This week the News reviews the headlines from January to June.
January
A fire in a mobile home on Green Road south has claimed the lives of three Sicamous residents. Daniel Vollans, 28, and his two sons, Devlin, 4, and Lealan, 3, perished in the fire. Sicamous firefighters responded to the fire about 7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 1 to find the residence fully engulfed. Kara Wagner, the 25-year-old fiancée and mother of the two boys, was working the late shift at the local Tim Hortons at the time of the fire.
Police do not believe the fire to be suspicious.
Amazing is how Brianna LaRoy describes the outpouring of generosity she has seen for her friend Kara Wagner. Since then, support has been pouring in from all over B.C. and Alberta, says LaRoy, noting a family in Toronto made a donation after seeing the story in the news. And a woman in California, she adds, is donating a percentage of all the money she earns this month. Calls of support and donations have also been coming for a benefit auction organized by LaRoy and Niki Stelmak, at the Sicamous Legion Friday, Jan. 20.
Property values in Salmon Arm and Sicamous are decreasing. A property in Salmon Arm valued as of July 1, 2010 at $342,000 on the 2011 assessment roll, went down to $336,000 on the 2012 roll. In Sicamous, a $364,000 property dropped to $351,000.
Sicamous RCMP confirm that unscrupulous scammers are trying to take advantage of people hoping to help Kara Wagner.
Reports recently surfaced that someone has been calling residents in the region trying to take credit card numbers under the guise of making a donation to Wagner.
Salmon Arm and Sicamous spent December and now into January with much drier weather than usual. At the Shuswap Lake recording station, December temperatures averaged -1 degrees C while the normal average would be -3 degrees C. In addition to the warm temperatures there has been a lack of moisture.
The Sicamous Eagles are determined to bring home a banner in the new year, though they’re not exactly off to the best of starts. They played and lost a trio of home games against the North Okanagan Knights (4-3), the Revelstoke Grizzlies (5-3) and the Osoyoos Coyotes (4-2).
Administration at the District of Sicamous has undergone significant change, starting with council’s termination of the district’s contract with former chief administrative officer Alan Harris, and the retirement of deputy manager Mary Geall. Asked about the position the new council now finds itself in, Mayor Darrell Trouton says there will be challenges ahead, but assures he is up to the task. Trouton said the district is already advertising for an interim administrator, and council has agreed to undertake an assessment of district operations.
Coun. Fred Busch recommended that letters be written to the gas companies, asking why the price is so high in Sicamous compared to neighbouring communities. As of Jan. 16, gas prices in Sicamous were 123.9 and 124.9. Gas was also 124.9 in Revelstoke. It was 116.5 in Enderby, 119.9 in Salmon Arm and 117.5 in Vernon.
Sicamous continues to rank among the top snowmobiling destinations in the province. Snoriders West magazine has released the results of its 13th Annual Rider’s Choice awards. Sicamous is once again recognized as a premier destination by sledders, capturing 14 awards in 12 categories.
The Sicamous Novice Predators travelled to Chase on Saturday, Jan. 14 to do battle in the Chase Colts Novice Tournament. The Predators’ first game was against the Kamloops Hawks. The Predators came away with an 18-0 win versus the Kamloops Hawks in novice tournament action Saturday. The Predators then beat Logan Lake 13-2. Game three pitted the undefeated Chase Colts. The Preds came away with the championship with an 8-4 win.
The squeaky wheel appears to have triggered a break at the pumps. Less than a week after Sicamous council committed to do something about local gas prices, the price at the pumps dropped from 124.9 to 119.9, putting Sicamous on par with Salmon Arm.
Thirty-three thousand dollars was raised at an auction/dinner/dance fundraiser at the legion for Kara Wagner, who recently lost her family and home in a fire. Brianna LaRoy, a friend of Wagner’s and one of the event’s organizers, was awed by the success of the auction. The auction puts the total raised for Wagner at more than $48,000.
The Sicamous Eagles went from heroes to heartbreak over the weekend with an OT win against the Revelstoke Grizzlies followed by a 5-1 loss to the Kamloops Storm.
