Bella Coola: A Long and Winding Road

Joe Meche is president of the North Cascades Audubon Society and also serves the chapter as newsletter editor and birding programs coordinator. He has been watching birds for over 50 years and photographing birds and landscapes for more than 30 years.

Part 1

In the first column that I penned for Beaks and Bills in June of 2002, I related an account of our spring trip to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon. In that article, I offered that Malheur was the epitome of the word remote. This, of course, is in the context of a road trip from Bellingham and not meant to compete with a trek to the wilds of Madagascar or Patagonia. With that stipulation as a guideline, Malheur has fallen to second place on the list, while Bella Coola, British Columbia (B.C.), has moved to the head of the class.

The original plan for our annual fall getaway was to make a return visit to the area around Banff and Jasper, Alberta. A logistical problem with travel restrictions, however, dictated that we search for another destination. I pored over maps for a while before I discovered a place with a name that sounded intriguing. It also had the appeal of a place that we had never been. As I learned more about the area, I presented the change for approval by my favorite traveling companion and Bella Coola became our objective.

While the name might bring out the linguist in you and cause your brain to think it might be Italian, the roots are far from Italy — literally and figuratively. The Bella Coola, also known as Nuxalk, are a Canadian First Nations people who speak a Salishan language related to the Salish to the south. The name has also been applied to the river that runs through the valley of the same name. The Bella Coola/Nuxalk were the natives that Alexander Mackenzie encountered when he became the first European to cross the North American continent in 1793.

Mackenzie, a Scotsman by birth, was an explorer and fur trader. His first attempt to reach the Pacific in 1789 failed in that respect, but he did reach the Arctic Ocean by following the river that now bears his name. His admitted lack of knowledge in celestial navigation prevented him from accurately determining his position, so he determined to learn more and try again. He succeeded on his second attempt and his journey preceded that of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery, which reached the Pacific Ocean by land about 12 years later.

The more I read about the isolated wilderness of the Bella Coola Valley, the more intrigued I became with what we might see when we got there. The natural beauty and the potential for wildlife in the area were instantly appealing, along with the cross-cultural history of the valley. As it always is with traveling new roads, there were new experiences waiting. We were eager to take it all in, but we still had to make the journey.

We left early — at the crack of noon — to begin our northward trek, which took us through Hope, B.C., and up the Fraser River Canyon. At one point the highway leaves the Fraser and follows another of western Canada’s great rivers, the Thompson. A drive along these two rivers is a journey into the history of this part of Canada, especially B.C.’s gold rush period. Although preceded by the Fraser Gold Rush, the Cariboo Gold Rush was the most famous of all the rushes in western Canada.

Of all the scenic landscapes and fascinating history to take in along the Cariboo Wagon Road, one of the most intriguing to me was the names of the towns that we came across. The Royal Engineers built the road from Lillooet to Barkerville, following the Thompson and Bonaparte Rivers, and communities formed at specific mileposts along the way. As a result, small towns bear the names 70 Mile House, 100 Mile House and so on. Seems like a mouthful just to hang on to a bit of history.

By late afternoon, we reached the last city we would see for a week. Williams Lake began as a crossroads for gold rush trails and was bypassed by the Cariboo Road. It was the railroad that ultimately brought prosperity to Williams Lake. The settlement was named for Chief William, whose wisdom and influence prevented the First Nation tribes of Shuswap and Dene from joining the Chilcotin to drive out the new settlers who were drawn by the lure of the goldfields. Sounds like a familiar scenario, doesn’t it?

We left Williams Lake after refueling and began a long descent back to the Fraser River. After crossing the river on the Sheep Creek Bridge, we regained the elevation we had lost and ascended onto the eastern rim of the great Interior Plateau of central B.C. We traveled well into the evening and stopped for the night at Bull Canyon Provincial Park, where saw-whet owls put us to sleep under an intensely dark and star-filled night sky. A pair of bald eagles greeted us at breakfast and for the first time we were able to see a few birds of note, like yellow-rumped warblers, mountain chickadees, juncos and golden-crowned kinglets. We motored westward on Highway 20, the historic Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail.

On this warm and sunny day, however, we experienced the most depressing yet eye-opening sight of the entire trip. On the immense Interior Plateau, the primary color is now a rusty brown. Square mile after square mile of several species of pine have fallen victim to the mountain pine beetle. It’s difficult to comprehend the scope of the devastation wreaked by this five millimeter-long beetle. They first attack diseased or stressed trees and then move on to healthy trees as their populations increase.

Twenty-one million acres of forestlands have been affected and it’s predicted that in seven years or sooner, 80 percent of the pine forests in central British Columbia will be lost. Experts point to less severe winters in recent years and Canadian officials fear the worst if cold snaps don’t return to reduce the beetle populations. Global warming is the prime suspect here. We witnessed this devastation in varying scales across the entire Interior Plateau and saw no relief until we approached the western edge of the plateau and the beginning of the Coast Range, where the road began a long and precipitous plunge to sea level.

Crossing the southern section of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, the largest park in all of B.C., we came to Heckman Pass and shortly thereafter encountered the part of the road known as The Hill, or The Precipice. Like Alexander Mackenzie over 200 years ago, we marveled at the abyss that lay before us. §

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