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Adventure Traveler Garry Sowerby in his own words:
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Revelstoke, British Columbia
Environmental Initiative #73
Mulvehill Creek Wilderness
Inn, Revelstoke, British Columbia
Well, I guess that's it then. I've talked to everyone I can back
home -- Lisa, my mum, my twin brother Larry, the girls. They are
all off to various Thanksgiving dinners. And here I am, just having
driven into British Columbia and a new time zone, four hours earlier
than my family. It's late afternoon here and we've crossed into
the final province on the route of Mission Green.
It feels good and we can be thankful for many things: the success
of the trip so far, the dependability of our vehicles as we head
through the mountains, the team back home that is working to get
us across the country safely and efficiently.
And yet, we're alone without our families and feeling a bit sorry
for ourselves. So why are we going to spend the evening and night
at a wilderness inn when we're already feeling so lonely?
The sense of being alone is augmented by the narrow one-lane track
that we are now following. We don't know what to expect around
each turn, it's like we've gone back in time to the land of the
dinosaurs. We are in a valley surrounded by mountains and the road
meanders past prehistoric meadows. A mist hangs in the air. Most
unexpectedly, we pass a quaint chapel.
Innkeepers Cornelia and Rene Hueppi greet us
with a most welcome phrase, "The turkey's just about ready!"
They show us to our comfortable rooms. The profound quiet of our
surroundings fairly buzzes in my ears. We have landed at a wilderness
paradise.
What makes this place tick? And why was it chosen as one of our
85 Canadian environmental initiatives?
There would be enough time to answer these questions. Right now,
there was a more immediate demand on my skills. In the Swiss tradition,
I, as the guest, was charged with carving the turkey.
I marveled at my situation, less than an hour ago I had been feeling
a bit like a loser, alone on Thanksgiving. Now here I am carving
a turkey.
Cornelia had prepared a true feast. Fresh, roasted autumn vegetables
from their 10,000 square foot organic garden along with the turkey,
then followed by a sumptuous pumpkin cheesecake, also made with
pumpkins from the garden. Wow!!
I can't say it was the best Thanksgiving dinner I've ever had
only because I have relatives that may take it out on me at a later
family dinner.
The meal was delicious and the company was a wonderful warm group
of people that made me almost forget about home. Cornelia and Rene's
son, Tobias, had even made nametags to indicate place settings
for the team.
The following morning, Rene was excited, as
were we. We would be touring the property and my questions from
the night before would be answered. But not before another marvelous
meal: eggs from the henhouse for breakfast, melt-in-your-mouth
melons, fresh yogurt, and a frothy cappuccino that would rival
any you would taste in a caffé in Rome.
Our first stop was the water power plant, a 1946 turbine that
Rene and Cornelia painstakingly rebuilt. They were determined to
find an environmental method to bring power to the Inn. Rene used
a natural gap around an elbow of the creek on top of the waterfall
to build an undergound reservoir of 100 m3. Removing the original
and unreliable wooden dam and reservoir meant the view from the
top of the waterfall was unspoiled and the new reservoir was completely
out of sight except for the small inlet gate.
An overflow system cleans out floating debris and a lower outlet
gate washes the gravel and sand out of the reservoir. Both are
also built undergound, not visible to visitors, and the water goes
back into the creek at the top of the falls. So there is always
water in the creek and this keeps the beautiful waterfall alive
and constantly renewing itself.
The whole system works throughout the winter
whereas before the damage to the top of the falls that had been
done by the ruthlessly built original dam would cause the falls
to become a mere trickle in the winter. Rene proudly tells us
that when a representative from the Ministry of Land, Environment
and Parks came to view the power generating plant, he called
it "the most elegant solution" he
had ever seen.
Another remarkable story that Rene recounted
was The Clean-up. When they had first moved in, they slowly discovered
that their land had been used as a dump. Apparently, local 'experts'
told them to bury whatever they found and forget about it. But
Cornelia and Rene could not sleep comfortably with this thought.
Instead, they hired a team of people to search for trash all over
the property and the surrounding crown land (200 acres). By walking
systematically over the land and through the forest armed with
metal detectors, the teams categorized every dump site or any piece
of trash with different coloured ribbons.
A full-size excavator worked for more than a week, hauling away
a total of 17 truckloads of trash to the local dump, the metal
collecting site and other waste management organizations.
The list Rene gave us of what he hauled off his property was so
impressive, I have to include it here:
• 22 car bodies
• hundreds of car parts (from hoods
and doors to spark plugs)
• 2 full trucks from 1960 or so,
loaded with trash
• 75 tires, up to loader size
• gasoline and water tanks, barrels,
buckets (partly full with undefined liquids)
• dozens of half-empty paint buckets
• several hot water boilers
• a fridge
• a freezer
• 26 car and truck batteries
• 13 car and truck gear boxes
• a halfburied Caterpillar with
chains (had to be cut into pieces to haul out)
• leftovers of a large debarking
machine
• rotten systems for gravel production
• piles of material for hydro lines
• 90 bags of household debris
• 2 truckloads of oil-contaminated
soil
• 18 chains and 22 steel ropes (logging
leftovers)
Whew!
The dumping grounds are a far cry from what we see around us now. Cornelia and Rene have
actually created riverbanks and planted rice grass which grows well both above and below water.
They've planted hundreds of seeds of wildflowers and mosses, through a program with BC Hydro,
everywhere where there is a possibility of erosion. It must be beautiful in the spring and I
hope to be able to one-day find out.
They also planted several hundred seedlings (pine, hemlock, spruce,
cedar), which were given to the Hueppis free from the Ministry
of Forests.
It's no wonder they have won an award for 'Environmentally
Responsible Tourism', the first ever handed out in British Columbia
by Tourism BC and the Council of Tourism Associations of British
Columbia.
The warmth and hospitality of the Innkeepers and the earth-friendliness
of the Mulvehill Creek Wilderness Inn lend to our sense of wanting
to come back to this place. It's as if all the power that is being
generated by the waterfall is emanating from Rene and Cornelia
themselves.
It must be the same feeling the hawk overhead has. Our hosts tell
us that this is the same hawk that returns year after year, sometimes
bringing a mate as if for approval, ever since Rene rescued it
from a pack of other birds trying to prey on it as it lay injured.
It's a magical kingdom for sure and I felt the full force of this
magic as I prepared to get into the Yukon. As I recorded the odometer
reading, I gasped at the number, 22,777. Two elevens and three
sevens! These numerals have always figured significantly in my
past adventures, on the good luck side, of course.
I left the Mulvehill Creek Wilderness Inn feeling very lucky and
thankful for the way I had spent my Thanksgiving, far away from
home.
http://www.mulvehillcreek.com/
You are now leaving the mission green website to an external website.
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