In an April 1959 issue of The Vernon News, reporter Miles Overend described heading out the area to investigate the “silly rumour” of the magnetic hill with fellow journalist Harvie Hay. This mystery spot has elicited local amazement for at least 60 years. In the northeastern section of town is a rural street called Dixon Dam Road where objects rolling ‘uphill’ can accrue speeds of up to 20 km/hour (12 mph). YouTuber and Maple Ridge native Scott Leaf showcases the phenomenon this this 2009 YouTube video:īritish Columbia’s third and final magnetic hill is situated in the city of Vernon, located north of Kelowna at the northern end of Lake Okanagan. If you put your vehicle in neutral at the base of this hillock, it will roll up the ‘incline’ and down the other side, apparently defying the laws of physics. If you drive south down Thornhill’s 256 th Street, past its intersection with 100 th Avenue, home to the old Thornhill Elementary School, you’ll come to what appears to be a small hill preceding a downwards slope. Between Maple Ridge and the historic easterly community of Whonnock is a sleepy rural neighbourhood called Thornhill which skirts the southern slopes of a butte called Grant Hill. If you drive about 40 minutes northwest of Abbotsford, you’ll come to the city of Maple Ridge- the fifth oldest municipality in British Columbia, located at the northeastern edge of Greater Vancouver. “Stay tuned next time,” concludes a young narrator, “for another exciting episode of ‘Up the Hill’”. According to journalist Ben Lypka in an article published in the Apissue of the Mission City Record, recent repaving of McKee Road has destroyed the optical illusion, causing Abbotsford gravity hill to “lose its powers”.įortunately for posterity, YouTuber James Waugh managed to videotape his car rolling up the hill back in 2009, at the height of the hill’s former glory. Regrettably, it appears that the hill may have since lost its ‘magnetic’ properties. According to Lynn, the writer of a blog called ‘The One Constant’, this attraction was “worth the trip” back in 2011. If you take this road and head for Sumac Mountain, you’ll come to the site of an old gravity hill just before you hit the Ledgeview Golf & Country Club. If you drive to the northeasternmost corner of Abbotsford, BC, you’ll find a lonely thoroughfare called McKee Road. Magnetic Hills in British Columbia Abbotsford’s Gravity Hill If you ever get the chance, consider paying a visit to one of Canada’s fourteen magnetic hills, some of which may lie in your neck of the woods. Often, they are lined with trees and other objects oriented at unusual angles which obscure the horizon and give the driver the false impression that the road has a positive incline.Īlthough the phenomenon of the magnetic hill is not much of a mystery to those acquainted with its secret, it can still make for a truly head-scratching experience. Despite all appearances to the contrary, roads on which the ‘uphill’ rollings take place are actually sloped downhill. In reality, the magnetic hill phenomenon is an optical illusion. Others still ascribe the hills’ antigravitational properties to the work of ghosts and spirits. Others suggest that the hills are capped with large deposits of lodestone- natural magnets which draw steel cars to their summits. Some people believe that ‘magnetic hills’ lie at magnetic vortexes, where the laws of gravity which govern the rest of the world cease to apply. Local legend often attributes this bewildering phenomenon to some sort of extraordinary force.
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