10 August 2006
Mother Nature Prevails at Coquihalla Canyon
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A fascinating and beautiful trail through the Quintette Tunnels
at Othello, near Hope, is no more strenuous a stroll than the Stanley Park sea wall.
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Hope British Columbia - Long before Bard on the Beach,
there was a Bard on the River with an all-star cast: Romeo and Juliet, Lear and Portia, Iago and Othello.
Perhaps echoing the Xe:Xe:ls, a mythical quartet that transformed people and objects into the present Sto:lo territory, Andrew
McCulloch, general superintendent and chief engineer with the Kettle Valley Railway, brought the line's Coquihalla subdivision near Hope
to life as whistle stops named after some of William Shakespeare's best-known characters.
That act was little more than window dressing compared to McCulloch's major opus: the Quintette Tunnels at Othello. The trail
that leads through the four tunnels that once supported the track cost $300,000 to lay in 1914. Almost all of the work was done by
hand; hence the enormous expense. This is still considered the costliest mile of railway track in the world. After the trains stopped
running in 1965, Hope residents removed the wooden ties and smoothed out the rail bed into a broad recreation trail, now part of the
Trans Canada Trail system that opened in 2000.
Decades before the railway blasted through the Coquihalla Canyon, a more discreet trail was cut on the slopes above the
emerald-hued river by surveyor Edgar Dewdney. Beginning in 1860, he and a group of Royal Engineers started clearing a route
that eventually led from Hope to Fort Steele, near the present site of Cranbrook in the East Kootenays. The Dewdney Trail intersects
with the Kettle Valley Railway on both sides of the Othello tunnel complex and makes for a fascinating loop hike, particularly on hot
summer days.
When reached by phone at BC Parks' district office at Cultus Lake, area supervisor Jim Wiebe told the Georgia Straight that Coquihalla
Canyon Park operates "at peak capacity all season long. Hope promotes it as a little Disneyland. It's where the visitor centre
sends everyone."
According to Inge Wilson, manager-operator of the Hope Visitor Centre and Museum complex, the Othello tunnels are "one
of this country's hidden gems". Since they received TV coverage earlier this year, she points out, "they've begun to draw
national attention."
One person who has watched the evolution of the trail and tunnels is Sue VandeVelde-Savola, whose family has owned a
2.8-hectare riverside property since the early days of the Kettle Valley Railway just east of the tunnels in Othello and
upstream from the canyon. These days, she and her husband, Henry, run the Kw'o:kw'e:hala Eco Vacation Retreat.
As a teenager in the 1960s, VandeVelde-Savola spent her summers beside the Coquihalla before moving away to work as a
teacher and fitness instructor. "I always knew I'd come back here," she explained when the Georgia Straight stopped by for a
visit in June. "The Coquihalla is a sacred river. It's only 30 miles [48 kilometres] long and it's a good representation of the
impact civilization can have." On that subject, she cites two pipelines, two fibre-optics lines, the freeway, and a
century of logging, plus a decommissioned mine whose tailing ponds leached into the river in the 1970s, the arsenic from which killed
off the river's steelhead run. "But it's a good example of how Mother Nature prevails," she said. "The fish are slowly
returning. The river jumps its banks and changes course at the will of the rains.
"We have to work to keep the integrity of the Coquihalla," she adds. "I'm a caretaker of the river. My family has the
definitive database with my father's maps and historical files that go back much further than any government records."
If you'd care to add your footprints to the paths of history in the Coquihalla Canyon, it's no more strenuous than strolling the
Stanley Park sea wall. Should you tack on a stint of hiking on the Dewdney Trail, you'll get the added bonus of climbing through a
shady, old-growth forest with viewpoints above the canyon that stretch out toward imposing Mount Hope in the distance.
Along the Kettle Valley Railway route you'll develop a new appreciation for the term tunnel vision, particularly in the middle of the
longest of the four passageways, where light barely seeps in through each end. And as you step from the heat of the day into the
coolness of the shafts, currents of soothing air waft over you, propelled along by the rushing motion of the nearby river. Short spans
of bridges link one tunnel to the next, allowing tantalizing glimpses of the Coquihalla Canyon below, the river muscling its way through
granite walls with all the emotional rage of Othello himself. The Bard would surely have approved.
