Out There: Looping Through the Selkirks
By Allyson Kenning
As a kick-off to my long weekend staycation (which for me means staying at home being a home-body), my dad and I decided to go on a road trip from Rossland, to Creston, and then over to Nelson. The Salmo-Creston-Nelson part of this route now has an actual name, as evidenced by the signs I kept seeing along the way: the International Selkirk Loop. Like any good highway route, it has its own web page, too. It’s “international” because part of the loop goes through Washington and Idaho states.<?xml:namespace prefix = o />
The impetus for this adventure came from my dad listening to rave reviews of a restaurant in Creston on a call-in show on CBC Radio. This is significant because my dad hates the CBC. But despite that, he got so excited about this restaurant we just had to go. And so, on Friday, we did.
I enjoy a nice jaunt up the Salmo-Creston, AKA Kootenay Pass. It’s so scenic and really is a shining example of some of the epic landscapes we are lucky to have so close at hand here. Stunning vistas, still touched with just a hint of snow, and at the top, a really nice spot with a pretty blue lake and more great views.
One thing was blatantly missing though, something I can remember being on the Salmo-Creston since I was a kid and that stood out to me as a child travelling that route on a regular basis: the forest fire watch towers! Those dark green, cylindrical huts on big stilts, accessed by precarious-looking winding stairways, and all sporting giant white numbers (one through three from what I recall, but I’m ready to be corrected) were gone. I guess they hadn’t been used in years, victims of technology, perhaps, then deemed obsolete and removed. I couldn’t believe it–or rather I could–but I was sad to see them vanish. Those towers captured my imagination as a child, and counting up and down the numbers, depending on the direction we were going in, meant we were either closer to the top of the pass or closer to home.
After a brief stop at the top of the pass to take in the view, we continued on to Creston and our lunch destination: the brand new Real Food Cafe on 10th Avenue. Only open two months according to our server, it has a menu boasting a really fantastic homemade clam chowder, which I found contains chunks of real clams (not from a can), a chicken cacciatore sandwich, and two burgers that captured my dad’s attention when callers were raving about them on the CBC: the Real Burger, consisting of organic, locally-raised ground beef, and a veggie burger made from quinoa and black beans called the Fields of Glory Burger.
I had the beef and dad had the veggie. Both were very tasty, and the organic beef was impressive to me: tasty, juicy, and perfectly cooked. Inspired by what we’d had so far, we both decided to indulge in dessert and lo and behold, their dessert menu had on it something that will tickle the taste buds of any purebred Brit: sticky toffee pudding! Sighting this item at the same time, Dad and I let out identical, simultaneous cries of joy, surely making our server think we were slightly daffy.
In the end, Dad ordered the sticky toffee pudding and I ordered the bread pudding with whiskey sauce and we shared. Both desserts were lovely; the sticky toffee was more spongy than versions I’d had elsewhere, but it was delicious.
What Kenning father-daughter road trip would be complete without a trip to a cheese factory? I could have kicked myself when, at the restaurant door on our way out, I spied a pamphlet advertising the Kootenay Alpine Cheese Company. Dad got so excited that we suddenly had a new item on our itinerary.
The map on the pamphlet was terrible and we had a hell of a time finding the place. It’s really off the beaten track in a big way, but we did get to take in more of the valley than I’d seen before and the scenery was very nice indeed. Once we found the cheese place, my dad proceeded to do what he normally does at such places: samples, talks the cheese maker’s leg off about various cheese-related things, then purchases a bunch of cheese.
It turns out that Kootenay Alpine Cheese provides Real Food Cafe with its organic ground beef, and it sells the beef, as well as organic pork, to individuals as well.
After the cheese factory, we continued along the Selkirk Loop from Creston to Nelson via the Kootenay Lake Ferry. This is a really gorgeous drive, but there’s a lot of traffic congestion along the route in the summer. Not only are the views of the lake from the highway a treat for the eyes, but there are a lot of cool little communities on this part of the lake, like Grey Creek and Crawford Bay, and there is also the Glass House.
It was along this section of highway that we saw a medium-sized brown bear just sitting on the side of the road gorging itself on weeds, with not a care in the world. It was a bad place to stop and take photos, so I didn’t get a wicked wildlife shot, which was disappointing.
We finally arrived at Kootenay Bay, only to discover it looked more like Schwartz Bay because all nearly all the lanes were completely full. We’d arrived between ferries. The hoard of waiting travelers seemed to take everything in stride, and there was a festive vibe in the air, with groups standing around chatting, even breaking open beers, swimming, playing with the multitude of dogs, and eating ice cream cones. We didn’t get on the next ferry; it was the smaller of the two that does the route. Dad and I decided to get gouged for ice cream ($6.25 for two scoops on a waffle cone!) and relaxed at a bench looking over the water.
We did get the next ferry, the larger Osprey. This is a free ferry ride, if you didn’t know that already, and it’s a scenic trip worth your time and effort. I always get a little choked up crossing the lake here because it’s just so beautiful, and once more, I have fond memories of this journey as a child. As an adult, I am still awestruck by the splendour of the blue waters meeting the steep rise of the surrounding mountains. I took many photos.
Finally reaching Nelson at 6:30 PM (we’d left Rossland at 11:00 AM), dad picked up some groceries at Save-on Foods and I sat again by the lake in the company of some pigeons, enjoying the relative calm sense of peace the spot gave me. It was a long day, but it was worth it, and as I often am when I go on these kinds of trips, I was grateful to be living in the Koots where days like this can be had.
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