97/16 - Jan 17, 2019

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Snow fun Otway hosted the Nordic Winter Festival on Sunday.

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Natural resources forum coming Frank PEEBLES 97/16 staff

The B.C. Natural Resources Forum drills deep into industries derived from the land like forestry, mining, petroleum, natural gas, agriculture, fisheries and tourism.

Those who gather at the annual event are some of the primary figures in government, major corporations, First Nations, goods and services delivery, environmental protection, academia, trades and other stakeholder groups.

This year’s forum runs Jan. 22-24 and as always it is held in Prince George at the Civic and Convention Centre.

Chief organizer Dan Jepson of C3 Alliance Corp. has attended all 15 of the past forums and for the past five has been the lead coordinator. He doesn’t live in Prince George but insists this is the only place he would consider holding the event created by then-MLA Pat Bell.

“This has to stay in Prince George.

That’s one of the secrets of its success,” Jepson said. “I was just telling (Prince George mayor) Lyn Hall about this not long ago. I was showing him the speakers’ list and said if you got this same program with the same 48 speakers (at the Vancouver Trade & Convention Centre), what happens is, people arrive, their ties are very tight and their skirts are perfect, they are on their panel for their one hour, they stay and get scrummed for 10 minutes, and they leave.

“The delightful thing and the sweet spot with Prince George is people are more relaxed, the majority of our keynote speakers stay for their one if not both days and there are incredible opportunities for the delegates to interact in a positive way with First Nations, business and government leaders. That’s really the most important part of it.”

Another consideration in Prince George’s favour is the isolation, used as

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Premier John Horgan was one of the keynote speakers at the 2018 B.C. Natural Resources Forum. The event runs again this year from Jan. 22 to Jan. 24, at the Prince George Conference and Civic Centre. a positive trait. In major urban centres, even the delegates leave the main event when their key topics aren’t in the spotlight. They go home or back to the office after their items of interest.

But in Prince George, interest and active attention are sequestered and it is in a city where their topics are the everyday reality of the population.

97/16 is a weekly product of the prince George citizen

“Another very unique sweet spot, it’s a fascinating fact that shocks me, is we will see mining people tell us that the best talks were the forestry panel, and the forestry people will come to us and say the best talks were energy, because what traditionally happens is, if you’re in forestry you only really go to forestry conferences.

You never hear anything about mining or

natural gas or those types of other things.

So that ability to cross-pollinate between sectors, academia, government, First Nations, is just... you can’t underestimate the value of that.”

There is a monetary value as well to the Prince George region.

Continued on page 4

201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C., V2l 3g7

phone: 250-562-2441

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Thursday, January 17, 2019 | 3

97/16 photo by James Doyle

Paul Cailleaux and Brock Bailey are volunteers with Ducks Unlimited Canada and spend the winter feeding the ducks at Cottonwood Island Park.

Duo help ducks through winter Christine HINZMANN 97/16 staff

The ducks are back at Cottonwood Island Park.

Once the cold set in and the snow inundated Prince George recently Paul Cailleaux and Brock Bailey knew it was time to start feeding the ducks again.

As Cailleaux said, word spreads fast in the duck world and after the first feeding of about 20 ducks took place Jan. 1, it only took a few days and now there are upwards of 300 gathering near the bridge by the main parking lot at Cottonwood.

Right now all of the ducks at the park are mallards.

Cailleaux pointed out that as always, there are followers and there are leaders. All it takes is for one duck to come to the feeding area and then as we all can imagine Cailleaux and Bailey have all their ducks in a row as the pair of kindhearted men watch the fowl waddle over to the food.

“It’s quite entertaining for the park goers,” Cailleaux said. “We just ask that people don’t let their dogs chase the ducks.”

especially this year because they had a The energy the ducks expend escaping lot of food availability because of there harm can be better spent in other ways, was not much snow on the fields. Generlike survival, he added. ally I think what happens is they end up Bailey, who retired from a career as a federal wildlife officer, makes it clear that sticking around on the Fraser and on the Nechako and then no, they’re not savthey end up picking ing a species or mak- (The) longer they stay up a fair amount ing a huge environhere and fly around the of food from the mental impact, but to help sustain 300 less energy they have be- grain cars that come through on the raillocal ducks through cause it gets really cold road up in Miworth the winter will help and everything is frozen and in town.” make it easier on As the weather them come spring from here to the coast so gets colder and the when they are supfood sources are pretty snow covers up their posed to be nesting limited and they tend to food source that’s and thriving. when the ducks One of the most stick around. help to sustain asked questions Brock Bailey need themselves, he is why the ducks added. stay here instead of “They’ve built up heading south. fat and muscle mass “Ducks are fairly over the spring and summer, but the lonhearty,” Bailey said. ger they stay here and fly around the less “So they quite often hang around a lot energy they have because it gets really later than even the geese do. The geese cold and everything is frozen from here tend to head south quicker. Now these to the coast so food sources are pretty particular birds that hang here we think limited and they tend to stick around,” that they end up being able to scavenge,

Bailey explained.

Bailey said years ago people were bringing him birds that had literally dropped dead out of the sky. The ducks looked plump but upon closer examination they had wasted away.

Cailleaux and Bailey took on the project together, including going out every day for the last four years from January to March and incurring the expense of buying the feed. Last year was a good year for getting help and many individuals would buy a bag of feed at Spruce Capital Feeds and Bailey or Cailleaux would go pick them up as needed. The longtime friends, who both belong to Ducks Unlimited and are life-long hunters and conservationists, spread 60 pounds of feed, that’s a bag and a half of food, every day. The physical effort of packing the feed and then taking their shovels and spreading it as far and wide as they can is quite a chore.

Cailleaux and Bailey know there is a pecking order in the duck world so if the feed isn’t spread out, only the dominant males would get the food.

Continued on page 5

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Horgan, Sohi, others on speakers list Continued from page 1

Economic studies show that the forum pumps about $2 million into local pockets through delegate impacts like hotel rooms, meals, and socializing but also through organizational impacts like event planning staff, communication materials and civic centre services.

It would be easier from an organizational standpoint to host this event in Vancouver or Victoria, or even Edmonton or Winnipeg. The major players of government and industry are more centralized in those places. But the ability for Prince George to be focused hosts, and the delegates and VIPs swimming in the flow of the event, makes for especially meaningful interactions. The results of all the side meetings, casual encounters, surprise visits, etc. has a value that goes beyond emotion or intellect and may have an impact on the nation’s gross domestic product. Even the coffee breaks are designed to encourage deal making.

“Registration so far is tracking 15 per cent above last year’s record of 925 delegates, so it’s phenomenal,” Jepson said. “As federal minister Carr (Minister of Natural Resources James Carr was a speaker in 2018) said last year, this is the largest and most important natural resources forum in Western Canada and I’m just delighted that it continues to be hosted in Prince George.”

The forum this year has in excess of 70 booths in the trade show area, optional field trips and workshops for delegates, the True North Business Forum the day before hosted by the Prince George

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National Chief Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations spoke at the 2018 BC Natural Resources Forum.

Chamber of Commerce, associated discussions by Clean Energy BC, Share BC, the Celebrate The North evening reception, the Ministers’ Breakfast, a banquet, six keynote speakers from the gamut of resource-based business including Premier John Horgan and federal Minister

Amarjeet Sohi, and more than 40 other well-positioned speakers making up the panels that will speak to the latest information affecting Canadian industry.

One of those panels will have six provincial ministers at one time, from all the portfolios governing natural resources

and the First Nations portfolio that plays a central role with all of them.

To register as a delegate to this year’s BC Natural Resources, click the registration tab on the forum’s homepage. A range of prices reflect the range of ways you can participate.

CNC holding budget consultations 97/16 staff

The College of New Caledonia will be hosting a consultation session in advance of setting its 2019-20 budget.

It will be held on Feb. 1, starting at 4 p.m., and will be conducted simultaneously at all six CNC campuses, using its digital delivery instruction (DDI) system.

“Last year, DDI was very successful in connecting voices from different communities into one budget session,” said CNC president Henry Reiser. “The communities CNC serves are important stakeholders. Understanding their vision for education in their community is an important step to CNC’s decision making process.”

Registration for the consultation closes on Jan. 30 at 4 p.m. Presentations are limited to 10 minutes each. If people aren’t able to be there in person, written presentations will also be accepted.

In Prince George, the consultation will be held in room 3-342, in Quesnel it will be in room S202, in Burn Lake it will be in room 002, in Fort St. James it will be in room J2/201, in Mackenzie it will be in room 107 and in Vanderhoof

Reiser it will be in room 3-140.

To register email bog@cnc.bc.ca and include the presenter, organization, name(s), contact information, and the specific campus you wish to present at.

More information is available at www. cnc.bc.ca under the ‘Budget 2019/2020’ button.

News Tip? Call 250-562-2441

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Thursday, January 17, 2019 | 5

Faith will break down walls

A

s tensions mount in the United States over whether or not a wall should be built along the Mexican border, little has been written about a force which could well become the determining factor on the issue.

