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This bench seems like it was made for contemplating life.Often, people in the Kootenays ask each other how they got here...
08/19/2026

This bench seems like it was made for contemplating life.

Often, people in the Kootenays ask each other how they got here.

And the stories are varied. Some were passing through. Some were born here. Some wanted to leave something behind. Others wanted to reach for something more.

But a question that maybe isn't asked as often is: why are you still here?

Why haven't you left? What keeps you here?

Kids who grow up here are often told to go and see the world, then come back. Some go and never return. Some leave and eventually come home. Some never particularly care to leave at all.

Maybe there's something about the places we choose to stay.

We tend to think we choose a place because it suits who we are. The mountains. The space. The slower pace. The independence. The communities. The particular way life works here.

But stay somewhere long enough and perhaps the relationship starts working both ways.

The place becomes part of your routines. Your friendships. What you do for fun. What you consider important. What you're willing to do without. Even what feels normal.

Eventually, it becomes difficult to know where the place ends and your own story begins.

Which seems like something worth contemplating from a bench like this.

Did you choose to stay in the Kootenays because of who you are?

Or are you who you are because you chose to stay?

It takes a second to register. Your mind doesn't quite know what to do with what your eyes have given it.The scale is to...
08/15/2026

It takes a second to register. Your mind doesn't quite know what to do with what your eyes have given it.

The scale is too large. The age almost impossible to comprehend.

Your attention locks onto it. Your eyes widen. Your breathing changes. Sometimes there are chills.

You are looking at something you can't quite take in.

That feeling has a name: awe.

Psychologists have found that awe tends to arise when two things come together: vastness, and something that challenges our existing understanding of the world.

The Howser Towers have both.

Their granite formed deep underground more than 100 million years ago. Uplift, erosion and glaciers eventually exposed and sculpted it into three immense spires, the highest reaching 3,412 metres.

Try to comprehend 100 million years while looking at that photograph.

We can't really do it. And that's part of the point.

Psychologists call it a “need for accommodation.” What we're experiencing doesn't quite fit what we already understand, so our minds have to adjust to take it in.

Research has found that awe can make us feel smaller while also more connected to something larger than ourselves. It can interrupt the usual noise of our thoughts and hold our attention completely.

In 1916, Conrad Kain and his party made the first ascent of North Howser Tower. In 1961, Fred Beckey and Yvon Chouinard climbed the West Buttress of South Howser Tower, later named one of the Fifty Classic Climbs of North America.

Some climb it.

Others try to capture it.

We photograph it. We paint it. We write about it. We try to hold onto something that stopped us in our tracks — and perhaps show someone else what made us stop.

The mountain hasn't asked us to do any of it.

We just seem to have a hard time looking at something extraordinary and leaving it at that.

Howser Towers, Bugaboo Provincial Park.

Photograph: Douglas Noblet, Wild Air Photography.
Painting: Kaslo artist Kentree Speirs.

The Moon doesn't disappear during an eclipse. It simply enters Earth's shadow.Every eclipse is a reminder that the Sun, ...
08/11/2026

The Moon doesn't disappear during an eclipse. It simply enters Earth's shadow.

Every eclipse is a reminder that the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon are in constant motion, moving with extraordinary precision through space.

During a lunar eclipse, the Earth passes directly between the Sun and the Moon. As our planet blocks the Sun's direct light, something remarkable happens. Sunlight bends through Earth's atmosphere. The shorter blue wavelengths scatter away, while the longer red wavelengths continue on to illuminate the Moon. For a brief time, every sunrise and sunset around the edge of the Earth is, in a sense, projected onto the Moon—giving it the deep copper-red colour often called a Blood Moon.

These photographs, captured by Jim Lawrence of Kootenay Reflections Photography during the January 20, 2019 lunar eclipse over the West Kootenays, record that journey—from the Earth's shadow first touching the Moon to the rich red glow of totality.

On August 12, another eclipse arrives. Here in the Kootenays we'll experience a partial solar eclipse, as the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. We won't witness the dramatic darkness seen along the path of totality elsewhere in the world, but the same celestial dance will be unfolding above us.

For thousands of years, people have looked at eclipses with wonder. Some saw omens. Some saw divine messages. Others simply stood in silence, aware they were witnessing something far older than themselves.

Perhaps wonder is where science and spirituality first meet.

Science asks how.

Spirituality asks why.

Neither diminishes the other.

Both begin by looking up.

