What happened on Bowen Island the week of January 8, 2020

Blissful new yr! It’s a decision of mine to get to those weekly Bowen round-ups each Friday however being a newsroom of 1 typically means different priorities come up. We’ll see the way it goes as we forge on. Concepts? E mail me at editor@bowenislandundercurrent.com.

The rains have appeared infinite since 2021 started however Saturday’s forecast calls for a mixture of solar and cloud with a excessive of 4. The rains return Sunday and stretch into the week forward. Good climate apart, Sea to Sky Search and Rescue is asking folks to ‘dial it back’ within the backcountry amid difficult circumstances and a string of avalanches.

Seven-day forecast for Squamish. By Setting Canada

Wanting over the previous week(s)

Finish-of yr statistics present that there have been 454 COVID-19 cases in West Vancouver in 2020 (its district contains Bowen Island). “The statistics confirmed the North Shore had a cumulative price of an infection of between 600 and 900 circumstances per 100,000 individuals for the yr,” experiences North Shore Information’s Jane Seyd.

The Polar Swim was clearly cancelled Jan. 1 however that didn’t cease some Boweners from taking to the water.

Although the normal Polar Swim at Bowen Bay didn’t happen this yr, the McMillan and Mountain households nonetheless dove into frigid 2021 waters at September Morn seaside. By Michelle Shaw

Bowen Island Well being Centre Basis formally owns its parcel of Lot 3 of the Neighborhood Lands. The sale closed Jan. 8, a yr and a half after Bowen Island Municipal council accepted the foundation’s offer to purchase (subdividing taking over extra time than anticipated). The inspiration is planning to use for a growth allow subsequent week and forge on, although the centre doubtless received’t be up and open till 2022-23 stated basis president Tim Rhodes. Look ahead to extra on this subsequent week.

The Effectively introduced final month that it’s closing its studio for good, although on-line and outside lessons and workshops will proceed when and the place potential. Pandemic circumstances – two shut downs and restricted class sizes – made the studio not viable, proprietor Chantal Russell informed the Undercurrent. Whereas she’s unhappy, Russell is at peace with the choice. “I did what I may, the most effective I may for the time that I may after which I used to be at an deadlock,” she stated.

Has your enterprise closed due to COVID-19? We’d wish to know – editor@bowenislandundercurrent.com.

BC housing assessments got here out Jan. 1. The everyday assessed worth for single-family residential properties on the island is up nine per cent in 2020.

A Bowen Island house additionally busted into the top 500 most valuable residential properties – a 23-acre Smugglers Cove residence, valued at $10.5 million (although it’s for sale for $17.6 million), is the 476th most respected property in B.C.

Again in November, Gillian Drake began as supervisor of recreation and neighborhood companies at Bowen Island Municipality. She talks botanical gardens, rugby and neighborhood id with the Undercurrent.

December’s RCMP statistics are out: recordsdata embrace aiding the hearth division with a home fireplace final month and 5 impaired driving verify stops. 

It’s funds time. Session for Bowen Island Municipality’s 2021 five-year monetary plan (the funds) is open on the public engagement platform Citizenlab. BIM is prone to suggest a 6.6 per cent tax improve in 2021 (here’s why). For these wanting extra element, there’s a digital open home Jan. 14 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. 

Within the video under, chief monetary officer Raj Hayre affords funds 101:

Council’s again!

The primary council assembly of 2021 is Jan. 11 and might be stay streamed on YouTube. Right here’s what’s on the agenda:

Pot rezoning: Workers is bringing ahead a Land Use Bylaw amendment to permit “recreation hashish retail as a retail use anyplace that retail use is permitted on Bowen Island.”

The suggestion is to switch the prohibition on the “cultivation, manufacturing, packaging, storage, distribution, dishing out, buying and selling or promoting of hashish” BIM imposed in 2018 (upon the legalization of hashish in Canada). The transfer comes as Blissful Isle Hashish Firm utilized for a rezoning for its Dorman Rd. store (which at present has a brief use allow) however upon referral to municipal committees, the suggestion was for a broader rezoning.

The workers report stated that over Blissful Isle’s tenure, RCMP and bylaw companies “have expressed no considerations and located no proof of complaints or any calls of concern from the neighbourhood.”

New hashish outlets on Bowen would nonetheless want council’s stamp of approval to get provincial approval to open indicated the workers report.

A community heritage register for Bowen Island: The preliminary register contains 10 native landmarks together with the Previous Basic Retailer, Lieben, Davies Heritage Orchard and Cottages. “As soon as listed on a Register, properties are listed on the Canadian Register of Historic Place (CRHP), which is a nationwide on-line database of historic locations,” reads the draft doc. “After itemizing, properties are then eligible for alternate compliance provisions and different incentives supplied for heritage locations.”

