Like the grasslands, these rich, moist environments have been disproportionately affected by human settlement—lakeshores are naturally the most favoured sites for housing and resort developments. Perhaps the project that affected these habitats the most was the channelization of the Okanagan River in the 1950s. This project completely altered the water flow in the system, flushing spring runoff through the valley as quickly as possible. Salmon runs dwindled, affected by both the drastic changes in local channels and the construction of eleven dams downstream on the Columbia River. The wet meadows and birch woodlands along the old meandering river channel were then converted to agriculture or housing, and as the seasonal flow disappeared, the few that remained became shadows of their former selves.
Climate
The Okanagan Valley has a reputation for being a hot, dry place; the sandy benchland of the Osoyoos area is often called Canada’s pocket desert. The valley does indeed lie in the rain shadow of the Cascade and Coast mountains, and so moist Pacific air is wrung dry as it rises over these ranges on its eastward track in from the ocean. This maritime flow is one of three airstreams that dominate the local climate; the other two are the warm continental flow from the Great Basin to the south and the frigid air that creeps down from the Arctic in winter.
One of the most important factors that affect the Okanagan climate is the presence of large lakes through most of the valley. These lakes significantly moderate the climate throughout the year, warming the valley in winter and cooling it in summer.
The south Okanagan receives about 30 centimetres of precipitation per year. This is certainly less than in most parts of the province, but it is not the driest area—sites such as Ashcroft and Keremeos, tucked into deep valleys in the eastern flank of the Cascade and Coast ranges, often get less than 25 centimetres. Rainfall increases gradually as you go northward in the valley and then rather sharply near the north end; Kelowna gets 31.5 centimetres and Armstrong 44.8 centimetres of precipitation each year.
Spring comes early to the Okanagan in comparison with other inland areas in western Canada. As the days lengthen in February, the track of the Arctic airstream shifts eastward, allowing warm Pacific air to flood in from the coast. The snow quickly melts in the valley bottom, and the first spring flowers—sagebrush buttercups and yellowbells—brighten the golden grasslands. By the end of February, the first spring migrant birds have returned from the south—tree and violet-green swallows take in the early midge hatches over the river, and western meadowlarks sing again. By late March the apricots are blooming white throughout the southern valley, followed in April by the pink peach, white cherry, creamy pear, and white and pink apple blossoms. Wild currants are blooming too, and the first hummingbirds come back to take advantage of the new nectar.
The spring air warms rapidly, and on hot days in late May, you can often see children swimming in the lakes—adults usually wait until July. Most of the birds have returned by the end of May; pink bitterroot blossoms appear as if by magic out of the hot, dry soil, and cottonwood fluff drifts through the air like snow in a summer snowstorm. Although precipitation is relatively even throughout the year in the Okanagan, June is the wettest month. Warm rains melt the deep snowpack in the mountains, and all the creeks swell, sending frigid, silty water into the lakes. Sometime in early July, a strong high-pressure ridge builds to the west, deflecting the moist Pacific airstream north into the Yukon, and the dry and hot days of a classic Okanagan summer settle in, fuelled in part by oven-like air flowing north out of the Great Basin Desert. Young birds leave their nests, and the laneways of the valley fill with scuttling groups of tiny quail.
The Pacific airstream reestablishes itself in late August, bringing fall showers back to the Okanagan. Songbirds such as warblers and flycatchers stream south, heading for winter quarters in Central America. Shorter days and a lower sun bring lower temperatures, and by early October the mean temperature on the mountaintops falls below freezing. The larches on the eastern slopes of the valley turn brilliant gold, and the cottonwoods along the creeks soon follow with a similar show of colour. The frost line drops steadily; the first snow flurries bring temporary washes of white to the valley bottom in November. As small lakes in northern and central Canada freeze, rafts of coots, ducks, and other waterfowl appear on the lakes of the Okanagan.
The real cold is yet to come, however. Sometime in December or early January, the first stream of Arctic air slips through passes in the Rockies and slides into southern British Columbia. Overnight lows drop below –10°C, and vineyards spring into action to harvest the frozen grapes for icewine. Snowfalls now blanket the ground for weeks on end. Snow depths in the south Okanagan rarely exceed 15 centimetres but are regularly over 30 centimetres in Kelowna and even deeper in Vernon. Armstrong receives a total of 135 centimetres of snow each year, compared with only 60 centimetres in the southern parts of the valley. Snowfall also increases with elevation, of course; some subalpine areas can get over 500 centimetres of snow, much to the delight of local skiers.
Early History
As the glaciers receded from the Okanagan, animals and plants recolonized the rock and gravel left behind. The climate warmed quickly, and the landscape was rapidly transformed into a mosaic of forests and grasslands. Among the new arrivals were people who came to hunt the game, harvest the plants, and take the salmon from the reestablished river.
The Native people of the Okanagan call themselves Syilx and are part of the Salish language group. The name Okanagan, first recorded by Lewis and Clark as Otchenaukane in 1805, has an obscure history. It is usually translated as “going towards the head,” but exactly how this word relates to the valley is unclear. One explanation suggests that it refers to people travelling up the Okanagan River to the head of the lake near Vernon, and another refers to seeing the top of sacred Mount Chopaka from near Osoyoos. There were four major settlements in the valley in the late 1800s: one at the north end of Osoyoos Lake at Nk’Mip; one on the flats between Okanagan and Skaha Lakes at Penticton; one at the north end of Okanagan Lake at Nkamaplix; and one at Spallumcheen near Armstrong. These settlements were used throughout the winter, when the people lived in kekulis (circular structures built partly underground for warmth) and ate the foods that they had harvested and stored throughout the warmer months.
In spring, family groups would leave these settlements to travel throughout the Okanagan territory to a complex array of traditional food-harvesting sites, including spring fishing grounds in the Similkameen, bitterroot (speetlum in the Okanagan language) patches on the southern grasslands, and saskatoon berry (siya) patches throughout the valley. In late summer, families would camp in high mountain meadows to pick huckleberries, while others gathered in larger groups at salmon concentrations in the south Okanagan and at Kettle Falls to the southeast. Hunter families would harvest deer and other game in the fall, but as the days shortened and snow began to fall on the mountains, most families would return to the permanent settlements for the winter. Apparently enough resources could be found around Penticton to warrant year-round residence there, since its name means “people always there.”
The earliest Europeans to visit the Okanagan were fur traders; Scotsman David Stuart is reputed to be the first of these to see the valley, in 1811. The Okanagan quickly became an important trade route; furs were packed south from the northern forests of British Columbia to Fort Kamloops, then down the Hudson’s Bay Company Brigade Trail through the Okanagan Valley to the Columbia River at Fort Okanogan, and from there to the Pacific at Fort Vancouver and Fort Astoria. David Douglas, the famous botanist who first identified the Douglas-fir, travelled north along this route in the spring of 1833. The fur trade waned sharply in the middle of the 1800s when silk replaced beaver felt as the latest style in European hat fashion. The Brigade Trail was also replaced by a more western route in 1846, when the establishment