GATEWAY TO THE NORTH by Prince George Citizen

GATEWAY

NEWS AND EVENTS FOR PRINCE GEORGE AND CENTRAL INTERIOR

WEDNESDAY January 17, 2018

Your community voice for the north!

Impressive lineup of events heading to P.G. Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

t was a strong year for Prince George’s A&E scene. Prince George culture has had a bounce-back over the past couple of years following the momentum lost in the mid/late 2000s global economic crash. This past year was no bounce-back, it was altogether fresh and self-generated. It also pointed the way to a strong 2018. Consider what we already know is on its way this coming year. CN Centre is already on the record as home to appearances by superstar comedian Jerry Seinfeld coming back for an encore performance. Rock stars Hedley are also coming back, bringing Shawn Hook and Neon Dreams with them. At the very top of the heap on the 2018 calendar is the return of epic performance company Cirque du Soleil, and this time the new acrobatic phenomenon Crystal is the show. This is a performance on ice, with skating and sliding mixed into the usual Cirque milieu of trapeze, aerial leaps, and other demonstrations of daring and peak human mechanics – on ice! — see ROCK STARS, page 3

Cirque du Soleil handout photo

Cirque du Soleil returns to CN Centre in Prince George this year with Crystal, a new show on ice.

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Rock stars, country singers, magicians, pop culture icons and more coming — from page 1 Also coming back to familiar P.G. ground is country star Johnny Reid and he is bringing Glass Tiger with him who also played P.G. only this past summer. Our Lady Peace has been here before, as has Matthew Good, but it’s been more than a decade for either of them and they are returning together for a huge rock event. Another returning rock band is Big Wreck, playing Vanier Hall after an absence dating back to the ’90s. The reason these acts are on their way back to CN Centre is because Prince George has proved to be a positive environment for their entertainment offerings. When that’s as traditional as country music and as cutting edge as Cirque, it says a lot about this region’s diverse personality. Watch also for first-time event Beer Bacon & Bands, the live performance of musical theatre show Dirty Dancing, and

magical group performance The Illusionists to animate CN Centre in 2018. An all-local highlight on the cultural calendar is Northern FanCon. This extravaganza of pop culture has some major features already announced, like the live broadcast of Fat-Man On BatMan, the globally popular podcast hosted by star film director/writer Kevin Smith (and co-host Marc Bernardin with a strong following of his own) plus a slate of celebrities like Sean Astin (Rudy, Goonies, and of course Samwise in the Lord Of The Rings franchise), Michael Hogan from Battlestar Galactica (he is coming back because he and the local audience fell in love with each other at FanCon ’15), and Michael Biehn (sure he was in The Rock and Aliens but he became iconic as Reece, the original protector of Sarah Connors in the original Terminator). — see ANNUAL, page 5

AP file photo

Sean Astin arrives at the 87th Academy Awards – Shorts at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in February 2015 in Beverly Hills, Calif.

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Wells music fest seeks acts Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca Musicians have the remainder of this month to apply for the Cariboo region’s most unique and ambitious cultural event. Bands, duos, soloists, hybrids, fusions, fractions, menageries, any imaginable configuration of melody-maker is welcome at the ArtsWells Festival of All Things Art. This year’s event happens Aug. 3-6 in the historic and picturesque hamlet just a few beats south of Prince George at the gateway to Barkerville. The time to offer your musical services is now. “From gospel to reggae, bluegrass to hip-hop, soul to classical, we want the best of the broadest spectrum of talent in 2018,” said a statement by the organizers. For an indication of the diversity ArtsWells achieves each year, consider some of the performers at last year’s event. Grandpa Groove, Oh Susanna, The Party On High Street, Tariq, Morag Northey, and Hatchey The Mouthpeace typify just some of the mixtures and amalgams. They had Rae Spoon, The Pack A.D.,and Carole Pope on the same stage at the same time, for goodnessakes! The year before, it was the unlikely combination of West My Friend, Scarlett Jane, Miss Quincy & The Showdown, and more. Every year, it’s the same unpredictability and abundance. That doesn’t even include the equal variations of artists in the visual, literary, film and theatre components that dovetail

