False Creek Hiking/Biking Trail

With several hours to kill between movies at the Vancouver International Film Festival, I took off along the False Creek Trail under a sunny fall sky. Heading for Grandville Island, a four-kilometre one way hike, I followed a paved route by shimmering water.

A city by the sea

The Trans-Canada Highway runs right across Canada from Victoria where I was headed on the west coast, to Newfoundland on the east coast, nearly eight thousand kilometres. Not surprisingly, it’s the longest national highway in the world. I had been to its eastern extreme so was keen to visit the highway’s starting point. (featured image)

Yoho National Park

I drove through Rogers Pass with a view of snow-capped mountains on one side and a glacier on the other. After Golden I reached Canada’s second national park together with Glacier National Park—Yoho. Banff was Canada’s first national park. Yoho’s a Cree word meaning awe or wonder and that was exactly how I felt amidst its natural beauty. Originally, this park had only covered twenty-six square kilometres, but was later extended to cover more than a thousand square kilometres. Close to British Columbia’s border with Alberta, the park was situated on the western side of the Rocky Mountains. Within the park were more than twenty mountains that were over three thousand metres in height.

Glacier National Park

Further east than Mount Revelstoke National Park was Glacier National Park established in 1886. Tall hemlock and cedars lined the path of Hemlock Grove Boardwalk, a setting made perfect because no one else was there on that early morning.

Mount Revelstoke National Park

My destination was Canyon Hot Springs, forty kilometres east of Revelstoke, but I wanted to visit Mount Revelstoke National Park first. Situated in the Selkirk Mountains, the park covered two hundred and sixty square kilometres and was established in 1914.

Painted Chasm Provincial Park

Clinton was almost four hundred kilometres north-east of Vancouver and four kilometres from the town was Painted Chasm Provincial Park. It had been designated as protected land in 1940. Like other neighbouring regions, lava flows had formed coloured layers millions of years ago. Then ten thousand years back a waterfall formed the chasm and the layers were exposed.

Barkerville—a historic gold rush town

The road east from Quesnel to Barkerville was deserted except for a few deer and grazing cattle. The town had been named after a miner who discovered the richest deposit of gold back in 1861, nevertheless, he died penniless. At the peak of Barkerville’s gold mining days the population swelled to 5 000—the majority of the people being Chinese. 

Nairn Falls Provincial Park

This small provincial park stretched parallel to the Sea-to Sky Highway. Located just north of Whistler and one hundred and fifty kilometres north of Vancouver, the trail by the Green River was an easy three-kilometre hike. 

The Sunshine Coast

In a region that receives about one hundred centimetres (not millimetres) of rain annually, I cannot fathom how British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast got its name. However, during the summer I first visited, I was lucky to experience some of its namesake.

Fairmont Hot Springs

Not far from British Columbia’s border with Alberta was Fairmont. I knew nothing about the small town before my visit. In fact, I hadn’t heard of it. Nearby, Radium Springs was well known to me for its hot springs, but Fairmont had remained elusive until this year.