Judge throws out statement to police in sexual assault trial
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
The case against a man accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl suffered a blow when a B.C. Supreme Court Justice threw out a statement he gave to police after finding it was not given voluntarily.
In a decision issued Jan. 24, Justice Jennifer Duncan found she did not disbelieve Peter Brian George’s assertion that he told police he had touched, hugged and kissed the girl while in a local park only after police failed to accommodate his need to go to the bathroom.
As well as sexual assault, George, now 29 years old, stands accused of sexually interfering with the girl between June 30 and Sept. 1, 2016 when she was 15 years old. He was arrested on May 28, 2017 when police responded to a call from someone who wanted a person to leave their house. George was found about a block away and was identified as wanted on one of the RCMP’s files.
According to Duncan’s recounting of testimony on whether the statement should be admitted as evidence, George was held in custody at the Prince George RCMP detachment for 14 hours before an interview was conducted.
The RCMP officer in charge of the case had opted to wait for a
As well as sexual assault, George, now 29 years old, stands accused of sexually interfering with the girl between June 30 and Sept. 1, 2016 when she was 15 years old.
colleague who eventually conducted the interrogation to start his shift.
For most of the interview, George continually denied the girl’s allegations –15 times by the count of his lawyer Tony Zipp – but a bit more than halfway through, he told the officer he needed to go to the bathroom.
Complicating matters, George did not want to use one of the steel toilets in the cells, saying he felt itchy when he used one during a previous time he was in custody.
The officer replied that there are only steel toilets in the detachment which was not true – there are porcelain toilets in the employee area outside the cells.
Shortly after that point, George told the officer he had engaged in some over-the-clothing touching with the girl but maintained it went no further than that.
The girl is alleging George pinned her down, pulled her pants off and had sex with her.
George was also given a pen and paper and asked to write an apology letter, the court was told, but what was said is not known because the note was lost.
Also playing into the situation, George said he continued to suffer the effects of a head injury from a fall when he was 17 years old, and was feeling hung over because he had been drinking.
The interview ended after about an hour and George returned to the cell where he ultimately used the toilet.
In deciding against admitting the statement as evidence, Duncan said the issue was not about access to a porcelain toilet.
“It was about the police failing to pay proper heed to Mr. George’s basic human requirements, to pause the statement and to escort him to a bathroom, any bathroom,” she wrote in her decision.
“He was a soft spoken man in police custody who had explained his history of a head injury.
“He said he had needed to go to the bathroom since he had been arrested.
“It was not up to him to press the issue. He was not in control of the situation.”
An ongoing trial on the matter remains before the court.
The full decision is posted with this story at www.pgcitizen.ca.
School district to seek D.P. Todd expansion
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
The school district will be seeking provincial government support to double the size of a planned expansion of D.P. Todd Secondary School as part of a long-term strategy to deal with capacity issues at the city’s schools.
School board trustees voted Tuesday night unanimously in favour of directing staff to work on a package of initiatives that includes holding discussions with the Ministry of Education on the feasibility of adding 300 seats to
the school through an expansion and renovation project. That’s double the number that would be achieved under a proposed $9.4-million expansion that tops the list of capital projects trustees approved last June for submission to the ministry.
The updated proposal is among nine recommendations developed by a catchment and capacity stakeholder review advisory committee and brought to the board via the education services committee, chaired by trustee Ron Polillo. — see ‘WE HAVE, page 3
Snowfall warning back on
Citizen staff
An on-again, off-again winter storm warning is back on again. In a statement issued at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Environment Canada said a long-duration snowstorm is forecast to begin overnight in the Bulkley Valley and Thursday morning in the B.C. Peace.
It is to come in the form of a slow-moving frontal system that will “spread snow, freezing rain and strong winds across the B.C. central and northern interior” and produce 30 to 40 cm of snow by Saturday morning. There is a chance the worst will skirt Prince George, but as
much as 50 cm will fall towards McBride and Mackenzie as well as near Tumbler Ridge.
And freezing rain mixed with snow is to fall tonight over western Prince George regions and the Bulkley Valley’s southeast.
“As the frontal system collides with an advancing Arctic cold front on Thursday, strong winds will develop over parts of the northern interior generating poor visibilities in blowing snow,” the agency said.
“Snow will abate on Saturday as dry Arctic air settles in.”
The statement was issued about 90 minutes after one for Prince George was rescinded Wednesday afternoon.
Jon LaFontaine with the City of Prince George
Canfor curtailing production at sawmills
Citizen staff
Canfor said Wednesday it will be temporarily curtailing operations at three B.C. mills due to log supply constraints, log costs and current market conditions.
Canfor’s sawmill in Vavenby will be curtailed for six weeks from Feb. 11 to March 22. In addition, Canfor’s sawmills in Houston and Mackenzie will be curtailed for one week each during the first quarter.
The curtailments will translate into about 40 million board feet of
reduced production, the company said, and come in addition to about 150 million board feet that was reduced during the fourth quarter of 2018 and early in the first quarter of 2019.
According to Madison’s Lumber Reporter, random length kiln dried Western spruce pine and fir 2x4s were selling for US$346 per thousand board feet as of Monday, down from US$514 a year ago.
Canfor has 13 sawmills in Canada, with total annual capacity of approximately 3.8 billion board feet.
of the Coldsnap music festival. The Immigrant and Multicultural Services Society hosted a creative demonstration and mini-concert with Amiri and Richard Moody over the lunch hour Wednesday.
‘We
— from page 1
“It will give us a little bit of a level playing field in terms of student population with College Heights and Duchess and Kelly Road,” he said of the D.P. Todd proposal during the meeting.
The school is about 40 years old and its capacity is about 650 students. Three portables are currently stationed on the school’s property, Polillo noted during an interview Wednesday.
“We have to make a pretty strong argument to the ministry, but I think we’ve got a pretty strong business case with the capacity issue, increased enrolment... but there is a lot of competition when you’ve got districts like Surrey that have 70,000-plus students and it’s growing dramatically,” he said.
“There’s only a certain amount of money that goes around for capital proj-
pretty strong argument’
ects, although the government has said loud and clear that one of their priorities is building infrastructure and building capital projects like schools.”
Concurrent with the proposal, trustees also directed staff to work on proposals to require students graduating from Spruceland Traditional and Edgewood elementary schools to attend D.P. Todd rather than Duchess Park, starting with the 2020-21 school year. Those efforts will include consultation processes, Polillo said.
Remaining recommendations include looking at the possibility of adding another section to College Heights Secondary School and further review combining Blackburn, Buckhorn and Pineview elementary schools into a single elementary school at the Blackburn site.
“The challenge there is we’ve got a
couple of schools with declining enrolment and one school that’s actually increasing in enrollment and all those schools are getting old,” Polillo said Wednesday. “It’s a way of building a brand-new, modern facility and combining all those schools into one elementary school that would have more amenities and more options.”
As well, staff was directed to monitor enrolment at Peden Hill Elementary School and, as required, review the catchment areas for Peden Hill, Westwood and Pinewood elementary schools.
Adding more portables to D.P. Todd for the short term and reviewing the catchment areas for all elementary schools in the D.P. Todd family were also added to staff’s worklist, as was the possibility of adding a new section to College Heights Secondary School.
Harwin, Ron Brent to be catchment-only schools
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
Parents are so determined to get their children into Duchess Park Secondary School that they are enrolling them in two feeder elementary schools even though they live outside their catchment areas, school board trustees were told Tuesday night.
The news was enough to prompt trustees to vote 4-3 to add Harwin and Ron Brent elementary to the list of schools where enrolment will be restricted to catchment-only students for the 2019-20 school year.
Trustee Ron Polillo, who chairs the education services committee, said there have been “cases of parents finding their way around the system to get their children into Duchess Park.”
“We know there is some of that happening at Harwin and Ron Brent, that parents are specifically enrolling their kids in those schools because they know that when they do that, they’ve got a way into Duchess Park,” he added.
When asked how many students were in that situation, secretary-treasurer Darleen Patterson said the school district has noticed a number of students from a variety of other schools registering in Grades 6 and 7 so that they can get into Duchess Park.
“I can’t tell you a definitive number, but we are noticing an uptick in (Grades) 6 and 7 registrations,” she said.
Trustees Sharel Warrington, Trent
Derrick and Shuirose Valimohamed voted against the move while Polillo was joined by board chair Tim Bennett and trustees Betty Bekkering and Bob Thompson voting in favour.
Saying there is “so much movement” in the Duchess Park family of elementary schools, Warrington expressed concern that students who attend Harwin or Ron Brent would no longer be able to continue at those schools if they move out of their catchment areas.
“I worry that by restricting enrolment to catchment-only students in those two schools that we may be having some issues around how students are welcomed in the school or how families feel they can be moving in and out of neighbourhoods,” Warrington said.
“And many of these people move in and out of neighbourhoods out of necessity.”
In response, Patterson said they can continue to attend those schools for the rest of their school lives “depending on transition issues,” and later noted the school district covers the cost of transportation for families who can’t afford it.
NDP leading B.C. byelection at press time
The Canadian Press
NANAIMO — The New Democrats held the lead in a provincial byelection Wednesday that could determine the lifespan of Premier John Horgan’s minority government in British Columbia.
A Liberal win would give the party 43 seats, tying it with the 43 seats held by the NDP and Green party, which signed an agreement after the 2017 provincial election allowing the New Democrats to form a minority government.
With more than half the ballot boxes counted, New Democrat Sheila Malcolmson was building on a lead she took early in the evening, holding a more than 900 vote lead over B.C. Liberal Tony Harris.
Malcolmson had just under 50 per cent of the votes cast in the six-candidate field, while Harris had just over 40 per cent.
Nanaimo traditionally votes NDP, but Harris has deep family roots in the Vancouver Island city and has been campaigning to bring economic development and infrastructure to the often neglected community.
Malcolmson resigned her seat in the House of Commons to run in the byelection, saying she wants to ensure the policies of the former B.C. Liberal government do not return because they increased homelessness and the cost of housing in the city.
Green candidate Michele Ney, the daughter of longtime Nanaimo mayor Frank Ney, campaigned on making the city a clean economy powerhouse. Ney was drawing just over seven per cent of the vote in the early going, below the almost 20 per cent the party received in the last provincial election.
The byelection was called when New Democrat Leonard Krog resigned last year after he was elected the city’s mayor.
There are 45,359 voters in the Nanaimo riding and Elections BC says 9,322 voters turned out at the advanced polls.
Fraud suspect at large
Citizen staff
Police are on the lookout for a man suspected of carrying out a series of frauds in the city.
He is described as 40 to 55 years old and with grey hair.
He is suspected of using bad credit cards to buy over $3,000 worth of merchandise on three occasions.
Derrick questioned the seriousness of the problem.
