Relay celebrates environment
Since the first Earth Day in 1970, people around the globe have sought to celebrate the planet through a variety of individual and community activities.
Earth Day is about observing the beauty and vitality of nature, but it is also about renewing a commitment to saving our planet.
Despite the best efforts of a lot of people, Joe Reiss, Doug Fagerness and a group of local volunteers felt that the general public had forgotten about the importance of Earth Day. They wanted to find a way to make people aware of their environment and communities while having a good time.
“The Panhandle’s natural waters spoil us with opportunities to fish, swim, boat, dive, skate, ski, kayak, drink, bathe and forget our troubles in their awe-inspiring beauty,” says Reiss.
The outcome of their efforts will be the first annual Water for Life Community Relay next Saturday, at the end of Earth Week. Earth Day is officially today.
“Nobody has said no,” is the unofficial motto of the event, according to Reiss, because people have volunteered to help and to do what they can to make it happen.
“This is a grass-roots event,” says Reiss. “No one is getting paid and it is not a fundraiser for anything. These are some great people who have joined together to make this happen. It is truly a labor of love.”
The celebration will start with members of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe filling water rings from tribal waters. The rings will then be ferried, by the Tribal Resource Management Boat and accompanied by a flotilla of boats from North Idaho Maritime, to Lake Coeur d’Alene’s Third Street dock.
At 9 a.m., the water resource vessels will be received by Coeur d’Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem.
Bloem will then hand the vessels to the American Mountain Men led by Mark Weadick. The Mountain Men will be in fur trader costume.
The fur traders will ferry the water rings by canoe to the North Idaho College Beach where the Rev. Gregory Horton from St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church will bless them.
One water ring will be taken down river by kayaks and tug boats to Q’emiln Park in Post Falls.
The other water ring will be given to wheelchair athlete Bill Porath, who will start a land relay along the Centennial Trail. The relay will include skateboarder Nick Reardon, runner Lynn Hauer, and bicyclist John Ruggles. They will bring the ring to the meeting point at Red Lion Templin’s Resort in Post Falls.
Meanwhile Post Falls High School teacher Mark Jones, and Gene O’Meara from the Centennial Trail Foundation, will take a container of aquifer water from a pump located on the Centennial Trail near Stateline. They will be accompanied by Post Falls High students.
All the relays will merge at Templin’s Resort. Students from Lakeside Elementary in Worley will walk the water across the Spokane River to Q’emiln Park where the water will be received by Post Falls Mayor Clay Larkin.
One half of the water will be used to hydrate new trees; the other half will be rejoined to the Spokane River, symbolizing how water connects people and communities.
An Arbor Day Celebration, being organized by Linden Lampman of Post Falls Urban Forestry Department, will follow.
The event is free and refreshments will be served. City Link Bus Service will dedicate a bus that will be ferrying people to various points along the route.
“This relay from the confluence of the St. Joe River and Lake Coeur d’Alene to Q’emiln Park on the Spokane River will commemorate water’s powerful influence on North Idaho’s development, communities, history and people,” says Reiss.
“We hope the public will observe, cheer and join the relay as it snowballs along its route.”