Discover the paradise found in British Columbia wilderness

The British Columbian wilderness is a paradise, writes Damien Enright.

I Hope the weather in Ireland, to which we shortly return, is as good as here. It’s been non-stop sunshine for two weeks, and the snow on the high Rockies, especially heavy last winter, is melting. I write this at a picnic table in a campsite in the upper Okanagan Valley, below the mountains, with a small river (30m across, small for Canada) 5m below me — a busy river, brown, uneven and broken with white water, rushing past me to the sea. Tall Douglas firs throw a shadow on my perch, so I can see the screen of my laptop. The only sound is the cascading water. There’s usually a gravel beach and a riverside walk, but they are submerged.

A bear ran through the campsite where we stayed on Saturday night. A grizzled local bounced into the site in his flat bed truck, and he and a few enthusiastic campers in lumberjack shirts and baseball caps, having checked to see that it was gone, stood around awhile, exchanging bear lore. It was a black bear, not on the same threat level as a grizzly, but dangerous if surprised or with cubs, or if freaked out by a large number of campers.