Despite its own internal struggles and cover-ups, the Catholic Church has shown itself to be an insurmountable force when it fully embraces the fundamental directive of Jesus and preaches a message of empowerment, human dignity, love and peace. Despite the fact that this promulgation is often forgotten, history has nonetheless shown that it is perhaps the greatest force on Earth.

Though there are many examples, two from recent instances will sufficiently illustrate the point.

Those of us who grew up during the Cold War remember the bombs, the walls and the fear that gripped the world.

“Streichholz und Benzinkanister” (match and gasoline can), as the German band Nena sang.

Yet Pope John Paul II spoke to the people of his native Poland, firmly entrenched behind the Iron Curtain, and told them that each one of them is sacred and loved, that they have a mission in life, and that no system of government could hold back their destiny. The communist party of Poland responded

Lessons in learning Gerry Chidiac

by giving military strongman Wojciech Jaruzelski dictatorial powers, but he had little impact.

The message of hope spoken by John Paul II spread like wildfire, touching the hearts of people throughout Eastern Europe and the rest of the world. Within a few years the Berlin Wall crumbled, communist dictatorships collapsed and the Cold War ended.

At around the same time, people of the Philippines, the only country in Asia with a majority Catholic population, were living under the dictatorial rule and martial law of Ferdinand Marcos.

It is joked that at an apocryphal dinner party Marcos said, “I admire those Americans. They know the result of the election on the same day of the election.”

To which Cardinal Jaime Sin, the leader of the Catholic Church, quipped, “How about us Filipinos? We know the result before the election!”

Yet Sin’s power was no joke. When Marcos declared that he had won the

1986 presidential election against Corazon Aquino, Sin called on the people to take to the streets in peaceful, prayerful protest. This became known as the People Power Revolution, and it marked the end of Marcos’ presidency.

What does this have to do with the United States, a country built on what sociologist Max Weber calls the Protestant work ethic?

It is significant to note that the populations on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border are largely Catholic. In fact, 38 per cent of American Catholics self-identify as Hispanic, and this number is increasing. In addition, there are many Hispanic bishops and, for the first time, there is a Latin American Pope.

Catholic leaders are already mobilizing.

Pope Francis said, “A person who only thinks only about building walls, wherever he may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the Gospel.”

On a similar note, American Bishop Joseph Vasquez stated, “Our faith calls us to respond with compassion to those who suffer and seek safe haven; we ask our government to do the same as it seeks to safely and humanely secure the border.”

The likely outcome of President Donald Trump’s hardline threats will be the same as those of Jaruzelski in Poland and Marcos in the Philippines. A leader

97/16 photo by James Doyle

Brock Bailey, avolunteer with Ducks Unlimited Canada, spreads feed for the ducks at Cottonwood Island Park. Bailey and fellow volunteer Paul Cailleaux spend the winter feeding the ducks at the park.

‘Last year, especially, we did a really good job’ Continued from page 3

By spreading it out, the females will get to the feed, too.

Bailey and Cailleaux got further sponsorship from some farmers in Vanderhoof, specifically Dale and Sheila Martens of Landmark Farms, who have donated tons of peas to the cause.

“So we try to help the ducks eek out an existence until the spring and I think last year, especially, we did a really good job,” Bailey said.

“We had those birds fed pretty well thanks to the people who stepped up and

donated. Don’t get me wrong the birds weren’t in great shape, but they survived a lot better than they would’ve without us and we like to do it.”

Years ago birds were dying because of lack of food.

“So Paul and I thought we’d step up and do what we could,” Bailey said.

“We know that even if we didn’t feed them the ducks would still be here, they couldn’t go anywhere. So the little we can provide them, especially when the weather is really cold, it just helps them survive the winter and get them ready for their spring nesting.”

Cailleaux and Bailey have known each other for at least 25 years sharing their love of the great outdoors and hunting water fowl.

“It’s been a pretty good relationship for the last 25 years,” Cailleaux said.

Bailey raises pheasants and trains retriever hunting dogs, while Cailleaux spends his time enjoying life, hunting and feeding the ducks all winter long.

If people are interested in supporting Cailleaux and Bailey’s efforts to feed the ducks, they can make a donation at Spruce Capital Feeds, located at 1694 Quinn St. South.

like Jaime Sin or John Paul II will stand forward and remind the people on both sides of the border that they are loved, that they are precious in the eyes of God, and that they have a sacred mission to love their neighbours and make the world better. They will walk forward together in peace with such a force that the most powerful armies in the world will drop their weapons.

These are not idealistic dreams. This is the making of history.

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 online to www.gerrychidiac.com

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97/16 file photo

Zena Campbell practices her throwing technique at Masich Place Stadium in 2011. Campbell, 85, plans to keep competing at the B.C. Seniors Games.

From Telegraph creek to the BC Games T rack athlete Zena Campbell is now 85 years old and still wants to continue competing in the BC Seniors Games.

Zena was born in Telegraph Creek in 1933. Telegraph Creek is a small community located off Highway 37 in northern B.C. You can reach the town by driving Highway 51 through what is known as the Grand Canyon of the Stikine because of the steep river banks and rocky gorges that form the terraced nature of the geography. The small town is located at the confluence of the Stikine River and Telegraph Creek and is home to the traditional territory of the Tahltan people. Today there are approximately 250 members of the Tahltan First Nation and non-native residents living in Telegraph Creek.

Telegraph Creek got its name from an overland telegraph line destined for the Yukon that started in 1866 and is historically significant as a staging point for two telegraph lines with the intention of connecting North America to Europe through Siberia. The line was never built.

Zena said, “I was born at home. I was a premature baby and my mother kept me warm from the heat of the oven and that is what kept me alive. I am the middle child of 17 children; I have 10 brothers and six sisters. I grew up and went to school in Telegraph Creek.

“My father was a hunter and a trapper and he looked after all of us. He worked for the government on the highways and cooked in the bush for the hunting guide outfitters.

“We lived peacefully and enjoyed all the uncomplicated simple things of life.

We walked everywhere and where we lived everything was up and down steep hills. I loved to play ball and there were enough of us to get a good game going.

We rolled up socks for a ball and our bats were simple tree limbs. There were no such things as sports equipment. We

Seniors’ Scene

Kathy Nadalin

made our own and we all loved to play games.

“Our favorite game was Ante-I-Over.

You have to shout out Ante-I-Over, throw the ball over the top of the house to the kids on the other side and then run to the other side of the house. If they catch the ball they can sneak around the building and throw the ball at you or catch you and tag you. You have to keep an eye open for them coming and beat them to the other side of the building without getting tagged. You have to fool them if you can and if you throw the ball and it doesn’t go over the house, then they can call you names. We were all strong so throwing the ball over the house was easy and lots of fun.

“My older brothers grew up and left for town (the closest town was Prince Rupert) so I was the boy worker for my mom. That suited me just fine because I was always an outdoor girl. I could manage the dog team to do the work of hauling wood to the house or to bring supplies home from the Hudson Bay store in Telegraph Creek.

“I was the live-in babysitter for my uncle’s family. When I was 15, he decided to move his family to Lower Post which was just south of Watson Lake in the Yukon. I packed my belongings and snuck away with them and I didn’t even tell my family. It was the first time that I was ever out of Telegraph Creek. It was many years later before I made it back home to see my mother.”

Zena said that her first real job – with a pay check – was stocking shelves in

Watson Lake. She worked at the hotel in Whitehorse as a chambermaid and then moved to Stewart, B.C. and drove a taxi.

There literally was no work in Stuart at that point in time for women.

She had three children; William Henry, Michael George and Freda.

Zena moved to Prince George in 1975 and drove a taxi and limousines for many years. In retrospect, she thinks back and says that she would have liked to have joined the army. She often wonders how her life would have unfolded if she had joined the army in her younger years.

She was always involved with sports in one way or another and at the age of 78 she got involved with the B.C. Senior games. She fell in love with competitive sports with all the events in track and field as her specialty.

She said, “It is with much thanks to Dick Voneugen that I heard about the BC Senior games in the beginning. He looked after the schedules and our training.

He made the arrangements to get the athletes registered, housed and a means to get to the competitions year after year; it is because of Dick that I was able to participate. I could not have done it without his help.

“I was proud to participate in slow pitch, badminton and all the track and field events. I am so proud of all my trophies and medals and the fact that I am 85 years old, in fairly good health and I am still able to compete. I am always ready to go and I still have the desire to compete. If it is a sport then I am there – I am always there giving it my best.

“I just want to say that I might be 85 but I am not an old lady because I don’t feel old and I have a good mind. I enjoy singing and I can still play the guitar. I try to be positive and keep a good sense of humor and I figure that I still have lots of good left in me yet.

“We all grew up at Telegraph Creek,

all 17 of us. We didn’t have the opportunities like city people but we survived.

We never had electricity and the only running water we had was if I ran as I regularly carried two buckets of water at a time to the house.

