Welcome to Lake Flashback. Reporter Sarah Simpson has been combing through old newspapers with the assistance of the Kaatza Station Museum and Archives so we can jog your memory, give you that nostalgic feeling, or just a chuckle, as we take a look at what was making headlines this week around Cowichan Lake in years gone by.
This week around the Cowichan Lake area…
10 years ago
It was your standard case of should we, shouldn’t we?
“Public input needed: BC Summer Games” said editor Tamu Miles on the front of the Lake Cowichan Gazette’s May 30, 2012 edition.
“The Cowichan Lake Recreation Commission and the Cowichan Valley Regional District (CVRD) are seeking input from the public as to whether or not the Cowichan Valley region should submit a bid application to the BC Games Society to host the BC Summer games for 2016 or 2018. Lake Cowichan would be part of an overall bid submission for the CVRD region and if a bid submission is recommended by all the Parks and Recreation committees in the region, Lake Cowichan would most likely benefit from hosting some of the games in the town.”
The BC Summer Games did end up being hosted by Cowichan in 2018.
Town of Lake Cowichan officials were so pumped with the new water metering program this time 10 years ago that they even had the Honourable Ida Chong, minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development at the time, come to town to pose with a plaque commemorating the program.
“The town signed on to the BC Climate Action Charter on Sept. 26, 2007 and Chong states that there are 10 municipalities that have not signed on.
“‘I look at Lake Cowichan as a model…We put concerted effort towards those programs that work,’ she says, ‘These decisions are difficult for governments to make on their own.’
“Public input helps governments in this process. The town says it’s committed to bettering the health of the community and the planet and that the water metering program will be a step in that direction. Through the reduction of fresh water pumping, treatment, chlorination, distribution, and sanitary pumping and treatment they are predicting a 15-20 per cent reduction in water use which should lead to a 15-20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas production.”
25 years ago
It was tough luck for residents of Honeymoon Bay and Mesachie Lake this time two and a half decades ago according to the May 28, 1997 Lake News. It may have been tougher luck for the driver that caused those residents to be without power.
“Logging truck rolls — knocking down hydro pole” was the header.
“Seventy-five households were out of power for five and a half hours last Tuesday morning throughout Honeymoon Bay and Mesachie Lake after a logging truck rolled over just east of the Robertson River Bridge on South Shore Road. Lake Cowichan RCMP are still investigating the accident, Constable Mike Cain said. They are determining whether the 1984 Kenworth logging truck and trailer was carrying an unbalanced load, he said.
“The driver, William Bellvau of Cobble Hill, who was pinned in the truck after it rolled over onto its side, was rescued with the Jaws of Life by the Lake Cowichan Fire Department and escaped with a cut on his head, Const. Cain reported.”
Close call!
And from the good news files, “Russian orphan boy gets a mom for his birthday,” reported Susan Lowe in the same edition.
“Little Roman, abandoned as an infant, and who has only known the inside of a Russian orphanage his very short life will be celebrating his second birthday on Canadian soil.
“A Mesachie Lake woman, Brenda Johnson has gone to Russia to pick up Little Roman and arrived home Sunday with her newly adopted son.
“Hazel Eckert told the Lake News that her daughter Brenda had wanted to adopt a foreign child for a long time.”
40 years ago
You never know what’s going to band a community together. Four decades ago it was the quest for better TV reception. “‘Desperate’ Caycuse families get together for better TV reception’ was on the third page of our beloved Lake News on May 26, 1982 and the story went like this:
“A group of Caycuse residents have banded together to get better television reception. Snowy pictures, reminiscent of the 50s, have been the rule rather than the exception at homes which are not right on the lakeshore, according to John Bowness, one of the organizers of the recently formed Caycuse TV Service Association. ‘We were kind of desperate,’ he said. The group has managed to secure financing for a TV satellite dish and 49 out of 63 families have paid for the improved service, although it is not yet hooked up and won’t be until ‘early next month’ Bowness said.”
And finally, Honeymoon Bay was told to clean up its act in “Company seeks ‘first class town’.
“Friday May 21 was clean-up day at Honeymoon Bay townsite. Following instructions from Western Forest Industries residents cleaned up debris from the lanes in the townsite.
“WFI vice president Don Hammond had issued a notice calling on residents to ‘make our community a first class community’.
Vandalism and even an arson had hit the community hard and Hammond noted that, “‘It’s obvious Western Forest Industries must now take a firm stand on our townsite’.”
