Snippets from July 5 and 6 Lakeside Leaders
1978
Dennis Barton, of Barton’s Drug, and other downtown businesses went to Town of Slave Lake council’s meeting to protest a proposal to change parking. The proposal was to change downtown Main St. from angle to parallel parking, which would remove one third of the parking spaces.
Jack Laughy owned Laughy’s Beehive Boutique, which was in a parallel parking part of Main St. He said, every Saturday bylaw officers wrote parking tickets in front of his place which really hurt business.
The reasons council was considering changing to parallel parking was so that people backing out of angle parking wouldn’t disrupt the flow of traffic. Instead, the idea was to have four lanes plus parallel parking.
Five representatives from the Smith Development Association drove to Anzac to meet with the Northern Alberta Development Council (NADC) to request that the access road between Smith and the Marten Hills be upgraded to an all-weather road.
Terry Karst received the governor general award at Roland Michener Secondary School graduation. At the grad, siblings Ken and Laura Vanderwell sang the theme song ‘Mahogany’ and Cindy Seppola gave the valedictorian speech.
Al’s TV and Electronics was selling tapes and cassettes – highlights included ‘Magazine’ by Heart and ‘Ol Waylon’ by Waylon Jennings.
Slave Lake had a Hire-A-Student (HAS) office. It had helped 17 students find jobs, but had more jobs available and was asking students to sign up.
A Smith man fell into the sewer lagoon at 2 a.m. He was fine, but smelled bad.
The price of beef had risen. The exact price was difficult to capture, as the diagram had the cost per gram of beef protein, not gram of beef.
People interested in figuring out how to calculate this could mail the Department of Health and Welfare Health Protection Branch for a booklet. The estimated daily protein requirement for a person was 40 grams. The cost of beef was 1.6¢ per gram of protein for medium ground beef to 5.4¢ for t-bone steak.
Editor’s note: an internet search of grams of protein for beef shows a converter with various options for t-bone broiled. The result is 24 g of protein for 100 g of beef. For ground beef (not called medium, but likely the closest of the two options), the calculation says 14 g for 100 g.
Canada’s federal fisheries had a campaign to let people know that the new Fisheries Act included protection of fish habitat, which affected waterfront owners and anyone planning to build in an area which supports aquatic life.
1989
A garage at the ranger station in Kinuso was hit by 120 km per hour winds, which destroyed the building but not the vehicle inside. Environment Canada was investigating and hadn’t ruled out a tornado.
After an all-night party, Wabasca RCMP received a report of two men and two women breaking into a vehicle. They allegedly stole a rifle and chainsaw and slashed the tires. When police caught up, one of the male suspects allegedly pointed the firearm at the officers. One of the officers shot him in the arm.
Canada Post was helping the Town of Slave Lake come up with a more logical street name system. One change was the ring road being dubbed Caribou Drive.
Whitefish River Band hired numerous workers to clean-up dead whitefish on the north shore of Utikuma Lake and the Whitefish River, which flows north out of the lake. There were thousands of dead fish rotting near the community, from when many of the fish in the lake died during the winter. The clean-up took 20 days.
Brian Pitcairn, Whitefish River Band manager, said that barring more dead fish coming from deep in the lake, the problem was fixed.
They had also received permission to dynamite three beaver dams to increase the river flow to push the fish into the bush where bears could eat them.
An earlier devastating winter fish kill happened in 1947.
At the time, it was more dangerous for the community as it was heavily dependent on fish from the lake for their livelihood. In 1989, many people still relied on fish from the lake as their primary source of protein, because they couldn’t afford to buy meat.
After the 1947 winter kill, it took 14 years for the fish in the smaller Utikumassis to restock the whitefish population in Utikuma.
In 1988, the Town of Slave Lake flooded. Alberta Environment had done a study on the causes of the flood.
“You should only expect a storm like that to happen every 100 years,” Assistant Deputy Minister of Alberta Environment Peter Melnychuk told a group of about 50 people in Slave Lake.
Alberta Environment suggested more dykes and putting a trash rack upstream of the town on Sawridge Creek.
The Slave Lake Sharks Swim Club planned to shut down for a couple of seasons until the new indoor pool was built.
1995
Alberta Transportation and Utilities (ATU) off-loaded connector roads onto the M.D. of Lesser Slave River. The M.D. became responsible for 20 km extra roadways, which connected various hamlets with Hwy. 2. The M.D. and ATU had signed an agreement in 1994, which didn’t include this responsibility. The M.D. figured the new roads would cost $56,000 annually to maintain, so it was asking ATU for $307,000.
The Lakeside Leader was not going to host a Relay Race at the Lesser Slave River. Instead, it was sponsoring a three-block bed race on Main Street. This was to start right after the Saturday morning parade on July 8. Teams were to be five people (with at least two of them women). Four would be pushing and pulling the bed and one riding. The rider could switch with the others. Beds had to be 39 inches wide, but could have as many wheels as people wanted. No motors or mechanical devices were allowed to move the bed.
High Prairie School Division board of trustees was working on a stricter drug and alcohol policy for area schools. It gave first reading to a policy which would require all incidents of drug and alcohol use and possession on school property to go before the board. In the old policy, it was up to the principal’s discretion whether or not to involve the board.
The 1995 Terry Fox Run was months away, but Slave Lake had received recognition for its 1994 run. It placed seventh in the top 15 per capita (which appears to refer to participants, not the population of the town). Slave Lake participants raised $1,500 for cancer research or $7.77 per capita. This suggests 193 participants.
The Town of Slave Lake was considering making a bid for the 1998 Alberta Winter Games. However, the town was divided. Many volunteers from the 1994 Arctic Winter Games were still burnt out, but some thought that the two-and-a-half years until the next one would be enough time to recover and were excited for a new challenge. This was feedback from 15 people. Community Services hoped to hear from 100 people.
1995 continued
Lesser Slave Lake Provincial Park was celebrating parks day on July 15. This included a ‘Take a Hike’ fundraiser along the Freighter Lakeshore Trail from Marten Beach Campground to Lily Creek.
2006
Roland Michener Secondary School junior high held a fun triathlon, with wagon pulling, roller blading, biking, and running. Having four events, it could have been called a ‘quadrathlon,’ but that term isn’t as common.
A housing development in southwest Slave Lake on the former Alberta Transportation yard was to have at most 98 units, with two 24-unit condominium complexes as the first step, with an optional third one and 13 duplexes. A few weeks earlier Town of Slave Lake council had been under the impression that the proposal was for 300 units.
The condos were to be four stories high with six units per floor and underground parking.
Mary Ann Payne had bought a Smart Car, a tiny two-passenger diesel car. One 240 km round trip from Slave Lake to Wabasca only cost $12. In her old vehicle a diesel, Jetta the trip cost $16.
“I was leery,” she said, “but once you get comfortable with it, it’s like any other car. At regular speed, it handles just fine.”
Tolko Industries planned to have its new mill opened by the next summer in Mitsue Industrial Park. The company met with the M.D. of Lesser Slave River council about the area not having enough housing for its employees. The mill expected to hire around 125 people to work in the mill and another 125 to work in the bush. The company expected to hire some local people, but figured most would have to be hired from out of town.
