Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Shuswap

Dates: July 2003 to Present

Christine's family has been renting a cabin on the shores of Shuswap Lake since the summer of 2002.  The Shuswap is located approximately 570km west of Calgary along the Trans-Canada Highway.  I've been lucky enough to tag along every year since 2003.  This year's trip (2013) will mark the 10th time I've spent the first week of my summer vacation soaking up the sun on Shuswap Lake.  It would have been trip number 11 for me, but we had to make last minute changes to the 2012 vacation due to tremendous flooding.  That summer we ended up enjoying ourselves in Windermere, which is the community just south Invermere, British Columbia and about 280km southwest of Calgary.  I'm not going to create a separate post for all of these trips, instead you will find a sampling of some of my favorite pictures from all of our previous trips combined.  The pictures are in order from the earliest trip to the most recent.  It is such an amazing way to kick-off the summer and I'm very lucky to have been part of this tradition for so long.

Area map of Shuswap Lake.  Most years the cabin has either been in the Scotch Creek or Blind Bay area of the lake.
Me and Christine in 2003
Sisters standing lakefront
The girls cliff jumping off of Copper Island


While we were in the area we thought we'd do some white water rafting.  I don't think any of us had ever rafted down a river before so we were all pretty excited, but a little nervous at the same time.  We booked our trip through Adams River Rafting in Scotch Creek and eagerly awaited the trip.  The Adams River has Class 1 and 2 rapids with a section of Class 3 through the Adams River Gorge.  We would definitely be getting wet!

White water rafting with the Plants.  This is the Adams River Gorge.
Brittany and Sarah
Beach campfire
Great name for a pub in Salmon Arm
The haunted A-frame cabin of 2004
Me and Chris on the tube
Adams River Rafting.  Second year in a row of rafting the river.
Not the sign you want to see!
Made it back safe and sound...just a little wetter!
Me and Christine under a Willow Tree
Foggy drive to the Shuswap this year
Our cabin in 2005
Christine kneeboarding
Sarah kneeboarding
Sunset over the lake
The Capewell's (minus Adam) at our annual wrap-up dinner at Finz
Christine and Gizmo fast asleep on the drive
The 2006 cabin
Me cliff diving.  Very poor form equals a painful landing!
The cabin in 2007
Chris wakeboarding
Adam relaxing in the hammock
Rented a Pontoon boat this year
Floating store at The Narrows
Unnamed Falls
Beautiful sunset over the lake
The drive to Finz
Capewell siblings attempting to play some mini-golf!
Sisters
Captain Jerry!
Riding a Grizzly Bear in Golden
A real Black Bear that we spotted on the drive home
The 2008 edition had a house...
...and a lakefront cabin!
Loons
Rosemary, Sarah, and Gizmo on the boat
Dalene and Garth Phillips
Osprey eating a fish
Our cabin in 2009
Jeff kneeboarding.  This was Jeff's first year coming to the Shuswap
Me kneeboarding
Gizmo sleeping on a deck chair
The boys tubing!
The 2010 edition of the cabin
Adam water skiing
Sarah wakeboarding
Pictographs in Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park.  These ones are faded and smudged.
Most likely created by the Shuswap People long before Europeans arrived
Depression in the ground from a kekulis (pit house) that was built by the Shuswap People
Chris, Rome, and I in Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park
Sockeye Salmon
Jeff and Sarah on the mini-golf course
Our cabin in 2011 and 2013
Sitting around the campfire
Sarah & Chris on the stand-up paddle board
Marla, Sarah, and Christine on the tubes
Shuswap sunset
Rosemary and Jerry above the Adams River in Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park
The gorge section of the Adams River
Rome sniffed out these baby birds near the shore of the lake
An Osprey landing on it's nest on Copper Island
Rome and Sarah
Rome and Chris sharing an air mattress
Me on the Yamaha
Wakeboarding
Me attempting to clear the wake.  I removed the audio because the wind-noise in the camera sounded awful.

