Industry and Trades by Prince George Citizen

Industry And trades July 2017 Issue

STORY PAGE 20

Skimmers fighting fires Product of

STORY PAGE 18

Going out on a limb for industrial safety

www.pgcitizen.ca | Thursday, July 27, 2017

Thursday, July 27, 2017

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www.pgcitizen.ca | Thursday, July 27, 2017

Inside

Canforâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crude view..................................................................................................pg 5 This cowboy casts a long shadow........................................................pg 8

Closing the Barkerville loop.......................................................................pg 10 Brushing up on dust safety.......................................................................... pg 12 Kermess North project...................................................................................... pg 13 The new Cariboo gold rush......................................................................... pg 14 Working on history. ............................................................................................... pg 16 Going out on a limb for industrial safety.................................. pg 18 Skimmers fighting fires................................................................................... pg 20 The national banquet. ........................................................................................ pg 22

Cover photo: A skimmer, spring training on Harrison lake. Photo courtesy of Conair Aerial Firefighting

Please Recycle

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Written by Frank Peebles

Canfor’s

Crude View of the forest

Martin Pudlas asked us to reconsider our views of the forest, but he was also asking us to reconsider our view of oil fields. Some of the speeches at the BC Natural Resources Forum were inspirational. Some were educational. There was one that grabbed the attention of the audience – an audience largely comprised of industry professionals – and got everyone to sit in the thick silence of rapt interest. You could feel the crowd lean in to listen and strive to understand. Did Martin Pudlas – a man with a reputation divorced from hyperbole – who represents the highest offices of Canfor Forest Products – a company with a reputation for razor sharp business decisions – just come out on stage and say the forest was actually a living, breathing, renewable oil field? That logging was actually drilling for oil without ever going underground? That oil could be replanted? This is an abridged dispatch of the speech given by Pudlas, the vice-president of Pulp & Paper Operations for Canfor. The Prince George pulp operations has been steadily growing into other industries as science and the will of company managers got them into generating electricity from its previously wasted heat and biomass. Then they started experimenting with their on-site byproducts and the chemistry of the wood itself that came onto the property as a solid and got cooked into a soup that, when baked the right way, hardened into sheets of pulp and paper. Story continued on page 6

www.pgcitizen.ca | Thursday, July 27, 2017 Martin Pudlas speaking at the Premier’s BC Natural Resource Forum. Photo courtesy of BC Natural Resource Forum

Story continued from page 5

Maybe someone watched too many episodes of The Big Bang Theory, or maybe the chemists and engineers in the company had too much punch at the Canfor Christmas party, but they couldn’t stop playing with their periodic tables and their calculators and this is where their inquisitive curiosity took them. Martin Pudlas: I’ve got a very simple question for you, and it’s when you look at B.C.’s forests, what do you see? If you look at the forest around us you might say, well, the forest brings in water, it brings in CO2, it creates oxygen: everybody’s happy. One view of the forest might be it is a purification agent. It’s a ‘carbon sequesterer’ in the new language. If you think back to your high school science – and I’m not going to get too chemical engineery geeky on you here – but six moles of CO2, six moles of water, plus the energy from the sun goes to this compound: C6H12O6 plus oxygen. So where does this compound go? Well, it goes into the trunk of the tree. And if you’re (mechanical / technology company) Elon Musk you might look at this and say wow, the trunk of a tree is a solar battery. And if you looked a little further, you might look at the branches of the tree and think those are really the solar panels. We’ve got a solar storage device here. I think if BC Hydro looks at this device called the forest, they would say that device takes non-firm energy and it converts it into firm energy. If you think about renewable (energy sources) like run-of-river, we don’t know when it’s going to rain so we don’t know when that power’s going to come. You think about wind (energy) – we don’t know when the wind’s going to blow. So that’s non-firm energy. When you think about solar, same thing, we don’t know when we’re going to get that photovoltaic potential high enough to give us that energy from the sun. But a tree, the forest, takes that non-firm energy and stores it in a solar battery so we can access it as firm energy. So today we have logging trucks, we’ve got chip trucks, we’ve got forestry trucks, silviculture trucks, harvesters, we’ve got a number of transportation devices that intersect with the forest industry. We take crude from northern B.C. and Alberta, we take it into refineries and we make diesel and gasoline. We can pull up to a pump, and that allows the forest industry to happen. And so these carbon sequestering devices, these solar batteries, logs, are able to be transported. And we are able to take three new solar devices and plant them for every solar device harvested. So what happens from there? Everyone’s familiar with how we make dimensional lumber, that’s a backbone to our industry. And that solid wood industry creates residuals – pellets, pulp and paper. But we (at the pulp mill)

also make power. Green, renewable power. It’s not widely known but the NHL buys carbon offsets from Canfor Pulp, so we even make the Edmonton Oilers carbon-neutral. We’ve sped this cycle up so that we are not only self sufficient but we are able to export power to the grid, so the next step we can go to is speed our mills up further so that the pulp mills start to create a residual. So what would that residual be? If you looked at (chemistry charts) you’d see that we still have this C6H12O6 molecule there, but it is no longer a solid, it is now a liquid, but it hasn’t changed (in molecular structure). So if you stare at this long enough, you will see how crude oil is generically represented as CNH2N+2. It’s a hydro carbon. And if you stare at the molecule we’ve got at the pulp mill long enough, you might say hey, if you take the oxygen off and maybe add a couple of hydrogens that you can get from water, you’ve got a pathway for making crude oil out of the forest. So Canfor Pulp did a worldwide inventory of technologies and we found a company that was trying to do this with brown coal in Australia. (That company is called Licella. Brown coal is a rock but similar in its molecular construction to wood, except it is nonrenewable. Wood is.) If you could ever think of a day that we could produce green crude, we could green up that fuel that goes into transportation. And when you look at B.C. as a whole, the petrochemical industry has invested hundreds of millions of dollars, and I hear a lot of people talk about going from wood to jet (the molecules from wood being used to make plastic-like or even metal-like materials for making even the bodies of jet planes), or wood to diesel (biodiesel is already well understood, but it’s a fuel with distinct limitations). The reality is, if we make a renewable crude, we can use all the retail infrastructure that’s in place with the petrochemical industry (refineries, gas stations, etc., and by utter coincidence, Canfor and the Husky refinery are neighbours in Prince George). We don’t want to go into competition against them, we want to work with them. So our goal is to green up that industry, green up transportation, and eventually eliminate conventional crude. And if you think this is not possible, the Swedish government’s announced that by 2030 they have a target that their government fleet will all be fueled with products from the forest. Canfor planted 70 million trees in 2015 and hopefully today you’d say they planted 70 million solar devices. I want to leave you with one thought. If you think about the sustainability of the forest sector and you think about our industry, and our obligation to future generations, maybe, just maybe, we need to start thinking about our view of the forest differently.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

