Haynes Point Park to Re-Open for Camping Season

Good news for campers who want to take advantage of a popular Osoyoos Provincial Park this summer as it will re-open just in time for the camping season.

Haynes Point Provincial Park is an archaeological site and was closed as an archaeological assessment was conducted in the park. The assessment was completed in November and the park was re-opened to pedestrians as a result. Now the province has announced that Haynes Point will be open for the upcoming camping season beginning April 1^st, 2015.

Photo Credit: KelownaNow.com

The province and Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) have agreed that Haynes Point and Okanagan Falls provincial parks will be managed by OIB. The Province and the OIB have also agreed to officially rename the two parks and McIntyre Bluff, another important OIB archaeological and cultural heritage site, to their traditional nsyilxcen (Okanagan) place names.

In October the province announced that the park would be closed indefinitely after the discovery of ancestral remains were found. On April 29^th, 2014 the remains were discovered during the replacement of a toilet facility. BC Parks worked with the Osoyoos Indian Band to remove the toilet facility and respectfully rebury the ancestral remains in their original location.

Radiocarbon testing confirmed the ancestral remains are approximately 1224 years old. This dates the ancestral remains to a pre-contact period in First Nations history in the Okanagan.

Created in 1962, the park was named after Judge John Carmichael Haynes, who settled in Osoyoos in 1866 and became a prominent judge and land owner.