Old-fashioned road trip

Vernon historian and videographer Francois Arseneault is inviting everyone to join the Wilkie family road trip.

Shot in the summer of 1963, the grainy colour film footage that Arseneault converted to a digital format follows the Wilkies from Vancouver to Osoyoos.

“Osoyoos certainly seems to be popular, and why shouldn’t it be, with daytime highs consistently in the mid 80s Fahrenheit or mid 30s Celsius and the warm water of Lake Osoyoos, it’s the epitome of the South Okanagan summer,” Arseneault said.

The trip begins in Vancouver aboard the family’s 1960 Mercedes and heads through through the George Massey Tunnel under the Fraser River on the way to the BC Interior.

The footage gives a glimpse of the Hope Princeton highway followed by a picnic stop before the family makes their way into the Okanagan, just north of Okanagan Falls and the south end of Skaha Lake.

Arseneault said there is no doubt where the family was with Vaseux Lake on right and “its imposing sheer, thousand-foot-tall cliffs at the south end of the Lake are unmistakable.

“The telegraph poles lining the highway are long gone and much safer concrete barriers have replaced the old steel and post barriers on the shoulders.”

The family outing features camping and waterskiing, two past times that never seem to grow old.

“These are the core memories of childhood for many folks,” Arseneault said. “A friend of the family showed the Wilkie boys how to ski, almost fearless on a single ski cutting across the lake back and forth over the wake.

“Boogie boards have their start in the early 1970s in Southern California. Tom Morey, an inventive surfer and entrepreneur, is credited with inventing the boogie board. However, it’s quite clear that they were around long before then.”

Arseneault is always looking for more information on the vintage footage he digs up, and he encourages people to add their input in the comments section on his Youtube page.

Arseneault has an extensive collection of vintage footage, and he is looking for more.

Anyone who may have old 16 mm or 8 mm film footage of the Vernon and Okanagan area is invited to email Arseneault at stockshooter.yyc@gmail.com.