The Sicamous made her last run in 1936. Part of the reason that the CPR stopped using the Sicamous was because she was a very expensive ship to operate. The CPR was losing $200 per day. Finally, the CPR beached the Sicamous at Okanagan Landing where it sat unused for nearly fourteen years. In 1949, the City of Penticton bought her from the CPR for $1.00. In 1951 she was towed to West Lakeshore Drive in Penticton where she now sits as a museum. The boat is being restored to what she looked like in 1914. The people who are working on the Sicamous estimate she will cost 1.7 million dollars to be fully restored. Considering it only cost $180,000 to build in 1914, it now will cost almost ten times that much to restore this old sternwheeler.

End of An Era

As more roads were built, and cars and trucks became even more widely available, the need for the steamboats slowly came to an end. The sternwheelers made the Okanagan Lake a commercial highway from 1892 until 1936. In their time, the steamboats were the fastest way to travel. Orchardists, farmers, and business people knew that they could get their produce and goods quickly to outside markets. The steamships helped the Okanagan Valley enter the 20 th century.