“I grew up OK and yes, we had some hard times. I have always been a good worker and I never gave up on myself; things were not easy but we didn’t know the difference. I can’t say that we were poor because we never heard of such a thing – we would not have known at the time what that actually meant. We were all the same and no one worried about stuff like that.”

••• January birthdays that I know about: Bill Bond, Hilda Fichtner, Charlotte Hellyer, Rolland Chartrand, Ann Neville, Laura Sandberg, Franca Pascuzzi, Terri Meyer, Joy Wikjord, Jean Bayne, Tom Hynd, James McConaghy, Lyn Thibault, Sharon Vincent, Ken Goss, Wayne Hamlin, Mary Hamlin, Marilyn Hinton, Tanna Dofka, Gail Horvath, Dianne Humphreys, Keith Young, Richard Winnig, Lorraine Anderson, Darlene King, Cecile LeFebvre, Ann Wiebe, Charlie Forden, Anna Babicz, Ron Neukomm, Flo Connaghan, Lois Keim, Kathy Rosenau, Phil Sciara, Bonnie Meikle, Clarence Harmon, Diane Hubbell, Fran Dods, Walter Shelest, John Darchuk, Lena Enns, Pearl Hiebert, Doreen Hewlett, Rusty Hoff, Bonnie Meikle, Joan Pitcher, Betty Pidhirny, Doreen Erickson, Mark Miller, Leslie Doucette, Kim Rand, Ed Ventress, Helina Karjaluoto, Deanna Carter, Shirley Hejjema, Larry Thomas, Jolanda Van Dyk, Alice Henderson, Ken Warn, Ida Bosham, Mary Snaden, Beverley Paquette and Roland Rouleau.

••• January anniversaries that I know about: 67 years for Lindy and Roberta Barnes and a December anniversary: 62 years for Anna and Laurence Herbert.

Around town

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Burgers, wine and story time Burger, beverage social

Family gaming

Today from 5 to 10 p.m. at Westwood Public House, 233 Cherry Ave., there is a Burger & Beverage Social, which is a Ride to Conquer Cancer fundraising event, with live 50/50 draw. For more information call Jodie at 250-649-7244 or Ron Gallo at 250-617-9268 for tickets, which are $25 each.

Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. at Bob Harkins Branch, Prince George Public Library, 888 Canada Games Way, bring the whole family to these monthly gaming afternoons. Choose from tabletop board games or video games. For more information call 250-563-9251 or email ask@pgpl.ca.

Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m. at 2880 15th Ave., the Community Arts Council of Prince George & District celebrates their 50th anniversary with cake and refreshments. Everyone is welcome to attend. for more information visit www. studio2880.com.

Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Coles Bookstore in Pine Centre Mall, 3079 Massey Dr., join them for a funfilled story time, complete with arts and crafts. All ages are welcome to join in as new stories are read each week.

CAC 50th anniversary

Smartphone photography

Today from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Bob Harkins branch of the library, get more out of your smartphone camera. Practice new skills in photo composition to increase the impact of subjects like downtown cities, wildlife, people, and landscapes. Enhance your photos and get artistic with free editing apps like Instagram and Snapseed. This is geared for adults and is offered as a free drop in.

Fibre arts drop in

Today from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Fibre Arts Studio, 2880 15th Ave., people are welcome to explore fibre arts.

Two Rivers Gallery Unbound Thursday at 7:30 p.m., the Two Rivers Gallery, 725 Canada Games Plaza, presents the artist talk for the Unbound exhibit featuring Jennifer Bowes. For more information visit tworivers.ca.

Art workshops

Friday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Two Rivers Gallery, 725 Canada Games Plaza, Uncork & Unwind: Bird & Tree Silhouettes. Workshop costs $40. Jan. 22 from 7 to 9 p.m. try Acrylic Pain Pour from 7 to 9 p.m. for $45. For more information visit tworivers.ca.

Science fair info session

Friday from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Bob Harkins branch of the library the library will provide answers to questions about the SD 57 science fair for those Grades 3 to 12. Parents are welcome to bring their children to the information session. Free drop in.

Winter Gales

Friday, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Ramada Prince George, 444 George St., The Prince George Symphony Orchestra presents their chamber music series.

Listen to classical, pops and jazz music played by the symphony’s professional core musicians while sipping on a beverage and nibbling on an appetizer or sweet. For more information call 250562-0800 or email gm@pgso.com.

Ben Brown at the winery

Saturday from 7 to 9 p.m. at Northern Lights Estate Winery, 745 Prince George Pulpmill Rd. A regular staple of Prince George’s music scene, Ben Brown is a singer/songwriter whose acoustic performances are filled with driving rhythms.

For more information call 250-564-1112 or email sales@northernlightswinery.ca.

Story time at Coles

Nordic wine tour

Saturday at 6 p.m. at the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club, 8141 Otway Rd. Must register for the event by Friday at 9 a.m. for those 19+. The Caledonia Nordic Ski Club in partnership with Northern Lights Winery are proud to present the event to enjoy the trails and wine tasting and then warm up at the lodge afterwards with a cup of mulled wine and appetizers. $25 for club members, $30 for non club members. Tickets are available for purchase at the online store at https://squareup.com/ store/caledonia-nordic-ski-club and in the rental shop. For more information call 250-564-3809.

Prince George Cougars

Saturday and Sunday, the Prince George Cougars play the Kamloops Blazers at CN Centre at 7 p.m. Doors open at 6 p.m. The Cougars host the Moose Jaw Warriors at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are available at www.ticketsnorth.ca.

Birchleg Ski Tour

Sunday from 10 a.m. at Tabor Mountain Ski Resort, 17875 Hwy. 16 East, the Hickory Wing Ski Touring Club is hosting the 46th Prince George Birchleg Ski Tour, which is a 10 km loop that takes roughly two and half hours to complete. This track is suitable for classic skis or snowshoeing only. There will be a fire at the start and they will provide chili and hot drinks for all participants. There will be a donation box for those interested in contributing to trail maintenance. For more information contact Norm 250-963-7417 or Val 250-564-8293.

Alban Classical concert

Sunday from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at Trinity United Church, 3555 Fifth Ave., Alban Classical presents a Sunday afternoon concert called Classical from Folk, featuring pianist Terry Yeh, violinist Allison Bell, oboist and soprano Erica Skowron and clarinetist Simon Cole. Admission is $20 at the door. For more information visit www.albanclassical.org.

STEM Challenge Night

Wednesday at 8 p.m. The Exploration Place, 333 Becott Place, offers a symbiosis workshop for youth. The free event is designed to offer hands-on experience with science, technology, art, design and math. Attendance is free, but space is limited so pre-register as adults/child pair or trios by email at bookings@theexplorationplace.com.

Thursday, January 17, 2019 | 7

Sidebars to history

How songwriters get paid Willow Arune Special to 97/16

W

e all know that there is big money in music.

The huge fees for concerts, the sale of records and CDs, the lavish lifestyles of famous musicians. What many of us do not realize is where a large amount of that money comes from and you may be surprised.

One of the rights that comes with copyright in a piece of music is called the “performing right.”

That means only the writers of the song and lyrics have the right to perform the song in public for commercial reasons. Anyone else has to negotiate a license from the writers and for that license they pay a fee.

Before modern communications, this right was impossible to enforce. Who knew what songs and music was being played in Deadwood? How could the writers collect those fees they were entitled to? That was simply impossible and as America filled up the problem only grew larger.

John Philip Souza, a very popular composer and performer of the day, was not happy that people were using his music without a license from him.

Other composers were also angry. They got together in New York City to come up with a solution.

They formed an association known by its initials. ASCAP was formed to enforce payment of those license fees from any business that used the popular music. They established rates for businesses, concerts and any form of entertainment where music by their composer members was used. Inspectors were hired and sent out across the nation to find those using the music without paying. If they refused to pay, they were sued.

After a few years of “education,” the money flowed in. Rates were established for various businesses and collected in one big pot. Those with a license could play any music by any of the ASCAP members with one fee.

Concerts in which small numbers of songs were performed submitted forms to ASCAP and the fees went to the individual songwriters.

For restaurants and such, the money went in to one big pot and various formulas were used to divide the money as fairly as possible amongst all the composers.

Continued on page 8

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Ap file photo

Bjorn Ulvaeus, former band member of the group ABBA, poses for photographers in a recreation of the Polar recording studio in Sweden in 2017. The group recorded many of their notable albums, including Super Trouper, in the original Polar studio. But before any music can be recorded, songwriters and composers need to do their jobs to give musicians something to play.

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Music opened doors for minorities Continued from page 7

The performers got paid from admission fees at concerts and, in time, from record companies.

Unless they also wrote the song, they did not share in the monies derived from the performing right. It did not take long for famous performers to demand they be included as co-writers on the label even if they had no participation in the writing.

The performing right lasted for the life of the composer plus 50 years and could be sold in whole or part. Famous composers in dire straights often sold their rights for peanuts. Investors and money men circled ASCAP members and their estates. And oh how the money rolled in.

Now, ASCAP was restricted. Only “good” composers were invited to be members, Jews faced an uphill battle until George Gershwin became popular but ethnic minorities, “hillbillies” and other such riffraff had no chance at all.

