Archive for December, 2023

Rock and Roll Comes to Nelson

Friday, December 29th, 2023

ROCK AND ROLL COMES TO NELSON

I’ve been thinking about it for years and remembering how very exciting it was when rock and roll music started seeping into the Kootenays. The music may have come in a wild rush in other places but in the mountain girt fortresses of Kootenay towns like Nelson and Trail it just kind of edged its way into the collective consciousness. There was just one radio program that played popular music. It was called “the hit parade” and was on CBC on Saturdays. I recall that it wasn’t very popular and played mostly soft pre rock tunes by Teresa Brewer, Patty Page, Sonny James and the Four Lads. Nelson had a radio station but it wasn’t much for the teenage crowd either. It catered more to Sunday church goers but you might hear ‘How Much is that Doggy in the Window’ or some nice Christmas tunes if you were lucky. Nelson was not one of those towns where preachers warned against“the devils” music and ranted about sin and damnation from the pulpit. I sometimes wonder why this was so. Like most places in Canada, Nelson was not a place for hell fire preachers and the most popular rockers in these parts were not the sinister hide your daughters- ­in –the- closet boys like Elvis or Eddie Cochran but a pleasant middle aged fellow with a kiss curl – Bill Haley and his Comets. They played innocent songs like Rock Around the Clock, See You Later Alligator and Shake Rattle and Roll. There was only a few other ‘acceptable’ musicians around. Pat Boone was a favorite of my cousin Peggy and I even liked some of his songs. He was no threat to anyone and would probably take your daughters to church.

It wasn’t long before the next wave hit the Kootenays and it rammed hard and

loud. The second wave brought the likes of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, Fats Domino, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis ­ Gangs of leapers and screamers. Sam Phillips once said that if someone came along that sung black music but was white, that music would take over. For several years, I thought Elvis was a black man. And then I saw one of his album covers. His music certainly did take over the airwaves as he pumped out an endless load of hits. Some local guys jumped on and were quite talented Muggsy Holmes did well by doing Elvis and Buddy Holly tunes. Muggs went on to become an Elvis Impersonator. He was very good.

This second wave was very strong in some ways the strongest and most durable but it was not strong enough to fend off the next or third wave which featured the Beatles and the Rolling Stones along with a host of other British bands: the Animals, Dave Clark Five and the Yard birds which would morph into Led Zeppelin

Never mind the great American groups that quickly came on stream. Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young, Beach Boys and the like.

After that the music headed off in many different directions , some of it was very good but is was not the same and never will be again. It is old hat now. The excitement of new young music that could make you jump out of your wheel chair and race around the living room or dance floor has faded into a kind of quick sand of sameness and what has tried to edge into the void left by the great rockers is a horrid mess of non music called hip hop or rap. Nothing but a racket

Good for pulling teeth or drowning out the sounds of war.

But that is likely what our parents thought of rock and roll so perhaps a kind of acceptance will eventually come. It will take a long time for me.

Ted Burns

December 2022

ROCK AND ROLL COMES TO NELSON

I’ve been thinking about it for years and remembering how very exciting it was when rock and roll music started seeping into the Kootenays. The music may have come in a wild rush in other places but in the mountain girt fortresses of Kootenay towns like Nelson and Trail it just kind of edged its way into the collective consciousness. There was just one radio program that played popular music. It was called “the hit parade” and was on CBC on Saturdays. I recall that it wasn’t very popular and played mostly soft pre rock tunes by Teresa Brewer, Patty Page, Sonny James and the Four Lads. Nelson had a radio station but it wasn’t much for the teenage crowd either. It catered more to Sunday church goers but you might hear ‘How Much is that Doggy in the Window’ or some nice Christmas tunes if you were lucky. Nelson was not one of those towns where preachers warned against“the devils” music and ranted about sin and damnation from the pulpit. I sometimes wonder why this was so. Like most places in Canada, Nelson was not a place for hell fire preachers and the most popular rockers in these parts were not the sinister hide your daughters- ­in –the- closet boys like Elvis or Eddie Cochran but a pleasant middle aged fellow with a kiss curl – Bill Haley and his Comets. They played innocent songs like Rock Around the Clock, See You Later Alligator and Shake Rattle and Roll. There was only a few other ‘acceptable’ musicians around. Pat Boone was a favorite of my cousin Peggy and I even liked some of his songs. He was no threat to anyone and would probably take your daughters to church.

It wasn’t long before the next wave hit the Kootenays and it rammed hard and

loud. The second wave brought the likes of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, Fats Domino, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis ­ Gangs of leapers and screamers. Sam Phillips once said that if someone came along that sung black music but was white, that music would take over. For several years, I thought Elvis was a black man. And then I saw one of his album covers. His music certainly did take over the airwaves as he pumped out an endless load of hits. Some local guys jumped on and were quite talented Muggsy Holmes did well by doing Elvis and Buddy Holly tunes. Muggs went on to become an Elvis Impersonator. He was very good.

