It is (finally) spring here in Northern British Columbia: the snow has (mostly) melted, the days are getting longer and the bears are among us again. It’s time to pack up the skis and dig out the wetsuit. But, before I do, here are some tales from our first – unexpectedly HOT – summer in BC.
Land Acknowledgement
All these blissful days out, moments in the sun and wonderful memories took place on the unceded ancestral land and in the rivers and the lakes of the Lheidli T’enneh people.
. . .
Last summer (2021) was something of a shock. I had thought the toughest weather we would have to endure living in Canada was the cold. I was wrong.
There was a point, as the heatwave intensified, that I, part lizard, full sun-seeker; sat inside with the windows closed, curtains drawn, lying on the floor, melting.
Bally-the-Greyhound would slump down next to me, confused and panting.
Meanwhile, Jacob, who is more ‘one with the wind and sky’ of a cold day than Queen Elsa, lost the plot entirely and just walked from room to room repeating, ‘it’s so hot’, ‘it’s so hot’.
Thankfully, we found some neat ways to keep cool during the heatwave and the entire summer was not this intense. Plus, with it’s rivers, lakes and parks, Prince George proved to be a great summer city.
1. Two trips to West lake: A warm day by a frozen lake and an evening swim on a hot day
On one of the first warm days of the spring we loaded Bally-the-greyhound into the car and drove 25 minutes out of Prince George to meet our friends Marcus, Lindsay and their dog Nova at West Lake.
Despite it being late April, this being Northern British Columbia, the majority of the lake’s surface, expect a small section at the shore line, was still frozen!
Lindsay and I got on a floatie and sailed out to the edge of the melting ice, which allowed us to see a gigantic eagle’s nest in one of the trees and a great view when one of it’s occupants flew over our heads.
The water was so cold that even dipping a finger in was immensely painful! Don not be fooled by the wetsuit I am wearing in the photos, I had no intension of going in!
Lindsay did have a dunk, but she is Canadian and they are hardy, northern souls!
That afternoon was our very first taste of what a ‘beach day’ in Canada would be like: BBQ, beers and a melting lake!!
We returned to West Lake a few months later, at the height of the heat wave, this time with our friends with James and Courtney. It was much to hot to go during the day time, so we arrived in the evening for a dip to cool off.
The gigantic eagle’s nest was still there although – perhaps because they were conserving energy – we did not see any eagles flying in and out.
I went for a long swim. It was lovely to be in the water after sweating and swearing at the heat all day. The dragon flies were skimming along the top of the lake and small birds were swooping about as I swam by.
Afterwards, Bally and I sat together on the beach while Jacob swam and James and Courtney had a relaxing sail in there Alpackas. The sun began to sink, but the heat refused to disappear along with it!
2. Rainbow Park: gone Frolfing!
Prince George has lots of parks, many them large and mysterious wildernesses. But, after discovering the joy of Frolfing early in the summer, we spent quite a lot of time in one of the smallest and most manicured.
Frolf, or Disc Golf, is a sport where a disc (basically a frisbee) is thrown into large, free-standing, metal baskets which are dotted around a park making up a ‘course’.
Just like golf (I assume, but let’s be honest, I have no idea!) the aim is to complete the basket and the course in as few shots (or in this case throws) as possible.
Rainbow Park has a nine hole course and I can safely say I have never enjoyed being rubbish at something so much before!
Meanwhile, Jacob and our friend James were mastering the sport and their tuts, when I threw the special discs straight into concrete paths, were getting increasingly audible.
Frolfing, in the sunshine with Vodka seltzers hidden in coffee cups turned out to be such a hit that Jacob, Lindsay, Marcus and I planned a birthday bash for James and Courtney with a special game of Frolf.
Decked out in fancy dress, we got some funny looks on the course completing baskets ‘blind folded’, and ‘with the most creative shot’… to name the ones I can remember.
3. Berman Lake: escaping the classroom for a kayak and a swim
Berman Lake is only forty minutes outside of Prince George, but it felt much longer that day as we bumped along the road in the most quintessential Northern American mode of transport: a yellow school bus.
While the back of the bus looked and sounded like a scene from the Simpsons, I sat at the front getting to know another member of staff better; a woman called Breanne who had been at the school on a placement as a social worker and was joining us on the trip as she is a qualified life guard.
The weather had been warm for a while and it was a great relief to be out of the classroom. As you may have interpreted from the fact that the school needs it own social worker, most the kids do not the easiest of lives. Many are dealing with the impact of intergenerational trauma, often this is as a result of the residential school system.
Knowing how much some of these kids struggle to be in the classroom, made it extra special to see them running and swimming, wild and free!
That is only once we had got over the grumbles that they had to carry kayaks down to the lake! Berman Lake is a small cove, with a grassy area by the water surrounded by trees and complete with picnic benches and a fire pit.
The water is quite shallow for a little way out and, at this time of year, when it has been heated by the sun for a few weeks, it was pleasantly warm and perfect for swimming.
After a kayaking lesson from an instructor, the kids – who are grade 6 and 7, so 12 and 13 years old, surprised me with their enthusiasm by jumping in and splashing around in the water for ages!
When we all got out, the kids toasted marshmallows on a firepit and I was treated to a nice warm Timmies from one of our lovely Indigenous Education Workers who had been on a coffee run!