In the 1940s, with the Depression cutting into the flow of money, problems developed. Radio had become the major user of music. They paid ASCAP a blanket license, a percentage of their revenue.

ASCAP raised the rates and the radio stations rebelled.

The broadcasters talked with their lawyers and found that there was no limit on the number of performing rights societies that could be formed. But all the “good” composers were already members of ASCAP so where could the new society, called BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated), find songwriters? In a remarkable move, they put their headquarters in Nashville and started to solicit blacks and hillbillies as members.

Once they had gathered almost all of those composers, they cut the fees payable by broadcasters to use their music. If a radio station ceased using any ASCAP

music, it would pay less to use the new jazz, country, gospel, “race music” (early rock ’n roll), and more. Needless to say, BMI stations started to pop up everywhere in the South and spread northwards.

The war years held this static for a time.

After, ASCAP held steady with pop songs by good performers and songwriters. BMI stations plugged along playing country music which became popular in the South. Race music, the original rock ‘n roll, started to become popular in the 1950s. With more powerful stations, the sound also went north and west to the big cities. The migration of blacks to northern cities for good paying jobs was also an influence. Increasing in popularity, the BMI stations were increasingly marketed to white audiences.

Then came Elvis and the world of music exploded. Elvis took race music and gave it a white twist.

Many of the early rock stars played white adaptations of earlier race music and the blues before turning to composing their own songs. Radio stations, then television, had to choose a side.

Elvis and other early rockers were banned by ASCAP stations and parents.

Ministers held outings to break up rock records for their alleged immorality.

Attending a live performance of Buddy Holly might get you grounded for a month. But black performers finally gained a white audience.

It is said in music circles that the public does not like what it never hears. The best guitarist might still be playing only in his room; the best song may lie forgotten in a desk drawer. The exposure of new forms of music to a larger audience through BMI led to growing popularity, especially amongst the younger generation. The teen angst came later.

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CP file photo

Skiers enjoy the snow and sun at Lake Louise ski resort in Lake Louise, Alta., on Nov. 24. Skiing can be a great activity, but it takes the right preparation and equipment to enjoy without risking injury.

Eight tips to ski injury-free Dina Mishev 97/16 wire service

It was the easiest first day of any of my 21 ski seasons in Jackson, Wy.: two hours on intermediate-level groomed runs at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

Still wearing a cast after surgery seven weeks earlier to repaired a shattered wrist, I enjoyed taking it easy. Except the next morning revealed that I hadn’t taken it easy enough: I awoke unable to stand up straight and feeling like an ice pick was embedded in a long-ago herniated disc. I tried massage, acupuncture and physical therapy before resorting to an MRI and a course of steroids. It was almost five weeks before I was able to ski again, and I did so gingerly for the rest of the season.

It wasn’t until after my wrist was healed and I was able to return to my usual physical activities that I realized my mistake: because of my broken wrist, I had started ski season without doing any of my usual strength training.

“You can’t just expect to come off the couch, or even from yoga, spin classes or running, and ski,” says Crystal Wright, a former U.S. Ski Team member, the winner of the 2012 Freeskiing World Tour and a Jackson, Wyo.-based personal trainer. “Or at least you can’t and really enjoy yourself. At best you’ll be sore and at worst you’ll hurt yourself. Strength training will make your ski vacation more enjoyable.”

If you’ve got a ski vacation planned, here are eight suggestions regarding

Bloomberg photo by Michele Limina

A skier pauses to take in the view on a ski run down the Parsenn mountain in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 15, 2017. training and equipment to make your time on the slopes safer and more enjoyable:

Pay special attention to your core and glutes

“Core strength is involved in every part

of skiing,” says Sue Kramer, the author of Be Fit to Ski: The Complete Guide to Alpine Skiing Fitness and a Professional Ski Instructors of America examiner. Kramer recommends exercises such as planks and bridges before advancing into movements with a rotational component.

“Skiing subjects your core to a lot of

rotational forces, so that’s what you want to strengthen,” she says. Rotational core exercises include moves as simple as holding a ski pole with both hands above your head, then twisting at the hip while keeping your feet in place.

Continued on page 11

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97/16 photos by James Doyle

Nordic Winter Festival ABOVE: Chloe Witso leads a group of skiers out of the stadium at Otway Nordic Centre on Sunday morning while participating in a Chocolate Race as part of the Nordic Winter Festival.

LEFT: Caledonia Nordic Ski Club head coach Nicole Perrin demonstrates the proper technique for removing excess wax from the edge of a ski at Otway Nordic Centre on Sunday.

BELOW: A group of kids aged five and under take off from the start line during a Chocolate Race on Sunday.

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Cp file photo

A skier is races through the powder on Whistler Mountain in March 2015. Training for skiing should focus on building core strength, cardiovascular fitness for intense intervals and balance exercises, experts say.

‘Skiing is an interval sport’ Continued from page 9

And then there’s what Kramer calls the “snow angel.”

“Instead of making an angel in the snow, do it on the floor, with your legs and arms just a couple of inches off the ground,” she says.

“It sounds easy until you try it.

When it comes to legs, don’t focus only on your quads.

Kramer says a quick change of direction on skis will get them to fire, and “without any hamstring strength to counter them, the knee can be pulled out of alignment.”

Thirty-two percent of all ski injuries are to the knee, according to the most recent report from the American National Ski Areas Association’s 10-Year Interval Injury Study conducted during the 201011 season.

Other leg muscles to work on are the gluteus maximus and the gluteus medius.

You know the former as your butt.

The latter, on the outside of the hip, is often overlooked, although it’s one of the most important for skiers, says Wright.

“It both turns the knee outward and holds it in place,” she says.

Clamshells – lying on one’s side with legs bent, and raising and lowering the top leg – are the simplest and easiest way to strengthen the gluteus medius.

To work your hamstrings, butt and quads, try side and lateral lunges and split and sumo squats.

Get your heart rate up “Skiing is an interval sport,” says Bill Fabrocini, who has trained U.S. Ski Team athletes and developed two online skifitness video programs. “You make turns for one to three minutes, and then you recover.” Fabrocini’s clients often walk uphill on a treadmill raise to between three and 10 degrees for about two minutes; the goal is to work up to about eight two-minute intervals with about two minutes of rest in between. He says how you elevate your heart rate isn’t important as long as you get it up.

Work up to high-impact

Jumping helps develop your agility, which helps you prepare for the dynamic nature of skiing. But “if you’re not used to impact and you start jumping, you can hurt yourself,” says Fabrocini.

When you feel you have a base level of strength and are ready for impact, Fabrocini suggests starting with two-legged jumps (side to side and front to back) and working up to one-legged jumps.

Improve your balance

“Good balance helps protect your knees,” Kramer says.

“A simple yoga tree pose” – with one sole placed high inside the opposite leg – “is a great place to start.”

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Better gear, fewer injuries Continued from page 11

Once you’re comfortable with that, progress to standing on one foot for a minute (maybe even on a Bosu ball), then to one-legged squats and hops.

“If you can convince yourself through these exercises that it’s OK when the ground moves, you’ll have a better-quality ski day and possibly prevent injuries,” Kramer says.

Take a lesson

“If you’re a beginner, a lesson allows you to benefit from a professional showing and telling you,” says Dave Byrd, director of risk and regulatory affairs at the National Ski Areas Association, a trade association that represents more than 300 alpine resorts. “Good skiers can think of it as a refresher and also get tips about the mountain from a professional.”

Take care of your gear

Thirty years ago, the most common ski injury was a mid-shaft fracture of the tibia, but now, because of advances in boots and bindings, it’s very uncommon, ac-

cording to Jasper Shealy, professor emeritus of industrial and systems engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology who has researched ski injuries for more than 40 years. If this injury happens now, he says, “it’s because of poorly adjusted or maintained equipment.”

Have your bindings professionally set, and be honest about your skiing level.

While Shealy, and all skiers, are still waiting for a binding shown to reduce the number of knee injuries, he says, “We have seen a fairly significant decline in knee injuries due to shorter skis.” (The jury is still out on KneeBindings, which are designed to pivot, thus protecting skiers’ ACLs. Skiers seem to love or hate them.)

Wear a helmet

Helmets have not reduced the incidence of ski-related fatalities.

“You’re going to need more than a helmet if you run into a solid object like a tree,” Shealy says.

But they are extremely effective at preventing head injuries. One of Shealy’s studies concluded that, as helmet usage

increased between 1995 and 2015, potentially serious head injuries decreased from 4.2 per cent of all ski injuries (1995) to three per cent (2015) of all injuries.

Consider spandex support

Opedix Dual-Tec 2.0 tights have a scary price tag (US$225) but a small-samplesize study at the University of Denver’s Human Dynamics Laboratory (HDL) showed they reduce peak torque on a skier’s knees by 16 per cent. Mike Decker, the director of the university’s Q Lab and a senior research scientist at HDL during the Opedix study, says the tights were designed to give wearers “knee confidence.”

