The Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development says an announcement will be made Sunday in Sechelt “about the legacy of John Phare.”
Phare died in a tree-felling accident while working with the firefighting crews at the Old Sechelt Mine wildfire in 2015.
Nicholas Simons, MLA for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, will make the announcement, which is expected to be that Wormy Lake is being officially named John Phare Lake.
Community members have already adopted the name John Phare Lake informally, and local trail builders posted a hand-carved sign in the area in early 2016.
Local governments have also lobbied for the name change, which requires special permission from the province for an exemption from the regulation that geographic features in B.C. cannot be named “to commemorate the victim(s) or to mark the location of mishaps, accidents or tragedies.”
In a letter to Sechelt council last October, provincial toponymist Carla Jack said her office had started the formal review process.
Phare was posthumously awarded the province’s first Medal of Good Citizenship in October of 2015.
The announcement is slated for April 28 at 1 p.m. in Spirit Square, beside the Seaside Centre in Sechelt.
