A Simple Curve - made-in-BC movie - winning awards

A made-in-BC movie (New Denver, in fact) was recently released and initial reviews are favourable.

A Simple Curve, directed by Director Aubrey Nealon, is based on his experiences growing up in a "hippie" family in the Slocan Valley. According to a review in The Tyee, A Simple Curve was recently named one of the top 10 Canadian films produced in 2005 by the Toronto International Film Festival Group and it was a finalist in the Best British Columbia Film category at this year's Vancouver Film Critics Awards.".

CFJC-TV - serving Kamloops and much of the BC Central Interior - to drop CBC programming

If you live in or around the following areas, this change affects you: Kamloops, Chase, Clinton, Merritt, 100 Mile House (and 108 Mile Ranch), Nicola, Pritchard and Quesnel.

This change seemed to come more or less out of the blue, aside from the occasional TV ad saying they are going"independent". For the record, here's the CRTC ruling that gave them permission to do this.

A friend e-mailed this query to CFJC:

Will CFJC have any CBC content after February 27th? Hockey night in Canada or National News?

From CFJC's reply:

As of February 27th, CFJC-TV will no longer carry any CBC programming. The full CBC schedule will be available on your local cable outlet or on either StarChoice or Bell Expressvue satellite systems. - Dave Somerton, CFJC-TV, Feb. 15, 2006

His response:

Frankly, its absolutely shameful that South Cariboo residents without access to cable (such as ourselves) or unable to afford a satellite T.V. system (such as our family) will no longer have access to our national broadcaster - C.B.C. This means no national news, special broadcasts, (in the event of national or international emergencies) Olympic coverage, Hockey night in Canada, etc, etc. CFJC's new, independent programming is not good news in our area, sir!! I will be contacting C.B.C. with our concern in the wildest hope that successful negotiations to resume C.B.C. content on your television station can take place.

Like my friend, I am not happy about this and I suspect many residents of the affected areas will feel likewise. Comments, updates and corrections very welcome. And, if you want to ask CBC about this or tell them what you think about it, here's one way:

CBC BC, programming comments and questions Audience Relations: TEL: 1-866-306-4636

UPDATE

Many local BC slaughterhouses face closure

This is not new information but the day draws closer when your local slaughterhouse might be no more. My adage of buying food from someone you know will then become a lot more difficult to fulfill for many of us. Here's an update and some examples on how things stand now:

Can't Slaughter Like You Used To

Saturna Island lamb barbeque

New meat regs may end small farmers' way of life.

By Heather Ramsay
Published: February 8, 2006 - TheTyee.ca

There is a woman in Skidegate who has been buying a side of beef from Richardson Ranch on Haida Gwaii since 1955. The steaks and roasts she's been eating all these years come from animals raised on meandering grasslands by the sea; a 20 minute drive up the coast.

Read on

Two historic Interior British Columbia properties for sale

Two properties I am quite familar with have been recently placed on the market. Even if you aren't looking to buy a fine heritage home or an historic hunting lodge, these two are worth a look.

THIS PROPERTY IS NOW SOLD

Megaw House, Vernon

This stately Okanagan landmark was built in 1893. Named after an early mayor, Megaw House has been carefully maintained and restored over its 112-years. Much of the original finishing has been carefully preserved over the decades, including 12-inch baseboards, wainscoting, gorgeous "work of art" original fireplaces and the majestic, main staircase.

Chilcotin Lodge, Riske Creek

The lodge is located at Riske Creek on the Chilcotin plateau, not far from the confluence of the Fraser and Chilcotin rivers, the Junction Sheep Range Park, which contains a large herd of California Bighorn Sheep and magnificent Farwell Canyon. It is one of the last remaining operating roadhouses in B.C.

More pictures and information.

Report destruction of fish habitat

An environmental protection service provided by www.salmonopolis.ca

Report a Violation – Do you know of cases where fish habitat has been illegally destroyed and nothing has been done about it? Fill in our new online form and submit photos. Your report will be reviewed by a scientific expert. In the cases where serious violations are not acted upon, we will consider the following: pursuing media campaigns to draw attention to the habitat destruction, and mounting private prosecutions against the violators.

Chris Czajkowski's Diary of a Wilderness Dweller reprinted

A re-release of a book by BC pioneer, Chris Czajkowski. Chris is a botanist who operates a fly-in wilderness retreat where she built her own cabins single-handedly.

"Czajkowski has nurtured and developed a connection to the earth that most of us can hardly relate to, let alone appreciate...[She] has followed a different path, reminding us of how much we don't need, and how much we are missing."

- The Globe and Mail

"The long-awaited reprinting of Diary of a Wilderness Dweller is finally taking place. This book was a national best-seller when it was first issued, but the publisher of the time phased out his adult books.

"The book details my experiences while starting the cabins at Nuk Tessli. The narrative covers a period of three years, starting in 1988 with the first fateful chainsaw cut that changed forever this remote, high-altitude lake in British Columbia's Coast Range, and ending with the completion of two cabins and the arrival of my first paying guests. I worked alone all that time, falling trees and hauling them inch by inch with a come-along, and then raising them with various scaffolds and a block and tackle. I had many encounters with nature, with both wildlife and whatever the elements could throw at me, especially on my overnight hikes to and from the road."

- Chris Czajkowski

Itinerary for Chris' Fall Speaking and Slideshow tour.

