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Co ver Photo
‘16
contents
story page 6
October / No vember
issue no. 65
Boots or hearts? Resting awhile in Mount Edziza Provincial Park. Photo by Matt Simmons.
Fea tures 6 8 12 14
18
Unseen Labyrinth
Northern BC’s amazing limestone karst topography By Norma Kerby
Cheeky Chickadee
20
Life in Dead Places
23
Survival tales of a tough little bird By Emily Bulmer
Winner of the NorthWords Creative Writers’ Fiction Contest By Jo Boxwell
13 22
62 days in winter By Marilyn Belak
Hazelton’s Unsung Navigator Tracing the tale of a northern navigator By Rob Sturney
Story Lookout
From illegal-burning lookout to dandy day-hiking destination By Morgan Hite
Renovate, Innovate
A crash course on surviving renovations By Matt J. Simmons
Depa rtm en ts 5
Firewatchers
25
Other Words
Editorial and cartoon
Top Culture
26
Explore the rural route to northern culture with UNBC’s Rob Budde
On the Fly
Fishing in northern BC with Brian Smith
Resource Directory
Services and products listed by category
The Barometer
A seasonal reading of the Northwest by Char Toews
Story Comm en ts?
Tell us what you’re thinking. Comment on any story at www.northword.ca
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Matt J. Simmons
PUBLISHER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
contributors
matt@northword.ca 250.847.4600
Amanda Follett Hosgood EDITOR
amanda@northword.ca
Sandra Smith
NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE
sandra@northword.ca
Morgan Hite has lived in Smithers for 20 years, makes maps, goes hiking, gets lost, writes articles, reads things and dreams about travel.
Jo Boxwell is a writer, video editor,
Hans Saefkow is an awardwinning editorial cartoonist, illustrator and set designer. If you see this man, do not approach him, feed him, or listen to his idle chatter. It is simply best not to encourage him.
Emily Bulmer is a longtime Smithereen who enjoys subjecting herself to unscientific experiments in living. She occasionally records her findings and reports positive results most of the time.
Facundo Gastiazoro is a freelance designer who focuses on logos, posters, layout and illustrations. Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Facundo is currently living in Smithers.
Matt J. Simmons always equips
Brian Smith is a writer and photographer who has fly-fished BC’s waters for over 45 years. He recently published his second book, Seasons of a Fly Fisher, and lives with his wife Lois in Prince George.
Marilyn Belak is a grandmother and poet living in Dawson Creek, Peace River District, BC. She has retired as both a city councillor and community RN.
Norma Kerby is a Terrace-based writer and environmental consultant. Her passions include amphibians, natural ecosystems, sustainable living and adaptations of wildlife and people to northern British Columbia. She occasionally writes poetry about the North’s uncertain future.
Rob Budde teaches creative writing and critical theory at the University of Northern British Columbia. He has published seven books (poetry, novels, interviews, and prose poems). His most recent book is Finding Ft. George from Caitlin Press.
NORTHWORD MAGAZINE
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history graduate and newcomer to northern British Columbia who enjoys exploring local stories.
himself with safety sunglasses and a bandit-style dust mask before attempting any home renovation projects. When not gleefully taking on demolition, he writes.
Charlynn Toews has published
in daily and weekly newspapers, national magazines, and loves a good regional. She writes a regular column for Northword from her home in Terrace.
Rob Sturney is a cycling enthusiast who lives in Hazelton and figures that, if cursed by another world war, he would end up in a laundry unit or checking Canadian Armed Forces press releases for unnecessary apostrophes.
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Legalities and limitations Copyright © 2016. All rights reserved. No part of Northword Magazine, in print or electronic form, may be reproduced or incorporated into any information retrieval systems without written permission of the publisher. Information about events, products or services provided is not necessarily complete. The publisher is not responsible in whole or in part for any errors or omissions. The views expressed herein are those of the writers and advertisers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, staff or management. Northword assumes no liability for improper or negligent business practices by advertisers, nor for any claims or representations contained anywhere in this magazine. Northword reserves the right to cancel or refuse advertising at the publisher’s discretion. In no event shall unsolicited material subject this publication to any claim or fees. Northword welcomes submissions but accepts no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Copyright in letter and other materials sent to the publisher and accepted for publication remains with the author, but the publisher and its licensees may freely reproduce them in print, electronic and other forms. Please refer to www.northword.ca for contribution guidelines.
editorial
Other Words
Go with the flow by Matt J. S i m mo ns edit o rial@no rt hwo rd. c a
“Ummmm. I think we might be in trouble. I have no Wi-fi and can’t download the paddle app.”
bell for her passion, commitment, dedication and plain old hard work. I’m confident I can speak for all those connected to Northword when I say we’re all grateful for what you’ve done with this magazine. Hats off to you, and best of luck with your next adventure. In her last editorial, Joanne quoted the inimitable Hunter S. Thompson talking about life and choices and change. I have another quote from the Doc, one that inspires me as a writer and, expanding the idea, as a human being: “Every once in a while, but not often, you can sit down and write a thing that you know is going to stand people’s hair on end for the rest of their lives—a perfect memory of some kind, like a vision, and you can see the words rolling out of your fingers and bouncing around for a while like wild little jewels before they finally roll into place and line up just exactly like you wanted them to. Wow! Who wrote that stuff? What? Me? Hot damn! Let us rumble, keep going, and don’t slow down—whatever it is, keep doing it. Let’s have a little Fun.” Yes. Because life indeed should be Fun. But back to Change. It may be necessary, inevitable and part of what it means to be alive, but
hans saefk ow
Dip your feet in a river. Sit, observe, be patient. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus drew a comparison between life and a river, saying of both, “Change is the only constant.” A couple hundred years later, Plato expanded on the idea with the image of not being able to step in the same river twice—and yet it’s always the same river. There’s something inherently philosophical about rivers, something that instils a contemplative state. The chattering sounds of water on rocks. The endless flow. The fresh smells. Everything changing, staying the same, changing again. I’ve dipped my feet into many of BC’s rivers over the years—Bulkley, Skeena, Fraser, Tatshenshini, Stikine—as well as innumerable streams, creeks and tributaries. With this small act, I always feel connected to the landscape. Because, like a narrative thread that links stories together, a river carries connection across the landscape. Rivers connect the coast to the glaciers, the forests to the muskeg, the tundra to the valley floor. Everything is connected. Fyodor Dostoyevsky might have put it best, “For all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world.” When you sit and watch a river, you’re not just seeing what’s in front of you; you’re witnessing the continual flow of a massive, connected ecosystem. Northword, in my books, is similarly big. Reaching across the extensive region we call northern BC, this magazine connects writers, photographers, readers and communities. It shares the stories of what it’s like to live and play here, whether that’s Haida Gwaii, Dease Lake, Prince George, McBride or anywhere in between. Northword has quietly evolved over the years, but for all its changes since the first issue rolled out over 10 years ago, it’s still the same recognizable and much-loved part of our culture. When I landed in the North, the magazine was one of the first things I noticed. As a print-hungry freelance writer, I immediately pitched an idea. Northword’s publisher, Joanne Campbell, accepted the article and I happily continued to contribute over the years that followed. The sense of welcoming I felt when getting to know the magazine and its core crew was unlike most of my work as a writer. Everyone was—and is—really nice. They make time for you. They love what they do and they’re passionate about producing a publication readers throughout the region are excited to pick up. But as good old Heraclitus pointed out, change is an inextricable part of life. And Northword, if you haven’t guessed by this point, is shifting into a new season of change. A few months ago, Joanne told me, “It’s time for something new.” She was referring to herself handing over the reigns of this publication but the statement fit for both of us. Before we proceed any further, a moment of your time: I’d like to say thanks to Ms. Camp-
not all change is positive. I’m thinking of how our population is becoming increasingly insular, assimilated into today’s technology. Devices have altered our cultural landscape and they intrude on our physical landscapes as well. I don’t want to judge and I know it’s not all bad. It’s just different. I will disclose something, however: I’m a bit of a romantic. I like books, not e-books; I read newspapers, real ones made from paper; and I listen to records, actual vinyl LPs. Don’t panic, in other words; Northword isn’t about to become an app. Because one of Northword’s greatest strengths is its ability to slow things down for a few minutes. Find a quiet spot, put the phone down, read. The smell of the newsprint, the rustle of the pages, and the content itself all add up to time well spent. As the magazine’s proud new publisher, I look forward to ushering in a new era for northern BC’s only independent magazine that connects our communities across the entire region. There will be change, but you can be sure that the essence of this magazine will remain the same: great writing, exceptional photography and stories that reflect what it’s like to live up here. That river just keeps on flowing. Got your swimsuit? N
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er ov gl ul pa
T h i s l ime st one c liff sho ws surf ace ero sio n i n n o r t he r n BC. Ka r st to po g raphy is f o rm ed t h ro u gh t he e rosion o f lim esto ne bedro ck .
