“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 Indian structure. What was it? Until the late...
April 29, 2013: e-mail to Mits Hikichi, son of Rainbow Ranche (Lake Country) Foreman Sam Hikichi, from Laura Neame, archivist of Lake Country Museum and Archives. Hello Mits Hikichi, We are hoping you can shed some light on a mystery. We received some donated papers from the Rainbow Ranche. Tucked...
The following poem, by Meiri (Koyama) Itami, was written in 1980 to honour Eijiro Koyama. Koyama farmed in the Winfield area in the 1920s. Eijiro Koyama died on January 17, 1956. A Day with Dad on the Farm As certainly as dawn crept over the hills he was awake. No clock rang by Dad’s bed;...
On page five of the Thursday, November 16, 1911 edition of The Kelowna Courier and Okanagan Orchardist appeared the following article: DIED – At the Hospital, on Monday, Nov. 13th, Frank Reiner, Okanagan Centre, aged 52. Mr. Reiner had been ailing several weeks, but the immediate cause of death...
How did one travel from the Okanagan to the coast in the first decades of the twentieth century? Crossing the coastal mountains was no easy task. The Dewdney Trail, connecting the South Okanagan to Hope, had been built during the Gold Rush, and for years supplies came into the Valley by pack train...
Included in the recently acquired Heddle papers is an unidentified newspaper article, date unknown and most likely from the Vernon News. The article quotes from a journal kept by W. T. Heddle of Oyama during an auto trip that he made from Oyama to Vancouver, via Wenatchee, Washington State. The...
British Columbia’s first Family Day will be held on the second Monday in February, making the date for the first Family Day this Monday, February 11, 2013. As we prepare for this celebration it is interesting to think of some of Lake Country’s pioneer families. One of the most...
“We are sorry to record the death by accident of Mr. A. [Arthur] Chatterton, of Alvaston [Winfield]. The accident occurred about noon on the 2nd. Mr. Chatterton was alone in the old Pearcie shack, which property he had lately bought, and was thawing out powder and preparing fuses for stumping...
When and why did BC make the decision to drive on the right side of the road in Left Hand Drive (LHD) vehicles? John A. Mara, MP for the Yale riding from 1887 to 1896 first suggested that BC adopt a Rule of the Road in 1892. In a letter to Forbes George Vernon (see attached document), Mara...
“On February 29, 1904, the province enacted the Act to regulate the speed and operation of Motor Vehicles on Highways, which required motorists to have displayed on the vehicle their registration number so as to be plainly visible at all times during the daylight, such number to be in plain...