Big Valley took a brief pause from our hectic centennial/homecoming preparations to enjoy Canada Day. As usual, we shared our celebrations with visitors who arrived here on the Alberta Prairie Steam Train. Many thanks to the Rocky Mountain Rail Society for offering rides on their Speeder. Judging by the smiles on all the decorated faces, the face painting was a big hit with all the children. RCMP officers and Royal Canadian Legion Flag Party put on an impressive show with their assembly on the station platform and the formal ceremonies went off without a hitch. Evening celebrations included a BBQ and games. Thanks so much to everyone who helped to make it a success; the Big Valley Inn for supplying all the hotdogs and buns, Bill Smillie for lending out the BBQ and extra supplies and Lori, Val and Dina for their volunteer time. Thanks to Mel and Jim, we rounded off the day with an awesome fireworks display out at the ball diamonds.
Thanks to a generous $1500.00 donation from Shaman Energy, the fencing around Big Valley’s Memorial Park has been undergoing a much needed upgrade just in time for our centennial/homecoming celebrations.
The Big Valley Slo-Pitch League has received a $1,000.00 donation from CLAC as part of the union’s Building Communities Together program. The league was nominated by Chanse Stefanik, who is employed by ABB – Ber-Mac and is a member of Construction Workers Union, Local 63, affiliated with CLAC. “The Big Valley Slo-pitch league is responsible for ball programs within the village for both adults and children as well as for diamond maintenance,” says Chanse. “We are in need of bases, as well as catchers’ equipment for the kids and line painter. This donation will go a long way to helping us meet those needs.”
The Big Valley Fire Department would like to thank the Kastik family for their recent donation from their July 5 Kastik Cup golf tournament. The family works very hard to make this a fun and family oriented event and the department is grateful to except their donation in memory of Dave Kastik.
Big Valley has a pretty little “pond” just to the west of the village. We don’t think the “pond” has an official name, but we’ve heard it called “Melnyck’s Pond” due to Bill Melnyck’s farm lying on its southwestern side. There are stories of how Bill would walk across the dam to go to school here in Big Valley.
The creek that feeds the pond is called “Mott Creek” after Charlie Mott, who was one of the first pioneers who settled in the area.
According to an account by Edwin Adshead (another early pioneer), when he was young, before Big Valley even existed, Mott Creek was full of fish and he and his friends would go down with buckets to catch fish in the various swampy pools where they would be trapped as the water levels dropped. We wonder when the fish vanished---it would be nice to have them back.
BIG VALLEY BULLETIN