“If there are a few that are abusing it, you don’t change a whole policy,” he said. As of Sept. 30, enrollment at Duchess Park was 1,030 or 130 students above capacity as listed by the Ministry of Education.
The catchment-only restriction currently applies to seven other schools and they will remain on the list for the 201920 school year: Southridge Elementary, College Heights Secondary, Heritage Elementary, Edgewood Elementary, Duchess Park Secondary (regular program only), Glenview Elementary, Hart Highlands Elementary and Springwood Elementary.
As well, kindergarten enrollment will be limited to 60 students at Ecole Lac Des Bois and to 40 at Spruceland Traditional Elementary, Polaris Montessori Elementary and in the French immersion program at College Elementary.
And both McBride Centennial and McBride Secondary will continue in their current configurations.
Anyone with information on where the man can be found is asked to call Prince George RCMP at 250-561-3300 or anonymously contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www. pgcrimestoppers.bc.ca (English only).
You do not have to reveal your identity to Crime Stoppers. If you provide information that leads to an arrest or recovery of stolen property, you could be eligible for a cash reward.
Flags fly in front of D.P. Todd Secondary School.
City to release overtime data
Some news to report regarding overtime for the senior managers and other exempt staff at the City of Prince George.
First, some background.
The Citizen sent these questions by email to Michael Kellett, the city’s senior communications officer, back in September.
“Has there been a final number been put on what the city will be billing EMBC (Emergency Management B.C.) for this summer’s evacuation? If not, is there an estimate on when that number will be known and that bill passed on to the province?
“Did any members of senior management of the city work billable overtime hours during the 2018 evacuation, where the overtime policy for exempt employees was enacted? If so, how many managers did so, for how many hours and what was their total overtime income? If not, why not and what changed from 2017 to 2018 that didn’t require senior city staff needing to put in overtime hours or did senior staff put their time on the evacuation under regular time? If this was the process, how much time did they put as regular time?”
Kellett replied three days later that city
It might never have come out, had The Citizen not done a year-to-year comparison of the wages of senior city managers from 2014 through 2017 as stated in the city’s Statements of Financial Information (SOFI) released each June.
staff were still dealing with a few evacuees and were still processing the expenses.
“The City plans to issue a communication to media and the general public later this year or early in the new year that will include detailed information about the financial aspects of the 2018 Emergency Operations Centre and Emergency Support Services operations including staff compensation,” he wrote.
With no information by the end of the year, The Citizen asked Kellett on Jan. 2 for an update on its information request and when it might expect a response.
A reply came on Monday.
Now, the news.
First, “the City has not yet submitted to the Province an accounting of the expenses related to the 2018 wildfire emergency operations and the provision of emergency
support services to evacuees,” Kellett wrote.
That confirms what the folks at EMBC told us two weeks ago (when news folks don’t get an answer to something, especially for government, we just call someone else in hopes they can help).
“The Province is aware that the City’s submission will be received later this year and that it will likely take several more months,” Kellett explained. “Following the submission to the Province, Administration will provide a summary of the submission to City Council and a report on the topic will be presented at an open meeting of Council.”
The devil is in the details, of course, and the overtime wages taken by senior city employees during the 2017 wildfire evacuation crisis were tucked away into a final bill that was sent to EMBC. It might never have
YOUR LETTERS
Audit won’t happen
This scandal in the B.C. Legislature is terrible no doubt, Premier Horgan, but do you not think that if you are bringing in a forensic auditor to check and balance the expenses of the Speaker, the clerk, and the sergeant-at-arms, why not go a little further and audit all MLA expenses?
I am sure if you did that, we would find really exuberant – and make me want to throw up, in the words of the speaker – rampant, unnecessary spending. I believe that one would have a really tough time finding anyone in the legislature that would come out unscathed. I, for one, do not believe that only the hired-on folks, rather than the elected ones, get to the trough. But, alas, I know deep down that a complete governmental audit will never take place, nor become public. Once again, we wonder why people cannot get out to vote or are just disinclined to. Maybe the what’s-right fairy will come down and tap politicians of all stripes upon the heads and all will be good and government will maybe be once again of the people and for the people, rather than for the egotists and chosen few.
Bill Manders Prince George
Helping hands
This is a global good news story about the Prince George community helping the North Okanagan
community.
North Okanagan Valley Gleaners is a Christian-based volunteer driven society of about 300 volunteers. We collect excess vegetables from farmers. We have a facility in Lavington where we process and dry the vegetables to make a dried soup mix that we ship around the world to feed those in need. Last year, we collected over one million pounds to produce just under seven million meals.
To get the vegetables from the farmer to our plant we use a five-ton truck. We had a truck that made its last haul in the early spring before we took it to the truck graveyard. Since then, we have been doing a combination of renting trucks, having the farmer deliver it for us and any other means needed. We started to raise funds with the expectation to be in the position to buy a used fiveton truck by the summer of 2019.
In September, the Ademas and the Brinks (from Prince George) came to Vernon to have a vacation and spend some time volunteering at the Gleaners plant. They heard that we were in need and they went into action. Ed Adema found a 1999 International five-ton truck in Prince George that was in need of some repairs and got the local business community to jump in a donate where they could.
Babine Truck and Equipment helped with the engine rebuild, Bandstra Transportation supplied miscellaneous parts, a new radiator and decals, Kal Tire
installed four new winter tires, Northline Collision looked after paint supplies, and Prince George Truck and Equipment also supplied parts for the truck. Ed and his friend Mark spent many hours making this truck new again. They drove it down to Vernon to present an amazing new (used) truck to NOV Gleaners.
So the Prince George area has blessed the North Okanagan so that we can bless those starving around the world with soup.
Brad Egerton Vernon
More Canada, eh
As a Canadian, I find myself questioning if Canadian journalists are spending too much time reporting on United States events. President Donald Trump seems to be in Canadian news on a daily basis. I believe that the exposure he received during the USMCA (United States Mexico Canada Agreement) actually worked against Canada. We ended up signing a agreement that is substandard when compared with NAFTA. The Canadian media seemed to be pushing for our government to sign this agreement no matter what. When one looks at the issues happening right now (provincial and federal byelections and the pipelines), it’s time for Canadian reporters to report on Canadian events.
Stan New Prince George
come out, had The Citizen not done a yearto-year comparison of the wages of senior city managers from 2014 through 2017 as stated in the city’s Statements of Financial Information (SOFI) released each June. The city’s management team grew in size and the individual managers were bestowed with new titles and hefty pay raises in 2015 and 2016. The increases in 2017, however, were attributed to the wildfire overtime.
Kellett had some good news about that in his Monday email.
“Going forward, the City is making a change to how it structures its Statements of Financial Information (SOFI) report, such that overtime compensation for each employee who makes more than $75,000 per year will now be clearly identified and separated out for each employee,” he wrote. Mayor Lyn Hall and the rest of city council all pledged during the municipal election campaign to look at the overtime issue if they were re-elected.
This more detailed reporting in future SOFIs is a great first step.
Hopefully, a review of the overtime policy for non-union and management staff – and whether one is even needed at all – is next.
— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
A Stone-cold encounter
If we are lucky, we all have a Brush With Fame.
Like mine with Roger Stone.
My son and I attend The New Yorker Festival and in 2016 Stone was essentially the piñata on a panel about candidate Donald Trump in a room of Democrats who were destined to vote for Hillary Clinton: two New Yorker writers, a disaffected Republican, a historian and Stone. Look up Stone and you will know him as the through point of Nixon to Trump as a reputed dirty trickster and dapper provocateur. He knows no camera he cannot love.
At that festival event, my son and I sat in the front row and watched him defend for 90 minutes a candidate who even then seemed indefensible. His Access Hollywood tape had just surfaced and a lot of people thought it was over for him. It seemed on that day only a matter of time before his own party would make candidate Trump ex-candidate Trump and take away the nomination. Stone had no such view. We watched and decided we would go for a drink a couple of blocks away in an empty bar at midday.
In walked Stone.
tially arguing the case for a Trump presidency and the destruction of the Clinton dynasty.
That, in a nutshell, is the defence mechanism of the Trump set – what happened never happened.
I have a pretty solid stomach for partisanship, but by about a half-hour in I was pretty much prepared to ask the bartender to find us some sports TV to get us off the topic. But no, Stone kept going and going, and it was about then that I felt in the possession of a true demonizer. For a guy with nothing particularly to gain, he was making a great effort to win over these two people who did not have a vote or a particular dog in the race. Which made me understand the virulence of his initiatives with those who mattered more, something evident in the documentary you can find on Netflix, Get Me Roger Stone.
I offered to buy him a drink. He chose soda water, although he boasted he could drink an entire bottle of Stoli. And for the next 75 minutes, idling in the bar for his car to arrive to take him to the airport and then St. Louis to advise Trump on the next night’s debate with Clinton, we were regaled with a political passion you could not parallel in our country.
The invective was considerable and adamant: he’d seen compromising tapes, he’d known women whose careers had been deepsixed by the Democratic candidate when they strayed too close to Bill and he knew of many more WikiLeaks releases to come in the days ahead. (Sure enough, four days later a new trove emerged and Hillary’s campaign manager was citing Stone as the conduit.)
But it was an extraordinary scene: a career operative holding court with two total strangers (the most he knew about us was that we were Canadians) and essen-
I could sound smug and say we should be grateful we do not have a Stone in this country – those who aspire are leagues apart – but a part of me wonders why not, why our politics are much more clean-fingernailed and effete, and whether there might be anything to be gained from a hardliner who would spend decades blistering opponents with books, interviews and stunts.
I’m not there yet.
Stone eventually got up and left. When my son tweeted some of his comments, Stone went online about 15 minutes later and said he had never met him. That, in a nutshell, is the defence mechanism of the Trump set – what happened never happened.
Disagreements abounded in our discussion, and I’m sure he forgot about us the moment he was out the door, but I’ll never forget his last line to me as he thanked me for the soda.
“You’re not with the newspapers, are you?”
— Kirk LaPointe is editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media
LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. No attachments, please. They can also be faxed to 250-960-2766, or mailed to 201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca or 250-960-2759). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information.
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GUEST COLUMN KIRK LAPOINTE
Election vulnerable to meddling
Joan BRYDEN Citizen news service
OTTAWA — An impartial group of senior bureaucrats will warn Canadians if malicious actors try to manipulate the outcome of this fall’s federal election.
The Trudeau government announced the “critical election incident protocol” on Wednesday as part of a series of new measures aimed at ensuring a fair election on Oct. 21, free from malign foreign interference.
Under the protocol, five senior public servants will have the authority to decide when an incident is egregious enough to warrant going public in the midst of a campaign.
They will not need the approval of their political masters who could have a partisan interest in disclosing – or withholding – the information.
“Our goal was to find a way to instill confidence in both the message and messenger, while remaining impartial,”
Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould told a news conference, flanked by Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.
