Lac Le Jeune
Lac Le Jeune is located only a few minutes from Walloper Lake and features excellent fishing with 2 resorts on the lake offering full facilities and services including cabins, conference rooms, restaurants, exercise rooms, hot tubs, saunas and horseback riding. Lac Le Jeune also has a large beautiful provincial campsite with beach and swimming area, picnic area, over 100 campsites, running water, barbeques, showers and boat launching. Lac le Jeune offers a great all around family vacation and an excellent base camp from which to explore this magnificent Kamloops area.

Kamloops (population 84,064)
Situated at the confluence of the North and South Thompson Rivers in the Thompson Valley, the sprawling city of Kamloops takes its name from the First Nations word T'kumlups, meaning meeting place. Water isn't the only thing that meets here; the Trans-Canada, the Yellowhead and Highway 97 all meet in Kamloops, as do the two national rail lines, CP and CN.

The Secwepemc nation has inhabited the Kamloops region for thousands of years, basing their society on hunting and gathering and a dynamic trading economy. It was the native fur trade that first attracted white interest to the area, and dramatically changed the lives of the Shuswap Indians. The Secwepemc called the location of the present city Cumcloups. During the fur trade era the name Kamloops denoted the Indian settlement, but after 1867, the aboriginal name was gradually adopted for the village as a whole, with Kamloops being incorporated as a town in 1893.

David Stuart and Alexander Ross visited Kamloops in 1811. Stuart returned the following year to set up the first fur trading post, the American-owned Pacific Fur Company. Two years later the rival Northwest Fur Company had set up a post, and by 1821, the Hudson's Bay Company had taken control of the fur trade in Kamloops.

Gold Rush fever in the 1850s and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s contributed to the rapid expansion of the settlement. Until the 1860s, the Fort at Kamloops was an important depot for the horse-drawn pack trains that travelled to and from the coast.

Merritt (population: 7,595)
Home to the Merritt Mountain Music Festival the growing city of Merritt is located at the hub of the Coquihalla Highway system, in easy reach of Vancouver, Kamloops and the Okanagan. Merritt is the service centre for the ranch country of the Nicola Valley, and provides an excellent base for exploring the many outdoor recreational opportunities in the area.

Initially discovered by pioneers searching for a route between the Coast and the Interior, the valley was used as a brigade trail by the 1850s. What they discovered here was a vast expanse of grasslands where livestock could roam. The ensuing settlement originated at the meeting of the Nicola and Coldwater rivers, with ranchers, loggers, prospectors, merchants, and businessmen all making a living.