Industry and Trades

AND

Industry PG 4

TRADES

ORIGINAL WINTER HOME BY HAND

PAVING THE WAY PG FOR NORTHERN 19 TRANSPORTATION

STRONG WALLS PG

THAT GROW

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Table of COntents Page 4 Medical Facility Building on Wood Technology….................................................... Page 8 Strong Walls That Grow................................................................................................ Page 11 Aboriginal Panel Discusses Court Case…................................................................. Page 13 Forest Policy Facing Uncertainty................................................................................ Page 14 Sun Rises Again on Forest Industry…....................................................................... Page 17 Paving The Way For Northern Transportation........................................................ Page 19 New Masoct For Northern Industry…......................................................................Page 22 Aboriginal Dealings With Industry............................................................................ Page 24 Allan Farmer Exhibition…..........................................................................................Page 26 Fifty Years of Vegetables............................................................................................ Page 28 Morris Digs Up The Latest Dirt On Natural Resources…...................................... Page 30 Original Winter Home by Hand....................................................................................

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Citizen photo by Frank PEEBLES

UNBC professor Antonia Mills isn’t afraid to get involved in the work as well as the academics of the pithouse construction course.

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Citizen photo by Frank PEEBLES

Pithouse construction student Eric Besherse cleans bark from a pole with a draw-knife.

Original

winter hobymhaend Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff Once the typical winter dwelling in northern B.C., the Greenway Trail behind UNBC is now the site for the only pit house of the modern era in Prince George.

It’s the second one built in the broader region by local native elder Vince Prince who was also involved in the construction of a prior one near Fort St. James. The success of that structure gave UNBC officials and other partner groups the motivation to make the process into a hands-on summer course. A group of university students, UNBC personnel, high school students from the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, and general contractor Prince built the new pit house from scratch this past summer.

The students get course credit, the staff involved got project employment, and the elders involved got to bring their wisdom to life for future generations.

“It’s such a physically demanding project, because we chose to do it without any winches or mechanized equipment except a chainsaw,” he said. “It was just ropes, skids, rollers, hand tools and pure muscle. There was so much muscle power involved in it, day after day. The heat played a factor in terms of how worn down we got after the first 10 days or so.”

“This course has generated a lot of interest by

passersby who are immediately impressed with what they are witnessing,” said Jennifer Pighin, who is both a teaching assistant with the course and a Lheidli T’enneh First Nation elected councillor. “People are very curious and excited to hear more about the Dakelh culture and the students are eager to share what they have learned throughout the course. The pit house has truly become a space of cultural exchange and another catalyst for the cultural revival of Dakelh knowledge. Everyone seems to want one of their own now.”

The pit house structure was once a staple winter shelter for Dakelh people all over the region, but colonial influences and modern times prevented construction knowledge from being passed down from generation to generation as it had been for time immemorial.

It was, ironically, one white man’s drawings from the 19th century that spanned the lost years.

The journals of Father Adrien-Gabriel Morice contained the blueprints for the construction project. Morice was renowned for his anthropological zeal, learning to speak the local Carrier language fluently and writing down the details of Carrier daily culture. Those field notes included sketches he made of pit houses.

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INDUSTRY AND TRADES Story continued from page 4

In short, a large hole is dug into the earth, poles are leaned into a cone over the hole in a teepeestyle shape. Those vertical poles are roofed over with perpendicular poles to form a solid ceiling, then the dirt removed during the dig is spread over the roof structure to create a weatherproof earthen final layer.

“My dad was going through Father Morice’s stuff and came across the drawings,” said Vince Prince, the leader of the course. “I’ve seen other ones built, but none that weren’t engineered into place with cement and whatnot. We went right from the drawings.”

The course organizers allowed for the use of modern hand tools like shovels and chainsaws, but the essential work had to be done by hand.

The drawings indicated much smaller timber than what the course crew had available - beetle-killed pine wood found on the donated site - so modifications were made and new things learned by using full logs instead of poles.

“They learned a lot about physics, just to move them without breaking their backs,” said Pighin, who is learning her own culture through the course. It’s the second year in a row Pighin has been central to a UNBC summer course in First

Nations practicalities. Last year the task was to build and paddle a cottonwood dugout canoe.

Both of these hands-on summer courses were chiefly organized by UNBC professor Antonia Mills.

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“Experiential learning is by far the best,” Mills said

as she shucked bark from a pine log using a draw-knife. “I went through Harvard and all the rest [of her university programs] but I really didn’t learn effective lessons until I was adopted by the Beaver clan [northeastern B.C.] in 1964. I visited Nak’azdli [the First Nation of Fort St. James] and saw the pit house Vince built there, so I asked him if he would take part in this course. He agreed.”

The university, Lheidli T’enneh First Nation administration, and other supporters like the Greenway Trail Society all supported the proposal.

Prince joked that his first one took more than a year and his second one took less than a month, with the 15 students and other helping hands. He

also learned a lot more if he ever wants to build a third - a distinct possibility with all the community attention the project has caused.

“We’re right on the Greenway Trail here so it’s pretty visible, and that is part of the reasoning behind it,” Prince said. “One lady walking by said ‘oh, they’re building a new Tim Hortons for the trail.’ We wanted it close enough to the university that it would be easy to use for educational purposes or for people to come out on a short walk and take a close look at.”

He also pointed out that this was not the usual place for a pit house. Normally they would be near a waterway, low in the valleys, on a gravel bed. But it was important to pick terrain like ancestral builders would have chosen, with a slight slope for carrying away runnoff and rain

Citizen photo by Frank PEEBLES

Pithouse lead instructor Vince Prince handles the chainsaw while student Morgan Paulson waits to adjust the next log.

from the front door, and also avoid any steep hillsides behind that would put the house in the path of oncoming water.

“This clay has been hard to work with,” he said.

“It was six days of digging and you can tell they are university students because they calculated it all out. They weighed the loads then calculated the number of loads and estimated it was 4.2 tonnes they shoveled out. So we also call this the fit house project.”

The little facility is now open for self-guided viewing, to show the general public what winter homes in this area were like in the civilizations and societies of the area dating back thousands of years.

