Northword 2014 - 10

free

October / November 2014

bc’s top read

Loving

small-town businesses

Retiring your garden

Wishing

us a happy 10th!

Aging in place

discover what’s new at www.northword.ca

Caring

about social justice

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Co ver Photo

‘14

issue no. 55

“Ho! for the leaves that eddy down, Crumpled yellow and withered brown, Hither and yonder and up the street And trampled under the passing feet; Swirling, billowing, drifting by, With a whisper soft and a rustling sigh, Starting aloft to windy ways, Telling the coming of bonfire days.” Words: Grace Strickler Dawson. Photo: Tammy Luciow

Fea tures 8 11

Winterizing Northern Gardens Pull ‘em out, turn ‘em over, tuck ‘em in

By Norma Kerby

A Home of One’s Own:

Is aging-in-place an option for northern seniors?

By Norma Kerby

16 20

13

Artists Put Creative Talent Toward Social Justice

25

14

Northern Landscapes on the Big Screen

29

By Alicia Bridges

Local filmmakers raise awareness through imagery

By Alicia Bridges

Depa rtm en ts 7

12 16

In Other Words

Editorial and cartoon from the seasoned and the silly

Comment

Oil-by-rail terminal in Rupert could jeopardize salmon and seafood

By Louanne Roth

On the Fly

Fishing in northern BC with Brian Smith

Story Comm en ts?

19 27 30

Up the Clore

Shifting landscapes on a projected pipeline route

By Al Lehmann

Small Town Love

Rekindling the romance with our local businesses

By Josephine Boxwell

The Bitter Side of Sweetness Overeaters Anonymous

By Amanda Follett

Cranbrook Hill Greenway Map and trail guide

By Nancy Alexander

Top Culture

Explore the rural route to northern culture with UNBC’s Rob Budde

Resource Directory

Services and products listed by category

The Barometer

A seasonal reading of the Northwest

by Char Toews

Tell us what you’re thinkin’. Comment on any story at www.northword.ca

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contents

story page 8

October / No vember

Joanne Campbell

PUBLISHER/ADVERTISING SALES MANAGER

contributors

joanne@northword.ca t: 250.847.4600 f: 847.4668 toll free: 1.866.632.7688

Amanda Follett Hosgood EDITOR

amanda@northword.ca

Shannon Antoniak

ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE

shannon@northword.ca

Sandra Smith

LAYOUT, AD DESIGNER, NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE

sandra@northword.ca

Brian Smith is a writer and photographer who has fly-fished BC’s waters for over 45 years. He recently published his second book, Seasons of a Fly Fisher, and lives with his wife Lois in Prince George.

Rob Budde teaches creative writing and critical theory at the University of Northern British Columbia. He has published seven books (poetry, novels, interviews, and prose poems). His most recent book is Finding Ft. George from Caitlin Press.

Norma Kerby is a Terrace-based writer and environmental consultant.

Her passions include amphibians, natural ecosystems, sustainable living and adaptations of wildlife and people to northern British Columbia.

She occasionally writes poetry about the North’s uncertain future.

Amanda Follett Hosgood is a

writer, editor and communications specialist who—finally—lives in a straw-bale home near Smithers with her husband and two huskies. bike trails.

NORTHWORD MAGAZINE Northword Magazine the only independent, regional magazine that covers northern BC from border to sea. Our goal is to connect northern communities and promote northern culture; we put a vibrant, human face on northern life with great articles and stunning images. Northword Magazine—BC’s top read, for a reason.

DISTRIBUTION | 10,000 copies are distributed four times a year for FREE, to over 300 locations in 33 communities across northern BC, reaching close to 40,000 readers.

For a complete list of distribution locations, log on to www.northword.ca, and click on “subscribe/find a copy.”

SUBSCRIPTIONS

$30 per year within Canada, $40 in the U.S., and $50 everywhere else.

Go to www.northword.ca and click on “subscribe.”

Ad deadline for December ‘14/January ‘15 issue: October 31, 2014.

DISTRIBUTION: Bell II • Burns Lake • Chetwynd Dawson Creek • Fort St. John • Dease Lake • Dunster Ft. St. James • Fraser Lake • Granisle • Hazelton (Old Town) • Houston • Jasper • Kispiox • Kitimat • Masset McBride • Mackenzie • Moricetown • New Hazelton Old Massett • Port Clements • Prince George Prince Rupert • Queen Charlotte City • Quesnel Sandspit • Skidegate • Smithers • South Hazelton Stewart • Telegraph Creek • Telkwa • Terrace • Tlell Topley • Valemount • Vanderhoof • Wells

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Facundo Gastiazoro is a freelance designer who focuses on logos, posters, layout and illustrations. Originally from Buenos Aires, Facundo is currently living in Smithers. His illustrations appear in every issue of Northword Magazine.

Charlynn Toews has published

in daily and weekly newspapers, national magazines, and loves a good regional. She writes a regular column for Northword from her home in Terrace.

Josephine Boxwell is a writer,

video editor, history graduate and newcomer to northern British Columbia who enjoys exploring local stories.

Nancy Alexander has been mapping the wild for nearly 30 years. She lives in the woods of Prince George with two dogs, two cats and her trail-running, berrypicking husband, Roger.

Hans Saefkow is an awardwinning editorial cartoonist, illustrator and set designer. If you see this man, do not approach him, feed him, or listen to his idle chatter. It is simply best not to encourage him.

Alicia Bridges is a Smithers-based freelance writer. She worked as both a news reporter and feature writer for major Australian newspapers before leaving her homeland to explore Canada in 2013.

Al Lehmann is a piano tuner

and piano teacher at the Terrace Academy of Music in Terrace. He is published periodically in the Terrace Standard.

BC’s Top Read MAIN OFFICE | Smithers

Box 817, 3864 2nd Ave, Smithers, BC, V0J 2N0 tel: 250.847.4600 toll free: 1.866.632.7688 | www.northword.ca

www.northword.ca CURRENT ARTICLES • PAST ISSUES READERS’ CONTRIBUTIONS CBC NEWS – BC, CANADA, WORLD

Legalities and limitations Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. No part of Northword Magazine, in print or electronic form, may be reproduced or incorporated into any information retrieval systems without written permission of the publisher.

Information about events, products or services provided is not necessarily complete. The publisher is not responsible in whole or in part for any errors or omissions.

The views expressed herein are those of the writers and advertisers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, staff or management.

Northword assumes no liability for improper or negligent business practices by advertisers, nor for any claims or representations contained anywhere in this magazine. Northword reserves the right to cancel or refuse advertising at the publisher’s discretion.

In no event shall unsolicited material subject this publication to any claim or fees. Northword welcomes submissions but accepts no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Copyright in letter and other materials sent to the publisher and accepted for publication remains with the author, but the publisher and its licensees may freely reproduce them in print, electronic and other forms. Please refer to www.northword.ca for contribution guidelines.

hans s aefkow

Ten years already? We couldn’t have done it without you!

editorial

In Other Words

by Joa n n e C a mpb el l ed i tor ial@no rt hwo rd. c a

Light the candles and roll out the cake: Northword Magazine is celebrating its 10th anniversary as BC’s top read! It’s an anniversary rather than a birthday because we’re celebrating a relationship—many relationships, actually.

Some members of our community have been with us since the beginning. One, our designer Sandra Smith, has been with Northword even before it was Northword—she started at Connections Magazine, the creation of Phillipa Beck in 1997 (who now keeps us all bendy at Full Circle Yoga here in Smithers). Phillipa established Connections across the region as the voice of an eclectic, earthy, energetic northern lifestyle.

In 2004, Connections was reborn as Northword Magazine under a new owner, Lottie Wengelin.

Her vision was athletic and outdoorsy, with a newsier take on northern events. I came to work for Lottie in November 2005 as a part-time sales rep. One day she breezed into the office and proclaimed, “I’m getting a divorce, moving back to Sweden and selling the magazine. Do you want to buy it?” I said, “Hell, no!” and went home to

laugh about the funny thing that happened at work that day.

So it was that in April 2006, Northword shifted gears again and over the next few months became the magazine you see today. Each owner-publisher brings different perspectives on what makes northern living special. My take is reflected in the stories you see in our pages.

I love living here, in the special region that is “north” of all that is southern BC. Our writers love it here, too, as do our readers. Amenity migrants, we are. We don’t live here to work; we work to live here. As a result, we’re pretty keen to learn about our region: our neighbours and our recreational options, our history. Our future is a hot topic as well, so we try to include a bit of background on issues that affect this place we love.

