Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Site C

Looks like it is a go. Your thoughts. Myself I'm for it but I support all industry.

I'm more a supporter of wildlife and hunting lands than of flooding river valleys. I like wild river better than reservoirs (and I live right beside a reservoir). Otherwise, the 24 hour campfire may as well switch over to the 24 hour shopping mall. Of course the Peace (along with the Finlay and Parsnip) was already dammed further up many years ago and that was bad enough. GD

I see your point and it is valid. But in fairness it shouldn't of happened to begin with. I support it because were 4 billion into it already. If we did cancel the project the province's credit rating would be in the toilet. Everything around this is too political .

I don't have any feelings one way or the other on the Site C hydro dam. I'm an old man living in the middle of the country and the whole of BC might as well be on the moon.

Socialistic governments just love these kinds of mega projects.

What bothers me most is my liebrel government trying to tell me that hydro power is green energy. Flooding large swathes of boreal forest is not without Major environmental damage.

I live on the Nipigon River--site of 3 hydro electric dams--have for almost 50 years, probably couldn't live anywhere else. The dams where here before me so I don't even know what the river and lake where before them--but I can show you the damage caused by fluctuating water levels.

The old ones who remembered the lake and river before hydro where all critical of it--but they are all gone now.

Two treaty 8 First Nations have filed an injuction in court to stop work on the site.

The "megaprojects" here in BC, have ALL been initiated by, NOT "socialistic governments". BUT, by corporatist rightwing stooges for eastern Canadian and American interests, the accursed "Columbia River Treaty" dams are the worst example of this vile treachery.

My family has now lived here in BC for almost 150 years, I spent decades in divers resource management agencies and also was one of the first "environmentalists" in BC, 1961; quite frankly, you do not know whereof you speak on this issue.

I knew the union goons, foreigners behind the sellout governments that got this started and lickspittle media would get this travesty done and we WILL PAY far more than current estimates to sell cheap power to California while WE lose, again and as always.

However, what many do not seem to grasp is that the hardhat landrapers of the NDP, have just strengthened the environmentalist-Green movement in the long term to a great extent and this WILL impact in a negative manner on hunting here in BC. So, many may well rue the day that they approved of this boondoggle................

I have to agree with you Snap... sad state of affairs for the present and future.

I grew up right beside the Bennett dam. Sure was some great hunting and fishing there back in the 7os and 80s. If it wasn't the dam, it would have been a nuclear plant. They were already talking about it. I'll take the dam, thanks. As for the First Nations, I know most of them at Moberly. They have already made a ton of money on this deal, and they will get more....

A nuclear power plant would not have been built at the confluence of the Finlay and Parsnip; nor would it have flooded hundreds of square miles of river valley. This is the thing with hydro-electric projects; they eliminate the best land and some of the best of wildlife habitat. When the reservoir is full, it's a lake. In the winter, it's a sand and gravel wasteland. This is true primarily of the mega projects and it would be possible to generate hydro-electric power with less impact. In the end, it comes down to whether the people would rather have moose or money and I think we know the answer. GD

Well in the case of the actual site of site C itself, it is certainly not the best wildlife habitat in that area...not even close actually. Ive hunted and guided all over that area. I do agree that there are other ways to generate hydro power that have less impact. One was actually proposed but BC Hydro didn't want to go that route. From a financial point of view you might very well be right. Your hydro bills will most likely go up, but Im not buying all the doom and gloom when it comes to wildlife. I've hunted and guided hunters for the last 30-years. My career has taken me from central BC, all the way to the Yukon/ Alaska border to the west, and the NWT border to the north. Ive seen and hunted a ton of country, and the area around Williston Lake had the best game populations I've ever seen. No other place I've ever hunted even comes close. Same thing with fishing. Anyone who ever had the opportunity to go up that lake and fish the creeks coming in will tell you fishing just doesn't get any better. I know I haven't seen anything like it since, and I own a fishing lodge. We used to have fun trying to get our hook in WITHOUT catching a fish; it was that good. A lot of friends are reporting that the fishing is still outstanding.