This second wave was very strong in some ways the strongest and most durable but it was not strong enough to fend off the next or third wave which featured the Beatles and the Rolling Stones along with a host of other British bands: the Animals, Dave Clark Five and the Yard birds which would morph into Led Zeppelin

Never mind the great American groups that quickly came on stream. Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young, Beach Boys and the like.

After that the music headed off in many different directions , some of it was very good but is was not the same and never will be again. It is old hat now. The excitement of new young music that could make you jump out of your wheel chair and race around the living room or dance floor has faded into a kind of quick sand of sameness and what has tried to edge into the void left by the great rockers is a horrid mess of non music called hip hop or rap. Nothing but a racket

Good for pulling teeth or drowning out the sounds of war.

But that is likely what our parents thought of rock and roll so perhaps a kind of acceptance will eventually come. It will take a long time for me.

Ted Burns

December 2022

 

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THE GIANTS OF GERRARD

Friday, December 29th, 2023

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The Giants of Gerrard

Under ordinary circumstances, the ghost village of Gerrard might have easily been long forgotten like so many others of its kind including some of its neighbours like Poplar Creek and Gold Hill. But this place is famous, not only in British Columbia but in many other parts of the world because it is here in the first few hundred meters of Lardeau River where it leaves Trout Lake, that the world’s largest form of rainbow trout returns to spawn each spring.

Historical Background

From about 1902 until the Second World War, Gerrard was the terminus of the Kootenay and Arrowhead Line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Western Canada Timber moved an old mill down from Trout Lake City, refurbished it and built a new mill, camp and town site at Gerrard. My great Uncle  Harry Burns  was the logging boss. There was even a post office. A steamer ran from Gerrard to Trout Lake City but the line was never extended to Arrowhead. The tracks on this unique railroad which featured truck trains that could be turned by hand at a turntable at Gerrard were pulled in 1942. The rail bed has been used as a road since then. Even in its heyday, Gerrard was a quite village  unlike some of the roaring mining camps of the Lardeau District. A fish hatchery

and egg taking station operated off and on from 1912 to 1952 and eggs were shipped around the world

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Truck train on the way to Gerrard (Arrow Lakes Historical Society)

When early residents first noticed the big trout, they naturally assumed the fish dropped down from Trout Lake. So did the Dept. of Fisheries and a fence and trapping facilities were built facing upstream. Imagine the fishery officers’ surprise in the spring of 1914 when they saw fish accumulating below the fence

The fish were coming from Kootenay Lake. Realizing their mistake the officers developed an elaborate method to catch the fish. A large seine net was attached to the Gerrard Bridge then thrown into the river to float past a number of fish. It was then quickly drawn in and the spawners were transferred to holding pens to ripen. They were then spawned by hand and released. The eggs were reared at Gerrard or nearby hatcheries at Lardo, Argenta, Kaslo or Nelson. Some were even shipped to more distant hatcheries in BC or the US. After 1939, shipments were increased with the hope of starting populations elsewhere. Success was negligible and, by the 1940’s, The Gerrard run started to decline. By the mid 1950’s, the run had been reduced to 40-50 fish. There were other reasons for the decline, it was more than the generous gifts of eggs and fry to other states and countries Fishing pressure was increasing in Kootenay Lake aided by the Nelson Gyro Derby and the increasing size and comfort of boats and especially the reliability of outboard motors. Kootenay is a large and dangerous lake where violent storms can kick up quickly. It was an anglers’ worst nightmare to be caught out in the middle of Kootenay Lake with a storm on the horizon yanking on the starting rope in of one of those old outboards. The massive Handy Creek log jam was also problematical in hindering the fish from reaching Gerrard. In the early 1950’s the egg station closed, the log jam cleared and the derby discontinued. A nutrification program was also instituted to increase the plankton supply for kokanee and some Gerrard rainbows were reared at Meadow Creek. The returns gradually improved until the peak returns were around 1000 in 2011. Biologists believe that peak spawner counts only represent a half to one third of the actual population size This is fortunate because these fish are a world class resource and one of the regions greatest assets and they spawn nowhere else, A small but unknown number spawned in the Duncan River below Duncan Lake but they were eliminated by Duncan Dam (as were many Bull Trout and kokanee). A few also spawned on a gravel bar near Balfour and may still do.

The Gerrard Spawning Site

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A beautiful female rainbow on the spawning site at Gerrard

Other, smaller forms of Kootenay Lake rainbow spawn in other places, it is almost certain that the large fish spawn nowhere else now. Why? There are many other large creeks with what looks like suitable spawning gravel and many miles of the Lardeau River below Gerrard. Why don’t some of the fish spawn there?

