KNOX MOUNTAIN FIRST LOOKOUT

BENCH worked with the City of Kelowna and artist and sy’ilx knowledge keeper Krystal Withakay to reimagine a viewpoint on Knox Mountain, the city’s largest and most well-used natural area park. An existing parking lot was reconfigured to improve layout efficiency and safety, yielding a new space for gathering and reflection with a spectacular prospect overlooking Okanagan Lake.

The project features a striking, large-scale installation by sy’ilx master carver Les Louis and graphic artist Emily Pooley. Story poles and graphic panels each represent a distinct aesthetic interpretation of the four food chiefs, a foundational sy’ilx cultural narrative that guides systems of governance, ethics, self-reliance, stewardship, and life ways. The configuration of the story poles references a tuktánixw (summer home).

Materials reclaimed from site demolition were incorporated into new details; concrete bollards and the bases of outmoded interpretive signage were cut into pieces to fill gabion baskets, while large boulders which were scattered about the perimeter of the parking area and impeded safe pedestrian circulation now anchor new pockets of xeric plant species found throughout of the broader park.

Neither power nor a municipal water connection are available at the site, and thus an experimental modular irrigation system housed within a half-seacan has been deployed for the first two years after construction. The installation will be monitored for potential application in other remote, unserviced locations to allow for establishment irrigation to improve long-term success of restoration plantings.