Developed by scientists at the Steadman Philippon Research Institute in Vail, Colorado, Opedix encourages joint alignment with bands of stiff fabric that wrap around the hips and knees.

They’re compression tights on steroids; before trying on a pair I was warned that popping seams is normal. Darrell Latham, 61, who takes three or four ski trips to Utah annually from his home in Oklahoma, ditched his knee brace after discovering Opedix five years ago.

“Wearing Opedix feels like cheating,” he says. “I can ski longer when I wear them than when I don’t.”

My experience is similar: now I’d no sooner ski in rental boots than I would ski without Opedix.

If you injure your knee despite your efforts, “don’t be afraid to ask your doctor questions,” says Park City, Utah, orthopedic surgeon Vern Cooley, who estimates he operates on about 1,000 knees a year, including those of Tiger Woods and Olympic gold medal skier Ted Ligety.

Cooley suggests five questions to pose to your prospective surgeon: What does she specialize in? Is it medically advisable to have your injury fixed there and then, or could it be fixed at home? How much will you have to follow up? (Cooley recommends following up with the doctor who does your surgery.)

How many (insert your injury here) does the surgeon care for a year? And, finally, how long has the surgeon been in practice?

“Don’t worry about offending a surgeon by asking these,” Cooley says. “This is your body and you only get one.”

Millenial 97/16

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A drug is a drug is a drug Ask an Addict

Q: Dear Ann: Is there such a thing as responsible drug use?

A: It depends. Alcohol, nicotine and caffeine are all drugs although many don’t consider them that way.

I am both an alcoholic and drug addict. I once argued with an alcoholic who told me alcohol was not a drug. I asked what it was. It’s just alcohol, he proclaimed.

“That’s ridiculous.” I said. “It’s like saying a rose is a rose, but not a flower.”

People tend to sanitize personal drug use. They don’t like to think they are consuming a drug. Every night when you drink a glass of wine, you are engaged in actual drug taking. Cigarettes kill and alcohol is a poisonous substance. Drink too fast and too much alcohol at one time and you most certainly will die. Yet because alcohol is socially acceptable, we tend to think it is OK. “Two glasses of poison with my meal if is fine,” we tend to say.

Try saying that about two lines of cocaine. Both substances are drugs. One is socially acceptable, the other is not. Yet we look at the person consuming cocaine as deviant. Cigarettes were once considered healthy, so everyone smoked. Our

AP file photo

A customer looks over the beer selection at Crest Foods in Oklahoma City.

While alcohol is socially acceptable, it’s as much a drug as cocaine or meth. personal beliefs is what makes the decisions about what is good for our taking.

Remember the days of ‘reefer madness?’

Today when looking back upon that we tend to laugh. Our social views have undergone tremendous change. Alcohol prohibition is another example. What is deemed unacceptable or not socially OK is not about the drug, but our biased and personal beliefs.

Back to the question about responsible use. With illicit drugs such as meth, heroin or MDMA, my question is why a person is even taking those drugs. Addiction is cunning, baffling and powerful.

You start using without suffering any consequences, but if you have the genetics of this disease by the time you try to stop and find you cannot it is already too late. If you have the genetics for addiction and engage in responsible use, over time you will find you have crossed the line into full-blown addiction.

Behaviour is what defines an addict, not how often or what substance you use. If you are only able to relax, have fun or not be anxious while taking a drug (including a drink), you are exhibiting warning signs that addiction may come.

True addiction is defined by contin-

ued use despite negative legal, social or health consequences.

I recall a story about a woman who regularly consumed five milligrams of Valium each night. Now as a hard core prescription addict myself, I couldn’t understand why she’d consider herself an addict. It took some time to understand it wasn’t the amount or the type of drug, but what it did to her life. She suffered tremendously from this single nightly dose. Retrograde amnesia was her biggest concern (like blackouts – look at what happened to Rosanne Barr). This lady did things which hurt her life, but the next day she couldn’t remember.

When she tried to stop, she was unable.

So remember this: the next time you imbibe in a drink you are consuming poison. If you wouldn’t drink Lysol or mouthwash, then why are you consuming alcohol? It is the same thing, a different chemical composition, but essentially the same poison. If you think it is healthy because it comes from grapes, a natural ingredient, then think poppies for heroin, hemp plants for marijuana and coca leaves for cocaine.

Thus you are taking poison when taking a drink.

One day we will look back on alcohol as we have cigarettes and pot. We will laugh at our stupidity and how we could have even considered taking this drug.

Questions for Ann? Send your submissions (anonymously, if you choose) to columns@pgcitizen.ca and we’ll pass them along.

Homegrown star returning for Fancon Frank Peebles 97/16 staff

One of Prince George’s own stars will be back in the city as a special guest at Northern FanCon. Madison Smith grew up in P.G. before leaving for acting opportunities on such screen arts projects as the CBS show Salvation, the Aftermath series on the SYFY and Space networks, When Calls the Heart, and the smash hit web series Narcoleap.

“His steady and climbing acting career has also seen him appear on series like Supernatural, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Psych and several others,” said Northern FanCon event chief Norm Coyne.

“Most recently, you can Madison in an upcoming episode of Supergirl scheduled to air later this month.”

This is Smith’s second appearance at Northern FanCon, but he hasn’t been at the pop-culture festival in several years.

This coming event is the fifth edition of the big show at CN Centre.

“We dubbed him a Rising Star in year one of FanCon and we are extremely excited to have followed his trajectory and success,” said Coyne. “Stay tuned

smith for an extremely exciting announcement that we have planned for FanCon 5 that will include Madison and some of our unannounced guests.”

Northern FanCon 2019 happens May 3-5. Tickets are on sale now. Buy them online via the event’s Facebook page or website.

News Tip? Call 250-562-2441

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taking aim at otway Top Canadian Mark Arendz all set for World Para Nordic championships ted clarke 97/16 staff

97/16 photo by Ted Clarke

Mark Arendz, Canada’s flagbearer at the 2018 Paralympics in South Korea, takes aim at the biathlon targets during the B.C. Cup competition at the Otway Nordic Centre. Arendz will be back in Prince George next month for the 2019 World Para Nordic Championships.

You could call it a reconnaissance mission.

For biathlete Mark Arendz, the chance to test out the trails at Otway Nordic Centre and learn the lay of the land two weekends ago in a B.C. Cup race proved irresistible, knowing what’s in store for him when in Prince George next month.

As one of the world’s best combined biathlon/cross-country skiing athletes, Canada’s flagbearer at the 2018 Paralympics in South Korea is a legitimate threat to dominate the medal podium when he returns to Otway to race in the 2019 International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World Para Nordic championships, Feb. 15-24.

Already a multi-medalist in IPC world championships and two Paralympic Games competitions, the Prince Edward Island native will soon have a rare opportunity to compete for more international hardware on Canadian soil.

At the B.C. Cup at Otway, Arendz was the only one in his category in the men’s 12.5-kilometre individual race.

He covered the course in 47:09, missing five of 20 targets in four shooting bouts.

He didn’t enter the sprint race the following day, electing instead to ski the race courses at his leisure.

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Paralympian pumped for P.G. Continued from page 15

“That’s always key going into a world championships is getting a look at how everything’s going to fit before the actual event just for mental ease so you know where everything is,” said Arendz, who made the trek from his home in Canmore, Alta.

“You want to know the physical part, how long it will take me to warm up and where’s the best place to warm up and the competition side, knowing where the course is, where can I make time, what parts of the course will feel slow and how to take corners.”

The snow came just in time to make for ideal conditions for his test run and he predicts the 140 athletes from 20 countries coming for the World Para Nordic championships will like the Race Maze course developed by the host Caledonia Nordic Ski Club. Arendz plans to enter biathlon and cross-country events.

“I think it’s going to be a really good course to test the athletes, there’s a nice mix of sections where you have to work, uphill climbs that are sustained, not just short or really long, kind of a mix of everything and a little bit of the technical on some of the descents that will keep everybody on their toes,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a fair course for everyone and you will get the best athletes taking the day.”

In December, Arendz kicked off the season in Vuokatti, Finland, where he won his first ever IPC World Cup cross-country gold medal in the 10 km classic event and also claimed silver in biathlon.

For people not sure what to expect when the eyes of the para nordic world are on Prince George, he says it will bring unforgettable memories of athletes overcoming adversity while performing at the highest level of their chosen sport.

For 10 days, male and female athletes will compete in three classes (sitting, standing and visually impaired) in four cross-country skiing and four biathlon medal events.

“It’s an amazing week,” he said. “Just watching some of the athletes and you see what their disabilities are and you just wonder how they can even ski and they become some of the fastest skiers you’ll ever see.

“In the visually-impaired category the trust you have between the guides and the athletes is just phenomenal. When you can’t see a thing, everything is black, and you’re going down these descents and making these corners that’s an amazing feat of trust and teamwork working with that guide. Some of the sit-skiers do the entire course just with their upper body, it will be an amazing and inspiring week for sure.”

