The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
In this edition of my column, IÕd like to report on three separate items/issues that have developed over the past number of weeks. The first involves some big news from a community to the southeast of Snow Lake, Herb Lake Landing. On the morning of Saturday, July 19, members of the Hamlet of Herb Lake Landing got together for a work bee. They set about erecting two limestone monuments that will honour those who settled the south shore community of Herb Lake Landing and east shore Town of Herb Lake. The monuments are large slabs of local limestone, which were quarried by the group. Once at the site, they were set in concrete and will have inscribed brass plaques fixed to them prior to their dedication. There is also a flagpole set in the cement next to the larger of the two, and the Canadian flag will fly majestically above both. No doubt those special folks that the community is honouring were smiling down proudly from above as they watched the work ethic and community spirit of the hamletÕs current residents. The dedication ceremony of the monuments will take place on the afternoon of August 2nd at the community barbecue park. On now to another issue that resulted in some water problems within the town of Snow Lake. Wow, like they say, when it rains it pours. In addition to call-outs to deal with flooding basements, plugged sewers, and the sewer backups that resulted from recent heavy rains, the Town of Snow LakeÕs Public Works Crew had to deal with two simultaneous water breaks during mid-July. While responding to the ravages of too much rain in too little time, on July 16 the town crew also had to react to two concurrent water breaks Ð in opposite ends of the town. Compounding the problem, their excavator was working on the brush pile out at the Taylor Bay Cottage Subdivision. Regardless, within 24 hours they had both fixed and the water back on. However, new Manitoba Water Stewardship regulations require that whenever a water line is depressurized in excess of two hours, a boil water advisory must be issued. This went into effect for parts of the Crystal, Green, Birch, and Spruce Street areas on July 16 and was lifted the following week. Nevertheless, it was a tough stretch for a very busy and dedicated town crew. The boys certainly deserve a pat on the back for their service above and beyond over this last little while. Finally, the last item deals with some damage that was done to a grove of Poplar trees along a well used Snow Lake walkway. A number of young trees on Snow LakeÕs ÔPipeline PathÕ were simply driven over while Hydro crews were in the community several weeks ago changing out guy and ground wires on their community transmission lines. Their equipment noticeably chewed up terrain in a number of locations around town, but this particular instance seemed...well, senseless. There were access points with no trees both to the left and right of where the crew drove the equipment in to their working area; however, they chose a path right over a small grove of three trees going in one way, and over a single tree on the way out through another path. It appears with some planning and care, they would have disturbed little other than the grass and the area where they had to dig. My Take on Snow Lake runs Fridays.
