british columbia, canadanorth america Bowron Lake Circuit
Bowron Lake Provincial Park in the Cariboo region of BC is widely recognized to have one of the top canoe circuits in the world and a destination that has been on my bucket list. This year I finally tackled it but for reasons very different than in years past. My brother was one of Western Canada's leading plein air painters and lived next door in nearby Wells. Sadly, Peter Corbett recently passed away, so this became a paddle in memory of a life well lived.
We grew up in Southern Ontario in the 1970s, with a quiet cottage on a small lake in the Muskoka's, just below the tip of Algonquin Provincial Park. We lived in our canoe and on the water in those early summers. Gone all day exploring somewhere on the lake, we had more H2O than red cells in our blood. Our Irish American mother was typically full of expressions and retorts, and one fall day told me I was full of myself and to "go jump in the lake" - which I promptly did, dragging myself back inside cold and dripping. That era really was the start of our outdoor addiction and love of nature.
Later in the 1970s my brother moved out to BC, initially landing in Golden and Parson in the Columbia Valley, ice climbing and testing new gear with Yvon Choinard of Black Diamond Equipment and then of Patagonia apparel. A few years later the lure of the mountains and ocean drew me to Vancouver, BC.
With its 54+ campsites sprinkled throughout the park, people from all over the world come to paddle the circuit, many returning again. With the season having only opened the week before, I met mostly Canadians but there were two different pairs from Germany, one paddling for their second time. I caught up with a young family with two small girls happily portaging between lakes. Similar to many backcountry destinations, you have to book and reserve permits months in advance to complete the 116 km roughly parallelogram-shaped loop. Some lakes are small and quiet, others long and blustery. But all 10 interconnected lakes encompass a truly iconic mountain canoeing experience in the magnificent 1500-meter Cariboo Mountain Range. And much more rugged and remote than Canada’s more famous Great Lakes chain.
At the end of May I arrived in what’s still considered early spring in the Cariboo Mountains. You’re never quite sure of the weather, with snow still hiding in the shadows and ice only just off Isaac Lake. There was still snow in the forecast only the week prior. I brought a variety of warm-weather clothing and waterproof gear along with me in the car and selected the most appropriate for the next week of paddling.
I stayed a couple of nights in Wells, at my brother’s studio and gallery now being utilized and operated jointly by a close friend along with a fellow artist. I shouldn’t have been surprised how much I felt his presence surrounded by his paintings in the gallery, and I kept expecting to hear his voice boom out. It reminded me he was no longer physically with us if only in spirit. Ironically, I had tried to get him out to Bowron the summer before, but it didn’t pan out. I told myself there’s always another summer. That was before his diagnosis.
Biologist by trade, artist by craft, my brother always liked to paint and took some art classes very early on as a kid with a Sister Claire in Kitchener, Ontario in the 1970s. Once out West, rather than travel in his truck with a hunting rifle in the back, he always had a paint brush and fishing rod for whenever he was in the backwoods. He could often be found on a remote logging road or cutblock painting a sunset or landscape. His absolute love of the outdoors is what drove Pete with his science and his art.
My paddle silently dips in the water as my bow skims along the surface of the lake. I embrace the solitude, that I’m the only one on the lake. That it’s so quiet I can hear my heart beating, the rhythm of my paddle now matching the internal rhythm of my body. Off in the distance I hear a pair of loons. It must be the most recognizable yet somehow loneliest sound in Canada’s backwoods. After all the recent politics, their call somehow makes me feel even more Canadian in our cultural quest for who we are. And more importantly I know I’m well off the grid.
At the last convenient stop for supplies outside the provincial park boundary, I rented bear spray at Becker’s Lodge. Bowron is a remote grizzly bear habitat and these cuddly carnivora are more active in the Spring. In a fascinating 2021 Science.org article they found that the 3 main Indigenous language families of Central BC coincided and completely mapped onto the 3 distinct grizzly genetic groups in the area. It’s eye-opening to discover once again how inextricably linked Indigenous man and animal have become over the millennia.
Bowron is clearly a very special place and not just because of its unique rectangular shape that allows you to complete a loop or circuit of the lakes. But it’s the backdrop of the majestic Cariboo Mountain Range that allows for spectacular viewing in such a meditative setting. First created as a game reserve in 1928, it was formally established as a provincial park in 1961 and expanded again in 2000.
The First Nation in the area at one time known as the Taculli or Carrier, today are referred to as Dakelh (people who “travel upon water”). Archaeological sites excavated in the area date back at least 4000 years, with some evidence suggesting Dakelh presence significantly before that. But much of the Indigenous population in the area were all but wiped out during the 1862 smallpox epidemic, eventually leading to the creation of the game reserve and provincial park. Sadly, the original Indigenous name for Bowron has been lost to time but many other place names originate from the Carrier Northern Athabascan language. Mt. Ishpa (“my father”), Kaza Mountain (“arrow”), the Itzul Range (“forest”), the Tediko Range (“girls”) and Lanezi Lake (“long lake”) have replaced earlier English names.
I spotted a bear ambling, watched a bald eagle dive bomb for fish, listened to the various calls of loons, found a moose tucked into the underbrush, caught the thundering power of 24-meter Cariboo Falls cascading out of the park and watched a blue moon and the year’s smallest full moon rise over Spectacle Lakes.
If you ever get the chance to explore the Chilcotin-Cariboo region of BC, Bowron Lakes should be high on the list even if you paddle only some of the lakes and not the entire week-long circuit
Sitting around the campfire to myself on my last night on Swan Lake, I reflected on why we as humans do what we do, what we leave behind. There are markings and wall art from our cave days, monoliths at Stonehenge and on Easter Island. There’s something in our DNA and genes that Globe and Mail contributor Alex Hutchinson wrote that we’re wired to explore and is an essential ingredient of human life. Sadly, my brother is gone but he left behind a trove of paintings. I see his art everyday on my walls, and remember a life well lived.
