2009 Year in Review

2009 turned out to be a year in transition. Marcel Golec retired as interim chairman at our annual general meeting in March of this year for health reasons. Gary Kessel took the Vice-Chair position and Bill McKenna took the Chair.

Roz Raby had already agreed to be our new Secretary/Treasurer and as well, we elected some new Directors. We now have a full complement of Directors to go forward with our mandate to ‘Restore, Preserve and Celebrate the Spanish River'.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Out of respect for the late Bill Blight who was one of our most dedicated and hard working volunteers, we decided to offer free memberships to those interested in supporting our efforts in protecting the Spanish River. This offer will extend until December 31, 2010. The following photograph of Bill was on the front page of the Mid-North Monitor and although it is taken in the laneway behind Bill's house, it demonstrates Bill's love of life and all things positive.

• The ‘Friends' observed ‘Earth Hour' on March 28, 2009 between 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm local time. Over one billion people around the planet observed this special event in the interest of healing Planet Earth.

• Things got started on April 22, 2009 in Sudbury, Ontario at ‘Earth Day'. We featured ‘Miss Waggles' our 54” Muskie mascot at our booth to drive home the point that the Spanish River is well on its way to being restored to good health. As you can see by the following photograph, ‘Miss Waggles' was a big hit with the kids.

• The Town of Spanish has graciously agreed to show off ‘Miss Waggles' and give her a permanent home at their Four Seasons Complex and Marina in Spanish, Ontario. We felt that this is the place where she can do the most good in educating anglers to respect the Spanish River and all living creatures that call it home.

• Although our ‘seeded' Muskies are now reproducing naturally on their own in our river, there is a moratorium on fishing for Muskies until they get established.

• This year, we finished restoring 'Big Red' our 32' replica pointer boat. Gary Kessel, Noël Bergeron and Bill McKenna refinished the oars, paddles and the finishing touches on the boat. He has never looked better! As you can see by the following photograph, we did take the restoration a little further by designing, building and installing an outboard motor mount. First came the pointer boats, then came the outboard motor that was soon put to good use on the pointer boats in the annual river log drives. The initial ‘test drive' was a big success and will result in our getting more use out of ‘Big Red' in the future.

• This seems to be the year of ‘Big Red'. He turned lots of heads in the Massey Fall Fair parade what with his newly painted oars and paddles. His signage educated the general public watching the parade that he represents a piece of exciting Northern Ontario logging history that dates back to the mid 1800's. This photograph says it all.

• For the eighth year in a row, we participated in the TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. On September 19, 2009, our volunteers, including the manager and staff of the TD Bank in Espanola, met at the boat launch area of the Spanish River at Espanola to perform our annual river cleanup. This year we brought along ‘Big Red' and ‘ferried' our volunteers across the river to the south shore where we picked up lots of trash. As you can see by the following photo, everyone had a great time. We keep reminding people that volunteering is its own reward.

 

• We hosted the ‘2009 Spanish Harbour/River Area of Concern Remedial Action Plan Update Seminar' in Espanola, Ontario on October 27, 2009. Jan Linquist, one of our long time directors put this important Spanish River seminar together. Throughout the day, the Federal and Provincial governments, Vale Inco, Domtar and Sagamok First Nation Community presented a total of ten reports on the health of our river in particular and the Great Lakes in general. You can read these ‘good news' and ‘bad news' reports and the Mid-North Monitor article series by Craig Gilbert in our new ‘Spanish River Science' section on our website at www.friendsofthespanishriver.ca .

• The Lake Sturgeon is making a comeback in Lake Huron and the Lower Spanish River. To draw attention to this encouraging news, we produced the ‘Lake Sturgeon Fish Art Contest' for all the school children who live along the shores of the Lower Spanish River. Roz Raby and Jan Linquist were the ‘architects' of this fun, educational project. We received lots of creative entries and the winners will be announced early in 2010. The winners' art work will be featured in a new series of Friends of the Spanish River bookmarks to further educate the general public to the ongoing environmental work to ‘restore, preserve and celebrate' our beautiful Spanish River.

• Our annual Friends of the Spanish River Christmas dinner was well attended and everyone had a good time and lots to eat at the Pinewood Motor Inn in Espanola. We did make everyone earn their dinner by collectively judging the entries in our ‘Lake Sturgeon Fish Art Contest'. There were lots of entries and the judging was hard however, we did pick the winning artwork and that helped put everyone in the Christmas spirit.

• Marcel Golec and Noël Bergeron were active volunteer members of the Friends of the Spanish River and we really appreciate all their efforts. They will be missed at our meetings and our events. We hope that they both enjoy their own ‘Friends of the Spanish River' memories throughout their retirement.

L to R: Lorraine P., Gary Kessel, Bill McKenna, Noël Bergeron, Bob and Liz Campbell, Marcel Golec

We welcome you to attend our quarterly meetings on the first Wednesday of said months. The next meeting will be on March 3, 2010 at the Legion Hall in Espanola at 7:30 pm. We encourage you to come out and get involved. Help us ‘restore, preserve and celebrate' our beautiful Spanish River.

Your ‘Friend',

Bill McKenna

Chairman