Saying goodbye to Camp Hurlburt

NEAR VERNON – It’s been an Okanagan retreat for more than eighty years, but budget restraints are now forcing the
sale of Camp Hurlburt.

Nestled on the northern shores of Okanagan Lake, thousands have spent time at Camp Hurlburt over the years.

Trinity United Church is planning to sell the property but first they are taking time this weekend to say goodbye, with a public open house.

“The facilities were built originally in the 1930s and 1940s and they had gotten kind of rundown over the years,” says Rev. Jeff Seaton with Trinity United Church.

The congregation started a fundraising campaign to fix up Hurlburt’s facilities but raised less than a third of the 3 million dollars needed.

Today’s open house attracting many who had spent time at the camp over the years including sisters Mary-Anne Forman and Wendy Stuart who traveled here after they heard the camp was being sold.

Forman came all the way from Washington State.

“We just dropped everything and came,” says Stuart.

Both spent time at the camp. Their mother acted as a camp director.

It’s unclear what will become of Camp Hurlburt once it is sold.

Many are hoping the natural space will be preserved.

“The congregation said ‘is there some way that we can preserve all or part of the site in its natural state?’ So we are currently exploring what those options might be,” says Seaton.