Perhaps that's the real gift of an eclipse.

Not because it gives us answers.

But because it quietly changes the questions.

We spend much of our lives asking who we are.

Why we're here.

What it all means.

But beneath an eclipse... another possibility quietly appears.

What if we've spent so much of our lives asking what everything means...
..that we've forgotten to ask whether everything has to mean something at all?

The Sun will rise tomorrow.

The Earth will keep turning.

The Moon will continue its quiet orbit.

They ask nothing of us.

They require nothing from us.

They simply are.

Perhaps the mountain doesn't need a purpose.

Perhaps the lake doesn't need a message.

Perhaps an eclipse doesn't happen to teach us anything.

Perhaps we've mistaken explanation for experience.

Perhaps we've forgotten that sometimes the greatest privilege isn't understanding...
..it's witnessing.

Perhaps...

it doesn't have to mean anything at all.

Perhaps it is enough that it is.

📷 Lunar eclipse photographs by Jim Lawrence – Kootenay Reflections Photography
West Kootenays | January 20, 2019

08/05/2026

Everyone films the view. Almost no one asks who keeps it here.

When people picture a small community, they often picture what's missing—fewer people, fewer services, less to do.

The North Kootenay Lake area quietly argues the opposite.

In one relatively small region you'll find regional parks, public beaches, boat launches, hiking trails, museums, community halls, playgrounds, farms, campgrounds, and historic sites. For a population this size, that's remarkable.

None of it happened by accident.

Every one of those places exists because someone decided it mattered— historical societies, service clubs, volunteers, and neighbours who cleared the trails, restored the museum, maintained the parks, organized the events, and kept these places alive.

We notice the beach.

We don't always notice the generations of people who quietly made sure it would still be there.

The landscape provides the setting.

The community shapes what that setting becomes.

Every trail maintained, every museum restored, every playground built, every gathering organized becomes part of the experience people take home with them.

That's one of the quiet strengths of the North Kootenay Lake area. It isn't simply a beautiful place.

It's a place that continues to be cared for.

What creates our experience of a place?Is it the landscape itself?Or is it the relationship between the landscape and th...
08/01/2026

What creates our experience of a place?

Is it the landscape itself?

Or is it the relationship between the landscape and the person experiencing it?

The mountains remained where they have stood for millennia.
The shoreline changed only gradually.
The lake continued being itself.

Yet every photograph reveals a different experience.

Research into human perception tells us that we don't simply record the world around us. Our experience is created through an ongoing relationship between what we observe and how we encounter it. Where we stand, the pace at which we move, the changing light, the weather, what draws our attention, and even our previous experiences all shape what we see.

The landscape contributes its part.

We contribute ours.

The experience exists in the meeting between the two.

Perhaps that's one of the reasons people return to the same places throughout their lives. Not simply because the landscape changes, but because each visit is a new conversation between the place and the person who has come back to it.

These photographs remind us that Kootenay Lake isn't one experience. It is thousands of experiences, each shaped by a different moment, a different perspective, and a different relationship with the same remarkable place.

These photographs were taken by Kaslo photographer Sara Neufeld, who spent countless hours exploring Kootenay Lake by kayak before her passing a few years ago. They are more than photographs of a landscape—they are a record of one person's relationship with it.

📍 Kootenay Lake, British Columbia

Why is there so much blue in the Kootenays?Look around on almost any day and you'll find it everywhere. The sky. Kootena...
07/25/2026

Why is there so much blue in the Kootenays?

Look around on almost any day and you'll find it everywhere. The sky. Kootenay Lake. Distant mountain ranges. Even the shadows on fresh snow.

But true blue isn't actually a common colour in nature.

Very few plants, animals, or minerals produce a true blue pigment. Instead, much of the blue we see is created by the way light behaves.

The sky appears blue because Earth's atmosphere scatters shorter blue wavelengths of sunlight more efficiently than the longer red wavelengths. Kootenay Lake reflects that sky while also absorbing much of the red light, allowing blue and green tones to become more visible. Even the blue shadows on fresh snow are created by light from the blue sky filling areas no longer reached by direct sunlight.

As mountains fade into the distance, the atmosphere itself scatters light between you and the landscape. The farther away they are, the bluer they appear—a phenomenon known as atmospheric perspective.

It's one reason the Kootenays can feel so different from one hour to the next. A change in light, weather, or season transforms the blues around us, even though the landscape itself hasn't changed.

