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WEDNESDAY October 12, 2016

NEWS AND EVENTS FOR PRINCE GEORGE AND CENTRAL INTERIOR

Bryan Adams playing CN Centre Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

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ryan Adams is coming back to Prince George, and he’s coming soon.

Never mind this sixmonth sales period so many artists embark on, Adams’ date at CN Centre is Nov. 19.

He has been to P.G. several times over the years: 1998, 2000, 2003 and his most recent visit was the summer of 2010.

“Each of those shows was a sellout,” said CN Centre manager Glen Mikkelsen. Only Nickelback has come as many times as Adams and sold all of them out (plus they did some smaller concerts in P.G. earlier in their career).

“This would make him No. 1 for the number of tickets ever sold by one artist at CN Centre. This will put him past Nickelback, and rightfully so when you consider his global history over a long period of time with such a broad catalogue of songs.”

Many of the people who go to one Adams show go to another, said Mikkelsen. “He always puts on such a great show. The fans get a lot from him.”

He has been a name on global lips for decades, now, and he is one of the few Canadians that has ever attained A-list international pop-culture profile. He’s won and/or been up for Oscar Awards, Grammys, Golden Globes, and won a staggering 19 Juno Awards so far. So far.

He spaces his album releases years apart, which tends to make for strong packages of songs.

Lately, he has taken even longer to spin original yarns.

His penultimate album was a set of cover songs called Tracks Of My Years that chronicled the hits of his upbringing done his way and released in 2014.

— see ‘THE STUFF, page 7 Ap photo

Bryan Adams performs in concert during his Reckless – 30th Anniversary Tour 2015 at the Delaware State Fair on July 28, 2015, in Harrington, Del.

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Final harvest

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Farm family displaced by Site C dam face an uncertain future

Jonny Wakefield Alaska Highway News

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n a drizzly September afternoon, Ken and Arlene Boon stood on a hillside overlooking the Peace River, detailing what they’ll lose to the Site C dam.

As president of the Peace Valley Landowner Association, representing dozens of farmers and ranchers who will be affected by the dam’s 83-kilometre flood zone, Boon has given this tour many times.

At the bottom of the hill on a bend in the highway is a market garden filled with fruit, vegetables and a rain-soaked stand of sunflowers.

Along the river, a pair of teepees stand in a hayfield, leftover from a culture camp Treaty 8 First Nations members held this summer.

On top of one of the benchlands that line the area, known as Bear Flat, is the Boons’ log home construction business and homestead, where Arlene’s family has lived for three generations.

— see ‘WE’RE, page 4

Alaska Highway News photo by Jonny Wakefield

Ken and Arlene stand over Hip Peace Produce, a market garden that operates on their property at Bear Flat. With Highway 29 set to be realigned through the centre of their property, the Boons are bringing in what could be their last harvest.

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‘We’re losing everything’ — from page 3 Now, with a highway realignment around the proposed reservoir set to bisect their land, the Boons are facing the bleak prospect of bringing in their last harvest and ultimately losing their home.

“We’re losing everything,” said Arlene.

“We’re looking at having to start over.”

Since Premier Gordon Campbell revived the idea of a third Peace River dam in 2010, the Boons have been the face of agricultural opposition to Site C. In the lead-up to the government’s decision to green-light the project, the Boons attended countless hours of review panel

hearings in Fort St. John.

They’ve addressed TV cameras on the steps of the Vancouver court house after legal challenges.

Last winter, they helped lead a protest camp that blocked construction for weeks – a stand that eventually earned them and six others a court injunction.

But after years of fighting, the Boons received their official buyout offer from BC Hydro late last month.

“Seeing an offer and knowing there’s a deadline, it is disturbing,” Ken Boon said.

“And it brings a new reality to where we’re at. It’s a little hard to take.”

While the Boons have nothing in writing, their lawyer says BC

Seeing an offer and knowing there’s a deadline, it is disturbing. And it brings a new reality to where we’re at. It’s a little hard to take.

— Ken Boon

Hydro hopes to have them off their land by the end of the year.

The dam is scheduled for completion in 2024, but sections of Highway 29 between Fort St. John and Hudson’s Hope need to be realigned above the flood re-

serve before the river is diverted.

BC Hydro wants to begin rebuilding eight-and-a-half kilometres of highway through Bear Flat early next year. When contacted, however, Site C spokesperson David Conway would not give a specific date by which the Boons must leave.