“Let me be clear: This is not about refereeing the election. This about alerting Canadians of an incident that jeopardizes their rights to a free and fair election.”
The protocol is intended to avoid the dilemma that faced James Comey, the FBI director during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, when he was confronted with evidence of Russian interference apparently aimed at boosting Donald Trump.
Comey had wanted to publish an oped article months prior to the election, warning Americans about Russian interference. He was overruled by Barack Obama’s outgoing administration, which eventually went public with the information weeks before the vote.
The five public servants charged with determining what should be revealed during a Canadian federal campaign are: the clerk of the Privy Council, the government’s national security adviser, and the deputy ministers of Justice, Public Safety and Global Affairs.
CP PHOTO
Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould makes an announcement regarding safeguards to Canada’s democracy and combatting foreign interference during a press conference in Ottawa on Wednesday.
They will act based on evidence provided by national security agencies.
The protocol will apply only during the official campaign, known as the writ period. Outside that period, nationalsecurity agencies will continue to inform the prime minister and democratic institutions minister of specific incidents of foreign interference and it will be up to them to decide when or if to make the details public.
The government said the threshold for going public during the campaign will be high, applying only to serious cyberattacks or orchestrated disinformation campaigns through social media to undermine the integrity of an election. While aimed primarily at foreign actors, officials said the protocol will also apply to domestic actors whose activities fall outside the purview of the police or the commissioner of elections.
Officials stressed there is no intention to police routine political spin during a campaign. But NDP democratic reform
critic Nathan Cullen doubted a committee of public servants named to their posts by the Liberal government will be seen as sufficiently impartial should it drop a “political bombshell” about foreign interference into the midst of an election campaign. He urged the government to add the independent chief electoral officer – who is answerable to Parliament, not the government – to the committee.
The committee is supposed to give a heads-up to each political party when it is about to give a news conference to disclosing an incident of foreign interference. Conservative democratic reform critic Stephanie Kusie said her party wants reassurance that all parties will get the information at the same time. Cullen also said the government needs to compel social-media giants, such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, to prevent their platforms from being used to disseminate fake news, destabilize society or subvert the democratic process.
B.C. moves to stem inmate overdose deaths
VANCOUVER – British Columbia is launching a project aimed at reducing the number of overdose deaths by inmates recently released from correctional facilities.
A coroner’s death review panel last year found about two-thirds B.C. residents who died of an illegal drug overdose over a 19-month period had recent contact with the criminal justice system.
The panel said that between January 2016 and the end of July 2017, 333 people died within their first month of release from a correctional facility.
The Health Ministry says in a news release that five new community transition teams have been set up in Surrey, Prince George, Kamloops, Nanaimo, and Port
Coquitlam to help people with opioid use disorders get treatment.
The teams consist of a social worker and a peer who has used drugs and may also been incarcerated to work with a person who’s been released to help provide needed support.
Lynn Pelletier, with B.C. Mental Health and Substance Use Services, says people in the justice system are some of society’s most vulnerable and the hardest to reach in the current overdose emergency.
“Integrating correctional care with community-based care gives us an opportunity not just to prevent overdose, but also connect to health services and possibly change the trajectory of their lives by addressing some of the social and economic realities that brought them to us in the first place.”
Baby seal rescued
Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — A dehydrated, severely underweight northern fur seal pup is being treated at a rescue centre in Vancouver after being scooped from the waters off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island.
The Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Centre says in a release that the roughly seven-month-old pup was floating sideways and unable to dive when it was spotted Monday by employees of a salmon farm near Johnstone Strait.
The seal was flown to Vancouver where rescue centre staff say it’s small for its age and requires intensive observation.
Centre assistant manager Emily Johnson says the pup, now named Mo, had been weaned but was failing to thrive.
Mo is receiving antibiotics and other treatment and will be given a more thorough physical exam once her condition stabilizes.
The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada lists northern fur seals as threatened, but they are not yet listed under the Species at Risk Act.
Mould causing housing crisis for First Nations
Kristy KIRKUP Citizen news service
OTTAWA — A housing crisis in a northern Ontario First Nation is the tip of a deep, systemic problem in communities across the country that requires the response of a task force, the federal NDP said Wednesday.
Senior government officials were to meet on Wednesday with community leaders in Cat Lake First Nation, several hundred kilometres north of Thunder Bay, to discuss a state of emergency the nation proclaimed earlier this month due to “profoundly poor conditions of housing.”
A community declaration listed mould, structural issues and a lack of funds for routine maintenance as the causes of a outbreak of health problems including invasive bacterial diseases and lung infections.
Mould in Cat Lake constitutes a national shame, Ontario NDP MP Charlie Angus said Wednesday...
Mould in Cat Lake constitutes a national shame, Ontario NDP MP Charlie Angus said Wednesday as he joined his colleagues Georgina Jolibois, Romeo Saganash and Niki Ashton to say mould in on-reserve housing is an invisible crisis that the
federal government has known about at least since an auditor general’s report in 2003.
A task force needs to examine the extent of mould in Indigenous communities across the country, the MPs said.
“We are demanding a new commitment on the eve of the first budget with the Treasury Board minister (Jane Philpott) that we understand this file, so we want to see that commitment right around the corner,” Ashton said.
“First Nations deserve it and they demand it.”
Philpott was until recently the country’s minister of Indigenous services.
Her successor, Seamus O’Regan, sent a statement pointing out that the Liberal government has funded construction or renovation of 14,000 housing units on reserves since 2015 and has conducted two “comprehensive inspections” at Cat Lake “to assess the state of their housing.”
Dr. Nader Sharifi, medical director for Correctional Health Services, says about 40 per cent of people in corrections facilities are getting treatment for opioid use disorder.
He says people are at a heightened risk when they leave a facility and don’t have access to a physician.
“There are barriers to continuing the treatment they start with us. Clients are facing stigma. They might have no income and no fixed address. It’s not as easy as visiting the nearest doctor’s office,” he says in a news release.
The community transition teams began connecting with their first clients this month.
The Provincial Health Services Authority says it hopes to scale up the project next year based on results of the service.
severelyunderweight seal pup rescued by fish farmers off the coast of Campbell River, shown in a handout photo, is now in the care of a Vancouver rescue centre.
The seals are found from Japan to California and are known to forage between January and June in waters 20 to 150 km off B.C. Staff at the rescue centre successfully rehabilitated a male northern fur seal pup in 2017 and are optimistic about Mo’s chances.
“She’s feisty, which is a hopeful sign,” Johnson said in the release.
It’s expected the pup will also be released when she is healthy again.
During question period on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government is committed to working with Cat Lake on its housing challenges.
“We are developing both an interim and a longterm plan of action but we are, unlike what the member is saying, making significant progress in the community,” Trudeau said, adding that an advisory about unsafe drinking water had been lifted there in December after being in place for 12 years.
“We know there’s lots more to do and that’s why we are continuing to address the community issues in partnership.”
He also later referred to budget commitments to spend $600 million over three years to support First Nations housing on reserves as part of a decade-long housing strategy.
Angus replied with disdain for Trudeau’s responses and said the prime minister is patting himself on the back as people live in squalid conditions in frigid temperatures.
‘We were escorting a casket’
Last victim statements delivered at sentencing for trucker in Broncos crash
Chris PURDY, Bill GRAVELAND Citizen news service
MELFORT, Sask. — A Saskatchewan court heard Wednesday from the parents of an athletic therapist and a radio announcer killed in the Humboldt Broncos crash, along with a player who was misidentified as among the 16 dead.
The last of 90 victim impact statements were submitted in a sentencing hearing in Melfort for Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, a Calgary trucker who blew through a stop sign at a rural intersection and into the path of the junior hockey team’s bus last April.
Court heard the bus driver had no chance of avoiding a collision. It has also heard the semi driver had violated trucking rules and shouldn’t have been on the road.
Sidhu has pleaded guilty to 29 counts of dangerous driving. Lawyers are to deliver sentencing arguments in the case today.
Paul and Tanya LaBelle of Saskatoon told the hearing that they were at a vigil in Humboldt honouring their son, Xavier, and the others who had died days earlier when they got a phone call telling them there had been a mistake.
He was actually alive.
They rushed to the hospital and discovered he had been mixed up with another player, 18-year-old Parker Tobin of Stony Plain, Alta.
Tanya LaBelle said they were devastated for the Tobin family, who had believed the boy in the hospital was their son.
“We grieved with them as they came to terms with the realization that their amazing son had not survived,” she said. “We were devastated for them and their family.”
Carol Brons told court that her daughter, Dayna Brons – “the only girl on the bus” – was proud of being a therapist for
the hockey club and dreamed someday of working for the Saskatchewan Roughriders football team.
She said she is tormented by thoughts of her daughter’s last moments on the Broncos’ bus before it collided with the semi truck.
“Did Dayna see the truck? Did she cry out in fear and in pain?” Carol Brons wondered out loud.
She said she was looking forward to one day walking her daughter down the aisle at her wedding.
“We did walk Dayna down the aisle... but we weren’t escorting a bride. We were
escorting a casket,” Brons yelled through tears.
She said the coffin was closed for the funeral because her 24-year-old daughter from Lake Lenore, Sask., looked nothing like the beautiful brown-eyed woman she was before the crash.
Lyle Brons later told reporters that Sidhu has to be held responsible for the crash but that he’s also a human being.
“He’s not a serial killer,” Brons said. “He didn’t go out to kill anybody that day. I think after he serves his time he should be able to have a good life and perhaps do something with his life.”
Alberta easing oil production cuts as price improves
Citizen news service
EDMONTON — Alberta is easing man-
datory production cuts as the price of oil increases, but industry players remain concerned about the underlying problem that drove the curtailment in the first place: a lack of adequate pipeline capacity.
“We’re not out of the woods yet, but this
temporary measure is working,” Premier Rachel Notley said in a statement Wednesday.
“While it hasn’t been easy, companies big and small have stepped up to help us work through this short-term crisis while we work on longer-term solutions, like our investment in rail and our continued fight for pipelines.”
Notley thanked Alberta producers for
working with the government to protect the jobs and livelihoods of thousands of Alberta families and business.
“Your co-operation has been key to easing these limits ahead of schedule,” she added.
Last month, the province ordered production of raw crude oil and bitumen to be reduced by 325,000 barrels per day, or
The mother of Tyler Bieber, the 29-yearold play-by-play announcer for the Broncos, told court she feels guilty about encouraging him to ride on the team’s bus to cover games.
“To me it was the safest,” said Marilyn Hay. The day of the crash, she said her son left her a phone message saying he had decided to ride on the bus with the team as it travelled to Nipawin for a playoff game. She later learned he died in the collision. She also hopes he didn’t suffer.