Jim Lawrence has a remarkable ability to capture these ever-changing blues—from reflections on Kootenay Lake to layers of distant mountains and the shifting colours of the sky. His photographs remind us that the landscape is never quite the same twice.

📷 Jim Lawrence – Kootenay Reflections Photography

Lightning is hotter than the surface of the sun.For a fraction of a second, the air inside a lightning bolt can reach ne...
07/20/2026

Lightning is hotter than the surface of the sun.

For a fraction of a second, the air inside a lightning bolt can reach nearly 30,000°C — roughly five times hotter than the surface of the sun. That incredible burst of heat causes the surrounding air to expand almost instantly, creating the shock wave we hear as thunder.

It's one of nature's most powerful reminders of just how much energy moves through our atmosphere.

Living in the Kootenays means experiencing all of it. Calm mornings on the lake. Long summer evenings. And every so often, towering storm clouds gathering over the mountains before lightning briefly turns night into day.

There's a certain respect that comes with watching a storm roll across Kootenay Lake. You don't rush it. You simply watch, listen, and appreciate being small for a little while.

📷 Jim Lawrence — Kootenay Reflections Photography

There's something about these photographs.Three on a bridge in Beaton. Four more out on a boat, somewhere up around the ...
07/18/2026

There's something about these photographs.
Three on a bridge in Beaton. Four more out on a boat, somewhere up around the Lardeau.
The easy confidence. The woman in wide trousers and a hat, dressed with real style, standing on a rough plank bridge deep in the mountains. Out here, being at home in the wild and being sophisticated were never opposites. They came as a set.
And look at the four on the boat — the easy way they sit, so at home with where they are. Not a brand name or a logo in sight. They didn't gear up for the outdoors — they just lived in it. It wasn't recreation. It was just Tuesday.
They're just people — real, and completely themselves, living their one life the same as we're living ours. It makes me wonder — will the people who come after us look back at our pictures with the same wonder and curiosity?
📷 Beaton and the Lardeau.

No batteries. No Wi-Fi. No electricity — and it's kept food fresh for centuries.It's a root cellar.Built into the earth,...
07/15/2026

No batteries. No Wi-Fi. No electricity — and it's kept food fresh for centuries.
It's a root cellar.
Built into the earth, a root cellar borrows the ground's naturally stable temperature and humidity to keep vegetables, fruit, and preserves fresh for months. No power, no moving parts — just a simple design that has worked for generations.
Across Canada, and throughout the Kootenays, root cellars were a cornerstone of homestead life. Families relied on them to carry a summer's harvest all the way through winter, making the most of every growing season. Step inside one and the logic is still on full display: shelves lined with jars of preserves, a brick wall soaking up warmth, even tomatoes ripening under a small greenhouse roof.
The best cellars were carefully thought out — drainage, airflow, and insulation all accounted for. Some were dug into hillsides, others tucked beneath a living roof of earth and plants, but every one worked with nature rather than against it.
A good reminder that some of the most enduring ideas are also the simplest.
📷 A root cellar on a Kootenay property.

When you look at New Denver from above, the first thing you notice is usually Slocan Lake and the mountains.But look clo...
07/11/2026

When you look at New Denver from above, the first thing you notice is usually Slocan Lake and the mountains.

But look closer.

Look at the streets.

The way the homes sit together.
The small blocks.
The gardens tucked behind houses.
The short distance between neighbourhoods, parks, the lake, and the centre of town.

There’s a reason many Kootenay communities feel different.

They weren’t designed around cars.

New Denver grew during the silver mining boom of the 1890s, when communities in the Slocan Valley were developing around mines, railways, sternwheelers and the people arriving to build new lives.

The layout was practical.

A simple grid of streets.
Homes close to where people worked.
Stores, schools, gathering places and the lake all part of daily life.

People walked because that was how communities functioned.

Over the next century, many places changed. Cities expanded outward. Neighbourhoods became farther apart. Cars became central to how communities were designed.

But geography and history preserved something different here.

The mountains and lakes limited how far these communities could spread, and the original patterns remained.

Today, what started as practicality has become part of what many people are searching for.

A place where you can walk to the lake.
Run into someone you know.
Have a conversation on the street.
Feel connected to where you live.

Sometimes the story of a community isn’t only in the landscape around it.

Sometimes it’s written right into the streets.

Address

311 4th Street
Kaslo, BC
V0G1M0

Telephone

+12505054722

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