The next day we were back in a stuffy classroom reminiscing about our adventure. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to check out another local lake and I would not have missed out on a day spent being care-free with those kids.
It was also awesome that Breanne was there, not just to save any potential drowning kids, but because she is now one of my closest friends and one of the intrepid explorers I introduced to you in the recent tale of our very cold day on Hudson Bay Mountain.
4. Nechako River: Dipping and floating
If there was one place that saved us during the heat wave it was the Nechako River.
Being one of the two important rivers which meet in Prince George, we were already very familiar with it. However, the Nechako River, as I had known it up until that point – with it grey banks, floating ice bergs and the threat that it could become jammed with ice leading to floods – had seemed like the last place to replicate a spa visit.
But when the temperatures hit +35C and stayed there for a few weeks the Nechako became our unexpected week night sanctuary.
Sometimes bearing floaties and beers, often just swimming stuff, we would meet our friends around 7:00pm, when it was finally cool enough to emerge from the house, to lie in the river or swim between points of entry, or float downstream, beer in hand, onboard a floatie on the current.
Our floaties, despite Lindsay’s resembling a gigantic cat face (see photo of it at Purden Lake!), were very modest compared to some of the mountains we would see people enjoying a tubing session with. The entry to the river at Wilson Park is also the end point of a popular Prince George tubing route.
Writing this now, it seems impossible that we would dip even a toe in the Nechako; much less that we passed whole evenings lying in the river with no other purpose than to get some relief from the heat that still raged into the night.
5. Purden Lake: beach and BBQ
I was a little bit skeptical when Canadian colleagues and friends talked of having a ‘beach day’. To me, beach days include sand, seaweed and waves. There should be a trip to the ice-cream hut, a walk down a Victorian pier and penny slot machines!
I knew that a beach day – Northern BC style – would not involve any of these things. Lake days offer lots of incredible experiences a trip to the British seaside cannot. But, calling a trip to the lake a ‘beach day’ seemed a bit far fetched. Maybe even a little sacrilege.
But if there was a lake that could come close, it would be Purden.
We went to Purden Lake with our friends Lindsay and Marcus at the end of June, on one of the days when the weather was warm, but not during the unbearable heatwave.
The sandy beach area, the kids running away from sun screen, the parents handing out picnic sandwiches and, my personal favourite, the grandad on the floatie; all showed me how wrong I had been about the potential for a beach day at a lake!
The water was really clear, beautiful for swimming. Although I must admit Lindsay and I spent most of the day, on top of the water, sun bathing on our floaties and chatting, while Jacob and Marcus cooked us PB sausages on a camping stove!
Even through the view in the distance was mountains, not cliffs, I knew I would not scoff again at ‘beach day’ being used to describe a day out seven hours from the coast!
6. Nukko Lake: Sips and Sunset on a Standup Paddleboard
When the Pretty Wild Adventure Co. – who you may remember also organized this snowy adventure I shared with you – advertised a ‘Sips and Sunset’ paddle meet-up on Nukko Lake it sounded to good to miss.
Lindsay joined me, and together we drove the thirty minutes from Prince George to Nukko Lake where we joined about six other women. We borrowed a kayak and standup paddleboard (SUP) from Cherrie, the organiser, and paddled out for an adventure.
I had been on an SUP a couple of times before, but not for any great length of time and so initially I got a bit of a shock about how slow I was compared to the others! Had I learned nothing about BC women?! They ski all winter and paddle all summer, of course, I was struggling to keep up with them!!
We paddled out to the far end of the lake where we sat on our boards or Kayaks and cracked open some beers as the sun set. Everything was immensely still as there was no one else on the lake.
As we drank our beers and chatted, drifting gently about on our boards, we heard a sound totally unfamiliar to me: a loon wailing. In some ways more similar to the howl of a dog than a bird, at first I thought it was a coyote and could not believe it was coming from something that was on the water.
Two Loons were calling and responding to each other and, although we were a good distance from them, we soon saw why they were concerned by our presence. The adults had tiny offspring bobbing around them, between their lengthy fishing dives, their calls were checking in on each other and warning of our continued presence.
We left the Loon family in peace and paddled on, following the line of the sun’s reflection on the water back to where we had entered the lake.
. . .
A few weeks ago, in a blog about why we had not been able to go home while living in Canada, I explained that we are not sure what the future holds for us, in terms of staying in Canada.
Needless to say, getting this sorted has been a trying time! Not quite as eye wateringly stressful as the experience of moving to Canada during a global pandemic, but nearly!
To escape from this, we have spent the last three Saturdays at nearby lakes. The eagle’s nest is still in the tree at West Lake and we knew we had made the right decision to leave the paperwork in favour of sitting by the lake, watching an eagle fly in and out of the nest while cooking dinner on the fire.
. . .
Too hot for you? Read all about the other extreme…
Enjoying the extreme: Snow shoeing Hudson Bay Mountain in the depth of winter
A Nordic ski paradise… just eight minutes from our home
and somewhere in between…
Fall in Northern British Columbia: Warm days, amber leaves and Pumpkin Spiced Lattes
West Country Wandering 
A wonderful descriptive piece of writing. But what are ‘loons’ please? I am familiar only with the human tyoe!
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