Thursday, May 11, 2017

WESTWOLD

                        Westwold's population: 369


Westwold is a small, unincorporated and rural community, located along Highway #97 in the North Okanagan Valley.

The first explorers of this community came here around 1864, during the fur trade at the time the town was called Grande Prairie, after a large prairie the town sits on. During the same time, a camp was set up along the Hudson Bay Company Trail that connected Fort Kamloops with Fort Okanagan near Brewster in Washington State.

Westwold, which was renamed from Grand Prairie to Adelphi in 1900 after a hotel was built on the site in 1895. However the name didn't catch on, due to residents liking the old name, and Adelphi was finally dropped in 1926. However, a city in Alberta with the name Grande Prairie had already been established and post office officials would not allow another Grande Prairie name to be used. So in 1926, a resident suggested Westwold” instead. The word “wold” is an old English term for a high, open plain. The plain's location was located west of the railway station.

Agriculture and logging are the main economies.

Westwold's business center is mostly scattered along the highway. The businesses here include a store, restaurant, elementary school, community hall and a community church.



 



LILLOOET


                                                    Lillooet's population: 2,275


Situated on a bench overlooking the Fraser River and at the junction of Highways #12 and #99, Lillooet is a small town located in the semi-arid and dry southern interior of British Columbia.

Before there was a Rossland, a Nelson, a Vancouver or even a Grand Forks, there was Lillooet. The town of Lillooet dates back to 8,000 years when the Lillooet First Nations people lived here prior to the arrival of Europeans. Lillooet first came to prominence when in the 1850s and 1860s, it boomed as one of the main centers as a result of the Cariboo Gold Rush. During this time, it had a population of well over 15,000 residents and quickly became a rowdy and rough gold rush town and was home to several saloons and hotels. Because of this, it received the distinction as being the largest town “north of San Francisco and west of Chicago”, (a title that was later given to Barkerville, Yale, Quesnel Forks, and to some Greenwood).

Lillooet is considered to be the “Mile 0” of the Old Cariboo Road, where several communities along this road located north of here such as 47 Mile House (now Clinton), 70 Mile House, 100 Mile House and 150 Mile House are named after their distance from here. A cairn located across Main Street from the Lillooet Tourism Information Center in downtown Lillooet (at the corner of Main Street and 8th Avenue), commemorates this fact. However, the actual Mile 0 isn't in downtown Lillooet, it was actually located across the Fraser River in East Lillooet near the Fort Berens Winery. This site during the Gold Rush was known as “Parsonville”.

Lillooet was bypassed in 1861 as a result of the construction of the Cariboo Wagon Road built from Yale to Barkerville through the Fraser Canyon. As a result, Lillooet's population declined pretty much overnight.

Lillooet boomed during WWI when the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (which became BC Rail in 1972) reached Lillooet in 1914, bringing with it a passenger service on the railway's Cariboo Prospector and its famed Budd Rail Diesel Cars. A railway station was then built in the 1930s, the current one seen today was built in 1986, its location is south of the Seton Lake Road and Main Street intersection.

Lillooet boomed again between the years of 1946 and 1960 when it became a service centre and home base for employees working for the building of the Bridge River Power Project. This hydroelectric facility which began in phases from 1927 to 1960, uses water diverted from the Downton and Carpenter Lake reservoirs through a mountainside at Mission Mountain via a series of tunnels and penstocks to powerhouses at Seton Lake.

When construction was finally complete in 1960, 3 dams (Mission, Terghazi, and Lajoie), 4 powerhouses (Bridge River Powerhouse #1 and #2, Seton and Lajoie) and a canal (the Seton Canal) were built as part of this hydroelectric project. In order to accommodate flooding of the Downton and Carpenter Lake reservoirs, several of the area's ranches and homesteads as well as communities such as Minto City were completly inundated.

This project was considered to be one of British Columbia’s first major hydroelectric construction projects. Today, this project provides a generating capacity of 492 megawatts of electricity a year, (that is about 8% of the province's electric supply needs).

Not only has Lillooet experienced numerous boom times in its history, it has also experienced several bust times. Historically, Lillooet's economy has based around the logging, railway and agriculture industries. However, since the beginning of the new millenium, Lillooet endured a closure of the passenger railway service in 2002 by BC Rail as well as a closure of its specialty plywood sawmill in both 2009 and 2011.

Nevertheless, tourism has flourished as a fast-growing industry, mainly because of its beautiful location that is home to clean and clear waterways and colorful mountains, reasonable year-round weather (more on that below), and relaxing small-town lifestyle and atmosphere attract a lot of out-of-town travelers.

