LOOCALLYCALLY OWWNEDNED & OPPERATEDERATED TThehe HHARBOURARBOUR IIndependentndependent VVoiceoice ooff PPenderender HHarbourarbour & EEgmontgmont JAANUARYNUARY 22011011 ssinceince 11990.990. SSPIELPIEL ISSSUESUE 224141 Mt. Churchill (Jervis Inlet) from Francis Peninsula Customer Appreciation Day ~ 1 day only ~ THURSDAY, JANUARY 6 Everything on sale storewide including 10% off all regular priced items (excluding lottery tickets and tobacco) 8883-910083-9100 OOPENPEN 7 DAYSDAYS A WEEKWEEK • 9 AAMM - 7 PPMM Creative Coastal Cuisine Spence at the Restaurant at Painted Boat! New Chef, Great Winter Special Menu Three Courses $33 with Wine Pairing $44 at Painted Boat 12849 Lagoon Rd. Madeira Park 604.883.3000 / paintedboat.com Page 2 Harbour Spiel EDITORIAL HARBOUR SPIEL Mountain Minnie and the Cougar Lady By Brian Lee Those kinds of sensitivities are taught and she attended a very dif- As kids, they held ferent school than most. The Independent Voice of Pender a predictable fascina- The Solberg sisters were hold- Harbour & Egmont since 1990. tion for us. overs from a time when people The Solberg sis- didn’t Tweet about who Taylor Swift The Harbour Spiel is published monthly by Paq Press © 2011. Circulation is 2,500, ters, Bergie and Minnie, was dating or worry that their lives mailed free to all addresses between were a rare spectacle were somehow incomplete without a Egmont and Halfmoon Bay. that brightened any trip to Sechelt. (See high defi nition TV. story p. 14.) I’d like to say our gaped awe The Harbour Spiel is 100 per cent locally We knew them as the Cougar Lady sprang from respectful adulation but owned and operated, published without the and Mountain Minnie and my memory I’m inclined to think it was closer to assistance of federal, provincial or regional says they often stood outside the Bank the childish insensitivities we’re all government grants. of Montreal looking for a ride. guilty of at one time or another. For those who didn’t experience We likely saw her as a freak or Available by subscription and for free at the Sechelt in the late seventies, it wasn’t an oddball. Probably crazy too. following selected locations: the metropolitan centre it is now. • Bluewaters Books • IGA Madeira Park We have a hard time tolerat- • Dazi Cafe (Sechelt) • Mountainview Service But even then, in those rough fron- ing characters who stray outside the • Coast Copy (Sechelt) • Oak Tree Market • Copper Sky Gallery & Cafe • Pier 17 (Davis Bay) tier times, the Solbergs stood out like a norm. • Garden Bay Pub • Sechelt Public Library pink shirt at the Roost. One might expect the explo- • Halfmoon Bay General Store I still see Bergie standing on the sion of TV and internet would have sidewalk clad in animal hide and work- broadened our tolerance of eccen- Editor clothes, wearing her trademark leather trics but the opposite seems to be Brian Lee hat and knife on her hip. true. [email protected] Even a seven-year-old kid could The information age seems to tell she was the real deal. have enabled this pop culture pas- Contributors At an age when fantasies of cow- teurization to take place on an even This month we thank: Anne Crocker, Doug boys and traplines reigned as the ideal larger scale. Elliott, Mary Findlay, Theresa Kishkan, lifestyle pursuit, Bergie and Minnie We value style over substance Shane McCune, Alan Stewart, John Wade were Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. more than ever and the reason is and Jan Watson. And they were women. simple — style’s easier to sell. As we’d drive by, some sibling I’m not advocating that cloth- Advertising: would point and squeal, ing should come from the cougars Reserve by the 15th of the month. Our “The Cougar Lady!” we shoot but it doesn’t hurt anyone advertisers make publication of the Harbour I’m sure we weren’t the only ones to come across a Bergie or Minnie Spiel possible — please say thank you, and who gawked but I wonder now what once in awhile. support our community, by supporting them. she might have thought of us, three Real characters like the Solberg Contact: slack-jawed heads rotating around the sisters shed light on our own artifi ce windows of the car as it passed. and trivial fancies. Brian Lee 4130 Francis Peninsula Rd. She probably didn’t care. They’re like a signpost on a Madeira Park, BC Raised by her father in a cabin up busy road telling us how far we’ve V0N 2H1 the inlet, she wasn’t inclined to worry travelled from home. about what others thought. (604) 883-0770 Correction: Last month’s editorial (“It’s nothing to be ashamed about... ”), wrongly labelled local [email protected] fire chief Black Bill as a victim of November’s slippery roads. In the Spiel’s defense, a usually www.harbourspiel.com reliable source also