The first highway crews appeared on the Boons’ property this summer.

First, it was geotechnical workers with drilling rigs to test the soil and rock for the roadbed – creating a line of boreholes across the property just metres from the Boons’ home.

The archaeologists came next.

Parts of the yard have been transformed into a dig site, with

square-metre sections cordoned off with pink and yellow tape. The dig has turned up hundreds of pieces of chert, a flaky, obsidianlike rock used by the region’s early residents for tool making. Some of the arrowheads tested positive for buffalo DNA – additional evidence that the Peace River valley was a trading hub for plains and coastal First Nations.

“There’s a reason why the homes are all on this stretch along Bear Flat,” Ken said over coffee at their kitchen table.

“It’s because it makes sense to build homes on these benches.

They all have good springs, and we’re not disturbing good farmland.”

— see archeological, page 5

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Archeological finds made on Boons’ property — from page 4 “That’s the same reason the archeologists are finding so much here – because it’s been a desirable place for man to live for 10,000 years, and Hydro wants to put a road right through it,” Ken Boon added.

Now, the Boons are dividing time between harvesting their crops and finding a new place to live.

Since BC Hydro first proposed Site C in the 1970s, farming in the valley has been, in part, an act of defiance. BC Hydro and the Crown own 93 per cent of the land in the flood reserve, which has driven down land values and discouraged large-scale agriculture in the valley.

According to the Joint Review Panel appointed to scrutinize the project, agriculture in the valley generates just $220,000 a year.

Those who do farm along the Peace enjoy long daylight hours in the summer, rich alluvial soils and warmer temperatures than farms at higher elevations around Dawson Creek and Fort St. John.

Around 30 residents of the valley will be directly affected by Site C, according to BC Hydro, either by highway realignment or the flooding itself.

Of those, ten will likely have to move from their homes or rebuild them elsewhere on the property.

BC Hydro says it will pay “fair market value” for the land – a concept which Ken said is practically non-existent in an area that has, for decades, been set aside for a reservoir.

The Boons are intent on keeping up the fight against the dam. They say it’s an unnecessary, outdated mega-project that will destroy good farmland and infringe on First Nations treaty rights.

BC Hydro, meanwhile, says

Alaska Highway news photo by Jonny Wakefield

Ken Boon walks past an archeological site on his property, part of mitigation work on the Site C dam. Archeologists have turned up hundreds of pieces of chert, a flaky stone material used for tool making by the region’s first inhabitants. its electricity system will face an eight per cent shortfall in capacity in ten years without Site C. Whenever the prospect of BC Hydro’s buyout comes up, Ken talks about buy-back clauses, if a court case or change in government derails the project.

He said he hopes he’ll never see

a cent of the money.

But the first summer of work on their property has already taken a toll.

Arlene’s mother, who lived in a converted school house on the property, recently moved to an apartment in Fort St. John to escape construction.

If the Boons are forced from the property, they have options to stay in the valley on other family land.

But if the river they love becomes a reservoir, would they want to?

“Every direction you look here, these hills are anticipated to slide

(into the river),” Ken said. “We won’t know for many years what this valley is going to look like. It might be just a real ugly sloughedin slough. So we’re being expected to make decisions now without knowledge of what it will look like. Would we really want to stay in the valley?”

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Christmas tree farm to take root at UNBC

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Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

tudents in the University of Northern British Columbia’s Forestry Club have come up with a way to raise funds to help pay for their education while bringing a little Christmas cheer in the process.

They’ve secured a 3.4 hectare piece of forest about a five-minute walk away from the campus’ main buildings where they’ll start growing Christmas trees next year.

The work will start small but over time the goal is to have more than 10,000 stems of Douglas fir

and spruce planted across the entire area and to have trees suitable for dorms and apartments ready for sale in about seven years.

In part, revenue from the Christmas trees will help students defray the cost of attending a two-week field school they must attend one summer in order to graduate.

It costs about $1,200 for room and board and takes away from the time they have to earn money for the school year.

It’s part of a larger 17.4-hectare plot and the remaining area will be set aside for students to run research projects.

A signing ceremony to hand over the land was held Monday at the site.

It’s just brings out so many other avenues that students can take to gain more experience in all aspects of forestry.

— Ian Petersen, UNBC student Among the next steps will be to get sections cleared and ready for planting.