Northern BC’s amazing limestone karst topography
no rma ke rby
UNSEEN LABYRINTH by Nor ma Kerby n ker by@t elus.net
The dog slips farther into the hole and it becomes suddenly apparent that we’ve found exactly what we were expecting. After yanking up the dog and carefully tiptoeing across snow patches, unsure of what lies beneath, we take GPS readings and put out some discrete flagging tape. This is a sensitive area and too much human traffic could damage the finefeatured surface for which karst topography is known. It is a secret best left to a few. Karst topography is formed through the erosion of a specific type of bedrock: limestone. Made up of deposited calcium carbonate seashells and casts, limestone is unusual in that, once dissolved in water, it leaves only the impurities. In comparison, the weathering of rocks such as granites and sandstones generates mineral and sediment fragments. For limestone, weathering by water leaves behind cavities, caves and a myriad of other spaces and depressions that generate a landscape of significant ecological richness. In early September, Campbell River-based karst expert Paul Griffiths and co-researcher Carol Ramsey, accompanied by two colleagues from the Karst Research Institute in Europe, toured northwest British Columbia, examining karst features found on Haida Gwaii and the adjacent coastal mainland. In particular, they gathered information regarding forest dolines (karst sinkholes) found in the region’s wet, windward mountain areas. Considered an important resource, karst is closely managed in European countries such as Austria and Switzerland. But, according to 6 | OCT/NOV ‘16 |
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Griffiths, karst caves and other limestone erosion features are not adequately protected in BC. Although debated during adoption of the Water Sustainability Act, the role of karst topography as an underground water transportation system has not been fully recognized. Karst chemistry The reason for limestone’s solubility is its chemical composition: calcium carbonate. Upon reaction with acidity in water, limestone dissolves into calcium and carbonate ions, which are carried away in surface or subsurface water. Acidity in groundwater can be formed as simply as having carbon dioxide in the soil dissolve into the water, forming a mild acid known as carbonic acid, which then eats away at the limestone. In the coniferous-forest-covered coastal zones, surface and groundwater can become very acidic when carbonic acid is combined with coniferous leaf litter. With large amounts of annual precipitation along BC’s north coast, limestone’s rate of chemical weathering can be rapid. Over time, as acidic water moves over and through limestone bedrock, it begins to shape these landforms. For surface-water movement, features known as epikarst develop in the upper layers. Epikarst features include surface rills, crevices, small holes and even extended platform cavities, protected only by a thin surface cover of bedrock. In the area we’re searching, the entire top of the bedrock ridge is covered with micro-karst features. Considering the amount of rainfall
on the north coast, many of these small cavities form important dry niches for a myriad of spiders, beetles, centipedes and other invertebrates, plus well-protected burrows for rodents and small predators. Pocket caves and vertical surface crevices can become important bat habitat. The tiny caves we’re examining team with life that uses the piles of mammalian droppings. The value of epikarst surface features is not only for animals and water movements. Most soils in northern BC, except for floodplains and other alluvial environments, tend to be acidic and nutrient deficient. Soils on rock containing calcium carbonate, though, are not acidic and the impurities in the ocean-deposited limestone make the soils that form in these environments nutrient rich, producing special plants, fungi and lichens such as spleenwort fern, fragile fern and Menzies’ neckera moss. Often, a limestone deposit’s original forest before harvesting had enormous trees that were bigger and healthier due to the rich soils and complex hydrological subsurface environments. Epikarst is fragile and susceptible to damage from movement of people and equipment, as well as from vegetation removal. Soil cover is often thin and the fine limestone bedrock features are very close to or exposed at the ground’s surface. What has taken at least 9,000 years to develop can be destroyed in minutes, along with the unique ecology associated with it. Any type of activity that crushes the delicate limestone erosion, such as road construction, trails and even livestock movement, can have devastating impacts. This
Kar s t res earch er C arol R am s ey exam i n es a s u r face k ar s t i n n or th w es t B C .
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complex habitat of holes and cavities, once lost, will take thousands of years to form again. Going underground But the value of karst topography does not stop at the surface. The most spectacular features are the caves and underground streams and rivers that flow well below the visible landscape. In the Northern Rockies east of Prince George, Haida Gwaii and other portions of the north coast, the Atlin area and the Mount Pope area near Fort St. James, well-documented cave systems give witness to this amazing underworld of stalactites and stalagmites. Some in the Northern Rockies are amongst the deepest in Canada. Many of the caves, which are defined as a bedrock cavity big enough to allow the entry of a person, date back to the Pleistocene, a geological epoch ending with the last ice age, and can contain plant and animal fossils from that time and later. They also can be important archaeological sites with cultural significance for many First Nations. Most limestone deposits in northern BC are late Paleozoic to mid-Mesozoic in age (over 200 million years old) and caves can provide access to important fossils embedded in the limestone. Where these underground caves interact with the surface, dolines, sometimes referred to as sinkholes, form a connection between cavities and channels and the above-ground environment. The ecology of these sinkholes or other karst surface depressions can be very unique. Dense, cold winter air from surrounding slopes
can drain into these depressions and, during the growing season, direct sunlight might never reach the sinkhole bottom. The plants and animals residing in limestone depressions often can be from biogeoclimatic zones higher in elevation or further north than the surrounding forests. In addition to caves’ spectacular geological features, their value for bat colonies, winter dens, shelter for wildlife and unique habitat for species specially adapted to caves (troglobites) or those that prefer caves but can live elsewhere (troglophiles) make limestone caves important for their ecological, recreational and aesthetic values. We show Griffiths and Ramsey some of the karst topography in our region and their consensus is that it is as valuable as any other karst areas found in Western Canada, despite MLA Scott Fraser twice failing to pass an act protecting the values of limestone caves in this province. Combined with that is the potential for limestone removal near proposed industrial development along the north coast. What the future will be for our northern limestone deposits remains to be seen. As for the little section of eroded limestone that almost swallowed our dog, we removed the flagging tape and erased all evidence of our passage, hoping that the fragile epikarst of this ridge would be there for future generations of wolf spiders hiding in the cracks. N
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the cheeky chickadee survival tales of a tough little bird
k
en
ot
te
r
M o u n t a i n c h i c ka d e e s p re f e r c o n i f e r f o re s t s a n d a re c o m m o n i n t h e d r i e r interior and at slightly higher elevations.
