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...
It is a topic which evokes more than a little discussion. “Facts” are confidently tossed out for discussion, only to be called into question. Cited sources are rejected as incorrect. Photographic evidence is greeted with much skepticism. This is not a topic for the faint-hearted; to be unsure is...
A while back when I was “staffing” the Lake Country Museum & Archives one Saturday afternoon, a very pleasant couple entered the Museum. Upon greeting them I discovered that the lady had once taught school in this building when it was the Okanagan Centre Elementary School. The then...
Transportation historians like to highlight the big CPR sternwheelers, and the role they played in the development of the Kootenays and Okanagan during the influx of settler populations in the years leading up to the First World War. The smaller CPR freight boats, less glamorous, often get left...
“For many years the picturesque sterwheeler passenger ships which travelled up and down Okanagan Lake played a large part in the life of their time. They are still fondly remembered for their fine meals and comfortable accommodation. At first the people on the shores of the beautiful lake...
The Era when Okanagan Centre sent passengers, mail and fruit by the Lake Back at the beginning of the 20th century, the farmers and ranchers in the Winfield-Ellison area faced a dilemma – south of Wood Lake the only way to move hay and fruit was by wagon road. When Price Ellison, the Vernon MP,...