Summerland

Summerland is a town on the west side of Okanagan Lake in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. The district is between Peachland to the north and Penticton to the south. The largest centre in the region is Kelowna, approximately 50 km to the north, and Vancouver is approximately 425km away to the west. The district is famous for "Bottleneck drive", a system of roads connecting a large number of wineries.Electoral representativesThe current Mayor is Peter Waterman. The district's (2016 federal) Member of Parliament is Dan Albas. Its (provincial) Member of Legislative Assembly is Liberal shadow minister; Dan Ashton.HistoryIn 2006, the District of Summerland celebrated its centennial as an incorporated municipality in 1906, yet the history of settlement in the Summerland area extends beyond that time. Summerland's first inhabitants were the Okanagan Salish with the Nation's boundaries extending from Kamloops to southern Washington State. The area known as "Nicola Prairie" was notably named after the Grand Chief Nicola.A published map of the Okanagan Valley in 1827 includes only three sites for the entire Okanagan Valley; Nicola Prairie; Lone Tree (north end of Summerland); and Sandy Cove (across the lake from present day Kelowna). Summerland's proud and diverse past includes hunting and fur trading, ranching, orchards and fruit industries, transportation hubs and more recently, tourism. Immigration to the Summerland area commenced in the late 1880s when the first settlers arrived and began diverting water to irrigate orchards. The first commercial orchard was planted in the 1890s in Trout Creek, where a water license was issued to irrigate 1,000 acres.