Salmon Arm, British Columbia
Encyclopedia
Climate
Education
Public schools in Salmon Arm are part of School District 83 North Okanagan-ShuswapSchool District 83 North Okanagan-Shuswap
School District 83 North Okanagan-Shuswap is a school district in British Columbia. This includes the major center of Salmon Arm and the area around Shuswap Lake as well as the northern Okanagan communities of Armstrong and Enderby.-History:...
; within the city limits, there are currently five (5) elementary schools (kindergarten to Grade 7), one (1) middle school (Grades 6 to 8), and a secondary school with two (2) campuses. Several elementary schools outside the city limits, including one (1) combined elementary/middle school feed into the middle school and secondary school in Salmon Arm. The current division of education grades between the different categories of schools began in 2007; prior to 2007, elementary schools within the city limits offered kindergarten to Grade 7, followed by two junior high schools with Grades 8 to 10, and a single senior secondary school with Grades 11 and 12. School District 83 also has its administrative offices (located in the town centre) and maintenance complex (located in the community's main industrial park) in Salmon Arm.
King's Christian School is a private school in Salmon Arm offering Pre-School, Elementary and Secondary programs.
Salmon Arm has a campus of Okanagan College
Okanagan College
Okanagan College is a public, post-secondary institution with over 120 certificates, diplomas, degrees and programs including Apprenticeship & Pre-apprenticeship Trades programs. It is located in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada...
that offers many programs in a wide range of fields.
Notable academics with ties to Salmon Arm include David Lethbridge
David Lethbridge
David Lethbridge is a professor, anti-racist activist and research director of the Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies and director of the Salmon Arm Coalition Against Racism....
and Mike Worobey, winner of the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for 2009 from Simon Fraser University
Culture
The summer months is when the city experiences it largest fluctuation of population with people on holidays coming to visit the city and surrounding area. In July of 2011 there was the first annual Sturgis North Motor Cycle Rally, which is a sister project of Sturgis Motorcycle RallySturgis Motorcycle Rally
The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is an American motorcycle rally held annually in Sturgis, South Dakota, usually the first full week of August.-History:...
in South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
. Even though the city of Salmon Arm had mixed feelings for the event, 35,000 people attended. During the month of August, the annual Salmon Arm Roots and Blues festival draws large crowds of tourists with acts such as Xavier Rudd, The Pointer Sisters, and Feist. Held in August, attracted over 20,000 visitors in 2007. There is also the annual Shuswap International Writers' Festival.
Salmon Arm is home to a multiplex movie theatre (Salmar Grand) and a single screen theatre for movies and live stage performances (Salmar Classic); both are owned and operated by a non-profit community organization, the Salmar Community Association. Additionally, a community theatre society hosts plays and other live stage performances (Shuswap Theatre) in a building across the street from the Salmar Grand multiplex.
The RJ Haney Heritage Park & Museum is Salmon Arm's main museum, and celebrates the history of the region. The museum often offers a dinner theatre program during the summer months, with the theatre component offering plays based on local history.
Salmon Arm is home to a branch of Okanagan Regional Library (ORL), which is currently located in Piccadilly Mall.
The Salmon Arm public art gallery is the Shuswap Art Gallery, housed in a historic building owned by the city. The building was originally a post office, and later housed the Salmon Arm branch of Okanagan Regional Library for many years.
Relative to its population, Salmon Arm has a lot of internationally well known artists including (but not limited to) Craig Pulsifer (Photographer), Fred Bird (Photographer), John H. Burrows (Visual Artist), Terry Greenhough (Visual Artist), Tracey Kutschker (Visual Artist), Linda Franklin (Visual Artist), Eric Kutschker (Visual Artist), Joyce Dorey (Visual Artist), Lisa Figueroa (Visual Artist), Frieda Martin (Visual Artist), Justin Maas (Visual Artist), Wendy Browne (Fiber Artist), Otto Pfannschmidt (Visual Artist), Greg Sczebel
Greg Sczebel
Greg Sczebel is a Canadian Juno Award-winning independent singer/songwriter from Salmon Arm, BC. His career in music began at the age of 17. The oldest of two children, Greg grew up with two musical parents , and started performing publicly at the age of four...