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This

Cowboy casts a long shadow

Mark McMillan Mark Grafton and the Honourable Lieutenant Governor Judith. Citizen photo by Frank Peebles.

Written by Frank Peebles

Mark Grafton is going to the hall. When you’re used to riding the range and cowboying in timberland, it takes a room that big to make a guy feel comfortable. The Prince George ranch boss has joined the elite in his hallowed profession and been inducted into the BC Cowboy Hall of Fame. “It was nice. You know, this isn’t thought of as real cowboy country up here so it was nice to be recognized from this area,” he said. Of course it is cowboy country around these parts. The industry is overshadowed by the tall stands of timber, the cattle calls more faint than the bellow of the chainsaw, but there’s scarcely a community in northern B.C. that doesn’t have

some touch with the beef industry, and Prince George is the crown of the Cariboo where ranching has been a mainstay almost since the day European tenants met with aboriginal landlords during the early explorations of the fur trade. The first cattle ranch in B.C. history was set up close to Fraser Lake by none other than Simon Fraser himself. Grafton’s signature spread is a big chapter in that ranching story. Located about half an hour northwest of Prince George, the massive Bar-K Ranch is owned by Carrier Lumber and operated for the past 35 years by the Grafton family and their team of cowhands, farmers and other agri-pros.

“Even though the market has dropped 40 Grafton recently retired, leaving his son Taylor per cent in the last few years, people are still to run the place with dad (and highly skilled optimistic and it’s exciting times for me, in the rancher Laura, Mark’s wife) not too far away. industry, because there is a lot more commuBrother Warren is a geoscientist in the Prince nication now than ever before,” Grafton said. George area, and he knows the business end of “BSE hurt us bad, broke a lot of people, but it a horse as well. “I think it’s just the years I’ve spent cowboying, made us take stock in what we do and made us take a really good look at how we get better as mentoring young people, and the horse stuff an industry. The hard times have helped us in that I do,” he said, uncomfortably pondering why he got this prestigious induction. “I just do the long term. And the public... the public just got on side with the industry, remarkably so. my thing. Now that I’ve got a little age on me, You can look anyone in the eye today and say one of the things I enjoy most is passing on to Canada, as an industry, is the best in the world young people the skills of cattle handling and for quality beef and food safety for beef.” horsemanship.” With his degree in Animal Sciences from Cal He and Laura were staunch and sustained supPoly University in California, Grafton is a perporters of classroom connections to the ranch. fect example of how the old rustic industry is Sometimes the kids came to the ranch and really successful when formal education leads sometimes the ranchers went into the schools, the way. but establishing relations with the youngest Grafton was not alone in the recent induction. generations was one of their favourite aspects In fact, he was among friends. The other name of the industry. He remembers one particular installed in the hall at the same time was Miles year where more than 1,000 students got some Kingdon who currently works for the Nicola kind of agriculture presentation thanks to their Ranch near Merritt and fills in for the Coldefforts. stream Ranch near Vernon. But Kingdon knows Mark and Laura were also active with every partner agency and industry advocacy organiza- the mountain trails and grassland pastures of the Cariboo as well. tion that made sense, from presentations to the In fact, Kingdon is an alumni of almost every SPCA to longtime positions on the BC Cattlefamous ranch in the men’s Association. province, including “Over the years they Prince George’s big grew the Bar K from One of the things I outfit. 400 auction cows to “We’ve ridden a lot a herd triple the size enjoy most is passing together and done and Mark gained a horse stuff together. He reputation for selecting on to young people the worked for me back in quality cattle. Purebred skills of cattle handling the ‘80s, on the Bar-K, breeders took cues so that was nice to from his insight and and horsemanship. share the moment with he was often asked him,” said Grafton. to judge bull shows,” “He went on to run said Mark McMillan, Empire Valley, he was cowboss on the Gang president of the BC Cowboy Heritage Society Ranch, then to Quilchena. He worked for the that operates the BC Cowboy Hall of Fame. Douglas Lake Cattle Company as well so, yeah, “Mark’s father, who moved his family to B.C. in 1960, was a buckaroo and veteran of the U.S. he’s connected to the big ones.” Kingdon also plays trumpet in a band that Cavalry,” said McMillan, detailing Grafton’s includes longtime cattlewoman Judith Guichon, pedigree in the saddle. “He passed his horsewho was also on hand at the Hall Of Fame cermanship and stockmanship knowledge to his emony. She added some royal jelly to the jam children, and Mark, in turn, mentored many that night, being that she is the current Lieutenyoung cowboys and cowgirls who were eager ant Governor of British Columbia.She made the to learn. Mark and Laura provided much leadformal inductions. ership to the industry over the years.” “I worked a lot with Judith over the years on Commodity prices rise and fall, and that invarious projects with BC Cattlemen’s Ascludes the fortunes of beef. Grafton was there sociation and sustainable agriculture for kids when things took a particularly grim turn, and programs. So that was kinda cool having her many point at him as one of the steady influences on the B.C. industry during the crisis that there to do it,” Grafton said. So what does a retired cowboy do now that he’s followed the instance of Bovine Spongiform off the ranch? Why he buys a small acreage Encephalopathy (BSE, otherwise known as where he sets to work building yet another Mad Cow Disease) in 2003. The nation’s entire ranching career, of course. He is still close to beef export industry was slammed shut almost the Bar-K, he and Laura relish their new title overnight. of grandparent, and the Prince George cowboy The Canadian public would not let their ranchindustry still has that Hall Of Fame knowledge ers suffer without an effort, however, and to draw on. records were shattered for Canadians putting The ceremonies were held in Kamloops but the beef dinners on their own tables. It couldn’t Hall Of Fame itself is just a short ride down completely offset the gut-punch losses but it the trail. Visit it at the corner of 4th Avenue and helped many troubled cattle operations and it Borland Street in Williams Lake. forever changed the conversation for the better about cowboying and about Canada itself.

