Donald Slimmon and Marie Seckler take a walking tour of Oliver, learning a great deal about its history and people. (Dan Walton photo)
The Heritage Walking Tour of Oliver gives everyone the chance to step into the past and walk alongside the remnants that have been braided into its history.
Before it was the Wine Capital of Canada, what’s now the Town of Oliver was inhabited first by people of the Okanagan First Nation; it was eventually shaped as a colonial community by miners chasing the reverberations from a gold rush; and then further sculpted because of some personal interest from a former B.C. premier.
Oliver resident Marie Seckler, who took the tour for the first time last month, said she was most fascinated to learn the community’s downtown once existed in Fairview, and after modest interests in the exploitation of gold had waned, a laborious relocation project was required for the move to its current location.
“The movement of the buildings from Fairview down to Oliver and replacing every building had to be done board-by-board and brick-by-brick,” Seckler said.
As part of the relocation, “The Blasted Church earned its name because they actually blasted some of the building’s insides to loosen the nails to loosen to be able to move the bits and pieces of it – what other city would be able to say that.”
By the turn of the 20th century, the community had been contemplating the Town’s relocation for years amid the dwindling investment in gold extraction. The lynchpin was pulled in 1902 after a fire devastated the the community and burned Fairview Hotel to the ground, and the Town’s population collectively decided to centre themselves closer to Tuc-el-Nuit Lake.
Seckler visited Fairview and said the foundations and ruins of buildings can be seen, though it requires an automobile since the site is four kilometres from downtown.
“It’s amazing the amount of fires Oliver has had,” said local resident Donald Slimmon, who recently took the tour for the first time after living in Oliver for eight years. “And it’s a wonder nothing burned when we had the fire last year, because that was amazing that we didn’t lose anything.”
Then a year ago, Slimmon helped convince Seckler that she too should move to Oliver.
“When first time I came here to see it, I noticed the people here are so friendly and it’s small enough where you can get around and not have to worry about parking or anything. It gives off a really nice small-town feel.”
She said the major factors in her decision to move to Oliver was the sunny weather, beautiful landscapes and the coziness of the community.
“We can wander and look at things, and knowing the history adds a nice solid foundation to exploring where we are.”
The tours are guided every day at 1 p.m., starting from outside the visitor’s centre.
Secular and Slimmon were both impressed by how knowledgable the tour guides were.
“They knew an awful lot,” Slimmon said. “I was surprised how much she knew about Oliver, but I guess that’s her job.
“They were really interested in sharing the information which was great,” Seckler said.
Tours are free for anybody interested, and are sponsored by the Oliver and District Heritage Society and the Oliver Tourism Association.
DAN WALTON
Oliver Chronicle
