Northword - Lost & Found

northword

ISSUE NO. 74

magazine

lost

opportunities

JULY/AUGUST 2018

found

experiences

|

LOST & FOUND

lost

memories

|

FREE

coastmountaincollege.ca

Carve your own path.

First Nations Fine Arts

Advanced Diploma • Diploma • Certificate

Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art is the only school of its kind in Canada. Focusing on traditional Indigenous Northwest Coast art and instructed and mentored by world-renowned artists.

Northwest Community College is now Coast Mountain College.

2 July/August 2018

COVER CONTEST!

Find the in the cover photo for a chance to win a special Northword mug!

Email contest@northword.ca with your best guess. Correct entries will be entered into a draw & the winner announced August 26.

ON THE COVER

LAST ISSUE

Playing a little “lost and found” game when you’re out planting trees makes for a nice diversion.

Due to a printing issue, the N was completely hidden on our last cover.

Apologies to any of you who spent time hunting. This time, it’s there— we promise!

Photo by Michelle Yarham.

COASTAL FUSION

A R T

ARTIST KOSTAN LAGACE || PACIFIC NORTHWEST ART+FASHION COWBAY PRINCE RUPERT, UNDERNEATH COWPUCCINO’S

IG #LOVECOASTALFUSIONART

COASTALFUSIONART@GMAIL.COM

FB.COM/COASTALFUSIONART

VanderhoofAirShow.ca

Gates open 8am showtime 11am limited camping avail.

Saturday August 4 Tickets $10 at vanderhoofairshow.ca Vanderhoof Chamber of Commerce, and the Gate

(kids 7 & under FREE)

Canadian Forces Snowbirds • F-18 Demo Team • Skyhawks Parachute Team •Top Notch Civilian Performers • Win’Sok the Clown • Dinner $35 • Late Night Hangar Party $15

July/August 2018

3

Skeena Landing shopping • food • accommodation • fun

Furnished Executive apartments • Commercial office & Retail spaces available.

Tuesday - Sunday Lunch & Dinner 778-634-2999 Come Join Us!

Lodge Reservations

skeenalanding.com or call 250-638-0444

flying fish

... cooking living & giving

4 July/August 2018

Over 10,000 sq ft of WOW! flyingfishnanaimo.com • flyingfishterrace.com

COW BAY

Medical Office Assistant

ASSOCIATE CERTIFICATE

Open for application!

Kitchen • Bedding Bath • Furniture Art • Souvenirs Candy • Cards 24 Cow Bay Road 250-627-1808

Kaien Office Essentials

WE ARE THRILLED TO ANNOUNCE....

Ladies Fashion

The Medical Office Assistant program is back and better than ever!

Handbags

FULL DETAILS ONLINE

Jewellery Accessories

32 Cow Bay Road

250-624-3073

250-627-1010

Blue Sapphire Jewellery & Old World Treasures 30 Cow Bay Road

Lunch Dinner 34 Cow Bay Road 250-627-4560

Microbrewed Beers

217 1st Avenue E

250-624-2739

1 Cow Bay Gift Galley 2 Blue Sapphire 3 Udder Bags 4 Opa Sushi 5 Coastal Fusion Art 6 Cowpuccino’s 7 Wheelhouse Brewing 8 Kaien Office Supply 9 Smiles Cafe

www.cnc.bc.ca/ce | 250-561-5846 | continuinged@cnc.bc.ca

over 18 storesunder 1 roof M ON -T HU RS 9: 30 -6 PM OP EN 7 DAYS A W EE K! SU ND AY S 11 -5 PM FR ID AY S 9: 30 -9 PM •

ok for

Follow us on Facebo

Events & Hours

10 Dolly’s Restaurant 11 Breakers Pub Visitor Information

Cowpuccino’s Coffee House

9

Coffee Lunch Desert

ARTIST KOSTAN LAGACE II PACIFIC NORTHWEST ART+FASHION

7

8

5 6

4 3 2 10 1

RONA

COWBAY PRINCE RUPERT, UNDERNEATH COWPUCCINO’S

11

COASTALFUSTIONART@GMAIL.COM FB.COM/COASTALFUSIONART

PRINCE RUPERT’S UDDER SHOPPING AREA!

• Anytime Fitness • Ardene • Bentley Bag & Luggage • Cooks Jewellers • Dollarama • Ella

• Epic • Mark’s Work Warehouse • Pharmasave • Save On Foods • Shefield Express • Sportchek

4741 Lakelse Ave. Terrace, BC for hours & info:

• Suzanne’s • The Source • Telus • Wings • Winners • Warehouse One

skeenamall

July/August 2018

5

Aam wil bakwsim / We Welcome You

FORUM Come Visit Us and Explore!

• Drive the brand new Nisga’a self-guided Auto Tour.

• Nisga’a Museum — one of the finest collections of Northwest Coast aboriginal art in existence.

• Guided tours of the lava fields, lava cone: Nass Valley Tours 1-855-568-8687 & Visitor Centre exhibit.

• Hlgu Isgwit, our hotsprings — water heated by nature.

• Vetter Falls Lodge — pristine wilderness experience.

• Tour K-’alii-Aksim Lisims (the Nass River) and see our famous Fish Wheels: 250 633 2617

DISCOVER British columbia’s WILD & BEAUTIFUL nOrthwest CoasT Prince Rupert is a vibrant town where nature, history, and personalities are larger than life.

Legendary sport fishing, exceptional wildlife viewing, attractions that bring the coast’s ancient aboriginal culture and pioneer heritage alive, and the urban pleasure of good restaurants, fascinating shops, and colourful neighborhoods make Prince Rupert the ideal choice for a family vacation, a corporate retreat, or a solo getaway.

Aam wil bakwsim / We Welcome You

nisgaatourism.ca 6 July/August 2018

VisitPrinceRupert.com

CONTENTS ISSUE NO. 74 | JULY/AUGUST 2018

9 EDITOR’S NOTE FIRSTWORDS 11 Eurasian Collared-Doves 13 Street Festivals 33 TRAIL MAP Sinclair Plateau BACKWORDS

35 Searching for Tao Canyon 36 Father John Misty 36 Festival Guide

FEATURES 14 Right to Clean Air Can northwest BC’s industry town find balance? Writer Dan Mesec talks to Kitimat locals about their concerns over air quality.

by Daniel Mesec

17 Lost or Found?

We asked six writers and one photographer to tackle this issue’s theme in whatever way they saw fit. What they came up with is quirky, funny, poignant, reflective, and uniquely northern.

28 The Rescuers Every year, volunteers from across the province save lives, plucking the lost from the backcountry. Contributing editor Amanda Follett Hosgood talks to search-and-rescue groups to gain some insight into the complexities and challenges facing SAR organizations in northern BC.

by Amanda Follett Hosgood

Quinlan Fennell in the perpetual wind on Rose Spit. Photo by Joseph Crawford.

July/August 2018

7

northword magazine

MAIN OFFICE | Smithers 1412 Freeland Ave. Smithers, BC, V0J 2N4 t: 250.847.4600 | w. northword.ca | e. editor@northword.ca

PUBLISHER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Matt J. Simmons NATIONAL SALES/AD DESIGN Sandra Smith CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Amanda Follett Hosgood ILLUSTRATIONS Facundo Gastiazoro

DISTRIBUTION We distribute 10,000 copies six times a year to over 300 locations in more than 30 communities across northern BC, reaching over 30,000 readers. To request copies at your retail/public location, send an email to ads@northword.ca.

CONTRIBUTORS Britta Boudreau, Jo Boxwell, Joseph Crawford, Amanda Follett Hosgood, Facundo Gastiazoro, Paul Glover, Morgan Hite, Daniel Mesec, Pete Moore, Dave Quinn, Melissa Sawatsky, Allison Smith, Mark West, Patrick Williston, Michelle Yarham

SUBSCRIPTION To receive Northword Magazine in your mailbox, or to give it away to a friend, please complete the subscription process on our website or give us a call. Subscriptions make great gifts!

DISTRIBUTORS Ainsley Brown, Frances Riley, Richard Haley

CONTRIBUTIONS We’re always happy to hear from new writers and photographers who have a unique perspective and a northern story to tell. Have a look at our submissions guidelines on our website.

Publisher/Editor-in-chief matt@northword.ca

Matt J. Simmons

Sandra Smith

National Advertising sandra@northword.ca

Amanda Follett Hosgood

Britta Boudreau writes creative nonfiction, dabbles in photography, and is currently working on a novel. She is a fishing enthusiast, an avid camper, and a huge fan of road trips.

Jo Boxwell is a freelance writer and

Joseph Crawford is an outdoor and

Facundo Gastiazoro spends his days in Smithers expressing his art by painting murals, creating animations, producing videos, illustrating concepts.

His illustrations are featured in every issue of Northword.

Paul Glover is a piano technician,

Morgan Hite has lived in Smithers for 20 years, makes maps, goes hiking, gets lost, writes articles, reads things and dreams about travel.

Daniel Mesec is currently a Local News Fellow with The Discourse. He calls the Bulkley Valley home and as a journalist has covered everything from Tahltan blockades to wild salmon runs on Babine Lake.

Pete Moore was born and raised in Queen Charlotte, Haida Gwaii, and attended UVic’s journalism program.

Now living back on the islands, he is an avid writer, radio host, musician, and general so-stoked dude.

Dave Quinn uses boots, backpacks, kayaks, canoes, skis and a keyboard to explore the interface between modern society and wilderness. In addition to Northword, his work is showcased regularly by BC Mag, Westworld, Patagonia, Kootenay and Coast Mountain Culture Magazines, among others.

Melissa Sawatsky lives on unceded Witsuwit’en territory in Smithers, BC where she works at the library and the Bulkley Valley Research Centre.

Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals.

Allison Smith is a writer and filmmaker

Mark West has worked for many years as a professional freelance photographer covering lifestyle features for national and international UK based publications.

To view his images, find him at markwestphotography.com.

Patrick Williston lives in Smithers in a mountainside home. When days are long, you will find him and his family gunkholing around the Chatham Sea in an old sailboat.