Arendz was seven years old when he lost his left arm below the elbow after losing his balance while putting corn into a grain auger on the family farm.

He started ski racing as a biathlete when he was 13 and branched into crosscountry a few years later. He’s never let his disability slow him down, becoming a competitive athlete in soccer, volleyball, basketball, cross-country running, athletics and cycling. His love for biathlon started when he was 11 after he saw it on TV at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

“I always enjoyed sport beforehand,” he said. “Afterward, sport became kind of a way to show my abilities and not my disability.

“It was biathlon first. It was frustrating enough that I wasn’t enjoying cross-country but I started to focus on it and now it’s as strong as my biathlon. I’m actually better in classic than I am in freestyle in cross-country races. I just have to use my legs as efficiently as I can.”

At the 2017 World Para Nordic championships in Finsterau, Germany, Arendz won five medals – two gold and a silver in biathlon, bronze in the cross-country freestyle race and bronze in the relay.

The Hartsville, P.E.I., native is an eighttime world para nordic medalist and was a record-setter at the Paralympics last February in Pyeongchang, winning six medals in the six events he entered.

Arendz competed at the 2010 Paralympics in Vancouver-Whistler but didn’t win his first medal until four years later in Sochi, where he captured silver and bronze in biathlon, becoming the first Canadian to win two Paralympic biathlon medals.

In Pyeongchang, he earned five individual biathlon medals (gold in 15 km, silver in 7.5 km, bronze in 12.5 km. In crosscountry skiing he reeled in two individual bronze medals 1.5 km sprint and 10 km classic - and helped Canada claim silver in the 4X2.5 km mixed team relay.

In 2012-13, he won the IPC Biathlon Crystal Globe as overall champion, a season that brought three world para nordic medals and his first world championship victory. He was the IPC World Cup biathlon runner-up in 2011 and 2012.

Arendz’s cross-country coach is Robin McKeever, the brother of cross-country skier Brian McKeever, Canada’s most decorated Winter Paralympian with 14 medals. Brian will be competing in the World Para Nordic events.

Arendz uses a prosthetic when competing against able-bodied athletes. The blade-like apparatus, which takes the place of his missing forearm, fits on the end of his arm and he uses it to support his rifle when he’s aiming at the targets.

He’s not allowed to use the prosthetic during a para nordic event. In para biathlon, athletes use air rifles and targets are placed at 10 metre distances rather than the conventional 50 m range.

Arendz is in Osrtersund, Sweden, this week competing in the second of three IPC World Cup events and he’ll have one other competition the week before the Prince George competition. The season wraps up March 12-17 in Sapporo, Japan.

Since the first Winter Paralympics in 1994 in Lillehammer, Norway, the exposure of para sports at the Paralympic and world championship levels the past two decades has raised the worldwide profile of sports like biathlon and cross-country skiing to unprecedented levels and Arendz, a role model for young Canadians, predicts that growth will continue.

“Kids are curious about it and you just tell them they have that opportunity to compete at world championships and games – the word is starting to spread and we’ve seen that a lot in the last couple Paralympics and world championships,” he said. “There’s bigger acknowledgment and awareness of what we do and the possibilities.”

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Mark Arendz surveys the Otway course, top, before heading out, bottom, during the B.C. Cup. Arendz will be back in Prince George next month for the Para Nordic Championships.

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Taylor

Handout photo

Tina Filippino is a choir leader that will bring Just Let Us Sing to Prince George on Saturday.

Voices raised in song to build a community Christine HINZMANN 97/16 staff

If you can’t even carry a tune in a bucket but still want to add your tone to a community of voices Just Let Us Sing might be the ideal event.

Taking place Saturday at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church at 3590 Dufferin Ave., at 7 p.m.,Grandmothers to Grandmothers Prince George (G2G PG) is hosting the by-donation fundraising event.

G2G PG is part of an initiative from the Steven Lewis Foundation that supports African grandmothers who are raising a whole generation of grandchildren whose parents have virtually been wiped out by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Singing is a universal way to cultivate community and the chorister event sees song leader Tina Filippino from Vancouver Island take on the call and response kind of event where she’ll sing a line and the audience-turned-choir repeats it.

Filippino is a member of the Ubuntu Choirs Network that believes the joy of singing is a universal birthright and that together, regardless of musical background, the world can be helped by joining voices in song. Filipino leads choirs

for all who wish to sing called Letz Sing in the Comox area.

During this year’s Just Let Us Sing, the School District 57 Tapestry Singers and the Forever Young Chorus will perform to get things warmed up and then Filippino, who is also a member of her local G2G group on the Island, will take over.

“It’s a really nice event,” Maggie Spicer, G2G PG member, said. “It’s for people who don’t think they can sing, who haven’t been part of a choir before – those people who have been told to mouth the words, you know, that kind of thing?

Because so many of us have that background where we don’t think we have a voice and this is such a supportive event.”

Everyone is welcome to attend, Spicer said.

“And your voice is supported by every other voice at the event and this is completely inclusive,” she added.

Last year was the first year this event was held in Prince George and Spicer said Filippino was very impressed with the audience’s enthusiasm.

“Tina said Prince George was really fabulous,” Spicer said. “Sometimes it takes a while for an audience to warm up a bit but not this group, Tina said. Every-

one was singing right away. So she sings, we sing, she sings we sing and within minutes we know the song.”

It ends up being quite a treat for the ears as the choirs who perform earlier then join the audience and lift up all voices as everyone participates, Spicer said.

Being grandmothers, the organizing committee knew that bringing the little ones out in the evening might not be ideal, so G2G PG has decided to offer a daytime event featuring Tina Filippino’s song leadership. The Singing in a Circle event is also by donation and is deemed a family sing to be held Saturday from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the Prince George Conservatory of Music, 3555 Fifth Ave. “This event will promote singing with your kids, because singing is known to be good for language development and promotes a love of language and kids love music,” Spicer said.

“We’re just going to gather everybody on the floor and sing together.”

All proceeds for both events will go to the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign through the Steven Lewis Foundation to help those grandmothers in Africa.

Walk Off the Earth pays tribute to bandmate David Friend 97/16 wire service

Devoted fans of YouTube pop act Walk Off the Earth gathered Sunday afternoon in the band’s hometown for an all-star concert dedicated to Mike Taylor, the steely-eyed and stoic keyboardist simply known as “Beard Guy.” The Burlington, Ont.-raised musician, who died in his sleep on Dec. 30, was celebrated by friends and fellow musicians with a free acoustic show featuring members of the Barenaked Ladies, Arkells, Scott Helman and others.

It’s an event that Taylor would’ve loved, because it united the many different circles of his life, said his bandmate Gianni (Luminati) Nicassio ahead of the tribute. He was a prominent member of the community not only as a musician, but a local hockey coach and owner of a shipping business.

Taylor’s role in Walk Off the Earth rocketed him to unexpected fame in early 2012 after the group’s YouTube cover of Gotye’s Somebody That I Used to Know captured international attention.

The clip featured all five members sharing a single guitar, strumming its strings and knocking on its frame as they sang in harmony.

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Local artist explores the meaning of home Frank Peebles 97/16 staff

Image by Mo Hamilton

Stars – a lino-cut print, hand-painted in watercolour by local artist Mo Hamilton – is a part of the The 100 Houses Project: Reflections on Our Times show, which will debut on Jan. 25 at Island Mountain Arts in Wells.

You could rightly call Mo Hamilton a Prince George artist, but like few others she is also attached to various other towns. Her sense of place is what anchors her solo art show The 100 Houses Project: Reflections On Our Times.

“I chose the symbol of the house because home represents our sense of self and is an expression of our personal identity,” said Hamilton. “To come home is to have a refuge from all outward expectations and to be home is where we can be our truest selves.”

The show will open on Jan. 25 at Island Mountain Arts in Wells. A statement issued by the curatorial staff at IMA explained that the exhibition was “influenced by notions of displacement, resulting from frequent moves (by Hamilton) to and from numerous Canadian communities over the last decade.”

Hamilton is adept at many different genres of visual art (she is also a musician, just to add another creative layer).

For this exhibition, she has created 100 linocut prints.

“The exhibition presents the completion of her long-term art process of 100 works,” said the IMA staff.

“This large collection of works explores the theme of what home means, and tells a story of how humans adapt to changes, whether they are by displacement from political upheaval, forest fires, climate change, or economics.”

“We all have this need for deep belonging but sometimes events beyond our control disrupt our security and sense of place,” Hamilton said. “The 100 Houses project was inspired by a dream that I had that I was living in a house on a bridge. My family and I were moving to the town of Terrace in Northern B.C. from Castlegar in the Kootenay Mountain Region the next day so I thought the house was very symbolic of how I was neither here nor there yet. I was very much in that in-between place.”

IMA has been developing a relation-

ship with Hamilton for years despite the gallery being off the beaten path. Wells is only about two hours away, to the east of Quesnel, but Hamilton has taken it upon herself to cover that little distance frequently, perhaps because the idea of travel is more comfortable for her than most others, after all the moving of homes she’s done.