The eggs of trout and salmon require a clean and relatively stable gravel environment for optimal survival. Trout Lake acts as a huge settling basin for mountain creek sediment and stabilizes flow. As a result, much of the 400m section of the Lardeau between the lake and Mobbs Creek, the first unstable and sediment laden tributary, is ideal spawning habitat. The gravel is very clean, flow fluctuation is minimal and temperature is a little warmer and more conducive to egg development. Water is drawn from a large warming surface instead of melting from snow and glaciers most other Kootenay Lake tributaries and the Lardeau below Mobbs Creek become galloping torrents of cold and dirty melt water during the rainbow egg incubation period. Any eggs deposited in these places would be crushed or washed away Kokanee, Bull Trout and whitefish spawn in many of these non-buffered streams but they do so in the fall before the creeks run wild. Egg to fry survival at Gerrard is estimated to be at least 50 per cent. This is about five times greater than most other rainbow spawning runs.

Other features of the site that are conducive to the perpetuation of the big rainbows are its large gravel and relatively swift flow. The riverbed is composed of large gravel and small boulders under flows that are heavier than most other rainbow spawning streams. Therefore larger individuals are favoured because they are more able to hold a position and excavate redds in the substrate. It’s a matter of natural selection.

Life History

In spring when most low elevation snow is gone and streamside leaf buds are swelling, big Kootenay Lake rainbows begin to make their way up the Lardeau. The migration begins late in April and is generally over by late May. Most of the fish move by night and reach Gerrard in about 13 days. Peak spawning is early May.

When the trout are ready to spawn, the females selects a site digs a nest (red) with strong flexes of her tail and lower body, When her work is complete, both sexes settle into the red and release eggs and sperm. The female moves upstream to cover the red and the pair move to a nearby location to repeat the process until most of the eggs are deposited. The average female carries about 8000 eggs but not all of them can be released. About 10 per cent are retained and absorbed.

Several thousand whitefish are also hanging around Gerrard in the rainbow spawning period. These opportunists drop down from Trout Lake hoping to pick up a few loose eggs. They get a few but are no threat to the trout. A few suckers also spawn at Gerrard. They are no threat.

After about six weeks in the gravel, the eggs hatch and the fry struggle up to the stream. They hide in the stones of the red for a few days then work their way over to the calmer water of the stream margins and begin feeding on zooplankton that drift down from Trout Lake and larval forms of river insects. After a few weeks of growth in the excellent rearing conditions provided by the warmer, clear water and zooplankton provided by Trout Lake, many rainbow fry move down to Kootenay Lake under the cover of night. Those that survive the perils of 65 km of sometimes raging river make the lake in late summer. Larger portions of the little trout remain in the river until the following spring. They move down more gradually and feed along the way.

When the young rainbows reach Kootenay Lake they are from seven to fifteen centimetres long. They spend most of their first years feeding hard and after two or three years he fish are about 40 cm long begin to attack kokanee and grow rapidly. After a couple of more years, the Gerrard rainbows are trophy fish that weigh as much as 16 kilos their average weight is closer to 8 kilos. The largest Gerrard rainbow ever caught was 23.6 kilograms or 52 pounds. It was taken from Jewel Lake near Greenwood. Its remarkable size resulted from the fact that it was one of a few fish introduced to a lake with lots of forage fish. Kootenay Lake was 35.5 pounds taken in 1975 by George Hill of Grey Creek. Unlike many form of rainbow, the Gerrard are voracious fish eaters. It is because of this habit that they grow much larger than average rainbows. I was once employed by the BC Fish and Wildlife Branch to examine the gut content of big rainbow guts turned into Kaslo Marine Service or Fred Jones. Almost every gut was stuffed with kokanee save the

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A trophy Kootenay Lake rainbow

very odd one that was full of Carpenter ants.

After 4 -6 years of life in Kootenay Lake, the rainbows begin to mature and feel the pull of their natal stream. In the autumns and winter of their maturity, they lose the bright vitality of youth and take on a more e sombre appearance. Their backs, heads, flanks and fins darken and their bellies have a dishwater coloration. The pink flush on their sides becomes a more vivid red stripe and males jaws become hooked and elongated; they will be heading for Gerrard soon where many will end their lives. Few die immediately after spawning but only 5 to 10 per cent will survive to spawn again. Rainbow trout are aggressive on their spawning grounds. The males battle frequently. Spawning is a stressful event. If the fish survive the rigours of spawning, they still have to contend with 65 kilometres of icy, turbulent and almost foodless water between mobs Creek and Kootenay Lake. The fish that make the lake are quite susceptible to angling –they are very hungry, A few very strong fish are able to cope with all this and some even survive a second spawning. One really remarkable fish lived 14 years and spawned at least three times. An angler found it floundering on the surface near Lardo and brought the skinny, beat up fish into the Fisheries Research Station in Nelson. Normal rainbow trout are fortunate to live much be yond 3 or 4 years. Their long life is another reason Gerrards can attain such large size.