Michelle Yarham is a photographer and treeplanter (among many other things) from Smithers. She loves documenting people in spaces that they have a personal connection to, or exploring new territories together.

media specialist based in Prince George. She writes fiction and creative nonfiction, and is frequently interrupted by a squealing toddler, a ball-obsessed dog and a surprisingly destructive cat.

photographer, writer and home-grown naturalist. He lives in the hills outside Smithers where he compulsively grows way too much food and pays rapt attention to the natural processes unfolding around us.

living and working on Haida Gwaii.

She’s always up to learn something new, especially over a game of crib and a cup of coffee.

Contributing Editor amanda@northword.ca

underwater photographer and filmmaker based on Haida Gwaii. See more of his work at braidfilms.com.

Legalities and limitations Copyright © 2018. 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 northword.ca for contribution guidelines.

8 July/August 2018

i l l u s t r a t i o n : f a c u n d o g a s t i a z o ro

ADVERTISING SALES Sandra Smith, sandra@northword.ca Matt J. Simmons, matt@northword.ca

i l l u s t r a t i o n : f a c u n d o g a s t i a z o ro

EDITOR’S NOTE

In the corner under the desk, shoved in a little too hard so its edges are bent and bruised, sits a cardboard box. It once held apples and a faint musty odour carries that past purpose into the present. Now, it’s the lost and found—for memories. When we forget, memories fall away from our minds like seeds dropping from trees, floating off in search of some patch of dirt to start fresh. Some are just gone forever, and some come here to sit in the box, in the corner, under the desk, smelling like old apples.

There are so many memories in this box. They don’t take up much space. It would be nice to return them someday, but for now they’re safe. Little seeds. Go on, pick one out, try it on...

You’re at the fair, cutting underneath the ferris wheel. The smells of oil and diesel and cotton candy and hot dogs mingle with a whiff of the ocean. It’s too hot for the jeans you’re wearing. Your dad ducks low as he follows you, a melting ice cream cone in his hand.

Or: She’s dying and knows it, but still has a smile for you. The eyes tucked in amongst all those wrinkles shine hello and the piano concerto on the radio in the other room drifts in through the open door. Her blanket is scratchy; she’s so frail.

Or: The day the pigeon crapped on your head.

Or: The butterflies in your stomach are so intense you feel like you’re going to vomit.

But there’s nowhere to go and doing the shuffle down the aisle—excuse me, pardon me, sorry, can I just sneak past—is about as appealing as sticking your head in a pool of piranhas. So you sip your coke, trying to be quiet, drying your hands on your pants, or making an attempt at least. And then her fingers find your hand in the dark and you think, “Oh my god, my hand’s so clammy, it’s disgusting” but she doesn’t seem to mind, or at least is pretending not to, and maybe you’ll get a kiss tonight?

That would be amazing, and super scary, but mostly amazing. What is this movie anyway? It’s terrible. Your feet stick to the floor but now all you can think of is her hand in yours and oh, her hair smells so good.

But it’s not your dad. You were never there. And you hated jeans when you were a kid. That woman was not your grandmother. That blanket was from somebody else’s past. No pigeon has ever defecated on you from above. That night you didn’t have your first kiss. You never even saw that movie.

What would it be like to try on someone else’s memories? An intrusion? Or the ultimate intimacy?

For a time, I collected rocks from the tops of mountains I summited and from supposedly memorable outdoor excursions. Each one that sat on the shelf was like a memory in the box I could pluck out on a whim and wear like a warm hat. The rough

patch of lichen that somehow survived the harsh and unforgiving alpine climate—I know it. I know the feeling of my feet (sore) at the moment I bent over and picked it up. Or the smoothness of the black stone that travelled from who knows where, washed by waves and pocketed while sitting on the beach with my kids, wrapped in a wool sweater, wind ripping at my hair—happy.

And then there were too many. The pile wavered, and then tumbled. Stones became just stones again. And the memories attached to them went someplace else.

Fragments remain, but like shards of stone that were knapped by some long-gone human, they aren’t the thing itself anymore, just a hint at what the thing was.

If you could pick up one of those rocks right now and hold it in your hand, would you have any inkling of the hours of being alive that made it possible? The semichaotic avalanche of thoughts that rolled on and on and on as I put one foot in front of the other, up and up and up. The off and on of coolness in the air, drifting clouds.

The delight.

Try on a memory. Wiggle inside someone’s head and think their thoughts, feel their emotions. Find their version of blank space, staring into nothing and just simply being. It’s the ultimate in empathy. Who knows, maybe this is an app coming soon to a smartphone near you.

Now, making memories, that’s what it’s all about. Experiencing life—now. Sure, you might be able to look back later and think what a time that was, but even if that “might” becomes a “will,” time changes memories anyway. They’re not the same as actually being there. We colour them with perspective and distance, painting over the painting with hues that are oh so close, but you can never get it perfect, can you?

So maybe this lost-and-found box is a good place to lay them down. Let go. Make space for making new memories. Donate the box to the Salvation Army. Especially if you’ve got some good ones. There are people who need these things.

— Matt J. Simmons July/August 2018

9

bring the past to

...when steel met keel, horses wore snowshoes? Come discover more Echoes from the Past!

STEWART MUSEUM 250-636-2229

...that our entire collection was repatriated in 2010? Come & hear what the Voices of the Nisga’a Treaty sound like.

NISGA’A MUSEUM 250-633-3050

...that you can check out our 1925 R.E.O Speedwagon & 1958 American LaFrance?

PRINCE RUPERT FIRE MUSEUM

i s i to

r.

e check out some of th derful n o w e th & d ir we as you travel through the region!

wh e

Life!

a r e s i d en t o r a v

..

museums

r t he

are yo u

Did you know...?

...that the Egg Carton was invented in the Bulkley Valley? & a B-36 Bomber mysteriously disappeared in these hills?

BULKLEY VALLEY MUSEUM 250-847-5322

250-624-2211

...that everyday at 11:00 am you can watch our world class chicken races and win big?

FORT ST. JAMES NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE 250-996-7191

...you can enjoy homemade pie and local coffee at the historic 1920 OK Café?

..we have the oldest European-made artifact in BC? DIXON ENTRANCE MARITIME MUSEUM

VANDERHOOF MUSEUM ...you can revisit the olden days in our interactive 1920s school room, or visit an Anglican church built in 1910?

TELKWA MUSEUM 250-846-9642

...that Haida Gwaii & her outlying waters are the unceded territory of the Haida?

HAIDA HERITAGE CENTRE & HAIDA GWAII MUSEUM AT KAY LLNAGAAY 250-559-7885

...that Terrace was home to Canada’s largest military mutiny? & first female Surgeon General in the Armed Forces?

Terrace

HERITAGE PARK MUSEUM 250-635-4546

10 July/August 2018

...that our featured Copper River deposit of ammonites dates to the Jurassic Period, 150 million years ago?

KITIMAT MUSEUM & ARCHIVES 250-632-8950

...that Fraser Lake is only 22km away from the last spike on the Grand Trunk Railway—now Canadian National Railway?

FRASER LAKE MUSEUM 250-699-6257

250-567-3374

...that you can come here & ride on the ONLY 24” gauge steam train in North America?

Prince George

THE EXPLORATION PLACE 250-562-1612

p h o t o : d r. r a j u k a s a m b e

250-626-6066

FIRSTWORDS

EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVES Should we protect an invasive species?

p h o t o : d r. r a j u k a s a m b e

The legend goes like this:

In the 1970s an exotic pet breeder transported fifty Eurasian collareddoves from the Netherlands to the Bahamas. His pet store was broken into and during the robbery the birds escaped. The birds nested, bred, and spread to neighbouring islands and by the 1980’s arrived in Florida. They made themselves at home and proceeded to colonize North America. In the last ten years, they have arrived in northern BC. “These birds are incredibly good at adapting to urban environments,” says Dr. Ken Otter, UNBC biology professor and president of the Society of Canadian Ornithologists. “They are totally on the rise.

They are all over Prince George now, whereas five years ago you could only find them around Cottonwood Park and in low numbers.”

Larger than a robin and smaller than a crow, collared-doves are pigeon-like in appearance with a large body, small head and a distinctive crescentshaped black band at the nape of the neck. They sing a repetitive and incessant cooing song, a rhythmically mournful koo-KOO-kook.

“They start cooing at about five in the morning,” says Vanderhoof resident Brian Frenkel. “We had two living in a spruce tree right beside our bedroom window. I made sure the first day we heard them, before they nested, I shook the tree and they left and

didn’t come back. But they’re in my neighbours’ trees now,” he adds with a chuckle.

An “urban invader species,” these birds prefer residential areas and often nest near houses and other developed areas where food is easily available.

According to The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, “bird feeders and trees planted in urban and suburban areas are cited as two of the main factors in the species’ colonization of the continent.”

These invasive birds are protected by an odd bit of government red tape. Currently there is no open hunting season in BC for the Eurasian collared-dove because it’s a species protected under the Federal Migratory Birds Convention Act. “Who considers them migratory?” asks Kamloops resident Russell Mount. “They set up shop and stay and multiply six times a year. I had to cut down every tree in our yard to get rid of the awful, noisy, pests.

They never once went anywhere for winter.”

The collared-dove is one of three species protected under the Migratory Birds Convention Act that doesn’t actually meet the criteria.

In BC other invasive bird species including the European starling and house sparrow are managed under Schedule C of the British Columbia Wildlife Act, which removes protection for species considered a nuisance and enables year-round public control.

However, the listing of the collared-dove under the federal act precludes its listing in Schedule C. According to the Canadian Wildlife Service, “the province of British Columbia has repeatedly asked for tools to allow management programs for Eurasian collared-doves.”

This year, a first step is being made in that direction. A proposed change to the 2018-19 BC hunting regulations would open a hunting season for Eurasian collared-doves in the Thompson, Kootenay and Okanagan. The change would “assist provincial programs aimed at controlling invasive species,” according to the Government of Canada website.

But will people hunt them? It’s one thing to declare open season on an invasive species; it’s another to actually hunt and eat them.

Consensus among hunters who joined a discussion on bchunting.com is, “Damn right I would hunt and eat them. They are tasty.”

One hunter goes on to say, “I have eaten lots of mourning doves and they are excellent table fare. Can’t imagine the collared-dove would be different, they are almost identical.”