BC Replanting a Pine Monoculture

Sowing More Devastation

Lodgepole pine seedlings

BC created a doomed monoculture of pine. We're re-growing a lot of the same.

TheTyee.ca

[Last in a three-part series]

It might not be so bad if the only problem we had to worry about in BC's forests these days was the armies of mountain pine beetles that have killed millions of trees over an area roughly the size of Ireland.

Read on

Of Mice, Packrats and Men

A guest posting from Dave Neads of the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society

One of the joys of living on the far-flung western edge of the Chilcotin Cariboo is the constant stream of reminders the changing seasons bring - reminders that we are just one part of a large, complex system that is constantly evolving, life and death intimately entwined on the miracle of Earth.

Driven by sheer force of the sun, spring breaks free from winter's icy embrace, melting snows driving the boisterous river to burst its frozen bonds. Warm sweet winds fill the air with fir perfume and redwings return to beckon the lazy hazy days of summer with their quicksilver song.

Now it is fall time. The leaves along the highway are a brilliant yellow, backlit by the morning sun, exploding into your eyes like mercury lights in a stage production.

Alas, all is not beauty and warm sensuality when the harbingers of the changing seasons come calling.

Like the rest of us, the Chilcotin critters need a place to spend the winter. And what better place than a dry, well stocked nest that is also centrally heated? Maybe it is a roof ever so humble or a wall with its nice pink fluffy quilts or, even better, a pantry full of all those great goodies. Nuts, seeds, flour, raisins, dates, a cornucopia that never ends.

All these denizens have to do is to figure out a way to get inside these great winter digs.

Mice are the sneaky ones. They can crawl through the tiniest holes, wriggle into the smallest crevices. There is even one species of Chilcotin mouse that has a communicator for asking the mother ship to "Beam me in, Scotty".

Packrats are not nearly so subtle. They are a straight ahead bunch. Kick the door in if they can. Noisy, bump thump all night long, these masters of demolition never give up.

The have been known to chew through one inch fir roofing boards, through 90 pound roll roofing, make tunnels straight up through the wall to the upper plate, find a way into the attic and then to chew down into the room below.

Packrats have an amazing understanding of spatial dimensions. How else can you explain one now famous packrat that chewed into the gable end of the house, went across the roof up and over the rafters, went down the inside the wall on the opposite gable, under the house, up into the floor, then over six feet to then chew up through the floor and, Voila!, hit the middle of the pantry? NASA has nothing on a Chilcotin packrat.

Aside from their unique perfume and their destructive tendencies, packrats are very good looking, cream and buff coloured with sharp eyes and well formed muffs for tails. They are very polite, making sure that they trade for everything they take. Spoons for eyeglasses or hay for raisins, they are very fastidious about this, much more so than most humans are.

In spite of their politeness in matters of trading, the pack rat must go. So, in the end, the packrat meets its nemesis, the Chilcotin resident. Trap in hand, a trusty length of stove pipe over his shoulder and peanut butter/raisin bait in his pocket the scene is set. Not to be outdone, Packrat steals the bait and begins its usual three a.m. shopping spree in the pantry.

Time to bring in reinforcement known as the Chilcotin feline, best little killer in the west. A few minutes in the pantry, scrabble! squeal! and the rat is caught. Not dead, caught. As everyone knows, the Chilcotin feline doesn't kill, not right away. So with thick leather gloves complete with gauntlets, (the Chilcotin resident has done this before) the game of "catch the cat before the cat drops the packrat so it can run under the piano" is underway.

This time it is resident 1, packrat 0. When the cat drops the rat, the resident quickly swoops up the dazed rat, takes it outside and uses a fire brick to crush its skull on the porch railing. Nasty, brutish and short, to quote an infamous judge.

And so it goes, the changing seasons shared the world over by mice, packrats and men.

© Dave Neads

Sockeye Salmon In the Williams Lake River Valley

From the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society:

Last week while trapping for Interior Coho Fry in the Williams Lake River Valley volunteers from the CCCS's trapping project were excited to view hundreds of Sockeye Salmon making their way up the Williams Lake river. The River was full of colour and movement and the salmons' eggs were viewable along the stream edge!

Speaking with a local fisheries technician, it was found that just by chance a dead salmon they had chosen to take DNA samples from had a piece of line sticking out of its' mouth. When pulled on, it turned out to be attached to a transmitter! It has been sent away to find out which stock these fish originate from.

Theoretically, these fish could even make there way up to Lac La Hache! A great opportunity to view these amazing salmon.

Do you live in the Pacific Northwest? Are you sure?

Do you think you live in the Pacific Northwest? Alistair B. Fraser certainly doesn't.

Geographically, we certainly don't live in the Pacific Northwest, which, if it describes anywhere, is surely somewhere near the coast of Russia, say on the shores of Kamchatka. And we don't even live in the Northwest of this continent. Look at a map; we are only about half way up.

Now, while it is the case that Washington State is in the northwest of the (contiguous) United States, that is hardly relevant to us. We live in the Southwest! (Please don't make me explain of what).

Do we embrace such a term because the centre of our universe is south of the border? Hardly (well, at least not for those of us who don't export pot). Or is it that we meekly follow any linguistic bellwether which wanders across our field? Now, that is a possibility.

Hear him out and see what you think.