Woodpecker church open again
Christine hinZMAnn Citizen staff
The sound of history sings through the pews, said one young parishioner at St. Mark’s Anglican Church, best known as Woodpecker church, built in 1939 and located 11 km north of Hixon.
Kyle Gillespie,17, used those poetic words as he best described the alarmingly loud cracking and creaking that resounds throughout the church each time the 21-member congregation was asked to be seated in the little church on Sunday morning.
He comes to church with his twin sister Fionna and mom Laurel, who have lived in Hixon for years and have always wondered what the church looked like inside.
“This is something special that we have to attend,” he said. “It’s part of history.”
And history is alive and well in the walls of the sturdy, stained glass window building that didn’t see regular church services for most of the last 30 years. The vicar of Woodpecker, Alexis Saunders, began holding evening services again during the summer months in 2018. Saunders then reopened the church in May 2019, with members of the congregation requesting winter services, which are now held - weather permitting - once a month on Sunday mornings. There was a special Christmas Eve service held this year that saw about 35 people in attendance.
“This is a faithful community and they need a place to gather,” Saunders said. “In these very uncertain times people need hope and they need community to maintain that hope.”
With a generator thundering outside to provide power for the heaters inside the church that has no electricity or plumbing and no other source of heat that’s to up to modern building codes, those attending church were bundled in their Sunday best, including faux fur coats, thick gloves, jaunty hats and a variety of scarves to stop the winter chill.
About 10 minutes before the service started, it was a balmy 17 C inside and that was considered warm enough. At the back of the church, Vicar Saunders reached up with both hands to pull
the rope that is fed through a small hole in the roof of the church to ring the bell so everyone knew it was time to start the service.
Soon, the strains of the pump organ could be heard as it was played by the experienced hands of Wanda Jackson.
Then the robed vicar began the service that was participatory in nature, engaging the congregation often.
“When I first saw this little church I was amazed that the Women’s Institute in Hixon and the Volunteer Fire Department refurbished it, holding in trust its history for over 30 years before services began again,” Saunders said. “To me it speaks of strong community bonds that hold villages together. This is what
they speak of in big cities like Vancouver where the young people and the old people describe themselves as being very lonely.”
Saunders spent from 2011 to 2015 in the downtown eastside of Vancouver at St. James Anglican Church on Cordova Street. It’s Vancouver’s oldest Anglican church that opened in 1881.
She made the conscious choice to also live in the downtrodden neighbourhood. Saunders said it was a diverse crosssection of people who attended services, including judges, university professors and those living on the streets and she felt a strong call to service there.
“That church was about providing beauty to those living in very dire
circumstances,” Saunders said about the experience.
After retirement, moving to Woodpecker from downtown Vancouver to be close to family offered a different perspective on the world.
“The reality of this church speaks well of its people who are hard-working people who have strong connections and relationships,” Saunders said. “The church is very human-sized - it’s the right size for this community. We’ve got family and friends and neighbours and people who have historical connections to this place who still gather here. Within the walls of this church, there is tradition and knowledge and culture.”
— Continued on page 6
Citizen photo by James Doyle Vicar Alexis Saunders readers a passage to parishioners during the Jan. 5 service at St. Mark’s Anglican church in Woodpecker.
Officers hurt Over hOlidays
Citizen staff
There were no serious injuries but there were violent and dangerous incidents involving Prince George RCMP officers during more than 100 calls through the last 10 days of 2019.
At about 6:30 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 20, local frontline officers responded to a report of an abandoned 9-1-1 call from an apartment on Juniper St. Three people were found in the residence smoking methamphetamine. Two of the three started to argue, which prompted the 9-1-1 call. The occupants were separated. The three officers who responded to the call got sick because of exposure
to the fumes in the residence. They were taken to hospital as a precaution and later discharged.
On Christmas Day at about 3 p.m., officers responded to a report of a mental health and drug related incident in Prince George. A teenage female was apprehended under the Mental Health Act and transported to the hospital for assessment by a doctor. While at the hospital, the female became aggressive towards police and ended up biting an officer to the point of drawing blood. An investigation is underway.
Just after 11 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 28, an officer conducting CounterAttack patrols
for impaired drivers, executed a traffic stop with a vehicle on Massey Drive. The female driver and two other occupants all appeared to be intoxicated. The driver refused to provide her driver’s licence or name to the officer. She opened the door and attempted to get past the officer, assaulting him in the process. While she was being arrested, a female passenger, later identified as the driver’s 20-yearold daughter, exited the vehicle and attempted to kick the officer in the groin. She was subsequently arrested, too. The 41-year-old driver was later found not to have a valid driver’s licence. She was transported to the detachment where she
New efforts made to help sturgeoN
The Nechako River’s endangered white sturgeon could have a silt-free spawning site this spring, if all goes according to plan.
The B.C. Ministry of Environment is seeking a company that can remove fine particles from a small section of the river where the endangered fish lay their eggs and rear their young.
It’s part of a plan to help the sturgeon, a species whose evolution dates back to the dinosaurs, reproduce on their own. For decades, the Nechako sturgeon have struggled to successfully spawn in the wild. Scientists believe their slow disappearance from the river is linked to
the construction of the Kenney Dam in the 1950s, which helps supply power to what is now the Rio Tinto Alcan aluminum smelters.
“The dam stopped the natural flow of the river,” said Wayne Salewski, chair of the community working group for the Nechako White Sturgeon Recovery Initiative. “The water is never fast and fierce enough to flush all the silt downstream.”
Instead, fine particles accumulate over the spawning beds, covering the coarse gravel needed by the sturgeon to hide and protect their eggs.
In 2011, substrate remediation involving the creation of two gravel spawning beds showed promise, leading to the sur-
vival of some baby fish. But over the next few years, the silt built up again. It was cleaned in 2016 with uncertain results.
The goal of this spring’s work is to “repeat a similar test by removing the fines from the gravel/cobble material that was placed in 2011,” says the government’s Request for Proposals, which closes Jan. 27.
Tracking the condition of the cleaned substrate, as well as monitoring the project’s success, will be a critical component this time around.
“Methods developed in the present study will be an integral part of substrate cleaning tests to be conducted in the future,” says the RFP.
provided breath samples of well over the legal limit.
In the early morning of Sunday Dec. 29, frontline officers responded to a report of a suspect on a bike breaking into vehicles on Sanderson Road in Prince George. Officers located an adult male in a driveway who matched the description. While in conversation with the officer, the male swung a bag towards the officer, striking him in the head. The male immediately fled on foot. A search of the area was conducted, however the suspect was not located. The officer was not seriously hurt. The investigation is continuing.
Salewski, who has been involved in sturgeon recovery efforts in Vanderhoof for more than 40 years, said the beds could be seeded with eggs and milt from the Nechako White Sturgeon Conservation Centre. The program typically releases one-year-old sturgeon into the river, but it’s believed naturally-born fish would fare better.
“The hatchery fish simply aren’t as wise,” he said.
The efforts are just one part of an ongoing battle to save the sturgeon.
“There’s never an easy blueprint to recovery. No one way is going to be successful. You really need to think of it as a multi-pronged attack.”
VanCouVer sun
Natural resources survey underway
Citizen staff
Think the government is doing enough to encourage investment in B.C.’s energy sector?
Would you want your son or daughter to pursue a career in the forest industry?
The natural resource sector wants to hear from you.
An online survey being conducted by the C3 Alliance Corp. (the group that hosts the annual BC Natural Resoures Forum in Prince George) offers northern British Columbians a chance to have their opinions heard by the powersthat-be making decisions which affect development of our province’s natural resources.
“If you’re living in the north – your voice needs to be heard,” said Val Litwin, president and CEO of the BC Chamber of Commerce.
“Northerners appreciate more than most that even if you aren’t working directly in the resource sector the prosperity of your community and family is connected to it.”
The survey is a joint effort which also involves the BC Chamber and the research company, Abacus Data. Results will be revealed at the 17th annual BC Natural Resources Forum, Jan. 28-30, at the Prince George Conference and Civic Centre.
C3 Alliance president and CEO Sarah
Weber said the main objective is to “really take the pulse of the industrial sectors of the province, and gather a solid baseline data-set,” both for an understanding of today’s forestry, mining, energy, agriculture and other natural resource fields, but also to have a basis for comparison as future surveys are conducted.
Useful long-term trends will emerge over time as additional surveys are completed.
Survey questions were compiled by a steering committee of industry leaders from across the spectrum of natural resource sectors.
The goal is to reach at least 1,000 respondents and to have input from all
areas of the province.
“We will have an on-stage presentation of the results,” Weber said. “We also expect to use some of the data in the lead-up to the conference, to help shape the themes of the discussions. There will also be a comprehensive report with easily digestible information, so that the findings can be put to good use.”
Premier John Horgan is one of the keynote speakers booked for the threeday conference, which will also feature cabinet ministers and resource sector leaders.
The survey can be found at https:// www.bcmindreader.com/c/f/nfr-survey2019-c3alliance.
Red Nose wRaps seasoN
Citizen staff
Operation Red Nose provided 905 safe rides home in Prince George over the holidays, including 141 on New Year's.
“We were happy with how the night unfolded, even though we experienced some technical issues with our phone lines,” said Andrea Johnson, Operation Red Nose spokesperson. “We apologize to those who couldn’t get through, and those who did get through to us our teams picked them up and delivered them home in a timely fashion.
In 2018, 959 rides were delivered, while in 2017, a total of 838 motorists used the service and another 872 rides were delivered in 2016.
Operation Red Nose is a designated
driving service by donation that’s available during the holiday season. All donations go towards youth and amateur sport organizations in Prince George.
“We appreciate everyone’s support of this valuable program from our volunteers and those who call us for a safe ride home,” Johnson said.
Operation Red Nose is organized by the Rotary Club of Prince George – Nechako in partnership with ICBC and the Prince George RCMP.
A total of 5,399 rides were provided by 3,031 volunteers in B.C. Across Canada, 100 communities offered the service, mobilizing 48,606 volunteers and delivering 69,029 motorists who reached out for a safe ride.
Comedy Show Saturday
Citizen staff
As part of Canada’s biggest comedy tour, Prince George residents can enjoy the humorous perspective of four comedians when they take to the Playhouse stage during the 12th annual Snowed In Comedy Tour on Jan. 11.
The line up for the Prince George show includes Los Angeles-based Debra DiGiovanni, tour founder Dan Quinn, Paul Myrehaug and Pete Zedlacher. It started out as a way for Quinn to combine his two passions of snowboarding and comedy and hitting the slopes by day and entertaining winter-city audiences by night seemed the perfect way to do it.
“As you can imagine I don’t snowboard - I know, it’s shocking isn’t it?” DiGiovanni quipped during a phone interview. “But this tour is always a lot of fun and we all get along really well. It’s just a bunch of friends traveling around together.”
This year, the comics will play 70 shows in 63 cities across Canada to chase the winter blues far away.
“The material we have for this tour is always new,” DiGiovanni said. “So if
you’ve come to the show before, come to this one because you’ll hear new material from each comedian.”
Featured comedians for the local show includes DiGiovanni, who has been named Toronto’s favourite comedian three times in five years. DiGiovanni’s style of comedy offers a personal perspective into everyday life. The popular comedian made an appearance on Conan O’Brien and stars in her own Crave TV and Netflix specials. She’s well-known in Canada for appearances on Much Music’s Video On Trial.
