I stopped the truck and we got out, each heading off in a separate direction. This vast landscape demanded solitude, and we three obliged. As someone compelled by nature in general and grasslands in particular, this Junction Range was overwhelming. A merging of two storied rivers, the Chilcotin and the Fraser. A grassland in the midst of lodgepole forest country. No evidence of human occupation, other than a short rail fence at the viewpoint. But I knew this Junction had a millennial (four, in fact) history as a traditional fishing site for the Secwepemc peoples. After a time my colleagues became anxious to move on, but I waved them off, and let this strange and magnificent landscape wash over me. 

Certain places form a kind of ecological hinge, or buckle. Saskatchewan’s Cypress Hills: a forest in the prairie. Garry Oak meadows in wet coastal British Columbia. Canal Flats, where the north-going Columbia River nearly connects to the south-trending Kootenay. And here, the Junction Range. These are places that by their sheer natural power and –dare I use the term, majesty—become emblematic. The Junction Range hinges forest to grassland, mountain to prairie, and earth to the vast and changeable dome of sky. It buckles two great watersheds, the Chilcotin and the upper Fraser. In its exposed and naked geology, it connects the earth’s surface to deeper layers and to past epochs. The Junction’s pit houses and other archaeological evidence speak of long-term, sustainable resource use that pre-dates the pyramids. Evidence that does not speak well of today’s uses. 

The Junction Range also ties the Boreal Forest to the Great Basin, two vast biomes that are separated by thousands of kilometers, but connected by the slender thread of these and other river systems.

My colleagues finally convinced me to get back in the truck, and we headed back to Williams Lake. That moment was twenty-five years ago, but the memories are as clear as yesterday. The Junction Range will always be a part of me.