LOCAL NEWS: FIRST FISH CEREMONY AUG. 29 ▼ A2 Monday, August 20, 2012 ▼ Volume 47 No. 34 ▼ www.clearwatertimes.com ▼ $1.40 HST Included at Newsstands
Times THE
NORTH THOMPSON
Second Place General Excellence B.C. and Yukon <2,000 circulation 2012
JUBILEE MEDAL: Former local resident wins Queen’s medal with his wife. See page A11 inside.
Blue Ribbon Runner-up Best All Round Newspaper All of Canada <1,250 circulation 2012
TRU announces World Heritage Year for Wells Gray Park September volcano tour to be first event Thompson Rivers University
Making a connection Emma, a girl believed to be from Salmon Arm, pats the forehead of Juby, one of the horses that enjoys the music at Serenity Center for the Performing Arts near Birch Island. Emma was taking part in the fifth annual Becoming Shiloh gospel music camp the weekend before last. Between 150 and 200 people from throughout the southern Interior and the Lower Mainland took part. "The music was exceptional this year, as was the weather," said one organizer. Photo by Shirley DeVooght, Serenity Center
Next year the Wells Gray TRU Wilderness Centre will open its doors for outdoor learning and research in the wilds of the Clearwater Valley. The facilities are now under construction. To celebrate this milestone event, Tom Dickinson at Thompson Rivers University and Upper Clearwater resident Trevor Goward are teaming up to host a yearlong series of guided tours, hikes, field courses, lectures, and children’s events - all on the theme of wilderness research and learning in the Clearwater Valley and Wells Gray Provincial Park. Wells Gray World Heritage Year will run from September of this year through October of 2013 inclusive. Wells Gray World Heritage Year will help to boost efforts by TRU to create a viable learning and research centre in the Clearwater Valley. “As we step forward into a new era of research and learning in Wells Gray, this is a perfect time to take stock of what we know about the Clearwater Valley,” says TRU Dean of Science Tom Dickinson. “In the coming months we’ll be telling stories about discoveries made here by wildlife biologists, botanists, geologists, some dating back to the early 1950s. Starting next spring, we’ll also have a discussion about the importance of wilderness in contemporary society. Wells Gray World Heritage Year is really a celebration of all wild places wherever they’re found”. Wells Gray World Heritage Year takes its name from a governmentsupported initiative to put British Columbia’s fourth largest park forward as a candidate for a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. In the coming year Dickinson and Goward hope to bring British Columbians up to speed on the tremendous geological, ecological and wilderness values preserved in Wells Gray. “I’m really stoked about this,” says Trevor Goward, a well-known naturalist and spokesperson for the Wells Gray World Heritage Committee. “The hardest thing about trying to win international recognition for Wells Gray is that inevitably you have to work uphill. How many Canadians know that Wells Gray Park is Canada’s Valley of Fire and Ice - a place where two million years of volcanic eruptions and Pleistocene glaciers have bequeathed landforms otherwise seen only in Iceland and a few remote corners of the world? Or who would have guessed that a mid-latitude protected area like Wells Gray preserves, in some biological groups, the highest levels of biodiversity anywhere on Earth? “Wells Gray World Heritage Year is a great opportunity to get the message out,” Goward says. “It’s time Canadians took the time to learn how exceptional the Clearwater Valley really is. Upgrading Wells Gray to a World Heritage Site will have profound implications for the economic future of surrounding communities. World Heritage designation not only strengthens the tourism sector, it also catalyzes economic development and regeneration, creates new funding opportunities, and stimulates private investment. This effort can only be good news for the people of southern inland British Columbia”. A schedule of Wells Gray World Heritage Year events appears on page A3.
OVER 1000 SPECIALS EVERY WEEK ARMSTRONG MELTS
SAFETY MART FOODS LOCATED AT BROOKFIELD SHOPPING CENTRE • CLEARWATER, BC • 250ͳ674ͳ2213
CHEESE SLICES 500G
$2.99/EA
CAMPBELL’S V-8 JUICE 1.36L TIN
$1.88/EA