With the number of collared-doves increasing in northern BC, can we expect an open season in this region as well? Would it make sense to open a season now to get ahead of the rising population?

July/August 2018

11

FIRSTWORDS

“It’s one thing to declare open season on an invasive species; it’s another to actually hunt and eat them.”

“I would be a little bit cautious about that,” says Otter. “You would think that given the numbers across North America it wouldn’t have much of an impact, but that same logic was applied to passenger pigeons and they were hunted to extinction by the early part of the 1900s.” Additionally, Otter says, “There’s no strong evidence that expansion is causing major detrimental effects.”

In fact, a study by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that looked at populations in Florida over a nine-year period found no evidence of negative impact on native bird species. Contrary to what researches expected to find, the number of other dove species actually increased in areas where the collared-doves were found.

The study does offer this word of caution: the birds were found in areas with a high abundance of food.

In areas where food is scarce there could be increased competition with native species.

The abundance of food is a result of the collared-

doves strong preference for residential areas and that could prove to be the limiting factor to hunting these birds. How do you have an open hunt on a bird that prefers residential areas? “The problem that most people will tell is that their numbers are increasing within community limits,” says District of Vanderhoof Councillor Brian Frenkel. “There’s a lot of invasive species all around the world and as a council we would need a lot more information before the District of Vanderhoof would entertain a hunt.”

One thing is certain, these birds are incredibly adept at adapting to varied environments and we will continue to see and hear collared-doves in increasing numbers in northern BC. If you would like to help monitor Eurasian collared-doves in your backyard, join the Citizen Science: Project NestWatch at birdscanada.org. Crucial information on the spread of this species is collected through this nest monitoring program.

— Britta Boudreau

OUT THE Y...

OF DINAR OR

YOUR PLACE FOR EVERYTHING ANTIQUE, FINE VINTAGE & ALL-ROUND COOL.

Open Wed-Sat 11-6 & Sun 12-5 985 3rd Avenue W, Prince Rupert • 250.624.2746

Nurture your inner spirit

NOW SHOP ONLINE: www.theargosy.ca

crystals books incense jewellery candles gifts

115–4 716 Lazelle Ave. • TERRACE • 778-634-3028 • www.newageinsights.ca 12 July/August 2018

photo: jo boxwell

@argosypr

FIRSTWORDS

Northwest

Register now for

Fall 2018

STREET FESTIVALS Activating downtown Prince George

photo: jo boxwell

A fly fishing guide

demonstrates her skills, sending her line gracefully down a long, shallow pool of water that meets the intersection of George Street and Fifth Avenue. A black canoe built for speed is fixed to a nearby fence and a man in a wetsuit showcases his kayaking skills in a deep, circular pool in front of The Keg. A group of kids hit the ramps on BMX bikes under the shadow of the Ramada.

It’s late May and the weather is holding. Mexican food somehow makes it seem warmer than it actually is (chimichangas or tacos, and ice cream to finish). A small crew is setting up a stage inside a marquee in preparation for the evening’s sold-out street party.

Tents fill the sidewalks promoting businesses and community groups that all connect with the theme for this inaugural event. The Biking, Paddling and Fishing Festival is the first installment of the CrossRoads Street Festival Series in downtown Prince George.

CrossRoads Brewing owners Bjorn Butow and Daryl Leiski are hoping their events will bring more people into the area to support local businesses, including their own. But what makes these festivals unique is that they have tied their objective of activating the downtown core to another goal: showcasing local outdoor recreation opportunities. “It’s about bringing together these activities downtown, trying to build some critical mass,” Butow explains.

Proximity to outdoors experiences is one of the main reasons people move to northern communities like Prince George, and yet many local outdoor recreation clubs are struggling to find support. As Butow explored the idea for the festival series, he discovered that many of the clubs in the Prince George area face similar challenges. “They all have common issues of succession plans, membership, promoting themselves,” he says.

“These are activities that happen in our community but we don’t see them. They are behind the scenes, in the bush.”

By theming each of the three street festivals around different sports and partnering with those clubs, Butow hopes he can help highlight some of the amazing opportunities Prince George has to offer. He mentions, for instance, the PGMA Blackwater Motorcross Track.

“They have a national-level motorcross event every year, and many people don’t know about it. It’s world class.”

While there have been other attempts at creating outdoors-themed events in Prince George, they have typically taken place at indoor venues. Butow was hoping to achieve something more interactive with this series, to give attendees a sense of what it is really like to get into some of these sports, and a street festival environment seemed to be the perfect fit.

As the festivals grow, he’s hoping there will be more opportunities to incorporate elements that showcase these activities, such as bike and motorsports races.

Kimberley Kenyon was instrumental in making the Northwest Brigade Paddling Club part of the inaugural festival experience. “We realized if we want a community, we’ve got to get out there,” she says.

Having the space at this event to demonstrate what they do was definitely a bonus for the club. “Being able to get the pool was a huge step for us, to be able to actually showcase someone in a boat instead of just sitting at a table.”

Outdoors businesses are also invited to participate in the festivals, and May’s event was an ideal opportunity for one start-up to get the word out about their new venture. Veronica Hartman and Lawrence Arnett of Northern Expedition Outfitters hadn’t anticipated just how much attention their tent rental setups would attract from passersby. As Arnett left to try and get more flyers printed, Hartman commented that, “There’s been a lot of interest, a lot of people checking it out and I think it’s new to people. We see rooftop tents on vehicles, but there are a lot of people who didn’t know these even existed.”

If you missed the event in May, there are two more opportunities to catch a CrossRoads Street Festival in 2018. The daytime outdoor recreation shows are free; evening street parties are adults-only ticketed events featuring live music, food, and of course, craft beer. Head down to George Street on the following dates to get a closer look at motorsports, motorcross, jetboating, powersports, skiing and snowboarding: Saturday, July 14, 2018 – Motorsports, Motocross and Jetboating Festival Saturday, September 29, 2018 – Powersports, Skiing and Snowboarding Festival — Jo Boxwell

ENGL 460-3/ 660-3

Special Topics in Children’s Literature: Children’s Books: Agents of Corruption?

FSNT 100-3

Aboriginal Peoples of Canada

FNST 444-3

Experiential Course in First Nations

HIST 309-3

Women in Canada

BIOL 406-3

Fish Ecology

GEOG 411-3

Quaternary and Surficial Geology

BIOL 498-3 /NRES 730-3

Disturbance Ecology …AND MORE!

COMING FALL 2019 BACHELOR OF EDUCATION K-7

Ask about the BA, BScN, BSc(Int), BEd, BSW, MEd & MBA programs

UNBC Terrace Campus 4837 Keith Avenue, Terrace, BC V8G 1K7 250-615-5578 • 1-800-697-7388

UNBC Prince Rupert Campus 353-5th Street, Prince Rupert, BC V8J 3L6 250-624-2862 • 1-888-554-6554

northwest@unbc.ca unbc.ca/northwest July/August 2018

13

Right to Clean Air

T

ake a deep breath. When was the last time you thought about the air you’re breathing? Do you know how clean it is, or how polluted? Probably not—what we breathe we often don’t see.

In the city we assume the air we breathe is somewhat polluted, from car exhaust, industrial pollutants and chemicals. In northern BC, surrounded by endless forests and pristine waterways, we often don’t think twice about the quality of the air we breathe.

But since the Rio Tinto Alcan (RTA) aluminum smelter in Kitimat was permitted to increase its sulfur dioxide (SO 2) emissions by 56 percent a few years ago, the question of air quality has been front-of-mind for many, especially given that this is a part of the province most wouldn’t associate with low air quality.

In 2013, when RTA initiated a modernization project to bring the smelter into the 21st century, it was welcome news for a community hit hard by an economic downturn. The community experienced a slight upswing in the local economy as thousands of workers descended on Kitimat. Now completed, a majority of the harmful greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the facility have been drastically reduced. Except for sulphur dioxide, a colourless, pungent, and toxic gas.

At first no one seemed to notice as the BC Liberals under former premier Christy Clark quietly approved and permitted an increase of SO 2 output from 27 tonnes per day to 42 tonnes per day. But the issue soon caught the eye of Lis Stannus, a local teacher and Kitimat resident for over 20 years.

“Going on six years ago Rio Tinto put out a notice that they were going

14 July/August 2018

to have a consultation about the Kitimat modernization and it was a tiny little article in the paper,” Stannus says. “But then we found out that it was an application for a consultation meeting to increase sulphur dioxide in the community, by a substantial amount. Prior to that everyone was pretty pumped about the modernization. It was supposed to be a green facility, modern technology, smaller footprints. So when we found out the reason for the notice, we were very disappointed.”

Stannus and her colleague, Emily Toews, subsequently challenged the approval of the permit, as well as the Environmental Effects Monitoring Plan (EEMP), through the BC Environmental Appeals Board in 2013. They prodded the provincial government about why the increase in SO2 was approved without requiring RTA to install saltwater scrubbers, a process in which the sulphur dioxide emissions are reduced or removed completely from the facility’s outf low.

“From that moment in April 2013, we’re still fighting that permit in some shape or form,” says Stannus. “The appeal for the permit itself was heard in 2015 and we lost that case. I find it upsetting that Rio Tinto is a large corporation and they’re going to make a lot of money and a lot of that money is not going to stay in this town. People benefit from this, but on the other hand, the local people, their rights are being stomped on.”

Although they lost the original case trying to overturn the SO 2 increase permit, Toews and Stannus aren’t finished. They’re continuing to pursue their case, focussing on the environmental and health monitoring issues.

Even the local union, Unifor 2301, has launched their own challenge of

photo: dan mesec

by Daniel Mesec

photo: dan mesec

“In northern BC, surrounded by endless forests and pristine waterways, we often don’t think twice about the quality of the air we breathe.”

the increased SO 2 and monitoring plan, citing the potential impacts on the RTA workers they represent.

Both cases are still slowly making their way through the courts, scheduled to be heard in early 2019. Chris Tollefson, legal counsel representing Stannus, says essentially the case will boil down to a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge.

“The legal landscape going forward is complicated,” Tollefson explains.

“Initially we have to argue this in front of the Environmental Appeal Board about the scientific and technical adequacy of the Environmental Management Plan, the monitoring solutions and data collection.

