Prince George Citizen December 26, 2019 by Prince George Citizen

Citizen photo by James Doyle

Why B.C.’s Working forests aren’t Working

NelsoN BeNNett Glacier Media

Anyone who has ever flown from Vancouver to Prince Rupert, Prince George or Fort Nelson and looked out the window may have wondered to themselves: “How can B.C. possibly be running out of trees to cut?”

B.C.’s forest sector was beaten to a pulp in 2019, as a “perfect storm” of market, policy and natural forces converged, triggering multiple sawmill closures and curtailments, and spurring anger among laid-off workers towards politicians and conservationists.

When the Sierra Club and Wilderness Committee tried to hold an event in Campbell River on Nov. 25, it was shut down by the city and police, for fear of confrontation. What was supposed to be a town hall talk on old-growth forests and climate change turned into an impromptu pro-logging rally, according to the Campbell River Mirror.

“It’s not a very popular time to be an environmentalist,” said Mark Worthing, a climate and conservation campaigner for the Sierra Club.

Nor is it a popular time to be a BC NDP cabinet minister in ridings where sawmill workers and loggers are now struggling to meet mortgage and car payments. There, the general downturn in forestry is aggravated by a prolonged strike by Western Forest Products workers. When Claire Trevena, NDP MLA for North Island, held a recent town hall in Campbell River, angry, out-of-work loggers accused government of indifference to their plight.

B.C. forestry companies have gone from making record profits in 2017 and 2018 to posting losses in 2019.

“The companies are bleeding,” John Desjardins, forest products lead for KPMG in Canada, said at a recent Greater Vancouver Board of Trade talk on forestry. “They’re in the red.”

Six sawmills permanently closed in 2019, and with shifts that have been eliminated at mills that are still operating, it adds up to the equivalent of eight sawmills.

Thousands of sawmill workers, truck loggers and related service workers were laid off in 2019. Employment and Social Development Canada confirms that unemployment insurance claims went up in B.C. by 1,170 between September 2018 and the same month in 2019.

The effects are most immediately felt in Interior towns like 100 Mile House, where forestry accounts for one out of every four jobs. But forestry accounts for one-third of B.C.’s exports, and even in Vancouver, the economic impact will be felt, because more sawmill closures are inevitable – possibly followed by pulp mill closures.

“More than 40 per cent of forestry jobs are located in Vancouver and in the

southwest part of the province,” Susan Yurkovich, CEO of the BC Council of Forest Industries, recently told the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, adding that forestry in B.C. accounts for 100,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Forestry is cyclical, and B.C. is used to downturns. “This time it’s different,” Yurkovich said.

Other provinces, like Quebec, have not seen the wave of sawmill closures that B.C. has. Whereas B.C. used to be “the last man standing” when a cyclical downturn came in forestry – owing to the fact it was a low-cost jurisdiction – that’s no longer the case.

One of the biggest problems has become a lack of economically harvestable timber. In a province with 55 million hectares of forest – an area roughly three times the size of the U.K. – how is that possible?

The most visible answer is the toll taken by the mountain pine beetle and by forest fires. But it’s not just pests and natural disasters that have eaten up B.C.’s timber supply. Pressure to preserve forests for conservation or yield them to recreation and increased urbanization have resulted in a significant shrinkage of the working-forest land base.

“We need to invest in and protect the working-forest land base,” Yurkovich said. “We should decide on the size of the working-forest land base, and then we should lock it in.”

She added that the industry is burdened by a “jungle” of regulations that increase operating costs.

“We need to thin out that jungle,” she said.

But drawing a moat around B.C.’s working forests is easier said than done. For one thing, it’s not likely to win the support of conservation groups, which continue to press for less logging, not more.

“I can see what [Yurkovich] might be gunning for there,” the Sierra Club’s Worthing said. “We’d never particularly stand behind super checkerboard, blackand-white sacrifice zones and conservation zones that have discrete lines in that way, because that’s not really how ecosystems work.

“I would say that the timber-harvesting land base hasn’t been chewed away at by other interests. It’s been really heavily logged on really short rotations. And I would argue that the large tenure holders and the major logging corporations have basically run through a resource far too fast and have not been managing their existing timber-harvesting land base sustainably.”

On paper, B.C. should theoretically still have sufficient working forests to supply mills. In reality, some of the timber deemed working forest is too costly under the current system to log.

Jim Girvan, an independent forestry consultant, points to the Prince George timber supply area (TSA) as an example. At eight million hectares, it is the single largest TSA in B.C.

But once all the exclusions for recreation, wildlife habitat conservation, old-growth preservation and other

measures are accounted for, it leaves just three million hectares that can be logged, Girvan said.

“They identify the land base on paper, but it’s not a circle on a map because you still have landscape restrictions,” Girvan said.

If the Prince George TSA is further apportioned as First Nations tenures, as has been proposed, it would reduce the allowable annual cut (AAC) a further three to four per cent, Girvan said.

“There’s another shift gone, just because you’re drawing different lines on a map,” Girvan said.

The coastal cut has shrunk by 8.5 million cubic metres since the 1990s. That is enough to supply 10 coastal sawmills, Girvan said. The Great Bear Rainforest alone took 6.4 million hectares. Only 295,000 hectares were preserved for logging.

“In that 295,000 hectares, now you’re very restricted on what you can log.”

Increased log exports have been blamed, in part, for the shortage of timber on the B.C. coast – something the NDP government has been trying to address with new regulations. Girvan doesn’t think any of the regulations that the government has adopted will address the fundamental problem of access to timber.

“It’s not log exports – it’s because the cut went down,” Girvan said. “The cut’s going down because they’re systematically preserving more and more timber for a variety of reasons.”

— Continued on page 6

The allowable annual cut in B.C. is nominally bigger than what is harvested

Harvesting costs pose challenge

— Continued from page 5

While he agrees that declaring working-forest boundaries with regulatory goalposts that don’t move would go a long way to ensuring the long-term viability of forestry in B.C., Girvan said the pressure from urban development is unrelenting.

He cites controversy over a plan to log in the Mount Elphinstone area of the Sunshine Coast as an example.

Despite having set aside 15,400 hectares for parks and conservation, and 2,900 hectares of old growth, the province is under continued pressure to stop logging in the area that is still designated for harvesting. It has reduced the logging area on the south slope to just 27 hectares per year – half of what the AAC for that area would support.

And just recently, the B.C. government called a halt to all logging in the Skagit River valley in an exclusion zone between Manning and Skagit provincial parks called the “doughnut hole.”

“The problem with putting a circle on a map and saying ‘this is logging’ is that it never gains traction because of this growing urban interface,” Girvan said. “Eventually somebody will move next door to it and say, ‘Oh no, no, you can’t log in my backyard.’”

While an ever-shrinking land base is part of the problem in B.C., the cost of

harvesting is also a challenge. There are stands of trees that could be cut but which simply do not provide an economic return.

And there are plenty of trees in the northern half of B.C., which could be opened up to logging, but the distance and remoteness would add to the cost of harvesting and transporting logs.

“You could move further north, but you run into economics,” said John Innes, the dean of the faculty of forestry at the University of British Columbia.

He added that the working forests are not being managed in a way that maximizes the timber resource, the way they are in northern Europe.

“We could be growing our trees more intensively, we could be growing them faster, we could be producing a higher volume from the same area,” he said, adding that that would be a very longterm project.

He also points out that it is the big forestry companies in B.C. that have been hit the hardest by the lack of timber, increasing costs and falling lumber prices.

“It is still possible to make money with trees in British Columbia,” Innes said. “We have the big mills focusing on dimensional lumber, and those are the ones that have been suffering. But if you look at the smaller specialty mills, they generally have been doing OK still.”

Polar bear diP set for Ness lake

The Ness Lake Bible Camp will ring in the new year with its annual polar bear dip.

Set for New Year’s Day, it routinely draws more than 80 people ready to brave the cold and raise money for a fund to help families who otherwise could not afford to send their kids to the camp.

“This year, our goal is to send all the kids from the Ron Brent Community,”organizers said. “Every kid deserves to go to camp and we have always strived to make camp accessible for all. One way we do that is by paying for part of the fees for families that are not financially in a place to afford to send their kids.”

Check-in is at 2 p.m. at the Welcome Centre, the log building in the parking lot.

At 2:30, p.m. everyone will meet in the gym for a safety talk and to judge the costumes, then they’re off to the lake.

Entry fee is $25, but that’s waived for anyone who raises more than $25 in pledges. Donations over $10 are tax deductible.

Nearly $11,000 was raised through last year’s event.

There is also a prize for the top pledge raiser and the first 40 people who sign up get a T-shirt at no cost.

Costumes are optional but encouraged.

Pledge forms and general information are found under coming events at www. nesslakebiblecamp.com.

Citizen file photo

A record 96 brave dippers took to the frigid waters of Ness Lake last New Year’s Day to raise money for the Ness Lake Bible Camp’s Camper Sponsorship Fund.

The fun way to kick off the new year returns Jan. 1.

Man LInKed to hoMe InvasIon sentenced

Citizen staff

A man implicated in a home invasion this past summer has been sentenced to 18 months probation.

Bradley Robert Foster was issued the term in provincial court on a count of possessing a firearm contrary to an order. He was also issued a 10-year firearms prohibition.

