Okanagan Landing: what makes it special

The heart of the Landing. The park and beach are owned by the Okanagan Landing & District Community Association and maintained by the City of Vernon for everyone to use. You’ll find a family-friendly sandy beach with full accessible access, a children’s play park, a picnic pavilion, shade trees and grass, tennis, basketball and beach-volleyball courts, public washrooms, parking and the boat launch. On a summer evening it’s where half the Landing ends up. Moving here with kids? See schools in Okanagan Landing.

Paddlewheel Park is home base for Vernon Adaptive, run from the Vernon Paddling Centre, one of the few dedicated adaptive paddling programs in B.C. Led by Jordan Kerton, it offers wheelchair paddleboarding on rigid boards, an inflatable board that can carry a wheelchair, and adapted tandem kayaks. Weekly sessions run Wednesdays and Fridays in season, and family, caregivers and support workers can paddle along. Check with the program for current times.

Right in the park, Paddlewheel Hall is the community association’s rentable hall at 7813 Okanagan Landing Road: weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, reunions and neighbourhood events, a few steps from the beach. The site started more than a century ago as a CPR shipbuilding yard and busy commercial hub.

Before the highway, the Landing was where rail met the lake. Sternwheelers carried passengers and freight from here down to Penticton, and the CPR built steamships at the Landing, including the Aberdeen, Okanagan and Sicamous. Rail service ended in 1936. The old Stationhouse, where passengers boarded the boats, was donated to the community association in 1982 and is now a museum of photos and memorabilia, with a scale model of the Landing as it looked in 1914. Open by appointment.

The MV Okanagan, the last and biggest CPR tug on the lake, was shipped in pieces to the Landing shipyard and assembled here in 1947. She still floats near Vernon, and her owners, friends of Sean’s, host some memorable Landing parties on board. Read her story.

Along Lakeshore Road at the north end of the Landing, Kin Beach is the big sandy public beach with grassy space behind it, and Lakeshore Park sits close by. Several lakeside complexes and the Holiday Park community are right across the road.

The Vernon Yacht Club sits in the Landing, private marinas line the shore, and the narrow Vernon arm of Okanagan Lake gives calmer water than the open lake for paddling and cruising. Head south and the lake opens up past Ellison Provincial Park. Full boating and moorage guide.