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Citizen photo by Frank PEEBLES

Northern Health’s director of development services Peter Kallos shows MLAs Shirley Bond and Mike Morris inside the new learning development centre attached to University Hospital.

Medical facility

buildwoiond tegchnoolongy Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff Construction of the Learning Development Centre at the hospital is on time and on budget.

The $10 million project at University Hospital of Northern BC is where students in the Northern Medical Program will have their practical training augmented with a lecture hall, interactive screens for distance learning, a library, classroom spaces and other features. It is being built by local company Western Industrial Contractors (WIC) using wood as a major component and is nearing the exterior lockup stage, with interior work scheduled to be operational in April, 2015.

“We were reminded, quite painfully at times, that Kelowna had better options for their students,” said Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond, who toured the facility on Monday with Prince George-Mackenzie MLA Mike Morris and senior officials from Northern Health. “It will add a new dimension to the Northern Medical Program and we have to give credit to people like Dr. Bert Kelly [executive director of the Northern Medical Society] for letting us know what was really needed for infrastructure.”

It also has the added benefit of helping existing medical operations going on at the hospital.

Northern Health president and CEO Cathy Ulrich said it would “create opportunities for inter-pro-

fessional practice” whereby doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, specialists of all kinds could work as a team in better ways than ever before.

The new structure would also allow some functions to be moved out of the existing hospital, giving new opportunities within the main building.

“Spacially, it makes a lot of sense,” said Ulrich.

“We wanted a facility to draw people in to learn together and talk about quality clinical opportunities, together, in a team environment.”

The building materials - primarily glulam beams and cross-laminated timber panels - were built

by Structurlam Products LP at their factory in Penticton and shipped to Prince George in components.

“It arrived in several truckloads and was assembled in about two weeks,” said Northern Health’s director of development services Peter Kallos. “It went up so fast it was like a mushroom springing up from the ground. Some really innovative wood technology is being used in here.”

For Terry Esopenko, the project superintendent, the building represented a chance to work with these cutting edge wood products for the first time.

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“It went together really nicely: simple and quick,” Esopenko said, a sheaf of architectural blueprints slung over his left arm.

“I really enjoyed what the wood could do, and I think anyone involved in largescale building construction is going to see it used a lot more around here.”

WIC has been one of the companies at the forefront of the developing glulam and cross-laminate industry. Bond explained that there were only two places in North America where such products were made, for applications like this kind of building: Quebec and B.C. Yet, said WIC president and CEO Brian Savage, “we are way, way behind the rest of the world in developing these products and using them in largescale construction, and yet we are the place that produces the raw material.”

He said some companies, and Structurlam in particular, are catching up and in some ways far surpassing the rest of the world in recent times.

“Glulams is what Structurlam started with, but they have really pioneered cross-laminated panels, and that is really changing what wood construction is capable of,” said Savage. “They opened their new plant in Okanagan Falls not too long ago, that’s where a lot of this innovative work is going to happen. I actually went down for their grand opening. I am excited about their future and how we are going to be able to work together.”

The building is highly visible to passersby at the corner of 15th Avenue and Edmonton Street, south of the main hospital entrance and east of the Jubilee Lodge nursing home.

Citizen photo by Frank PEEBLES

Terry Esopenko, project superintendent for Western Industrial Contractors, said he was enjoying his first project using this much structurally engineered wood.

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strong walls that grow

Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff Imagine a wall made out of bags of dirt, held together with the strength of steel, growing like a garden.

It doesn’t have to be imagined. It can be seen holding up the northwest stretch of UNBC’s ring road, holding up the on- and off-ramps of the Golden Ears Bridge, buttressing the soccer field and tennis courts at EA Games headquarters in Burnaby. These are held up by Vegetated Geomodular walls – some of them 600 feet long

and 15 feet high.

“There has been no settling of the Golden Ears ramp work since it was installed in 2006, even though the conditions are marshy and the traffic is heavy,” said Mike Callewaert, president and CEO of Trexiana Ltd. “The EA Games walls were staked with willow and if I didn’t have the ‘before’ pictures to show you, you’d never know there was an engineered wall there at all. It has gone back to nature. That gave EA the LEED credits it needed to achieve Gold status on that project – the first Gold LEED Certified building in Canada.”

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12 Story continued from page 11 The interlocking dirt-bag system is called Flex MSE and it is Trexiana’s primary product.

Although their address says Surrey, the Flex MSE vegetated wall system is a patented design by a Prince George entrepreneur and it is already in use for home landscaping, commercial construction, heavy industrial and public sector projects. It does everything from create shapely garden features, to set the route for major highways, to hold back shorelines from being eaten by rivers.

It has three primary commercial features: its interlocking capabilities make for extraordinarily strong retaining walls and buttresses, it can be shaped in almost any direction fluidly without the need for forms or moulds, and it turns even sites of major industry into lush, ecologically healthy green-space.

There is one other major feature industrial users find friendly. It costs a fraction of what concrete and steel can cost, and it is easy to install.

Individual homeowners can do their own DIY projects without help, or teams of entry level labourers can be easily trained for the heavy industry applications, saving heavily on the usual investments in big equipment and high-skill trades professions.

In an Industry & Trades exclusive, Callewaert allowed us to listen in during a roundtable discussion between him and a team of government engineers representing a Canadian province outside of B.C. They took turns questioning him about the structural specifications of the vegetated wall system for their public infrastructure projects.

What is its estimated life-span, based on engineering estimates? About 120 years.

What angles can it be built at? From horizontal to 85 degrees.

What is its history in water-based applications?

Full approval from Department of Fisheries and Oceans for fish-bearing locations. In swift water locations, some projects have included a bit of riprap for extra protection but in these cases, the use of Flex MSE cut the need for riprap by at least 90 per cent.

“With all the flooding that happened in Alberta in 2013, they maxed out their provincial supply of riprap, so they turned to us as an alternative at some sites. It has been busy for us there since the floods,” said Callewaert.

What kind of effect does the use of Flex MSE have on greenhouse gas emissions?, asked one of the government engineers. Callewaert responded that the construction reports show it creates 97 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than the same wall made of concrete.

Add in the cost of the project at 60 per cent the

cost of concrete.

Then factor in as well that it takes only a fraction of the time to complete the project compared to concrete.

