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2009 year in review
Joe McWilliams and Patrick Keller
Lakeside Leader
January
As usual the New Year’s Baby leads off our retrospective of the news of 2008. The first baby born in the Slave Lake Health Complex in January was Friedrich Otto Xavier Wolters. He was born at 11:56 a.m. on Jan. 3 and appeared on the front page of our first issue of the New Year with mom Christina.
Good news in early in the New Year was that the Anglers Cup – the big walleye fishing tournament held in Slave Lake – would be going ahead in 2008. That was contrary to the original intention to hold it every two years, but organizers cited “high demand” in changing their decision.
Bad news for parents interested in French Immersion schooling for their children. The Leader reported on Jan. 30 a decision by the High Prairie School Division board of trustees to not pursue such a program in HPSD schools in Slave Lake. This followed an earlier decision by Living Waters Regional Catholic Division to terminate French Immersion at St. Mary of the Lake School.
The Slave Lake Winterhawks finished the North Central Hockey League regular season in third place in the North Division. They were slated to face the Legal Vipers in the first round of the playoffs.
February
The Town of Slave Lake awarded a roughly $30 million contract to build the new provincial and municipal government building in February. The successful bidder was Chandos Construction of Edmonton, which had 77 months to complete the 89,000 square-foot structure, the town announced.
Alberta’s Conservative government called a provincial election in February, for Mar. 3. Lesser Slave Lake MLA Pearl Calahasen lost no time in announcing her candidacy for a sixth term in office. Her main challenger was to be Liberal Steve Noskey, an oilfield worker from Little Buffalo.
So much for mild winters. Slave Lake experienced three straight weeks of frigid temperatures – and lots of snow – extending well into February. The front page picture in the Feb. 13 issue showed Hwy. 2 almost obscured by blowing snow. Not surprisingly, the conditions contributed to a rash of collisions. Police reported a dozen crashes in a 48-hour period prior to Feb. 13.
Ominous news on the economic front. The Leader reported the indefinite closure of Tolko’s High Prairie OSB mill in February. The closure put 119 people out of work. The company cited a variety of factors for the move, which added up to the inability to produce the product for less than it fetches on the market.
March
Sports news was high on the agenda early in March. The Winterhawks pushed defending league champion Lamont to a fifth game in the second round of the playoffs, but lost it on the road. Meanwhile, a team representing the Whitecourt Petroleum Association won the 44th annual Oilmen’s Bonspiel, over Northwell.
In other hockey news, the Midget girls’ team won their league, beating a Fort McMurray team in the final of a season-ending tournament. The Bantam ‘AA’ Thunder were also league champs. Meanwhile, local athletes Melissa Ross, Jeff Hastie, Bud Dyck, Megan Melnyczuk, Alexandra Ball and Taiya Ahola won medals at the Arctic Winter Games in Yellowknife.
M.D. #124 council approved a budget in March that called for a five per cent tax increase. Even with the increase, the budget had to cut out some items, such as $920,000 in road improvements in the south shore area.
April
Proponents of an addition to the local seniors’ lodge were speaking in optimistic terms in a report in the first Lakeside Leader issue in April. At an open house at the Pioneer Drop-in Centre, visitors were treated to snacks, refreshments and details of the proposed 45-unit complex. As always, money was a bit of a sticking point.
Lesser Slave Lake MLA Pearl Calahasen paid a visit to the Slave Lake & District Chamber of Commerce and her chief message was about the huge oil growth north of Slave Lake. Shell Canada expects to invest $20 billion in heavy oil she said, urging local businesses to get ready. Of course Calahasen had no idea that by October, the price of a barrel of oil would have fallen by $100 and all bets were off. Shell itself, in a subsequent article in April, cautioned people not to get too excited about the pace of development.
The Leader ran a front page photo of the tee box on Hole #1 at Gilwood in its Apr. 16 issue; it showed a couple of feet of snow – and that was before the big snow late in the month! Needless to say, an early start to the golf season was out of the question.
Provincial Parks authorities, visiting with M.D. council in April, announced their department’s intention to expand services in Lesser Slave Lake Provincial Park. More camping is on the agenda; more trails too, and “enhanced services” at the Boreal Centre for Bird Conservation. What they need from the M.D., they said, is running water.
