Re: “Designation sought for significant plant,” June 4
While reading the council briefs in last week’s paper, an interesting connection between the Kootenay Camas Project delegation and the awarding of a contract to Twist Marketing for a performance audit of the city brand came clear to me.
As the city is spending nearly $10,000 to determine how our current branding stacks up, it may be a good time to explore what kind of flower should represent our city on official “stationary, advertisements, signage, websites and promotional materials.”
In order to have a brand that really performs, it should be something that reflects the unique attributes — cultural, geographical and ecological and otherwise of our city. The camas flower links all of these attributes together and represents special places where culture and ecology come together.
As Megan Read said, these plants tell a story about this special place by their very existence along the pathways at Millennium Park. Our family lived in Victoria for a few years and marvelled at the beauty of the camas each spring amongst the garry oak ecosystems while we lived there. When we returned to Castlegar I was delighted to find these same flowers growing near the river.
I didn’t know these plants, of such significance to First Nations people throughout the Pacific Northwest, grew here. I took part in the Camas Walk, organized by the Kootenay Camas Project, and learned how and why camas came to be growing here — the only site outside of the Pacific Northwest in the interior. These plants signify Castlegar as a very special place.
If we are going to use a flower for our city logo, why not make it the flower of a camas plant?
Christy Anderson
Castlegar
