Dunbar Residents Association News and Events

Lord Kitchener Elementary School Gymnasium
4055 Blenheim Street, Vancouver
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 7-9 pm
$5/person or $8/couple

Our children’s use of online communication and social media is exploding. How do we stay ahead of this technology curve and guide our children safely and wisely through a time of unprecedented change? When is it appropriate to allow our kids on social networking sites like Facebook? How do we protect them from inappropriate content on sites like YouTube?
How do we keep them from being exploited by the information and individuals they encounter on the Internet?

Parenting in a Cyber-Age  will explore the many parenting challenges presented by the Internet age. This presentation aims to help parents acquire the tools to deal with these challenges with a particular focus on Internet literacy and safety information. Presented by BC’s Safe Online Outreach Society (SOLOS) this presentation will also provide timely information on topics including:
» Web 101
» Parents as “cyber-tourists”; youth as “cyber residents”
» Emerging trends in online youth culture
» High risk activities online
» The nature of sexual exploitation in cyberspace
» Internet safety tips and resources

Public is welcome. Please contact shaben@telus.net for further information or to reserve seats.

Re: City Budget Process – Vancouver Public Library cuts – Spring 2010 issue

We just want to say, thank you!, to Dunbar residents who have taken the time to speak to City Council and advocate for library services during the city budget process.

We continue to be open Tuesday thru Saturday, but have lost 6 hours of service. The new hours are Tues, and Thurs-Sat, 10am-6pm, Wed 12-8pm. West Point Grey branch will be open Tues evening to 8pm. Kerrisdale branch will be open Thurs evening to 8pm. Thank you to the 400 library visitors who filled out our hours survey. The survey allowed us to reflect community interests as best we could, knowing that any reduced schedule will be problematic for some borrowers.

Dunbar branch staff are proud to serve the neighbourhood and grateful for your support

Dunbar Branch Staff

Vancouver Public Library

4515 Dunbar St.

Ph. 604-665-3968

Hi ! Terry Slack from the North Arm of the Fraser River !

Yes the Eulachon  have  been gone from the 3 spawning areas in the North Fork of the Fraser River for over many years now ! I have stopped counting the times I go down to the river in May, to look and hope that they just might be there !  The little pieces of rough sand or Pea Gravel that they use to spawn in have been dredged away, or covered in a thick layer of bark from log booms !  The Eagles nesting along the river can only  manage to ambush and kill  seagulls and ducks now, to feed their young ! Gone are the days of swooping Eagle’s grabbing spawned out Eulachon Kelts on the surface of the river and delivering them to the young in  their nest, it was great site never to be forgotten !

Yes I kind of miss getting my dads Eulachon Gillnet ready, that for years we hand pitched from the stern of our old wooden double ender Gill-netter called the  Imperial 18 .  Dad and I always had big brimed waterproof hats on our heads when we went Eulachon Fishing to try to avoid the Sea Gull poo, that was always raining down on us from thousands of Eulachon Grabbing gulls that were patroling and fertilising the river marshes ! Old -timers down at the fish dock  at the south foot of Blenheim street,  swore that the sticky Gull Poo could grow hair back on to a bald mans head !

The big run of North Arm Eulachon arrived right  on time every year ! Great Blue Herons were eating and pooing, eating and pooing and falling off the piling along the shoreline of the river, with the last Eulachon tail still sticking out of their beaks . May was the” Eulachon Time of Plenty on the North Arm, for over 20 species of fish, animals and birds on the river and they depended on getting the big feed that the river provided like clockwork every spring. The big feed came just before the females went on the nest  .

I go down to the river in late May every year now and see no gulls , no diving ducks,no eagles fishing and no great Blue Herons catching Eulachon ! I kind of think that all these species of birds and animals have just given up , they do not even  bother now  to even  look for the little fish, I guess they just know its just another year with no Eulachon !  Yes it is a” Eulachon Silent Spring” every year now on the North Arm of the Fraser River now and its hard to get get use to it ! Yes I know you will ask just what happened to them , well its just another long story of too many people not caring about a species that to them, did not mean to much !

Terry Slack “Past Eulachon Fisher from the North Arm Of the Fraser River ”

Due to recent complaints we’ve heard about speeders down Blenheim who ignore the traffic circle right of ways, we thought it would be prudent to send out this article that appeared in the February 2009 DRA Newsletter.

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If you thought this article might explore theories about the creation of the Universe, then I apologize in advance for disappointing you. Rather, the topic is about those three new traffic circles on Blenheim Street and how to navigate through them without causing a “big bang.” A little background information first.

For a number of years, pavement conditions along Blenheim, south of West 16th, have been poor in many areas. While the City’s traditional approach would be simply to repave such streets, there was concern that repaving would result in higher speeds and more traffic. As Blenheim was one of several secondary arterial streets in the City proposed for reclassification as a neighbourhood collector street and eligible for traffic calming, the City designated Blenheim as the pilot project for the citywide Neighbourhood Collector Initiative.

