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By Graham Lucas Anglemont Fire Chief

The Anglemont fire department would to thank Harley Edwards and Dave King for their service in our fire department.

Harley and Dave, you have helped our department in so many ways. Our training program and our administration is a credit to you and the CSRD. Thank you for your dedication to our department; enjoy your retirement.

We are always looking for new members to join our team please call 250-318-7157 if you are interested or have any questions.

The CSRD Fire Smart program is trying to help communities like ours make our homes less vulnerable to wildfires.

Anglemont Fire Department has 3 representatives trained to do FireSmart assessments.

If you call FireSmart at 1-888-248 -2773 and ask for a free assessment, one of us will come to your home and do a confidential evaluation. This information is only shared with the homeowner. This is not a pass or fail thing, a fire smart assessment shows what can be done to protect your home from wildfires. There are grants available to help you cover some of the costs to implement any improvements suggested by the official FireSmart assessment.

I am asking community members to kick start this program by calling and asking for an evaluation. You can also refer to the sign at Fraser and the main road.

Please think about this and talk to your neighbour.

or

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10.3

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Scotch Creek/Lee Creek (pictured above) and Celista FD received some energy efficiency upgrades through Community Works funds (Gas Tax money).

This included: • New energy efficient overhead doors on both halls. • Scotch Creek/Lee Creek also has new pavement. • The Anglemont fire hall is getting some structural improvements to resolve some water penetration and ice damming issues. Kicker staff photo

Report a wildfire or unattended campfire Call 1-800-663-5555 toll-free or *5555 on a cell phone.

High Fire Danger in Kamloops Fire District

By Jo Anne Malpass

The fire danger rating for the Kamloops Fire District is high. On August 23, Kamloops Fire district was dealing with 18 wildfires, four new ones in the last two days, and included five in the Shuswap area.

Of those 18, 3 were listed as caused by lightning and 15 caused by person or unknown. In this district, there have been 156 wildfires since April 1, with 73 of those larger than .009 hectares. Provincially, there have been 570 wildfires, 155 of them in the week leading up to Aug. 23.

The largest fire in the Shuswap area is near the top of Adams Lake on Barriere Pass FSR. It was discovered on August 17, with cause unknown. By August 22, it was estimated at 36.8 hectares and being held.

A .30 hectare wildfire on Hummingbird Creek, between Sicamous and Mara was under control with cause unknown. A wildfire near Humamilt Lake 3.5km on 800 Road was estimated at 8.7 hectares, caused by lightning and under control.

There was a cluster of three fires near Malakwa, Crazy Creek at 15 hectares, Eagle Pass Mountain at 2 hectares and Crazy Creek #2 at .10 hectares, cause for all listed as unknown.

Several spot fires were discovered on August 22, cause unknown, in the Chase Creek area, south of the Village of Chase, and were extinguished.

The largest fire in the Kamloops District was at Christie Mountain, south of Penticton on the east side of Skaha Lake, discovered August 18 and by August 23, estimated at 2,035 hectares. It was classified as an interface fire and an evacuation order was in effect.

With the hot, dry weather, Category 2 and Category 3 open fires, as well as other equipment and activities are prohibited throughout the Kamloops Fire Centre. This prohibition is being enacted to help prevent human-caused wildfires and protect public safety.

This prohibition will remain in effect until noon on Oct. 15, 2020, or until the order is rescinded.

This prohibition does not prohibit campfires that are a half-metre high by a half-metre wide (or smaller) and does not apply to cooking stoves that use gas, propane or briquettes.

Specifically, prohibited activities will include: Category 2 and 3 open fires and the use of fireworks, sky lanterns, binary exploding targets and burn barrels or burn cages of any size or description except when used for a campfire.

The Kamloops Fire Centre would like to thank the public for its continuing help in preventing wildfires. To report a wildfire, unattended campfire or open burning violation, call 1 800 663-5555 toll-free or *5555 on a cell phone.

With wildfire activity constantly changing, for up to date information on current wildfire activity, burning restrictions, road closures and air quality advisories, call 1 888 3-FOREST or visit: www.bcwildfire.ca

Caring Individuals Make Fun-Razor a Success

SOMETIMES I WONDER IF ALL OF THIS IS HAPPENING BECAUSE I DIDN’T FORWARD THAT MESSAGE TO 10 OTHER PEOPLE

By Greg Kyllo Shuswap MP

As the summer draws to a close, I can’t help but reflect on the last few months and how thankful I am for this place we get to call home. The Shuswap is a wonderful place to live, especially in a summer where we are all staying closer to home than normal. It is a region filled with both beautiful scenery and its hardworking and caring people.

I wanted to say a special thank you to all those caring individuals who contributed to my ‘FunRazor’ this summer — your donations were so appreciated.