The Sicamous Novice Predators held their annual tournament on Jan. 20-21. Ten teams from throughout the Okanagan attended and the hockey was outstanding. The Preds conquered the Lumby Rock Stars with a decisive 4-0 win. The Predators’ second game was against Merritt Warriors, with Merritt winning 5-1. The third game against West Kelowna Thunder was a 6-4 win for Sicamous.
February
Malakwa volunteer firefighter Cam Salmond was left homeless after a fire destroyed his Delaney Road mobile home on Jan. 29. Salmond admits his firefighter training had not prepared him, mentally, for a fire in his own home.
As he was heading out the back door, Salmond’s fire pager went off – he was being paged to attend the fire at his own home.
“I’ll never quit” Salmond says of the notion of leaving the fire department after his personal loss. “It just gave me a better understanding of fire.” Various fundraising efforts were held to help Salmond.
Mayor Darrell Trouton announced that on Jan. 24, council had hired Doug Ruttan as interim district administrator.
Don Richardson would like an opportunity for him and his fellow Sicamous Councillors to seek divine guidance at the start of district committee of the whole meetings.
“I’m not saying church and state mixing. What I’m saying is we set up a process that recognizes a divine power that in my mind, would help direct us,” said Richardson.
A bench will be set up in the Finlayson Park playground to honour the memory of Devlin, Lealan and father Daniel Vollans, who died in a Jan. 1 residential fire.
On Friday, Feb. 4, the Sicamous Eagles enjoyed a hard-earned 5-2 win against the Kimberley Dynamiters. A similar scene played out on Feb. 5, when the Storm evaporated before the Sicamous audience, and wound up on the losing end of a 6-3 tally.
Three Buoy’s Todd Millar says there’s already been a lot of buzz behind the scenes about the company’s stalled resort development on Riverside Avenue becoming a post-secondary institution. Talk moved beyond closed doors when Millar, at the district committee of the whole meeting, formally announced Three Buoy’s intentions to make Mara Lake College a reality.
Crossing Highway 97A at Parksville Street should be a little safer with the addition of a pedestrian-activated signal.
Recently released figures from the 2011 Statistics Canada census show Sicamous bucked the provincial trend of population growth. Instead, Sicamous’ population dropped by 8.8 per cent since the 2006 census from 2,676 to 2,441. The population of Electoral Area E, Sicamous-Malakwa also dropped. From 2006 to 2011, the numbers declined by 12.6 per cent, from 1,528 to 1,335.
By the end of 2011, the Sicamous Eagles were flying high, winning games and growing stronger as a team. And then they had a two-week break. What emerged from that was a team that seemed to have gone back to square one.
Team manager Wayne March questions whether a two-week break was in the best interest of the team. Regardless, the Eagles have since got it together to earn a spot in the payoffs.
The B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) awaits a ruling from the B.C. Labour Relations board on whether it would be allowed to walk off the job for eight days over a two-week period. In the meantime, BCTF is preparing to vote on the strike action. Teachers in the Okanagan-Shuswap were out on the streets protesting Education Minister George Abbott’s decision to proceed with legislation that would bring an end to the year-long teachers’ contract negotiations.
The Sicamous Chamber of Commerce has proposed something of a partnership with the District of Sicamous, in the form of a district-funded position that would be responsible for the maintenance and management of a community events calendar, event logistics, researching new community event initiatives and co-ordinating volunteers and volunteer groups.
The odds may have been stacked against the Sicamous Eagles going into the payoffs versus the Revelstoke Grizzlies. But after two significant wins and one narrow loss, the Eagles are at the top of their game, and their division. Sicamous took a 5-1 win in their first playoff game. The Eagles clinched a 8-5 win in another game on Revelstoke ice. Sicamous hosted game three of the playoffs. A good crowd showed up to support the home team, but the Grizzlies still managed to take the game with 4-3 win.
March
Teachers carried signs of protest as they walked up and down Main Street, smiling and waving as people drove by. A lack of funding has already led to the closure of one school in the area and, Sicamous teachers are concerned what will happen as resources continue to decline.
“It’s beyond ridiculous the amount of services that have been cut from our schools in the last five years, let alone the last 10,” says ERS math/science teacher Desiree Marshall-Peer.
