STARS COME OUT FOR CHARITY AND FALL IN LOVE WITH OSOYOOS!
A highlight of the Celebrity Wine Auction was a dazzling performance by The Canadian Tenors – from left: Remigio Pereira, Fraser Walters, Victor Micallef and Clifton Murray.
Osoyoos is continuing its evolution as a prime wine destination in the world. As evidence, the first-ever Osoyoos Celebrity Wine Festival – held June 12-14 at a variety of Osoyoos-area locations – was a great success, with film, TV and media luminaries rubbing shoulders with festival participants as they all took in the gorgeous sights and sounds of Osoyoos and sampled the region’s wines and culinary delights.
Celebrities at the Wine Auction included, from left: TV Chef Ned Bell, TV and film star Jason Priestley, and actor/host Terry David Mulligan.
The Festival – co-sponsored by Black Hills Estate Winery and Destination Osoyoos – featured four events led by stars from Hollywood and across Canada – including Jason Priestley (Beverly Hills 90210), Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek, National Treasure), Tiffani Amber Thiesen (Saved by the Bell, Beverly Hills 90210), Terry David Mulligan (MuchWest, The Tasting Room), Chad Oakes (Emmy-award-winning producer), and The Canadian Tenors (recording artists). Entertainment Tonight (ET) Canada was on-site for the duration and will broadcast a special week of coverage from the region. Show producer Leslie Wasserman noted, "The Okanagan is becoming a very hot celebrity destination.”
The Festival’s premier event was the Osoyoos Celebrity Wine Auction – a gala three-hour reception for children’s charities held at Walnut Beach Resort on June 12. Stars mingled with guests as everyone sipped South Okanagan wines and nibbled on delicious appetizers from local restaurants. Guests bid on rare wines in a Silent Auction, and on a variety of celebrity-oriented prizes in a Live Auction called out by Penticton MLA Bill Barisoff. Auction prizes included an elegant dinner for 10 in your home prepared by TV Chef Ned Bell, a helicopter tour for four to South Okanagan wineries plus dinner, a role as an ‘extra’ in Nomadic Pictures’ next film, and a luxurious trip for two to Los Angeles for two nights plus spa treatments. Wine Auction emcee Glenn Fawcett, President of Black Hills Estate Winery, says the evening proceeds totalled $45,740. The Calgary-based Providence Children’s Centre was the primary recipient of the proceeds and the Osoyoos Child Care Centre Society was the secondary recipient. A highlight of the event was a performance by The Canadian Tenors, a quartet of young men with world-class voices and presentation. They wowed the crowd with a selection of songs, including Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’.
The Celebrity Wine Auction was the premier event of the first annual Osoyoos Celebrity Wine Festival, held June 12-14 at a number of venues around the community.
Three other Celebrity Wine Festival events included: The Nota Bene Release Party, on June 13, hosted at Black Hills Estate Winery by Jason Priestley, which featured wines from Black Hills, the cuisine of celebrity chef Ned Bell, and the live music of Double Magnum and DJ Jenn Goulet; the Burrowing Owl Winemaker's Dinner, held June 12, featuring Chef Bernard Cassavantes and the wines of Burrowing Owl Estate Winery; and the Desert Spirit BBQ (the Wine Festival After-Party), held June 12 at Spirit Ridge Vineyard Resort, featuring Passatempo Restaurant Chef Jonathan Thauberger and wines from the South Okanagan.
MURAL HONOURING PORTUGUESE COMMUNITY UNVEILED
Father Rex Velmonte, of St. Anne’s Roman Catholic Church in Osoyoos, blesses the new mural honouring the Portuguese community in Osoyoos, shortly after its unveiling at a ceremony on Sunday. Young members of the local Portuguese community and Osoyoos Mayor Stu Wells (seated) watch, at left.
Osoyoos publicly honoured its Portuguese pioneers June 14 with the unveiling of an outdoor mural which recognizes their major contribution to the economic, social and cultural development of the community.
Officials and members of the public and the area’s Portuguese-Canadian community gathered for the ceremony revealing an approximately 10-ft by 8-ft painted tile mural mounted on the front wall of the town’s Sonora Community Centre. In a colourful mix of red, green and blue, it depicts a Portuguese orchard worker picking apples in an Osoyoos orchard. Many Portuguese families immigrated to the region, beginning in 1955, and they became major players in the fruit and agriculture industry.
The mural was created by local ceramic artist Katie Foster and teacher George Mocci. Funding support for the project came from the Town of Osoyoos, the Osoyoos Portuguese Canadian Cultural Society, and Destination Osoyoos through its BC Resort Municipality Initiative fund.