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Barkerville’s Chinatown. Submitted photo.

Closing

The Barkerville

Loop

Escape road climbs higher on priority list Written by Frank Peebles

With forest fires cutting communities off from main regions of the province, and traffic getting routed hundreds of kilometres out of the usual path through the region, one road proposal stands out like a red light through smoky haze. More than once, detours were unavailable when disasters and incidents caused routes to be closed along Highway 97 or along Highway 16 at the upper reaches of the Cariboo Mountains. And each time a blizzard or wildfire strikes the area, none feels the vulnerability of it all more than the cul-de-sac village of Wells and its adjacent historic town of Barkerville. There is only one way in or out of that terminal Highway 26. Ideas have been suggested in the past to punch through a connection road. There are already resource roads that would only need to be upgraded, formalized and in some spaces a short new artery added to link them. Cariboo North MLA Coralee Oakes believes the correct proposal is now on the table. “The Purden Lake Connector route makes sense for a lot of reasons,” said Oakes. “It

would connect Wells-Barkerville and the Bowron Lakes area to Purden Lake, the Ancient Forest, and with the new resort development going into Valemount and the record numbers of people visiting Barkerville, the tourism that radiates out of Prince George, it all adds up. The provincial government is well advised to invest in that connector road to bring all those success points together.” The proposal has the strong endorsement of the Barkerville Heritage Trust, one of the enabling agencies that keeps the living museum and national historic site in operation. Richard Wright, on behalf of the trust, said “The route exits - most of the road exists. Only a threemile section needs improvement.” Reports detailing the efforts and investments required date back to 2007. Recent figures put the bill at something like $1 million to spruce up the existing roads, complete the nonexistent portions and ensure the bridges (mostly in place already) were traffic-ready. This amount of money is a paltry figure, as capital projects go in the Ministry of Transportation’s budget. It was made slightly more difficult when the

Ministry of Forests made a decision that set the idea back. “Instead, Forestry pulled out a bridge,” said Wright in frustration. “This is exactly when we need the road for escape as there could easily be fires on the 2400 Road and the much touted 3100 Road south leads directly to fire near 150 Mile. As a former councillor (for the District of Wells) and the head of the EPC we argued for this but got nowhere - even with Coralee’s support, and (local MLA and cabinet minister) Shirley Bond.” The road would be a safety valve like no other, but it would also have an economic boosting effect on a number of the small points of interest involved in that loop. “The route will increase tourist traffic to the Barkerville, Wells, Bowron area and provide emergency egress or escape for the town of Wells should Highway 26 be cut off. The Barkerville Heritage Trust and Wells Council have been lobbying for this route for several years,” Wright said. “It is still in the planning stages, but a lot of preliminary work has been done and as far as

I’m concerned it should be next,” said Oakes. She has had some recent success at this kind of project proposal. She achieved approval from the Ministry of Transportation to upgrade roads and bridges and complete connections from the west side of Quesnel through the backcountry to Vanderhoof. This alternate route is a backdoor option to access New Gold Inc.’s Blackwater mine site, a workplace for many of the First Nations of that northern Chilcotin area who were close as the crow flies but in practical terms had to drive about seven almost circular hours to get to and from work. The new Kluskus Forest Service Road project would fix that commute time, and also give safety detour options for both Quesnel and Vanderhoof. The bill for the Kluskus project was anticipated to be about $7 million, with completion expected in 2018. “Now that the Kluskus Road proposal is over the finish line, the Barkerville-Purden Connector road is our main roadway priority,” said Oakes. “I will be a pain in everybody’s side until it happens.”

The proposed Barkerville connector route shown here in green. Map from the Road Connection Analysis for Barkerville, courtesy of the Barkerville Hertiage Trust.

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Written by Frank Peebles

Brushing up on

Dust

Safety

Main photo: Biofuel pellets are made by compacting wood dust through the holes of intensely strong presses, like this one at Premium Pellet Ltd. in Vanderhoof. Photo right: Dustin Meierhofer and wood pellet leaders are forming safety standards for the B.C. biofuel industry Citizen photos by Frank Peebles

