Another generation of Salmon Arm students have wrapped their heads around the principles of flag design to offer alternatives for the City of Salmon Arm.
A couple of packages from students of JL Jackson Secondary teacher Ryon Ready were in the correspondence section of Feb. 12 city council agenda. Both include signed group letters, one from Ready’s C-block French Immersion Social Studies students, and the other from A-block Sciences Humaines 9 students. Both explain they’ve been studying the principles of good flag design provided by the North American Vexillogical Association. These principles require that a flag be simple, unique or connected, use 2-3 colours, meaningful symbols and “absolutely no words.” Both classes argue the city’s current “Salmon Arm – Small Cities, Big Ideas” flag does not meet this bar.
“We think that Salmon Arm is a great place to live and learn, and we think that the branding on the current flag is great for the city’s initiatives, but the city deserves a great flag to go with it,” reads the letter from the C-block students. “The colours of Ida Blue and Salmon Arm Orange on the flag (in addition to Lakeshore Blue) represent great things in our community, but knowing those meanings is hard without doing some digging, and not obvious from the current flag.
The students argue a new flag could incorporate important, local symbols while including representation of local indigenous peoples and the environment.
As Ready’s students have done in the past, both of his current classes of young vexillologists offered their own designs. Several of the designs from A-block incorporate salmon and/or interpretations of Mount Ida. One makes use of Ida blue to illustrate a silhouette of mountains, and Salmon Arm orange for the sun over top. The artists/designers note: The use of the mountains and the sun perfectly sums up the Shuswap. The mountains provide adventure year round, and the sun our hot Shuswap summers.
For their flag, one C-block student made use of Ida blue and Lakeshore blue to create a lake scene with the city’s iconic wharf on the left and and three mountains in the background, representing Ida, Bastion and the Fly Hills. The artist/designer explained how the addition of the wharf, a unique attraction of Salmon Arm’s, also makes her flag unique – when compared to other flags in the province.
“I don’t care if you choose my flag but I suggest that you get multiple flag choices and present them to the people of Salmon Arm so that it can be voted on and we will not have to change the flag again anytime soon,” commented the artist.
Another C-block offering incorporates Salmon Arm orange and Ida blue, with a white sun and feather. The artist explained the sun “represents the bright future and the big ideas of our small city,” while the feather represents “indigenous peoples in our area and the trust and freedom our town represents.”
The city’s current flag was adopted in 2021, following a community-led branding exercise that culminated in the “Small City, Big Ideas” slogan.
Council offered no comment on the submissions.
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