Walkers enjoying Linley Valley Cottle Lake Park can now see the names of the people who helped to preserve it.
Mayor Bill McKay announced a council decision this week to have contributor signs at park entrances at Rock City and Burma roads that will recognize almost 1,000 donors who gave to the park more than a decade ago.
The upper lakeview trail will also be renamed Paterson Way, in honour of Bill and Joan Paterson, who McKay said donated $100,000 — the largest community contribution and one that motivated many other small community donations over two years to ensure the purchase of the park. The renaming of the area is a fitting recognition of their very generous contribution, he said.
Rock bluffs on the western edge of the park will become Bickerton Bluffs in honour of the Bickerton family, who McKay said watched and looked after the park during the years of Nanaimo and Nanaimo Area Land Trust negotiation and the campaign to raise money to buy the park.
Jeanie Paterson, daughter of Bill and Joan, said the renaming means a great deal to the family and that her parents have always been philanthropists, especially in areas of protecting land, conservation and environmental considerations. Her father has died and her mother is 98 years old.
“It really is about acknowledging their vision for wanting to protect the Linley Valley,” she said, adding it’s not the only property her parents have donated to over time just to ensure these kinds of green spaces are protected for generations to come. Morrell Nature Sanctuary is another example. “We’re just really ecstatic to learn that the city wanted to acknowledge what my parents had done.”
Gail Adrienne, executive director of NALT, said people are generous in what they do and give and need to get recognition for that.
The community, led by NALT, raised $500,000 towards the purchase of the Linley Valley property, which was pulled into Nanaimo’s park system in 2003, according to the city’s park plan.