Management

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A West Arm kokanee

Stock protection is the foremost priority. Catch regulations have been appropriately conservative and habitat protection has been strong.

There have been problems with logging in the Lardeau Region but as far as I know, it has been controlled. The Forest Service is now a more active player in habitat protection. The Lardeau River and associated lateral waters have been closed for decades to protect adult migrants and young fish. An occasional Bull Trout is poached from the Lardeau but this is becoming rare, the north end of Kootenay Lake has long been closed.

Despite these efforts, Kootenay Lake has been experiencing fisheries and ecological woes. In the 1960’s, eutrophication caused by input of fertilizer from a Cominco (now Teck) Plant in the East Kootenay caused havoc in the West Arm. Then came the opposite: after Libby Reservoir became operational. The reservoir caught the nutrients and processed them in the basin leaving little for Kootenay Lake. There was a kokanee crash due to the nutrient loss and greedy fishermen. Nutrients were added and recovery was well underway but as of 2013, there has been another kokanee decline. Some think the build up of rainbows may have played a role by cropping the silvers too much. The rainbows themselves are said to still be strong just not as large.

Aside from nutrient restoration, a lot of effort has been expended to shore up kokanee. The Meadow Creek spawning channel was constructed to compensate for Duncan Dan cutting off huge numbers. Other spawning channels at Kokanee and Redfish Creeks have been added. Catch has been highly reduced. But Kootenay kokanee numbers remain low and the population has proven quite fragile despite huge numbers at some points.

I am confident that biologists will eventually get it right and attention can be directed to other Kootenay Lake fisheries like the long neglected West Arm

Rainbow fishery which was once far more popular than the Main Lake troll fishery for the Gerrard Giants and Bull Trout. The West Arm rainbows were usually much smaller than the Gerarrd fish but they are right in the lap of Nelson and supported a strong local fishery with occasional big fish and nice average size of some 40 plus cm. With some god fortune and perseverance, all of the spectacular Kootenay Lake fisheries will be restored to their full glory and the Gerrard Giants will continue on as the world’s finest specimen of rainbow trout.

This is an update of a 1981 brochure prepared for the BC Fish and Wildlife Branch by Ted Burns. Art Work by Jack Grundle.

Ted Burns

August 20/2020

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A lovely West Arm rainbow

 

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DOWNHILL DEER – OR NOT?

Friday, December 22nd, 2023

THE LAKE NEWS, Lake Cowichan, B.C. Wednesday November 30, 1988

Deer on decline? Or Not?

By Ted Burns

I’ve forgotten the year but it wasn’t more than 10 or 12 years ago. I was searching for a waterfall on the east fork of the Robertson River when I came across a large rut in the ground, almost a trench. I scratched my head for a while before realizing what I’d found: an old deer runway (trail) from the days when the Cowichan Lake area had one of the largest deer populations on Vancouver Island. Those times are long gone. Deer have declined remarkably here and all over the island in the last few decades. The main reason …the tight canopy of second growth forests.

Early logging and accompanying fires created a bonanza for deer. Thousands of hectares of new slash and nutritious browse. And there was still lots of old growth to provide food and shelter in harsh winters. Deer became as numer­ous as grasshoppers in the dry fields of August. In the Nimpkish Valley, the last area in the Douglas fir zone to experience ideal habitat conditions, I counted more than 800 deer along a two-mile stretch of road. The year was 1972.

But the rapid progressive clear cutting that caused deer pop­ulations to climb is also the main reason for their fall. As the new forest returned, its canopy cut off sun­light and the deer food supply. Because logging was so rapid, large areas of relatively even-aged second growth now cover much of the east slope of Vancouver Island and deer are the worse for it. Deer were never abundant on the West Coast of the Island except in scattered pockets.

There are now more deer in old growth forests than in second growth. The stands are not as dense, there are more natural open­ings and the lichens that grow on old trees provide a good deal of food when branches are brought down by winds or decay. Tree lichens are the major food source of deer in winter.

Should a severe winter occur in the near future, there could be a catastrophic deer die-off because the winter habitat value of second growth is low. The last really hard winter on the South Coast was 1968-69. 20 years ago.

It’s not likely that there will ever be very large numbers of deer on Vancouver Island again in my life time. The old growth forests are still being opened on the West Slope but soil nutrients are low in cedar-hemlock forests and there are few deer even in ideal habitat. Deer will always be present however and there will be pockets of abundance as there are now, particularly in mountain herds and in the lowland resident deer around farm land.