For more than 20 years Dustin Meierhofer “What are the issues around those places? Is was a registered professional forester. He it open or closed? What is located nearby? Is worked in the bush, he branched into entrethere power to the building? Is there a lightpreneurship as CEO of a biofuels company, ing system? What is connected to this place? then he branched into industrial analysis by What exactly is the material being stored – authoring technical reports and articles in dust or hog? Where is the material coming trade periodicals. from? How was it handled on the way? All these career paths were taking him Are there conveyers involved, or chutes, farther from his family path, however, and augers, other kinds of machinery? What this he felt moved to grow yet another branch in all drives toward is the need to have some his profession. This one not only got him in standards around this. First we have to study closer touch with his family but also struck at the issues and then we can move on to the the heart of why anyone goes to work in the solutions.” first place – their own loved ones back home. The Wood Fibre Storage Working Group Meierhofer joined the BC Forest Safety might sound like a dry roundtable discusCouncil in their office in his hometown of sion, but it is literally the dialogue about Prince George. life or death in a business for which Prince One of his critiGeorge is the global cal projects right capital. They formed now is leading a in spring of 2017, You can’t make working group of three meetings had wood pellets without decision-makers in been held as of the biofuel sector and June, but this month first obtaining wood WorkSafeBC side by was expected to be side to determine the busy for the team as dust. Lots of it. safest way to store they strove to write Roomfuls of it. their chief ingredient. a first draft report You can’t make wood for WorkSafeBC to pellets without first examine. The report obtaining wood dust. Lots of it. Roomfuls would be a working document on how to of it. keep that dust from ever coming into contact But if that room isn’t designed properly – with ignition points or be stored in a way that this has been discovered the hard way, on allowed for fire or explosions to occur. many occasions – the dust can ignite. With “Really, the focus of the group is to parnames like Babine and Lakeland on the ticipate with WorkSafeBC on working out collective conscience, everyone who works guidelines for the wood pellet industry in the wood manufacturing field also knows because there is a recognition that what’s that dust can explode catastrophically. Meier- going on now isn’t adequately addressing the hofer and the working group seek to stop that safety concerns,” Meierhofer said. “we need from ever happening again. to establish risk mitigation strategies.” “The question is, where are we storing this Who better than the industry experts to set up fibre?,” he said, by way of explanation. the initial working ideas that WorkSafeBC would then take into their internal regulatory system? Everything proposed by the working group was going to be tested for veracity by WorkSafeBC specialists anyway, so the group has been aggressive about keeping their eyes off of company “bottom lines” and focused instead on the human figures on their watch. The group’s hope was to have their working draft handed in by the end of July, and that WorkSafeBC’s return feedback would massage out a final report by fall that would morph into formal regulatory standards. Meierhofer said that never in his working life has his job held so much meaning every day when he headed for the office. He had never felt such emotions simply from a regular day on the job, but when your job is to make sure no one gets hurt or killed at their job, it helps you see all of life through a better lens. No amount of fine dust can cloud that for him.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

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Kemess North Project

Written by Frank Peebles

A major hurdle to a major gold mine in the Central Interior got cleared – in fact three hurdles at once. The Tsay Keh Dene, Takla Lake and Kwadacha First Nations all simultaneously announced their support for the Kemess Underground Mine and a revenue deal with the provincial government to prove it. Just as municipalities collect annual income from industrial activities within their town borders, these three First Nations will receive regular income from this proposed mine on their shared territory. It was considered one of the final obstacles to getting the Kemess project to the starting line. The three, who share the unceded traditional territory on which the mine would be built, worked together under the collective title of Tse Keh Nay during negotiations with the provincial government. “Our agreements and collaboration with Tse Keh Nay underscore B.C.’s commitment to find innovative ways to partner with First Nations on economic development,” said John Rustad, the Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation for the province. “These partnerships create better projects, ensure First Nations benefit from development in their traditional territories and helps provide industry the confidence to invest and create jobs.” The mine was initially blocked by the Tse Keh Nay when an open pit design was presented by the mining company of the day. The environmental impacts of that proposal were such that the aboriginal users of the land refused to allow it to go ahead. A new mining company proposed a new plan, a rare (in northern B.C.) underground extraction plan to get the gold and copper. AuRico Metals Ltd. took the proposal to the Tse Keh Nay first for their feedback before actively

engaging the provincial government on the exhaustive licensing process. The environmental protections of the underground system were acceptable to the indigenous caretakers. “These agreements will provide the First Nations a share of mineral tax revenues from the mine after it begins production, and a commitment for ongoing collaboration and engagement on the long-term permitting requirements and operation of the mine,” said Rustad. “This partnership reflects the province’s commitment to ensuring First Nations benefit from resource development in their traditional territories, and have opportunities for meaningful input into how projects are planned, developed and operated.” He added that the province and Tse Keh Nay “have also committed to work together through a government-to-government agreement” to help address other Tse Keh Nay interests related to the proposed Kemess Underground Mine, including collaborating on potential land management measures for culturally important areas near the mine; helping to identify training programs to help prepare Tse Keh Nay members for jobs at the mine; and involving the Tse Keh Nay in the safety, management and monitoring of the access road to the mine site. Chief John French of the Takla Lake First Nation said that for his people “this is about translating our title and rights into: No. 1 strength among Tsay Keh Nay Nations; No. 2 good First Nation-Crown governance and No. 3 getting our share of the wealth from resource development in our Territories. We will use these agreements as incremental and empowering step to further our prosperous Nation.” Chief Donny Van Somer of the Kwadacha Nation agreed. “We are pleased that we have reached an agreement with the Province of British Colum-

bia to share in the mineral tax benefits from the Kemess Underground project,” he said. “It is important that we continue to work on a government-to-government basis with respect to any proposed developments in lands that our people have traditionally occupied and used since time immemorial.” The Kemess Underground project is located about 430 kilometres northwest of Prince

George in the Peace River Regional District. It is about six kilometres from a previous mine site known as Kemess South that ceased operations in 2011. After a five-year development phase, the $684-million project is expected to produce approximately 25,000 tonnes of ore per day over a 13-year period.

www.pgcitizen.ca | Thursday, July 27, 2017

The New Cariboo

Gold Rush Photo courtesy of Barkerville Gold Mines.

