Along a small stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway, nestled along mountains and lakes between Sicamous and Revelstoke, sit two places within a 10-minute drive that opened in the same year and have been a part of road trip traditions in B.C. for decades.
At the foot of Three Valley Lake, there sits a sprawling white and red hotel that looks straight out of a Wes Anderson film — with kitschy themed rooms and a ghost town that has all been owned and operated by the same family for nearly 70 years.
“I talk to people today that come every year. Their parents came every year, and it’s something that feels important to them to continue on,” said Mike Bell, whose grandparents Gordon and Ethel Bell founded the hotel in 1960.
“The amount of people we have stop in, they want to tell stories about their first job here,” he added. “They want to show their kids or their grandkids where they worked for the first time, and what that meant to them. I don’t feel like that’s common in other businesses.”
It’s a heartwarming story. But it may not match the emotional appeal of a nearby forest full of hand-crafted figurines from fairy tales that regularly goes viral for its sheer visual distinctness.
“It’s handmade. It’s made in B.C. It’s the type of thing that you can only find here. It is nightmare fuel, but in the absolute best way,” said lawyer Kyla Lee of the Enchanted Forest attraction originally created by artist Doris Needham in 1960.
“There’s also something really, I don’t want to say enchanted, but quite magical about it — that somebody sat down and decided that this was what they were going to do and make it available to the public.”
