a most excellent letter

The Annual Firefighter's Christmas Party was held Saturday evening.  A good time was had
by all.We had a good dump of snow overnight which meant chaining up the trucks first thing in
the morning. (hangover or not)
A First Responder call around 9:00 a.m.resulted in a good turnout to ready the trucks. By Sunday,
mid-day we had about 25 centimeters on the side roads (with more in the forecast).

Straw Bale House Update: About half of the interior walls have been back-framed, (including
shear walls). This is the time when the room sizes take shape.... so far I'm liking what I see.

This most excellent letter speaks for itself. (I hope the writer will not mind republication)

The Daily News (Nanaimo)

Wealth of wild salmon needs to be reconsidered

By Alexandra Morton
Dec. 10, 2008


During financial instability who is going to feed you? A corporation
or a 10,000-year-old system that delivers to your door?


Norwegian corporate fish farmers in B.C. are riding out the global
financial storm. They require enormous expenditure to feed their B.C.
farms on fish from the South Pacific and they are suffering huge
losses to disease in Chile.

They are a luxury item in a world tightening its belt. Salmon farms
kill wild salmon through lethal disease amplification.

Wild salmon, however, are an independent wealth. They fertilize the
forests we need to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. They transport
the vast energy of sunlight hitting open ocean waters to our door on
a schedule. They are clean food manufactured without greenhouse
gases. They fuel a $1.6-billion tourism industry in B.C. and swim
right into Vancouver by the millions, perhaps the greenest badge of
honour possible. And they belong to you.

You might think yourself so civilized that wild salmon are not
important to you, but your forefathers would disagree.

When times get tough, we all turn to the supply lines right outside the door.

Wild salmon have survived our rapacious greed, but they are not
surviving violation of their foundation natural laws.

Atlantic and Pacific salmon cannot meet, nomadic fish cannot be held
stationary in pens, disease runs rampant without predators and young
salmon are not surviving swarms of farm lice. Ocean productivity is
running high on this coast and wild salmon would thrive if given the
chance.

However, with unfathomable lack of vision Gordon Campbell just
allowed Norwegian fish farms to expand on one of earths' most
valuable wild salmon runs, (Fraser River) and so our salmon will
continue feeding farm lice, not us.

Now is not the time to gamble. This not a test. Keep B.C.
independently wealthy remove salmon farms from wild salmon migration
routes.

Alexandra Morton
Echo Bay