Chilcotin
Sspring’s p

BIG CREEK — Big Creek
Community Association is
planning the world’s first
Mosquito Festival, to be

held here in the spring of
94,

PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES

The date, to be announced
later, will be after spring calving
on the ranches and before the first
green grass in-the Chileotin River

_ valley — roughly the period be-
tween April Fool's Day and
Queen Victoria’s birthday.

At the world's first Mosquito
Festival there will be horseshoe
pitching, quilted rug displays, a
huge meal, along dance and
perhaps an auction,

An Invitation is to be sent to
Her Majesty the Queen. Another
‘will go to the prime minister.

If one of them is busy, the

‘other probably won't be. What
will happen if they both accept
has not yet been thought through.

-,. The event is to be held at the
community hall, which is next to
the teacherage.

(Old-fashioned words like
teacherage are still used in the
ranch country, A teacherage is to
a teacher what a vicarage is toa
vicar or a lecherage to a techer.)

The hall is the site of Big
Creck’s other large and successful
annual event, the Big Creek Re-

“union, where the inlaws and the

, outlaws meet cach Thanksgiving

. time,

The reunion features horseshoe
pitching, quilted rug diplays ... oh
well, you knew, didn’t you? It is
successful and good fun, two
things you can’t say about gov-
ernment.

The first Mosquito Festival will
fill a cultural gap on the Chilcotin

—

Tr evenen suits the.

community salutes
ioneer mosquito

Plateau, where the only traditional
rites of spring have been the
shooting of northbound ducks out
of season.

The Chilcotin has always tacked
the grander spring ceremonies
known to ancient Greece and
Rome; also Britain, where they
have Morris Dancers and New
Westminster, where they have a
May Pole.

Here, apart from the spring
duckshoot, nothing has marked
the upward movement of sap in
the trees or the vernal impulses to
something more imaginative than
the missionary position during
family hour in bed.

Big Creek can establish a new
cultural high with a spring festi-
val,

Why not, said somebody, cele-
brate the return of the birds from
the south? Look at what the
swallows did for Capistrano,

That idea wilt not fly. Anieri-
cans may write songs about
swallows if they choose, Here they
are about as welee ae as regional
district bureaucrats.

They are known to carry bed-
bugs, and the common impulse is
to shoot them, The swallows, that
is,

However, there are many other
creatures whose arrival each
spring is a wari and happy event,

Veeru Bonner of Bin Go Sha
Lodge keeps records that attest to
the gladsome return in 1993 of the
inountain bluebirds on March 26,
Canada geese Murch 24,
trumpeter swans March 14 (1992),
sandhill cranes April 2 and
killdeer, the hardy little rascals,
on March 9, ;

The inspired choice of the mos-
quito, which arrives a bit later
than most other avians, must be
eredited to Hans Birch, who
operates Original Chilcotin Trail
Rides out of the old Teepee Heart
Ranch,

He slew his first mosquito on
April 16. Looking at the broken
carcass, Hans, a sensitive man,
reflected that he had committed
the ultimate of ungenerous acts
upon a member of the district’s
most distinctive wildlife species.

Although smaller than most
moose or grizzly bears, the mos-
quito commands respect. It has
that treasured capacity of har-
diness.

No matter that the hand of
man, God and government are
turned against him, as they are
turned against the people here; the
mosquito, like the settler, endures.

For years Chiicotin people

Trade In Special

Receive $100.00 towards the ;
purchase of a new suit when ;
you trade in your old suit

Reg. $550.00 - Now $450.00

Bring us your old suit (drycleaned
please) and we will give you $100

- towards the purchase of a new suit.

Then we will donate your old suit to ¥

the Central City Mission

(one trade-in suit per customer}

Park Royal South Upper Level

44 The Pope is to
be invited and if
he can't come,

the Grand Mufti

of Damascus. 99

didn't know how the insects sure
vived the hard winters, They were
often surprised that they could
survive themselves.

Recent studies by Wade and
Dopplethorpe of University of
Minnesota now reveal that mos-
quitoes migrate south each winter,

Sometimes they join the
Monarch butterfly flights to the
state of Morelos in Mexico.

Sometimes they hop on the
backs of migrating geese, grit their
tecth and hang on like grim death
until they reach the warm
southtands where they hop off
and spend the winter months
spreading dengue fever among
humans who otherwise would be
without it,

At 1994's Bip Creek festival
there will also be a religious cere-
mony, something akin to the ritu-
al of blessing the fishing Fleet in
Portugal.

Mary Thompson of the Bar
Cross Ranch suggests Big Creek's
ceremony be called The Laying
On of The Off.

The Pope is to be invited and if
he can't come, the Grand Mufti
of Damascus.

There will be a caffle, the win-
ning couple to be provided later
with a candle-lit dinner, fine port,
violin music and cigars. ‘They may
choose Chilcotin, Chinese or Ha-
waiian cuisine.

“Exotic coobing is easier than
you might think,”’ says Colleen
Hodgson, well-known local shep-
herdess.

“For Hawaiian you whack on
pineapple; if it’s Chinese you use
some sweet and sour ketchup.”’

She doesn’t mention English
cooking (throw it all in a greasy
pot and boil till it surrenders), but
does insist Chilcotin style is best
because it’s hearty.

Hearty, like the people. Like
the mosquitoes.

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