Foster was one of the suspects arrested after four people burst into a 2600-block Victoria Street home sometime before 10:45 a.m. on Aug. 3.

A resident of the home suffered minor injuries.

RCMP said three of the suspects were arrested within minutes and a gun was recovered, while a fourth suspect was apprehended the next day.

Cases against Justin David George Dupray, Charles Karloy Santa and Daniela Justina Frasca remain before the court with a pretrial conference scheduled for mid-January.

Foster had remained in custody since he was first arrested, for a total of 134 days.

City seeks applications for downtown committee

of immediate concern,” said Mayor Lyn Hall.

The City of Prince George is looking for five members of the public to sit on a committee that will provide advice on the city’s social issues with a focus on the downtown.

The Select Committee on A Safe, Clean, and Inclusive Downtown will convene its first meeting in January and is to deliver its recommendations to council by June 30.

Applicants should have knowledge and experience related to the city’s social issues, with emphasis on the downtown area, and be familiar with the various levels of government, nonprofit organizations, and businesses in relation to those issues.

The committee will also include representatives from the Prince George Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Prince George, Gateway Business Improvement Association, Prince George RCMP, Northern Health Authority, BC Housing, Association Advocating for Women and Community, and Prince George Native Friendship Centre.

“Council has heard clearly from residents that social issues affecting the citythe downtown in particular - are a matter

“This new committee is in direct response to that public feedback and the input of the business community, which is why the makeup of the committee is going to feature representatives from the general public, the business community, and many of the organizations with a direct stake in the outcome.

“Council encourages residents who are interested and feel they are qualified to put their names forward to be part of the committee.”

Information on the committee, including its terms of reference and application forms, are available on the city’s website or may be picked up in the Legislative Services Division, 5th Floor City Hall.

Applications can be submitted online, www.princegeorge.ca/committees, by fax, (250) 561-0183, and in person to the Legislative Services Division, 5th Floor City Hall.

For any questions or to have an application form mailed to you, contact the Legislative Services Division at (250) 561-7655 or cityclerk@princegeorge.ca The deadline for applications is 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 3.

Citizen staff

Gouchie captures music award

Christine hinZMAnn Citizen staff

Local artist Kym Gouchie recently returned from Mundial Montreal world music summit as a Stingray Rising Star in the Indigenous music category.

“It’s the first award I’ve ever won,” Gouchie said.

Winning the prestigious award propels Gouchie to the International Indigenous Music Summit where she will be showcased and she was also asked to participate in the Folk Alliance International Conference.

The events are held in conjunction in New Orleans in January.

The Rising Star award comes with a $1,500 scholarship she will use to offset the expense of the New Orleans’ trip.

Gouchie said it’s funny how life works as she was considering taking a break after extensive touring.

“I was hoping to take a break so that I could take some space and time to create some new music,” Gouchie said.

To that end she changed her mantra to ‘I will only go where I’m invited.’

“And now I’m busier than ever,” Gouchie said.

With the recognition she’s received on an international scale, Gouchie said she feels she’s at a different stage in her life.

“I feel like I’ve crossed over and that I’m no longer an emerging artist, that I’m actually in that professional realm of being an artist and being recognized for my 20 years of being in the business,”

Gouchie said. “During the last five years I really dove straight in and the reason for that is because I feel like I’m home in the community and I have the support of my community and my family.”

Gouchie said she’s been fortunate enough to stay at her mother’s house so

there’s been no struggle to try to make end’s meet.

“There’s no way I could do what I’m doing if I had to hustle and make those bills every month,” Gouchie said. “I’m in a position right now where I’ve raised my kids and I’ve moved home and I’m just surrounded by this supportive community and that really helps a lot and at the same time I’ve moved into this way of being where I’m being invited to sit as a professional mentor.”

The invitations keep coming and Gouchie’s 2020 is booked up until summer with a variety of engagements.

“It goes on and on and I just feel like I’m being told that my name really means something to people out there and I’m finally feeling the truth in that and I actually believe it now as opposed to still feeling like I’m emerging because I don’t sell out theatres and I don’t sell 5,000 CDs a month and I don’t have a million followers - I’ve often looked at that as a gauge but in reality it’s really about community and connecting with people on a grassroots level and it feels like I’ve achieved that.”

Gouchie said she now sits in the same circles as her mentors, those she’s looked up to and felt inspired by.

“And that feels amazing,” Gouchie said.

She takes a lot of pride in her heritage and said as an Indigenous woman it’s important to her to provide the support like she’s been given from her community.

“How I am able to use my story of survival and resilience to hopefully inspire other women and people in general is something that I take a lot of pride inwhere I’m from and who I represent - my grandmothers and my ancestors and my family and my community and I do that with integrity and with humility and I’m very mindful of acknowledging who my community is.”

Gouchie said she knows this is a time of change and increased awareness for the Indigenous people’s plight.

“People are listening and I have the platform of the stage to use the opportunity to share and to create awareness and to initiate change and to plant messages of hope and reconciliation,” Gouchie said. “I fully embrace that this is my purpose.”

For more information about Gouchie, visit www.kymgouchie.com.

Citizen file photo

Kym Gouchie performs with her band Northern Sky in 2018 at the Playhouse. Gouchie was recently named the Stingray Rising Star for her Indigenous music at the Mundial Montreal world music summit.

Cougar finds shelTer in hoCkey SPORTS

Ted Clarke Citizen staff

Ilijah Colina had just wrapped up his rookie season in the Western Hockey League as a 16-year-old with the Portland Winterhawks when he received a text from his mother.

Mitchell Slater, one of his childhood friends growing up in North Delta had gone missing and the family was asking if he had heard from him. He hadn’t.

It turned out the boy had taken his own life.

Colina, a talented centre touted as a potential NHL draft pick, didn’t realize it at the time, but the loss of his friend Mitchell planted a seed of depression that cast a shadow on his soul. It would take him to the point where he began to have his own suicidal thoughts as he struggled to adjust to the next phase of his junior career with the Prince George Cougars.

That hole he had stumbled into grew deeper by the day. Eventually, two-thirds through the 2018-19 season, he left the Cougars and the game he loved, even at the risk of jeopardizing his ambition to become a professional hockey player.

“I had to do it, I was just killing myself slowly, trying to work through hockey with that stuff going on in my head “ said Colina. “It was a break I needed and I feel if I didn’t do that I’d being a worse spot than I am.”

The first sign mental illness was creeping into Colina’s life appeared in November 2017, a couple months before the trade that sent him to Prince George. Winterhawks coach Mike Johnston noticed Colina wasn’t himself and stopped him during a practice and asked if he was OK. Colina knew then something was wrong. For the first time in his life, in his first year of NHL draft eligibility, he wasn’t enjoying hockey and he didn’t know why.

“I was just confused and lost and I felt it affected me everywhere - emotionally, physically and mentally,” he said. “When I’m playing hockey it’s usually the only thing I want to do and it’s most fun thing I could do, but when I’m not having fun with the guys I knew then it was affecting me. My brain was just a fog. I just felt I was in a dark place sometimes and didn’t know how to get myself out of it.”

Getting traded from Portland to Prince George and leaving his teammates and billet parents behind was a shock but the Cougars gave Colina a fresh start and the promise of plenty of icetime. He had friends on the team - Liam Ryan and Jackson Leppard - and they helped him through his most difficult days.

Colina got off to a great start last season, with two goals in the first four games and was playing regular shifts and on special teams as one of the Cougars’ top face-off specialists when he suffered a concussion in a game at home against the Tri-City Americans Oct. 24, 2018. It sidelined him for the next two weeks and sent him into a terrifying tailspin.

“Before the injury I felt great, I was my normal self and was enjoying life,” wrote Colina in a blog he sent to the Battle Ad-

versity Creativity Hockey website. “However, after the recovery I found myself creating the same negative energy. I have had two serious concussions previously and was experiencing severe trauma.

“During my recovery my depression was reaching a point where I felt attacked. I was lonely, as all I could do was lay in bed for the next two weeks. I questioned my existence and wanted to kill myself. I felt my presence was not needed and that I would only hurt people with the negative energy I was creating. I had no control of anything.

“I remember crying in my bed, night after night,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do. I was scared of my own mind and was worried for myself. It was like there was another person in the room trying to harm me. I didn’t know how to deal with it, it was horrifying.”

He recovered from his concussion but Colina’s anguish did not go away. In lateJanuary of this year, while on a weeklong roadtrip to Alberta, Colina’s fragile mental state was compounded by the Cougars’ on-ice struggles. They lost their eighth-straight game at the end of the trip in Edmonton and were on their way to club-record 17-game losing streak.

During that trip, an intense feeling of homesickness crept into Colina, something he’d never felt before. Early one morning, as he lay on the floor of the bus traveling with the team, he read a blog posted by his high school friend, Abby Zawada, a university basketball player for the Fraser Valley Cascades, which went into detail about her twoyear battle with clinical depression and it brought him to tears.

Her words convinced Colina he could no longer fight this on his own. He needed help. Unable to focus on hockey, he met with then-head coach Richard

Matvichuk to tell him he needed to leave the team and go home to reconnect with his family and friends to lean on them and the familiarity of his home to help him recover.