“Did he know? Did he see it coming?” Hay said. “Did he have time to be scared?” She also spoke directly to Sidhu and thanked him for pleading guilty. She noted that her son would have turned 30, the same age as Sidhu.
“I know he would feel for you as we feel for you. You did not intend to hurt anyone that day and you will deal with that for the rest of your life.”
Assistant coach Chris Beaudry read the final statement at the hearing, describing how he was driving behind the bus before the crash and was later asked to help identify the bodies at a funeral home. He agreed because he wanted to help but has been left traumatized.
“The sounds of bones being set, skin being sewn, and the zipping of body bags. These sounds haunted me for months,” he said. “Viewing each body was a shock upon shock upon shock.”
Beaudry brought his new baby girl to court, who received the middle name Brons after the team’s beloved therapist. He also said he forgives Sidhu for causing the crash.
“Don’t let your life be wasted. From today on, do as much good as you possibly can going forward. Be compassionate, love and most importantly forgive as others have forgiven you.”
about 8.7 per cent of Alberta’s production. It was a way to manage the punishing price gap between Alberta heavy and U.S. light oils, which exceeded $50 a barrel at times last fall.
The discount has since narrowed. According to figures on the Petroleum Services Association of Canada’s website, the differential was just US$9 as of Tuesday.
CP PHOTO
Lyle Brons and wife Carol, whose daughter Dayna was killed in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash, speak to the media after the third day of sentencing hearings for Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, the driver of the truck that struck the bus.
DICKSON ON COURSE AT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Page 8
Posing with the big prize
Fans have their photo taken with the Vince Lombardi Trophy on Wednesday in Atlanta at the NFL Experience. Super Bowl 53 goes on Sunday and will see the Los Angeles Rams take on the New England Patriots. See coverage on page 9
Ice shifting to Winnipeg, Cougars staying put
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
The Prince George Cougars’ travel schedule for next season just got more difficult.
And they thought getting to Brandon was a long trip.
Already resigned to the fact the Cougars will be visiting East Division cities in 2019-20, the most northerly team in the Western Hockey League will have to include Winnipeg on its list of road destinations next season.
On Tuesday the WHL governors approved the shift of the Kootenay Ice franchise to Winnipeg. “It’s a relocation, it’s a new start and it’s a long ways from us,” said Cougars head coach Richard Matvichuk, whose team faces a 2,048-kilometre bus trip to Winnipeg that takes 20 hours and 53 minutes of driving on a good day.
“Hopefully we don’t play them home-andhome, that’s crazy.”
Speculation the Ice was considering a move to the Manitoba capital first surfaced five years ago when The Citizen broke the story that the Cougars had been sold to a group of local investors who now make up EDGEPRO Sports & Entertainment Ltd.
“After many years of monitoring the operations of the Kootenay Ice, it is evident this franchise is not viable in the market moving forward,” said WHL commissioner Ron Robison, in a prepared statement. “It is a difficult decision, but given low attendance trends and the support required to operate a WHL club, it is necessary to move the franchise to a market where it can be sustainable on a long-term basis.”
The Kootenay franchise started out as an expansion team in 1996 based in Edmonton and played there for two seasons before shifting to Cranbrook, where it soon became one of the league’s most successful teams. The Ice won the WHL championship in 2000 and repeated as league champs in 2002, also winning the Memorial Cup that year. Kootenay won its third WHL title in 2011. The Ice has missed the playoffs the past three seasons and now ranks 21st overall in the 22-team league with a 1032-7-1 record.
Ice majority owner Greg Fettes bought the franchise two years ago.
The team will play its next two seasons on the University of Manitoba campus at the
1,400-seat Wayne Fleming Arena. Fettes and his 50 Below Sports + Entertainment group of investors plan to build a 4,500-seat arena in southwest Winnipeg on a site now occupied by The Rink Training Centre academy program.
“I’m truly excited for the opportunity to bring the WHL to the Winnipeg market. Ice fans can look forward to seeing future NHL stars and homegrown talent developing in the hockey capital of Canada – Winnipeg, Manitoba,” said Fettes. “The Winnipeg Ice are part of a much larger commitment to hockey development in Winnipeg and a significant real estate development in the south end of the city.
“It all starts with the building of an Event Centre that will be designed to provide a truly unique entertainment experience specifically for families, millennials, and hardcore hockey fans.”
Winnipeg originally joined the league as the Jets in 1967, when it was known as the Western Canada Junior Hockey League. With the arrival of pro hockey and the WHA Jets in 1972 the team was known as the Clubs from 1973-76, and was renamed the Monarchs for one season (’76-77) before the franchise moved to Calgary to become the Wranglers, now the Lethbridge Hurricanes. In 1980, the Winnipeg Warriors formed as an expansion team and lasted four seasons until they moved to Moose Jaw.
“This is a bittersweet day for the WHL,” said Robison, who attended Tuesday’s announcement in Winnipeg. “On one hand, we are leaving the community of Cranbrook that has been very supportive of the Ice franchise and the WHL for more than 20 years. On the other hand, the WHL is entering a market that we always believed deserved a WHL franchise.”
The Ice has ranked last in attendance three of the past five years, including this season. Through 25 home games the team is averaging crowd counts of 2,218 per game at Western Financial Place, which has a seating capacity of 4,268, and ranks 22nd out of 22 teams.
According to hockeydb.com the Cougars rank
Andy Beesley, the Cougars vice-president, business, says while crowd counts have been disappointing and the team continues to lose money, the ownership group has no plans to move the Cougars to another city.
20th, averaging 2,657. The Calgary Hitmen (6,956) lead the league. In the B.C. Division, the Kelowna Rockets have the best attendance figures (4,748, seventh), followed by the Victoria Royals (4,654, ninth), Kamloops Blazers (4,153, 10th) and Vancouver Giants (3,735, 13th).
In Prince George, after three years of growth since the ownership change, Cougars attendance dropped in each of the past two seasons (they averaged 3,626 in 2016-17 and 3,024 in 2017-18) and that trend has continued this season with a last-place team. Andy Beesley, the Cougars vice-president, business, says while crowd counts have been disappointing and the team continues to lose money, the ownership group has no plans to move the Cougars to another city.
“The owners have made it clear we’re not in a profitable situation, we’re not even at a breakeven situation at this point, but having said that we feel we have a very strong blueprint moving forward,” said Beesley. “Our ownership, our hockey staff, our business staff, our management are all more committed than ever to not just make this team viable but to keep it here for the long term and to make sure we’re putting a great product on the ice. The reality is we’ve had a tough couple of years for sure.
“The great news is we have a young team that is the talk of the league right now. The coaching staff will tell you when we talk to other teams they are envious of what we’ve got coming up the ranks. Next year we have almost our entire team returning and many of our players are starting to mature into their WHL performance years and settling into their roles. We think the next couple years are going to be strong and that more and more fans are going to come out and watch us. The owners are in this for the long haul and committed to turning this team around.”
Cranbrook interested in joining BCHL
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff
The Western Hockey League is leaving Cranbrook after this season, now that it’s official the Kootenay Ice is shifting to Winnipeg.
The WHL’s pain could be the B.C. Hockey League’s gain. Cranbrook, a city of about 19,000 with an arena that seats 4,268, is on the BCHL’s radar for expansion, which might open up possibilities for other cities in the Kootenay region to join the junior A league.
“I know there’s two separate groups in Cranbook that have approached our office and made some inquiries about the possibility of them joining our league and what the logistics of that would look like,” said Prince George Spruce Kings general manager Mike Hawes.
“It’s very early in the proceedings and very preliminary at this point but those groups are meeting with our league and discussing some options to see if it might work. I think Cranbrook would be a great fit for our league.”
The arrival of the WHL in Cranbrook in 1998 essentially killed the Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League when one of its core franchises, the Cranbrook Colts, folded that year. That reduced the RMJHL to four teams (Creston, Fernie, Kimberley and Nelson) and the league ceased operations in 1999. Those four cities now have junior B teams in the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League and Hawes says the BCHL is looking into whether there is any interest in those markets to upgrade to junior A.
“We just had our semiannual general meeting last week and it was something we talked about at the meeting amongst governors that if Cranbrook was something we thought would be viable we should seriously take a look at some other areas,” said Hawes.
“I suggested maybe Nelson or Fernie. There certainly has to be some interest from those communities, first and foremost. Our league’s not going to go in there if there’s no interest. I know Nelson and Fernie do well in the Kootenay league and I think it would be a great market in those two communities and Cranbrook would be as well. If we could add one or two in that area that would sure be nice.”
With Trail already in the BCHL, Hawes said having more than one team in the Kootenay region would shrink the distances between cities and give existing teams more teams to play in closer proximity on their weekend road trips.
Hawes expects to have more information in the next few weeks about the Cranbrook situation. Adding an 18th franchise would require realignment of the divisions and he said it’s not likely expansion would occur in time for next season.
The most recent BCHL expansion brought the Wenatchee Wild into the league in 2015. The Wild paid a $1.2 million franchise fee, which was distributed to the existing teams.
The Spruce Kings host the Surrey Eagles this weekend at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena in a two-game set, Friday and Saturday.
Head gear gaining ground in grassroots curling
Donna SPENCER Citizen news service
Change and innovation in sport often trickles down from the professional to the recreational level. When it comes to curling and head protection, it may be the reverse.
Anecdotal evidence indicates a slow, but growing, trend of recreational curlers donning helmets or some type of head protection on the ice.
Witnessing another curler take a bad spill can spawn a burst of orders for helmets and headgear, according to Goldline Curling Supplies president Erin Flowers.
“We found for a while we were selling most on a Monday due to a fall on a weekend,” she told The Canadian Press.
In a Facebook post earlier this month, Goldline urged curlers to adopt head protection following the hospitalization of an Ontario curler due to a nasty fall and a head injury.
There was a noticeable reaction at the Kitchener-Waterloo Granite Club when word spread about the incident, according to the manager Jim Uhrig.
“There were about a dozen people who came in the next day and bought headgear,” he said.
About 25 per cent of men and even more women in the club’s senior leagues wear helmets, he added, and head protection is mandatory for juniors at the Granite.
The game’s stars have a lot of
Brad Gushue, as Team Canada skip at the 2018 World Men’s Curling Championship in Las Vegas, directs his sweepers during a qualification game against the United States.
experience navigating curling ice, so injurious tumbles don’t tend to happen in televised curling.
Jennifer Jones or Brad Jacobs putting on a helmet might make it a more accepted practice in the sport, but would likely be unpopular with fans accustomed to seeing every inch of an athlete’s head.
Brad Gushue falling on his face and requiring stitches in a 2015 Grand Slam tour event, however, sold more head protection, Flowers said.
“It’s going up in sales every year since Gushue,” she said. “It kind
of did bring attention in that if it could happen to him, it could happen to you.”
But Shamrock Curling Club manager Chris McTavish says a head protection movement isn’t sweeping through his Edmonton club.