Lillooet was incorporated as a village in 1946 and again as a district municipality in 1996.

Since it’s located in the dry area of British Columbia, Lillooet has an extremely dry climate. Therefore it only averages about 400 millimeters of precipitation annually and summer temperatures that often exceed 40 degrees at record-breaking proportions. Sure enough, on the 16th of July, 1941; Lillooet and its neighbor to the south Lytton both experienced temperatures of 44.4 degrees Celsius, a record that still stands to this very day. It was this temperature that gave the 2 towns, the distinction of being “Canada’s Hotspot”.

The reason for the hot and dry summertime weather is that Lillooet and other communities in the surrounding region such as Cache Creek and Lytton, are surrounded by mountains that prevent and block huge amounts of precipitation from falling. This phenomenon is known “the Rainshadow Effect”.

However, it is normal for the Fraser River to carry cold arctic air from the north furthermore, Lillooet can get an occasional amount of snowfall from October to April with temperatures that can dip below the freezing mark, but very rare below -10 degrees.

It is also common for Highways #12 and #99, as well as the road that travels to Gold Bridge and Bralorne (known to locals as Highway #40 and/or Lillooet-Pioneer Road #40), to experience avalanches or rockslides. Due to this, these roads can be closed a time or two, during the winter months. It is recommended for drivers to be careful when driving these roads and to check on road conditions when leaving Lillooet. These highways feature several kilometers of hairpin/switchback turns and grades of up to 13% in some sections.

Lillooet's downtown core is centered off of Highway #99. Located mostly along Main Street, it has supermarkets, motels, department stores, gas stations and a shopping center as well as the historic BC Rail Station used for the Koaham Shuttle, a twice-daily passenger service that runs from here to the small Seton Lake community of Seton Portage. It also has a hospital and health center.

To the pedestrian, Lillooet is pedestrian-friendly, it is a town that does not feature any traffic lights that dictate its flow of traffic. Most of the intersections of downtown either have a pedestrian-only crossing or a painted crosswalk.

Highway #99 from Lillooet to its junction with Highway #97 at Hat Creek Ranch was originally a continuation of Highway #12 from Lytton. It received its current Highway #99 recognition in 1992, when the Duffey Lake Road between Mount Currie and Lillooet was paved. Highway #12 has existed since 1953.

The Bridge that travels along Highway #99 across the Fraser River in Lillooet has a unique name and history. During the Cariboo Gold Rush in the 1860s, 23 bactrian camels were used as an enterprising idea to use them as pack animals to transport freight supplies from Lillooet to Alexandria, south of Quesnel. Sadly, the experiment quickly turned into a massive failure when the camels' well-known and unpredictable temperament and high-strung personality got the best of them.

The camels had a habit of behaviors such as biting and eating laundry, kicking at something or someone who came too close for comfort, and they were known to frighten other animals with their strong and overpowering odor. Also, the region's rough, rugged and rocky landscape made it hard on the camel's soft feet, easily damaging them in the process.

As a result, some were eventually abandoned and were free to roam in the wild, while others were either kept as pets, hunted by hunters and wildlife for food, or were killed via storms of the harsh Cariboo winter. The last surviving camel to live in British Columbia died around 1905 in a farm in Grande Prairie (known today as Westwold), located between Kamloops and Vernon. The bridge is named the “Bridge of the 23 Camels” to commemorate this story.

The name originated through a contest that was held to select a name for the new bridge prior to its opening in 1980. The winning name was submitted by a local resident of Lillooet. The bridge replaced an old wooden suspension bridge that was built in 1913.

Before the Cariboo Gold Rush in the 1860s, Lillooet was formerly known as Cayoosh Flat. The town's current name comes from the Lil'Wat (Lillooet) First Nations people, who live in a large area near where Lillooet sits as well as areas near Anderson and Seton Lakes. Its name means “place of wild onion” in First Nations language. Wild onions are a popular culinary staple for these people.

The name Cayoosh Flat was felt unfavorable with locals, so in 1860, the people of the town petitioned British Columbia's Governor at the time, James Douglas to change the name from Cayoosh Flats to Lillooet, in honor of the First Nations people here.

The name Cayoosh is a variant of cayuse, a word widely used to refer to a feral or low-quality horse or pony. 