May
The merry month of May started with good news in the form of another Citizen of the Year award and bad news in the form of an oil leak into the Ottawau River.
Stella Boisvert was named Citizen of the Year, and seemed more than usually deserving. The oil spill was from a Penn West facility, and caused an oil sheen to float down the Ottawau onto the Lesser Slave and into the Athabasca River. Containment efforts failed due to high water.
Slave Lake town council approved a budget that would require a three per cent property tax hike. This was exactly half the increase forecast back in February.
Diamonds were in the news in May, after a company called ‘Grizzly Diamonds’ announced ‘encouraging’ finds at its property north of Slave Lake. Brian ‘Griz’ Testo told The Leader that a kimberlite pipe his company discovered is “hugely diamondiferous.”
A wildfire near Wagner blew all other news stories out of the water in the third week of May. The fire – whose cause has never been adequately explained – roared through populated areas on both sides of Hwy. 2, burning outbuildings and vehicles, but sparing any homes. Heavy action by air tankers was credited with saving most structures and in fact bringing the head of the blaze under control before it made a run for Slave Lake itself.
June
The price of gasoline was pushing $1.30 per litre in June and it produced some unexpected (but perhaps not surprising) results. The Leader reported on June 4 that incidents of ‘gas-and-dash’ had risen markedly in recent weeks.
“When we hit $1.23 a litre is when we started seeing a huge rise in gas theft,” one gas station employee told The Leader.
An Old Town Slave Lake landmark went up in smoke in June. The log house, built by Walter Pendle sometime in the second decade of the 20th century, survived the big flood of 1935 (and many smaller ones), served as a home for various people, a horse stable and also a food and lodging place for travelers.
RCMP wrapped up a six-month-long investigation into drug trafficking in June, charging 20 people. Police seized $25,000 dollars worth of controlled substances, they said, as well as $20,000 in cash.
The case of Raymond Charles Yellowknee finally came to a close in June, with a 16-year jail sentence. However, Yellowknee – the man who killed a woman and her three children in a car crash early in 2006 – avoided the ‘dangerous offender’ status, which had been a possibility.
July
The first of several fund raising efforts by the Save Our Parks Committee kicked off the process with a successful “garage sale,” in a bid to save two “tot lots” in the north east of town. The impromptu group raised nearly $5,000 towards their goal, helped along in part by anonymous donor who contributed $2,000.
Work crews digging in the area known as Gloryland ruptured a gas line on July 5. A loud hissing sound could be heard hundreds of meters away, and the scene was quickly attended by fire and emergency crews. No homes were evacuated, and access to the subdivision was still available from Caribou Trail south west.
Neighbours in the Swan River/Kinuso area notified police after hearing “suspicious activity, and also gunshots.” 38-year-old Roy Rodney Twin died en route to hospital from a single gun shot wound. A man from the Swan River reserve is charged with manslaughter.
Kinuso’s United Grain Growers (UGG) grain elevator gets a new lease on life, as a joint effort by the museum society, CN Rail and owners Sloco and Zanny McRee help to refurbish the roof of the old building. Cedar shakes are used, as in the original design, and painting of the structure is planned for later.
August
Work on the new Government Centre and Library is under way. Chandos Construction is the firm awarded the contract. The company is known locally for their work at the Boreal Centre for Bird Conservation, also a LEEDS-designed building. At the new centre, extra effort is placed on reusing as much of the existing Sawridge Plaza materials as possible.
On Aug. 7, local Rotary clubbers bring to town a handful of hockey greats from the Nashville Predators and the Philadelphia Flyers. Between golf, dinner and an auction of memorabilia, Rotarians earned thousands of dollars towards the new library fund.
Southeast Slave Lake had no phone service for the better part of a week, when crews replacing a water line ruptured a Telus line buried 14 feet below the street surface.
The break in the line cut off phone service to about 325 homes.
A tanker truck left Highway 88 on Aug. 17 north of Slave Lake, spilling about 15,000 litres of diesel into the soil of Lesser Slave Lake Provincial Park. The cleanup effort would take several weeks, and require the work of several different parties including Alberta Environment and conservation officers.
September
As of Sept.1, Slave Lakers are allowed only two bags of trash at curbside on pickup day. Hoping to encourage recycling and spare the development of costly landfill “cells” was the impetus for the change of policy. Mayor Karina Pillay-Kinnee said simply, “People have to start recycling.”
