Naramata

The world has speed. Naramata has a different idea.

Tucked at the end of a winding road on the Okanagan's eastern shore, this small village chose, officially, to go slow. In 2006 it became one of four Canadian communities certified as a CittaSlow by the Italian movement that insists quality of life is worth protecting from the pace of everything else. A curious designation for a place born from pure whimsy: founder John Moore Robinson claimed the name came to him during a séance, where a Syilx chief's spirit spoke fondly of his wife. He liked the sound of her name.

What he built was real enough: orchards, lakefront regattas, and the Kettle Valley Railway blasted through the cliffs above. The trains are gone, but the old rail bed runs high through tunnels and above the lake, past eighty-plus grape varieties growing where freight once rumbled.

VoiceMap's self-guided tours move through all of it: wade up Naramata Creek to a hidden waterfall, cycle the KVR trail, or walk the village under some of the clearest skies in the interior. The pace is yours. The stories are local.