Myrehaug, who now lives in London, was born in Alberta and tours around the globe. He won the Great Canadian Laugh Off $25,000 prize and has been on Just For Laughs, Sirius XM and the Debaters.
Zedlacher is becoming one of the most recognized acts in Canada. He has been nominated five times for Comedian of the Year, done the Just For Laughs Gala eight times and won the Sirius-XM Radio Top Comic Competition. Along with his acting credits, he is now writing for the CBC Johnny Harris show Of All Places.
Tickets are at centralinteriortickets.com.
Big year for Crime Stoppers
Citizen staff
Tips to Prince George Crime Stoppers in 2019 led to more than $1.8 million of drugs seized, more than $500,000 in cash recovered, 14 arrests, six cases resolved and 11 cash rewards handed out.
As part of Crime Stoppers Month, Crime Stoppers will be at the Cougars game on Saturday night, the Spruce Kings game on Jan. 17 and the UNBC
Timberwolves men’s and women’s basketball games on Jan. 25 at the Northern Sports Centre. For those wanting to anonymously submit a tip to Prince George Crime Stoppers, call 1-800-2228477(TIPS) or submit a typed tip via our website at www.pgcrimestoppers.bc.ca
Prince George Crime Stoppers is a notfor-profit society run independently of the police by local residents.
‘A
place of sanctuary’
— from page 1 Saunders told the congregation she understands the church is a gathering place for different denominations.
“The entire community is a place of sanctuary and makes this place a source of strength and resilience for whatever the future may bring,” Saunders said, her arms wide open in a welcoming gesture.
As much as Kyle Gillespie wanted to be part of the church’s recent history, Allan Thorp, 88, who grew up in Woodpecker, an area that began as a farming settlement, is now part of the church’s living history and returned to the church for the Jan. 5 service. Last summer, the church celebrated its 80th anniversary and Thorp attended that, too.
One of a family of eight, he said if they didn’t show up for church back then there wasn’t a reason to preach.
“We came to Woodpecker in 1937 and the church was built in 1939,” Thorp recalled. “We lived a mile and a half away.”
Anglican and United church ministers would take turns holding services.
Thorp is a dapper dresser, wearing a plaid cap, an overcoat and a thick vest over a white shirt and tie. He opened his coat for a little show and tell.
“Mom always said we go to church in a white shirt and tie and so that’s what I do to this day,” Thorp said. “Coming back here brings back a lot of memories. Some of them are good.”
— Continued on page 7
Citizen photos by James Doyle
Top left: Kyle Gillespie, with his twin sister Fionna and mom Laurel, at the Jan. 5 service at St. Mark’s Anglican Church in Woodpecker. Top right: Wanda Jackson plays the organ during the service at St. Mark’s. Above: St. Mark’s Anglican Church is nestled in the trees in Woodpecker.
‘It’s emotional for me’
— from page 6
It’s also bittersweet for Thorp, who only has one surviving sibling left.
“As I look back at us hillbilly kids running around shooting rabbits and squirrels and looking for trouble, I think of my family and old friends who are all gone,” Thorp said. “I’m pretty much the only one left from around here so it’s emotional for me. I remember attending the cornerstone ceremony (Sept. 7, 1939) and next door was a community hall and that’s where celebrations and
dances were held and the school was close by, too.”
Thorp said it was great that the vicar has opened the church for services after all these years. The last service before she came along was held at Christmas 1988.
“It would be nice if they could spruce it up a bit,” Thorp said, looking around the old church as the snow started falling in earnest again outside.
“A little light and heat would be good.”
chinzmann@pgcitizen.ca
Citizen photos by James Doyle
Allan Thorp, 88, attended mass on Jan. 5 at St. Mark’s Anglican Church in Woodpecker. He’s been a parishioner since the church first opened in 1939.
Church opened in 1939
Citizen staff
Woodpecker was a farming settlement that was created in the early 1900s. Mostly accessed from the Fraser River by sternwheeler, people would stop off at Woodpecker Landing, which was named by Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Down, who thought the people who were chipping away at the trees at the river landing to provide fuel to the sternwheelers sounded like woodpeckers.
The Downs built a store in 1919 and opened a post office in 1920. Soon after that, they moved to the current location of Woodpecker, located 60 km south of Prince George.
According to the book History of the Anglican Church in Prince George and Region by Anne M. Martin, Rev. Sam Pollinger held services in Woodpecker in 1926 and contacted Bishop Wells about building a church in 1939. There was $3,000 provided to build on property donated by the Down family and Pete Anderson of Prince George built St. Mark’s Anglican Church.
The dedication by Bishop Adams and Rev. Pollinger took place on Sept. 7, 1939.
The first wedding took place in the church between Eugene King and Vira Widdis on Oct. 24, 1940.
In the cemetery behind the church are two graves. Mr. R. Widdis was buried there on Dec. 20, 1940 and Mr. E.J. Down who died on July 11, 1945 is also buried there.
In 1983, the Hixon Women’s Institute Heritage Committee was given permission by Bishop Snowden to care for the church. A grant from the BC Heritage Trust was granted to restore and repair the vandalized church and the surrounding property. Along with donations from the community, the church was deemed sound enough to hold services in 1988 with the last one held on Christmas that year.
There is little known about the original bell that hung at St. Mark’s. Records state it disappeared and the local firefighters replaced it. Some people claim the original bell has been stored in Prince George in St. Michael’s when it was located in the Millar Addition and then moved to where St. Michael’s stands now on Fifth Ave.
The bell from BC Rail’s engine 568 was installed at St. Mark’s after the restoration was complete, between 1988 and 1992.
To this day, St. Mark’s remains a dedicated Anglican Church and with permission from Bishop Barbara Andrews, who was in charge of Central Interior churches before her retirement in 2019, Vicar Alexis Saunders opened St. Mark’s again in 2018, with regular services starting last summer.
Photos courtesy Allan Thorp/Prince George Public Library digital archives
Above: The community of Woodpecker with the newly built St. Mark’s Anglican Church in the fall of 1939. Below left: one of the colourful stained glass windows at St. Mark’s. Below right: a photo from the July 4, 1983 edition of The Citizen captures a wedding held at St. Mark’s Anglican Church. Bottom: Woodpecker residents and St. Mark’s parishioners gather outside the church for a blessing during the building’s construction in 1939.
The long, strange trip of psychedelics
Fentanyl and opiates may have dominated the headlines in recent years but another group of drugs is making a surprising return in a positive way.
Psychedelics are back, as evidenced by a growing body of fascinating research, a recent segment on 60 Minutes and Michael Pollan’s book How To Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. Let’s start with the fun Canadian fact - the word psychedlic was born in a hospital in the mighty metropolis of Weyburn, Sask. Turns out the Souris Valley Mental Hospital was one of the most important research facilities in the world during the 1950s on the use of lysergic acid diethylamide (you may be more familiar with its abbreviated name - LSD) to better understand brain chemistry and to treat addictions.
Hundreds of alcoholics were treated over several years and the results were startling -success rates as high as 90 per cent, even
NIGHT SHIFT NEIL GODBOUT
up to two years later.
When Dr. Humphry Osmond and Dr. Abram Hoffer published their results, other medical researchers in Europe and the United States joined in, not only with LSD but with other pychedlics, particularly with psilocybin (the naturally-occuring chemical that makes certain kinds of mushrooms “magic”). The context of the times is important. Psychedelics weren’t illegal yet and new, miraculous drugs were changing the world. The polio vaccine had just been developed and penicillin was still new. Society was open to more discoveries by chemists and doctors.
Osmond first used the term psychedlic (it’s Latin for “mind manifesting”) in a 1957
research paper (he even made up a rhyme to remember it - “to fall into hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic”) and the word stuck, first in the medical community and then in broader society, especially during increasing public awareness and then fear (thanks to the thalidomide tragedy and crazy hippie talk from Timothy Leary) in the 1960s led to the drugs being outlawed.
Research dried up for decades but over the past 10 to 15 years, scientists and doctors across the world have been quietly investigating the medical potential of psychedelics.
Here in B.C., researchers and graduate students at both UBC in Vancouver and UBC Okanagan in Kelowna have published results (nothing at UNBC - yet), from treating PTSD sufferers to reducing domestic violence.
If this sounds like the cure being worse than the disease scenario, guess again. The reason psychedlics show so much promise is because, like cannabis, they seem to not be addictive, toxic or lethal when overdosed, unlike opiates.
And then there’s the recreational aspect, which Pollan explores in his book, both personally and professionally. While researchers are shy to talk about it (because the drugs are still illegal and carry 50 years of bad reputation), there is a recognition that psychedelic drugs may have something to contribute to overall mental wellness, even in healthy individuals.
One researcher likened it to shaking a snow globe - the globe isn’t damaged, internally or externally, but it resets the display. Another unpacked the word recreational, noting that psychedelics can recreate the mind.
If that sounds frightening, it can be, but
some research shows it can help people face the greatest fear of all. In studies involving psychedelics being used for end-of-life patients, many people emerged from treatment far calmer and more at peace with the prospect of their imminent death. Meditation and other non-pharmaceutical techniques, such as breathing, can lead to similar insights and experiences but psychedelics don’t obviously involve months and years of practice.
The psychedelic testing currently happening still uses many of the techniques pioneered by Ormond and Hoffer in Weyburn. They quickly realized physical and mental settings are important factors contributing towards the success or failure of psychedlicassisted psychotherapy.
Participants are prepared for the gamut of emotions they may feel during their experience, everything from intense fear to overwhelming joy and love. Tests are done in quiet, comfortable settings with a therapist on hand to guide the individual through negative feelings during the experience by reminding them they are safe and to face those fears and explore them. Afterwards, debrief sessions are held to explore and understand their experience.
In terms of brain research, psychedlics are providing revolutionary insights into how the brain and the mind work. For example, a new theory of depression and anxiety suggests that these conditions may be the result of parts of the brain working too hard to impose order and structure, rather than a breakdown in organization.
Thinking differently - about ourselves, each other and about psychedlics - could lead to some interesting developments, both medically and socially, in the coming years.
Failure’s lessons
Dec. 31 is one of those days that causes many of us to pause and reflect as we transition to the start of a new calendar year. It sits in the epicentre of the past and the future, of progress made so far, and of future goals. Or even what we haven’t done yet but will resolve to do.
Typically, goals focus on finances, career, health and relationships as per the North American formula for happiness. But the search for meaning has become more arduous the longer I live, as I consider the deeper truth of failure and success. Both are necessary like day and night, ebb and flow, inhaling and exhaling. It’s a paradox because both are needed for the other to exist.
My failures started early in life. Years of ear infections plagued me to the point of deafness. It was the nurse who lived next door that alerted my mother. Deafness at an early age impeded my ability to read and set the stage for years of academic struggle. Finally, at age 14, I was drawn into a novel far enough to get past the work of deciphering words and symbols. My imagination was lit as I gained entry into the author’s world. Subsequently I read every book this author wrote but the damage was done.
To accomplish a high school diploma, I attended three different high schools in Calgary and, as a result, I learned to negotiate. In fact, a principal at one of the high schools flat out denied me entry due to overcapacity.
