L'ACQUA : THE GREENING OF THE OKANAGAN
Wednesday, February 15 at 7 pm • At the KCIC Hall & Via Zoom

SPECIAL GUESTS

IAN POOLEY
Ian Pooley is an Okanagan historian. His previous articles have appeared in academic journals, and Okanagan Historical Society reports. Ian Pooley comes from a Kelowna orcharding family; his grandfather, Walter R. Pooley, along with E.M. Carruthers, bought the Lequime Ranch in 1904, and shortly afterwards, along with T.W. Stirling, started the Kelowna Land and Orchard Company. He has just finished writing a book on the history of South-East Kelowna.
WAYNE WILSON
Wayne Wilson served as the Executive Director of the Kelowna Museums Society from 2000 – 2012. He began work with the Kelowna Museum in 1978 and since then has worked in the various capacities including Exhibitions Co-ordinator, Museum Education, Assistant Director, and has curated dozens of exhibitions and public programming series.
Picture
Rock oven used by Italian workers at Belgo Dam site
Early in the 20th Century, massive infrastructure projects were undertaken to open up the tantalizing potential of the BC Interior. One of these were the building of railways. The other was bringing the water needed to enable commercial agriculture. Italians were integral to both.
From the turn of the century to the outbreak of World War I, Italian sojourners came by the thousands to find work in North America. The economic situation in Italy was desperate and both Canada and the U.S. were booming. This was certainly true here in the Okanagan Valley. The Kettle Valley Railway was being built high in the hills over Kelowna, but in terms of impact to our Valley, the construction of major irrigation works would literally change the landscape, bring commercial scale agriculture to Belgo, Black Mountain, the Glenmore Valley and South-East Kelowna.

In this fascinating presentation, Ian Pooley and Wayne Wilson will share how important irrigation was to the Okanagan and how labour intensive the construction projects were. We'll also share some select video footage from our own Legacy Project, showing two amazing rock ovens up at Belgo and talking about the role of Italians in the construction.

This is a free event but registration on Eventbrite is required
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