I have a love/hate relationship with Banff that mirrors my love/hate relationship with relationships. It’s one of the most spectacularly beautiful places on the planet. Its mood is never boring, constantly changing with what the weather throws at the mountains in the way of light and color and drama. My four nieces and nephew live here, and I always have a home with them or my dear friend Patricia, who’s lived here all her life. In many ways, Banff has been very good to me. In Banff, I learned how not to run a restaurant and how not to be married.

I grew to hate Banff while trying to both sell my restaurant and extract myself from my marriage. When all you want to do is leave, a place can seem like it’s holding you captive. “It’s not Banff, darling, it’s your situation,” Patricia would tell me when I would complain. No, it’s Banff, I would retort, knowing she was right but preferring to have something to blame my claustrophobia on, like “too many damn mountains.”

I planned to ride Henk naked out of town when I finally did sell and finally did sign. I like to burn my bridges once I’ve crossed them. But it was November. And there was snow on the ground. And I’m a wimp in the cold. So’s Henk.

I used to sneak in quietly, if I had to return, and skulk around the back alleys like the trolls that lived here and helped hold me captive, hoping not to see any of them. Not anymore. I find myself looking forward to a short visit in Banff these days, and welcome the chance to chat with an old customer who might’ve been high maintenance or a landlord who might’ve been greedy or an ex-girlfriend of my ex-husband who might’ve caused some tears.

So here I am, back in Banff after one of my all-time favorite rides from Christina Lake. I love the warm southern BC wind in my face, getting cooler as I head east toward the Rockies. I wanted to stop at my all-time favorite hotsprings at Whiteswan, but I also wanted to do my all-time favorite stretch on the 95 through Kootenay National Park past sparkling mountain streams and endless green valleys into Banff while I still had the sun. The Rocky Mountains are like a giant walk-in freezer. Six or eight weeks of lukewarm weather in July and August is not long enough to penetrate the rock and take out the chill of winter, and the minute the sun goes down in the Rockies, more layers are required.

Winter’s chasing me around out here like the forces of inertia I’m constantly riding from. North of Prince George, fall is well underway. The Yukon’s had fall for weeks now. It may even be winter. Here in the Rockies, the larches haven’t yet changed but there’s a distinct bite in the fresh mountain air. Southern BC is still clinging to some heat. It was as hot as any hot summer day I’ve had over in Osoyoos and Oliver on Saturday when Rick and Jim and I went wine touring.

Mark Gableman, the gentleman grape farmer from Osoyoos who carried my laptop over the mythical hill in Bella Coola, welcomed us to his vineyard overlooking Lake Osoyoos.
His Chardonnay grapes, although not ready until October, were delicious and sweet and warmed by the constant Okanagan sun. I felt like one of his maddening starlings who flies over with her flock to dip under the netting and steal the irresistible fruit whenever he’s not looking or doesn’t have his cap gun armed and ready.

Mark hadn’t been to any of his neighbors’ wineries in years, so he came along for some tasting. Most of the wines we were introduced to were very young and not very exciting. Hester Creek had a 2002 Cabernet Merlot that seemed to hold enormous potential if one had the patience to sit on it for five or six years. (hmm…) Tinhorn Creek had a lovely 2004 Gewürztraminer that came alive when the girl doing the pouring suggested it would go well with a curry. I closed my eyes and imagined the meal while holding the lightly sweet lychee-scented wine under my tongue… A green Thai curry, laced with garlic and sweetened with coconut milk and infused with basil and kefir lime leaf. Red peppers, sweet and hot, for the high notes, and baby corn, green onion, and carrots for color. Morel mushrooms for the earth tone, and perhaps shrimp, rather than tofu, to stand up to a wine with such legs. Yes, that would be phenomenal. “Come on,” someone said, bringing me back to earth. “We’ve got ten minutes to make the next one before they close.” I was whisked away from one sensory adventure to the next.

The Okanagan is quickly turning into “California of the North.” Mark, a farmer all his life, made the transition from fruit trees to vines in 1998 and has not looked back. It’s become lucrative selling grapes to the big wineries, and his land, on a gentle slope toward the lake with perfect sandy soil for grapes, has skyrocketed in value. An architectural land designer from Vancouver visited him recently and tried big-city-talking him into selling. Mark, the self-described “country bumpkin” was uninterested at any price and sent him packing with the simple comment, “It’s my life.”

I always admire people who are able to plant roots. It’s a higher form of fearlessness than I’ve experienced. I’d love to think that one day, I could stop, and stay, and not be uncomfortable with comfort; not feel as though inertia were stalking me. I continue to have the excuse, though, that I simply haven’t found the right soil.