Fire Department Banquet

53^rd ANNIVERSARY DINNER – FIRE DEPT. BANQUET HELD LAST NIGHT. –

            Wednesday evening in the Fire Hall Cranbrook Fire Department held their 53^rd anniversary dinner in commemoration of the first Cranbrook Volunteer Fire Department.  In addition to regular and volunteer firemen present at the banquet were invited guests from City Council, various city departments, and representatives from local organizations.

            The splendid banquet of turkey and ham with all the trimmings was prepared at the Stop and Go Inn, and as has been their custom in the past was served by the firemen themselves.

            Chairman for the evening was George Haddad who in addition to keeping the proceedings rolling smoothly, also entertained with a few tricks of legerdemain.

            With his welcoming address, Fire Chief Vern Doll said the annual banquet was started originally to create good public relations, which makes fire prevention much easier.  He said this was important since statistics showed that fire loss and loss of life from fire was increasing every year.  “We should all work together to combat this increasing toll,” he said.

            Acting mayor Alderman S. McLeary said the city was proud of its fire department.  The department, he said, used to be known as “the forgotten men,” with poor pay, poor equipment and little recognition.  With city boundaries now extending rapidly he said Council would make provision for additional manpower and equipment.

            Chairman of the fire committee, Alderman Frank Jones, said he wanted to see this extra equipment and additional manpower provided to the department to handle the areas that will eventually be taken into the city limits.

            Glen Smith, game biologist, guest speaker for the evening, said the history of game and wild life in this province had been a varied thing.  When the first explorers came into this country he said there was virtually no game, but today with the demands for space the department was concerned with management of resources, with a guiding principle of maximum sustained yield.  Pressure had been often put on from various sources to retract this principle, he said.  He pointed out that although there are now more hunters even although they may not be “our next door neighbours,” we cannot restrict the opportunity to hunt.

            The annual renewable resource he called a complicated question. Game population must have room to grow.  He said there were limits to the annual increment and said that even if does, bucks and fawns weren’t being taken out the chances would be that in a 100 years there would be no more game than there is today.

            The game population, he said, needed a certain amount of space and forage.  There are limits to which this population can build up and death is just as important as birth.

            The demand and tremendous increase in hunters he said would have to be anticipated.  “We must apply what we know and project it into the future.”  He said there are more participants in hunting and fishing than in any other sport and in five years the amount of hunters has tripled.  “We cannot tell the visitors not to come here,” he said.

            East Kootenay he felt could take three times as many hunters as there are now.  By reducing the hunter success element from 100 to 30 per cent it is possible to take 60,000 hunters a year.  Individual success, he said would go down slightly to provide for overall demand.

            Referring to power diversion and the various plans proposed he said game resources would have to get a fair break.  Denial of such resources would kill off game populations.