ARMCHAIR ARCHIVES – Remembering the beetle that tried to eat Kamloops

In this same month, in the year 2007, Kamloops and other B.C. communities were contending with the ravages of a hungry little beetle — the mountain pine beetle to be exact — that had eaten its way through most of our mature pine forest. It left our skyline forever changed. The following column was published in the Kamloops Daily News on April 14, 2007.

I HAVE A CONFESSION to make about this pine beetle business, but before I get to that, a few thoughts about this week’s forum and the visit by federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn.

The fact he flew in two days earlier than he’d planned just so he could attend the Daily News-TV7-City pine beetle forum should gain him some points.

His main message, though, wasn’t popular: no federal money for homeowners fighting the costs of cutting down and cleaning up beetle-killed trees.

He said it in conversation before the forum Wednesday night, he said it during the forum, again on the radio the following morning, again in an interview in our board room after that, and again in a speech in a Kamloops West Rotary luncheon.

If he’d uttered the words, “Read my lips,” it wouldn’t have been surprising.

One of the more interesting parts of our conversation Thursday was when we asked him whatever became of the City’s $1.3 million application for pine beetle funding five or six months ago, the one that seemed so urgent at the time. The one MP Betty Hinton said she needed within a few days so she could take it to the minister.

It was, he said, a miscommunication. There was no fund to draw from, nothing to apply for, and therefore the application didn’t technically exist.

Kamloops, he said, was a community in which residents are pushing for money to clean trees out of their neighbourhboods.

So, I asked, was the minister going to look at some of those neighbourhoods during his two and a half days here? Here’s how that conversation went.

Q: Are you going to have a chance to look around at some of the areas that have been affected here?

A: Oh, I have. I’ve been to Prince George. . . .

Q: Around Kamloops?

A: I’ve been in Kamloops many times. I’m very familiar with the area. Know the area very. . . .

Q: Are you gonna be touring some of the pine beetle areas while you’re here?

A: Uh, yeah.

Q: Are you?

A: Yeah, it’s a, you know, there’s a. . . .

Q: This afternoon?

A: Well, no, I mean, you can’t help tour it when you’re in this riding. . . .

Q: Can we take a picture of you looking at pine beetle wood?

A: Uh, no, I don’t think that’s in the cards.

Q: The mayor was going to invite you to tour. . . .

A: I’ve seen lots of pine beetle. . . I’ve been, this is. . . .

Q: So you’re not going to be looking at the pine beetle. . . .

A: Absolutely, looking at pine beetle. I look at. . . .

Q: . . . in neighbourhoods while you’re here.

A: You can’t help but look at it but I don’t need to go out and do a photo op for the paper.

Q: OK, well, are you going to do it without a photo op for the paper?

A: Absolutely, I was at a private residence last night with pine-beetle-killed trees, and so you can’t help but, I know they’re there. Obviously, I know they’re there. I’ve flown over the forest here, I’ve seen the size of the infestation, I’ve driven, I’m a native British Columbian, travelled all over this province at various times and continue to do so.

And so on. I suppose, why would he go out and look at how devastated some of our neighbourhoods are if his government’s policy is to not help them anyway?

But back to my confession. One evening last October, I was engaged in one of my rants, this one about how this beetle plague was exploding and how nobody was doing anything to get people the information they needed to cope with it.

“Why don’t you do a series?” my wife Syd asked.

Pausing in mid-rant to consider this logic, I said, “Well, maybe we will.”

“And why don’t you team up with TV7? Those guys do some great stuff. Between newspaper and TV, you could do a heckuva job.”

“Maybe we will,” I said, the wind going out of my sails as I realized I was ranting about “them” when I should have been asking myself a few tough questions.

“And why don’t you hold a pine beetle forum at TRU at the end of the series?” she said.

“Maybe we will,” I said. “Are you finished yet?”

“That’s about it,” she said.

Remembering back to that conversation, I might have had a little more input into it than that, but that pretty much covers it. Most of the good ideas in our family come from Syd.

The bad ones have all been mine.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops, former school board chair, former editor of The Kamloops Daily News, and a former director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He’s been writing about Kamloops since 1970. He was awarded the Jack Webster Foundation’s lifetime achievement award in 2011 and was a 2019 Commentator of the Year finalist in the Webster Awards. Contact him at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.