The Blasted Church

It's the small details you have to look for.

On one of my walks around Okanagan Falls I cruised by this tidy wood frame church.  Nothing remarkable there.  

Until you look closely.  Lets just zoom in on that sign, shall we?

The Blasted Church.  

Some pastors of my acquaintance would quietly endorse this phrase but realistically there has to be a story here.  

My first musings were along these lines.  Well there are some odd denominations out there.  Quakers gonna quake, Dunkards gonna dunk.  But Blasted?  It sounds pretty Mad Max post apocalyptic.  Of course there are still some Fire and Brimstone enthusiasts out in Christendom but the United Church designation and the benevolent looking dove don't fit.  Here's the real story at least as it is being told.

This was originally the Presbyterian church in a nearby mining community called Fairview.  It was built circa 1897.  Mining towns are notable for their boom and bust status, and when Fairview went bust the church was abandoned and fell into disrepair.

In 1929 the congregation in Okanagan Falls decided to put it back into service.  This was presumably not the first mining town structure to be moved so there was a procedure for it.  Nail the doors shut.  Board over the windows, presumably after taking out any stained glass.  Suspend a single stick of dynamite in the middle of the building and set it off.  This loosened all the nails and made disassembly easy!  It is reported that the iron cross atop the steeple did not survive the procedure.

The original location of the church would have been on the east bank of Lake Skaha a couple of miles up.  At least so I infer from the presence there of the Blasted Church Vineyards! I much prefer beer but their products have attained a level of recognition such that finding them locally would not be impossible and I might get a bottle just for the interesting backstory.