Old Vernon cadet camp kitchen served thousands before its demolition

Photo: Jon Manchester

The landscape has changed a little at the crest of Vernon's Hospital Hill.

Demolition crews have taken down the old kitchen building that served the Vernon Army Cadet Training Centre, just up the hill from Jim's Pizza on the Department of National Defence grounds.

A new canteen and mess hall facility was built across the highway on the main cadet camp, replacing the old kitchen, which had served generations of cadets who came from all over Canada to train in Vernon.

Crews from Maddocks Construction in Armstrong have been tearing down the building.

An excavator at the site has been loading the debris into dumpsters to be hauled away.

It's believed the site will remain vacant in the near term.

The camp attracts hundreds of cadets every summer.

It opened as a training facility for the Canadian military prior to the First World War and was mothballed after the Second World War until reopening as a cadet camp in the spring of 1949.