Two for Tulip

We’re an hour’s drive from our North Vancouver home. We’ve brought bicycles to ride a portion of the Trans Canada Trail (TCT). It’s a ‘Two for Tulip’ day. ‘Tu’ and ‘Two’ are the syllable sound-surround of this flower of the day. In addition, we’re on a two-fold purpose because we’re doing a bicycle ride paired with tulip gazing.

We exit Trans Canada Highway #1 at Exit 95 on Whatcom Road and cross over the highway to continue east. It’s early May and the freshet is coming with a hot weekend forecast. Freshet is when streams and rivers swell with melting snow (sometimes in rainy combination). Fresh new water gushes to the sea.

The parking at Atkinson and Eldridge is ample. We’ve come mid-week to see the tulips before they (and we) succomb to the heat. We feel a ruffling breeze and wonder if it’s a westerly or the freshet bringing it.

Part 1: First, the ride

Colleen MacDonald’s book ‘Let’s Go Biking’ is our guide (page 117 from ‘Easy Rides, Walks & Runs Around Vancouver’). McKay Creek Trail leads us over Lakemount Road to jog right then left onto Sumas River Trail. To our right, we hear the hum of Highway #1 which was once Sumas Lake (Sema:th of the Sto:lo Nation), now Sumas Prairie, and stretches for 36 km2. The lake was drained between 1920 and1924. It is now a dairy, berry, poultry and tulip hub.

McDonald Park ‘s circular concrete platform posts that it is a ‘Dark-Sky Preserve’ for star gazers and their telescopes. On our left is a full-to-the-brim Sumas River, and towering above (and blocking the light from nearby towns of Chilliwack, Abbotsford and Mission) is Sumas Mountain. There’s no evidence of darkness on this sparkling day…just welcome patches of shade. We return to the picnic area at McDonald Park for packed sandwiches and drinks.

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We pass Barrowtown Pump Station after a kilometer’s ride along North Parallel Road. It pumps an Olympic-size swimming pool every minute (1/2 a million gallons) from the low-lying Sumas River into the Fraser River. We rejoin Dyke Trail until it swings southward to put us on the Vedder River Trail. Upriver at Vedder Crossing, the Chilliwack River flows into the Vedder Canal and changes its name (and colour, from green to mud brown) before joining the Sumas flow to the Fraser.

We turn around at Keith Wilson Bridge to retrace our 26 km route. Keeners keep going (page 118 of Colleen’s book). Check out the Great Blue Heron Reserve. We’ve seen several of the pterodactyl-like birds, along with raptors: bald eagles, hawks and turkey vultures.

Part 2: Lakeland Flower

Abbotsford Tulip Festival

Our ‘Two for Tulip’ two-some drive eight minutes to Lakeland Flowers off of South Parallel Road and Marion Road, crossing the highway at #3 Road. Three generations of Warmerdam family bulbs span twenty-seven acres at Lakeland, in all shapes and colours (save blue). Of the 70 varieties, peony-like tulips (Doubles) and Fringe tulips with frayed edges are two of our favourites. In like fashion, children wear frilly dresses, or their colour-coordinated parents (and grandparents), in the largest display of tulips in Canada.

Tulip florals offer an expression of Canada’s friendship with the Netherlands since WW2. Tulips are from the lily family and are the national flower of Iran, from the Persian word for turban. They’ve been cultivated in Iran since the 10th century. It won’t be long before Lakeland tulips give way to peonies, to pave the way for lavender and sunflowers. Top it off with Lakeland summer meadowlands for six months of floral fiesta.

All in all, we framed our day as a ‘Two for Tulip’. Just as bike frames are the main component of bicycles to which everything else is fitted, so too, everything fitted into this ‘Two for Tulip’ day. Bikes skittered along the Sumas Dyke Trail. Secondly (or two-ly), we’ve had a sumptuous sip of colour and texture in a tulip-framed picture of early spring.

Five tulip bouquets for $25 will share bunches of joy on this ‘Two for Tulip’ day.