• Gratitude for a neighbour who works at Shuswap Lake General Hospital melded into a parade of appreciation in a Salmon Arm neighbourhood.
Holly Gray and two of her neighbours, Prab Dhaliwal and Joanna Bickle, heard the news about people in different cities across Canada showing their appreciation for healthcare workers at 7 o’clock each evening, a shift change time for many, by banging pots and honking horns to recognize their work.
They decided to organize the same for neighbour Jo Tighe, whose official title is patient care coordinator of emergency, intensive care unit and oncology at the Salmon Arm hospital.
On Thursday afternoon, March 26, adults and children at about 12 residences were out on the streets –keeping their social distance, holding thank-you signs and banging on pots and buckets. Jo was both surprised and very moved.
• A fire that lit up part of a hillside near Chase was believed to have been human caused.
BC Wildfire Service reported the blaze on Adams Lake band land began around 1 p.m. on Tuesday, April 7.
Initially classified as “out of control,” the fire burned overnight and reached approximately two hectares in size.
• Testing determined an algal bloom found Shuswap Lake to be non-toxic. The approximately 30-metre wide bloom located southwest of Herald Provincial Park on Thursday, April 9, was initially suspected to have been cyanobacteria – commonly known as blue-green algae.
According to a related media release by Interior Health and the Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD), cyanobacteria can produce poisonous chemicals if swallowed by people, pets or livestock.
• Earth Day activities may have been cancelled due to COVID19, but a small number Shuswap Naturalist Club members actively marked the day, and the club’s anniversary, by planting 24 trees on Wednesday morning, April 22, and began working as couples or on their own at digging holes to plant approximately 24 trees.
The trees were planted in recognition of Earth Day and the club’s 50th anniversary.
The club planned to plant the remaining 26 trees later in the year.