(singer/songwriter), and Eve Archard (actor& singer)and Gail Anderson-Dargatz
Gail Anderson-Dargatz
Gail Kathryn Anderson-Dargatz is a Canadian novelist.Anderson-Dargatz was born in Salmon Arm, British Columbia and studied creative writing at the University of Victoria...
(author) - among many others.
Other notable artists or performers with Salmon Arm connections include Richard Underhill
Richard Underhill
Richard Underhill is a Canadian jazz saxophonist. A founding member of the jazz fusion group The Shuffle Demons, he has toured Europe and Canada to critical acclaim for over 27 years. Underhill won a 2003 Juno Award for his jazz solo debut Tales from the Blue Lounge, and was nominated for the Prix...
(musician) and local blues group the Salmon Armenians.
Sports and recreation
Large crowds of tourists and locals are drawn to the beaches at Sunnybrae, CanoeCanoe, British Columbia
Canoe, British Columbia, is a small semi-rural community within the larger City of Salmon Arm just off the Trans Canada Highway. The community lies on the south side of Shuswap Lake, east of the city centre...
, and elsewhere on Shuswap Lake during the summer. The city has many large hotels, as well as berths for a number of houseboat
Houseboat
A houseboat is a boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a human dwelling. Some houseboats are not motorized, because they are usually moored, kept stationary at a fixed point and often tethered to land to provide utilities...
s.
The community offers a number of recreational facilities and sports leagues. There are fields for soccer/rugby/football, fields for baseball/softball, as well as five-pin bowling lanes (J Lanes), several golf courses and many seasonal recreational businesses. The proximity of the Shuswap Lake has also resulted in a growing interest in rowing and paddling sports, particularly dragon boat
Dragon boat
A dragon boat is a human-powered watercraft traditionally made, in the Pearl River delta region of southern China - Guangdong Province, of teak wood to various designs and sizes. In other parts of China different woods are used to build these traditional watercraft...
racing.
The Salmon Arm Silverbacks
Salmon Arm Silverbacks
The Salmon Arm Silverbacks are a Junior "A" ice hockey team from Salmon Arm, British Columbia, Canada. They are a part of the British Columbia Hockey League.-2010/2011 Player Roster:1 Kris Moore4 Dustin Cave5 Jayson Reardon...
hockey team, in the BCHL
British Columbia Hockey League
The British Columbia Hockey League is a Junior "A" ice hockey league from British Columbia under Hockey Canada, a subsection of the Canadian Junior Hockey League. Founded in Vernon in 1961, the BCHL now includes 16 teams. These teams play in two conferences, known as the Coastal and the Interior...
, plays at Sunwave Centre. The publicly owned twin ice rink facility is named in relation to the facility's community sponsor, SunCountry Cablevision (which brands its highspeed cable Internet service as Sunwave.net). Co-located in the same area with the Sunwave Centre are the city's recreation centre (with pool, racquet courts, weight facility and auditorium/gymnasium), curling rink, lawn bowling facility, horseshoe pitch, and the Salmon Arm campus of Okanagan College
Okanagan College
Okanagan College is a public, post-secondary institution with over 120 certificates, diplomas, degrees and programs including Apprenticeship & Pre-apprenticeship Trades programs. It is located in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada...
. The city's previous indoor ice arena, Memorial Arena, has been re-purposed as an indoor field sports facility, and is heavily used by such sports as soccer, rugby, and archery. Memorial Arena, with sponsorship from the Salmon Arm Savings & Credit Union has been re-branded as the SASCU Memorial Recreation Centre, while the main recreation centre is similarly sponsored and branded the SASCU Recreation Centre.
Former NHL player Dave Scatchard
Dave Scatchard
Dave Scatchard is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey centre. He played in the National Hockey League with the Vancouver Canucks, New York Islanders, Boston Bruins, Phoenix Coyotes, Nashville Predators, and St. Louis Blues...
was raised in Salmon Arm, playing his minor hockey there. Other notable athletes raised in or with ties to Salmon Arm are swimmer Rick Say
Rick Say
Richard Say is a 3-time Olympic and National Record holding swimmer from Canada. Say swam as a child for the Salmon Arm Sockeye Swim Club with his two brothers and two sisters. At the age of 18, he began attending the University of Victoria and started to swim seriously...
and curler Sandra Jenkins
Sandra Jenkins
Sandra Jenkins is a Canadian curler from Salmon Arm, British Columbia....
.