by Emi ly B u l m e r advent uremily@ya h oo. c a
On a winter walk through town or down a country road, you will probably be greeted by the unmistakable call of the chickadee: Fee-bee. Fee-bee. Chick-a-dee-dee-dee. These energetic little birds are winter residents in the North and, though they are common, they are anything but ordinary. Tough, resourceful and perfectly adapted to cold environments, they are highly evolved survivalists. Four chickadee species are found in northern BC: black-capped, mountain, chestnut-backed and boreal. The black-capped chickadee is by far the most common and is often seen at backyard birdfeeders. They are easily identified by their black cap and grey backs and are found in open mixed forests with plenty of deciduous trees. The mountain chickadee looks similar to a black-capped, but has a white stripe above the eye. Mountain chickadees prefer coniferous forests and are common in the drier interior and 8 | OCT/NOV ‘16 |
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at slightly higher elevations. Black-capped and mountain chickadees are in the black-headed clade, or group. The brown-headed clade includes the chestnutbacked chickadee and the boreal chickadee. Chestnut-backed chickadees are common on the coast or in wetter forests and are easily identified by their rich, rusty brown-coloured backs and sides and a lighter cap. Boreal chickadees are shyer and have a brown cap and brownish back and sides with much less white on their cheeks. As their name suggests, they are found all through the boreal forest. Survival of the thickest Each of these chickadees has a slightly different ecological niche; however, their survival strategies are very similar. Ken Otter, biology professor at the University of Northern British Columbia, studies many aspects of chickadee behaviour:
“Chickadees are winter survivors,” Otter says. “One physiological adaptation they have made to survive cold temperatures is nocturnal hypothermia. At night chickadees will drop their body temperature from 40 C to 30 or 32 C, which helps them conserve energy. “It is a pretty amazing feat. They fluff up their feathers, which are very dense and thick. This traps a layer of warm air next to their body, like wearing a fluffy down jacket. Their feet get cold because they are putting them on cold branches, so they pull their feet up and tuck them against their skin, kind of like sticking your hands in your armpits to warm them up.” In this state, their respiration and heart rate drop, and they enter a state of unconsciousness called torpor. Another strategy is to build up an additional layer of fat during the day and burn it overnight. “A chickadee will gain 10 percent of its own
n o tt
C h e s t n u t - b a c ke d c h i c ka d e e s a re co m m o n o n t h e c o a s t o r i n w e t t e r f o re s t s a n d a re e a s i l y i d e n t i f i e d b y t h e i r r i c h , r u s t y b ro w n c o l o u re d b a c ks a n d s i d e s a n d a lighter cap.
ke
weight every day,” Otter says, are better in relaincredibly fast meaning the 11-gram birds tion to how cold gain and burn about one gram the winters are. metabolism. They daily. “They have an incredibly This difference fast metabolism. They never stop can even be seen never stop moving moving when you put them in between lower a cage and are bouncing all over and higher elevawhen you put them the place. They are very hyperaction—birds living tive.” in areas with in a cage and are This hyperactivity can be easily shorter summers observed during the day, as and longer winters bouncing all over the chickadees are almost constantly have more develin motion. Another way they keep oped spatial memoplace. warm is shivering thermogenesis, ries than birds in which is a shivering behaviour milder climates,” that produces heat. The shivOtter says. Ken Otter ering motion isn’t visible, but it In addition to helps keep their bodies at a stable thermoreg ulation temperature when sitting still and feeding strategies, on a branch; even sitting still they are moving. chickadees have defence systems that This behaviour demands more energy, which is help them survive. supplied by a high-calorie diet. “Black-caps will group together and use To keep up with these energy demands, chickaeach other for food finding and food defence. dees have to eat constantly, taking advantage of If they find food, they will call and bring more food when it is abundant by stashing it away for of their flock to them.” While sharing seems like a leaner times. Otter explains, “Chickadees are counterintuitive survival strategy, Otter explains scatter hoarders, which means they put food in how it benefits the individual: “Sharing with your different locations. They have a section of their flock mates will benefit you because then you can brain called the hippocampus, which is associated defend the food source as a group.” with spatial memory. That part of their brain actuIf another bird comes to the food source, the ally grows during the winter, the time when there chickadees will harass the interloper by diveis more cellular activity and generation.” bombing it constantly. Chickadees use similar A chickadee may store as many as 100,000 food tactics to defend themselves against predators. items per year, scattered throughout its territory. “The success of an owl or hawk making a kill is “A research team in Reno has done a lot of work significantly less when they are being harassed, on this. If you compare within a species (blackso they eventually leave,” Otter says. This divecapped chickadees) between different populabombing and harassment tactic is called mobbing. tions (Alaska and Nevada), their caching abilities Chickadees also use their distinctive call to attract
er
They have an
other birds to join in defence during threatening situations. “When the chickadees find the predators, they will give a fairly accurate representation of how distressed or motivated they are by the number of dee notes in the chick-a-dee-dee call. The more the predator is a threat, like a small owl or hawk, the more dee notes they give when they are mobbing it. If it is a great grey owl—a predator that is less ... continued on Page 10
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a ng e l i q ue g ra va
... continued from Page 9
A ba nd e d b la c k-c apped chick adee uses a bi rd f e e d e r in w int er. B ack yard birdf eeders p ro v i d e e xt ra c a lor ies f o r the hung ry birds.
... continued from Page 9
likely to prey on chickadees—fewer ‘dee’ notes are called.” Humans can help chickadees make it through the coldest part of winter by providing food, shelter and even water. Backyard birdfeeders provide extra calories for the hungry birds. The all-black oil sunflower seed is higher in fat than the striped variety and easier to crack. High-fat foods like suet are also beneficial. Feeders should
be placed in a sheltered spot, out of the wind and near cover such as trees or bushes. Providing water in a heated container reduces the energyconsuming need for chickadees to melt snow for water. Chickadees roost individually in small spaces for cold winter nights, so providing small, cozy roost boxes can help increase survival. A roost box is different from a nesting box in that it is insulated and the entrance hole is at the bottom
so less heat escapes. As winter sets in and feathered visitors start dashing back and forth from your feeder, take a minute to watch where the chickadees are hiding food. Watch them mob an unwelcome visitor and listen for their alarm calls. Rather than thinking of chickadees as small, plain and plentiful, imagine them as the truly marvellous survivors that they are, and pay them the respect they are due. N
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by Jo B ox wel l
fa c undo g a s tia zo ro
Life in Dead Places
j b o xwelledit @gma i l . c om
They go after the lame ones, don’t they? Predators. The ones that are old or sick and don’t have the energy to run away.
