How to hunt soapstone

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on the old Brigade ‘:rail

SAVONA — If you want to kunt for some soapstone for
carving, go to Deadman Creek valley on a day in June
when the bees and birds and all nature sing praise to the
early morning sun. Turn your car right off the Trans-
Canada Highway 10 kilometres west of here and drive

slowly, softly into history.

The Shuswap people have a
reserve here, where the Deadman
Creek is nearing its junction with
the Thompson River. The valley is
at its widest, a little less than a
kilometre wall to wall and the flat
bottom land grows good giass and
feed crops.

The houses are neat and, uniike
many Indian reserves, spread far
apart from one another on the
family holdings, not huddled
together like chickens under a
hawk as in some villages. The ef-
fect is serenity and confidence.

It would not be hard to live in
such a community, close enough
to the city of Kamloops for shop-
ping but far enough away you
could forget a city existed.

The pavement quits 10
kilometres from the Trans-Canada
and now you’re on the kind of
road worth travelling — packed
earth, with just enough gravel to
make the tires rustle. It is exactly
twice the width of the car so wren
you meet another vehicle you will
both have to slow to pass and nod
or wave to one another as you go

ry.

On this day there isn’t a single
vehicle to be met. One or two men
in the fields, some horses and
cows and on the road itself two
types of groundhogs, one with a
fat and bushy tail, the other with
the little stub tail of the prairie
gopher.

Both types sit up on their hind
legs to watch your car approach
and both nod politely as you pass
by. Manners are everything in the
Deadman Creek valiey.

A few more kilometres and a
road branches left. This is the
Back Valley road which will take
you out to near Cache Creek and
is well worth negotiating for sce-
nery although not, it is said, for
soapstone.

vous
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Paul
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PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES

Another road used sometimes
by loggers branches right. There is
some logging activity in the area,
but there has been none within the
walls of the valley and every tree
keeps claim to its own wide space
on these dry sidehills.

Where the non-Indian ranch
country begins there is a con-
vulsive outpouring of basaltic rock
on the eastern bank of the creek.
This was volcano country a few
tens of millions of years ago.
Prospectors like cuch regions. So
do people who hunt agates and
thunder eggs.

The clean gravel banks of the
clean creek look as though they’d
be worth walking for agate but
the time of day is wrong. Agates
should be hunted in the early
morning or late evening sun when
the light strikes at a shallow angle
and makes the agates show their
jelly-like translucence.

The narrower the valley
becomes the more tie little road
twists. Grasslands end and trees

INTRODUCING

march down the hill to the edge of
the road.

There is more sign of the old
volcanoes. A whole sidehill is built
of brilliant red rock, the color of
the small red bricks we made
earlier in this century.

Lukes begin. Narrow, deep,
clear lakes with kokanee in them
and campsites, this day ail vacant,
on the shore.

Vidette Lake is prettiest of all.
{cis marked by a tity island,
about as big as five dinner tables,
out of which grows one tall and
perfect lodgepole pine tree.

The little road pants up a steep
hill to the Cariboo Plateau. This
is historic ground. The original
road to Cariboo, the Hudson’s
Bay Brigade Trail, came through
here out of Fort Kamloops, con-
tinued north to Bonaparte and
Loon lakes and later joined the
present Cariboo road route.

Here, 60 kilometres from the
Trans-Canada is Deadman Falls, a
spectacular sight, rivalling those
on the Mahood River.

The river pours over a bigh cliff
face and, with rainbows playing
upon it, casts itself into a bow! of
white ice, five metres thick.

The place is extremely danger-
ous for small children, drunks and
over-anxious photographers who
fean too far over the crumbling
cliff, but that’s what nature is like
when left to herself, Be respectful
or she’l! eat you up.

Here, among the rainbows, it’s
time for bread and cheese,
Okanagan plonk in a paper cup
and reflection on the soapstone
deposit, which was on the road-
side 15 kilometres back, under a
cluster of towering hoodoos.

Soapstone hell. It’s talc and not
much better for carving than a
loaf of fresh McGavin’s bread,
sliced. But, then, the man didn’t
say this was a good place to find
soapstone. He said it was a good
place to hunt for soapstone. And
how right he was. Always trust
advice from the locals.
BE

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7, ooiati

Friday, May 31, 1991 — Norih Shore News - 9

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