“That’s going to be one of our big obstacles starting off,” said Anna Tobiasz, one of the students involved in the initiative.

“We’re going to get lots of students out here and do some manual brushing.”

The initiative is the brainchild of three UNBC natural resource management students – Ian Petersen, Brian Sye and Jeremy Seiwert – who came up with the idea three years ago while searching for a project to complete their degrees.

The work included drafting a land-use management plan and a business plan.

So-called agroforestry – looking at such non-timber forest products as berries, mushrooms and sap - will be among the subjects students will investigate around the rest of the site.

“It’s just brings out so many

other avenues that students can take to gain more experience in all aspects of forestry,” said Petersen.

The experimentation will include the Christmas trees.

“We’re going to try spacing, different densities,” said tree farm manager and fourth-year forestry student Marc Howard.

“We’re going to try rows, we’re going to try putting them in tight little groups.”

UNBC president Daniel Weeks said the initiative continues the school’s tradition of experiential learning.

“It also ensures our students are learning about the good stewardship of the resources we have here, right next to our campus,” Weeks said.

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‘The stuff I’ve heard from his latest album is terrific’ — from page 1 The album before that was the all-original 11 released in 2008 and prior to that was a comprehensive two-disc greatest hits collection called Anthology.

Any worries that he had run thin on songwriting savvy or musical inspiration were given the smackdown in 2015 when he released Get Up and put himself back on the positive side of the critical conversation for new work (his cover album also scored solid points with critics).

“The stuff I’ve heard from his latest album is terrific, so he’s still doing it at that high level,” said Mikkelsen.

“It’s a new world of consuming music. It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s not easy to

get a worldwide audience, but he is doing well with his new videos and he knows that the real way to reach an audience these days is live in concert.”

The new record – now a year old and still producing singles – is produced by famed ELO frontman Jeff Lynne and it shows in the jangle of the guitars and pacing of the drums.

Adams is continuing his homage to the timeless foundations of rock ‘n’ roll only this time, it’s brand new vintage.

He is a hall-of-famer still adding substance to his legacy.

Tickets for his Prince George show go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. at the CN Centre box office or online at www.livenation.com.

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Neo-Nazi turned rights advocate publishes poetry Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

Citizen file photo

Daniel Gallant has published a collection of his poetry, entitled Bruise Face Child.

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he therapeutic power of art and the documentary power of art have met between the covers of a new book by Daniel Gallant.

The former neo-Nazi violent skinhead has turned his life around so profoundly he is now a Master’s degree graduate of UNBC’s school of social work and closing in on the end of his law degree from Thompson Rivers University. He is now an outspoken advocate on ethnic equality rights, gender equality rights and multicultural values. He also keeps his dogmatically prejudiced violence of the past close to his consciousness as an international consultant on the way extremists think and behave.

Now, Gallant can add the title of poet to his many role reversals. Bruise Face Child is the first volume of poetry by the academic.

It is divided into five chapters: Supremacist Forgotten, Bruise Face Child, A Child’s Words, Dirty War and Blue Life.

The words in these stanzas are often raw and expletive.

They describe traumas he suffered as a child leading to traumas he inflicted as an adult.

They swim through thick, murky waters like addiction, political brainwashing, parenthood, then his leanings towards turnaround and the redemption he is still

It was my own way of dealing with my past as an abused child who became violent and radicalized.

— Daniel Gallant progressing toward.

The words are also crafted painstakingly. Gallant did not write this book alone. His poetic progress was overseen by one of Canada’s best known aboriginal academic poets, Garry Gottfriedson.

“It’s an autobiographic poetic expression or narrative,” said Gallant.

“It was my own way of dealing with my past as an abused child who became violent and radicalized. Writing was my processing of that.”

Editors are often accused by writers of curtailing the power of an author’s work by meddling in the creative process and introducing commercial language at the expense of personal expression.

For how many of these poems, then, did Gottfiedson offer some mentorship?

“Every one,” Gallant said.

“He didn’t filter them. He taught me what his strategy was, then he had me filter my own stuff in front of him.”

— see ‘IT WASN’T, page 10

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‘It wasn’t ever about putting a muzzle on my words’ — from page 8 “He gave me guidance over how to sharpen my expressions, but it wasn’t ever about putting a muzzle on my words. We did a total of nine days, between nine and 16 hours each day, all within a two-week

period. He invited me to be with him and his family over Christmas in order to get the job done. He made himself tremendously available to this work I was doing,” Gallant said.

