Chapter 2 - Summer Adventures in Oliver
New land to explore
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Life back in Oliver was pretty good for an active and curious boy like Walter. He had been only two years old when the family left the community to move to Osoyoos, so now, when they returned, it was all new to five-year-old Walt. The family moved in the fall, so Gerda was back in school and Walter and his younger sister Margaret played during the weekdays, with Gerda joining them after school and on weekends.
There was a new orchard to explore, and Walt and his sisters got right to it. Their landlord, Mr. Mars, lived on the property and was very good to the kids, although they weren’t allowed near his house. His house was on the opposite corner of the land to the cabin where the Harms family lived, and there was a high hedge around the house. The kids were not to pass the hedge into Mr. Mars’ yard. He didn’t mind when they roamed freely through the rest of the property though. Gerda was puzzled, then annoyed, when Mr. Mars declared that Walter was free to climb the trees, but Gerda and Margaret could not.
“Girls don’t climb trees,” he said. Of course girls climb trees, Gerda muttered, and instructed Walt to make sure Mr. Mars wasn’t watching the next time she climbed a tree.
In the spring of 1946, the family grew again, when Norman was born. The small 3-bedroom cabin began to feel even more crowded with 5 kids and their parents. The older kids spent most of their days outdoors, while their mom cared for baby Norman, and John, who was still a toddler. The older kids played around the property, and watched the workers care for the fruit trees in the orchard.
The trees in the Mars orchard were tall, the cherry trees were over 20’ tall. The kids watched as two men worked to maneuver a 20’ orchard ladder into place to reach the top branches. The tallest ladders in the orchard in Osoyoos had been 10’ tall, that that had been plenty tall enough to reach the top of the those trees.
“Do you think those trees would still produce if they were 10’ or 15’ further away from the sun?” a worker asked one day, after struggling to reposition a 20’ ladder at the base of one of the trees.
The funny question led to an experiment, where a few of the trees were pruned down until they could be reached with a 10’ ladder. In the past the trees had only been pruned to increase fruit production, not to control their height. That year the pruned trees produced just as much fruit as the unpruned ones, and the cherry harvest was easier and safer for the pickers.
The peach trees were interesting to the kids as well. The peaches were the Hale variety which tend to be quite large anyway, but the ones that were left behind by the pickers grew to be massive. Some afternoons during harvest season, Walter and his mother would head out to the orchard to pick a couple of peaches to have with cream after dinner. On one afternoon, they spotted a large peach hanging from the end of a limb high up in the tree. Walter climbed carefully, selecting a branch that let him reach the peach without disturbing it. He was just about to pick it when something shifted, the branch jostled, the peach broke free, and fell straight down to where his mother was waiting below, splattering on her head. Walter froze in place, but she laughed as she wiped the juice from her face, and then Walter laughed too. They found another peach and brought it home, as planned.
In the fall of 1946 Walter started grade one. He was quite pleased to find school to be easy. He knew English, and he could read. All those “lessons” from Gerda had given him an edge, and grade one was old hat to him. Still, with school in session on weekdays, and church on Sundays, Walter was glad when the school year ended and he could get back to exploring. He loved observing day to day life around the orchard where there were far more interesting things to learn about.
Although Oliver sits in the South Okanagan valley, just as Osoyoos does, the area experienced thunderstorms that were quite a bit more impressive than the odd ones that had passed through Osoyoos when the family lived there. Walt thought the thunderstorms in Oliver were the most exciting he had ever seen. Dark grey clouds rolled into the valley, changing the smell in the air. At night, the storms brought lightening flashes so continuous they lit up the inside of the cabin just as bright as day. The roof of the cabin was constructed of boards, with roofing paper covering them, and the rain pounded on that roof. Walter loved it! He was tucked up warm in his bed, listening to the thunder and rain, and watching the bright flashes of light. If a storm came before bedtime, he would run outside to watch it from there, scaring the daylights out of Gerda, who was certain he would be killed in the bad weather. He loved the storms, and getting his older sister riled up was a little side benefit.
The storms created an extra bit of excitement as they moved away down the valley, especially later in the season as the cherries were nearly ready to pick. As soon as the thundershowers ended, a small helicopter that looked a lot like a mechanical mosquito, would fly low over the cherry trees. It came in with a tremendous roar and flew along the rows of trees, its downwash blowing the water off the cherries, so the fruit wouldn’t split before it could fully ripen. The helicopters came from Okanagan Falls, and would eventually become a larger operation, Okanagan Helicopters.
