By Armchair Mayor

A nostalgia tour up Goose Lake Road, post-Ajax

Aug 25, 2018 | 6:30 AM

TOOK A NOSTALGIA TOUR this week, driving up Goose Lake Road.

It’s different now than when KGHM was busy with pre-development on the Ajax project, but there are relics all along the way.

Every half a kilometer or so there’s a “Private Property” sign saying the land belongs to Sugarloaf Ranch Ltd., which, of course, was purchased by KGHM. A couple of the signs have been defaced with spray-painted graffiti.

Not far from the turnoff onto Goose Lake Road, one of the gates onto the Ajax property is still there, still locked, but the Ajax sign is gone. A second gate, though, still bears a sign — “No Unauthorized Access – Ajax Mine Project.” The entrance is now overgrown with weeds.

And then, off in the distance, are the scarred hillsides from earlier Ajax mining operations. If you’re not watching for them, though, you won’t notice them. Here and there, cattle graze on either side of the road.

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A couple of clicks over the hill, out of site, is Jacko Lake, itself the subject of so much controversy during the Ajax times.

From there, the road gradually rises up to Goose Lake itself, once described as “a slough” by one of the Ajax executives. In keeping with its name, though, a half dozen honkers scramble off the side of the road as I approach. They swim off into the lake, complaining as they go.

It’s true that Goose Lake isn’t much to look at, partly choked with vegetation, bordered with broken-down fencing — hardly post card stuff. But those who know the area say it’s home to a variety of fowl and other wildlife.

KGHM once pounded in No Trespassing signs, stationed a 24-hour security guard and tried to bar the public from the lake, which would have disappeared under the mine’s massive tailings pond if it had gone ahead.

The plan was to dead-end Goose Lake Road here but, thankfully, you can now continue on past the old Antoniak place (a family that had to sell out and move) and the George Little Ranch. George Little’s father Jack was one of the early homesteaders.

St. Peter’s Church was built near the Little Ranch way back when the Knutsford area was homesteaded in the late 1800s and early 1900s but its exact location has become lost. Opponents of the mine tried to find it, as it includes a small cemetery, but were unsuccessful.

A couple of years ago, a hundred or so cyclists rode up to the lake and back down to the Knutsford Community Hall to point out the importance of the area to outdoor recreationists.

It’s used for cycling, hiking (there’s a small network of trails there), running and orienteering, and naturalists check out birds. Quoting from the kamloopstrails.net site four years ago I wrote that the area features marshlands, gullies and grasslands and is the habitat of a variety of birds and water fowl.

“Stop Ajax Mine adds that it is also home to raptors and transplanted burrowing owls. Stop Ajax Mine says it’s currently used by Thompson Rivers University and the school district for students to study beaver and bird populations and habitat.”

That would have been lost if the gigantic pit and tailings pond had gone ahead but today the rolling grasslands are much as they were before anybody ever heard of Ajax. I’m certain there are places where core sampling and other preparatory work have left their marks but gone are the pieces of equipment and the white trucks with their KGHM logos.

The only traffic I passed was an occasional pickup and SUV.

There’s still a quiet nervousness, of course, that Ajax will someday be resurrected and the battle will begin all over again, but no longer is it the subject of daily talk all over town.

Goose Lake Road is once again just another pleasant country drive, albeit with those signs to remind us that it was once the backdrop to a divisive community debate.