The Okanagan ( ), also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as Okanagan Country is a region located in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. As of 2001, the region's population is approximately 297,601. The primary city is Kelowna. The name derives from an Okanagan language word S-Ookanhkchinx meaning "Transport toward the head or top end".Fact: date=August 2007 The region is known for its dry, sunny climate, arid landscapes and lakeshore communities and particular lifestyle. The economy is retirement and commercial-recreation based, with outdoor activities such as boating and watersports, snow skiing and hiking. Agriculture has been focused primarily on fruit orchards, with a recent shift in focus to vineyards and wine.

History

The Okanagan Valley is home to the Okanagan Nation, an Interior Salish people who live in the valley from the head of Okanagan Lake downstream to near the river's confluence with the Columbia River in present-day Washington, as well as in the neighbouring Similkameen Valley,though the traditional territory encompasses the entire Columbia River watershed. They were hunter-gatherers, living off wild game and berries and roots for the most part but travelling north or south to fish salmon runs or to trade with other nations.Today the member bands of the Okanagan Nation Alliance are sovereign nations, with vibrant natural resource and tourism based economies. The annual August gathering near Vernon is a celebration of the continuance of Okanagan life and culture.

In 1811 the first non-natives came to the Okanagan Valley, a fur trading expedition voyaging north out of Fort Okanogan, a Pacific Fur Company outpost at the confluence of the Okanagan and Columbia rivers. Within fifteen years, fur traders established a route through the valley for passing goods between the Thompson River region and the Columbia River for transport to the Pacific. The trade route lasted until 1846, when the Oregon Treaty laid down the border between British North America and the United States west of the Rocky Mountains on the 49th parallel. The new border cut across the valley. To avoid paying tariffs, British traders forged a route that bypassed Fort Okanogan (by then in the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company, which had merged with the North West Company, which had bought the Pacific Fur Company) via the Fraser Canyon, following the Thompson, Nicola, Coldwater and Fraser rivers to Fort Langley instead. The Okanagan Valley did not see many more outsiders for a decade afterward.