Gallant has attempted several other forms

of getting his colourful personal story down on paper, and those efforts continue, but he gravitated constantly to poetry.

“When I’m thinking, things come out abstract,” he said.

“The things I see internally, the closest way of expressing it, in its disjointed structures, is in the form of poetry.”

Consequently, his master’s thesis contained poetry as part of that academic articulation.

He is also published as a poet in a journal by the University of Leipzig, he and Gottfriedson collaborated on a mentor-mentee chapter of poetry in publication by Simon Fraser University, and he won an award for his poetry courtesy the 2012 edition of the Ut’loo Noye Khunni (Weaving Words) aboriginal writing annual event at UNBC. He remembers the first time his writing was given any positive affirmation. He was

a volatile and angry young man, convicted of violent crimes and in psychiatric custody.

“I had a book of ‘songs’ I called them,” said Gallant. “I left it behind when I left juvvie (juvenile detention). Then, when I was 26 in an addictions recovery program, I had a counsellor there I trusted and he knew me from before. He told me that the director of the juvvie centre actually kept my book.

The counsellor took it upon himself to look the guy up, he still had it, and he returned it to me at that point, years later.”

He has a series of additional poetic narratives still to come, almost but not completely finished. He is also considering how to apply his publishing knowledge and understanding of the writing process to help others publish their works.

Bruise Faced Child was released for sale in September, available now via online book vendors.

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Prince George to be part of major dementia study Samantha WRIGHT ALLEN Citizen staff sallen@pgcitizen.ca

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Prince George doctor will head a research site as part of the largest Canadian study on dementia.

The two-year, $8.4 million study will address gaps in knowledge around how the various forms of the disease manifest together rather than in isolation.

“We really know very little about the mixed forms,” said Jacqueline Pettersen, a principal investigator who will run one of 30 sites in the country.

“This unique study is looking at not only at pure forms of dementia – things like Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia – but also the overlap between those entities be-

cause in reality we tend to see more mixed forms of the disease rather than pure form.”

The Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA) announced the study to mark World Alzheimer’s Day on Wednesday.

The Comprehensive Assessment of Neurodegeneration and Dementia (COMPASSND) will involve 1,600 participants with memory problems between the ages of 50 and 90.

It will be funded from a $31.5 million grant that created CCNA in 2014.

While easier to investigate, the pure forms are not as reflective of the population. A person who shows features from different dementias can lead to misdiagnosis and confusion – so the study could help offer doctors better ways to assess patients.

“We’re hoping that the knowledge will enable us to diagnose patients sooner, help

to enhance quality of life for patients and their families and then ultimately to lead to treatments and prevention of dementia,” said Pettersen, a cognitive neurologist who has taught at the Northern Medical Program the last eight years.

That approach won’t be entirely new to Pettersen, who is nearing the end of a shared study with the University of British Columbia looking at mixed Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia on a much smaller scale.

— see STUDY, page 12

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Study examining gender differences in dementia — from page 11 For COMPASS-ND, she hopes to follow at least 20 patients from Prince George and the region and said she’ll likely start enrolling people this fall. Doctors will collect clinical information from study participants, like memory assessments, brain scans, blood samples and more. Most studies focus on large urban centres, rather than smaller towns.

“Traditionally this group of patients has been under-represented or not represented at all in these types of trials,” she said.

“Just as looking at mixeddementias gives you more of a real-world sense as to how dementia presents. I think it’s also true that by including the smaller centres you really get more of a

Citizen file photo

Dr. Jacqueline Pettersen of the Northern Medical Program is a principal investigator in what will be the largest Canadian study on dementia.

While current research hasn’t real-world appreciation of how made any conclusions that condementia can present in all its forms,” Pettersen added. nect location with the disease, it’s

a potential factor.

“For most diseases – and dementia is no exception – it’s likely a combination of genetic susceptibility in conjunction with environmental contributors,” Pettersen said.

Pettersen has done some work looking at the role of nutrition in cognition. For example, early studies suggest a correlation between lower levels of vitamin D and aspects of cognition that are relatively impaired.

Pettersen will also take a secondary role as a leader on the Frontotemporal Dementia research team, looking at a disease that typically appears earlier in life – under age 60 – and is revealed in behavioural rather than cognitive changes.

Researchers will also consider gender, given women are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease, while men are more likely to develop vascular dementia.

