Dunbar Residents Association News and Events

Dear Neighbour,

Please find attached an article I just wrote regarding the negative impact of Laneway Housing in the City of Vancouver.  I am hoping to attract the attention of the media since many residents are very concerned that City Hall has essentially rezoned all single-family neighbourhoods to allow up to 4 families to reside on a single family lot. This has been surprisingly enacted without a  pilot project, adequate consultation, sufficient impact studies or fully informing residents of the implications. I believe that most residents in Vancouver are unaware of how they may be personally affected. To date, almost 100 such Building Permit Applications have been approved in a very short period of time and Laneway Housing is currently being built throughout the City of Vancouver.

The Impact of Laneway Housing

Sincerely

Peter Selnar

PS www.laneway.weebly.com is now live and it is a great start as a vehicle for discussion and opposition to the LWH Initiative.

Need respite from Football’s World Cup? Take a gander at June’s DRA Newsletter!

Heck, take a gander even if you don’t need the break.

Hi: My dad and I  had a very close relationship for many years with a Great Blue Heron, that all the Gillnet fisherpersons of Celtic Slough in Southlands called Big Foot !  The male Big Foot was a great fisherbird and was a wonderful provider for his mate and young  offspring  that usually were still in the nest during early July !

Yes but sometimes the Great Blue Guy was lazy, especially during the Peamouth Chub and Early Fraser River Stuart Lake  Sockeye Salmon season !  Now all of the kids from around the Blenheim Flats now called the” Southlands Equestrian Village ” oh what a  posh name”, they all came  down to the Gillnet floats with wet slices of White G. B. Bread and a can of worms on the weekend, to fish for Big Foot ! Now you are not going to believe this , the Foot knew when there was going to be kids fishing action on the wharves, it was usually on the weekend ! I would swear on the rocker arms of my Easthope boat Engine,   he could count days and when my dad and I would Knock off work at the shipyard and I swear he also knew when the Sockeye seasons weekly opening days for Sockeye gillnetting  were ! Yes ! I know you are not going to believe this , it was the  sound of the 4.30 Shipyard horn that made him Swoop down and wait at our boat cabin door for us to either fish  Chub for him or gut a few Stuart lake Sockeye on the dock !  He liked the Sockeye scraps from all the gillnet boats best of all , he kind of filled up to the Top with Sockeye pieces , the last ones sticking out of his beak and then Bigfoot had great problems taking off to go to the nest and every one laughed with his attempted takeoffs !

The greatest picture of all was when all the kids were lined up on the dock fishing and catching nothing on the weekend , now I am not lying, Big foot would Crook and Crook some more, turning his head to watch the Chub bobber on the kids fishing line and when the chub were biting he would dance on the dock with his wings out, it was a dance of great anticipation ! The kids all squealed and laughed and threw him live chub, Bigfoot liked the attention of the kids and of course a big meal of Chub ! A picture of Bigfoot doing this is  in the Kiosk in Fraser River Park, have a look !

Bigfoot became a very close friend of Dad and I and near the end of July after all the nesting and raising young was completed he crooked and crooked some more to get our attention one day and some thing great happened , I am crying now , he walked down the Dock and watched us very carefully out of one eye , you are not going to believe this , he picked up small pieces of wood from the river, threw them up in the air and tried to catch them, he strutted like a proud new parent and I think he was showing dad and I how happy he was ! 

Bigfoot died when the Slough and adjacent lands and all his feeding habitat was dredged out and developed for a expensive housing project !

Terry Slack “From Celtic Island and Slough”

It was the 15th of July in the Early 1950ies and my Fraser River Salmon Gillnetting family in the lower North Arm were noticing the Corkline floats of our Early 9 inch Spring gillnets were just bobbing slightly on every drift !

Granddad said Big Sockeye going through , change nets ! ! We immediately  hand pulled into the stern of our boat the” Puff” 60 fathom of 5 and three quarter inch. Sockeye Net . On every low water “Slack” tide for about a week we pulled in really big Green Backed Sockeye and a  few Steelhead from our hand made nylon mesh gillnet !  About the 21st of June the run had passed and we went back to gillnetting for  Early Fraser River Chinooks” Spring Salmon ” ! My grandfather said this strange early , early run of big Fraser River  Sockeye, were probably a distinct unknown  North Arm Run of  Pitt Lake Sockeye ! These early run N. A.  Sockeye and Steelhead came in great numbers in 1947 and 1948 and Granddad caught them in the tidal channels of the Point Grey Booming grounds, including Musqueam Channel !

After 1952 the sockeye and steelhead run did not come back, the North Arm by then was heavily polluted by sewage and chemicals and most the  salmon migrating through the North and Middle Arms were effected .

There was one exception, that was the Early Stuart Lake Sockeye Run, who for hundreds of years  took the North and Middle Arm Fraser River Estuary migration route home !  But I will never forget those” Mysterious mid June Sockeye “ that paid for our tickets to immigrate to Canada, from Nottingham England !

Terry ” From the North Arm of the Fraser River”