The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
WE WANT MORE THAN JUST CAKE!
June 12, 2007
Did you know that British Columbia turns 150 in 2008?
We were too busy thinking about the 2010 Games to notice until a big fat ad appeared in this paper last week. It was cleverly disguised as a Tourism Promotion, but there it was, hiding in the ad like a subliminal message meant only for proofreaders: a notation that stated BC would celebrate it's 150th in 2008.
It got us thinking about what we would want the Province to give back to us as a way of saying thanks for riding out the ups and downs of the sometimes volatile, often times ridiculous provincial economic roller coaster.
You weren't really thinking of giving the Province a gift, were you? Or sending a Birthday Card? They get enough from us daily it's time for them to give to us.
We honestly think the Province owes each and every one of us something more than a piece of cake and a button in 2008.
So here is our 150th Birthday Wish:
Give us all a break at the gas pumps. As much as we'd like the idea of paying what early pioneers paid at the full serve gas stations back in 1858, we doubt it would be possible.
We can see it now. Governor James Douglas pulling up to the pumps somewhere along the Dewdney Trail in his government-issued 1858 Ford Explorer. And it wouldn't be one of the cheaper demo models either. Nope, 'the Gov' would be traveling in style with two gears and reverse.
Which would have been the only way to map out, check out and generally hang out in the old West.
Imagine him pulling into Vermilion Forks (what this here little town was called back in them days) on a hot sunny day in July and waiting for cattle to get out of his way and losing his patience and slipping into reverse to slowly back out of town and down the valley to Hope or Yale or wherever.
Where were we? Oh, right. A deal on gas. Maybe a Gift Certificate in the mail for a free tank of gas might make us proud to be in B. C. - for a few kilometres anyway.
Maybe it's also time to redesign the map of B. C. to the point where the Similkameen Valley is actually noted. We're tired of being called the Okanagan for one very good reason: we aren't in the Okanagan. We in the valley next to the Okanagan, which happens to be called the Similkameen.
Didn't Governor Douglas make a note of that as he passed through in his 1858 Ford Explorer? Surely he had time to tap that into his Blueberry or Raspberry or scribbled it on his Palm (Pilot). After all, we're pretty sure he was the first tourist to pass through this way, getting lost as they normally do, on their way to somewhere else but got confused by the signs or an outdated map.
There's no doubt one of Douglas' traveling partners was the first to cry out "Are we there yet?" a good 40-some years before Bill Miner's partner did near Aspen Grove.
Seeing the Similkameen on a new B. C. map would be nice. Tossing in some free gas would make us want to visit parts of that map we've never seen before. Like that spot that gets hidden in the fold all the time.
Making the map free would seal the deal.