Callewaert added that it provides better sound insulation characteristics for things like neighbourhood berms, plus a green and growing wall often looks better than a stark concrete slab.

“Sometimes you need concrete, but this would help you reduce it significantly, especially since there are techniques for attaching Flex MSE to concrete or stone so you can interface the two and maintain the structural integrity.”

One of the questions was about what the bags of dirt could be filled with. The answer was: almost anything, but the ratio of soil, sand, and organic materials is tailored to different situations.

The bags generate vegetation in a number of ways by including seed inside the bags, hydroseeding, planting and/or live-staking from the outside. You can even sod it over completely to make grassy slopes.

The greening process also strengthens the wall with no need for rebar, footings, foundations, drain pipes, etc. And no matter what the general characteristics used in the building or greening of the wall, its abilities to survive undamaged from seismic events is a big consideration in earthquake-prone areas or in areas where poor soils result in settlement or heaving.

Mining companies are now looking at Flex MSE as a material they could potentially use as a substitute for steel and concrete in order to walk away at the end of the mine’s life without having to disassemble it – essentially doing their reclamation work during the mine construction phase. The potential savings there could be in the multi-millions.

After awhile, the questions from the engineers

and others in the discussion turned into comments and conversation.

“We have to consider noise factors and wildlife sensitivity when we’re doing projects like building trails, roads, water infrastructure, because our department does a lot of work in high-density population areas, and this doesn’t need to use a lot of heavy equipment - much quieter in neighborhoods and urban parks,” said one.

“I like that you can move quickly from project to project so it looks like we could get more projects out of the average construction year,” another said.

A third added, “My wife got ahold of this, she was checking it out online, and it’s all she wants to think about now for our landscaping projects at home.”

Callewaert said the governments of B.C. (in 2003) and Alberta (in 2013) had already given this building material their stamps of approval and it was in widespread use in those provinces, but individual municipalities and construction companies were still learning how to think Flex MSE. He said the eventual goal was for any engineer to take any construction proposal involving concrete and automatically redesign it with Flex MSE instead, to see if it would save any money, time, labour, equipment or greenhouse gasses. If the project could still be built without the concrete, he said, the entire public would be better off. “To make a concrete wall green, you’d have to paint it,” he joked.

For more information on this northern entrepreneurial innovation call 1-877-449-5945 or look up www.FlexMSE.com online.

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aboriginal panel discusses court case

Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff When the Tsilhqot’in First Nation won their Supreme Court of Canada case on June 26, winning ultimate legal endorsement of their claims over their traditional territory, it set a precedent for all of Canada.

A panel of local aboriginal leaders gathered at the College of New Caledonia (partnered with UNBC) to explain the anticipated ramifications to

the public.

Their collective message: Canada is dead. Long live Canada.

“Change is difficult. It’s not easy. But this will build a better place to live,” said Terry Teegee, tribal chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council (a collection of interrelated First Nations in the area). “On June 26, a political and in many ways societal earthquake happened. This is the most significant case we have ever seen in Canada.”

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CAREERS

INDUSTRY & TRADES INDUSTRY AND TRADES

FOREST POLICY

FACING UNCERTAINTY

Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff Forest policy within the province is facing uncertainty for some crucial political reasons.

As much as the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling on the William Case, otherwise known as the Tsilhqot’in Case, was about one particular industrial action in one particular location of the province, it sets a legal precedent for all industrial activity across the entire landbase. Since forestry is the most widespread and ongoing resource sector operating in B.C., it will in many ways be the front lines of the issue for the provincial government in the immediate days ahead.

“Front lines” does not have to mean “battle lines” said the main stakeholders in the bush. Council of Forest industries executive director James Gorman said the forest industry

was the leader among the industrial genres doing business in First Nations territory, with some disputes marring the record but many more partnerships and examples of sharing.

“All of the implications of the case are not yet understood,” Gorman said. “We were very pleased to see the province open that dialogue with First Nations about what that court ruling means. Our industry isn’t so dependent on who the landlord is, we just need to know who the landlord is. We feel we are very well positioned to work with First Nations.”

Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Steve Thomson said the B.C. government and Tsilhqot’in leaders were intent on setting some policy precedents of their own. Soon after the Supreme Court’s ruling that acknowledged much more definitively the powers First Nations have over land-use decisions in their territory, the two parties were at the discussion table. On Sept. 10, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding “that sets the groundwork for long-term reconciliation,” Thomson said, then outlined some of the key points.

“Outside of the title area, forestry and range operations are continuing. The operations could be subject to First Nation consultation processes that consider aboriginal title as a result of the Tsilhqot’in decision. Licences outside the declared title area will continue to be issued subject to the completion of First Nation consultation processes.”

Some of the onus lays with the individual companies wishing to work in the woods, Thomson stressed. If you are a logging company that wants to harvest trees or build a road, make sure you are talking to the First Nations with domain in that area. Government was committed to this as well.

“The clarity provided by the Tsilhqot’in decision regarding aboriginal title and the province’s rights and responsibilities means that some agreements between the province and First Nations will likely be adjusted,” Thomson said. “We see this as an opportunity and we will continue working collaboratively with First Nations and industry to determine what those adjustments might be.”

One of the most important deferrals of decision-making by government since the William Case came down is the topic of area-based tenure versus volume-based tenure.

Many of the larger lumber companies in the province were especially concerned that government was rushing to con-

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INDUSTRY AND TRADES clusions on this complex issue.

Thomson said a comprehensive report authored by former chief forester Jim Snetsinger was already causing a slowing of that process to digest the 35 recommendations he suggested for forest industry improvement, but the William case made the area/ volume examinations a moot point at present.

“Given the recent Supreme Court of Canada Tsilhqot’in decision and requests from forest companies and communities to focus on key immediate priorities, the ministry will not be proceeding with legislative changes that would enable forest licence conversions in fall 2014 or spring 2015,” he confirmed.

It is not a First Nation but the nation to the south that is causing guts to tighten, jaws to set, and pencils to sharpen, out of instinctual trepidation over the phrase “softwood lumber agreement.” The atmosphere around this trade pact has been bitter, protracted, even mean at times in the not too distant past.