From gospel to reggae, bluegrass to hip-hop, soul to classical, we want the best of the broadest spectrum of talent in 2018. — ArtsWells Festival of All Things Art organizers with the music. It is a festival of all things art. They are even open to forms of art they haven’t even thought of, and those concepts are welcome to apply as well. All those other kinds of arts have until March 31 to fill out the online application forms. Musicians have an earlier deadline. The last day of January is also the last day for music acts to get their names in the running. Prince George and the northern region always factor heavily into the 100-plus acts who get to perform at ArtsWells. Last year, homegrown acts like Britt A.M., Doug Koyama, Frontal Lobotomy, Kym Gouchie, Marcel Gagnon, Power Duo, Saltwater Hank, Scott Dunbar, Sssnap, William Kuklis and many others of local connection were on the ArtsWells marquee. It is a festival with a positive sense of regional self esteem. There are about 210 days remaining until the music plays and the colours twirl in Wells. For more information about getting involved as an artist, follow the links at www.artswells.com.

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Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Citizen file photo

The Prince George Symphony Orchestra performed at the annual Pops in the Park event at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park in Prince George on Sept. 11, 2016.

Annual events return — from page 3 Coming soon to a number of performance venues is the roster of musicians aligned for the Coldsnap Music Festival. Popular folk acts like Rum Ragged, Scenic Route To Alaska, Digging Roots, A.J. Croce, Madison Violet, James Hill & Anne Janelle, and many more will entertain alongside the crème of local musicians. That same night the Snowed In Comedy Tour comes back to Prince George. Four star comedians – Dan Quinn, Craig Campbell, Peter Zedlacher and Paul Myrehaug – share the stage on what’s become an annual appearance at the Playhouse in P.G. Also holding an encore performance is the musical theatre favourite, Cabaret. Judy Russell presents this thought-provoking and musically exciting show for the third time in the city’s history, but not seen for more than a decade. This show will star Owen Selkirk as The Emcee and Shelby Meany as Sally Bowles. Theatre Northwest has a pair of mainstage plays still to come on the 2018 side of their current season. Up first is Hedda Noir, a sultry adaptation (locally written by TNW’s Jack Grinhaus) of the Ibsen classic Hedda Gabler. It will star Prince Geroge professional actor Lauren Brotman. Then, in spring, The Best Brothers

is a strong two-hander by Daniel MacIvor. Watch for Prince George Symphony Orchestra classical events throughout the winter and spring, some at Vanier Hall and some at The Ramada Ballroom. Special guest soloists and all-local talent intermingle for orchestral highlights the envy of many a Canadian city this size. The Connaught Youth Centre is hosting a unique theatre production. Home is a performance statement on aboriginal reconciliation starring a cast of indigenous and non-native performers alike. It happens on Feb. 4 at 7:30 p.m. Miracle Theatre’s production of The Fabulous Lipitones during the month of March will raise money for the United Way. The show runs March 2-18 at ArtSpace. Some items on the entertainment agenda always come around and always delight in new and engaging ways, like the PGSO’s Pops In The Park free outdoor classical concert, the BC Northern Exhibition’s full menu of sights and sounds in the fall, the Community Arts Council’s high-class show and sale Studio Fair (plus their other events), the KidzArt Dayz and Mini Maker Faire of the Two Rivers Gallery, the public outreach and historical insight of the Exploration Place, and the Metallion Metal Festival’s heap of heavyweights, to name but a few.

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Sisters publish father’s maritime memories Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

he great ships abandoned on the sea made a lasting impression on Herbert J. Rees. One of his first maritime memories was sliding past the hulk of the British battleship HMS Montagu, which ran impossibly aground in the Bristol Channel near Lundy Isle in 1906. Rees and his vessel went by shortly afterward. There was one of the pillars of the British Empire’s naval might, deflated on the rocks like a popped balloon. The power of oceanic nature was obviously still more powerful and they were churning straight into it. Such is every sailor’s constant daily duty. There was something sad and frightening about such complete disconnection between the incredible machines of the sea and the community of engineers and seamen that built and operated them. Rees charted his life’s course directly into many such calamities. The ravages of weather and the savagery of war were frequent shipmates. He sailed the seven seas, faced the four strong winds and survived a thousand adventures. He was an engineer in the British Mercantile Navy from 1903-14. Anyone with a map of history will know the astonishing terror and triumph atop the world’s waves during those years, most notably summed up as the First World War. The German navy took particular efforts to target the merchant ships, in order to cripple the British-Allied supply lines. Rees’s vivid recollections formed an eye-popping narrative, but it might well have been set