Dignitaries at the unveiling ceremony included: Osoyoos Mayor Stu Wells; Osoyoos Portuguese Mural Committee Chair Louisa Carvalho; Boundary-Similkameen MLA John Slater; Destination Osoyoos Chair Derek Noske; Portugal’s Consul-General to Vancouver, Carlos de Sousa Amaro; and authority on the Portuguese in Canada, University of British Columbia Okanagan Prof. Carlos Teixeira.
From left, Boundary-Similkameen MLA John Slater, Osoyoos Mayor Stu Wells, Destination Osoyoos Chair Derek Noske, Portugal’s Consul-General to Vancouver, Carlos de Sousa Amaro, and authority on the Portuguese in Canada, UBC-Okanagan Prof. Carlos Teixeira attend the unveiling ceremony for the tile mural at Osoyoos’ Sonora Community Centre honouring the area’s pioneering Portuguese community.
Wells says, “This recognizes a very valuable part of our history, and that recognition is important to our community today. I was fortunate to grow up here and meet many of these immigrant pioneering Portuguese families. It was a struggle for them – the language and cultural challenges were huge. Most came here as farm labourers and they saved their money to buy their own property, and they have helped to develop our community.”
Carvalho notes that the idea for the public monument came out of the salute to the town’s Portuguese community during Arts & Culture Week in the spring of 2005. “I’m very pleased that this recognition has finally happened. The Portuguese pioneers were brought in as fruit pickers in the Okanagan Valley, and they fell in love with the area and with this community. They deserve so much credit for coming to this country, and they really contributed so much to this area and its economy.
Glenn Mandziuk, Special Consultant to the Destination Osoyoos Board of Directors, notes that the mural is the first of what will be a number of public-art projects which will be supported in Osoyoos by BC Resort Municipality Initiative funding. “It is really appropriate that this is our first public-art project. It’s a great tribute to one of our community’s founding groups – you couldn’t have picked a better part of our community to honour. We’re excited that the Resort Municipality Initiative played a part in this project.”
NEW D.O. WEBSITE GIVES WORLD A DYNAMIC ‘WINDOW ON OSOYOOS’
Destination Osoyoos is giving the world a more dynamic and informative ‘window on Osoyoos’ these days, with its bold new online presence. The organization publicly launched its high-tech new website on June 8, giving everyone on the web an interactive look at all the attractions and features that make Osoyoos such a great place in which to live, visit, invest and do business.
Katherine Voigt, Destination Osoyoos’ Director of Business & Community Development, says the website has exciting new images, content and features – and additional customized elements will be added in the near future. She says the website fully incorporates the new community brand – ‘Osoyoos: Canada’s Warmest Welcome’ – and now allows Destination Osoyoos staff to directly manage all of the site’s dynamic components, keeping the information up-to-date.
Voigt says the website features visitor-friendly tourism information, user-friendly economic development information, an Osoyoos-area business directory, a new accommodations directory which is sortable by amenities, a media section with news releases and an online media kit, an ‘RSS feed’ feature which lets people subscribe to Destination Osoyoos news releases, an archive of the organization’s regular electronic newsletter (eNews), a ‘site-selector profile’ for the Osoyoos area which provides comprehensive economic profile information, a ‘coming events’ calendar, and a fully interactive digital version of the Osoyoos Visitor’s Guide.
“This brings our website to the next level – making it extremely user-friendly and ensuring that it is highly accessible to search engines, helping potential visitors quickly find the site and all of its valuable information about Osoyoos,” Voigt says. “And, we will soon add new components such as an online ‘e-store’ and an e-postcard feature allowing people to email an Osoyoos postcard to their friends.” She says that since the early-June launch of the new website, activity on DestinationOsoyoos.com is up more than 280 per cent.
Glenn Mandziuk, Special Consultant to the Destination Osoyoos Board of Directors, notes, “The convenient organization of a wealth of up-to-date information on the new website gives Osoyoos a compelling new online presence and provides a real boost to tourism and economic development for our community. It gives people around the world a fast, easy-to-navigate presentation of all the beauty, attractions, activities, businesses, and opportunities that we have in Osoyoos.”
BC VISITOR CENTRE OFFERS SMILES, ASSISTANCE, AND OLYMPIC MERCHANDISE!
