Munson Mountain was officially recognized in 2016 as being one of Canada’s Historic Places.
sign on the west side of Munson Mountain was originally constructed in 1937, revamped, rehabilitated, renovated and reconstructed in later years, today remaining visible from across Okanagan Lake.
. This is one of the very few places in the world from which one may view the entirety of a city bounded on each end by lakes, as well as both lakes.
Were it not for glacial action in the past, there would not be a Penticton. The area would, instead, be lake bed. The city occupies the entirety of a deposit of glacial till which separates Okanagan Lake from Skaha Lake. As a result Penticton has lakes and beaches at each of its north and south ends, making it one of just two cities in the world situated between two lakes. The other is a Swiss town nestled between
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One may drive partway up Munson Mountain via Munson Mountain Road, then must take a short climb up to the viewing area near the
sign. Here, and on a trail leading south down the mountain, are several benches placed such that one may sit and take in the magnificent view at their leisure. At the place where that trail switches back there is a gazebo, placed for scenic lunch and picnic stops. Atop Munson Mountain is doubtless the site of more camera clicking than anywhere else in the Penticton area.
Iconic Penticton sign getting a makeover
Next week’s new paint job will be the sign’s first in around half a decade
He expects the group to take around five hours to complete the paint job, which he says is likely the first in about half a dozen years.
“Over the years, a lot of volunteer groups have been maintaining the Penticton sign, since the ‘40s,” Lancaster said.
Among the caretakers of the past, Lancaster lists the Boy Scouts, the former board of trade and other volunteers.
Though the sign has been up for 80 years, now a B.C. heritage site, Lancaster says the spot had significance to Penticton for a full 10 years prior, including a beacon fire lit on Canada Day, 1927.
“This is kind of why we’re doing it at this time of year,” Lancaster said. “Ninety years ago on Canada Day, they had a beacon fire on Munson Mountain … and that was the first recorded evidence of the social significance as a local celebration.”
Local historian Randy Manuel says the sign was created all those decades ago with the board of trade at the helm of the project, while others worked to maintain it later on.
But it was the Associated Canadian Traveler’s club who hauled up a total of 44,000 pounds — nearly 20 metric tonnes — of silica rock over three intervals while maintaining the area, including weeding the space.
“That would have been one heck of a job to haul those bags of silica down the slope and put them into place,” Manuel said.
To put that into more tangible terms, 44,000 pounds would require 880 individual loads, if each person carried 50 pounds at a time.
For decades, the sign was in need of regular maintenance, as those rocks, placed on the ground, were often outgrown by the weeds underneath. That became the cause for a local radio station in the 1980s and 1990s, according to Manuel.
“A one point, Ralph Robinson from CIGV radio started a campaign to be able to have annual cleanups and put cement in place, instead of stone,” Manuel said.
That was finalized in the late 1990s, according to Lancaster, who says the concrete was poured over the silica rocks to keep weeds from growing over it.
“They just made it that much more permanent in 1998. It was basically just a pebble sign (before),” he said. “In 1998, the concrete was poured, and the silica rock that was there is embedded in it, and that’s what we have there, today.”
The sign’s creation in the late 1930s was the product of an inability of the city and developers to commercialize the park space, which Manuel says might ring a bell with those paying attention to local issues more recently.
“Guess what. Fast forward 80 years, and it’s still going on, right?” he said.
Commercialization of the space around the sign came up more recently, too, with an outdoor theatre proposed for a natural bowl behind the hill, according to Manuel.
“But that never came to fruition. I think probably what happened was more interesting things came on stream, and then the 2008 financial crash didn’t make it financially viable,” he said. “It would have been a combination of city and private enterprise.”
Those who wish to help out with the upcoming efforts to revitalize the sign are more than welcome to, Lancaster said.