Willows are usually small but this is the granddaddy of all of them!! Adams River mouth

Scotch Creek development

Board gives Okay to Osprey landing (OL) development
The Board gave third reading to a zoning amendment bylaw for the proposed development in Scotch Creek known as Osprey Landing. The applicant, plans to put in a 165 lot subdivision on the 16.4 hectare property on Zinck Road/Wharf Road. This scope of development was changed after the developer received feedback at open houses and public hearings. The developer agreed to downsize the original number of 195 lots to 165, as well as taking out ’vacation rentals’ and ’row house dwellings’ from the proposed uses. The proposed uses now include single family dwellings and duplexes. Secondary suites will be permitted in Development Area 1. Development Services staff recommended approval as Scotch Creek is identified in the Official Community Plan as a ‘Primary Settlement Area.’ Two covenants will be required: a covenant prohibiting development on the property unless the development is connected to a CSRD approved community sewage & water system and a covenant protecting vegetation within 15 meters of the Agricultural Land Boundary.


Osprey Landing (OL) thoughts:

For the most part the 'no' or 'substantially reduce the density' from the people who live directly in the area. Whereas the majority of support was from residents/businesses away from the development. I have gone through the questions on both sides and have tried to come up with a balance that is best for the community as a whole.

Having not heard the large support from residents in the North Shuswap until the last minute, I was very supportive of removing the affordable housing segment of the proposal (multi-family, 3 story segment,, residence for the elderly). The option was offered by the developers after considering the input that was received at the open house. The thinking was to lessen the impact by the densities to those local residents near the development. It was hard, to leave the affordable and accessible portion of the development that would service younger working, as well as the older and handicapped people, part of this proposal out. It is what was included in the OCP and is repeated that we need this sort of development for those people. The concern was for those who live directly in the area of the development and to support their concerns.

I do worry aboutthe impact the development is going to have on the people who live beside the lake access where the pumping facility could be going. They can be incredibly noisy though the developers have said they would try to not have it near homes I hope that it is very well insulated so the residents are not bothered by the sound.

Through our OCP, Scotch Creek was identifiedas a central place to allow growth, a “town center” if you will and limit higher density growth to a few areas. The community in general has supported this vision however it is not embraced by all in the Scotch Creek area. . In Scotch Creek there is little land for 1 hectare growth and it has to be higher density on community sewer and water systems in order to have sustainable growthIn order to provide that proper infrastructure it takes money and to provide that money there needs to be dense developments to pay for it. The only other way is for the present taxpayers to pay for a effluent treatment and water system; through the Liquid Waste Management plan this was made clear they were not willing to do this.

The North Shuswap has not had any large scale development that has had the benefit of working with the CSRD to be part of the infrastructure solution. Many of the large scale development that I am familiar with that has been started before bylaws, or found ways of avoiding Local Government and the communities input. Here we have a developer who is willing to put up all the safe guards needed to have a proper development.

The development could add an infusion of money and badly needed jobs to the area. The spin offs could be more work over a longer time period. The effluent treatment would allow development of commercial properties as well as other buildings not only for large subdivisions but for individuals with small lots. It may well be the instigator to have the NSLWMP come into fruition. The development could/would attract full time residents

There is no ability for Local Government laws to create the distinction between seasonal and fulltime residents. The removal of vacation rentals from the original proposal helps direct to a more full time residency. Having people calling Scotch Creek as their home would add to creating possibilities for more volunteers, school children, tax payers and people to stop future developments.

The carriage house could be affordable full time rental accommodation and help when accommodation is needed. The carriage houses allow for extended family to stay there such as the elderly. It allows owners to rent out and help pay for the mortgage.

