Anyone who's driven the Penticton to Trout Creek stretch of Highway 97 more than a few times knows the roadside sign.
"Penticton Shooting Sports" it says.
And then you see the exit, a curvy, narrow ribbon of pavement and dirt that disappears into the towering clay cliffs above. It seems to be in the midst of nowhere. And it kind of is.
A half-kilometre inland from tiny Kickininee Provincial Park and midway between West Bench and the Summerland Research Centre, it's the very definition of remote. It feels even more so when you actually drive up there. The little road you follow from Hwy 97 gets very steep very quickly.
Steep and bumpy.
And dusty.
And hey, are we lost yet?
But eventually you get to the plateau. And the home, since 1983, of the venerable Penticton Shooting Sports Association – one of the most popular shooting organizations in the region. Except it isn’t home. At least not now. Not since they were evicted on the final day of 2025.
And club prez and former biathlete Chris Scott still has no idea why everything's fallen apart the way it has. Scott, who's currently spending much of his time removing Club property and cleaning the acreage – which features an indoor range, a couple of outdoor ranges, a "trap" range (where clay pigeons are launched and targeted) and assorted member-built structures and improvements – has no problem telling his side of the story. The Club, he explained on a sunny May morning, has been an entity for 80 years or more.
"Shooting ranges were everywhere back in the day," he explained.
"People were using firearms to put food on the table, in this area for sure. So shooting clubs and ranges were everywhere. "We don’t know the exact date this club was formed. It changed names and morphed into a few different things, but we have pictures that go back to the '40s."
Some four decades later in the early 80s, after some negotiation, the group would move from its location on the West Bench to the spot they've had ever since, miles from virtually everything other than Kickininee and the Research Station. And certainly a long way from anyone they potentially might annoy with their bang-bang activities.
They'd lease the property, the southernmost chunk of land in the massive 790-acre Research Station parcel, for a nominal annual fee. "It's a buffer zone between their virus orchard, where they research plant viruses, and the vacant land to the south," said Scott.
"The lease was procured through the Research Station by way of Agriculture Canada." And membership blossomed. For the past ten years, according to Scott, it's been in the mid-hundreds and includes a big contingent of community pillar types. "We have law enforcement, firefighters, guys in the construction industry, politicians," he said. "We do gun safety, gun training, we teach new shooters, we bring new people into the sport. We have instructors who teach CORE, that's hunter training, and PAL, which is the Possession and Acquisition License, something you have to go through to even own a firearm in Canada.
"And there's always an emphasis on safety. We've never had a serious incident on this range. It's been like that for 43 years. But now we're losing it." In late 2023, said Scott, the Club received notice the land would be divested and the lease canceled. "I got a call from Dan Albas (Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna MP)," said Scott. "That was our first notification, in late 2023.
"The first thing I wanted to know was the timeline, and initially a government agent told us the process typically takes about ten years. So we felt we could be calm for a while. And I took them at their word." But soon that timeline was severely shortened. In May of 2024, claims Scott, the Club was told they'd need to wrap up on-site operations at the end of the following year, on December 31st, 2025. Worse still, he added, the notice was misleading. "We got the December 31st date in 2024 after we'd been taking memberships (for 2025) for a couple of months," he said.
"So we ran through all of 2025 because of our commitment to our members, with the understanding that shooting would cease December 31st and then we'd have time to move 43 years worth of our property. "The government was agreeable to that until the last two weeks of December, when they changed the rules and told us they actually wanted us out on that date." But timeline shrinkage isn’t the only thing frustrating Scott and crew.
Arguably even more troubling is their mutual suspicion that no other activities are planned for the land they've cherished for so long.
"I would bet you a thousand dollars that nothing will be going on with this land for 20 years, maybe longer," said Scott. "I know that's a fact." We suggested that a housing development might be in the cards, despite the steep terrain. After all, the views from up there are pretty great. But expert marksman Scott shot us down.
"Definitely no housing," he said. "The land isn’t suited to housing. It's all clay and it’s got a lot of sinkholes. And you can’t get any closer to the Research Station. That's what the buffer is all about. "Beyond that, the first right of refusal went to any government agencies and none picked it up. Then the second right goes to the Indigenous bands and the last goes to public tender. "And these days, there's a lot of talk about land rights. So the most likely place we think this will end up is in the Penticton reserve."
In fact, added Scott, the Association is so confident the Penticton Indian Band will one day be in charge that they've already contacted them. "We've reached out multiple times so see if we could open a conversation or come to some kind of agreement with the PIB to see if we can keep the facility running," he said. "Whether the landlord is the PIB or the Canadian government doesn’t matter to us. "But we’ve gotten no response. They don't want to talk to us, and we can't talk to the government."
The Association's predicament isn’t for a lack of support.
Folks like the aforementioned Dan Albas, for example, who in June of 2025 launched a petition to halt the divestment. That petition would accumulate nearly 10,000 signatures.
And then later in 2025, nine MPs across party lines, including local MP Helena Konanz, joined forces to ask the government to halt the divestment. But nothing thus far has altered the trajectory. And now, claims Scott, legal action has begun.
"They’re saying we're trespassing, that we’re on the land illegally," he said.
"But the only reason anyone is here is to clean up and remove our property. "I mean, it’s sad and it's difficult to lose this resource when so many from all walks of life use it so regularly. But now to add insult to injury, they're wasting taxpayer money to take us to court."
There are other ranges nearby – one in northern Summerland (Garnet Valley) and another in Oliver. But Scott, unsurprisingly, is a big fan of the Penticton facility.
"This is the better range," he said. "They don’t have buildings like our warming room and our clubhouse. They don’t have an indoor range. And our handgun range has high walls 270 degrees around for privacy and sound deadening.
"Plus, we've always had a range officer on site whenever there was shooting. That was great for families and new shooters especially."
And as they enter the final few days of cleanup, knowing they’ve overstayed their welcome, Scott and his crew hope against hope for a last-second reprieve but are resigned to the apparent inevitable.
"I'm upset the government has done this to a group of people who didn’t deserve it," he said. "These are some of the most upstanding citizens in your community, and you can see by the labour of love that was invested here what it meant to them.
"And for what?"
Anyone who might have space that could accommodate the Penticton Shooting Sports Association is invited to contact the organization at [email protected].