However, said Gorman, “B.C. hasn’t been embroiled in a grievance in quite some time,” and many of the disputed points have melted away over the years with the evolutions of the marketplace.

“We were at about 34 per cent of the U.S. market

share and now we are down to about 29 per cent, which is a level the American producers are more comfortable with, and because of our market diversification, that is not such an issue for us either. The prices for lumber are higher and look to remain at healthier levels for the next little while,” Gorman said.

As the most significant forestry player at the national table, it often fell to British Columbia to do the toughest positioning during past softwood lumber negotiations. Thomson is not anticipating much grief this time. After all, the previous agreement forged in 2006 was set to expire in 2012 but it was going so well, the option was exercised to roll it forward until Oct. 2015.

“The U.S. lumber market is still very important for B.C. However, increasing shipments of B.C. lumber to Asia and declining timber supply due to the mountain pine beetle epidemic mean that B.C. lumber exports to the U.S. are not expected to be as high as they have been in the past,” Thomson said.

“If strong lumber markets continue as expected, Canadian and U.S. lumber companies will both profit, and B.C. government forest revenue will increase. B.C. also supports ongoing Canada-U.S. joint marketing initiatives to “grow the pie” for lumber demand in North America.”

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He didn’t refer to just aboriginal peoples’ cases, he meant in all of Canadian legal history. The outcome of the case, according to initial interpretations, is that the Tsilhqot’in (and by legal extension all First Nations of Canada) has an enshrined right to veto any and all land-use activities within its traditional territories. There are some exceptions to that, but only in limited circumstances.

If you think that means First Nations are about to kick out everyone connected to Canadian colonization, implied Lhiedli T’enneh First Nation (Prince George’s encompassing titleholders) chief Dominick Frederick, you need not worry. But if you want to cut down trees or dig up minerals, lay a pipeline or build a subdivision, the days of freely taking value from aboriginal territory were over, effective immediately.

“We aren’t radical people [but other levels of government and industrial companies] can no longer come onto our territory without our invitation. We will make sure of it,” Frederick said. “We welcome people to Lheidli territory but now you have to deal with us on a proper basis. We will work with industry, with governments, with our

neighbours - so we can live together and work together. As one.”

Teegee laughed cynically about the old falsity that First Nations people got things for free from the Canadian/provincial government. He and Frederick explained that even federally assigned reserve lands were bound by bureaucratic rules preventing a First Nation from deciding for itself what was to happen in their figurative front yard.

Now this court case established their unassailable rights to the front yard, the back yard, and the whole proverbial back 40 - as First Nations had always asserted.

You see, they took turns explaining, prior to this court victory, if a tree was cut from a Lheidli forest, the provincial government charged stumpage money, the federal and provincial governments got tax money, even municipalities got payments for that harvested tree. But the First Nation of record received nothing.

This had been protested at every turn, the panelists explained. Colonizers were here originally as guests of First Nations, and business deals were struck to help one another out (furs or guiding services in exchange for supplies and services, etc.).

The relationship only soured when too many of these visitors were making unilateral decisions over the land and forgetting their place in the

business deal. Very little First Nations land was ever lost in a war, very little was fairly dealt away in business transactions. Hence, the 100-plus court actions finished or in progress, one of which was the Tsilhqot’in case that needed 25 years to reach the Supreme Court.

Not only was land-use about to change, the panelists agreed, but so too was the entire forestry stumpage system, the licensing system for petroleum and mines, the protocols for allowing any company to do work on the land, etc.

The BC Forest Act, said Teegee (a registered professional forester by profession), was probably now to be considered one of many illegal documents the province of B.C. got rich off of over the last 100-plus years but was now effectively quashed by the ripple-effects of the Tsilhqot’in case.

Paul Michel, a professor and head of the UNBC First Nations Department, said none of this was at the ultimate expense of the Canadian nationality. “I’m a proud Canadian,” he said, on top of his Secwepmc-Shuswap First Nation heritage. He implied that this case would surely trigger profound change in some sectors but was only going to strengthen the nation’s overall fabric, since decisions would now be based on local truths rather than what amounted to institutionalized fraud and theft.

“June 26, 2014 just changed the landscape,” he said. “[The federal government] has had a hard time in court giving a plausible answer as to how the Crown believes it has rights over unceded lands.”

Lawyer and local leader Mavis Erickson agreed that people might have to reconsider old beliefs about aboriginal people - as would indigenous people themselves - but those were beliefs imposed by colonizers, not organically valid.

“Lawyers are taught you don’t show much emotion over court cases, but I was close to crying [on June 26],” she said. “A new day has dawned.

Something our ancestors fought for - to be proud of your heritage, to be connected to your lands was sometimes hard to believe. But the Supreme Court has now agreed with our ancestors that these places are ours.”

By the highest colonial institution finally coming to this determination might take some of the chains off of the founding cultures of this land, Erickson suggested, but it also breaks down some of the walls for aboriginal people to also feel proud of Canada since it was less of an oppressor now than on June 25. The court case’s secondary message, she said, was, “It’s OK to participate in a country that values multiculturalism.”

Although that work is hardly finished. Still more clarity is expected via the courts on other cases currently in process. The other levels of government now need to figure out how they are going to change legislation and general habits to become Tsilhqot’in-compliant. The overarching legislation the federal government works by, the Indian Act, is itself now in the crosshairs of aborigi-

n a l lawyers. It is possible that the B.C. Treaty Process is now dead in the water because, as Teegee said, “when the Supreme Court has just established that you have title to your whole traditional territory, why would you negotiate away your bargaining power and take part in a process trying to relegate you to four or five per cent of your territory?”

In its place, he said, would likely be sets of shorter-term agreements over who gets to do what on any given First Nation’s land, and how much the local First Nation would share the revenues with the other levels of government.

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“It is a huge responsibility to represent the animals, the plants, the fish, because they can’t speak for themselves,” said panelist Marlene Erickson.

“We work hard to ensure there are resources there for children and grandchildren. [This court victory] is the culmination of a lot of dedicated, principled work by our parents, grandparents and ancestors, and we cannot do less for our children and grandchildren.”

