New Denver

August 4, 2018

Nelson

Nelson looks way more interesting than the small amount of time we spent here. Originally we planned to stay here three nights, but we ended up with just the one. And, we hardly looked around at all - just what we saw while walking around before dinner last night. We’ll definitely need to come back some year and hang around a while.

Beware state capture! Always good advice.

We ate dinner with our friends here last night. Well, as the sign says, one block west of here. It’s a very colorful place - I wish I’d remembered to take some photos while we were there.

Today’s ride

Our ride today was recommended to us by Roland over dinner last night. Our original idea, when we planned to leave the car here for a week, was to just bike up the highway to New Denver, taking the Slocan rail trail part of the way. Bertrand informed us that this is unsaved most of the way (a surprise to me), and that a great ride instead would be to follow Pass Creek Road to its end at the Columbia River, and then ride upriver to Syringa.

We took his advice, and enjoyed a great day ride - the best since leaving Canmore. Pass Creek Road is a delight - quiet, attractive, with one interesting sight after another. And it definitely helped that the weather changed and the smoky skies cleared up for the first time since we entered the Kootenay region.

A the start of the Slocan Rail Trail, swimming through the tunnel with the sturgeons and sockeye.

Starting up Pass Creek Road - a gradual climb for about seven miles, followed by a drop to the Columbia River

We’re way overdue for a good horse photo. The long wait is over!

The Hugh Keenleyside Dam, forms Lower Arrow Lake. Built in 1968 for flood control purposes, it eliminated about two thirds of the arable land along the river and forced the relocation of a few riverside towns.

Lower Arrow Lake. If you’ve decided to take that 700 mile canoe loop of the Columbia and Kootenay I recommended in t(e section intro, you’re about at the halfway point here. The confluence of the two rivers is about ten miles downriver, at Castlegar.

New Denver is a tiny place, and getting steadily more so. We had a catered, community style dinner at our hotel tonight, and enjoyed getting a better feeling of life in this small community from the other two couples of our table. One interesting side note - one of the men lived in Salem, at about the time I first arrived there. For all I know, we may have run into each other forty years ago.

Here are a few things we learned about New Denver life over dinner. They get lots of wildlife in town - bear, deer, lynx, cougar, goats. Last year they had to destroy 11 bears that grew too cozy here for their own good. There’s one school, for all grades, with about four students per grade. Almost everything shuts down in the winter, except for the grocery and liquor store. The housing stock is gradually being bought up by out of towners acquiring second homes. The resident community is gradually shrinking. It’s a long ways and a difficult trip to anything large, especially in winter. Amazon is great!

Most of New Denver’s storefronts look like this, and appear to date to the late 1890’s.

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ride stats today: 54 miles, 2,400’

Today's ride: 54 miles (87 km)
Total: 1,287 miles (2,071 km)

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