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Sisters Ella Rodenkirchen and Johanna Jenkins have completed a project more than 100 years in the making. The maritime memoir of their late father, a First World War merchant seafarer, is now the subject of a book. adrift and sunk forever beneath the waves of time had a dedicated crew of relatives, some of them anchored in Prince George, not salvaged the captain’s log just in time. The story was written. This was already far more than most who lived encyclopedic lives only to have the memories and assessments die with them. But the tale was nonetheless in danger of com-

ing to pieces until twin sisters Ella Rodenkirchen of the Okanagan and Johanna Jenkins of Prince George put new wind in those sails. Rees retired from the sea in 1914 and moved to Canada. He passed away in 1966 while living in Edmonton. He was 84 full, busy years old. “He was actually Wop May’s teacher, after he was called to

work for the Canadian Air Force because of his mechanical knowledge,” said Jenkins, referring to the famed Canadian pilot. According to his daughters, he wrote no other accounts of his life except the unpublished manuscript of his seafaring years. “We grew up with a lot of these stories,” said Jenkins, who has lived in P.G. since 1969. “Dad would share them with us as we

grew up. He would always take us to the wharves in Vancouver. We would meet the captains of the ships, we would invite them home for dinner, we loved going up the gangplanks.” The written version sat in the hands of their half-brother until his own death in 1997. Then the pile of paper came their way. — see REES SURVIVED, page 8

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Rees survived attack by German cruiser — from page 6 Rodenkirchen didn’t take action right away, but eventually tackled the project with zeal. It has been a five-year passion project that is finally printed and on the bookstore shelves. The more she read, the more she was amazed. Researching and refining the manuscript only added excitement. “These were really wonderful stories. Who wouldn’t want to hear them?” Rodenkirchen said. “There was the time their ship was attacked by a German battleship. They were facing Capt. (Karl von) Müller of the Emden, and he’d been having a very good day. The Emden had sunk three British merchant ships already, and dad’s ship was the fourth, but not one British seaman’s life was lost. You see, Capt. Müller believed in the highest rules of engagement. He would warn the other ships and allow them to transfer their crews over to his ship before blowing up the British vessels. Dad got to witness that and be part of that interesting bit of war history. And the British never forgot that. After the war, Capt. Müller was called to a special dinner in his honour for saving all those lives even though he still carried out his du-

German Federal Archive file photo

The SMS Emden is seen in a 1910 German Federal Archive photo. Herbert J. Rees was aboard a ship which was sunk by the German light cruiser during the First World War. ties of war, and my father was one of those lives.” (The SMS Emden, a Dresdenclass light cruiser, was badly damaged on Nov. 9, 1914 in a battle with the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney and Müller was forced to run the ship up on a reef and surrender.) From the waters of the Arctic to the Antarctic and around the coastlines of virtually every continent, the stories unfurled in Rees’s hand-typed account. The ship had to make a floating anchor, once, out of big chunks of wood and

other flotsam. They sailed into political tensions on places like The Dardanelles, Constantinople, Crimea and the sisters took note that these places are still headline news spots today. He set the manuscript down as one continuous narrative. There were no chapter breaks, a lot of repetition, and a great many things needed proper verification. Turning Rees’s stream of consciousness into a palatable book was a consuming job, but turned the family into quasi cartogra-

phers, historians, and eventually bookmakers. They self-published the volume, calling it Ship Ahoy: A True Life Sea Story. Rodenkirchen said “she enjoyed every minute” of the research and composition process. She called it “a story of murderers, thieves, swindlers, hurricanes, sweltering heat and bone-chilling cold, all in the service of bringing trade goods to the world.” Jenkins’ husband Dave said “I only met him briefly, but you’d never forget him. He was such a proper Welsh gentleman, so well-

