A brief history of outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics in the Okanagan

Photo: GVMA

Parents visit boys from the Vernon Preparatory School quarantined in a "tent city" during the 1927 polio epidemic.

Once upon a time, a virus was brought to B.C. from overseas and other parts of North America, sometimes arriving with people who did not yet know they were carrying it. As they moved across the province, so did the virus, eventually infecting people in every part of the province.

The virus was smallpox. It moved through the province in waves, and was particular dangerous for Indigenous populations, who had little immunity to a virus to which their communities had never been exposed.

It is estimated smallpox killed up to 60% of British Columbia’s Indigenous people, over 30,000 people, including three outbreaks that significantly affected the Syilx people of the Okanagan.

This is one of the epidemics and outbreaks explored through Greater Vernon Museum & Archives feature exhibit, Pandemic, opening the week of Oct. 6-9. These include typhoid fever, the 1918 flu, polio, diphtheria, and H1N1 – all affecting residents of the North Okanagan.

“With each outbreak, there was a public health response, including different versions of isolation, quarantine, and vaccination,” explains community engagement co-ordinator Gwyneth Evans. “For example, this area’s response to the 1918 flu pandemic will seem eerily familiar to what we’re going through now.”

The 1918 flu pandemic saw 500 million people around the world fall sick and it is estimated between 20 to 50 million people eventually died.

In October 1918, with nine cases confirmed in Vernon, the district responded by closing schools, theatres, and churches, and prohibiting public gatherings. People were encouraged to stay at home, keep their distance from each other while out in public, and isolate if showing any symptoms.

By November that year, the number of cases had increased to 225, with five deaths. However, as the month progressed, the rate of growth in new cases began to decrease, and the public gathering ban was lifted.

In 1927, after two boys at the Vernon Preparatory School developed symptoms associated with polio, all of the boys were quarantined in a ravine in Coldstream, not far from the school.

Tents were pitched 50 feet apart, and 22 latrines were constructed, one for every two boys. In total, 45 tents were erected. Eventually, the necessary quarantine time of 21 days had passed, and the boys were sent home.

“At the museum, we think it’s important to look back at local history, not only to connect us with past experiences, but to better understand our shared present,” says Evans.

The Pandemic exhibit marks the reopening of the museum, under new public health guidelines.

The museum will be open for individuals, families, and small groups to register ahead to visit two mornings and one afternoon each week. As well, the archives will be open by appointment each afternoon, Monday through Friday. For more information, and to book a visit, visit www.vernonmuseum.ca.