After a summer of fire, B.C.'s Okanagan Valley mourns for a paradise lost

On an early August morning, Bree McKeage stood among the vines in paint-splotched work pants and Crocs, sunglasses on, a tattoo peeking from beneath her sleeve. She pointed to the hills beyond the vineyard.

Three fires were burning around the Okanagan Valley – one near Summerland, another in Manning Park, a third near Vernon.

Smoke had swallowed the sun-bleached vineyard. The mountains beyond had disappeared into a grey haze. The air tasted of ash.

For more than a century, the Okanagan has been Canada’s fruit bowl. The long, glacier-carved basin is threaded with vineyards and orchards of peaches, cherries and nectarines. It has also embodied a summer ideal: hot, dry days, aquamarine lakes, vines heavy with grapes and long evenings outdoors. Even the names – Peachland, Summerland, Lake Country – seem to promise leisure and abundance.