Many individuals have contributed to the Northword effort over the years—too many to mention by name. Presently, in addition to our stalwart designer, we have writers (dozens), editors (2), proofers (so many!), sales people (3), distributors (4 primary, many volunteers), book-

keepers (1), plus the folks at Spark Design, BC Web, International Web Express and Bandstra Trucking, as well as our distribution outlets (over 200).

And then there are our advertisers. We bring you, our readers, to them, and in return they make it possible for us to bring Northword to you.

Our advertisers are our only source of income so if you like us, please like our advertisers too. Their support is infinitely valuable. Many have been as faithful as our readers, having stayed with us since the beginning (some have been with us since Connections!).

But, the relationship we want to celebrate most is the one we have with you. One of my biggest joys of publishing Northword happens on delivery day when people see me coming with an armload— nothing is as affirming as having someone grin at you and say, “I love your magazine! Can I have one?” before you even get in the door.

Let’s keep the relationship going! Let us know what you’re thinking: you never know—we might be on the same page.

Happy 10th, Northword! Here’s to many more.

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Remove stocks, stems and leaves after the harvest and turn yo u r g a rd e n t o m a k e w a y f o r n e x t ye a r ’s c ro p .

WINTERIZING NORTHERN GARDENS

PULL ’em out, TURN ’em over, TUCK ’em in.

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“Farmer’s Almanac says it’s going to be a cold winter.”

The avid gardener’s dire predictions for winter were not reassuring. Northern gardeners are often on the edge in terms of preserving perennial plants for the next season. A colder-than-normal winter can be the death of fruit trees or berry bushes or even our ultra-hardy northern rhubarb.

There has always been folklore about winterizing a northern garden, whether it is how to stop plants from freezing or how to be prepared for the next season’s crop. Based on trials and successes of generations of farmers, some of this knowledge is very valid and could save you considerable work during the next growing season.

The need to weed Why would you want to think about weeds when winter is approaching? Although you may be delighted to see weeds become frozen and brittle as autumn descends down the mountains, lateseason weeds left in the garden will come back to haunt you the following summer. Chickweed and lamb’s quarters are introduced European species that thrive in disturbed sites. Being pioneer species, they have the evolutionary strategy of “grow fast, seed fast and leave a seed bank in the soil for the next time it is disturbed.”

If left behind when you harvest, those straggler weeds drop their seeds, which can burst into growth next spring. Effective weed control is based on controlling seed. A garden thoroughly weeded in autumn, before seeds are set, has far fewer weeds to contend with the next year.

Another weed-control method is to turn the soil at the end of the season. Some people leave plant stalks and roots, such as potatoes and cabbages, on the ground. These leftovers not only transmit diseases into next year, the unturned soil harbours young weed plantlets like dandelions. Stems, leaves and roots should be composted, which will diminish the number of disease organisms, and tilling the soil will kill young weeds.

Bare, tilled soil presents a different problem. If the autumn is dry, soil can blow away. Dryness is normally not the problem in northern BC, however, and soil exposed to heavy, pounding fall rainstorms or snow-rain cycles can also suffer losses and damage. In sandy loams, the force of raindrops removes finer soil particles, leaving behind a top layer dominated by infertile sand.

On sloped clay soils, rain beating against exposed soil can wash topsoil particles downslope.

Mulch to talk about If turned soil in autumn is beneficial for weed control, how can erosion and soil damage be controlled? Two effective historic methods of dressing autumn soil were manure and mulching. In the old days, when dairy farms were more common in the Terrace area, manure that had composted over the summer was spread over the fields in the autumn. This allowed the compost to start its work, preparing soil for crops in the spring. Manuring was often followed with a top dressing of composted silage or straw. In the wetter lower Skeena Valley, a coarser surface layer of composted straw fibre lessened damage from heavy rainstorms. Nowadays, be careful to avoid straw or hay contaminated with herbicides like Grazon.

A layer of grass clippings, flower stalks, leaves or well-composted plant material can protect a tilled garden. I grow heritage dahlias that reach heights of over two metres. Their stems and leaves make excellent mats to protect exposed soil areas.

Industrial-grade black polyethylene held down by planks and logs make a complete cover for garden areas and can easily be peeled back in the spring.

Black, rather than clear, plastic stops early weed growth before gardening starts.

For perennial plants in untilled locations, exposure to early deep frosts can kill root systems.

Snow is an effective insulator against penetrating frosts, but in years when sub-zero temperatures strike before snow coats the ground, protect perennials by mulching with loose straw or leaves.

Loose autumn leaves are an effective mulch for roses, rhubarb, strawberries and berry bushes.

Non-acidic leaves that compost well, such as maple or birch, do not damage the underlying plants and can be removed in the spring to the compost pile. Avoid mulching with leaves that have acidic or strong decomposition compounds, such as alders or evergreens.

If you live in an area where winter freeze-thaw cycles are limited, mulch can also be used to store root vegetables and seed potatoes within the garden itself.

Dig a trench at least 50 cm deeper than average frost level, space the vegetables, cover with dirt, then mound over the top with at least a metre of mulch. The trench will act as a root cellar and the vegetables will be crisp and edible in early spring. If vegetables are wrapped in breathable material,

even cabbages can be stored this way. Unless a waterproof cover is placed over top and drainage is excellent, this method does not work well in wetter northern climates.

british columbia

The weight of winter For areas of the north that receive deep snowfalls, snow breakage of fruit trees and berry bushes is another significant winter problem. Fruit trees are best pruned with a main leader trunk and side branches, rather than a V shape where snow can accumulate and snap the tree. For berry bushes or new growth of raspberry canes, snow press can destroy berry production for the next year. Staking or caging the branches, wrapping the bushes or tying them to frames can help prevent damage.

Then there is the garden equipment. Store hoses and sprinklers in a space not subject to extreme cold to make plastic last longer. For gardeners who use plank paths between rows, avoid wood rot by stacking planks above wet soil so air can circulate when it is not covered with snow. Wheelbarrows and shovels need to be out of the wet to avoid rusting. Mechanical equipment, such as weedwhackers, pruning saws, clippers and extension cords, will last longer if stored in a basement or barn away from severe sub-zero temperatures.

Regardless of winter weather predictions from Environment Canada or from famous gardening almanacs, preparation of your garden for winter can pay significant dividends. A bit of work after the crops have been harvested will mean less time and effort to grow more food next season.

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A garden thoroughly weeded in autumn, before seeds are set, has far fewer weeds to contend with the next year.

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A HOME OF ONE’S OWN:

Is aging in place an option for northern seniors?

hans sa e f ko w

Ag ing no rther ners f ace the di l em m a of n eedi n g m edical services no t read i l y av ai l abl e i n th e reg io n, but lack ing the c api tal to i n v es t i n m o re ex pensive lifes ty l es el s ew h ere.

by Nor ma Kerby nkerby@t elus.net

“If my house sells, I am moving to the Maritimes.”

The would-be seller, a long-time Terrace resident, had recently retired and was hoping to cash in on soaring house prices. With what he would make selling his house in Terrace, he could buy a nice home in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick and still have considerable cash to help him through retirement years. His was a serendipitous situation. After 20 years of depressed housing prices in the region, the transnational speculation surrounding LNG pipelines was making real estate in Terrace and Kitimat a lucrative business.

Not all seniors want to make the choice to leave northern BC. As some of the more economically depressed areas of the north “grey” when young people move away to find work, more economically robust northern communities are increasing in their over-65 component due to general population aging. In 2031, an estimated 23.7 percent of British Columbians will be seniors. But is aging in place in a rural location an option when even government services within urban centres are struggling to meet seniors’ needs?

Demographics have clearly showed the baby boomer bulge inching over the line into retirement age for some time. The sheer number of seniors in British Columbia, an estimated one million by 2020 and 1.34 million by 2031, will affect us in many ways.

The cost and logistics associated with increasing health services and transportation needs will put a significant strain on government services at all levels. Our large Canadian cities may already be developing infrastructure to respond to rapidly increasing numbers of retirees, but what is happening in the small communities and rural areas of the North?

Most northern communities were designed for young families with money, children and cars. These communities are and will be challenged to accommodate seniors with mobility and low-income barriers. In the North, problems with an aging population are even more exacerbated compared to the South.

Long distances between communities, remoteness of rural dwellers, severe winter weather and de-servicing of small communities after the collapse of the forest industry all generate major challenges in efforts to accommodate seniors who remain.

Facing the challenge In the past, northern BC exported many of its citizens past working age south to retirement meccas. Over the last two decades of overseas investments in the BC housing market, options to move to milder climates are being closed off to many northerners. With sky-rocketing housing and rental prices (this summer, the average single detached house in Vancouver sold for $1.36 million, with the average condo priced from $380,000 to $760,000), many who considered trading snow shovelling for a southern condo must consider growing old where they live.