“Where would you like me to attend school, then?” I asked during the office standoff. He had no answer. The chip on my shoulder grew as I completed the enrollment forms. The remainder of high school was a mix of minimal effort, skipping classes and tormenting teachers with endless questions
LATITUDE
LINDA REMPEL
as to the relevance to life in general of any given subject matter.
Academic life really began in university because nobody cared anymore what I thought or had to say. I attended because my mother insisted and my parents could afford it. The first year was a complete shock and a battle that required fortitude I did not know I had. They must have been a byproduct of a painful formative education. Eventually I grew to achieve academic success and, ironically, earned a teaching degree.
Fast forward 16 years after a baby, when I did not want to go back to work teaching. The cost of childcare and limited incomes forced us to get creative. After purchasing a RESP, I made a quick career change and started selling RESPs myself, with my baby on my hip. To my surprise and excitement, Prince George afforded me a second-place win for new sales representatives right across Canada. I know deep down my passion for education is rooted in my own story, that post-secondary education can become a reality with encouragement and provision, even for a below average student like me who believed it was never a possibility.
So, as I move into a new decade, I will soldier on with the hope of success with the regular resolutions. However, it seems as though in the grand scheme, we learn little from success and volumes from failure. In fact, failure may be the best teacher of all.
OPINION
Protect kids from predators
Outrage is not much help. A petition is better but it’s still not enough.
Much more needs to be done about child sex predators and our federal politicians need to get busy. Todd Doherty’s bill to establish a national strategy to address post-traumatic stress disorder was passed with the support of all the federal parties. Can’t Doherty and all of the federal parties also agree on a similar national strategy to better protect children from sexual predators?
Convicted child sex predators have Section 12 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on their side to protect them from cruel and unusual punishment. That does not mean that current sentences can’t be increased - former Burns Lake mayor Luke Strimbold was sentenced last month to two years less a day in jail, followed by two years probation, after pleading guilty to four counts of sexual assault involving four boys who were under the age of 16.
That is cruel and unusual punishmentto the victims and to society at large. What message does that sentence send?
To the victims, it says that as a child you are fair game to be physically and sexually assaulted by an adult (who likely is in a position of trust and power). If you have the courage to step forward, you will likely be believed but you will have to tell your story multiple times to multiple people, including possibly in an open courtroom. In exchange, those children face the possibility of seeing their attacker walking freely on the streets of their hometown within a matter of months.
The sentences for other violent crimes are often lengthy terms in federal prison. The sentences for child sex predators are – except in the absolute most horrific cases – not much different than theft under $5,000, breaking and entering or drug trafficking.
Section 271 of the Criminal Code gets the first part of the equation correct. The maximum sentence for sexual assault of someone under the age of 16 is 14 years. It’s the minimum punishment – one year!that’s horribly inadequate. Unfortunately, the word punishment
Step up, Prince George!
Ilove living in the Prince George area. The only way I could love it more is if the winters were shorter, the summer weather more predictable, better rural internet access and the direct flights in and out of town more frequent. Some may say that would pretty much rule out living here, but northerners are a bit of a different breed.
Noreen Rustad, on the Community Arts Council’s 50th Anniversary video, encapsulated my sentiments exactly. Quoting her, roughly: “Prince George is the type of town where you can have an idea, talk to a few friends, and within a week you have an active organization making a difference.” Perhaps it is our remote location that makes us pioneers on a frontier, because we are very good at making up, making do and making better.
To the people of Prince George, I present a challenge:
B.C.’s Northern Capital could be more but we need more people. So many of the things we need simply need a greater popu-
lation to support them. A proper performing arts centre, a thriving hockey fan base, a cardiac centre at our hospital and more frequent flights through our airport are just a few of the people comforts that could be increased. We need these services and recreation improvements and, even if we get them, they would be better if we had a larger population base to draw from.
Prince George is one of the few northern cities in Canada with zero growth. Our city fathers proudly proclaim record-breaking building starts but where are the people? The new buildings require growth to sustain themselves. However, our population has remained stagnant for 25 years. We cannot continue to reply on poaching people and sales from our more remote
implies that the offender is the central character in the story of criminal responsibility and incarceration but that’s not the case. The whole point of sending people off to jail is to protect the rest of society, particularly its most vulnerable members, to give teeth to the law and to show victims that broader society cares about them and their suffering.
For the offenders, offering programs to addresses with mental health, addictions and trauma issues provide a path to redemption and a meaningful life outside of the criminal justice system. In the end, however, that is an individual choice. It’s a good thing that Strimbold will serve his sentence at Ford Mountain near Chilliwack to take part in the sexual offender treatment program there but it’s a lesser priority, well behind the rights of his victims and Canadian society.
This is where Canadian lawmakers need to be engaged. Protecting children from sexual predators requires a three-pronged approach.
First, convicted offenders need to spend far more time behind bars so other children are protected from these predators and to better reflect society’s disgust in
these crimes and those who would commit them. Second, children can’t be sheltered from this topic. They must be taught, emphatically and at an early age, both at home and in schools, what inappropriate touching is and what they can do to stop it. Lastly, government needs to invest in programs to help individuals from committing these crimes in the first place. Most child sex predators know the immorality of their actions but create elaborate internal stories to justify their behaviour. Some of that is happening now but it’s clearly not enough. There are still too many Luke Strimbolds in the world.
Can our federal lawmakers look at themselves in the mirror and say they have honestly done everything they can to protect children from child sex predators? Can the rest of us say we have done everything we can to protect our children?
We haven’t.
It’s time that changed.
This is an issue that, like PTSD, easily overcomes political partisanship. We can do more.
We must do more.
— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
and rural neighbours. That is no way to build a sustainable city. We need vibrant, growing, rural populations.
Prince George could play a significant role in revitalizing the North, but we need to embrace our role as a remote northern city. We will not succeed long-term by merely being a retail centre for the region. We will not succeed by trying to emulate cities in the south by spending political capital on banning plastic straws. Nor will our success come by ignoring the plight of our struggling remote and rural neighbours.
We need to become a champion of the resource industries in the north. Around us are trees, oil and gas, agricultural lands and minerals. Those provide our financial backbone upon which other industries can grow but lately, due to the extremist, non-scientific winds of trendy ideas, as well as the lingering problem of unsettled land claims, public perception has shifted away from pride to shame. We need to get our mojo back.
Joel McKay, chief development officer of
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505 Fourth Ave. Prince George, B.C. V2L 3H2
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the NDIT here in PG, has recently written two very good columns in the Citizen and Business in Vancouver, about the need to rethink the survival and growth of rural and remote communities. Find those articles online and talk about the ideas he presents. The recent federal election candidates all had ideas about how to build the North, so look up their interviews and reread them. Our MLAs and business leaders have ideas. You have ideas. Discuss the ideas at your work, with your friends, in your car with your kids, while watching a movie that touches on the problems of declining rural communities and at your dinner table.
It may just be the beginning of a much needed rural and remote communities revitalization that is needed around the world. Just by talking about the role Prince George could play. We can’t do much about the weather. However, we can change the conversation, get a few people together and that might result in making Prince George truly the capital of a thriving North.
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Question of the week
THIS week’S queSTIon: “What is your 2020 New
Year’s resolution?”
“Start exercising” was the top resolution with 55 per cent and 123 votes, followed by “stop yelling at drivers who can’t hear you,” with 24 per cent and 54 votes.
“Quit smoking” took seven per cent with 16 votes, “donate more to charity” took six per cent with 13 votes, “quit drinking” took five per cent and 11 votes while “be nicer to others on Facebook” took three per cent and six votes.
There was a total of 223 votes. Remember this is not a scientific poll.
nexT week’S queSTIon: “How would you grade the city’s snow removal efforts so far this winter?”
How to vote:
To answer go online to our website: www.pgcitizen.ca
Big... really Big proBlems
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”
It has been 40 years since Douglas Adams wrote these words to begin A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Not a lot has changed in the interim except we are no longer fascinated by digital watches. Instead, we have smartphones.
His view of space as “big… really big” is one of the more salient points he makes in the series. Both time and space boggle the imagination. We often think of the Earth as being a very large place but it is only 40,000 kilometres in circumference. That is beggared by the 150,000,000 kilometres between the Earth and the Sun and that distance is nothing compared to the 40,000,000,000,000 kilometres to the next closest star.
But this little blue-green planet is all we have. There is no “planet B” to which we can escape. We are not going anywhere else any time soon.
Which is perhaps why 2019 was a year
of climate protests. On a Friday in midMarch thousands of school aged students left their studies to rally against the inaction of governments around the world. In Milan, 100,000 students crowded downtown streets. Over 150,000 flooded Montreal.
Cynical critics argued “these kids just want a day off school” and “why should we listen to children?” but they missed the point by a wide margin. Students were not simply looking for a way to “play hooky.” They were trying to reclaim their future. After all, they are the ones who will be living on this planet for the next 80 years. They are the ones who will be living (and dying) with the consequences of decisions being made today.
Perhaps more importantly, the first ever school strike for climate was a learning event. It taught a lot of adults that radical movements can have an effect. Protest is sometimes necessary. And being lulled into accepting the status quo is not a viable alternative.
In the classic book, The Art of War, Sun Tzu teaches about far more than war. He teaches some of the key elements of a joyful and meaningful life.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Though this is a simple statement, it has deep complexities for all aspects of life.
Perhaps the easiest way to comprehend this statement is to look at the mind of a successful coach in any team sport. If she understands her team, the strengths and the weaknesses of each player, she will indeed experience some success, but when an opponent comes at her with
LESSONS IN LEARNING
GERRY CHIDIAC
more talented athletes, an offense or a defense that her players have never seen, she and her team will be defeated.
A great coach knows the importance of studying her opponent, the strengths of each opposing player, the type of offense they run and she can even anticipate the strategies they are capable of using. In addition, she understands herself as a coach and is constantly learning from her mistakes, always studying, constantly adjusting and adapting. Though no one wins every game, there is never a lost opportunity for learning and improvement.
The same principle applies to the world around us. Every time I study or teach about global issues, I ask myself the same questions: What just happened? Why did it happen? And what can we do about it? Whether one examines the Holocaust,
This past decade has seen the five hottest years on record since record keeping began. As I write this, Australia is burning with summer temperatures reaching 45 C in major cities and across vast stretches of forest. The Great Barrier Reef – the world’s largest structure made by organisms – is being bleached by warming acidic water. Last January, a combination of extreme weather and poor water management resulted in one million dead fish floating in the Darling River. And still the Australian Prime Minister and members of his government will not take action on climate change.
The same can be said for the United States and Canada where droughts and forest fires have impacted huge tracts of land. Even Donald Trump recognizes there are issues with water – although in his case he thinks this is just a matter of regulation. Taking steps to curb our consumption of fossil fuel, though, is deemed too costly and unnecessary.
We are changing climates in all corners of the planet and the impact is resulting in a loss of biodiversity.
In Lapland, changes in the pattern of snowfall and rain in mid-winter are resulting in a mass die-off of reindeer. The same thing is happening in northern Canada for the caribou. The latest bird
the Armenian Genocide or Rwanda, one sees the same patterns repeated. We know by now the signs of impending crimes against humanity, the creation of an “us against them” mentality, segregation, polarization, discrimination, racist language and unjust laws being passed.