As promised, on August 8, I armed my grandkids with scissors of varying sizes, combs, and clippers, and they went to work giving me a shave and cutting my COVID-style hair. The kids had a fantastic time cutting my hair, giving me a creative new style that I sported for most of a week,

even when I returned to the legislature in Victoria.

Thanks to the generosity of this community we were able to raise approximately $6,500 to support our local Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) office. These funds will go a long way towards supporting the incredible work the CMHA does in our community. From awareness campaigns, to wellness programs, to providing resources to those in need, the CMHA is active in our community, ready to provide support. I am so glad that we were able to come together as a community and give back to such a vital organization.

It proves to me once again that the Shuswap is overwhelmingly generous, choosing to donate even during a time that has been difficult for all of us. To all those who donated, shared, or even liked our fundraising page, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Chamber News Angela Lagore, President angelalagore@gmail.com www.northshuswapbc.com 250-320-2012 By Debbie Seymour, Executive Director

So what is the importance of Strategic Planning and why are we doing it?

Strategic planning can bring real value to our organization by documenting and establishing our vision, by assessing where we are and where we are going.

The North Shuswap Chamber Board of Directors and representatives from the community will be embarking on the strategic planning process with facilitators from Aloka Consulting & Training in late September with two full day sessions.

As Aloka leads us through the phases, we will be defining our community and organization’s characteristics and accomplishments. Determining our community brand, what is the chambers action arena, organization and funding base? What should the scope of operations and service be? Where do we want to be in one year and 3-5 years?

The second phase of the planning process will identify the obstructions to our vison.

Is our vision shared with the community and local business? Where do we need to work on building relationships? Are there insufficient development strategies or ill-defined roles and responsibilities?

Our strategic direction will be determined in phase 3 by creating a development strategy to move us past the obstructions. How do we empower community participation with local residents, business owners and local government?

Finally we will establish our action roadmap with clear direction and timelines for both long term and short term goals and move on to implementation. The North Shuswap Chamber is committed to building a stronger community for our local business, residents and visitors. A strong strategic plan will be another tool in our kit.

Many thanks to CSRD-Jay Simpson for providing the funding for this initiative.

Jeff Tarry Personal Real Estate Corporation Cell/Text: 1-250-572-2888 Email: sold@jefftarry.com www.jefftarry.com

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Main floor living. 2 Bdrms plus a den & 2 full baths.. Good quality laminate flooring throughout. Nice deck off of the living room with a small peek of the lake! Home has a Heat pump which is very economical for heating and air conditioning. There is a Generator all setup in case of a power outage. Private fire pit area. back lane access with metal Quonset for parking. Fenced yard and sheds for storage. Close to golf, marina and the lake! MLS® 10210466 Busy, Busy, Busy! Who would have guessed we would be so active during COVID-19. We have sold out of so much of our inventory and need to re-stock before the fall market. If you are wanting to Sell … let us help get your place marketed in time for the fall Buyers! Can’t wait to see you again! Our Office doors are open to the public while we still practise physical distancing protocols. We have safety measures in place for the protection of all who enter. Our new measures limit the number of people that can attend our office at any given time. For that reason, we respectfully suggest that you call ahead to the office (or to your Realtor) to make an appointment. No appointment? No Worries. We respect your valuable time and will do our best to serve your needs within the parameters of the Work Safe BC COVID-19 regulations. Office: 250-955-0307 century21lakeside.com/scotch-creek/

Donna Smith-Bradley Realtor® Member of the Canadian Real Estate Association Office: 250-955-0307 ext.206 Direct: 250-819-0551 donna@century21lakeside.com www.donnasb.com

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Nestled Amongst The Trees in the heart of Scotch Creek is this beautiful home waiting for it's family to come and enjoy MLS® 10210341

Al Christopherson Personal Real Estate Corporation Office: 250-955-0307 Cell: 250-851-1483 al@northshuswap.com www.northshuswap.com

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Respondents Want Pathway for Safety

By Jo Anne Malpass

The results are in from the North Shuswap Pathway survey. With 329 responses received between July 27 and August 17, 96% of respondents said safety was the most important reason to build a path.

At 87.8%, the second reason was for exercise/health reasons and third choice at 50% was to get to a destination – store or park.

The survey was put out by the North Shuswap Pathway Team. Earlier this year, the North Shuswap Chamber of Commerce called for interested volunteers to work on a project to look into the opportunities and problems that would need to be overcome to build a pathway close to SquilaxAnglemont Road. The goal is to provide a safe route for residents and visitors to go from community to community, by walking, cycling, running, wheelchair or other assisted devices or, in the winter, by snowshoe or cross -country skis.

Over 60% of respondents said they already walk, run or cycle on the SquilaxAnglemont more than once a week and 80% said they would use it more if there was a safe pathway.

