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Okanagan - Shuswap, British Columbia
Okanagan is nestled in the interior of British Columbia, between the Coast Mountains to the west and the Selkirk & Rocky Mountains to the East. The Okanagan has been named by the area's Salish natives, who's colorful language accounts for many of the place names in the area. The lake was labeled as Ookanawgan by explorer and geographer David Thompson, and is believed to refer to the farthest point that salmon traveled. The name Shuswap came from the Shuswap band of the Interior Salish tribe that lived in the area. The lake was first labeled on an 1827 map as "choo-choo-ach".
The Okanagan & Shuswap area has a population of over 250,000 people, mostly clustered in the larger cities (from south to north): Penticton, Kelown, Vernon, and Salmon Arm. These communities also contain much of the areas shopping and other facilities. The major industries in Okanagan are fruit & agriculture (including the manufacture of wines, canned fruit, fruit products), tourism and hospitality services.
The Okanagan Valley runs north and south between two high plateaus. The climate of the Okanagan Basin is atypical compared to the rest of the interior of the province. The area has warm summers (with hot days but cool nights) with an average maximum temperature of nearly 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), and fairly low humidity. The winters are relatively mild compared to areas north and east of the Valley, with more cloud than in summertime and with dry fluffy snow. Thaws occur at Valley bottom on about one-half of the days in January. The southern Okanagan is the northern end of the Great Basin Desert and even grows bananas. The Central Okanagan has an annual average of 200 hours of bright sunshine per year, one of the highest in Canada.
Here are some of the more notable communities in the Okanagan (from North to South):
Maps of neighbourhoods:
Shuswap Lake | North Okanagan | South Okanagan
Vernon | Kelowna | Penticton
More about the Okanagan, from 
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