Just as you leave the strip of motels on the east side of Osoyoos, you will see signs for the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre. Only a kilometre off the highway, on 45th Street, this award-winning centre run by the Osoyoos Indian Band has displays and programs interpreting Native and natural history, as well as nature trails through the desert grasslands to the north. Of particular interest is the centre’s rattlesnake research program—many of the resident snakes have been individually marked, and some even carry tiny radio transmitters so that biologists can study their movements.
Leaving Osoyoos, the highway makes the first big switchback through the orchards and begins to climb Anarchist Mountain’s steep slopes. You pass a relatively new vineyard just below the highway, and about 3 kilometres from the big corner you cross tiny Haynes Creek, named after J.C. Haynes, the first government agent in the Osoyoos area. Small creeks such as this are very important to wildlife in this dry environment. In the heat of late summer, many birds move into the leafy shade of the Douglas maples, birch, and aspen for the rich supply of food they need to ready themselves for their southward migration in late August.
Just past the creek, you make another sharp turn back to the left and another to the right; then, on the third corner, you’ll see a viewpoint pull-off on the right (this is available only to uphill travellers; those coming downhill have a pull-off a little higher up). Be sure to stop here if you can—the scene is spectacular. The boundary between green agricultural lands and the surrounding native grasslands is striking—a telling commentary on how irrigation can irrevocably change a landscape. You are just a kilometre from the United States at this point—the border is along the far side of the small reservoir lake immediately south of (and well below) the viewpoint. Looking to the northwest over the western shores of the lake, you can see the long ridge of Mount Kobau. Mount Kobau was once chosen to be the site of a major optical telescope, and a wide road was built to its summit (section 2). Although government austerity programs ended that plan, the dry, clear Okanagan air has resulted in several private observatories being set up on Anarchist Mountain just above this viewpoint.
Above the viewpoint, the highway leaves the steep mountain slopes to follow Haynes Creek up a small, lush valley filled with birch and ponderosa pine. At the next big switchback corner, the highway touches the site of a large forest fire that burned the slopes of Anarchist Mountain in July 2003. This fire, which was started by sparks that came from the defective brakes of a vehicle travelling along the highway just above Osoyoos, burned 1,230 hectares and two homes; it was the first large fire in the Okanagan in a summer that would become the worst forest fire season in local history.
The highway continues to climb through second-growth ponderosa pine woodlands and past a rest stop, then levels out into a wide expanse of open grasslands. These grasslands are quite different from those in the valley bottom. Shrubs such as sagebrush and antelope brush are rare or absent, and the dominant grass species tend to be fescues instead of wheatgrass and three-awn. The grasslands here are similar to the valley-bottom grasslands around Vernon, at the north end of the Okanagan Valley, and have a fauna to match. Columbia ground squirrels, called “gophers” by many, are common here, and Anarchist Mountain is one of the better places in British Columbia to see their major predator, the badger. These big, stripe-faced members of the weasel family are endangered in the province, having suffered decades of habitat loss and direct persecution—ranchers did not appreciate their predilection for digging large burrows on cattle land. One of the main threats to their existence now is the dangerous life they lead following— and crossing—major highways such as this.
In the summer, watch for Swainson’s hawks circling overhead or perched on power poles. These broad-tailed, broad-winged hawks look for mice or large insects such as grasshoppers. In the autumn they make a very lengthy migration to the Pampas of Argentina, travelling in large flocks through the isthmus of Panama. In winter, you may see rough-legged hawks that have migrated south from breeding grounds in the Arctic tundra to Anarchist Mountain to catch mice in the grasslands of southern Canada and the northern United States.
As you pass the junction with Sidley Mountain Road, you can easily see the international boundary again, still about a kilometre south of the highway. This marks the former site of Sidley, a small townsite founded by Richard G. Sidley in 1889. Some say that Anarchist Mountain got its name because of Sidley’s attitude towards the finer points of law in his own private border town.
About 27 kilometres from Osoyoos and 1,233 metres above sea level (almost a vertical kilometre above Osoyoos), the highway reaches Anarchist Summit and enters the Kettle River drainage, another of the major tributaries of the Columbia. Copses of aspens nestle into hollows in the grassy hills north of the highway. To the south, on the north-facing slopes of Baker Creek, dense green forests of Douglas-fir are a marked contrast. You quickly slip by the tiny community of Bridesville, named after an early settler, David McBride. About 7 kilometres east of Bridesville, the highway crosses Rock Creek as it flows through a narrow canyon 93 metres below the bridge deck. After passing Johnstone Creek Provincial Park, the highway descends steeply—yes, one more switchback—to the town of Rock Creek on the banks of the Kettle River. From here you can pause at the local café or pub then retrace your steps to Osoyoos, continue eastward on Highway 3 to Grand Forks and beyond, or turn north up Highway 33 (section 17) and make a long loop to Kelowna.
Williamson’s sapsucker: male (left), female (right)
focus
Remnant patches of moister forest here are dominated by western larch, one of the most magnificent trees in the West. This fast-growing conifer is, like all of its larch cousins, a deciduous tree. Its fine needles turn brilliant gold in October and fall to the ground, then regrow as bright green new foliage in the spring. The western larch is a favourite tree for all sorts of wildlife, since the older specimens are often hollow-centred, providing nest sites for woodpeckers, owls, squirrels, and other animals. One of the real specialties in this habitat is the Williamson’s sapsucker, a small, handsome woodpecker that prefers the larch above all for its nest sites. This bird drills straight lines of tiny holes on Douglas-firs and larches to harvest the sap that emerges. This energy source helps fuel the sapsucker’s searches for its main prey: carpenter ants. The ants, in turn, maintain herds of aphids that they milk for their sugary sap. Most of the old larch forests on Anarchist Mountain have been cleared for farm fields or simply logged for timber, but a few pairs of sapsuckers cling to the blocks of woodland that remain. Their numbers have dwindled to the point that they are considered endangered in Canada.
{ 2 } RICHTER PASS, MOUNT KOBAU, AND THE SIMILKAMEEN
46 km, paved highway with two optional, gravel-road side trips
This route takes you from Osoyoos to Keremeos, where you can continue west on Highway 3, travel to Penticton on Highway 3 A , or travel to Oliver via Blind Creek Road (gravel).
START: Junction of Highways 3 and 97, Osoyoos; turn west on Highway 3.
HIGHWAY 3 CLIMBS west out of Osoyoos on a long, relatively straight hill, radically different than its twisted course east of town covered in the previous section. Only a half-kilometre from the Highway 97 junction, the road swings northwest as you pass over the remains of the old South Okanagan Land Project canal that brought irrigation water to orchards on the west side of the valley for many years. Built in 1919, the canal runs from the Okanagan River north of Oliver south to Osoyoos; this southern section was abandoned when it became easier to pump