“I left feeling thankful because (Matvichuk) understood,” Colina said.

The Cougars did not hesitate to back him on his decision, offering their full support while stating publicly he had left the team indefinitely for personal reasons.

“First off, it was, ‘whatever it takes, whatever you need, we’ll help you out,’” said Cougars general manager Mark Lamb, who assumed Matvichuk’s head coaching duties over the summer. “Missing him on the team was secondary to his health. You miss him but you don’t even think about that, you just want him to get better. It’s not the first time I’ve ever dealt with anything like that, that’s for sure. You need to be open about it. It’s a very serious illness, not just for him but for everybody on the team and if anything like that happens we’ll support him on any way we can.”

It’s only in the past two decades that junior hockey leagues have come to recognize the need for a proactive approach to dealing with mental health issues. They are aware of the effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) as a result of concussions and that brain injuries are being linked to depression and suicide, as in the case of former Cougar Derek Boogaard.

Junior teams are more aware how to recognize the signs of depression and other potentially harmful warning signs in young athletes and mental health topics are discussed regularly in league meetings. It was a much different world in the early-1980s before Lamb went on to this NHL career and was still among

his teenaged peers in the WHL.

“People just kept it quiet, you didn’t want to lose your job,” said Lamb. “You didn’t want to show any type of weaknesses that could be used against you so you just closed right up.

“It’s a big difference when you have a torn-out knee. The doctors fix it. But when you’re not feeling good and you don’t know what’s going on, you thought it was a weakness and you didn’t understand it.

“What helps so much now is that it is out there. We want everybody to feel really comfortable and come forward in any type of those situations. It’s no different than any other disease. Sometimes it’s in the family for awhile. It’s a worldwide thing, it’s not just in hockey. Every team has players who have this and what we’re trying to do is get in front of it and (find out) what kind of support you can give kids and their families.”

This season, the 19-year-old Colina was the team’s top centre in training camp but hurt his shoulder in the second preseason game and missed the first eight games of the season. Lately he’s been on a roll. He scored a goal against his Winterhawk teammates Dec. 4 in a 5-4 overtime loss. Them, in Saturday’s 4-2 win over Victoria at CN Centre, he scored the gamewinner in the third period and the opening goal 88 seconds into the game, which triggered an avalanche of stuffed toys and winter clothing on Teddy and Toque Toss Night.

“He’s a very good player and he’s very popular,” said Lamb. “He’s a big leader on our team and I think the positive part, when you go through that adversity he did go through, is it makes him a better leader because he understands that. If we have more of that in the dressing room, he’s the perfect person to talk to.”

Citizen Photo by James Doyle

Prince George Cougars forward Ilijah Colina skates against the Portland Winterhawks earlier this month at CN Centre.

OPINION

Yes, David, there is a Santa Claus

This editorial first appeared in the Dec. 24, 2013 edition of The Citizen and it’s become a bit of a local favourite for its twist on the famous “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” letter. Enjoy and Merry Christmas from everyone at The Citizen!

Dear Madam Publisher,

I am soon going to be 70 years old. Some of my senior friends say there is no Santa Claus.

It seems to me that still being a kid at heart and not real keen to “act my age” I think it is just fine to believe in all sorts of things. I don’t have to be able to see something or have to touch it to think it could be real.

At the Festival of Trees this year, I watched as people of all ages came in to that Christmas Wonderland. It wasn’t just the children that had their eyes wide open and expressing all sorts of excitement.

I looked in to the eyes of many of the older people and I could see the joy and memories flooding back with their recollections from many a past Christmas. It was a sight to see.

No, it is not only children but people of all ages who believe in things you cannot see or feel.

I say to my friends and family that if you see something printed in The Prince George Citizen, then it must be so!

So Madam, please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Thank you and Merry Christmas, David Yarmish, Prince George

David, your senior friends are wrong. They have been affected by negative people living in a negative time.

They have been influenced by people like my editor-in-chief, who wrote a horrible editorial, The Problem With Santa. He’s a journalist and you know what those people are like.

They don’t believe a thing unless it slaps them in the face and then they write to say they saw it coming.

Negative minds are small minds that can’t see the size of the whole universe

and the big truths, the ones that are bigger than us and last forever.

Yes, David, there is a Santa Claus. Even the saddest soul believes in love and giving and trust. Those are the things that make us all happy, that give our small lives meaning.

How pathetic would our existence be, tiny creatures living on a pebble floating through the empty darkness of space, without those eternal truths.

How pathetic our lives would be without Santa Claus. If would be as awful as if there were no one like you, with the

heart to believe in what matters but also a curious mind eager to know the truth.

To not believe in Santa Claus is to not believe in the Easter Bunny.

We could ask all of the scientists at UNBC to investigate but even if they couldn’t find Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or any other miracle of childhood, it only proves they can’t find them, not that they don’t exist.

You are right, David, to recognize that the most real things in the world are the things we can’t see or hear or touch or taste or smell but what we feel in our hearts.

Those joyful moments we share with our friends and family create bonds that no force can ever tear apart.

No scientific instruments or the words of know-it-all writers can measure or describe these things in all of their beauty and glory.

Yet they are real and are more real and lasting than anything else in all of the world.

They are not bound by time or by space or by the limits of our tiny imaginations or by the negative people around us who would deny the very best part of what it is to be a human being.

We should be thankful to live in a world with Santa Claus.

A thousand years from now, a thousand generations from now, he will still be bringing cheer to everyone, young and old.

Merry Christmas, David, and thank you for your letter.

— Publisher Colleen Sparrow

making Changes to Court DoCket

At the Citizen, we believe a central part of our mission reporting on the local community is to cover what goes on in our courts. We don’t do it to publicly shame the guilty.

We do it because a key component of democracy is the rule of law being fairly applied in an open court.

Put another way, it’s not only justice being served but justice being seen being served.

For most weeks for many years now, The Citizen has published the Court Docket, the sentencings, mostly in provincial court, for mostly minor offences and the names of the people who committed those offences.

Over time, I’ve heard from people who were convicted a crime – theft under $5,000, mischief, drunk driving, etc. –years ago and are now having trouble finding work and/or a place to live

because their name comes up in a Google search that leads to the court docket.

While there are many repeat offenders, there are also many people whose name appears once and never again. Their brush with the courts has the desired effect of motivating them to become – and remain – law-abiding citizens.

Recently, an anxious father came to the office to ask me in person that his son’s name be removed from the court docket on our web site for an assault conviction from years ago.

The victim of the assault was the father

himself.

He had reconciled with his son, who had turned things around and stayed out of legal trouble, as a search through the court records confirmed.

Starting now, the Court Docket will only remain on our website for one year and then fall away.

Longtime readers of the The Citizen will notice we haven’t been publishing it since we’ve become a weekly.

Part of that has been space limitations but part of it is the permanence of the print edition, which is eventually digitally archived at the Prince George Public Library.

Is there a need for a permanent, easilyaccessible public record of an individual’s single indiscretion, committed in their misspent youth and/or in a moment of weakness and vulnerability?

Many would say yes but I would argue that is not justice, that is spiteful ven-

geance and a desire for endless public shaming.

I want to stress that stories depicting more serious criminal cases will remain on our website but for the Court Docket, those will expire after one year of their first appearance on The Citizen’s website. Court Dockets from 2018 and previous years have already been removed (please email me at ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca if you find one I missed - they had to be individually removed going back to 2011).

People should be given every opportunity to turn the page from their minor misdemeanours, especially if they’ve already been punished through our legal system.

The public also deserves to see that individuals are being held legally accountable for those misdemeanours. Making the Court Docket available for one year is, I hope, a reasonable compromise between those two interests.

Looking back at some interesting people

SENIORS’ SCENE

KATHY NADALIN

This is part one of a two-part series as I review and recap the names and a bit of information about the people that I wrote about in my column throughout 2019.

— John Row of Crossroads Construction, was named as the Prince George Businessman of the year in 1970. He married Mary Riediger in 1952. She was a member of the Master Bowlers Association, became a Master Bowler and taught youth bowling for nearly 15 years. Sadly, Mary passed away in July of 2019.

— Ingrid Maack was born in Hamburg, Germany. She arrived in Prince George in 1957 and worked for BC Rail.

— Track athlete Zena Campbell was born in Telegraph Creek. Zena is 85 years old and still wants to compete in the BC Senior Games.

— Cy Fortin was born in St. Front, Sask. His father - a blacksmith and a welder - taught Cy the basics of his trade as a welder. Cy arrived in Prince George in 1959. Two years later, he met and married Irene Johnson. Irene graduated from a registered nursing program at the Royal Columbia Hospital in New Westminster in 1961.

— Dr. Phil Staniland was presented with a plaque in recognition of his 42 years of an exemplary medical career. He served as the United Church Minister in Invermere and during that time he met nurse Jean Rickson; they were married in 1961.

— Hungarian refugees Larry and Anna Herbert landed in Toronto in 1956. They are both thankful to this day for the opportunity to become naturalized Canadian citizens.

— Bruce Hawkenson was inducted into the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame in 2001. He met and then married Jeanette Kline in 1962. Jeannette’s joy is her music and her love of strumming and singing along with the ukulele group at the Elder Citizens’ Recreation Centre.

