Cuba Libre
Well-Known Member
Well I have lost three great friends in the last two weeks. Also our salmon have lost some serious friends too.
Mike Nicelle was the Manager of Eatons Park Royal who was the main push in the West Vancouver Coho Festival. He advocated tirelessly for a better deal for salmon in the North Shore streams. When he retired to Vancouver island he volunteered with the Fanny Bay Enhancement Society , working many many hours on stream restoration and lobbying for better stream protection from the Province, DFO and the Regional District. He eventually focused on Coal Creek ( Washer Ck) and worked his guts out to make things better for salmon and trout on that system.
Don Woodcock was a career RCAF officer, but his real love was the love of the outdoors, especially steams and fish. He wrote an outdoors column for years in Ontario before retiring to the Comox Valley. He got involved in the Kiwanis Millard Creek hatchery and stream restoration projects...... but he didnt draw the line there.... he kept showing up as a volunteer on several other stream projects as well.
Just today I received word that one of the first volunteers that I worked with as a lowly DFO Community Advisor on the Mainland had died.... Senior Corrections Officer Jim Jose. Jim and I became firm friends quickly after he called me to get a meaningful work program set up for inmates at the Alouette Corrections facility. The jail was adjacent to the South Alouette River where Jim grew up. He wanted fish back into the river.... his bosses in Victoria took a dim view about a provincial officer getting involved in a federal (DFO) matter such as the Salmonid Enhancement Program. Jim didnt care.
When it became apparent that the quickest way to boost the salmon stocks would be a hatchery, Jim started
"finding" materials within the provincial system to make it so... pulling in favours left right and center, and working with the Vancouver Sun Save the Salmon Society, the Operating Engineers Haney Training School, he achieved what others said would not happen. A hatchery that produced chum, steelhead and coho for the South Alouette River. But we didnt stop there. Next came a satellite chinook rearing facility for the Stave lake (and river), inmate labour to totally gut and rebuild a horse barn into a teaching hatchery for the Regional District on Kanaka Creek (the Bell-Irvine Hatchery) and a net pen project on Sayers Lake for trout for area lakes. There are other that Jim pushed through as well, but I think you get the idea how he operated...."NO" was not in his vocabulary
The trust he put in me was gratifying too-- I still shake my head about the day that I showed up at the Alouette jail to request a work party to remove a log jam on the North Alouette. Normally, he would send out a inmate crew with a couple of guards to do offsite work. In this case all his other Corrections Officers were committed.... No matter... handing me the keys to a jail crummy, he called over six inmates and told them that I was in charge and if they didnt obey my, they would be in the "Big House" quickly!! Off we went and removed the obstruction in short order. I know he was sticking his butt on the line, but the fish were most important to him. We became close personal friends . I will miss him..... and the fish will too.
ARMS now has picked up the torch that Jim lit....... May it continue...
Mike Nicelle was the Manager of Eatons Park Royal who was the main push in the West Vancouver Coho Festival. He advocated tirelessly for a better deal for salmon in the North Shore streams. When he retired to Vancouver island he volunteered with the Fanny Bay Enhancement Society , working many many hours on stream restoration and lobbying for better stream protection from the Province, DFO and the Regional District. He eventually focused on Coal Creek ( Washer Ck) and worked his guts out to make things better for salmon and trout on that system.
Don Woodcock was a career RCAF officer, but his real love was the love of the outdoors, especially steams and fish. He wrote an outdoors column for years in Ontario before retiring to the Comox Valley. He got involved in the Kiwanis Millard Creek hatchery and stream restoration projects...... but he didnt draw the line there.... he kept showing up as a volunteer on several other stream projects as well.
Just today I received word that one of the first volunteers that I worked with as a lowly DFO Community Advisor on the Mainland had died.... Senior Corrections Officer Jim Jose. Jim and I became firm friends quickly after he called me to get a meaningful work program set up for inmates at the Alouette Corrections facility. The jail was adjacent to the South Alouette River where Jim grew up. He wanted fish back into the river.... his bosses in Victoria took a dim view about a provincial officer getting involved in a federal (DFO) matter such as the Salmonid Enhancement Program. Jim didnt care.
When it became apparent that the quickest way to boost the salmon stocks would be a hatchery, Jim started
"finding" materials within the provincial system to make it so... pulling in favours left right and center, and working with the Vancouver Sun Save the Salmon Society, the Operating Engineers Haney Training School, he achieved what others said would not happen. A hatchery that produced chum, steelhead and coho for the South Alouette River. But we didnt stop there. Next came a satellite chinook rearing facility for the Stave lake (and river), inmate labour to totally gut and rebuild a horse barn into a teaching hatchery for the Regional District on Kanaka Creek (the Bell-Irvine Hatchery) and a net pen project on Sayers Lake for trout for area lakes. There are other that Jim pushed through as well, but I think you get the idea how he operated...."NO" was not in his vocabulary
The trust he put in me was gratifying too-- I still shake my head about the day that I showed up at the Alouette jail to request a work party to remove a log jam on the North Alouette. Normally, he would send out a inmate crew with a couple of guards to do offsite work. In this case all his other Corrections Officers were committed.... No matter... handing me the keys to a jail crummy, he called over six inmates and told them that I was in charge and if they didnt obey my, they would be in the "Big House" quickly!! Off we went and removed the obstruction in short order. I know he was sticking his butt on the line, but the fish were most important to him. We became close personal friends . I will miss him..... and the fish will too.
ARMS now has picked up the torch that Jim lit....... May it continue...