The second choice for rural northerners is to move into town. Aging outside a service centre, such as Prince George, Fort St. John or Smithers, is not for the faint-hearted. Living in Rosswood, north of Terrace, became a non-option for one elderly couple when the husband developed severe health problems requiring him to be within minutes of acute care services. Even with good road conditions, Rosswood is almost an hour to the hospital.

With the choice of moving to the Okanagan or Vancouver Island being out of the economic reach of many northern seniors, such as this couple, the option becomes selling out and moving somewhere else in the North with more services and easier access to shopping and socialization. In the past, this type of move was feasible for most rural seniors. Over the last two years, though, real estate speculation and soaring housing prices, driven by proposals for transnational-scale industrial development, have put this out of scale for many.

A post-65-year-old wanting to sell in the Stikine or Stewart regions and buy in the Highway 16 corridor is faced with a steep gap in prices. With a threebedroom home selling for $170,000 in Dease Lake or Stewart, the equivalent house in the Terrace, Kitimat or Smithers areas sells for $300,000 to $400,000 or higher, if one can find a listing. ... continued on Page 12

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op-ed

Comm en t

Oil-by-rail terminal in Rupert could jeopardize salmon and seafood

Lo u a n n e Roth rot hl@cit yt el.net

I hate to tell you, but there is a plan afoot that could see oil supertankers loading in the Skeena estuary late next year or 2016, unless of course we stop them.

We northerners fought for and achieved a de facto north coast ban on oil tankers. It has protected our unique ecosystem, seafood and culture for decades. If these guys really are serious about oil by rail down the Skeena, we can’t let them just sneak in.

Most everyone in Rupert knows about the huge $90 million rail offloading facility being built in the Port of Prince Rupert. It is on Ridley Island at the mouth of the Skeena, beside Lelu Island whose eelgrass beds are threatened

by LNG. But no one in Rupert has been worried about the rail project because we were told it was for potash, not oil, and the berth doesn’t require dredging in critical salmon habitat.

An identical, but smaller, rail offloading facility was just finished in Washington state at the mouth of another famous salmon river: the Columbia (SaveOurSkeenaSalmon.org has images). That port recently signed a contract to offload 360,000 barrels of Bakken oil per day—Enbridge magnitudes. Scariest of all, there is a terrible battle going on because they signed that oil shipping contract despite originally telling the Columbia estuary community of Vancouver, Wash. that the rail facilities were for potash!

Rupert’s railroad utility corridor (RRUC) is strikingly similar to new facilities being built in the tarsands for loading oil. The distinctive curvature of the multi-rail lines is for unit trains. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says that most of the large-scale facilities in the tarsands that can

... continued from Page 11

A senior wishing to rent and use house capital to support retirement also faces challenges: the vacancy rates this year in Terrace and Kitimat were close to zero percent, with monthly rents ranging from $775 for a fifth wheel trailer in someone’s yard to $2,500 or higher for a three-bedroom home.

These rates are out of reach for most seniors on pensions and the number of spaces in subsidized seniors’ housing is limited, with long waiting lists. Even with the medical services in a centre like Terrace, for a senior to move from places such as Telegraph Creek, Dease Lake or the Hazeltons has become almost impossible.

www.n o rthword.ca

Luanne Roth, North Coast Energy Campaigner T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation LRoth@citywest.ca

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volunteer who looked after most of her own needs, she became reliant on family for the most basic travel. She was within a rural area of a larger community and could have ordered a taxi if she had overcome her fears, but what happens if you are a rural senior and the next closest house is five kilometres away?

What if you do not have family or friends that are available to help? Subsidized government services such as HandyDART, a door-to-door shared-ride service, do not extend into remote locations. All these seniors can hope for is good neighbours—a system that isn’t workable in the long term. As health and strength diminish, they will face a major survival crisis.

What had been grand dreams in the 1960s and 1970s, as young people spread out into the northern wilderness to live back-to-the-land, have become challenges as they cross into their senior years. As the government addresses an aging population, the unique needs of rural and remote northern seniors need to be remembered. Allowing seniors to age in Pajunen place is a provincial health system goal, but what happens to those seniors who do not live within range of health and social services?

For the retiree in the real estate office in Terrace, the windfall of owning a house in a soaring real estate market has offered the unforeseen opportunity to sell and move away from northern BC, taking with him a financial bankroll to ease his senior years. For other northerners who do not want to move, or who are located in remote and rural areas where the economic boom has not hit, the choices are limited and the future more uncertain.

As the government addresses an aging population, the unique needs of rural and remote northern seniors need to be remembered.

Transportation breakdown Aging in place, in a rural location or small community, may become a matter of necessity rather than of choice. If a Claudia senior lives where housing prices collapsed along with the forest industry, the years ahead may be difficult. Unable to sell their property at reasonable prices, or even to sell at all, these seniors are faced with the dilemma of what to do in a location with limited health and social services.

The problem becomes even more dramatic if seniors lose their driver’s licence and are unable to travel into larger communities for doctors’ appointments and the necessities of life. My mother lost her licence in her later senior years. The impact was dramatic. From a self-sufficient, active community 12 | OCT/NOV ‘14 |

load a unit train will be moving heavy oil, diluted bitumen, rail bitumen or raw (undiluted) bitumen. Planning documents for the Rupert port show a 100-acre liquid bulk tank farm in the area enclosed by the rail lines. Each tank was specified to hold 50 million litres. Aframax oil supertankers hold 100 million litres plus. An oil-by-rail terminal would need this kind of tank-farm buffer, whereas neither LNG, coal nor potash requires them. In a meeting with port operations earlier this year, a slide was presented which showed a bulk liquid terminal as a “near term project.”

In 2012, the Port of Prince Rupert did a risk assessment; in it they forecast 100 Aframax oil supertankers and 100 LNG carriers leaving Ridley Island starting 2015. In a 2011 report they state: “The Port of Prince Rupert has a real and immediate opportunity to facilitate the development of new export capacities, targeting the Asia Pacific region for bulk commodities such as iron ore, potash, mineral concentrates, and bulk liquids such as vegetable oils and”—crucially—“petroleum products.”

The 2012 Ridley Island Coal Terminal Annual Report states in a note that it “is vested in seeking an active liquid bulk business and or other product ventures.” The coal terminal is adjacent to the new rail lines and they spent $15 million 2009-2012 on the noted expense category.

The price has fallen out of potash and that project is unlikely to proceed, but Prince Rupert’s RRUC is nearing completion, the rail line to the tarsands being upgraded and an oil and gas insider (name withheld) is warning us to wake up, oil by rail is of immediate concern: “All the surveying has been completed on the Fraser/Thompson side of things, all the access points for a spill response plan have been assessed and now they’re in the process of putting all these things into a document for CN.” The Port of Prince Rupert has been advertising about their safety but they haven’t told us about 100-car unit trains loaded with oil travelling along the Skeena.

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T hi s i mage by W i l l i am C harl i e w as one submi ssi o n to the R ef l ecti o ns of H o p e: I mag es f ro m our C ommuni ty p ho to g rap hy contest, a pro j ect that ai ms to i ncl ude and empow er the regi on’s l ow i ncome p o p ul ati on.

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social justice

al i ci abridges@gmail.c m

It’s about offering people the chance to see that we all live in the same community.

A crowd files through the narrow entrance to the Old Church in Smithers, one by one unpeeling layers of sweaters and coats that protected them from the cold. Conversation fills the narrow hall. Five empty chairs, each with a few items of clothing hung over its back, are arranged in a line on the stage.

The chatter subsides when a woman walks onto the stage and quietly dresses herself in the clothes from the first of the chairs. She pulls on a navy parka, heavy winter boots and gloves, and slips a papier-mâché mask over her face.

In a gruff man’s voice with a broad, local accent, she starts to speak. It’s a statement that jolts the audience into remembering not everyone will have a place to retreat from the cold tonight: “Last night I slept in the trees. I got sleeping bags.

Melanie The shelter, they give me blankets. I got a camp set up. I got a place I can hide it. Keep it safe. I’m cold. Winter.”

The woman behind the mask is Valerie Laub, a Smithers playwright whose last two shows were about the realities of living with HIV and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in the Bulkley Valley.

Laub’s work is one example of how the arts are raising awareness about the challenges facing disadvantaged and marginalized groups in a way that PowerPoint presentations, pamphlets and reports can not.

Through visual and performing arts projects, artists are not only exposing the wider public to the reality of an underprivileged existence, but empowering those whose lives are affected.

Social issues take centre stage Tonight at the Old Church, Laub is performing No Fixed Address, her play about homelessness in the region, for the first time. The show consists of monologues by five individual characters, the first of whom is the 50-year-old man who slept in the trees last night.