— Retired registered nurse and midwife Joan Lemky was born in Hythe Kent, England.

She met her future husband, Second World War veteran, Pete Lemky as he was heading off to war. When Joan needed heart surgery, at the age of 85, she knew it was time to retire from her successful and accomplished 60-year nursing career.

— Jim Borden met office worker Brenda Barry when he was working for the Electric Power Equipment company in Prince George. In 1984, Brenda worked at the Prince George Public Library and later the Nechako Branch Library until she retired 30 years later.

— Bob Krekoski, born in St. Paul, Alta., remembers the invasion of the wild ducks that would eat their grain and could clear 45 acres of a near ripe crop in less than one week. The six-pound grain fed ducks were delicious when they appeared on the dinner table. He married Myrna Gustafson from Giscome in 1966.

— Walter Kamerlingh was born in Sainte-Justine, Que. One of nine children he was born and raised on a dairy farm.

— John Scott, a recipient of the British Columbia Medal of Good Citizenship award, met and married Wilma Wilson in 1963. Wilma worked at the College of New Caledonia and after 26 years of service she retired in 2003.

— Leonard Polsfut was born in a cabin near Bigger, Sask. In 1965, he loaded his belongings in his 1955 Pontiac and drove to Prince George looking for work. Upon his arrival, someone broke into his car and stole everything he owned except for the clothes on his back.

— Retired school teacher Joyce Unrau retired in 1998 after a rewarding 35-year teaching career.

— Well known Prince George developer and commercial property real estate agent Harry Backlin celebrated his 90th birthday in 2019.

As a result of successful land development deals over many years, Harry brought in many new businesses which helped to grow and expand the city of Prince George.

— Neal Cook son of Edward and Martha Cook moved to Prince George in 1969. He met and married Julia Bussey in 1991. Julia was the coordinator for the Prince George Stroke Recovery Branch when she suffered a stroke in 2015.

— Former president of the University of Northern British Columbia, Dr. Charles J. Jago married Mary McDonagh in 1966. Mary earned a diploma in nursing in Toronto, attended McMaster University in Hamilton and completed a diploma in Enterostomal Therapy in 1985. She went on to publish articles in the Canadian Association of Enterostomal Therapy Journal.

— Centenarian Mary Westlake was born in 1919, the same year that dial telephones were first introduced and a postage stamp was 3 cents. She has a great sense of humour and thanks the good lord for hearing aids.

— Ginny Parsons went to school in Red Deer, Alta., and finished her Grade 12 in Prince George when she was 52.

— Local radio personality Sharon Hurd has dedicated her life to helping those in need, mostly through her career in social work.

— In 2019, Lawrence and Molly Rustad celebrated 66 years of a good marriage. He worked in the logging and sawmill industry and said his luckiest day was when he met Molly MacKirdy, one of the top tennis players in Prince George at the time.

— At the age of 14, Charlie Burkitt, was given the choice to continue going to school or to work with his father in a sawmill.

He met Joyce Brown the new Reid Lake school teacher in 1957 and they are proud to say that they have been married for 62 years.

This completes part one of my two-part series of my year in review.

For all of the complete stories, please refer to my book People of Prince George the Foundation of our Community –Volume II.

This book makes a great gift and it is available at the University Hospital auxiliary gift store, Studio 2880, the UNBC book store, Northern Lights Estate Winery, the Hart Home Hardware store, W.D. West Studio, Books and Company and at the Prince George Community Foundation office.

Merry Christmas.

Citizen file photos

Top right: Cy and Irene Fortin

Top left: Bruce and Jeannette Hawkenson

Middle: Joan Lemky

Bottom: Larry and Anna Herbert

Kathy

North rockies AvAlANche forecAsts AvAilAble

Citizen staff

Avalanche Canada is now providing a regular forecast for the North Rockies.

The first was posted Dec. 16 at www. avalanche.ca and they will be published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday this winter, the agency said in a statement.

“Producing forecasts for this region has long been a priority for us and thanks to a recent increase in federal funding, we

are now able to make this happen,” said James Floyer, a forecast program supervisor with Avalanche Canada.

The North Rockies region encompasses the Rocky Mountains from Highway 16 in the south to Hudson’s Hope in the north, spanning the BC-Alberta border. It is a very popular destination for snowmobilers, and also sees some backcountry skiing.

It has also been the site of several

Celebration of lights

notable avalanche incidents, including the 2016 Renshaw tragedy, when five snowmobilers died in a snow slide. Over the past five winters, nine people have died in avalanches in the North Rockies region - 16 per cent of all avalanche fatalities in Canada during that time.

AvCan has a three-person field team working in the region. This team, which is modeled after our successful South Rockies field team, will collect snowpack

Chamber wants more downtown policing

ted Clarke Citizen staff

More policing and bylaw enforcement; fines or other penalties for owner/operators of harm reduction providers who fail to clean up discarded drug needles near their properties; and increased lighting of parking structures, alleyways and streets highlight a list of policy and enforcement requests a group of Prince George business owners submitted to city council Monday night.

Speaking on behalf of more than 1,200 city businesses and property owners, the group which represents the Prince George Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Prince George and the Gateway Business Improvement Association recommends the city hire six additional RCMP officers and two support staff to enhance public safety, especially in the city’s downtown core.

In his presentation, Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Corrigall requested mayor and council defer other spending to cover the cost of the additional staffing, an estimated $1.8 million annually, without increasing taxes. To cover the cost of those salaries, Corrigall said the city should consider stepping up bylaw enforcement as well as create new bylaws and collect from those caught breaking those laws. He pointed to facility sponsorships to secure naming rights to public buildings and as part of those

deals include community giving grants as a new revenue source for the city.

“This can’t be taxation story, this has to be story of how we mitigate expenses for the benefit of our community,” said Corrigall. “One of the pillars of Municipal Government Act is community safety and we really want that focus to come forward through the budgeting process in January.”

Mayor Lyn Hall agrees more policing would help alleviate some safety concerns but said he doubts council could achieve enough budget savings to make that possible.

“We talked about the budget today and about two weeks ago in finance and audit meetings and it’s difficult for us to increase policing to take a look at those enhancements without raising taxes,” said Hall. “We need to have a conversation with the (RCMP) superintendent. He’s the one who manages the force and he knows how to put those boots on the ground.”

The policy and enforcement requests for 2020 stem from discussions with business owners at a Nov. 12 information session the Chamber hosted in response to increased concerns about the societal problems plaguing downtown and other city locations.

“This is not a downtown or Gateway issue, this is a community issue,” said Corrigall. “We really want that lens to

information for AvCan forecasters in Revelstoke.

“Our field teams play a key role for forecasting in data-sparse regions like the North Rockies,” said Floyer. “In addition to collecting snowpack data, they are able to make valuable connections with backcountry recreationists while working in the field, and showcase safe backcountry travel habits through social media.”

Solo wolveS left alive, reSt of packS eliminated

Jeremy HAINSWOrTH Glacier Media

The B.C. government wolf management plan involves radio-collaring single wolves and then killing the rest of the pack while leaving the lone wolves alive.

As part of 2015-18 plans to facilitate a seemingly successful mountain caribou recovery in the South Peace region, wolves were caught and radio-collared to allow their packs to be tracked.

Pack members would then be tracked by helicopter and shot.

“Aerial gunning of wolves was deemed the most effective and humane way of removing all the wolves from each pack,” said an August 2019 report from B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development wildlife biologist Mike Bridger.

“The radio-collared individuals were often left alive following the conclusion of the winter reduction efforts in order

to facilitate the location of wolves the following winter.”

Between 2014 and 2017, 374 wolves were killed.

The culling of wolves has been done in order to reduce their predation on threatened Central Mountain caribou populations.

The report said industrial activity in the region has led to some forest areas re-establishing themselves after human disturbance. That make such lands prime territory for moose, a primary prey species for wolves. That led to increases in wolf populations.

“Wolf predation in the South Peace was occurring at rates that were unsustainable for caribou populations, leading to rapid population declines,” Bridger reported.

Initially, attempts were made to retrieve wolf carcasses but the government deemed it to be “an inefficient use of

time, effort and funds.”

The locations were later provided to First Nations for retrievals. Those nations also assisted the cull with ground trapping. Caribou populations began to show a resurgence starting in the second year of the cull.

“The overall results measured during the five-year wolf reduction program suggest that the reduction of wolves to low densities can have significant, positive effects towards caribou populations,” the report said.

Protection of caribou has been controversial in the South Peace for several years. Premier John Horgan met with area politicians, First Nations leaders and industry representatives Nov. 29 to address ways to recover low populations of southern mountain caribou in the South Peace while limiting impacts to the economy.

Caribou numbers in southern moun-

tain caribou herds around Chetwynd and Tumbler Ridge have dropped from between 800 and 1,000 in the 1990s to around 230 today. While a few herds in the region have already been extirpated, biologists say the entire population likely would have been wiped out by 2020 without predator control and maternal penning starting five years ago.

Earlier this year, the province imposed what it calls temporary moratoriums on industrial activities in the MackenzieChetwynd-Tumbler Ridge areas to protect remaining herds.

The moratorium was one of 14 recommendations made by Blair Lekstrom, an area MLA and Liberal cabinet minister. Now a Dawson Creek city councillor again, Lekstrom was hand-picked by Horgan to liaise with local governments and the public following a major backlash against the province’s proposed plans.

