Day: May 13, 2015

Heart Creek Culvert in Fauquier Soon to be Replaced by a Bridge

/ Peter Klopp / 1 Comment

Fish Enhancement Project on Heart Creek in Fauquier Gets Go-ahead

by Jan McMurray

Reprinted with kind permission by http://www.valleyvoice.ca

A project to eliminate a fish barrier at the mouth of Heart Creek in Fauquier is a go for this year. A large culvert will he replaced with a bridge, hopefully by the end of October.

Photo of Heart Creek Culvert on Highway 6 by Peter Klopp

Photo of Heart Creek Culvert on Highway 6 by Peter Klopp

“The fish want to go up that stream to spawn, but that culvert must be a six-foot jump,” said Hank Scown, president of the Nakusp Rod and Gun Club. “It’s an impossible height for those fish to leap up and get into the culvert.”

The Ministry of Transportation has partnered with the Nakusp Rod and Gun Club, the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans through its Recreational Fisheries Conservation Partnership Program, to fund the project.

Scown says there are kokanee, Rainbow trout, and probably Dolly Varden that will spawn in Heart Creek once the culvert is replaced. “Every fish that spawns means potentially many fertilized eggs and more fish that enter the Arrow Lakes,” he said.

Phase two of the project, which Scown says will happen in the “not too distant future,” will see the removal of a second culvert further upstream, opening up an additional 1.2 kilometres of stream habitat for fish.’s

Scown says that if this project proves to be beneficial to fish, “perhaps other systems along the Arrow can be assisted in a similar way. If a creek can naturally produce fish, we should be allowing that to happen.”

He points out that human beings like to manage nature, but it’s been shown over and over that we can’t. “All spawning channels have proven that,” he said. “When things go bad, all your eggs are in one basket.”

Scown said the Nakusp Rod and Gun Club has been wanting to do something about the fish barriers on Heart Creek for a long time. He believes the culverts were installed back in the late 1960’s, when the highway was realigned to accommodate the flooding of the Arrow Lakes and the construction of the High Arrow Dam at Castlegar.

Let us hope that the Fish Enhancement Project will become reality at the Heart Creek in Fauquier, BC.

Gerhard Kegler, the German general, who dared to disobey Himmler – Part I

/ Peter Klopp / 6 Comments

A Brief Overview of Gerhard Kegler’s Education and Military Background

1898 – 1986 (Chart II a – II)

On January 26, 1898, Gerhard Kegler was born in Grünewald, Pomerania (Province of Germany until 1945). Posts on his three older siblings Marie, Günther, and Gertrud can be found in the archives of this blog. They show how the children of Pastor Carl Kegler and his wife Elisabeth had a happy childhood in the small Pomeranian community of Grünewald. Also the third chapter of the P. and G. Klopp Story has more information on the Kegler family background, which therefore need not be repeated here. Like his brother Günther, Gerhard began his military career as a cadet in 1908. The outline of his comet-like rise in the ranks of the German army follows below.

  • 1904 -1908 Elementary School at Grünewald
  • 1908 – 1914 Military Academy at Plön
  • 1914 – 1917 Military Academy at Groß-Lichterfelde
  • March 1, 1917 Officer Cadet at the 149th Infantry Regiment in Schneidemühl
  • September 1917 On the Western Front at Champagne and Argonne
  • November 1, 1917 Lieutenant
  • 1918 Participated in the last major German offensive of World War I
  • 1919 – 1920 Border Patrol at the section between Schneidemühl and Bromberg
  • End of November 1920  Transfer to the 4th infantry regiment of the newly created army, which was limited by the Treaty of Versailles to 100,000 men
  • 1921 – 1922 Officer’s training in Munich
  • 1924 Teacher at the Officer’s Sports Training School in Berlin
  • 1925 Promoted to the rank of first lieutenant
  • 1926 – 1929 Trainer and Sports Teacher at the Infantry School in Dresden
  • 1929 – 1933 Leader of military courses for officers’ trainees in Berlin and Dresden
  • March 1, 1933 Advanced to the rank of captain
  • 1933 – 1934 In charge of the 11th Infantry Regiment 9 at Spandau
  • 1934 – 1938 In charge of the 3rd MG Battalion 8 at Züllichau
  • 1937 Promoted to the rank of major
  • 1938 Teacher at the Military Academy in Munich
  • 1939 At the beginning of World War II Battalion commander in the Infantry Regiment 282 of the 98th Division at the Western Front
  • 1940 Commander of Infantry Battalion in Training at Kreuznach; front-line duty in the attack on the French Maginot line in the Vosges Mountains
  • November 1, 1940 Commander of the Infantry Regiment  27 and promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel
  • 1941 – 1944 Invasion of the Soviet Union
  • February 1942 Promoted to the rank of colonel
  • October 1, 1944 Promoted to the rank of major-general
Gerhard Kegler on a Visit at Gutfelde 1944

Gerhard Kegler on a Visit at Gutfelde 1944 (the tall person in the middle)

In February 1945, Gerhard Kegler was condemned to death after being court-martialed for disobeying Himmler’s orders to defend the town of Landsberg on the River Warthe. The following posts will deal with the circumstances leading up to this terror verdict and will hopefully contribute to dispel the myth about all German officers blindly following the Nazi Regime without any moral backbone.

To be continued