A screenshot from a promotional TV ad for Bedrock City and Wild Waters taken from a YouTube video.

Image Credit: YOUTUBE / Erich Neumann

I was too late to Kelowna for Bedrock City before it closed down in 1996, but many of the kitschy concrete relics were there in Old Mac Donald’s Farm in West Kelowna.

It closed in the mid-2000s. If you remember that time, land prices were really starting to pop and construction companies were run ragged trying to keep up with demand to exploit it.

Old Mac Donald’s Farm, on Westbank First Nation, is now a Real Canadian Superstore.

Just up the road from there used to be waterslides and a campground.

We talk a lot in the BC Interior about land and home prices. Of course that’s had a major impact on our cities and towns: Lost hope of home ownership for families and young people, rising rents, rising homelessness and a lot fewer dollars in our jeans.

Sure it pales in importance, but it’s also priced out all the fun stuff. You know, the stuff that made people want to come here in the first place. Stuff that resident families could do alongside tourists, that wouldn’t break the bank.

Marshall Jones, managing editor

We are in the midst of another giant leap in land values.

It’s likely going to push out two more golf courses in Kelowna. A movie theatre in West Kelowna has been shut since COVID. The outdoor go-kart track in Kelowna is gone. You can barely find private campgrounds anymore.

It’s tough to justify marginal profits in a tourism business with a two-month peak-season, when the land itself appreciated 30 per cent in a year.

I wrote about this in our awesome newsletter this week and heard from many folks from the Thompson-Okanagan who have noticed slowly over time, how many of these venues have just disappeared with seemingly nothing offered for replacement. There's a sense in Kamloops that if someone built... I don't know, something, residents would support it. Everyone wants a return of waterslides (except Penticton, obviously) and just something to do.

The culture has also shifted, it seems. I’m not sure what to make of it. There’s a lot fewer nightclubs and bars, but a lot more pubs. We’ve traded family-friendly for wealth-friendly. I love it, but surely there’s got to be more to our offerings than wine tours, craft beer and expensive food.

There’s an embarrassment of riches in the North Okanagan. O’Keefe Ranch, the Enderby Drive-In (now one of only two in the province once the last drive-in theatre in the Lower Mainland caves under tax and land pressures). It’s got one of the last waterslides and the Caravan Farm Theatre has no right to be as good as it is.

I’m not shaking fists at clouds here, though I am becoming an old man. Change is inevitable, of course. And surely I am missing some adventures. Feel free to let me know and we’ll try to highlight some this summer.

But I’m going to suggest, if you’ve got a favourite local tourist destination, go pay them a visit. They need to know you care and will support them.

Cherish them while they’re still here.

— Marshall Jones is the Managing Editor of iNFOnews.ca

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