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LAKE FLASHBACK: SUV flips, near tragedy at fish ladders, and fallers hit the bricks: all this week

We’ve also included a first day of school pic from 1978; are you in it?
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It was back to the grindstone for about 1,400 Cowichan Lake area students this week in 1978. Here is a group from Palsson School with their principal, Amato Fantillo.

Welcome to Lake Flashback. Reporter Lexi Bainas has been combing through oldnewspaperswiththeassistance 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 weekaround Cowichan Lake in years gone by.

This week around the Cowichan Lake area…

10 years ago:

Whenever we see “SUV flips, driver injured after thrown from vehicle”, it’s always scary. In the Sept. 3, 2008 edition of the Lake Cowichan Gazette, there were a few more details.

A young woman was taken to hospital in Victoria early Saturday morning after the SUV she was driving flipped on Highway 18 about three kilometres east of Lake Cowichan. Lake Cowichan RCMP say the vehicle, which was eastbound, drifted off the road into the south ditch, flipped several times and landed upright. The incident was called in just after 1 a.m.

The woman was thrown about 20 metres from the vehicle. She was found unconscious after a search by police and the Lake Cowichan Fire Department.

“It didn’t appear she was wearing her seat belt,” said Const. Roger Nyberg. “It’s undetermined whether

she was drinking.” The driver’s name, age and place of residence, as well as her condition, was not available at press time.

***

About 24 hours later, a Youbou man drove into the ditch on the Youbou highway, across from Creekside, about three kilometres east of Youbou. Neither he nor the dog that was with him were seriously injured.

25 years ago:

“Ladders could have cost life” said the headline of The Lake News on Wednesday, Sept. 8, 1993.

Let’s find out what it was all about:

“It could have been death for 12-year-old Amanda Planes, of Sooke, when she fell through an open grill at the fish ladders at Skutz Falls Thursday.

“She smashed her head open, twisted her right knee and hurt her right foot, injured her back and strained her jaw. Her head required 22 stitches to close, said her parents, David and Karen Planes.

“Despite all that, the tough little girl with the infectious smile and copper coloured hair wouldn’t give up her first-ever camping trip. After a journey to hospital, she talked her family into staying on in their camp until Saturday, as planned.

“The Planeses say they will be consulting their lawyer over the absence of the grill and the failure to provide adequate warning signs.

“Joseph Allan, Cowichan Valley Regional District director for Area F, who lives at Skutz Falls, said he will be doing some research to find out who has the responsibility to maintain the fish ladders.

“I will contact them and any other levels of government and ask them to address the problems of safety at Skutz Falls fish ladders,” he said.

“The Planeses said a Ministry of Forests representative told them that three people have fallen through missing grills in the fish ladders this year. Last year, a man fell through and broke his leg.

40 years ago:

In a headline you’d never see now, but which was common 40 years ago, The Lake News of Sept. 6, 1978 led off their weekly edition with “Fallers dispute goes to arbitration”.

Here’s the scoop:

“A dispute between 23 IWA fallers and the B.C. Forest Products Caycuse logging division, which shut down falling operations last Tuesday, will probably go to an arbitration heaaring Sept. 13, according to a union spokesman.

“The loggers walked off the job over a dispute involving the transport of the fallers back to the marshalling point after the day’s work. The fallers do not want bull-buckers to be allowed to drive them out of the bush.

“Bob Rogers, IWA Local 1-80 vice-president, said the IWA contract states that union members should have the job of driving crummies (the vehicles used to transport fallers) on the basis of seniority. He said the loggers want to drive their own vehicles or be reimbursed for loss of income while supervisory personnel operate the vehicles.

“Hank Nowicki, BCFP camp superintendent, said a shortage of vehicles used in transporting the fallers led to the dispute. He said the company has nine vehicles for the fallers but had to use two extra trucks because the company was logging on 11 sites.

“The nine regular vehicles were operated by union personnel but the two extra pickups were driven by supervisors.

“The fallers returned to work Wednesday after the two sides agreed to settle the matter through arbitration.”