“Women are twice as likely as men to have Alzheimer’s and dementia and twice as likely to care for a loved one with the disease,” said Lynn Posluns, president of the Women’s Brain Health Initiative in a statement.

“This important study can advance our understanding of why women experience dementia differently and lead to effective treatments that meet women’s needs and halt the process.”

Lifestyle modifications continue to be the best approach for prevention or slowing development, Pettersen noted.

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Out of the blue Relativity

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todd whitcombe erhaps one of the first science questions that pop into anyone’s mind is: “Why is the sky blue?”

Indeed, this is one of those questions children often ask their parents or even scientists. (Along with “where do babies come from?”)

At this time of year, with crisp clear fall weather, the sky seems a particularly striking shade of blue, albeit darker at the zenith than the horizon.

There are many ways to answer the question of why is the sky blue but recently, when I asked this question several young students responded: “It’s not. It’s black.”

They are right. The sky is actually black. Air or, more accurately, the gases which make up the atmosphere don’t absorb light in the visible region of the spectrum.

They don’t absorb or emit any of the colours we associate with the rainbow. They are what we call “optically transparent.”

So, when you look up at night, you are really seeing the colour of the sky – that is, there isn’t any. As a consequence, at night all you see is the black of outer space which is pretty amazing all by itself.

— see RAYLEIGH, page 15

Science columnist Todd Whitcombe explains the physics behind the blue sky

Ap file photo

Clouds drift past in the blue sky above a harvested corn field with straw bales near Petersdorf in the Oder-Spree region of eastern Germany on July 7.

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Rayleigh Scattering makes sky seem blue — from page 14 During the day, though, when the Sun (our closest star) is out, the sky takes on its familiar blue hue and the simple answer to the question is to say it’s due to Rayleigh Scattering.

That might appear to explain everything except what is Rayleigh Scattering?

Technically, it is the scattering of light without a change in the wavelength or frequency. But more succinctly, scattering of light is pretty much the same as scattering anything else. It sends light in all directions.

The real question is how and why does this make the sky blue?

If I may draw an analogy, consider walking down a bumpy street.

With a long enough stride, you miss out on the bumps. You step over or past them. They do not affect your stride.

More importantly, they would have very little impact on your direction.

Indeed, if the bumps are small enough and your stride is long enough, you might not even notice they were there.

But what happens as you shorten your stride because you are getting smaller? As your stride shrinks, you take more steps and you are much more likely to encounter the bumps.

The smaller the stride, the more bumps you encounter. Indeed, if your stride is small enough, every bump becomes an obstacle in your path.

You might end up having to deviate from your path.

If the bumps are large enough or you are small enough, you might just get knocked sideways by a bump, sending you off in an entirely new direction.

You might even be knocked backwards.

This is where the analogy stops.

You, as a human being, would be able to correct your course.

After all, you have places to go, people to see, things to do. But the same sort of thing happens when a photon of light encounters a molecule or particulate matter in the atmosphere and photons have no sense of direction or purpose.

They simply travel in a straight line until they hit something where they can be absorbed, reflected or scattered. Scattering can and does occur in every direction.

— see SHORTER-WAVELENGTH, page 16

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Shorter-wavelength blue light more easily scattered

Ap file photo

A cloudy blue sky is reflected in a flood zone used to evaporate sea salt by a salt producer in Guerrero Negro, Mexico on March 3, 2015.

— from page 15 Each photon of light has associated with it a wavelength or frequency (the two are related) which gives rise to its particular colour, from the short waves of the ultraviolet and blue end of the spectrum through to the long waves of the red and infrared region. A prism or a jar of water is able to break sunlight up into a rainbow based upon all of these different wavelengths.

The sun emits a broad spectrum of light with all wavelengths present.

When it enters the atmosphere, it starts to encounter objects – dust particles, aerosols, water droplets and gas molecules.

Each of these objects interacts with the incoming light.

Some encounters result in a scattering of the photons.

The size of the particles in the atmo-

sphere and the distance between them results in the short waves of the blue and violet end of the spectrum being more effectively scattered than the long waves of the red of the spectrum.

So it is the blue which gets scattered while the red and yellows pass right on through for the most part.

Since the blue light is sent in every direction, the sky we see looks blue when we look at it.

The sun looks yellow because the blue end of the spectrum has been removed and it is the yellow end which remains.

