Sooke News Mirror, April 29, 2015

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C O M M U N I T Y N E W S M E D I A

Black PressWednesday, April 29, 2015Agreement#40110541

Editorial Page 10

Our Community Page 15

Sports/stats Page 37

40 pages in one section

SOOKE HIWAYGord Phillips is a contestant on

CBCs Searchlight.Page 15 3.125x1.2

Dimock

From garage sale to trade fairSooke Rotary Club presents their annual spring auction and fairPirjo Raits Sooke News Mirror

Twenty-five years ago, the Rotarians decided to hold a garage sale with tables where people could sell used goods. This sim-ple beginning turned into the massive public event that has become the Rotary Auction and Spring Fair held each year at SEAPARC.

This years fair takes

place on Saturday, May 2 with a 10 a.m. start.

John Bridal, Director of Public Relations for the Sooke Rotary Club, said the biggest change has been going from an auction to a pub-lic event with Sooke businesses involved. He said now there is a trade fair, entertain-ment, food and dis-plays.

This happened just before I got there - it suddenly ballooned, said Bridal.

Part of the goal, said Bridal was to let the local community high-light what is here.

Everyones been huddled around all win-ter and now its time to get out and see whats going on.

This year the Rotar-

ians will have a new feature - gold panning. Thanks to the Vancou-ver Island Placer Min-ing Association, kids (and big kids) can, for a small fee, pan for gold. The dirt will be salted with real gold and what-ever gold anyone pans out they can keep.

Its celebrating 150 years of gold from Leechtown, said Bridal.

The auction has always been a major draw at the fair and this year is no different, except the live auction begins at 6 p.m. The silent auction goes on all day.

So what wonders are being offered up at the live auction? There are four fishing charters to bid on and Bridal said

this is always a popular item. Add to that a one-week stay at a resort in Canmore, Alberta where horseback rising is the big deal.

The auction items range from the won-derful to the necessary and by that he means a huge box of toilet paper. Then theres the multiple truckloads of gravel and wood chips, and a local dentist is even offering crown work.

Bridal emphasizes the 6 p.m. start for the live auction.

People can wander around sampling and gathering information from over 70 booths and be entertained by local dancers from Car-ole Cave Dance Studio, the Journey middle

school rock band and other local performers.

There is also a plant sale outdoors and free swimming at the pool from 1 to 5 p.m.

Bridal said they are excited about the auc-tion and fair but the best thing is what it provides to the com-munity.

This is our major fund raiser, said Bridal, It allows our club to do the things we do in Sooke. Were extremely grateful to the donors and sponsors, we couldnt do it without their generosity year to year.

The best part - its FREE.

SEAPARC Leisure Complex is located at 2168 Phillips Road.

Pirjo Raits photos

Getting ReadySooke Harbourside Lions were out in force on April 23 waving to motorists on Sooke Road all to pro-mote the Duck Race on May 9 at the Sooke Flats.

MAY 9

Classifieds 29 75

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Sooke is Selling!2015 Sooke Home Sales: 1062014 Sooke Home Sales: 300TAMMI DIMOCK

Personal Real Estate Corp.

Drinking water tours

Find out where your water comes from

The Capital Regional District (CRD) will be hosting annual public tours of the Greater Vic-toria Water Supply Area and water supply facili-ties from Monday, May 4 to Saturday, May 9.

Every year during BC Drinking Water Week, residents of the region are invited to register for public tours of the Greater Victoria Water Supply Area and water supply facilities. The water system serves a population of approxi-mately 340,000 people within the region.

The free tours pro-vide a first-hand look at the Greater Victoria Water Supply Area and water supply facilities. They provide an oppor-tunity to learn more about the care taken to provide Greater Vic-toria with clean, safe drinking water every-day.

There are two tour options:

A full day (5.5 hour) tour takes participants north to south through the Sooke and Gold-stream water supply areas.There are sev-eral stops including a walk to the shoreline of Sooke Lake Reservoir, a look at Rithet Creek that supplies a quar-ter of the water to the reservoir, a short forest walk, a lunch stop at the dam at Sooke Lake Reservoir, a stop at Goldstream Lake Res-ervoir and a tour of the ultraviolet disinfection facility.

