Up front: Outrage follows illegal dumping on Mt. Sicker forestland News: MP making another attempt for new derelict boat law
Your news leader since 1905
page 3 page 7
For all the news of the Cowichan region as it happens, plus stories from around British Columbia, go to our website www.cowichannewsleader.com
Friday, February 20, 2015
Ranking is a whale of an achievement
Ocean EcoVentures: Cowichan Bay whale watching firm B.C.’s highest rated tourist activity according to Tripadvisor John McKinley
News Leader Pictorial
S Andrew Leong
North Cowichan south-end firefighters help paramedics remove a man from a Dodge Caliber involved in a crash with a Dodge Ram truck on Highway 18 at Tansor Road at 3:25 p.m. Tuesday. The Caliber driver was freed by the Jaws of Life. North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP Sgt. Chris Swain said the Caliber driver, a 72-year-old Lake Cowichan man, was airlifted to Victoria with serious, but not life-threatening injuries and remained there as of Wednesday. The two occupants of the truck were taken to Cowichan District Hospital and released. Traffic snarled for about an hour going east and westbound.
Malahat ranks as Vancouver Island’s third-deadliest highway J.R. Rardon
Campbell River Mirror
O
nly one stretch of highway on Vancouver Island made the top 10 list of B.C.’s most dangerous. And it wasn’t the Malahat. In fact, according to statistics provided by ICBC for the period of 2004 to 2013, our most notorious stretch of blacktop ranks as just the third-deadliest on Vancouver Island. The island’s worst stretch was from Courtenay to Nanaimo on Hwy. 19. It ranked in a sixth-place tie with 26 fatalities. Most of those occurred on the older, coastal highway 19A, with traffic fatalities dropping following completion of the four-lane Inland Highway. Meanwhile, second-worst stretch for fatalities on the Island is the long, mountainous run between Campbell River and Port Hardy, which had 23
file
Despite a reputation fed by pictures like this one, the Malahat is not among B.C.’s most dangerous highways. fatal accidents in the decade. That was followed by the DuncanVictoria stretch of Hwy. 1, which
includes the infamous Malahat corridor. This stretch experienced a total of 20 deaths.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure recently completed a $15 million safety improvement project begun last year to reduce accidents on the Malahat. The run between Golden and Revelstoke on Highway 1 ranked as B.C.’s most dangerous, with 38 crashes resulting in fatalities in the 10-year period measured. Overall accidents with fatalities in the province have dropped dramatically during that time, to 125 in 2013 from 238 in 2004. ICBC indicated the report in which the data was compiled is for information purposes and is not an audited or formally validated report. Precise mapping of incidents is not always possible and counts by location are not considered comprehensive. Also, the report covers only public roads falling under the Motor Vehicle Act, and does not include forest service roads, industrial roads or private driveways.
imon Pidcock is not perfect. There was that one family from Maine upset about the pounding they took jetting over the waves during a whale watching tour with his company back in 2012. And there was another group from California a year later that decided their trip was merely average, due to a lack of whale sightings. And then there is everybody else. You know, the 420 people whose reviews combined to make Pidcock’s Ocean EcoVentures the number-one ranked tourist activity in all of British Columbia according to Tripadvisor. Probably the world’s most popular internet travel guide, Tripadvisor supplies readers with a massive list of international accommodations, transportation, sights and activities. While it offers a one-stop shop for basic information on just about any travel experience anywhere, its popularity is mostly fueled by written reviews supplied by regular travellers, and the five-star rating system that goes along with it. Cowichan Bay-based Ocean EcoVentures has been reviewed 422 times. The Maine family referred to above gave it one star (terrible). The California group gave it three stars (average). Fourteen others gave it four stars (very good). The other 406 reviewers gave it the full five stars, leading to an overall 99% approval rating, tops among the 2,050 B.C. activities Tripadvisor covers. Check out some of these recent comments: “It was an amazing experience and I know I´ll probably do it again when I visit Canada with my husband,” posts JLM622 from Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. more on page 5