No vehicles allowed on portions of Oliver Road

Coquitlam park road closed because of bear activity
Cars can't drive or park along Oliver Road, but pedestrians and cyclists can still enter Minnekhada park via the southern entrance, as long as they stay 100 metres away from the bears who are feeding on blueberries

 Sad that it has come to this situation, but the bears have been here a long time, and the blueberry farming, has provided them with a good seasonal food supply.
See the Metrovancouver Minnekhada page, for up to date news.

Minnekhada Christmas bird count

Almost a tradition to do the annual bird survey at Minnekhada Farm, a few new species added.

See the blog posting here

        One thing that was very noticeable about the outbuildings was that their deterioration is rapidly increasing. I noticed a huge pile of brown crumbly rot coming out the bottom of the sheathing on the Dairy building, and the sheep barn, was very noticeable rot issues, that probably need quick attention, since the bottom posts, and headers, especially aroung the exposed perimeter are in terrible shape; it would be sad to see this building collapse from lack of basic maintenance.


A little history from 28 January 1975

       So a quick read of this by anyone who can count, asks the question; what happened to the remaining 570 acres?  This land deal was very sleezy in that it went from Wallace to us, in a few weeks, after going through a few companies along the way, all taking thier cut of it.  So it appears that we probably have development companies that knew that the government was buying lands nearby; but evidently Wallace did not know this, he was not in the best of health at this time. This deal was NOT for the park it was for development; that idea came later as the public put pressure onto the municipality and the Province to preserve it.

Gravel pit proposal

Yikes ! Every few years some schemer comes along and wants to destroy the land and remove some rocks on OUR  Crown lands.
         If every proponent got their way there would not be much left,
other than some poorly remediated hazardous pits.

  Click to enlarge

 John Carley, of Langley, wants to gain access to sand and gravel deposits on 45.13 ha +/- of Crown Land, (OUR LAND) posted online July 8, 2013, but only put into the local newspapers on July 31, 2013.

Land  File No: 2410903
  Notice of intention to apply for a disposition of Crown Land
Management plan   (pdf)
General and detailed maps  (pdf)

Have your say about the proposal HERE

          The term, due diligence, comes to mind, none if any done here;  a little homework from the proponent would discover huge problems to overcome to get what they want, and they would give up, before they lose any more money. He must be after the rock, there is very little gravel there, mostly scree. And somehow the proponents Agent: Corey Tomiye, totally missed the salmon-bearing Dairy Creek that runs through the property, it is too large to jump across in one leap.  There  appears to be more to this proposal than just the typical excuse of mining from the proponent, that would give them control of this land; I fear.  This proposal would have huge negative impacts on Minnekhada Park too, sight-lines destroyed, wildlife trails destroyed, potential for silt, gravel erosion entering into the park.  .  .

UPDATE:  The proposal has made it into the local newspapers.
       Resident opposes quarry plan;
                       Province Says if A Permit is Granted, it Will be for Investigative Purposes.
       Test drilling approval sought for Crown land
                    City staff have a few words to say about the proposal in this article

ANOTHER UPDATE:           Quarry plan rocks PoCo. Council Members Worry About Effects On Park


      Interesting that Poco politicians are involved, where are Coquitlam's ? oh, wait nearly all of them lean towards the Liberal persuassion, that allowed this sort of spurious application to be easily made.
PoCo's  Brad West, an enviromentalist? Sorry NO , this councillor voted to remove money from the city's environment budget and laid of some staff so that the city could have a party. Port Coquitlam must be two kilometers away from the proponents proposal.

UPDATE AGAIN:   Sekora upset over plans for gravel quarry
Finally ! A councillor speaks out.

Coquitlam council opposes quarry plan,     Members upset over timing

CBC Radio One, Early Edition
       Interview with Quarry Road, resident,  Jim McNeil about the quarry proposal.
             Starts at 31:40
I was asked to look into this proposal some more, and I found, apparently that this present proposal lies mostly within a much larger recently approved mineral  lease tenure.

Download this large PDF  from google. sorry for some reason this map would not display correctly in google viewer, for some reason it was stripping away some of my custom markup on it.
The tenure outlined in RED is named 1021278  and owned by  Burke Mountain Minerals and is good until July 29, 2014  One year renewable lease 126.4069 Ha.
100% owned by Sheridan Hill Ventures Ltd. (Client ID:  276861 ) Mailing address 20277 Mountain Place, Pitt Meadows, B.C.     And the proposed exploration by John Carley  is outlined in BLUE
So it appears that the proponents have a full scale quarry on their minds, I wonder how all the new residents will feel about this with a gravel mining operation perched above them in the Partington Creek area.

