Thomas Wood, cattle rancher and Justice of the Peace from Lake Country, wrote three letters from Vernon to Frederick Hussey, Superintendent of Provincial Police in Victoria requesting his assistance with a rustling case 1 . Hussey replied to these. Some excerpts are included here. On March 26,...
Lake Country is aptly named. Its four wards – Winfield, Okanagan Centre, Carr’s Landing and Oyama – have access to three major Lakes: Okanagan, Kalamalka, and Wood. The latter lake was named for pioneers Thomas (1841 – 1931) and Ellen Florence (nee Whelan) Wood (1861 – 1905), who settled in the...
Reminiscences of Clara Hallam (née Bailey) continued Hallam reminiscences 2 (pp. 27-30) Some stylistic changes have been made in the text to reflect modern usage. 1907 – 1909 “… There was to be a big skating party on Duck Lake one night so brother Bill, Phoebe and I were going down...
Promoting the Okanagan Valley is not new. Various local governments, Chambers of Commerce, and Tourists Boards eagerly expound the virtues of living in this wonderful part of British Columbia. However, it is important to acknowledge that this promotion is not a recent phenomenon. Indeed, a glowing...
From 1860 a steady settlement of the Valley took place and among the first four cattle men who came in was Thomas Wood. He first had a cattle ranch with Connie (Cornelius) O’Keefe, north of Vernon but soon moved to the Pelmewash lake, now known as Wood Lake, utilizing the rangeland on the...
Father Charles Pandosy arrived in 1859 with the Lawrence brothers and William Pion. They spent that hard winter in a crude shelter on the shores of Duck Lake before moving camp to Mission Creek and founding their church. The early 1870s saw the arrival in K’Lakokum (Winfield) of Oregon...
The earliest domestic cattle in the interior arrived from the Columbia Valley in the 1840s, trailed in by the Hudson’s Bay Company and traded among the Okanagan Indians. By 1850, Okanagan Chief Nicola owned a large number of horses and “a good many cattle.” During the Gold Rush, large herds...
1960s Memories of our Wood Lake Cabin1 For many years, in the 1950s through to the early 1970s, my family had a small cabin on Clement Road, at the south end of Wood Lake. Actually, we shared this cabin with my mum’s two brothers, Les and Cliff Clement, and their families. To say that our cabin...
Recently Canada Post announced extensive changes to the Canadian mail system, specifically by introducing more community mail boxes. For we older folk, those community mailboxes hearken back to historic mail services. Winfield’s first official post office was named Alvaston by the first...
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...