Laub created two of the characters—a female victim of domestic violence and a child without a home—based on conversations with local people. The

other three—the 50-year-old man, a young man trying to beat alcoholism and a member of the “working homeless” whose salary can’t support the price of local rents—are based on real individuals.

The play’s impact becomes evident during a post-show Q-and-A, when many in the crowd express how the characters humanized an issue that, for many Bulkley Valley residents, is almost invisible.

Laub says she is compelled to write about social issues because her own upbringing, although not perfect, was more privileged. The arts are her way to contribute.

“My job is not about the specific issues. My job is to present a piece of theatre and to do it well enough that it raises awareMonds ness and empathy from people,” Laub says.

The artist says theatre allows her to combat issues she is passionate about by raising awareness and promoting empathy from her audience.

“It’s really important to me that people who are marginalized and invisible in our society have a voice and I really believe in people getting to tell their stories,” she says. “I think (performing arts) have entertainment value, which really counts, because it brings more people in.”

Hope through hip-hop Laub’s show at the Old Church opened with another local artist with a drive to inspire change. Warren “Dubz” Wilson performed a set of hard-hitting original hip-hop songs about homelessness, alcoholism and suicide, all of which have impacted his life.

A local aboriginal man, Wilson wants his lyrics to inspire troubled young people to embrace their culture and choose a better path for their future.

Although his subject matter is confrontational, it’s delivered with optimism. ... continued on Page 14

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Northern landscapes on the big screen Local filmmakers raise awareness through imagery

by A l ici a B r id g e s al iciabridges@gm a i l . c m

Communicating science Established in 2007, SkeenaWild began as a fisheries management organization. As the trust matured, it became apparent that more community engagement was needed. The group wanted to keep the public informed about its scientific work, while sparking the interest of potential supporters.

However, it wasn’t easy to present information about complex topics, such as research into the impacts of mining toxicity on salmon, in an interesting and palatable format.

Sending out the findings of a report wouldn’t do the job.

Hill says the organization had to learn how to communicate in a more understandable and compelling way.

“Most people aren’t going to read a scientific report, but it’s important information, so how are we going to share Bassett this information?” Hill says. “We decided that film is the absolute best way to do it, so we started doing infographic animation videos to help make high-level scientific information digestible for the average person.”

Film has since become a major part of the organization’s relationship with the public. Hill says SkeenaWild’s videos, made by in-house filmmaker Rod Brown, are intended to provide factual information to help people form an opinion.

“Our scientific credibility is our greatest asset and that’s a very important thing for SkeenaWild,” she says. “Our goal is to communicate that, because it’s the job of citizens living in our region to take decision-making back.”

In addition to making its own videos, the trust runs an annual festival of films and photographs submitted by the public. Hill says the goal is to showcase a cross-section of perspectives with a focus on community, connection to place and outdoor adventure.

To influence people, to expose people, to get people thinking—film is the way to do it, short of taking them into the wilderness.

In a place where our day-to-day lives are lived between a vast network of grand landscapes, it’s easy to appreciate the North’s natural environment. But what does it take to get the public fired up enough to be passionate about protecting its future? In some cases, the answer is a good script, strong science and powerful imagery.

People need only to turn to the web for evidence of the power of film. But even before the Internet gave us the ability to make a movie go “viral,” film was a catalyst for change.

Its ability to motivate, inspire and inform has not been lost on local people who care about the environment. In northern BC, movies are being made to keep the public informed about conservation efforts and highlight what Monty could be at stake without them.

For Terrace-based SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, film has become a line of communication to the public.

The initiative takes a science-based approach to ensuring the future of the Skeena watershed’s wild salmon ecosystems. Informed by research, the organization works with First Nations and industry to promote sustainable fisheries and ensure industrial development is carried out safely.

Projects coordinator Julia Hill says SkeenaWild’s goal is to create a global model of sustainability.

“The Skeena watershed is truly one of the last opportunities, we believe, in the world where we can manage resources differently,” she says. “There are relatively large human populations living alongside a relatively wild salmon ecosystem and that is unique.”

... continued from Page 13

“What I highlight mostly is addiction and drug abuse, but I don’t just talk about the problems of it or the problems that cause it, I try to convey solutions,” he says. “Music is very global. It can speak to a lot more people.”

Both Laub’s work and Wilson’s music have been supported by Positive Living North (PLN), an organization assisting marginalized people in northern British Columbia. For six years, the Smithers PLN office has run Reflections of Hope: Images from our Community.

The photography contest aims to help PLN’s members express themselves creatively by giving them disposable cameras and asking them to respond to two questions: “What does it mean to belong to community?” and “How do you see your community?”

The resulting photographs are displayed at the farmers’ market in Smithers and the winning entries, chosen by community members, win cash prizes.

They are also published in a calendar that can be purchased locally.

PLN on-site manager Melanie Monds says the project aims to include and empower the region’s low-income population.

“It’s really hard to engage in art if you don’t have money,” she says. “It’s about empowerment, it’s about inclusion, it’s about offering people the chance to see that we all live in the same community.”

However, she says there is a fine line between raising awareness and fuelling stereotypes, something she has encouraged the artists to consider when choosing their submissions.

“They are already marginalized and stigmatized. There is no benefit in showing something that might just affirm it or further stigmatize or marginalize a person,” she says.

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www.n o rthword.ca

New point of view Ensuring artists are treated respectfully is something Bulkley Valley Community Arts Council (BVCAC) president and dance artist Miriam Colvin feels strongly about. Inspired by the PLN model, in 2013 she launched a community-wide camera project called Life Exposure through the BVCAC. “What PLN did that really resonated with me as an artist was they not only put a camera into people’s hands to see from their point of view, but they really honoured the work of each person as an artist,” she says.

It was important to Colvin that the project was as inclusive as the PLN project. Like Reflections of Hope, it displayed all of the images in black and white to avoid differences in quality that were more obvious using colour.

A unique selection process also allowed the jury to ensure the exhibitions in Smithers and Old Hazelton included work from a diverse range of photographers. Colvin says it is important that artists whose work highlights community and social issues create a process that is ethical.

“Artists who work with community to craft performances are in a position of trust and we must honour that trust in order to meet the goals of empowering our participants,” she says. “For me, when I work with a community, I am listening for your voice.

“If you want to share your voice and I have something that helps you do that, that’s great.”

Arts projects may only reach a small portion of the population, but every slight change in perspective brings communities closer to bridging the divide between the underprivileged and the wider public.

It’s motivation enough for local artists, from all walks of life, to use their creative talent to promote change in the Bulkley Valley.

N

tay lor fox

Fi l m c a n com mu n i cat e t he N ort h’s be a ut y a nd e nvi ronmental i ssues to tho se w ho mi g ht not o therw i s e a p p re c iate i t. Sm i th e rs- ba se d filmma k e r M ont y B assett has p roduced many f i l ms ab o ut the regi on.

Catalyst for change The desire to ignite people’s passion about the planet’s future is shared

by Smithers-based filmmaker Monty Bassett. His company, Out Yonder Productions, has made films for the Discovery and National Geographic channels and is currently filming the last in a four-part series for the Oasis channel.

As his company motto states, Bassett makes films that show “our planet, through a sympathetic lens.”

Driven by scientific curiosity and a passion for the natural world, Bassett makes nature documentaries that showcase the region’s grand beauty and highlight the potential threats and social impacts of industrial development.

He became a filmmaker after his first documentary, the one that cemented his future in the industry, alerted him to the power of film as a catalyst for change.

In the 1980s, Bassett learned of plans to carry out clear-cut logging of slowgrowing boreal forests in the province’s northwest and felt compelled to stop it. When a friend suggested making a film to highlight the project’s impacts, he adopted the idea and hired cinematographer Myron Kozak to start filming in the area.

Tragically, Kozak was killed in a light plane crash partway through the project, leaving Bassett shocked and unsure how to proceed. He called the Vancouver studio where Kozak had stored the footage and one of the editors offered to help him script and edit a short film.

The result was Cassiar at the Crossroads, a 20-minute video narrated by highprofile environmentalist David Suzuki. Bassett says public reaction to the film was explosive and the logging was stopped.

“Suddenly, I realized the power of film in touching people and it’s only gotten stronger,” he says. “The more we move away from books and normal sources of information, we are getting deeper and deeper into motion visuals.”

The success of Cassiar at the Crossroads launched a career that allowed him to continue making documentaries that, he hopes, inspire viewers to take an interest in the natural Filmmaker Monty Bassett raises world. awareness about threats to the North’s “To influence people, to expose people, to get people wild places by featuring them in his films. thinking—film is the way to do it, short of taking them into the wilderness,” he says. “Consequently, everything that we’ve done has not only the component of original science, but we try to raise awareness of what there is around us.”

