Places Visited: July 5, 2007. We are staying in Pair-A-Dice RV-Park, in Creston, British Columbia. $26.71 gravel interior roads, FHU including cable. This is an OK RV Park.
We are on a sightseeing excursion that loops around Kootenay Lake. We are traveling in our Saturn and located between Nelson and Balfour where we are traveling on PH 3A. We have temporarily turned off PH 3A to take the Harrop Ferry to the south side of the western arm of Kootenay Lake. It is just a short distance across the western arm of Kootenay Lake where a unique ferry is utilized to transport vehicles across the waterway to the very small communities of Harrop and Proctor.
This is looking down the small road leading to the Harrop Ferry. Although the ferry landing here looks like a normal boat ramp I can assure you that the ferry pulls up to the ramp and drops a ramp that allows vehicles to drive onto the ferry.
The unique thing about this small ferry is the cable system employed. It took me a bit but I finally understood the mechanics of it as you will see later. At this time note that you can see two cables coming out the side of the ferry. The outside cable is a guide while the inside cable is used to pull the ferry from one side of the waterway to the other. I will show you how it does that later.
Once on the other side of the western arm of Kootenay Lake we drove east on the only road toward the community of Proctor. Actually, Proctor is only a few houses, possibly 25 to 35 located where the western arm of Kootenay Lake joins Kootenay Lake. When we looked across the western arm of Kootenay Lake while in the community of Proctor we can see the Ferry Terminal where we will be boarding one of the big ferries that will transport us across Kootenay Lake. To get there we first have to return to the Harrop Ferry about 7-miles west of here.
When we arrived at the Harrop Ferry landing the Harrop Ferry was headed our way with a load of automobiles.
From here you can see three cables on this ferry. Guide cables are located on both sides of the ferry while the "drive" cable is located about 4-feet from the left side cable. You will be better able to see the cables in another picture.
I am following this little red truck onto the ferry. Like I said the ferry ramp looks like a boat ramp to me. The ferry arrives and drops that ramp and cars move on and off. Unlike most ferries, we are familiar with, there are no personnel to tell you what to do. Everyone just seems to know what to do. We just followed the leader and did what they did.
From this view you can clearly see the drive cable. It is the tight one!
The guide cable is on the right while the "DRIVE" cable is on the left in this picture.
This is a view of the "drive-train". Inside that cage is the large "drive wheel". Look closely and you can see the brown cable wrapped around the large pulley. It only went around one time.
Once we exit the Harrop Ferry we return to PH 3A and continue east to the Kootenay Lake Ferry located in Balfour terminal not more than 7-miles away.
Now this is a REAL ferry able to carry 30 or more vehicles including large trucks. I took this picture looking back at the vehicles that boarded after we did. This was a fast loading operation with several employees involved with getting as many vehicles as possible on board.
All the vehicles waiting are loaded with only one small spot remaining. We are pulling away from the terminal. As you can see this is a much larger operation than the Harrop Ferry.
Now we have pulled completely away from the terminal. This is the same terminal that we photographed from the otherside of the waterway a few minutes before.
Our attention quickly turns to the stupendous scenery as we clear the terminal and begin to make our way across the lake.
As we near the center of the lake we can see this ferry's sister ship coming toward us with a load of vehicles headed in the opposite direction.
The picture on the right was taken looking under the pilot house. Note the other ferry coming at us in the center of the picture. Also note the large fifth wheel rig perched as far forward on the ferry as possible.
The other ferry is getting closer.
And finally it passes us with its load of passengers and vehicles.
With the other ferry out of the way our attention returns to the scenery.
As you can see ferries aren't the only vessels out on Kootenay Lake.
We are unloading at the eastern Ferry Terminal located at Kootenay Bay near the artisan community of Crawford Bay.
Vehicles are roaring off the ferry as two lines of vehicles wait to load.
It will only be a few minutes until these vehicles will be loading.
We stopped at the Broom Company in Crawford Bay. This is one of the Artisan shops where visitors can watch artisans as they produce products. In this shop they were making old fashioned straw brooms. We passed this shop up when we were in Crawford yesterday so we had to stop and visit today.
This is a sample of the brooms they were manufacturing in the shop.
This Barefoot Handweaving shop is located across the street. We watched as the artisan in this shop plied his trade.
Until next time remember how good life is. Mike & Joyce Hendrix
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