Goodbye to Osoyoos – our friend with ‘a great personality’

In the landscape comparison game, the Rocky Mountains are the gorgeous supermodel, while Osoyoos’ semi-arid desert is our friend with ‘a great personality.’

Just like people, some landscapes are impressive, loved, easy to be awed by – like the Icefields Parkway in the stunning Rocky Mountains, with their soaring snow-capped peaks. Others, however, take time to be appreciated for their more subtle beauty. Spending seven months over the winter in Osoyoos felt like a blind date with the ‘great personality’ friend that turned into a love affair. You know the friend I mean – physically unattractive by society’s standards yet smart, funny and infinitely interesting.

The semi-arid desert lands in the southern Okanagan Valley of British Columbia can look downright boring and blah at first glance. After the yellows of fall fade, the winter colour palette is beige, taupe, drab olive, charcoal and tan. But we found beauty in the bunchgrasses, sage, antelope brush, and mighty Ponderosa pines, overseen by the rounded mountain peaks of Anarchist, Kobau and Kruger.

One of the best places to discover more about that great personality is the Osoyoos Desert Centre. We first visited in October 2020, just as the shaggy yellow blooms on the big sagebrush and rabbitbrush were fading, and puffy seed heads on white clematis blew in the wind like dandelions. We visited again in early May 2021 – the best time to see the antelope brush swathed in tiny yellow flowers, giving a yellow-green haze to the landscape. They smelled like mild lilacs. Tiny wildflowers – nothing big or showy – bloomed amid the bunchgrasses that had short green shoots in each bunch’s centre.

The small building houses displays and stuffed animals that make their home in this unique Canadian ecosystem: burrowing owls, barred owls, California quails, hawks and a Canada Jay. A demonstration garden names the native plants, many of which were new to me, such as snow buckwheat, parsnip-flowered buckwheat, and needle-and-thread grass. But the highlight is the 1.5-kilometre boardwalk that loops through the desert terrain. Numbered stops correspond to a self-guided tour pamphlet. It’s easy to follow and learn.

We studied the ground closely; it’s quite different from the Ontario forests and farmland I’m used to. What looks like dried-out moss over sand is called the biotic crust. Made of lichen, algae, fungi, bacteria and moss – yes, moss in a desert! – the biotic crust protects the sandy soil from erosion and moisture loss, and gives seeds a grip so they can germinate. Areas with exposed sand mean the crust has been damaged.

In and around the biotic crust grow various types of bunchgrass. As their name implies, they grow in bunches to funnel limited rainwater to their roots. Another key plant nestled between the grass clumps is brittle prickly pear – the only native cactus in the valley, although plenty of varieties grow happily in gardens.

Antelope brush is one of the dominant plants in this ecosystem – one of Canada’s rarest and most endangered habitats. Like an iceberg, the plant’s mass is mostly out of sight. While antelope brush can grow up to 10 feet tall, it sends down a much longer taproot to help find moisture. 

The sweet little burrowing owls are endangered, so we weren’t likely to see any. But many groups, including the Burrowing Owl Winery and the Osoyoos Desert Centre, are giving them a fighting chance by installing artificial burrows, constructed from buried plastic buckets and plastic drainage pipes. The owls typically nest in burrows dug and abandoned by badgers, but they too are getting scarce.

Half a dozen piles of coyote scat on the boardwalk hinted that they like a nice smooth path through the desert as much as us. We learned that badgers and coyotes often hunt together, with the coyote chasing prey, such as rabbits, above ground, while the badger springs into action when the rabbit dives into a hole.

Discovering details about these plants and animals makes you appreciate how connected they are – and how connected we should be – with the land.

There are many ways to get to know a landscape’s personality. Visiting wineries was one method we thoroughly enjoyed, especially when we learned about terroir. Hiking and cycling let you explore the land at your own pace. And learning about Indigenous cultures, which are entwined with the land, lets you appreciate it from a different perspective.

One day in late April, we drove as far up the rutted road as we could to Mount Kobau before deep snow forced us to park and hike towards the peak. Saskatoon bushes lined the roadside, their small flowers with droopy white petals promising delicious berries in the fall – for humans and bears alike. All along the windy steep road, cheerful yellow bunches of arrow-leaf balsamroot greeted us. They looked like someone had set out displays of potted yellow mums in a garden. We never made it to the peak; the thigh-high snow forced us to turn back. But the views down the Okanagan Valley gave us yet another perspective on this landscape with the great personality.

We had come to know and love this grey-brown landscape during the winter – the drabbest time of year. It was all the more glorious once spring’s colours rejuvenated the valley. 

Spring comes much earlier in the Okanagan Valley than in Ottawa where I’ve lived most of my life. Crocuses showed their purple heads at the end of February, followed in the usual progression by daffodils, tulips and some tiny wee irises I’d never seen before. What I call the impressionist time of year, when leaf buds are just a haze around the trees, began in late March, rather than early May.

I had wanted to see the fruit trees and vineyards in bloom before we left Osoyoos, and I mostly got my wish. The grapevines were just sending up tiny green leaves, but the undulating pastel seas of fruit blossoms in white and various shades of pink and crimson were stunning. They turned the irrigated valley bottom into a rosy crazy quilt.

It’s often surprising what you discover when you travel. For years, I thought I’d love to live in a hot, sunny tropical beach town, but after spending a month near Puerto Armuelles, Panama in the high heat and humidity, I discovered I much preferred the cooler, yet still sunny, mountains around Boquete, Panama.

When we travelled in Australia in 2003, we went to Alice Springs and to see Uluru, even though I was sure I disliked deserts, just because it was a place you had to see. However, I found the desert utterly fascinating.

I found the same with Osoyoos. I’m sure we’ll be back.

Travel update: We are back to camping in Vandalf, our camper van. We’re exploring areas within a few hours of Kelowna, where our son lives, while we wait for B.C.’s Covid travel restrictions to relax. We both received Pfizer vaccines in early May – one step closer to using our passports!