In the morning or evening, when sunlight has to travel a longer path through the atmosphere, even the yellow light gets scattered and we get the spectacular reds of sunrises and sunsets.

That is why the sky appears to be blue.

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Hospital gets baby warmer thanks to Costco fundraiser

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Citizen staff

his year there’s a new Panda Warmer at the University Hospital of Northern B.C. to help as newborns transition into their new world, thanks to the efforts of the Prince George Costco staff and management who held a fundraising campaign in May. The Children’s Miracle Network fundraising effort saw almost $85,000 being raised as customers from throughout the region donated at Costco’s checkout.

Partnering with the Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation, this is an annual

event that has always seen a significant amount of money being raised that stays in the community and targets getting equipment for the smallest patients.

“We are once again thrilled with the hard work and dedication of all Prince George Costco staff for such tremendous results,” said Judy Neiser, CEO for Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation.

The Panda Warmer has features in place that allows nurses to weigh, monitor, and provide treatment for babies while keeping them warm.

For more information or to donate contact the Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation office by calling 250-5652515.

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Mapping history Samantha WRIGHT ALLEN Citizen staff sallen@pgcitizen.ca

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any years ago a nine-yearold boy found an arrowhead on the banks of the Nechako River. It launched a lifelong love of archeology and eventually led Normand Canuel back home where he’s embarked on a project with the City of Prince George to create a complete map of historically significant sites.

There are about 18 known archaeological sites in city limits and Canuel expects that to more than double by the time Norcan Consulting is finished creating Prince George’s first-ever archeological risk framework tool.

The Prince George-based consulting firm

won the $70,000 contract in the summer with a dual goal of documenting and preserving local heritage to help inform planning decisions.

“It’s easy to manage for the known, but the unknown’s very difficult,” said Canuel, calling the predictive model a critical tool.

“It’s a tool that we can use to protect the unknown resource as best as possible.”

Most often, discoveries emerge from developments. In 2007 a project to twin the Simon Fraser Bridge found an 8,000-yearold site, with a 14-centimetre-long bi-face arrowhead, a fire-pit hearth and cultural depressions.

When the model is done at the end of March, Prince George will be one of only a handful of municipalities to have the tool, said city project manager Andrea Byrne.

— see ‘SO MUCH, page 20

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‘So much of the history in Prince George is unknown’

Citizen photo by Brent Braaten

Archeologist Normand Canuel is helping build an archeological risk framework tool for the City of Prince George.

— from page 19 It’s more common to see that type of mapping in forest districts, and both Quesnel and Langford have versions.

“From a land use planning perspective we can act as a middle person for development with the archeology branch,” said Byrne, adding it will help protect the sites and make sure the city keeps up with its capital project timelines.

“So much of the history in Prince George is unknown, most of it’s buried and hard to identify.”

In a statement to the city Lheidli T’enneh Chief Dominic Frederick said he’s pleased Prince George is taking the initiative to preserve cultural heritage.

“These sites are extremely important to Lheidli T’enneh and require the appropriate protection as laid out by the provincial archeology branch,” said Frederick.

When reached by phone Frederick didn’t have any further comment.

As part of its research the firm consulted with Lheidli T’enneh, Canuel said, and pulled from its ethnographic and traditional use information.

The model will also use common variables found in known archeological records within 100-kilometre radius of the city – approximately 850 sites – to help predict where they’re most likely to appear in Prince George.

Canuel is working with the University of Northern B.C.’s geographic information system (GIS) and mathematics department to first map the sites and then run a statistical analysis of those variables to start building an informed model.

The model could account for proximity to water, terrain features, sediment, visibility and more.

After the model is created, the team will do fieldwork on some sites to test its accuracy.

The firm will also take a sample of 950 city-owned properties.

“The problem in the city, very little work has ever been done archeologically so

Byrne while the city was developing at the turn of the century, in those days, they log it and build,” Canuel said.

“An archeological predictive model, if they’re built correctly, will assist you in determining the possible occurrence.”

Canuel looks forward to the moment of discovery.

“It’s the most gratifying feeling of all, especially when you’ve built the predictive model and you go out there and you put the shovel in the ground and clink, there’s the site,” he said.

“You’ve found it.”

The city is also reaching out to the public for any information they may have about archeological sites in the city.

“We know that there’s some amateur archaeologists out there that might be aware of some archeological sites that aren’t documented and we’d like to have that information,” Byrne said.