We also know that we build just societies by providing equal rights to all people, regardless of the prejudices of the day. We know that when there is access to health care and education, when there are just wages and a sense of hope, societies will thrive.
In addition, we know that each one of us can be a part of the solution to the world’s problems. The more good we do, the more good that is achieved. Society gains momentum, and before we know it we are looking back at a better world, and on to the next task.
Sun Tzu’s lesson also requires that we reflect on in our personal lives. We cannot be happy and effective unless we live our lives in balance.
If we spend our time constantly complaining about how everyone else is the problem, we will make ourselves miser-
counts estimate a decline of 2.9 billion birds in North America – a 29 percent drop over the past 50 years. There are many more examples.
But if you look outside your window you will see a world which looks pretty much the same today as yesterday or even last year. Our perspective is shaped by the day-to-day activities of our lives and not a long-term perspective. It is hard to visualize really big time spans. It is hard to remember what the world was like 10, 20, 50 years ago. Like space, time is also “big … really big.”
It is even harder to imagine that the human species could have an impact on such a vast place as the Earth. It is so big. And yet life has shaped this planet from almost its very beginning. For example, the oxygen content of our atmosphere is a direct consequence of photosynthesis by micro-organisms. Without oxygen, we would not have the diversity of life we presently enjoy.
Yes, we live on a blue-green planet orbiting an unremarkable star in the western arm of the galaxy but, for our conceivable future, it is the only home we have. It is blue-green because of the life on it. If we wish it to remain our home, we need to spend the next decade doing some major economic remodeling.
able. If we focus only on understanding and improving ourselves, we will have some success. If we can understand the challenge we are facing as well, however, we learn to effectively respond. Every encounter becomes a valuable lesson, every apparent setback gives us deeper insight. There really can be no failure when we live our lives this way.
Life is not meant to be easy and problem-free. We are all here for a purpose. It can be frightening to see ourselves as we really are.
It can be terrifying to examine humanity’s capacity for evil as well. When we look deep enough, however, we see the truth of our goodness and the capacity for our greatness.
Every challenge in life is an opportunity to achieve greatness. When I understand myself and I understand the situation, I move forward with confidence and purpose and I am ready for success.
— Gerry Chidiac is a champion for social enlightenment, inspiring others to find their greatness in making the world a better place. For more of his writings, go to www.gerrychidiac.com
TrusTing your guT is complicaTed
Every now and then, I get a “gut feeling” about an issue, topic, or information. A sense of its veracity from somewhere other than my conscious mind. This gut/brain balance has been well studied and described by the likes of Daniel Kahneman and Malcom Gladwell, among others. We are constantly processing the billions of bits of information we receive every second at a level below our consciousness. It is only when these computations lead to a revelation we become aware of their existence and we say our gut is trying to tell us something. But over the past decade, researchers have become increasingly interested in the connection between our guts and our brain. Our bodies house an immense microbiome – approximately 10 trillion microbes with 95 per cent of them living in our gastrointestinal tract. Some scientists have gone so far as to think about re-categorizing humans as “composite animals” as the number of microbes rivals the number of cells in our bodies. What has become increasingly clear is the connection between the microbes in our guts and our overall behaviour. This is perhaps not too surprising. The insides of our intestines have a surface area of about 32 square metres, on average. It is through this surface we absorb all of the chemicals essential for life – amino acids to make proteins, sugars to provide energy, fats to build cells, etcetera. We absorb all of the nutrients for life through our intestinal lining. It is perhaps not surprising, then, to find our intestines also interact with the microbiome living within us. These or-
RELATIVITY
TODD WHITCOMBE
ganisms take up nutrients and pump out byproducts which we can then absorb. We wouldn’t be able to live without our microbiome doing a lot of the heavy lifting with respect to digestion. And in return, we provide these microbes with a safe and stable place to flourish.
That these creatures may also influence our mental health is a question open for examination. There are a number of possible pathways by which they may influence our feelings.They may interact with the immune cells lining the gut, prompting the production of cytokines which are released into the blood. These may then circulate through the body to the brain and impact brain chemistry.
Microbes might also interact with another type of cell lining in the gut called enteroendocrine cells which produce neuroactive molecules and short chain proteins called peptides. These molecules can interact with the vagus nerve which is one of the major neural pathways to the brain. The vagus is a bit of a superhighway linking various body parts to the medulla oblongata (a grape-sized bit of tissue at the base of the brain). It provides us with a sense of how our bodies are doing. Or, as one researcher puts it, “Sometimes you feel good; sometimes you feel crappy. That is your vagus nerve telling you what’s going on.”
The microbiome might also be producing neurotransmitters directly which are then able to cross the gut-body barrier. Some molecules, such as butyrate, circulate to the brain and cross the bloodbrain barrier while other metabolites might induce changes in the cellular activity of the barrier itself. In either case, such molecules may have a direct impact on the brain’s chemistry.
It was Louis Pasteur who first speculated in 1885 on the positive role microbes might play in our lives. But it wasn’t until as recently as 2004 that research appeared showing so-called germ-free mice responded to stress much more strongly than mice raised in a normal environment. Without the micro-organisms inside them, the animals appeared to be more susceptible to behavioral abnormalities. In 2009, John Cryan, a neurobiologist at University College Cork, published research showing that when young rat pups were separated from their mothers, the stress could lead to long term changes in their microbiomes.
In 2011, Cryan’s group reported that when Lactobacillus rhamnosus JB-1 was given to mice, their stress behaviours decreased with accompanying changes in brain chemistry. Further, mice with a severed vagus nerve did not respond in the same way. Other researchers have also investigated the connection between the vagus nerve, the brain and the microbiome. In 2015, Mauro Costa-Mattioli and a team at Baylor College of Medicine fed female mice high-fat diets to make them obese before they got pregnant. They found their offspring initially exhibited problems with social interactions. However, once these mice were weaned, they were reunited with the control animals and four weeks later, all the mice were interacting normally. These results can be explained by the animals ingesting each other’s poop and thereby developing a normal microbiome.
There are still many researchers skeptical of the extent of the gut-brain connection but it is just possible our guts may be telling us more than we think.
Bumpy roads ahead
My brief respite from weekly meditations was put to good use. I imbibed in consumerism for the sake of friends and family, but did not syncretize its frenzy.
Of course, I am thankful to all who were able to attend my birthday party and to those, particularly my detractors, who rang in both the globe’s new decade and mine elsewhere. Finally, Jan. 1 is the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, a rather fitting bon fete for someone as presumptuous as yours truly.
It is tempting to launch immediately into hot takes on the news items I missed in recent weeks. But such terse, engrossing prose will have to wait until a proper valediction of the year just passed has been made. As Great Grandmother Across the Sea put it in Her Majesty’s Christmas Message, 2019 was a “bumpy” year. Personal reflections on this chaos, as well as a few resolutions, will make up the remainder of my return to tractarian life in our PG Citizen.
We stand in the midst of history happening all at once. If you missed the Prague Spring you can visit Hong Kong, or if one ever wondered what the collapse of continental empires was like, take a trip to Britain or Belgium. Sophistry and postmodern notions of philosophy are now preached from every school house in the West; two popes reside in Rome, but with the statements coming out of the Vatican, it won’t be long until a third arrives.
In the New World, Simon de Bolivar’s spirit has reappeared south of the Rio Grande; within our hegemonic cousins, every constitutional crisis and political eccentricity is on replay, from intentions of the Founders to McGovern’s 1972 platform. Canada has been relatively peaceful, but we still have citizens detained in China, a police state that puts ethnic minorities in concentration camps and harvests their organs - an innovation older tyrants only dreamed of.
The Middle East and North Africa stand somewhere between Franco’s Spain and the Wars of Apostasy - the question isn’t when the new Caliphate will come but who will be left standing to lead it. Russia is somehow involved on both sides of these proxy wars, just as it
was in Soviet times. Even the strongest post-colonials are injured, with India’s population reliving old tensions, and South African politicians competing to see who can gain the most from corruption. Many have joked the 2020s will be a return to the unrest of a century ago. So far no one is laughing, with Berlin’s Cabaret on public display annually, radicalism left and right raising its head, and cowardly governments caving to moral panics or strongmen bullying their neighbours.
To be clear, it’s not all bad news: breakthroughs in science will alleviate our suffering and help us reach the stars, just as technological developments promise to help reduce pollution in our air and oceans. None of these innovators were Time’s Person of the Year, but c’est la vie.
Yet if nothing else, as sincerely as is possible to convey it at my tender age of 30, it does feel as though things are changing at a rate that used to be relegated to centuries. And I am not at all convinced that this is a good thing, save maybe as the destabilizing catalyst that will allow for the final defeat of our oligarchs as well as the inhumane culture they encourage. Whether we can endure that long, till the final turn back to conscience and community, remains to be seen.
Indeed, 2019 was “bumpy” to put it mildly. But the resolutions to our ills are the same as ever - a recommitment to place and purpose, what my faith calls vocation lived out as virtue, will be necessary to weather our new decade’s coming storms. Thankfully, we live in such a region that still takes these old exhortations seriously. With some luck and grace, we shall persevere. More topical discussions will resume going forward. From the deepest parts of my soul, I wish each of you a late Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. God bless us, everyone.
RIGHT OF CENTRE NATHAN GIEDE
SPORTS
Harkins taking off witH Jets
Ted Clarke CiTizen sTaff
It’s only been a couple weeks since Jansen Harkins made his NHL debut with the Winnipeg Jets and already he’s climbing the ladder.
The architect of two well-deserved assists drawing fourth-line duty in his first four games, the 22-year-old former Prince George Cougar forward was rewarded in the third period of last Thursday’s home game against the Toronto Maple Leafs when Jets head coach Paul Maurice bumped him to the third line playing the left side with Adam Lowry and Jack Roslovic.
Harkins was aggressive on the forecheck throughout the game, using his speed to get to loose pucks and several times set up his teammates for quality scoring chances. That diligent work ethic did not go unnoticed.
“He’s been playing hard and moving well, he’s got some hands and put some points up in the American League, so it was just a different look,” said Maurice, in the aftermath of a 6-3 loss to the Leafs.
The all-time scoring leader in Cougars’ history with 242 points in 275 games over four seasons, Harkins has had two-and-a-half seasons of pro hockey to reinvent himself.
Called up Dec. 21 for a game in Winnipeg against the Minnesota Wild, Harkins got in on the scoring action late in the game when he fed Logan Shaw a perfect pass into the slot to cap off a 6-0 win. A few games later he drew an assist in a 4-1 loss in St. Louis Blues after he outmuscled Blues defenceman Robert Bortuzzo along the side boards to free the puck to Shaw, who passed to Nicholas Shore for a onetimer that tied the game.
“The biggest thing you get from those little things is self-assurance that you belong and you can play at that level - obviously it’s a tough league and anything like that will help you out,” Harkins said. “It’s exciting to be here, it’s still pretty fresh, every day is pretty exciting and just a lot of fun, really. Obviously, there are times that are tougher than others and it’s a bit of a roller-coaster and to get here is exciting for my family too, having that hockey background, it’s kind of a dream come true.”
