THE WEDNESDAY
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
TRI-CITY NEWS CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
20 years in comic biz
Small creations, big show
SEE LIFE, PAGE A16
SEE ARTS, PAGE A19
NOV. 6, 2013 www.tricitynews.com
INSIDE
Tom Fletcher/A10 Letters/A11 A Good Read/A17 Sports/A22
A temp. shelter possible in PoCo in Jan.
Something is fishy in the Tri-Cities
By Gary McKenna THE TRI-CITY NEWS
A temporary homeless shelter could be coming back to Grace Church in Port Coquitlam but would only operate for a month under strict conditions, according to a city staff report. If PoCo council approves the initiative, the shelter would open in January in a method similar to the operation of the former cold/wet weather mat program, which ran in the TriCities between 2007 and 2012. “The experience under the old model with the city was very good,” said Coun. Brad West, chair of the city’s smart growth committee. “We didn’t hear any issues. It was only when we moved away from the bus-in model that the issues arose.” JACK PICKELL PHOTO
The great outdoors is never far away in the Tri-Cities. This photo snapped in a stream off Cedar Drive in Port Coquitlam captured a bear chowing down on a spawning salmon.
‘The most fun time of the whole year...’ Volunteers take fish to make fish By Diane Strandberg THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Every Saturday in November, an autumn ritual will take place in a rushing creek next to Coast Meridian Road in Port Coquitlam. While many people
are enjoying a quiet coffee with friends or the morning paper, or driving children to soccer games, a group of men armed with fish nets and wearing hip waders will splash into Hyde Creek, taking care not to slip on slimy stones. They’ll set up a seine net and, just as the coho and chum salmon are about to meander farther
up the creek to spawn, the volunteers will snatch up a few of the wriggling creatures and deposit them in a tub. To bystanders, it probably looks like fish wrestling, but for volunteers like Shane Peachman, a veteran of the annual fish take, the job of scooping up the pairs of male and female chum and coho is a task nec-
essary to ensure healthy, vibrant salmon runs in Hyde Creek for years to come. What’s more, says Peachman, the job, although wet, smelly and messy, is also enjoyable. “It’s the most fun time of the whole year,” he said. “The rest of the time, you’re babysitting.” see ‘IT LOOKS’, page A3
see PERMANENT, page A4
Transit expansion essential, say experts By Jeff Nagel BLACK PRESS
JEAN PEACHMAN/HYDE CREEK WATERSHED SOCIETY
Hyde Creek Watershed Society volunteers use nets to capture fish to ensure healthy salmon runs in the future.
Speaker after speaker at a regional transportation conference last Thursday called for a massive expansion of transit in Metro Vancouver and urged the province to provide the leadership to ensure it happens. see FEARS ABOUT, page A6