Were you one of the many people wondering what was up with the searchlight sweeping across the sky in Penticton last night?

No, it wasn鈥檛 Batman. It was the latest stunt by Skytouch Flooring鈥檚 owner Ben Eddison.

Since opening his flooring store in March 2020, Eddison has shown a penchant for putting on attention-grabbing displays. The two dragons that sit perched atop his store got many people talking last fall.

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Now, the Penticton business owner has caught the eyes of even more people by renting a rare set of searchlights from the World War 2 era and shooting them to the skies from his store on Okanagan Avenue East.

But why spotlights? 鈥淏ecause, 鈥榳hy not?鈥欌�� Eddison said.

鈥淚鈥檝e always been attracted to light and I鈥檝e got a weird name for a flooring store with Skytouch so I just put two and two together as a way to get noticed and touch the sky at the same time,鈥� Eddison said.

The lights themselves are quite a rare commodity. Eddison rented them from Galarie Productions owner Gordon Alarie.

Alarie has owned the spotlights 鈥� and ten more sets 鈥� for over forty years, usually putting them to use on movie sets in his hometown of Vancouver.

The lights were originally constructed from 1940 to 1942 and are some of only 145 remaining sets of their kind in North America.

鈥淚鈥檝e had these lights for more than forty years, don鈥檛 ask me why,鈥� Alarie said.

Alarie has scoured the world to obtain his cherished spotlights and the parts necessary to run them. He鈥檚 purchased parts in places as far as Hawaii and New Zealand.

The lights were originally used to identify enemy planes during the war, Alarie said.

鈥淚 basically scoured the [world], just going to wherever they had searchlights or searchlight parts,鈥� he added.

His searchlight obsession has become even harder to feed over the years because no one manufactures the parts anymore. Luckily, Alarie has a machine shop at his home in Vancouver where he鈥檚 able to make some of the parts required to run his searchlights.

鈥淚鈥檓 burning carbons from 1940. They stopped making them,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hen I鈥檓 out I鈥檒l have to find another source or make my own.鈥�

The searchlights, which run at 16 to 18 kilowatts, can be seen from twenty to forty miles away, depending on how much moisture is in the air. They鈥檙e most visible on highly humid days.

Alarie said it鈥檚 rare for him to get a request for his searchlight services outside of the Lower Mainland and even more unusual for that request to come from a flooring store.

He was excited for the chance to visit Penticton for the first time in many years, even if it meant hauling his searchlights along the Coquihalla. 鈥淧enticton is a nice place, when I was a little kid I used to stay at a motel a few blocks from the lake鈥� it鈥檚 a beautiful town with beautiful people and it鈥檚 always nice to come back,鈥� he said.

Alarie will be in town from May 20 to 23 with his lights shining bright to the sky each night.

As for Eddison, he鈥檒l be at Skytouch all weekend admiring the show. 鈥淲e鈥檙e open for business all long weekend鈥� my wife said this is the last long weekend I can stay open, I鈥檒l have to take a weekend off soon,鈥� said Eddison.

You can catch the lights by looking up from pretty much anywhere in the city from 9 p.m. to midnight all weekend.

jesse.day@pentictonwesternnews.com
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