Tuesday, January 17, 2012

NHL player defends Kokish River Steelhead

Back in late December 2011, we posted on a Vancouver Island run-of-river hydro project that was threatening steelhead and salmon habitat on the Kokish River .

A few weeks later, Willie Mitchell, a Los Angeles Kings defenseman and former Vancouver Canuck, stepped into the fray.

Willie Mitchell
 Photo: Jeff Vinnick/The Globe and Mail

A high-profile hockey player fights for the river he loves

Mark Hume
Globe and Mail
Jan. 02, 2012

Willie Mitchell, a rugged defenseman for the Los Angeles Kings and a former Vancouver Canuck, is dropping his gloves to fight for a river he has loved since he was a boy.

“The Kokish is close to my heart,” he said of the river on northern Vancouver Island where a proposed independent power project would divert a substantial amount of the water into a pipe to generate hydroelectricity.

“I learned to steelhead fish on that river as a boy. … I call it my little therapy place. I missed time with a concussion when I was with the Canucks. Where did I go to heal? I walked up and down that river every day,” said Mr. Mitchell, who grew up in Port McNeill, just a few kilometres from the Kokish.


Via: Moldy Chum

Related information:

Steelhead Society of British Columbia

Wilderness Committee


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