The six-foot-two, 181-pound Harkins started his third full pro season with the Manitoba Moose, centring the top line and was the American Hockey League’s player of the month in Novem-
ber. Through 30 games, he had seven goals and 24 assists for a team-leading 31 points when the injury-riddled Jets looked for help in the same rink as their AHL affiliate.
“Honestly, I think it’s a bigger jump from junior to pro, than going from the AHL up,” Harkins said. “In pro hockey, the systems and structure are so huge and having the similarities between the Moose and the Jets it makes it an easier transition.”
Since being drafted in 2015 by the Jets in the second round, 47th overall, Harkins has had a few setbacks. In his rookie season with the Moose, he was sent down to the Jacksonville IceMen for a six-game stint just before Christmas - a stinging blow to his confidence - but he went on to become an everyday player last season with 15 goals and 31 points in 70 games.
Harkins was born in Cleveland, the same hometown as his father Todd, whose NHL career as a centre with the Calgary Flames and Hartford Whalers spanned 48 games and six points over three seasons from 1991-94. Todd started coaching major midget hockey
and in 2012 joined the Cougars as a scout and was the team’s general manager from 2014-18, while Jansen was with the team.
Jansen struggled his first year with the well-stocked Moose and wasn’t having fun and Todd considered the possibility of getting him back with the Cougars for his final season of junior eligibility, but he remained in Winnipeg.
“As a hockey player, I just kept encouraging him to stay positive and work hard and do the extra little things that are going to make a big difference,” said Todd.
Todd, who now coaches an academy bantam team in Vancouver at St. George’s School, learned of Jansen’s NHL callup while flying to Florida for a family visit with his parents. He listened to Jansen’s voicemail and burst into tears.
“I started crying right away because I couldn’t believe it,” said Todd. “This little boy when he was three of four years old had a dream to play in the NHL and finally got an opportunity to be called up.”
As the son of an NHL pro who also struggled for several years in the minors to make it, Jansen has always turned to his dad for advice.
“It’s pretty special to share that, he obviously knows what I went through to get here and I know he’s really proud,” said Jansen.
“It was just countless days of just sticking with it, trying to get better, and one day you kind of wake up and you’re here. Everything’s a bit different from junior or the minors, it’s in a class of its own - the pace of play, the travel, just the amenities, everything is what you dream it would be like. You look forward to playing some pretty great players and the whole thing is pretty surreal. I’m excited to get to work every day and just trying to enjoy it as much as I can.”
Jansen’s billet parents in Prince George, Sharon and Elmer Stafford, were among the first people he texted to let them know he was on his way to the NHL, while Todd put the word out right away.
“I put in a lot of work and lot of time with hundreds of different people to get here and they’ve all had a huge impact on my journey,” said Jansen. “It’s hard to reach out to everyone, but I think they know I’m appreciative of everything they’ve done for me.”
AP photo
Winnipeg Jets right wing Logan Shaw (38) is congratulated by teammates Jansen Harkins (58), Nicholas Shore (21), Anthony Bitetto and Nathan Beaulieu (88) after scoring a goal in the third period of an NHL hockey game Dec. 21.
Condors duo sails with Mariners
Ted Clarke Citizen staff
Soren Erricson had no intention of playing college basketball. Not this season.
But Dan Zimmerman, his longtime Duchess Park Condors teammate, signed last May with the Vancouver Island University Mariners and two months later Erricson decided to reconsider the Mariners’ offer and they now play together for the defending Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association champions.
“I like it a lot, it’s a really good group of guys, easy to settle in with, for sure,” said Erricson, who subs in at point guard. “There’s good chemistry. It definitely helps with the transition, Dan and me hang out a lot down there. It’s easier to ease in with someone that I know.
“I was going to to take a year off. It seemed life was going too fast and I wanted to slow down a bit. They told me that they wanted me and gave me a week to decide but I told the coach I wasn’t feeling it. But with Dan there I decided to play.”
The Mariners returned half the roster that won the national title, with one fifth-year player, Greg Gillies, and three four-year veterans, Tyus Barfoot, Cameron Gay and Landon Radliffe.
Among a crop of three rookies, the former Condors don’t get a lot of playing time - Erricson is averaging 7.8 minutes and Zimmerman is getting 12 minutes per game - quite normal for college freshmen.
Erricson is enrolled in the fisheries and aquaculture program at VIU, while Zimmerman, an aspiring teacher, is in general studies.
“I’m really enjoying it so far, I’m having great start to the season,” said Zimmerman, who provides depth as a small
ference. It’s a lot more physical and faster but already I’m feeling more comfortable out there. I’ve kind of figured out my role with the team. We’re pretty solid.”
Currently ranked fourth in Canada, the Mariners lost their Pacific Western Athletic Association season-opener to the Douglas College Royals but have since reeled off five straight wins and they heading into the break with a 5-1 record, second to Douglas (6-0).
“It’s awesome knowing you’re going in to a culture where there’s guys that want to win and that’s the culture,” said the six-foot-three Zimmerman.
Last March at the triple-A boys provincial championship in Langley, the Condors lost a nailbiter semifinal to the North Delta Huskies, the eventual B.C. champions, who took the lead on a threepoint sinker with nine seconds left. The Condors got the ball to Erricson for one final shot with two seconds left but the ball bounced twice off the rim and out, ending Duchess Park’s dream of a banner season.
“I think about that game a lot,” said Zimmerman.
forward/shooting guard. “I’m enjoying the basketball a but more than the school but school is going well, too.
“We always talked about playing postsecondary together and we’re having a lot of fun doing it. When I got there immediately I could there was a big dif-
The two Mariners had a chance to practice at Duchess Park gym with the Condors just before the Condor Classic tournament that wrapped up before the Christmas break.
“They’re looking really solid this year, I think they’re about to move up to No. 1 in the province,” Zimmerman said. The Mariners resume their PacWest schedule this weekend against Douglas.
Kings MaKe trade
Ryan McAllister wanted out and the Prince George Spruce Kings obliged his request.
The B.C. Hockey League team traded the 18-year-old left winger to the Brooks Bandits of the Alberta Junior Hockey League for 18-year-old forward Mason Reeves.
Reeves, a six-foot-four, 185-pound product of Waterdown, Ont., had one goal and seven assists, along with 78 penalty minutes, in 27 games this season with the Bandits.
“He’s a big body with skill who also skates well - he can play either the wing or up the middle,” said Kings general manager Mike Hawes in a team release. “To add a big body that can play centre
was a big selling feature for me in this trade. I like the idea of adding some more size and strength to our forward group. Mason is also a young player who will be a great addition this year but also for the future.”
Reeves played last season in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League for the Hamilton Kilty B’s and in 37 games he collected six goals and 11 assists.
McAllister, a native of London, Ont., joined the Spruce Kings as an off-season recruit. He also played in the GOJHL last season, with Komolka and London, and had already locked up an NCAA scholarship with Western Michigan University. In 37 games with the Spruce Kings he had five goals and nine assists.
Citizen staff photo
Dan Zimmerman, left, and Soren Erricson graduated from the Duchess Park Condors basketball program and now play together with the Vancouver Island University Mariners.
My year in review
The following is part two of a twopart 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.
- Janet Dahlberg grew up in Bezanson, Alta., moved to Prince George in 1956 and met her future husband Ralph Dahlberg at a dance. She enjoys her volunteer work at the Hart Pioneer Senior Centre.
- Thelma Sadowick was born in Rosetown, Sask. She remembers that during the hungry thirties her father used to feed people in exchange for their labor in his blacksmith shop.
- Jerry and Irene Gauthreau: the name Jerry Gauthreau may not ring a bell. Jerry is the owner and operator of the Steve & Sons Shoe Repair Shop and says his store motto has always been; if the shoe fits repair it! Jerry married Irene Cameron in 1972.
- Joe and Janice (Taylor) Anderson: Joe grew up on a farm in Morris, Man. He retired from Docu-Shred Mobile Paper Shredding at the age of 70. Janice worked as a self-employed voice and piano teacher and retired at 65.
- Tony and Dodie Bond have been in Prince George since 1976. Dodie operates her own hair dressing studio and Tony is a retired heavy-duty mechanic.
- Ruth Orydzuk was born in northern Alberta and moved to Prince George in 1944. She worked for The Citizen and retired at 62 as the classified supervisor.
- Synove (Lea) deDreu was born in Sandefjord, Norway. In 1966, she left Norway headed to Prince George for a job that was waiting for her. One of her greatest joys is having been a member of the Sons of Norway since 1967.
- Mike and Chris Morris: Mike retired in 2005 as the Superintendent for the North District R.C.M.P. after a 32-year career. He was elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of B.C. in 2013. When he was posted to Fort St. James, he met and married licensed practical nurse Chris Birkeland.
- Howard and Jeannette Foot; Howard worked at local radio stations and during that time he met and married Jeannette DeWalt. Jeannette retired from the airline industry in 2002.
SENIORS’ SCENE
KATHY NADALIN
- Ruby (Hooper) Miles was born in a fishing village in Back Bay, New Brunswick. She met and married Charles (Chuck) H. Miles in 1965. He passed away in 2018.
- Norma (Millar) Barlow: Norma became the first RBC female loans officer at the main branch. Women were not given a proper chance to borrow money and earn their own credit rating however, it wasn’t long until she changed that. She retired after 35 successful years in the banking industry.
- Dennis Hausselman was born in Montreal. He retired in 2005 after nearly 20 years of working for the railroad.
- Richard and Judith Hobson: Richard worked in real estate and financial planning. He retired and went to work at NR Motors selling recreation vehicles. Judith worked as a registered nurse and in particular with the infant development program. She retired after 46 years of a successful nursing career.
- Brij Berry or Mr. Berry as he is known by his many students has been teaching math to students from the ages of nine to 63 years old for nearly 66 years.
- Ann Tiffany a retired registered nurse and certified midwife was in her 70s when she studied English and anthropology at the University of Northern British Columbia. She earned her bachelor’s degree followed by her master’s degree.
- Ellen (Vance) Jameson, was born in Fort St John. After high school, she went to work for the Bank of Montreal and retired after 36 years in banking.
- Owen and Ellen Corcoran and their four children immigrated to Canada from Australia in 1969. Owen a retired teacher, school principal and school district superintendent recently celebrated his 90th birthday. After high school Ellen went into general nursing and midwifery. May you enjoy a healthy and happy new year.
Kathy
IMSS earns peace award
The 2019 Peace Awards event for Canadian non-profit organizations presented by the Gandhian Initiative for Development of Support Services (GIDSS) was held in Mississauga on Dec. 21, celebrating World Nonviolence Day and Gandhi who was an activist committed to peace and justice.
After the nomination process, 125 organizations were shortlisted in 25 categories, like LGBTQ Rights, Disability Empowerment, Science & Research, Best Work for Seniors and Promoting Peace Through Education. The Immigrant and Multicultural Services Society of Prince
George was recognized with the award for Promoting Diversity and Multiculturalism.
“A huge thanks to the staff, the board members, volunteers, community and partners for their continuous support, dedication and believing in the IMMS vision,” Ravi Saxena, IMSS executive
director, said.
The International Peace Awards aim to promote peace, harmony and community services around the world. The GIDSS organization believes non-profits need to be acknowledged and showcased to encourage other groups to take similar action.