Shuswap Emergency Program co-ordinator Cliff Doherty confirms that a new rescue boat is expected to arrive in April or May. This will be operated by the first freshwater crew of the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary, whose members have been training steadily since November. The boat and crew will be stationed in Sicamous.
The Eagles toppled the Revelstoke Grizzlies 4-0 in game seven of the payoffs, held early Monday morning in Revelstoke.
Jessie Kennedy hopes to embark on the ultimate field trip, one that will expose her to an utterly foreign way of life, while opening her eyes further to the power of positive change. Kennedy has been selected to take part in a Me to We trip to Kenya. Kennedy’s journey will begin on March 16, 2013, when she flies with Me to We to Nairobi, Kenya. Over 11 days, she will travel to the Me to We camp on the outskirts of the Masai Mara wildlife reserve. To be a part of this rare opportunity, Kennedy needs to raise $5,000 by December. The Sicamous Lions Club have already helped Kennedy with a $400 payment to guarantee her spot on the trip. The Lions will be working with Kennedy on other fundraisers, throughout the year to get her on her way.
On Monday, the Liberal government ended debate in the legislature over Bill 22, the Education Improvement Act. The bill, expected to be passed with a vote in the legislature on Thursday, will bring about an end to the B.C. Teachers’ Federation’s ongoing job action that escalated with a three-day walk out.
Total grant-in-aid dollars being doled out by the District of Sicamous in 2012 amounts to $65,788 almost $10,000 more than budgeted
The Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development is writing a cheque to the District of Sicamous worth $314,989. The money, funded through the ministry’s Community Recreation Program, will go towards a number of projects at the curling rink, and to upgrades in Finlayson Park.
They didn’t win the Okanagan Conference, but the Sicamous Eagles certainly didn’t give it away. The Eagles’ battle for the regional title ended in a 4-3 double-overtime defeat by the Kelowna Chiefs at Kelowna’s Rutland Arena.
April
Shuswap residents should not feel powerless when it comes to pulling the plug on smart meters. So says District of Sicamous Coun. Don Richardson who, with council, agreed to draft a letter to BC Hydro calling for a moratorium on the controversial wireless devices.
Mary Geall can look forward to re-retirement now that she has returned to her former administrative duties with the District of Sicamous.
Teachers in School District #83 have voted to recommend the removal of all voluntary services, including coaching sports teams, assisting with music or drama productions and organizing graduation exercise.
Sicamous RCMP were required to utilize resources of the Provincial Emergency Program twice in response to two reports involving snowmobilers. The first report came at 5:25 p.m. It involved a man who had broken his leg after his snowmobile went over a 30-foot cliff on the Bjorn Glacier, 25 kilometres north of Sicamous. The second report, received five minutes later, was of an Alberta man missing in the Owlhead sledding area, southeast of Sicamous. Police say the man was uninjured, but tired from having walked all night in deep snow.
April 22 to 28 is BC Arts and Culture week. It is when hundreds of arts organizations and schools across the province will be participating in celebration of the arts. Together with the Eagle Valley Arts Council, the Eagle Valley Brush and Palette Club launches their annual Art Walk during Arts and Culture Week. The Art Walk is a favourite of our community and there is lots of local merchants who display art work by our local artists. Art, in one form or another, be it music, film, books, visual and media arts or theatre, is part of our daily lives.
With a zero per cent tax increase in 2011, the district’s 10-year financial plan had projected a tax increase of 2.5 per cent for 2012 and 2013. “We came in at 1.25, and we still accomplished a lot of things that we wanted to get done,” says Mayor Darrell Trouton.
Sicamous has an active 4-H club in its midst. There is a strong enrolment for a first-time club, with multiple projects. The club’s seven juniors have been lent heifer calves from both DeWitt Holsteins and the Dari Delte farm. All of the juniors and all of the Cloverbuds have gardening projects.
While executing a search warrant at a Larch Avenue home on Wednesday, April 18, investigating officers discovered a marijuana grow with about 1,000 plants in various stages of growth. The investigation actually began earlier this month after RCMP heard from concerned residents. Then, on the 18th, Salmon Arm RCMP officers assisting the Sicamous detachment pulled over a vehicle associated with the residence. Further investigation led to the arrest of the vehicle’s sole occupant, a 41-year-old Surrey man. As a result of this arrest, investigating officers were able to obtain the search warrant.