Many respondents made comments similar to this one. “If you drive the Anglemont Squilax highway on a daily basis, you understand the need for a pathway to keep drivers, walkers, runners, & bikers safe. The route between Anglemont and Scotch Creek is dangerous because of the curves and people not following the speed limit so when you add the bike and foot traffic, it becomes an extremely dangerous drive. We need this pathway to keep our community & visitors

safe and to continue to encourage people to maintain a healthy & active lifestyle.” 69.21% said they start their walk/run/cycle from their home or where they are staying and the rest drive somewhere. Comments from people who drove said it was to find a safer place, they live up on the mountain or went to a specific place, like one of the parks.

Most respondents said they thought it should be built on the busiest sections of the road, in the most populous areas or between park areas. Things to consider for a route were safety - 85%, population and usage - 71% and access to recreation – 68%. How would people use a path? 93% would walk, 81% would cycle, 38% would use it for winter activities (snowshoe, cross country skiing) and 38% would run.

Comments about the effect of active transportation on tourism saw the words Positive, Asset, Increase, Huge, Healthier, Safer and Economic Benefit. 50% of respondents were aged 55 or over and 38% in the 35 to 54 age group.

As the Pathway Team looks to select sections of the road to prioritize to its strategic partners, it will be taking into consideration the survey results and comments, topographical difficulties in areas, recommendations from strategic partners and the desire to get something started.

To learn more and to see a drone video showing the challenges on our roa d, go to facebook.com/ Northshuswappathway

Questions or to offer support, email nspathway@northshuswapbc.com or call (250) 804-8097. Pedestrians, cyclists and drivers face daily challenges sharing the narrow main road. See drone video on North Shuswap Pathway Facebook page. Photo by Locke Vincent of Locke Stock Creative

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Salmon Society Expanding Education Programs

By Jo Anne Malpass

The Adams River Salmon Society is excited about expansion plans for its educational programming, as part of efforts to conserve the natural and cultural resources of Tsútswecw Provincial Park.

Molly Cooperman, education director for the Society said a Canadian Scholarship Trust Foundation Learning Project grant has recently been received for educational development purposes and, along with the ongoing projects, there are plans to expand its community outreach. This includes class activities using a tabletop watershed model where students can follow the flow of water on a landscape and track a variety of pollutants.

The Society plans to include interactive games in its community outreach, which also educate students on what makes a healthy stream habitat.

In the past, the Society has offered field trips for children, and is expanding these opportunities to see salmon in the fall, learn about spawning, how the forest connects to the salmon, and actively participate in conservation efforts like tree planting. “We have some great opportunities to implement Stream Study Projects, similar to the HCTF program we have been supporting at Chase Secondary. The Stream Study Project provides students with hands on experience catching aquatic invertebrates and juvenile fish and learning how to collect stream habitat data,” says Molly.

Biologist Christy Wright (4TreesEcology) and retired teacher Brenda Melnychuk are working with Molly on the project. Christy is at the Interpretive Cabin on most weekends and

(Continued on page 21)

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Summer students Tyler Williams and Brianna Narcisse with education director Molly Cooperman at the Salmon Society Interpretive Cabin in Tsútswecw Park. Kicker staff photo

(Continued from page 20) Brenda is a guide for the Wednesday WalkAbouts. “We are so excited to start these programs, I love how students can practice making (and recording) field observations; finding an insect, spotting a salmon fry or hearing a new songbird and seeing how these things are all connected,” says Christy. Two summer students have also been hired, Tyler Williams and Brianna Narcisse, to assist on weekends at the Cabin and with the Wednesday tours as well as create some videos focusing on local Indigenous language and culture.

The Interpretive Cabin is open on Wednesdays and weekends. It has models, three touch screens for interactive games, interpretive signs and souvenirs available. On Wednesdays from 10 am until 1 pm, volunteers give environmental interpretive walkabouts. On Sundays, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm, there are children’s activities, which include learning about salmon, aquatic invertebrates’ investigation, the interactive touch screen games, crafts and a hunt to see and identify different plants and animals in the forest.

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More RCMP Officers Needed, North Shuswap Tells MP

By Mel Arnold, North Okanagan- Shuswap century.