Transportation
Salmon Arm lies on the Trans-Canada HighwayTrans-Canada Highway
The Trans-Canada Highway is a federal-provincial highway system that joins the ten provinces of Canada. It is, along with the Trans-Siberian Highway and Australia's Highway 1, one of the world's longest national highways, with the main route spanning 8,030 km...
approximately halfway between Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
and Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
. It is also at the top of Highway 97, which leads to Vernon
Vernon, British Columbia
Vernon is a city in the south-central region of British Columbia, Canada. Named after Forbes George Vernon, a former MLA of British Columbia who helped found the famed Coldstream Ranch, the City of Vernon was incorporated on December 30, 1892. The City of Vernon has a population of 35,944 , while...
and Kelowna
Kelowna
Kelowna is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley, in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. Its name derives from a Okanagan language term for "grizzly bear"...
. The economy benefits from through traffic; many brand-name hotels and restaurants have opened in the past few decades.
The Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
also runs though Salmon Arm. No passenger service is available, though the Rocky Mountaineer
Rocky Mountaineer
Rocky Mountaineer is a Canadian tour company offering Western Canadian vacation packages that operates trains on four rail routes through British Columbia and Alberta.-Background:...
trains pass through on occasion.
Salmon Arm Airport
Salmon Arm Airport
Salmon Arm Airport, , is located southeast of Salmon Arm, British Columbia, Canada....
mainly serves general aviation aircraft, though scheduled service to Vancouver and Vernon was available by Northern Hawk Air until it ceased operations.
Salmon Arm is well served by Greyhound Bus Lines for travel to other cities in the region, province and across Canada.
Salmon Arm has a minor, infrequent bus service to nearby suburbs, using small commuter minibuses, as well as handyDart
HandyDART
HandyDART is an accessible transit service in British Columbia that uses vans or small buses to transport disabled or elderly passengers who cannot use the normal transit system...
service for the disabled.
Wildfire Damage 1998
In 1998, an area of 13,500 acres (34 km² or just over 5000 hectares) immediately southwest of Salmon Arm was burnt to the extent of deforestation by a wildfire started by lightning. The fire came down from the Fly Hills in the west and embers carried by the wind jumped the valley and ignited Mt. Ida. Flames raced down both sides of the valley, threatening many homes. An emergency evacuation was executed as the fire hotfooted it closer. Remarkably, just as the fire reached the valley floor, a sudden change of wind direction forced the fire back on itself, extinguishing it. The fire came so close that trees in many backyards were singed and barn paint was peeled.The media reported "20 homes and 15 barns" were destroyed during the firestorm in the Silver Creek area to the south of Salmon Arm, which also produced Canada's largest civil evacuation up to that date when the "5,000-hectare forest fire that forced the removal of 7,000 residents of Salmon Arm was being blown toward the town."
Sister city
Salmon Arm's sister city is Inashiki, IbarakiInashiki, Ibaraki
is a city located in Ibaraki, Japan.As of February 1, 2005 the city has an estimated population of 50,142 and a density of 282 persons per km². The total area is 178.12 km²....
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
(Formerly Azuma, Ibaraki
Azuma, Ibaraki
Azuma was a town located in Inashiki District, Ibaraki, Japan.On March 22, 2005 Azuma was merged with the towns of Edosaki and Shintone, and the village of Sakuragawa, all from Inashiki District, to form the new city of Inashiki and no longer exists as an independent municipality.As of 2003, the...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, until its recent amalgamation into Inashiki). There is a pavilion near McGuire Lake in honour of the friendship between Japan and Salmon Arm.
Notable residents
- The Punch-Out!!Punch-Out!!is a 1983–1984 boxing arcade game by Nintendo. It was the first in a series of successful Punch-Out!! games that produced an arcade sequel known as Super Punch-Out!!, a spin-off of the series titled Arm Wrestling, a highly popular version for the NES originally known as Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!,...
character Bear Hugger hails from Salmon Arm and he even has an attack of the same name. - On August 8, 1982, Trudeau gave three protesters the now infamous "Salmon Arm Salute".
- Billionaire Calvin AyreCalvin AyreCalvin Ayre is the founder of the Bodog online gaming and entertainment brand, which he developed and launched in 1994. Ayre received a Bachelor of Sciences in General Sciences from the University of Waterloo in 1984...
graduated from high school in Salmon Arm.