Experiencing Canada: British Columbia (Episode 02)
[Music] there's something about the West Coast lifestyle that pulls people in a laid-back vibe where nature meets city in the south of British Columbia the city of Colona rests in the Okonogan Valley on the eastern shore of the Okonagan Lake surrounded by BC's breathtaking mountains here the sea and land offer a natural playground for two-legged creatures of all kinds and with natural beauty all around it's really like a walk in the park but just beyond the area is full of other adventures both high and low rare ecosystems and microclimates that make for some of the finest wines in the world i'm Nathan i'm on a journey across Canada and in this episode I'm taking in that West Coast lifestyle [Music] yeah yeah [Music] [Music] they say that if you want to reward your soul you should head out to Myra Canyon located just a quick hop from downtown Colona this all inspiring part of the Kettle Valley Railway runs along steep walled Canyons and spans 24 kilometers of trails through two tunnels and 18 trestles the views here draw people from all over the world and it's perfect for biking ben Voss came here from the Netherlands he hated the traffic there so much that he packed up his family and settled here for the Dutch cycling is a way of life so when Ben and his wife first visited the Myra Canyon they were surprised not to see any bikes a light bulb moment later Myra Canyon Bicycle Rental and Tours was born and it's been a growing family business since 2009 well Ben thanks for having me here i mean just incredible scenery as you look out tell me exactly where we are right now so we are here on the Kton Valley Railway it's an historical railway built between 1912 and 1914 and it's something that everyone need to see because it's so unique and originally you moved here from the Netherlands why did you choose Colona but Okonagan in Colona has a lot of things to offer we have lakes we have fresh fruit we have the sun shining in in the month so it's beautiful and then if you want to have a beautiful bicycle ride you can do this one it's an easy ride you can see 18 wooden trestles you go through two tunnels and then you can read a little bit about the history and we have very comfortable bikes to rent it's very easy to ride this because McCullik the head engineer he like to have a grade of 2% so it's easy to ride everyone can ride this if you ride with me on the bike it's so beautiful to enjoy this let's go for a ride yeah you're right let's go and enjoy this beautiful ride man i can't wait [Music] so it is the number one tourist attraction in Colona when did the railway cease to exist here and when did it get turned into this fantastic walking and biking trail there's an historical railway built with 18 thresholds in a period from 1912 to 1914 people can see that that in the past they did wonderful things they can also see the mountains how how nice and colorful there are what kind of flowers we have and the animals so in 1973 was the last time that the train was uh riding on this uh tri and this is actually the end of a desert you mentioned yeah so this is a a part of the uh Okonagan plateau and it's on the end of the desert yeah so that's why it is always most of the time nice weather here especially in July August it's beautiful weather visit Okanagan everything to do from wine tasting to fruit picking beaches and also beautiful bike ride like this on the historical Kettle Valley railway [Music] and were you surprised there wasn't a big bike rental business here with this kind of trail yeah we were very surprised and my wife was the person who said we need to do something on this and that's why it started as a summer job for our boys we started with 30 bicycles and a truck and a trailer and we have now 150 bicycles that's incredible and you become a real ambassador for for the area what do you hope people take away after they come on a tour like this so what we like and that's also why we work on a school program is that people see that enjoying a bicycle ride is good for your health and is also good for yourself because you can see more from the nature we like that people come here not with a phone not with a laptop not with a computer but enjoying how beautiful the nature is especially here in the Okonagan people from all over the world visiting here because this is an exper lifetime experience and a story for your whole life to tell to somebody else with my soul rewarded and my legs burning I hit the road in my trusty rental the Okonagan Valley has one of Canada's best fruit belts ripe with everything from cherries apricots peaches pears plums and apples i couldn't resist the urge to pull over and enjoy some of the best summertime fruit that the region has to offer in West Colona farming plays a vital role and agricultural roots go deep here if you want fresh you've hit the jackpot hailing from Alwick England the Painters family planted their first orchard here in 1919 and set up their first fruit stand 32 years later today the Painters Fruit Market is run and operated by Edwin Painters's greatg granddaughter Janae Oliver full of passion and dedication she's committed to the vision of providing healthy local food for our community forever well it is just beautiful here everything is so nice and lush what makes the Okanagan you know such an ideal spot for growing these fruits and vegetables you know I think it's uh how hot it gets in the summer and how long of a growing season uh we have so we go a long time between frosts normally we can start planting out in our gardens in May and we're harvesting right until the end of October tell me what kind of things do you grow here on this farm uh everything from nectarines these are peach trees here we have watermelons we have cantaloupe tomatoes apricots pears apples we grow actually over 100 different types and varieties of crops out here this is you know a family farm you have your father to rely on for advice what's that been like keeping it all in the family it's incredible it's been so nice to have my father around my mom is also working and living on the farm so she does all sorts of tasks around and it's been really nice to be surrounded uh by all of my family and you really open the community here with the fruit stand you know what do people come here for they're coming for the cherries and they're coming here for right now it's strawberries and it's whatever's in season so later later on in the summer it's going to be apricots and peaches we do pick your own pears and pick your own apples and it's coming out here and experiencing the farm and getting out and seeing where your food comes from i think it's experiencing the farm is what people come here for i think that we are one of the fastest growing