Bassett believes people feel helpless because environmental problems are so immense and solutions, such as electric cars, are not easily accessible.

Through his next project, a series about people who stood up to corporations and won, he hopes to empower his audience.

“I think by now we all get the message about climate change and our influence upon the planet, but we all say, ‘yeah but what can I as one person do?’” he says. “This 13-part series is going to profile groups and individuals around the world who have been powerless and stood up to the biggest corporations, the biggest tyrants, and said ‘no, you are not going to do that.’ Then you give people hope.

“We all need role models and here are role models, people who have done something to change the direction.”

Luckily for Bassett, and other local filmmakers with a passion for their planet, northern BC has no shortage of hard-to-ignore landscapes and powerful stories to help them make a lasting impression on their viewers. dan m esec

She says the entries are chosen by a panel of community members and not

by SkeenaWild staff. Although the subject matter is not dictated by the trust, there are tangible benefits for the organization.

Hill gives the example of a man who changed his position on a development after one of the documentaries raised concerns about it. He contacted SkeenaWild to show his support and offered to volunteer.

“I would say in any given year we get about five to 10 letters from people with reactions similar to that,” she says. “I think that’s what film can offer … new perspectives and fresh perspectives and that is a really a great way to engage our communities in a dialogue about our future.”

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Shifting landscapes on a projected pipeline route

by A l Leh ma nn l ehmann2@t elus.n e t

“Let’s go up the Clore,” one of the boys suggested one evening at yacht club—an informal weekly gathering at Terrace’s Back Eddy Pub. Up the Clore. Something about those words resonated in me, a kind of venturesome buzz in the back of the brain, a suggestion of wild, high country.

“There’s great steelhead fishing up there,” one of the experienced anglers remarked. I could almost see a silver-bright fish flash behind his eyes somewhere.

Rob added, “And there’s a big slump on one of the slopes across the river from the logging road. I wonder whether or not it’s grown.”

Wow. Interesting news. The Clore Valley is a projected route for more than one of the recently proposed pipeline projects to access the Kitimat Valley. Unstable geomorphology could be quite a pipeline hazard, both during construction and especially during operation, when a slump could cause anything from foul diluted bitumen gushing into the river to a gas-sparked forest fire.

Three of us decided then and there to explore up the Clore to see what was happening for ourselves.

The Clore River is a secondary tributary of the Skeena River system. It rises high between the Kitimat and Morice ranges of the Coast Mountains, where surrounding peaks claw the sky at elevations up to 2,700 metres. Creeks fed high above by last winter’s snows and ice fields tumble into the valley where at high water the Clore rushes through forest and canyon to empty into the Copper (Zymoetz) River, Skeena’s direct tributary.

Companies have logged considerable swaths along the Clore, both down toward the river and higher up the rugged mountain slopes. But logging and construction on these slopes destabilize soil that is already precarious.

As trees are removed, root networks holding the land together lose their grip. Copious rainfall, exacerbated with freezing and thawing temperatures, pulls hundreds of tons of soil into the river, a phenomenon that occurs even without logging.

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Copper have often commented on the clearer Copper water upstream from the Clore’s inflow.

Shifting landscapes At 10 a.m. Sunday, Jim swings his SUV into the driveway as agreed. I stuff a down vest into my pack, along with a make-do lunch and some bug spray. We roll over to pick up Andrew and within minutes we’re humming down Highway 16 toward the Copper turnoff.

Although we aren’t expecting industrial traffic, safety considerations make Jim do a radio call on the loggers’ channel. He repeats this at intervals as we head up valley, but no response—a good omen, we think.

Apparently no project is so demanding that our progress will be threatened by industrial traffic.

Who wants to meet a loaded logging truck on a blind corner and get mashed into a rock bluff or forced over the edge into the river far below?

The road is surprisingly smooth. I mostly listen as Jim and Andrew talk of pulling steelhead from nearby riffles. Jim has fished the Copper for over 35 years and Andrew has been all through the valley seeking fishing adventure since he arrived in the area over 20 years ago. I don’t fish, but I’m fascinated by their fascination.

At about 17 km we pass a U-shaped rip in the mountain wall to our right. A torrent of creek water sheets out into a pool 20 feet below, splashing noisily and casting rainbow light from its dancing spray.

This is the site of a 2005 landslide, when a great chunk of mountain peak broke away and thundered downslope into the Copper Valley, temporarily damming the river, smashing through a gas pipeline and starting a forest fire. The remains of the temporary lake its sudden dam created still soak the dead roots of a significant copse of trees whose skeletal branches decorate the landscape in a macabre way.

Twenty minutes later we reach the Clore confluence and, turning right, head up its valley.

The road along the Clore rises rapidly. Within only a few kilometres we’re hundreds of feet above the river, winding steadily upward around ridges and outcrops.

Sure enough, visible across the valley is the slump Rob mentioned, a great scar on the slope where hundreds of tons of rock and clay broke away from the valley side and scoured downward, mowing timber like grass and leaving a boulder the size of a small house settled at the bottom.

“Yep, it’s gotten bigger,” Jim comments.

Enduring mountains A dozen kilometres farther we encounter a young native woman in a 4x4 employed by a First Nations

al leh man n

logging company to keep an eye on expensive machinery. Muted country-andwestern floats out her window to be lost in the mountain vastness. She looks at us speculatively and at first is reluctant to approve our passage.

“This is a public road,” Andrew points out. “Isn’t there someone you could call?”

She quietly retrieves a radiophone from beside her and generates a connection to someone in authority.

“Tell them it’s Jim Culp,” says Jim, a legend in the local fishing scene.

She might as well have said, “Open sesame!” Only moments later we’re bumping past a number of large machines, part of an ongoing logging operation.

“Nice work, isn’t it,” someone comments ironically, pointing at the logging waste.

Still, despite any damage, the surrounding peaks seem to gaze on with indifference. “They’ll be here long after we’re gone,” I think.

Past the current logging, at an old clear cut, we leave the truck to hike up the narrowing track through bush alder. We chat loudly, having seen bear scat only a few hundred metres down the trail.

“Anyone got any bear spray?” someone asks. No response.

At that moment we hear the punctuated grumble of motors behind us. A minute or so later three quads pulled up beside us.

“We’ve come over Telkwa Pass,” one of them offers. “Know where this waterfall is?” he points to a Google Map on his GPS. “No,” we concede. “We’re just heading back down to the truck,” Andrew adds.

At the truck we turn back upslope to see the quads hightailing it back toward us.

“There’s a big griz up there,” one of them explains, trembling slightly, then showing us the massive brown animal he’d snapped with his iPhone. “We fired a banger at him? He just stared at us.”

Our return to the truck was a wise decision.

Once in the truck, we wind back down the valley, past the lonely woman at her vigil, watching the quads’ dust cloud dissipate ahead of us. We’re quiet, locked into our own thoughts.

The Clore Valley is fabulous, rugged, steep and mostly wild. I pictured it crawling with foreign workers and heavy machinery, everything ant-like on the heavy slopes, trying to construct some precarious pipeline toward the peaks of the Kitimat Range. It was disturbing to imagine, a preposterous vision of hubristic stupidity.

At the confluence we stop to look at the gush of Clore water roiling out of the canyon and down to the Copper. A touch of rain spits at us and a breeze riffles the alders along the bank. It’s clean and wild and beautiful—for now, at least.

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column

Top Culture

The poetry of politics

by Rob Budde rb ud de@shaw.ca

The activities of university English departments used to be to hunker down and study the classics: to read and analyze literature. Modern English departments now engage in a wide variety of reading activities, including reading cultural text as if they were literature.

Cultural studies began in the 1960s in Britain, but gained influence in North America in the 1980s through the work of Stuart Hall, amongst others.

In a nutshell, its goal is to analyze cultural texts in terms of dynamics of power, influence and oppression. A scholar in cultural studies will use the tools of reading poetry to read everything from advertising to film to social media to political speeches.

Let me give you a pertinent and recent example.

There were numerous statements made by provincial government and corporate spokespersons after the Mount Polley Mine tailings pond disaster.

The friction between industry (resource extraction and transport mostly) and a variety of community groups (including First Nations and environmental groups) over development has been contentious and lengthy in BC. The language and rhetoric around the issue is complex; it straddles both ideological rifts and historical (especially in terms of First Nations’ rights to land) layers of meaning.

Here is a portion of a speech made by Premier Christy Clark in Likely, BC a few days after the tailings spill: “This is a pristine resource for everybody, but for nobody more than you. And I know it’s just been a terrible, terrible heartache. …

We are going to be with you, shoulder to shoulder, to do everything we can to return it to the real pristine beauty we all know this lake is for our province, because this is just such an incredible, incredible asset and so important to all of you.”