Sometimes Walter’s parents had business to do in Penticton, the nearest large town. His parents didn’t seem to enjoy the trip very much, they only went a few times a year. One of the reasons for their hesitation was the road between Oliver and Penticton. The driving distance wasn’t far, less than 25 miles, but a round trip could take all day. There was a stretch of road that squeezed between steep rock bluffs and Vaseaux Lake, it was only one vehicle wide. Navigating the bluff was a two-person job–one to check for traffic, and the other to navigate the narrow road. Meeting another car in that stretch of road meant one driver needed to back up around the winding, narrow road so the other car could get through, and nobody was keen to do that.
Fortunately for the kids, one of the best picnic spots in the area was on the shore of Vaseaux Lake, just before the bluffs. Their parents didn’t mind driving there, as it wasn’t too far. When they went to the lake for the day, they enjoyed fishing in the clear water, and wading out from the sandy beach to swim, as well as having a nice picnic lunch. As they drove home, Walt’s dad always quipped, “It’s the pleasure that takes you out, and a gallon of gas that takes you home.” That sentiment applied to camping trips as well.
The family car was a Whippet, made by Willys-Overland. It was a tough old vehicle, but gutless when it came to power. Once or twice a year the family would pile into the car and their dad would take them camping at Madden Lake, a small lake in the hills near Oliver. The road to the lake was rough with one very steep section which added a sense of adventure to the outing. That section was trouble for most vehicles, even vehicles with more powerful engines dug up the dirt tracks as they churned and spun up the hill. The Whippet struggled up the road in general, and at the steep section it gave up altogether. The kids and their mom got out of the car. Walter helped his mom find a big rock, at least six inches in diameter. Once they found a good one, his dad pushed the gas pedal to the floor to rev the engine, then popped the clutch so the car would lurch forward 10 or 15 feet. His mom followed behind, carrying the rock. Whenever the car lost momentum and started to roll back, she’d quickly wedge the rock under a tire to stop it. They repeated this leapfrogging process all the way up the hill.
Walter usually got bored waiting for his parents to coax the car up the hill, so he walked ahead with Gerda and Margaret to the top where they waited for their mom and dad to catch up. At the top was an area suitable for camping, and a short trail took them to the lake. The kids enjoyed the lake, it was small, but had very clear water. There were a lot of turtles around the lake, and it was always a treat to spot one. When it was time to return home, the drive down the hill was no less eventful than the trip up, as the brakes in the Whippet didn’t amount to much, either.
One of Walt’s uncles, Herb, who was Jake’s younger brother and was still in high school, also liked camping at Madden Lake. After school some Fridays he would go up to the lake alone, and camp there until Sunday night. He told the kids he didn’t take any food with him, he caught frogs and squirrels to eat while he was camping. Although the kids were disgusted, Walter was quite sure their Uncle Herb wasn’t kidding with them.
One weekend, when Uncle Herb borrowed the Whippet to go camping up in the hills, he had an accident. As he was driving down the narrow road, with no lights, and the Whippet’s intermittent brakes, he collided with a larger vehicle moving up the same road, also with no lights. The hood of the Whippet slid right underneath the larger vehicle, completely destroying the smaller car. Uncle Herb was uninjured, the Whippet was totalled, and the family was without a car.
Later, Uncle Herb tried to use the old engine from the Whippet to make a helicopter. Walter thought that if the engine could barely get the car up a hill, surely it wasn’t powerful enough to lift anything into the air, and he was right!
