The Ailanthus Tree, or Tree of Heaven is an invasive and unwanted tree that grows thickly along Okanagan Centre Road West. The Municipality of Lake Country has been attempting to eradicate as much as possible along the roadways, and has been encouraging property owners to eradicate large specimens...
The Rainbow Ranche Collection was donated to the Lake Country Museum and Archives in 2013 by Roger MacDonnell, a grandson of the Ranche Manager, James Goldie. We are fortunate in having these records, preserved by James Goldie’s daughter, Nancy Goldie. The record of correspondence begins with a...
In a dinner conversation with Oyama pioneer, Arnold Trewhitt, he mentioned that an early Oyama settler, Mrs. Townsend, had a badly scarred face because a bottle of Waterglass had exploded after she had placed it on a hot stove. This led me to question Arnold about Waterglass. He recalled that in...
Which Bird might I see today? Ducks that dabble A couple of years ago I told you about the ducks that migrate into our area in spring to breed. Today our subject is more ducks, the ones that stay all winter. If you are new to birding you can’t do better than start with the ducks. You might be...
“William Charles and Matilda Jane (nee Brown) Clement and daughter Mabel Matilda Clement arrived in Vernon in mid-October 1897, having travelled by train from their home near Treherne, Manitoba. Several days later, three of their four sons, William James, John Percy, and Ernest Leslie...
The Vernon News, May 1964. Wood Lake Water Company Dies. A Demise to be regretted “OYAMA (Correspondent) — The Wood Lake Water Company has held its last meeting in the Oyama Memorial Hall. Twenty-two growers at this meeting dissolved the old company and formed the new Wood Lake...
John (Jack) Trewhitt was born in Sunderland, England, in 1890 and at the age of 16 he immigrated to Canada. He worked in Manitoba and later bought a homestead in Alberta. In 1914 Trewhitt joined the Army and went overseas. He became a Lieutenant and was presented with the Military Medal and the...
“The Railroad” was the name used on the earliest colonial maps, before the settlement in Lake Country, to refer to the isthmus at Oyama. The term certainly did not refer to any European-made feature; it had to refer to either a natural or an Okanagan First Peoples structure. What was it? Until the...
In my last posting to this blog, I told you a few of the things you shouldn’t do in writing memoirs. Now let me suggest some things you should do. First, start writing. Even if you don’t know what to write about, start writing. Write, and write, and write some more. You may trash a lot...
Her book on writing lay open to the chapter on Memoirs. “I thought I might write my memoirs,” she shrugged. “You know, so I have something to do when I retire.” Great idea. Not as easy as it sounds, though. As a writer, of course I think everyone should write. But also as a...
Chain saws are so plentiful today that it is difficult to think of forestry or home gardening without the use of this lightweight portable saw. Chain saws are a twentieth century development, the first being developed in 1918 by a Canadian millwright, James Shand. It wasn’t until 1926 that the...
The first flour mill in the Central Okanagan: excerpts from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) letters concerning the flour mill built on Mission Creek.1 Father Pierre Richard,2 OMI, accompanied by Father Charles John Felix Adolf Pandosy,3 OMI, arrived in the Okanagan in the autumn of 1859 and...