“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...
“On April 5, 1917, BC women got the right to vote in provincial elections. The struggle for the vote really heated up across the country in 1912. Most of the action took place at the provincial level. Richard McBride was the premier and he opposed granting suffrage to the women. The...
Continued from Alex Lord’s recollections: Alex Lord’s British Columbia: introduction to Alex Lord; Alex Lord — Recollections of a Rural School Inspector: Kelowna Beginnings; Alex Lord’s memoirs continued; Alex Lord’s memoirs concluded. “During my four years in...
Continued from Alex Lord’s Kelowna Beginnings and the introduction to Alex Lord. “Independent incomes did not tend to strengthen either exertion or initiative, and the fruit industry was to experience deep tribulations when it had to be self supporting later on. When the First World...
Kelowna Beginnings Some Lasting Impressions1 “The year was 1910. British Columbia schools reopened for the autumn term on the third Monday in August. As the just-appointed principal in Kelowna, I arranged to arrive on the previous Friday and so departed from my home in Ontario with my rail...
“Alex Lord, a pioneer inspector of rural British Columbia schools, shares … his experiences in a province barely out of the stagecoach era. Travelling through vast northern territory, utilizing unreliable transportation, and enduring climatic extremes, Lord became familiar with the...
Holiday Greetings to all of you from all of us at the Lake Country Museum and Archives. Ryan Donn is Lake Country’s very talented Cultural Development Co-ordinator and a Councillor on the Kelowna City Council. Ryan offers free downloads of this lovely song on his website. To...
I am walking through the silence of this cold and frosty night, I am treading on the diamonds that sparkle with the light. And the throbbing, beating pulses of the whispering cold night air, Have reached into my heart and found the memories lurking there. I can glimpse the roaring bonfire and the...
If you have a few more items to purchase for Christmas gift-giving you may want to consider Okanagan History. The 80th Report of the Okanagan Historical Society. This publication, which includes sections on Natural History, First Nations, Featured Artists, People and Events, and Lives Remembered,...
After reading Jim Taylor’s delightful blog post last week (Details) I was reminded of an old poem entitled The Strangers in the Box. This poem, which I read after my mother’s death, made me feel remiss that I hadn’t spent time with my Mom identifying the “strangers”...
In these days of modern secondary education it’s almost impossible to visualize a high school with all grades in one room. It’s equally difficult to imagine one teacher instructing about 25 students in every subject in that classroom. Such was the situation in Oyama when a group of...
Applebox Belles presents the stories of the pioneers, the Summer Girls, and the champion Apple Wrapper Flappers of Lake Country’s early apple packing industry. These determined women quickly became the workforce of the packinghouses, sorting, wrapping, packing, and stamping, and they transformed a...