AROUND

TOWN COMMUNITY CALENDAR

DJ Dance nights

Thursday, Dec. 26 from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Omineca Arts Centre, 369 Victoria St., Thursday DJ Dance Nights are presented to get a body grooving and

keep spirits and energies high. There are licenced and dry DJ nights each month featuring local, regional and touring DJs. Entry is by suggested donation of between $5 and $20, but no one is turned away due to lack of funds.

For details visit www.ominecaartscentre.com. Contact: 250-552-0826

celebration of lights

Friday, Dec. 27 from 4 to 8 p.m. at

This is the front page from the december 24, 1992 edition of the Prince George citizen. you can search all of The citizen’s archives online at pgnewspapers.pgpl.ca

the Central BC Railway and Forestry Museum, 850 River Rd., the museum transforms during its Celebration of Lights event. Enjoy a walk taking in the sight of more than 100,000 Christmas lights or hop onto the Cottonwood Minirail Express to explore the eight-acre park for a small fee. Guests are invited to roast hot dogs and marshmallows over a bonfire or have a meal from the concession for purchase. People can enjoy a visit with the special guest in a red suit and live entertainment. For more information visit www.pgrfm.bc.ca.

snow Party

Friday, Dec. 27 from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Bob Harkins Branch, Prince George Public Library, 888 Canada Games Way, bring boots, toques, and gloves for STEAM-y winter games and activities. If weather permits, some activities will be outdoors, so bring warm clothes. For five to nine year old. Contact: 250-563-9251 | ask@pgpl.ca

solar solstice gong bath

Saturday, Dec. 28 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Yoga PG, 200-513 Ahbau St., Yoga PG welcomes Rob Richards in hosting a gong bath that offers the gift of sound healing this season. Honouring the solar solstice and the return of the sun, this event invites participants to awaken the senses, light up one’s life and set intentions for the next year. All proceeds for this event will be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society. $40 per person. Contact: 250596-8332 | admin@yogapg.com

Unearthing the ganDharvas

Saturday, Dec. 28 from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the The Prince George Playhouse, 2626 Recplace Dr., Unearthing The Gandharvas with Paul Jago & The Jago Family Values Band, an award winning Canadian alternative rock band, will perform their original music. Tickets are $20 (plus service charge) at centralinteriortickets.com. Contact: 2506400383 | jagonaut@gmail.com

oPeration reD nose

New Year’s Eve will see Operation Red Nose Prince George offers party-goers a way to get themselves home safely, and their vehicles too. The safe ride home service is organized by the Rotary Club of Prince George-Nechako in partnership with ICBC and the Prince George RCMP and is by donation. To get a ride between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. call 250-962-7433.

colDwater new year

Tuesday, Dec. 31 from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the Blackburn Community Centre, 2451 Blackburn Rd., there’s going to be

an epic new year’s party with friends, live music with Dale Trenholm and Coldwater Creek, appies and a safe shuttle ride home. Only $50 per person by calling or texting 250-552-3279.

new year’s eve Dinner

Tuesday, Dec. 31 at 5:30 p.m. at Northern Lights Estate Winery, 745 PG Pulpmill Rd, enjoy a New Year’s Eve dinner at Northern Lights. Make your last meal of the decade one you’re sure not to forget. Enjoy a four-course dinner prepared by Chef Rene. $85+tax for wine club/ $90+tax per guest regular. Includes a 4-course meal, wine pairings, and gratuity. Seatings are available at 5:15 or 7:30. Call the Wine Shop or stop into the Winery to book a spot. Contact: 250-564-1112

new years eve Dinner anD Dance

Tuesday, Dec. 31 from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the Hart Crown Hall, 3955 Hart Hwy, everyone is welcome to attend. The event features a prime rib buffet, music by Rhythm ‘n’ Sound DJ, free midnight champagne, free shuttle service, games and prizes, balloon prize drop, grand prize draw for a 55 inch HDTV. Tickets are $65 each by calling 778-281-3955 or emailing hcbh101@gmail.com.

new year’s eve Dance

Tuesday, Dec. 31 from 8 pm. to 1 a.m. at the Hart Pioneer Centre 6986 Hart Hwy there is a dance with music by the Bside and there’s a buffet included. Admission is $40. Cash bar. 19+ only. For more information call Diane at 250-9626712.

secret new year

Tuesday, Dec. 31 from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the Columbus Community Centre, 7201 Domano Blvd., there’s a party just because that includes a poutine bar at midnight and champagne. Shuttle for a safe ride home is available. Tickets are $40 at eventbrite.ca

new years boogie

Thursday, Jan. 2 from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Bob Harkins Branch, Prince George Public Library, 888 Canada Games Way, welcome the New Year with a library dance party. Disco balls, glow sticks, and great beats. For 0-9 yrs. Contact: 250-563-9251 | ask@pgpl.ca

aDUlt banD

Every Monday until June 29, 2020 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at the First Baptist Church, 483 Gillett St., the Alban Classical New Horizons Adult Band meets. For more information visit www.albanclassical.org. Contact: 250-563-4693 | admin@albanclassical.org

Jobs minister talks up economy

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

There is “every reason” to be optimistic about the economy heading 2020, B.C. Jobs, Labour and Technology Minister Bruce Ralston said this week in a yearend interview.

“Certainly there will be challenges, I wouldn’t want to minimize those in the forest sector, but in broad terms, the opportunities in British Columbia and the region of Prince George are pretty good for the year to come and so I’m optimistic and I hope your readers and viewers share that,” Ralston said.

In support of that claim, Ralston noted the Royal Bank is predicting B.C. will be the fastest growing province in Canada at an estimated 2.4 per cent over the coming year.

Although revised down slightly from

the 2.6 per cent growth rate it had predicted a year ago, the B.C. finance minister’s economic forecast council also projects 2.4 per cent growth in 2020, he said.

As for the Central Interior and Prince George, he emphasized a Western Investor story that placed Prince George as the second-best city in Western Canada to invest in.

Indeed, Ralston cited many of the points raised in the story, such as the multi-billion-dollar Coastal GasLink and LNG Canada projects that are expected to create significant spinoff for the city.

On the troubles in the forest sector, he made reference to the $69-million support package for displaced sawmill workers.

“The forest industry, I think, will come back but probably not in the same

Santa visits kids in hospital

nine-year-old katrina Voss gets a gift from santa claus during his surprise visit to the pediatric unit at university Hospital of northern b c

strength as it was before,” Ralston said in reference to the major lumber producers. He made note of relative buoyancy among the pulp and pellet producers.

B.C. is also home to the second-lowest income tax on small businesses and the sale tax has been taken off electricity “which benefits small business,” Ralston also said.

Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond disagreed. While Ralston has said more than 70,000 jobs have been created since the NDP was elected, she said the province has lost jobs in five of the last six months.

She accused the NDP of lacking a jobs plan and of being “out of touch on the forestry file in particular.”

“It took months to get this government’s attention on behalf of thousands of British Columbians who were either

losing their job or were laid off,” Bond said.

On taxes, Bond said B.C. is out of step with neighbouring jurisdictions in terms of competitiveness.

“What has this government done? It has actually created 19 new or increased taxes,” she said.

Bond, who is the Opposition finance critic, said the $2-billion surplus the NDP inherited when it took over as government has dwindled down to $147 million and labeled the NDP a “tax and spend government.”

“We have been telling that government that they need to be thoughtful about a softening economy, about raising taxes and creating a lack of competitiveness in British Columbia,” she said. “If we can’t compete, people are going to choose to go elsewhere to invest their money.”

unbc strike goes to arbitration

Administration and faculty at the University of Northern British Columbia have agreed to take their differences to “final offer selection arbitration,” UNBC said in statement posted on its website. In doing so, the sides have taken the advice of special mediator Trevor Sones, appointed by the provincial government last month to try and find ways to break the deadlock.

Under the process, the arbitrator selects between the parties’ best and final offers and without the ability to ‘split the difference’ between the two.

The sides have until Jan. 3 to agree on

a third-party arbitrator and the hearing process is to start by Feb. 1 unless the parties mutually agree to extend that deadline.

In agreeing to the move, the UNBC Faculty Association has ended its job action. Its roughly 180 members waged a threeweek strike in November that ended only after the FA filed a complaint with the Labour Relations Board alleging administration had been bargaining in bad faith. Since then, they have been refusing to perform duties beyond holding lectures and working with students.

“By and large, we’re all very relieved,” UNBC FA president Stephen Rader said. “It’s so nice to know that we are not go-

ing to be back out on the picket lines.”

He said the sides agreed to compromises Sones proposed on the non-monetary articles that had not been signed off yet and the arbitrator will choose between the packages the respective sides will offer on compensation. Sones recommended a similar process in 2015. The move put an end to a two-week strike in March and a deal was reached in December.

On whether the complaint of bad-faith bargaining will be pursued, Rader said the FA is waiting for advice from its legal counsel.

“Personally, I don’t see any reason why that wouldn’t still go ahead,” he said. “If the employer was engaging in bad-faith

bargaining, it’s important that we and other people know that. The Board of Governors, for example, ought to know that their bargaining team was engaging in bad faith bargaining, if in fact that’s true.”

