Wonders of the World - Big Bear

About four years ago I was asked to do a series of videos and columns on my favorite places to visit in the Inland Empire, as San Bernardino is known around Southern California.  I did it in reverse order and ended up with my favorite which also makes it to this list of my personal wonders of the world.  All the "wonders" so far have been a mixture of nature and man's "improvements" of it, and Big Bear is no different.

Before the settlers came and put their mark on it there was no lake and the local Indians called it Yahaviat, which means "pine place."

To meet the needs of the growing citrus industry down in the Redlands area, in 1895 a dam was constructed and at the time it was considered to be the eighth wonder of the world.

Unfortunately the trees were left in place and became stumps which made boating impossible until some serious work was done to remove them.

Today Big Bear Lake is one of Southern California's premier resorts with skiing in the winter, and fishing, hiking, boating and camping in the summer.  Some of us residents often wish it wasn't quite so popular as our 17,000 population swells to three times that in peak periods.

I first came to Big Bear over Christmas in 1982, the first year we lived in America, and it was just a drive-through to show the children some snow.  I came back the following year and it's been a favorite destination ever since.  We bought a house up here in 1989 and retired here in 1999, so now I'm considered to be a true resident, although I still fail to speak with the local accent! 

The winters can be quite hard and next year we're considering taking a house down in San Diego for six weeks to avoid the peak period.  But other than that this is the perfect place to live and we consider ourselves most fortunate to live in one of the wonders of the world.

If you would like to read the column that I wrote about Big Bear four years ago you can see it at http://www.sbsun.com/trevorstreasures/ci_10351677