The Great Sierra River Cleanup is Sept. 21 starting at 9am.

Help pick up trash and recyclables in South Lake Tahoe along the river and lake.

Email nikki@sierranevadaalliance.org to register.

• The old Royal Valhalla sign is being given away by the owners who have transformed the South Lake Tahoe property into the Landing Resort & Spa. Inquiries should be directed to information@thelandingresortandspa.com.

• The annual League to Save Lake Tahoe fashion show fundraiser is Aug. 3 at a private Incline Village home. For tickets, call (530) 541.5388.

• George W. Bush was at a dinner at Harveys in Stateline during the celeb golf tourney.

• Genoa’s main street dedication is July 27 from 10am-1pm. The flyer has more info.

• The national real estate search site Estately recently released an article titled 13 Best U.S. Cities for Mermaids to Live. Despite not being a city or beside the sea, Lake Tahoe came in 10th place.

Twenty-two students from the University of Illinois called the Illini 4000 Bike America Team will be in South Lake Tahoe this week.

The team has been cycling from New York City to San Francisco each summer since 2007 raising hope, funds, and awareness for cancer research.

The 2013 Bike America Team aims to raise more than $150,000.

More info is online.

Al Gore will be one of the speakers at the 17th annual Lake Tahoe Environmental Summit.

It was 1997 when he was vice president that then President Bill Clinton launched the summits.

This year’s event is being hosted by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. It will be at Sand Harbor on Aug. 19.

The governors of Nevada and California have also been invited.

• Live at Lakeview will be running a live stream of every Thursday night concert.

• Squaw and Alpine CEO Andy Wirth has joined the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority board.

• Homewood Mountain Resort and Sugar Bowl have joined Ski Lake Tahoe as associate members.

• Go online to find out when you can ride BlueGo, the South Shore bus service, for free.

• Unity at the Lake’s Spiritual Leaders, Stew and Hillary Bittman, were ordained as interfaith ministers in Riverside Church in New York City on June 9.

Barton Hospice encourages people who have experienced the loss of a loved one or have endured a significant, life-altering event to their ongoing bereavement group called “Reflections of Life and Loss.”

Sessions are the first and third Thursday of each month from 5-6pm at 2092 Lake Tahoe Blvd., Suite 600, South Lake Tahoe.

The benefits of a bereavement group include sharing emotional connections with others when many cannot find peace with friends and family. In addition, the bereavement group will help teach attendees how to cope with certain situations. Support and bereavement groups offer people the opportunity to release emotions they may otherwise keep to themselves.

“Reflections of Life and Loss” can improve a participant’s mood and decrease psychological distress. For questions or more information, call Barton Hospice (530) 543-5581.

Lake Christopher was a man-made 55-acre reservoir at South Tahoe near the southwest corner of Black Bart Road and Pioneer Trail. I’m told that in the late 1950s the lake was 4- to 50feet deep, was fed by Cold Creek (that road sign exists today), and that it had lots of fish.

A decade later, its water level had dropped significantly while the lake became home to countless frogs.

On land owned originally by the Johnson family, its adjacent forest area was developed into today’s Meadow Lakes subdivision when that section of Pioneer Trail became a paved road in the 1960s. As the result of a stream and meadow restoration project, the lake was dry by the mid-1980s.

Lake Christopher existed approximately from 1955-1984, as best as I can determine, yet remains listed today on some guides and maps “for good fishing”.

The first four photos provided by Nancy Ticknor all look in the same direction toward Mt. Tallac.

Photo No. 1 shows her living room window lake view in 1977.

No. 2 shows wintertime ice skating on Lake Christopher.

No. 3 is the lake drying up due to stream and meadow restoration in 1984.

No. 4 shows today’s meadow at the same location.

No. 5 is a Google aerial view.

— Bill Kingman

Placer County Board of Supervisors will have one of its thrice annual meetings in the Lake Tahoe area July 22.

The meeting will begin at 4pm at the Tahoe City Public Utility District offices, 221 Fairway Drive, in Tahoe City. The board will receive a report from the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association on the past winter’s marketing efforts and what is going on with summer. The TCPUD will also present a report to the Board on operations and future plans for the Tahoe City Golf Course.

At 5pm, the TCPUD will host a reception at the Golf Course Clubhouse, 251 North Lake Blvd., Tahoe City.

The July 23 meeting will have a venue change with the meeting beginning at 9am at the Resort at Squaw Creek in Olympic Valley. At this meeting, staff from the county’s Community Development Resource Agency will present two information items, one on the status of the Tahoe Basin Community Plan Update efforts and the other on the Truckee River Corridor Access Plan.

“Tendonitis: State of the Art Treatment Options” will be the topic of Jonathan Finnoff’s lecture on Aug. 21 from 6:30 to 7:30pm at Lake Tahoe Community College’s boardroom.

Learn why tendons get injured, debunk the myth that tendon injuries are usually inflammatory, discuss the latest research regarding medications, exercise, and regenerative techniques to treat tendon injuries.

For more info, call 530-543-5537.

Renowned Nevada art collector Wally Cuchine will give a two-hour presentation Aug. 3 at the Comstock History Center in Virginia City.

Cuchine will be discussing his love and talent for collecting Nevada art as well as each of the 35 pieces in Wally’s World: The Loneliest Art Collection in Nevada, an exhibit currently featured at the History Center.

The talk starts at noon.

The Comstock History Center is at 20 N. E St., Virginia City.

The event is free of charge and participants are encouraged to bring along a brown bag lunch to enjoy during his presentation.