A Brief Overview of The City Kelowna

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Kelowna is a beautiful city located on the Okanagan Lake. It ranks 22nd in the list of largest Canadian metropolitan areas. It is the main city in the Okanagan Valley which is situated in the southern region of British Columbia. The name Kelowna is derived from an Okanagan term meaning ‘grizzly bear’.

Some of the important communities of Kelowna are Lake Country and Vernon in the northern side, Summerland and Penticton in the south and Peachland towards the southwest.

History of events

The story of a monster called Ogopogo residing in the Lake Okanagan has played an important role in the popularity of this city. It’s because of this myth that the local people built a children’s park with a monster’s statue inside it. Tourists from all over come to Kelowna to enjoy the summer and famous Kelowna activities like mountain bike riding.   To make the commute easy for tourists, a new bridge was also constructed in 2005.

The famous ‘Wakefest’ and other musical festivals were banned in 2007 due to the noisiness witnessed in these events. In spite of the persuasion of the coordinators, the events could not be held as the dates clashed with another important event.

Kelowna’s City Park hosted the largest Sport and Music Festival of Western Canada in 2011. It witnessed more than 25,000 visitors which gave a tremendous boost in the tourism revenue. International Children’s Winter Games was also hosted by Kelowna in the same year.

 

Climate

Kelowna’s climate is semi-arid. While the summers are much dry, the winters are usually cloudy. Kelowna has its climate station at the Kelowna International Airport. Kelowna has recorded the highest temperature of 40 degree centigrade in the summer of 1998. Okanagan Lake with the Columbia Mountains and Canadian Rockies keep the winter moderate by blocking the wind from the Arctic.

Kelowna is famous location for film shooting. Some of the famous movies shot here are –

  • Shred and its sequel Shred 2 showcased the famous Big White Ski Resort located in Kelowna. Both were snowboarding based comedy films which featured Tom Green.
  • Fido – a movie based on zombies that got screened at the Toronto Film Festival. It was directed by Andrew Currie and was released under the production of Lions Gate Entertainment.
  • Mee Shee: The Water Giant – it was partly shot at Kelowna. Bruce Greenwood, Tom Jackson, Rena Owen and Daniel Madger featured in it.

 

Population

As stated by Statistics Canada in 2001, Kelowna has a population of about 96,288. Canadians from the British Columbia and other provinces have migrated to this place constituting major chunk of its population. Kelowna has an interesting presence of other minorities like Chinese, Filipino, South East Asian, Japanese and Arabs etc. This trend has led to a boon in the demographics of Kelowna.

Kelowna is home to many eminent personalities. Starting from the famous footballers Rob Friend and Danny Watkins, entertainers like Bend Sinister, Yukon Blonde, Downlink, Taylor Kitsch, Chad Brownlee and Paul Johansson are associated with this city.

 

Author’s Bio – Angela is a renowned writer who has written several articles on Canadian cities and provinces. In this article, she talks about Kelowna and states some interesting aspects about it.