Perhaps I ought to have taken my cue from the title of Thomas Wolfe's
sprawling 1940 novel You Can't Go Home
Again. For a period of several years in the mid-later 1980s I reveled in birding trips to the dry country of southern interior British Columbia
and central Washington. My companion in the endeavours was Bruce Whittington.
They were low-budget, high-adventure affairs involving tent, canoe, and plenty
of travel down dusty roads. We camped at B.C. Forest recreation sites, U.S.
national forests, wherever--even a cemetery now and then. Back then we were in
our thirties, at the peak of our enthusiasm for birds and birding, full of
beans, brio and bravado, sometimes overly drawn to beer and scotch whiskey.
The memories are vivid: seeing my 'lifer' white-headed
woodpecker as I took a chilly bath in Wenas Creek, Washington. Taking an early
morning climb up a steep cliff face at Crab Creek WA and getting nose-to-nose
with a rattlesnake. Savouring crystal-clear views of the Milky Way from White
Lake BC as an ardent poorwill pledged his troth to the girl of his dreams.
I liked the journeys full well at the time they unfolded but
when I recall them a third of a century later they somehow appear even better than they
did at the time: glorified, idealized, gold-plated.
So it seemed a capital idea when Jan said let's take a road
trip to the interior, leave the city behind, ignore the email flood, forget
about Donald Trump, look for birds and wildflowers, spend hour after hour in
the great outdoors, revisit some of the places fondly remembered from way back
when. I jumped with both feet into the game plan.
A third of a century ago I relied on David Mark's Where to Find Birds in British Columbia to
steer my birdfinding plans. Inspired by a Mark tip I had not previously
exploited Jan and I took a Corbett Lake cabin for a couple of nights and made
it our base camp for local explorations. Spending much of a sometimes damp day
in the Nicola Valley, we birded from the Vibe tailgate at Beaver Ranch Flats,
feeling fresh gratitude to Ducks Unlimited for the work that worthy
organization does to preserve and restore wetlands.
Lewis's woodpecker is one of my favourites in a family of
birds I like very much. Thirty-five years ago it seemed easy enough to see all
the Lewis's you could ever want. That no longer seems the case. We crossed
paths with only two: one on the Planet Mine Road in the Nicola Valley, the
other above the big rock bluffs at Vaseux Lake.
The greatest of long-distance travelers among New World
songbirds is the lovely bobolink. Some of those that winter in South America
make their way to southern BC to do their bit for the continuation of their
kind. In 1986 Bruce and I had a good show of bobolinks in the fields along No.
22 Road near Oliver. This time, those same fields looking the worse for wear,
Jan and I could find none.
Affecting the drawl of someone from the Oklahama Panhandle,
Bruce and I liked to call this part of Canada the "drah" country,
"drah" being analogous to what regular folk call dry. One of the driest places in all Canada is the sagebrush
country surrounding White Lake, south of Penticton. Over the years I have been
to White Lake several times. Annual rainfall is sparse there, just the way
rattlesnakes and prickly-pear cactus like it. Some summers White Lake is a lake
in name only: it evaporates entirely, leaving only a dry white alkaline flat to
mark its passing.
But last week White Lake was as full as I'd ever seen it,
and it was not too-hot sunshine that greeted our arrival, but rain. White Lake
is an honest-to-goodness special place, an internationally recognized Important Bird Area that is one of the
few sites in all Canada where a determined birder can hope to see the sage
thrasher, an elusive songster whose habitat choice is given away by its name. On
our recent visit there were no sage thrashers to be seen in the rain. We did
note, however, a Nature Trust sign defaced by a fellow pilgrim opining that
White Lake is--or should be--for cattle, not wildlife.
And so it went. It was perhaps more than a little foolish of
me to expect that I would find the drah country as I first experienced it the
1980s. Driving through greater Kelowna to get from one birding destination to
another took a full hour. Kelowna is far more city than it was the first time I laid eyes on it in 1976.
When I made my earthly debut way back in 1947 the world's
human population was two billion and change--scary enough if you ask me--but
now it is closing in on eight
billion. How many of us will there be in another 72 years? How big will Kelowna
be then? Who will prevail in the contest between those who say land is for
livestock versus those who feel that important bird areas--just a few of
them--should be preserved for birds rather than production of steak and
hamburger?