“Liquidating our resources is not in the cards,” said Teegee. “The corporate agenda has been given back to the people.” But to resource companies, he said the door to business is not closed, it is just a different entry point. “You know the rules of the game, now. You can come to us.”

Frederick said he had heard the colonial complaint all his life, asking why the Indian kept complaining about them being on “our” land.

“Now you have your answer. Because it was always our land, and we knew it. Because we were here all along and you came later,” he said, not as a lament but as legal fact. “How are you going to prove your jurisdiction prior to your arrival here?

You can’t. If you try to go to court now, you’ll lose.”

Teegee said aboriginal people had seen this day coming for a long time, and it wasn’t a victory that meant domination had shifted, only rights acknowledged. There was still Crown oppression on the federal and provincial books, but this was a big step towards reconciliation.

“Chief Dan George, one of our greatest aboriginal leaders, said it would be a new Canada when we take the tools of the colonizer and the tools of our own culture, and put them together to make us all stronger,” said Teegee. “I think that’s what’s happened with this case.”

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SUN RISES

Citizen photo by Frank PEEBLES

Council of Forest Industries board member Nick Arkle, left, and executive director James Gorman, right, discuss the new positive climate around the B.C. forest industry.

again on forest industry Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff

The bottom line is no longer written in red ink, for the members of the Council of Forest Industries (COFI). This large association of B.C.based lumber producers and other wood manufacturers had a 2013 full of hopes and optimism turn into 2014 reality, with a strong-looking imme-

diate future.

The lumber sector was one of the primary casualties of the global economic crisis in the mid2000s, due to the collapse of the U.S. construction industry. No homes being built by the usually massive American building sector meant no lumber Story continued on page 18

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Story continued from page 17 being purchased, which in turn meant sawmills and loggers and truckers in northern B.C. had their jobs seriously compromised.

However, the U.S. economy has improved a little since then, and the Asian economies have opened their doors to B.C. lumber like never before. At the same time, new technologies have allowed more to be done with B.C. wood. So the overall forest industry is feeling cautiously healthy after their prolonged illness.

“From a market perspective, the U.S. is lagging a bit behind what the predictions were - the hopes had been for 1.2 to 1.3 million housing starts this year but it will be more like 1 million instead - but that is still a positive sign there, and at the same time the Asian markets - particularly China - are very strong and we are taking advantage of that diversity,” said COFI president and CEO James Gorman. “It is allowing us to come out of the downturn in a different way than we could before.”

The only significant impediment to overall

industry success right now, said Gorman and COFI board chair Nick Arkle, a lumber executive from Kelowna, is the mid-term timber supply crunch caused by the mountain pine beetle. Their estimate was about 2022 before government-directed harvesting rates would finally stabilize.

Arkle indicated that a slow upward momentum from the customers in the United States and Asia was probably good for the B.C. industry since there was that pine shortage in effect. The overall capacity of B.C.’s collection of sawmills is larger right now than there is wood available to cut, so some mills are still squeezing back on production and some have closed forever. A few others still might.

Working with nations like China, Japan and Korea to take some of B.C.’s lumber at a dependable rate, to offset the losses in the U.S., was the smoothest path for the future of the sector overall, and saved the province many more mill shutdowns during the economic crash. The public has found it less traumatic to accept a mill closer because there was insufficient amounts of wood to cut in that mill’s general area, but it is a bitter economic blow when the mill closes due to lack of buyers when there are ample supplies of trees at the ready.

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“We cannot afford to lose what we’ve gained in Asia,” Arkle said. “Before the downturn, we were seeing 2.2 and 2.3 million housing starts in the U.S., and we do not expect it will ever be that high again, so being aware of that, we are looking to Asia to be that additional market to offset that loss in the States.”

Only a few years ago, B.C. held less than 14 per cent of the Asian wood market, but thanks to pilot projects and aggressive marketing, B.C. now accounts for more than 40 per cent. China now buys more wood from B.C. than the U.S. does and the Chinese market is only in the test phase of the B.C. relationship. Japan and Korea are also significant players with potential to grow.

Only a couple of weeks ago, Minister of Forests Steve Thomson was in China and signed a memorandum of understanding to add to B.C.-China wood relations in the province of Jiangsu. The message to B.C.’s forestry officials from Chinese interests was, we see the environmental value in using wood for construction and we are taking

steps to clear the administrative hurdles.

China had no building code and little construction knowledge in the use of wood when B.C. lumber interests first approached our Pacific Rim neighbour about buying our products.

“The fact that China is moving towards greener building policies is a win for B.C.’s forest sector, since wood-frame construction is more environmentally friendly, more energy efficient and leaves a smaller carbon footprint. Jiangsu is wellpositioned to succeed since two of their universities include wood-frame construction in their curriculum,” said Thomson.

Arkle added that there was another sign of success creeping back into the forest industry: youth. The field of students in the province’s training programs - everything from Registered Professional Foresters to architects - was experiencing a surge of renewal.

Part of the community activities for COFI each year is to award scholarships to some of the best and brightest of the new forestry generation, and stimulate some personal contact between the industrialists and the students, so the potential employers and the potential new employees know each other a little.

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PAVING THE WAY

for northern

transportation Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff Northern industry is on the move, by air, rail and road. The provincial government is calling on the public - especially industrial stakeholders - to let them know where the work needs to be done so the travel routes are smooth.

As the Premier’s BC Natural Resource Forum

approaches, host MLA Mike Morris is certain the logistics of moving industrial goods and equipment will play a big role in the discussion. He encouraged everyone affected to take part in the feedback process to write a new priority list for the province. Northern needs need to be in boldface on that list, he said, because of the enormous economic profile in this region.

Story continued on page 20

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Story continued from page 19 “We need the highways, airports, port facilities, bridges, to ensure these projects can go ahead,” he said. “How do we deal with increased capacity?

We have to know that the pieces of equipment and the volume of goods we’re talking about can actually be delivered to where it’s got to go.

We’re going to see big shifts in large populations of people. That means shifts in infrastructure will be needed. There will be movement of largescale equipment as well. We want a clear line from northeastern B.C. to the west coast of B.C. and to the south coast of B.C. to accommodate the movement of people and equipment.”

According to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, this work is already well underway.

