Skiers, snowboarders, power-sledders, uphill racers et al. reach their sporting peak around this time. Guided snowmobile tours that take people into the longer-lasting wintry climes of the serpentine Lewis Hills and the North Arm plateau occasion their place in the magnificent pictures that go with some extraordinary risk, if one cares to take it. Do take care out there.
Enough of the snow already. Here’s to fires on the beach.
And, for now, it is time for spring cleaning.
The preparedness of spring also lends to better prospects for an awesome summer.
After all, it’s come home year in McIvers. “Home is a Dream” in 2017, one about to be populated with nostalgia and other nice things, July 22-29.
Meanwhile, rural mail carriers look forward to the next six months. After enduring an equal amount of frustration managing the outcomes of the Canada Post switchover from rural postbox numbers to numbered street addressing, a plan identified in purpose of easier courier delivery and local emergency services.
It works fine for emergency services, at least one Bay of Islands fire chief, David George in McIvers, could claim after seeing his brigade successfully handle four first medical services responses inside eight days recently. Not a typical week.
Nonetheless, untold dozens of north shore residents are being heard to complain about improperly delivered mail into and out of other households’ mailboxes since last October, and it continues.
Complicating the change, residents were given a year to notify their billers and known correspondents of their new postals, when one courier relates that about only half of Canada Post users on his route, as elsewhere, have yet to notify their correspondents of their address change.
The six months that remain offer to halt personal deliveries for the other half of recipients who have yet to address the new plan. Then, it might become a postal emergency.
The continued success of regional firefighting and first responders services keeps communities secure in difficult times, a welcomed part of the safe, sane and consensual lifestyles shared in rural Bay of Islands.
By grace and glory, volunteer firefighters in the town of McIvers were on the receiving end of some serious appreciation at the department’s regular weekly meeting last Thursday night. Executive co-treasurers Jerri Lynn Lovell and Brenda Park of the McIvers Come Home Year 2017 Committee presented Fire Chief David George with a cheque in the amount of $100,000.
The donation was given to say thank you to the 20-member brigade for the dedicated service they provided in traffic control and public safety during the committee’s highly successful Chase the Ace fundraiser last year.
If there was any doubt that spring has arrived in Bay of Islands, a squall of robins, a flock comprising dozens odd red breasts, came trooping through my backyard the other day. I am convinced.
Meanwhile, the springtime crustacean fishery got underway this week with reduced federal quotas and higher prices to harvesters. As such, the reduction in total allowable catches seems to be having little effect on some fishers’ earnings, with early inshore catches offering to see personal quotas near 4,000 pounds caught up within the week. Dockside prices from processors this year top $4 a pound, up 25 per cent over 2016.
The open season for lobster also starts this month.
Taking a step back, folks on the Bay of Islands lower north shore keep watch for suspicious characters after a recent spate of criminal activity.
Arson is suspected in the destruction of a number of outport cabins in a fishers’ staging area near Crabbes Brook on the distant reaches of the shore, beyond Cox’s Cove. Four cabins and a shed were said to be razed. One property owner is heard to have lost all his fishing gear, hindering his start of the lobster season.
Meanwhile, a weekend break-in at a convenience store reported from McIvers involved the loss of a significant amount of alcohol and numerous lottery tickets.
It’s not all good news, after all.
Dave White welcomes your Bay of Islands news and events information at 660-5712, or email at [email protected].
