Two Cowboys are Getting Lost in the Boundary Country of British Columbia

Boundary Where?

When you tell someone that you are from the Boundary Country, they have no idea where it is. Where? The Boundary Country is in British Columbia. It is the strip of country nestled between the Okanagan and Kootenay Valleys that is hugging the US Border to the South of Canada.

It is understandable that people don't know much about the area. It dates from a different era. American miners poured across the border in 1859 during the Rock Creek Gold Rush. In subsequent years they were followed by the discovery and industrialization of the area's abundant mineral resources. 

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Copper provided the industrial base for development in the region, with many large mines and smelters, and associated mining camps and communities. At one time these settlements were large enough that there were two provincial electoral seats in the area - Greenwood and Grand Forks. At one time, Greenwood was even in contention for the Capital of the Province.

The communities of Boundary had three major railways connecting them to the rest of the world. The Kettle Valley Rail Trail and the Columbia and Western Rail Trail now form part of The Great Trail (formerly the Trans Canada Trail). Another trail, the Dewdney Trail ventures east from Christina Lake.

Several towns from this era have since disappeared or vanished beyond recognition. Among them are Eholt, Deadwood, Cascade Falls and Phoenix. Many more are following in their footsteps. When you drive through, it seems the rest of Canada forgot about the Boundary. Names like Phoenix, Beaverdell, Rock Creek, Westbridge and Bridesville means nothing to folks that are not from there. If you mention Big White, Grand Forks and Christina Lake, there may be a flickering of recognition.

Observations

Why bother with the Boundary Country?

We are not giving you a fluffy destination tourism pitch of nice weather, clean air, and great tasting water. It has all of that by the bucket load, coupled with a good dollop of history and natural variety. On the tourism front, it has the potential to outcompete with many destinations in Western Canada, even its closest cousin - Kelowna (yes, we know we are pushing it - hear us out).

Here is another angle. We think it is a place caught in a twilight zone between the end of industrialization and the potentialities of the neo-digital revolution. It combines affordable living and lifestyle, with digital reach and old-school faculty. Heck, the second busiest highway in BC runs through it, and it borders agricultural breadbaskets to the West, East and the South!

It is bound to be discovered by digital road warriors and the feck-this-9-5-life, time-to-become-an-artisan folk. It is similar to places like Revelstoke and Canmore. Only, it is still affordable. It offers the potential of natural living to highly educated people that are looking to break out of mad-rush city careers and cutthroat mortgages in favour of artesian lifestyles and meaningful lives.

Boundary Country offers plenty more space, affordability, quality living, good infrastructure, and all the possibilities to make a living working online, blowing glass, weaving, building furniture, spinning pots, brewing beer, blacksmithing, raising goats, roasting coffee, chocolateering, planting stuff, or running a butcher shop or deli on the side.

It offers a digital future with 18th-century charm - without breaking the bank.

You can still buy a plot of land for under $50,000, and build a nice little house for less than $250,000 in one of the many typical small towns. They all have the requisite infrastructure, lack restrictive and overbearing zoning, and are within striking distance by road and air to the leading centres in BC, Washington, Idaho, Montana and the world.

It is a transport corridor and a tourism destination without bounds, that offers nature trails, history, lakes, mountains, skiing, hiking, biking, boating, swimming, etcetera. It has the best weather and water in Canada - milder winters and balmy summers.

The only thing the Boundary Country needs is to be discovered by people looking for a better way of living. We think it has the potential. That is why we are here, and why we are telling the world about it. Prepare to hear a lot more about it from the Two Cowboys. Get in touch if you, like us, want to visit or relocate to this newfound affordable little paradise. Come and build something new here where it is still possible, where people once thrived, we can do it again.

Together with those that are already here, we look forward to welcoming you.

Merry Christmas. See you in 2019!

Hendrik
Boundary Cowboy

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Photos

Passing Through

The View

Town Hall Greenwood

Golden Mornings 

Living Wood

Traveling Cowboys: Kicking off Fulltiming and the Dreamy Lifestyle of a Nomad in North America - Starting in Canada

This is Serious

I've counted every hour I've spent commuting to and from work. In my thirty-long working years thus far, while committed to the soul-destroying act of a "rewarding corporate career", I clocked more kilometres than most. Three hours a day. Fifteen hours a week. Sixty hours a month. Seven-hundred-and-twenty hours a year. A full ninety, eight hour work days on the road, every year! Two-thousand-and-seven-hundred "rewarding" days of my life staring through the windows of a commuter car. A lifetime lost!

As the days clicked by, I wore out cars. I sacrificed my time, to be amongst people I deplore. I did "work" with little to no value, without recognition, so that I can have and afford the "expected lifestyle" for my middle-class family. Every day I asked, "Is this meant to be life?" until one day I proclaimed, "This cannot be it!" 