Morels like dead places. Brains on the outside. Greyish honeycombs on stems. That’s what we have in common. We aren’t pretty and we thrive in dead places. I hunt them, the morels, following the ruins of forest fires and decaying trees. I slice through their thick cores and throw them in my backpack. My bones ache from age and lack of sleep and being out of place. Out of shape. I was never much of an outdoorsman. Not like my dad. I never took to carrying a rifle. Stalking animals. Tracking them as they stumbled, dying, because the shot wasn’t clean. He taught me a few things though, about being out here. Convinced me that fresh air was good for me. Mosquitoes swarm. Only the females bite, sucking in blood to make babies. Itchy swellings burst through the hair on my arms. A red-cheeked woodpecker pulls bugs out of bark. That’s what we’re all occupied with; eating. Other birds call to each other in the trees. What are they saying? They are warning each other; here comes one who eats. Morels can’t be commercially produced like other mushrooms. Their desires cannot be easily predicted. They are discreet. Particular. A delicacy, cooked in butter and served to rich people and those who aspire to be; those who will seize any opportunity to consume each other. It was a small fire, quickly extinguished. Not large enough to attract the commercial pickers. I blacken my fingers with the ash and collect only a few. The charred earth ends abruptly and I forge a path between decaying trees felled by the pine beetle. Dead places aren’t really. They are crammed with lives that others have no desire to see. Breaths are quieter, smaller there. Nobody hears the maggots’ mouths crunching and slapping. Nobody watches the rot grow. The smell of rot is curious, isn’t it? It’s the smell of all the dirt inside of us slowly being released. It sickens them. Those who fear us. They do what they can to stamp us out, we who live in dead places. “Bit dingy in here, isn’t it?” She was mild with middle-aged roundness. No expression on her face. She’d tucked it in, with her large blouse. She whipped open the mothballed curtains. Dust struggled and the walls shuddered with the brightness, or the passing freight train. “It’s cooler with the curtains closed,” I explained, though it wasn’t hot 12 | OCT/NOV ‘16 |
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outside. I leant against the doorframe, trying to give her space, attempting to look relaxed as she passed judgement. Her nose twitched with the smells I had become accustomed to. “Do you let your guests smoke in here?” she asked. “No.” “Where are the stickers?” She’d lost me. “The no smoking stickers.” It used to be simpler. Her type used to smoke. She took a moment to scribble on her clipboard. I looked out of the window into the parking lot. A couple of old bangers and a beast of a truck. Hers; polished, new. Last night I camped on the hard ground and the cool air chilled me. Not as hard as lying on concrete. Not as cold as bodies on public transit, but I miss the city. I didn’t choose to leave it. It devoured me; she did. The inspector, with her heels clackety-clack and her smartphone rumbles. I’ll admit it wasn’t the Ritz. That’s why it said “motel” out front. It wasn’t pretty, but there was a need for it. Sort of like a public service. Most folks could afford our rates if they needed to get away. Maybe for a night. Sometimes for a week, or longer. There was hot water for the early birds. We did what we could with the rooms, but it would take a forensic cleaning crew to get all the stains out. Little colonies of mould spread across the walls; damp with the remnants of other people’s bad decisions. We didn’t ask questions. We even got some well-to-dos coming in occasionally. Engaged in things they shouldn’t be. Or simply not wanting to be found. Of course, we couldn’t stop the cops from poking their noses in. They like dead places. In fact, I’d say they’re attracted to them, like bears during the salmon run, just dipping their claws in and seeing who they can drag out, kicking and screaming. I had an assistant manager. Monk. That’s what I called him, for the greasy line of hair that ran around his ears. He was young to be so bald on top. And his brown hoodie. He always wore the same one. No one else liked Monk. He wasn’t meant to be liked. He could get cash out of empty wallets. That’s what he was there for. He was body odour and rancid breath, but there was something fierce about him, like a mangy wild animal. He put people on edge. I couldn’t have got by without him. Monk kept us safe. When she first showed up, the inspector, I forgot there were some people he
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couldn’t take care of. I am being watched, in the forest. A crunch of leaves gives him away. All the hairs on my body bristle. I can’t tell exactly how close he is, but he’s there, hidden in the decay, weighing me up, like she did, attempting to calculate the potential strength of my resistance. I change course, praying it will be enough to avoid a confrontation. She marched into my office as I was stubbing out a cigarette, trying to push the grey cloud outside. She handed me the paperwork. I didn’t read it. Her mouth was already open. It was a clean kill. “We’re shutting you down. Your building’s a fire hazard.” They go after the lame ones, don’t they? Predators. The ones that are old or sick and don’t have the energy to run away. Despite my best efforts to avoid him, he is closer now. I spot his great haunches rising, his long nose searching out my smell. And then he waits. To see what I will do. I want to un-see it, the blood stains on the tree stump, the messy remains of a hunter’s kill, because I understand then, too late, that I turned the
wrong way. The murder, the terror of it, slips into the pit of my stomach. He’s protecting the grave of another grizzly. They knocked it down, my motel. I couldn’t watch. I drove by it a couple of weeks later, and it was nothing more than a hollowed-out lot on a forgottenabout street. An ugly scar. He comes closer, paws the size of dinner plates. I won’t look at his eyes, or his jaw. I don’t want to guess at what he’s thinking. I take my bag off, very slowly. I offer the morels. They’re all I have. “You’ll like these,” I say quietly. “They’re worth something.” I lay the bag down in front of me and I back up slowly. His nose twitches. Was it wrong, what she did? I don’t know. Everybody has to eat. Congratulations to Jo Boxwell, who placed first with Life in Dead Places at this year’s NorthWords Creative Writers’ Fiction Contest, a non-profit partnership between Northwest Community College, Terrace Public Library and Misty River Books. N
Top Culture
Why Eating Matters
by Rob Budde rb u d de@shaw.ca
When I teach my Northern BC Literature course at UNBC, I always like to have a book or two that come from the North, but are not about the place— they don’t refer to place names or landscape or moose and pine trees. Kara-lee MacDonald’s book of poetry Eating Matters falls into this category and will challenge my students with its lack of regional flavour. Instead of locating itself in place, this book very much locates itself in a body, a lived body that faces a psychological-cultural challenge that many young women face across the globe. I would argue that this is an important part of the place we call northern BC—the bodies that live and hurt and thrive here. The book is about eating disorders, specifically bulimia and anorexia, and it explores multiple aspects of the narrator’s experience with the condition. Using a variety of poetic strategies, MacDonald tests and prods all the intensely complicated influences and effects of living with the disorders. I don’t think there is another art form that could access the profoundly personal yet symbolically loaded nuances of the experiences MacDonald portrays. The poems range from narrative to imagist to list poems to surreal. And they don’t pull any punches; these are not pretty poems—they are about internal conflicts, purging (vomiting), bingeing and the very real dangers of the condition. Eating disorders have one of the highest death rates of any mental illness: “i died of complications / related to voluntary emesis.” No kidding. So in some ways this book is a battle for survival in very real ways. In that context even the book’s humorous aspects have an edge: if I were a bird, no one would judge me for regurgitating. The poems are often bluntly descriptive—they get to the gritty physicality of the impulses: “chocolate doesn’t taste as good coming up, globs together like clay.” In the wry, painful piece “Baking for Bulimics,” the push-pull of rationalization and delusion is played out and leaves the reader emotionally
exhausted. In another, a bathroom scale is animated and given a variety of social roles and vicious personalities. MacDonald’s hope is to educate (not in a didactic way) and help other young women, giving them tools to survive the ordeal. “It is a way to gain knowledge on a subject (readers) either have no experience with or very little real information,” she writes in an email. “On the other hand, and I’ve told you this before, my perfect situation is one where someone reads it and is able to use that text to help them understand their own situation. That is, in a more personal way.” There is a definite sense of collective experience, a call out to others to share experiences and ask why “we want to carve ourselves into intricate beings.” The book’s final piece is a warped dedication to those who contributed to the mental illness: to the elementary school boys who called me a ‘squaw’ and mocked my developing breasts to my teenage friend who bragged about her flat stomach while pinching my ‘kangaroo pouch’ to the kids who complimented my cocaine physique to the liquor store customer who asked if i had put on weight to emaciated images of kate moss in vanity fair to men who think a smile is an invitation for physical contact It is a figurative and literal F-you to the aspects of our culture that lead women to mental illness. It is a standing up to the status quo of misogynydrenched culture. It is powerful work MacDonald accomplishes, work that is reminiscent of poet and feminist Adrienne Rich: “Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience. Our future depends on the sanity of each of us, and we have a profound stake, beyond the personal, in the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other.” In my mind, poetry is about new ways of knowing and MacDonald’s book contains both new knowledge and, through the use of complicated poetic devices, a new way of thinking about female identity and the experience of eating disorders in contemporary society. N
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D u s t a n d d i r t y w o r k b o o t s a re ju s t t w o o f t h e i n c o n v e n i e n c e s o f re n o v a t i n g yo u r h o m e . Be s u re t o p l a n s o m e e s c a p e t i m e m i d -re n o t o p u t yo u r f e e t u p a n d e n jo y t h e v i e w.
