The owner, operator and auctioneer at Okanagan Auctions is Bruce Mortensen, an old friend of ours who has been in the business for many years now. He's a great guy who happens to be as honest as the day is long, good qualities to find in an auctioneer. Though he at one time farmed himself out doing horse auctions on the coast and livestock auctions in Alberta,
Okanagan Auctions keeps him sufficiently busy that he now stays pretty close to home. At one time a few years ago, as well as the auctions mentioned above, he was doing nearly every auction in the Okanagan, from Armstrong in the north to Penticton in the south. On the weekends he was doing estate and farm sales. He may still be doing those, we forgot to ask.
We visited on a Friday, the morning after his regular Thursday auction and new merchandise was coming in faster than it was going out - it was a busy little place. Enough merchandise had come in by that afternoon that his auction for the next week was full. IE - he appears to be doing quite nicely.
Like most small city auction houses,
Okanagan Auctions takes general merchandise, furniture, tools, electronics, and pretty much anything that they feel will sell, up to and including vehicles. About four times a year Bruce holds an antiques auction, accepting and auctioning only antiquities and collectibles.
They're located in the northwest corner of the city on the north side of Westminster Avenue, the main route into downtown Penticton when arriving from the north.
![]()