Vernon news

Top Gear episode airs featuring Okanagan highways

OKANAGAN – Residents of the Okanagan will see some familiar scenery in a recently aired episode of the hit BBC television series "Top Gear." In a rare review of two North America’s truck companies, stars James May and Jeremy Clarkson race each other across B.C. in a Ford F150 VelociRaptor and a Chevy Silverado 2500HD....

Second year without a vigil to mark Vernon Good Friday massacre

VERNON – For the second year in a row, a vigil to remember the nine members of the Gakhal and Saran families who were murdered in Vernon on Good Friday in 1996 will not be held. The families will be remembering their loss in private, according to a media release from the Vernon Women’s Transition...

UPDATE: Highway 6 near Needles ferry reopens

VERNON - The section of Highway 6 on the way to the Needles ferry dock closed for repairs following a mud slide and the appearance of a sink hole over a month ago ihas reopened. The Ministry of Transportation says the work on the new drainage installation and rebuilding of the section of road about...

UPDATE: Power restored to 2,400 Enderby and Spallumcheen residents

VERNON - More than 2,400 residents in Enderby and Spallumcheen were without power this afternoon. B.C. Hydro says power went off at 11:43 a.m., March 27 for some 2,450 customers east of Highway 97. The outage was caused by a tree falling on the wires and power was restored shortly after 2 p.m. To contact...

History of the Okanagan Commonage Reserve

VERNON - With the impending sale of the discontinued rail corridor between Vernon and Kelowna, the Okanagan Indian band has revived a historic land claim on a large tract of land known as the Commonage Reserve. Formed in 1877 by the Joint Indian Reserve Commission (established by the governments of Canada and B.C. to create...

Satellite images show just how much Vernon has changed in 30 years

VERNON - It’s no surprise the Vernon area has grown over the last 30 years, but now you can see just what those changes look like from above. This incredible time lapse of satellite images from 1984 to 2012 on Google Earth Engine shows how different the city looks today. You will see new building...

Malakwa man killed by CP train indentified

KELOWNA – The man killed on the CP tracks in Malakwa last weekend couldn’t get out of the way of the freight train in time. Gilles Robert Joseph Thivierge, 61, of Malakwa was in the back seat of a car, which became stuck on the tracks just off Malakwa Road and Summerville-Husted Road around 9:45...

Proposed legislation will strip presumption of innocence: Defence lawyer

KAMLOOPS – New legislation proposed by the B.C. Liberals this week throws out the presumption of innocence and instead presumes people accused of impaired driving are guilty until they prove otherwise, says a Vancouver defence lawyer specializing in impaired driving. Amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act strengthen the government’s controversial Immediate Roadside Prohibition, which avoids...

Rain, snow increase avalanche risk in Interior

OKANAGAN - With less than a week left in March spring is well under way in the valleys, but that doesn’t mean winter conditions are not present on mountain highways or in the backcountry. Avalanche Canada is warning of a moderate to high risk of avalanches in many of the alpine and treeline elevations throughout...

Spring snow at Okanagan resorts leaves ski bums less bummed

OKANAGAN - It may have been a rainy week in the valley, but it was dumping snow at local ski hills. Silver Star Mountain in Vernon got close to 60 cm of new snow in the last week, blanketing alpine runs with a 209 centimetre base. As of Friday morning, all chair lifts except the...

HELSTON: Hundreds of bears die every year for this stupid reason

This goes out to anyone who’s left their garbage out and had a bear get into it; you might as well have put a bullet through its head. It sounds harsh, I know, but hundreds of bears across B.C. are killed by conservation officers every year because they’ve grown habituated to garbage. Sorry to break...

Bears are waking up and looking for food in the North Okanagan

VERNON - The Conservation Service is reminding the public to minimize attractants as bears come out of hibernation and start looking for food. Conservation officer Mike Richardson says the number of bear complaints has already started to climb in the North Okanagan. “They’re definitely awake and coming out of their dens,” Richardson says. On Monday,...

Vernon native named to WHL all-star team

VERNON - It’s the end of the regular season in the Western Hockey League and while Vernon does not have a team in the league a local player has still cracked the all-star team. The all-star teams along with the 2015 WHL Awards finalists were named Wednesday, March 25 with awards set to be handed...

Doubt cast over 2015 season of Vernon’s Avenue Market

VERNON - There’s concern that a Vernon market designed to attract people to the downtown core is actually having a negative affect on some merchants. The summertime Avenue Market, which is coming into its second year, invites vendors to set up on 30 Avenue on Friday evenings. When it started, the hope was that it...