“Out of our one thousand or so curlers, only a small percentage wear head protection, maybe five per cent,” McTavish told The Canadian Press in an email.
The Shamrock recently bought over 200 grippers to loan to curlers, which increases safety with better foot traction “but it can’t do much for you if you trip over a rock and land on your head,” McTavish said.
Curling Canada strongly encourages head protection but can’t make it mandatory, said championship services and curling club development director Danny Lamoureux.
“Curling clubs aren’t franchises like Tim Hortons, where all the shops have to do what head office says,” he explained.
“Affiliation gives them access to our programs and services, but we can’t mandate anything to them.”
Some clubs make head protection mandatory for beginners, juniors, seniors or adult learnto-curl clinics, but strapping on a helmet remains largely a personal decision for the adult rec curler.
“It’s the total opposite from pro sport,” Lamoureux said. “Pro sport have concussion issues at the high level. We have the concussion issues at the grassroots levels. (With) Brad, that was a freak accident.”
There isn’t a curling helmet tested and certified by the Canadian Standards Association yet, but some curling equipment manufacturers sell a hockey or snow-sport helmet that has been CSA-approved for that sport.
“This is our first year bringing in an actual helmet,” Flowers said. “The helmet was accepted substantially better than anticipated. We had to put in two orders this season.” CP
“We require helmets for our Little Rockers (age six to eight), but it is not mandatory for our other curlers.”
Dickson nails top-nine result at
junior world biathlon
Citizen staff
Caledonia Nordic Ski Club member
Emily Dickson and her Canadian relay teammates Nadia Moser and Larissa Black finished ninth Wednesday in the women’s 3x6-kilometre relay at the junior world biathlon championships in Osrblie, Slovakia. Dickson, a Burns Lake native making her seventh appearance at the youth/junior world championships, took the lead leg of the relay and needed just three spare rounds in two rounds of shooting. She combined with Moser, of Whitehorse, Yukon, and Black, of Squamish, to finish two minutes three seconds behind the gold medalists from France, who completed the course in 54:26.4.
Germany (+15.1) and Sweden (+36.6) won silver and bronze respectively. The event drew 23 teams.
Moser was the top Canadian in Monday’s 12.5 km women’s individual race, finishing 18th, Dickson was 51st, Black placed 54th and Darya Sepandj of Calgary was 68th.
In the junior men’s 4x7.5 km relay Wednesday, Canada finished 11th out of 22 teams. Trevor Kiers of Canmore, Leo Grandbois of Sherbrooke, Que., Adam Runnells of Calgary and Haldan Borglum of Calgary finished 4:50.2 off the winning pace set by Russia (1:20:13.5). Germany (+1.0) and Italy (+1.8) won silver and bronze. Kiers placed 17th in the 15 km individual race Monday, while Grandbois was 55th, Runnells was 65th and Borglum placed 86th.
Racing resumes with the youth sprints on Friday, followed by the junior sprints on Saturday. Competition wraps up Sunday with the pursuits.
Toronto FC sells star striker to Saudi club
TORONTO (CP) — The Sebastian Giovinco era in Toronto is over.
Toronto FC, unwilling to meet the Italian international’s contract demands, has sold Giovinco to Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal FC, according to a source. Toronto had already turned down one bid for the Atomic Ant from a Middle East club. But facing an impasse in contact negotiations, it got what it could for Giovinco on Wednesday with the January FIFA
transfer window about to close.
The former MLS MVP had missed preseason training this week in California with a club spokesman saying the 32-yearold Italian international had been excused due to “leg tightness.”
But Giovinco, whose MLS contract was expiring at the end of the 2019 season, was unhappy with the progress of contract negotiations. His camp rattled the cage. And a winning bid with money to spend emerged.
“Ultimately an enormous culture change in curling would have to transpire to convince the very large majority of curlers to start wearing head protection while curling,” he said.
“Unless it is mandated from the very top, I do not see this happening any time soon.”
Goldline also offers a line of hats, tuques and headbands with Kevlar-coated foam at the back to help absorb a blow from falling backwards.
P.G.’s West takes over Warriors
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Brandon West is back behind the bench for the West Kelowna Warriors. West returned to his B.C. Hockey League roots Monday when he took over as Warriors head coach and general manager after the team fired Geoff Grimwood for the second time this season.
“I would like to thank Kim Dobranski for this opportunity to be the named head coach/general manager of the West Kelowna Warriors,” said West. “It is an honour to be back in West Kelowna and work with this elite crop of players. I am excited to get started and look forward to being a part of this great community.”
West, a 34-year-old Prince George native, served as an assistant coach for the Warriors in 2011-12, then moved to Salmon Arm for two seasons as an assistant before taking on the head coaching duties of the Silverbacks until he was fired in November 2016.
Last season West took over as head coach of the Surrey Eagles and after missing the playoffs the previous three seasons they advanced to a second-round, a six-game series loss to the Prince George Spruce Kings. West resigned before this season began and
in October joined the Penticton Vees as an assistant coach.
“Brandon is an experienced BCHL head coach who is fully capable of putting together a first-class program,” said club owner and president Dobranski. “The Interior Division is a tough division and I cannot think of anyone better suited to the task. As we head into the playoffs I am confident Brandon can create a formula for success and take our team deep into the playoffs and beyond. Brandon will also be taking the lead in our U18/U16/U15 prospects program, designed to identify futures for the club.”
The Warriors have had several personnel changes under Dobranski’s reign as owner since he bought the team last summer. Grimwood took over from Rylan Ferster, who resigned shortly after Dobranski arrived. Grimwood was let go as interim head coach and general manager in September, then was reinstated by BCHL commissioner Chris Hebb following a players’ protest which resulted in the Warriors refusing to practice before the team’s first game this season. West made his debut as head coach of the Warriors Wednesday night in Surrey. The Warriors beat the Eagles 7-3 to push their record to 26-21-0-1.
Penske capping banner season with NASCAR Hall of Fame induction
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — There was no need for Roger Penske to stay awake for Daytona’s 24-hour sports car race. Penske has people to do that for him, and hanging out atop a pit stand watching telemetry for two trips around the clock is slightly below his paygrade.
When he did it last year, Team Penske’s return season to sports cars racing, somebody had dared “The Captain” to hunker down for the entire Rolex 24 at Daytona. It was an impressive effort many who are far younger than Penske have failed to complete.
Once he had finished the first 24-hour race it seemed silly to do it again, particularly during the cold and blustery rainstorm that drowned Daytona International Speedway on Sunday.
But Penske had committed to be part of the team for the entire event and Team Penske, so organized and unflappable, had meticulously prepared for the conditions.
Penske’s transporter was stacked with thermal underwear – “I’ve got my ski stuff here,” he said – heavy water resistant coats and black beanies branded with the Penske mark. The pit stand had been renovated to create additional space so Penske didn’t have to sit all night, a lesson learned from last year’s race, and overhead heaters had been installed.
When the poor weather finally hit the speedway, the crew zipped clear flaps and enclosed the pit stand to escape the wind and torrential rain.
A month shy of his 82nd birthday, in the heaviest rain many racing veterans had ever seen, Penske pulled his beanie down low and hunkered down for an all-nighter.
“He doesn’t even want to sit down, he’s just standing there and it’s crazy,” said Juan Pablo Montoya, winner of the 16th of Penske’s record 17 Indianapolis 500 victories. “That’s why he’s the big man and we are not.”
His reasoning? Should he step away even briefly and one of his two cars had some sort of problem, Penske wanted to be present for problem-solving and strategic decisions.
“I could never do that, I could never stay up,” said Penske driver Ricky Taylor, who noted after the final practice session before
the Rolex that Penske had noticed an irregularity on the track and found Taylor to show him where to avoid.
Helio Castroneves, winner of three Indy 500s for Penske, wasn’t at all surprised to see his boss there for the long haul.
“When you are passionate about racing like Roger, he has no reason not to be here for all of it,” Castroneves said. “And three-four hours is all he needs to charge his battery. He has a very quick charger.”
Penske had a sensible rebuttal for Castroneves’ claim that the boss rarely sleeps.
“Guess it all depends on if it is something worth staying awake for,” he said. Next up is Penske’s Friday night induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s 10th class, which was one of the most competitive elections in years. Jeff Gordon is the headliner , along with Davey Allison and Alan Kulwicki, drivers both killed in aviation accidents at the prime of their careers. Team owners Penske and Jack Roush, a pair of Detroit fixtures who intertwined their many business interests with the automotive industry and motorsports, were elected together.
“Listen I’m just glad they let guys in from the North,” Penske joked about his induction with Roush. Both team owners had been on the ballot several years before they were voted in last May, shortly before Will Power won Penske another Indy 500 title.
“For us going in with Jack, a Michigan guy like we are, a business owner like we are, it’s a big honour for the family, all the people before us who helped us open the doors, and I was surprised when I was picked. You never know when is the right time to go in – is it because of your age? What’s the right time?” Penske was elected based on his entire body of work, even though this Hall of Fame is specific to NASCAR. The voting was done five days before the biggest Sunday in racing of the year. Penske started his day with four Chevrolets racing at Indianapolis, where Power won, then the action resumed in North Carolina at the Coca-Cola 600 with three Penske Fords and a fourth affiliated car in the field.
Donald a key in Rams’ Super Bowl pursuit
Greg BEACHAM Citizen news service
ATLANTA — Practically every member of the Los Angeles Rams has a favourite story about Aaron Donald’s feats of ridiculous athleticism.
Michael Brockers loved the moment at Carolina in 2016 when Donald beat the Panthers’ left guard and launched himself like Superman, swallowing up Cam Newton while airborne.
Nickell Robey-Coleman preferred the game at San Francisco this season when Donald shredded a double-team and sacked C.J. Beathard – not by grabbing him, but by shoving the 49ers’ centre into his own quarterback.
“Aaron can do things you didn’t know were possible,” said Rams defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, no stranger to improbable feats himself.
Donald is the NFL’s current sacks champion, the only unanimous All-Pro and a probable two-time league Defensive Player of the Year. But Los Angeles’ powerful defensive tackle has one more daunting task in the Super Bowl.
Donald and the Rams must figure out how to pressure Tom Brady, who completely stumped the New England Patriots’ first two playoff opponents.
The Chargers and Chiefs never sacked the 41-year-old superstar while he sat comfortably behind his stellar offensive line and picked apart their defences for 691 yards passing, completing 71.1 per cent of his throws.
Donald, who set an NFL record for sacks by an interior lineman with 20 1/2 this season, believes Los Angeles (15-3) can do what the Chargers and Chiefs couldn’t.
“We’ll get to him, but we have to stay patient and don’t get frustrated,” Donald said. “We’ve got a great secondary that will do its job and make sure he doesn’t have easy throws. If he has to hold onto the ball, we’ll have our chances. We just have to go get him.”