“Island Mountain Arts was excited to invite Mo to exhibit this show in the gallery as she has had a strong connection with both the town and Island Mountain Arts for over a decade,” said the IMA staff. “Mo explains that she finds the place a great space for creative renewal and exploration. (She) employs fabric, collage, and printmaking to weave personal narratives to communicate an inward vision into her mixed-media paintings and found object assemblages.”

“I think it is important as an artist to listen to your intuition and follow the ideas in your head and heart, to trust, to engage, create, and explore them,” said Hamilton, explaining her process.

Despite Hamilton’s well established abilities to bring almost any object or mental image into play, she has taken a minimalist turn with this exhibition. The linocut medium is sparse and simplistic in its power to convey a message. It leans heavily on black and white.

“As an artist, I obtain my inspiration from the external world around me, but reveal in my paintings the internal world of my imagination,” she said. “By reducing my images to their essential elements, I can bring simplicity, myth, and the primal, to my explorations of limits and boundaries with the intent of moving beyond them.”

She will speak more in depth about these new works and how she made them at the opening reception at IMA at 7 p.m. on Jan. 25.

The 100 Houses Project: Reflections on Our Times will hang at IMA until March 10.

For more information contact the IMA office at 1-800-442-2787, or head to their website: support-imarts.com.

Greene keeps the surprises coming in The Perfect Liar Bruce Desilva 97/16 wire service

The Perfect Liar (St. Martin’s Press), by Thomas Christopher Greene The great thing about being an artist, Max tells his students, is that you can imagine things into being. But only he knows the extremes to which he has taken that.

After fleeing a miserable childhood, Max spent his teenage years living on the streets of New York City. Yet now, in his 30s, he is teaching art in a picturesque Vermont college town. He and his new wife, Susannah, are plainly in love. He gets along smashingly with Freddy, her teenage son from a previous marriage. And he is a rising star in his field, commanding lucrative speaking fees. He seems to have fashioned a perfect life.

Max lacks the academic credentials his job requires, but he has more than

enough intelligence, boldness and charisma to sustain the fraud. Everything will be just fine as long as no one finds the body of the real Max buried on a New Hampshire mountainside.

But in the very first chapter of The Perfect Liar, the sixth novel by Vermont College of Fine Arts president Thomas Christopher Greene, Susannah finds a note, written in capital letters, on their front door: “I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.” The result is a taut, well-written thriller, but this novel is more than that. It is also both a textured examination of the lies people tell to those they love and a reminder that it is never easy to escape the traumas of a troubled childhood.

The pace is crisp, the surprises keep coming and there are two big ones that readers are unlikely to see coming.

Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including The Dread Line.

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Engaged voters matter more than voting system

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n B.C., we have just engaged in another effort to improve our democratic system.

We want good leadership, and when leaders fail us, we look for better ways to hold them accountable. This is right and good.

However, no system can provide a foolproof (pardon the pun) method for this.

Perhaps we are looking for a solution to a problem that must not have a complete solution, i.e; “if only we had the right system our politicians would be better.”

I don’t think that its possible. I think what is required is a higher proportion of an active and engaged people who take an interest in politics between elections, and holding them to account when things go wrong. Not everyone has to do this. We probably just need a few more percentage points of engaged people for things to change for the better.

We shouldn’t think we can attain a perfect system.

Every democratic solution will have imperfections because if everything is perfectly managed and there is no opportunity for things to go wrong, that probably means a whole lot is wrong, it is just that no one talks or thinks about it for fear of reprisals.

I grew up in a highly-regulated community where nearly every decision was made by community leaders, who

Thinking aloud Trudy klassen

were supposedly acting in the best interests of the community. Everything was prescribed in an attempt to produce model citizens who would be less prone to do evil. This included what we wore, hairstyles, what we celebrated, how we celebrated, with whom we socialized, how long we went to school (Grade 9 was the maximum) who we married, what we listened to, what we read, our employment, what was on the walls (calendars only,) the list is very long; suffice to say that it was a highly-controlled and organized system.

I am not certain if someone ever actually sat down and hammered out these particular rules for living, but I do know that the intent was good.

The result? Not quite utopia.

Much like in Orwell’s Animal Farm, people turned on each other in order to be well thought of by those holding the reigns of power, neighbour against neighbour, parent against child. What looked perfect on the outside wasn’t. What seemed orderly and peaceful came at the

cost of personal freedoms, free expression, individuality and creativity. It left a citizenry discouraged and eventually unable to think for themselves. Knowledge was frowned on and a people once known for their amazing feats became a people focused primarily on maintaining order and tradition.

My heritage was once a proud one; anabaptists who were part of the revolt against corruption in the long-established Roman Catholic Church, martyrs for the cause of freedom of conscience, priesthood of all believers, baptism only for those able to chose, non-pacifists. This was all in an effort to build a community of people who valued these things, who valued a better way to live, an authentic way to live. Sadly, dreams and ideals do not perfection create.

Whether we look at deciding on electoral systems, school fees, education, local government, environmental stewardship, development, or pipelines, it is going to be messy in a free country.

I would rather live with imperfect solutions and I want to enjoy my neighbours and community and not sit in judgment of those who disagree with me on the various issues of the day. Where our beliefs or values differ, I want to find the shared values we have and build on those rather than focus on what we disagree on, because we are all in this together.

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Winnipeg Wild goose chase 97/16 wire service

WINNIPEG — A wildlife group isn’t giving up on a real-life wild goose chase.

Staff and volunteers with the Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Centre in Winnipeg have been trying for weeks to catch a Canada goose that has made a car wash its home for the winter.

Animal care co-ordinator Tiffany Lui suspects the bird has an injured wing and was unable to fly south with its feathered friends.

The centre started receiving calls in October, when the season’s first snow blanketed the city, about an out-ofplace goose in an area on the south side of the city, Lui said.

The bird seemed to take up more of a permanent residence in December in a snowbank outside the Shell gas station at Pembina Highway and Dalhousie Drive.

There have been repeated attempts to catch it with nets and bed sheets, Lui said.

“The problem is it does have the capability of flight... just enough to get over top of the cars and over top of our heads,” Lui said. “We know we can’t just walk up to it. We have to be sneaky and try other options.”

If the bird is captured, she said, it will be cared for at the centre with four other geese, four ducks and two pelicans that didn’t make it south.

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Looking beyond the conventional car Michael Laris 97/16 wire service

WASHINGTON — When Sheryl Connelly was growing up in Metro Detroit, she worried that the ease of newfangled power steering was going to lull Americans into oblivion.

“I had this vision as a little girl that there’d be a bunch of drivers that were sleeping behind the wheel,” said Connelly, the in-house futurist for Ford Motor Co. Prediction is perilous work, and that scenario failed to come to pass (though the November arrest of a sleeping California driver in a partially-automated Tesla evoked similar anxieties.)

But as self-driving vehicles and electric scooters mix with pedestrians, cyclists and traditional motorists in congested communities across North America, government and corporate leaders have been pushed in new ways to try to predict the future and plan for what’s coming.

The stakes are high for both.

Just as companies such as Ford have to give customers what they want, cities must try to provide the quality of life residents demand, Connelly said, and those basic tasks are made more complicated by the dramatic pace of change in transportation.

“Somewhere along the way, we had the obvious, but latent, idea that we need to build cars that people want. I think cities have the same thing,” Connelly said, adding that urban planning has become one of the world’s most influential jobs.

“In the days of Henry Ford, it was the industrialists. Then in the ’40s and ’50s, it was the civil engineers that created the roadways and the highways. I think this is the moment of urban planners,” she said.

Ford will begin testing self-driving vehicles in Washington, D.C. early this year, with plans to launch them commercially in Washington, Miami and other cities in 2021. Waymo began rolling out a commercial robo-taxi service in suburban Phoenix in early December, and autonomous shuttles are coming to cities from Youngstown, Ohio, to Jacksonville, Fla. Officials have sought to steer, or at least keep up with, the developments.

Working with the Aspen Institute and Bloomberg Philanthropies, Washington joined Los Angeles, Austin, London and Sao Paulo, Brazil, among other cities, in crafting common goals for the driverlesscar developers poised to affect their communities.

High on the list of priorities is cutting greenhouse gases and other pollution, eliminating congestion and ensuring that officials have the opportunity to adapt as changes barrel ahead.

As Washington officials put it, they don’t want to be stuck “making 100-year decisions for technology that is changing in 10 years.”

Washington Post photo by Calla Kessler

A self-driving car outfitted with cameras sits at the Ford terminal in Washington, D.C. One upside to planning for the future at this moment is that cities can perform test runs before going big. Unlike with a major investment such as a streetcar line, shared self-driving taxi, shuttle and bus services can be piloted first, said Andrew Trueblood, the District’s interim planning director.

“Streetcars, as even D.C. shows, they have their pluses and minuses,” Trueblood said. “The nice things about these is, if you do a pilot, you can see how it works – you can see if it works.”

