B.C.'s Cariboo Mountain Range

British Columbia is a vast region of mountains, coastal and interior, of huge swathes of boreal forest, of great rivers, extended areas of desert, complete with tumbleweed, and rich valleys where ginseng is grown in the Fraser River Valley. And where huge cattle ranches abound, in a different view of the province. Driving to Cache Creek where in an earlier era a gold rush drew people with a sense of raw adventure and greed presents a landscape one might hardly imagine.

From there, a long drive to the Cariboo Mountain range, sitting at approximately 3,000 feet above sea level. And it's in central B.C.'s Cariboo Regional District that the worst of the raging wildfires have beset the province, burning a total and growing, of 272,000 hectares of forest. Far outstripping the annual average of forest destruction, at 90,000 hectares. Entire communities have been evacuated, and air quality, due to the fire's ash particulates has been impacted as far as Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The Cariboo region is comprised of 82,000-square kilometres of forest and farmland in the interior of the province. Ninety three of the 280 wildfires burning their way through the province are located within the borders of the Cariboo mountains. Severely impacting on the local forestry and ranching enterprises. The loss of grassland and fences will spell food and security shortages for ranchers. The harvesting of the area's lumber is seen to be in jeopardy.

Hot, dry weather and the prolongation of a drought is held responsible for the lightning-caused fires, catching readily on tinder-dry forests. But fully one-third of the wildfires are thought to have been occasioned by the carelessness of people in the area. Not the kind of weather conditions we happened to have experienced years ago when we drove to that part of the province, and dedicated well over a week to making our way through the Bowron Lakes circuit.

Undertaking long and arduous portages from lakes to rivers in a network of circuitous routes, paddling our rented canoe with all of our supplies on board, with the mountains rising majestically about us, impenetrable in their stoic presence, with snowbound tops, and early morning mists rising from the lakes and the rivers, still and quiescent before the daily winds picked up. And the rain. Incessant, daily rain events, so frequent we wore rainsuits over our jackets, for it was cold there in September as well as wet.

No worries then about the possibility of wildfires. Only concerns about the potential of coming face to face with grizzlies. And to come across good camping sites, most of which had ladders to be hoisted between tall trees where our food-containing backpacks had to be stored overnight, out of the reach of bears. Where we saw alternate-sited steel food safes well bashed by irritated bears. And the prints of wolves impressed on sandy beaches.

And where we woke to gentle mornings suffused with bright light and mist rising off the rivers and lakes. Where, at night, screech owls made their eerie presence known, and black flies did their best to impress upon us the voracious appetite that tiny creatures can possess. And where moose could be found along the shores of the rivers, whose aqua-systems held large, bright-orange salmon.