From left, Visitor Experience Specialist Lou Reimer, Director of Tourism & Visitor Experience Jo Knight, and Visitor Experience Specialist Suprina Bhandol join their big Olympic mascot buddy Quatchi as they display some of the 2010 Olympic merchandise for sale at the BC Visitor Centre @ Osoyoos. The Winter Olympic goods include toques, jackets, hoodies, keychains, wine glasses and the three cute, fuzzy Vancouver Olympic mascots. Knight says the Visitor Centre is fully staffed – with Reimer and Bhandol, as well as Visitor Experience Specialists Millie Jarrett and Karen Wagner – and provides a wide range of services for Osoyoos residents and visitors alike. “We offer booking of province-wide accommodations and attractions, including such places as the Capilano Suspension Bridge, the Vancouver Aquarium, and the NK’MIP Desert Cultural Centre,” Knight says. It also includes a Royal Bank ATM machine and Greyhound passenger ticketing and service, and from July 1-Sept. 7 is open seven days a week from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. She adds that Visitor Centre staff are constantly upgrading their professional credentials and knowledge of Osoyoos-area, by taking Tourism BC’s ‘TVIC’ training and going on familiarization tours of local businesses and attractions. Centre staff also provide training for certification in St. John Ambulance First-Aid and CPR courses and renowned BC WorldHost Customer Service Excellence Training hospitality programs to managers and employees of local businesses and to everyone in the community. Knight says the First-Aid and CPR training is part of Destination Osoyoos’ landmark first-in-Canada agreement with St. John Ambulance to partner in a push for training throughout the community to make Osoyoos “Canada’s Warmest – and Safest – Welcome!”
D.O. BOARD MEMBER PROFILE – LUCKY GILL
Lucky Gill has worked hard all her life – and for much of it she has worked in and promoted Osoyoos. Now she has combined that work ethic and love for her community to join the Destination Osoyoos Board of Directors and turn her talents to helping steer the future growth of Osoyoos.
Destination Osoyoos Treasurer Lucky Gill in the lobby of her Best Western Sunrise Inn.
Born in the Punjab area of India, Gill grew up and took her schooling there. As the oldest child, when her father died she assumed much of the responsibility for looking after her family. She had cousins who lived in England and Canada, and she dreamt of emigrating. In 1980 her family arranged a marriage for her – a practice still fairly common at that time – and she found herself married and living in Oliver, working at an orchard with her husband.
“I’ve been working since then, and I always wanted to move forward in the business world,” Gill says. For many years Lucky devoted her time to raising her two children and to the orchard business. In the 1990s she branched out and worked at the Osoyoos Credit Union. In 1998, friends were investing and building a new hotel in Osoyoos and asked her to join them as a partner in the venture, and she jumped at the business opportunity.
By 1999 Gill was not only co-owner, she was working as General Manager of the new Best Western Sunrise Inn –the largest hotel in Osoyoos when it was built. She is proud that it was also the first franchise hotel built in town, and she relishes her hands-on role in the business. “I love to work with the people.”
The Best Western Sunrise Inn is a southwest-style boutique hotel on Highway 3 in east Osoyoos. It employs 15 people and has 66 modern guest rooms and suites which include TVs, movie channels, high-speech internet, in-room coffee, and complimentary parking and continental breakfast. The hotel has an indoor pool, whirlpool, fitness room and a 50-person meeting room, and contains a Quiznos fast-food outlet and the Bombay Grill & Lounge featuring Indian cuisine for lunch and dinner.
“We work hard at maintaining this as a high-class hotel – keeping it up so that it responds to people’s changing needs.” Gill says she loves operating a high-quality ‘brand’ franchise hotel in this South Okanagan resort community. She has now expanded her operations and co-owns six other hotels – in Vernon, Kamloops, and locations in Alberta.
Gill says joining the Destination Osoyoos Board of Directors as Treasurer in the spring of 2009 is a natural evolution for her. In her business dealings and active promotion of Osoyoos over the years, at trade shows and meetings, she has often dealt with Destination Osoyoos and has been impressed at how hard the organization and its former CEO, Glenn Mandziuk, worked to increase tourism and economic development. “Getting involved gives me another tool to help promote Osoyoos as a destination.”
Gill believes Osoyoos must continue to grow, but future growth should help to give residents and visitors more activities in the community, especially during the off-season and shoulder seasons – even if that is as simple as more parks, green spaces, and places for peaceful nature walks. “We have enough hotel space, and now we need a theatre, more landscaped public places, and places for activities.” Another issue she thinks the community must address is the need for affordable housing.
Gill has two children – a son who holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Simon Fraser University and who graduated in 2008 with a Dentistry degree from a university in Boston, Mass., and a daughter who earned an Economics degree from the University of Victoria.
OSOYOOS BUSINESS PROFILE – THE KETTLE CANDY COMPANY
Kettle Candy Company expert candymaker Darlene Cantlon, left, and owner Barb Scheuren serve up a host of homemade candy products to satisfy your sweet tooth.
When Barb Scheuren moved to Osoyoos from Banff in 2006, she was looking for a business opportunity that would fill a need in town – and she found one that is also guaranteed to satisfy the sweet tooth of every Osoyoos resident or visitor.
In May of 2007 she opened The Kettle Candy Company, at 8111 Main St., a bright shop full of fun, smiles and unique candy products which can even be tailor-made for the customer. With the store now entering its third year in business, Scheuren and candymaker Darlene Cantlon take pride in their wide range of products. They include freshly made fudge, scrumptious peanut brittle, traditional sponge toffee, almond rocca, chocolates, custom-made truffles and incredibly yummy caramel- and chocolate-drizzled apples, and many types of old-fashioned candy, as well as more than 32 flavours of soft-serve ice cream.