Salmon Run mouth ADAMS RIVER Squilax Mtn Fall

Oct Board meetings goings on 2011

The Columbia Shuswap Regional District Board directed staff to do more investigation on the Discussion Paper which offers a new approach to building regulation. There is reluctance in some rural areas to participate in the existing building regulation service, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Charles Hamilton suggested there is an opportunity to introduce a limited building regulation function to promote overall compliance with existing development requirements. This new approach involves ‘Plan Checking’ proposed developments. Plan checking is a process in which building plans are reviewed, prior to the beginning of construction, to ensure compliance with key building and land use requirements. This would include BC Building Code regulations, siteing, setbacks, lot coverage and height. The CAO made clear the Discussion Paper, was not to counter arguments of those opposed to building inspection, but to address the pressing issue of non-compliance with land use regulations. In the six rural areas there have been a total of 179 infractions since 2009. These include 23 development permit infractions, 124 in zoning and another 22 in various categories. Under this new approach, the CAO said 51 per cent of the infractions would have re-solved and another 16 per cent “possibly” could have been resolved. It is possible that area “F” (North Shuswap) could use this system instead of the present building inspection that is presently in the area. The issue will go to an Electoral Area Directors Committee to discuss further and then back to the Board for deliberation.

UBCM sessions more

Emergency Management creating resilient communities does not happen by accident. It has to be planned for and prepared. Some of the ways to do this was laid out by, BC Chief Coroner. Coroners deal with any death that does not happen under a doctor’s care. In the near past the coroner was reactive and now they are proactive trying to be more preventive. Road Safety; has included the problems of lighting, drugs, roads
Wildfire discussion was that communities need a preventive plan. Planning for development needs to look at building out into thick forested areas. “Can’t plan for what you cannot manage” is a descriptive phrase for subdivisions allowed to be built surrounded by forests. Insurance is going towards their fees being connected to the “Fire Smart Manual” to decide how to charge for insurance rates. Resilience in communities, Japan is a good example how communities can handle disastrous situations. Disasters will happen it is how you are prepared for them and how you let them affect you then and later.
Web page set up for local governments I did not write all of it down but I did leave with one piece of advice that stayed with me. Web sites are like puppies (or kids) they are cute when you bring them home but take a lot of work to keep them up. They mentioned that a well set up web site is well worth the trouble.
Industry Product Stewardship (IPS) working with Local Governments (LG) to recover materials that would normally go into land fills sites. IPS intends to reduce products going to landfills, reduce costs of recycling, recapture metals, plastics, essentially become a source of materials, keep toxic materials out of the waste stream and generate a positive economic from waste. LG can help by providing education; imposing bans for certain materials in to land fill sites and work with the Recycling stewardship council to find solutions to recycling. There is a fundamental shift in thinking as to product debris in rural areas. Presently service in rural areas in inadequate and not generally at acceptable levels for product stewardship. The economics of scale do not work in rural areas as in cities the cost is higher. Recycling has its benefits for every ton of recycling, there is $500.00 is added to the economy. Consumers pay for the recycling and use of the product and a 100% goes towards recycling the product.
Concerns from participants were; black plastic mulch that farmers use costs 8 times to recycle it as to make it. If it is banned from landfills it will end up (and does anyways?) in illegal land fill sites. There is a movement afoot to deal with agricultural recycling called “Clean Farms” that will recycle farm wastes.
Health Net work is a group started up in the Cowichian Valley where the government health agency threatened to close down their medical facilities fought back. Originally they had to face some very angry people eventually they admitted they had blundered. The large success in this was the Vancouver Island Health government agency admitted they were wrong and worked with the people of the area to find solutions to the problems. It is a shared stewardship of local health issues. It is not focused on hospital beds but looks at treatments.
Agri-culture its problems and solutions. Farms are finding themselves at odds with the Endangered Species Act such as the Salish- sucker and certain frogs found on their lands. It is stopping agriculture some of it is well intentioned people are stocking farm ditches with salmon and other fish and the ditch becomes a restraint to the farmers. If farmers are impacted by the “Species at Risk” act then they should be compensated for the lands/business lost. Chicken farms are limited to 99 birds and then have to be part of the egg marketing board, most of which are in the lower mainland. It suffers the interior farmers to have a successful business in the interior. More quotas need to be allowed in the interior and not have it moved to the lower mainland. There apparently many young families who would like to farm and do not have access to the farm land. There is ALR laying fallow or being used for “gentry farming” where a large sprawling home is built as ties up many acres of land. There needs to be a way of getting speculating out of agriculture; it becomes a situation of “saving the farmer or save the land”. In BC there are 14,000 people in farming and 65,000 farming families. There have been successful communal farming businesses, such as in Roberts’s creek. Concerns from the Min of Agriculture when these business break up as to who gets what out of the land (there is no subdividing of land). Successes have come from a Vietnamese family who came with essentially nothing and built up a very successful mushroom farm. Agriculture can be a profitable business in certain sectors.



