Valemont BC - Where the Mountain Ranges and My Past Collide
I had made my way north from Vernon, travelling through Kamloops, Clearwater and Blue River — familiar names and familiar roads — until I reached Valemount, B.C.
And suddenly, I was back.
Not literally, of course. Thirty years have passed. Life has happened. I have changed.
But some places seem to exist outside of time.
Valemount is one of those places for me.
One summer while working in university, I worked out of Valemont. We fly camped in where I learned was where the Canadian Rockies, the Cariboo Mountains, and the Monashee Mountains converge, creating a dramatic, deep-valley landscape known as the Rocky Mountain Trench.
My early morning taxi back then, was a helicopter that took us into our spot, where we cleared out ourselves (with axes & chainsaws) and built our camp. We built tables, chairs etc. with the trees felled from the clearing. Tent camping at its finest!
My favourite part was showering in the wild. The best was when our makeshift shower was adjacent to a raging glacial river. A glacial baptism, if you will. To this day, it remains one of the wildest expressions of freedom I have ever experienced. I have never felt so alive!
My professional forestry days are long behind me, but those experiences never really left. They became part of me; woven into the way I see land, people, possibility and freedom. I often wondered if my parents really ever had any idea of my daily life out there. Logging camps have their own culture and charm, the remoteness, the physical work, the characters, the camaraderie… it was its own little world.
Back in my day (I was 1 of 4 women who graduated my year in Forestry) I was the only female on a crew. It was a wild time!!! Despite being 5'3" and 100 lbs soaking wet back then, I believed I could do anything. I guess a part of that girl still exists.
This girl who still believes in people and the power of a dream. Just one more force driving this project.
In a way, this trip has been a return to self, a reminder of the Kelly that once was -- and still is.
Connection to the land, the roads, the landscape that first drew me out.
It's funny how a place & time can stay in this time capsule state in your mind. Sights, sounds and smells. The trifecta of memory recall.
So returning to Valemount after three decades feels surreal. The mountains are still here. The valley is still here. Another place along this journey, that doesn't seem to have changed all that much, yet those memories of the past held there lingering on the surface.
Valemount brought some of that girl back to the surface. And for a moment, standing in Valemount thirty years later, the distance between who I was and who I am now seemed to disappear.I wasn't just remembering that life.
I was remembering me.
And realizing that, in many ways, she never really left.
Comments
Post a Comment