appointed and prim all the time.” Rees became father to the sisters very late in his life, and they are now retired themselves. It sets the story back quite a chronological distance, making it a rare account to come out now only the one generation removed from firsthand experience. Most books published about adventuresome parents these days pertain to the Second World War or even later. This one is a rare account of the First World War and rarer still that it pertains to the naval setting. Most Canadian stories of that era talk about the gruesome ground fight or the air war our pilots played such a large role in. For that reason, Ship Ahoy has been snapped up by institutions like the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club’s library and that of the Vancouver Maritime Museum. It is more important to the sisters that this book be available for historical context, more than any aspirations of bestseller sales. Anyone interested in this unique chapter of history, through the eyes of a man who became Canadian and raised a family that deeply touched even landlocked Prince George, can find Ship Ahoy by Herbert J. Rees at Books & Company.

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Liberal leadership race nears finish line Citizen staff

B Citizen file photo

Liberal leadership candidate Dianne Watts speaks during the a leadership debate in Prince George on Nov. 4.

etween Feb. 1-3 the B.C. Liberal Party will elect a new leader to replace outgoing former premier Christy Clark, who resigned on Aug. 4 after her party was relegated to the opposition. Running for the party leadership are Michael de Jong, Michael Lee, Todd Stone, Sam Sullivan, Dianne Watts and Andrew Wilkinson. On Nov. 4 the leadership candidates were in Prince George for a leadership debate. The candidates were asked what they would do to strengthen the forestry, energy and mining sectors to keep British Columbians working. “We’re less vulnerable today than we

were because of steps we took to diversify our international markets and you know about that here in Prince George” de Jong, the former forestry and finance minister, said during the debate. “This is not just the northern capital, it’s the forestry capital and it’s why I think the forestry ministry should be located here in Prince George.” Wilkinson, the former advanced education minister, said if he becomes leader of the party he would make it easier for resource-based industries to obtain the permits they need to start up projects. “What we need to do is have a leadership approach that says what you can do, how to build industries here that otherwise wouldn’t settle here,” he said. — see ‘WE NEED, page 10

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‘We need to make sure the resources are there for the people who need them’ — from page 9 “This applies to the forest industry but to mining as well,” Wilkinson added. “We’ve got to clean up our permitting process so that when people are applying to make investments and create jobs they have the knowledge they’re going to get answers in a timely fashion. Right now it can take years, and that’s simply not acceptable in a competitive world.” Candidates in the 90-minute debate talked about their plans to defeat the NDPGreen coalition and take back the government the Liberals held for 16 years leading up to last spring’s election. They stated their opposition to the NDP’s proposed change of the province’s electoral system to proportional representation, which would allot the number of seats each party receives in the legislature based on their percentage of the popular vote. It would replace the current first-past-the-

Sept. 30 to seek the post system in which There’s a direct Liberal leadership. the candidate with the most votes wins. connection between Sullivan, MLA for Vancouver-False Creek The NDP passed legurban British and former mayor of islation a month ago that will ask voters in a Columbia and the rural and Vancouver, said the referendum in the fall north of this province – we rural-urban divide leaves B.C. residents of 2018. built this province on the who live outside The vote will require strength of our resource population centres in 50 per cent approval Vancouver and Victoto pass. economy, much of the ria feeling alienated “When we look at infrastructure and the and undervalued for proportional reprebenefits for this province the contributions they sentation, that is my make to the provincial No. 1 priority and I’m derived as a whole have economy. Hell-bent in terms of come from this region. “Within walking making sure that we or wheeling distance defeat that referen— Michael Lee from my home there’s dum,” said Watts, the over 1,000 mining former MP for South and resource companies with their address Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale and mayor of Surrey, who resigned her federal seat on in Vancouver-False Creek, so I know that when the northern and interior communities succeed and prosper, Vancouver-False Creek succeeds and prospers,” said Sullivan. “I don’t think that message is delivered well enough in our urban areas just how dependent we are on each other.” Developing northern B.C.’s resources is the backbone which pays for the province’s roads, schools and hospitals and Lower Mainland residents need to be reminded of that fact, said Lee, a former business lawyer elected in May as MLA for VancouverLangara. “There’s a direct connection between

