Queen Victoria’s Birthday May 24 2025
Hello Fellow Friends of Deer Lake:
Soon the “unofficial” beginning of summer will cast its spell on Deer Lake and the surrounding area. Some refer to it as the “May-2-4” weekend as it is the first 3 day weekend where our Lakes water is in liquid form and the “2-4” reference offers similar characteristics-ice cold. Friends and family converge back to the Near North for some an area they haven’t seen since last fall. With great anticipation the cottage doors are opened, the cleaning supplies pulled out of the closet and some of the contents of the “2-4” help ease the pain of the work still to be done.
Queen Victoria was born May 24/1819. She became Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from June 20/1837 until January 22 1901. Her reign of 63 yrs and 216 days was longer than any of her predecessors. It doesn’t matter where any of our FODL members view about the monarchy either now or in the past, Queen Victoria was responsible for what is known as “the modern constitutional monarchy”. With Parliament taking over the day to day operations of the country the Queen only retained the right to be consulted, the right to encourage and the right to warn.
In a way that’s kind of what your Friends of Deer Lake (FODL) Lake association tries to do to protect Deer Lake, its fish, animal population and human visitors. We “consult” with all our members and neighbours about many things including preservation of the shoreline, the safety of our Loon population and protect our marine and wildlife the best of our ability. We “encourage” the use of garbage bins or bags to stop litter from entering our water, watching your septic tanks to make sure they aren’t leaking, spewing phosphorus into our lake and ask that those that “rent” their homes or cottagers to inform invited visitors to treat Deer Lake like their own
Most of all we try to “warn” everyone about lake health hazards like phragmites, lake over population and the accurate finding and reporting of Blue Green Algae. As global warming increases and the human population continues to exert pressure on the surrounding ecosystem this menace will continue to appear on Deer Lake.
At this years Annual AGM and BBQ we will be having a guest speaker show everyone what “Blue Green Algae” is, its effects, its prevention and being able to avoid false alarms by impostor algae that may not be of the Blue Green Algae variety.
We are looking for volunteers for lake water testing, loon observation and help at the Labour Day Saturday BBQ to help make the 130 guests experience the best it can be.
Enjoy Queen Victoria’s birthday everyone ! Back to you soon!!
Dave McAllister
Chief Loon (FODL)