I can't speak of all the creeks which flow into Williston lake but I can speak of the Fox River and some of it's tributaries. The fishing is shockingly poor. I can't help but wonder what effect the introduced kokanee has had on native fish stocks. I spent two weeks hiking along the Fox and would have starved if fish was all I had. You would expect, when you are 30 miles from the nearest habitation, you would about have to fight the fish off with a stick. By the way, in about 75 miles of hiking, we saw no moose but did see one set of tracks. No deer. We saw one wolf (hunting mice) and no other wolf tracks. One set of black bear tracks and no grizzly. There were more huckleberries than I've seen anywhere for a long time which, I think, points to the absence of bears. In my area ( East Kootenay), the grizzlies graze the berry bushes right down to the ground in many places. If you want a huckleberry, you'd better be ready to fight for it!
I'm pretty familiar with the site "C" locale. We lived in Taylor in the late fifties and early sixties. Of course, in sixty years, a lot changes anyway. Then, there were mule deer, moose, and black bears. Up river, there were some caribou. There were no whitetails at all and no elk anywhere in the area. There were about 1200 people in Ft St John and Dawson Creek had just become a city.The bridge over the Peace collapsed and we had to detour up toward Hudson Hope and cross the PGE railroad bridge to get to Dawson Creek. We didn't go very often. In comparison, the country is pretty well overrun today. I think we, as a species, need to get a handle on our breeding! GD

Yea the area around DC and Ft St John are sure overrun these days. Funny you mention there were no elk or whitetails. I remember that as well! I grew up on a ranch up the west moberly river....pretty remote country in those days. Anyway I remember the first deer my dad killed. It was a mule deer and the first one we had ever seen in that area. No elk either. I talked to a biologist a few years ago that really seemed to know his stuff. He was from Alberta.

He told me that in his opinion the deer and elk followed oil and gas exploration north. The pipelines, leases and roads opened up a lot of grazing that was never there before. He went on to say that, the deer and elk population can keep the wolf population stable even when moose start to decline. I know from experience that wolves do for sure prefer moose, and will hunt them if they are around. His idea was that wolves cause the moose population to decline, and under normal circumstances the wolves would then move on or die...except now they don't have to, they survive on the deer and elk, taking moose when they can. That of course would never give the moose a chance to recover. Made some sense to me anyway.

Youkon--I was told that the moose kept the wolf population stable and too high for the local caribou to survive.

Where?? Must be a good moose population in that area, but I wouldn't doubt it especially if the caribou herd is small to begin with. Grizzly and black bears are also a big problem. They put cameras on a few grizzlies and the biologists were amazed at how often they made a kill. Of course you already know this if you spend much time in the bush.

7stw, I hope this chilly winter evening finds you in good health.

I felt a desire to comment though after reading SNAP's dialogue. BC's big hydro projects of the 60's were a godsend to the province as far as opening it up. You cannot have significant industry without a robust and dependable powergrid.

BC has been a net importer of electricity since the 80's. We got around this by virtue of having hydro electric damns that allowed us to sell peak demand power at a significant premium and that shut our damns down at night, let the water build back up and buy from static electricity producers (natural gas) through the night and non peak demand times. The fact of the matter is that BC needed this to remain power self sufficient and able to provide the province with cheap dependable power.

The peace is already damned up and the small number of families on that stretch were paid very well to relocate and is a relatively small price to maintain our sovereignty with respect to our power.

Be thankful you do not live in Ontario where electricity seems to be about double what it costs in BC.

All's good Westcaoster Happy New Year to you and your family Sir.

And yes Dewey makes alot of sense always has.

Thank you 7stw,

Actually momma cat is dealing with some health issues so we are quiet this new year. Kids are good though, oldest got married this year and is now expecting!! Youngest finishing her second year of university. Poppa is proud.

I thought that sounded like Dewey, greetings Dewey, all the best to you old pirate... but I still don't agree with all of your points.