A small inset from the PDF  Yikes ! You say; the potential for large scale extraction
could become a very real possiblity.

 

Interesting the proponent actually controls Two Tenures with the other nearby in the southern portion of Sheridan Hill in Pitt Meadows. Sheridan Flats, anyone?

  Named the Sheridan claim 1012822   is 84.31 ha. in size, and the owner has controlled it since at least September 2012. Both tenures outlined in RED in the above image.

UPDATE:
Quarry bid for Coquitlam is withdrawn

Common sense wins for a change !

Bruins murdered

Two bears shot after fighting each other in Coquitlam
 Two bears shot in Coquitlam
          The location of the conflict in Google Maps

Two male bears shot and killed after fighting in Coquitlam homeowner’s driveway.
The video attached to the previous link is about the recent bar problem in Surrey, near Tynehead Park.   Read the comments; they are commenting about the issues in the "Burke Mountain" area.

            Update: Trouble bear that had been shot after killing goat captured
                                     What an idiot ! for shooting a bear with a 22.
                  Another Update: Apparently the bear captured in the trap was not the same bear

 More recent news:  Black bears shot after fur-flying brawl in residential Coquitlam driveway
And a "Burke Mountain" resident video of the bear fight
 Interesting comments at this GlobalNews page

Word in the area was that the present "Conservation officer" or is it "Destruction officer" was trigger happy, and even more proof to add to this observation, has ocurred with this incident.
Bear being bears, get  their final judgement given to them by a destruction officer

Electric fence

Yikes! What a crazy place to plant an electric fence, this would be along Oliver Road. This road has always be a sore point throughout the years; at one time there was a public dock at the eastern end, and the property owners were always putting up defenses to stop access; it is mentioned in the Coquitlam municipality minutes of days gone by, that it is a public Right of Way, apparently things have changed!
From The Tri-City News: Zap! Watch out for fence in Coquitlam
I would be surprised to see this fence staying electrified for very long.

Minikahda Club

Clive Talbot Jaffray ca.1920

The Minikahda Club


An August 1898 bicycling picnic by Clive Talbot Jaffray, gave him the idea, to buy the property.







 Later he brought two others; James W. Raymond, President of the Northwest Bank, and  Charles Medbury Harrington, a grain merchant to show them the property, they gave $50.00 to the cause.

Charles Medbury Harrington 1917

James W. Raymond

The actual founders are listed as; William C. Edgar; Clive Talbot Jaffray; Judge,Martin B. Koon; Harry Thayer;Walter Checkley Tiffany; et al.
  
       The purpose of the club "shall be the conducting of a club or society for the purpose of social enjoyment, mental and physical culture, and the renting, leasing, building or otherwise acquiring and owning a club house." Activities of the club included tennis, golf, trap and skeet shooting, swimming and platform tennis.

 On July 15, 1899 Judge Martin B. Koon, drove the first ball.

Originally accessed by a rustic stairway to a boathouse

Horse-and-carriage and bicycling being the slower way to reach the Club.  The club house was built by Pike & Cook, an open shop contractor.
  Harry LeRoy Jenkins, was treasurer of the club, at this time.    Full course laid out in 1906.

 Minneapolis's business elite were able to merge their business and leisure activities, further strengthening the social oligarchy.

 The name Minikahda is a combination of two Indian words meaning "by the side of" and "water." The emblem of the club is a shield carried by Swift Dog, a Lakota chief.

      The name Minikahda and the shield design, were given by  William C. Edgar, a publisher,editor, journalist. Born at La Crosse, Wisconsin on the 21st of December 1856.

William C. Edgar

So we probably have William C. Edgar, to thank for inspiring Harry LeRoy Jenkins, to romanticize the name to Minnekahda when he came to naming his land companies.

Minnekhada Park

I will insert parts of my interest in the history of Minnekhada Park, into this blog.
I already have a website setup, Minnekhada Farm, which focuses on the history of the numerous owners of the property throughout the years.
Minnekhada was named by Harry LeRoy Jenkins, it is a romanticized name of a club that he was treasurer of in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Harry LeRoy Jenkins,  and the logo of the Minikahda Club