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 9^th 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.