OKANAGAN VALLEY - British Columbia: Including the Alaska Highway - page 378

of red and white wines, including an award-winning cabernet franc and one of the
Okanagan's few sparkling wines. Tours and tastings are offered May-mid-October three
times daily, and a bistro is open daily for lunch (year-round) and dinner (summer only).
Continuing Toward Kelowna
On the way to Kelowna you pass two entrances to Okanagan Lake Provincial Park, a
grassy, beach-fringed park popular for boating and swimming. Ponderosa pines line the
shore, while exotic trees such as maple and oak shade dozens of picnic tables. The park has
two campgrounds (519/826-6850 or 800/689-9025, www.discovercamping.ca , late March-
mid-Oct., $30) with showers.
Farther along is the community of Peachland. Crammed between a rocky bluff and
Okanagan Lake, Peachland was founded in 1808 by Manitoba entrepreneur and newspaper-
man John Robinson, who came to the Okanagan in search of mining prospects but turned
his talents to developing the delicious locally grown dessert peaches. The drive through
downtown is a pleasant diversion from Highway 97. On one side are the lake and a long
pebbly beach dotted with grassed areas of parkland and supervised swimming areas. On the
other is a collection of shops and cafés.
Kelowna
British Columbia's largest city outside the Lower Mainland and Victoria, Kelowna (pop.
120,000) lies on the shores of 170-kilometer-long (106-mile-long) Okanagan Lake, approx-
imately halfway between Penticton in the south and Vernon in the north. The city combines
a scenic location among semiarid mountains with an unbeatable climate of long, sunny
summers and short, mild winters. The low, rolling hills around the city hold lush terraced
orchards, and the numerous local vineyards produce some excellent wines. Visitors flock
here in summer to enjoy the area's warm water, sandy beaches, numerous provincial parks,
and golfing; in winter they come for great skiing and boarding at nearby Big White Ski Re-
sort.
For thousands of years before the arrival of the first Europeans, the nomadic Salish
people inhabited the Okanagan Valley, hunting ( kelowna is a Salish word for grizzly bear),
gathering, and fishing. The first European to settle in the valley was an oblate missionary,
Father Pandosy, who established a mission in 1859. Since the first apple trees were planted
at the mission, Kelowna has thrived as the center of the Okanagan fruit, vegetable, and vine-
yard industry (the valley is Canada's largest fruit-growing region).