There could be reasonable num­bers of deer again if the rate of future logging is not so rapid and it is spaced over larger areas; a more patchwork pattern instead of progressive clear cutting. And if selected stands of timber are left to reach old age and provide winter range, deer numbers could someday approach those of years ago. There may still be a few stands of what I call core habitat – scruffy old growth on rocky south and west facing slopes with lots of lichens. These places must be absolutely protected. I don’t think it will happen but the choice is there.

Update – July 20, 2020

It is now 2020 and deer have become urbanized. There are more than a few places in BC where deer are now almost pests. I moved to Port Alberni in 2018 and, on the first trip downtown, we saw a four point buck marching down Third Avenue which is the main street. It was a quiet Sunday morn and Port Alberni is by no means an expanding metropolis. It has lost population since the 1970’s. But I was still surprised. I shouldn’t have been. The lady we bought our house from kept a paint ball gun handy to protect her flowers. We took no action and now have several deer that are part of the family. We are kind of on the edge of town and deer love the place. Important stuff is fenced but the deer are constantly on the lookout for something that over tops or pokes thru the

fences,

Other island communities are similar. Even parts of Victoria have deer. Some of these places are quite urban – to developed for deer but they are there, Never mind Grand Forks or Cranbrook which have lots of deer.

As surprising at it may be to see a deer family in your yard, you still do not see many out in the bush. Some people think that deer have adapted to the urban life for protection from predators. I think they are simply taking advantage of the superior habitat conditions provide by the favorable mix of openings, forest patches at variable seral stages along with gardens and fruit trees.

I should say that overall logging practices have improved greatly since the early seventies. Smaller, openings, less roads and improved streamside and riparian treatment but the rush to replenish harvestable stands is not going to change and most of the working forest will be tree farms of questionable habitat value for deer.

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A nice buck feasting on plums near my Lake Cowichan driveway

THE LAKE NEWS, Lake Cowichan, B.C. Wednesday November 30, 1988

Deer on decline? Or Not?

By Ted Burns

I’ve forgotten the year but it wasn’t more than 10 or 12 years ago. I was searching for a waterfall on the east fork of the Robertson River when I came across a large rut in the ground, almost a trench. I scratched my head for a while before realizing what I’d found: an old deer runway (trail) from the days when the Cowichan Lake area had one of the largest deer populations on Vancouver Island. Those times are long gone. Deer have declined remarkably here and all over the island in the last few decades. The main reason …the tight canopy of second growth forests.

Early logging and accompanying fires created a bonanza for deer. Thousands of hectares of new slash and nutritious browse. And there was still lots of old growth to provide food and shelter in harsh winters. Deer became as numer­ous as grasshoppers in the dry fields of August. In the Nimpkish Valley, the last area in the Douglas fir zone to experience ideal habitat conditions, I counted more than 800 deer along a two-mile stretch of road. The year was 1972.

But the rapid progressive clear cutting that caused deer pop­ulations to climb is also the main reason for their fall. As the new forest returned, its canopy cut off sun­light and the deer food supply. Because logging was so rapid, large areas of relatively even-aged second growth now cover much of the east slope of Vancouver Island and deer are the worse for it. Deer were never abundant on the West Coast of the Island except in scattered pockets.

There are now more deer in old growth forests than in second growth. The stands are not as dense, there are more natural open­ings and the lichens that grow on old trees provide a good deal of food when branches are brought down by winds or decay. Tree lichens are the major food source of deer in winter.

Should a severe winter occur in the near future, there could be a catastrophic deer die-off because the winter habitat value of second growth is low. The last really hard winter on the South Coast was 1968-69. 20 years ago.

It’s not likely that there will ever be very large numbers of deer on Vancouver Island again in my life time. The old growth forests are still being opened on the West Slope but soil nutrients are low in cedar-hemlock forests and there are few deer even in ideal habitat. Deer will always be present however and there will be pockets of abundance as there are now, particularly in mountain herds and in the lowland resident deer around farm land.

There could be reasonable num­bers of deer again if the rate of future logging is not so rapid and it is spaced over larger areas; a more patchwork pattern instead of progressive clear cutting. And if selected stands of timber are left to reach old age and provide winter range, deer numbers could someday approach those of years ago. There may still be a few stands of what I call core habitat – scruffy old growth on rocky south and west facing slopes with lots of lichens. These places must be absolutely protected. I don’t think it will happen but the choice is there.

Update – July 20, 2020

It is now 2020 and deer have become urbanized. There are more than a few places in BC where deer are now almost pests. I moved to Port Alberni in 2018 and, on the first trip downtown, we saw a four point buck marching down Third Avenue which is the main street. It was a quiet Sunday morn and Port Alberni is by no means an expanding metropolis. It has lost population since the 1970’s. But I was still surprised. I shouldn’t have been. The lady we bought our house from kept a paint ball gun handy to protect her flowers. We took no action and now have several deer that are part of the family. We are kind of on the edge of town and deer love the place. Important stuff is fenced but the deer are constantly on the lookout for something that over tops or pokes thru the

fences,

Other island communities are similar. Even parts of Victoria have deer. Some of these places are quite urban – to developed for deer but they are there, Never mind Grand Forks or Cranbrook which have lots of deer.

