By Peter Christensen

Op-Ed Commentary

“I can’t think of nothin’ finer than ridin’ a jacked-up Dodge Ram 300 down the west slope of the Rockies from Sinclair Pass into ‘the valley’ and makin’ the round turn at ‘The Bighorn’ Traffic Circle!”

Radium Hot Springs, gateway to ‘the valley.’ Multiple rows of brown townhouses provide accommodation and views for working people, for elders who have grown tired of maintaining a house, a god-send, they say. As the year-round population multiplies so does small business revenue; restless travelers bring life to the streets.

The Canfor sawmill, one of 31 mills worldwide ‘leads the world in manufacturing low-carbon forest products’, down by the tracks next to the river is delimited by hectares of stacked logs. There is a new recycle depot. With only one garage a person must book an oil change at least a month ahead.

The billboards on the Reserve are new. Home Hardware boasts a large, fenced mess of a yard that one can contemplate while waiting in the lineup at ‘the cross-roads’ light, the turn off Highway 93 onto the cosmopolitan shopping strip that lines the way to Invermere.

Stores are big and fronted by sprawling parking lots. It feels urban, safe. Passing the box stores, one descends and crosses historic Athalmer and ascends the overpass above the CP line carrying mile long trains loaded with coal to be shipped to Asia. Downtown Invermere hosts a main street fashion parade of young families peering in windows at shiny clothes, shoes and trinkets.

With a little patience parking can be found, if not on main street then a block behind. A few retail spaces are empty and unrented because older buildings do not meet code or are caught in a real estate stranglehold. The Toby Theatre remains closed.

Invermere feels prosperous. Flowerboxes bursting with dizzying colors line the streets. Bare midriffs adorn coffee shops; there is a half hour wait to buy pastries at the bakery. On Lake Windermere, Pynelogs Cultural Centre, the restored summer residence of pioneer gentry and for many years a hospital and home for the mentally challenged hosts a new Art Show each a month defiant of the idea that that “God hates art, the trifling rival of creation.” The beach is crowded.

Yesterday, after leading our North Coast visitor on a lunch hike down and up the benchland folds of Sunshine Ranch Provincial Park to Lake Windemere we stopped at the big pull-out above Columbia Lake, a grand place to view the Columbia River flowing north and the Kootenay River flowing south.  At this lookout I feel immersed in the Rocky Mountain Trench, overpowered by an endlessness that suggests I should mind my own business.

Traces of white foam follow a frenzy of wake-boats rousing the otherwise cooler and wind rippled waters of Columbia Lake. Just off the lookout parking lot a young woman wearing a sprawling sun hat sits in a lawn-chain, a pad on her knees. Y assumed she was doing a sketch, walks over to say hello: she is counting boats, part of a Lake Windermere Ambassador’s survey. Today’s count on Columbia Lake is 70. Last year on the same day, 10.

A restless energy fired by Alberta wealth and their lust for independence spurs traffic to four-lane speeds, people are busy, there are jobs. Alberta has tumbled over the Great Divide and embraced ‘the valley’. Luxury communities appear and fill in over a summer. A thriving music industry associated with bigger places is happening. Pubs employ entertainment coordinators who deal guitars, rent amps and book bands months in advance.

A mobile Bull Riding Rodeo’s sets up, runs and is takedown within downtown limits in a weekend.

Blue Rodeo plays the street dance and is sold out!

A big change in frequency as well as the style of traffic is noted south of Canal Flat(s). No longer spell-bound by polished SUVs, Crossovers, Sport Coupes and jacked-up pick-up’s the vision of a Platinum Quad Cab, Short Box 350 filling up at the Crossroads Esso and hosting an elder male wearing hanging weightlifter attire followed by a tribe of copycat offspring… fades.

Logging and commercial trucks are spaced between intermittent lines of unwashed cars and half tons ranging in age and condition. The narrowing Upper Columbia is left behind. I encounter the open spaces of the Skookumchuck Prairie, the towering and spaced Bull Pine before entering the uncrowded City of Cranbrook.

The road up the Horsethief is blocked from a mud slide, there is a fire up Bugaboo Creek.  Fall approaches, prices are lowered on speed boats and holiday trailers. ‘Marketplace’ is filling with winter tire listings.

– Peter Christensen is a Columbia Valley based writer and poet

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