Celebrating 4 Years of Sharing
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Reaching skyward around Hotel Lake we see a coastal forest shaped by recent historical events both natural and human. It is a beautiful forest and we should be grateful and caring. Down on the forest floor, in places where sunlight gets through we also see that ubiquitous plant, Salal which has established itself as the foundational understory of our natural surroundings. Well known to almost everyone living on the Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States Salal grows from sea level to mid elevations in coniferous coastal forests and some parts in south eastern BC. For us, Salal seems to be everywhere.
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Always searching for a local perspective we found a story about Cledia Duncan in the book, Women of Pender Harbour; and here is a short but touching quote in her own words:
“…Then after my husband died I used to pick salal and cedar and evergreens for the florists. I loved it. It was much better than housework. I just loved the woods. My salal picking supported me until I got the pension. My children were all married when my husband died, but then my grandchildren came, first one, then two, then three, and stayed with me to go to school. So I used to support them and myself. I usually started picking salal in September and worked through to the first of May. It was a lovely way to make a living…”
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“You pick all you can in your hand and you lay it all out flat, and you try to cover the stems with the leaves so that it’s just like a big fan. Then you put a wire on it. You find a place and turn the bunches upside down with the white backs showing so you can find them again. Then you put a limb up on the tree to mark where you left them. I would pick around 60 hands in a day. Later on, I got down so I was picking only around 40 or 50 a day. When I first started I got 25 cent for each hand but when I quit, I think we were getting $1.50. It was good money, I’m telling you. Really good money.”
There is a lot to learn about Salal and we hope you enjoy reading about it in our newest section found in “Plants”
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Lakeview!
There’s something personal about a lake.
Oceans offer their vast expanse, beckoning the heart outward and reminding the viewer that they are but a small piece of something much, much bigger. Rivers are nice but doubtless have their own agenda, a self-determination lurking just upstream that mere mortals are powerless against.
But lakes - and particularly Hotel Lake in Pender Harbour, British Columbia; lakes free the heart to look inward to seek answers from the soul to questions from the heart. You can learn who you are by sitting by a lake… and who you want to be there with. Brad McCannell
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New In Our Library
Our Library has been growing for some time and can be accessed via the main menu. We continue to add documents and here is just one recent addition that we are very proud of: Hotel Lake 2024 Year One Report published by BC Lake Stewardship Society; just click on it to take a look.​​​ This is what local volunteers have been gathering data for and in a few years a final report will be published that will describe our lake in greater detail.
Also new in our library is our Annual Report which includes our Financial Report as we enter our 5th year of sharing information with you. We copy our Financial Report below:
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2024 - 2025 Financial Report
A big thank you to all who graciously donated towards the modest costs of maintaining our www.hotellakeadvisory.com website and domain name. The following financial report shows income from your donations and expenditures for website hosting and domain name registration. By renewing our website hosting for the next 3 years we received a significant discount which nearly emptied our account. A much lower domain name registration fee is due next. If you have been thinking of contributing, now would be a good time to pitch in; instructions are below.
2023-2024 balance carried forward: $325.13
Donations received, past year: $327.00
Cost: Website paid up to 2028: -$649.33
Cost: Domain reg fee due soon: $00.00
Current Account Balance: $2.80
Submitted by HLAA Treasurer​​​​
We are delighted to announce the second live presentation by UBC at Sarah Wray Hall on Sept 7 and we hope you can attend. This will bring you completely up to date on UBC’s project about the jellyfish in Hotel Lake.
About Us
We are committed to gathering and sharing information. We hope that information will help us all to slow the process of eutrophication, to protect Hotel Lake's water quality, the surrounding watershed, the underlying aquifer and the wildlife and plant life that live here.
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We acknowledge with gratitude the time and effort of volunteers and the outstanding results achieved by our lapsed predecessor, Area ‘A’ Quality Water Association (AAQWA). Realizing the benefits of that organization, we have established a new association to carry on.
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Our association is presently comprised of a small group of volunteers. This website has been developed by our webmaster Brian Croft and contributors include Bob and Carole Stickley, Brian and Sharon Croft, Ron Knight, Tarren McKay, Brad McCannell, Joe Harrison, Dr. John Field, Trevor Andrews, Chris Hegele, Theresa McNicholl, Rod Brown, Jim Little, Debra Huffaker, Reni Ducich, Tony & Kelly Pownall, Frank Jensen, Peter Boyer, Dr. Bob Vroom, Dr. Sharon Johnson and Twyla Dawn Disney.
Our hope is that anyone who comes to this website will leave it knowing a little more about the Hotel Lake environment and the wildlife and plant life that, live here. We are confident that, in the long term, greater knowledge and understanding will enable better decision making.
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​This website is available to all and we have enjoyed very positive responses. Anyone may ask to be on our mailing list and will recieve our monthly newsletter.
This association is fuelled by volunteerism and our modest operating costs are less than $400 per year. We hope that those who find value in this work will consider becoming contributing supporters. An annual contribution of $20 per family is suggested. All contributions will be used to offset the modest annual costs of administering this website.
If you would like to recieve our monthly newsletter,
please Email Us Here and we will add you to our mailing list
We gather information and share it.