“We’ll also be arguing the larger constitutional question, which is, did the ministry err in signing off on the project to emit these harmful toxins into the air when the Charter says that all citizens have the right for their health to be protected by their government? And we would say the Charter here has been infringed because government has not taken adequate steps to recognize and to protect citizens’ health.”

Following the increase in SO 2 emission, Stannus, along with several of her neighbours also concerned with health impacts, started a local advocacy group, the Kitimat-Terrace Clean Air Coalition, to get the message out and build support.

Their main issue is how the monitoring of the sulphur dioxide is conducted and what the long-term impacts to Kitimat residents’ health will be. According to a 2012 Northern Health study, Kitimat already experiences 60 percent more cases of asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema

than the provincial average. But the studies are limited and inconclusive as to the specific causes of these high rates of respiratory illnesses.

Dr. David Bowering, former chief medical officer for Northern Health, has a pretty good idea.

“The smoking rates in the North have always been higher than the average in BC,” he says, also referring to the use of wood heating and the smoke that leaks back into houses. “And then there’s the industrial component. From the poor data that is available people in that area already have somewhat of a higher risk of having respiratory problems. This is before we start talking about SO 2 or anything else added to the airshed.”

However, the BC Ministry of Environment maintains that their monitoring programs ensure the levels of sulphur dioxide released into the airshed are well below the threshold to impact human health.

“Under the SO2 Environmental Effects Monitoring Program, human health is monitored through the human health key performance indicator,” David Karn, Senior Public Affair Officer for the Ministry of Environment writes in an email.

“It is defined as the hourly BC Air Quality Objective for SO 2 , and is determined from continuous measurements of ambient SO 2 at three residential stations in the Kitimat Valley: Whitesail, Riverlodge, and Haisla Village. To date, SO 2 levels have remained well below the threshold.”

But Dr. Bowering and Stannus say there are too many unknowns and more thorough investigations of the health impacts associated with SO 2 and other industrial pollution in the Kitimat airshed are needed before their July/August 2018

15

faith in government monitoring is restored.

“What they’re doing is monitoring it on selected sites on the ground and as long as there isn’t something precipitating it down and the winds are blowing the way they’re supposed to, the levels may be relatively low,” says Dr. Bowering. “But nobody really knows.

“If we have anything in the North that’s world-class that people around the world would kill for, it’s really clean air,” he continues. “So to trade that off and treat the airshed like it was essentially a sewer—let’s see just how much we can put into it before we can prove that people are getting sick—it’s really not smart. It’s actually kind of insane.”

The unanswered questions regarding the health impacts from years of industrial pollution were just too big to ignore for Rose Lee and her husband, who spent 25 years in Kitimat. When their daughter left the community to pursue education, they decided to sell their house and move to Vancouver Island. They didn’t want their daughter coming back to Kitimat.

“As a teacher, what I started to notice, with our shrinking population, was more and more health issues in some of my students, and that concerned me,” Lee says.

“We left Kitimat because we didn’t want our daughter coming back. And we definitely did not want her to have a baby in Kitimat because we were concerned with what we saw and issues with some birth defects. They weren’t all necessarily related to the current air emissions, but we don’t know!”

16 July/August 2018

Recently Lee became a grandmother and says her daughter still has a lot of friends in Kitimat, but won’t visit with the newborn because she’s still so concerned about the health impacts they witnessed for more than 20 years.

“I don’t understand why, when you spend that kind of money to modernize the facility, why they wouldn’t just take that extra step and put in the scrubbers. It’s foolish,” she says.

“It isn’t [Uncle Al] anymore, it’s totally different. Once Rio Tinto took over, they’re an international company, they don’t give two hoots.

It really changed, it changed the whole fabric of the town.”

Rio Tinto, along with the BC Ministry of Environment, continue to keep close tabs on the amount of SO 2 in the Kitimat airshed and maintain they can mitigate the situation through monitoring stations to ensure there are no adverse effects to the community. And if adverse effects are ever found, the current RTA permit could be scaled back to lower SO 2 emission levels.

RTA is currently emitting between 30 to 33 tonnes of sulphur dioxide per day, well below the permit limit. They recently established an Air Quality Health Index in Kitimat to better inform the public about airshed monitoring. But RTA insists dispersing the SO 2 into the airshed is the best way to manage those emissions.

“Prior to making a decision on how to manage SO 2 emissions, Rio Tinto conducted 18 months of studies on options of managing SO 2 with experts from around the world,” Kevin Dobbin, RTA BC Works Communications Manager

writes in an email.

“Through this work and modelling, that has been proven accurate, air dispersion was shown to be the least impactful way to discharge SO 2 .

The new way of emitting the SO 2 is from a high stack at high speed and high temperature and the results have been averaging at or below 1 ppb, while the Ministry of Environment guideline is currently 75 parts per billion.”

But that does little to reassure Stannus and her neighbours that the air they breathe, over the long term, is not toxic and hopes that once her case is back in court the government and Rio Tinto will genuinely acknowledge their concerns.

“I feel disrespected by Rio Tinto, and I hope that somehow we get resolution with this company,” says Stannus. “My hope is they start listening to us and say, ‘Yeah, the people are right, let’s make sure things are the best they can be,’ instead of this fight. There seems to be no acknowledgement that people have genuine concerns about health.

“My hope is government gets back on track with balancing the rights of people with industry, and puts people first. I do want people to have jobs, but I don’t want it to be at any cost. We want the best quality of life possible here, just like anybody would want in British Columbia.”

This article was co-published with The Discourse. If you have any questions or ideas to help Dan with his reporting, connect with him on Facebook or email him at danielmesec@gmail.com.

photo: dan mesec

A view of the Rio Tinto Alcan aluminum smelter, adjacent to the Kitimat Estuary.

lost or found? photos by Michelle Yarham words by:

photo: dan mesec

Jo Boxwell Paul Glover Dave Quinn Melissa Sawatsky Allison Smith Patrick Williston

July/August 2018

17

18 July/August 2018

L

ost is where we find ourselves. Whether weaving through unfamiliar neighbourhoods in a new city or jumping in the deep end of an adventure, the act of surrendering yourself to the unknown can be terrifying, exhilarating, and revealing. Faced with adversity, we search inwards for the strength to survive and navigate back to familiar territory.

One curious side effect of not knowing where you are is you see things in more detail. Searching for a clue to bring you back from the brink focuses your gaze and brings the background to the fore. Details which would

otherwise fade into the surroundings are suddenly clear and noticeable. A blade of grass bent a certain way, a small scuff on a brick wall. The roll of the landscape, the position of the sun in the sky.

For this issue’s feature section, we asked six writers and one photographer to tackle the theme in whatever way they saw fit. What they came up with is a collection of ideas that is quirky, funny, poignant, ref lective, and uniquely northern.

Read on, and lose yourself a little—you never know what you might find.

—Matt J. Simmons

July/August 2018

19

Not Lost

by Dave Quinn

I began to sense something amiss when after an hour we were still walking towards a destination that we should have reached 20 minutes ago. Sure, the Gwaii Hanaas bush was thick. Yes, there were head-high logs to hoist ourselves over.

Ok, there were a few knee-deep mud pits to bypass, but really, we should have already been there.

And it was not just any destination. My buddy Bruce Kirkby and I had been invited as journalists to cover the raising of the Gwaii Hanaas Legacy Pole at Windy Bay, the first Haida monumental pole to be raised in the Park Reserve and Cultural Heritage Site in well over a century. Gwaii Edenshaw and his team of carvers had been working on this project for over a year. Guujaw was there. Justin friggin’ Trudeau was there. Everyone who was anyone on the North Coast was there. We were not there.

Bruce and I had paddled to the event around Burnaby Island with a stop at Hot Springs Island and a few other “outthere” destinations and were camped out towards Gogit Point to avoid the masses—more than 400 people were rumoured to be arriving for this historic event. To kill time and scratch the curiosity itch we had hiked across the point to explore some pocket beaches on the other side, then strode with blind confidence and time to spare (or so we thought) through the ancient forest of Windy Bay to the old village site where the pole was to be raised.

We should have been there by now. Beginning to suspect an epic in the making, I deliberately stomped several boot

prints on the banks of a tiny stream that crossed out path—one of many we had jumped that morning.

There are a few moments in life that stick with you. This is one of mine: 20 minutes later we grovel over yet another massive nurse log and its mohawk of tiny hemlock, push through another salal/huckleberry wall to find another tiny creek, with boot prints in its muddy bank. Going precisely the opposite direction we were travelling.

Now I can get my head around maybe circling around and crossing our path in this verdant maze, but no matter how much I scrunch up my face I cannot for the life of me imagine how the hell we managed to get turned around to travel in the exact opposite direction along the same track. This, despite nearly five decades of combined wilderness experience between the two of us. And I am talking Patagonian, Arctic, Mongolian, Icelandic, and Sahara Desert get-lost-you-die wilderness experience.

Yet we can’t find 400 excited people on a major creek in the only major valley there is in any direction. I mean, as long as they didn’t bumble uphill or crawl into the sea, a toddler should’ve been able to find this pole-raising.

And so we found ourselves half-laughing, that nervous guffaw that means things ain’t quite the way they should be, and struggling desperately to figure out the compass features on our fancy altimeter watches.

To use the feature, you first need to hold down some complex combination of buttons that requires more fingers than either of us owned, and spin slowly in one direction (or was it spin rapidly in the other?) in order to calibrate said compass.

The Raven would have laughed long and deep had he glimpsed two grown men, chimped over their wristwatches, slowly spinning in deep mossy circles, glancing hopefully this way and that, squinting to the tree-tops for just a hint of direction-revealing sun, absorbed in the hopeless dance of the lost.

Never mind the Raven, it makes me laugh long and deeply now. But it sure was not funny at the time.

Eventually one of us sorted out the watch compass thing, and we diligently followed a bearing to the only creek in the only valley, which led down to the only village site, where the first monumental pole in over a century was being raised by 400 ecstatic souls.

Not one of whom was lost.

The Bet

by Patrick Williston

I was reading The River Why, a story by David James Duncan, and had reached the part where the main character follows a spawning Chinook salmon up a river by moonlight, hiking through the night while tethered to the enormous fish by an impossibly light fishing line.