urban British Columbia and the rural and north of this province – we built this province on the strength of our resource economy, much of the infrastructure and the benefits for this province derived as a whole have come from this region,” said Lee. “We need to respect that and understand that. We need encourage migration into our regions and build up the capacity around our colleges and university systems here.” Stone, the Kamloops-based former transportation minister, also highlighted the need to train engineers in the north and said it would be his priority to approve health care projects to establish cardiac services such as angioplasty to Prince George. “I think it’s unacceptable that in rural communities like in Fort St. James and along Highway 16 across the north that it can take up to six days to be medevaced and flown to a larger hospital to receive the services you need,” said Stone. “We need to make sure the resources are there for the people who need them. This is not about urban and rural, it’s about making sure that health care, education and critical services are there for people when they need it, wherever they are in this province.” Approximately 300 people attended the Prince George event, which was the second of five scheduled debates. The final debate is planned for Vancouver in January. Video of the Prince George debate can be found online at bit.ly/2yu4vbg.

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Twisted mister Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca

wists and turns. Every life has them. They can weave one’s character into strong moral fiber; they can trip and entangle someone into a mire. The strongest twists and turns made be the human hand are construction of metal. Strands of wire hold together the mightiest of structures, and the daintiest of telecommunication systems. One line might easily break, but many woven together is another matter. Brian Boyer can’t stop his hands from crumpling and warping wire into new shapes, and he found his life reshaped by the same twisting. A man on the brink of ending his own

life now finds himself excited to get up in the morning and reluctant to fall asleep at the end of the day because he has a compulsion to create. Most of the time, the wire becomes trees. Gleaming silver, radiant red, glimmering green, whatever colour the wire happens to be, he warps and distorts it into art. It’s selling like stocks on Wall Street, buyers clamouring for it from local shops like Studio 2880, Two Rivers Gallery, 3 Sisters Rock ‘n’ Gems, and Ridge Side Art where he has been the featured guest this past week as a live in-studio artist. He has been especially supported in his efforts by artistic allies John Westergard of Direct Art and Ridge Side Art’s Christina Watts. Boyer said he’s used to the attention, despite the discomfort he feels from it. — see ‘I LOVE, page 12

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‘I love telling my story, but it is exhausting’ — from page 11 He has abiding anxieties, and he has an emotional personal history. As someone who considers his fixational artwork an extension of his inner self, that can be daunting. “I call my art business Forrest Wire,” he said, letting the double entendre sink in. His wire figures are almost always trees – forest – and he uses the process to calm his frenetic mind – for rest. “It’s my zen. It’s my quiet place. I can’t

twist and talk at the same time. Normally I like to do it outside, but I get inundated with people coming up to me to talk and ask questions, and it’s very emotional for me to talk about. I love telling my story, but it is exhausting.” In short, he suffered routine violence and neglect as a child in Ontario at the hands of his parents. He became an alcohol and drug addict early. He qualified as a steelworker but he was essentially homeless most of his

life. He suffered exposure, malnutrition, poverty, shame, and carried the weight of the compounding traumas his life exposed him to. To make ends meet he became a thief and a drug dealer. He lived for three years inside the shelter of some enormous twisted roots of a blue spruce in Victoria Park in Niagara Falls. “It could be raining sideways but I would be bone dry inside,” he said. “It took me a long time to put it all together – my art-

work, men and that tree. It was a person to me. It was my shelter, it was my depression, it was my protector, it was my exposure, I yelled at that tree, I cried in that tree. It was everything. And now I have a thing for trees.” After a turbulent relocation to the Okanagan, where local street people figured him to be a cop or an informant and put a bounty out on him – $50 in drugs to anyone who stabbed him – he decided to end it all. — see ‘I WAS A MESS, page 13

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Citizen Photo by James Doyle

Artist Brian Boyer cuts wire in December at the Groop Gallery. Boyer uses 100 per cent recycled and ethically sourced wire to create sculptures and jewelry.

