On the eastern shore of the narrowing Okanagan Lake, Kelowna, a town with an ever expanding population (344 m (1129 ft)), is the center of the Okanagan Valley, and has developed into a popular resort, thanks to its sandy beaches and more than 2000 hours of sunshine a year.
There is good fishing in the surrounding mountains in the many lakes, most of them used to irrigate the valley, and the town also serves as an important marketing and processing center for the fruit and vegetables produced around the valley. Other major industries are timber and manufacturing.
Kelowna is also popular with retired people on account of the mild climate and lovely setting, plus its good social facilities and a large number of golf courses.
Before the arrival of the first fur trappers in the early 19th c. this was the site of one of the ten main Salish villages of the interior. Around 1859/60 Father Charles Pandosy, a Catholic missionary, with two theological students, built a mission station here where Mission Creek runs into the lake. Persuaded by the Father's farming success the first European settlers soon began moving into the valley, and in the 1890s a town started to grow up on the lakeshore. A number of the larger farms were split up into fruit orchards. Around the turn of the century Kelowna became the landing for the sternwheel steamers of the Canadian Pacific Railway which operated on Okanagan Lake, steadily bringing in new settlers. By about 1909 the thrusting new town already had a population of 1800, and it received a further boost at the end of the Second World War with the opening of the Hope-Princeton Highway in 1949 and the building of the Okanagan Lake Bridge in 1958. This replaced the ferry that was the only link between Kelowna and Westbank, and is still, at a length of 650 m (2133 ft) and carried on 60 m (196 ft) high pontoons, Canada's longest floating bridge.
Kelowna also attracts skiers in the winter who come here to experience the nearby ski resorts.
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