There are many aspects of this passage that could be addressed, but I will focus only a couple.

“This” presumably refers to Quesnel Lake and the area downstream from the spill. The land, the water, the creatures that inhabit it are referred to as a “resource.” The word resource implies connections to resource-based economy and some sort of use. There are all sorts of implications to reducing a region or a territory to the status of a resource that goes unquestioned in this kind of rhetoric.

Related to this is the word “asset” later in the speech. The language is straight from the boardroom and even further translates what is a rich and complicated ecosystem into a very narrow concept of how it relates to people.

One might argue repeated use of words “pristine” and “beauty” counters that concept, but the translation of land to an aesthetic object is just as narrow a vision as the business perspec-

tive; it is just another type of use. What both these language strategies promote is a distanced and manipulating relationship with the land in question. The land is to use, either by taking things from it or by finding some gratification in looking at it.

What is most striking about the passage is the language that it seems to avoid: environment, animals, fish, land—especially land (as in land claim) and any reference to the damage and pain done to the non-human.

This kind of language, used repeatedly by our leaders, teaches us something dangerous and unhealthy. Language changes the way we see the world and this language gives us very limited vision, a tunnel vision that will not serve us or the Earth very well.

N

Ruth Murdoch MC, CCC, RCAT

certified counsellor registered art therapist

1012 Columbia St Smithers ph. 847-4989 www.ruthmurdochcounselling.com

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Small Town Love s ma ll to w n lo ve

Rekindling the romance with our local businesses

Businesses contribute a onetime fee of $100 to g e t a Sm a l l To w n Love business p ro f i l e c o m p l e t e w i t h p ro f e s s i o n a l p h o t o g r a p h y. T h i s money is spent in the community on l o c a l p ro m o t i o n as Northern De v e l o p m e n t c o v e r s the full cost of the p ro g r a m .

by Jos eph i n e B ox wel l j b oxwelledit @g ma i l . c om

Ever been to Yarn and Sew On? It’s a speciality store in Burns Lake for knitters, embroiderers and quilters. How about Smithers-based Butter and Cream Cakery, where the baked goods are homemade and hand-decorated? Did you know there is a tonewood supplier in Valemount?

Mountain Voice Soundwoods sells special cuts of

Englemann spruce for the production of musical instruments.

Small Town Love showcases these businesses and many more through a series of community websites all created under its umbrella. At LoveVanderhoof.com you’ll find a day spa, a winemaking supplier and a honey producer. Love

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Houston’s listings include a nursery, a wildernessfishing guide and a tea gallery boasting 77 varieties of tea.

Small-town residents are often unaware of the range of independent businesses operating in their communities and Small Town Love founder Amy Quarry hopes to change that. Her initiative, described as, “Heart-centred marketing for real human beings,” is all about helping local entrepreneurs get the attention they deserve.

The spark “Through my business I was meeting a lot of really interesting business owners with compelling stories,” explains Quarry, who runs a marketing company in Quesnel. In 2011, she created the very first Small Town Love guide, a book featuring 50 Quesnel-based independent businesses, complete with profiles, Q-and-As and coupons. The book was so successful that one in five Quesnel residents now owns a copy of the first edition, and a website was launched to support the guide.

The buzz caught the attention of Northern Development Initiative Trust who, in 2013, partnered with Quarry on a pilot project involving six communities with populations under 5,000. A year

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B u s i n es s ow n er s an d ou tdoor adv en tu rer s J oh n C ou r tn ey and B re n d a B eatty are featu red on th e L o v e Q u es n el w ebs i te w i th th ei r bus i n e s s R ock y P eak A dv en tu re Gear.

Amy Quarry, entrepreneur and founder of Small Town Love, was born and raised in Quesnel. After spending several years away, the enthusiasm of local business owners and community members helped her fall back in love with her hometown.

lo ve sm al l to wn

L o v e B ur n s La ke c u rrently f e a t u res ove r 40 ind e pendent b u s i n e sse s on t he ir p o rtal— q u i t e a f e a t for a c om m unity w i t h a pop ula t ion of a p p ro x i m a t e ly 3 ,600 peo ple.

mic he lle g a ze ly

M a t t hi a s L ex ow m ak e s Te l k wa a l i ttl e s w eet e r by s e l l i ng E u ropean -s ty le p a s t r i e s at h i s bu s i n e ss Te l k wa B aeckerei K a ff e e hau s .

later, with Northern Development’s continued support, twelve BC communities have fullylaunched Small Town Love websites and there are almost 1,000 independent business owners participating in the program.

“The storytelling is what makes it most appealing,” explains Renata King, Northern Development’s director of business development.

“It’s as much about the stories of the entrepreneurs as it is about their businesses.”

One small-business owner listed on the Love Fraser Lake site is a craftsman and avid hunter who makes high-quality longbows. “If he’s not in his workshop building his next project, you’ll likely find him somewhere in the woods,” his

Business sense Economic development in small, often-isolated northern communities can be challenging. A common tale is of young people leaving for bigger centres because of a lack of opportunities at home.

Instead of waiting for a big investor to sweep in and start hiring, it’s important to recognize the value of independent businesses in job creation, King says. “It’s much easier to help all of these small businesses create one new job versus chasing an industry to bring 50 new jobs to town.”

Many argue that it costs them more to shop locally, and this program also hopes to put those perceptions to the test. Quarry claims that

profile reads. Establishing a more personal connection encourages residents to support local businesses, and the profiles’ high-quality presentation on the portals, which include professional copy and imagery, is extremely valuable to businesses that might otherwise struggle to afford marketing.

At the Love Telkwa site, one entrepreneur has developed a line of soaps to raise awareness for the rare spirit bear. The connections small businesses have to local charities feature prominently in many profiles, and this was an important aspect for Quarry, who understands that many entrepreneurs make valuable contributions to causes in their communities.

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Jo d i Ba llinge r, ow ner o f t h e Da nd e lion Bu c k et, u s e s re c yc le d a n d reused ma t e ria ls t o c re a t e the u n i qu e d e sign s she sells in h er Q u e sne l shop .

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Heartstring s H om e D écor i n Sm ithers wo n B C L i v i n g Magaz i n e’s #1 Ho m e Décor S tore i n n or th er n B C, as vo ted for by reader s .

products available at independent shops are often no more expensive than they would be online or at big box stores. Looking at the diverse range of products offered by the businesses already signed up to Small Town Love, it is clear that there is more choice available in small towns than many people realize. “A really common reaction that we’ve heard is, ‘I didn’t know we had all these great businesses here,’” Quarry says.

While the program is designed to encourage people to support independent businesses in their own communities, it also attracts regional visitors, with the Small Town Love sites a useful resource for them. From microbreweries with unusual ales to specialist bike shops with advice on the best local trails, every community has something interesting.

Several guesthouses are among the 85 businesses that signed up for Love Haida Gwaii.

Quarry says the personal touch added to the business profiles works well for independently owned accommodations such as B&Bs, and it is a piece that is missing from many hotel-booking sites.

Small Town Love has been well received by business owners, council members and residents in

C . O . B . B i k e S h op is a n e w a r r i v a l a t L ov e S m i th er s . Th e b i ke - e n t h u s i a s t fou n der s or i gi n al l y g o t t o g e t h e r t o bu i l d l ocal tr ai l s .

It’s much easier to help all of these small businesses create one new job versus chasing an industry to bring 50 new jobs to town.

(including Haida Gwaii, participating communities, Fort Nelson, McBride and with many keen to support Williams Lake), and launch a program that bolsters party events will be hosted home-grown enterprises. to raise project awareness in “To succeed, we need to have those communities. Plans strong, locally owned indeare in the works to intropendent businesses, and duce more small towns to this project will help them the program in 2015. prosper,” Vanderhoof mayor Gerry Thiessen said in a Small town Prince news release.

George?

During the pilot project, For Quarry, the principle the number of businesses Renata King, Northern behind Small Town Love registering for the program Development Initiative Trust is “more a mind-set rather far exceeded expectathan a population statistic.” tions, with one particuQuesnel, where the project larly surprising outcome: began, is technically a small The communities with city. Quarry notes that competition from big box the smallest populations have often shown an stores in larger centres can make it even harder outstanding level of support in terms of busifor independently owned businesses to compete nesses signed up and website visitors. Ten percent and, in this sense, there is a place for the concept of Valemount’s population attended its Small in larger cities like Prince George.

Town Love launch party. “That speaks to people’s As the initiative develops, Quarry and King are sense of connection to it,” Quarry says. exploring new ways to market and support indeNew portals for several northern BC commupendent businesses. With a long-term commitnities will be available in October and November ment from both parties, it will be interesting to see how the program continues to grow.

