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
Here’s a story that has likely turned around in the last 10 years. It ran inside the April 30, 2014 edition of the Lake Cowichan Gazette.
“Half of Lake’s kids entering school without the required skills” was the headline.
“Over half of the children in the Cowichan Lake area are entering school for the first time without the required skills to start. That is according to Island Health who have confirmed the area has the worst Early Development Index on Vancouver Island. Early Development Index is essentially a measure of children’s well-being prior to entering school.
“‘When children are showing up for school for the first time, they are not ready to start as well as what they were two, four and six years ago,’ said Dr. Paul Hasselback from Island Health at last Tuesday’s regular council meeting at the town hall in Lake Cowichan. ‘Our message to council is that there is a greater need to pay attention to this. Over 50 per cent of the children in the Lake Cowichan area are not prepared to start school, and that’s worse than the Island average’.”
In other news of the day “Council approves grants-in-aid” was another headline.
“Council approved almost half of its grant-in-aid applications for this year with just under $5,500 being granted out of $11,000 total in applications. A total of $2,500 of that $5,500 will be divided between Lake Cowichan School, Lady of the Lake Society, Honeymoon Bay Lawn Bowling, Kaatza Lakeside Players Society and Cowichan Rocks.
“Further to that, just under $3,000 of the granted money will go towards equal access to the Cowichan Aquatic Centre in Duncan. Going forward, residents of the Town of Lake Cowichan will no longer have to pay higher fees to use the Duncan pool and will get in for the same price as Duncanites and North Cowichan residents, rather than pay twice the price as so previous.”
25 years ago
“No end in sight for strike” was the top headline on the front of the May 5, 1999 Lake News.
“Kaatza Day Care in Lake Cowichan was picketed Monday morning as 10,000 members of the BCGEU went on strike throughout the province. At Kaatza Day Care the early childhood education workers, members of the union, were picketing. They said they were striking for ‘fair wages and benefits’. As to how long they’ll be there — ‘until we’re called off’, said the picketers. They said that talks broke down last week and it’s not known when an agreement might be reached.
“‘We have accepted low wages and no benefits for too long,’” said Jocelyn Post, early childhood educator.
Another headline was also tangentially about youth.
“Choice of weapons for youths include axes, knives and beer bottles” explained how “Three separate incidents of youth violence has Sgt. Gerry Poitras of the Lake Cowichan RCMP very concerned.
“‘Events that occurred in Denver and Alberta can occur here,’ he said. He is calling for a major wake-up call to parents. In two out of the three outbursts of violence which have just happened recently, weapons such as knives, axes, beer bottles, and crow bars were used by youth as weapons.”
40 years ago
Here’s a humorous headline: “Alderman ‘talks dirty’ to make point about village cleanliness.”
“A Lake Cowichan alderman suggested last week that the Village of Lake Cowichan should let debris build up on local streets until officials from the ministry government make a promised visit to the area. “Ald. Hazel Beech argued strongly that no street-sweeping be done until then, but was unable to gain the support of the other aldermen for her motion. Ald. Barry Budden said that the tourist season was fast approaching and that the village needed to put its best foot forward just now. Ald. Earle Darling said he didn’t want to see the work of the recent clean-up negated. “‘I hate to think after all the work that we did that we’re going to let it go,’ he said. Beech chastised the other aldermen for ‘chickening out’, saying ‘this is not hurting the government, it’s not hurting the truckers. All it’s doing is allowing them to see what we’ve been seeing for so long; they have no idea what it is unless they actually see it.’”
And finally, hell may have frozen over for a short time in 1984 as the headline reading ‘District school taxes reduced’ seems to be no April Fools joke.
“Most Cowichan Lake district homeowners can expect a reduction of $12 to $18 in their school taxes in 1984, according to Margaret Noble, secretary-treasurer for School District 66. Lake Cowichan school trustees approved their tax-rate bylaw and 1984 budget at a special meeting April 30 and in comments on the bylaw Noble said a new method of figuring the taxes would result in reductions for many people. ‘The basis for assessment has changed from previous years and assessment values are now shown as full appraised market value instead of one tenth of the market value.’ The tax rate is expressed as a value per thousand dollars, she said.