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business brings to the Leader offices a set of graphs depicting what it believes is outrageous spending on behalf of the Town of Slave Lake. According to the CFIB, spending growth in Slave Lake is 2.6 times higher than population and inflation growth.
MLA Larry Shaben, long-time area business man and politician succumbs to cancer. Shaben served on High Prairie’s town council from 1969 to 1974. He became MLA of the Lesser Slave Lake riding in 1975 and served as minister in various capacities until 1989.
Talk of renovations to both arenas at the Arctic Ice Centre begins to circulate. Town councilors prepare open houses at several locations around Slave Lake, pitching a few different ideas with price tags ranging from $5 to over $10 million dollars. The hope is that townsfolk will give their input on what would work best for Slave Lake.
Environmental stewards REAC (Regional Environmental Action Committee) performed their sixth round of water quality tests along Slave Lake on Sept. 19. The group would confirm the presence of mulitiple nasty compounds including arsenic, pcbs, dioxins and algaes which may be compromising the lake water.
October
On Oct. 1, thieves driving a stolen truck had police running ragged. In its wake, the stolen vehicle left a smashed police cruiser and a gas pump knocked out from the Shell station, before flipping upside down on a Gloryland yard.
A shooting in the southwest of town leaves one man dead after an Oct. 5 altercation leads to gunfire. Three suspects (two from Swan River) are in custody to answer to charges of first degree murder. Once again, the little town of Slave Lake makes the national news.
Aspen Health releases a public advisory to warn residents and recreational users at local lakes to stay clear of algae blooms. Not unusual for this time of year, the blooms of blue-green algae may be harmful to humans if swallowed and can wreak havoc on biological systems in the lake.
Member of Parliament Brian Jean is grilled by seniors at Vanderwell Heritage Place.
“If you’re our MP, why is it that we never see you until just before the election?” asked octogenarian Florence Pearson-Thompson. Concerned seniors ultimately wanted answers regarding the proposed expansion of the lodge, but would be given no quarter from their MP during that visit.
November
Neighbouring town High Prairie makes the news when it is discovered that upwards of 2,500 patients of the town’s health care centre may have been treated with dirty syringes. Government bodies try to reassure patients that the risk of infection is low, but the genie is out of the bottle and several weeks of panic follow.
Shell Canada’s Grosmont heavy oil pilot project is suspended. Citing high production costs and low per-barrel prices, the gas giant scales back development in other areas as well. Related drilling work in the Chipewyan Lake area continues, but on a smaller scale.
On Nov. 15, Faust RCMP conducts a search of a Swan River home where they find nearly 20 people in and around the premises. Drugs and alcohol are present, as are several minors. Swan River band council members promise to tackle the problem of drugs and crime in their community, making the issue a top priority.
More signs of a slowing economy began to be felt in the region. This time, as a result of the banking fiasco, local forest-sector products and producers get hit. Vanderwell Contractors cut one shift at its Mitsue mill; from three shifts and 240 workers to one shift and 80 workers. The conditions, said Ken Vanderwell, may last until 2010.
December
The slumping economy is the talk of the town, when Dan Diduck of the Alberta Congress Board delivers a message to Chamber of Commerce members. He blamed greed, mostly in the world of high finance, for creating an artificial economy that was bound to collapse. “In three years, thing will start coming back,” he predicted.
Three members of Slave Lake’s Tae Kwon Do club take home four medals after a tournament in Sundre. Annabelle Pickering, new to the club, took home gold in both sparring and patterns, Caitlin Thomas won silver in sparring and gold in patterns and Wade Apps took home gold in sparring.
With Christmas fast approaching, sightings of the Claus family are being reported around town. Santa and Mrs. Claus are spotted at Vanderwell Heritage Place doing some early gifting, just a couple weeks after appearing in the Moonlight Madness parade.
The times may seem especially tough, and social safety nets have become strained as a result of the looming financial crunch. But that doesn’t stop the famously generous Slave Lake (and area) folks from getting into the holiday season. Both the Salvation Army and the Slave Lake Native Friendship Centre benefitted from the generosity of the Christmas Craft Fair and public and corporate donations. Food, clothes, toys and money all helped them help hundreds of needy families in the region to enjoy another fine Christmas season.
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