Fishing Bear Lake in the 1940s
For a number of years in the mid-1940s, when we were in our mid-teens, my pals Ted and Lewis “Lew” Wilson and I would skip Friday afternoon school classes on the May long weekend to go fishing at Bear Lake, on the Westside, using our bicycles to get there.
We would leave Kelowna around 1 p.m., take the ferry across Okanagan Lake and ride and push our one-speed CCM bicycles (no fancy 20-speed mountain bikes in those days!).
We would have our food and bedding in packsacks in the big steel basket carriers mounted over the front wheel, which were used to carry newspapers on our paper delivery route.
We went along Bear Creek Road and then uphill past the Casorso Westside Ranch, past Sveans Sawmill on a flat above the south bank of Bear Creek that I believe is now a residential subdivision. A couple of miles further along we crossed Bear Creek at Johnson’s Crossing.
After following the north side of the creek for a few miles, we came to an old decaying trapper’s cabin, where we left our bikes, shouldered our packs and began our four mile hike to the fishing camp owned by Mr. Raymer. He was a very affable, easy going individual who rented us tent accommodation and fishing boats for the weekend.
In those days, trout up to two and a half pounds could be caught, with most fish in the pound being a half to two pound range.
It is my contention that most mountain lakes that become accessible by motor vehicle soon lose their fishing quality and become ho-hum.
We carefully cleaned the fish and put them in holes dug in the ground and lined with damp moss in the shade of big trees, keeping them fresh and firm until we got them home.
It was a most interesting Victoria Day weekend, circa 1944, when just having made camp and as we were making supper, five members of the Kelowna Italian-Canadian community arrived and set up camp next to us.
They were Sergeant Fuoco of the Canadian Army (based at the Kelowna Armoury), Vincnzo “Vince” Ciancone, Vince’s father Ulderico and Agostino Cacchione and one other man whose name I cannot recall. They brought along some jugs of home-made Italian wine and at midnight we were still regaled with a host of Italian arias being sung.
Needless to say, Ted, Lew and I were out on Bear Lake fishing far earlier the next morning, as they nursed their hangovers.
On Sunday evening, we had an intense rain storm but were greeted with sunshine early Monday morning. We survived the rainstorm, our tents having kept us nice and dry, shedding the rain well.
After fishing until noon, we packed up and headed for home, followed by our Italian friends.
A few miles down the road we came to Dun Waters Creek bridge, which was awash with strong-flowing flood waters from the previous night’s rain. Fortunately, the bridge-builders had the foresight to anchor the bridge to trees growing on the upper streamside with wire rope cable or it would have been washed away. We carefully carried our bikes and packs over the raging water, amid rocks, driftwood and sand flowing over the bridge deck.
This presented a big problem for Sergeant Fuoco and his gang, and so they decided to fall a big lodge pole pine tree growing along the upper part of the bridge deck, to temporarily break the water’s velocity and flow momentarily so as to get their car across. Vince got a small axe from the car and started to flail away at the tree, not making much headway, despite the fact that he was a huge man with big upper body and arms.
A frustrated Mr. Cacchione grabbed the axe and, though of moderate physique, with two axe blows made a big chip fly out of the trunk. I have never before or since seen such a superb axeman in action.
In a few minutes, he had chopped out a big undercut, a few more minutes later had the backcut chopped through and the tree landed on the exact spot that he had determined.
The newly-felled tree had the anticipated desired effect and Sergeant Fuoco quickly drove his 1940 Chevrolet sedan safely across the bridge.
Ted, Lew and I then flew down the steep logging road grade on our bikes and an hour later we were aboard the “M. V. Pendozi” ferry, on our way home after a wonderful fishing weekend.