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« Photo Gallery | Smith (Harley) Album

Alex Beaton and Myrtle Smith arrived in Oyama in 1935 to operate Smith’s Cash Store at the junction of Highway 97 and Oyama Road. The store burned down in 1938 but was rebuilt immediately. In 1940 Smith added a butcher shop and later the Canadian Bank of Commerce opened a branch in the building. The Smiths ran the general store for a decade until they established Blue Water Lodges resort on Kalamalka Lake. They operated the resort and leased the store to other operators until they sold the store building in 1968.

The Smiths originally heard of the storekeeping opportunity in Oyama from Myrtle’s sister, Danny Henry, who was the proprietor of Danny’s Teahouse, operated out of the Log Cabin Inn.

The Smiths were very active in the musical life of the Okanagan. Sigh Kobayashi pays tribute to them when he wrote: "[I]n the mid 1930's a very talented musical family moved to Oyama. Alex Beaton Smith who played a mean sax, his wife Myrtle, a fantastic piano player, and her brother Roy Endersby, a drummer extraordinaire."

Harley Smith, the sole offspring of the Alex and Myrtle, eventually took over the operation of Blue Water Lodges until he developed the property as private dwellings. Harley and his wife, Ali, live in Oyama and have donated many family photographs to the Lake Country Museum and Archives.

1Sigh Kobayashi's Modernaires. An Era 1940-1975 (available online in Lake Country Museum & Archives COLLECTIONS).

Click once on photo to enlarge.

To view a sampling of each Album above click on a photograph. One can then use the arrows ( > and < ) on the right and left of the photos to move through the six selections in each sample album.

The Photo Albums that are displayed on the website contain only a few of the photographs that are contained in the Photo Album files at the Lake Country Museum. Copies of the photographs (in high resolution) may be purchased through the Museum for personal use. The aerial photographs are available in digital format. Please contact the Museum for ordering information.