Marla and Sarah
Copper Island is the only island on Shuswap Lake
Christine water skiing
Rome crashed hard
Common Merganser and all of her chicks
Witchey Trail.  Quite possibly the creepiest trail ever!  It had all sorts of weird toys and trinkets scattered about.
Also along the trail were the remains of two cabins
The second cabin. Unfortunately I don't know the history behind these remains,
Me stand-up paddle boarding on the lake
Rome loving life
Rome and Me
Mountain Goats along Highway 93 South
The 2012 cabin in Windermere
Rome playing frisbee
The girls in the Jeep
Lake Enid
Quiet little lake hidden back in the mountains
Rosemary and Jerry at Lake Enid
Columbia Lake as viewed from the Hoodoo Trail
The Hoodoo Trail
Hoodoos
Enjoying the campfire


Jeff convincing Christine that she needs a fully-clothed swim!
Back in the Shuswap for 2013!  Christine on the Yamaha.
Pictographs located on Blake Point in Magna Bay on the Shuswap Lake
This one looks like a moose with two hunters
This one looks like a human with the sun above.  Possibly a sun dance?
You can read more about the pictograph sites I have visited by visiting my Western Canadian Rock Art section on the Bradshaw Foundation's webpage.

An Osprey and its nest on Copper Island
E. C. Brown Homestead.  E. C. Brown was a logging contractor and homesteaded this quarter section in 1908.
The farm was sold in 1940 and the log buildings you now see were built between 1941-1942
Bald Eagle sitting in a tree just above our dock
Another beautiful Shuswap sunset
Jeff on the Yamaha
I finally decided I had to hike the Copper Island Trail, so 2013 was the year!  It's a 2.8km trail around the island with 135m of elevation gain.  The 360° views you get are well worth the effort!  Copper Island is part of the Shuswap Lake Provincial Park.

The summit of Copper Island.  I think there was a plaque here at one point.
Blind Bay
Looking westward
Looking east up Shuswap Lake
This was also the year that I did a little SCUBA diving in the lake.  I went out with Copper Island Diving, who operate out of Salmon Arm.  If you're ever in the Shuswap area and want to do some diving I highly recommend them.  They treated me better than I could have hoped for.  It was my first time diving in fresh water and I didn't really know what to expect.  I did two dives on the day.  The first was the Copper Island Houseboat Wreck and the second was the Copper Island Wall Dive.  The first dive was really cool as there's a sunken houseboat sitting on a rocky shelf.  The boat was sunk on purpose as a dive site.  The second dive was against a steep wall that dropped all the way to the bottom.  I'm not certified to go all the way down, it's just too deep, but it gives you a really neat feeling because you can't see anything below you and you can't see anything past about 20 feet away from the wall.


The sunken house boat in Shuswap Lake


Another video of the house boat

Another great trip with great people!
To read about our latest Shuswap adventure please visit my post titled Shuswap 2015.

4 comments:

  1. This was an awesome vacation. Sure you had a great time Tyler! If you love stand up paddleboarding, Snowcoast Canda offers great deals of boards. Paddleboarding Red Deer

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    Replies
    1. Thanks guys!! I appreciate the information. I've never been to your shop, but next time I'm in Red Deer I might have to check it out. Thanks again!

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  2. Hi Tyler, my daughter stumbled across your blog somehow and we were laughing as we saw my parents’ cottage shown as the haunted A-frame! I was wondering what made it haunted?! My parents have owned it for 27 years and we’ve never seen/heard/felt a thing! Thanks for your time.

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    1. Hi there! Wow, the internet has made the world a small place. We loved that cabin, but were convinced it was haunted. When we were sitting at the fire pit by the lake, someone had left an upstairs light on. We saw someone walk past the window (we just saw their silhouette). At first we thought it was just a figment of our imaginations, but then it happened a couple more times. Nobody was inside the cabin when this happened. We also heard footsteps upstairs when nobody was up there. I'm glad to hear you haven't experienced anything, but we were certainly convinced!

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