33 YEARS AGO (1987): 200 firefighters including a six-member provincial overhead team battled an approximately 800 hectares blaze in the Canoe Creek-Onion Lake area 40 km southwest of 100 Mile. As of Monday morning, the fire was out of control, said forestry spokesman Ian De Lisle, but provided there were no winds, he anticipated it would well be in hand by the afternoon. The fire started Friday afternoon. By Saturday it had spread to 20 hectares but was well contained until gusts of winds swept through the region Saturday afternoon.
27 YEARS AGO (1993): Area timber producers and elected officials welcomed the stinging rebuke delivered by a bi-national panel under the Free Trade Agreement to the U.S. Department of Commerce over their softwood lumber duties. “We’re more than pleased as far as the industry is concerned,” said Van Scoffield, general manager of the Cariboo Lumber Manufacturers’ Association. He termed the decision “an absolute victory,” but cautioned that “the game is not over. The panel ruled that there were fundamental errors in the American position.
21 YEARS AGO (1999): No one was killed in a mid-air collision between two small planes coming into the 108 Mile airport though all three people involved were taken to the Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops with non-life threatening injuries. The planes had apparently just taken off for Kamloops, but turned back due to rough weather. According to witnesses, the top plane clipped the bottom plane and the two spun out of control, tried to separate, rose up, stalled and then crashed into the corner of 100 Mile Siding and Windows at the back of the 108 Mall complex.
16 YEARS AGO (2004): The situation for ranchers wasn’t set to improve until the U.S. government is prodded into accepting Canadian cattle imports, but a billion-dollar federal funding package helped somewhat. Back in March, Prime Minister Paul Martin and Agri-Food Minister Bob Speller announced a $995-million assistance package for Canadian ranchers. “The Canadian cattle and meat industry is a real success story, but it has been devastated by extended border closures, which are beyond its control,” said Martin in a press release following the announcement.
9 YEARS AGO (2011): Some Interlakes residents were calling on Tolko Industries Ltd. to restrict its use of herbicides due to concerns raised over the chemical used for controlling vegetation in reforested areas. A public meeting, sponsored by the Fishing Highway Tourist Association (FHTA), was planned at the Interlakes hall. Tolko’s Five Year Pest Management Plan was under revision and continued to include the potential for ground and aerial spraying of the chemicals glyphosate and triclopyr to kill non-marketable competing vegetation in replanted logged areas.