As surprising at it may be to see a deer family in your yard, you still do not see many out in the bush. Some people think that deer have adapted to the urban life for protection from predators. I think they are simply taking advantage of the superior habitat conditions provide by the favorable mix of openings, forest patches at variable seral stages along with gardens and fruit trees.

I should say that overall logging practices have improved greatly since the early seventies. Smaller, openings, less roads and improved streamside and riparian treatment but the rush to replenish harvestable stands is not going to change and most of the working forest will be tree farms of questionable habitat value for deer.

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A nice buck feasting on plums near my Lake Cowichan driveway

 

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DISTURBING TREND ALONG SHORES

Wednesday, December 20th, 2023

DISTURBING TREND ALONG LAKE SHORES

There is a disturbing trend underway along the shores of many BC lakes and its called urbanization. It wasn’t too long ago that people were content with low impact, small scale development: a small cottage and float with minimal clearing. If you had to access the property by boat, so much the better. Many people of today seem to require more. Much more. It seems that today’s shore dwellers have forgotten how to live in the country because they insist on dragging their city comforts along with them. Power, pavement and houses and lawns that would not look out of place in the Hollywood Hills.

The thought is, if the shore is swampy or brushy or if trees mar the view, bring in machines to create a beach and remove the offending vegetation so trucks can be driven to the water’s edge to haul away any driftwood that dares to land on the property.

If erosion occurs because the shore zones natural defenses have been stripped, bring back the machines to build retaining walls or line the shore with shot rock.

It’s a depressing scene that seems to occur almost everywhere people choose to live by lakes. The Cowichan Lake Salmonid Enhancement Society, a stewardship group in Lake Cowichan recently found that nearly 70% of lake shore properties on Cowichan Lake had moderate to high impacts on the shores. In travelling around the province, I would say as much or more degradation has happened on numerous lakes like Christina, Okanagan, Shuswap, Kootenay Lake’s West Arm – the list goes on.

Shore zones are the most productive parts of our lakes, especially the larger lakes like those I have cited here. The same things that help provide production on natural shores, also attract human activity. Things like protection from wave attack and gentle slopes. These are among the first areas to go.

Is it possible to live on a lake shore without degrading its natural values too much?

I think it is but it requires a dedicated commitment to living light. First off there are parts of lakes that should simply never be developed. They need to remain as nature reserves, parks or rec sites. The portions of lakes that can be in the real estate market place should be subject to constraints like a protected setback from the high water level. Natural vegetation would be retained and a small dock for swimming or sunning would take the place of a beach or lawn. Access would be in the form of narrow gravelled paths.

Perhaps the most attractive feature of BC is its number and variety of lakes. Because of our glacial history and ample water, we have an abundance of beautiful, clean lakes that support excellent fish populations. These lakes are the envy of the world and a priceless gift that must be carefully stewarded . Indeed.

 

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A Brief History of Cathedral Grove

Wednesday, December 20th, 2023

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CATHEDRAL GROVE

By

TED BURNS

(adapted from a BC Forest History Newsletter article by Kerry Joy BC Parks Forester and former resident of Alberni Valley)

In 1886 a wagon road was punched from Nanaimo to Port Alberni. It was located on the north side of Cameron Lake. By 1911 the road was moved to the south shore and the railroad was located on the north side. These routes enabled the transfer of people and commerce and allowed people to experience the magnificence of a rich part of the Island Forest. At this time, commercial logging was just beginning to get underway on the coast.

HR MacMillan, BC’s first Chief Forester was highly aware of the value of old growth forest. As an entrapanuial opportunist, he staked claims on some of the best timber on the coast by obtaining rights to entire river valleys including the Cameron.

When the road improved, the forest industry in the Alberni Valley began to flourish and the population swelled with the increasing number of jobs in the woods and the mills. Travel over the Hump also picked up and it became traditional to stop at The Grove for a picnic or short stroll though the giants. It was said the Cathedral Grove was given its name by Governor General Viscount Willington during a 1928 visit.

For the next fifteen years, pressure was applied to HR MacMIllan by different groups including the Vancouver Island Tourist Association to donate Cathedral Grove as a park. HR stood fast citing the high timber value and its importance to his company’s growth.

Finally at a meeting with the Vancouver Island Tourist Association in 1944, HR relented and stormed out of the hall yelling “alright you can have the G.D. Grove”! The public victory resulted in park protection for 136 ha of old growth in the Lower Cameron Valley. Although The Grove trees are not the tallest or largest in the province there are heights over 50-69 m and girths up to 4.5 m. Most importantly over 300, 00 people visit each year and The Grove is the only highway accessible stand of old growth Douglas fir in BC.

