14

Charles Mair visiting family in the Benvoulin area
Circa 1921
Benvoulin, British Columbia

Credits:
Kelowna Public Archives #3393

15

Benvoulin Hotel and stable
Circa 1890s
Benvoulin, British Columbia

Credits:
Kelowna Public Archives #10281

16

Kelowna business advertisements in the Kelowna Opera House
Circa 1909
Kelowna, British Columbia

Credits:
Kelowna Public Archives #902

17

Newspaper article on Sam Elliott's old blacksmith building being demolished
4 July 1978
Kelowna, British Columbia

Credits:
Kelowna Public Archives
The Daily Courier, July 1978

18

The Vernon and Okanagan Railway Company had planned to build south to the Boundary Country through the Mission Valley, where Benvoulin would become a station site. This line, however, was never built. Instead the Shuswap and Okanagan Railway (completed and opened on May 12th, 1892) ran a branch line from Vernon, three miles to the head of Okanagan Lake at Okanagan Landing, where it connected with the Okanagan steamers. This became the route of travel for both freight and passenger for many years. On May 3rd, 1892 the CPR launched the steamboat S.S. Aberdeen on Okanagan Lake. It stopped three times a week at the wharf in the future Kelowna townsite.

19

S.S. Okanagan sternwheeler at Okanagan Landing
Circa 1907
Okanagan Landing, British Columbia

Credits:
Vernon Museum Public Archives #678

20

Arrival of the S.S. Aberdeen sternwheeler at the Kelowna wharf
Circa 1914
Kelowna, British Columbia

Credits:
Kelowna Public Archives #3108

21

Bernard Lequime realized the transportation advantages now offered on the Lake. In 1890, he arranged to have the property that he and his brother Leon had recently acquired (Auguste Gillard's original pre-emption in 1863) on the waterfront surveyed. Lequime commissioned J.A. Coryell, C.E. and Company, surveyors from Vernon, to lay out the three hundred acre townsite in 1891. Bernard Lequime was among the few who did not buy into MacKay's sales pitch for Benvoulin becoming the new townsite. Bernard remained convinced that Okanagan Lake would be the preferred travel route in the future. Bernard built a wharf and freight shed nearby in order to ensure Kelowna became a travel stop for the lake boats.

On August 13th 1892, Bernard Lequime filed Map 462 with the Registrar General in Victoria. MacKay's Benvoulin townsite plan had already been laid out, but not registered (filed) until September 1892. With MacKay's untimely death on January 1st 1893, the driving force behind the Benvoulin townsite was lost.

22

Portrait of Bernard Lequime
Circa 1890s
Kelowna, British Columbia

Credits:
Kelowna Public Archives #95

23

Copy of Lequime's Kelowna townsite plan 462
1892 original (copy n.d.)
Kelowna, British Columbia

Credits:
Kelowna Public Archives, #3.07 2005.042.212

24

Many new settlers, mainly British, Scottish and Irish, arrived in the Okanagan Valley looking to buy some land and settle in the new community. George Grant MacKay, with his excellent connections, was able to attract other well-connected people, such as Lord and Lady Aberdeen, Scottish aristocrats interested in Canada. The Aberdeens arrived in Vancouver in October 1890, as part of their cross-Canada tour. The Aberdeens wanted to purchase a holiday retreat in Western Canada and with Lady Aberdeen's brother Coutts Marjoribanks, needing to be relocated from North Dakota, they had someone available to manage it for them.

The Aberdeen's had a previous connection with G.G. MacKay, as he had been the engineer in charge of building roads near Lady Aberdeen's ancestral home in Inverness-shire. When the Aberdeens arrived in Vancouver, they re-established contact with G.G. MacKay, who was well established in the real estate business in Vancouver. As the couple had little time to look at property during their short stay, they asked MacKay to act on their behalf and purchase property. MacKay's first suggestion was the Fraser Valley, which at $50-$60 per acre was deemed to be too costly. MacKay's second suggestion was the Mission Valley, selling to the Aberdeens some of the land he had bought on speculation and was planning to subdivide. The Aberdeens bought the 480 acre McDougall homestead, with MacKay's assurances that a new railway would soon be built through the area and would therefore increase the property's value tenfold from its original purchase price of $10,000. This enticed the couple to purchase the property sight unseen. Coutts Marjoribanks, with the help of a friend and the new ranch manager, had a new house built, in the Indian colonial bungalow style. Lady Aberdeen renamed the property Guisachan ('Place of the Fir' in Gaelic) after her childhood home in Inverness-shire, Scotland.

25

View of the Aberdeen Ranch in the Okangan Mission Valley
Circa 1892
Okanagan Mission Valley, British Columbia

Credits:
Kelowna Public Archives #8426
Charles W. Holliday (photographer)

26

Hunting party in front of Guisachan House
Circa 1890s- early 1900s
Guisachan Ranch, Okanagan Mission, British Columbia

Credits:
Kelowna Public Archives #3121

27

The Aberdeens returned to B.C. in the fall of 1891, and met up with G.G. MacKay in the Mission Valley as well as met many of the area's local people. They stayed for ten days (October 14th arrived and left on October 24th 1891) at their Guisachan Ranch and attended many social activities in the new community. These activities, the people that they met, descriptions of their new property and the surrounding area and Lady Aberdeen's personal thoughts are recorded in detail in her diary. Some of the activities that the Aberdeens attended included: a bear hunt; checked out their new Guisachan property; a visit by the Presbyterian minister Rev. Langill (discussion of plans to build a new church and Lord Aberdeen's promise to donate $400 towards the new building); a visit to Father Pandosy's Mission; attended church services at the Okanagan School as well as held an informal service at Guisachan (described by Lady Aberdeen as: "meant to be as a sort of exchange of greetings amongst new neighbours in the best way..."; located in "The Journal of Lady Aberdeen the Okanagan Valley in the Nineties" annotated and edited by R.M. Middleton, 1986, p. 28); held the first 'social' ever in the valley at Guisachan; expedition to Long Lake followed by tea at the Postill Ranch.