Oliver, British Columbia

History

The people of the Syilx Okanagan Nation have lived in the South Okanagan for hundreds if not thousands of years and traditionally moved throughout their large territory to follow seasonal food resources. Many of their camps and village sites were on the shores of the lakes and glacial benches throughout the area. They relied on the river, creeks and valley lakes of the Southern Okanagan for their daily lives.

The first encroachment from European immigrants came circa 1811, when fur traders came to the area with the establishment of Fort Okanagan (now in the US) and first explored the area for trade.

In the 1880s, free gold-bearing quartz was found at Camp McKinney (east of Oliver) which became a busy gold mine, attracting miners and merchants, and boasting a public transportation system. Fairview (just west of Oliver) miners found gold and fueled the growth of a boomtown but it lasted just a few years and no remnants of the town survive today, other than a heritage marker.

• Established in 1921, Oliver began as a settlement for unemployed veterans of the First World War as part of the Soldier Settlement Act of 1917. A gravity-fed canal was constructed to provide irrigation to the semi-arid area.
• On January 30, 1919, the South Okanagan Lands Project (SOLP) began work on the Intake Dam at the base of McIntyre Bluff. Over the next eight years the 23 concrete-lined miles of the main canal were dug southward to the boundary. Eighteen and a half feet across the top, five feet deep and delivering 230 cubic feet per second, SOLP designed it to enable farmers to put nearly a foot of water per month on every acre of bottom land in the southern Valley. To get the canal from the east side of the Valley to the benches on the west, the “big siphon”—now concrete, but originally a 1,940-foot (590 m)-long wood-stave pipe of six and a half-foot-diameter—was constructed. It runs directly beneath the centre of Oliver. The office of the lands project now houses the town office and the building that housed the BC Police built circa 1924 stands today as the Oliver & District Museum.
• A post office, Board of Trade, and the first official business (a general store) were established in 1921 and the BC government administered the area until 1945 when the village was incorporated and a council elected. In 1990, the community's municipal incorporation was upgraded to town, its current status.
• In 1922, electrical power was brought to Oliver by the West Kootenay Power and Light Co.
• In 1923, the Kettle Valley Railway (KVR) constructed a station in Oliver and rails to transport fruit north to Penticton. In 1931, it was leased to the Canadian Pacific Railway. The last train went through Oliver in 1977. The building now sits slightly north of its original position and houses the Oliver Tourism Association and Visitor Centre.
• In 1935, Oliver was featured in Ripley's Believe it or Not for the claim that none of the dogs in Oliver had fleas.
• In 1990, Oliver held the world record for baking the world's largest cherry pie.
• In 2002, on her Golden Jubilee Tour of Canada, Queen Elizabeth II gave the Royal assent that Oliver was the Wine Capital of Canada.
• Located east of Oliver is Area 27 Motorsports Park, which was only track over 2 miles in Canada west of Ontario until the 2020 construction of Rocky Mountain Motorsports near Carstairs, Alberta

Oliver has been characterized by waves of migrants from different parts of the world. The first non-Indigenous settlers in the area, mostly war veterans and their families, came from the United Kingdom in the 1920s. This was followed by migration from Germany in the 1930s, and Hungarians in the 1940s and 1950s. Immigrants from Portugal arrived in Oliver starting in the 1950s, and soon owned most of the area wineries and orchards. The most recent migration has been of Sikh Canadians, many coming from the Lower Mainland and Calgary. As of 2017, Punjabi Sikhs own about 70 per cent of the area orchards and wineries.

Administration of water

• SOLP (1919–1964) South Okanagan Lands Project – established by the Province of BC 1921 and run by provincial government employees for over forty years. In the spring of 1964 the Oliver/Osoyoos Fruit Growers' Association was informed that the province was getting out of the irrigation business.
• SOLID (1964–1989) South Okanagan Lands and Irrigation District – On June 25, 1964 the Fruit Growers' Association volunteered itself to be the cornerstone of the locally constituted South Okanagan Lands Irrigation District which operated the system until 1989.
• Oliver Water (1989 to present) Town of Oliver – The water district was divided into two parts to be run by municipal governments. The Towns of Oliver and Osoyoos now deliver nineteen billion imperial gallons—nearly one hundred billion litres—to the Valley's parched soils annually. 1990 saw the election of Water Councillors in both communities—a first in BC.