RENOVATE, INNOVATE a crash course on surviving renovations by Mat t J. S im mo ns th ewrit er@mat t jsim m on s. c om
One of my formative memories is driving down the Oregon coast with my dad. I was the proud new possessor of a learner driver’s licence and the feeling of cruising along the winding coastal roads, warm wind buffeting us through the open windows, a gas-station-purchased Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cassette blasting out of the crappy stereo, was blissful. Little did I know that the impetus for us taking the trip was so my dad could escape the renovations going on at home. Renovations can be a nightmare. But they don’t have to be, and when they’re behind you—nothing but a fading memory of big dirty boots tracking through the house and dust everywhere—renovations are often what make a house a home. There’s a deep satisfaction to be gained by transforming your digs into something that is uniquely you, re-imagining how your home can look and function. For my dad, the best way to handle a renovation was to vacate and pay the professionals to do their thing (and let my mom handle the craziness of the transformation). When we rolled into town a few weeks later with our sunburns and memories, we came home to a fresh new house. For most, though, that tactic isn’t an option and navigating the whole renovation process can be daunting. Any big project has its own set of unique challenges and learning to take the hiccups in stride is probably the most important part of the process. This article gathers together a grab bag of ideas to help you plan and survive your next renovation. 14 | OCT/NOV ‘16 |
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Plan and design If you’re thinking about a renovation right now, plan for next year. When you open up that wall, you don’t know what you’re going to find, and even the most carefully planned schedules tend to end up needing extensions. Plus, here in northern BC, the number of tradespeople qualified to do the work is limited; chances are, trying to find someone last minute means you’re going to come up dry—or find someone less qualified. Plan ahead, be patient, don’t rush. That doesn’t mean don’t do anything, however. Every reno starts with a design. Even if you intend to have someone else do all the work, knowing exactly what you want before you hire someone is a good idea. Skipping the planning process is like going in for a haircut and telling your hairdresser, “Do whatever you like,” except you have to live with it for the next 10 years or more. These days, design inspiration can be found on websites like Pinterest or Houzz, or by searching images on Google. If you’re a TV person, there are entire channels devoted to home renovation and design, and in the print industry there are hundreds of publications on the subject. Hit the library, troll the online world, gather your source info, make notes and drawings, get excited. Planning your space should be fun—just try not to argue too much with your partner while you’re at it. Think about things like weather, access and functionality during the process. When you rip out the kitchen, where are you going to cook? When
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you rip out the bathroom, where will you—well, you know. Once you have a solid idea of what you want, a rough idea of how you think it will happen and a scary idea of how much it will cost, talk to a professional and start pulling together a schedule and a realistic budget. Budget for beer Renovations are never straightforward and budgeting can be the trickiest part: “You almost never see a job that goes exactly as planned,” says Erminio Venditelli, a carpenter and contractor based in Prince Rupert. “It’s not like building from scratch. Be prepared that it’s probably going to take longer than discussed and, cost-wise, it always seems to go over.” Mike Sawyer, Smithers-based owner of Net Zero Structures, recommends using the best-quality materials you can afford while allowing for a couple of pricier “highlight” items. “Budget is always a concern,” he admits, “but you can use cheap and cheerful materials to do the bulk of the project and pick one or two specialty items with pizazz.”
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B i g jobs requ i re b ig t ools. Look for re n t al compan i es , or hire a lic e nc e d o p e rator.
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Whatever helps you stay calm in the face of adversity is worth including in your plans. Maybe that’s a well-timed dinner out, a yoga retreat or an overnight hike to a cabin. Actually writing a mid-renovation reward into your budget is a great way to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed. Increase efficiency Not all renos are about making the house look better. Even if your plan is simply to make your pad look gorgeous, at least consider the idea of increasing efficiency. These days, when environmental awareness is at the forefront of our collective consciousness, reducing energy consumption is an ethical choice. But economical and practical considerations come into play, of course, and lots of homeowners worry about spending too much money on those unseen upgrades. “There are lots of benefits to relatively low-cost energy efficiency renovations,” says Sawyer, whose company specializes in building high-efficiency structures. He explains that many—if not most—of his customers want a renovation that will make their home prettier and increase its resale value. But, he says, improving a home’s airtightness and insulation has value, too. “Let’s say you’ve got a shabby-looking house and you want to spruce it up, replace the siding and generally make it look nicer,” he says. “That’s the perfect time to do an energy upgrade.” If a homeowner is going to the trouble of hiring someone to remove and replace the exterior siding, he explains, the opportunity to beef up the insulation and seal off any drafts is only a minimal additional expense and will eventually pay itself off in reduced utility bills. Find the right crew Sawyer warns that finding a properly qualified contractor can be tricky.
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“In BC, unlike plumbers and electricians, you don’t have to be a carpenter to be a home renovator, and contractors can be highly variable in actual skills,” he says. “There are a lot of guys in the reno business that are doing things that aren’t legal.” Things to look for in a contractor include years of experience, examples of previous work and references, some kind of professional accreditation, such as a Red Seal journeyman ticket or registration with the Canadian Home Builder’s Association (CHBA), and insurance, including third-party liability and Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB). Also, educate yourself on the word “holdback”—the amount retained from a builder until all sub-contractors have been paid—lest you find yourself paying your bills twice. In smaller towns, it’s not too difficult to find out who does high-quality work; word gets around and just talking to friends and acquaintances will help you find the right person. Nailing down those top-notch contractors, however, might not be as easy. If your first choice is busy, ask her/him for a recommendation. With a little legwork, you can pull together a quality crew. And, as mentioned above, plan far enough ahead and you might not run into that problem at all. Once you have your contractor and crew in place, let them do their jobs: “It’s nice to have the time to work and not be interrupted,” Venditelli says. “When the customer is out of the way and I can do my thing and then go home, everything is way easier.” Instead of continually checking in throughout the day, he suggests that the homeowner discuss job details at the beginning or end of each day, leaving the bulk of the time for everyone to just get on with the work. Good communication from the start is essential. “I like when we have a good understanding,” he says. “The best customers
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Renovations are inevitably messy; vapor barrier works great to cover carpets and partition dusty sections of the house.
These homeowners saved money by using second-hand windows elsewhere in their home in order to afford this feature corner window.
Don’t forget to make a plan for disposal, lest you end up with an awkward pile.
B ef ore and af ter p h o t o s o f t h e a u t h o r ’s s t u d i o re n o v a t i o n . D o n’t f orget to ta k e b e f o re p i c t u re s — l o o k i n g a t h o w m u c h y o u i mp roved yo u r s p a c e i s t h e b e s t p a r t o f re n o v a t i n g .
are people who are pleasant to deal with and easy to talk to about what they want.” Do it yourself? In this online era, you can find out how to do pretty much anything on the spectrum of home improvement. That doesn’t mean you should take on an entire reno by watching YouTube videos, however. Becoming a ticketed carpenter, electrician or plumber takes years of apprenticeship, study and onthe-ground training for a reason: these trades aren’t easy. There are legal and insurance implications as well. Renovations require building permits and inspections and most home improvements need the official endorsement of a professional for your insurance to remain valid. Plus, there’s a lot of misleading information out there and the last thing you want is to start a big job yourself, botch it, and then have to call someone in to fix the mess. One way for you to contribute to the project and cut costs, without having to take a crash course in the various trades, is to work with your contractor on a division of labour. Ask what you can do to reduce labour expenses. Things like demolition and site prep, buying supplies and lumber and bringing them to the site or even just cleaning up after the day’s work are usually jobs up for grabs that will save you a bit of money. Finishing work is often a safe bet, too: painting, installing baseboards and putting up light fixtures are all relatively easy jobs that you can negotiate to do yourself. Buy local The farther your materials travel, the higher the overall carbon footprint of the project. Buying local isn’t always an option, of course, unless your budget is
unlimited. As Sawyer suggests, consider splurging on a couple of locally sourced accents to the reno, maybe a big cedar timber or some local birch flooring. Check in at your local lumberyard. Ask them where they get their wood and try to find out what they keep in stock from local sources. Talk to your contractor as well and ask around. There are numerous small-scale mills scattered across northern BC, great places to track down some local wood and support local economy while you’re at it. When it comes to things like light fittings and handles, the process gets even harder to buy local—but it is possible. “I got these made in Williams Lake,” my neighbour says showing off the custom iron drawer handles in his new kitchen. “A hundred bucks for all of them.” That may be more expensive than grabbing some pre-fabricated, made-inChina handles from a box store, but it’s a perfect example of how to highlight a reno. Survive Knowing that the renovation is not going to stick to the schedule, it’s going to cost more than planned and there will be unexpected hiccups along the way, should you just not bother? Well, home should be comfortable, functional, cosy and, above all, yours. There’s no question renovations are inconvenient, challenging and stressful, but when they’re done, you get to spend every day living in the result—and life is short. And hey, if the idea of living through the reno is too daunting, you can always just set it up and take a road trip.