Following a survey of 3000 area residents in September 2005, City Council approved the reclassification of Blenheim Street from 16th Avenue to SW Marine Drive and the implementation of changes to increase safety, calm traffic and improve liveability. The introduction of traffic circles formed part of this work.

Traffic circles discourage speeding and support Blenheim’s status as a neighbourhood collector. Traffic circles accomplish this without diverting traffic to neighbouring residential streets, attracting new traffic or unduly slowing emergency vehicles (as would be the case if speed humps were introduced).

Traffic circles have been installed at Blenheim’s intersection with W 21st, 29th and 37th Avenues. Why three circles? Stop signs are found every two blocks on local residential streets such as Balaclava, Collingwood and Carnarvon. Arterials such as Dunbar and Macdonald generally have signals or 4-way stops every eight blocks. City Engineering decided that, to differentiate Blenheim (a neighbourhood collector) from both an arterial and a local area street, asking drivers to slow or stop every four blocks seemed reasonable. Thus, in conjunction with existing signals at 16th, King Edward, 41st and Marine and a 4-way stop at 33rd, this objective is achieved.

Now that the Blenheim Street reclassification has occurred and the related improvements completed, there all too often is vehicular confusion at the three traffic circles. The traffic pattern of the old Blenheim Street no longer exists. The three traffic circle intersections are uncontrolled intersections.

• As with any uncontrolled intersection, slow down when approaching a traffic circle.
• If you’re confused about which way to go around the circle, look for the directional arrow signs.
• Upon entering a circle, watch for vehicles already in the circle – vehicles in the circle have the right-of-way, irrespective of whether they are to your right or left.
• If two vehicles arrive simultaneously at the traffic circle, the vehicle to your right has the right-of-way.
• Yield to pedestrians who are crossing or about to cross.

Following these rules should help keep your ICBC premiums to a minimum!

If you live on a local residential street that is not part of the City’s traffic calming plan, and are interested in having a traffic circle installed, an information package can be obtained by calling the City’s Neighbourhood Transportation Branch at 604-871-6279. Typically, two-thirds of affected property owners will need to sign a petition in support of installation of a traffic circle. Costs can vary from $400-$1,000 per property depending on the number of properties involved.

This is the year of the Great Fraser River Juvenile Pink Salmon Migration to the sea , it happens like clock work every even year during  spring months in the River  ! The little salmon move down river  in great schools and prefer to stay most of the time in the deep centre of the river channel for just a little protection from the many waiting predators !

The Pink Salmons parents, some 20 million strong, spawned last fall above Mission B. C. in the great historic Gravel reaches of the Fraser River !  About 15 % of the juvenile Pinks in the spring of 2010, will come from the rivers and streams above Hells Gate in the Fraser Canyon and are the real first historic Pinks Salmon of the Fraser River ! They like many other Fraser River salmon species came back to a growing new Fraser River, about 10 thousand years ago .

They are our Fraser River mother salmon that came from the Ice free Columbia River Sanctuary ,to escape the great glaciers that covered most of the North American land mass so many years ago!  These waiting for the “big melt  Salmon” moved back north, to once again find spawning homes in many B. C. rivers like the  Fraser River !

The Historic above Hells Gate juvenile pinks have the dangerous  task of  navigating through the dangerous Fraser River Canyon and a polluted Fraser Lower Estuary on their way to the Salish Sea !  Many predators await them  all the way down river and also at the mouth of the rivers four channels . The  time to see the great schools of them  on the start of their epic journey to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, will be the first week in May and the migration will continue on through the second week in June .

Deering Island and Celtic Slough in the lower North Arm is a Transition Zone from Fresh Water to Brackish Water for the tiny Pink fry and they like to move along the now disappearing, or dredged away, shoreline Ribbon Marshes during the high river tides, trying to find food and cover from diving sea birds such as Cormorants and of course Great Blue Herons . Belted King Fisher birds watch from overhanging shoreline trees and swoop down for a meal . The saviour for the Pink  Fry is the F. R. Spring Freshet if it comes on time and colors the river brown to make a camouflage river environment for the pink fry as they move downstream . Survival for the fry is all about the River Freshet being on time and lasting long enough, to get the bulk “100 million” of the juvenile Pink fry out of the river and into the sea.

Today’s Climate Changes are  effecting the strength and timing of the Fraser Rivers once predictable Spring Freshet  , a freshet that the Juvenile Pink Salmon of the Fraser River have depended upon for hundreds, and just maybe thousands, of years, that protect them on their spring journey to the sea ! !

Let the great Fraser River Pink Salmon migration begin, it really is a wonder of our natural  world and on Dunbar’s Fraser River doorstep !  Do not miss it !

Terry Slack” From the North Arm of the Fraser River”