In 1947 Jake heard of another VLA settlement on Vancouver Island, where there were were plots of land available for a good price. Jake had saved up $1000.00 from his work in the orchards in the Okanagan, enough to buy 20 acres of land, of bush, really. Once the growing season in the Okanagan drew to a close and the crops were harvested, Jake set out to Black Creek to buy a plot of land. He and one of his brothers loaded all the family’s belongings up in his brother’s car, except for suitcases with clothes for Mary and the kids, and the men left for Vancouver Island. Mary and the kids took the train to Vancouver, where they spent a few weeks visiting cousins, and waiting for Jake to summon them. When he sent word that he had rented a house for them, Mary and the kids boarded a steamship that was owned by the Canadian Pacific Navigation Company (CPN), for a sailing to Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island. When they arrived at the dock, Walter was amazed. He had never seen a boat so large. He watched in awe as workers directed cars to be driven, one at a time, through a hatch in the side of the vessel. A car was driven through the hatch, then it needed to be maneuvered and parked on the deck below. Once it was in place, the next car disappeared into the hatch. He wondered if his uncle and his dad had driven through that hatch when they moved the family’s belongings to the island. That must have been exciting! The passenger decks seemed luxurious, with shiny teak trim. When the family arrived in Nanaimo, Jake was waiting for them in a borrowed car. They loaded their suitcases and piled in, eager to see their new home.
It was late in the day when Jake pulled up a short dirt driveway and stopped in front of a rough plank cabin. It was located at the opposite end of Black Creek to their land but Walt’s dad said it was only temporary while he built a cabin on their property. Compared to where they lived before, even seven-year-old Walter could see the new place was rough. As the family entered the cabin for the first time, the older kids began to remove their shoes, but their mother quickly stopped them, telling them to leave their shoes on. Walter stared at the floor in amazement and understood why his mother had stopped them–the plank floor was full of holes. And not just holes, whole chunks of wood had been ripped up, and there were large, sharp slivers standing straight up all over the floor. His dad explained the cabin had been a logger’s bunkhouse, maybe even two bunkhouses connected together, since the floor didn’t meet up in the middle. The bunkhouse had been dragged out of the bush and set up on the Jansen’s property. Near the door was a long trough for washing, but the bathroom was an outhouse outside. Walt’s mom walked across the floor and placed the youngest kids on the old chesterfield that was against the wall across the room. Little Norman was only a year old, and crawled everywhere, keeping him off that floor was going to be a job for everyone. Walt learned the damage on the floor had been caused by cork boots. Loggers wore boots with sharp spikes on the bottom that let them walk safely across logs, and they obviously wore them in the bunkhouse. The bunkhouse had no electricity, and no running water. There was a wood stove for heating and cooking. The roof was covered with tarpaper. It was pretty rough, compared to what they were used to. Seeing his wife’s face, Jake again assured them it was only temporary, he was going to build them their own house, on their own land, and so the family moved into the ragged accommodation. There were large bunks, and the boys slept on one level, and the girls on the other. That first night in Black Creek, as Walt lay on the bunk listening to the sleeping sounds of his siblings, rain striking the tarpaper above his head, he considered how different this new life was going to be from what he was used to in the orchards of the Okanagan.
As the school year was already underway, on Monday morning Walter, Gerda, and Margaret started classes in their new school. It was a two-room school, and the other students were kids were from Mennonite families who lived in the small farming community. A man named Bill Halbe had donated the land for the building, and his daughters were in the school, they quickly became friendly with Walt’s sisters. Bill’s wife had been friends with Walt’s mom, Mary from the time they met years ago in Manitoba. In fact, the cabin that they were living in was just across the road from a family called the Jansens, whom they knew because Mary had met Mrs. Jansen in Manitoba, as well. The Harms family had many connections in Black Creek, mostly going all the way back to the Ebenezer Girls’ Home in Winnipeg, Manitoba where Mary stayed when she first arrived in Canada as a teenager.
As school became routine for Walter and his sisters, their home life was anything but routine. The kids spent their time outside, or on the couch or beds, as the floor of the cabin was not fit for little feet. Things that had seemed effortless before, now required work–collecting water from the neighbour’s well for cooking, bathing, and laundry, and keeping the wood stove endlessly supplied with wood. And the rain, it seemed to rain constantly. Walter was used to rain, even heavy rain, but in the Okanagan it had rained, then the clouds moved on, taking their moisture somewhere else. In Black Creek, the clouds hung low, and it could rain for days.
True to his word, Walt’s dad worked hard to build a cabin on their own land, so the family could move out of the bunkhouse. He worked long days in the bush for a local logging company, then spent more hours slashing out a clearing on their own property. His plan was to quickly build a small cabin for the family for the winter, build a bigger house for them when conditions were better, then convert the cabin to a chicken coop to start a chicken business. The initial cabin was 18’ by 36’, built on cedar posts that allowed for a storage space underneath the floor. Through that fall, as the rain poured down, Jake framed in the walls and covered them with grey building paper. He built the roof with planks, then covered them with roofing paper. The roof was one large sloping surface, with a short, steep slope on the north side, all covered with tar paper. Behind the cabin was an outhouse, with a deep pit dug beneath it.
