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.
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This week around the Cowichan Lake area…
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10 years ago
"Sportsplex funding to go to referendum" filled the front page of the July 23 Lake Cowichan Gazette.
Lake Funding for the Cowichan Sportsplex in North Cowichan will go to a referendum this fall after the Cowichan Valley Regional District decided to go that route instead of the typical grant-in-aid process and allocation. All nine CVRD electoral areas, including F (Cowichan Lake South/Skutz Falls) and I (Youbou/Meade Creek) will go to the polls on the funding and decide whether or not they want to put any money into it at all.
“'At the last CVRD meeting, the board decided that the Sportsplex funding would come off grant-in-aid,' said Coun. Bob Day. 'It will go to a referendum and the municipalities either have a choice of handling it at the council table or going to a referendum in town too. I believe North Cowichan and Duncan will be doing their’s at the table. If it’s a ‘No’ we don’t have to pay'.”
In the same edition of the Lake Cowichan Gazette, "Council [was] told [the] town could improve on disability access front".
Lake Cowichan’s council has been told it could improve on the disability access front at various locations throughout town. Sonya Matthews showed up at July’s Public Works Committee meeting at the town hall to vent her frustrations to council.
"'I have a few issues and I believe it was last year that I offered my mobility aid to every one of the council members and nobody took up that offer,' said Matthews at the meeting. 'The first thing is parking and it needs work. The first spot at the doctor’s office should be handicap parking instead of that being all the way down at the other end. 'The sidewalks are also uneven and they are not safe. There’s lots of tripping hazards.'"
Much of council agreed with the presenter.
"Mayor Ross Forrest also sympathized with Matthews.
"'There was a discussion at public works recently about accessibility for the disabled,' said the mayor. 'We know we are lacking in many areas. We are lacking big time on this front. Everything we do going forward, we want to make it accessible. However, we are limited as we only have so much money. If we are spending capital dollars, we want to make things accessible for everybody'."
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25 years ago
"Brown says 'enough with studies', Premier's summit will get things done" was certainly a bold statement, and quite literally a headline in bold on page 2 of the Lake News of July 28, 1999.
"Mayor Jean Brown of Lake Cowichan, speaking as co-chair of a summit on economic opportunity told the Lake News that from this summit, things will happen.
"'I've had enough studies. I think everyone involved in the summit are aware of all the studies which have been done for communities and it's time now to see things happen.' During a conference call with Vancouver Island and coastal media Friday she said she would like like to see, for example, the New Official Community Plan for Lake Cowichan go forward.
"The conference call came after a meeting the Mayor had with others involved in the summit. 'Today we set up parameters for the summit workshop. If people want to put in a presentation, they should contact me. Everyone's ideas will be acknowledged,' she said."
"Marijuana lab up in smoke" was another page 2 headline in the same paper.
"Police were called by Lake Cowichan Fire Department to investigate a suspicious fire, and found a garage which had been turned into a cannabis Extraction Laboratory. The fire broke out in the garage of the house at 96 Johel Road at about 730 p.m. July 13. Two people were seen leaving the house and alerting neighbours to call 911, but police say the occupants of the residence have not yet been located."
The fire, which was contained mostly to the garage area, caused extensive smoke damage to the remainder of the house.
"Approximately 60 gallons of Cannabis Resin and 100 pounds of Marijuana was seized from the residence along with laboratory equipment, precursors, etc. Precursors utilized in this process, police said are highly volatile."
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40 years ago
In other fire news of this time of year, "House Gutted" was a front page story in the Lake News of June 25, 1984.
"Three rooms of a Johel Road home were completely gutted in a fire Sunday that caused between $40,000 and $50,000 damage. Firemen were called to the Sohen Singh Birk residence at 115 Johel Rd. about 4:30 p.m.
The cause of the blaze has not been definitely determined but firemen suspect that an aluminum pot on the kitchen stove burned through to start the fire, according to Lucky Dley of the Lake Cowichan Volunteer Fire Department. Dley said that an element on the stove had been left on, although there was no one home at the time of the fire."
And finally, sad news as "Man killed as car slams into bridge" also made the June 25, 1984 Lake News front cover.
"A Lake Cowichan man is dead as the result of an accident at the Meade Creek bridge on Highway 18 July 24.
"George Kenneth Charington, 62, of Old Lake Cowichan Road, was travelling west on the highway just after midnight Tuesday morning when his vehicle — a 1980 Toyota — hit the concrete bridge abutment head on and spun out of control. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:10 a.m. Charington was the lone occupant of the car in the single-vehicle accident."