                                                                         downtown Lillooet

                                                                  Mile 0 cairn

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

100 MILE HOUSE

         100 MILE HOUSE
 100 Mile House's population: 1,980


100 Mile House is a district municipality located in the South Cariboo region of British Columbia. It is also located halfway between Vancouver and Prince George along Highway #97.

The community was previously known as Bridge Creek House, it was named after a small creek streaming through the north end of town. Its origins of a small Canadian town date back through the 1860s during the Cariboo Gold Rush. A group of ramshackle buildings were used as stopover and resting points for miners on their way towards other places, such as Barkerville and Quesnel Forks, in their search for gold. Its current name comes from the reference of the fact that a roadhouse was built at the 100 mile mark of the Old Cariboo Road from Lillooet.

At this time, the road was so busy that 100,000 people traveled this route, so much so, a stagecoach and line was established. The modern origins of this town came in the late-1930s when Martin Cecil came from England to manage an estate owned by his father, William Cecil, the 5th Marquis of Exeter.

During this time, 100 Mile House had a population of 12 and only consisted of a roadhouse, power plant, post office and a store. A mural erected in August of 2011, on the south side of Coach House Square honors him, it has been said that the Cecil Family is the founding family of 100 Mile House.

For being the largest incorporated community along Highway #97 between Williams Lake and Kamloops, it has a rather sizable amount of businesses in its downtown area and along the highway. In downtown, you will find, a coffee shop, 2 pharmacies, electronics retailer, a movie rental store, 3 banks, credit union, 2 grocery stores, 2 shopping centers, and a post office among others. Most of these are scattered from Birth Avenue at the north end, to Horse Lake Road at the south.
Furthermore, the downtown area is also home to the 100 Mile House Community Hall, famous as a landmark, because of its orange colored roof.

The highway part of town, on the other hand, has grown in recent years especially since the late 1980s to the early 1990s, when it was mostly ranch land. Today it is home to numerous businesses that interest the tourist. This includes gas stations, restaurants, pub, motels, auto dealerships, and a 9-hole golf course. 

The tourism information center located along the highway, near the center of town is home to the world’s largest cross-country skis, in dedication to the numerous winter activities and the many cross-country ski trails 100 Mile House has to offer.

As with many towns located within British Columbia’s Fraser Plateau, 100 Mile House regularly experiences a dry and warm summer and a cold, mild and sometimes wet winter. The summers average a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius and average about 294 millimeters of precipitation a year. The winters are a different story depending on the year and circumstance (El Nino, La Nina etc.), the thermometer can sometimes dip below the -30 degrees Celsius mark with icy, wind chill conditions.

100 Mile House receives more precipitation year-round than its southern neighbor counterparts such as Cache Creek and Lillooet. This is due to its location in a valley, high elevation (about 930 meters, 3,051 feet above sea level) and that unlike the above-mentioned locations south, there are no tall mountains to produce a rainshadow effect to protect 100 Mile House from the effects of severe weather. The community normally receives an average of 250 centimeters of precipitation during
the winter months. In 2010 during the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler on top of a mild El Nino winter, the temperature here averaged about +5 degrees Celsius during the daylight hours.

The 100 Mile House Wranglers, a Junior "B" ice hockey team and member of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League (KIJHL), play 26 of their 52 regular season games at the South Cariboo Recreation Centre.

This team began play in 2001 in Summerland as the Summerland Sting, however due to poor attendance and lackluster performance and results, they then relocated to Penticton prior to the 2009-10 season as the Penticton Lakers. However like in Summerland, poor attendance, poor performance, and strong competition from the British Columbia Hockey League's Penticton Vees, they then relocated to their current home in 100 Mile House in 2013.

During the 2015-16 KIJHL season, this team won the championship in that league, beating the Kimberley Dynamiters 4 games to 1 in the final series. In an ironic twist to the prior paragraph, it was Summerland's current KIJHL team, the Summerland Steam who the 100 Mile House Wranglers beat for the right for them to play in the final championship series. 2 weeks following their KIJHL Championship win, the Wranglers then went on to win the Cyclone Taylor Cup (the British Columbia Provincial Junior “B” Hockey Championship). They beat the Victoria Cougars of the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League 8-4 in the final game.

In mid-April of 2016, this team won the Keystone Cup (Western Canadian Junior B Hockey's equivalent to the Memorial Cup), beating the Saskatoon Quakers of the Prairie Junior Hockey League 3-2 in triple overtime. This championship gave British Columbia, its 9th Keystone Cup, the most of any province that participates in this competition (provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Northern Ontario).

