Most golfers have seen the same thing their entire playing career: white sand bunkers cutting across fairways and framing greens. Christina Lake Golf Club in British Columbia offers something genuinely different, and it is worth the drive to find out what it looks like when a golf course does something nobody else in Canada is doing.
I played Christina Lake Golf Club yesterday. The course is about two hours from Penticton in the Kootenay Boundary region of BC, situated along the Kettle River with the Monashee and Selkirk Mountains as a backdrop. It is regarded as one of the top 25 golf courses in British Columbia, and it has a feature I had never seen anywhere else in my time playing golf in Canada.
Black sand bunkers.
Not dark sand or slightly discoloured sand. Genuinely black, striking, unlike anything on any other course I have played. From a distance they look like shadows cut into the fairway. Up close the contrast between the black material and the surrounding grass is remarkable, and when your ball finds one, the white of a golf ball against the black sand is as visible as it gets.
The Story Behind the Black Sand
The material in the bunkers at Christina Lake is copper slag, donated to the club by Pacific Abrasives as a corporate sponsor. Slag is a byproduct of copper smelting, processed into a fine granular material that performs like sand in a bunker but looks like nothing else in the game.
Christina Lake Golf Club is the first course in Canada to offer the unique feature of black sand traps. There is one course in Alberta and a small number in the United States that use the same material, but within BC, Christina Lake stands completely alone. The black bunkers have become the defining visual feature of the course and a genuine point of difference in a province with no shortage of exceptional golf.
The general manager of the club has noted that the black sand creates a striking visual contrast that makes the holes look more interesting and helps golfers immediately spot their ball when it finds a bunker. That last point is genuinely useful on a course where errant drives are punished and strategic thinking matters more than raw power.
The Course Itself
Christina Lake Golf Club is an 18-hole course measuring 6,785 yards, designed by renowned architect Les Furber. The course features elevated tees, meticulously bunkered greens, multi-tiered putting surfaces, and strategic water hazards on four holes.
Established in 1962 on the historic grounds of the old Cascade town-site, the course initially operated as a nine-hole layout before expanding to 18 holes in 1986. The front nine honours the original design with an emphasis on strategic ball placement and short game finesse. The back nine, designed by Les Furber, presents more modern challenges with large undulating greens, towering trees, and an array of black sand bunkers and water hazards.
The two nines have genuinely different personalities. The front nine rewards accuracy and course management. The back nine opens up the elevation changes and views that make this part of BC so visually compelling. The Kettle River runs alongside portions of the course, and the ponderosa pine and fir trees that frame most of the holes give it a natural, unhurried feel that is difficult to manufacture on a newer course.
The signature hole is the 9th, a 215-yard par three where an elevated tee box looks down upon a green bordered by two sand traps on the right and a large lateral water hazard along the full length of its left side. On a course full of memorable holes, the 9th is the one you will be thinking about on the drive home.
What Playing Here Actually Feels Like
The black sand bunkers are the headline but they are not the whole story of what makes Christina Lake worth playing. The setting along the Kettle River, surrounded by the kind of mountain scenery that makes BC golf different from anywhere else in the country, gives the round a character that stays with you.
The course demands thought from the first tee. Les Furber designed courses that reward positioning over power, and Christina Lake is a genuine example of that philosophy. Knowing where not to miss the fairway matters as much as knowing how far you can hit it. The elevated tees on the back nine give you a clear picture of what each hole requires, which makes the course genuinely interesting to play rather than simply difficult.
And then there are the bunkers. Whatever strategic calculation you have made off the tee, finding one of those black sand traps refocuses your attention immediately. The visual contrast is so striking that even when you are out of position, there is something almost satisfying about it. The white ball in the black sand. The black sand against the green grass. It is a detail that makes the course feel considered in a way that stays with you through the round.
Sun Protection at Christina Lake
Christina Lake sits in the Boundary Country region of BC, which shares the same desert-adjacent climate and high UV exposure that defines summer golf across the southern interior. The UV index in this part of BC regularly reaches 8 to 10 during summer afternoons, and the open terrain on much of the back nine offers minimal shade through the hottest part of the day.
The drive from Penticton or Kelowna puts you on the course for a morning round that extends well into the peak UV window if you tee off at a standard time. A UPF 50+ long sleeve polo, a wide brim hat, and SPF 50 sunscreen reapplied at the turn is the right kit for a full round here, particularly on the back nine where the elevation changes and open sky make UV exposure more intense than it might feel.
A course this good deserves to be played without paying for it afterward.
Is Christina Lake Worth the Drive from the Okanagan?
Yes. The two-hour drive from Penticton or the roughly similar distance from Kelowna puts Christina Lake within range for a day trip that feels like more than just another round. The black sand bunkers alone are worth seeing. The course combined with the setting along the Kettle River in one of the most naturally beautiful parts of BC makes it a round worth planning specifically rather than just happening upon.
If you are building a list of BC courses worth playing, Christina Lake belongs on it. There is genuinely nowhere else in the province where you will play a round that looks like this.
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