Late June 2020

This excursion was inspired by the “Ghost Towns, Ghost Trails” chapter of Liz Bryan’s book “Exploring the Interior – Country Roads of British Columbia.”  It features a walk along the Tulameen River to see the Vermillion Cliffs, a visit to the beautiful Swan Lake Sanctuary just five minutes northeast of Princeton, and a drive north along the Tulameen River valley to Coalmont, Granite Creek historic site, Tulameen, and the Otter Valley.  I ended this day trip with a night of camping at the wonderfully scenic Kentucky-Alleyne Provincial Park.

I left Vancouver early and tolerated the ride east on the busy Highway 1 to Hope. I was happy to join Highway 3 and always love the drive from Hope, through Manning Park, to Princeton as I can reconnect with two of my very favourite rivers, the Skagit and the Similkameen.  On this trip, I became acquainted with a new river, the Tulameen, which joins the Similkameen just a little ways past the historic one-lane bridge in downtown Princeton.

Upon arrival in Princeton, I parked at the end of Ridgewood Drive and made my way down the steep slope on the Tulameen Trail which forms part of the Trans Canada Trail.  On this section, and for a further 65 kilometers, the TCT follows the rail bed of the abandoned Vancouver, Victoria and Eastern Railway (VV&E) which competed with the Kettle Valley Railway at the turn of the century as a route to the coast.

Very soon, I was crossing the old VV&E railway bridge built over the beautiful Tulameen River.

The first part of the path was paved and, as usual, I enjoyed taking photos of wild flowers along the way.

The trail paralleled the river and after fifteen minutes of easy walking I reached the Vermillion Cliffs, a crumbling rock outcrop also known as the Red Ochre Cliffs.  The colours were vibrant and varied – layers of red, orange, cream, yellow, and black. For the indigenous peoples here, vermilion was called tulameen and Princeton was known by them as Yak Tulameen, “the place where red earth was traded.”

Here is a view of the outcrop from the banks of the river.

And here are some close-ups of some of the colourful rock layers and crushed red ochre.

Along the base of the cliffs there were fan-shaped accumulations of rock chips formed by deposition.  A close up of the chips reveals the beautiful array of rock colours.

On the return trip, I was caught in a thunder shower and got soaking wet, but that was okay as the downpour was short-lived and it cooled the air nicely.  Here is the Tulameen River bridge again, this time with the path wet but drying quickly (just like me), and beyond it is a 1063 foot long railway tunnel, built by the VV&E in 1910, which travels under Highway 3 and the narrow ridge which separates the Similkameen and Tulameen valleys.

It was a wonderful walk!  Afterwards, I drove around the historic western-style town of Princeton, which was named “Vermillion Forks” by the first Europeans to the area, and then renamed “Princeton” in 1860 to commemorate a visit to Canada that year by the Prince of Wales.  Then, feeling a little tired, I drove several kilometers east of Princeton to the town’s municipal campsite on the banks of the Similkameen where I had a relaxing evening camped by the riverside.

The next day, I packed up early and went for a morning visit to the very special, 57 hectare Swan Lake Sanctuary, just a five minute drive northeast of Princeton on the Princeton Summerland road.  What a beautiful place!

Swan Lake is a small “kettle” lake (formed in a bowl-shaped hollow left by a melting glacier), and it is surrounded by gently undulating hills covered in native grasses and meadow flowers, and dotted with ponderosa pines and other conifers.

The sanctuary is noted for bird life and 128 different species have been spotted here.  My bird photography skills and equipment are both sorely lacking but here are two images of birds that are new to me.

I spent some time resting at one of the two bird blinds built on the hillside above the lake, and watched the blackbirds as well as a pair of coots with their one chick, a mallard couple with ten ducklings, and the new-to-me and very striking ruddy ducks with their bright blue bills.

Along the meadow trails, I saw many different types of butterflies, as well as tiny blue dragonflies, but they were all too fast for me to photograph.  Lovely wild flowers, however, stand politely still (unless there’s a breeze), and I learned one new name thanks to an information board – the pale yellow flower is called salsify.

Here are several more photos from my lovely walk in the Swan Lake sanctuary.

And now the best photo of all!

After my visit to the Swan Lake Sanctuary, I took the Tulameen Road north out of Princeton towards Coalmont.  This road rose quickly to high above the river and there were many sections where stopping was not allowed because of rock fall hazards on the cliff-side of the roadway.  There was one pull out where I was able to safely stop to photograph the Tulameen River below.

