It was a tough assignment, but somebody had to do it.
Mike Wiegele phoned the newspaper a while ago. He wasn’t entirely pleased with a letter to the editor we had run from Yellowhead Ecological Association about conflicts between snowmobilers and mountain caribou (“Caribou population threatened with decline,” Feb. 27 issue).
Actually, he liked the letter quite a bit. What he was unhappy about were a few tangential references in it about heli-skiing.
The heli-ski industry in general and his company in particular has strong procedures in place to protect caribou, Wiegele said. He invited your editor up to Blue River to sit in on one of the debriefing sessions his guides hold at the end of every skiing day to see how those procedures work.
Naturally, if I was going to travel there I might as well stay for supper, he said. And if I was staying for supper, I might have some wine or the roads might be snow-covered, so maybe I should spend the night. I probably could’ve put in a half-day heli-skiing to really see the conservation procedures in action, but I’m afraid my deep powder technique isn’t up to the present conditions (and it snowed the following day in any case, so no one went skiing).
Your editor has a bit of a cold last week and so did not get a chance to write the story up. I’m also waiting for callbacks from the Ministry of Environment, BC Snowmobile Federation and Association of BC Snowmobile Clubs. Look for the results of my research in a future issue of the Times.
A Good Samaritan
Local resident Vera Walker brought a good news story into the Times.
She had been shopping at Fields the weekend before last when she realized that she was missing four $20 bills that she needed to pay for the items she had picked up.
The women at the front counter asked her for details and then gave her the money.
An unnamed longtime local resident had found the cash in the parking lot and brought it into the store.
“The bottom line is there are a lot of good people out there,” says Walker.