* 26 -- Sunday, July 24,: 1994 - North Shore News

Travelling back te youth

Longing for accustomed places and other adventures in the heart of Cariboo Country

Eleanor

THE VINTAGE YEARS
MYSELF WHEN voung
— Omar’s phrase was
much in my heed last
weekend, 2s I came face
to face, over and over,
with the differences
between my early days
and present reality.

But one never learns, which
was the whole gist of his poem.
We'd set out on a journey,

you see, my husband and I,
Es tly to peek at the past, partly
to renew a iove affair with the
Cariboo. And like a lot of jour-
neys, it stirred things up — like
learning of the improvements
to the Duffey Lake Road, and

. therefore a different access
our favorite area,

That beguiled us.

We'd both, separately, when
we were young, been through
Marble Canyon way, but this

’ would be country we’d never
seeri. It’s worth the exercise,
believe me.

You point your getaway car
at the Sea-to-Sky Highway,

. which you will leave at
Pemberton on the split-off to
Lillooet. Gravel road here, for
the first.10 miles. (One had
forgotten dust, ugh!, and how
rough the ride.)

Of course, it makes pave-
ment; when you finally grate-
fully reach it, a welcome relief.

On this road it doesn’t translate
into better speed, though,
because it’s twisty. Corkscrew
twisty.

And for the first time in
memory we see a sign warning
of “Extreme Grades.”

They’re not kidding. It’s up,
up and more up until you think
you're pressing right into, and
onto, the top of the Coast
Range. This is the Cadwellder
Range part, we think the map
says, and we’re offered awe-
some views. There are
avalanche warning signs every
few yards, it seems, end huge
chunks of rock at the roadside
testify to the need for this
warning.

- One of these signs warns
truckers to gear down oa
account of the 13% drop. That’s
steep. You feel as though
you're riding on the nose of
your radiator.

The summit achieved at last,
and now you plunge down the
far side. We’re lucky. We’re
behind a tour bus, and we tail
him almost ali the way into
Lillooet, grateful for his focal:
knowledge and his disciplined
driving job.

The highway sp:rals down
the mountain corridors, offer-
ing magnificent views. It all
looks inaccessible to man, but
there are several areas of
clearcut (How could they pos-
sibly manoeuvre?) and also
lots of evidence of reforest::-
-tion. Looks like spruce for the
most part, some hemlock,
some balsam and fir.

But you know, seeing those
millions of trees, and seeing in
your mind the duplication of
these enormous forests all over
British Columbia, you wonder
why the frothing over cutting
some down.

People need wood for muiti- |
ple purposes, and here is boun-
ty. Our own province could
feed an awful lot of starving

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a few spaces for growing and
pasturing.

Take a trip; take a look.

All of a sudden we’re out of
the mountains and into the dry-
belt. Seton Lake is a gorgeous
colour, and one smiles wistful-
ly seeing remnants of the old
flumes that used to lace the
hillsides. .

Something brand new,
though — puzzling acres of
shiny black material, stretching
all over successive slopes.
What’s going on? And then we
see the Ginseng Farm signs,
and remember reading about
this astonishing value-added
crop that finds happiness grow-
ing in our Interior.

The black tarpaulins, woven
from synthetic fibres, keep the
warmth in but deny the sun
itself, which would kill the
crop. So we have our reunion
with the beautiful Cariboo
countryside, and once more see

70 Mile house, the old 83, the
Hundred — how did these
places escape metricization, I
wonder?

Do you think history won
for once? Must be.

It would surely be funny to
cal] it the “Hundred and Sixty
Kilometre House” — I doubt
the locals would sit still for it.

I started this column rather
oddly, I know, dragging in poor
Omar Khayyam in that sly
way. It was just that I found
having a holiday so difficult
now that I’m so old, and I was
dismayed at how easily I got
rattled about time and where
did I put the pills and how
could I forget my belt.

That’s way I thought so
often of myself when young,
when taking trains and planes
and sailing ships was an adven-
ture, not a reason to fall into
anxiety. It’s unexpected, learn-
ing that one is no longer a trav-

eller, that one has to have
things in accustomed places or
come unstuck.

Silly to regret, we’ ve had
our turn, like the flumes and
the stage-coach that would seat §
at least six and the one-room '
schoolhouse:and the biffy at
the back of the lot.

Still, one is rich in recollec-
tions,

Makes you feel like the
Missing Link.

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