ACCESS: To reach Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park from Vancouver, drive 138 kilometres east to Hope via the
Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1). Follow signs to the Coquihalla Highway (Highway 5). About 15 kilometres east of Hope on
Highway 5, take Exit 183. Drive west via the highway underpass to nearby Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park. Alternatively, from Hope,
follow Kawkawa Lake Road, then Othello Road, a distance of seven kilometres.
For detailed information on Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park, visit www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks.
Information on Hope is available from the Hope Visitor InfoCentre, 919 Water Avenue, 1-866-467-3842 or
www.hopebc.ca. The centre's 56-page visitor
guide, Daytrippers Paradise, is available at Visitor InfoCentres throughout the Lower Mainland and comes complete with detailed maps of
trails, including the Dewdney Mule and Kettle Valley Railway trails.
To contact At Kw'o:kw'e:hala Eco Vacation Retreat, call 1-877-326-7387 or visit
www.eco-retreat.com.
Good books by Barrie Sanford on the history of the Kettle Valley Railway include McCulloch's Wonder: The Story of the Kettle
Valley Railway (Whitecap Books, 2001) and Steel Rails and Iron Men (Whitecap Books, 2003).
Coquihalla Canyon History
In the early 1900's, the Canadian Pacific Railway decided a route was necessary to link the Kootenay region with the BC coast by rail.
Andrew McCulloch was hired as the chief engineer in May 1910. He had been involved in many CPR projects, including the Spiral Tunnels
near Revelstoke.
McCulloch took on the challenging task of building the railway over three major mountain ranges. The Coquihalla subdivision included 38
miles from the Coquihalla Summit to the junction with the CPR mainline across the Fraser River from Hope. This section boasts the most
expensive mile of railway track in the world: $300,000 in 1914. The construction was done almost exclusively by hand with the
assistance of a few horse drawn scrapers and some black powder. His assistant engineers nick-named the railway
"McCulloch's Wonder".
The greatest challenge of this route was the Coquihalla gorge, just east of Hope, where the river had cut a 300-foot-deep
channel in solid granite. Other engineers had suggested a mile-long tunnel bypassing the gorge, but McCulloch chose to
build directly through it. Hanging in the gorge in a wicker basket, McCulloch surveyed the canyon for a straight line of tunnels that
could be dug simultaneously. Cliff ladders, suspension bridges and ropes allowed workers to complete what is, to this day, regarded as
a spectacular engineering feat.
The tunnels are known as the Othello Tunnels. McCulloch was an avid reader of Shakespearean literature, and he used characters such as
Lear, Jessica, Portia, Lago, Romeo and Juliet to name stations of the Coquihalla subdivision. The tunnels in the Coquihalla Canyon were
near the Othello station - thus, Othello Tunnels. Many of the passengers on the Coquihalla line came expressly to see and photograph
the station boards and to send postcards from the stations' post offices as a souvenir. This added an ironic touch of gentility to this
adventurous journey.
The Kettle Valley Railway was officially opened on 31 Jul 1916. The line operated both freight and passenger service
between Vancouver and Nelson, but the operation was plagued with snow and rock slides. In a two year period in the 1930's, the line
operated for only a few weeks.
On 23 Nov 1959, a washout was reported just north of the tunnels. The 400-foot washout was too large to be
filled in one day, and numerous other washouts added to the troubles of the maintenance crews. The line was closed and never reopened;
it was officially abandoned in July of 1961. The tunnels and surrounding area became a provincial recreation area in May of 1986.
Much of the modern four lane Coquihalla Highway is built upon the original rail bed of the Kettle Valley Railway. Travelling at modern
highway speeds it is difficult to imagine the formidable task of constructing a rail route through this rugged section of BC.
As you drive along the highway, you may notice some small signs in the shape of an old steam locomotive, with Shakespearean names. These
signs commemorate the approximate locations of the Kettle Valley Railway stations along today's Highway #5.
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