THURSDAY, october 26, 2017 Vol. 74, No. 43
Serving Fort St. John, B.C. and Surrounding Communities
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alaskahighwaynews.ca
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rutledge renovation ready SOON
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‘you’ll float, too’
Council pushes for nursing school talks
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We barely escaped with our lives after stumbling upon Pennywise the Clown (Lilly Niekamp, 12) and her ghastly gang of stolen souls at the haunted swamp at Chambers Farm. All ye be warned, those who step onto these haunted grounds in Baldonnel—grounds filled with devilish spooks for trick or treaters to discover nightly until Halloween’s end.
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Residents ready for Halloween hauntings matt preprost editor@ahnfsj.ca
Marcus Vandal is already scared for Halloween night and he hasn’t even left his front porch. In fact, he and his dad aren’t even finished spooking up their front yard with decorations. It’s a cool, breezy Sunday afternoon, and it’s the creepy and decrepit doll that frightens the nine-year-old the most, its face frozen in an agonizing howl. “It’s just horrifying. She bends over backward, her body just cracks and the sound... Every time I pass it, I run away covering my ears, running as fast as I can and not looking back,” says Vandal. “If I was allowed, I would throw it in the back of a garbage truck.” Give the nightmare nod to Vandal’s father, Tony, who was up two storeys on a ladder draping a pair of ghouls from the roof of his home at 8907 101 Avenue. Roof ornaments? Check. Gallows? Check. Graveyard? Check. Ghost in
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Marcus Vandal and his dad Tony take a break from decorating their yard for Halloween on Oct. 22.
a swing, hanging from a tree? Check. “We enjoy doing it,” says Tony, noting he attracts about 150 trick or treaters a year. “I enjoy the kids, seeing them get scared when they come up our driveway. Everybody knows our house.” Down the street and up a few blocks, Pam Turner and her husband Dean are setting
the spooky scene in their front yard at 9423 104 Avenue. Come here and crawl through the guts of a giant spider and into a witch’s hut, if you dare. “We try to do something every year,” says Turner, noting she’s been dressing up her yard the last 17 years. “When we first started we had a dozen kids. Usually we get about 300 now.” See HAUNTINGS on A16
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Fort St. John city council wants a meeting of the minds to advance serious talks about establishing a nursing school in the region. Acting mayor Byron Stewart gave notice to city staff Monday that council is looking to “pull together our region” to address the pressing educational gap in the Northeast. That includes gathering decision makers from both Northern Lights College and the University of Northern British Columbia, along with Northern Health, and regional district directors Karen Goodings and Brad Sperling. The meeting request comes from discussions council had with advanced education minister Melanie Mark during the annual Union of BC Municipalities meeting at the end of September. Leaders in the region need to have the post-secondary schools to take charge of the issue, Stewart said. “The complication of turf, or direction, needs to be addressed,” Stewart said, referring to the college and university. “Is this possible moving forward or is this a pipe dream?” Council has already met with Northern Health, and statistics exist to know just how many local students are travelling to other schools in B.C. and Alberta to get their nursing training, Stewart said. “That is vital information … and it’s important to bring that forward. What are the roadblocks, what are the hurdles, and can we help?” he said. “This is what our hospital was built for and we need to try to move in that direction or be told no. Right now, we haven’t been told either way.” The city’s new hospital was opened in 2012 and built at a cost of $301.8 million. At nearly 250,000 square feet, it’s double the size of the city’s old hospital and was built to include academic space for the Northern Medical Program.
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