Lottery Tickets and being lucky
A story I heard while eating lunch we were discussing dikes and the costs of who pays for what. The story rolls around to Pemberton and the floods they have had there. The problem largely being urban people coming out and building in the flood plain and then being surprised when they are impacted. The bridge was washed out, there was the raging muddy torrent, and concrete ripped apart rebar left like jangling nerves. A vehicle passed the people stopped in the drizzling rain watching the torn bridge right into the river. It was tragic, eventually the river subsided and they found those who were caught in nature’s power. The machines started to re-dig the concrete structure to replace the bridge, a game we play with the strength of the river. The endless liquid of rock and mud crushes our displays and we replace them again a bit bigger better and the water proves itself again. The excavator operator moving those round river rocks, how ever found another vehicle rolled up like a ball, one not accounted for. No one had reported anyone missing and it was months, many months had passed. There was little to tell who it was, except they managed to find lottery tickets in the car. Tracing the tickets they had found the night of the collapse of the bridge a store was robbed of its lottery tickets and those same tickets were related to the unfortunate driver of the car who’s luck ran out when he drove over the bridge in that rainy night. I wondered out loud I wonder many of those tickets were winners? Likely one was maybe there were all winners but it doesn’t make much difference. Justice takes its toll.

Economic & tourism in Shuswap OCT 2011

Economic Development

The Downtown Community College (DCC) outreach to the rural communities has not been stellar and many of the directors feel that their areas are not being considered enough within the planning of the DCC. Education for adults in the North Shuswap has not been a big issue for the area. There is a case made of poor return for the amount of time/money invested in rural areas. Public interest courses seem to have the most interest in rural areas. Education for employment has not seen a demand in the electoral area, is there a need for employment education courses? The outlying areas are not the only places waning in learning; courses in Salmon Arm are running at 30% capacity showing a lack of general interest in education or a lack of courses that are relevant to the current economy and employment.
CSRD is in the process of reviewing an Agricultural strategy for the Shuswap area and also presently researching what other areas do for their Agricultural Plan. This initiative will be submitted to the board in the 2012 budget for approval. The South Shuswap has an interesting situation cropping up in their ALR near Sorrento. The land is near the lake and residencies and the owner is putting in a chicken boiler barn in their midst. You can imagine the concern from the local people with the smell, waste and disposal of the byproducts of such a business. ALR land is not often thought of in those types of industrial uses and is (I think) generally thought of as a way to keep green areas in a community. The ALR is a very powerful legislation and trumps any local government laws; therefore all ALR lands can be slated for boilers, egg laying, piggery and other agricultural industrial uses. The Director in Area “C” is trying desperately to solve this problem with the provincial government.
Concerns of the economic state of BC/Shuswap area was discussed and what can we do to turn it around. Concerns were; much of the new housing has stopped because of HST, the province has to wake up and do something. Alberta has lots of jobs; booze and gas are cheaper and taxes lower. Competition from the USA is drawing Albertans and other Canadians away from BC; commodities are 30% less. Flying from Bellingham is considerably less than Vancouver, was one instance given.
The lack of rural infrastructure (highway, transit, high speed internet connection, medical services etc) needs to be included should be involved in getting support from Governments. You have to speak up and rattled cages, from the different government heads.
Agri- forestry from the province; has funding for multiple use of forestry and agricultural where they could be used together. An example is sheep grazing in vine yards to keep the grass down – supporting sheep production and the vineyard. Is there any farms that could use agricultural use for forestry production?



