Volunteers in Lumby from the village's Air Force Flying Club wanted to make a big statement for Canada Day.
Through their efforts and those from the community and outside the village, that statement will be able to be viewed from all around the Lumby area.
Footings have been built and flag poles will be installed later this week on a portion of Saddle Mountain that will house Canadian and British Columbian flags.
The Canadian flag will be raised at the new site during village Canada Day celebrations Tuesday, July 1, at around 10:30 a.m. at Oval Park. Everyone is welcome to take part.
"Everybody will be able to see the flag, it will be a landmark for people coming into community from either way, east or west, and the flags will be good wind indicators for flyers as we have so many people from all over the world coming here because Lumby is one of the best places in the world to fly a hang glider or para-glider," said village realtor Randy Rauck, longtime member of the Lumby Air Force.
The community flag project has been talked about for years. The flying club, founded in 1976, has always wanted to put some sort of memorabilia up on Saddle Mountain, and determined a flag pole would be a great idea.
It was a great idea that got put on the back burner until recently.
Rauck's family member owned the Saddle Mountain property where the poles are to be installed, and when the property sold, the new owner told Rauck the club could put up a Canadian flag, as long as they also installed and hung up a B.C. flag, too.
So Rauck and the club began poking around to see what they could find for supplies.
Two flag poles were located in the community of Brisco, south of Golden, and one Lumby resident lined up an unloaded truck to have the poles brought to the village from Invermere.
A crew was put together to dig and make the footings for the poles, and cement for the project was brought to the mountain in a cement truck by Coldstream's Burnco Rock Products Ltd., which, Rauck pointed out, saved volunteers a lot of time hand mixing cement.
The flag pole for the B.C. flag will be installed this week, and the provincial flag will be raised with another ceremony from Oval Park on Monday, Aug. 4, B.C. Day.
Both flag-raising ceremonies are part of the flying club's desire to bring unity to the village.
"This year, there's been a march toward unity in Canada and we wanted to bring awareness of unity into our community," said Rauck. "It seemed like the right time to do it."
A tribute stone will also be poured at the flags giving credit and thanks to those in and out of the community that gave support.
"This has been a real positive project," said Rauck. "Everybody stepped up when we needed them. It makes life easier when you get so many great volunteers.
"Everything worked out great."
