Osoyoos a most hospitable desert
Out in the Okanagan desert, the burrowing owl is always the star. And that goes double on this evening.
At an event called Romancing the Desert, a burrowing owl named Pluto perches atop Lauren Meads’ hand. Meanwhile, brand ambassador Sophie Laurent is posing among the sage and antelope brush, hoisting a glass of pinot gris from Burrowing Owl Winery in Oliver. The winery takes its name from the tiny bird of prey, which, naturally, lives and breeds in underground burrows.
The bird also shares Canada’s only desert with other creatures, such as badgers and marmots (which kindly dig the burrows), rattle snakes, coyotes, mule deer, black-widow spiders, scorpions and prickly-pear cactus.
“Canada’s only desert here in Osoyoos is a rare, fragile and endangered ecosystem,” Osoyoos Desert Centre chairwoman Lee McFadyen tells us.
“We really should have more events like this to raise awareness and money for it.”
Romancing the Desert is an annual alfresco soirée at the centre in August.
It features a dinner in the desert and then a walk along the 1.5-kilometre boardwalk to further indulge at wine and treat stations.
While the fundraiser is only once a year, you can romance the desert any time you want with an eco-friendly getaway to Osoyoos.
The town of 5,000 is at the southern end of the Okanagan Valley near the Canada-U.S. border.
The so-called pocket desert that stretches 60 kilometres from Osoyoos to Penticton is the northernmost outpost of the Sonoran and Great Basin deserts of California, Arizona and Nevada.
And it is indeed a true desert with its sandy soil, dry scrub, long, hot summers, 2,039 hours of sunshine a year and less than 25 centimetres of rain annually.
Desert in Osoyoos’s case doesn’t mean barren and inhospitable. In fact, just the opposite. The pocket desert is the best of both worlds with hot, dry summers, Canada’s warmest lake (14-kilometre-long Osoyoos Lake), water sports galore, orchards, vineyards and wineries and desert-inspired accommodations and cuisine.
No trip to the town is complete without a dip in Osoyoos Lake, which is shockingly warm.
After our swim, we luxuriate on the private beach of Spirit Ridge at Nk’Mip Resort, where we are staying.
The path from the resort to the lake is through an irrigated Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard.
The grapes love the sand-gravel-loam soil of the desert.
The 4.5-star, 226-suite Spirit Ridge is owned by the Osoyoos Indian Band and has many nods to the desert and aboriginal culture with its southwest architecture and Native art.
The seared scallops for dinner at the resort’s Mika restaurant are paired with Dream Catcher white wine from adjacent Nk’Mip, Canada’s first aboriginal-owned winery.
We also take a trip to Tinhorn Creek Winery in Oliver for tastings and lunch on the patio at Miradoro.
B.C. Restaurant Hall of Fame chef Jeff Van Geest serves up truffle, burratta cheese and zucchini flower pizza from the woodfired oven paired with Tinhorn’s rosé.
Warm, sated and drinking in the vineyard and valley view from the patio, we declare: We love the desert.