“I felt overturned and overwhelmed, and walked in a slow hush, awed by all I'd seen and was seeing, yet I sensed that still greater secrets were impending,” wrote Duncan.

What secrets?

I had never hiked at night before.

How was that possible?

I put the book down filled with determination to repair this embarrassing gap in life experience. I would go on a mountain adventure, just like Duncan's character. I would go that very night.

I invited my roommate to come along, relating to him Duncan's narrative that had so moved me. He looked at me as though he had tasted something unpleasant.

“No chance,” he said.

His response was exasperating.

“Well I'm going!” I threatened, angered by the ineffectiveness of my impassioned proposition.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Fill your boots.”

I suppose that I could have gone alone—that would have been more in keeping with Duncan's story—but I called another friend instead. This other friend, blessed with the requisite quantum of imagination, didn't hesitate.

“Sounds great. I'll pick you up in 15 minutes,” he said.

20 July/August 2018

On my way out the door, I grabbed a fishing rod and announced that I would return with fish the next morning.

“Doubt it,” scoffed my roommate.

“Wanna bet?”

“Sure,” he carelessly replied.

I bet my roommate $8 that I would catch a fish.

My willing companion and I started up the mountain on a steep and poorly marked trail, carefully seeking out a dim passage in the dense conifer forest. As our ability to see diminished, our other senses sharpened. We listened for a way through the woods. When completely flummoxed, we looked up—a sinuous gap in the canopy lit by freckled stars provided a hint of the way.

Gradually gaining elevation, we encountered encrusted snow and the trail became a glowing moonlit path. At two in the morning we finally reached our objective: a small subalpine lake—a perfect disc of silver reflecting light that had travelled from the sun, to the moon, to the lake, and to my friend and me standing quietly on the shore.

I cast my lure onto the ice a few times. It skipped impotent over the ice.

We threw our sleeping bags down on the lake and got a few hours of rest. It was cold. We had brought little for food or warm clothing.

We awoke at 5 am, an hour or so before the first light of day, and hurried down the trail to get to class on time.

At the end of class, I stopped at Safeway on my way home and bought a trout at the deli. It cost $10. It still had the head on it, so it seemed reasonably authentic.

My roommate gave me $8 for catching the fish. I struggled to provide details.

We ate the fish for dinner.

A few years later I told my roommate the truth. He didn't see the humour in it.

I returned him the $16 I owed.

Yes, I lost the bet—not for the first time, nor the last—but in so doing, gained a remarkable moonlit night in the mountains.

July/August 2018

21

Archive of Lost Things

by Melissa Sawatsky

Burnaby, [date unknown]: My first memory, unremembered.

Burnaby, 1985: My Corey Hart Boy in the Box cassette tape, which belted through my Walkman for a year straight.

Burnaby, 1987: A portrait of me at age 10, drawn by a dear family friend.

Burnaby, 1990-1995: Handwritten notes to and from high school friends, folded into intricate origami.

Amsterdam, 1996: My sister’s backpack, travel journal, and undeveloped rolls of film, all stolen from the lobby of a hostel.

Burnaby, 1999: “Sarah and Melissa were here” carved into the closet door in the upstairs bedroom of our childhood home.

Prague, 2000: A sheltered worldview, gladly surrendered.

Vancouver, 2001-2005: Innocence and idealism in the realm of romantic love.

Vancouver, 2008: All that hovered in the air, unspoken, during a cordial encounter with my high school sweetheart.

Vancouver, 2010: Ink bleeding off handwritten pages of poetry and fiction in a flooded basement suite.

Parksville, 2012: Legal autonomy, but also, loneliness.

Vancouver, 2013: My son.

Smithers, 2014: Physiological ignorance of 30 hours of back labour, ending in a C-section.

Smithers, 2015: A full night of sleep. A social life. Time or desire to be creative. The illusion my marriage won’t suffer.

Smithers, 2017: Two 17-year-old cats buried beneath a newly planted plum tree.

Burnaby, 2018: My childhood home, renovated unrecognizable.

Smithers, 2018: The sense that time is linear.

Memory

by Allison Smith, with Joseph Crawford

“Stick your face in the moss and take a big inhale,” I suggested as I kneeled down and squished my face in the forest floor.

They looked at me like I was a bit crazy for suggesting it, like I was trying to play a joke on them. It wasn’t something they had been asked to do on the streets of Toronto before. But after they reluctantly tried it, they were converted. It wasn’t long before I would find them with their faces pressed to the ground, sucking in the fresh, cool air from a big patch of soft moss.

“I’m telling you one day this will be a treatment at a spa: moss breathing, a Haida Gwaii moss facial.” They laughed at the thought.

Guiding tests your patience, your endurance, and your wilderness experience. You’re up before everyone else. Making coffee and oatmeal while the guests get another hour of sleep. And you’re the last to bed.

Putting the food in the cache, listening to the radio, and making sure the fire is out. You’re always on. You’re happy, approachable and full of stories. Always.

I like people. I like meeting people, talking to people, making them laugh when they are on the edge of being uncomfortable. I like learning about their experiences and hearing their stories. As a guide, you never know what personalities will walk through the shop door. ~ It was an early August morning when Anita and Peter came into the shop looking to join a two day kayak trip. They were friendly, with a free spiritedness about them. As Anita made her way through the paperwork, Peter quickly pulled me aside.

“Just so you know, I have early onset Alzheimer’s and I might forget some things.”

I paused. I wasn’t sure what that would mean and how to navigate it. I reflected back to previous trips I had guided, where I had to juggle various abilities and personalities. It isn’t easy to manage a large group as a solo guide.

22 July/August 2018

So I asked: “Will you forget that you’re kayaking?”

“No,” Peter smiled.

I helped Peter, Anita, and the three other guests pack their bags, making sure they had their appropriate overnight equipment, rain gear, and dry bags. We all loaded into the van and headed to the island’s west coast, kayaks on a trailer behind us.

When we reached the coast, we unloaded and packed the kayaks. I led an obligatory orientation of how to get in and out of a kayak. And, in the unlikely scenario, what to do if a kayak flips. Then we paddled.

From the beginning, I could tell Peter and Anita were in awe. The awe that hits a guest right in the face, giving them a permanent smile. They talked about how they hadn’t imagined it would be this beautiful and how Haida Gwaii had always been on their bucket list. But now that bucket list had a lurking ending. It had become a list of the last opportunities to share memories and experience places together. It changed how they experienced places.

As we paddled, Peter kept pointing to the rugged shore.

“Look at the cedar branches, twisting and rolling like an arch.” We stopped to marvel at the shape a dead cedar tree makes when it is close to water. I hadn’t really noticed it before.

We paddled for a few hours, then began to jig for rockfish from our kayaks. Anita and Peter were both in single kayaks parallel to each other. It was Anita’s first time fishing, and one of her first times kayaking. I could tell she was nervous, and curious to see what would happen. After some patient jigging, Anita had a tug on her rod. I hollered for her to pull back and start reeling it in. She furiously turned the handle on the reel. Peter balanced her boat with his paddle as she pulled the spiny, grey fish onto her sprayskirt. She and Peter celebrated with roars of excitement. Another memory.

Later that evening, I gutted the fish and cooked it whole on the fire. They all crept in close, shoulder-to-shoulder, eager to try the white, juicy flakes of meat.

Peter was pleased. He kept raving about the freshness and the taste. Suddenly, his eyebrows furrowed and he looked lost and confused. He swallowed his last piece and asked the group, “Where did we get the fish from?”

I sat there thinking that if I’d forgotten the first time my girlfriend caught her

first fish, she would have been a bit miffed. It would have been like forgetting an anniversary or a birthday. By the looks of everyone else around the fire, I could tell they felt the same way. The group looked at Anita with little discretion, waiting for her response.

Anita responded with a lovely, matter-of-fact, “Honey, I caught the fish.”

We were humbled.

The next day after breakfast I took the group on a hike on a decommissioned logging road. Anita and Peter told me about their children and the urgency to get to know and spend time with their grandkids. How they wanted to experience the world together. We walked beneath the moss-covered branches that looked like arms reaching for each other. The group started to drift into pairs. Peter and I were near the front, Anita slowly pacing behind us. It was warm, and the sun was nearly overhead as we approached a lake.

Peter reached forward, which I thought was an attempt to brace himself from fatigue or tripping. I fumbled to catch him, but he caught his balance on a cedar tree that reached out over the water. Peter stood there, touching its barkless trunk, marvelling again. This time, I wanted to know what was going through his mind.

“I remember this tree. Were we here yesterday?” he asked.

“No, but we paddled by a similar tree,” I said.

“These cedar arches remind me of a wedding arch or altar, of marriage.”

It was like a transcendent memory, or a feeling of déjà vu. I was surprised he wasn’t anxious or frustrated with himself for not remembering. He never got hung up on his failing memory but embraced new experiences while allowing old ones to filter through.

He had noted this arch again and again on the trip, and each time he marvelled at its shape. I was inspired by the way he was experiencing this place, with memories intertwining the beauty of his past with new experiences. It was almost as if this memory of a wedding arch was seeping through his mind, taking shape and reconfiguring in nature.

Anita joined us. She stood beside Peter and held onto to him, standing by their cedar wedding arch.

July/August 2018

23

On a Peak

by Paul Glover

It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.

— Rollo May, psychologist That was the year I was 20. My adventuring pal Rob suggested we canoe the Bowron Lakes. We drove to the put-in, 120 km east of Quesnel, and set out. In late September there were few others out there. We had our pick of campsites and didn’t see other canoes out on the lakes.

We were both tough and lean from a summer of physical work and mountain scrambling. With our excess energy and youthful enthusiasm we were more keen to cover distance than to enjoy the surroundings at a leisurely pace. After three days we had paddled and portaged three-quarters of the 116-km circuit.

We were now in the heart of the Cariboo Mountains; glaciated peaks loomed on either side of the long, narrow lakes. Across from our camp on Lanezi Lake rose Ishpa Mountain, the highest of all the summits bordering our route. Rob declared he would like the next day to rest. “In that case,” I said, “I will climb Ishpa.”

At dawn, Rob delivered me across the lake. “Yell when you get back,” he said.

“I’ll watch for you.” There was no discussion of what we’d do if I didn’t return.

