Nakusping

Nakusping Indeed!

I know. There is no such word as "Nakusping". But I thought it sounded so nice. And we did have such a lovely time in Nakusp. This tiny Kootenay town was always high on our agenda, but when Di got injured we had to cancel our original booking. We were both so glad we were able to rejig the trip so that we could spend a couple of full days and two half days in this lovely little town, especially after having passed through here on a previous trip and finding it such a sweet spot to be. Hopefully the following fotos will demonstrate why we dearly wanted to come back.

You know a town has a good vibe going when a mural like this features prominently on Main Street

Getting there

It isn't a long way from Lake Louise to Nakusp, but we wanted to make an early start anyway, as we planned a break for breakfast, a walk and getting a washing done. It started to rain as we were leaving Lake Louise and really poured most of the way from there all the way to Revelstoke, where it eased off to light showers. Here's a look at the journey ...

It's almost exactly 300 kms from Lake Louise to Nakusp; Revelstoke is two-thirds of the way

Revy in Light Rain

It was good to get out of the car and stretch our legs in "Revy", as the locals fondly refer to their town. We were looking forward to a short visit after our trip south to Nakusp and thought it would be nice to have a poke around in the meantime. First things first though: BREAKFAST! We found a great coffee shop called the Modern Bakeshop and Cafe right in the middle of town. And then it was time for our stroll ...

Featuring first up, some of the well-preserved early architecture from the centre of town ...

Old lamp-posts with hanging baskets add character and colour

There seems to be a great sense of pride in keeping everything well presented

The Custom & Excise building has become a museum and archives

More well-maintained premises

Not far away is the wonderful old schoolhouse, which has now been repurposed to house several businesses ...

How is that for a grand entranceway to a school?

For some reason we quite liked the look of this house ...

Not sure why we liked this place so much ... maybe because it has been so well maintained

Revelstoke has a brilliant old railway museum, (worth clicking on the link just for the into page: trust me) which we dropped into when passing through on a previous trip to Canada because there was a fantastic model train set on display. This time we found the Fire Fighters Museum ...

There was a nice bit whimsy in someone's front yard ...

Finally, I just had to get Dianne to pose for me in front of this magnificent rhododendron ...

The job of getting our laundry done was next on the agenda. This task has become my responsibility in our travels since Di had her accident so she got to read and sleep, read and sleep, read and sleep (a bit hypnotic, eh?) while I did the deed.

Back on the road the most interesting part of the journey was catching the free ferry across Upper Arrow Lake - which we've done before. This time I took a short video to show what conditions were like ...

Our Stay in Nakusp

A Walk Around Town

There were a bunch of sculptures scattered around the town but two stood out for us. The first was of a bear ...

I think its got to be a grizzly

... but it was this one that really entranced us and as a consequence I took a few pictures of it ...

Wow! What's happening here?!?

This plaque gives a hint ...

"Future Pours out" Love it!

Another close up ...

I think it's fitting that this sculpture has it's own little garden surrounding it ...

... and aren't the plantings appropriate! 

The town has preserved many old buildings and, as you'd probably expect, repurposed most of them. One that has kept its original remit is the courthouse. Judging from its stature there can't be a lot of serious offending here ...

Nakusp Courthouse

A Ride to New Denver

On our first full day in Nakusp I went off for a ride to New Denver, a journey of just on 100 kms return (with a couple of stealthy detours to get to three figures 😉). After a few days in the mountains it was finally warm enough for me to ride in short sleeves which was very nice ...

Ego photo

Just south of New Denver I rode past this place ...

... and then a house where someone had parked an old pickup truck

A few kilometres from the high point in the road I got a bit of respite in a couple of places where there were some major roadworks were taking place and the traffic was restricted to one lane ...

... and we had a couple of short waits ...

There is a very nice lake at the top, appropriately named "Summit Lake" with a Provincial Park campground and a private resort on its shores ...

On the long downhill towards New Denver some nice views started to unfold before me ...

... especially looking across Slocan Lake ...

With recent rains causing whatever snow is left on the mountains to melt more quickly, the streams and rivers are all flowing quickly ...

After a quick turnaround in New Denver I rode steadily back up to Summit Lake as I was keen to get back to Di ...

Along the way there were quite a few outbreaks of lupins, which - although quite pretty - have become very widespread and are overpowering other native flowering plants ...

On one of my detours on the outskirts of Nakusp I rode by this classic log home and thought it might look good in the blog ...

Di Visits the Nakusp Museum

A significant proportion of the Nakusp museum is dedicated to present some aspects of the lifestyle of the Sinixt Nation who lived here for millennia before white people took their land from them. Here are a few images from that display ...

A diorama of a Sinixt pit-house

Sinixt canoe and various artefacts

Basketry, cutting tools and grinding tool

Another canoe

When the Hugh Keenleyside Dam was constructed on the Arrow Lakes well south of Nakusp, as well as changing life in the river valley forever it also obliterated 152 Sinixt Village sites ...

Hugh Keenleyside Dam

Before the Keenleyside Dam was constructed, it was the Grand Coulee Dam south of the Canada-USA border that really took its toll on the Sinixt Nation ...

Grand Coulee Dam

Although there were few Chinese living in the West Kootenays, one individual wove himself into the fabric and folklore of the Nakusp township and its surrounds ...

The story of Sam Henry is a very entertaining one and well worth a read if you've got the time. Rising above restrictions about owning land, he became a very wealthy and powerful individual.

Di also thought the display on the colonial era was very well done and shot this little video ...

Another Day ... Another RIDE!

For two days in a row we had a fine day forecast and I was keen to ride south to Fauquier (I'd love to know the origin of that name) along the eastern side of North Arrow Lake and back again. When we'd originally put together the plan for this part of our trip, Di was going to ride to the ferry from Nakusp, we'd cross the ferry together and then I was going to ride to Vernon. I thought that if I rode south to Fauquier at least I'd be able to share some photos with her.

Here's the route. The black star on the map indicates the location of Vernon, where we'd originally intended going after leaving Nakusp, and Shelter Bay - the next ferry north is at the top of the map ...

Although it was an even better day than the one before I took few photos because it was a longer ride and I wanted to spend the afternoon with Dianne. Here are the best of the shots I did take ...

Yes, there are mountains everywhere!

Not that's a pretty sight

It was almost completely windless - on the outward journey ... 😁

An old horsedrawn hay-cutter

This is a very short crossing

Another stream tumbling down out of the mountains

Mountains visible in the distance if you look closely

A Visit to the Nakusp Hot Springs

Our priority after my ride was to make a visit to the hot springs about 20 kms north and east of Nakusp. We'd heard they were really good and had been intending to visit some hot springs while we were in B.C. and hadn't yet managed it. In the end we were very glad we did and Di thought they were very therapeutic. For me they were a great way to relax my body after two consecutive longer days in the saddle. There were two pools: the smaller one in the photo below had quite hot water in it, the larger one was like a very warm bath. We got in and out of each several times, with a cold shower in between. Magic!

Nakusp Hot Pools

 Leaving Nakusp

We were almost sad to leave Nakusp the next day and put it off about as long as we could, despite looking forward to a couple of nights in Revelstoke. The drive north back to Revy was only 100 kms broken by the ferry halfway along the journey. Our timing was perfect: we drove slowly enough to just miss the ferry and have time to kick back and relax for nearly an hour while the ferry travelled across and back again. Here it is just departing Galena Bay ...

Thank goodness: we just MISSED it! 

It felt so good to be travelling slowly and covering only a small distance that day, which will be pretty similar for the last part of our trip. More about that another time.