Little Kingdom remembered after community hub lost to White Rock Lake fire

What’s left of Little Kingdom grocery store and gas bar on the northwest side of Okanagan Lake remains behind a roadblock.

The area is still under evacuation order due to the massive White Rock Lake wildfire.

However, the Okanagan Indian Band has confirmed the surging blaze destroyed the local institution on Sunday night.

Robert Marchand founded the business as a gas station in the mid-1980s and grew it to include a grocery store, a bakery, a hardware store, and even a women’s clothing boutique.

It was the only store of its kind in the area.

“A lot of people depended on the store for the gas, the fuel, the groceries. They didn’t want to travel all the way to Vernon. It’s like at least a half an hour drive,” said Samantha Saddleman, Marchand’s granddaughter who in the past managed the store for years.

Saddleman recalls people flocking to the bakery.

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“I remember bringing pies into the store and they would sell before I had even reached the door,” Saddleman said.

Marchand and the store were even profiled when the shop won an Indigenous Business Award in 2010.

Marchand passed away three years ago and now his family is dealing with another blow, as much of the business was reduced to ash.

Saddleman, whose home also remains under an evacuation order, said when she saw the pictures of the burnt building she thought of her grandfather’s legacy.

“Everything that he worked so hard to build and everything that I worked for, I put a lot of work into that as well, all the memories, they are all gone. That was very hard…it’s still hard to comprehend, Saddleman said.

The demise of the store is not just a loss for the family, but for the community as well.

“I’m going to miss the store. I enjoyed working there, I really did. It was like a powwow for everybody. Every time you’d go there you would see everybody you knew,” Saddleman said.

After the fire threat lifts, it’s unclear if the store might be rebuilt.

“Because it is in an estate we don’t know what is going to happen. It would be nice, but it will never be the same…as what Robert had built,” Saddleman said.

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