Written by Frank Peebles

The reason the Cariboo was put on the world the Cariboo Region,” said Bill Bennett, the map in the first place can be summed up in a Minister of Energy and Mines at the time of single word: gold. the announcement in April. “Gold mining built The precious metal was discovered in the this part of the province and, more than 150 mountainous tributaries of the Fraser River. years later, continues to support economic The most famous location was northeast of growth in this region.” Quesnel. The most famous miner was named The restart of the mine was expected to create Barker, Billy Barker, as in the namesake of about 90 jobs in the rural area at the end of Bakerville. That was in the 1860s. Highway 26. This time, the work will be subPerhaps that wily dreamer terranean. Rare and painstaking worker of in this part of This project will provide Canada, Bonanza the land had an inkling of this, when he struck his Ledge will be an direct jobs at the mine 19th century motherload, underground mine and mill and will likely but there is still a lot of going forward. undiscovered gold in those result in spin-off jobs at From June 2014 same hills more than a March 2015 it many businesses in the to century later there is still a was an open-pit company digging for it. worksite. region. Barkerville Gold Mines Additionally, ore Ltd. (BGM) has been from the Bonanza involved in the search for the glittering metal Ledge operations will be processed at BGM’s for the past several years, in starts and stops Quesnel River (QR) Mill located at the comaffixed to commodity prices and investment pany’s QR Mine, 80 km east of the City of climates. This past spring, they got the green Quesnel. light from the provincial government to begin “Having the Bonanza Ledge gold mine back again on their next project, the Bonanza Ledge in operation along with the QR Mill near site on the outskirts of Wells, only a short Quesnel will have a positive impact on our distance from Barkerville. local economy and this is welcome news for “The restart of operations at Bonanza Ledge communities in the Cariboo,” said Coralee will provide well-paying jobs and an ecoOakes, MLA for Cariboo North. “This project nomic boost for families and communities in will provide direct jobs at the mine and mill

and will likely result in spin-off jobs at many First Nation formed their relationship,” said businesses in the region.” Oakes. “They have developed this fantastic BGM estimates its operations at the Bonanza way of working together; some unique pieces Ledge Underground Mine will produce apwere built into the agreement that are aimed at proximately 54,000 ounces of gold over the community capacity building. It was frankly mine’s initial three year mine life. Under the an honour and a privilege to sit in the room conditions of its amended Mines Act permit, for some of that, hearing those stakeholders BGM is authorized to produce up to 150,000 join together and build plans together to uplift tonnes per year. the whole community. They have set the bar, The mine’s reopening came as a result of some in a lot of ways, for establishing human-based focused efforts by sustainability plans for government and loeconomic development The mine’s reopening cal interests like the and job creation and enLhtako Dene First vironmental safeguards, came as a result of Nation who became and the best part was, some focused efforts by the First Nation wasn’t full shareholders in the company as a out for the First Nation, government and local committed partner to they were focused on interests like the Lhtako the whole community, the Bonanza Ledge project. the entire region.” Dene First Nation. Oakes said the The economic news Bonanza Ledge Oakes has presided possibility was given through has not always special funding as a pilot project, because the been so good, but the contractions felt in the northern Cariboo’s economy was suffering in forest industry have turned into lessons for other industrial sectors so a foundational job the mining industry on the upswing. The work creation vehicle was hoped for. The funding ethic and jobsite efficiency values used in was used to study the mine’s feasibility. Now, milling – this region boasts some of the finest that feasibility is becoming a reality, and other wood manufacturing in the world, enabled by communities can use this as a model. some of the strongest timber harvesting and “There were some fantastic human stories, real forest replanting systems in the world – now connections, made when the company and the transitions to Bonanza Ledge and QR Mills.

“It means our local region can still be home for those workers and their families, just in a different kind of work. The skills are quite transferable,” said Oakes. And Bonanza Ledge is only the beginning. BGM is operating much the typical way a mining operations company does: using the cash generated by one project to fund the next, and the next. Unlike most mining firms, however, all of BGM’s gold aspirations are in the same region. After Bonanza Ledge will, according to the company’s plan, come Mosquito Creek, Aurum, and Cow Mountain. “This initial production is important to our growth plan in the Cariboo Gold Project,”

Cariboo North MLA Coralee Oakes shares some time with First Nations elders during Bonanza Ledge Gold Mine reopening ceremonies. BC Government photo.

said the company’s president and CEO Chris Lodder. “In addition to generating positive cash flow, this underground operation allows BGM to train a local workforce and gain expertise in mining and processing in the district. This experience will assist in the development of other deposits in the camp and the eventual construction of a new centrally located processing facility. In conjunction with this production, BGM’s aggressive exploration program continues and will eventually lead to a property scale mineral resource estimate.” It means the rush continues in the historic mining fields of the Cariboo, in the province’s heart of gold.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

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Working On

History John Calogheros’s workshop at Exploration Place Museum & Science Centre has wrenches, saws, clamps, and dinosaurs. Doesn’t everyone’s? Citizen photo by Frank Peebles.

Written by Frank Peebles

John Calogheros has historically been a heavy duty mechanic and machine operator. Now, his skills get utilized every day for history. Calogheros is the facilities manager at Exploration Place, where all the trades training he has ever received has been put to interesting and challenging test. Instead of forestry equipment, the daily list of chores includes the heating and ventilation of a nationally certified Aclass exhibition and archive space, the display requirements for everything from replica dinosaurs to ancient aboriginal artifacts, the building of the city’s smallest jail cell location, the installation of a fish habitat (it’s too big to simply be called a tank), the maintenance and operation of the Little Prince steam train, and more. Oh, and he also became a certified steam

engineer so he could drive that little puffer-belly around Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park. He works about as many hours a week as he did when his heavy duty mechanic’s career was in full force, but there is a lot more flexibility to the time he spends. There is more variety in his daily routine. “I was making a wage way up here, and that went down in money terms but my life terms went way up,” he said, explaining why he made the switch. He had worked at some of the larger job sites in the Prince George collection of industrial facilities: Northwood Pulp, Bear Lake Sawmills, Rustad Sawmills, etc. He would repair engines, transmissions, forklift hydraulics, and so forth. Mostly it was shop work, but sometimes in the field.