Shuswap Tourism
A houseboat tour of Mara Lake was donated by Waterway house boats, to the members of Shuswap Tourism and an introduction of houseboats and the changes that have been made by the houseboat industry was presented by Waterway General Manager – Neil Millar. When pressed about the pollution that the house boats create on the lake; they told us the changes they have made to help prevent or reduce the impacts on the lake from house boats. They now have lock outs on hot tubs so the water cannot be dumped out into the lake, they have removed dishwashers and they can now do round trips without needing pumps outs. There is a difference in houseboat companies in how they deal with waste and their impact on the lake. The type of people on the house boats have calmed down there are not as many wild parties as they used to be. While house boat companies are easy targets to single out by government and non-government agencies about 1/3 of the houseboats are private ownership that have no monitoring, other than themselves, like leisure boats.
Application for funding to support “Experimental Tourism” for a Southern Interior Business Association Committee (SIBAC), with Shuswap Trails Alliance, is being researched. The “Routes & Blues was a huge success by going out in the rural areas in its outreach program. The North Shuswap was the biggest benefactor by having 3 venues in our area, out of five!

THe Last Foot

He went through the different BC communities the trend being older people moving away from the city centers into the outer rural areas. Negatives to attract young families are; raising the cost of housing for families and not providing jobs within the community all help in creating smaller child base for the schools to draw from. In rural areas it will create a smaller tax base and more demand on rural healthcare. The question he posed was; “why are they building hospital and services in city centers and not more out in the urban areas?” Looking at the mega trends most of the retired people are moving away from the dense centers and living in more rural like settings. The care centers should be built in these areas to service these people rather than have them driving in droves to city centers.
The solution of bringing in more immigrants in Mr. Foots estimation is not sustainable. There are about ¼ million immigrants to come in to Canada and at that rate the amount of foreign workers to fill in all the jobs needed would take 40 years! The USA has many more young people than Canada and they will be a stronger economy because of it (eventually). These younger people are the Hispanics so learn Spanish, if you are planning to work with the Americans in the future. California has 38 million people Canada has 33 million. Europe has the same older people bulge in their demographics and especially Germany where there are more death than births. The future suggests that European power will wane. Russia's weakening power, (whose youth population has also plummeted) along with Japan's diminishing strength. Turkey, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan and Afghanistan (with one of the highest birth rates 6 per family) have the potential to become powerhouses. These large young populations in economic strained areas will likely prove the adage “youth vote on the streets and the older people vote in the ballot box”. Surprisingly he suggests that China, will run out of workers because of the; one child per family policy and it will negatively affect China economy as it does ours.
People are going to live longer and our pension system is not ready for that. Grandma will outlive grandpa. Grandpas that do last longer will have a larger harem to draw from, he wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not. The boomers are going to be healthier and wand to work but not steady shorter days and hours. You will see gardening, pet care, walking and bird watching up in use as this older group grows in numbers. More driving and less bicycle & transit use, it seems that the 60-80 year olds, partially because of ailments of sights, joints and weakness would avoid using buses. The need for doctor’s increases slowly through our 60s, 70s and 80s, but our use of hospitals takes off in our 60s and rises dramatically to the late 80s. In our 90s it reaches 12 times the lifetime average because of broken hips, injuries from falls, and pneumonia. It was noted as well crime has gone down as well; it is not just because the police are doing a great job but it is harder for the older folks to move and commit crimes. Charitable causes will receive more money and less volunteer time; the elderly value their time and will not give it up freely. Casinos will be growing as that is also an attraction for an older set. The use of wine will go down and whiskey will be the favored drink for older population.
He left us with some quotes that maybe useful for all of us who are age gracefully or otherwise. What businesses are finding (and adjusting their selling techniques to) is that: “there is a gap of 12 years between, of what you think you are and what you are”. Always remember you are unique; like everyone else!

