How Kelowna got its name?

Answer 1

Kelowna got it's name from from a tale of an indiginous group who spotted a very hairy white settler who had lived a long time in the mountains. Upon seeing him they thought he was a brown bear and thus called out brown bear in their language. The word brown bear seemed to difficult for the white settlers to pronounce so they chose the indiginous word for grizzly bear instead since it's also considered a brown bear. Thus the name Kelowna was chosen as the name of the new settlement site.