This championship is also the first for a junior hockey team based in the Cariboo Region of British Columbia of any kind, since the Williams Lake Mustangs won a championship in the now-defunct Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League, in 1993. This is the 2nd amateur junior hockey team to call 100 Mile House home. For all you hockey historians out there, the 100 Mile House Blazers of the Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League played here from 1975 to 1980.

By provincial law, for a community to be labeled and qualify as a district municipality, they have to have an area greater than 800 hectares of land or an average population density of 5 persons per hectare. Currently there are 51 district municipalities in British Columbia and 2 of them are located in the Cariboo Region, they are 100 Mile House and Wells.

Currently, 100 Mile House covers an area of 5,330 hectares and has an average population density of 35.4 persons per hectare.

Logging, tourism, and log-home building are beneficial to 100 Mile House's economy. In terms of the logging industry, most of the area's residents, work at a sawmill owned by West Fraser, and at a sawmill that manufactures Oriented strand
board (OSB) owned by Ainsworth (subsidiary of Norbord). Both of these mills are located at an industrial area west of town, near the railway siding of Exeter.

There are about 15 log-home building companies based in the 100 Mile House area, Due to this, the town has earned the title of being “North America's Handcrafted Log-Home Building Capital”.

                                                                   downtown 100 Mile House 

                                                               Highway #97 through 100 Mile House

                                                      mural commemorating 100 Mile House's history


                                                               100 Mile House Community Hall

Friday, April 14, 2017

CLINTON




CLINTON
Clinton’s population: 636

Clinton is a small community located on Highway #97 in the South Cariboo region
of British Columbia, between Cache Creek and 100 Mile House.

A townsite was built here in 1862 at the junction of the Harrison-Lillooet Trail
(known as the Douglas Trail and the Old Cariboo Road where Lillooet was Mile 0),
and the Cariboo Wagon Road (todays' Highway #97). For this reason, it was known
for a time in the 1850s as “The Junction”. During the Cariboo Gold Rush in the
beginning of the 1860s, it was known as 47 Mile House, because of it, being
located 47 miles from Lilloet on the Old Cariboo Road.

Clinton became a very important stagecoach stop during the 1860s Gold Rush for
tired and weary miners heading towards the goldfields at Barkerville. After the
gold rush subsided, Clinton relied on the ranching industry. Some of the oldest
ranches in British Columbia, operate in Clinton and the surrounding area.
Clinton which became incorporated as a village in July of 1963, was renamed
“Clinton” in 1863 for Lord Henry Pelham Clinton, a former Duke of Newcastle and
Colonial Secretary from 1859 to 1864. The Colonial Secretary was a title given to a
British cabinet minster, in charge of handling and managing the affairs of the
United Kingdom’s various colonial dependencies (such as Canada).

The Clinton Hotel was the host of a ball that was an annual event in the hotel from
1868 to when the hotel burned to the ground in 1958, however it is still a lively
event but it is held in other locations in town. For nearly 100 years, it was also a
landmark serving as a stopping point for travelers traveling along Highway #97. It
was located at the northern section of town across the highway to the Wolf's Cry-
Inn and Liquor Store. Ironically, when it burned down in 1958, it happened the
morning after that year's ball.

In the community, Highway #97 runs right through its downtown core and there
some services for travelers including gas stations, grocery store, credit union, a
couple of restaurants and there are also numerous tourist attractions of historic
interest, including a cemetery that dates back to 1861. A museum located inside a
old brick schoolhouse, is also located here. It recalls the history of the Cariboo
Gold Rush and Clinton's beginnings.
Pavilion-Clinton Road, just south of the core of town, is a pleasant 40-kilometer
backroad that goes southwest from here, to the small community of Pavilion as
well as Highway #99 and Lillooet. Through here are provincial parks (Marble
Range, Edge Hills and Downing), lakes (Kelly Lake), and river canyons to explore.
The road also has access to the backroad ranching communities of Jesmond and
Big Bar located just to the west, The turnoff to these communities is just before
Downing Provincial Park. Travelers can also access Williams Lake (via the Gang
Ranch and Dog Creek) on this road as well.

Travellers should be advised that travel on the Clinton-Pavilion Road just past
Downing Provincial Park, on the road to Pavilion, is best recommended for
summer travel only or to have a vehicle in superior working condition. There are
areas where the road is muddy in some spots and between September and April, it
can experience heavy snowfalls. It is also recommended to check in both Clinton
and Lillooet for road conditions for travel on this road. Similar to a stretch of
Highway #99 between Lillooet and Pemberton, this road also has several
kilometers of switchback (hairpin) turns.

downtown Clinton

]


Saturday, September 17, 2016

SPARWOOD

SPARWOOD
Sparwood’s population: 3,778

Sparwood is a district municipality, situated in the Elk Valley, just west of British Columbia’s border with Alberta.