Boom Bust Echo

The keynote speaker was impressive, a Dr Foot who wrote “Boom, Bust & Echo” many years ago. He related the study of people in groups of ages and how it will affect our society in the future. Demographics can; shape how we grow, how we think and act as a society. We can use this information in government to help us make our decisions. Low school enrollment, difficulty in getting workers, cost of health care going up; these were all predicted some time ago. Ontario government had asked him what they should do about their schools if they needed to build more and improve them. Mr. Foot said not bother you will not have the kids to fill them. No, they didn’t listen they built more and bigger school only to find there was no children to fill them. If you want to attract young families to your area (other than giving them employment) providing accessible child care, is a big attraction to those with children.
The new word for the science of demographics is; mega trends; “lots of people doing the same thing”. When you have large numbers of people doing the same thing it is easy to predict what will happen (if you study the numbers). The same thing is happening and it will get worse; only 2 out of 5 teachers (coming out of university) will be employed in the coming future. In the 70s there were many people going into debt to their eyeballs and what happened? The cost of borrowing money went sky high by so many people wanting to borrow. Twenty years later they are 40 years old what are they doing trying to figure out how to get distressed from working so hard to pay the loans off. The big bulge of age group is the 50 plus and the money is being spent on Grandkids and pets. Comparison between provinces; Quebecers- have a shorter life span- connected to their habit of smoking, Saskatchewan- have a lot of youth & seniors neither who bring in a lot of taxes, there will likely be problems with having the funds to keep services going in the future. Alberta has many working young families hardly any seniors; their costs for health care are down and there is a large tax base to draw from. BC has many seniors, there are fewer young families again impacting the Health Care system.

Sparkling Hills CF meeting

UBCM 2011 #1

My last UBCM was in Vancouver I got to say; “so long” to the many Regional Directors, Councilors and Mayors that I have befriended along the way. I did come to politics with a attitude that I was going to run into a fair bit of slackers and crooked politicians. Instead it has been an amazing array of dedicated hard working people who truly care about their community. Just when I think I am the most dedicated worker I know, there comes some one who; works tirelessly, spending money out of their own pocket to further a cause that will benefit their community. It is humbling and inspirational. As usual there is a ton of information that comes to one at these conferences and it has to be weeded out and shortened to get back to you folks. After all you are the reason we go to these things (that and the stuff and dinners), to get informed, recharge and improve our abilities to representing yourselves.

Rural areas & Docs or the lack there of

I had 1/2 hour to discuss topical and local medical concerns with IHA on the Monday of the beginning of UBCM. I talked and listened the whole time often directing the topic back to what can you help rural areas with getting physicians. Often when talking about medical issues it is such a complex issue inter connected to so many other My purpose was two fold. One, to elicit help from IHA to help us set up our Community ran medical clinic/society. Secondly to use this style of community supported clinic in other rural areas; to help lessen the pressure and burden on other areas because of lack of physicians in rural areas.
I asked if they would help with anything more than helping with the lease of the building. They would responded negatively the reason is that; IHA is worried about having communities bid against one another for doctors. Raising the price in one form or another to the point that poorer communities would have no medical services at all (much like now- only both poor and rich communities suffer this malaise), I suggested that this need not be the case. Instead, what we are doing is; presently doctors not coming at all! and communities by; welcoming them, supporting them and making it attractive for them to come to an area is a way of bringing in more physicians and retaining them. This did not seem to convince them though, I thought. IHA also suggested that there are lot of communities that desperately need doctors; far more than North Shuswap and if he was asked(by the doctors, he would send them there. My response was" this not a case of you being the one to give this choice; it is one of where the doctors want to go!" IHA did admitted that they never had any Doctor ask that question; they all knew where they wanted to go. We are attracting and retaining them into the rural areas, that it is better to have the Physicians somewhere in BC than in the other part of the world. We would all benefit by any community in BC getting Physician rather than forcing them to work in areas that do not make their job easy.
IHA did say that he would supply other medical professionals to the area (diabetic/respiratory technologists) if there were enough cases, to justify it. In other words he would not like to see a person drive from Kamloops to N Shuswap for a 2 hour meeting and 1 or 2 people. I clarified getting the need for other medical services that if they had enough clients to fill in a slot of time from 9 is to 5 pm; would be considered enough and they seem to agree with that.
As well they mentioned that I should discuss these issues with Mayor Harry Danyluk to get a better idea of what is going on with Doctors in Chase. Mayor Danyluk is also the Chair of the Thompson Regional Hospital Board
As well, asked if they would consider selling or giving used equipment to the community. IHA said if it was worth while for re-using they would pass it on to the Health Society possibly at a cost or not. Some equipment of course would not be usable for either the cost or for technical reasons and that is of course understandable.
Pain management concerns; apparently, there are people to not getting enough support for their pain. These are not addicts or abusers but have people who are in chronic pain that are not accessing the proper amount medication. They knew nothing of such a problem and would try to find out, if this in fact true.