Although H.R.(Harvey Reginald) gave up the grove to the delight of many, his company slammed his decision for many years after ranting that the decadent old trees were past their prime and would blow down. They should be logged before that happened they asserted. They did their best to hasten windfall by logging the rest of the upstream valley right up to The Grove. Sure enough, serious blow down has occurred and will likely continue as the forest thins out.

In 1990, a punchy pineapple express storm roared through The Grove blowing down 6 ha of forest and causing some major channel shifts and bank erosion on the Cameron River. Another 1996 storm slammed into the Grove with considerable damage.

Hopefully, The Grove will persist for much longer and people will continue to marvel. What I find ironic is that Cathedral Grove is by far the most outstanding legacy of HR MacMIllan and his company: MacMillan Bloedel.

arrosmith.jpg

Clear cutting the Cameron Valley up to The Grove aided blow down.

 

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WHEN I WAS A COWBOY AT THE S HALF DIAMOND

Saturday, December 9th, 2023

When I Was a Cowboy at the S Half Diamond  (All my Heroes are Cowboys)

The year was 1960. I was in Grade eleven at Sunnyvale High and hated it. My friend Victor (Sonny) Simon was also a disgruntled student and his Uncle Merle Simon was buying a ranch in B C and offered Sonny and I jobs. He also offered a job to his girlfriend’s brother: Gordie Duke. Sonny and I were marginal cowboys at best but Gordie was a top hand : wiry, smart and tough.

Before we got near the ranch we had to sell a carload of Christmas trees that were cut on the ranch. We secured a lot beside the El Camino in Mountain View and set up a large tepee advertising “Royal Canadian “Christmas Trees. We bunked in the tepee and sold all of the trees at a dollar a foot. They averaged about six feet long and were beautiful. They came out of the rail cars still frozen and snow covered. People loved them.

After we cleaned out the trees, we headed north in Merle’s big Oldsmobile with summer tires. It was a cold rain when we left the Bay Area and by Shasta Lake, you could see flecks of snow on the windshield. By Southern Oregon it had switched to heavy snow and you could feel the Big Olds start to slip. At one point we spun doughnuts for half a mile or so and almost hit the ditch. This was near the small town of Chemult which is in a snow belt. Thankfully the snow let up before Spokane and it was clear to the ranch.

When we finally arrived there was a surprise. A big bull elk had fallen onto the ice of Premier Lake and could not get up. He had been walking on snow covered old ice where he got traction then moved out to fresh ice with light snow cover where he slipped and fell. We took a rope down to the far end of the lake where we looped it lightly around his neck and dragged him over to the old ice. He got up right away then charged me. I ran back to the new ice. As he followed, he fell again in the same spot. The ice had melted a bit where he had lain and he and I almost went through this time. We dragged him off again but this time he was too exhausted to get up so we left him. Later on he was able to get up and stagger into the woods.

Another revelation. The ranch had several cats that “sort of” lived there fending for themselves. They had a hard stretch when the boys were in California. They were huddled around the ranch chimneys probably hoping for a ghost of heat. They’re ears had frozen off !

It was very cold at the ranch in those days. The only heat was what we could muster from scrap lumber we salvaged from a little mill on the property. We had a fireplace and two wood stoves of ancient vintage. There was no insulation. One morning it was minus 52F at Bill Bush’s ranch just north of us and minus 11F in our frost covered bedroom.

The place was kind of a Dude Ranch that boarded horses for the winter. Technically we were not cowboys because there were no cows on the place. Just 40 or more horses. We were wranglers.

Apart from myself, Sonny and Gordie, there was another top hand on the ranch: Rad Hartwell a very experienced cowboy/ wrangler from down in the states. Rad and Merle were not around much that winter so we were on our own. We kept the horses in feed and water and rode them about two or three times a week. We had some great horses including a race horse named Prevail. She could run but wasn’t very sure footed and spilled occasionally. Only Gordie rode her and even he got dumped once or twice. My favorite horse was a little chestnut mare we called Square Dance. She loved to run and was very reliable.-an excellent dude horse.

We also had a big stud horse called Tom – a palomino with a white mane and a lot of spunk. He would try to kick and bite you. A horse bite can do a lot of damage. And Tom was very sneaky about it. Aside from horse duties there was not a great deal to keep us busy. Ron Kuppenbender would sometimes bring a group of Kimberley girls out to do some riding and help make supper. There were some grand girls in Kimberley in those days.

Once we found a stash of fancy liqueurs. Things like Creme de Minth, Creme De Cocao and Bailys Irish Cream. Of course we had to sample them even though we knew they were “dude “ drinks for the rich and famous and not for poor cowpokes. As the night progressed Things got a bit out of hand and someone decided that our hair was too long for hard riding bush cowboys. So out come some clippers and the massacre proceeds. We woke up in horror with pounding heads afraid to look in a mirror.