skill set is out there “I always figured if someone had the brainin the world, but he power and special is almost impossible John has the know-how to build to replicate. John has a complex piece of trades skills, but the trades skills, but machinery, the least I he has an artist’s eye he has an artist’s could do was figure out and that is hard to how to fix it. They did eye and that is find.” all the hard work,” he She notices his pashard to find. said. sion for Exploration He couldn’t turn that Place when they instinct off at home. His travel. Whether it’s wife, Tracy Calogheros, is the CEO at Exploa holiday or a conference, Tracy often catches ration Place. Whenever she would talk about a Calogheros distracted. mechanical challenge at the facility, he would “I’ll notice he’ll be off in his own little world, start mulling it over and often he would just or stopping to snap a picture with his phone go do the job himself. of the way something is attached to a wall and This habit started to save the museum and I’ll say ‘ok John, what are you building?” science centre a lot of money. His ingenuity “Everywhere I go I’m looking at the way was turning send-away repair jobs into on-site things are displayed. I do it in other museums, fixes, and cutting the thousands of dollars for I do it in grocery stores,” he agreed. “I’m nevspecialty parts into a few hundred or even just er looking at what’s on the shelf, I’m looking dozen of dollars. Finally, it became obvious at how they got the shelf to work like that.” Exploration Place needed someone like him He still uses his same old Snap-On toolbox and he couldn’t deny the passion he had for from his heavy-duty mechanic’s days, but he the historical preservation and cultural discusalso has what Tracy termed “a lot of weird sion this place represented. In 2001 he joined tools and things a lot of people wouldn’t even the staff full-time. recognize as tools” squirreled away in the mu“I tell the board all the time that I’m much seum’s workshop. Highly specialized storage more replaceable than he is,” said Tracy. “My and display items require highly specialized

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By going with cedar, we could use it without repair and construction equipment. that worry that the display case itself was go“It’s too important, what this place does, ing to do damage to the items inside.” to just shrug off the jobs that need done Calogheros has been doing this work long here,” he said. “A good mechanic will make enough now that his reputation precedes him. mistakes all the time. A bad mechanic will let them get out the door. ‘Good enough’ is never When he calls on a lot of industrial supply companies, often with a weird request for a enough in here. We’re dealing with precious specialty item or inventive improvisation, materials, one-of-a-kind materials, things they will support his efforts with extra serpeople have entrusted to us and things that vice, their own creative advice, and significant will explain our culture to future generations. discounts. Those companies also understand I can’t let anything slip.” the value in Exploration Place being one of When the latest permanent display was under the primary cultural facilities for tourists, construction, Calogheros had to be mindeducating local people as to their own history, ful of the display cases themselves, for the and passing on the most salient knowledge of rare artifacts in public view. It is a corner of our lifestyle to future generations. the facility dedicated to the First Nations of It’s just that few dedicate their trades careers the region. He opted to build the protective to making it happen. viewing boxes out of cedar, which fit the “I wake up thinking story of aboriginality about this, and I go to in the area, but also bed dreaming about addressed a practical It’s too important, it,” Calogheros said. challenge. “And I get to see the “Paint gives off what this place reactions of the public gases,” he explained. does, to just shrug to the things I’ve “You would have to let built.” it sit for months before off the jobs that It makes him someyou’d dare put anyneed done here. what of a living thing into it, because artifact himself. those gases aren’t good for the artifacts.

www.pgcitizen.ca | Thursday, July 27, 2017

Going out on a limb for

Industrial

Safety Written by Frank Peebles

Candace Carnahan is a living legacy of what can happen when workplace safety isn’t a priority. The famed safety advocate is returning to PG to pass on the message of employee protection. Citizen photo by Frank Peebles

If you see something, say something. The message couldn’t be clearer for employees of any industry, working in any form of job site. Candace Carnahan wishes that had been clearer in her head when she was in her early 20s working at a New Brunswick paper mill. She might still have her leg. Carnahan is one of Canada’s leading safety advocates, but she would trade her international career many times over if she could get back her lower appendage and, most importantly of all, spare her family the anguish of her nearly fatal incident. Carnahan was in Prince George in June as a keynote speaker at the Wood Pellet Association of Canada’s annual safety conference. She is coming back in September to present her experiences and education on the safety subject at the SHARP (Safety Health and Research Program operated by United Steelworkers and forest industry stakeholders) Conference in September. Carnahan spotted so much industrial and commercial activity in the Prince George area during her summer visit that she is staying for a week in fall to do as much outreach to local classes, unions, agencies and companies as possible. At the wood pellet sector’s gathering she told the assembled CEOs, managers, supervisors, safety personnel and regular employees that it was up to each of them to look out for one another and look out for yourself whenever you’re at work. When Carnahan first took her mill job as a summer employment opportunity in her teen years, she was dissuaded from addressing safety shortfalls except to use her common sense and be careful. It was a place full of machinery, after all. And she was careful. Nothing bad happened. Until it did. Her entire life blew in painful directions in that one moment when a conveyer grabbed her pant-

leg and pulled her into the unrelenting steel jaws of a gear system. She refuses, now, to call that moment an accident. “I didn’t have to step over that conveyer, when I could have gone around,” she insists, taking personal responsibility for her actions. An accident is defined as something unforeseeable and out of your control. “It was unintentional, but it was most definitely foreseeable and most definitely preventable,” she said. She threw no blame on the company by name, during her address, but she did point out that the fine issued to the company was $10,000. “That’s half the cost of my fake leg, and I have five of them,” she said. No cost can be calculated for the mental trauma the incident inflicted on her family. The physical pain to her body was enormous – she was jammed in the gears for half an hour before anyone could get her extricated – but a family friend later told her about the hospital. The friend was there by coincidence when Carnahan was admitted, and told her about the scream that echoed through the admitting area. “It wasn’t me. I was already up in surgery. It was my father, when they told him what had happened to me,” Carnahan said. Everyone has loved ones companies must consider when they contract people to work for them, not to mention the employees’ own right to personal safety.