While the need for food banks remains strong, they alone are not the answer when it comes to providing Canadians in need with accessible, nutritious food. Pam Beech, president of the Eagle Valley Community Support Society, which oversees the operation of the food bank in Sicamous, is concerned with the growing reliance she sees on the food banks in B.C. She believes the provincial government needs to address the matter through the creation of a poverty reduction strategy.
May
Gwen Stead was awash with pride in her community Friday morning, April 27 after an army of family, friends and folks she didn’t know worked through the night to keep her Kerr Road residence from flooding.
The rain was relentless Thursday, April 26, pouring heavily throughout the day. This, combined with higher temperatures, resulted in a rapid rise in stream and river levels in the region, including Owl Head Creek, which runs right behind Stead’s.
A 36-year-old Malakwa man was shot in the neck early Saturday as he tried to stop the rip-off of a marijuana grow operation. Police say the man drove himself to Vernon Jubilee Hospital about 3:30 a.m. Saturday for treatment of a single gunshot wound. There, hospital staff notified police. Police say they’re confident the shot was a drug-related, targeted attack.
From May 31 to June 3, the Sicamous Amateur Drama Club will stage its annual comedy. This year’s piece is a two-act play entitled, The Blue Bonnet Sisterhood.
FortisBC has begun looking at what it can do to bring its infrastructure into the District of Sicamous. FortisBC spokesperson Neal Pobran says the company is in the early stages of determining whether the delivery of natural gas to the district is feasible. Mayor Darrell Trouton and district interim administrator Doug Ruttan met with the FortisBC reps when they were last in town. Ruttan and the mayor see the availability of natural gas as giving the community a needed edge in attracting new business.
The temperature’s rising – and so are water levels. Flooding on the Eagle River could become an issue if high temperatures continue into the following week. And residents who live in areas that have flooded before, should buy and stack sand bags to protect their properties.
Malakwa’s Colin Martin was one of four men arrested last month on U.S. extradition warrants. It was reported last week that Martin, James Gregory Cameron, Sean Doak and Adam Christian Serrano were picked up by the RCMP for a court appearance. The four are facing charges in Washington State, where authorities first uncovered a cross-border drug smuggling ring that eventually lead to nine arrests and the seizure of marijuana, cocaine, firearms and helicopters.
North Okanagan mayors are among those demanding marijuana be decriminalized. A coalition of eight B.C. mayors is urging Premier Christy Clark, NDP leader Adrian Dix and B.C. Conservative leader John Cummins to support the strict regulation of marijuana and taxation. Sicamous and Salmon Arm mayors, Darrell Trouton and Nancy Cooper are not part of the coalition.
The standards may have changed, but the water remains pretty much the same. Or so said Sicamous staff in council, in response to a question why the district has been seeing so many water-quality advisories of late.
“They’re not boil water advisories, they’re water-quality advisories, and they’re due to the turbidity with runoff and that type of thing,” said district works services manager, Grady MacDonald. “It’s something we have to do; it’s an Interior Health requirement. Until we get a filtration system in Sicamous, we will continue to do that.”
The Malakwa Learning Academy is proud to acknowledge Brooklyn Mohr and Owen Willey for their continued participation in the Legion Poster Contest. This year, Brooklyn’s poem and Owen’s colour poster were awarded first place at both local and zone levels.
The Sicamous Lions Club held the Winterfest awards dinner on March 20. Congratulations to the 14 riders who raised more than $8,500 for Children with Disabilities in B.C.
Curbside garbage pick-up was a reality in Sicamous, but only for two days, only for certain waste, and it didn’t cost residents a thing. The District of Sicamous followed through with a recommendation of its Economic Development Advisory Committee (EDAC) to initiate a volunteer-run cleanup day, where residents could dispose of metal and yard waste free of charge, in an attempt to help beautify the community for residents and tourists.
Summer-like temperatures are forcing rapid snow melt and that has local residents on alert.
“Now is the time to be ready,” said Brent Watson, with North Okanagan Emergency Management, which oversees emergency preparedness in the region. “We don’t expect catastrophic flooding but we shouldn’t be surprised either. It happens every year.”
