One Mile Lake Nature Centre nets UBCM recognition

The Village of Pemberton was honoured with a Community Excellence Award for the newly constructed One Mile Lake Nature Centre during last week’s Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) convention in Vancouver.

Pemberton was the Small Community winner in the Leadership and Innovation category, which recognizes programming, policies or planning.

An initiative of Stewardship Pemberton, the educational centre was funded by the Pacific Salmon Foundation and multiple local partners. The facility had its grand opening in June.

“I was delighted,” said Stewardship Pemberton’s Veronica Woodruff, who has coordinated the centre’s development. “It’s a big deal to have an award like that coming on a provincial level for Pemberton, so I think it’s important. Any attention that Pemberton can get on that scale is great.”

Pemberton Mayor Jordan Sturdy, who was on hand to accept the award with other members of council, was also pleased to see the village honoured.

“We are very proud that the nature centre has been recognized on a provincial level,” said Sturdy in a Monday (Oct. 3) press release.  “Veronica Woodruff, Stewardship Pemberton and the community volunteers have worked extremely hard to see this important community amenity to its completion. The centre provides a unique educational and cultural experience that is authentically Pemberton.”

Since opening, the nature centre has hosted summer camps for dozens of children and will soon be starting its Salmon in the Classroom program in Sea to Sky schools, said Woodruff. The salmon-focused facility has also welcomed a handful of private groups for tours and will remain active year-round.

“(Winter) is actually a pretty busy time for us because we collect our breed stock for the hatchery in November,” said Woodruff. “Then in January we’ll distribute them throughout Whistler, Pemberton, Mount Currie and up to D’Arcy for Salmon in the Classroom.

“They’ll watch them grow, we’ll have a tank in the nature centre as well, and then we do all our releases in the spring.”

Though the centre is operational, Woodruff said there are still a few finishing touches to put on the building, such as completing the hatchery’s water intake system.

For the future, Woodruff hopes to see more school and educational groups from all over B.C. take advantage of the nature centre. As one example, she said that ecological restoration students from the Rivers Institute at BCIT now have funding in place to use the Pemberton area and the facility as a base for fieldwork starting next year.

“In summer 2012, the first students are going to be coming through Pemberton and start working on inventory and restoration options based on the (Mount Meager) slide and our salmon population,” said Woodruff. “It’s really great attention… and it’s the most important thing that’s happened (for the centre).

“I love the idea of access to post-secondary in Pemberton.”

The Community Excellence Awards selected a total of 10 winning municipalities and regional districts from 50 applications in a number of different categories.

“The Community Excellence Awards program recognizes ideas that rise above challenges with vision, creativity and teamwork,” said awards chair Heath Slee in the release. “This year’s winners represent a showcase of world-leading communities and ideas and we’re very pleased to be able to recognize their accomplishments.”