It has been long known at that certain pieces of key heavy equipment could not be transported up Highway 97 through certain bottleneck spots between Prince George and Dawson Creek. This meant industrial firms working in the petroleum fields of Peace-country had to drive the equipment via Alberta instead and approach from the east instead of hauling that economic activity in from the south through British Columbia.

A concerted investment program was initiated

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to raise the headroom on bridges, widen corners and remove those sorts of barriers.

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20

“Since 2001, the province has invested $880 million for improvements in the transportation network in the Northwest and more than $1.24 billion in the Northeast, to keep goods moving throughout the north,” said ministry officials.

Recent projects that are part of this investment include the Braatten Road and Mapes Road passing lanes near Vanderhoof, the Upper Fraser passing lane on Highway 16 just east of Prince George, and the Highway 97 East Pine and West Pine Overpasses which have increased the clearances for oversized trucks.

Earlier this year, the government also upgraded the maintenance designation for some segments of northern highways to maximum levels, as another tool to keep industry and its people moving efficiently and safely.

In the past four years, the government of B.C. has invested $129 million in improvements and upgrades on Highway 16 alone.

The government doesn’t want to get ahead of itself, however, and rely on assumptions based on outdated information. The public - commuters, regional travellers, commercial drivers and industrial movers alike - know where the problem areas are, or what the benefits would be if something-or-other was done at such-and-such a place. There is now an online suggestion box for those ideas and observations.

This feedback window will be the basis for writing a new 10-year transportation infrastructure plan called BC On the Move with special focus on connecting communities and building the economy. “[The strategy is] to develop the transportation infrastructure to support industrial and commercial traffic in the north,” said ministry officials.

“Based on technical input and consideration of public and stakeholder feedback, the plan will identify a series of short, medium and longer term initiatives to enhance the provincial transportation network within the next 10 years.”

The last time such a vision was designed was 2003. It was time for an update, to reflect the work already done and the modern economic and social realities.

Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Todd Stone said “I look forward to hearing from British Columbians as we develop our new 10-year transportation plan. Through this engagement, British Columbians can help shape our transportation priorities for the next decade. A safe, efficient, integrated, cost-effective transportation network is the backbone of our economy, so tell us about what’s important to you, because our transportation network is important to all of us.”

The input gathered from this province-wide engagement will be considered along with technical information and input from key stakeholders. These stakeholder meetings started in early September as Parliamentary Secretary Jordan Sturdy met with more than 70 groups on Vancouver Island, including local governments and First Nations, to hear first-hand the transportation needs of Island communities. Now the discussion radiates to the rest of the province.

The feedback form and Discussion Guide are available online at http://engage.gov.bc.ca/transportationplan/. Feedback will be accepted until 4 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 12, 2014.

Advertorial

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NEW MASOCT

for northern

industry

Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff

Everyone knows about our loveable blue-collar figurine Mr. PG, but there is another character hewn from our industrial personality. For decades,

Peter Pine was lost but has now been found just in time for the 40th anniversary of his home, the Pine Centre Mall.

Fashioned on the many legendary loggers from Canadian folk history – Big Joe Mufferaw from the

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by Stompin’ Tom Connors, or the Johnny Canuck character on the shoulder patch of the Vancouver Canucks jerseys – this loveable lumberjack is the epitome of P.G. during the first half of the 20th century.

While Mr. PG is certainly more iconic as a representative figure from that era of local history, Peter Pine had some moments to shine as well. He was, after all, the first and only known mascot the Pine Centre Mall has ever had.

“I’m pretty sure Margo Henry invented him,” said Jack Butcher, the longest serving employee of the mall. “She was the promotions manager of the mall, and she thought it was important that the mall have some kind of mascot. That was the image that came up.”

Dressed in his skookum leather work boots, his Pine Centre Mall mackinaw tartan, and able to easily heft a raw log with a grin, Peter Pine was the picture of our resource-based regional economy, but his cardboard likeness was put into storage so well, he got lost until the cleanups and renovations in preparation for the mall’s 40th anniversary.

One might think that a clean, commercial retail complex like Pine Centre Mall has little to do with the industrial efforts going on out on the regional land base, but for 40 years it has been the heartbeat

of shopping for the men and women who do those jobs.

“We get a lot of drop-ins, and we also get a lot of regulars who can do a lot of other things around the mall when they come for their services here. And we get a lot of people who are visiting from other places in the north and naturally come to the mall for their shopping,” said Jean Martindale, a 19-year veteran and now co-owner of Charlie’s Girl Salon, one of the original stores still operating at Pine Centre Mall.

She said Charlie’s Girl staff could even tell when the commodity prices for lumber went up and down.

When the forestry-focused communities around the north were experiencing gainful employment in the woods, their visits to Charlie’s Girl increased, but also decreased in leaner times. Now? Times are good.

“We have noticed a definite bounce-back in the last couple of years, no doubt about it,” she said.

Also on the rebound is the affection for the long lost Peter Pine. Now rediscovered, he was given a place of honour at centre court where he can meet the thousands of passersby that can now see the other emblematic forester who stands to represent all that is P.G. – practical, hardworking, dressed for the job, ready for the elements, and smiling the whole time.

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ABORIGINAL

dealings with

industry

Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff

The clarity given by the Supreme Court of Canada to the issue of who owns the Canadian land-base, has had a profound and immediate

effect on industry.

The case was a local one - the William Case, also known as the Tsilhqot’in Case - started more than 20 years ago when the then-chief of that First Nation attempted to block industry from happening on a parcel of land. Chief William argued that

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INDUSTRY AND TRADES his people had been the occupants and users of that land since time immemorial, no treaty had ever been signed between Tsilhqot’in leaders and Canadian leaders, therefore the occupation of Tsilhqot’in traditional territory by companies or governments trying to log or mine or farm was illegal.

It took decades but the Supreme Court fundamentally agreed when it made its definitive and unanimous ruling on June 26, 2014.

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“Technically, on a legal basis, we lost,” said B.C. premier Christy Clark in a Canadian Press report.

“But I don’t see it that way. The Supreme Court of Canada has set out a fork in the road for us here, and I am determined that - in looking at the decision - we can embrace it and we can make it something where everybody in British Columbia wins.”