UNBC president Daniel Weeks expressed relief at the latest development and said he hopes future bargaining will be “interest based” and less adversarial.

“The best news of it all is the job action ends the the students have some certainty about next semester,” he said. “They know they can come back and not worry about there being picket lines or anything and they can focus on their studies, that’s really what we’re all about.”

Citizen photo by James Doyle

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

Students shine at Capstone Celebration

Ted Clarke Citizen staff

Years from now, when Noah Klager has achieved his career ambition and is working as an engineer building rockets or space station components for NASA, he might think back to the day he introduced his classmates at Prince George Secondary School to the wonders of 3-D printing.

His display at PGSS’s Capstone Celebration was the culmination of a fourcredit course now required of graduating Grade 12 students in B.C. Using a 3-D printer he bought for $300, Klager was using a spool of plastic the printer melts into microscopically-thin layers to create a whistle. For most of his fellow students, it was their first time to see that kind of technology in action and it drew a steady stream of interest.

“They didn’t know what it was so when they came up and I told them it was a 3-D printer and they were blown away, just like I was with the technology,” said Klager. “I was looking at YouTube videos and you see people playing around making projects with it I realized I wanted to get unto it too and realized I could get an affordable one and jumped into it.

“I had it as a hobby at home and having the opportunity to share it and show something maybe most of my classmates didn’t know about was very interesting and awesome.”

The Capstone Celebration is part of a province-wide curriculum change brought in two years ago and this is the year it’s being introduced in B.C. highs schools. Klager likes the idea, saying it helps students focus on what they might like to pursue as a career opportunity.

“It is a good idea, it makes people look back and look forward at what they want to do and kind of solidifies their plans,” he said. “On regular (school) days you might not enjoy everything you’re doing but when you get an opportunity to choose your topic on something you really enjoy you can thrive on that and actually express it.”

Just around the corner from Klager’s display, Brooke Perepeluk had a video queued up on a TV screen to help her explain what cerebral palsy is all about. The 17-year-old sister of Prince George Cougars forward Reid Perepeluk took the opportunity to explain to her schoolmates that the part of her brain which controls movement, balance and posture doesn’t work the way it should and that’s why she needs a wheelchair.

“It’s all about my disability, cerebral palsy, and I’m just talking about how it affects my daily routine,” said Perepeluk. “I was born premature at 24 weeks and I was a healthy baby and then I got sick and the doctors had to bring me back. I got a lack of oxygen in my brain and there was some damage.”

Handout photo

PGSS principal Kap Manhas greets August Reed abd the horse she raised from a pony outside the entrance to the gym Tuesday afternoon during the Capstone Celebration.

Most of the visitors to Perepeluk’s display didn’t know what cerebral palsy was and that it does not affect intellectual development, a common misconception because it can affect the muscles which control speech.

“I want to educate them,” she said. “It’s just physical, nothing’s wrong with me mentally. I feel like people think if you have a disability you can’t do everything but you can if you go and try it. I want to go to (the College of New Caledonia) and do social work.”

Similar to a science fair, the Capstone Celebration encourages students to bring their interests, community connections and career learning ambitions to life with the visual displays they brought to the PGSS gym Tuesday afternoon.

Jackson Parish displayed the trike engine he rebuilt with his own hands.

August Reed brought the horse she’s raised from pony to adult the past six years. Melody Forbes also had a handson display featuring two roosters from her parents’ hobby farm near Tabor Lake, where they breed chickens, mini doll sheep and Kunekune pigs. Forbes held one of her preening roosters and he was relishing the attention and pats on the back the students were giving him.

“A lot of people are scared of roosters but I know they’re actually really friendly,” said Forbes. “The amount of time we spend with them kind of changes their character. He’s just really chill and sits in people’s laps.”

“We were kind of forced to do this (graduation project). Then you don’t feel uncool to say what your hobby is or what you like doing.”

After she graduates, Forbes plans to go to Capenwray Bible School in Australia and eventually become an elementary school teacher. She knows how much work is required and how committed she would have to be to provide care for all those animals and has no desire to take over the farm from her parents.

“It’s so much work and I see my parents stressed out and not able to do all the fun things they want to do,” said Forbes. “It would be great if we didn’t have so many animals. You have to find a farm-sitter if you do go away for a weekend.”

Tia Herzig made cheerleading her Capstone topic. It’s been her passion since she arrived at PGSS five years ago as a Grade 8 student and she was part of the Polars cheerleading team for three years, two as cheer captain. They entered competitions all over the province, culminated by a second-place provincial finish in the five-man team competition in Kelowna in April 2018.

For her Capstone display Herzig brought the plaque she won with her team at that event and also had a video of her flying high above her teammates showing off her gymnastic moves during their routine.

“People think it’s not a sport but it is because it demands so much physically but also mentally because you have to realize it’s not always about winning,” Herzig said. “You have to put your body through a lot to be able to tumble and hold people up and in flying you have to have a lot of core strength.”

The PGSS team disbanded shortly after that and ever since Herzig hasn’t had the opportunity since then to show

off her athleticism on the cheerleading mats. She plans to get back into it when she goes to university to study psychiatric nursing at the University of Alberta, which has a Level 5 cheerleading team.

Caley Leslie spent her Grade 10 and 11 years living in Vancouver, where she could play softball in a more competitive environment. This summer she helped the Kelowna Heat finish fifth at the under-19 provincial tournament and moved back to Prince George to graduate with her longterm school friends at PGSS.

Leslie’s Capstone project was the recruitment video she compiled and sent to more than 50 NCAA and NAIA universities and junior colleges in the U.S. She received 15 replies and is leaning towards Orange Coast College in Cost Mesa, Calif., where she hopes to study psychology.

“It seemed like a good fit and I’m going there for an official visit in March and I’ll see after that,” said Leslie. “They have a good team, the coach played for four years at UCLA and won a national championship.

“I put a lot of work into my recruitment video but for my project it was pretty much done and I was pretty much ready for this. I do think it’s a good idea to talk about what you’re passionate about. There are no high school classes in makeup design but that’s been no obstacle for Taber Metz, an aspiring movie artist. She’s already in high demand from her fellow students when it comes to face painting and adding her artistic flair for prom makeup and to produce realistic Halloween costumes.

“I’ve always loved makeup and I wasn’t allowed to wear it when I was younger, so it pushed me to love it more,” said Metz. “Once I started to really get into it my mom would buy me little kits and I’d play with it all the time and now, any time I get, I just play with it and create different looks. I want to go into the movies and the beauty aspect of it and learn how to do airbrushing and special effects. It’s kind of hit or miss and if you’re good, people will pick you (for jobs).” Metz brought photographs of some her handiwork for her Capstone display and talked to students about her career ambitions.

Next year she’s moving to Vancouver to take a one-year makeup artistry program at Blanche MacDonald Centre.

“I have a lot of cool eye looks that I do that I really enjoy and I also really like doing Halloween makeup,” Metz said. “Makeup is really hard to photograph.” More high school Capstone Celebrations are upcoming in January.

Career Technology Training (CTC) students will get their chance to shine on Wednesday, Jan 15 at CNC.

D.P. Todd Secondary School will host its Capstone event on Thursday, Jan. 16.

PiPeline exPansion to create 300 jobs

Ted Clarke Citizen staff

The demand for natural gas as a source of heat and the need for a reliable pipeline system to transport that resource is about to spur the local economy.

Beginning next spring, Enbridge will begin a project to install three new compressors in the Prince George region along its Transportation South (T-South) pipeline which runs from just south of Chetwynd to the United States border.

In a presentation to city council, the Calgary-based company announced its plans for the T-South reliability and expansion program, which will create as many as 300 jobs for 18-24 months.

The compressors will be placed near McLeod Lake, Summit Lake and Hixon, while Prince George will be the service centre for all three construction sites.

“That’s great news,” said Mayor Lyn Hall, “because we know that those workers will probably keep their families here in Prince George and they’ll probably live here and commute to wherever the job site is. It will also help those smaller communities near where the pipeline is close to.”

The project, on land already permitted by the company, also includes a gas cooler, with compressors also to be installed at Kersley and 150 Mile House. Enbridge received approval from Canadian Energy Regulator this fall and the land where the compressors will be situated has already been cleared. The project is expected to be operational by late 2021.

In her presentation, Catherine Pen-

nington, Enbridge’s lead of community and Indigenous engagement, provided council an update on the October 2018 natural gas pipeline rupture and explosion 13.5 kilometres north of Prince George, near the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation community.

wwSince that incident, Enbridge has implemented a pipeline integrity safety program with enhanced inspections using more advanced new-generation

inline tools which run the length of the pipeline. The company has increased the number of integrity digs in which the pipeline is uncovered to allow detailed visual inspections. There were 144 digs conducted on the line in 2019, double that of previous years.

“At Enbridge, no incident is acceptable ever, and when an incident does occur we do take quick and decisive action to ensure the continued operation and safety of our pipeline program,” said Pennington.

Since the rupture was repaired, reduced volumes of natural gas were running through the T-south pipeline and Pennigton said it was returned to full capacity in late November.

“Undertaking this systemwide now has ensured the T-south (B.C.) pipeline is 100 per cent inspected,” she said.

