British Columbia Whitewater

BC has a diverse amount of whitewater throughout the province and is not limited to just the Sqaumish/Whistler region. Even though Squamish and Whistler offers some of the best paddling in the province you are missing out on a lot of other good rivers and creeks if you go back there year after year.

So since I’m out in Saskatchewan visiting my girlfriend’s parents I haven’t had much boating to do, that leaves me reading magazines, looking at blogs and watching videos. I have since come across two magazine articles, one in Kayak Session entitled British Columbia, the other is the 12 Months of Whitewater article in Canoe and Kayak Whitewater edition where the month of August is entitled BC Bounty.

Mikkel, first descent somewhere in BC

Now when I first saw the titles to these articles I was excited, I was curious to see what they had to say about my home province, the province where I’ve grown up paddling my whole life. But when I opened up Kayaks Session the article turned into "Squamish the Land of Glaciers" not British Columbia like the cover advertised and I was a little disappointed. Similarly with the Canoe and Kayak article the main focus was on the same region although they at least mentioned places like Fernie, Vancouver Island, Smithers and Skookumchuck but Skook is still in the same region and who hasn't heard of Skook before ?

But what about the rest of the province like the Revesltoke area with the likes of the Jordan River, Perry, Sorcerer, Blanket Creek with maybe the most commonly run 60 footer in the world and my personal favorite the Pingston which is every bit as good as the Ashlu. The Upper Pingston being at least a 6 hour affair of 8-15 foot ledges with three or four bigger drops, the middle being a classic class 4 – 4+ run and then the lower being much like the upper for two km and dropping into the lake with a triple combo of 30 to 15 and the last drop being anywhere from 5 – 20 feet depending on the lake level.

Scott Fiendel somewhere near Revelstoke

After Revelstoke cross the ferry and head towards Nakusp to find St.Leon, Kuskanax, Gardener falls, Whatshan, Enterprise, Cooper Creek then after that finish off trip with some playboating at Brilliant although it mostly runs in April.

Chris on Gardener falls

The crew in the heart of Cooper Creek canyon

There are even more regions out there in BC like the east Kootenays and the Upper Elk, Toby Creek, the Kicking Horse or the Spillimacheen, or the Thompson region with its playboating on the Clearwater or creeking on the Raft River or even Terrace where I’ve never been but here nothing but good things. In other words British Columbia has incredible boating wherever you go and each region deserves its own article in a Magazine.

Jeff Germaine threading the needle just above Juniors on Toby Creek

Spencer Cox Sliding over the weir on the Spillimacheen

Don’t get me wrong as the south west corner might be the most deserving of an article but I just want to share my experiences with BC whitewater and show some more of what BC has to offer. Even with that being said what I've mentioned here is only a fraction of what is out there in BC and you should get out there and explore a new region then let me know about it so I can paddle it.

Unfortunately like down on the coast almost every one of the runs I've mentioned are threatened by hydro projects with my personal favorite of the bunch, the Pingston, already diverted, luckily if you can catch the water levels in mid July its still an awesome river.

Now a lot of locals might be upset for me giving away our secrets but there are so many awesome runs threatened by hydro projects and we need help exploring all the runs that are left out there before they are finsihed, so plan a trip out to the Kootenays for sometime between July and October, come out and knock off a couple of first Descents.

Brooks Baldwin working on a first D of Monkman Creek northern BC