A Season in the Okanagan by Bill Arnott

Reviewed by Wendy Hawkin

Bill Arnott’s latest “Season” memoir takes the reader on an emotional armchair journey through British Columbia’s iconic Okanagan Valley. But it needn’t be armchair for long. This delectable morsel may inspire you to shift from recliner to car seat or bus or even plane. In this historic moment, when Canadians are exploring our nation more than ever before, this wee gem is a must. Just over 4” wide and 6.5” long, it slips easily into a glove box, purse, pocket, or backpack, and Arnott is an expert travel companion. Lush with sensory song, Arnott’s travelogue is an epic serenade to this land he loves.

The memoirish aspect of this book is emotive, revealing the boy who fathered the man—a man raised in lakeside Vernon who grew up to be an acclaimed traveller and writer, speaker, poet, and songwriter. Winner of The Miramichi Reader’s “The Very Best!” book award for nonfiction, Arnott was granted a Royal Geographical Society Fellowship. His award-winning Gone Viking trilogy, researched and penned over a decade, is another timeless lure to adventure.

Anchoring his Okanagan journey are symbols—the hummingbird, the mourning dove, and sour cherry juice—innocent pleasures that haunt him still. And there’s something more. In this time of Reconciliation, Arnott’s awareness that he/we are settlers on this land riffles through the pages in the naming of places, people, and stories he chooses to feature. He honours this Indigenous land and its First People, the Syilx of the Okanagan Nation. On page one is a striking, painted photograph of the Chief, a metal sculpture on horseback at Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre in Osoyoos. It was created by the late Virgil “Smoker” Marchand to celebrate Okanagan/Okanogan culture. The book is seasonally structured around the Four Syilx Food Chiefs—Bitterroot (spring) and Saskatoon Berry (summer), Salmon (autumn) and Black Bear (winter). Arnott trips through summer and fall delighting in Nature’s changing hues.

The energetic text is enhanced with a series of digitally painted photographs taken by Arnott on his “outdated camera phone.” At the launch, he explained his process, but when asked if he would consider teaching a workshop, he humbly declined, saying he didn’t have the expertise. I beg to differ. These striking artistic images enrich and personalize his books in a way a simple picture cannot.

Sprinkled throughout the text are witty anecdotes, conversations struck up with locals, love songs to his Ukrainian grandparents, interviews with Knowledge Keepers, and forays into the history, archaeology, climate, and intricate geology of place. The Okanagan Valley is a lush land of wineries constantly under threat by forest fires, a gritty aspect of life that cannot be ignored. Of course, Arnott tours the cities and towns that have grown up and out: Vernon, Kelowna, Peachland, Summerland, Penticton, Oliver, Okanagan Falls and Osoyoos, offering lyrical suggestions of places to pause along the way.

But, what lies at its heart is a pilgrimage to the past and an honouring of the present. Dedicated to Dad, Arnott’s last acts are to celebrate his mother’s ninetieth birthday and scatter his father’s ashes on the hill above Lake Okanagan. “Where pine needles blanket the ground over pink and orange rock, with cacti and clumps of wild grass. A crow caws as a magpie swoops by.” A gifted bard, he creates a sense of majesty for even the most mundane denizens. Affection wafts from each page, at once, both poem and prayer.

A Season in the Okanagan is published by Rocky Mountain Books.

Wendy Hawkin writes “myth, magic, and mayhem” with Blue Haven Press.