When the Premier’s BC Natural Resources Forum happens in Prince George this winter, one

of the main topics of discussion will be the new reality in dealing with First Nations as the predominant force over land-use activities. Leading that discussion will be former B.C. Attorney General Geoff Plant.

In addition to that posting, and four simultaneous years as the minister responsible for B.C.’s treaty negotiations, consider these elements of his legal pedigree. He is a Harvard graduate, with additional degrees from Dalhousie, Cambridge and Southampton. He was a clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada. As a lawyer, he was frequently involved in cases of aboriginal rights and title including, most notably, the watershed Delgamuukw Case that, until William, was the most notable legal victory for First Nations since Canada’s formation.

“Geoff is one of the most brilliant legal minds in the province, one of the most brilliant legal minds in all of Canada, and with all the ramifications and implications of the William decision he is an excellent voice to hear on that right now,” said forum host Mike Morris.

The Minister of Energy and Mines, Bill Bennett, one of the leading provincial government figures in the new way forward with industry in B.C., agreed.

25 “It has definitely moved the dial,” Bennett said of the William Case in an exclusive conversation with Industry & Trades. “There is greater expectations on the part of First Nations. And government has to look at the William Case as a an opportunity to improve the relationship - not as a challenge or as some kind of a problem, but as a positive opportunity. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”

He said the B.C. government is also a level of representation for aboriginal people in the province, not a force against them or anyone. The clarifications made by the Supreme Court would change dealings, but progress would still occur with the various resource industries working out on the land.

“Most First Nations that I’ve talked to have indicated that the bottom line is seeing proper benefits come to their people: jobs, business opportunities, improving their standard of living where they live. They want to be involved in the economy, but they also want to get a fair return on the use of their traditional territories. They expect to be respected and they deserve to be respected. I think we’re going to be fine.”

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ALLAN FARMER

exhibition Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff George Harris spotted the talent behind Allan Farmer’s brush long before the Prince George painter passed away. Not only were his paint strokes skilled, his eye was fixed on the everyday scenes of his home region.

The Two Rivers Gallery curator had opened conversations with Farmer about doing an exhibition of his work, but Farmer was reluctant, feeling he didn’t have enough works of that standard.

However, he told Harris, with retirement close at hand and devotion to painting his primary retirement project, he felt confident he would soon have the material.

Sadly and suddenly, Farmer passed away this past spring. The gallery received a donation of his paintings from Farmer’s estate, and Harris took it as his opportunity to put together that exhibition he always felt Farmer deserved. That show is on now in the Rustad Galleria at the Two Rivers Gallery.

“Allan Farmer was an artist who reveled in painting the world around him,” said Harris.

“His representations of the landscapes of Prince George and region are honest as far as they appear to reject attempts to idealize his subject matter. His are paintings of abandoned-carsnowy-highways and the morning light of industry as much as mountains and winding rivers.”

His images are at once rare and common. Who in Prince George hasn’t passed by a piece of heavy forestry equipment parked in some seemingly random place on a rural property, piled in snow?

Who in Prince George hasn’t marveled a little in the long line of vehicles driving the north side of the Nechako signaling shift change at the pulp mills? But how many have seen paintings that capture these everyday scenes? Farmer got them down on canvass.

“What I like about that is, he shows it for what it is - things that are present in the north, without bias,” said assistant curator Maeve Hanna as she arranged the paintings for hanging. “These industrial objects are a part of life around here, but he approaches them as aesthetic subjects rather

than making a statement for or against industry.

He had an eye for showing us how beautiful or interesting our surroundings are, which we may not always appreciate when we’re used to seeing that all the time.”

Farmer also had an uncanny ability to do landscapes of the area that had no specifically identifiable landmarks but still make the viewer think “I’m pretty sure I know where that is, I think I’ve been there.” Hanna pointed to an urban scene of shops and houses and said “that could be my street” to illustrate his keen eye for capturing Prince George definition even if he wasn’t showing Prince George off overtly.

The gallery’s summer co-curator AudreyAnne V. LeBlanc led a team of interviewers and researchers who gathered information on Farmer, his life and his paintings. The results are published as a booklet accompanying the exhibition. He was born in 1945 in Vancouver, grew up in Duncan, attended the University of Victoria, travelled extensively in Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia, moved back to B.C. in 1974 and took up the log scaler profession. That brought him to Prince George in 1998 where his longtime passion for painting was quickly noticed and appreciated within his personal community.

He worked at TDB Consultants who were holders of some of his paintings, and instrumental in bringing this exhibition dream to reality. His sister Frances Farmer was also a leading supporter of the project. “[Farmer left] behind a body of work that stands as a compelling document of life in the Central Interior of B.C.,” said Harris. “This exhibition draws upon that legacy offering a unique reflection on who we are and where we live.”

Which is why other local communities have also embraced the show, which Harris and LeBlanc entitled Far And Away. Not only is this collection available now at the Two Rivers Gallery until Nov. 2, but it is a touring exhibition that the art galleries of the regional district are sharing. It has already been on prominent display in Valemount and Mackenzie with McBride on the schedule from Nov. 13 to Dec. 14.

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Fifty years vegetables Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff Fifty years of vegetables is a legacy still growing at the farm of Dave and Karen Kellett.

Northern Farm Products, the leading cash crop operation in the region, celebrates its golden anniversary in 2014, and although their history advances one year at a time, it also gets marked each harvest by the millions of veggies.

The operation is about half an hour’s drive south of Prince George on Sweder Road. It is

OF

marked with signs directing motorists to come down the driveway off Highway 97 to the area’s first commercial U-pick raspberry plantation, in the same area as Northern Farm Products, which produces mostly cabbages and carrots.

It is a road that dates back even longer than the massive garden. On the shores of the Fraser River sits the Kellett farmhouse and a number of barns and outbuildings. The first homestead on the property was established in the 1930s by the Sweder family with the MacMillan homestead also

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pany, Sweder U-Pick, which is now another active commercial arm of the farm.

“On a busy Saturday we will have 100 people at a time here picking berries,” Karen said.

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on the modern property.

An accountant with a hayseed heart, George Kellett bought the place because he fancied himself a farmer, at least on weekends, and through hard work and dedication indeed became one, as did his whole family.

