In this week’s issue, readers will note that the Cache Creek golf course — now going under the name Bonaparte Ridge Golf Course — that was forced to close due to last year’s wildfires has reopened. I heard last week that the Ashcroft and District Fall Fair — which was also a casualty of the fires last year — will be back in 2018, and only today I learned that a work bee has been organized to start rebuilding some of the infrastructure that was lost at the gun club operated by the South Cariboo Sportsmen’s Association.
The hillsides around Ashcroft, which have loomed black and bleak and barren for the last nine months, are now covered in a soft-looking blanket of downy green. It was a subtle, almost shy change, as if Mother Nature was taking her time to make up her mind, but a very welcome change it was; a reminder that the landscape will, often in spite of our best efforts, look after itself in the long run.
There are, of course, still stark reminders that all is not as it was, and might never be entirely so again. There will be no Mother’s Day Fly-in and pancake breakfast at the Campbell Hill airport, for the first time (as far as I can recall) in the 21 years I’ve lived here, and the future of the airport itself is (no pun intended) up in the air. Bright orange scars of retardant still stain some hillsides, and warnings about the effects of the fires on this year’s freshet have been issued.
And of course there is the heartbreaking fact that many of our friends and neighbours are still unable to return to a place called home, as they wait to hear news of what will happen to them in the wake of losing so much. A few have found new homes in the area, but some have moved away, unable to find somewhere to live, or unwilling to wait any longer, or simply finding it more bearable, for the sake of their health — physical or mental or both — to start afresh somewhere else.
Who can blame them? Reports of early grass fires in the region are greeted with consternation. The sound of a helicopter flying overhead, doing nothing more innocuous than replacing Hydro poles, prompts nervous queries on social media. Smoke from a pile of garbage being burnt behind a home in Cache Creek has children at the nearby school anxiously asking where the smoke is coming from and what is on fire.
As if that were not enough, residents of Cache Creek and other areas near creeks, rivers, and lakes are being warned to take protective measures now, in advance of this season’s freshet. How much can we bear?
Then, when despair seems the only option, comes news of a sandbagging bee in 16 Mile or Cache Creek that brings out dozens of cheerful volunteers, happy to help. Farm markets reopen for the year, reminding us that nature can be bountiful and beautiful. At the Journal office, we take delivery of a large, bulky, heavy box that contains five handmade quilts created by a woman in Delta who has no connection to the area but who loves to quilt, and wants her creations to go to people who were affected by the fire.
So celebrate the happy and the good and the kind, now that spring is here. Fortunately, we don’t have to look very hard to find it.
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