identified the vehicle in question to be Black’s but further investigation ~ NEXT ISSUE MAILS FEB. 3 ~ revealed it to be that of an imposter. (Legal counsel has directed me to refrain from any further comments until litigation is completed.) ~ Ed. January 2011 Page 3 SPIEL PICKS It ain’t real P. H. ROTARY PRESENTS “HOP SCOTCH” — JAN. 15 if it’s not in the Spiel. The Bad News: On Nov. 27, a couple of hours before the start of Pender Harbour Rotary’s annual scotch-tasting fundraiser at the Pender Harbour Golf Course, the power went out from the Pender Harbour High School north. Tables were set, supplies were purchased and people were on their way to the event when organizers had to pull the plug. The Good News: Organizers have regrouped and rescheduled Hop-Scotch for Jan. 15, again at the Pender Harbour Golf Course, 7 p.m. Tickets are $90 NowFriendly on & facebook! Comfortable and include an evening of great food, fi ne scotches and craft beer. Bus service PostingCatering our specials service and new artworkGift inshop the &gallery gallery daily fi nd us is available to get home and it’s all for a good cause. underHome “Copper made Sky food Cafe & Gallery” OpenOrganic @ 7 coamffee to 3 pm-ish Open@ 6am 12904 Madeira Park Road P. H. MUSIC SOCIETY PRESENTS JOEL FAFARD — JAN. 16 883-0096 With a Juno nomination, a Western Canadian Music Award, two WCMA nominations and two Canadian Folk Music Award nominations to his credit, madeira park Joël Fafard has proven that he can take a niche genre like instrumental guitar music and make a signifi cant name for himself. Fafard performs at the Pender elementary Harbour School of Music on Sunday, Jan. 16 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 and school news: available at Harbour Insurance (Madeira Park), John Henry’s (Garden Bay), Visitor Info Centre (Sechelt) and Gaia’s Fair Trade (Gibsons). The students of MPES thank the following businesses for sponsoring our Christmas Pancake Breakfast: PHOTOJOURNAL Sunshine Coast Credit Union Oak Tree Market Marina Pharmacy Marketplace IGA NEXT GENERAL PAC MEETING: Thursday, Jan. 13 @ 6:30 in the MPES Library. RR-1, S-5, C-71 Madeira Park BC, V0N 2H0 It’s the time of year when thoughts turn to the local food bank. The Pender Harbour Food Bank has benefited from an unlikely rivalry over the past couple of years between the IGA staff and the Pender Harbour Women’s Connection. The Pender Harbour Women’s Connection raised $620 at a recent luncheon while the IGA staff raised $760 at their Christmas party. (l-r) Sue McDonald and Linda Pearson (P. H. DDALEALE KKLASSENLASSEN Women’s Connection), Wendy Phillips (P. H. Food Bank) and Troy Callewaert (IGA). Phone 604-883-9771 By Dec. 12, the IGA had collected over 39 hampers of food and received $1,000 from Cel. 604-741-2665 an anonymous donor on behalf of the food bank. Page 4 Harbour Spiel NEWS SCRD board mulls plans for Area A resource recovery facility The vision for Pender Harbour’s resource recovery facility is slowly taking shape as it moves through vari- ous stages of consultation and plan- ning. Last year the SCRD board re- solved to convert the Pender Harbour Landfi ll into a waste transfer facility once it reached fi nal capacity. At that time, staff were directed to explore options to provide en- hanced recycling and resource recov- ery services in order to minimize the amount of waste transferred to the Sechelt Landfi ll. Dion Whyte, SCRD manager of sustainable services, submitted a staff It doesn’t look like much but this spot just off the dump road in Kleindale is being considered as a potential site for Pender Harbour’s resource recovery facility. report on the progress of the resource recovery facility to the Dec. 2 infra- chemicals). for the facility. structure services committee meeting. The plan also recognized the SCRD staff hope to have a Whyte’s report summarized the challenge of siting the facility, not- budget package detailing costs for recommendations that came from a ing a central, high-traffi c location like locating the RRF at the Garden Bay two-day planning workshop held last Madeira Park would be preferred but Road site available later this month July in which an SCRD board-ap- less cost effective than maintaining followed by a public consultation pointed technical design team devel- the facility at the present landfi ll site. process beginning in April. oped a “draft conceptual plan.” The report indicates that a pos- Depending on the results of In his report, Whyte stressed sible location for the site could be at that consultation, the report predicts that the conceptual plan includes “the the start of the landfi ll road where it groundbreaking could begin at the overall vision, principles and design connects to Garden Bay Road.