Okanagan

... More >

in the north. From here it continues north of a barely perceptible watershed in valleys running more or less parallel to the main direction to Sicamous and Salmon Arm on Suswap Lake. The largest in its chain of lakes is Okanagan Lake, about 120 km (75 mi.) long, east of which, in the northern part of the valley, lie Swan Lake, Kalamaka Lake and Wood Lake still in the broad valley floor, joined by Skaha Lake, Vaseux Lake and Osoyoos Lake to the south.

Thanks to its exceptionally mild climate, with dry, hot and sunny summers (often with temperatures topping 30°C (86°F)) and relatively mild winters (average January temperature 0°C (32°F)), giving about 150 frost-free days a year - Okanagan and Skaha Lakes very seldom freeze over - the Okanagan is Canada's orchard. In season the produce of the fruit trees planted all over the valley floor and its terraced slopes can be bought from roadside stands.

Unlike the Okanagan Valley with its lush greenery which is mostly artificially watered, the relatively bare semi-arid plateau uplands are in the rain-shadow of the steep Coastal and Cascade Mountains, with an annual rainfall usually well below 400 mm (16 in.). Consequently the vegetation is sparser, mostly sagebrush or Ponderosa pine, cactus can often be found and, in Vaseux Lake Provincial Park Canada's only desert, stretching for about 40 km (25 mi.) from Osoyoos Lake north to Skaha Lake. Here too, early in the morning, Californian Bighorn sheep can often be seen close to the road or on the rocky slopes.

Before the advent of Europeans, the Okanagan was the preferred territory of the Salish peoples, and it was their Indian trails that the fur traders followed in the early 19th c. In 1811 men of the North West Company set up an outpost where the Okanagan flowed into the Columbia River, from which they explored the hitherto unknown south-east of British Columbia, competing all the time with their American rivals, the Pacific Fur Company, already established at the mouth of the Columbia River.

Until 1846, when it was agreed latitude 49 should be the frontier between the USA and Canada, a busy trail led through the Okanagan Valley to Kamloops. Fearing trade restrictions, this trail was abandoned and a new, more difficult route to the coast was sought through the canyons of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers. Hard on the heels of the fur trappers now came goldminers and prospectors, stock-farmers and settlers. As artificial irrigation increased the turn of the century brought fruit farming which is now the mainstay of the economy of the Okanagan Valley.