Trudy and Dale Buxton
Publishers, Biggar Independent
We continue our trip north from New Denver and along the very beautiful lakes and in between the mountains range of the Kootenay’s.
We are travelling on Highway 6 north, destination Nakusp.
Nakusp is an Indigenous word from the Sinixt First Nation meaning the bay behind the long point, and looking at a map, you can understand why – the lake is long and sitting in between the Selkirk and Monashee mountain ranges.
Nakusp has a year-round population of around 1,600 people and was formally established in 1892 as a permanent settlement as a steamboat landing and supply hub.
In this region it was first reported that a man by the name of Finan McDonald was the first European to explore these parts way back in 1811.
In the early days most people and freight would travel by steamboat and Nakusp was one of the connections between the U.S. landings and the Canadian Pacific Railway in Revelstoke.
The community of Nakusp relies mainly on sawmills and mining as the most important industries in the area and today one of the strongest industries is tourism.
Nakusp is most popular for the Hot Springs that were discovered back in the 1930’s that are nestled in the Selkirk mountains with temperatures that range between 100-106 degrees F. Nakusp has the oldest operating hotel, the Leland Hotel, built back in 1892 and has continually operated its 21 unique hotel rooms since that time.
One interesting fact about Nakusp is that despite the size of this municipality there is not a single traffic light in the whole town.
Another interesting fact is that all the stores, including the major stores like Save on Foods, all close by 7 p.m. and they are a community with very little restaurants.
The waterfront Nakusp had to be rebuilt in the 1960’s due to the building of the Keenleyside Dam, it raised the water to such a level that almost all the buildings along the waterfront were now under water.
Nakusp is a great little community and surly one to return to in the future.
We continue from Nakusp up Highway 23 to Galena Bay where a ferry trip awaits.
One of our destinations is Revelstoke and we can’t get there without crossing the lake by ferry.
Galena Bay, named for the Sinixt First Nations people meaning the place to make canoes. This area was formally called Thumb Bay, because on a map it looked like a giant thumb.
Back in the late 1800’s this site was to be a major railway terminal and steamboat connection and a town site named Rosenheim was surveyed out. However, the railway boom fizzled out and so did the town, making it one of those ghost towns. Today it’s all about the ferry and the connection across the lake at Shelter Bay and then from there you can travel to Revelstoke.
On this particular day the skies were not that kind to us, and we discovered that you had no shelter in the middle of the lake and getting wet was a reality, however the trip across the lake was nice and the scenery was even nicer.
Stay tuned next week as we get into Revelstoke for the night and do some exploring.