Soon, I arrived in Coalmont, a place out of time it seemed.  Three lovely old buildings, empty and fading, but still beautiful, captured my immediate attention.  Built in the first decade of the 1900s, Coalmont once hoped to be “the City of Destiny, the coal-mining metropolis of southern B.C.” with a predicted population of 10,000 inhabitants.  The surface coal, however, was quickly exhausted and the deeper seams in the area were thin and not very profitable. By the 1940s all mines in the area had closed, but not before disaster struck at the Number 4 mine in nearby Blakeburn.  There, a huge explosion in 1930 buried 45 miners underground.

I had arrived in Coalmont around noon, and there was a deep stillness to the place, with no-one to be seen, no dogs barking, no cars driving.  There was just the pleasing sound of the hot, dry breeze stirring the cottonwoods, and the silent accompaniment of tiny bits of cottonwood fluff floating by in the air.

There were quite a few dilapidated dwellings, with yards full of old vehicles and trailers, hoarder-style, as well as some tidier homes.  I know that old cars cannot decompose and become earth, but these specimens were making a good attempt!

 

After my walk through Coalmont, I drove to the Tulameen River at the edge of town and crossed over the Coalmont Bridge.

Two kilometers south of the bridge is the abandonded town site of Granite Creek – sometimes called Granite City – which was briefly the third largest town in B.C. after a large gold nugget was found in the creek by a cowboy, Johnny Chance, in 1885. Once the site of more than 200 buildings, including 13 saloons, the place is now almost completely vacant.  Set on a grassy flat next to the creek, there are just a few surviving remnants of cabins and bits of foundations, and depressions left by old cellars and the diggings of treasure hunters.  Grasses and wild rose are taking over, but there is a very good walking tour with sign boards that detail the history of this place so that it is not completely forgotten.

I walked down to the creek and of course looked for any large nuggets of gold that might be found, hopefully just sitting there, glimmering in the rush of water.

Alas, there were none.  Amazingly, the miners had also found a white mineral intermixed with the gold in their pans that was very difficult to separate out and was just dumped back into the river.  The mineral was platinum, but it was unknown to the miners at the time.  Apparently, the Tulameen River system and Russia’s Amur River are the only places in the world where free platinum is found. In her “Country Roads of British Columbia”, Liz Bryan tells the story of one miner, a Swede named Johanssen, who had buried a bucket of the white stuff beside his cabin door – 10 kilograms worth!  His cabin burned down in one of the fires which destroyed Granite Creek after the town was abandoned. Legend has it that the bucket is still there, somewhere, but (again, alas) digging is not permitted at this historic site.

Still, there were a few more treasures for me to be had just by continuing my journey north.  I left Granite Creek and Coalmont somewhat reluctantly and drove up to Tulameen, a slightly larger and much tidier town that seemed to favour the present rather than the past.  I stopped for a quick lunch at the neat and tidy park at the south end of Otter Lake, right on the edge of the town.

After a few more kilometres, the road turned into gravel and continued north, following the west side of Otter Lake, and then the narrow Otter River Valley.  Deep green grazing land was strung between forested slopes and was punctuated by small marshy lakes and isolated ranch houses, barns, and corrals.  I was mindful of the fact that the road I was travelling with such ease in my vehicle was the same route taken by the HBC Trail of 1859, and later the old stagecoach road between Princeton and Nicola, when the gruelling journey between those two settlements took a day and a half.

As I neared the end of the Otter Valley I stopped to take a photo of an old barn across the way, and then a photo looking south back down this lush green valley.

Soon after this point, the Otter Valley disappeared behind me and the road turned and climbed quickly through a short rugged section of forest, and before I knew it I was up on the high plateau of fenced grasslands.  A “Nicola Ranch” sign at one cattle guard crossing surprised me (“Nicola is a ways north of here,” I thought), and then a “Douglas Lake Ranch” sign surprised me even more. What a huge ranch that is!

I greatly enjoyed this last section of the road, with the rolling grassy hills, huge blue sky, small glimmering lakes, and the happy glimpse of a mountain blue bird. But, I was also ready for the road to join up with Highway 5A, so that a kilometre or two later I could take the short access road east to Kentucky-Alleyne Provincial Park and have some choice in the selection of a good campsite. Which luckily I did. 🙂

What a wonderful road trip on a varied and historic route from Princeton to Coalmont, the Otter Valley, and beyond.  Thank you B.C. country roads!