INDEX Seniors Home & Garden .. Celebrations MAPLEWOOD Creek Project: Four-yeai-olé Chum salmon go ya SHGRE NEWS COMMUNITY LIFE all the way to Hogan's Poo! at the corner cf Seymour Parkway and Riverside Drive. A large percentage are returning frem a previous incubaticn box on the creek, which was removed in 1997. Marcie Geod ' Contributing Writer SALMON and trout got 2 vote of sup- port last Morday night whez North Vancouver District council made protec- tion of fish-beaving streams a millenni- um project. «+. “think we should be guardians of crecks and streams,” said Coun. Janice Harris, speaking in support of a motion by Coun. Pat Munroe. “This is a way to focus on the issuc nicely for the new mil- lennium and it makes a lot of sense.” Council voted unanimously to make protection of fish-bearing streams a focus of community plans, and also directed ‘staff to report on the possibility of designating streams as a natural heritage NY District prioritizes local creek protection resource. The issue was brought forward by Coho Festival Society. president Jim MacCarthy, who is hoping the motion will also get support from the North Vancouver City and West Vancouver councils. “Many streams that were once productive salmon streams were blacktopped over. That hap- pened withour giving attention to what we were doing,” ke said. “Whar better challenge than to revitalize these beautiful resources?” ‘ Because revitalization projects are expensive, MacCarthy says the first step would be to gather on-siream stakeholders, including North Shore Streamkeepers and environmental and_ fisheries groups, to discuss priorities. Munroe said the designation of streams as a “natural heritage resource” is part of a new percep- tion of what heritage means. The district’s commu- nity heritage commission, of which he is a member, has cried to move away from the notion that her- itage sites must only be buildings. The formal declaration, said Glenys Decring- Robb at Monday’s mecting, is a way to address the environmental wrongs of the past, such as the dev- astation done to the once-teeming steelhead in the Capilano River. “This is reminding ourselves so we don’t do it again,” she said. “We can use the staff knowledge of what is in our crecks and streams and what was in there, and see what we can do about it.” Maplewood introducing native plants to habitat SOME interesting information on the salmon spawning at Maplewood Farm: Salmon spawn around the third week of October to mid- November. These four-year old Chum salmon go all the way to Hogan’s Pool at the corner of Seymour Parkway and Riverside Drive. lay their eggs in the gravel and then dic. The salmon fry, which hatch in April, stay in the creek for two wecks, then go to the ocean via Maplewood Creek and the Seymour river. Other species stay in the system for a year after they hatch. Chum live for about two wecks after they enter the fresh water on their return to spawn. Generally they do most of their spawning activities in the first two or three days alter being “in the system.” The Saimon Enhancement Project chose Chum over other species because of its high mor- tality rate due to urban contami- nation. Thwse fish are 12-18 pounds and a large percentage are returning from a previous incubation box on the creck, which was removed in 1997. The box was removed because it was successful and no longer required as the fish are returning on their own. This year’s project is to improve the natural spawning habitat. Future projects will include habirat enhancement such as introducing native plant species to form 2 natural filrration system. Such plants absorb the nutrients from the waterfowl droppings through the root svs- tem and the micro-organisms on the plant stems break down the nutrients to harmless levels. This project will help reduce the levels of toxins caused by the . waterfowl due to the high ammonia content in their drop-- pings. Further, there are plans to reduce the toxin levels by dredg- ing the pond prior to its planting. For more information on the Salmon Enhancement Project contact Tom Young at 929- 3308. — Maplewood Creech Project jailas THE former Texas Schoo! Book Depository nouses The Sixth Fioor Museum. ling with the death of a dream in Toni Dabbs Contributing Writer ON November 22, 1963, an ordinary red brick building on the perimeter of downtown Dallas suddenly became a historic landmark. From. the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of whar was then the Texas School Book Depository, Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly assassinated United States President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. For a quarter of a century, hundreds of thousands of visitors to Dallas sought the unmarked site where a nation’s dreams were shattered, secking also to resolve their own unscitled emotions. They still come, tracing, che route of the president’s motorcade along Elm Street toward the triple underpass, studying the scene from Dealey Plaza and ascending the infamous grassy knoll. But today, the pilgrims can get much closer to understanding the events surrounding the tragedy that Datlas tried for so long to forget. In 1989, jinal- ly accepting its place in history, Dallas opened 2 muse- um examining the life, death and legacy of President Kennedy on the sixth floor of the former Texas School book Depository, now the Dalias County Administration Building. At mid-afternvon on a normal weekday, sections of the spacious 836-square-inetre museum are con- gested with visitors from around the world. Some stand somberly before the | omer window where Oswald is said to have balanced his $12 mail order nile on a stack of book cartons while he fired the shots that killed Kennedy. Others cling to cach other as they view a film of television newscaster Walter Cronkite, himself near tears, announcing the president’s death. While the muscum makes no attempt to soften the unpicasanzness of the events it depicts, it refrains trom including materials of an unnecessarily violent or dis- tasteful narure. It is digniticd and thorough — at times maddening, at times moving. The museum contains nearly 400 photographs See Shooting page 23