Norma (Millar) Barlow
Ruth Orydzuk
Brij Berry
Dennis Hausselman
Thelma Sadowick
Ruby (Hooper) Miles
Citizen staff
Dungeons & Dragons
intro
Thursday, Jan. 9 and every week until Thursday, May 14 from 4 to 5:15 p.m. at the Bob harkins Branch, Prince George Public Library, 888 canada Games Way, there is an intro to dungeons & dragons for 10 to 18 year olds. during weekly ever-changing campaigns and adventurers participants will learn the basics of d&d. Materials provided. Free drop in. contact: 250-563-9251 | ask@pgpl.ca
long table Dinner
Thursday, Jan. 9 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the northern Lights estate Winery, 745 PG Pulpmill rd., there is a Long Table dinner with chef rene. Treat yourself to a meal that will inspire your taste buds and wine to wash the winter blues away. Tickets include a threecourse meal, wine pairings, and gratuity. Tickets are $55+ tax or $50+ tax for wine club members. contact: 250-564-1112
Women in business
Thursday, Jan 9 from noon to 1 p.m. at the coast inn, 770 Brunswick st., community Futures FFG is hosting a Women in Business (WiB) networking lunch. Bring a friend and bring some business cards to share with others. Lunch will be a la carte from Winston’s menu. contact: 250-562-9622 | general@ cfdc.bc.ca
improv shmimprov
saturday, Jan 11 from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. at artspace, 1685 Third ave., above Books & co., improv shmimprov featuring dale ehrstein will present a night of old games and new. comedic games are played out based on suggestions from the audience. also a stand-up comedy set will be presented by dale ehrstein, https://www.facebook.com/ funkmasterdale. Tickets are $20 in advance at Books & co. and at the door.
lgbtQ+ book Club
Monday, Jan. 13 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the BX Pub, 433 carney st., celebrate LGBTQ+ voices in literature with this monthly meeting. This book club runs for five months. space is limited and registration is required. call the Prince George Public Library at 250-563-9251 ext. 123 for details.
We Will roCk You
Tuesday, Jan. 14 at 7:30 p.m. at cn centre, 2187 ospika Blvd., as the recent oscar®winning film, Bohemian rhapsody, spurred the music of Queen to be more popular than ever. don’t miss the mega-hit from London, england’s, West end - We Will rock youfeaturing the music of Queen. Tickets are at ticketsnorth.ca.
songs, stories anD serenaDes
saturday, Jan. 18 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Vanier hall, 2901 Griffiths ave., the Prince George symphony orchestra presents richard strauss’ serenade for Winds, anatol Liadov’s eight russian Folk songs, Pyotr ilyich Tchaikovsky’s romeo and Juliet and Launy Grondahl’s Trombone concerto featuring Brian Wendel, principal trombonist with the Vancouver symphony orchestra. For more
information visit www.pgso.com.
bC olD time FiDDlers’ DanCe
saturday, Jan. 18 from 8 p.m. to midnight at the PG elks community hall, 663 douglas st., the Bc old Time Fiddlers present a dance featuring old-time dances like polka, waltz, schottishe, barn dance, seven step, two step. entrance fee of $10 includes light lunch, prizes. cash bar. Tickets available at Books & co. or at the door. children get in free.
gin blossom: a speakeasY
saturday, Jan. 18 from 8 p.m. to midnight at Theatre northWest, 36-556 north nechako rd., Big Brothers Big sisters of northern Bc and Theatre northWest, with the help of a host of guest bar tenders, are teaming up for a gin cocktail competition. each guest bar tender will create a signature gin based drink, which will be in a people’s choice competition. at the end of the evening BBBs and TnW will make a $500 donation to the registered charity of the winning bar tender’s choice. The second place winner will get a $200 donation to the registered charity of their choice in Prince George. The event is 1920’s themed, and guests are encouraged to dress up. Tickets are $60 at www.theatrenorthwest. com.
tapestrY singers FunDraiser
saturday, Jan. 25 at 6:15 p.m. at the hart community centre, 4900 West austin rd., the Tapestry singers are holding a silent auction and dinner to fundraise for their
trip to the con Brio Whistler Music Festival in april. The senior choir will perform three sets while there is dinner and door prizes, along with the silent auction. all proceeds go to the choir for the trip. Tickets are $50. For more information contact choral director carolyn duerksen at 250-964-8184 or email carolynduerksen@hotmail.com.
robbie burns night
saturday, Jan. 25 from 6:30 to 11:30 p.m. at the exploration Place, 333 Becott Pl., the Prince George symphony orchestra presents robbie Burns night dinner. This is the symphony’s third annual event that promises a new take on entertainment to have guests laughing, toasting and dancing to fiddle and drum. Tickets are $100 each. For more information visit www.pgso.com.
aDult banD
every Monday until June 29 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at the First Baptist church, 483 Gillett st., the alban classical new horizons adult Band meets. contact: 250-563-4693 | admin@ albanclassical.org
heartbeat meetings on the third Monday of the month at the Foundry, 1148 seventh ave., at 5:15 to 6:30 p.m. for youth between 12 and 24 and for adults at 6:45 to 8 p.m., there is a peer support group meeting offering empathy, encouragement and direction for those who have lost a loved one by suicide. if the door is locked, please knock. For more information contact sandra Galletti at galletti@telus.net or call 250-961-9330.
aucklaNd deliverS aweSoMe travel
Steve MacNaull
Special to The Citizen
At first, the rain is barely a mist on my face.
Feather-soft and refreshing, the tiny droplets have somehow navigated their way through the thick canopy of trees, massive ferns and vines.
Before long, the precipitation is a steady drizzle, which quickly morphs into a savage downpour.
I pull up the hood on my rain jacket and count myself lucky.
After all, this is what I’ve come for – a deluge in the rainforest.
And this hike delivers big-time.
It’s through the Kitekite Rainforest in 18,000-hectare Waitakere Ranges Park, 25 kilometres from downtown Auckland, New Zealand.
The region gets an astounding 2.2 metres of liquid sunshine a year, which means the heavens open on Kitekite at some point almost every day.
It’s helped create a landscape with prehistoric allure, an amped-up ecosystem of the massive black and silver ferns New Zealand is famous for; Nikau, the world’s southernmost palm tree; Kauri, the Southern Hemisphere’s version of the mammoth redwood; and an array of vines and other sub-tropical plants.
It’s exactly the place that inspired director James Cameron’s otherworldly realm for the Oscar-winning movie Avatar. My son, Alex, and I arrived in this surreal setting on Bush and Beach Tours’ Best of Both Worlds excursion.
The two worlds being a three-hour city tour of Auckland followed by five hours in the rainforest.
At the bottom of the steep La Trobe Trail, we’re rewarded with the eye candy of Teahuahu Waterfall. Teahuahu translated from New Zealand’s Native Maori tongue means pendulums of silver threads, an apt description for the torrent of water tumbling down the mountain into a calm green pool.
The rainforest isn’t all forest.
It has a coastline on the Tasman Sea punctuated by beaches made up of the black iron ore sand from a long-ago volcanic eruption.
The most dramatic is Piha Beach, where just off shore Lion Rock looms, a reminder that two million years ago lava was thrust out of the ocean through volcanic vents. This is where the tour group swims, rain or shine.
Alex and I were drawn to Auckland for a big-city fix rife with adventure of both the urban and wilderness variety.
Air Canada makes such a jaunt easy with its new non-stop, four-times-aweek, 14-hour flights between Vancouver and the New Zealand metropolis.
The service is currently seasonal until March 2020 to get Canadians to Auckland to enjoy New Zealand summer and Kiwis to Canada for winter frolic.
The flights on the quick and comfortable Dreamliner 787-8 could very well become permanent.
In the city, Alex and I divided our time into four quadrants of fun.
On a two-hour outing on Explore Sailing’s America’s Cup Yacht NZL68 in Waitemata Harbour, we’re put to work grinding to put the sails up and down.
Apparently, we’re good at it because the boat settles into an exhilarating ride, skimming over the water at 12 knots in an upwind at a 30-degree lean.
We take the elevator up to the 53nd floor of Sky Tower, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, to walk outside on the 1.2 metre-wide metal grate that rings the highrise.
This adrenalin rush is called Skywalk and we’re in harnesses attached to two security lines each, so we’re able to do tricks like leaning over the edge forward,
backward and sideways.
The next day we meet Elle ArmonJones of The Big Foody Tours for The Big Beer Tour, a sudsy romp that starts with a flight of craft brews and tater tots at Brothers Brewery and ends with Lowbrow Lager and highbrow whipped bone marrow on grainy bread at Culprit Dining Room.
In between, there are tasting stops at The Brewers Cooperative for pilsners and
Vulture’s Lane Craft Beer Bar for ales. For some culture, we join guide Tui-kay Cole of Tamaki Hikoi, a Maori from the Ngati Whatua tribe, to see Auckland through Indigenous eyes on a hike to the top of Mt. Eden.
We stayed at the well-located Adina Apartment Hotel in downtown’s trendy Britomart neighbourhood.
Check out NewZealand.com and AirCanada.com
Alex MacNaull with New Zealand’s national plant, the giant silver fern.
Travel writer Steve MacNaull and his son, Alex, ventured outside the 53rd floor of the Sky Tower to do the Skywalk.
Why businesses usually fail
BUSINESS COACH
DAVE FULLER
Businesses come and go, we see them opening up, struggling for a few years and closing their doors.
We might even hear that they offered something that we were searching for, after they have closed down.
But why do they fail?
According to the NFIB, over the lifetime of a business, only 39 per cent are profitable, 30 per cent break even, and 30 per cent lose money, with one per cent falling in the “unable to determine” category. Many research organizations suggest that the leading cause of business failure is undercapitalization or lack of cash that a business has to give the owners time to get to profitability. My experience with businesses and business owners over the years would suggest that while this may be the case that the businesses do run out of money and are forced to close up, the underlying causes are different.
1. Lack of clear vision - many business are started because someone has an idea that they could make a lot of money opening a business. This would mean that they don’t have to work for anyone else, can make more money than they would as an employee and can be in control of their future.
The lack of a concrete vision of how this is going to transpire along with a lack of business experience or skills necessary to ensure success are paramount to the failure of the business being profitable in the long run. There are a variety
of tools that business owners can use to ensure that they create a vision for where they are going. These include things like the One Page Business Plan, working with organizations that help start-ups, and even business colleges or universities that have students eager to work on research projects. Michael Gerber in his book the E-Myth Revisited suggests that entrepreneurs need to think about what the business is going to be in five, 10 or 25 years down the road and start building towards that.
2. Lack of value - often entrepreneurs see someone else doing something and figure they can do it just as well. The problem with this model is that the established business already has customers and the value proposition of the new business is not great enough to ensure that customers flock to them. Any business has to know why its product is so much better than its competition. What are you doing different that is going to ensure that customers want to buy from you? What is it about what you are selling that makes your customers life better? What pain are you relieving or what pleasure are you stroking for your customer?
As a result a business could struggle along for years marginally without knowing what went wrong or considering the opportunity costs associated with starting a business. The lack of understanding clearly the need for a strong value proposition and the inability to convey the value to the customer has been the downfall of many businesses.
