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Vernon  

Unexploded military ordnances are still being found in region

An explosive history

One good thing to be said about social distancing, it provides a lot of time for walking.

We are blessed in the Okanagan with so many great trails that are easy to access, but rural enough to allow you to maintain an appropriate social distance.

Even so, walking around our valley can come with hazards, and no, we’re not talking about rattle snakes. Almost a century of military training in the Greater Vernon area has left range land littered with unexploded ordnances (UXOs), despite the best efforts of cleanup crews.

The Okanagan Indian Band has paid a particularly high price for this reality - portions of reserve land were used during both world wars for live-fire training exercises.

Take a jaunt to Goose Lake, at the top of Blue Jay Subdivision to Vernon’s North, to have the situation made all too real. Signs warning not to trespass on the OKIB rangeland are dwarfed by those cautioning to stay out for you own safety.

In 2015, a three-inch mortar from the First or Second World War was discovered on the range, and is one of several found in the area over the years.

Because of this danger, band members have to request special access from the public works and housing department to access the lake.

Some 2,800 hectares of band land conceal dangerous explosives amongst the rocks and shrubs.

Cleaning up UXOs is long, tedious and costly work. In 2015, a highly-trained team scanned a 12-hectare section of the Goose Lake Range with metal detectors, resulting in about 10,000 hits. Each hit had to carefully excavated, although most turned up no more than horseshoes, barbed wire and the occasional spent shell.

Despite the seemingly small risk of turning up a UXO, Vernon has experienced a number of tragedies from their discovery over the years. Three men died in 1948 while loading top soil into a truck, and two scouts were killed and one injured in 1963 after stumbling across a live mortar.

In April 1973, another two children were killed by a UXO, which launched renewed cleanup efforts.

In the summer of '73, divers from Camp Vernon searched Cosens Bay for explosives.

In 2014, in the Monashee Mountains outside of Lumby, a Tolko staff member discovered a balloon bomb embedded in the ground of a forest service road.

Interestingly, this particular UXO was of Japanese origin. During the Second World War, Japan attached incendiary bombs to balloons and sent them across the Pacific to start fires in North America. This one made it all the way to the Okanagan.

Hopefully with time and the concerted efforts of trained professionals, the risk from UXOs will decrease. In the meantime, if you are out exploring the Okanagan’s rangeland, obey any posted warning and no trespassing signs, and if you come across something that you suspect might be a bomb, make a note of the location - with coordinates, photographs, and as much information as you're able to provide - before returning the way you came and calling 911.



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