How the places we stayed shaped The Wild Turkey Inn in Rossland
In 1997, in my early twenties, I spent nine months backpacking through the Middle East with a backpack as big as me. To be fair, I’m 4′9″. I slept on rooftops, on beaches, in caves and in many bed bug-ridden hostels. I hitchhiked with considerably more confidence than I would now. Drivers would comment on the walking backpack as we climbed in.
There were four of us, all broke. We got wind that a visit to the local police station, an oath of some description and a stamp in our passports would make us temporary Jordanian citizens, or that was our understanding. Whatever our official status, our admission to Petra went from US$75 to $2.
On the road to Petra. The police had stopped our lift, advised us against travelling with the driver, and left us to find another.
This was travel without the internet. At one point my parents didn’t hear from me for three months. We finally called home after stumbling upon a phone booth that somehow let us make free international calls.
The game was to stay away for as long as possible on as little money as possible. Every dollar saved bought us a little more time. A comfortable room was a long way down the list.
Hostel life in Istanbul, 1997. Making the travel budget last.
Standing outside an international school in Cairo, I suddenly realized that teaching could be a way to keep travelling. It was a fairly consequential thought to have on a sidewalk. I went home, got the degree and, in 2003, moved to Guatemala to teach at Colegio Americano de Guatemala.
There were more backpacking trips. In El Salvador, we spent a sleepless night shining flashlights on the cockroaches around us. On the Corn Islands in Nicaragua, getting to the outhouse involved walking a narrow plank over a giant mud hole. I was suffering from food poisoning out both ends, which added a certain urgency to the crossing.
It was finally time to graduate myself to places that didn't require pest control.
I had always loved setting up spaces. Moving furniture around, finding a better arrangement, making room for whatever might happen there. I do it in my classroom too. As I travelled, I began paying more attention to the places themselves. Somewhere along the way, the place to rest my head became one of the leading characters.
At La Casa del Mundo on Lake Atitlán, I had my first taste of handcrafted hospitality: buttery yellow walls, stone, clay tiles and colourful handmade quilts. It was a favourite escape among the Colegio teachers, and every time I went, I felt lucky to have found it. On the balcony, morning became a ritual of sugary coffee and slow breaths rather than a rush to beat the school bell. Afternoons brought xocolatl, Guatemalan hot chocolate, and time on the dock with friends.
A painting from Lake Atitlán, given to me by my friend Shaunie. She said it reminded her of me. I don’t know who painted it, but I’ve kept it all these years.
Teaching eventually took me to Hong Kong, and there were many more adventures around Asia. One stay in Bali comes back to me with fondness: thatched huts, a beautiful pool, walks down the road into the rice paddies and the monkey forest near Ubud. There was somewhere to wander and somewhere lovely to come back to.
The sun led the day rather than the clock.
Later, in the Mike years, there was a place in Provence. A luxurious bed, dappled with sun in the morning. Fresh water in beautiful glass carafes. We would wander out into the stone courtyard, through the gates and into the town. I felt safe and deeply at ease. Something about the sun-baked stone, the courtyard, the passage from our room into the life of the town. I wanted to linger.
When I first stayed in the house that would become The Wild Turkey Inn, I recognized that feeling.
The fir floors were warm underfoot. In the morning I could hear the boiler lighting. The hallways were long and wide, belonging to another era. I felt embraced by materials closely connected to the earth. The old wood here did something for me that the stone had done in Provence.
Before this house became our enormous undertaking, it was somewhere I had stayed as a guest. I already knew what it felt like to wake up here.
Of course, less enchanting stays left their mark too. Elsewhere, a checkout garbage-can hunt took us a block away. One such excursion is enough to develop strong opinions about what departing guests should be asked to do.
Then there was the honeymoon suite where the coffee was measured to the ounce. Perhaps not the best setup for a couple in which one person regularly says, “You’ll have to pry my coffee out of my cold, dead hands,” and the other requires “complicated coffee.”
That’s Mike’s term for coffee with cream and sugar. He believes real coffee drinkers should drink it black. Nevertheless, he promised in his wedding vows to make my complicated coffee every morning. And he does. With somewhat less enthusiasm when he has to find a corner store selling cream first.
You might conclude that I’m the particular one about coffee. At the Inn, however, Mike insists on providing Oso Negro and Seven Summits, with both medium and dark roast options.
“No one serves just medium.”
Guests can use the Bodum, the coffee machine or the stovetop espresso maker. He keeps his conclusions to himself, but I know he sorts people in his mind according to their roast and brewing apparatus.
“No Keurig. Ever.”
I sometimes sneak in a few packets of instant. For the desperate. I exercise discretion.
Our renovation decisions proceeded with a similar combination of conviction and personal preference.
Should we paint the walls in the main guest suite red? Yes! Should we begin collecting antique china? Of course. Should we add another bathroom, bringing the total to eight? Yes! A tiny closet became a tiny toilet room. Best enjoyed by those under 5′11″.
Should we reuse the old wainscoting boards hidden in the attic? Absolutely. Who cares how many hours it takes to strip and prep them!
And when the massive white pine fell in the night, should we mill the lumber and find ways to use it?
We owe it to the house!
That white pine is now four windows on the west side of the house.
The house keeps giving us things to investigate.
We found three Happy Families cards inside a wall while renovating. Of course I ordered a complete vintage pack from England. Apparently I needed the relatives. Yes, they smell a little mouldy.
The treasure hunting continues. Just last week, in fact, I found a Chamberlain’s Worcester plate for $2 at a local thrift store. Some online sleuthing suggests it’s around two hundred years old. I take considerable pleasure in rescuing antiques and giving them somewhere they belong.
The mark on the back points to Chamberlain’s Worcester, an English porcelain maker, and an age of around two hundred years. How it ended up in a thrift store in Trail is the part I’d love to know.
There are books we've chosen because we hope someone will pick them up and disappear into them for an afternoon. There’s a growing collection of antique china to actually use. And crystal glassware!
Our Kootenay Care Package, with local breakfast goods and snacks, is our own take on being a B&B. One guest affectionately called it “Bed and Make Your Own Damn Breakfast.” Fair enough. Breakfast happens when you’re ready for it, and Mike will have made sure there’s enough coffee.
I’m still setting up spaces, still moving things around, still thinking of something else we could do.
But I often return to those mornings: the light across the bed in Provence, the unhurried days in Bali, waking to the boiler in this house. Some details have faded. Those feelings haven’t.
Here, I hope there’s room for that kind of stay. Room to escape, room to gather. To head out into Rossland and the mountains, or to spend longer over breakfast than you meant to.
Preferably without having to go out for cream.
The walking backpack, some years later. On the trail to Tenquille Lake.
