KNPS
AGM 2004
Report
from the Executive
As
the snow was falling last December and January and the springtails and scorpion
flies were coming out to mate and migrate members of the Kimberley Nature Park
Society were equally busy.
We started off with a Special Membership meeting in December to discuss
our thoughts and feelings about the need to reduce fuels and lower the fire risk
in the Park adjacent to town. We prepared and presented a brief to the Province’s
Filmon Commission on the interface fire situation. We wrote a response to Teck/Cominco’s
logging plans for the remaining areas of Forest Crown, went on a field trip with
their forester and hurriedly removed our remaining trail signs from the area in
advance of logging.
Members
of our planning committee met with the Fire Department and the Ministry of
Forests to continue our discussion on how to craft a fire management strategy
for the Park. Members of our Trails
Committee snow-shoed and skied throughout the Park, removing downed trees and
ensuring that the trails were safe. Our
Natural History committee also got out into the snow last winter with a series
of field trips that looked at animal tracks, the ecology of trees and, as spring
approached, birding by ear and building herbariums.
Late
in the winter, members of our planning committee hiked through the interface
area of the Park with Dennis Petryshyn, the Ministry of Forests stewardship
officer, and learned about some of the techniques that might be used to reduce
fuel loading and fire risk. Dennis took us on another walk in August in the
Cranbrook Community forest, to review some of the fuel reduction projects that
were carried out there last winter.
By
April we were out in the south end of the Park flagging a new route for a
section of Duck Pond trail that was lost to the logging in Forest Crowne. Over
the next two months volunteers from the Society and members of Blake Rawson’s
Outdoor Careers Class from Selkirk sawed and shoveled and grubhoed and built a
beautiful new trail to connect Duck Pond to Skid road.
It was during this construction that we noticed some banging going on
that didn’t emanate from our tools. Further
investigation of this tapping noise led to the discovery of some rare Williamson’s
sapsuckers nesting in the Park, much to the delight of the Endangered Species
biologist in Nelson.
In late April and May some KNPS volunteers met with Kevin Patterson the
Regional Districts noxious weed control specialist to talk about some other
species that we wish were endangered. The meetings included a field trip into
several areas around the Park to assess the extent that knapweed, toadflax and
other foreign weeds were encroaching on it ecosystems.
We continue to work on this issue and hope to develop a noxious weed
management plan for the Park.
On
April 24th Earth Day celebrations brought out hundreds of people to
Late
April and early May also bought out thousands of glacier lilies along Duck Pond
Trail and we celebrated their blooming with our first monthly guided walk of the
season on Mother’s Day. Volunteers
from the Society led public walks each month this year from May to October and
introduced dozens of visitors to all corners of the Park.
Flowers
were not the only things emerging this spring. In April, Larry Becker the fire
Chief convened the Community Interface Fire Management Committee and volunteers
from the Nature Park Society joined representatives of a number of organizations
and agencies to discuss ways to reduce fire risk while maintaining other values.
We were delighted to learn a couple of months later that the City had
hired fire ecologist Bob Gray to be the advisor to the committee and to help
create a fire management plan for the City and the Park. Members of the KNPS
accompanied Bob on a couple of field trips into the Park in the summer and fall
and plans for a restoration project on Sunflower Hill are being developed. An
overall plan for the Park should be ready later this winter.
Concern
about fire also prompted the Fire Department to ask us to widen and heighten
some of the major access routes through the Park to accommodate a tanker truck.
In June the Trails Committee held a major work party on Bear Trail and
followed it up with weekly clearing forays on Eimer’s Road and the Lower and
Upper Army Roads that continued through the summer. This
was one of our busiest trail-brushing seasons ever.
Also in June our Events Committee hosted another successful Nature Park
Week with a dozen events over seven days. From
introductory strolls to full day hikes, bike rides for kids to explorations with
a badger biologist, we again presented a diverse and fascinating array of
experiences for the public’s enjoyment.
One of these outings toured the
The
summer flew by this year, with guided walks, trail work parties and fire related
field trips. On one of the trips into the Park with Bob Gray, a little snake
called a rubber boa was found. Although not listed as an endangered species, it
is quite rare and according to B.C. government habitat maps, doesn’t inhabit
the
In
September we received a notice from Russ Hawkins, a
Our
relationship with our most local level of government, the City of
In October, we were asked by the City to review a proposed free brochure
that described and mapped all the hiking and biking trails in and around
So that, very briefly, is a summary of some the significant events and
activities for this year. Of course, there were a lot of other things going on
throughout the year that always go on with the KNPS. With the help of numerous
local businesses we sold 559 trail guides. This is somewhat less than last year
but still a very respectable number. We continued to sign up members and
encourage old members to renew and ended the year with 175 memberships
representing a total of 366 members. This is up from last year’s 350 members
and a new high for membership. We continued to maintain and update our webpage
and we once again published and distributed three newsletters over the year some
of them displayed in the new boxes that we have added to our kiosks.
There is one more issue that I would like to discuss before we move on to
elections. The need to deal with the
fire risk in the Park is likely going to result in some thinning and burning in
some areas. Bob Gray has asked us
where our important values are, so he can avoid disturbing them.
Our initial response was “It’s all valuable”. Thinking
about the question a little more we realized that we have never tried to create
an inventory of all the things that make the Park special.
These would include special ecosystems, hidden wet areas, great
viewpoints, big old trees, delightful trails, historic mining and logging sites,
etc. etc. Some of us have begun to
look for and record these spots and we are hoping everyone that uses and loves
the Park will give it some thought and contribute suggestions.
Did you know there was a small slough on top of
The
City of
So thank you again everyone for coming out this evening. It looks like we
are going to have a very interesting next year in the Park and I hope that with
the support of our members, the public and the City of Kimberley it will be a
very successful one.
Kent
Goodwin
President
For the KNPS Executive