Declining enrolment and associated revenue for the coming school year look to put the School District #83 short more than $1 million. The School district is projecting to be down another 250 students next year.
The Sicamous Pee-wee boys baseball team, now known as the Yellow Jackets travelled to their first game on May 10 to play Salmon Arm 2. Salmon Arm edged out the Yellow Jackets 7-5.
A TV crew was in Sicamous May 11 to film an episode of extreme houseboating – extreme luxury that is. Powderhouse Productions was on location in the Sicamous area filming one of a six-episode series on houseboating, which will be featured on the Travel Channel this fall.
Sicamous was well represented in Canada’s largest street hockey tournament, Hockey Night in Canada’s Play On!, held in Kelowna. There were two teams from Sicamous, including the Sicamous Whalers and the Siccy Swag. The Whalers wailed on the competition, taking first place in their division, while the Swag pulled through with a respectable third-place showing in their division.
The Sicamous Angels ladies fastball team hosted their annual Ladies Open Fastball Tournament on May 26-27 in Finlayson Park. This 16-team, “A” calibre tournament is a favorite for competitive ladies fastpitch teams throughout Western Canada and is free to the public.
The District of Sicamous is stepping up its mosquito control program this year, treating areas of concern that, in the past, were considered off limits. Sicamous council has agreed to instruct the district’s mosquito control contractor, BWP Consulting Inc., to treat with larvicide certain “grey areas” near the waterfront, where water rises during freshet and drops again later in the summer.
On May 23, at 5:03 p.m. Sicamous RCMP were called out to the single-vehicle incident south of Sicamous near Hummingbird Beach Resort. Police say a woman’s vehicle was seen travelling northbound when, for unknown reasons, it veered left, went off the highway and eventually came to rest on its roof in the lake. She was take to hospital in Salmon Arm where attempts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful.
The volunteer crew of the Shuswap’s new emergency rescue boat finally had an opportunity to put their extensive training into action over the May long weekend.
While the boat wasn’t to receive its official certification of operation until Friday, May 18, crew members were promptly ready Thursday when they received their first call-out. They were ready and the boat prepared to depart in less than 10 minutes. But as it was leaving the dock, a second call came in to stand down, the call out had been cancelled.
June
Efforts have escalated to bring medical lab collection services to Sicamous and alleviate wait times in Salmon Arm. An unsigned letter is being publicly circulated, appealing to Kari Prasad, regional manager of LifeLabs Medical Laboratory Services. The letter claims that in January 2011, LifeLabs applied for a licence to provide lab collection services in the Eagle Valley area. A competing application, however, was submitted by Interior Health’s lab services. The letter says IH won the licensing rights in May 2011, and has held the licence since then. “ They have recently informed Dr. (Jack) Beech in Sicamous that they will not be honouring the licence and placing services in Sicamous and area. The letter states there is now an opportunity for LifeLabs to pick up the licence, and encouraging them, on behalf of all Shuswap communities, to do so.
A Sicamous resident has been identified as one of the thre men who were killed in a helicopter accident near Terrace. The BC coroners Service confirmed Blake Erickson, 48, died on June 1 at 9 a.m., when the helicopter he was on a Eurocopter A-Star 350, went down above the treeline west of Terrace on Sleeping Beauty Mountain.
A sterling medal of national significance has been awarded to Sicamous’ Jerry Silva for his contributions to Canada. Silva is one of 60,000 Canadians to receive the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, an honour bestowed upon those who have “made a significant contribution to a particular province, territory, region or community within Canada, or an achievement abroad that brings credit to Canada.”
With the melting snowpack and the pounding rains, normally quiet creeks became torrents rushing towards the Eagle River, which overflowed its banks in numerous spots along its winding path to Shuswap Lake. Residents along Cambie Solsqua Road received the worst of it. Wednesday afternoon, what’s known as Ylisto Creek rose, while the culvert going under the road became plugged. The end result was a massive washout that closed that end of the road for a few days.
Sicamous Mayor Darrell Trouton formally announced that Heidi Frank has been hired to take on the CAO position from interim CAO Doug Ruttan. Frank, who currently serves as the Village of Clinton’s CAO, is expected to begin work with the District of Sicamous as of Aug. 1.
