Allan Osamu Kobayashi remembers Christmas concerts at the Okanagan Centre School: “Special days came and went with the changing seasons. The first grand occasion was Halloween which meant a masquerade party. … Then came Christmas and the concert. [Teacher] Mrs. Parker was reputed to...
Oyama was a wonderful place to grow up during the Depression. This dance troupe performed at a Kalamalka Women’s Institute garden party held on the grounds of the Prickards about 1939. By all reports it was a wonderful setting, featuring an amazing peony hedge and overlooking Kalamalka Lake. The...
In the pre-WWII years, Oyama boys were numerous enough to field a hockey team that played against Vernon and perhaps other teams. They practised and played on a community hockey rink on the flat land formerly occupied by the Sterling and Pitcairn Packing House (just north of the canal bridge on...
The Lake Country Museum and Archives received this wonderful photograph from Mary Bailey (née Ellison). Through Gladys Trewhitt’s album on Oyama history we have identified all of the folks in the photo. The photograph was taken on August 12, 1958, marking the centenary of the creation of the...
Oyama High School, under the leadership of coach Clause Bissell, had a great record on the soccer pitch. Their greatest rival was the Mackie Prep School in the Coldstream and in 1943 the Oyama team was victorious, winning the prestigious Silver Pheasants trophy for North Okanagan junior boys...
When I [Allan Kobayashi] began my education in 1932, the Okanagan Centre School was brand new. My cousin Margaret and I were in the first Grade 1 class. From Grade 1 to 8 we were the only two in each grade as the years passed so one of us always ranked first or second. I have been back to the old...
Land development in Lake Country was initiated by the Maddock brothers who, in 1892, bought up thousands of acres of land spanning a good part of Lake Country, an area from the Rainbow Ranche south to McKinley’s Landing, and from Okanagan Lake east to the flats of Winfield. Vincent and Homer...
There was a time when fish were abundant in the lakes of the Okanagan. In recent years, however, newspaper headlines have warned us of the dire straits of our local fishery. In the Kelowna Daily Courier reporter Don Plant headlined his piece: Plenty of fish? Not in Wood Lake (January 18, 2013) and...
The stretch of Highway 97 has been completed, directing through traffic from the lakeshore (now Pelmewash Parkway) to higher levels. This is not the first or last change in route for the Kelowna to Vernon road. The road was originally completed in 1875 and was known as the Vernon to Mission road,...
Soccer was a popular sport in the Central Okanagan while Claude Bissell was teacher and coach, first at Oyama High School and later in Rutland. This photograph of the Okanagan Zone Soccer Champions shows the Rutland team about to leave by bus for Penticton where they caught the overnight train to...
The Okanagan today is identified with beaches, orchards and vineyards, rather than the Wild West. However, this letter, written in 1910, is a glimpse into the Okanagan’s frontier past. James Goldie, manager of the Rainbow Ranche in Okanagan Centre, was questioning George C. Goulding of...
Pelmewash Parkway is about to be devoted entirely to local traffic, providing Lake Country with the wonderful asset of seven kilometres of lakeshore for all manner of recreation. This seems to be an opportune time to discuss the origin and possible meaning of the name “Pelmewash.” I confess that...