Logging, beef cattle, vegetable farming, transportation, viticulture, health care, tourism, and education are major contributing industries to the regional economy and have grown in recent years.

David Stuart, a trader sent from Fort Astoria, then still a Pacific Fur Company post, spent a winter with the Secwépemc people.

[8] The post's Chief Traders kept journals, which document a series of inter-Indian wars and personalities for the period, in addition to the daily business of the fur companies and their personnel along the entire Pacific Slope.

Soon after the forts were founded, Kwa'lila, chief of the main local village of the Secwépemc, moved his people closer to the trading post, so they could control access and gain in prestige and security.

He later led an alliance of Syilx (Okanagan) and Nlaka'pamux peoples in the plateau country to the south around Stump, Nicola and Douglas lakes.

He did try to control those who had been in parties waging violence and looting on the Okanagan Trail, which led from American territory to the Fraser goldfields.

The 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic swept through the Kamloops area during the summer of that year, decimating the Secwepemc, Nlaka'pamux, and other indigenous peoples.

Other legendary versions recount a huge white wolf, or a pack of wolves and other animals, that were moving overland from the Nicola Country and were repelled by a single shot by John Tod, then Chief Trader.

Kamloops gets short cold snaps where temperatures can drop to around or below −30 °C (−22 °F) when Arctic air manages to cross the Rockies and Columbia Mountains into the Interior.

Between November and January the area experiences abundant cloud cover due to a continual series of Pacific coastal Low Pressure systems crossing British Columbia, reducing the annual sunshine output, despite very sunny summers.

[25] Although Kamloops is above 50° north latitude, growing seasons are long, with hot periods every summer under dry and sunny weather.

These areas of relatively similar climate have many distinctive native plants and animals in common, such as ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), prickly pear cactus (Opuntia fragilis in this case), rattlesnakes, black widow spiders and Lewis's woodpecker.

[48] In 2013 the provincial government announced it would begin a consultation process to discuss wording of a formal apology to Chinese in B.C.

[49] Thompson Rivers University (TRU) serves a student body of 25,754 including a diverse international contingent mainly from Asian countries.

Artists that have contributed to this project include: Zack Abney; Kylene Cachelin; Evan Christina; Kelly Wright; Ken Wells; Alex Moir-Porteus; Robin Hodgson; Jack Morris; Janice Gurney, and Marianna Abutalipova.

The company creates a summer outdoor theatre festival in Prince Charles Park, just east of Downtown Kamloops.

Established in 2006, Project X Theatre originally produced productions of Shakespeare, however, recently the company has shifted over to more family friendly shows.

Previous artistic directors include Samantha MacDonald, Derek Rein, Heather Cant, Melissa purcha, and Dušan Magdolen.

Previous artistic directors include Tom Kerr (founder), Frank Glassen, David Ross, Michael Dobbin, John Cooper, Jeremy Tow, and Daryl Cloran.

Kamloops is an outdoor mecca for activities like hiking and mountain biking with an extensive trail network for year-round adventure.

[81] Kamloops' extensive trail network and desert-like climate creates conditions for year-round mountain biking across the city.

Two time UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships – Women's cross-country (2011 and 2014), gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2016 Summer Olympics bronze medallist Catharine Pendrel lives and trains in Kamloops.

Olympic medallist skier Nancy Greene Raine is director of skiing at Sun Peaks and the former chancellor of Thompson Rivers University.

Alumni of the Kamloops Blazers include Mark Recchi, Jarome Iginla, Darryl Sydor, Nolan Baumgartner, Shane Doan, Scott Niedermayer, Rudy Poeschek and Darcy Tucker (Recchi, Doan, Iginla, and Sydor are now part-owners of the club).

In the summer of 2008, Kamloops, and its modern facility the Tournament Capital Centre played host to the U15 boys and girls Basketball National Championship.

[100][101] The remains were located with the assistance of ground-penetrating radar, and work was underway to determine if related records about the identities of the dead are held at the Royal British Columbia Museum.

[102] Thompson Rivers University[103] offers a range of undergraduate and graduate degrees as well as certificate and diploma programs.

Crater Kamloops was officially adopted by the International Astronomical Union's Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (IAU/WGPSN) in 1991.

[135][136] In "Cementhead," a 1989 episode of the television series Booker, the titular detective (played by Richard Grieco) tracks a capricious professional hockey player (Stephen Shellen) back to his hometown of Kamloops.

Kamloops and surrounding areas have been used for various Hollywood films such as An Unfinished Life, The A Team, 2012, The Pledge, Shooter, Firewall, The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, Monster Trucks, and various others.