Onbowen - Music, Ideas and Culture

The evening's proceedings for Bowen Island Municipal Council began with a Satellite Firehall Public Hearing that saw a couple of representations from the public. Concerns issued were about sight lines, noise and the possibility of tainted runoff that could go into Explosives Creek that is both a water supply and a fish bearing stream. Matters were addressed to the satisfaction of those making representation and the hearing drew to a close.

The middle portion of the meeting was taken up with a PowerPoint presentation summarizing the Revised Concept Plan for the Bowen Island National Park previously presented at the August 25th info session. However, it was flanked with a more detailed explanation of Parks Canada's thinking in the 21st Century with the newly conceived idea of near urban National Parks and how Bowen was a good fit as they initiate themselves into this new form of Park. This may sound similar to the people who were in attendance at the Public Information Session at BICS on the Revised Concept Plan, however, Mr. Carson, got more into the skin of their thinking around Bowen and the near urban park concept. The matter of the petition was brought up by Councillor Morse and Mr. Carson did field the question but not in a way that will be satisfactory to the majority of the signatories of the petition. Interpretation of this I will leave up to the viewer.

Next up was the fourth and what was to be the final reading of the newly enshrined OCP. Audience attendance was surprisingly small in number. Councillors made short speeches, except for Councillor Frinton, about the successful outcome of this OCP process and lamented the lack of Champagne.

If you wish to watch the video of the presentation, you can Download the video here [QuickTime - 494.66 MB] ( with Internet Explorer use right-click > save target as, on a Mac use control-click > save link as... ) or you can watch online after the break. 

A healthy crowd showed up for Parks Canada's second kick at their near urban park concept for Bowen Island on August 25th, 2011 despite it being one of the nicer summer days we have experienced this year. 

The presentation was positive placing things through a lens that one would expect from Parks Canada. The language used showcased Bowen as a National Park and not merely a land reserve. Richard Carson, the newly placed Director of Western Establishment Initiatives... in other words the civil servant who will be doing the heavy hitting and the representation to the federal politicians on the Bowen initiative, went to some length to assure the attendees that ferry matters were very much on their mind and would be addressed. He and his new counterpart, Helen Davies, the Field Unit Superintendent, also explained that the economic stimulus of Parks Canada on Bowen would not be trivial. Employees would be living on the island, roads used in the course of the Park would be maintained by them. Probably most importantly to a good slice of people on Bowen, they stated that Crippen Park would have to be part of the Park but they were in the process of arranging for a shared agreement between themselves and the GVRD on the management. Many of the concerns issued by the residents in their comments to Parks Canada were addressed in varying degrees of satisfaction to Bowen. Marine conservation was positively acknowledged as a requirement where possible such as the aquatic area where the newly included Lieben lands are, however, the degree to which the people of Bowen have control or say over what transpires once the process begins after the vote is questionable.

In other words, the people of Bowen vote to either go along for the ride or not. It all hinges on whether or not Bowenians feel the Parks Canada's brand, heritage and past encounters with other communities it works with make it worth our while. Worth our while both economically and the way it will shape our community thereby giving the visiting public a vehicle to experience and learn about the natural environment in a near urban setting.

The question and answer period had a wide range of people asking pointed questions, from the desire for Parks Canada to bring meaningful self-sustaining economic development to the island to the assertion that Parks Canada's thinking was flawed and they should be looking up the Sea to Sky highway rather than involving a locale like Bowen that involves a ferry.

Parks Canada's presentation was based on their Revised Park Concept document for the assessment of a National Park Reserve lands on Bowen Island. The document goes into a fair amount of detail both in word and maps. You can find the document here [Adobe Acrobat PDF - 3.96 MB]. Their previous draft document from February 2011 can be found here [Adobe Acrobat PDF - 1.24 MB].

If you wish to watch the video of the presentation, you can Download the video here [QuickTime - 504.64 MB] ( with Internet Explorer use right-click > save target as, on a Mac use control-click > save link as... ) or you can watch online after the break. 

On April 29th, 2011, The Wilderness Committee through Stephen Foster sponsored an event with three scientists who spoke on the need to look beyond the physical borders of our island in terms of preservation. The first presentation by Senior UBC Research Scientist Chris Harvey-Clark was roundly seen by the audience as awe-inspiring and revelatory in terms of demonstrating through his Jacques Cousteau like footage of the diverse and unique lifeforms that are well within a kilometer of Bowen's shoreline. Chris and third presenter, Jeff Marliave from the Vancouver Aquarium both opined that the biology in and around Bowen's shores have gone through a revitalization for a number of reason's in recent years as evidenced in part by the whale and dolphin sitings of late and now would be an excellent time to increase stewardship of these waters given the return that has occurred in this region's oceanic areas.

Faisal Moola of the Suzuki Foundation brought many ideas forward. The most topical to Bowen at the moment was a parallel project he is involved with to create a near-urban National Park in the Toronto area which could have benefit to Bowen should the National Park idea go forward in that the Suzuki Foundation is attempting to get a "best practices" model in place for Parks Canada to use when creating these near-urban Parklands.

Chris Harvey-Clark's video presentation shown in the attached video must be seen, no matter where you sit on the issue. You don't have to wade too far into this video document of the evening to get to it. His take on preservation is a unique one in that he does not engage in the rhetorical language and historically loaded vocabulary that has imbued much of the discussion on Bowen to date. If the island could get down to this level of discourse, the artiface of both sides on the issue would disappear and there would be a mutually agreed point of discussion.

You can Download the video here [QuickTime - 385.31 MB] ( with Internet Explorer use right-click > save target as, on a Mac use control-click > save link as... ) or you can watch online you can view after the break. 

On April 8th, 2011 The Wilderness Committee sponsored an information session with two former Mayors of towns either in or beside well known National Parks, one in Tofino and the other from Banff. Both speakers have quite impressive resumes in their field. Scott Fraser, former Tofino Mayor and presently an MLA, came to the discussion with a decidedly pragmatic and at times a business oriented approach towards explaining how Tofino handled and at times coped with being under the influence and effect of a National Park. Leslie Taylor who has been on both sides of the fence as an employee of Parks Canada and then as a founding Mayor of Banff had some interesting points to bring to the table including a more cosmopolitan perspective on the whole enterprise of becoming a partner with a National Park. Both perspectives were informative and brought new thoughts to the discussion on Bowen.

They were very clear in their talk with the audience and in the following Q & A that their experience would be different from ours given the attractions and the size of their respective parks but that there would be some commonality in the kinds of experience that any town would have when interfacing with Parks Canada regardless of the kind of Park involved as bureaucratic behavior is usually consistent. The rest you can pick up from the video.

You can Download the video here [QuickTime - 341.43 MB] ( with Internet Explorer use right-click > save target as, on a Mac use control-click > save link as... ) or you can watch online you can view after the break. Please give the video a good solid minute to load...