Sometime in February, it was time to get our animals off the range. The East Kootenay is often called the Serengeti of the north because of the abundant herds of big game. Deer, elk, Big Horn Sheep, Moose and grizzlies are hunted along with a few Mountain Goats. These animals depend on healthy winter ranges for survival. Horses, cattle and sheep graze out the-preferred plants and place a heavy burden on wildlife. Therefore domestic stock must skedaddle to free up the range which is often quite damaged from over grazing by the time wildlife get to it in late winter.

I think the situation is better now. Biologists like Ray DeMarchi and Glen Smith worked with the cattlemen’s groups to improve the range and more closely manage the animals.

Our horses were from two groups: Wasa and Canal Flats. This was invariably where they ended up and is was quite easy to herd them back to the ranch by following the old Stagecoach Road that ran from Cranbrook to Canal Flats There was a wild card however: the owner’s kids horses. Roddy Simon had a. large mare he called Wonder. She and her colt were hanging around Skookumchuck. We rounded them up and I volunteered to take them back to the ranch. Merle was trying out his video camera watching Wonder make a leap over a snow bank. She then galloped into the woods and bucked me off. I tried to catch her and get back on but she kept kicking and bucking. The colt was following along so a caught him and used my coat as a halter to get the two of them back close to the ranch which was several miles away through knee deep snow. Temperature was 15 below Fahrenheit degrees. Wonder got the whip when we limped back to the barn. She had been spoiled and would need a lot of riding before the dudes showed up.

After our adventures in the great Rocky Mountain Trench, I lived in Kimberley for awhile then back to Nelson and eventually we all ended up in California for a new round of adventure. I even ended up at another ranch at Mad River in the hills of Humboldt County. I never saw Sonny again but did see Gordie on occasion He ended up working on the tow boats (tugs) where he became very well known.

 

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Friday, December 1st, 2023

Forest Land: Resource or Real Estate?

Although Vancouver Island environmentalists have been voicing a good deal of concern about logging practices and forest conservation for years, there is something that concerns many of them even more: that is that the forest companies will stop logging!

In the coming years, companies like Fletcher Challenge, Canadian Pacific Forest Products and MacMillan Bloedel will be highly tempted to turn some of their private forest land into real estate. How they deal with that temptation will be of critical importance to the future of communities like Lake Cowichan.

A large percentage of land along both Cowichan Lake and River is the property of forest companies. Through a series of land grants between 1884 and 1925, the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway acquired almost two million acres on the east slope of Vancouver Island between Sooke and Campbell River. Huge blocks of this area were subsequently sold to logging companies. Most of it has been logged and now supports advanced stages of second growth. This is Canada’s best forest land and has provided the industry with immense profits. It has also provided the employment base for Vancouver Island communities. But for how long?

People continue to pour through the Rockies like Lethbridge Pale Ale. Many of them are headed for Vancouver Island. Land prices continue to rise. A third ferry crossing of Georgia Strait is in the wings and many people who work in Vancouver will live on the east coast of Vancouver Island. Land price and demand will sky rocket, especially prime shore lands like those along Cowichan Lake and river. Will the companies go for windfall real estate profits or bite the bullet, take the long view and continue to manage these lands as resource: working forest.

Although some may think it strange, environmentalists would much prefer that industry maintain the long view. As rough as logging can be on the environment, recovery is usually fairly rapid. But, once forest land is converted to real estate, there is no going back and a new set of irreversible impacts emerge as suburbia sprawls across the land in the form of housing tracts, roads, malls and so on. British Columbia is a province that is highly dependent upon a functional resource base, especially high class forest land. How the province and the forest industry deal with the resource versus real estate question will be a major issue in the near future.

Some companies have already indicated how they may handle it. MacMillan Bloedel is selling its extensive holdings on Galiano Island and a block of land just east of Youbou at Miracle Creek. As far as I know, opposition has been limited to environmentalists on Galiano Island; the same people who have hassled MacMillan Bloedel about logging methods for years. One would suppose the I.W.A. and Share Our Forests groups would have something to say.

When environmentalists lobby for withdrawal of public land from industrial forests for park purposes, these groups and the companies take strong stands on loss of the resource base, (even though it would still be resource but in a different form) . So does the Forest Minister. In a May 14th letter to the Times Colonist he wrote, “if more land is removed from the working forest, there must be compensation”. I hope he applies the same standards to private forests.

It is imperative that everyone concerned with the future of areas like the Cowichan Valley should be prepared to consider how the forest industry will deal with the pressures of urbanization. Will they turn resource land into real estate and hasten the valley’s demise into suburbia or will they maintain the working forest and present lifestyle that so many cherish?

Lake News Column 1988 by Ted Burns

 

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