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Okanagan residents reminisce over Winfield’s Adventureland

According to the Lake Country Museum, Adventureland was the first park of its kind in the Okanagan
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A view from the top of the waterslide at Adventureland overlooking Highway 97 and Wood Lake. (Old Kelowna)

It sure was a different time.

On Thursday morning, Facebook group Old Kelowna reshared a photo of Winfield’s Adventureland that it had initially shared four years ago, stirring up some old memories in people from Lake Country and beyond.

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The park was the first of its kind in the Okanagan, according to the Lake Country Museum.

It was opened along what was then Highway 97 and is now Pelmawash Parkway by Sam and Dorothy Pestes. The park began to take shape in the late 1960s.

It featured the pictured waterslide, along with several other attractions over the 12 years it was owned by the Pestes.

The park was around until its closure in the early to mid-1980s.

The comments section of the post is full of reminiscent remarks of those who spent time there as children.

Quentin Whippy wrote, “I remember going down that slide when I was seven. I’m 52 now.”

Others wrote about the great times they had flying down the slide, some former employees chipped in identifying themselves as such and some stated how much they missed the way things used to be around the Okanagan.

“Old Kelowna was a lot more fun than new Kelowna,” wrote Brock Swann. “Also, there was more parking.”

Some memories were less fond.

“If your arm touched the rib between the tracks as you went down you got a nasty friction burn,” wrote Grant Durrell.

Another commenter noticed the proximity to the highway and feared the worst.

“If you overshoot… you could land on Highway 97,” wrote Ron Nutz.

Another assured that was not the case, but from the picture, it certainly looks like it could’ve been that way.

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