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fa c undo g a s tia zo ro
by Ma r i ly n B el a k mbelak@pris.ca
The biggest storm of northeastern BC’s mild winter fell in the wee hours of Jan. 25, forcing a worried phone call to a friend with whom I’m travelling into Rocky Mountain Fort camp on the Peace River’s south banks. In the 7 a.m. dark, I plow through heavy snow out of Dawson Creek to Mile 9 Service, buy coffee in a café packed with stranded truckers and text that we can’t meet at Braden Road because it’s closed. She responds that she’s been stopped on the North Taylor Hill due to an accident and will turn back and travel via Hudson’s Hope while I drive the Hart Highway west two hours into Chetwynd. Three hours behind schedule, we meet there and hit the Jackfish Lake Road in her SUV. As the pavement ends we call the camp before losing cell contact, letting them know when to fetch us by snowmobile for the last seven kilometres to the fort, then we push on to the snow-obliterated oil-lease and woodlot-access trails. Directions put the camp at 87.4 km. Three false turns and 45 minutes late, we pull into the clearing where two relieved snowmobile drivers taxi us through old-growth forest, past a historic ice-bridge landing and into the Rocky Mountain
Fort’s green and yellow two-cabin-and-one-tent settlement. For the past month, this historic site on Treaty 8 land has been occupied to prevent clear-cut logging to make way for flooding from the Peace River’s controversial Site C dam. I would make three trips to join Rocky Mountain Fort Stewards of the Land before the occupation ended March 1 with a BC Supreme Court order. Today, I approach camp for the first time, my snowmobile driver one of the original stewards who had two emergency shelters helicoptered in to cover frozen Simon Fraser University archaeological digs. SFU has been excavating the site since 1974. The first inland fur fort in BC, it was used by 18th century explorer Alexander Mackenzie and is rich with artifacts that inform both Canada’s fur-trade and aboriginal-contact history. On this Peace River Treaty 8 land there existed a fort that never had palisades and shows evidence of settler and aboriginal conjoint use since 1794. I am armed with a Council of Canadians banner signifying the social-action organization’s support for this cause and am anxious to display it at the day camp where firewatchers—women who hold
the front lines—maintain a daily face-off with logging machinery. I’m taxied to their bonfire two kilometres from Rocky Mountain Fort, where a circle of women rises with enthusiastic waves and a flurry of hugs, chatter and campfire coffee. We hang the banner with a great feeling of solidarity. Beyond it, the Moberly River’s mouth stretches in frozen tongues to the ice-free “Mighty Peace,” whose level eerily rises and falls sporadically at the whim of dam keepers upstream. The other firewatchers, young aboriginal women, are taxied to their cars to drive home before dark and, at sunset, I walk back to camp where supper is ready and our bunkhouse warmed by its woodstove. We choose our bunks, spread our sleeping bags and crowd into the kitchen hut to eat elk stew and listen to CBC radio. After using the antenna site for messaging, we wash dishes, mark a happy face on the calendar next to the number of days occupied (today is day 26) and retire early to the rhythmic sounds of pilings being pounded as BC Hydro works around the clock to install a temporary bridge across the Peace River. A full moon and stars blink through the old-
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P e a c e K e e p e rs: Roc ky Mo untain F o rt Stewards o f th e L an d s pen t 6 2 day s st o ki n g t he p rot e st fires this winter as they f o ug ht to s av e th e P eace Va l l e y, w h ic h is sla t e d f o r f lo o ding f ro m the co ntro v er s i al S i te C dam .
B efore a n d a f t e r : De s p i t e t h e R o c ky M o u n t a i n F o r t S tew ards of t h e L a n d o c c u p a t i o n a l o n g t h e Pe a c e R i v e r, Treaty 8 l an d w a s c l e a rc u t a n d c e n t u r i e s - o l d t re e s m u l c h e d .
Security asks our names, then reads a statement saying we are in an active logging area and need to move back several metres.
growth forest and I feel Alexander Mackenzie’s motley crew pull their bedrolls over their ears along with me and fall into a profound sleep. Our wake-up call is the generator buzzing to life and cabin lights illuminating one hour before sunrise. I rise, stoke the stove and trek down the icepacked trail to the black toilet tent and washhouse. After a breakfast of coffee and oatmeal I’m handed a thermos and baked goodies from the supply of donations kept frozen under a canvas lean-to. The snowmobiles are untarped and fired up, and we’re off to the perimeter camp to rekindle the fire. An hour later, two BC Hydro security men approach while videoing us, and my twice-daily ritual begins: Security asks our names, then reads a statement saying we are in an active logging area and need to move back several metres. When we don’t respond they set a document naming us as a John or Jane Doe on the ground and walk through our camp to the fort. The day warms enough to remove mittens around the fire and I am introduced to prayer flags. We create yellow, blue, red and white broadcloth flags by forming small tobacco-filled pouches into yards of fabric. My friend and I perform our own rituals and we hang the flags around towering bam trees, some likely up to two centuries old, at the end of the clear-cut path made before machinery was halted. Over the next month, I return twice to firewatch for a few days each time. Alone from dawn to dusk, it seems a perfect place to write poetry and think Rumi-like wisdom; instead, I fall in love with the bush. I roam between the fire and the Moberly, sharing paths with moose and elk and walking under trees fur traders and aboriginal families likely walked by on their way from
river to fort. On Feb. 24, I leave just days before the injunction decision that would end the occupation. The snowmobile tows me, skijor-style, on the sleigh runners up from the Peace Valley through a spring-like day that encourages our optimism. While I remove layers of outdoor clothing and stow my backpack, a friendly bush plane circles the parking area and dips its wings, as it did daily over the campfire. Signs of an early thaw are everywhere: Herds of outfitter horses have been rounded up and on my way in stock trailers are loading and leaving. I worry about the softening roads of breakup as I pull away for the last time.
Contractors took down the prayer flags. Treaty 8 land was clear-cut and mulched. On a warm April day, the stewards boated across to the fort and took photos of the devastation. Rocky Mountain Fort Stewards of the Land is actively campaigning to save the Peace with more determination than ever. N
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On March 1, following the injunction, a handful of helpers broke our 62-day winter camp. BC Hydro airlifted the shelters and trucked them to a farm.
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The F-Fre ddie c re w, with Fl y i ng O ff i cer J ohn Sa rge nt t hird from le ft , C aptai n D avi d Soko l o ff c e nt re a nd Flight Engin eer D i ck R i chardson t hird from right .
HAZELTON’S UNSUNG NAVIGATOR by Rob S t u r ney i nfinit evest @hot m a i l . c om
I don’t believe in being a “war buff.” The term buff trivializes this particular subject, as if one can have an exuberant interest in combat’s destruction and despair like a bird watcher or a train spotter. It’s too close to being a fan. But war has engrossed me since I was a child flipping through my father’s Time magazines looking at photos of the Vietnam War. My parents indulged my morbid curiosity by purchasing a whole arsenal of plastic weaponry, regiments of various-sized plastic toy soldiers and a coffee table book of World War II movies, the kind of dubious ’70s-era parenting choices similar to driving around with the kids unbuckled, smoking cigarettes at the wheel, Terry Jacks’ Seasons In the Sun on the radio. I still read regularly about WWII, the natural progression of a reading career that started with G.I. Combat and Sgt. Rock comic books, proceeded to a strange affinity for Soldier of Fortune Magazine from ages 11 to 13, and then latched onto the best of Vietnam War fiction in my late teens and early 20s. In April, I was reading Max Hastings’ Arma20 | OCT/NOV ‘16 |
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geddon: The Battle For Germany 1944-1945. It was my fourth World War title from Hastings, an English war historian who, along with Antony Beevor and Rick Atkinson, is considered the best of the popular contemporary war historians. In a chapter about the Western Allies’ bombing campaign, a long, harrowing account of an RCAF Halifax bomber, nicknamed the F-Freddie, crash landing in Belgium after a sortie to the German city of Bochum in November 1944 begins with an introductory paragraph identifying some of the ill-fated crew, including, “Jon Sargent, navigator, an accountant from British Columbia.” Family ties Four years ago, I moved into a New Hazelton house belonging to a relative. No one had lived in the place for a decade and so much stuff from that wing of the family was crammed into the house, I dubbed it The Museum. One day, perusing the attic, I glanced over and saw atop a stack of papers and books an oddlooking map. Upon unfolding it I could see that it was a flight map for bombing Essen, Germany.