“We lived on McBride Crescent in the place Dr. Pierre Ducharme lives in now. I was a city boy growing up,” said Dave. “We would go down after school and on weekends, bring the turnips back into Prince George, and wash them off in the driveway. The scout troop would come help, or my sister’s high school basketball team, to make some money for the group. Over time it got more professional.”

A major turning point was when Dave went to agricultural college in Fairview, Alberta, in 1976 to formalize the lifelong training. There he met Karen and together they came back to the family farm and took it to the next level of production while raising their own family there. His brother Stan was also heavily involved but gave way in order to go to university.

“He was the main operator on the vegetable side and we were cowboys who morphed into farmers as well, when he went to law school,” said Dave.

“When we first started marketing the produce, there were four wholesalers plus Overwaitea, Safeway, Royal Produce and Woodwards all selling our stuff,” said Karen. “We supplied all those places until they disappeared. Now it is all sold to Save On Foods, Shoppers Wholesale and Vanderhoof Co-op. But they take everything we grow. In all honesty we have never advertised the vegetables.

When they are ready, they just take it all and it just flies off the shelf.”

Kelletts were also active in their industry’s associations and other outreach activities. They helped the Ministry of Agriculture, UNBC, and other research parties with some of the science of farming. In 2001 that included growing a number of berry varieties to test their viability in local climates. That evolved quickly into a partner com-

“We see a lot of families coming with their kids to see where their food comes from, and have a hand in what is on the family table.”

She estimates the farm produced about 2,500 pounds of berries this year - mostly raspberries (20 variations) but also saskatoons, blueberries and other delights.

Each year they produce about three million carrots and 50,000 cabbages (they range from five to 12 pounds each) and they could sell more if they chose to produce at higher levels, but they are content with their workload.

“We definitely think there is more room in the current market for more producers,” Karen said. “I hear a lot of desire, a lot of interest in food security and close-to-home food supplies, but the opportunities aren’t being supported by government and it’s a tough thing to start up if you’re on your own.”

“I see a lot of interest in ambitious gardening, but still not a lot of commitment to large-scale farming, but if the public really commits to buying local produce, and that includes stores and restaurants that will sell it, then that could definitely improve.”

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MORRIS

digs up the latest dirt on natural resources Frank PEEBLES Citizen Staff The host of B.C.’s primary dirt-industry conference is relieved to see so many sectors finding success on the provincial landscape, and thrilled that most of it is centred in the northern region.

Prince George-Mackenzie MLA Mike Morris represents an area that is busy with almost all forms of it. Forestry, mining, petroleum, agriculture, adventure tourism, transportation, technology, it is all happening in the immediate area of Prince George. He can’t wait to gather everyone around the discussion table from January 20-22 to bring the latest news to light at the Premier’s BC Natural Resources Forum.

The primary news at this year’s event, said ringmaster Morris was the health of the forest industry.

“Forestry has supported B.C.,” he said. “Some people have suggested that forestry might be taking a back seat to mining and LNG [liquefied natural gas] and certainly those sectors are exciting in what they are poised to do for the province, but yes, we want to show everyone that forestry is still our backbone industry and highly valued by our government, and the public in general. Other industries have the provincial attention, but that is in addition to forestry not at the expense of forestry.”

He said the two main assets the forest industry had in its favour was its accessibility – it is spread throughout every community in the north, in a variety of species and forms – and its sustainability. Like agriculture, the forests are perpetuated in a cycle with replanting that more than matches harvesting, and other careful management principles applied.

“There is no doubt that management mistakes were made in the past,” said Morris. “We will always have to examine and reexamine how we work with our forests so it is always a healthy resource available to our next generations. But long gone are the days of taking our forests for granted and not considering the environmental impacts of our actions.”

Two elements are at the forefront of sustainability, and the industrial modus operandi within B.C. from now on. One is science and the other is society.

“You don’t come in and tell a community what you’re doing. You come in and talk to communities about what could be done, with their help, discuss how everyone can best work together, discuss the pros and the cons at length and not be afraid to accept that the cons might outweigh the pros and so we change plans, and you discuss how everyone might come to an agreement.

And First Nations must be the first ones you talk to, every time, no matter what you want to do.

Every project, on a case by case basis, on a sector by sector basis, must earn social license. You don’t strive for consensus, because you will never please everybody, no matter what decisions you make, but it is about getting overall public support based on the best information possible for the best public interests.”

He said the best way to earn social license is by companies and governments being up front, truthful, proactive with information, and the politicians and the self-interested yielding the microphone to the teams of scientists that study each industrial project and the land-base it is proposed for.

“So much misconception can be avoided, and

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so much social license could be earned if we include unbiased scientists in the discussion right from the start, and throughout the project,” Morris said. “Scientists are out there, looking into these matters, gathering cutting edge data, so why do we not hear enough from them? We can do better on that. They have the knowledge and the expertise to explain to the public, including politicians, what we need to know about a proposed mine or on forest health or on environmental stewardship.”

What hasn’t been minimized by government is how important that industrial intelligence is to the daily lives of British Columbian’s. There aren’t enough dollars in the jeans of the B.C. people to pay taxes for all the teachers, nurses, road maintenance workers, post-secondary education programs, policing, provincial infrastructure, and the social programs that rev the engines of the provincial economy. It is the fees paid by the industrial companies using B.C. resources that cover those bills and stimulate individual communities.

The industry is needed, said Morris.

These industrial proposals are wending their

way through government processes, in some cases there are headlines about what the status might be of some projects, “and this is forum to look to for that sort of information – the very latest information,” he said.

With all the requests for the presence of key government officials, First Nations leaders, company CEOs, and senior Crown corporation staff, Morris pledged he and Premier Christy Clark would make every possible effort to make this forum worth everyone’s time to attend. “We are making it one of the best business-to-business networking opportunities in the natural resources world,” he said.

In turn, that will make it worth the public’s time and attention – all focused on Prince George in January.

Morris said he expected at least 800 people to take in the forum as official delegates and estimated more than 1,000 people would come into Prince George from out of town as part of organizing and participating in this, the 12th year of the BC Natural Resources Forum.