There’s no need to drive to Banff or Jasper to hike when there are similarly breathtaking trails right here in the Shuswap. The Sicamous area alone has a wealth of unique trail systems that cater to a range of hiking expertise. Perhaps the most well-known trail in the area is the Larch Hills Traverse, which can be hiked, biked or skied from Salmon Arm to Sicamous.
Sandbags were going up fast along the foreshore of Mara and Shuswap lakes to hold off the high water that’s expected to continue to rise over the next week. Sicamous Mayor Darrell Trouton said 10,000 bags had been distributed through the district public works yard off of Sicamous-Solsqua Road. Most of those, he adds, have been used in areas just outside of the district, such as Cambie-Solsqua. There are another 11,000 bags still at the public works yard, and 12,000 more are on the way, all of which are provided by the Shuswap Emergency Preparedness program. The district continues to make progress on bylaws that will allow for temporary commercial or industrial endeavours. These permits allow a property to be utilized for a commercial/industrial use that is currently not permitted by its zoning.
To wrap up the first successful year for the Community Karate & Kickboxing schools in Sicamous and Salmon Arm, the Provincial Martial Arts Association hosted a karate tournament for these clubs Saturday, June 16 in Salmon Arm. According to instructor Holly Raczynski, they couldn’t have performed better.
A state of local emergency has been declared for the Two Mile and Swansea Point areas, and an evacuation order is being enforced by RCMP, following simultaneous debris flow events on June 23 in Sicamous and Hummingbird creeks.
The District of Sicamous has also issued a notice asking that residents not use water from the Mara water system. This is a mandatory order as boiling water will not make it safe for consumption.
Heavy rainfall on the evening of Saturday, June 23, caused Sicamous Creek to burst its banks and create a new channel, subsequently impacting residents and businesses in the Two Mile area.
Corey Paiement, information officer in the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) of Columbia Shuswap Regional District’s Shuswap Emergency Program, says some 40 homes are affected by the evacuation order.
Mayor Darrell Trouton, who was on the scene in Two Mile Sunday at noon, said the devastating flood had already destroyed two or three homes.
“The water flow couldn’t go down to the lake, so it diverted and changed direction, flooding the Waterway Houseboats parking lot,” he says. “If that wouldn’t have happened, the water would have continued flowing to Mara Lake. It might have been frightening, but we wouldn’t be eyeing the devastation we are now.”
Trouton says there are now concerns about the highway bridge and area septic systems.
But, he adds, people are safe and the houseboat companies, RCMP, Shuswap Emergency Program and District of Sicamous are pulling together.
“People are safe, we’re getting them out of there.”
Following an inspection by helicopter of Hummingbird and Sicamous creeks, the Columbia Shuswap Regional District’s Shuswap Emergency Program (SEP) rescinded the evacuation order for the Swansea Point Subdivision. SEP warns in a June 26 news release that an evacuation alert remains in place for Swansea Point. As for Two Mile, SEP states the evacuation order stands. Evacuees will be given an extension to the support they’ve received for accommodation, food, lodging, etc.
Interior Health medical health officer Dr. Trevor Corneil said while the water is still not safe to drink, the mandatory “Do Not Use” order is being downgraded to a “Do Not Consume” order, adding this applies in Sicamous as well as Swansea Point. Corneil explained public works has to keep water flow going for emergency support (fire), and to keep the city’s water system from collapsing.
The Shuswap Emergency Program is asking boaters to be aware of the height of the wake caused by their vessels and the impact they can have. Boaters should also be cautious of the masses of debris currently adrift on both lakes.
Sicamous’ annual Canada Day celebrations, including the fireworks show, were cancelled. Mayor Darrell Trouton said the event will be held on the August long weekend as a community appreciation celebration. Also cancelled is the Classic Car Show and Shine that was to take place in Finlayson Park on June 30th.
However, the craft fair will still be taking place inside the arena that day, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. as well the Louisiana Hayride concert that evening.
The Malakwa Learning Academy’s second school year came to a close. Sixteen students attended. And next year looks even better. Michelle Mohr is a special-needs teacher at the academy, which her own daughter has been attending. Mohr has been very impressed with what she’s seen at the academy; the interaction between age levels and the high degree of academic performance, with students going above and beyond provincial requirements.