Botanical Glossary - Home

Looking southeast along the Myra Canyon Kettle Valley Rail from Trestle Number 14 (Trestle 14 is an impressive 73 meters long and 17 meters high) - There is loosely piled, three inches of dry, powdery snow on the ground that drifts horribly when the wind picks up and is thrown pell mell with the force of a sand blaster.

The Myra Canyon section of the Kettle Valley Railway was built between 1912 and 1914. It was part of a "Coast to Kootenay" railway line that linked Midway, in British Columbia's Boundary District, with the Canadian Pacific Railway main line at Hope. The railway carried freight and passengers through the Myra Canyon until passenger service ended in 1964 and the last scheduled train went through in 1973. See the Myra Canyon History for a little more information on the Kettle Valley Railway.

At 2 A.M. on Saturday morning, August 16, 2003, a bolt of lightning struck a tree near Squally Point in Okanagan Mountain Park. An extremely dry summer and plenty of fuel, coupled with high winds, quickly spread the fire into the city of Kelowna. It destroyed over 200 homes before spreading up the mountainside to the former kettle Valley Railway right-of-way. On September 3, the Okanagan Mountain Park wildfire entered the Myra Canyon area and, despite heroic efforts by firefighters, destroyed 12 wooden trestles and damaged two steel trestles.