Originally known to the First Nations of the Okanagan Valley as Khiluk, which was- and remains today revered as a sacred site producing therapeutic waters. During World War I the minerals of Spotted Lake were used in manufacturing ammunition. Later the area came under the control of the Ernest Smith Family, for a term of about 40 years. In 1979 Smith attempted to create interest in a spa at the lake. The First Nations responded with an effort to buy the lake; in October 2001 they finally struck a deal. First Nations arranged the purchase of 22 hectares of land for a total of $720,000, and contributed about 20% of the cost. The Indian Affairs Department paid the remainder.

Sikh devotees participate in the Baisakhi festival at Panja Sahib shrine in Hassan Abdel April 13, 2015. Hundreds of Indian Sikh pilgrims arrived into Pakistan to celebrate the Baisakhi festival with Pakistani Sikhs at the shrines of Panja Sahib and Nankana Sahib, the birth place of Sikh faith founder Guru Nanak Dev. (Photo by Caren Firouz/Reuters)

A girl in a vamire costume poses for pictures during the traditional park picnic on the first day of the annual Wave-Gotik Treffen, or Wave and Goth Festival, on May 17, 2013 in Leipzig, Germany. The four-day festival, in which elaborate fashion is a must, brings together over 20,000 Wave, Goth and steam punk enthusiasts from all over the world for concerts, readings, films, a Middle Ages market and workshops. (Photo by Marco Prosch)

Nine year old girl Barsati reacts while walking on a tightrope in Mumbai on February 11, 2014. Barsati, and her younger brother Rajababu, (4) earn an average of around 2000 rupees (32 dollars) per day from pedestrians and tourists performing various acts on the tightrope near the city's iconic landmark Gateway of India. (Photo by Indranil Mukherjee/AFP Photo)

A Syrian man carries the body of a girl following a reported airstrike on Kafr Batna, in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area, on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, on September 30, 2016. Air raids on several rebel-held towns in the Eastern Ghouta region killed at least 17 people including eight children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said. (Photo by Amer Almohibany/AFP Photo)

Girls hold hands as they help each other wade through a flooded street after the passing of Hurricane Matthew in Les Cayes, Haiti, Thursday, October 6, 2016. Two days after the storm rampaged across the country's remote southwestern peninsula, authorities and aid workers still lack a clear picture of what they fear is the country's biggest disaster in years. (Photo by Dieu Nalio Chery/AP Photo)

Boards stand lined up at the Rocinha Surf Association, ASR, headquarters at Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, July 2, 2015. ASR has given free lessons to over 2,000 children from Rio's shantytowns in the hopes of keeping the boys, who are mostly in their early teens and a few girls occupied by the sport and off the streets. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

A wounded Syrian girl looks on at a make shift hospital in the rebel-held area of Douma, east of the capital Damascus, following shelling and air raids by Syrian government forces on August 22, 2015. At least 20 civilians and wounded or trapped 200 in Douma, a monitoring group said, just six days after regime air strikes killed more than 100 people and sparked international condemnation of one of the bloodiest government attacks in Syria's war. (Photo by Abd Doumany/AFP Photo)