3. Lack of business knowledge – I have worked with many highly skilled people who own their businesses and are extremely talented at what they do. The problem lies when these business owners become successful as a result of their skill
and their business grows. The skills that enabled them to be successful as a very tiny business have been outgrown by their success. This can lead to problems. In addition, many entrepreneurs are blind to their lack of knowledge in areas that could lead to their success. In other words, we have technicians starting a business because they know everything about how to build a product or service but fail to realize that they don’t have the knowledge around how to communicate with the customer, price the product or lead the employees.
4. Micromanagement - there are only so many things that a business owner can do in a day. It seems like weekly I talk to another owner of a business who is working 50, 60, 70 or more hours in a week. These people often tell me that if they don’t do something, it won’t get done. That nobody can do it just like they can or that they feel that they need to lead by example and show their staff that they work harder than anyone in the company. The problem with this picture is that when this happens owners become burned out. They become overwhelmed by the growing mountain of jobs that need to be done and the never ending work pile. They feel aggravated when staff ask for time off for holidays or family life because they don’t give themselves that time. Once burnout sets in, entrepreneurs start making decisions that aren’t wise, they fail to hire staff that can bring skills they don’t have, or if they have hired these people their micromanagement overrides decisions that could improve the business. This lack of leadership paralyzes the business and leads to narrow sightedness resulting in business failure over time.
5. Marketing failures - every successful business has one thing in common. They
House values up five per cent
Citizen staff
The value of single-family homes and strata homes in Prince George has jumped five per cent over the last six months, according to figures released by BC Assessment.
For single-family homeowners in the city, the average assessment rose from $296,000, as of July 1, to $310,000 this month. Strata home values increased from an average $163,000 last July to the current $172,000.
“For most of the region’s homes, it’s a bit of mix of modest increases and decreases compared to last year’s assessments,” BC Assessment deputy assessor Jarret Krantz said in a news release. “There are some exceptions such as Terrace and Kitimat where most homeown-
ers will see increases of 20 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.”
The figures reflect the shortage of housing in Terrace and Kitimat due to an influx of workers involved in the LNG Canada project.
Northern B.C.’s 248,000 properties included in the assessment increased from $65.4 billion in 2019 to more than $69.4 billion this year. The updated total includes $1.06 billion in new construction, subdivisions and rezoning of properties.
The Northern region covers about 70 per cent of the province east to the Alberta border, north to the Yukon border, west to Bella Coola, including Haidi Gwaii, and to the south, just north of Clinton.
Housing assessments in British Colum-
bia show the real estate market continues to see signs of moderation in the Lower Mainland while stabilizing on Vancouver Island and other parts of the province.
Property taxes collected by the city are based on the assessed value of each property. Property owners can go to the BC Assessment website at bcassessment.ca to determine how much property values have changed since July 1.
Two Prince George houses are among the top-four most valuable properties in Northern B.C. Both located in the College Heights subdivision. An acreage at 4205 Cowart Rd. is assessed at $2.187 million, while a single-family home at 7765 St. Dennis Pl., is valued at $2.128 million.
The Northern region covers about 70 per cent of the province east to the
are able to connect with their customers and provide a product or service that the customer is willing to exchange for money. The road to failure is littered with the history of businesses that had great products but for one reason or another were unable to convey the message to their prospective customers that they had something of value. Sometimes business owners think that advertising is an expense and as a result don’t advertise and fail to reach their customers. Often I work with business owners who are advertising and it is an expense because they are pouring money into the quicksand of conventional wisdom that suggests that you have to advertise and you will automatically be guaranteed results. These owners might in some cases be better off to put that money in their pocket, or give it away to charity. The problem with most advertising is that it is not measured. In other words we advertise our product or service and don’t’ determine if we got customers or sales as a result. With great advertising comes great results. The secrets of great advertising include knowing who is your target market and figuring out the message that is going to reach them. If you can do that, there is a good chance that your business is going to be successful! In order for a business to be successful owners need to have a clear vision of where they are going and have the skills or team to take them there. If they have a product or service that is priced for profit and seen as valuable to their customers and the business is able to reach those customers and clearly convey that value, success is almost guaranteed.
— Dave Fuller, MBA, is an award-winning business coach and the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy. Email dave@profityourselfhealthy.com
Alberta border, north to the Yukon border, west to Bella Coola, including Haidi Gwaii, and to the south, just north of Clinton.
Housing assessments in British Columbia show the real estate market continues to see signs of moderation in the Lower Mainland while stabilizing on Vancouver Island and other parts of the province. The figures released today show the typical value of a single-family home in Vancouver has dropped 11 per cent over the past six months, from $1.76 million to $1.57 million, as of July 1, 2019. The drop is more dramatic in the costly University Endowment Lands on the city’s west side, where values fell 16 per cent from $5.9 million to $4.95 million. - with files from The Canadian Press
the
Hank Foley July 28, 1930 - December 14, 2019
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Hank Foley. He is survived by his many relatives and friends. No service by request.
Delvin Blackstock
Delvin Blackstock (Del) peacefully passed on December 26th, 2019 with his family by his side. He was the first Indigenous forest ranger in British Columbia. Thank you to the doctors and nurses in hospital emergency and floor 3 south. Thank you to our great neighbors Janet & Curtis Gatkzke; and Don & Brenda McKenzie. There will be no funeral, by request, but Del wished donations to the Prince George Hospital Centre Foundation or SPCA.
Talmadge “Will” Leon Williams September 26, 1932December 2, 2019
Will, loving husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather, and long time resident of Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, passed away peacefully at his home with his family at his side on a beautiful snowy winter day. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Janet (nee) Wright, and his children, Timm (Diane) Williams, Tammy (Joe) McCorkle, Lisa Williams, Rebecca Smith and Thom Williams, 13 grand children and to his delight, one great granddaughter: Chase and Kayla Williams; Thomson (Holly), Andrew and Walter McCorkle; Caroline and Tal Williams-Wood; Sydney (Damon) Calfa, Harrison and Morgan Smith; Rebecca, Genevieve and Tanner Williams; Sawyer Calfa.
Will was born in Millerville (Clay County), Alabama. He was preceded in death by his parents, AQ Williams & Annie Florence (nee) Jackson, his brothers Larry Wayne, Jerry, Olen, “Mick”, and sister, Sherrell Williams Thornburg. He is survived by his sisters Helen Williams Bryant, Charlotte Williams Bryant, Betty Faye Williams and Vera (Joe) Williams Jordan and many nieces and nephews.
Will joined the United States Air Force in 1952 and served until he retired in 1978. In 1957 he was stationed at Baldy Hughes, USAF radar station near Prince George, where he met and married the love of his life, Janet. Together with their growing family they enjoyed the military life living in many places across the United States, and in Germany. From 1966-67 Will served in Vietnam. After Will retired in 1978, he and Janet returned to Prince George, which became their home. However, Will loved long distance drives and made annual cross country trips to visit his family in Alabama and friends along the way. Will had a second career working for Sears Canada. After his second retirement he and Janet spent at least part of every winter for the last 19 years at their home in Palm Desert, California. At age 70, Will took up the challenge of golf that brought him new friends. He had a respectable handicap and an impressive short game! Thank you to those who convinced him this game was great fun and gave him many years of enjoyment.
Summers spent in Prince George were filled with working on and maintaining the properties along the Nechako River and Ness Lake. He was affectionally known to his family as the “Lawn Ranger.”
In his leisure time, Will enjoyed playing cards and golf and watching Classic TV shows. He was known to occasionally whistle a few tunes and play the harmonica. Will took pictures wherever he was stationed or was visiting, documenting the family’s travel and life events and shared his knowledge and appreciation of photography with all his children.
Our family would like to thank all the care aides, nurses and doctors from Northern Health for their kindness and compassion in caring for Will. In lieu of flowers the family asks that donations be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, for Parkinson’s Research, michaeljfox.org, or a charity of your choice. Condolences may be offered at www.AssmansFuneralChapel.com
Calvin Ritchie Janfield (1 Dec. 1963 - 31 Dec. 2019)
It is with great sadness that the family of Calvin Ritchie Janfield and his AiMHi family, announce his passing on Tuesday, December 31st, at the age of 56 years. Calvin will be lovingly remembered by his mother, Donelda (Al) Fiddler; his sisters, Tamara (Randy) Meehan, Wendy (Ernest) Fehr; his brothers, Robin (Manon) Janfield and Jamie (Paula) Janfield as well as his numerous nieces and nephews and long term AiMHi roommate. Calvin was predeceased by his father Alfred (Cora Lee) Janfield and his brother Timothy (Jephony) Janfield. We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the amazing first responders, ER and ICU staff, physicians and social workers at UHNBC, for their wonderful care throughout Calvin’s time there.
A Celebration of Calvin’s life will be held at AiMHi January 7th at 1:00pm; 950 Kerry Street, Prince George, BC, with Pastor Edwin Drewlo officiating.
Gwyneth Sylvia Norheim 1929 - 2019
Gwen Norheim (née Munn), 90, of Prince George died peacefully Dec. 31, 2019 at the Prince George Rotary Hospice House after a brief illness. Together with her husband, Bjorn Olav Norheim, who predeceased her in 2018, Gwen enjoyed an exceptional life filled with outdoor recreation, world travel, a varied teaching career and the camaraderie of many lifelong friends. Born in Hamilton, Ont., Gwen came to North-Central BC in 1953 to teach elementary school in Hixon. A year later, she met and married her husband and the couple moved to Prince George. From 195557, Bjorn and Gwen travelled and worked their way around the world, starting in Australia and ending in Norway. In later years, they travelled often, with visits to Africa, South America, Mexico, Japan, other parts of Asia and Northern Canada, plus longer visits to Norway and Switzerland. During her working life in Prince George, Gwen taught at Prince George Junior High School, Connaught Junior High School, taught boat people English and worked as a medical secretary. She and Bjorn also lived almost 30 years in a log cabin just west of Miworth and Gwen particularly enjoyed skiing around the 160 acres they owned there. She supported the Sons of Norway Lodge, the local SPCA, UNBC and was an active skier, hiker, canoeist and cyclist. She is survived by her sister, June Schmid (Karl Otto) of Zurich, Switzerland and three Swiss nephews; Gunther, Gavin and Christopher (also her godson). She was predeceased by a brother, Robert, of Ancaster, Ont., but is also survived by three Ontario nieces; Kathryn of London, Karen of Sudbury and Nancy of Ancaster. Prior to her death, Gwen wanted to express her deep gratitude to the doctors, healthcare workers and many friends who assisted and cared for her in declining health. She did not want a funeral, but a get-together may be held for her this spring or summer. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Prince George Hospice Society at 1506 Ferry Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 5H2 would be greatly appreciated.
Roland
Harmony (Cory), Ryan (Chelsea), Kyle (Crystal), Steven (Sarah). Great grandchildren: Morgen and Sebastian, Grayson and Carson, Chace and Chelcey. Great niece: Sarah Fong. Celebration of life will be held at a future date. Edith left this Earth knowing that she was truly loved and appreciated. She will be lovingly remembered and missed for her wonderful cooking, baking and companionship. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to Hospice House in her memory.
My Darling Lou Louise Catherine Chernenkoff
February 18, 1935December 30, 2019
It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of Louise in the P.G. Hospice House at the age of 84. She was predeceased by her husband, William. Survived by her four sons: Charles, James, Kevin and Lee, three grandchildren: Courtney, Breanna & Jaimee, and one great grandchild, Nicole. Lou is also survived by her loving partner, Eddie Johnson.
