ROTHENBURGER – A nostalgia tour up Goose Lake Road, post-Ajax mine
TOOK A NOSTALGIA TOUR this week, driving up Goose Lake Road.
It’s different now than when KGHM was busy with pre-development on the Ajax project, but there are relics all along the way.
Every half a kilometer or so there’s a “Private Property” sign saying the land belongs to Sugarloaf Ranch Ltd., which, of course, was purchased by KGHM. A couple of the signs have been defaced with spray-painted graffiti.
Not far from the turnoff onto Goose Lake Road, one of the gates onto the Ajax property is still there, still locked, but the Ajax sign is gone.
Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops, former school board chair, former editor of The Kamloops Daily News, and a current director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He was awarded the Jack Webster Foundation’s lifetime achievement award in 2011. His editorials are published Monday through Thursdays, and Saturdays on CFJC Today, CFJC Midday and CFJC Evening News. Contact him at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
I keep waiting for someone else to comment on this piece.
Mel, you have provided Kamloops with an eloquent and evocative retrospective. I remember every moment of the Ajax story. Let me know if you ever write the story. I was so emotionally invested in stopping that bad idea, I went mad. I do not remember all that much from the past five years aside from Ajax. Yet now looking at the world, the climate, and the poor conditions we have left for our grandchildren, Ajax was but a mote of dust in the sandstorm.
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