If you live far from BC, there’s a fair chance that you only know the BC coast, especially Vancouver and Victoria. If so, you’re missing a very different part of Canada. I know it because my brother-in-law Peter and his wife Heather live in Kelowna, which draws us there often. They were among the more than 200 people who lost their homes when the great firestorm of 2003 swept into town. After our success in publishing The Ice Storm, we at M&S knew how to rush out books about Canadian natural disasters, cold or hot, East or West, so by enlisting the help of the Kelowna Daily Courier we swiftly brought out Firestorm: The Summer B.C. Burned.
As I say in Across Canada By Story: “It raised lots of money for reclamation projects, although it was nothing compared with the estimated 250 million trees lost in the fire.”
In September I tried to (ahem) set the house on fire in the Okanagan College Theatre in Kelowna, where a polite audience, not all of them relatives, watched the very first public performance of my new power-point stage show, “Across Canada By Story”. It went well enough, and the fire brigade was not involved. The organiser, the tireless author and teacher John Lent, then outdid himself by arranging another show for me THE VERY NEXT DAY in Vernon.
Three points there. The drive from Kelowna to Vernon shows the Okanagan (pronounced “awe-gan”) at its very best. High, dry hills roll down to scenic lakes, with irrigated fields producing apples and wine-bearing grapes and many lesser fruits and vegetables. One of the towns along the way is now named simply “Lake Country”, although Vernon itself now has around 50, 000 people. Second, the show was held at the fairly new Okanagan College Vernon campus, surely the most beautiful campus in all of Canada, perched high above Kalamalka Lake. And third, the afternoon show revealed that the area is now rich in writers, including my old friend, the fine poet Sharon Thesen.
Finally, a quick trip into Vernon reminded me that we were now in Across Canada By Story territory. Signs there directed us to Nelson, where Jane and I had greatly enjoyed our time at the Elephant Mountain Literary Festival, before driving west into the breathtaking scenery of the BC Interior.