THURSDAY NOVEMBER 22, 2018 VOL. 44, NO. 45
$1
including GST
Watch for more online at: WWW.BOWENISLANDUNDERCURRENT.COM
HEALTH CENTRE
Lessons Bowen can learn from Gabriola Island’s health centre.
THE SLOW LANE
Marcus Hondro reflects on Remembrance Days past and some Bowen veterans
DEAR SUBSCRIBERS
In the event of a Canada Post strike, please pick up your Undercurrent from our office.
BITS gives Mt. Gardner trail markers a makeover BRONWYN BEAIRSTO CONTRIBUTOR
Historically, one of the challenges of hiking up Mt. Gardner has been to figure out exactly where the trail is. School groups, tourists, locals, haveall lost their way amidst the cedars and pines and branching trails at one point or another. But the trek up Bowen’s tallest peak just got a little bit easier. Armed with coffee, hammers, mallets and some brand new industrial reflective red markers, a brigade of more than 20 volunteers spent last Saturday methodically marking the Mt. Gardner trail. The Bowen Island Trail Society (BITS) organized the work party, which involved just as much pulling down old unofficial markers, left by various community members over the years, as putting up new ones. “There’s sort of a cocktail of different trail markers,” said the project’s volunteer coordinator, Bob Shutlz. Shultz says that they found markers ranging from painted tin can lids, orange blazes and flagging tape to action figures, plastic chickens and a porcelain wizard. “There’s less noise on trail now,” said Shultz. The society is part of a Bowen trails coalition formed last May. In partnership with the Crown (which owns 40 per cent of the land on Bowen, including much of Mt. Gardner), Bowen Trail Riders Association and Bowen Island Horse Owners and Riders Association, BITS is trying to improve signage and navigation on Bowen trails. Continued on page 3
Elisabeth Mueller admires one of her charges’ drawings at the daycare she operates out of her home. Elisabeth now offers $10 a day daycare, part of a provincial pilot program.
Bowen daycare part of universal childcare program BRONWYN BEAIRSTO EDITOR
A few weeks ago, Elisabeth Mueller gathered the children and parents of her daycare, Kinderhaus, and told them they’d be paying $10 a day for childcare, rather than the $50 plus they’d been paying up to
that point (costs vary by age.) Parents said it was like winning the lottery on Bowen. “They were nearly in shock,” laughed Elisabeth. The Bowen-based Kinderhaus is one of 53 daycares B.C.-wide selected as a prototype site for the prov-
ince’s universal childcare project. This means that families are paying $10 a day for a child’s care, to a total of no more than $200 a month. The pilot project was one of B.C. Premier John Horgan’s campaign promises during last year’s election. It runs until March 2020.
Elisabeth said that most of the selected day cares are larger, with only nine sole-proprietor operations part of the program, but that it’s important to support daycare diversity as different children have different needs. Continued on page 3