September 27th

We were due to set out from the Precipice today, beginning the long journey south. The aspen leaves are a bright gold-yellow carpet, softly spoken beneath our feet, and it’s the right time to be leaving – the restlessness of autumn, before the snow, the tipping in every fibre. Then, last night, we gather up at Rosemary and Dave’s, Klaus chugging his way over from the ranch in the middle of the valley, Fred and Monica from their farm at the Western extreme, before it falls on down toward the Hotnarko Trench, solitary, massive tear in the Coast Range Mountains, still shrunk beneath them, home to Bella Coola. So all the current valley gang are there. Only Lee is missing, gone three or four days with a bunch of cattle fresh off the range for the Williams Lake sale.

It’s home-baked pizza on a grand scale, moose mince and all, and it’s billed as a farewell after the month we’ve spent here in this extraordinary spot (more of which we will write of later). But just as we arrive the news begins to trickle through on the satellite phone, from friends and contacts East and West - The road has gone.


Precipice Valley is a good 1½ hours from Anahim Lake, a mix of rough and very rough track. Anahim Lake is on Highway 20, only artery from William’s Lake to the East and Bella Coola to the West, last stretches only opened in the ‘50s, big chunks still unpaved. And, after three days of rain like no-one can remember, great lumps of that Highway are now downriver. And we’re cut off to both the East (where we were due to be heading) and the West.

We don’t yet have a clue about the track. The rain took breath yesterday, before we heard what was up with the Highway, and the four of us climbed toward the ‘rim rock’ that fringes the north edge of the valley, aiming for Joseph’s Lake, in fresh sunshine and relishing what we thought was our last day. We didn’t get there – the Precipice ‘creek’ bridge washed out, and the torrent too dangerous to risk fording again and again (once with Kai enough). Then the rain started up once more last night, and all night, drumming on the cabin roof. And right the way through, until mid afternoon, when at long last the thin sun elbowed a little space and the sodden valley began to steam.

So tomorrow, if the heavens hold, Dave and I will set out on ATVs to check out the track. The Granny White Dragon is an hour down it, parked as far in as we could safely get her. And she may well have to live up to her name in the day’s to come. But not for a while – any which way there is no way that we’ll be leaving this wild and wonderful neck of the woods for some time to come. There are photos on the web of hunky highwaymen in chunky lumberjackets beside fancy helicopters beside some very large holes, more like vanishings, and they haven’t got a clue as yet as to how long it will take them to conjure them back.


Today we were a bit anxious. The rain kept on and on relentless, and we had movement in our boots, and good plans made, re-unions with kind folk en-route south, some time to catch breath in Wallowa County at Rick’s before meeting up with Mum and Dad on the distant stretches of the Imnaha River, even a cinema visit, popcorn spilling, in Vancouver as Arcteryx kindly fixed-up my trusty, age-old companion of a rucksack. Then suddenly caught, held back just as we step forward, worried that things might not be as we’d hoped. But tonight our mood has shifted. You read the first few pages of Cliff Kopas’ account of his 1930s packhorse trek to Bella Coola, stuffed with tales of 19th century adventures, trappers, red-haired packers, of families trapped by snow searching for mythical trails, babies born as wolves attacked the stock, and you know that this place has nothing to do with schedules. Sure you might have dreams, and know the trees you need to fall today and tomorrow for the cabin you dream of just here next year, beside the creek. But hold them gingerly. Don’t play with expectation. Don’t for a moment assume. For the wind or rain or snow or fire hold the cards, or the grizzly you forgot to make damn sure you kept an eye on, or the pack rat that nicks your tea.

There’s an account by the Marquis of Lorne, Governor General in the 1880s, of his travels through the Canadian West, and his opening sketch is of his wagon wending a way along a narrow trail through towering firs. The forest dwarfs his wagon, it’s a humble splinter in the midst of giants. It is enough to make you cry. First growth as they call it. Like First Nations. Framing that picture I have this jagged edge - the old-time saw, antique, rusty, massive, across the broad wall of Bonnie’s barn; the photos of rough-necked lumberjacks on jerry-built scaffolds, about the towering life-force they’re about to fall, five to each end, oddly humble in their moustaches and sweat and moment.

Where does our desire to tame come from? How foolish are we when we begin to believe we do so? Here, even now, the rain just keeps on falling and the rivers move mountains.