It, along with the notepads, field guides and other documents beneath it, belonged to the man who had built the house 60 years earlier: Flying Officer John Sargent, RCAF bomber navigator during the Second World War, who had worked in the New Hazelton family store before joining up in Edmonton in 1942. John married Lieutenant Cathy Aitkin, a Canadian army nurse, in England in April 1945, with his pilot David Sokoloff as his best man. Hastings’ source of the gripping story I’d been reading of the F-Freddie’s nighttime, bulletriddled escape from fighter planes and subsequent hard-belly slide in Brussels was Sokoloff’s unpublished memoir. Had the pilot got Sargent’s first name and occupation wrong? The words attributed to “Jon” Sargent in Armageddon’s account certainly sounded like the pointed inquiry of the Sargents I knew—waiting for the poor weather to lift, he asked, “Why the hell don’t the bastards scrub it in this weather?” I asked Sargent’s son Earl, the owner of the “museum” where I found the map, if he remembered much about his father’s plane and crew. At
s ubmitte d
managed to survive a crash landing.” Sargent’s These sources expand on Hastabilities were recognized at the war’s end when he ings’ exposition: “They set a course for was asked to stay in the service to instruct navigahome, hampered by the loss of all their tors and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. maps and logs,” which were sucked out of the fuselage when Sokoloff The record, re-written pitched the plane into a steep dive to My interest in this incident derives not so much put out an engine fire. One wonders, from the epic crash landing tale itself—for that and Well, how did they get back to Brussels for other reasons I recommend Armageddon—or without maps at night? from discovering the story in the book, but from The answer is: the skills and steel of how it found its way to me. I had heard the saga the navigator. before in minimal detail, but knew that Sargent Sokoloff tells the tale in the had played a key role in the crew staying alive. commendation report soon after the Hastings’ retelling was far more comprehensive Belgian crash landing. He says, “It was and had great colour to it, even humour—after the certainly a ‘shaky-do’ and might have crew’s tense wait for the weather to clear, he writes, had a different ending if the navigator “their spirits were further clouded by the padre’s hadn’t his wits about him. It was the visit.” nicest bit of navigation one could wish J o hn a nd Cath y S argent , le ft , on t he ir we dding d ay, Sokoloff’s cool head and bold moves were to see. The only person hurt was the A p r i l 2 1 , 1 945, B rams hot , Engla nd, wit h be st man described, but it seemed like Flying Officer wireless operator, who sprained his Da vi d S o kol off an d bride sma id M a rie Swa n. Sargent, through omission, was given the short ankle getting out of the aircraft.” shrift. Why this occurred is unclear. I hope to Fifty-two years later, on June 19, redress the balance, to change FO John Heit2001, Sokoloff writes from near San Francisco: first he couldn’t supply details, only that he knew mann Sargent’s role from that of a crusty, profane “I think often of John. He was more than just a the machine was a Lancaster. But then from member of the supporting cast to—along with friend; our war experiences created a special bond nowhere he supplied the pilot’s name: Sokoloff. Sokoloff—the hero of the tale. between us. We flew at night and essentially we Jon Sargent, accountant, was John Sargent, This article serves as an afterword to the story were alone. We were totally dependent on each store manager. of the Belgian crash landing, one of thousands other so that we were kind of tuned to each other.” Once the euphoria of realizing that I had of crash landings during the Second World War. So much for Sokoloff misspelling John. discovered a war story of a kinsman in a wellWritten words have power in that words become A couple of years earlier, Richardson had these received book abated, it struck me the crash history, become truth. Hopefully, my nouns and words for Sargent: “Thanks to your skill in navilanding account lacked something vital. verbs and their modifiers can act as darning gation we eventually arrived in Brussels and While there is no indication of how long after needles and thread to fix the hole in this story. the war Sokoloff wrote his manuscript, we can N surmise it was at least a few years. Although the captain had seemingly misremembered two things about Sargent, had Sokoloff omitted the b v re g i o n a l most important thing of all about his navigator?
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Navigator with nerve The Sargent family knew the Belgian crashlanding story well, although Earl said his father did not often talk about the war. Some of the family’s memories were based on the recollections of Sokoloff and the crew’s flight engineer Dick Richardson in personal letters—Sokoloff’s to the family after Cathy Sargent passed away 2001 and Richardson’s that Cathy received 20 years after John Sargent’s passing in 1979, addressed to John. The family presented me with that correspondence and an RCAF commendation report reprinted in the Terrace Standard in 1945.
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Ba rom eter
Northern BC’s other rainforest
by C h a rlyn n To ews edit or ial@no rt hwo rd. c a
With the rainy season coming to Terrace— October’s earlier and earlier sunsets and November’s gloomy days looming—I was googling Rupert’s average annual overcast days and Kitimat’s record snowfalls when I came upon a magical forest. About 120 km southeast of Prince George are 20 hectares of trees amid the salmon-bearing Upper Fraser River, just outside Dome Creek. Known as the Ancient Forest, it is the “only inland temperate rainforest in the world” and the “Northern Wetbelt of east-central British Columbia.” It has outstanding examples of globally rare ecosystems and is located more than 500 km from the ocean. It may have had its beginning with the end of the ice age. And I’m not the only one impressed by this: In March, the BC government announced the area will be protected from logging by the Ancient Forest/Chun T’oh Whudujut Park, BC’s newest
Class A provincial park. I have a number of questions, right off. First, why is it so wet? It’s inland, isn’t it? It turns out these forests are restricted to a region of an “anomalously humid climate, in which a plentiful snowmelt during late spring is followed by ample rainfall during the height of the growing season.” If that’s not wet enough for you, let’s add fog: “The combination of prolonged snowmelt, frequent summer rains, warm summer temperatures and summer morning fog is instrumental in producing rainforest conditions and in keeping the forest environment productive throughout the growing season.” Lots of precipitation—what else? “In the inland rainforest, very old and antique forests are most likely to occur on lower-slope and toe-slope positions on the valley floor, and to be associated with riparian ecosystems.” Lower slopes: not way high up where it gets
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very chilly. And toe-slope positions are the inclined area at the base of a steep hill, which are composed of deposited materials like stream sediment. So, it is fertile, like the River Nile, where sediments of yummy stuff get left behind as the river or stream switches back and forth over time. And “riparian” means the interface between land and a river or stream. Excellent: very moist as well as nutritious and therefore delicious. The western red cedar trees there are “antique,” some over 1,000 years old and greater than 10 feet in diameter. Is “antique” the same as old growth? No, it is not. In my magical forest, old-growth trees are mere youngsters. When we are talking about antique forest stands we are starting at 700 years old at minimum, then going up to the outrageous possibility of 3,000-year-old trees. But why the Rocky Mountain Trench? Ah, its topography! All those linear mountain ranges going southeast with plenty of mountaintops to catch this warm, moist wind but not-that-cold air, and then the lovely warm valleys to keep in the heat. These are tea-cozied mountain ranges. “Some inland rainforests on toe slopes and lower slopes resemble coastal rainforests in the complexity of their architecture, the lushness of their respective understoreys, and the presence of species with oceanic affinities.” Oceanic affinities, people! Like our north-coast rainforest salmon that feed the bears that feed the forests, my magical forest has that, too. The trees help feed the caribou, as the lichens growing on them provide critical winter food for caribou. Visit www.ancientcedar.ca for more information, and to find the most magical piece of this forest: how the few dozen residents of Dome Creek worked with industry and government to keep these ancient trees alive.
