the Silvery Slocan Route

The Silvery Slocan scenic driving route covers nearly 135 miles (224 km) in the heart of the West Kootenay Region and comprises the towns of Nelson, Kaslo, Slocan, Silverton and New Denver, among others. With all there is to see and do along this marvelous loop named for the silver mining of this region, I suspect it can't be done well in a day's time, hardly a week's.

There's the paddlewheeler (the oldest passenger sternwheeler in the world) in Kaslo, a Japanese Internment Memorial Center and its gardens in New Denver, the ghost town of Slocan and the wonderful old buildings of Nelson. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Each town in and of itself with its shops, eateries and beaches is worth a stroll.

Here are a few of the highlights.

The locals of Nelson fondly refer to their bridge as BOB...for Big Orange Bridge. It was built in 1957, replacing a ferry that transported passengers across the West Arm of the Kootenay Lake.

The Slocan Lake is much quieter today than during the mining days when all of the Slocan Valley with its quaint now - booming then - towns were filled with prospectors hoping to make it rich.

Sandon, one of the most interesting ghost towns on the Silvery Slocan Route, is located high up in the Selkirk Mountains, nestled in woody forests where the Carpenter Creek once played a necessary factor in the well-being of the major silver mining town. It held several thousand residents, more than a couple dozen hotels and as many saloons. Wild it was in the late 1800s only to be nearly completely destroyed by fire in 1900 and an eventual bleak run on silver. Quickly but not totally restored after the fire, a few buildings remain even today, as well as piles of metal rubble and collapsed wooden houses, all creating a haunting experience while walking the grounds of this once-booming town.

From this unassuming building on top of the hill overlooking the ghost town of Sandon comes the power supply for all of the region. And the Silversmith Powerhouse has continuously been just that since being built in 1916. In fact, it's the oldest continuing powerhouse in Canada. Even more impressive is that the machinery within the walls of this sturdy red house is the same as that used back in the heydays of mining. It was built in 1905 in the town of Vernon and later relocated to Slocan.

Today, Sandon has more dilapidated busses than it does residents. A notice on a couple of the electric trolley busses says that they have been collected from various major cities of Canada and are to be restored to their former beauty and taken back to the cities from where they came. The notice, however, is quite old, and no time frame is mentioned.

What is now the Sandon Historical Society Museum was once part of the main section of town and the only brick building erected. It survived a 1900 fire which destroyed the rest of the town. The building was also used as a general store and, during WWII, housed Japanese-Canadian internees.

The Prospector's Pick was once City Hall, located in the heart of the town. Today it's an information center and souvenier shop. Unfortunately, everything, including the museum, was closed by the time I got there. My loss.

Sitting stately on the west bank of the Kootenay Lake in Kaslo is the SS Moyie, the oldest intact passenger sternwheeler in the world. Shewas in operation from 1898 until 1957, carrying passengers for both pleasure and business. Today she is a National Historic Site of Canada, proudly owned by the city of Kaslo. Built and christened in Nelson, it's hard to believe a ship of such elegance - one that was favored by English royalty - could be used to haul lumber and coal, but after WWII she did just that. But such a role kept her going long after most of the other sternwheelers were retired. Fully restored to her original decor, she is visited by thousands each year.

A typical cabin used by miners as shelter while they searched for their treasures of silver, lead, gold or zinc on the mountains of the Kootenay region. This replica cabin sits on the grounds of the SS Moyie in Kaslo.

Not such a spectacular shot is this photo, but it holds great significance to me because it is the spot where the Columbia and the Kootenay rivers converge. My whole travel in British Columbia thus far has been centered around these two mighty bodies of water and their magnificent shorelines. Such bearing they have in the eastern and central parts of the B.C. province. But it's here I say good-bye to both of them as I continue my travels westward where the rivers are smaller, the mountains more distant and the valleys more prominent.

To reach "my most significant spot" one must cross this suspension bridge in Castlegar onto Zuckerberg Island. Both the bridge and the island seem less significant to most people with an information board that needs a paint job and a parking lot that barely holds a dozen cars. But perhaps there are other places where "my most significant spot" can be had. Visitors to Zuckerberg Island, I guess, have other interests.