This small town is named from the area’s valued and respected wood that was once shipped and manufactured to the Coast and made into spars used for ocean vessels. In order to ship and load the harvested wood, a railway stop/siding was created in the late-1800s.

However, it wasn’t until the mid-1960s when the Provincial Government, as part of a urban renewal scheme, decided to build a new town to replace the old and historic coal-mining settlements and towns of Natal, Middletown and Michel which were settled in the 1890s, and relocate the residents of those towns to Sparwood. This scheme happened because these 3 towns had been blackened by coal dust and made living in them unsafe.

Sparwood officially became incorporated in 1966.

Although Natal, Middletown and Michel have since been long abandoned (Sparwood was only about 4 kilometers within the surrounding area of the 3 towns), their story lives on and is told on many of Sparwood’s downtown buildings which celebrate and depict the life and history of these towns through a series of murals. There is also a story board on the history of these towns located at the Sparwood Information Centre.

In 1968, a company by the name of Kaiser Resources Limited developed a coal mine (known as the Elkview Mine), about half of Sparwood’s residents work as an inside employee of the mine or work as one of its truckers or laborers. The coal produced at this mine (which is owned by Teck Resources), is used to make steel.

Sparwood not only relies on the coal mining industry but also relies on logging and the oil and gas industry which are also a valuable asset to the economy. The town celebrates the coal mining heritage with a special event that takes place here annually, during the second weekend in June. Known as Coal Miner Days, this family fun event has everything from crib tournaments, street markets, to slo-pitch tournaments, and even bed races and parades.

Sparwood is home to the Terex Titan, at one time the world’s largest dual-axle dump truck, a major town attraction where it draws thousands of tourists a year to stop in Sparwood and take a picture of. Formerly from Kaiser Resources’ Eagle Mountain iron mine in southern California where it carried 70,000 pounds of rock. This truck is so large (about 350 tons of payload, 260 tons of weight, 6.88 meters in height, 20.09 meters in length, 17.07 meters with the box raised and 7.57 meters in width) that 2 Greyhound buses and 2 pickup trucks can fit on the back of it, all at the same time. Sparwood bought the truck in 1996 for only a dollar. This tourist attraction is located at the property of the Sparwood Tourist Information Center.

In terms of population size, Sparwood is the second-largest community in the Elk River Valley after Fernie. It is one of the province’s youngest and newest incorporated communities. It is however, older than Elkford, a town of about 2,500 people, located just north of Sparwood on Highway #43 as that town has been around only since 1971.

Sparwood's business center is situated along 3 main streets (Red Cedar Drive, Aspen Drive and Centennial Square). Business along these streets include a shopping center, drug stores, gas station, restaurants, tourist information center and a couple of motels.

Because of its location high in the mountains, the precipitation accumulations in Sparwood are more higher than other locations in the Rocky Mountain Trench such as Cranbrook. Summer temperatures in Sparwood tend to average around 23 degrees Celcius, but be prepared for cooler nights especially during late Summer. From November to April, winter temperatures hover around the -5 to -10 range, but can be colder depending on how cold the winter months are. Also during this time of year, be prepared for harsh driving conditions especially the Crowsnest Highway (Highway #3) from here to the British Columbia/Alberta border, where blowing snow and limited visibility are common.


Sparwood is a sister city to Kamisunagawa, a city of about 4,200 people, located in Japan, on the island and prefecture of Hokkaido, the northernmost and largest of Japan's 47 prefectures.
view of Sparwood
downtown Sparwood








GRAND FORKS


GRAND FORKS
Is a small city located at the confluence of the Granby and Kettle Rivers, the latter river being a tributary of the Columbia River and is named after the junction of the 2 rivers; about 21 and 95 kilometers west of Christina Lake and Castlegar respectively in the Boundary/Kootenay Region of southern British Columbia.

The history of Grand Forks dates back to the late 1800s, when the original settlers were attracted to the area’s rich agriculture farmland. Wagon roads north of Marcus, Washington and east of Penticton helped quicken the development of Grand Forks as construction of the Columbia and Western Railway through and from Castlegar promised a great supply of smelting ore from the Crowsnest fields and in turn, also helped jumpstart the Granby Mining and Smelting Corporation to construct a new smelter in Grand Forks.