I plunged into the forest. The ground steepened steadily as I climbed. Thick brush and fallen trees made the going slow and laborious. There was no trail, no write-up in a brochure, no signs to follow. I kept a vigorous pace in spite of the terrain. There was a lot of ground to cover, and a lot of elevation. At over 8,300 ft, Ishpa’s summit towers 5,500 ft above the lake.

Hours later I reached alpine and the view opened around me. Far behind lay the lake. The ridge narrowed to a point and continued into the sky as a winding spine of rock. As I climbed into the heart of the mountain, deep basins yawned on either side.

The good weather we’d had was changing. Cloud had moved in overnight and kept dropping as I climbed. A few flakes of snow swirled past. I put on some extra clothing and carried on.

Looking ahead, I wasn’t particularly concerned to see that the peak was lost in the clouds. I’d climbed mountains in the fog before. As long as the ridge leads to the peak, you can follow it there. Then you turn around and follow it back.

The route steepened yet again as I entered the cloud. In the swirling mists the sense of isolation became acute. I could only see the rock immediately ahead and behind me, and all was silent. The endless ridge led me higher and higher.

Finally the angle eased and I found myself on the peak. No sense in taking a summit photo: I was immersed in a world of grey. I donned my rain gear for

24 July/August 2018

warmth and hunkered in the lee of a boulder to eat some food. I felt victorious—I’d made it to the top!—but I also felt relieved. I’d overcome the obstacles and knew I could get back. I would have to move carefully, but it should be straightforward.

Picking up my pack, I said farewell to the peak and headed back the way I’d come.

I down-climbed through the fog, following the ridge. “Yes, this all looks familiar,” I thought to myself.

But then I found myself peering over a sheer cliff that disappeared into the fog below. “That’s not the way I came up!” I scrambled around, left and right, looking for the route. It wasn’t there: this wasn’t it. I was descending the wrong ridge.

I knew the ridge I wanted ran east-west, so my compass could set me straight. But with a sinking feeling I realized I had not brought it.

A sense of panic engulfed me. Suddenly I lost all sense of direction. I had felt so sure of the way a few minutes ago, and now that was completely erased. In my fear I raced back to the summit, no longer moving carefully along the wet rock. I stood there, trying to recognize something that would give me a clue, but with my sense of direction obliterated everything looked different. I couldn’t even find the rock I’d rested beside.

I tried to calm myself, but I was distraught. The afternoon was ticking by. It was late September and the days were getting short—and cool. Here on the peak it would be downright cold. A few snowflakes materialized to illustrate the point. I was already wearing all the clothes I’d brought. If only I could see the lake, far below, the way would be clear. But I could only see the rocks at my feet, and grey.

Still panicked, I made a few more half-hearted forays. But what if I headed down the wrong ridge—how far would it be until I realized my mistake and had to climb back to the top, only to try again? Eventually I just gave up. Back at the peak, I gazed into the fog and disconsolately contemplated my options.

Suddenly a small opening in the clouds blew across my view. Far below was the lake—a most beautiful sight! Then it was gone again. But now I had my bearings and knew which way to go. I crept carefully down the steep rock, through the swirling mist.

This felt right, but still I doubted… Then a bootprint in a patch of old snow gave me final confirmation.

It was mostly dark when I arrived back at the lake. Rob was unfazed when he picked me up. “I knew you’d make it back,” he said.

As for me, I never go anywhere anymore without a compass.

July/August 2018

25

26 July/August 2018

Frames

by Jo Boxwell

In the bleak early morning light, wisps of snow scattered across the empty highway ahead of us. We had been on the road for a while, wearied by the indistinguishable white fields rolling past us, broken here and there by old properties and skeletal trees.

Two objects emerged in the distance, oddly shaped and out of place. Large, with what appeared to be pointed ears, sitting perfectly still. Surely not house cats, with no homes in sight.

As we approached, two lynx came into view, sitting on the side of the highway. We slowed down just beyond them, hoping we wouldn’t disturb them too much. By the time I had reached into the back of the vehicle and retrieved my camera, the pair had slinked across the snow and disappeared behind a ridge. I regretted not being prepared. I regretted missing an incredible photo opportunity. Then I realized I had spent most of the experience thinking about my camera, and not the two beautiful animals that strode across the field behind us.

Northern summers are filled with opportunities to spot wildlife. The wolf was standing on the ties of a disused railway track beyond a rusted-out truck.

Mosquitos whizzed through the rich green trees. It was a postcard shot of nature reclaiming our discarded spaces.

The wolf crossed the old road a few feet in front of us, turned and looked straight at us through the windshield.

I had a sense that he was capturing us as we sat there motionless, as we wondered what he might be thinking and what he might do next.

I had mixed feelings as the wolf moved on. Grateful for the experience, but it took me a while to get over the sense of loss at not having my camera beside me, zoom lens prepped and ready to preserve that moment.

My son was born in the springtime. We have almost no photographic evidence of that first month besides a few blurry mobile phone photos at the hospital, and a couple more announcing his arrival at our home. We were too exhausted, and too busy experiencing the world for the first time with him.

At two years old, he saw his first wild predator. We had driven along a dirt road to explore a waterfall, and as we bumped in and out of the potholes, we spotted a very large black bear in a clearing, chewing the dandelions beside a dead pine. The bear was very close to the road.

We pointed at it through the glass, but our son remained uncharacteristically quiet as he looked out from his cushioned car seat.

When we talked to him about it afterwards, he remarked that the bear was, “Scary.” Watching his expressions, witnessing his interpretation of our proximity to that powerful animal, it never even occurred to me to reach for my camera. I’m glad I didn’t.

July/August 2018

27

The Rescuers

by Amanda Follett Hosgood

28 July/August 2018

Local search managers convene to create a plan and coordinate equipment.

Within an hour or two, they’re out looking for you.

Hopefully, you’ve followed a few simple rules of backcountry travel.

Letting someone know where you’re going is a start. Carrying a device that allows you to call in your location will speed up the process. Then, sit tight: If all goes well, you’ll be home for breakfast.

Ninety-five percent of missing persons are found and rescued within 24 hours. The few searches that continue into a second day are elevated to Level 2. Historically, that happens once or twice a year, says Numan, a Level 2 search manager. Last year, the province saw four within three weeks, a trend that continued into 2018 with several Level 2 searches already this year.

One of those was a mushroom picker from Hazelton named Frances Brown, who went missing last October.

By Land Dave Jephson, a search manager and instructor with Terrace Search and Rescue, estimates that up to 25 percent of the calls they receive are for missing mushroom pickers. Not only do these foragers tend to walk with eyes glued to the ground, making it easy to lose your bearings, it’s common not to share your destination for fear of giving up your best picking spot.

Between mushroom pickers and hunters, it makes fall a busy season.

The Bulkley Valley, Houston, Vanderhoof, Atlin, Stewart, and Burns Lake each have their own search and rescue operations, but with close to 70 people on its roster, Terrace is one of the largest and most diverse, with skills like long-line helicopter rescues, swift-water rescue, sonar and

photo: mark west

T

he email comes the evening before completing this article.

“Here is a live example of what we do,” says Bulkley Valley Search and Rescue (BVSAR) president Fred Oliemans, linking to a CBC story about a search underway for an American family missing in northern BC. The young couple and their children, ages two and three, stare out from my computer screen.

My heart sinks.

British Columbia’s dramatic landscapes offer infinite peaks and gullies to explore and as many places to get lost. You don’t need to be armpit-deep in devil’s club or traversing a lofty glacier. You don’t need to have embarked on an epic, multi-day mission or be bagging a big peak.

You need only to have misplaced a step or the direction of your vehicle.

The province also has some of the world’s best search and rescue operations, with 80 teams and 2,500 volunteers. They receive two-thirds of the nation’s calls, with more than 1,600 incidents reported annually—a number four times what it was in the early 1990s, with notable increases over the last couple years.

“I think it’s a province where everybody wants to play. There’s so much variety in BC,” says Whitney Numan, a search manager with BVSAR. “It’s something BC’s really good at. We are looked at as leaders in search and rescue and it’s all volunteer.”

If you’re out adventuring and lose your way, here’s what happens when you don’t turn up for dinner: Someone—hopefully—calls RCMP to report your absence. If you’re believed to be in a remote area, RCMP will call Emergency Management BC and its Emergency Coordination Centre contacts search and rescue.

photo: mark west

“British Columbia’s dramatic landscapes offer infinite peaks and gullies to explore and as many places to get lost. You don’t need to be armpit-deep in devil’s club or traversing a lofty glacier. ”

underwater cameras. It means they are frequently called to assist with searches as far away as Prince George or the Yukon border.

For Terrace and BVSAR, about 30 percent of calls are mutual aid, meaning that various search-and-rescue groups support each other by sharing resources, volunteers, and skills.

Last fall’s search for Frances Brown was the biggest ever for BVSAR, with 22 search-and-rescue groups involved from around the province. For seven days, a 36-foot motorhome near the search area became the incident command centre and home base for Numan, who managed the search.

“The conditions were probably the most difficult I’ve ever seen,” he says. Despite more than 100 community and search-and-rescue volunteers each day, weather, terrain, thick brush, and blowdown conspired to bring progress to one-third its normal speed.

It was eight degrees Celsius the day Brown went missing, with overnight lows dropping close to freezing and precipitation falling as everything from rain to sleet to snow. Clad in a raincoat and jeans, she survived the first night by building a fire, which was found smoldering the next morning.

But Brown had moved on.

“She did all the right things,” Numan says. “She was quite smart. The only thing she did wrong was to leave the fire.”

The second day, searchers reported hearing Brown’s calls, likely from a rise in the terrain between where she’d spent the night and where helicopters were landing a few kilometres away.

“My guess is she followed the sound of the helicopters and left the one thing that would have saved her—the fire,” Numan says.

When searchers were unable to reach her that day, he speculates that

she had trouble starting another fire and hunkered down, possibly covering herself with brush and moss to stay warm, which would have made it next to impossible for searchers to see her.

By Air Civil Air Search and Rescue Association’s PEP Air was originally mandated to train spotters for the military to search for lost aircraft. Since today’s aircraft usually have emergency locator transmitters on board, it’s less likely for them to go missing.

