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Transient issues in Keremeos much like previous years

News reports outside the Similkameen about transient issues at Keremeos former farmworkers campground belie reality, says writer
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Keremeos seems to be the destination of choice for transient farmworkers this year

I recently read a negative article in a large Vancouver daily about residents here “clashing” with farm workers over trash and the poor cherry harvest.

It certainly was news to me. I guess it depends on who you talk to, and their point of view.

Still, curious, I took a hike down to the former Farmworkers Campground behind the cement plant on July 11.

I was quite astonished to see tents pitched amongst the floodplains of the Similkameen as far as the eye could see.

The river had dropped to a reasonably safe level, now tea coloured as the remains of this year’s runoff finish draining from the valley.

Counting at least 40 sites, and possibly more, this years’ crop of transients is certainly one of the biggest in years.

But I already had an idea that was the case, as the streets of Keremeos have been bustling with larger numbers of farmworkers in the past two weeks than was normal for this time of year.

There is some trash around, as one might expect from the numbers of campers there - transient or not, if you get that many people congregating  in an area, without proper waste facilities, it doesn’t matter what level of society you come from - there will be waste generated, and not all of it will end up in its proper place.

Other than for one large, boisterous site, the midday makeshift encampment was quiet, most of the campers out working the crops of the Similkameen, hopefully.

Messages on tents suggest a throwback to the late 60s, a time I have some faint familiarity with  - “Cop free zone” and “Repeat after me - I am free, “ adorn a tent near the dike.

The tent camp itself also brings to mind another time in the more distant past, familiar to me from the history books - as a more colourful version of the  “Hoovervilles” as they called  the transient workers’ camps that sprang up on the edges of towns during the Great Depression.

From what I have seen around town, and from conversations with the police and municipal officials, the transient labour issue is pretty much status quo when compared to other years   in Keremeos. If there are any exceptions, feedback is that the numbers are up, but then, so too, is the quality.

“I stop and give farmworkers a ride whenever I can,” declared Keremeos Mayor Manfred Bauer, “they’re polite, thankful and well behaved. I’ve never  had a  bad experience with one.”

I spoke to a group of campers on their way back from town as I left the campground area, asking them why there were so many this year.

“Everyone wants to come to Keremeos this year,” he said, adding, “the weather has been different this year. We get work one day, then it rains and no work the next. It’s very different, but work is getting more steady now.”

It could possibly be that the sheer numbers of campers are making some residents of the village uneasy this year.

From my experience so far this season, and from the majority of those who I have spoken to,  this year’s  group of youths are simply doing their best to enjoy a profitable summer in the Similkameen, and most are trying to minimize their impact on local residents.

Perhaps Franklin D. Roosevelt, in  describing an era with many similarities to today’s, put it most succinctly, in  that “the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

As for myself, as I walked away from the campground area, fear was the last thing that came to mind - a tinge of jealousy, yes, but fear - not at all.