The Lieutenant Governor of BC paid a visit to Castlegar on Saturday.
Judith Guichon, the 29th Lieutenant Governor of BC, was in town for the Selkirk 50th Anniversary Through the Decades Gala on Saturday night, and spent the morning and afternoon touring Castlegar. She stopped at Castleview Care Centre to visit with residents there.
“It was a great day to be there, since they had brought some baby goats and sheep in to visit the clients,” said Guichon.
In the afternoon, Guichon took a tour of the Kootenay Gallery of Art, where she seemed struck by the two exhibits — Continuous by Monique Martin and A Part from Nature by Erica Konrad.
Prior to her current appointment, Guichon owned and operated a ranch in the Nicola Valley and has taken a leading role in environmental issues. She studied holistic management — a farming method promoting sustainable management of livestock and ranchland — and along with her late husband, Lawrence, introduced the method to BC ranchers. She’s also served as a director on the Grasslands Conservation Council of BC, as a member of the Nicola Water Use Management planning committee and started a recycling society in Merritt, BC. Both of the exhibits Guichon took in are raising awareness about colony collapse disorder and environmental degradation and the message seemed to hit home for Guichon.
“If I’d only come to see this, it would have been worthwhile,” said Guichon. “It’s a wonderful display. Very significant.”
During Guichon’s visit, Val Field, executive director of Kootenay Gallery, also told her a little bit about the gallery’s history and about plans to relocate the gallery to a more visible and accessible location.
From the gallery, Guichon went out to Zuckerberg Island and she ended her afternoon with a visit to the Castlegar Royal Canadian Legion before preparing to attend the gala.