, assuming Mum was handy.
A few days later, making the same trip, she spotted the bear again and this time she stopped, certain now that the cub was an orphan unable to fend for itself. She picked up the weak and starving animal and drove it home.
For a week, Deb cared for the bear as a mother would for a baby, all the time thinking it was a just a few weeks old, perhaps left to fight for itself after Mum was killed by a car. But at the end of that week, with the cub unable to take much food, she feared there would be no fairy tale attached to this little fellow.
She rang the local bear rescue people, and it was their discussion we had rudely interrupted. Their view: the cub was in fact in its second year, perhaps losing its mother a month or two earlier - and had no chance of recovery.
So while we were looking forward to a cocktail as the sun went down, a neighbouring farmer put the barrel of a .22 to the little bear's head.
Black bears are native to the area. Photo / 123RF
It's odd, isn't it, how a real story like that will stay in the mind long after the standard travel memories have faded. Those human stories - often bright or amusing but sometimes sad or scary - are as much part of the travel experience as sunsets and castles because they offer an insight into a country and its people that glossy brochures don't deliver.
Do you get them staying in fine hotels on the tourist trail? Perhaps you do, but not as often as you trip over them on the road.
At Owlhead Creek, we were coming towards the end of five weeks in British Columbia and western Alberta - three of them on a 4500km loop from the coast through to the Rockies and back again.
Our trail, after a couple of weeks in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island, took us east to Alberta - along Highway 3 for the most part, zig-zagging just above the US border. Then north to Calgary and Edmonton, west to Jasper and south to Lake Louise and Banff - before snaking our way back to Vancouver via Revelstoke, Sicamous, Vernon, Kelowna, Merritt, Lillooet, Whistler and Squamish.
The overwhelming feeling: cities are cities (unless, of course, you're talking of the great ones). No one would dismiss the qualities of Vancouver, smart, lively and attractive with a terrific setting (when the mist and cloud lift), and Victoria, as pretty as an English rose. But Calgary and Edmonton are in that cranes-and-concrete category, without a harbour to ease the aesthetics and stuck with cruel winters.
No, this part of Canada should be regarded by visitors in the same way as sensible tourists would treat New Zealand: when time is precious, don't spend more than a few days in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch when, say, the Far North, Coromandel, Marlborough Sounds and the Catlins are calling.
Back to the road.
First town east from Vancouver is Hope and although beyond Hope may not give a great sense of anticipation, that's where the province starts to open up. As you drift through that network of small towns north of the US border, the word that leaps out at you is "big".
Not the towns themselves, which are often just functional (Huntly on top of Carterton, if you like) but the country that surrounds them. Astonishing land, really. Vast ranges, huge rivers, lakes that stretch for 100km. Even the creeks are 50m across and raging.
We know we have a lovely country here; British Columbia is no less lovely and, dare I say it, grander in a Big way.
Osoyoos, British Colombia, Canada. Photo / iStock
For a snapshot of that grandeur, drive down into Osoyoos, the southern entry to the Okanagan region, and be blown away. Think of hitting the rise coming into Taupo from the north and multiply the vista impact by five.
This is a wonderful part of the world - where driving is on the other side but is straightforward on wide, open highways - though even towns like Nelson, with a setting that can at least be compared to Queenstown, can't hold us for more than a day.
It's the Rockies we're chasing, and after crossing into Alberta through Crowsnest Pass (and diverting, of course, to Heads-Smashed-in Buffalo Jump - the national site with the brutal name, where First Nation Indians herded stampeding wild buffalo to their death over a cliff), we're on our way north across the plains. To Calgary and Edmonton to find old friends, and then west to Jasper, at the top of the Icefields Parkway.
If we were blown away by the mere countryside north of the American border, the Rockies were something else altogether.
Down the parkway we went, spending a full day on a trip you could drive direct in less than four hours through moderate late-spring traffic. It was nowhere near enough. Every kilometre or two, a sign leads to yet another sensational view of waterfall, rapids, river, lake, mountain, or tracks leading to the whole shooting box.
We are no travel novices, but there's been no day to beat the majesty and serene beauty that grabbed us on the Jasper to Lake Louise highway.
We took our time on the return loop to Vancouver, adding the odd black bear to the list of wildlife that caught our eye in the Rockies, enjoying pre-booked bed and breakfasts along the way. The eight-day journey back to Vancouver ran us through Revelstoke to the heart of the rich and beautiful Okanagan region, and then across the wild land to Lillooet, Whistler and Squamish.
It's wonderful country, all of it. But in the end it's the Rockies that do it, piercing the memory and picture book.
Along, of course, with Deb, a woman who did her best to save a little bear.
Deb and Bruce Ritchie, owners of Owlhead Creek in Canada. Photo / Supplied
CHECKLIST
Getting there: Air New Zealand flies from Auckland to Vancouver.
Getting around: If you're planning a road trip through British Columbia, the best time to travel is mid-spring to mid-autumn (from mid April to mid-October). Allow around 18 to 24 days.
Where to stay: Deb and Bruce Ritchie's Owlhead Creek.
