Why Kamloops
Situated in south-central British Columbia, Kamloops is the largest city in the Thompson Country region of the provincial interior. The municipality sits in the Thompson Valley within the Montane Cordillera Ecozone, positioned at the confluence where the North and South Thompson rivers join before flowing east of Kamloops Lake. Its name derives from Tk'əmlúps, a local Shuswap word translating to "meeting of the waters." The surrounding terrain features rolling ridges and steep hillsides set within a semi-arid, rain-shadow environment that supports native plants and wildlife such as big sagebrush, ponderosa pine, prickly pear cactus, and Lewis's woodpecker.
European fur traders first arrived in the area in 1811, establishing posts like Fort Kamloops along the Hudson's Bay Brigade Trail. The settlement served as an essential stop during the Fraser Canyon and Cariboo Gold Rushes before incorporating as a city in 1893. Railway expansion transformed the area into a major transportation hub, beginning with the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway through downtown in 1886 and the arrival of the Canadian National Railway in 1912. Passenger train travel remains active today; VIA Rail's transcontinental service stops at Kamloops North station, while both the Rocky Mountaineer and the Kamloops Heritage Railway serve Kamloops station.
Promoted as the Tournament Capital of Canada, Kamloops hosts more than 100 athletic competitions every year. Key sporting facilities include the Tournament Capital Centre, the Sandman Centre, and the Tournament Capital Ranch. Cycling is also central to the local outdoor culture; considered by many as the birthplace of freeride mountain biking, the city contains the 26-hectare Kamloops Bike Ranch, which is the largest municipal bike park in Canada. Other notable institutions and historical sites in the area include Thompson Rivers University and the historic Kamloops Chinese Cemetery, established in the 1880s to honor early Chinese pioneers who worked on railway construction.
Kamloops experiences long, sunny summers with warm growing seasons alongside brief winter cold snaps when Arctic air crosses the mountains into the interior. Despite winter weather, it features the third mildest winter climate among non-coastal cities in Canada. Summer daytime humidity frequently drops low during warm spells, creating bright, dry conditions across the valley's semi-desert landscape.
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