Connelly trained as a lawyer and has an MBA. She said she didn’t even know “futurist” was a job until she stumbled into the position 15 years ago, after sales, marketing and other roles at Ford.

Soon after she started, with a charge to think further out and be provocative internally, she faced pushback.

She was pointing to the “rise of the rental economy.” People were renting handbags, black-tie attire and baby clothes. They were even renting pets.

“I said the drivers underneath it are evergreen. It gives people access to things they can’t otherwise afford,” Connelly said.

Given the speed of technological change, people also wanted to avoid buying into “scheduled obsolescence,” she said. And even if money wasn’t a factor, “sometimes alleviating the burden of ownership has great appeal,” she told her colleagues.

“I remember somebody said to me, ‘What part of the fact don’t you understand that we only make money on the cars we sell?’” Connelly said. “I respectfully say most of the people who work for Ford do so because they love cars. And trying to say they wouldn’t be universally loved in the future was saying their baby was ugly. It wasn’t well received.”

More recently, the company shifted toward a strategy of not only selling cars, but moving people. Ford is making a five-year, $1 billion investment in the self-driving start-up Argo AI to help build the foundation for autonomous ridesharing and delivery businesses, and it is growing its shared-van service, Chariot.

In November, the company announced it had bought e-scooter company Spin.

They’ve ditched the phrase “sharing economy,” and internally, some call the trend the “no-strings-attached movement.”

If driverless cars can address technological shortcomings and safety concerns, they could reduce the number of people who drive alone – or spur new congestion, depending on how they’re implemented. Connelly is an optimist on this question, predicting they will lead urban parking zones to be converted into green space.

Self-driving vehicles are just one piece of the bigger picture facing cities, as they try to balance immediate concerns with futuristic ones.

That means fixing roads and bridges and finding ways to slow drivers at dangerous intersections, while also focusing on what infrastructure might be needed for the future and what information should be collected and shared as roads, and the people on them, are tied together through digital networks.

“When we think about the future of our city, we see less single-occupancy vehicle trips, more vehicle electrification and an emphasis on building the infrastructure and policy framework to support those goals,” said Jeff Marootian, director of the District Department of Transportation.

For Connelly, too, much of her work requires staying nimble and sensitive to the evidence of trends, particularly when it runs counter to conventional wisdom.

“In the early days of autonomous vehicles, there was a narrative that was: ‘Young people aren’t interested in cars.

The only way we’re going to get them into a vehicle is if it’s autonomous, so they continue to stay attached to their digital devices,’ “ Connelly said.

But Connelly sees a much more compelling business case for targeting seniors in self-driving cars. It’s already harrowing for relatives to take the keys from an unsafe driver hitting 80.

“How vigorous will that fight be if you think you’re going to live to 85?” Connelly said. “What does the conversation look like if you think you’re going to be 105? Or 125?”

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A car that walks on four legs?

Hyundai unveils legged concept vehicle at auto show Peter Holley 97/16 wire service

When experts ponder the future of automobiles, they tend to focus on two novel modes of transportation: driverless cars and flying cars.

At this year’s CES technology show in Las Vegas, Hyundai has introduced a third vision for how vehicles might traverse the world around them – one that doesn’t rely solely on wheels.

More than 2,000 years after the wheelbarrow’s debut in classical Greece, ushering in a new era of locomotion, Hyundai’s latest concept car is designed to walk as easily as it rolls. Called “Elevate,” the daddy-long-legs-like machine has wheels at the end of long robotic legs that would allow “users to drive, walk or even climb over the most treacherous terrain,” according to the company.

The company – which labels the machine a UMV, or “ultimate mobility vehicle” – said the concept was inspired by the need for “resilient transportation” in disaster zones, where conventional vehicles are often rendered useless.

“When a tsunami or earthquake hits, current rescue vehicles can only deliver first responders to the edge of the debris field,” John Suh, Hyundai vice president and head of Hyundai CRADLE, said in a statement on the company’s website.

“They have to go the rest of the way by foot. Elevate can drive to the scene and climb right over flood debris or crumbled concrete.”

Suh added that the vehicle’s usefulness wouldn’t be limited to emergency situations. For people living with disabilities without access to an ADA ramp, the statement said, an autonomous version of the Elevate could walk to a front door and

Bloomberg photo by Patrick T. Fallon

David Byron, industrial design manager of Sundberg-Ferar, speaks about Hyundai’s latest concept car during the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last Monday. position itself so that a wheelchair could “roll right in.”

How realistic is the Elevate concept?

David Bailey, a professor at Aston Business School in England, told the BBC that although concept cars may not make it to the factory floor, they can help generate valuable new ideas.

“For most of us, it’s going to be wheels and roads, but in extreme situations there may be scope for this sort of thing,” Bailey said. “There may well be applications in terms of emergency services - but there are very big technological challenges to make this sort of thing.”

Hyundai’s vision is undeniably ambitious. The company said it envisions

being able to switch out different Elevate body types for different situations. The vehicle is designed to utilize “both mammalian and reptilian walking gaits,” giving it the ability to travel in any direction, the company said, noting that the legs fold up into a “stowed drive-mode” to save power.

Those legs, the company said, would be able to climb over a five-foot wall and step across a five-foot gap.

A concept video produced by Hyundai shows the vehicle performing a mixture of driving and walking. When the surface is relatively flat, the vehicle turns to conventional wheels, but when the terrain grows craggy, the vehicle’s wheels appear

to lock into place and its legs extend, taking synchronized steps forward.

When surrounded by massive chunks of concrete from what appears to be a collapsed structure, Elevate is shown leveling itself on an incline so that rescuers can load a stretcher inside.

“Imagine a car stranded in a snow ditch just 10 feet off the highway being able to walk or climb over the treacherous terrain, back to the road, potentially saving its injured passengers – this is the future of vehicular mobility,” said David Byron, industrial design manager at SundbergFerar, a Detroit-based design firm that partnered with Hyundai to create the Elevate.

Electric vehicles gaining momentum

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t may be the early days of 2019 but there is every reason to believe the transition to greater electric vehicle (EV) adoption by British Columbians will only escalate this year.

For the last decade, the adoption of electric vehicles has been a process that has been gradual, but in the recent years the adoption of EVs has picked up considerable steam.

Consumers no longer need to be led into a discussion about the virtues of clean energy vehicles. They want and are demanding that auto manufacturers address their increasing appetite for greener modes of transportation – and auto manufacturers are responding.

A broader selection of EV models is making the decision more attractive for consumers.

The top EV vehicle sales models in 2018 included the Tesla Model 3, Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi Outlander, Chevrolet Bolt, Toyota Prius Prime and Chevrolet Volt.

In the year ahead, in addition to established models, consumers can expect to see even greater options, including the Hyundai Kona Electric, which is already

New Car Dealers Association of BC Blair Qualey

being billed as one of the most promising electric cars of 2019; the Audi E-Tron Quattro SUV; the Kia Niro EV; and Mini will also be reintroducing its fully-fledged mini-electric. Also of great interest is Volkswagen’s plan to launch the longawaited first electric vehicle from its eponymous brand, the Golf-size ID Hatchback – but the 2019 model will only be sold in Europe. And Ford is working on a 480-km range electric SUV for 2020, which will be of great interest because it will be the automaker’s first dedicated electric model.

For many consumers, the decision to make the transition to an EV is a practical one. The current level of fuel prices is a motivating factor for some, while for others, the move to cleaner technology is the result of becoming more environmen-

tally conscious. And for many, incentive programs have also helped steer them in this direction.

The SCRAP-IT Program provides an incentive to remove an internal combustion engine vehicle from our roads and replace it with a clean energy vehicle.

Since its inception in 1996, that program has successfully removed more than 43,000 super-polluting vehicles from BC roads.

And of course, there is the CEVforBC Program, which new car dealers administer on behalf of government, and offers B.C. residents up to $5,000 dollars for the purchase or lease of an eligible vehicle.

While total 2018 year-end totals for BC have not yet been tabulated, well more than 6,000 CEVforBC incentives were paid out during the last calendar year – more than three times the amount in 2017 (during which there were approximately 1,800 incentives processed). It’s also important to note that during the third quarter of 2018, the sale of electric vehicles represented 15.4 per cent of all new car sales in the province.

The province announced $20 million in

funding for the CEVforBC Program last fall and that will help fuel the public’s appetite for EVs. However, as electric vehicle sales grow and more and more products appear on the road, drivers need charging spots that will keep pace with demand. To its credit, the province has made a commitment to expand the size of the current fast-charging network – but there remains a lot of work to do, particularly in the Interior and the North, where the lack of this infrastructure is a clear impediment to EV adoption.

B.C’.s new car dealers continue to work hard to ensure consumers or potential consumers are armed with the best and most up-to-date information in deciding to make a new vehicle purchase.

When it comes to the purchase of electric or any other vehicles, the support and encouragement dealers provide can go a long way in fuelling the growth of clean energy vehicle sales, and in doing so, reducing emissions.

Blair Qualey is president and CEO of the New Car Dealers Association of B.C. You can email him at bqualey@newcardealers.ca.

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