The Rams have been assembling the tools for this job all year long.
In the spring, they signed the imposing Suh to a $14-million deal. They also acquired Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters, two elite cornerbacks who can create chances for their pass rush.
They gave a six-year, $135-million contract extension to Donald in late August, making their best player happy after two off-season holdouts. He responded with the best season of his stellar career.
Los Angeles then acquired edge rusher Dante Fowler from Jacksonville in late October, adding a speedy outside pass-rushing threat to a roster that lacked it. Fowler has 1 1/2 sacks and six quarterback hits in the Rams’ past four games – including the big-
gest hit of LA’s season, forcing Drew Brees’ overtime interception in the NFC championship game.
Fowler never became a superstar with the Jaguars, but he loves being a role player for LA.
“I knew I was going to fit in with this defence because of A.D. and Suh,” Fowler said. “They make it easy for everybody else on the defence. They cause so many problems.”
Donald, Suh and Brockers are a formidable defensive line, and their teamwork has improved each month. Although Donald doesn’t have a sack in the Rams’ two postseason games, he draws double-teams that free up Suh, who has 1 1/2 sacks and four quarterback hits in an outstanding postseason.
Even if Donald and Suh win their individual matchups on the line, Brady’s quick decisions and swift release make him awfully difficult for anyone to touch. He was sacked just 21 times in the regular season.
Although the Chiefs tied for the NFL lead with 52 sacks in the regular season, they hit Brady just once and never sacked him in the AFC title game. A week earlier, the Chargers’ dynamic pass-rushing duo of Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa never got to him.
Even if the Rams can’t sack Brady, they must attempt to get him moving before his receivers’ routes develop. That’s an area in which Donald specializes: although he faces more double-teams than just about any defensive player, he consistently penetrates the opponents’ backfield regardless.
“There’s nothing he can’t do in regards to disrupting a game,” Rams coach Sean McVay said.
When Brady doesn’t face quick pressure, he is typically able to lacerate opposing defences with short passes. Just ask the Chargers and Chiefs.
“That’s crazy,” Brockers said when told about Brady’s sack-free post-season. “He’s the G.O.A.T., but he’s just another quarterback. He’s going to try to avoid the pressure.
Penguins make statement against Lightning
Citizen news service
PITTSBURGH — After a baffling loss to a last-place team and with a visit from the NHL’s best club looming, the Pittsburgh Penguins called a players-only meeting on Tuesday in an effort to clear the air.
“We needed an answer,” defenceman Kris Letang said.
For a night, they found one.
Playing with an edge they lacked two nights earlier against struggling New Jersey, the Penguins turned away the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2 on Wednesday to send a message that when they are fully engaged,
they remain as dangerous as ever.
“We all know that Tampa Bay right now is at the top of the league,” Letang said.
“They’re a really good measuring stick for any team. Tonight was important, especially (after) the two points that slipped the night before. It was a good effort, and I think it brought the best out of us.”
Matt Murray finished with 33 saves to keep the NHL’s highest scoring team in check, and Letang tied Hall of Famer Paul Coffey’s franchise record for career goals by a defenceman. Letang’s shot from the right circle 6:02 into the second period beat Andrei Vasilevskiy to give him 12 goals on
the season and 108 since his NHL debut in 2007. Letang, a five-time All-Star, called the milestone “surreal.” He’s still a long way off from Coffey’s 396 career goals over 21 NHL seasons.
Riley Sheahan, Phil Kessel and Sidney Crosby scored during a first-period outburst by Pittsburgh. Evgeni Malkin picked up two assists to become the fifth Russian-born player in league history to reach 600 career assists then drew a five-minute fighting major in the third period after tussling with Tampa Bay star Steven Stamkos.
“That’s (his) best game in a while,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said of Malkin.
It’s our job as D-linemen to get to him, so we’re putting the pressure on ourselves to try to influence him and try to get him off his spot.”
The Rams believe they have the players for the job, and they also might have the scheme.
Defensive coordinator Wade Phillips’ 3-4 defence stopped Brady in the 2015 AFC title game. Phillips’ Broncos – including Talib –hit Brady 17 times and made him miserable while going 27 of 56 in the Patriots’ 20-18 loss.
Fowler has studied video of that game for years now. He would love to play the role of Von Miller, who got 2 1/2 sacks and an interception.
Phillips isn’t getting into any specifics of the Rams’ plan against Brady, camouflaging his sharp mind behind his usual geniality.
“Unfortunately for me, I get older, but Tom Brady doesn’t,” the 71-year-old Phillips said. “You don’t stop great offences. You just try to slow them down.”
“He was on the puck. You notice him. He was a presence every shift.” Murray withstood an early barrage by Tampa Bay to hand the Lighting just their fourth regulation loss in their last 25 games. Vasilevskiy allowed three goals on five shots before settling down to finish with 18 saves, but Tampa Bay couldn’t recover in its return from a 10-day break. J.T. Miller and Stamkos scored late in the third period to keep the Lighting from being shut out for the first time this season, but it wasn’t nearly enough to prevent Tampa Bay from falling to 2-12-2 in its last 14 regular-season visits to Pittsburgh.
Los Angeles Rams defensive end Aaron Donald flattens Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles during a Dec. 16 game in Los Angeles.
Jackson piecing together a new Let It Be
Hillel ITALIE Citizen news service
The Beatles’ farewell documentary Let It Be is getting an encore, and a reinvention.
Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson announced Wednesday that he is making a new film out of some 55 hours of footage – shot in January 1969 – that has never been seen by the public. The original movie, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, came out soon after the Beatles broke up in 1970 and has long been viewed as a chronicle of the band members growing apart. In a Rolling Stone interview given months after the film’s release, John Lennon recalled the making of Let It Be as a miserable experience, “set-up by Paul (McCartney) for Paul.
“That is one of the main reasons the Beatles ended. I can’t speak for George, but I pretty damn well know we got fed up of being sidemen for Paul,” he said.
But Jackson says the additional footage tells a very different story. “It’s simply an amazing historical treasure-trove,” he said. “Sure, there’s moments of drama – but none of the discord this project has long been associated with.”
For Jackson, the Beatles movie marks another turn to documentaries after his recent They Shall Not Grow Old, a film that brings the First World War to life after the director restored heavily-damaged, grainy footage, transferred it into 3-D and even used expert lip readers to restore lost dialogue. He is working on Let It Be with the co-operation of McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia
Harrison, the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison. The new project was announced on the 50th anniversary of one of the highlights of Let It Be, the Beatles’ spirited performance on the roof of Apple Records in London. No release date has been set. A remastered version of the original film, which won an Oscar for best original score, also is planned. In 1969, the movie was meant to show the Beatles turning away
from the psychedelic tricks of Sgt. Pepper as they jam on new songs such as I’ve Got a Feeling and Get Back. But the Beatles seem far older and wearier than the joyous moptops of a few years earlier. Harrison briefly walked out during filming and on camera argues with McCartney over a proposed guitar part. Harrison would later blame tension with McCartney and unhappiness with Lennon’s then-new relationship with Ono,
who is often by Lennon’s side in the movie.
“Paul wanted nobody to play on his songs until he decided how it should go. For me it was like: ‘What am I doing here? This is painful!”’ he said in an interview for a 1990s video anthology of the Beatles.
“Then superimposed on top of that was Yoko, and there were negative vibes at that time. John and Yoko were out on a limb. I
He is working on Let It Be with the co-operation of McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison.
don’t think he wanted much to be hanging out with us, and I think Yoko was pushing him out of the band, inasmuch as she didn’t want him hanging out with us.” Let It Be didn’t come out until May 1970, and Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner would speak of Lennon “crying his eyes out” when the two saw it together. Meanwhile, the accompanying album led to a bitter dispute between McCartney and his bandmates. The group had pushed aside longtime producer George Martin and brought in Phil Spector, who infuriated McCartney by adding strings and a choir to the ballad The Long and Winding Road. In 2003, McCartney oversaw a new and sparer version of the album, Let It Be... Naked. Last fall, McCartney hinted at the upcoming revision of the film. “I know people have been looking at the (unreleased) footage,” he said in an interview aired on Canada’s Radio X. “And someone was talking to me the other day and said: ‘The overall feeling is very joyous and very uplifting. It’s like a bunch of guys making music and enjoying it.”’
Grammy-winning R&B singer Ingram dies at 66
Citizen news service
NEW YORK — James Ingram, the Grammy-winning singer who launched multiple hits on the R&B and pop charts and earned two Oscar nominations for his songwriting, has died.
He was 66. Debbie Allen, an actress-choreographer and frequent collaborator with Ingram, announced his death on Twitter on Tuesday. Attempts by The Associated Press to confirm his death with Ingram’s family or representatives were unsuccessful.
Ingram was born Feb. 16, 1952 in Akron, Ohio. He appeared on Quincy Jones’ 1981 album, The Dude, which earned him three Grammy nominations and one win for best R&B male vocal performance for One Hundred Ways. In a statement Tuesday, Jones called Ingram his “baby brother.”
“With that soulful, whisky sounding voice, James Ingram was simply magical... every beautiful note that James sang pierced your essence and comfortably made itself at home,” Jones said. “But it was really
no surprise because James was a beautiful human being, with a heart the size of the moon. James Ingram was, and always will be, beyond compare.”
In 1983 Ingram released his debut album, It’s Your Night, which included the hit Yah Mo Be There. The song, which featured Michael McDonald, became a Top 20 hit on the Billboard pop charts and won the Grammy for best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocal.
Ingram also reached the top of the pop charts twice with the songs I Don’t Have the Heart and Baby, Come to Me, a duet
with Patti Austin. Somewhere Out There, Ingram’s collaboration with Linda Ronstadt from the 1986 film An American Tail, reached No. 2 on the pop charts. Ingram was also a talented songwriter: Alongside Jones, he co-wrote Michael Jackson’s P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing), earning him a Grammy nomination for best R&B song. Ingram scored Oscar nominations for best original song with The Day I Fall In Love from Beethoven’s 2nd and Look What Love Has Done from Junior. Both tracks also competed for best original song at the Golden Globes.
‘Weird Al’ guitarist sets parody aside for peacefulness on Grammy album
David FRIEND Citizen news service
TORONTO — Watching his pal “Weird Al” Yankovic pocket four Grammy Awards never bothered Jim “Kimo” West, but the Toronto-born guitarist says there’s something validating about possibly walking away with his own golden trophy this year.
Nearly four decades after he joined Yankovic’s band, West recently landed his first Grammy nomination as a solo artist. He knows many listeners will be shocked to learn it’s in the new age album category.
Moku Maluhia: Peaceful Island is worlds away from the usual pop-culture parodies and polka jams the musician brings to life as part of Yankovic’s team. Instead, these songs gently drift through moments inspired by his visits to Hawaii and people he met along the way.
