A brilliant example of multipurposing is the fact that the Westbank Visitors' Centre is also in the
Westbank Museum, sort of like one stop shopping for knowledge of both the past and the present of Westbank.
Manning the visitor's centre/museum when we visited were two very pleasant and helpful girls, ever alert to visitors who may have a question, whether it be about the museum or about Westbank. Te centre is well stocked with maps and informational brochures on destinations around southern BC, even farther afield, such as Washington and Alberta. This should be the first stop for anyone not familiar with the central Okanagan.
Around the time the we moved from Westbank the museum moved from its long time location in a little building west of the Westbank townsite into this much more spacious location which includes the visitor's centre. Housing a plethora of antiquities and memorabilia, this is a really good museum for a relatively small community. Possibly I shouldn't say that, as the West Kelowna area comprises a large, semi rural area of about 40,000 residents.
In the museum are many artefacts portraying day to day life as it would have been in the days of the area's settlers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Further displays indicate advancements in technology through the years which made life a little easier as time marched inexorably on.
One of the cooler items in the collection is a
wooden washer, built in 1926 by the
Boss Washing Machine Company of Cincinnati, Ohio and powered by a stationary gasoline engine. It is the only wooden washer we have encountered in our travels. Another is a complete miniature sawmill, the
Only Fully Operational Miniature Sawmill in Canada. About sixteen feet long, the sawmill required 25,000 man hours to construct and takes miniature logs in one end and spits out finished lumber at the other end (so to speak).
The photos below are to entice the viewer to stop in at the museum/visitor centre.