Enderbush lies about seventy miles to the east of Kemloops. In 1952 there are around 5,000 people in this little river bottom community, built where the Salmon Creek flows into Shoeswich Lake. Jack first sees the town in late evening, coming down the Ply Hills on the gravel Trans Canada Highway. Mr Frank, the Thompson riverbank friend from Kemloops who is driving, says enthusiastically, "Look, Vick. Isn't that a pretty sight? See all the lights on the bottom slopes of Mt Ika there?"
"Yes, it's like a fairy tale!"
And a pretty town it is. The approach from the east gives even more of a post card view. The drop is steeper, and the whole valley is visible below, with the river meandering between dairy farms and fruit orchards to the left, curving away up around the conifer covered flank of the reputedly volcanic mountain, Mt Ika. To the right the intensely blue five fingered Shoeswich Lake with a thousand mile shoreline; and right in the town McGuiche Lake, lit up at night with a brightly shining rainbow colored water fountain, a little jewel of a landlocked lake with big goldfish, lining the manicured park like hospital grounds.
It is said McGuiche Lake is connected way deep down with Shoeswich Lake, but Jack finds that difficult to believe, since the water level in the small one is at least thirty feet higher than that of Shoeswich Lake, only about a hundred yards away, and the shore of the larger lake slopes so slowly and gradually into the water that the maximum depth for hundreds of feet can be no more than the height of a man.
The Spiets move right downtown into a tiny rented house, which has a small yard and shed, and a garden. There is little furniture at first. But the Dutch government, although it forbade the removal of significant cash, did allow the taking of household effects; so about two weeks after they move here the family receives a large crate, about eight feet by ten feet by twenty feet, packed tight with all their furniture and personal effects from Holland. It is so big the trucking company just winches it off the deck onto the ground right on the shoulder of the road. What a cheery chore, to unpack that monster box and find all those things from home! Things the children thought were gone forever. Mom has a lot of her treasured heirlooms. Dad is glad to see his billiard table. The children have their toys and clothes. Jack is delighted to have some books, and the children are happy to find all their private keepsakes again.