Devils Club Flume Trail

EAD meeting October 2011

Lake zoning bylaws were gone through again. One of the important items brought up in all CSRD areas; was that sufficient manpower/money and set be aside to enforce this bylaw. Staff will be seeking legal review about how the bylaw will be effective to be enforced. A second reading would be done in October and then to it would go to the public hearing after that.
A revised "Crown Land Telecommunications" policy was requested by TELUS to speed up their applications to put up transmission towers on Crown land. Existing TELUS transmission sites are presently near Scotch Creek and Adams Hill; newly proposed and recently approved sites are in Sorrento and Eagle Bay and Taft Mountain; they may offer some better cell access to the North Shuswap, in the future. Any proposals will still have to go to the public for an input (to be advertised twice in the papaer). The Director would still decide upon the sites inpact and have input.
Directors are looking into the expansion of the use of municipal ticket utilization bylaw for enforcing our bylaws. When a ticket is given and not disputed; after 14 days a fine would be forth coming. It was wondered if it is appropriate to fine for all bylaws and you can ticket pretty well for any of the bylaws. For instance; for people for putting a shed to close to the property line. It would seem a bit heavy handed to do that. When put into the perspective of people not remedying the shed positioning and what to do with them. Presently most tickets(tickets that have been written) have been paid; if tickets are ignored a collection agency is employed to collect the money. Eventually the infraction could end up with a court decision. Education is the first thing to be done when an offense is found. With the hope that the person would self regulate themselves once they understood why the bylaw exists. If education is not effective;if the person continued to persist in flaunting the bylaw, then a ticket would be given.Directors often hear; “All these bylaws mean what? nothing; when the offenders only have to ask for forgiveness. This is after the fact and they then get away with breaking the bylaw”. What is needed is to have an enforcement that is effective in handing out our bylaws. The work load has become heavy, for the bylaw officer and the resource for bylaws is not enough, for bylaw enforcement; there will need to be an increase. The CSRD will be looking towards raising funds through taxing to by for the bylaw enforcement in next year budget. The budget is about 108,000 for by law enforcement for all of the CSRD, the thinking is that another bylaw officer would be needed.

One thing good aboutthe South Shuswap!!

They get to look at the North Shuswap!!

Electoral Directors meeting 1 Oct

The purchase of 2-3 mobile sprinkler protection units has supported for purchase has bee suggested for the homes in interface areas of the CSRD (all of the North Shuswap). To date; research for grants that would help to offset or pay for these systems have not been found. Our Gas tax money does not qualify for the sprinklers. Money will be considered to be taken out of the 2012 budget to purchase sprinkler systems

Fire Services review for VFD in the CSRD had many suggestion this one was about; proficiency criteria and honorarium. The Firefighters(FF) are no longer considered volunteer strictly but have been now called “ paid on call Firefighters”. Part of the reason for this is the expectations that insurance companies and the liabilities that are occurring more and more against VFD and the local governments that support them. In order to have FF reach the high expectations put upon them; there has to be training and if the FF are going to invest their time in getting highly trained and fighting fires accordingly, they have to be paid more. Pretty much all the FF from the Chief; to the on the ground FF will be seeing a increase of payment for their time and expenses. An example is;FF would be going from nothing(in some cases) or the average about $12.00 per hour to $18.00 per hour, pro-rated over the next three years and the amount of training they received. The increases for the North Shuswap Fire departments will be minimal.