“Now we are more often called out by RCMP to assist ground search and rescue,” says Lynn Vancadsand, a zone commander with PEP Air responsible for BC’s Northwest.

It was aerial searchers who spotted smoke from Brown’s fire, alerting on-the-ground searchers to her whereabouts.

“Last year, within a two-week period, I had seven callouts,” Vancadsand says, ref lecting on last fall’s busy season.

When the call comes from the Emergency Coordination Centre, Vancadsand is put in touch with the search manager and determines what resources are needed. Then she goes in search of a plane, which is also volunteered and needs to hold at least four people and enough fuel for several hours of searching. A team, including pilot, navigator, and two spotters, is compiled from a roster of local volunteers.

“Because this is a volunteer organization, not everyone’s available all the time,” she says. “In saying that, the people that are on my teams will drop just about everything to go out and search.”

What they’re looking for is signs of life: bright-coloured clothing, July/August 2018

29

30 July/August 2018

The Emotional Toll After seven days in the bush last fall, BVSAR volunteers spent an additional three days searching for Frances Brown this spring.

Then comes the hardest part.

The decision to stop searching is a joint one between search and rescue, police and the family. Once the high-priority areas have been covered, it’s determined that the person is either not there or they are so well hidden that finding them is unlikely.

Although the search officially ends, an RCMP missing person’s file remains open and the area will continue to be used for search-and-rescue training exercises.

It’s rare, says Numan. And it’s never easy.

Search-and-rescue volunteers have an eight-percent chance of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation. Numan is program coordinator for the province’s Critical Incident Stress Management Program, something he describes as “psychological first aid.”

“Search and rescue volunteers are unique in that they’re passionate,

p h o t o s : w h i t n e y n u m a n , f re d o l i e m a n s , a m a n d a f o l l e t t h o s g o o d

The majority of those lost in BC are found safe. Those who don’t survive or remain missing represent only a small fraction of total searches. But that number has increased proportionately to the total number of searches over the past few decades.

So, relying on search and rescue to get you out of a difficult situation may not be in your best interest. It also poses a risk, both mental and physical, for the people looking for you.

photo: mark west

f lashing mirrors, fires, direction markers. But the person needs to want to be found, Vancadsand says: Finding someone lying unresponsive is next to impossible.

There’s a strong culture of collaboration between search-and-rescue groups, one that is taking physical shape in Smithers, where an underconstruction building at the local airport will bring BVSAR, PEP Air, and the Bulkley Valley Amateur Radio Society together under one roof. The increased efficiency could cut response times in half, or better.

“Eventually, that’s going to save somebody’s life,” says Oliemans, who knows from experience that minutes can be the difference between a happy and a tragic outcome.

A $5 million provincial grant to the BC Search and Rescue Association for distribution among search-and-rescue groups sparked not just the Smithers building, but new bases in Terrace, Vanderhoof, and Houston.

Terrace’s new base, at almost 9,000 square feet, will store equipment, a 2,000-square-foot training room, and meeting rooms. “We’re not building it to store our vehicles. We’re building it to store our future,” Jephson says.

But as search-and-rescue operations expand to meet increased incident rates, the question remains: Are we safer?

The simple explanation for the increase in calls is that more of us carry devices. If you’re within cell range, rescuers are sometimes able to guide you to safety over the phone. Personal locator beacons, like Spot or inReach, allow contact with rescuers from almost any location.

But it’s likely that if people are carrying devices, they also feel emboldened to take greater risks and venture into terrain they may previously have avoided.

p h o t o s : w h i t n e y n u m a n , f re d o l i e m a n s , a m a n d a f o l l e t t h o s g o o d

photo: mark west

Clockwise from top left: Members of BVSAR conduct a training exercise; Last fall was the first time the province closed an area to hunting in support of a search; For seven days, a 36-foot motorhome was command centre; Fred Oliemans (left) and Whitney Numan, both with Bulkley Valley Search and Rescue, stand in front of the organization’s new base, currently under construction at Smithers Regional Airport.

they’re committed and they put in countless hours at no cost,” he says about the importance of providing emotional support. “It’s the right thing to do for people, to give them the help they need, and it also keeps them in search and rescue.”

Hearing the stories of tragedy, it’s easy to wonder why rescuers continue to invest hundreds of volunteer hours each year, sometimes over decades.

In a Smithers café, I’ve just posed this question to Oliemans. Now we’re sitting, in increasingly awkward silence, as I try to clear the lump from my throat.

The incident took place nearly 15 years ago, but it’s still top of his mind: an 11-year-old girl, stuck in a snowy gully on Hudson Bay Mountain. It was almost midnight by the time Oliemans and another volunteer got to her.

“She wouldn’t have made it through the night,” he says. “There’s the odd one like that that keeps you going.”

The day I hit send on this article, I wake up to an email from Vancadsand with more information about the missing American family.

“Today was a really good example of PEP Air, BVSAR and other searchand-rescue groups working together,” she says. “PEP Air f lew and searched the area and found the missing people, then guided the ground search-andrescue teams to them so they could do the rescue.

“It was awesome. Yes, the people are rescued.”

Both Terrace Search and Rescue and BVSAR are fundraising to complete their respective projects. Contributions can be made through BVSAR’s GoFundMe page (search BVSAR) or by emailing NewTerraceSARHall@gmail.com​.

STAY SAFE Emergency Management BC offers the following safety tips for anyone venturing out into the beautiful trails, mountains and backcountry areas of British Columbia: • Never hike alone. Leave a message with someone on your destination, route and anticipated return time.

• Be prepared for the elements with proper hiking and contingency gear like extra layers of clothing, a shelter, and something to start a fire with for warmth overnight.

• Bring water—hydration is not only critical during your hike but can sustain you if you get lost.

• Be aware of how far you’ve gone and when you need to turn back to avoid hiking in the dark—always carry a flashlight just in case.

• If you become lost, don’t keep moving. Stay put and wait for help. Don’t presume downhill will get you back on track; downhill can lead you into dangerous terrain.

• Carry a signaling device like a whistle so searchers can find you even if they can’t see you.

• Carry communication and navigation devices, like a cell phone with a full charge, a personal locator beacon, compass or GPS unit.

There are plenty of great resources to be had online, to keep you safe while out adventuring. The non-profit AdventureSmart has some solid info (and they support SAR groups across the country). Check them out at adventuresmart.ca.

July/August 2018

31

drop your bags and go get some fresh air...

Kioti.com

Kick your lawn’s grass.

1515 Main St. Smithers 250.847.2208

Centrally located on Smithers’ Main Street, the Fireweed Motor Inn is the place to stay! We‘re walking distance to the town’s best restaurants. Or book a kitchenette and fill the fridge with groceries from one of Smithers’ grocery stores, literally across the street.

Beat

With the KIOTI® CK2510, you can get a big,tough 60”drive-over mower deck. Easy to put on so you can tame that lawn of yours. Easy to take off so you can do other work. We have a whole range of tractors to choose from. Let’s find the perfect one for you. Learn more at Kioti.com.

the heat.

© 2018 KIOTI Tractor Company a Division of Daedong-USA, Inc.

Free wireless internet & pet-friendly rooms available.

NEW Coin Laundry on-site for customers.

stay@fireweedmotel.com • www.fireweedmotel.com

JULY Grizzly Bear Tours Your Tour Professionals

AUGUST & SEPTEMBER Whale Watching Tours

1-800-201-8377 250 - 624 - 8199

120–215 Cow Bay Rd Prince Rupert

www.adventuretours.net 32 July/August 2018

TRAIL MAP

Sinclair Plateau words & map by Morgan Hite

Lost? You want to get lost? I’ll tell you how to get lost. I have the place for you.

The Sinclair Plateau is a trail-less area above treeline somewhere up the Telkwa River.

It’s a famously confusing place…to find your way out of.

Starting from Telkwa, zero your odometer on the bridge over the Bulkley River and continue out of town on Coalmine Road. Just before 6 km bear right (where Aveling Coalmine Road goes left). This is kilometre 0 on the Telkwa River Forest Service Road, also known as Road 1000. Just before 9.5 km bear left (a sign proclaims this the beginning of Road 1000). From here the potholes are bigger and the surface of the road is noticeably looser.

On your way to 1028 km (24 km ahead) you cross the Telkwa River, pass the Telkwa Ponds Rec Site, and a series of statements regarding caribou management and snowmobiles (“sleds”) that have been painted on sheets of plywood bolted to roadside trees. I encourage you to draw your own conclusions.

It takes just over an hour from Telkwa to get to the parking spot—I hesitate to call it a trailhead. After the 1028 km marker, take the right turn that heads uphill off the FSR (there is an avalanche warning sign here). This narrow road leads to yet a narrower road when you are 1.8 km in: turn right here. It’s hard to believe this is the correct place until you come to signage specifying summer non-motorized and winter motorized use.

Parking is just ahead, before the deactivation ditch and creek; it’s almost too narrow here between the walls of alder to turn around, so I recommend parking some 100 m back, where there is more space to reverse.

On the other side of the ditch the road continues, a very pleasant walk, and indeed, eminently bike-able if you want to try that. The road is in excellent shape up to the point where, in an old cut block, there is a small brown arrow sign, and the trail begins in earnest. It’s just over 2 km to this point.

The trail is wide at first, allowing you to continue to walk side by side with your hiking companion. The track continues to the upper edge of the cut block where signs confirm this is the Sinclair Plateau Trail.

The trail winds through the forest, climbing 200 m almost straight uphill—the kind of track that works best when you are on a machine. It then begins to angle right as it ascends. You come to a series of wet meadows; in the early season dry feet are almost an impossibility here. Near 1500 m elevation, and about two hours from your vehicle, you come out of the forest onto heather-covered slopes and the track soon disappears. (Just before this point there is supposed to be a snowmobile club cabin near the trail. Embarrassingly, I was unable to find it!)

After topping out of the drainage you’ve climbed, you’re on the plateau. And this is how you get lost: Don’t turn around and make a good mental note of what the route behind you looks like. There are many drainages descending the east side of the plateau and all of them look alike, at least at first glance. Make no notes, leave no marker, place no GPS point. Just assume you’ll be able to find your way back here with no trouble. As the mists close in.

For more maps, go to bvtrailmaps.ca or email morgan@hesperus-wild.org.

