Name a landmark after Haggard
Dear mayor and council:
There are many local unsung heroes deserving a street, building or park named in their honour.
One such person was H. Rider Haggard.
Writer and researcher Dean Unger’s discovery of Haggard’s original manuscript in Lake Cowichan’s Kaatza Museum points to Haggard helping save our precious Cowichan River in 1914 from plans by the Vancouver Power and Land Company.
The firm, according to the former Victoria Colonist newspaper, aimed to divert water from the Cowichan to generate power.
There have been many other threats to our heritage river, including its use as a sluice to send raw logs from the Lake area to Cowichan Bay.
(That action scoured the river’s sensitive salmon-spawning beds. The river never recovered from that myopic, immoral activity.)
Indeed, outspoken folks, such as Haggard, guarding our environment, helping medical patients, promoting the arts, fostering community service and other selfless actions must be publicly saluted.
His efforts also underline how speaking to power is essential at many levels.
Honouring local heroes on landmarks could — and has happened to some degree — also be done in Duncan, North Cowichan, Ladysmith and in CVRD areas.
Please consider naming lake landmarks after Haggard, and other deserving notables.
Peter W. Rusland
Duncan