Walter marvelled at how hard his dad had worked to build that cabin. Although his dad had cleared a building site, there was no driveway or other access for the truck that delivered building supplies, so everything was delivered to the neighbour’s land. His dad carried every plank, bucket of nails, and roll of building paper to the building site on his back, through the rain and mud. On top of that, the family still didn’t have a car, so Jake rode a bicycle when he couldn’t get a lift with a neighbour. One day, he brought a large sack of flour home on the handlebars of his bike, which was quite a sight.
Despite these challenges, it was only a few months before the cabin was ready for the family to move in. On the day they moved in and lit the wood stove for the first time and warmed the interior of the cabin, Walter noticed steam drifting from the walls and ceiling. The structure was wet from being constructed in the rain, and now it began to dry. Over the following weeks, the wood dried, often shrinking, with gaping cracks emerging. Strong winds from coastal storms tore at the tar paper that was covering the roof, and it began to leak. And then the rains came. It rained for days at a time. Water ran through the roof and pooled in the building paper Jake had used to line the ceiling, it sagged as the rain continued to pour down. Jake and Mary placed buckets around the cabin where there were predictable leaks, but many leaks could not be predicted and just needed to be handled in the moment. By day, John and Norman delighted in tearing pieces of newspaper and putting them down wherever there was a leak. By night, events could take a more dramatic turn. One evening, Margaret and Gerda woke up shrieking, as a sudden burst of icy rainwater soaked them in their beds. The bulging ceiling paper above had finally given way, releasing a cold deluge that had gathered from a slow leak in the roof above. The whole family leapt into action to rescue Gerda and Margaret. It was, by all accounts, an exciting night.
When Walt’s dad built the cabin, he divided the interior space into rooms using partitions covered in building paper. Because the roof was sloped and the partitions had flat tops, a gap gradually widened between the tops of the partitions and the ceiling. Jake made use of this gap by wedging a large basin between the top of a partition and the ceiling to catch leaks.
One time, during an especially heavy rainfall, Walter heard raised voices in the kitchen and got up to see what was happening. He saw his parents standing on the kitchen table, and his dad was soaking wet! His mom had tried to empty the basin before going to bed, but it was too heavy for her. She had woken Jake to empty it, knowing it would overflow before morning.
Jake had sleepily climbed up on the table beside his wife, reached up, and lifted the basin off the partition. It was heavier than he anticipated, and it tipped, water sloshing out, pouring cold rainwater all over his pyjamas! Walter had heard him yell in surprise, but by the time he was out of bed, his dad had already regained his composure and was carefully stepping down off the table, onto a chair, on his way to empty the basin by the front door of the cabin.
Walt’s dad was a good-humoured guy. Once he got over the shock, he was back in good spirits, cleaning up the mess and replacing the basin on the partition. By morning, it was full again. Managing the leaking roof was a constant chore as the rain continued to pound the little cabin through the winter.
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Author’s Notes:
N.B.1: We often see our parents through the lens of their roles in our lives— caregivers, disciplinarians, cheerleaders. Perhaps they are our role models or mentors, but who were they before they became these things to us?"
To better understand who my parents were before they were, well, my parents, I set about interviewing them about their lives before marriage and kids. I started with my mom, and you can read her story here, and now, “Learning to Fly” is the story of my dad.
Walter Harms was the oldest son of Mary and Jake Harms, Mennonites who fled to Canada in search of safety and the hope for a better future. He was a curious child, always interested in the land they lived on, and how things worked. As a young man, this curiousity led him to respond to an advertisement for flying lessons, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Walter is my dad, and this is his story, as told to me in a series of interviews in 2024-25. The story is pieced together from Dad’s memory, photos, and documents. As we all know, memory is fallible. In the telling of this story, some names have been changed, either because they could not be recalled, or to protect the privacy of the person.
I’d like to extend a special thank you to my Aunt Gerda, Dad’s sister, who has shared her memories of events from the early years.