Arising

BC Ferries has its draft Snug Cove Terminal Development Plan concept open for remark till Jan. 29. The plan contains short-term and long-term concerns together with new washroom and ready room, lane enhancements, berth alignment – look ahead to extra on this!

The identical night because the funds open home: The Rotary Membership usually has audio system at its conferences (they’ve gone digital since COVID-19 started). Subjects have ranged from the Neighbourhood Emergency Response Program (NERP), to ending polio, to the aquatic lifetime of Howe Sound, however not often are audio system as well-known as next week’s guest. Wade Davis, anthropologist, creator and Bowen Islander speaks Jan. 14 at 7:30 p.m.

Locally

Are you able to tell a licorice fern from a western sword fern? Me neither. However Bowen Nature Membership’s Jen Ritchie can. She additionally shares that western sword fern tubers generally is a good supply of water in a pinch (all the higher motive to have the ability to establish it).

Is that this a western sword fern or a licorice fern? Jen Ritchie has some ideas for figuring that out. By Jen Ritchie

In a letter to the editor, Nerys Poole explains why the Official Community Plan is a critical part of Cape Roger Curtis’s future (and why its implications ought to be included in Undercurrent protection of the difficulty). “The OCP is our guiding doc for land-use planning on the island.  It’s complete; it considers the wants of the neighborhood and the way forward for our island from a high-level, island-wide perspective, contemplating neighborhood wants together with considerations about sustainability, the setting, and our duty by way of local weather change,” writes Poole.

An extended learn

“While you stay on an island like ours, there are rhythms which might be like respiratory. They arrive and go on cycles as brief as an hour or so long as geological epochs,” writes Chris Corrigan in ‘Taking note of the rhythms of breath.’

“Because the ferry approaches, the depth of site visitors on my highway will increase, and the nearer we get to crusing time, the upper the pace of vehicles racing to ensure they don’t miss the boat, or to ship a sleepy bus-missing teenager to the dock. There’s a interval of stillness after which the circulate reverses and the labourers from town who’ve made an early begin journey of their work vans and pick-up vehicles by means of the arteries and capillaries of our island highway system. Because the ferry leaves, issues change into nonetheless and quiet once more.”

Learn the contemplative piece on his blog. 

Photos from our readers

Bowen Islanders on the Cape gazing on the “nice alignment” of Saturn and Jupiter final month. When you look intently you may make out the 2 planets in the midst of the picture. By Rick Stringfellow

A pod of orcas swim previous Fairweather Christmas Day. By Haig Farris

Sam Florin and Ethan Harrison taking part in violin outdoors the Ruddy Potato to boost cash for his or her neighborhood service work for his or her faculty (Island Pacific College) earlier than Christmas. Their neighborhood service this yr is to boost funds to buy books for IPS which might be extra culturally various. Books particularly on racism and exploring totally different cultures. The target is to construct a extra culturally various library.Their authentic goal was to boost $400… and so they raised greater than three quarters of that objective of their three days in Village Sq.! And so they’re hoping to boost much more by their deadline in March.It’s not too late to “toss some donation into the violin case.” Sam and Ethan are accepting donations at ethanandsamculturalawareness@gmail.com. They’ll return to Village Sq. on sunny weekends, now with a classical repertoire. Courtesy of Matthew Harrison

This moonrise over the North Shore mountains enchanted Bowen Islanders Dec. 28. By Meribeth Fleetham

Cartoon

Ron Woodall

A sluggish jog into 2021

If anybody else had a tough time Monday morning returning to ‘work mode,’ you’re not alone. I hid my work laptop in my closet over the vacations and resolved to not reply any emails (and largely succeeded – don’t speak to me about sluggish dancing and horseshoes) however the week swept by like days in isolation are inclined to do. (Okay, and common holidays).

However I’ve been invigorated this week with the submissions – Chris Corrigan’s contemplative piece on respiratory, Jen Ritchie’s fern break-down (I didn’t know there have been two sorts of ferns on Bowen), Nerys Poole’s letter on why the OCP must issue into Cape discussions and protection, former editor Meribeth Deen’s plunge into cold water. As Chris factors out in his piece, we don’t have the social occasions that demarcate Bowen’s seasons nor the alternatives to socialize and we threat being set adrift from each other. 

As I sit at my laptop display screen, now retrieved from its isolation (no COVID for it), I’ll be considering of the way to attach with neighborhood with out these occasions, with out our casual conferences within the grocery retailer or fitness center.

I welcome concepts, tales, ideas, jokes, footage or random items of “Bowenia” as we plod into 2021.

In the beginning of the pandemic, somebody emailed me to remind me that is “a marathon not a dash.” We’ve received not less than months to go on this pandemic, so right here’s to a sluggish jog into 2021.

-Bronwyn Beairsto, Bowen Island Undercurrent editor