Dear Member:

Thank you for supporting the important environmental work that the Friends of the Spanish River and their partners, Federal, Provincial, Municipal and Industrial are doing to Restore, Preserve and Celebrate the Spanish River.

Some of the highlights of the year 2003 are as follows:

The Lower Spanish River Private Buoyage/Public Dockage System, under the leadership of Direction Services, produced a very positive feasibility study result that identified numerous funding sources, contained a complete blueprint for development and maintenance of the system, but did not achieve 100% agreement from all 5 partners to proceed with the project. We are still optimistic that the Municipal budgets for this year might achieve agreements.

April 4&5 Attended at Anishinabec/Ontario Fisheries Resource Centre Special Stakeholders Summit that dealt with fisheries issues in and around the Spanish River. A meeting of the Advisory Committee occurred Nov 12 and we will expect a second meeting this spring.

May 14: 550 yearling Musky were stocked in the Spanish River.

We did not participate in the egg collection this year. The MNR Lake Huron Unit did it down near the Magnetewan River.

Our mascot pointer boat did not get in to the water this year due to rising insurance costs. It was our float in the Espanola Canada Day Parade; was displayed at the Spanish Great Lakes Cruising Club Regatta in mid July, then went to Chutes Park in Massey for a logging display and also participated in the Massey Fall Fair Parade.

The results of our 2003 raffle was: First Prize, a 17’canoe, electric outboard motor, battery, solar battery charger and two paddles, was won by Mr. George Jones of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Second Prize, a 15’ canoe with two paddles was won by Mr. Maurice Gouge of Espanola.

On Sept. 13 The Friends participated in the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean- Up, with very good results. The area from Espanola to Spanish was covered.

During October we released 2088 large fall fingerlings into the Lower Spanish River and Marsh. A small number of these were set aside to participate in the Muskie Student Exchange Program.There are a further 300 fingerlings being wintered at Lindsay to be released in May 2004. The stocking program will then discontinue and monitoring and assessment will continue.

The Muskie Student Exchange Program was a joint venture between the Friends of the Spanish River and the Ministry of Natural Resources. It was designed to include the grade school children who live along the lower Spanish River in an on going Muskellunge re-introduction program.