July/August 2018

33

34 July/August 2018

p h o t o s : m o r ro w / s c h m i d t / t w o m e y

BackWords

books searching for tao canyon

p h o t o s : m o r ro w / s c h m i d t / t w o m e y

Pat Morrow, Jeremy Schmidt and Art Twomey, Rocky Mountain Books 2018

“This is one of the longest gestations for any book, ever,” says Canadian mountaineering full of multi-minute exposures and technical wonders like legend Pat Morrow of his newest book Searching for Tao Canyon, co-authored by Jeremy “reciprocity failure” that allow otherworldly effects to reveal Schmidt and the late Art Twomey. themselves in the silver halides floating in the film gelatin, “When Art and Jeremy and I started on this project over 40 years ago we fully intended effects not possible in today’s digital age. for the book to come out in the mid 70s, early 80s.”

“None of the photographs are credited,” explains Morrow, The trio worked on it for a decade, spending months each spring searching for the “mainly because we can’t really even recall whose photo is perfect canyon, the quintessential expression of form and beauty they witnessed in the whose, after working so closely together for all those years.” slot canyons of the American Southwest. Two failed publishing deals later the book faded, “We also never revealed the location or real name of any lost, as the careers of all three authors took off in other directions. of the canyons in any of the many photos we all sold over Finally brought to paper by Rocky Mountain Books, Searching for Tao Canyon comes the years to various publications. This is where the name to life ironically as the Trump administration slashes protection over Grand Staircase Searching for Tao Canyon came from. Really all we ever Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments, where many of the magical landscapes wanted to do was to share the exquisite beauty and attempt brought to life in the book exist. to sensitize people to the fragility of the canyons.”

Shot all on Kodachrome with only ambient light, Tao is a photographic orgasm — Dave Quinn July/August 2018

35

BACKWORDS

music festivals guide

music father john misty

Northern BC, various locations

God’s Favorite Customer, Sub Pop, 2018

Northern BC’s festival circuit reflects our diverse population. Where else, but at a music fest in the North are you going to have the opportunity to hear folk, punk, EDM, country, bluegrass, rock, reggae, hip hop, and more all in one setting? Maybe by pressing shuffle on an impressively diverse iPod, but nothing beats checking out those tunes live. And at our festivals up here, the settings are intimate. Musicians mingle with the crowd; there’s no “green room” separation between artist and audience. Local and regional artists share the stage with award-winning acts. A few of the “bigger names” coming to the North this year include Faith Healer, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Sloan, Wax Mannequin, and The Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer.

Midsummer June 30 – July 1 Smithers

Atlin July 7 – 9 Atlin

Intertidal July 21 Port Edward

smithersmusicfest.com

atlinfestival.ca

northpacifccannery.ca

Grizfest July 30 – 31 Tumbler Ridge

Arts-Wells August 3 – 6 Wells

kvmf.ca

grizfest.com

artswells.com

Edge of the World August 10 – 12 Tlell, Haida Gwaii

MoM August 10 – 12 Fort St. James

Hootenanny August 17 – 19 Hazelton

edgefestival.ca

momfest.weebly.com

hazeltonhops.com

— Pete Moore

photo: top left: mike ambach

Kispiox Valley July 27 – 29 Kispiox Valley

Father John Misty’s previous three releases were packaged with cartoonish, odd illustrations, imagery carefully tailored to the sound of his music and the messages of his lyrics. On God’s Favorite Customer we see no cartoonish drawings, just the portrait of a troubled man, stripped away even of the beard/sunglasses combo he’s known for.

This is Josh Tillman’s look inward; the album examines his mental state with elaborate detail, while maintaining the sharp cynicism and sarcasm that has become the Father John Misty creative staple. Tillman’s notable ego has taken a blow since we last saw him, a natural downturn after his 2017 opus Pure Comedy.

Much of the album was created during a two-month period Tillman spent at a hotel in New York, a process he seems to poke fun at on the album’s lead single, “Mr. Tillman.” But on “The Palace,” Tillman has grown attached to the safety of this hotel and fears going back into the real world he depicted with such thorough pessimism on Pure Comedy.

The sound of the album recalls the chaotic beauty of the Beatles’ White Album, a sound suited to Tillman’s internal turmoil. Much of this is built out of Tillman’s own doubt in himself as a husband, elaborated on tracks like “Just Dumb Enough to Try” and “The Songwriter.”

On God’s Favorite Customer, we’ve left the tongue-in-cheek bliss and unbending cynicism. Tillman takes a look at his own shortcomings, insecurities, and fears. But given the man’s history, these moments of introspection are questionable: do we believe him or is this somehow just another cruel joke he’s playing on us?

36 July/August 2018

Got solar?

Since 1984 Energy Alternatives has been installing renewable energy power systems in some of the most remote and epic terrain in Canada. We’ve powered luxurious lodges, industrial systems, work camps, remote cabins and residential projects that are beyond reach of the power grid. We are located in Telkwa, in our off-grid facility that is solar powered and wood heated.

We specialize in building packaged power systems for self-install and installation of turn-key systems. If you are the DIY type looking for solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, inverters, solar water pumps or any of the important parts that make these systems work, give us a call, we probably have it in stock. If your existing system is in need of service or upgrades, we would be pleased to assist.

EnergyAlternatives.ca 250-846-9888 / 800-265-8898

IntegrIty

Professionalism

Q ua l i t y

fo r

Working

Community SuCCeSS.

photo: top left: mike ambach

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

July/August 2018

37

MARKETPLACE

Twin Valley Inn Liquor Store Cold beer, cider, wine & spirits

Featuring the largest selection of BC craft beers in the Northwest. We buy direct from many craft breweries, cideries, wineries, and distilleries from all around the province.

3939 Highway 16, Smithers 250.847.3281

Chef Abhi’s

HornCraft Music

Classic Indian cuisine

Professional repairs, rentals, and sales of violins, brass, and woodwind instruments

Come join us!

Experience the beautiful tastes and aromas of southern India at Chef Abhi’s, at the Lodge at Skeena Landing, open for lunch and dinner Tuesday to Sunday.

Interested in renting an instrument for the upcoming music season? Contact us or visit our website for details. Call early to reserve your instrument for the fall!

Located at The Lodge @ Skeena Landing, Thornhill (Terrace) 4055 Motz Road | 778.634.2999 skeenalanding.com

3877 13th Avenue, Smithers 250.847.0318 . michael@horncraft.ca horncraft.ca

TruHealthSpan

Sheryl Yaremco, RN, Board-certified Restorative Health Practitioner TruHealthSpan is committed to changing lives by finding the root cause of your health concern. Personalized and patient-centred health care includes a full functional workup, lab tests, bio identical hormone therapy, patient education, and follow up.

250.845.8360 | yaremco@gmail.com truhealthspan.com

Little House Antiques / Antiques, Artisans & Oddities Two downtown TERRACE locations:

George Little House — VIA Rail Station

A beautiful lodge and on-site restaurant set in the woods in Thornhill minutes from Terrace. Closest accommodation to YXT, the Terrace/Kitimat Regional Airport.

Antiques, Artisans & Oddities

The lodge is the perfect quiet getaway for any traveller. A few steps and you’re at the doors of great shops, services and a cafe.

Visit our website for online reservations.

First Nation Fine Art, Jewelry & Maps 3100 Kalum St. | 250.638.8887

Antiques, Fine Art, Jewelry, Pottery, Vintage Toys, Country Chic Paints, & Stencils.

4626 Park Ave. | 250.631.9116 Find us on loveterrace.com & Facebook

38 July/August 2018

The Lodge

The largest rooms in Terrace!

Skeena Landing, Thornhill (Terrace) 250.638.0444 skeenalanding.com

MARKETPLACE

Smithers Co-Working Space

Shared office space in Smithers

The Smithers Co-Working Space is a quiet, bright, and modern place for you to work.

Desk and office space for rent, by the day or by the month. Flat, affordable rates. Includes wi-fi, utilities, desk, lockable filing cabinets, and the use of a meeting room.

Suite #200, 3848 3rd Avenue, Smithers 250.845.2522 . nadina1@cfnadina.ca coworkhere.ca

Baker Extraordinaire

Baked fresh every day!

Fruit pies made with fresh or frozen fruit.

When available we use local fruit and berries.

Delicious cream pies too! Call ahead for orders.

Tues. to Sat. 10am-6pm 4630 Park Ave., Terrace (across from Dairy Queen) 250.615.0419 . 1.877.775.3535 www.bakerextraordinaire.com Find us on loveterrace.com & Facebook.

Hazelton Hootenanny

Join us at our 2nd annual festival Come for a day or the weekend. Locals and travellers welcome.

Featuring 18 music acts, craft beer garden, camping, wild mix of workshops. random jamming and of course farm tours! Food trucks on-site, family friendly. Tickets available at Sherwood Mt. Brewery, Bulkley Valley Brewery and Zelda’s Travel Mug Cafe.

August 17-19, Bulkley Canyon Ranch Limited $50 earlybird passes until July 15 Online tickets and more info at hazeltonhops.com

Before

After

Wood Wizards

Vet to Pet Mobile Service Mobile veterinary services

Dr. Kathy Graham ND

Using high performance, environmentallyfriendly cleaners & wood oils, we stain all wood exteriors—log homes, post & beam, siding, decks & railings. Rotten log replacement & structural repairs. 20+ years of experience. Servicing all of northern BC.

NEW LOCATION: 8 to 5 and Saturdays 11-5 at 1283 Main Street in Smithers (in the corner, by Louise’s Kitchen). If you need a fast answer, please call or text. Caring for your pets for 36 years.

Naturopathic medicine blends centuries-old natural and non-toxic therapies with current scientific advances in healthcare. Treatment plans are individualized and take into account the whole person. Detailed informaton can be found on my website.

Making weathered wood look good

Roger Jaques 250.846.5944 woodwizards.ca | rogeryogini@gmail.com

778.210.1883 vettopetinfo@gmail.com vettopetmobile.ca

Naturopathic Family Medicine

3839 Second Ave., Smithers 250.847.0144 | SmithersNaturopath.com

July/August 2018

39

photo: John Wellburn

smithers british columbia

Get good natured. www.TourismSmithers.com