“You think it’s okay that some people are going to get hurt at work?,” she asked. “How many is too many? One? Put up your hand, who wants to be the one? Who is okay with the one being your brother or your daughter? I can tell you about that, because I have been the one.” This part of Carnahan’s message was a strong caution, but it was not a shaming exercise. On the contrary, she said, Canada as a nation “is changing as a culture, but until we get to zero we still have more to do.” For three Canadians today, the message is not yet strong enough. That is how many people, on average, die while on the job in this country. The Wood Pellet Association of Canada was a leader in going from unacceptable workplace safety to being one of the most aggressive at taking care of their workers, she said. The reason for the success was the buy-in of the manger/supervisor side of the business and also the employee side. It is perhaps surprising, but getting the workers themselves to take an active role in their own working conditions does not always occur. So, she said, if you see something, say something. Anyone who would like to have her come for a site-visit, deliver her personal story, or conduct a full workplace safety workshop can book her at www.candacecarnahan.com or call 506-424-0201.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

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www.pgcitizen.ca | Thursday, July 27, 2017

Skimmers Fighting

fires Skimmers, like the one shown here, are one of the most efficient aircraft at fighting forest fires. Photo courtesy of Conair Aerial Firefighting.

Written by Frank Peebles

The Sutherland Road fire is one of the only disposal, most of them under the control of significant Central Interior blazes outside of forest fire aerial specialists Conair. the Cariboo-Chilcotin. It’s proximity to the Part of that fleet is stationed at the Kamloops town of Fraser Lake, and the body of water of Airport not far from fire information officer the same name, made this a high-profile wildTracy Wynnyk’s office at the Kamloops Fire fire even though it was not bearing down on Centre. She knew exactly which model of homes and buildings. aircraft was dispatched One of the reasons it to the Sutherland Road was kept at bay from fire. They can drop into the municipality, First “Those were Air Tracsmaller bodies of Nations communities, tor AT-802F Fireboss pleasure cabins and Amphibious Tankers,” water than you’d ever other inhabitation was she said. “But we just expect, and they can the swift work of some call them skimmers.” special aircraft. The Photos and videos target their drops BC Forest Service has were enthusiastically very accurately. a number of planes shot by motorists and and helicopters at their residents who got to

see them in action. eight-minute circles. The four skimmers “It’s like watching an worked as a team, aerial firefighter ballet,” They can unleash one after another said Wynnyk. “They can dropping down to make fast turnarounds, more than 3,000 the lake to scoop up and they can fly close litres of fire water then powerto the ground. They are ing back up into an quite agile in the air suppression liquid ascent that circled so they can drop into over the flames. smaller bodies of water in 15 seconds. The four would than you’d ever expect, drop their loads in and they can target their the same single-file drops very accurately.” formation, then loop back down to the lake to One of their primary efficiencies, Wynnyk get more water. explained, was these skimmers’ unique abilOne family had the planes passing directly ity to use any combination of water, foam, over their house, with a view of the lake. Their or retardant. Most planes have to specialize. timing showed the planes dropping water in They can unleash more than 3,000 litres of fire

suppression liquid in 15 seconds. “Because they are so agile, these planes have full access to 1,700 water bodies in B.C.,” Wynnyk said. “The bigger the tanker, the fewer places they can be used. And counting up the bodies of water each plane can access is a vital part of resource planning.” That becomes especially important in a fire season like the one we’re having now, with hundreds of fires burning dispersed over a wide geographic span. There are more than 30 skimmers in the B.C. fleet, not to mention all the other forms of tankers, birddog planes and helicopters, but still, as soon as the Sutherland Road fire got to the point of about 80 per cent contained with other firefighting resources set to close the lines, the skimmers were gone to the next hottest spot. “Conair has carefully selected the aircraft that we employ to provide full scale aerial fire suppression services to our customers, said Barry Marsden, CEO of Conair. “Each of our aircraft has been purposely designed and engineered for launching aerial attacks on forest fires under extreme conditions.” It also has the convenience of amphibious landing gear. According to the Air Tractor company, these skimmers have a typical working speed of almost 200 kilometres per hour, with a wingspan of 60 feet.

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The four skimmers worked as a team, one after another dropping down to the lake to scoop up water then powering back up into an ascent that circled over the flames.

Photos courtesy of Conair Aerial Firefighting.

www.pgcitizen.ca | Thursday, July 27, 2017

The

National Banquet

Local writer writes 300-page love letter to Canada’s bounty Written by Frank Peebles

Above: Red Fife Crepes Below: Eggs Galiano Photos submitted.