“Every segment of the B.C. pipeline system would have experienced a tool run or multiple tool runs this last year. We commenced the inline inspection program and this new integrity program immediately following the incident, so every segment would have received an inspection tool and a new generation with double the sensors we would have seen in the past.”

A lawsuit filed in February by the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation against Enbridge remains before the courts. LTFN alleges the explosion and its aftermath have “caused serious and constant distress and anguish within the Lheidli T’enneh community,” also claiming the pipeline trespasses on its territory, saying Enbridge never adequately consulted the band over its construction and failed to consult with the band prior to bringing it back into operation.

The year named opportunity

Ange sat across from me, her faced stressed with the worries of the day and her business.

“If you could name last year what would you name it?” I asked.

Without hesitation, Ange blurted out, “the year of the s##t show.”

She told me about the political interference in her work, the trouble she had with her key employees, trouble with her main client and more. Ange was clearly frustrated. However, as we worked through the day on her plan for the coming year, she relaxed and brainstormed ideas that would allow her to change her business model slightly to compensate for the challenges she was facing.

At the end of the day I asked her, “What would you like to name this coming year, Ange?” Again, without hesitation she said, “Dave, I am going to name this year ‘the year of opportunity’!”

Naming the year is something I learned

BUSINESS COACH

DAVE FULLER

from someone wiser than me. I have adopted it in my practice and used it for the past four years in creating a framework through which I can view the upcoming year. I write my name for the year down on a sticky note and paste it to my computer. It sits there all year and very few days go by when I don’t look at it. I often catch myself thinking about the theme for the year and considering if I am succeeding in achieving it.

I have clients that name their year too. Some like Ange name it around something they would like to achieve, opportunity or success, some name it the year of love, relationships, caring, while others have personal names that are meaningful to them such as “the year of freedom,” or “the

year of blessings.”

Science tells us that something happens in our brain when we write things down. There is something that happens when we remind ourselves of our goals and when we put our mental focus on achieving those goals. An internet search alleged that the most successful three per cent of the population owe their success to the habit of writing down their goals. Now I am not sure how they define successful and for many people success has nothing to do with money. The fact remains, however, that writing things down and keeping them in the forefront of your concentration for long periods of time produces results.

The year named opportunity has now come and gone for Ange. I wouldn’t say it was a perfect year for her. There was still some political interference and her main client still gave her some trouble. However, because she had framed the year differently, she looked for oppor-

tunities. Ange was able to hire someone to do the work she found mundane and overbearing. Because she was looking for opportunities, she found several that not only challenged her, but also helped her diversify her offerings. Ange sought out personal and professional opportunities that seemed to give her a more joyful perspective on life.

I have already named my year, written it down and pasted it on my computer. I am already thinking about how I can achieve that aspiration in the little things I do. I challenge you to think of a name for your upcoming year and write it down. Stick it somewhere that you are going to see it each and every day and consider throughout the year how it makes a difference for you.

Dave Fuller MBA, is an award-winning professional business coach and the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy. Got a great name for your year? Email dave@profityourselfhealthy.com

Citizen file photo The natural gas line over the Fraser River owned by Enbridge that also runs through the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation.

SPORTS

ConDors soaring

To The ToP sPoT

Ted Clarke Citizen staff

Jackson Kuc remembers all too well that feeling of being kicked in the gut and getting robbed.

So do his Duchess Park Condor senior boys basketball teammates who were with him on the court at the Langley Events Centre last March.

They’ve had nine months to think about that buzzer-beater in the tripleA provincial championship semifinal and how they lost their chance for B.C. banner when the North Delta Huskies beat them with a three-point shot off the backboard with nine seconds left.

Time heals wounds and the Condors have moved on from that devastating defeat but there’s no denying it’s in the back of their minds fueling their drive to end the high school season on the winning side of the ledger.

“Our goal all last year, everyone said it, was to win provincials, and to get that close and lose off something like that it was just super-sad,” said Condors Grade 12 forward Connor Lewis. “That was a one-in-a-million shot. Hopefully this is the year it all culminates together.

“We have lots of skill and lots of talent and we can push it. I think we’re one of the fastest teams in transition in the province.”

The Condors made an impressive showing two weekends ago when they finished fourth at the Howard Tsumura Invitational tournament in Langley, which featured 20 of the top quad-A and triple-A teams in B.C.

“We really got our confidence that weekend, everything started clicking,” said Lewis. “We really saw how good we can be and we contended with some of the top teams in the province.”

After wins over Walnut Grove and Holy Cross (No. 7-ranked quad-A), the Condors blew a halftime lead and lost in the semifinals 83-67 to Centennial of Coquitlam (the top-ranked quad-A team). They ended up with an 81-63 loss in the bronze-medal game to South Burnaby (No. 3-ranked quad-A).

That raised Duchess Park’s ranking up a notch to No. 2 among triple-A teams in B.C. and they now sit No. 4 in the power ranking, which includes all teams.

“That’s the best we’ve ever done at that tournament,” said Condors assistant coach Joe Luong. “The boys went into it treating it like a mini-provincial championship. Some might even say that tournament is even tougher than the actual provincial championship because you’re playing against all tiers. It was a good test for us to see where we rank against other top-tier teams.

“They never backed down. Some games we had slow starts and some games we had amazing starts and they always found ways to dig deep. Our team is quite deep this year and on any given day we’ll have a different leading scorer.”

Chances are Kuc will be one of them.

The senior Condor guard knows how to find the open court and gives the Condors a dependable scoring threat and he can’t wait to get back to Langley for another shot at the provincial title.

“I think we’re doing great here and I’m excited for provincials and all the tournaments we’ve got going here,” said Kuc.

”Our defensive intensity really helped us win those games (at the Tsumura tournament), that was big for us. We’ve got a bunch of young guys, too, and everyone’s competing and working hard and we’re looking good so far.”

Six seniors are on the team, including Kuc, Lewis, Ethan Wood, Benjamin

Dyck and twins Tony and Emir Zejnulahovic. The Grade 11s are Tanner Cruz, Caleb Lyons, Logan Schlick and Aedan Aksenchuk. Aiden Lewis and Cole Laing cracked the roster as Grade 10 rookies.

“We’re feeling really good about our game coming into this weekend,” said Connor Lewis.

The Condors don’t have a dominant big man like Centennial Centaurs’ six-footeight, 250-pound giant Dominic Parolin, who keyed the second-half comeback against the Condors. What they do have going for them is group of hard-working hustlers who average well over six-feet tall, somewhat taller than Condor teams of the past couple years.

Aiden Lewis and Schlick are pushing six-foot-six, while Cruz isn’t far behind at six-foot-four but the Condors know their physical limitations and will try to make up for that with athletic ability and basketball smarts.

Laing, the younger brother of UNBC T-wolves point guard Tyrell Laing, will be one to watch this season. Both have explosive ability to be gamebreakers and a tremendous work ethic.

“Tyrell is just a gritty basketball player who just never stops and that’s what Cole is too,” said Luong. “Our first weekend in Vancouver you could see moments in the games where our Grade 11 and 12 s would shy away and you put Cole out there and he doesn’t care. He just kept going and gave us little energy boosts when we needed them.”

Luong grew up in Prince Rupert and was head coach of the PGSS Polars last season and now teaches at Duchess Park where he’s replaced the retired Al Erricson as an assistant to head coach Jordan Yu. Former O’Grady Totems high school star Lee Wei-Yu, Jordan’s brother, and former UNBC T-wolf Sam Zhang are also helping coach the Condors.

Citizen photo by James Doyle

The Duchess Park Condors seniors boys basketball team during practice last week at the school.

Former King’s Fists did the talKing

Ted Clarke Citizen staff

A generation ago, when hockey enforcers and their intimidation tactics were an accepted part of the game, Rob Pfoh had a reserved seat in the penalty box.

Back then, before he emerged as a skilled gamebreaker and playoff MVP for the Prince George Spruce Kings, he was usually first in line to kickstart a brawl.

In 43 games of the 1982-83 B.C. Junior Hockey League season with the Merritt Centennials he racked up 376 minutes of penalty time. That’s more than six complete 60-minute games in purgatory, a Cents’ record that still stands.

The 55-year-old Pfoh, whose 17-yearold son Brett was traded in October from the Spruce Kings to Powell River, admits he had a short fuse and was quick to anger, like the time he and teammate Tim O’Toole got a drink poured on their heads while they sat in the penalty box in Salmon Arm. On cue they both jumped into the stands to fight the guy who did it, backed by their teammates also leaped the glass to scrap with the fans. The Cents gave up a couple power-play goals, lost their lead and lost the game. At the time, Len McNamara was head coach of the Cents and when the team got back to Merritt he was fired. That story comes with a twist, as Pfoh recalls.

“A year later I ended up in Prince George (where McNamara had just been hired as the Spruce Kings general manager) and he said, ‘Before you sign on the dotted line you have to make sure you promise not to get me fired again.’”

While he did clean up his act considerably in the late stages of his junior hockey career, Phoh was certainly no angel. He was a hated target any time he appeared in an opponent’s rink, especially in Williams Lake where coach John Van Horlick and tough guy Gary Grant were went out of their way to make his life miserable.