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It was a lifestyle that took seventy cents in every dollar I earned, for direct and indirect taxes. The remaining thirty cents I paid towards extortionately high and never-ending loan interest and fees to banks for accommodation (mortgage), transport (vehicle finance) and insurance. With the responsibility for four dependents, I lived for the welfare of the government and the profits of the banks, and for the privilege to borrow a small amount back on my high interest and low fee credit card to feed my family and fill a house with trolly loads of meaningless stuff. A home located in an artificially crafted "lifestyle community" or suburb.

The house I lived in belonged to the bank and what I was allowed to do with it was determined by the city or town. Even the insurance company prescribed what I can and cannot do with supposedly "my vehicle". Starting and operating a business was even harder, but a story for another time.

Inevitably, anyone in my situation - which is an increasingly more significant number of people - come to realise that this cannot be it! There must be more to life and better things to do with my time in a place and space I want to be, that is mine, and where I am in control and can choose, where I can hold on to what I make and can live with what I earn. Where I can work and spend time with people, I actually want around me.

Observations

So far, I've migrated through three continents looking for this place and life, and came to realise it may be nothing more than an elusive dream. Or, is it?

Is the dreamy digital nomadic lifestyle pre-empting what so many people have lost and are hoping to attain, ultimately again? Are technology and mobility finally putting it within reach for us to go and live and wander. To go to places where we want to be, instead of where we have to be. Can we go where we are valued and where our experience is needed? Is the life of a Fulltimer a way to ultimately be free to live more with less?

My generation will probably never see retirement. When we read the newspapers, we realise that there probably won't be money left in the public purse for pensions when we clock around sixty-five. Why then delay the inevitable. Get out. Hit the road now. Live!

As we wake up beside the ocean or in a forest next to a lake, will birdsong or crashing waves become the rhythm of our routine? Will we finally be free from the daily grind and "ideal life" the Baby boomers craftily "left us"? Is home-anywhere the salvation for the Generation X'ers, to live and do what we love. Will we finally be able to say, this is it!

The Two Cowboys invite you on our journey as we learn how to deal with the challenges of the self-imposed nomadic lifestyle.  Come with us to explore and enjoy the spoils along the way, as we explore a new, and hopefully better way of living. The house is for sale. The storage container packed. The RV stocked. The maps rolled out. The dart is thrown.

See you on the road, fellow travellers.

Hendrik van Wyk

Home-Everywhere Cowboy

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Photos

Two Cowboys Van

Two Cowboys: Joie De Vivre at L'Atelier du Fromage in Newmarket, Auckland, New Zealand

The Joy of Living

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Who perfected the art of living?

Was it the French, the Spaniards, or the Italians? Famous phrases have rung out over centuries of ongoing cultural refinement searching for this answer. Phrases such as "Joie de vivre", "pura vida" and "vivere la vita" all attempt to describe the art of perfect living.

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It is a question not to be taken lightly. Many cultures have fought centuries of war over its essence. As with most things in life, you have to lose your innocence to have an opinion. While minutes, hours, days and years are slipping away through the hourglass of our lives, it is profoundly necessary for every person to have an opinion and make up their mind. What is your art of living? Have you to tasted it, heard it, felt it, seen it. Lived it.

Today Two Cowboys dare to weigh in. In the New World, we are lucky. We can get away with borrowing a little bit of living from the Old World and supplement it with the New. With our own roots in South Africa, New Zealand and Canada, we were born into fine wine, refined cuisine and lots of cheese. For us, culinary living must also include beer, smoked brisket, lamb, chocolate, coffee, and oysters.

Life is not all about eating and drinking. It is also about loving family, good friends, fresh air, health and special moments. No matter where you are in the world. All of this is necessary to complete the perfect picture of the art of life.

Observations

Some places make it a little easier. One of those is L'Atelier du Fromage in Auckland, New Zealand. It puts you on the fast track to living. From the moment you step through the door, you are transferred to another world.

If you are from the south of France, it will feel like home. If you've never been to France, it will give you a reason to go. Until you do, Scott and his team will take care of your French culinary needs. All of them. Wine, cheese, croissants, charcuterie, eclairs, macarons and more.

If you need it fresh, resident chef Gilles stationed on his kitchen perch above the humdrum of the shop will orchestrate amazing flavours with fresh local ingredients. He will give you a simple quality meal with no equal in most of Auckland's top restaurants. I don't give out accolades like this lightly. The best pork belly ever: L'Atelier du Fromage. The best beef rib ever: L'Atelier du Fromage.  Gilles is a master with flavour, texture and pairing wine. You have to take it when you get it. The menu changes every week.

Then again, I am politely reminded by Scott, this is how we do it in France. The only part that doesn't fit is that this is in Auckland, New Zealand! Maybe the New World is, after all, discovering the art of living. Maybe the French do know something about it. A visit to L'Atelier du Fromage will certainly give you an authentic and first-class taste of it. If nothing else, it will raise the bar on what to expect.

It comes highly recommended.

Hendrik van Wyk
French Cowboy

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Photos

Cheese Heaven

Croque Monsieur 

Flat White Please

Oui

Oui Monseur

Newmarket!