West’s musical dichotomy comes partly from necessity, he explains by phone from his Los Angeles home.
“If I was very focused on just one thing my choices of work would be much less,” the 65-year-old musician said.
“With ‘Weird Al’ I’m playing electric (guitar), shredding and jumping around. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll gig mostly.”
West is accustomed to those drastic shifts in his life, both personally and creatively.
His childhood was spent mostly in Toronto and Ottawa where his father was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. But around his ninth birthday, his parents decided to relocate to Florida with some of their snowbird friends.
While he retained his Canadian citizenship, West was tossed into an entirely new country and climate. As a teenager, he became more interested in music, picking up his brother’s acoustic guitar and eventually starting to compose music without formal lessons.
In his late-twenties, West relocated to the L.A. music scene. He found a spot in Yankovic’s band in 1982, shortly before hits like My Bologna and Ricky made the goofball a breakout star on MTV.
As touring became a priority, so did West’s goal to balance his road life with tranquility.
In 1985, a crew member on the tour invited him to tag along on a brief trip to Maui, and the experience left a permanent impression. He discovered a cultural heritage that resonated with his personality and developed a particular fondness for a little corner of the island called Hana.
“I really fell in love,” West remembers.
“They had all these records of Hawaiian slack-key guitar... and the music sounded the way the place looked. Hana is very lush and tropical, a lot of waterfalls. A very beautiful, peaceful place. This music feels like it’s coming out of the earth.”
West says the experience lingered after he returned to L.A. He adopted the traditional slack-key guitar, which loosens or “slackens” the strings to create a
soothing sound, as his instrument of choice.
It wasn’t long before he started splitting his time between Hawaii and songwriting in his L.A. home studio, but it took nearly 15 years before West released a solo album.
His 1999 debut Coconut Hat caught the attention of a vibrant community of Hawaiian musicians, and suddenly West found his skills were in demand from corners of the industry he couldn’t have imagined. Record labels enlisted him to produce slack-key guitar tribute albums to Sublime and the Eagles, and other artists suggested playing duets.
Yankovic even snuck onto West’s albums in the most discreet of ways. Sometimes when they toured together, “Weird Al” would slip into one of West’s recording sessions just for fun.
But his Grammy-nominated 2018 album Moku Maluhia exhales much of that energy in a quest of serenity.
West’s project is partly a tribute to Hawaiian composer Kapo Ku, a frequent collaborator who died in 2017, while songs like Bamboo Forest and Hanalei River aim to capture the energy of the Hawaiian islands.
“There’s this ‘Spirit of Aloha,’ as we say in Hawaii,” he says. “It’s basically unconditional love, treating everybody as your brother.”
West plans to attend the Grammy Awards pre-telecast ceremony in Los Angeles on Feb. 10 where the award for new age album will be handed out.
After that, he’ll be back in Yankovic mode to prepare for this summer’s ambitious Strings Attached Tour, which invites a full symphony orchestra to participate in the zany costumed antics of the band. The concert rolls into Toronto on July 8 before heading to Western Canada for a number of dates in August.
“You get into music because it’s fun,” West says.
“It gives me a lot of joy, and if it makes money too, it’s even better.”
The Beatles, from left, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, are shown on Feb. 28, 1968.
Pain in the toe
Synthetic cartilage implants called ‘game-changer’ for arthritis sufferers
Sheryl UBELACKER Citizen news services
TORONTO — They’re hardly the most glamorous parts of the human anatomy, but the big toes take the brunt of a lifetime of walking and other weight-bearing activities, often making these lowly appendages prone to painful osteoarthritis.
Arthritis can wear away the joint’s cushioning cartilage while causing a buildup of bone, resulting in swelling and stiffness that can make the mere act of walking excruciatingly painful. And unlike with arthritic knees and hips, there’s been little success in coming up with an acceptable artificial joint replacement for the big toe.
Instead, orthopedic surgeons are increasingly turning to an implant of synthetic cartilage, developed in the U.S. and put through many of its clinical trial paces by researchers in Canada and the U.K.
Dr. Tim Daniels, an orthopedic surgeon at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, began using the Cartiva implant about a decade ago.
“The reason I got interested in it is because it’s a bone-sparing implant, meaning we don’t have to take out a lot of bone to get it in there,” he said. “And if it doesn’t work, we can still go ahead and do a fusion in a standard way.”
The gumdrop-sized implant is made from polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel, the same material used in contact lenses.
After surgically exposing the joint and removing excess bone caused by the arthritis, a small cavity is drilled in one of the two bones on either side of the joint and the implant is snugged into the opening, where it acts as a cushion similar to that of natural cartilage.
“I felt the result within weeks after... and it was just amazing.
“This technology applied in the big toe has been described by my American colleagues as a game-changer,” said Dr. Mark Glazebrook, a Halifax orthopedic surgeon who was among the Canadian researchers who conducted clinical trials comparing the synthetic cartilage implant to standard treatment, known as joint fusion.
— Brenda Kennedy
“It’s got the same compressability and the same characteristics as cartilage... and it also has a low-wear characteristic,” said Daniels, who has performed about 120 of the implant surgeries. “It doesn’t mean it can’t wear out, it just does it at a much slower rate.”
Brenda Kennedy of Dartmouth, N.S., was one of the first patients in the world to receive the Cartiva implant – in her left big toe in 2010 – followed five years later by one in her right big toe, both of which had been affected by osteoarthritis.
“I was having a lot of pain, the cartilage... it was literally bone on bone,” said Kennedy, 51, who regularly gave her feet a pounding doing gymnastics as a child and later as an adult when she took up running, including competing in five-kilometre and 10 km races, as well as half-marathons.
“I had been so active over the years, and I think it was just a lot of wear and tear. And improper footwear. I wore a lot of heels.”
Before her first implant surgery, Kennedy said she couldn’t walk barefoot across the floor without some support for her feet because of the “searing hot pain,” especially in her left toe. “Even in bed at night, I couldn’t stand the sheets around my feet.”
Having Glazebrook perform the synthetic cartilage implant was a life-saver, she said.
“I felt the result within weeks after... and it was just amazing.”
However, he said fusion remains a standard option for patients, as the procedure was found in studies to provide slightly better long-term pain relief, though it does limit movement in the big toe.
With fusion, the two toe bones connected by the joint are positioned end-toend and then held together with plates and screws. The bones then grow together, fusing into one.
“A lot of people worry about mobility,” Daniels said. “Motion at the first joint is important, but it’s not essential. I’ve done first-toe fusion in triathletes, marathon runners, even a long jumper and she returned to her sport.
“So you can do a lot with a stiff first toe as long as it isn’t painful,” he said, stressing that pain relief “is the No. 1 goal,” no matter which option is chosen.
In a recent study of 27 patients that assessed the performance of the synthetic cartilage more than five years after their surgeries, Canadian researchers found significant improvement in function and pain reduction from the implants.
Daniels said the synthetic cartilage is now being used to treat arthritis in the small toes and is being tested for other joints, including in the thumb and foot.
KEVIN LORNE MEREDITH passed away on the 25th of January 2019 at the age of 59 years. He is mourned by his loving wife Doris, sons; Hayden (Ceara) and Harrison (Carli) as well his brother Allen (Jeanie), sisters; LeeAnn Pollard, Cindy (John) Wells, Debbie Kozjak and his step-father Lionel Clarkson. Kevin is predeceased by his Father Raymond Meredith, Mother Ruth Clarkson and brother in law, William Pollard. A Celebration of Life will be held at the Hart Pioneer Center 6986 Hart Hwy Prince George B.C. on Saturday February 02, 2019 from 1:00 pm-4:00 pm. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the BC Cancer Prince George Center for the North.
GOUCHIE
MARY MADELINE
Febuary 15, 1921January 24, 2019
It is with great sadness that the family of Mary Gouchie announces her passing on Thursday, January 24, 2019 at the age of 97 after a short battle with cancer. Mary, our Matriarch, will be lovingly remembered by her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren. Mary’s final days were spent surrounded by family at Prince George Hospice. Mary was the cornerstone of her family and will be sadly missed by not only her family but those whose lives she touched in the community.
Mary will be remembered for her unique ability to make each and every family member feel special in their own way. The family holds fond memories of her cooking and baking, sewing, quilting, crocheting amazing doilies, shoulder and change purses used around the world by International students. Mary prided herself at being able to figure things out and would tease she was a scientist, finance minister, engineer, and professor. The grandchildren never doubted this and if they had a problem they would ask Grandma. Mary’s philosophy of life was to keep busy, contribute to your community and always help others. Mary’s family described her as their very own ‘Queen’ and you would agree if you saw her out around town, her hair was done just so, her wardrobe co-ordinated and never without her lipstick and jewelry.
In her senior years Mary was instrumental in working with linguists to preserve the Lheidli T’enneh dialect of the Carrier Language. Mary worked tirelessly with Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, the City of Prince George, UNBC, CNC and many others to preserve, protect, document and expand the use of the Carrier language in Prince George. Mary had the ability to translate local street/tourist signs, venue meeting rooms, several community buildings, including the entrance sign of UNBC. Mary gained notable recognition for naming the sports events for the 2015 Canada Winter Games held in Prince George. Mary was extremely proud to be able to enrich the culture of Lheidli T’enneh Traditional Territory through language. The people who worked tirelessly with her will remember her for her hard work while remaining thankful and humble for her contributions.
She is survived by her loving children Robin Gouchie, Janet Kozak, Duncan (Norma) Gouchie, Murphy (Noella) Gouchie, Shirley (Ross) Wiltermuth, Fred (Barb) Johnston, Laura Luth and Jo-Anne (Fred) Berezanski. Her grandchildren Buddy, Kym, & Mike (Cheryl) Gouchie, Edward Hay, Diane Reid, Ella, Leonard, & Charlie Hay, Richard Gouchie, Jacqueline (Bob) Taylor Gouchie, Elaine Gagnon, Nicole & Ryan Wiltermuth, Carleigh (Geoff) Smart, Rhiannon (Steve) Mathieson & Landon (Justine) Johnston, Cameron Andrews, Miranda Seymour & Kerri Chersinoff, Meghan Tomlin, Joey Berezanski and 33 great grandchildren and several great-great grandchildren. Mary was predeceased by her mother Lizette Seymour, father Duncan Seymour, brother Patrick Seymour, son’s Ernie Gouchie, Gilbert Gouchie and Douglas Berezanski.
Visitation/Prayers will be held at Assman’s Funeral Chapel on February 1, 2019 at 2:00-5:00 PM Funeral Services will be held at Sacred Heart Cathedral on Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 2:00 PM The family would like to thank Dr. Javid, Dr. Kennedy, Dr. Patterson, Lorna Loreth and the wonderful staff at Hospice. In lieu of flowers, the family would like you to consider making a donation to the Prince George Hospice in her name.
