Chapter 2
I began last time with the idea that 1946 was a memorable year. So was 1948. This was the year of floods in many parts of BC, but of course it was what happened here that was most significant to us. Osoyoos Lake rose to a record level; there were flooded houses, flooded and impassable roads, and short term inconveniences. A few houses had been built near the lake level, above any previous high water line, but 1948 water levels caused damage that necessitated the rebuilding of some of them. We actually paddled a kayak into the main floor entrance of a friend’s house. The old wooden bridge was underwater and this led to the building of the present bridge in 1952. The road to the bridge had to be raised, as did parts of East Lakeshore Drive. These changes proved their worth in 1972 which was the only other year that the lake reached a level similar to that of 1948.
Why did the 1948 floods happen? A very late spring and very high snow packs was a deadly combination. Hot weather came suddenly, and the melt rate was much more than rivers could handle. Osoyoos Lake suddenly had a heavy flow of water from the Okanagan water system, but also had its outflow affected by the Similkameen River at Oroville. The Similkameen not only served to block the normal outflow, but for a while was actually flowing north into Osoyoos Lake. The lake rose rapidly.
For a young boy whose father had recently acquired a small boat with a small inboard engine, there were numerous new experiences! Because we lived in the old Haynes house on the east side of the lake, and the roads and the bridge to town were under water, it meant travelling by boat to get to town. It meant travelling by boat to catch the school bus to go to school. We could motor across what was then known as The Point (later Haynes Point Provincial Park, now Swiws Provincial Park). We took that boat into the north-west corner of the area now used to store tourists’ boat trailers. The high water situation was short lived, but the fun that came with having one of the few motor boats on the lake lasted many years.
Earlier, my father had been to Mabel Lake on a fishing trip, saw boats that had been built there, and promptly arranged for one to be built for him. One day in the summer of 1946, he hooked the orchard trailer to the Model A Ford, and we proceeded to Mabel Lake, put the boat on the trailer, and launched it in the river just north of Mara Lake. We then went into Shuswap Lake and spent some time there; my father hitch-hiked back to where the car and trailer had been left, drove to pick us up, loaded the boat back onto the trailer and off we were going back to Osoyoos.
1948 was the year of the completion of the Southern Okanagan High School in Oliver. Some time that fall all the high school classes were moved from the old buildings to the new one. We were in grade 9 then, and I’m sure that we did not realize we were among the luckiest of students in the whole province. We had an auditorium with a sloping floor. We had a full service cafeteria. We had a gym with permanent bleachers. We had a music room, foods and sewing rooms, metal and wood shops, a photography dark room, large labs for the sciences, and even a lecture/demonstration lab with tiered seating. From the day it was opened, until the day it burned down, it was a magnificent building. We had a school that was one of a kind.
And now in early 2016, we are wondering if, in the years to come, the new Southern Okanagan Secondary School will be seeing students from Osoyoos. Will history be repeated?