Airport

• CAU3 Paved Hard Surface 3200 ft by 50 ft
• Elevation: 1015 ft
• VFR - Lighted strip
• Owned by Town of Oliver

Coordinates:

• Lat 49-10.24 N
• Lon 119-33.04 W
• Home to Oliver Flying Club (terminal and hangars), Okanagan Kootenay Air Cadet Gliding Program, VMR Aviation, Transwest Helicopters, Oliver Fire Department, Oliver-Osoyoos Search and Rescue and Big Horn Squadron Royal Canadian Air Cadets

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Oliver had a population of 5,094 living in 2,312 of its 2,445 total private dwellings, a change of 3.4% from its 2016 population of 4,928. With a land area of 5.49 km² (2.12 sq mi), it had a population density of 927.9/km² (2,403.2/sq mi) in 2021.

• Town of Oliver: 4928
• Regional District Area 'C': 3473
• Osoyoos Indian Band: 900

Ethnicity

Oliver has seen waves of immigration from the British Isles, Central Europe, Southern Europe, and Southern Asia since non-Indigenous settlement began approximately 100 years ago. With the construction of an irrigation canal to encourage settlement at the behest of former premier John Oliver, the community was originally built for British immigrants and veterans returning from the First World War during the 1920s. Following the initial British migration wave were Germans and Hungarians who first migrated to Oliver between the 1930s and 1950s, followed by Portuguese immigrants between the 1950s and the 1970s, and finally Punjabi Sikhs from the 1980s into the contemporary era.

Today, Oliver's major communities – Indigenous, Portuguese, Caucasian, and Sikhs live in cultural and social silos, with little or no informal social interaction other than in schools, shopping centres and work places.

Language

According to the 2011 Census, 79.57% of Oliver's population have English as mother tongue; Punjabi is the mother tongue of 5.21% of the population, followed by German (2.87%), Portuguese (2.55%), French (2.45%), Spanish (0.96%), Dutch (0.74%), Hungarian (0.74%), Russian (0.53%), and Ukrainian (0.53%).

Religion

According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Oliver included:

• Irreligion (2,345 persons or 47.3%)
• Christianity (2,145 persons or 43.2%)
• Sikhism (375 persons or 7.6%)
• Hinduism (20 persons or 0.4%)
• Islam (10 persons or 0.2%)
• Other (60 persons or 1.2%)

Notable people

• John Anderson, Admiral (Ret) Former Chief of Defense Staff, graduate of SOHS
• Laslo Babits, Competed in javelin at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, finishing in 8th place. Graduate of SOSS
• Bill Barisoff, former Speaker of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly, graduate of SOSS
• George Bowering, First Canadian Poet Laureate, graduate of SOHS
• Patricia Smith Churchland, philosopher and neuroscientist, born in Oliver
• Ross Fitzpatrick, Canadian Senator (Okanagan-Similkameen), graduate of SOHS
• Cody Kearsley, actor, known for his role as Moose Mason in the popular CW series Riverdale, graduate of SOSS
• Corban Knight, ice hockey player for the Philadelphia Flyers
• Clarence Louie, Chief of Osoyoos Indian Band, Order of BC
• Julie Skinner, 2002 Bronze Medal at Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah (Kelly Law team)
• Alison Smith, CBC TV anchor, graduate of SOSS
• Travis Turner, actor, lead role in the 2011 film Marley & Me: The Puppy Years
• George Victor Jmaeff, US Marine corporal, recipient of the Navy Cross

Climate

Oliver has a semi-arid climate (BSk) with hot, dry summers and cool winters. Annual snowfall is light, averaging just 18 inches (46 cm). Oliver is amongst the warmest communities in Canada with an average daily mean of 50.5 °F (10.3 °C).