While searching for an accessible route to transport furs to the Pacific, Europeans began exploring the B.C. Interior. In 1811 Scottish trader and explorer David Stuart of the Pacific Fur Company sailed to the junction of the Columbia and Okanagan rivers and built Fort Okanagan. He then travelled north to Thompson River and in so doing, established the Okanagan Valley trail that united the Upper Fraser and Lower Columbia sections. By 1824 the trail was dominated …showed first 75 words of 725 total…

…showed last 75 words of 725 total…valley, fruit farming is the main industrial focus and is made possible by the intensive irrigation that converts desert land into orchards and vineyards. There is a long history of fruit growing in the Okanagan, which dates back to the Oblate missionaries' first fruit crop in 1862 near Kelowna. During the 1890s Governor General Aberdeen began offering large sections of land as a fruit-growing incentive, and later plantings were made in the southern v ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**