Welcome to Lake Flashback. Reporter Lexi Bainas has been combing through oldnewspaperswiththeassistance of the Kaatza Station Museum and Archives so we can jog yourmemory, giveyouthat nostalgicfeeling, or just a chuckle, as we take a look at what was makingheadlines thisweekaround Cowichan Lake in years gone by.
This week around the Cowichan Lake area…
10 years:
The long-discussed question of bringing the Greendale Road area inside Lake Cowichan’s town boundaries was again front and centre on Sept. 19, 2007.
In a story in the Lake Cowichan Gazette, we learn that a faceoff between residents and councillors was planned.
“The meeting…comes more than two weeks after council started a counter petition process to get voter consent for the addition to the town. The deadline for counter petitions is October 10.
“Is this enough time for you to get all the information together?” Mayor Jack Peake asked administrator Joe Fernandez at last week’s council meeting.
“I’ll just have to work the weekend,” replied Fernandez.
The Lake Cowichan Ratepayers Association appeared as a delegation at council’s April 24 meeting objecting to the phase -in of municipal taxes over five years for the new residences and urging council to put all new homes onto the town’s sewage system, rather than allowing a delay for those who can prove their septic systems work. The ratepayers also had several questions which were not answered, including how many viable septic systems are on Greendale Road and whether sewage from Greendale Road would be pumped up to the town’s sewage lagoons.
Councillor Pat Weaver, who chaired that April council meeting in Peake’s absence, said at the time that a public meeting would be held if the application proceeds.
“It’s not exactly what they said they’d do, but at least they are holding a meeting,” said Don Gordon, vice-chairman of the Lake Cowichan Ratepayers Association. “They had four months to call this meeting. If they’ d done that before the counter petition, there wouldn’t be all this uproar.”
25 years:
“We lead province with forest pilot project” said the proud headline in The Lake News of Sept. 16, 1992.
A forest co-op was about to be born.
“The Cowichan Lake area has been chosen to be the focal point for a Community Forest pilot project. This project is the first of its kind in the province.
“However, Jean Brown, chairperson of the community forest steering committee, says that community forests are very successful in other parts of the country. The goal of a community forest, Brown says, is to ensure community control over the forests. A community forest would be an ecologically, educationally, productive working forest and the logging of it would be decided by a committee of representatives from the community.
However, although the pilot project had been approved, according to Brown no land had yet been made available to define as a community forest.
40 years:
“Station CPR gift: Eyed for museum use” was the intriguing headline in the Sept. 21, 1977 issue of The Lake News.
“Canadian Pacific Railway will donate the abandoned E&N Railway station at Lake Cowichan to the village, council was told at last Tuesday’s meeting.
“The station will be turned over to the village at no cost, according to a letter from Glenn Swanson, superintendent of CP’s Vancouver Division. The donation will be made on the condition that the building be moved from its present location.
“Meanwhile, the Kaatza Historical Society has endorsed a plan to save the station. The society, which has been attempting to build a museum for some time, will lend its support to a committee organizing the relocation of the building, it was decided at a meeting last Thursday.
“Lake News publisher Tony Kant told the meeting the E&N station would make an ideal building for a historical museum and other community uses. He said it will provide an attractive landmark for resident and visitors.
“A committee is now being organized to launch the effort to preserve the station, one of the oldest buildings of its type remaining in the area.”