RASS, B f o “At our heart, I think our communities are s S le and Sa STRUMENT ls strong,” Quarry says. “I think our people do a t n G IN , Re ALS. care about each other and I think that they’re all Repair IND & STRIN T N E R LL W OUR FA IES. working really hard to build our small towns and WOOD OOK Y ESSOR C B C O A T & S OON Y VIOLIN IT L CALL S A I’m really encouraged by that.”

U RYING Q AR NOW C

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Week 1

February 13 - February 20 alpine skiing, archery, artistic gymnastics, biathlon, freestyle skiing, long track speed skating, men's curling, ringette, short track speed skating, target shooting, wheelchair basketball, women's hockey ski alpin, tir à l’arc, gymnastique artistique, biathlon, ski acrobatique, patinage de vitesse longue piste, curling masculin, ringuette, patinage de vitesse courte piste, tir à la cible, basketball en fauteuil roulant, hockey fÊminin

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18 JOURS DE SPORTS, D’ARTS, DE CULTURE ET DE DIVERTISSEMENT

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February 22 - March 1 badminton, cross country skiing, figure skating, gymnastics trampoline, judo, men's hockey, snowboarding, squash, synchronized swimming, table tennis, women's curling

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Brian’s fly pattern for landing steelhead target, undulate with current flows and are deadly at hooking fish that are plucking at the fly from behind. I now tie most of my wet (sinking) fly patterns using articulated-shanked hooks or will make my own with Tuf-Line wire.

by B r i a n S mit h fl y fishing nut 47 @g m a i l . c om

To many fly fishers, steelheads are the ultimate quarry. They are predominantly wild origin, swim in the most beautiful of places, and are aggressive to the cast fly.

When I’m working on new patterns at my flytying bench, I like to think of the fly from start to finish in the following order: the hook and its size, length, style, purpose and swimming action; the colours, both dark and light hues and their combinations; and finally the materials, using combinations of natural and synthetic fibres to capture the look and flow of being alive. Let’s break these down.

Hooks: Steelhead flies are tied in traditional, classic styles with up-turned eyes on curved single hooks or the more recent intruder styles with trailing “stinger” hooks. Both styles are effective; however, flies tied on trailer or stinger hooks present a larger

Colours: You can’t go wrong with black, silver doctor blue, hot pink, purple and combinations of two of these colours. Experiment—you’re allowed!

The old saying “bright day, bright fly; dark day, dark fly” is a good rule to follow.

Materials: I like dyed natural furs like rabbit strip for tails, ostrich and polar bear for wings, seal’s fur dubbing or mohair for bodies and guinea, mallard flank or marabou for hackles and collars. When I want flash, I use body-matching colours of Krystal Flash or Flashabou mixed with the tail fibres and will often substitute ice-dub for seal’s fur on bodies.

To construct Brian’s Deceiver in pink and blue, first take a 10-cm piece of 25-pound Tuf-Line, double it and pass it through the trailer hook’s eye. Pass the hook through the loop in the wire, pull snug and bind the wire securely to the hook shank with 3/0 Monocord. Cement the wire with super glue or five-minute epoxy.

Next, dub a tag of seal’s fur to the hook shank.

Attach a five-cm length of rabbit zonker strip, trailing it to the end of the stinger hook. Fasten

flash materials, extending them over the rabbit strip. Tie in the guinea feather by the tip, make four to six turns around the shank and bind them to flow backward.

Finally, dub a slim body of ice dub. Finish with the second collar: seal’s fur, ostrich strands and guinea hackle. Finish with a nice head: super glue the head and finish with tying cement.

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Materials

for Brian’s Deceiver bria n s mith

column

On the Fly

C o l o u r f u l s e a l a n d r a b b i t f u r a re j u s t t w o i n g re d i e n t s i n t h e B r i an ’s De c e i v e r s t e e l h e a d f l y.

Hook: Mustad S74 # 4 streamer hook (clipped after tying the fly); Gamakatsu Octopus # 1 trailer hook Thread: UTC 140 red Tag: seal’s fur dubbing hot pink Tail: rabbit zonker strip hot pink; to end of trailer hook Flash: Krystal Flash pearl, three to four strands; three to four strands Flashabou pink Collar 1: guinea feather silver doctor blue Body: ice dubbing, silver doctor blue Collar 2: seal’s fur dubbing, hot pink; three to four strands each ostrich feather strands pink over blue and lengths of body, finished with a collar of four to six turns guinea silver doctor blue N

Sign

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In fall, animals are on the move during mating season.

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Struggling with obsessive eating disorder

F o r t hose w h o suff er f ro m co m pulsive o v ere a t ing, a d d ictive substances lik e sug ar p re se n t mount a ino us hurdles to o verco m e.

f a c undo g a s tia zo ro

The bitter side of sweetness

CNC Burns Lake is known as the

“Little Campus That Can”

by A ma n da Fol let t Ho s go o d afol l ett @bulkley.net

Lisa sits across from me in a Smithers coffee shop, sipping a caramel macchiato.

She’s a striking woman in her mid-30s, tall and curvy with a winning smile and healthy glow. It’s hard to believe that Lisa struggles with addiction.

Her illness isn’t the kind that leads a person to East Hastings or life on the streets. In some ways, it’s harder, because she faces it wherever she goes: her children’s birthday parties, her pantry, even swirling around us in this busy café. Her addiction is to sugar and, unlike hard drugs, she stares down her nemesis every single day.

“Sugar is a drug. It really is a drug,” she says. “When you have an addiction, you’ve re-wired your brain to gain pleasure from whatever substance is your addiction, which is why you will have it for the rest of your life.”

Many of us enjoy the occasional treat or caffeine-charged pick-me-up.

For most, it’s just a bite or a sugary drink. But for those who struggle with compulsive overeating, stopping at just one isn’t an option. For Lisa, it can lead to a downward spiral of regret, self-reproach and mood swings.

A 2007 study by researchers at Université Bordeaux in France showed 94 percent of rats chose sweetened water over that mixed with cocaine—a testament to the addictive qualities of this celebrated sweetener. But not only is sugar highly addictive, it’s more socially acceptable than your average narcotic.

In fact, food is a pivotal part of our society.

“We live in a culture that’s so OK with it,” Lisa says about overeating. She points to the concept of “comfort food”: the idea that food is a place to find well-being. Her weaknesses are fat, sugar and carbs—elements often found in baked goods like doughnuts and cake. Although she’s generally an overeater, it’s the dopamine response she gets from sugar that makes it hard to stop: “I can’t have just one serving.”

Why? can still sign up–if you’re quick– Here’s the Scoop You for these Programs in Burns Lake: • ADULT EDUCATION • FOCUS EMPLOYMENT • CARPENTRY LEVEL 2 • PIPE TRADE FOUNDATION

• HEAVY EQUIPMENT OPERATOR • ENVIRONMENTAL FIELD ASSISTANT BRIDGING PROGRAM • INDUSTRIAL MECHANIC/MACHINIST FOUNDATION LEVEL

(The rest of the programs are full and already underway-sorry!)

There are many University/College level courses ONLINE and a multitude of shorter-term vocational courses still coming up! AND our staff responds to training needs, on your site or on campus.

Go to www.cnc.bc.ca/lakesdistrict for information on existing courses or contact us via Facebook at College of New Caledonia Lakes Region, or email, phone or the old fashioned way - in person.

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Seeking support Lisa first realized she had a problem in 2008. She was working with recovering alcoholics and drug addicts in Vancouver and identified with their obsessive behaviour.

“I realized instead of using alcohol and drugs, I was using food,” she says. “It took me another four years before I got to a meeting and started actually working a program of my own.”

When her son was born in fall 2012, she weighed 250 pounds. She’d struggled with gestational diabetes and although doctors were polite, she knew her weight and sugar consumption had likely contributed to her health problems during pregnancy.

“I had one meal every day—I started when I woke up and ended when I went to sleep,” she remembers. But it wasn’t until she consumed her daughter’s entire Halloween candy collection that November that she sought help by attending her first Overeaters Anonymous (OA) meeting in the Lower Mainland.

New Mexico-based OA was born when its founder, Rozanne, attended a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in 1958. She recognized herself in the gamblers’ compulsive behaviours and realized the 12-step program started by Alcoholics Anonymous was also applicable to compulsive eaters. The first OA meeting took place in Los Angeles on Jan. 19, 1960 with three founding members attending.

Today, OA has over 60,000 members worldwide with about 6,500 groups meeting weekly in over 75 countries. Support is available not just all over the world, but also online and over the phone.

