By Margaret Carruthers1 First established in the 1950s, Gable Road begins at Carr’s Landing Road and ends at Gable Beach on Okanagan Lake. The road is named for the Gabel family, [but] as you can see the spelling is incorrect, the result of a slight pronunciation (or spelling) problem at the...
This Heritage Marker, at the junction of Woodsdale and Lodge roads, is the third featured site along the Okanagan Rail Trail.1 The Thomas Wood Ranch dominated the flats at the south end of Pelmewash or Wood Lake until Wood retired to Victoria in 1903. He subdivided his land and sold it to...
The research, design and construction of five heritage markers along the Okanagan Rail Trail is a project of the Lake Country Museum & Archives. It is supported by the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia | Canada 150: Celebrating B.C. Communities and their Contributions...
One hundred years ago, in October and November 1917, the Canadian Expeditionary Force (C.E.F.) was engaged in a major battle in what was later known as World War I (1914 – 1918). There were many battles and campaigns in World War I including Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres....
Construction of the Winfield Memorial Hall began in 1947 and the Hall opened in 1948. It was built as a memorial to those who served and those who died in WWI and WWII. The former school, built in 1910, that had served as a community hall until 1948 was torn down in 1951. Photograph from the Lake...
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...