In the days before good road and rail communication serviced Oyama orchardists, the most efficient way to move fruit to market was via steamer to the north end of Kalamalka Lake where it was transferred to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) station at Vernon. This photograph, part of the George...
A symbol of Canadian identity The official ceremony inaugurating the new Canadian flag was held on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on February 15, 1965, with Governor General Georges Vanier, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, the members of the Cabinet and thousands of Canadians in attendance. The...
Record of a Life — Northcote H. Caesar “The earliest memories that I can remember, at probably 5 or 6 years Whilst sitting on a hassock in front of the nursery fire With a nice clean white pinafore on about half a dozen shot fell in my lap Making long black strips down my pinny And in...
Before the coming of the white man, the fertile bottom land of Winfield was dense forest, with occasional oases of small natural meadows, while the present orchard benchlands were covered with pine trees, etc. Large herds of deer roamed the ranges and bunch grass was plentiful everywhere, and grew...
‘Tis hard to believe that it’s been twenty years since the District of Lake Country was incorporated. In 1995 the four communities of Carr’s Landing, Okanagan Centre, Oyama and Winfield incorporated to form the municipality of Lake Country. It is interesting to look back at the...
In early days it took dedicated community members to provide recreational facilities in the Lake Country area. The following except is from the manuscript, The Autobiography of Harold David Butterworth of Oyama,1 where Butterworth documents the making of an outdoor skating rink by members of the...
The first mail service in the Winfield area was that offered by Charles Lawson who used to carry the mail on horseback from Swan Lake to Okanagan Mission around 1872. Apparently he used to shout at the top of his voice as he passed ranches to announce the mail, and also he wore his best clothes...
Our Christmas decor has evolved over the years. We used to go out and cut our own tree. That meant every Christmas tree was different. Some trees were short and fat, some tall and skinny. Each tree required its own unique arrangement of decorations. We also created our own decorations, back then....
Do you need a recipe for some wartime Christmas Cheer? How about trying a “George and Frank Cocktail” or a “Marpole Slug”? Recently, Museum volunteer, Elaine Pybus, discovered this cocktail recipe in a letter written in 1945 and found in the Rainbow Ranche collection. The...
Fourteen years ago (2000) Ken Ellison published a book, Irrigation is King: A Century of Water in Oyama, BC. 1892-2000. This work exhaustively examined and interpreted the land, water and irrigation records of Oyama, BC. Now, a complementary video, Flume. The story of the original irrigation...
Father Charles Pandosy arrived in 1859 with the Lawrence brothers and William Pion. They spent that hard winter in a crude shelter on the shores of Duck Lake before moving camp to Mission Creek and founding their church. The early 1870s saw the arrival in K’Lakokum (Winfield) of Oregon...
During the early years of the fur trade, hundreds of young men moved to Rupert’s Land and the Columbia to work for the North West Company or, after 1821, the amalgamated firm, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). No white women accompanied these men and if the men stayed for more than a few years they...