What’s happening? One thing that’s coming right up is an Old-Fashioned Coffee House in Slave Lake, put on by Stage North and the Rotary Club. It happens on Saturday, Dec. 11, at the Legacy Centre All the performers are local people (see the story at lakesideleader.com), and it is a fundraiser for the local food bank.
And (this just in!) ‘delicious kabobs and cookies’ will be for sale at the event. These can be ordered ahead of time, wherever tickets are sold. Stagenorth.org is one place to do that. Distractions, ReMax, the library and The Source are others.
Apparently the similarity between the name ‘Sweetgrass Supports’ and ‘Sweetgrass’ (formerly known as Points West Living) is causing some confusion. They do not have anything to do with each other.
Sweetgrass Supports is the name of a program of the Slave Lake Homeless Coalition, designed (as we understand it) to help people experiencing homelessness better cope with their circumstances. Sweetgrass is also the name of the supportive living facility at on 6th Ave. NE in Slave Lake, next to Vanderwell Heritage Place. Somebody had suggested to us that Sweetgrass the residential facility might be sponsoring the Sweetgrass Supports program. Nope! We have it on pretty good authority that is not the case.
While we’re at it, the newspaper Alberta Sweetgrass also has – as far as we are aware – nothing to do with either of the above.
Your Page 9 scribe would make a poor archivist. We’ve got things lying around that we thought might be worth keeping and it’s been so long we can’t remember where they came from. In some cases, they were folders of historical news clippings and such, handed over by somebody, but we never made a note of who, or when.
One such file has clippings from back in the 1980s and 90s from both of Slave Lake’s newspapers. One story, from 1988, reports town council’s refusal to declare Slave Lake a ‘nuclear-free zone.’ This idea was promoted by councillor Denise Wahlstrom and supported by mayor Bill Pearson, but went down to defeat, four votes to two.
Somewhere in the body of the story it confusingly refers to making Slave Lake an ‘unclear free zone.’
Typos, typos. They are maddening, but sometimes they can be funny. Reminds us of those ‘pubic’ meetings we advertised a couple of times, way back when.
It’s only since social media got going that you come to realize how many people go missing, leaving loved ones worrying. It must have always been like that, but besides the local ones, you probably never heard about most of them. Now? It’s constant. Probably in a majority of cases, people are disappearing because they want to, or they just forgot to tell anybody. But in a certain number, there’s bound to be foul play, or accidents. In most cases, what can anyone do? Some make a point of passing on the notices, on social media, as mentioned. Here’s hoping it does some good.
Snow removal from sidewalks was a topic of discussion at town council on Tuesday night last week. The next morning, snow removal was no longer an issue, but ice definitely was! Every sidewalk, every trail, every parking lot and some of the streets was coated with ice, thanks to the melt the day before.
As to how it was dealt with….
This year’s Christmas Bird Count will be on Sunday, Dec. 19. This was announced last week by Patti Campsall, executive director of the Boreal Centre for Bird Conservation. This is the one where participants are assigned a bit of geography and then record all the birds they spot in a day or half-day of birding. Such counts go on all over the continent at this time of year, with the results being sent in to people who study bird population trends.
More details on the event will be announced soon. In the meantime, Campsall can be reached at 780-849-8240.
Saturday, December 11, the Boreal Centre for Bird Conservation has its annual Winter Fun Day includes skiing, snowshoeing, campfire, and other fun. The event runs from noon to 3 p.m. For more details see ad on Page 6.
The Lesser Slave Lake Health Advisory Council is looking for more members. An AHS news release says, “The Health Advisory Council is seeking people who are 18 years of age or older, appreciative of diverse points of view, connect to members of their community, and passionate about the healthcare conversation.” Email lesserslavelake@ahs.ca for more information.
Speaking of winter fun, there’s already talk about activities that will (or might) be happening on or around the Family Day weekend in February. The Lesser Slave Watershed Council, for example, is talking about an ice fishing tournament. A family skating party on the lake at Big Fish Bay has also been mentioned.
It’s that time of year again! (and we’re not talking about Christmas). The time of year people start giving out calendars for promotional purposes. We got one last week from ATB, with pretty scenes from Alberta. You could do a lot worse!
