Crawford Bay Spin

 By Maryanna Gabriel

Whitewater is where people ski in the Kootenay area. The famous Whitewater cookbooks drew me and I thought perhaps a great dining experience might be just the thing, given my skiing days were behind me. Driving in snow is not one of my strengths in life so I white-knuckled it up to the resort. The road was a straight vertical, matched only by my blood pressure. At the first ski lift and turnoff, I wildly rotated and without hesitation madly clutched the steering wheel back down again, praying my tires would navigate the ice. That was the end of that and I have survived to tell the tale. 

"Longest Free Ferry In The World"

Something less alarming, perhaps. My sights were set on a different part of the Kootenies. It meant crossing beautiful Kootenay Lake on a ferry and seeing a mysterious and less accessible area, Crawford Bay. The photos made it look like Hawaii the way the sand seemed to arrange itself around the inlet and I pictured lounging there with a book. "The Osprey" is the "world's longest free ferry", a titillating sensation given the fortune spent living in the Southern Gulf Islands over the years.

I packed a lunch. It was a beautiful day as I travelled on the ferry from sleepy Balfour where everything was closed, to historic Kootenay Bay. Kootenay Bay used to be a thriving enterprise and a major transport point for goods and miners from steamships to rail. But now? What remains is a paved parking lot accompanied by gender neutral washrooms, always a bit disconcerting. So I drove in a vast and remote geography beneath snow-capped mountains and glaciers that did not look at all like they were melting.

View From Crawford Bay

Crawford Bay was not what I thought, inaccessible, reedy looking, lonesome feeling, and everything shut tight. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the winters. Not for me. Exploring further, I came to a town I was curious about called Riondel. With all the natural space, the houses were cheek by jowel and had the feeling of the 1940's with their construction. Bunkhouses housed miners back in the day. Robert Sproule staked claims in Riondel in 1882 which included the Bluebell Mine, but he ended up being hung for murder in 1886 over a claim dispute. Today it is a retirement community with a population of less than 400. 

Riondel, mining town founded in 1882.

So that was that. I managed the drive in the opposite direction to lovely Pilot Bay and then it was time to go. Ferries do not wait. Do people become inured to the beauty, I wondered? 

Breathtaking Kootenay Lake