In August of 1897, Grand Forks was officially incorporated as a city and in August 3 years later; a smelter was finally built and was once the largest copper smelter in the British Columbia and the second largest in the world.

Doukhobors, a group of Pacifist Russian immigrants, moved into the area from the Canadian Prairies in 1909 in search of religious freedom, and because of the area’s suitable and pleasant climate, worked in the agricultural and farming professions. A recall of the Doukhobors era is remembered in Grand Forks via a museum that tells the history of the Doukhobors as well as how the area was like back in the day.

During the decade of the 1990s, Grand Forks held the distinction of being the fastest-growing community in the Kootenay/Boundary area.

The smelter closed after the First World War and was razed shortly afterward, however some remains including traces of some of its old slag piles can still be seen just a short distance from town.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Grand Forks’ population: 4,036


Granby River

GENELLE


GENELLE

Genelle's population: 823

Genelle is a small unincorporated residential community located approximately 13 kilometres north
of Trail and 5 kilometers south of Castlegar, along the western banks of the Columbia River.

Genelle was established in 1900 when Peter Genelle operated a sawmill to supply lumber for the Cominco smelter at Trail.

During the same time, the nearby locality of China Creek was home to a settlement of Chinese miners who panned for gold in the creek of the same name, when this area was home to a stopping point on the wagon road from Trail to Robson.

Known today as a dormitory community for residents who travel to Castlegar or in Trail for employment opprotunities. Genelle is small but it does have some services including a gas station, community hall, post office, and general store.



Friday, September 16, 2016

KELOWNA


KELOWNA
Kelowna’s population: 106,707

The city of Kelowna is situated on the beautiful shores of 170-kilometer long Okanagan Lake approximately halfway between Vernon and Penticton.

Officially incorporated in 1905, Kelowna was first settled by Father Charles M. Pondosy, a Roman Catholic Oblate Missionary who opened a mission here in 1859 and thus became the first European to settle in the area. Its name is an Okanagan First Nations word for “female grizzly bear” said to be a referrence and citation of a scruffy and giant first settler who lived literally underground. The story says that one day when he crawled out of the ground like a bear, passing First Nations people called him Kimach Touche, which meant black bear’s face or brown bear. However in 1892 when a new name was chosen for the settlement, some townsfolk thought the name to be uncomfortable or ill at ease so Kelowna was chosen instead.

Kelowna has an unbeatable climate of long, sunny summers and short mild winters, resulting from a rain-shadow effect from the Cascade Mountain range that protects the city from substantial amounts of precipitation. This gives Kelowna summer temperatures that often exceed +35 degrees Celsius and winter temperatures that seldom reach the -10 degrees Celsius. There are many things to do in Kelowna including golfing, hiking up Knox Mountain, walking the downtown streets, swim or sunbathe at the beaches of Okanagan Lake, and skiing at Big White Ski Resort. The Kelowna Rockets of the Western Hockey League (WHL), play their games at the Prospera Place, a 6,886 seat multi-purpose facility, used not only for ice hockey but also for concerts among other events including concerts.

Kelowna first became a city on May 5 1905; the first floating bridge in Canada was built in 1958 but was replaced in 2008 by the new William Richards Bennett Bridge, named after a former British Columbia premier. In 1963, the Okanagan University College opened its doors and offers diploma programs to students. A major service center for the entire of the Okanagan Valley with fruit-growing, wineries as well as tourism playing a huge role in its economy, Kelowna held the distinction of being one of British Columbia’s fastest growing communities during the 1980s, when it had a population of only about 55,000 people and since then is British Columbia’s 9th largest city and has became a popular hotspot for retirees.

Highway #33 is a 129-kilometre highway that goes from downtown Kelowna to Rutland (a neighborhood of the city), Big White Ski Resort, and finally the small South Okanagan hamlet of Rock Creek. In 2003, some 2,000 homes were destroyed and about 30,000 residents were evacuated when a 61,000 hectare forest fire consumed much of Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park, caused by a lightning strike and fuelled by a constant wind, this fire was so large it also destroyed 12 of the 18 Myra Canyon Trestles originally built for the historic Kettle Valley Railway. Aside from being the Okanagan Region’s and Interior of British Columbia’s largest city, Kelowna is also the largest city outside of the Lower Mainland and Victoria.


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100 MILE HOUSE

          100 MILE HOUSE  100 Mile House's population: 1,980 100 Mile House is a district municipality located in the South Car...