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They began on the lawn outside the Penticton Museum/Library, made their way down the west sidewalk of Main Street, and ended up at Gyro Park.
Along the way, they carried signs and placards, chanted loud but marginally muffled chants behind their facemasks, and elicited comments from motorists and passers-by ranging from "Way to go" to "This is fake."
Following one of the hottest, driest summers on record, months of wildfires, and a seemingly endless barrage of smoke-filled days -- including today, when the skies to the south had that hazy, orangey hue all morning -- a group of concerned citizens this noon hour held a rally to promote action on climate change.
It was, said the press release from two days ago, part of a "cross-Canada mobilization to demand politicians take climate emergency action." Even Penticton city hall participated to some degree when they piggybacked its own event -- a public information session on its own "Community Climate Action Plan" -- on to the rally.
Ultimately, the two to three dozen people who participated in the march down Main were joined by another couple dozen at Gyro to listen to various speakers discuss the need for action.
Amongst those speakers were Penticton mayor John Vassilaki and the event's master of ceremonies, Lori Goldman, of organizing body First Things First Okanagan.
"Canada is still on fire," said Goldman to PentictonNow prior to addressing the crowd. "We can see the smoke here today, which might be from Washington State. But it's also from around here.
"We have a lot of climate issues we haven’t dealt with that could be dealt with so quickly."
Goldman said she believes the majority of Canadians have "gone way past" the climate change denial phase.
"We lost over 500 people to a heat dome this year," she said. "We lost villages. People understand this is terribly unusual. There are things we must do. And we have to move. We have to stop fossil fuels. We can retrain people and create jobs in renewable energy.
"We are on fire and this could be treated by the federal government, the provincial government, and city government as the emergency it is. And it could be moved on much quicker. What we delay in paying now, we'll be paying three or four times as much in the future."
Also wielding the megaphone today was eloquent 16-year-old Summerland student Rosemary Tumbach.
"With all the fires and the heat wave, there's no more time to sit around and do nothing," Tumbach explained to PentictonNow later.
"I'm here because I don't have another option. I have to be here to fight for my future and the future of my friends and siblings and the younger generations to come, so they actually have a planet to live on."
Tumbach said the vast majority of her classmates believe climate change is real and human-caused, and consider it a "really big issue."
"I think the government needs to make more policies around climate change and stop fossil fuel extraction. We have to start putting money in renewable energy because that's the only thing that's going to be sustainable."
Philip McDougall of Naramata attended the rally because "We're reaching a point where climate change will be runaway."
"Therefore we have to work even harder to reverse the effects. We're protesting today so the politicians take note and do something about it -- and that includes the federal, provincial and municipal levels."
Community sustainability coordinator David Kassian was part of the city hall delegation, and he briefly explained why this is such an important time for climate action on a local level.
"We joined forces with First Things First Okanagan today because we're in the public engagement stage of our Climate Action Plan," he said.
"We have existing climate action plans that are over ten years old. A lot of the objectives have been achieved, and there's new science since then. So we're developing a new set of plans that have detailed five- to ten-year actions, associated costs, and associated staff responsibilities that will directly lower green house gas emission within the community."
Kassian encouraged residents to head to the "Blue Skies" website here to familiarize themselves with City plans and options, register their thoughts in any of three individual surveys, and make comments.
"We'll go to council with final plans once we've received all the feedback," he added.
For more info on First Things First Okanagan, head here.
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