Kelowna has changed profoundly over the past few years. People arrive from far-off places knowing they want to live here. Others choose to live here though they work elsewhere. The population has...
Chapter One: Before Kelowna
The First PeoplesLong before there was a Kelowna, Indigenous Peoples known as the S-Ookanhkchinx, the Syilx speakers, were a group of the Interior Salish peoples who lived along the shores of...
Chapter Two: Discovering the Okanagan
The wave of change that followed the completion of the CPR’s transcontinental railway was being felt in the Okanagan by 1890. Rumours of a branch line through the valley encouraged investors to...
Chapter Three: Kelowna Flourishes, 1905–1930
The first few decades of the twentieth century were golden years in the Okanagan. Vernon was the valley’s leading city and the location of most government offices, including the recently...
Chapter Four: And We Thought We Would Be Spared, 1930–1940
The Depression was slow to arrive in Kelowna. So slow in fact that many were saying it really wasn’t a Depression at all, just negative thinking, and if we all pulled together and thought more...
Chapter Five: Despair and Recovery, 1940–1955
War became a reality in Kelowna when France was invaded in the spring of 1940 and the Battle of Britain began a few months later. The provincial police warned of sabotage and men from the local...
Chapter Six: Kelowna Grows Up—The Tumultuous Years, 1955–1975
The next few decades were tumultuous in many parts of the world: there was the Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam War, the Berlin Wall and, in Canada, the Quebec crisis. BC celebrated its centennial...
Chapter Seven: The Past Thirty-five Years—Kelowna Finds Its Heart, 1976 to the Present
Kelowna’s iconic Spirit of Sail sculpture was suspended from a helicopter in October 1977, flown down the middle of the lake and gently lowered onto the fountain at the foot of Bernard Avenue....
Afterword: Kelowna 2024
When The Kelowna Story was first published fifteen years ago, no one could have anticipated today’s Kelowna. The population has mushroomed, the skyline transformed, homelessness and mental health...
A Timeline for Kelowna
The S-Ookanhkchinx, the Interior Salish peoples, lived in the Okanagan before the arrival of the first Europeans. They travelled the valley according to the season—hunting and gathering, and...
Sources
Aberdeen and Temair, Ishbel Gordon. Through Canada with a Kodak. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1994.
Anderson, Kyle, and Jo Ann Reynolds, compilers. The Century in Review,...
Acknowledgements
I am delighted to have the opportunity to work with Harbour Publishing to produce this history of Kelowna. As I’ve written the stories, chosen the photographs and commissioned the maps to ensure...
About the Author
Stuart Kernaghan, xyphotos.ca
Sharron J. Simpson is a historian...
