The billboards by the bridge next to an edited photo showing what the view would look like without them.

(JESSE TOMAS / iNFOnews.ca)

You hear about Kelowna’s natural beauty, the pristine lake, mountains and a growing downtown, but as you round the corner to get onto the William R. Bennett bridge from the west you find your view obstructed by a wall of billboards.

It's a frequent question and complaint from tourists who don't know the background: What's the deal with the billboards? You don't see them anywhere else, so why there?

The short answer is because it's on Westbank First Nation lands.

Some people might think the band is raking it in by selling ads on those billboards, but it’s actually privately held land.

Several companies lease the land from landholders, known as locatees, including Pattison Outdoor Advertising which has roughly 40 billboards next to the bridge.

The billboards aren’t on community land and WFN didn’t say who is making money off the ad space. Pattison said there are several locatees who own billboards so there isn’t a single billboard tsar sitting on a pile of ad money.

It’s unclear exactly how much money people are making from leasing the billboards to advertisers like Pattison each year.

Pattison didn't give iNFOnews.ca a quote on how much it would cost to rent a billboard. BC Billboards advertises a price of $725 per month for billboards on the west side of the lake while Pattison has billboards for $1,575 per month in other cities.

Using those rates, 40 billboards by the bridge bring in between $348,000 and $756,000 a year.

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The billboards can be a touchy subject. Tourism Kelowna declined to comment on the billboards, it didn’t even want to tell us what the organization says when tourists ask about why there are advertisements blocking the view as they drive into the city. 

When we called the Tourism Kelowna visitors' centre as a curious tourist rather than a news outlet, the call taker said it’s a pity that the billboards block the view and create light pollution.

Pattison said there are often more billboards on First Nations reserve land because municipalities have bylaws restricting or prohibiting billboards.

The City of Kelowna has a bylaw prohibiting billboards and the City of West Kelowna prohibits billboards on land not owned by a business.

The provincial government also restricts signs by the highway that could distract drivers. The province only allows businesses like gas stations, motels and tourist attractions to put signs on the highway since they could be helpful for travellers.

Visitors and tourists probably aren't familiar with the jurisdictional sandwich on the west side of the lake. They might presume the billboards are on land owned by the City of West Kelowna since the WFN land is split in two reserves on either side of the city.

WFN land, like most reserve land, has a long and complex legal history. In the 1880s the government decided to split the band’s land into Tsinstikeptum IR 10, which is the section of land where the bridge and the billboards are, and Tsinstikeptum IR 9 which is the section of WFN further south. After more than 100 years and periodic shuffling of acres here and there, the reserve is still split to this day, which is why, to make a long story short, you see billboards by the bridge.

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