In a January 1984 game at the Prince George Coliseum he ran over Quesnel goalie Ken Zotek and the Millionaires netminder had to be stretchered off the ice with bruised ribs. In that same game, Pfoh bowled over Mills backup goalie Ward Black.

“I was never a great fighter but I fought quite a bit,” said Pfoh. “It was more commonplace in those days and everybody had to cut their teeth that way a bit. I wasn’t a heavyweight or anything, I was

185 pounds, just willing to go.

“I remember my (Meritt) teammates saying, ‘Fobber, you’re like 28 minutes off the league record (for penalty minutes), go get in another couple of scraps,’ but I was like, “I’m not chasing it.”

Pfoh played two seasons for the Cents from 1982-84 and perhaps his anger was justified playing for a team won just 18 games over that span. In a 60-game season they had 10 wins in ‘82-83 and went 8-51-1 the following season, which still ranks as their worst season ever. That team allowed an average 9.05 goals per game.

Kings to salute mohawKs team

The 1970s was a decade of dominance for the Prince George Mohawks hockey team.

The Mohawks were a B.C. senior hockey dynasty, winning the Coy Cup provincial double-A championship five times in eight years.

That fifth championship was just the beginning for the Mohawks and they went on to win the Hardy Cup intermediate A national championship on home ice at the old Coliseum, beating the Campbelton Tigers of New Brunswick 3-1.

That national title guaranteed their

place in the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame and in 1997 the Mohawks were inducted at the hall’s inaugural ceremony.

On Friday, Jan. 17 at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena the Prince George Spruce Kings will recognize the Mohawks for their efforts putting Prince George on the national hockey map at a special ceremony during the first intermission of the Kings’ game against the Langley Rivermen.

The Kings will be wearing red, white and black replica Mohawks jerseys, which will be auctioned online after the game.

centre Everett Rose, the Spruce Kings dominated the Peace Cariboo Junior Hockey League the rest of the season and won their fourth playoff title in five years. They went 43-7 and lost just two of 10 playoff games to advance to the best-of-three provincial junior A final against the BCJHL-champion Langley Eagles at the Coliseum.

In the first game, a 3-2 Kings’ loss in double-overtime, Pfoh opened the scoring with a shorthanded goal after he stripped the puck from an Eagles puck carrier as he circled around the net. The Kings lost the second game 3-2 and Langley went in to win the national championship.

After a second season with the Spruce Kings, Pfoh moved to Edmonton in 1986 and was working as a roofer when he decided to give pro hockey a shot. He went to the Atlantic Coast Hockey League with the Erie (Pa.) Golden Blades and in 32 games scored 12 goals and had 25 points. Pfoh turned down a chance to attend a free agent camp put on by the International Hockey League when he found out about a new league, the Pacific Northwest Hockey League, which would allow him to stay close to home. But the league folded before it even began, ending his competitive career. He settled in Port Moody and is now in his 27th year with the Vancouver Fire Department, still playing hockey as a goalie with the firefighters.

His son Brett joined the Kings as rookie left winger this season, after two seasons with the Burnaby Winter Club. The Bowling Green University recruit for 2021 had two goals and an assist in 15 games playing on the Kings’ fourth line before the trade was made. He has two goals and an assist in 13 games with Powell River.

“We were terrible. We had a revolving door for coaches,” he said.

Pfoh wore out his welcome in Merritt and returned to his home in Kitimat and was playing there on a junior B team when his friend, Daryl Craft, convinced him to try out for the Spruce Kings.

“For me it was polar opposites; in Merritt I was a thug on very much a losing team and in Prince George I was hockey player who won an MVP award in playoffs on a team that had success,” Pfoh said.

He arrived in January and with Pfoh playing left wing on a line with Craft and

“I was over the moon about Prince George, I’m thrilled that he’s blazing his own trail and getting acceptance at the junior level making the team,” said Rob.

“He’s a hard worker, like me. He’s not big (five-foot-11, 168 pounds) but he’s a strong guy. Sometimes he gets frustrated that he’s not logging a lot of minutes. It’s something all junior players go through and he has to understand that. Everybody considers the physical part of it as being so demanding, and it is, but the mental toughness required to play the game at that level is really hard, too. I’m trying to groom him for that part.”

Goalie’s work celebrated

Prince

George Spruce Kings goaltender

Jett Alexander has been named the winner of the inaugural B.C. Hockey League Community Hero Award.

Sponsored by Shaw Communications, the award is handed out to a BCHL player who goes above and beyond in his community.

In October, Alexander raised hundreds of dollars for cancer research with his October Saves Goalie Challenge. He pledged to donate 25 cents for every save he made and engaged fans, players, team staff and billets to do the same. As a result, he raised $358.75.

This was the first year the 20-year-old Kings goalie took part in the campaign. He was inspired by St. Louis Blues goaltender Jake Allen to join the effort.

For Alexander, as with many people

raising funds for cancer research, the saves campaign was personal.

“I lost a grandfather when I was around 15-years-old,” he said. “Cancer is a disease that affects everyone. Whether it’s someone who’s had it themselves or someone you know like a family member, it’s a horrible thing. I just thought it was a good opportunity to help people.”

Shaw Communications has pledged to make a matching donation to Stand Up to Cancer Canada, one of the beneficiaries of the October Saves Goalie Challenge, in recognition of Alexander’s efforts.

Alexander, a native of Bloomfield, Ont., spent the previous three seasons in the Ontario Junior Hockey League (OJHL), and was acquired by Prince George in the offseason.

Handout photo

rob Phoh after a scrimmage with sons Brett, left, and luke, centre.

ANNOUNCEMENTS REMEMBRANCES

Colleen Ann Douglas

It is with great sorrow that we announce that Colleen passed away on December 16, 2019 after a long fight with cancer. She is survived by her husband Al Hall, her sons Jason Douglas and Adam Hall, grandsons Tyler, Dallas, and William Hall. In addition, she is survived by numerous brothers, sisters, nieces,nephews and best friends Betty Wong and Anna Cardinal. She is predeceased by her father, mother and two brothers.

She will be sadly missed but never forgotten.

DOROTHY REVELL

November 3, 1930 - December 13, 2019

Dorothy passed away peacefully in the evening of December 13 at the UHNBC in Prince George, BC. She is predeceased by her loving husband Gerry who passed 12 years prior. Dorothy is survived and will be greatly missed by her son Steve, daughter Kay North, granddaughter Leah Baker (Derek) and granddaughter Lauren Donnelly. Family would like to thank the Doctors, Nurses and Hospice Staff who provided such excellent care of Dorothy during her final weeks.

BLACK PRESS - CLASSIFIEDS

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Babine Forest Products is currently searching for a full time Maintenance Planner to join our Burns Lake operation.

The successful candidate will have strong communication, mathematic, organization and problem solving skills. Red Seal certification in industrial mechanics (Millwright) is preferred. Good hand-eye coordination and a strong understanding of mechanical and engineering concepts are required. You should be detail oriented with an ability to meet deadlines and oversee teams, and have advanced knowledge of Microsoft applications (specifically Excel). Understanding basic financial concepts (estimating and budgeting) would be an asset.

Core responsibilities include: creating maintenance schedules for all plant equipment, determining tools and supplies needed for each piece of equipment, maintaining spare parts inventory, developing maintenance and training manuals, estimating labour and parts costs for industrial equipment.

Babine Forest Products, working jointly with First Nations, provides equal opportunity for employment including First Nation status privileges. All applicants will receive consideration for employment. We offer competitive compensation, benefits and the potential for career advancement.

Resumes will be accepted until January 3, 2020. We wish to thank all those who apply; however only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

Please forward your resume to:

Anne Currie, Human Resources Assistant Babine Forest Products Limited 503-291-5591 (Confidential Fax) #HRCanada@hamptonlumber.com

Babine Forest Products Limited, Burns Lake BC

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Prince George Citizen December 26, 2019

Why B.C.’s Working forests aren’t Working

Harvesting costs pose challenge

Polar bear diP set for Ness lake

Man LInKed to hoMe InvasIon sentenced

City seeks applications for downtown committee

Gouchie captures music award

Cougar finds shelTer in hoCkey SPORTS

OPINION

Yes, David, there is a Santa Claus

making Changes to Court DoCket

Looking back at some interesting people

SENIORS’ SCENE

North rockies AvAlANche forecAsts AvAilAble

Celebration of lights

Chamber wants more downtown policing

top citizeN oNliNe stories of 2019

Solo wolveS left alive, reSt of packS eliminated

AROUND

DJ Dance nights

celebration of lights

snow Party

solar solstice gong bath

Unearthing the ganDharvas

oPeration reD nose

colDwater new year

new year’s eve Dinner

new years eve Dinner anD Dance

new year’s eve Dance

secret new year

new years boogie

aDUlt banD

Jobs minister talks up economy

Santa visits kids in hospital

unbc strike goes to arbitration

Students shine at Capstone Celebration

PiPeline exPansion to create 300 jobs

The year named opportunity

BUSINESS COACH

DAVE FULLER

SPORTS

ConDors soaring

To The ToP sPoT

Former King’s Fists did the talKing

Kings to salute mohawKs team

Goalie’s work celebrated

Prince

ANNOUNCEMENTS REMEMBRANCES

BLACK PRESS - CLASSIFIEDS

Maintenance Planner