municipalities uh in BC and it's been so awesome to have so many people move next to our farm and be able to come out and experience it well thanks for giving me the tour what kind of things can we do here on the farm today well we can do some weeding uh we can go do some picking we're going to thin some of the pears and possibly some of the apples and we're going to get our hands dirty all right I'm ready for it great let's go this variety of pears is called Flemish Beauty we grow six varieties of pears here this one here is going to be harvested in the middle of September okay on a normal year um so what happens is that the tree produces too many fruit for the branch and we want to space them out to about one every 6 in and it seems kind of funny to take off this much fruit but these pairs get to be like a really good baseballsized pair and we really want to give them lots of space otherwise they won't get to their full potential i'm going to leave this one because it's beautiful and maybe this one here and you can just pull the rest of them off by popping them up okay I'll try this and this is all done by hand that's part of the fascinating this is all done by hand yeah and leave the two here all right i'm hired okay great i'm moving to BC sounds good one of the products we offer to chefs is the zucchini flowers so the blossoms and we're going to be picking this one right here okay so where do I cut so you want to cut it right down at the base see there's the stem and there's the fruit so if you can Perfect there we go great beautiful this is a female blossom uh so the female blossoms have the fruit attached to them and these ones just will get stuffed with some sort of cheese and put on a plate at our local restaurants let's go find another one all right so we have a whole bunch of things that we can grow here in the Okonogan everything is from here these strawberries look so big and juicy i've got to try one of these all right here we go wow they were picked yesterday so as fresh as they can get these cherries are called Santina and they're the very first cherry of the season what makes it such a good place for growing these cherries i think it's these like very hot days that we get and uh just a really long growing season and it really just gets so much sugar into them there's nothing like it do a little taste test here yeah you'll have to let me know what you think they're quite good perfect it's really cool to have all of these different varieties uh of fruit that is grown in the Okonogan here you've been growing this for generations uh I mean how far back does this farm go in your family it goes back to my great-grandfather and he came here in 1919 purchased this plot of land that we're on right now and we've been farming here ever since so many people are growing here there's a big community of farmers do you all share you know when the seasons are bad or the seasons are good 100% there's over a dozen other farms that we work with and we bring in their produce into our market uh because we can't grow everything and people here I mean they're going to come they're going to take away the fruits and vegetables from the stand but what else do you want them to take away from their experience here well I hope that they get to see where their food comes from and I hope they get to come out and really get their feet on the ground and go out into the garden just like we did we offer guided tours if they want to learn a little bit more but we also just encourage families to go and walk around and enjoy the orchard wine dine and unwind it could be the motto here the Okanagan Valley wine region stretches over 250 kilometers over sub regions each with distinct soil and climate conditions ideal for wine- making there are over 200 licensed grape wineries here among them is Quailsgate Winery originating from a fourth generation Okonagan farming family with horiculturalist Irish roots its 160 acres of vineyards characterized by incredibly rich soils sits on a gently sloping bench below the extinct volcano of Mount Busherie and I can attest the wine is as amazing as the views so what is it that makes this region so ideal for grape growing you know what this region is a really special little area of British Columbia but for grape growing specifically it is the lake we've got an over 100 km long lake here we get really long temperate summers warm springs warm falls that allows us to farm something like wine grapes that would be 50 years ago unimaginable so it's really an ideal location we get more sunshine through July and August than California does so it's just this little special microclimate within British Columbia that allows us to do what we do yeah that's incredible more sunshine than California when they grow the grapes there but what's the difference in the flavor of these grapes you're growing well we would be considered more of a cool climate growing region so we're going to get a lot more acidity bursting fruit it is really a personal preference you find California is very soft you get more mellow characters that can happen with age here as well but you do tend to get more crisp acidity out here nate another thing that makes this region so special for grape growing is actually the teroir and when I'm talking about teroir I'm talking about the dirt so we're actually Quillsgate's located right on an extinct volcano called Mount Busher so we get a lot of old volcanic rock clay and sand on this property as well as old glacial till down on the lower half on the other side of Bushery which makes gives our wines really unique characteristics sustainability wise we actually run our own composting program so all of this you see at the bottom of the grape vines right now is all old grape matter from when we've processed our grapes as well as from the restaurant all of our food waste is composted on site and actually respread back into our vineyards under the [Music] vines what we're going to start with here first is our Shannon Blanc this is absolutely stunning wine to have here in the summertime you get some stone fruit on this as well as some you know nice light florals let's do the test here we go you really can get some of that tropical fruit yeah I can taste that fruiness so our next wine is one that's really near and dear this is actually the wine that converted me and almost all of my friends whenever bring them here onto Chardonnay it's the 2021 Stewart Family Reserve Chardonnay what's amazing with our Chardonnay what they've been able to do here is they keep that refined elegance to the wine while being able to bring out the beautiful flavors that oak really can possess well cheers cheers thank you pleasure to have you out here oh great to be here final wine here today is called the Q this is a beautiful