The full day tour leaves at 9:30 a.m. each day and returns at approximately 3 p.m.

A half day (three hour) tour focuses on

water supply facilities including visits to the dams at Sooke Lake and Goldstream Lake reservoirs and the ultraviolet disinfection facility. These half day tours leave at 9:15 a.m. and 1 p.m. daily.

Advance reserva-tions are required and can be made by calling 250-474-9621 from Mon-day to Friday, 8 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Coast Guard station closes

Federal budget day coincided with the clo-sure of a coast guard monitoring station in Ucluelet, the third such base to be closed by the Conservative gov-ernment in 2015. Coast guard officers say that reducing the number of staff that oversees marine communica-tions and traffic is a threat to the safety of Canadians and wildlife on the coast.

The Harper gov-ernments cuts to the marine safety network have impacted services on both coasts. Three bases have been closed so far this year in Saint John, St. Johns, and now Ucluelet. Five more monitoring stations are scheduled to close in 2015 in Thunder Bay, Rivire au Renard, St. Anthony, Vancouver, and Comox.

Commercial fish-ers are concerned that reduced oversight will put them at a higher risk.

Thousands of Cana-dians make their living on our coast. The coast guard is essential to our safety, said Keith Sullivan, President of Unifors Fish, Food, and Allied Workers (FFAW).

Restoring funding to the coast guard would cost $5.5 million per

year, or 0.25 per cent of the cost to the gov-ernment of the income-splitting program intro-duced in 2015.

Missing ticket stubs

The Sooke Harbour-side Lions are pretty quacked up about some missing ticket stubs. On April 21, a member sold tickets to their Duck Race and for-got to keep the stubs.

The ticket numbers are 351, 352, 353, 354, 355.

If you have them please call Maria Med-wedrich at 250-642-6223. They dont want anyone to miss out on the win.

Garrison works to protect Sooke River

Randall Garrison, MP (Esquimalt Juan de Fuca) this week introduced Private Members Bills C-667 (Sooke River) and C-668 (Colquitz River) that would add the Colquitz and Sooke Rivers and watersheds to the schedule of the Naviga-tion Protection Act and thus restore federal environmental protec-tion to these impor-tant regional rivers. In 2012 the Conservative governments Bill C-45 cut environmental pro-tection to all rivers, streams, and lakes on Vancouver Island.

Both the Colquitz and Sooke Rivers are vital to their immediate neighbourhoods and to the overall environmen-tal health of the Capital Regional District. Gar-

rison said. The upper Sooke watershed is the source for drinking water for Greater Vic-toria and the Colquitz watershed, which includes Elk, Beaver, Swan and Blenkinsop Lakes, is one of the most threatened watersheds on Vancouver Island. Passage of these bills would provide back up to the volunteer groups which have been work-ing so hard to restore the integrity of these watersheds, including efforts to bring back their salmon runs, said Garrison.

Not only are these ecosystems valuable in themselves, they can also play an important role in our local econ-omy. Restoring salmon runs can help contrib-ute to tourism and sport fishing as well as helping ensure the sur-vival of the Southern Resident Killer Whales by increasing their local food supply, Gar-rison concluded.

Two Sooke bridge options dropped

District of Sooke council has removed the last two remain-ing locations from the list of a suggested sec-ond bridge across the Sooke River.

Site 3, Soule Road, was taken off the list due to the cost needed to implement a bridge in the area.

A second location known as Site 4, Calvert Road to Sunriver Nature Trail Park, was also dropped off the list due to several elevation-related reasons, nota-bly the steep grades in Sunriver Nature Trail Park, which would pose a potential risk to cyclists.

2 www.sookenewsmirror.com Wednesday, april 29, 2015 - SOOKE NEWS MIRROR

process

This and ThaT2 www.sookenewsmirror.com WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2015 - SOOKE NEWS MIRROR

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CALL FOR AUDITIONSWant to be a part of one of the greatest Rock Operas of all time? Come on out and show your talent! We are

looking for vocalists and musicians to re-create this iconic classic. Vocalists are requested to contact Joe

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