Osprey Landing PH

Another pubic hearing Osprey landing people were very respectful (in comparison to the last meeting). Many thoughts and concerns brought out again!! Ted Bacigalupo and Rene Talbot showed up to strong arm anyone who got out of line.
There must of been about 40 people who soke and about 130 that showed up. Pretty good for a cool wet night. I sure appreciate all the people who got up and spoke it is not easy but we do need to hear what people are thinking. I hope this was a positive experience for everyone .. thanks again to everyone who showed up.

Salmon Festival

The Warrior canoes coming in and the sculpture of Salmon to come back.

salmon Festival Columbia style

I was invited to the First Nation Salmon celebration in Invermere right after the UBCM meeting. I feel it is important that whenever we can that we communicate with our neighbours and went to represent the CSRD. This inaugural Festival is being hosted by the Akisqnuk First Nation and Shuswap Indian Band with support from the Canadian Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission (CCRIFC), the Ktunaxa Nation Council, the Columbia Wetlands Stewardship Partnership and the Fairmont Trails Society. The goal of the festival is to inform people about the cultural significance and history of Salmon for First Nations, and educate the public about the ongoing strategies to restore Salmon to the Upper Columbia. Many people came members from the Little Shuswap Band and the Okanagan Band were there.
First Nations have been working towards salmon restoration in the Upper Columbia since the Grand Coulee Dam was built in the early 1940’s, blocking all salmon migration to the upper Columbia River. Before this time, Salmon, were a critical source of sustenance for Ktunaxa Nation and Shuswap (Kinbasket) people. The talks of Salmon returning were of an optimistic nature and considering the physical and political challenges of bringing the Salmon back to the upper Columbia.
Many good stories were told. Salmon was last seen in the Columbia in 1932-34, the creation of large water wheels harvesting the salmon as they went up the river and dams, prevented any more salmon reaching and feeding the peoples of the Columbia. Peoples of this valley who had collected salmon from the time of the receding glaciers (10,000 years) must have been devastated. The First Nations who depended on their winter food,the salmon and finding nothing, year after year; it is unimaginable.
The Rockies, are said to be the bones of Yawo'nek (pronounced "Yehwoonik"), a great water monster whose bones were thrown up onto the banks of the river. A giant and some other animals chased the Yawo’nek to kill it as it eat everything that came into the river. At the time the Columbia River was a large circle of water that went from Invermere, Cranbook, Nelson, up the lower and upper Arrow lakes, past Revelstoke up the Great Bend and down to to Golden and back to Invermere. The monster was chased and chased round and round but they could not catch him. Finally the giant took part of the Rockies and blocked the Columbia River, where they caught the giant and killed it.
I did not get to say anything on behalf of the CSRD for a variety of reasons; the event was 2 hours late and it was raining, I waited to speak but after all the speakers talked the War Canoes came in and the speeches were cut off to have salmon and drumming It was at times almost a spiritual primeval feeling with the drumming, the canoes, coming in being welcomed, the singing and the grey foggy skies. ..

UBCM

Meeting of the representatives of each city, town and regional district and it is an election year. Many good smaller meetings about how these messengers from each community. To bring this information back in action or word.
Later after hours and days of interaction and information gathering I was lucky enough to catch Ziggy Marley at the Vogue theater. A totally different venue, dread knots and all kinds of people and believe it or not the odd smell of the ganja. How ever the music hard driving Spiritual and good.