I recently hosted Coffee Connections Today, many rural communities like in the North Shuswap to connect with conwe have along the North Shuswap are askstituents and hear their perspectives and ing for more police presence, especially priorities for their communities. One noteduring summer months when there is a worthy topic that came up during the large influx of visitors and it is easier for events was police presence on the North illicit activity to become hidden in the Shuswap. While numerous events south crowds. The sense of community and pubof our border and in some of Canada’s lic safety is being eroded by the concerns bigger centres have led to some people of residents who continue to witness and talking about defunding police forces, that experience increasing criminal activities is not the sentiment that I heard locally. involving illegal narcotics and thefts of

In an orderly society, governments vehicles and other property. develop laws meant to protect citizens by Because the nearest RCMP detachment establishing penis in Chase and alties to deter that detachment criminal behavcovers a large iours. It is then rural catchment the duty of law area, law enenforcement forcement is services to ensometimes not force and uphold able to provide our laws in an quick responses equitable and to calls in comconsistent manmunities like ner. Scotch Creek As our country has grown, the expectations As part of his visit to the North Shuswap, MP Arnold toured Tsútswecw Park with LSLB Chief Oliver Arnouse and and Seymour Arm. While criticism of law enforceSalmon Society members. Photo contributed of police and ment have coverage of grown as well. Expansion and settlement negative law enforcement interactions has that pressed into previously undeveloped reached a pitch in more urban centres, the regions of Canada resulted in the forsense I get from listening to constituents is mation of Canada’s first police forces, the that they have great respect for law enDominion Police and the Royal Northwest forcement personnel and have a growing Mounted Police. need for more police presence.

One hundred years ago, on February 1, This is a need that I understand and 1920 Parliament amended the Royal have repeatedly pressed the Trudeau govNorthwest Mounted Police Act to form the ernment to recognize and remedy. I will Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) continue to present this need to the federal as Canada’s national police force. In much government in Ottawa and advocate for of rural Canada the RCMP is the only poequitable levels of law enforcement lice force residents know as generations of throughout the North Okanagan-Shuswap rural Canadians have depended on the that will allow constituents to continue to RCMP’s dedicated service for the past enjoy their lives and communities.

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Discovered Roaring 20s Painting Shows History Repeats

By Jim Cooperman

Searches for many topics related to the Shuswap often end up at my blog site, shuswappassion.ca where there are hundreds of articles. Recently, Lawrence McWilliams from Whidbey Island, Washington was looking for more information about the artist, Jerome Howard Smith, who had signed the painting found hidden in a ceiling by his parents in 1967. After reading my blog about the famous artist who lived in Chase over 100 years ago, he contacted me with hope of learning more. Smith had quite the career including art study in Chicago and Paris, working as a comic illustrator in New York, working on Western ranches and in mines and painting alongside the famed cowboy painter, Charles Russell, before he settled on a ranch in Chase. When the sawmill closed in 1925, he moved to Vancouver where he continued to paint Western scenes.

When McWilliams emailed me an image of the painting his father had found rolled up between the rafters, I was flabbergasted. Instead of one of

Smith’s typical paintings of horses and cowboys, this was a remarkable, satirical painting, in the style of a Diego Rivera mural, of life in New York in the Roaring Twenties that could be titled “Before the Crash.”

Filled with a collection of scenes portraying a diversity of characters, from the wealthy tycoon suffering from gout and his extravagant mistress at the top to the struggling workers holding it all up at the bottom, the painting portrays a world beset by inequality and unfairness. Nearly every scene tells a story that conveys an anticapitalism message, including the type of glasses worn by the near blind on the tycoon symbolizing his blindness to the struggling poor.

The time period is likely 1929 as in the skyline is the likely newly constructed art deco Chrysler Building, which was completed in May 1930. The Peace League has a dead white pigeon, the symbol of peace, on the window ledge and rooms for rent, which likely refers to the U.S. government's refusal to join the League of Nations. Charles Lindbergh is pictured parachuting from his plane, which is one of the activities he was known for prior to his trans-Atlantic flight. A depiction of life during the depression would likely have been much more bleak. A farmer is shown driving a truck titled “Market Control” into a fruit stand, knocking over the apples and the merchant. With his back turned as a thief robs a lady’s purse, a policeman is shown reading election results. The two men in suits looking devious, posed with a card that reads, “we get ours,” could be union bosses. A flapper girl thumbing her nose with her knee exposed represents the new freedoms women achieved in that era. There are no smiles on the faces of the hard-working men at the bottom who are holding the tools of their trades as they bear the weight (Continued on page 25)

(Continued from page 24) of everyone on top of them.

The painting is a mystery in more ways than one. Why did Smith decide to paint it, when most of his work during his later years focused on Western themes? Was it commissioned or does it reveal Smith’s own socialistic viewpoint? Was it ever displayed and why was it hidden? One clue to the enigma is that Smith’s primary art dealer was Fred Darvill, who helped support him during the depression with commissions. The Darvill gallery, now located online from Arizona, still sells original prints of Smith’s paintings. Darvill spent summers on Orcas Island in the 1930s, which is near Whidbey Island where the painting was found. The “Before the Crash” painting could now serve as a teaching tool for studying the era and it serves as a reminder that the more things change, the more that life stays the same. If anything, economic inequality continues to get worse, especially in the United States, where the wealthy few control nearly everything. Thus, given the ongoing pandemic, could a big economic crash come next during this millennium’s Roaring Twenties?