Summer is time for road-trips and camping, Albertan’s spilling into BC to enjoy the Province’s natural beauty, families travelling to visit relatives, beach vacations – and unfortunately for many of these trips, the Trans-Canada Highway is a necessary part of the route. On twitter, I have several searches that I check before I head out …
Category Archives: Rural
Improving Castlegar through Placemaking
The Kootenays, a beautiful, rural part of British Columbia, features sparsely populated river valleys punctuated by forested mountain ranges, struggles from a lack of cohesive visioning and it seems that only recently have real efforts at economic collaboration been made, such as the Lower Columbia Community Development Team. Having less than two years under their …
Castlegar’s Recreation Complex – The Referendum
Castlegar and surrounding communities are preparing to go to referendum on whether to build a $25 million dollar renovation for the Castlegar and District Community Complex. As a parent of two kids, I’ve spent a fair bit of time in the facility – for swim lessons, casual swimming, and drop-in skating – not as much …
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Peak Oil Vignette 6 – A Trip into Town
Jude stood on the simple wooden train platform, it was just long enough to accommodate a family of four, and just high enough to allow a father to hoist his children into the carriage doorway. Little more was needed, these days there weren’t more than a handful of families living in this remote extension of …
The Kootenay Cone of Silence
Aside from what you read on the internet, life in the Kootenays just keeps on rollin’ on. Who would know that a whole ecosystem was being destroyed in what could be described as a technogenic catastrophe down in Louisiana right now, a nasty byproduct of the lifestyle we’ve pursued as a society. The various bailouts, …
Goats @ Google
As I take a break from writing my comments to the Draft Sustainability Discussion Paper for Castlegar, I was drawn to this blog post from Google on the use of 200 goats to maintain a field… The cost of bringing in the goats is comparable to hiring lawn mowers for the same job and the …
Castlegar Delegation to Minister on Forestry Employment
I understand the sentiment, really, but the idea that whenever something impacts your community, you send a delegation off to Victoria to meet with Minister-such-and-such, doesn’t sit comfortably with me.
A Focus on Food
While Castlegar City Council makes an impassioned plea for residents to understand the tough times the City is facing, it seems that all the good work, energy and momentum that was generated during the Integrated Community Sustainability Planning (ICSP) sessions seems to have fallen to the wayside. Council still has a focus on attracting new businesses to …