Scheuren says The Kettle Candy Company is “sought out by individuals, corporations, bed & breakfasts, spas, hotels, wineries, wedding planners and event co-ordinators for our unique and always nicely presented product.” She adds that the company is now putting some focus on gift baskets and on custom-making truffles – for example, truffles containing wine, for Okanagan wineries. The store welcomes small and large orders by phone, since they prefer to talk to the customer in-person, to determine exactly what sweet creation he or she wants to “indulge in”.
As in past years, the 2009 version of the Osoyoos Relay for Life, held overnight June 20-21 at Desert Park, was another great success in the local effort to raise money in the fight against cancer.
Local co-ordinator Audrey McCulloch says she and her 20-member organizing committee were thrilled with the 6 p.m.-to-6 a.m. event, which raised just over $60,000 for the cause. That money included $5,800 from a silent auction and $2,500 from the sale of ‘luminaries’ – lighted candles for placement around the walking-and-running Relay track on the Desert Park infield.
McCulloch says the event attracted 29 teams, with 211 registered participants this year – but she knows there were more than 400 people pounding around the Relay circuit overnight. The Relay was officially started by a parade of cancer survivors and caregivers, led by Osoyoos-Oliver RCMP Detachment Commander Staff-Sgt Kurt Lozinski. McCulloch says that right after that, the teams of Relayers, “with amazingly decorated and fun costumes”, joined in.
The team Dayna’s Dozen took honours for top fundraising team, generating more than $4,000 for cancer research and prevention. Kimberly Neil won top individual fundraiser honours, raising more than $2,000.
Musician and former Osoyoos mayor Tom Shields emceed the overnight event, and he was one of the many musical guests who entertained the crowd throughout the night, along with Rick Woods, Diane Ball and Maureen Terrel.
TOURISM & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TRENDS
• A study released June 11 by the BC Recreation and Parks Association (BCRPA) calls for municipal governments to make walking and cycling – not cars – the top priority in their transportation plans. The study found that designing neighbourhoods for easier walking and biking influences people to do those activities more often, benefitting their health, helping the environment and enhancing the community. Focusing on Vancouver, the study found that adults are 2.5 times more likely to walk when they live in well-connected neighbourhoods with features that are pedestrian-friendly. It also found that adults who live in walkable neighbourhoods drive 58% less on average than those who don’t. The study can be found on the BCRPA’s Active Communities website at www.activecommunities.bc.ca.
• On June 16, Western Economic Diversification Canada announced $450,000 in federal support for a new business park which it says will help to strengthen the local economy in Princeton. The Princeton Business Park is expected to create 165 jobs immediately. The Town of Princeton will transform 20 lots on industrial land to function as a fully serviced business park. Project activities will include the construction of two-lane roads, installation of storm sewers and ditches, electrical work and power supply to each lot, and installation of water mains and street lighting. The business park should attract light industry into the area, such as concrete mixing, vehicle repair, wood manufacturing and building supplies. The funding comes from the federal program to help communities affected by the Mountain Pine Beetle.
• Statistics Canada figures show that the number of visitors arriving in Canada via B.C. slipped (-0.3%) in April, as fewer Americans (-0.8%) crossed the border into the province. Same-day trips were down (-4.6%), but the number of overnight visits from the U.S. increased by 1.1%. Overseas entries rose (+1.1%) in April, largely because European entries rebounded (+7.4%), posting the strongest increase in three years. However, entries from Asia (-0.8%) and other regions (-4.3%) were down, largely because of a 14.4% drop in entries from other parts of North and Central America and the Caribbean. The swine flu epidemic began in late April, and while this played a role in the downturn, entries from Mexico to B.C. began to slump earlier in the year.
• Mexico is becoming an increasingly important source of tourism dollars in Canada and for British Columbia. BC-Stats reports that B.C. is the second-most-common province of entry for travellers coming from Mexico. In 2008, there were 270,828 entries by Mexican residents to Canada. Of these, the most (108,851) arrived in Ontario and the second-most (86,061) came to B.C. Most Mexican visitors are tourists (vacationing or visiting friends and relatives), but some are farm workers brought to Canada to provide short-term help with farm labour. In 2008, the total number of Mexican workers in B.C. was just under 3,900, suggesting that most Mexican visitors came to B.C. for reasons other than employment. Travellers from Mexico make up a relatively small but growing percentage of total entries to the province. In 2008, about 6% of entries to B.C. and Canada from countries other than the U.S. were from Mexico. This is significantly more than in 1995, when Mexico accounted for less than 2% of total entries.
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