40 YEARS AGO
The Clearwater District Forest Office has reported nine fires so far this season with three of those still burning and under observation. All of the fires were started by lightning except for one which was caused by slash burning.
For the third consecutive year the Princeton Weyerhaeuser team has won the Weyerhaeuser Softball Tournament held in Clearwater over the weekend. The Princeton Crocs defeated B.C.I from Kamloops 16-4 in the final game.
New residents to the area, Jack and Dianne Marlow, will soon be taking over management of the Stedmans store in Clearwater. Jack Marlow, who has 24 years experience in the retail trade including 12 years with Stedmans, will operate the store with help from his wife, Dianne and their 19-year-old son, Johnny.
35 YEARS AGO
Members of the IWA carried out their threat to call a strike at wood work operations, after a breakdown in contract negotiations. Pickets turned up at Weyerhaeuser Canada sawmills in the southern Interior, including the company’s mill in Vavenby.
The Clearwater Fire Department responded to a fire which broke out in a CN rail car full of potash. The train was pulled onto the siding at Birch Island where fire crew fought the heavy smoke.
A brush control project is proposed to start again on a 50-hectare 10-year-old forest plantation on Road 3 above Vavenby in the Clearwater Forest District. Brush saws will be used to cut the brush, then registered herbicide Roundup will be applied to the freshly cut stumps.
30 YEARS AGO
Sports fishery for chinook salmon in the Clearwater River is due to open Aug. 2 and a couple of regulations are to be more strictly enforced. The use of natural bait is prohibited in the Clearwater River from the Mahood River confluence upstream to Falls Creek at Clearwater Lake. This regulation is now law and will be enforced in 1991.
The Barriere and District Health Centre is to be expanded and renovated at a cost of $100,000. The project will include the addition of a third doctor’s office, together with two examination rooms, doctor’s storage space and an enlarged clinic waiting area.
Up to 300 participants are expected for a one-day tour to look at vegetation management techniques used in the Clearwater Forest District. The tour will investigate using sheep, cattle and grass-legume mixes to control competing vegetation on cutblocks.
25 YEARS AGO
Four persons, believed to be suffering non-life threatening injuries, were taken to Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater following a head-on collision between a motorcycle and a mid-sized car.
Barriere firefighters contained and extinguished a small forest fire that broke out on the east side of Agate Bay Road, below Glen Grove Estates. About a dozen firefighters responded to the call out. One firefighter suffered smoke inhalation and another burned a hand.
An 18’x24’ ready-to-assemble wooden shed that was reported stolen wasn’t actually stolen and wasn’t ready to assemble. It was a disassembled old shed.
20 YEARS AGO
Clearwater’s Ian Archibald won $500,000 in the Lotto Super 7 lottery. It was only the fourth time he had bought a lottery ticket. He won a free play from the previous ticket and gave the clerk $1 for the extra.
A 15-year-old Prince George youth was lucky to be alive following a fall near Helmcken Falls viewpoint. He was visiting Wells Gray Park with his church group. The young man somehow got beyond the easternmost or upstream end of the safety fences near the viewpoint and was not on a secure trail when he fell.
The road to Wells Gray Park was cut for the third time in six years due to flooding. Despite this, the local area was not added to a list of areas eligible to receive flood disaster assistance from the Provincial Emergency Program.
15 YEARS AGO
Kevin Kreuger presented Bert Walker with a $60,000 cheque for improvements to the Sportsplex, the first of three. The funding came from the Ministry of Small Business and Economic Development for a program called Olympic/Paralympic Live Sites awards. The award will enable communities like Clearwater to complete special projects.
Reports have filtered through that International Ranger Corp has been drilling despite the lack of a permit. Witnesses have seen it take place on the Foghorn property. But it’s copper, not uranium and the drilling is being done by Yellowhead Mining Inc at Harper Creek.
Two local girls, Kristin Sunderman and Tiana Blouin, who began their softball careers in Clearwater were integral members of the Darlen Transport Coyotes Junior Ladies Softball team that won the Provincial C Championships in Kamloops.
10 YEARS AGO
Clearwater Stingers won all seven of their games at the Squirt C provincial championships and took home gold.
Naturalist Trevor Goward is working with the Land Conservancy of B.C. and the Ancient Forest Alliance to auction off the naming rights to two lichen species he discovered. Proceeds of the auction go towards preserving B.C.’s ancient rain forests.
Clearwater now has a FrontCounter BC desk, located in the Headwaters Forest District office on Highway 5. Kamloops-Thompson MLA Terry Lake presented a $400,000 cheque from Towns for Tomorrow for the District of Clearwater’s water system.
5 YEARS AGO
A total of 44 riders took part in the Wells Gray Riders gymkhana at the Upper Clearwater riding arena, held monthly during the summer. Twenty-four of the riders were kids.
Logging blocks under discussion on the shoulder of Trophy Mountain and on the west side of the Clearwater River would yield about 200,000 cubic metres of wood, equivalent to between 20 and 25 per cent of Candor’s Vavenby division’s annual allowable cut. Information about Canfor’s Upper Clearwater logging plans were presented at an open house.
The Blue River fire hall is to get upgrades, thanks to the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board of directors’ approval of spending up to $24,000 to improve the hall’s energy efficiency. Proposed improvements include new heating equipment, upgrades of single-pane windows, lighting and new insulation and siding along one side of the building.