Westward with the Prince of WalesNewton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
History
Westward with the Prince of Wales
Newton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
Canada -- Description and travel; Windsor, Edward, Duke of, 1894-1972
It was a marvellous pageant of fruit in mass. And the apples
themselves were of splendid quality, big and firm and glowing, each a
perfect specimen of its school. We were able to judge because the
land-girls, after tossing aprons full of specimens (not always
accurately) into the Prince's car, had enough ammunition left over for
the automobiles that followed.
Attractive land girls they were, too. Not garbed like British
land-girls, but having all their dashing qualities. Being Canadians
they carried the love of silk stockings on to the land, and it was
strange to see this feminine extremity under the blue linen overall
trousers or knickers. They were cheery, sun-tanned, laughing girls.
They were ready for the Prince at every gate and every orchard fence,
eager and ready to supplement their gay enthusiasm with this apple
confetti.
The Prince stopped here and there to chat with fruit growers, and to
congratulate them on their fine showing. Now he stopped to talk to a
wounded officer, who had been so cruelly used in the war that he had to
support himself on two sticks. Now he stopped to pass a "How d'y' do"
to a mob of trousered land-girls who gathered brightly about his car,
showing himself as laughing and as cheerful as they.
The cars left the land of growing apples and turned down the lake in a
superb run of thirty-six miles to Kelowna. This road skirts fairyland.
It winds high up on a shoulder above Long Lake, that makes a floor of
living azure between the buttresses and slopes of the mountains. Only
when it is tired of the heights does it drop to the lake level, and
sweeping through a filigree of trees, speeds along a road that is but
an inch or two above the still mirror of Wood Lake, on the polished
surface of which there is a delicate fret of small, rocky islets. So,
in magnificent fashion, he came to Kelowna, and the _Sicamous_, that
carried him back to the train.
III
Through the night and during the next morning the train carried the
Prince deeper in the mountains, skirting in amazing loops, when the
train seemed almost to be biting its tail, steep rocky cliffs above
white torrents, or the shining blue surfaces of lakes such as Arrow
Lake, that formed the polished floor of valleys. Now and then we
passed purposeful falls, and by them the power houses that won light
and motive force for the valley towns from the falling water. There
are those who fear the harnessing of water-power, because it may mean
the spoiling of beautiful scenery. Such buildings as I saw in no way
marred the view, but rather added to it a touch of human
picturesqueness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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