‘I was a mess of a person’ — from page 12 He had the rocks picked out with which he would laden his clothes, then walk out into Okanagan Lake at the Penticton beach. Fate jolted him out of that plan. “I looked like a chewed up cat toy. I was a mess of a person,” he said. “I wasn’t sad about it. I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I just suddenly understood why people decided to end their own lives. I was there, in that place. I had come to that conclusion.” He spotted an electrical installation company’s compound. There was some loose wire on the property. He was well aware that some people steal wire to sell as scrap metal to spend on drugs, but he stole that wire that day with something else in mind. He bloodied his hands using a broken bottle to strip the rubber coating off, but he had an idea. He was going to twist that wire into a shape, a sculpture. And someone came along who worked at the welfare office as he was working on that sculpture, and was fascinated, and

said “you could sell that, you know?” The thrill of that epiphany surged through him like 1,000 volts. No, he didn’t know that at all. What? He was going to the welfare office for a small emergency amount – $20 – planning to eat a last meal, smoke a last cigarette, and submerge in the lake. Now he saw a clear income stream, a distinct purpose for himself, and a flash of light in his life he had scarcely ever felt before. He sat in front of a coffeeshop near the beach and whipped up 17 tree sculptures. He sold 12 of them immediately. “When I was in Grade 8, my teacher, Mr. Kasmir, pulled my pencil out of my hand, slammed it down on the desk, and shook my hand really hard. He said ‘you are the reason I do this job.’ I thought he was maybe being sarcastic, or just being funny, but part of me also knew he was giving me a really meaningful compliment. I just couldn’t allow myself to believe it. It took me my whole life to figure out what he meant.” — see ‘HE’S JUST, page 14

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‘He’s just the epitome of what an artist is’ — from page 13 He encountered almost instant success in the Okanagan with his creations. He didn’t sell them for much money, but the material was free because he was stealing it, the time commitment was free because he had no gainful employment or obligations, so any amount of money was a rare infusion. He still had a boatload of baggage, however. Setbacks abounded, but so did momentum. He was hampered by drugs, alcohol, unemployment, malnutrition, infirm body, few positive people in his life, a lifetime of learned behaviour – most of it bad. But he also had determination and a new sense of purpose. One of the Okanagan’s renowned names in the art world, Vaelei Walken-Brown, spotted his work. She offered Boyer space in her gallery to sell his art. It was a popular item, and it made Boyer into a commercial artist for the first time. He now had himself a profession. Without entering those fatal waters, he had nonetheless been baptized by art. About a year ago, he moved to Prince George. It’s where his girlfriend lived. He had turned his life around sufficiently enough that he could maintain a relationship and this is where she lived. He doesn’t steal his wire anymore. He has a supply partnership with Primus, Norcap and Northern Electric to legitimately obtain the copper and aluminum he uses for his sculptures. He also collects wire from discarded tube televisions because the internal lines are festively coloured. He spots rocks, bits of driftwood, and other found objects that he intermingles into his wire creations. He paints them with epoxy, he even uses acid to create desired effects. So complex are the items of Forrest Wire that even light and electricity are involved

I don’t know of anyone else out there who does this, other than him... People gravitate to him and they gravitate to his art. I tried to do it myself and wow, it’s so hard. — Christina Watts, Ridge Side Arts in some of the sculptures. His industrial fingers were already trained for that sort of trade, so he easily incorporated it into his wire windings, making ever more complex creations. Some of them are simply sculptures for the sake of art. Others have double use like being a lamp or candle holder. “I don’t know of anyone else out there who does this, other than him,” said Watts of Ridge Side Art. “He has his whole life story wrapped up in his work. He’s just the epitome of what an artist is. People gravitate to him and they gravitate to his art. I tried to do it myself and wow, it’s so hard. He has skillmanship. See, he’s even inspiring new words.” His piece sell for anywhere ranging between $75 to several hundred dollars. He laughed that “12 different times” he had been insistently given more money by the buyer than the sticker price. His prices may rise. He does not do custom orders. He has had too many negative experiences when the work did not match the vision of the commissioner. “I don’t really do people,” he said, meaning he’d rather spend his personal time with the impulses and creative cajoling of his own brain. It’s an organ rife with electrical circuitry. It’s just how he’s wired.

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