Bordeaux style blend which means that it is a combination of Merllo Sarra and Cabernet Savinon all very big beautiful and bold reds we taste so much by smell so really get your nose into that glass and really enjoy different aromomas that you can sort of pull off just from that nose there from the bouquet of the wine that is good it's very fullbodied i love the flavor one more when you think of wine you typically think of France but now people are buying Canadian wine what is it about the Okonogan that makes this wine so special the Okonogan has the capability of growing everything from Rezling and Pion Noir all the way to Merllo and Cabernet Sveno Sarra we get more diverse varietals here in the Okonogan than any other growing region in the world that makes this area really special we can really cater to anyone's taste when it comes to wine so when you look out here there are really vineyards as as far as the eye can see but you grew up here it hasn't always been this way what has changed since you've grown up so much has changed here so when I moved here it was you know the very early8s as kids growing up here we had orchards we had vineyards my mom sold fruit out of the bottom of her driveway we had people come to the bottom of our driveway for years after we stopped selling peaches and apples from our driveway i used to joke that we could run around naked out here on Busher Road and no one ever see us not the case anymore this uh road here Bushy Road is so busy and the community has really grown up around the winery nowadays when people can work from anywhere this is the time be like "Oh let's go to the Okonogan." Colona is big enough that you have all sorts of activities at your fingertips but at the same time we've got lots of hiking lots of natural space i know my husband and I we were most recently living in Tofino and we thought of having a family thought well let's come here our kids can ski and go to the beach and not ever have to leave their doorstep so that's why people are moving here now is to get out of the bigger cities be able to have that quality of life still and access all of this natural space and the incredible weather that's here scorpions and rattlesnakes they don't typically spring to mind when you think Canada but they're a common sight here located amidst the vineyards and mountains of British Columbia's southern interior Aoyuse is a community that boasts Canada's lowest annual precipitation and warmest temperature it's the only semierid shrubland in Canada a kind of desert and determined to protect the fragile ecosystem here are the folks at the Aoyos Desert Center well it's hard to believe we're in Canada with this unique landscape around us tell me where we are or why is this called a pocket desert right so we are in uh what is called an antelope brush shrubstep and that's our desert environment here in the south Okonogan and so that's an antelope brush right there so it's the predominant plant in this environment you also get um you know sage plants and a lot of plants and animals in fact that are adapted to that desert-like environment people comment a lot when they come from Vancouver like you drive 5 hours east you leave a rainforest and here you are and has everything to do with the mountains so the cold air comes off of the ocean and uh comes up over the mountains and then when it drops down it really heats up and so here we are we get this uh uh dry environment here yes and you're actually trying to protect these kind of plants why is it that there's so little of the desert here this habitat here is one of the top three atrisisk habitats in Canada so it only exists in Canada here in the south and there's only about 30% of it left and in the early '9s a group of people caught the lease on this property and and wanted to protect this so that they could show people what our natural habitat looks like here in the South Okonogan yeah that's when they started the desert center here there's also lots of wildlife what kind of wildlife do you see when you come for a visit oh you see all sorts of wildlife of course deer at night we'll uh spot a cougar uh or bobcat on the camera we have bears uh there's been a couple of bears hanging around um in the last few weeks so maybe we'll see one today but we have pocket mice which are little tiny mice that uh help the antelope brush by stuffing seeds into their pockets on the outer on their outer cheeks and and burying them and then the antelope brush will pop up um when they forget about it we have uh Nutell's cottontail which is a little bunny rabbit here we also have 14 um bluebird nest boxes on site so uh we monitor those and and keep the data on them and uh report the data at the end of the season to a Canadian uh national database on on bluebirds so all sorts of animals [Music] there you go and you're obviously very passionate about this what got you involved with the desert center what is your personal story oh well you know I just really love the uh habitat the the landscape of the South Okonogan i mean if you look up into the hills I just love the way the light hits and creates the shadows and the texture and it's just a really beautiful place for sure what kind of experience can people have when they come here and visit the desert center and and get a feel for what it's like to be in a desert in Canada yeah so we have a this 1.5 km boardwalk that loops around the site and so it really gives people an immersive walk in this very fragile habitat we are a desert so underneath this grass you will find sand there's also what's called uh cryptogamic crust which is a layer of fungi and lyken that protects the the soil and keeps the moisture in we also have a interpretive building that has all sorts of displays fur displays and skull displays and we have a native plant garden that people can come and wander through and get ideas about their own garden okay that's that's incredible well I'm excited to see some more of the desert good yeah I do do you know what they say you protect what you love so we want them to fall in love with it and go back home and go "Wow what habitats are disappearing in my area what can I do to help that?" Yeah cuz really in Canada this is one of the only places you can see this kind of landscape yep well thanks for giving me the tour thank you there's so much to do here around Colona that I feel like I've only scratched the surface i know this is an experience that I'll treasure forever fresh fruit wine and the outdoors is the heart of what goes on here in this unique region of Canada with its climate seen nowhere else in the country I'd love to stay to see more eat more drink more but my adventures must go on i wonder what I'll see over the next mountain [Music] hey [Music] [Music] [Music]
2025-04-15 03:33
