It could still be decades to complete the Okanagan Rail Trail

If the experience of the Penticton Indian Band is any example, it could take many more years, if not decades, before the federal government grants the Okanagan Indian Band ownership of the old rail line along Duck Lake.

The 52 km right-of-way from downtown Kelowna to Coldstream was bought by local governments in 2015. A fundraising drive saw the Lake Country to Coldstream section open in the fall of 2018.

The one glitch in the popular trail is the 2.3 km section between Highway 97 and Duck Lake, south of Lake Country.

That land is to be turned over to the Okanagan Indian Band but there’s no indication of when that will be done, despite the band agreeing earlier this year to guarantee that it will become part of the Rail Trail once it gets ownership.

READ MORE: Rail Trail guaranteed to run through OKIB lands with historic new agreement

First, however, the band has to wend its way through the Additions to Reserves process with the federal government, a process that has taken half a dozen years so far.

The Penticton Indian Band has been waiting many more years to get ownership of a section of the Kettle Valley Rail line that runs through its property.

“That has been returned back to Penticton Indian Band – the entire abandoned right of way,” band Chief Greg Gabriel told iNFOnews.ca. “Now it’s being put through the Additions To Reserves process. It’s a long drawn out process. It’s frustrating.”

He said the discussions have gone back many years and there are monthly talks with the federal government.

“I think our discussions are going the right way now,” Gabriel said. “It could result in finally getting those and other issues resolved in the next number of years.”

Technically, the battle over the rail line has been going on since before 1985 when a court decision ruled the land did belong to the Penticton Indian Band after the CPR shut down the rail line in the early 1980s.

In 2010, Michael Brydon, who was a Regional District of South Okanagan director at the time, wrote a detailed background to the dispute.

His post was in response to public concerns over the band’s application to get title to the land. People argued it should become part of the Trans-Canada Trail instead.

According to Brydon, it’s unclear how the Kettle Valley Railway got the land between 1912 and 1916 or whether the band received any compensation.

The land in question runs through what is now Sage Mesa, West Bench and along the Penticton river channel.

After the CPR closed the rail line, the land reverted to Marathon Realty, its real estate arm, which held it until at least 2010.

The 1985 court ruling, and a subsequent appeal, said that transfer was illegal and the land must revert to Penticton Indian Band, Brydon wrote.

While there was some opposition in 2010 to the band getting the land back, Brydon was in support.

“In my view, the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen should be taking every possible opportunity to work with the Penticton Indian Band to develop a better relationship,” he wrote. “I believe that any efforts by the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen to obstruct the Additions to Reserves process by going through Indian and Northern Affairs Canada would be detrimental to our relationship with the band.”

Now, a dozen years later, Gabriel and the rest of his band are still waiting.

In the meantime, cyclists and others do use the trail, even though it is posted with No Trespassing signs, he said.

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