Note to Marion Boyd
I am not normally one to engage in social media argument such as this but you have touched a nerve with your recent comments that I cannot ignore.
Our town is plastered with “No National Park” signs recently because more people are starting to understand that we may lose our rights to enjoy our back yard mountain the way we and many generations before us have. Many hunters over many years have enjoyed the views and great things that nature has to offer from atop Kobau the same as you.
Chinese interests quietly buying up acreages you say? So you would prefer to have thousands of tourists on said lands leaving their footprints and Parks Canada spending our hard earned tax dollars to buy these lands instead. There’s a lot of private land in the proposed area = hundreds of millions of tax dollars!! In my mind that leaves nothing to discuss!
I would like to respectfully disrespect your friend John Dicks quote about the grasslands park in Saskatchewan Having “huge benefits” to the Ranching community there due to their rest-restoration grazing system. I recently spoke with a couple different ranchers from there: there was quite a rest indeed. There was no grazing for 20 years because parks didn’t allow it until they finally realized there were negative affects to the eco system- for many reasons. They permit grazing now but with short terms and can’t always count on it until through all of parks red tape etc. A significant problem if your a rancher! Much more to say on that whole issue but bottom line is they have learned to live with the park but they believe the eco system and and ranching community would be better off had the park not been established. To say that it’s been a significant economic driver in the area may be true as there are only 130 people that live there so I’d imagine it helps a bit. Not a fair comparison to our already booming tourism industry! Also all of the ranchers that have sold their farms to parks within the park boundary have moved away from the community. Make of that what you will… good people and good farm land lost from a small community is what I make of it!
I agree with Jack on his comments of there being many generations in the future being able to enjoy the mountains around us the way they are without having a national park!
We can do more ourselves to clean up the garbage in the mountains.
A few years ago a couple of local dirt bikers organized a clean up mission around the lakes because they were bothered by the garbage spread about there. Did you respond to their ad in the paper looking for volunteers ? Outdoor enthusiasts aren’t the ones doing that stuff. It’s the jerks that just don’t want to pay dumping fees that have no respect for the outdoors. There are already a lot less atv / dirt bike trails in the bush around Oliver mountain due to the efforts of B.C. government. I used to ride all those trails as a kid and my father did as well. Every time I went out my dad would tell me to “stay on the trails” and I did… most of the time. lol.
You see… kids will be kids!! I learnt as I grew older more the importance of that. People learn things as they grow!
About those beer bottles you so despise – as a child I remember on Saturday and Sunday mornings my dad and I would get up early and go to a popular party area down the road called “the stump” to pick up empty beer bottles and cans after teenagers bush parties the night before. I know for a fact that your children attended those parties and I did as well when I got older. I would suspect that you did also in your days growing up here!! A lot of fond memories for me growing up in these mountains! I would hate to see that lost. Just need to teach younger generations to respect what we have and clean up after ourselves or it will be taken. It may take time but they too will learn as they grow.
Although I don’t think that will be a problem in generations to come. There’s no wifi up there!!!
We should all be working together to solve these problems ourselves instead of butting heads like a pair of rams at Vaseux! A National Park is the most invasive way possible to fix any of your concerns and I believe could make many things worse.
Regards! Jesse Norton
Ps. There are so many reasons why this park is a terrible idea. If anybody would like to discuss this please give me a shout.
250-219-1566. I am dying to here a GOOD reason that can convince me from being a park supporter