Daughter honours famous Peachlander Eddy Haymour with Rattlesnake Island boat tours

A luxury pontoon boat will be touring between a marina in Peachland and Rattlesnake Island for two days in August in honour of Eddy Haymour, a former Peachland resident who’s still considered controversial by some.

Eddy’s daughter Fadwa Haymour will be guiding the 90-minute tours, sharing stories and photographs about her dad, who is currently 96 years old and living in a memory care facility in Edmonton.

“I’m bringing more awareness to my dad’s story, these boat tours are in his honour,” Fadwa told iNFOnews.ca.

“People are interested. The support he has now and the support he had back then is drastically different.”

Eddy is known in the Okanagan and beyond for buying Rattlesnake Island in the early 1970s and attempting to build a Middle Eastern theme park. His attempts were thwarted by members of parliament and the provincial government at every turn, and by the summer of 1973 the Arabian village theme park was abandoned and Eddy was broke.

What ensued was 13 years of legal turmoil and a harrowing series of events that included Eddy making threats and being put in a mental institution. He later led a hostage taking at the Canadian Embassy in Beirut demanding his island be returned, and was then returned to Canada.

Eddy took the B.C. government to court, and in 1986 the BC Supreme Court ruled the government had treated him unfairly and that he was wrongly institutionalized.

It will be 40 years since the day of the court ruling on Aug. 7.

“My father’s story and court victory makes him an important example of human rights and discrimination,” Fadwa said. “I’ve been going through all his documents and old newspaper clippings about him. I have binders of photographs, it’s overwhelming.”

There are six tours departing the Pentowna Marina on Beach Avenue in Peachland on Aug. 7 and 8, with charter company Luxury Lake Tours, each carrying 11 passengers who will get a chance to step onto Rattlesnake Island where there are remnants of a golf course Eddy built.

“Maybe we can’t get dad’s island back for him but he’ll always win because the island is public land and everyone can enjoy it, just like he wanted in the first place,” Fadwa said.

“This is a cool history and one that can’t be erased. It will be a weekend to remember.”  

While the tickets are currently sold out, anyone interested in going on a tour can follow Fadwa’s Facebook page dedicated to her dad in the event there is a cancellation and a ticket becomes available.

She’s in the process of creating a form for people who are interested in touring at a future date, which she will be posting to the page.

Any proceeds coming from the event will be donated in Eddy’s name to the Okanagan Mental Health Services Society.