Editor:
Re: It's time for a crowded waterfront, Murphy's Law, Aug. 20
Ladner's waterfront has been the subject since its inception over a 100 years ago as a fishing and farming centre.
I have been personally involved since my father, the late George Massey, established his business on the Ladner waterfront over 75 years ago. He built it on the very site of the first car ferry from Ladner to Richmond.
The Ladner waterfront and Ladner's Landing were the centre of commerce before Delta was incorporated.
Ladner's waterfront and the whole of the lowland in Delta was once nothing more than marshland at the mouth of the Fraser River estuary, swarming with wildlife and estuarine life.
Its history needs to be preserved and displayed. What better way than to establish a Fraser River Estuary Interpretive Centre on the Ladner waterfront?
A letter in the Delta Optimist in 1964 by Fred MacIntyre suggested establishing the first B.C. fishing museum on the Ladner waterfront. That would have been an excellent centennial project.
In 1974, Ken Taylor, a commercial fisherman and member of the Delta Museum Society, along with Michael Duncan, who was the curator at the time, promoted the idea of a better display and interpretive centre in Ladner.
In 1998, a 100-page feasibility study on establishing a salmon interpretation centre in Delta was undertaken by the Delta Chamber of Commerce but never acted upon.
In 2009, I approached Delta council with the idea of using the Seven Seas building as a site for such an interpretive centre and was denied. I then formed the Delta Fishing Committee under the auspices of the Delta Museum Society and requested assistance in this matter and was denied once again.
We have now formed our own Delta Fishing Heritage Society with the aim of establishing a Fraser River Estuary Interpretive Centre, preferably on the Ladner waterfront.
Our society is looking for support from the people of Delta, Delta council, the business community and the Tsawwassen First Nation.
Maybe then we will get that action on the waterfront that was established over a century ago.
Douglas Massey
