FRIDAY JULY 24, 2015 VOL. 42, NO. 26
$1
including GST
Watch for more online at: WWW.BOWENISLANDUNDERCURRENT.COM
Moving on...
With love from the Nook
Healthcare on Bowen
Parting words from an editor and columnist...
A send-off to Bowen grads
More information required to move forward
Bowen to become “closed colony” for honey bees
MERIBETH DEEN EDITOR
“More than two decades of work, and all we got was this sign,” Paul Hooson.
Meribeth Deen, photo
Hooson’s last stand
After 22 years working to create a community hall, theatre advocate Paul Hooson moves on MERIBETH DEEN EDITOR
O
ver the past two decades, you are more likely to have seen Paul Hooson getting theatrical in the municipal hall than you are to have seen him on-stage at Tir-na-Nog or Cates Hill Chapel. The clown and puppeteer says the reason for that is because he’s not an actor – just a champion for the theatre arts on Bowen Island. Last Monday, Hooson stood before council yet again, offering a brief history of the committees struck and reports written in an effort to move forward plans for a community hall on Bowen. After wrapping up, he told council that this presentation would be his last. “I’m feeling resigned,” said Hooson in an interview following the meeting. “I’m not sure if that’s a stage of grief, but that’s where I’m at.” In the report he wrote up for council, called
“Bowen Island Community Hall: A work in progress, or a project neglected?” Hooson lays out possible next steps for moving the project forward, but says he’s not optimistic that they will be taken. His presentation to council last week, he says, was motivated by the fact that as each new council has assumed leadership it has misinterpreted the work and objectives of the Arts Council. “I wanted to set the record straight before I quit,” he says. “What we want is a Community Hall, not a Community Center: a modest, multi-purpose space for the performing arts and public assembly.” Among the uses of this kind of space, he adds, would be weddings and banquets as well as “soft” recreational activities such as yoga, and various kinds of seniors activities. Hooson started his quest for such a space back in 1993, when he played the role of an advisor on the “theatre” aspect of a Community and Performing Arts Centre for the Bowen Island Parks and Recreation Task Force. continued PAGE 3
Over the past three years, Bowen beekeepers Ian Kennard and Nancy Leonard have seen their hives get stronger and stronger. Prior to 2013, says Kennard, between 40 and 50 percent of their bees died over the winter. In 2013, 90 percent of their bees survived, and in this past winter, 100 percent of their bees survived. It turns out, though, that a majority of their bees do not in fact carry the traits that make them resistant to disease – “hygienic traits,” technically speaking. This news comes with new technology that Kennard, Leonard and other Bowen Island bee keepers will assist to test over the coming three years. As UBC professor Leonard Foster explains, bee breeding technology has been stuck in the dark ages as compared to methods used in other agricultural sectors. Until Foster and his team embarked on this recent project to improve it, bee breeders had no way of knowing which bees had the genetic
traits that would help them resist disease and survive the winter. “Most bee keepers in Canada get their bees from either Hawaii or New Zealand. They’re not used to the cold and most don’t survive long enough to adapt, so the bee keepers get new ones every few years,” says Foster, adding that a minority of bee keepers, like Kennard and Leonard, breed the survivors and in doing so create bees that are adapted to this climate. “It is pretty well recognized that the solution that offers the most hope for the industry in terms of bee death is selecting for bees that are stronger and more economically viable, which is not a shocking conclusion,” says Foster. “But the tools that people have to do the selection have not been there. We’ve tried to bring modern molecular techniques that would be used in a hospital, for example, and apply those tools to honey bees. Last year’s project, found a way to quickly and easily determine whether a bee would be hygienic or not based on the presence of a group of proteins in the bee’s genetic material.” continued PAGE 3
Bee keepers Nancy Leonard, Ian Kennard and research technician Heather Higo inspect a frame of drones brought to Bowen from the Fraser Valley. Meribeth Deen, photo
Frazer Elliott 27 1293 Westside Road
info@bowenhomes.ca 7 YEARS
$2,050,000
You can immediately see why this magical, 5.8 acre property is know as Island Springs. To your left as you drive in are three ponds stacked upon the hillside. Relax at the top by the Reflection Pond and watch the waterfall pour into the ponds below. The home overlooks all, and features lovingly-crafted details, two bedrooms and two baths. Outside is the Village Green, through which the driveway continues towards the studio building and its surrounding piazza, field pond, and irrigated garden. The studio features an expansive workshop downstairs; the upstairs open plan was originally used for Tai Chi, but is now a musical getaway.
9 INCE 200 S R O T L G R EA BOWEN ISLAND’S TOP PRODUCIN