“It will help us with the development of the model and work to keep those resources protected.”

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Karl Urban coming to Northern FanCon

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orthern FanCon has gone almost as southern as a Canadian pop-culture festival can go.

The first headliner announced for the spring celebrity showcase is Karl Urban, a New Zealand star of film and television, and a screen hero right in the FanCon wheelhouse.

He came to global prominence via a pair of TV series: Xena, Warrior Princess and Hercules.

He was a prominent part of the legendary Lord Of The Rings franchise, and he is an even more prominent part of the even more legendary Star Trek franchise. — see URBAN’S RESUME, page 22

Urban

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Urban’s resume includes Star Trek, LOTR, Judge Dredd, Xena

Disney photo by Matt Klitscher via AP

This image released by Disney shows Karl Urban in a scene from Pete’s Dragon.

— from page 21 His most recent trip to the silver screen is a co-starring role in the new Disney remake of Pete’s Dragon playing around the world right now.

When he dons the uniform of Starfleet Command and takes his position on the Starship Enterprise in the newly rebooted Star Trek universe, he plays none other than ship’s doctor Leonard “Bones” McCoy, one of the most popular characters in screen history.

Hardly confined to a single signature role, though, Urban is also in the latest film to portray dystopian comic book lawman Judge Dredd.

In it, Urban plays Dredd himself, a testament to this international heartthrob’s capabilities as a leading man.

The audience response to the film (particularly to the performances by Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Wood Harris and villain Lena Headey) has put the character back on the public map.

Urban was born and raised in Wellington, where he established his desires to be involved in acting early.

He parlayed early stage and regional television experiences into a move to Auckland where the busy New Zealand screen arts industry is headquartered.

It wasn’t long before his training and talent led him into increasingly prominent work.

A recurring role on the TV series Shark In The Park was something of a breakthrough for him, and next came his dual roles of Ju-

When he dons the uniform of Starfleet Command and takes his position on the Starship Enterprise in the newly rebooted Star Trek universe, he plays none other than ship’s doctor Leonard “Bones” McCoy, one of the most popular characters in screen history. lius Caesar/Cupid that began on the globally popular series Hercules, The Legendary Journeys and carried into its spinoff series Xena, Warrior Princess He was dotting the show-biz landscape with films like Price Of Milk, Out Of The Blue, Ghost Ship, and they just kept coming and growing in prominence: The Bourne Supremacy, Chronicles Of Riddick, video game movie Doom, and popular culture really took notice of Urban when he was shortlisted to be James Bond.

The part eventually went to Daniel Craig but Urban’s warm consolation was landing the role of valiant Eomer, Prince of Rohan in the second and third Lord Of The Rings films.

After that, the sky wasn’t even the limit as the Star Trek opportunity came calling.

— see URBAN TO PLAY, page 23

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Urban to play Skurge in new Thor film — from page 22 Following that, he got a leading role in the sci-fi police series Almost Human, the steamy whodone-it movie The Loft with costars Wentworth Miller and James Marsden in the ensemble cast.

Starring opposite hall-of-fame actor Robert Redford in a Disney classic came to pass with his casting in the live-action remake of Pete’s Dragon.

He is such a hot Hollywood

commodity right now, he has become a scourge.

Scratch that, he has become Skurge.

Again he has been called into comic book action, and this time it’s going to be an outright blockbuster.

Urban is listed among the headliners of the cast of the upcoming Marvel film Thor: Ragnarok. Urban will be acting alongside Idris Elba, Anthony

The character of Skurge is an Asgardian warrior with shaved head and rippling muscles.

Hopkins, Cate Blachett, Tom Hiddleston, Sam Neill and of course

Thor lead Chris Hemsworth (the latter two also from those lands down-under). Northern FanCon happens in spring, and the movie will come out in fall, making Urban’s appearance in Prince George particularly resonant.

The character of Skurge is an Asgardian warrior with shaved head and rippling muscles.

Will Urban be true to that form when he strides onto the stage to meet local fans?

Which will be more charming, his smoldering good looks or his kiwi accent?

Thanks to Citizen Special Events, Unltd Media & Events and Northland Dodge, the Prince George public can meet him up close, ask him questions, get photos and autographs, and judge for themselves.

Just don’t, please, Judge Dredd, leave that to the silver screen professionals.

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www.pgcitizen.ca | Wednesday, October 12, 2016