Lindsay Anderson is making a feast of the food industry. The Prince George chef and writer has co-authored perhaps the most definitive book ever written on Canadian cuisine, and the only way to do so authentically was to include agriculture and travel as much as recipes and ingredients. The book is called Feast. It is part travel log and part cookbook, but it is all Canadian. Anderson spent five months in a car with her friend Dana VanVeller travelling to every province and territory picking up recipes and food facts all along the way. They wrapped it into a sumptuous hardcover book published by Penguin RandomHouse Canada, one of the biggest printing firms in the world. Anderson was already a veteran writer in the food field, to say nothing of her kitchen capabilities. Her education has included everything from cooking at a forestry camp in northern B.C. to a Masters of Food Culture and Communications from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy. Her culinary and communication skills got her the position of year-long food blogger for Tourism Richmond, one of Canada’s most restaurant-endowed cities. Each day she had to eat at different Richmond eateries then write about the experience. Something in that process tumbled the next mental domino. With one of her best friends, VanVeller, they hatched the idea to travel the nation and sift out some choice recipes and ingredients. VanVeller was already the scribe behind the food blog Spoon! (she’s enrolled in Ryerson University en route to a Certificate in Food Security) so she was a natural blend for this cuisine roadshow. Their shared communication forte was blogging, so that is how they framed this set of adventures. They didn’t know, at the beginning, that it would become a nationally distributed book, said Anderson. “We spent eight or nine months planning it, so that

was like a whole beast unto itself. Then there was the trip itself. Then finishing up, writing all the content. That was all for a blog. The book was just a pipe dream. We won a couple of (blogging) awards and that’s what switched it for us.” Feast is there to tell a story. It’s not your grandmother’s cookbook, in that sense. It is loaded in recipes and food preparation information, but it is just as loaded in anecdotes and photos about the cities, towns, villages, farms and individuals they encountered along the way. Almost as a byproduct, an accidental subplot, they told the story of Canada. “I discovered I really love telling stories that ultimately surround food,” said Anderson. “I discovered I tend to like talking to a farmer on a farm outside than a chef in a restaurant inside. That’s not to say chefs don’t have really interesting stories, but there’s a heckuva lot more that goes into Canadian food, the food scene and our food identity than just what chefs are doing in professional kitchens. You might be talking to a grandmother or an immigrant, telling their story, and how food ties into that, so the food might not even be the starting point for that story but it manages to make its way in there somewhere.” So what is Canadian food? What is definitively Canada’s cuisine? It’s all those things that make up Canada itself. We might humbly mumble that Canada doesn’t really have a special dish like the Italians have pasta and India has spices, but it is wrong to portray Canada’s food as lesser or simpler or franchised like Tim Horton’s fare. “I think that first of all, Canadian food is incredibly malleable, so it’s constantly changing, and in a good way,” Anderson said. “It’s changing as new people arrive, or leave, or bring different ingredients, and culinary techniques mix with ones that are already there. And it is also incredibly regional. So I think it’s dangerous to try and find one food. People have a tendency to try to point to one or two different things that can speak for Canada, but you would never do that with a person, right? You’d never find someone on the street in Vancouver and expect that they could speak for everybody in the country. Their experience in Canada is going to differ hugely from someone who grew up in smalltown Saskatchewan, for example, or somebody in Iqaluit.

Cinnamon Buns. Photos submitted.

And that’s kind of the thing with food - you can’t find food in a remote village on the west coast and expect that that is going to represent the rest of the country as well. But people in Canada tend to shy away from pointing at their own regional food traditions as being ‘Canadian food’ simply because it can’t speak for the whole country. But what’s actually true is, it’s a combination of all of these pieces of the puzzle that add up to the one big idea of Canadian food, which is complex and difficult to pin down but super dynamic and diverse. You only have to travel an hour to find something you’ve never seen before. Also, seasonality (there are key dishes). That’s a really longwinded answer to say yes, Canadian food does exist, you just shouldn’t try to put it all in one small box and pin a label on it. That’s not a problem. We shouldn’t be disappointed. We should celebrate that it’s so big and there’s so much to discover.” So, ok, we Canadians are just as much Atlantic cod as we are Okanagan fruit, no matter where in this vast confederation we may live. Did her hometown managed to dribble a little influence into the food of Feast, not just the bubbles of Anderson’s personality. “The first time I had birch syrup was at the Prince George Farmers’ Market,” she said. “Birch syrup isn’t crazy popular yet but a lot of chefs are discovering it. It’s this new interesting thing; it’s getting a little bit trendy. But this was years ago that I bought a tiny bottle at the Prince George Farmers’ Market from somebody who had a farm between Prince George and Quesnel and it really blew my mind. And it tastes different than the Yukon birch syrup I got to try later, which makes sense, because depending on what the soil is like and the sunshine’s like and the water’s like will affect what the syrup is like.” Birch syrup finds its way into two recipes in the book. Anderson was making total discoveries and having eureka moments only a couple of hours outside of her new home location of

Vancouver, during the writing of the book. If she could offer any encouragement to those who like to create their own feasts it’s don’t look at the far side of the map for exotic delights. Your own region has plenty of bounty, and so does the next one down the highway, and the next. She and VanVeller just happened to travel 37,000 kilometres in their search. “I was thinking ‘maybe when we get up to the Yukon or Manitoba I’ll discover something I’ve never seen before’ but I was shocked to discover than on Vancouver Island, in my own back yard, there was food that I didn’t know existed,” said Anderson. “When we were in this remote First Nations village called Kyuquot I tasted my first salmon berry. I’d never seen one or tasted one. So boom, there you go, right off the bat. And they had these greens picked fresh right off the beach. They called it wild rocket and it looked like arugula and tasted a bit like wasabi. They prepared salmon in ways I’d never had before. So there you go, one place, really close, and they had ingredients I’d never seen before, and they had ingredients I knew but they prepared them in ways I’d never seen before. I was just a couple of hours away, already discovering new things, and that continued to be how it went throughout the trip.” Anderson and VanVeller decided it was important to them to make their cookbook in a different mould than the dictionarystyle tomes that sit mostly unopened, often dusty, in inconvenient kitchen cupboards. Feast was intended to draw lines of entertainment and humanity between where our food comes from and how to get it sizzling on your own stoves and barbecues. It is a thick love letter to the bounty of Canada, the farmers and fishers of our agriculture sector, the landscape and weather that provides us with so much sustenance. Feast is available now at bookstores and online book services across the country.

Thursday, July 27, 2017