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Letter: Suggestion to district council for the ‘Cooney Cabin’

[The cabin] has to be safe, but it doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to “be.”

To the editor:

Re: Cooney Cabin notice in Lake Country Calendar Jan. 15, 2014.

Unfortunately the two most obvious and important historical “artifacts” that existed in Okanagan Centre Village have been destroyed by an overzealous clean-up scripted by our parks superintendent, who it would seem, has little understanding of the importance a community’s history has to the functioning of their society.

We no longer have our CPR pilings—the reflection of the importance of lake transport to OK Centre 100 years ago.

Nor our shore-side cannery pilings—reflecting the fruit industry’s integral part of our early and continuing history.

Both were focal points of the yearly historical tour of OK Centre, and could have been maintained with appropriate minimal cost “beaconing” and explanatory poster signage.

The Cooney Cabin, apart from the weathered packing-house and the “dorm” where the Russian women from the Kootenays stayed when they came to pack fruit, is unfortunately about all we have left.

Left where it is, the Cooney Cabin, with a very reasonable amount spent on basic maintenance, and full poster documentation of the “life” it reflects (as documented by Duane Thomson), its presence will give the present and future residents of, and visitors to, the Village, a vision into our past. It, of course, has to be safe, but it doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to “be.” Yes it will slowly ”deteriorate” over time, but that is part of living.

David H. Geen,

Lake Country