To have known Lou was to have loved her - She will be greatly missed by her family and many friends.
R.I.P. Lou
A celebration of life will be held in the spring. Many thanks to the staff & volunteers at the Hospice House for the loving care that you gave to all of us in this trying time.
MERCEEDES VENUS
September 10, 1930December 30, 2019
Merceedes peacefully passed away and is now reunited with her loving husband Marvin and son Patrick. Survived by daughter Carol (Gordon) and grandchildren Michael and Sarah.
My deepest appreciation and heart filled thanks to all the amazing nurses & doctors in Hemo and throughout UHNBC that loved and cared for Mom with great compassion.
Debbie and Aggie, you touched Mom’s heart deeply, always brightening her day. Thank you for being such dear friends - None of you will ever be forgotten.
You always want one more hug, one more kiss. Your love will always be with us, Mom. We will treasure all of our precious times together... Forever
Rest in peace Mom.
Obituaries
Edith Hemmerich was reunited with her husband Siegfried on December 20th. 2019 at the age of 93. Survived by sons: Siegfried (Yvonne), Ralph (Leigh),
(Vicky). Grandchildren:
Josephine Marguerite Espenhain (Mauriello)
March 25 1939 to December 30, 2019
It is with great sadness we announce the passing of an incredible human,wife,mother, grandmother, aunty and sister.
Born and raised in Trail BC later settling in Prince George. She made many great friendships everywhere she went & has impacted many people along her journey with her kind & generous heart. A beautiful resilient strong warrior, Josephine will be greatly missed by her family & friends.
Josephine is survived by her husband Willie, her daughter Tracy, sons Dean (Tracy) Darcy (Veronica), grandchildren (Ashley, Amanda, Aidan, Addison, Tristan, Taitum), sister (Brandi), brothers, (Bill, Eugene, Joey).
The family would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Dr. Raymond, the personal at the University Hospital and Northern Health and all the staff involved in her care and all our friends for their condolences.
Interment at Ocean View Burial Park (Babyland) in Burnaby BC with their son William Todd (1961).
No service by request.
James Edward Duncan Dec 22, 1939 - Dec 26, 2019
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of James Edward Duncan, beloved husband, father, grand-father and uncle.
Jim was born on December 22nd, 1939 in Prince George, BC and passed away suddenly on December 26th, 2019 after a lengthy illness.
Jim started his career as a truck driver and continued this work into his early twenties. In 1965 he changed careers and began his work as a pipefitter/steamfitter. He continued this work until his retirement, working at pulp mills, the hospital, schools and for a short time in the oil & gas industry.
Jim was an avid outdoorsman who loved hunting and fishing. He made many great friendships throughout his life that he greatly cherished until his passing. Despite his gruff exterior, he had a kind and generous heart. He will be greatly missed by his family and friends.
Jim is survived by his loving wife of 56 years, Bonnie, his daughter Kelly (Mark), his son Calvin (Lana) and grandsons Jordan (Brooklynn) and Justin (Jessica). He is also survived by his sister Betty McDougal, brothers George and Donald Duncan as well as numerous nieces and nephews. Jim was predeceased by his parents Georgina and Sandy Duncan, sisters Cecilia, Jean and Evelyn and his brother John.
The family would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Dr. McCoy, Dr. King and all the staff in FMU & IMU, for the care he received during his stay at UHNBC. We would also like to thank all the family and friends for their love and support during this difficult time.
As per Jim’s request there will be no service.
We will always remember that special smile, That caring heart, That warm embrace, You always gave us. You being there for mom and us, Through good and bad times, No matter what. We will always remember You Dad because They’ll never be another one To replace you in our hearts, And the love we will always Have for you.
Lauri Valiaho 10 August 194004 January 2020
Lauri passed away peacefully on January 4th, 2020. He is survived by his wife Marjatta, daughter Anne (Colin), son Eric (Iuliana), granddaughters Elissa (Blake) & Kristen. He is also survived by his brother & sister, cousins, nieces & nephews in Finland, as well as many friends in Prince George and throughout Canada.
Born in 1940 in Finland, Lauri immigrated to Canada in 1957 and settled in Prince George in 1974. He was an active cross-country skier his whole life, and took up cycling as well while living in Prince George. Lauri was diagnosed with PSP (Progressive Nuclear Palsy) in 2017 and entered Complex Care at Gateway Lodge in January of 2018. Thank you to the staff of Gateway for their care of Lauri over the past 2 years.
A Celebration of Life service will be held Saturday, 18 January 2020, 1pm, at Gateway Christian Ministries. Lauri was a supporter of missionary work. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Missions Fund at Gateway Christian Ministries.
Colleen Ann Douglas
Dec 21, 1955 - Dec 16, 2019
Our beloved sister passed in hospice with cancer.
Predeceased by parents Audrey and George Douglas, brothers Tony and George and daughterin-law Laura Hall.
She helped raise grandchildren Tyler and Dallas Hall.
Thank you Dr Higgens, Colleen said you were the only one who actually listened and took action. Our deepest respect.
Best friends Betty Chow and Anna had a special October Xmas, she loved it.
Jason drove every week leaving Vancouver Friday night and returning Sundays for months, a loving son with her to the end.
My sister, a kind human being always said goodbye, I love you. We know the times she tried to escape. She told me to think of her, a little bird free to fly away. A part of us flies with her.
With love from sister Marie, “good-bye, I love you.”
Elmer (Stretch) Louis Ghostkeeper
(October 9, 1944December 30, 2019)
At the age of 75 Elmer passed away surrounded by his family and friends. He is survived by his brothers; Ernie, Peter, sister; Alice and brothers in law Rudy and Joe. Along with many nephews, nieces, cousins, family and friends. Elmer loved all his family, friends and along with his colleagues and friends of the Prince George Native Friendship Centre where he worked for over 20 years. His heart and home was always open as he welcomed everyone. Elmer loved UFC, Hockey, Native Fastball, hosting family get togethers and was always willing to take a gamble. We would like to extend our hand in thanks to his bud and nephew David Rennie, the 3rd Avenue Pharmacy, BC Northern Cancer Centre, Dr. Weisgerber, and the Ketso Yoh (PGNFC) Team for all their extra care during his brief but courageous battle with Cancer. We welcome everyone to honour our Brother, Uncle, and Friend at his Celebration of Life Saturday at 11am on January 11,2020 at the place he chose and loved The Prince George Native Friendship Centre.
“When I go, I go, No regrets”
LANA CHESLEY 2x53.3
Chesley,CraigJ. August6,1963-December20,2019
OnthedayofDecember20th,2019,CraigJamesChesley passedawayattheageof56.CraigwasborntoKenand EdnaChesleyin1963.Craigissurvivedandlovingly rememberedbyhiswife,LanaChelsey;sisters,Carol (Dave)WebberandKay(Bridget)Chesley;andchildren, Tiffany(Matt)Glubis,Chad(Sasha)Chesley,Jayson (Erin)Chesley,ChesleaGoodall,andSydneyGoodall.
Hewasknownforbeingunpredictableinthebestway, hiscontagiouslaughteramongfriends,andbeingsucha lovinghusband,brother,father,andfriend.Hewillalways beremembered.
ApublicmemorialservicewillbeheldattheColumbus CommunityCentre(7201DomanoBlvd.PrinceGeorge, BC)onJanuary11that11am.
In Memoriam
In Loving Memory Of Avin Izony
March 19, 2005January 5, 2018
A huge part of our lives, your memories linger on. Thank you for the feathers. Rest in Peace
Tom and Jean Leboe and Family
In Loving Memory Of TOM FREEMAN
July 11, 1918
January 4, 1996
So much Love and
Remembrance
Love All the Family
In Loving Memory Of Neil MacDonald
July 10, 1956January 5, 2018
Those we love don’t go away, They walk beside us every day. Unseen, unheard, but always near; Still loved, still missed and very dear. Donna and Lindsay
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
Apartments/Condos for Rent
Furnished Apartments
CHARLES LOGAN
NOTICEOFFAMILYCLAIM
To:KathrynL.Logan
2x40.7
PGC001941
TAKENOTICETHATon09/December/2019anorderwas madeforserviceonyouofanoticeoffamilyclaimissued fromthePrinceGeorgeRegistryoftheSupremeCourtof BritishColumbiainfamilylawcasenumber26000byway ofthisadvertisement.
Inthefamilylawcase,CharlesW.Loganclaimsthe followingreliefagainstyou:divorce.
Youmustfilearesponsetofamilyclaimwithin30days afterthedateofthepublicationofthisnoticefailingwhich furtherproceedingsmaybetakenagainstyouwithout noticetoyou.
Youmayobtainacopyofthenoticeoffamilyclaimand theorderforservicebyadvertisementfromthePrince GeorgeRegistry,at250GeorgeStreet,PrinceGeorge,BC V2L5S2.
CharlesL.Logan
Contest starts: October 3, 2019
Contest closes: February 5, 2020 at 5:00pm
Entrants further grant the Prince George Citizen the right to use and publish their proper name online and in print, or any other media, in connection with the Contest.
Includes all taxes and fees.
All weekly winners will be eligible for the Grand Prize draw Thursday, February 13, 2020.
No cash alternative, judges decision is final, no correspondence will be entered into. Prize must be accepted as awarded.
All entries must be received by 5pm February 5, 2020.
General rules:
No purchase necessary. Maximum one original newspaper entry per participating advertiser location will be accepted. Contestants must reside in BC and must be 19 years of age.
Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received.
Prince George Citizen reserves the right to restrict the local winners to only persons whose primary residence is within a 100 mile radius of the affiliate’s’ office.
Employees of Prince George Citizen, its respective parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising sponsors and promotional agencies, and the immediate family members of each are not eligible.
Contest entrants agree to abide by the terms of these Official Rules and by the decisions of the contest commissioners, which are final on all matters pertaining to the contest.
Winner must provide name/names of those able to leave on the trip the night of the draw, Thursday, February 13, 2020.
Must be in attendance to win.
Prince George Citizen reserves the right to use any and all information related to the Contest, including information on contestants obtained through the contest, for marketing purposes or any other purpose, unless prohibited by law. The Contest and all of the related pages, contents and code are copyright of the Prince George Citizen - Glacier Ventures and/or participating advertisers. Copying or unauthorized use of any copyrighted materials, trademarks or any other intellectual property without the express written consent of its owner is strictly prohibited.
Each winner, by acceptance of the prize, agrees to release all Sponsors, and their parent and subsidiary companies, their officers, directors, employees, agents, shareholders, affiliates, suppliers, distributors, and advertising agencies from all liability, claims, or actions of any kind whatsoever for injuries, damages, or losses to persons and property which may be sustained in connection with the receipt, ownership, or use of the prize.
This contest is not intended for gambling. If it is determined that a contestant is using the contest for gambling purposes they will be disqualified and reported to authorities.
Prince George Citizen reserves the right to change the rules at any time.
This contest is officially sponsored by Prince George Citizen and the 20 participating advertisers.
The Prince George Citizen is not affiliated with any contests run in conjunction with the Great Canadian Hockey Tour by participating sponsors.
