A Season in the Okanagan by Bill Arnott

Another tour—and tour de force—guide by BC writer Bill Arnott

Love letters are nothing new to England’s Lake District. Poet William Wordsworth extolled its picturesque mountains and lakes, its daffodils “dancing in the breeze.” The Cumbrian region also inspired children’s author Beatrix Potter, though rather differently. What danced for Bea were thoughts of thieving rabbits.

Brace yourself, Lake District, because Canada can now step up and look you in the eye. We have our own writer of landscape love letters: Vancouver’s Bill Arnott, author of insightful, often whimsical, travel books such as Gone Viking: A Travel Saga and A Perfect Day for a Walk: The History, Cultures, and Communities of Vancouver, on Foot. Awards for Bill’s travel odes have included fellowships at both Britain’s and Canada’s Royal Geographical Societies.

Most recently, Bill is sharing his observations and musings from spending A Season in the Okanagan. Two seasons, really, since he observes Nature’s evolution there from summer into fall. Or, as that region’s Four Syilx Food Chiefs would more evocatively say, from Saskatoon Berry into Salmon.

For Bill, taste is a vital part of experience—and of memory. In wandering through the Okanagan, he also revisits his youth in Vernon. Proust had madeleines; Bill, Okanagan cherries. Author Bill relives young Bill clambering, balancing and stretching “as the deep crimson fruit is plucked from the outermost branches until buckets brim, stained with claret-hued juice. He can taste it already, filling his small body with pleasure.”

Bill’s travels in Season are also a pilgrimage in tribute to his late dad. Scattering Bill Sr.’s ashes above Lake Okanagan, he describes how “I let Dad return to the land, this place that he treasured, passing on a shared love. To my amazement a light breeze arrives, perfect swirls, a spindle in every direction. Ashes whoosh in a tiny tornado, spin for a moment, then fly.”

But Bill, being a man for all seasons, provides humour along with poignancy. He recalls the thrill of—gasp!—the tape recorder his parents gave him. For many readers around in the pre-1990s, before Internet access, this will be a total oh, yeah moment. With recorder on and mic in hand, we became deejays, chroniclers, and capturers of noteworthy audio moments. In Bill’s case, as he shares in a, uh, burst of confidence, the latter included “flatulent gusts.” (If there’s ever an audiobook of Season, perhaps these will be a feature.)

For the myth of Lake Okanagan’s Nessie-like monster Ogopogo, Bill’s tone shifts to indignation. First Nations revered a Lake Spirit, “its presence not unlike the Four Food Chiefs, instilling harmonious land relations.” But, in 1872, along came Susan Allison, a European settler who claimed to have seen a dinosaur in the lake. Sue’s story caught on. Thus did sensational Eurocentric myth torpedo poetic First Nations myth.

You can almost hear Bill’s rueful sigh as, in Kelowna, he beholds Peter Soelin’s 1960 sculpture of Ogopogo, its serpent-like body “undulating like whitecaps, scales and stegosaur fins, with a head like a giraffe, topped with two knobby protrusions… A cream-coloured belly, green sides, a brown razorback top. And an open-mouthed smile, red tongue lolling, as though blowing a raspberry.” A sculpture, in other words, that’s more cartoon than art.

Photography by Jennifer Bain

What does qualify as art, much as Bill is self-deprecating about them, are his photos. He took cellphone shots, then digitally painted them. The result: pure Van Gogh in the deep richness of colour and depth, from dark branches against yellows and blues of grass and lake, to the vibrant metal sculpture of a Nk’MipChief in Osoyoos.

Now that’s an accomplishment other authors would almost give an ear for.

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About the Author

Bill Arnott is the bestselling, award-winning author such chronicles as the Gone Viking travelogues, Season memoirs, and A Perfect Day for a Walk: The History, Cultures, and Communities of Vancouver on Foot. A frequent presenter and contributor at universities, and to podcasts, magazines, TV and radio, Bill is a West Coaster living on Musqueam, Squamish, and Tslei-Waututh land.

About the Reviewer

A Vancouver freelance writer/editor, Melanie Jackson is also the author of such acclaimed middle-grade/YA novels as the Dinah Galloway Mystery Series (Orca). Other novels include Medusa's Scream, which earned Melanie awards of a Canadian Children’s Book Centre Best Book of 2018 and TD-CCBC author tour.

Book Details

• Publisher: ‎Rocky Mountain Books Ltd., April 15, 2025
• Language: ‎English
• Paperback: ‎216 pages
• ISBN 9781771607247 (softcover with flaps)
• ISBN 9781771607254 (electronic)