Meetings are open to all shapes and sizes—from the obese to anorexics.

“In OA, people find others who have gone through what they are going through. They learn they are not alone and there are others suffering similarly who have found a solution and are recovering, living healthy, rich, productive lives, while abstaining from compulsive eating and maintaining a healthy weight,” OA managing director Naomi Lippel says. “It gives them hope and

I feel more comfortable in my own skin than I have been in my whole life.

“What OA has taught me is when you do mess up, because it does happen, you are gentle with yourself,” she says. It teaches that the reasons for the illness are not important, she says; it’s more important to keep looking forward. She focuses on living Lisa, Overeaters moment to moment.

Anonymous member “Not every day is a success, but there’s always a new day,” she says. “I can make a choice right now whether I want to eat this doughnut or whether I want to walk away from it.”

She has cut back on baking (although she fewer and still makes her kids’ birthday cakes) and cooks now with local honey or maple syrup rather than refined sugar. She eats three meals a day, Moving forward following the OA guidelines by sitting down to When Lisa moved north recently, she came armed eat and adjusting portion size. with OA literature and the incentive to create her “I used to walk around in a food fog. I don’t own group in Smithers. But finding support in the have the food fog anymore,” she says about the sparsely populated region hasn’t been easy. exhausting emotional roller coaster the sugar She put an ad in the local paper and placed highs and lows sent her on. Today, she has posters around town. The posters garnered the energy to spend on her family and her relationattention of a Hazelton resident who started ships: “I’m a better person. I’m a better mom. I’m a group there, which has two members. The a better wife.”

Smithers group also has two regular members.

She credits OA and the 12-step program for Occasionally, both groups get together. turning her life around.

“It’s harder. I’m finding it harder to maintain my “That feeling I used to find comfort in is not abstinence up here,” Lisa says. “It’s very isolating.” comfortable for me anymore,” she says. “I feel Some prospective members have a hard time more comfortable in my own skin than I have grasping their disorder as a disease, she says. been in my whole life. There’s only love and Others don’t want to admit they have a problem acceptance now in my head.” at all.

Along with Smithers and Hazelton, OA groups When she moved to Smithers, her weight had exist in the North in Prince George and Mackdropped to 200 pounds. Today, standing 5’8”, she enzie. For meeting times and locations in your weighs 224 pounds. She still attends the weekly area or more information about Overeaters Anonmeetings, just her and one other member, and she ymous, visit OA.org. still wrestles daily with her willpower.

“Going to birthday parties is hard,” she laughs.

N A few months ago, she declined cake at one such gathering and was told it would be rude not to eat it—so she caved. But she didn’t beat herself up. strength to keep with the program, one day at a time.”

Meetings involve talking about the life-long effects of compulsive overeating, reading the 12 steps, reading literature and sharing— not just about the members’ struggles, but also about their hope. In the Lower Mainland, OA offers guest speakers, weekend retreats and the support that comes with knowing you aren’t alone. Worldwide, average group sizes are eight to nine members.

Resources in the North are far between.

IntegrIty

Professionalism

Q ua l i t y

fo r

Working

Community SuCCeSS.

L o c at e d i n S m i t h e r S & S e r v i n g t h e r e g i o n • 2 5 0 . 8 4 7 . 4 3 2 5 • w w w. e d m i S o n m e h r . c a 26 | OCT/NOV ‘14 |

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CRANBROOK HILL GREENWAY Prince George’s greener transportation corridor

Nancy A lex a n de r

Greenways—a vegetation belt intended to maintain foliage while encouraging pedestrian use—are increasingly common in urban areas. In Prince George, Cranbrook Hill Greenway is a 22-km multi-purpose recreation trail for non-motorized travel that runs through forests along the city’s west edge, connecting Otway Nordic Ski Centre to the University of Northern BC (UNBC) and the Yellowhead Highway at Kimball Road.

Detailed maps are posted at Otway, UNBC and Blue Spruce trailheads with wooden distance markers every kilometre. The greenway is a trail corridor for walking, trail running, mountain biking, skiing, snowshoeing and equestrian use. This summer, UNBC First Nations students have constructed a pit house at one-kilometre.

Main access and parking lots are at Otway, Forests for the World and UNBC, and secondary access (with no official parking) is at Kimball Road and Westcrest Road gates. The topography is hilly with moderate slopes that can be challenging on skis in winter; creeks and wetlands are crossed on wooden bridges and sections of boardwalk. The views are forests of Douglas fir, spruce, poplar, aspen and birch.

From the Otway map display, follow the Greenway markers through the ski area trails. It’s flat for the first two kilometres to the old biathlon cabin and then climbs steadily to the ski area perimeter and a second greenway map display. From here, the trail continues to a ridge near 5 km that’s dominated by large Douglas fir. The next section includes the first boardwalk across a wetland and up- and downhill slopes through gullies and a stream crossing.

The only road crossing on the trail occurs at 8 km; about one kilometre west along the road is the gate at the end of Westcrest Road. Continuing south along the greenway, a picnic bench at 9 km marks halfway. Here the trail descends into a gulley, crosses the stream and ascends onto a pine-dominated ridge at 10 km, before crossing the stream again in two kilometres.

The last three kilometres to UNBC are perhaps the most eventful. The trail climbs steeply past a rock wall and cave. It continues to a long section of boardwalk around Labrador Tea Pond, dropping and climbing again to a ridge with a connector trail to Forests for the World and the highest point in Prince George. After crossing a lake outlet, you reach the highest point on the greenway before descending to the trail junction one kilometre from UNBC. The southern four-kilometre section to Blue Spruce Campground runs along a sunny ridge before it becomes a service road joining Kimball Road.

In winter, volunteers do grooming and occasional track setting, as needed. The Greenway Society, which is made up of representatives from local recreational groups, manages the trail and oversees activities such as trail clearing and fundraising.

N

nancy alexand er

n d i gart @g mail.com

C r an brook H i l l Green w ay i s a 2 2 -k m recreati o n t r a i l t h a t r u n s a l o n g t h e c i t y ’s w e s t e d g e , con n ecti n g O tw ay N ordi c S k i C en t re t o t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f N o r t h e r n B C ( U N B C ) .

Trail Map sponsored by Valhalla Smithers

www.valhallasmithers.com

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column

Ba rom eter

November dreams

by C h a rlyn n To ews edit or ial@no rt hwo rd. c a

One November day, my best friend in the world, Celia, and I sat down in a snow bank in front of her house. We were in Grade 6, I lived one block away and we were in chilly Steinbach, Manitoba.

We made a decision; we created a pact: we would travel together to some far-off place after Grade 12. We thought: Hawaii!

This was the ’70s, though, so naturally six years later we decided to backpack around Europe. It was what the cool kids did. We bought Let’s Go Europe: Europe on 5 Dollars a Day and dreamed.

However, as we got closer to graduation day, the annually released book changed its subtitle: it was now Europe on 10 Dollars a Day. Our overseas budget had doubled!

I worked as a retail clerk at Reimer Pharmacy and wore a uniform like I was a pharmacist, a

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white cotton short-sleeved jacket with pockets over slacks. Celia worked as a waitress at Pete’s Inn with a nicely trimmed beige dress with pockets. These were minimum wage jobs, but minimum wage was larger then, in comparison to costs.

We graduated from Steinbach Regional Secondary School in late June 1977, then went to work as full-time low-paid girly-goos and managed to save up the $700 round-trip airfare by the end of August.

We went to see our travel agent, Sue, as often as possible. The day I demanded $700 cash from the Steinbach Credit Union to walk the halfblock to Sue’s office for my Air Canada booking, I expected a manager to come to the counter.

Hmm, no such fanfare. That’s odd, I thought: that’s a lot of money.

September and October allowed us to save for the rest of the trip: Eurail train passes, food and accommodation. It helped that we both lived at home and had yet to see a hydro bill with our names on it.

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Feel good.

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Then came the magic day in November when we drove to the Winnipeg International Airport to board the jet for Heathrow. I suppose our parents drove us there, but I do not recall. What we remember is the glamorous stewardesses and the many different ways they tied their très-chic Air Canada scarfs. It was like a fashion show!

We landed in London and took the Tube from the airport to the nearest stop from a YWCA. I tell you, it was like I grew two new eyes next to my ears—I never realized the world was so wide.

We went to Rome. We got to the Sistine Chapel in Italy, where we were going to see the most famous ceiling in the world. We did not realize at that time that we were there for the 465th anniversary of the first-ever showing of Michelangelo’s paintings on the ceiling of the Vatican. Anyway, Celia has the bladder the size of a wizened walnut, so we said, “Oh, well, we’ll see it next time,” like our lives would always be filled with November dreams.

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