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Th e S tor y L ook ou t Tr ai l s tar ts j u s t w es t o f H o u s t o n a n d t a ke s f o u r ki l o m e t re s t o g e t t o t h e l ook ou t, w h i ch s ti l l con tai n s an ol d s i gh ti n g i ns t r u m e n t u s e d t o d e t e r m i n e t h e b e a r i n g t o a f i re . morgan hite
STORY LOOKOUT
From illegal-burning lookout to dandy day-hike destination
by Morga n H ite morga njh@bulkley.ne t • m ore m a ps a t bvt ra i l m a ps. c a
You might assume that all fire lookouts were built to watch for wildfires, but the Story Lookout just outside Houston was built in 1988 to keep an eye out for another problem: illegal burning. At that time, you could have a campfire without a permit, but anything larger—burning a slash pile or a field—required permission. Infractions were frequent enough that the Ministry of Forests decided to place an observer on a knob near Houston, with the added benefit that they could also keep an eye out for wildfires. Ironically, Story Lookout was only used for about five years. In 1994 regulations changed with the new Forest Practices Code and there was no longer a need to keep an eye out for illegal burning. The lookout cabin stood idle until its trail was refurbished five years ago thanks to the Houston Hikers (www.houstonhikers.ca). Set in a natural clearing atop a ridge extending north from the main mass of Morice Mountain, the square cabin has a commanding 360-degree view that takes in both the Pleasant Valley (that is, Houston) to the northeast and the Morice River valley to the southwest. In its name we read an informal tribute to Marge Storey, commemorating her long career as a lookout observer across the North.
The trail is four kilometres and 400 m elevation (allow one-and-a-half to two hours) up to the old lookout. You can tent outside—sleeping on the floor inside is not recommended until the lightning arrester system is repaired. There’s an outhouse, but no water. The trailhead is about 20 minutes from Houston. Leave town on the Morice River Forest Service Road, which turns south off Highway 16 just west of Houston at the large sign for the Canfor mill. At km 7 pass a turn on the left for the East Peacock FSR and one km later, opposite the km 8 marker, turn left on a small dirt road where there is a sign for “Story Lookout Trail.” Some maps call this the “West Peacock FSR,” but there’s no sign for that. This quiet, flat two-track road is a little bit rough for the first kilometre, but soon smooths out. It is drivable by two-wheel-drive vehicles with normal clearance, but watch out for a few road-wide potholes. Drive 5.6 km to the trailhead, indicated on the right by flagging tape and a sign. The trail immediately enters spruce and fir forest with devil’s club in the understorey (although none of it barring your way: the trail is well cleared). It ascends in gentle switchbacks
up the side of a ridge, on top of whose broad back the understorey changes to blueberries and huckleberries, and you walk a surprising distance (for the Bulkley Valley) without going uphill. Finally, the trail dips past a meadow surrounding a swampy lake and then ascends the ridge to the lookout. The lookout is a bit of a museum. Inside one finds the old sighting instrument used to determine the bearing to a fire, while the Lookout Observers’ Manual details everything you ever wanted to know about how lighting works and how it starts forest fires. It is quite compelling to imagine being the lookout observer, whose job—at the very moment that lightning was most likely to strike her humble shelter—was to not run downhill but to stay put and scan for smoke! The thick steel cables securing the structure to the ground suggest the weather it was designed to withstand. There is no water at the lookout, but hikers (and dogs) will find it along the trail at several spots, where small streams are crossed. The Houston Hikers’ long-term hope is to refurbish the lookout building for overnight stays and create a trail to link it to the ski cabin on Morice Mountain. N
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㌀㠀㔀㈀ 匀吀 䄀嘀䔀
圀䔀 䴀䄀吀䌀䠀 䴀䔀䌀 倀刀䤀䌀䤀一䜀
䘀刀䔀䔀 匀䠀䤀倀倀䤀一䜀 伀一 伀刀䐀䔀刀匀 伀嘀䔀刀 ␀㈀㔀
㈀㔀 㠀㐀㜀 㔀㌀㠀㠀 簀 䰀伀䌀䄀䰀匀唀倀倀䰀夀䌀伀⸀䌀䄀
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column
On the Fly
The Skeena River
by B r i a n S mith
The Skeena is the second-longest river, after the Fraser, to flow entirely within the boundaries of British Columbia and supports salmon and steelhead runs that are arguably the finest in the world. The name Skeena is derived from the Gitxsan First Nation’s word ’Ksan, meaning “river of the mists,” and has been the lifeblood of the Tsimshian and Gitxsan people for centuries, providing a staple food source for its residents long before the coming of Europeans. The Skeena begins as a trickle in a mountain valley at the southern end of the Spatsizi Plateau and gets larger and larger as it picks up minor and major tributaries on its course of about 600 kilometres before emptying into Chatham Sound, Telegraph Passage, Ogden Channel and, finally, the Pacific Ocean east of Dixon Entrance. Its major tributary rivers are the Sustut, Babine, Kispiox, Bulkley, Kitwanga, Zymoetz (Copper) and Kitsumkalum, which, along with its hundreds of minor rivers, creeks and streams, provide abundant spawning and nursery habitat for all five species of Pacific salmon and the prize of all sport fish, steelhead trout. The salmon-fishing season lasts almost yearround in the Skeena; all species can be caught at some time from April through November. Steelhead, which run into the river with the salmon during summer, fall and winter months, reside in their natal streams through the winter, spawn in spring before freshet, and return to the ocean if
bria n s mith
fl yfi s hing nut 47 @g mai l . c om
J oel S ar k i s s i an h o l d s a 4 0 - i n c h s t e e l h e a d t ro u t c a u g h t i n th e S k een a R i v e r. T h e w a t e r s h e d p ro v i d e s a b u n d a n t s paw n i n g an d n u r se r y h a b i t a t f o r a l l f i v e Pa c i f i c s a l m o n s peci es an d s t e e l h e a d — t h e p r i ze o f a l l s p o r t f i s h .
they survive the ritual. The first salmon to arrive in early spring are giant chinooks, which enter the Kitsumkalum River in April and May and continue to run up the Skeena through June, July and August. Sockeye, chum and pink salmon also run through the system during the summer months; cohos are prime targets later in the summer and into the fall months, petering out in early December. The Skeena system’s fishing spots are accessible by car along Highway 16 from Terrace to Prince Rupert, until the river takes a turn southwest. If you bring your jet boat, there are put-ins that offer access to many less-crowded parts of the river and many times you can catch a fresh run of fish before they reach the mob of fishers at Terrace. Fly-fishing water is different than gear water. If you are unfamiliar or confused about where to begin fly-fishing, watch and follow people that are on the river with their fly rods. At most times salmon and steelhead are running close to the bank in shallow water, so you are looking for soft-
flowing water knee- to waist-deep with a long, gradual beach that is inside the main river current, a place where fish can exert less effort to navigate upriver against the Skeena’s heavy flow. What flies do I use? For all salmonid species, it’s pretty hard to beat combinations of pink and purple or black and blue. It’s true that many times you will be “flossing” salmon (catching them on the outside of their mouths), but these species, especially steelhead, will also mouth the flies on most occasions. The key to catching them is to get your fly to the river bottom as quickly as possible, using fast-sink tippets or adding split-shot to your leader if necessary until you can feel the fly tickle the river’s bottom. The Skeena has fishing regulations that vary with the season. Please consult the regulations before fishing and ask local sport shops for assistance in fly selection and gear as you pursue the Skeena’s wonderful game fish. N
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Resource Directory
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