HOWARD HENRY
McKAY
January 9, 1933January 23, 2019
We sadly announce the passing of Howard Henry McKay at 86 years of age.
Born in Toney Mills, Nova Scotia, he was predeceased by his loving wife and partner of 43 years, Marjorie. Survived by stepdaughters Darryl and Karen, step grandsons Brad and Wade, step great grandson Kaleb and step great granddaughters Kyra and Kayla. He was the last of 16 siblings. We would like to express our deep appreciation to all the nurses on 2A and 2B wards of the hospital for their kind attention. Also, a special thank you to Aunt Barbara and family for their many visits.
Howard thoroughly enjoyed his early morning gossip sessions with his buddies at Tim Horton’s on Austin Road. There will be no funeral by request.
Robin Anderson
November 13, 1988January 19, 2019
With heavy hearts we have to announce the passing of Robin Anderson; January 19th, 2019. Robin will always be remembered for her beauty inside and out, her courageous spirit, her outspoken personality, and her strong will and determination. Robin had a had a contagious smile that could light up the room and a way of capturing everyone’s attention wherever she might be.
Robin’s passing will leave a hole in the hearts of her family, friends and anyone who had the pleasure of knowing and loving her.
Robin is survived by her precious children, Mason, Faith, Kendall, Marcus, Wayne, Natalie, Alexa, her husband Tim, her mother Brigitte (Daren), her father Troy (Tina), sisters Ashley (Wes) and Amanda (Raddick), grandparents Bill & Wilma and Ivan & Bev, niece Kate-lynn and nephew Kaleb as well as many aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews.
There will be a viewing Friday February 1st 7:00 to 9:00 PM at Assman’s Funeral Chapel. The service will be Saturday February 2nd 10:30 AM at Westwood Church. In lieu of flowers please make donations in Robin’s name to Charity of your Choice.
“Stoney” Dennis James Hale September 22, 1948January 28, 2019
It is with great sadness that the family of Dennis Hale announces his passing. He has been surrounded by family and friends for the last few weeks within UHNBC. Dennis was born in Tisdale, Saskatchewan to Desmond and Vivian Hale, he was the eldest son. In 1956, Dennis and family moved to Prince George. After leaving school, Dennis began his career with the City of Prince George, and after many years he transitioned careers to a Guide Outfitter, following that he became a long haul driver. The love of softball remained with him all of his life. Dennis was predeceased by his father Desmond, several aunts, uncles, partner Jeannette Wisdom, and nephew Shannon Madsen. Dennis will be greatly missed by his mother Vivian, siblings Donalda (Peter) Madsen, Wayne (Crystal) Hale, Brian (Tracy) Hale, Wendy (Dale) Konrath, daugthers Vickie Hale (Chris), Denise Low (Kurt), step-children, numerous grandchildren, one great granddaughter, partner Lynda, extended family, friends, and his four legged companion Rory. A Celebration of Life will be held on Thursday, January 31, 2019 at 3:00pm at the Elks Community Hall, 663 Douglas Street, Prince George, BC.
“Dennis was most at peace running the river, hunting and being in the timber”
U.S., Canadian Indigenous groups want sea health study, marine traffic halt
Amy SMART Citizen news service
The markets today
TORONTO (CP) — Global markets got a boost Wednesday from strong U.S. corporate earnings, hopes for a Chinese trade deal and the U.S. Federal Reserve voicing an even more dovish approach to interest rate hikes. The mood in markets was largely optimistic, reinforcing investors’ appetite for risk, says Candice Bangsund, portfolio manager for Fiera Capital. The day started with stronger-than-expected results by “big hitters” such as Boeing and Apple after markets closed on Tuesday. It was then reinforced by comments following Federal Reserve meetings, she said.
“They essentially alleviated any sort of fear of an aggressive path to rate hikes by really emphasizing that message of patience and flexibility and largely data dependent,” she said in an interview. By removing references to further rate hikes, the central bank indicated that it’s not going to move prematurely on raising interest rates.
“What this has done has helped to ease financial market conditions and accordingly volatility and boosted equity prices, specifically in the U.S. but globally as well.”
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 21.41 points to 15,484.55 after hitting a high of 15,520.91.
The influential energy and materials sectors led the way on higher crude oil and gold prices. Crude rose as U.S. sanctions against Venezuela threatened to disrupt the global supply backdrop while gold got a boost from a weakened U.S. dollar. The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 75.80 cents US, its highest level in about two months, and compared with an average of 75.38 cents US on Tuesday. The March crude contract was up 92 cents US at US$54.23 per barrel and the March natural gas contract was down 4.9 cents at US$2.85 per mmBTU.
VANCOUVER — Indigenous groups in Canada and the United States are calling for a study of how human activity has degraded the waters off British Columbia’s coast before any new vessel traffic is allowed in the area where port and pipeline activities are on the rise.
Members of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in B.C., and the Tulalip Tribes and Lummi Nation in Washington state say they want a halt to any more marine traffic in the Salish Sea while the impact study is complete.
“We’re Coast Salish nations that have come together from both sides of the border with the United States and Canada to address this urgent issue that’s happening to our Salish Sea,” said Raynell Morris of the Lummi Nation.
Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation said the decline of salmon stocks and, in turn, the endangered Southern resident killer whales should be a wake up call to politi-
cians on both sides of the border.
“To me it’s like the canary in mines. The animals are going and its happening and it’s not going to be too long before it’s affecting all of us,” George said.
The groups say fisheries, marine mammals, sacred sites and traditional economies are all threatened by new and expanding port facilities and they want the study to consider the cumulative change over time, not just the impacts of a single project.
They say they want a study that establishes a baseline for Salish Sea health and suggest 1985, when harvest levels were still “healthy.”
The Lummi Nation would also like to meet with federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna on the topic, Morris said.
The Indigenous groups did not rule out demonstrations if American and Canadian authorities refuse to conduct an interjurisdictional study.
Morris said they would protect the land and
sea, “by any means available and possible and necessary.”
Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Indigenous representatives spoke during a break at an information session held by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s review panel on the proposed Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project.
The project would see the construction of a new three-berth marine container terminal about 35 kilometres south of Vancouver in the water off Delta.
The Indigenous groups also expressed concern about the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which would increase tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet sevenfold.
The Federal Court of Appeal quashed the expansion project’s approval in August in part due to the board’s failure to consider marine shipping impacts.
Foreign capital, U.S. assets must be handled carefully
When I moved in with my dad near Lougheed Mall in 1975, construction crews were just starting on one of the first highrise apartment buildings there. It was right next to our tiny Cameron Elementary school field and was both awe-inspiring and a big grey Goliath – just the first of many.
Being a curious 13-year-old, I slipped through the nonexistent security perimeter a few times after hours. Seeing a project of that magnitude up close was irresistible. And I was just as fascinated with a small box full of heavy-duty bolts on the ground and might have brought one home for a souvenir but for a dog barking about then.
A couple of years later, the shiny finish on the complex’s concrete parkade went several stories down, and made for a stunningly smooth ride on my skateboard. A year after that, all it took was my pocket comb to get past the locked door and onto the 24th floor roof with my girlfriend. We liked to sit on the ledge, overlooking the entire Lower Mainland, and dream a little – not a worry in the world about what falling off might involve, or whether the overweight security guard could ever catch us in a footrace.
A few years after that, as a college student I sat on a couch with a few friends in an apartment on the 19th floor.
A fine-looking British gal from school served me peach tea and a chip butty (an English concoction of hot French fries on generouslybuttered white bread – try it.)
Today, I counted 27 such structures in an online image, and read about plans to explode the already cramped area with another 23 high-rises as part of a massive $7 billion dollar project called The City of Lougheed. A private city built around a shopping mall. Gulp. Southern B.C. is nice, but not for me anymore. Its real estate economy is driven in no
small part by immigration and foreign capital. And not for a moment do I consider that a blanket evil, but it is a thing – and a thing to be managed.
As mentioned last week, the U.S. views American-held trusts and corporations in Canada as foreign legal structures, and notwithstanding that these structures are taxable in Canada, the U.S. taxes these structures quite differently, often resulting in double taxation.
There are two anti-deferral tax regimes in the U.S. dealing with interests that Americans in Canada might have in foreign companies. The first regime is concerned primarily with investments in foreign investment companies such as: non-U.S. mutual funds, pooled funds and ETFs, and is referred to as the Passive Foreign Investment Company (PFIC) rules.
This regime results in taxation at the top U.S. federal tax rate of 39.6 per cent (plus a possible interest charge) on distributions of income earned in prior years and on any gain from the sale of the shares of the PFIC itself. While the U.S. allows a foreign tax credit for Canadian taxes paid, the credit may not be sufficient to offset the U.S. tax. One simple solution to avoid the PFIC problems is to invest directly in stocks and bonds. Some foreign investment companies will provide PFIC Annual Information Statements with information enabling the investor to treat a fund as a Qualifying Electing Fund (QEF) to avoid PFIC issues. Generally, PFICs held in RRSPs and RRIFs are exempt from the PFIC rules. The second rule addresses interests that Americans in Canada have in non-U.S. compa-
nies controlled by U.S. shareholders. These are referred to as the controlled foreign corporation (CFC) rules.
Americans in Canada must personally report passive income, such as dividend and interest earned in the CFC, in the year that it is earned even if this income is not distributed by the corporation. There is an exception to the CFC rules where the passive income is subject to a Canadian corporate tax rate exceeding 90 per cent of the highest U.S. corporate tax rate (35 per cent times 90 per cent equals 31.5 per cent). When the CFC rules apply, a foreign tax credit for the Canadian corporate tax on this income is not possible, which may result in double taxation.
There may be an advantage for Americans in Canada to hold passive assets in an unlimited liability company (ULC) largely because they avoid the double tax problems that the abovenoted structures do not, and they are not considered to be either CFCs or PFICs. This type of structure is best used as a corporate holding company or to own passive assets as the typical protection under a corporation from creditors does not apply. While Canada taxes ULCs as corporations, a ULC is considered a disregarded entity for U.S. tax purposes if owned by one person or a partnership if owned by more than one person. Hence, a ULC is not subject to the potentially adverse U.S. tax consequences of being a foreign corporation.
However, all income and expenses of the ULC flow through to the U.S. shareholder, eliminating the potential for tax deferral. Mark Ryan is an investment advisor with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (Member–Canadian Investor Protection Fund), and these are his views, and not those of RBC Dominion Securities. This article is for information purposes only. Please consult with a professional advisor before taking any action based on information in this article. See Ryan’s website at: http://dir.rbcinvestments. com/mark.ryan.
The April gold contract was up 30 cents US at US$1,315.50 an ounce and the March copper contract was up 4.25 cents at US$2.77 a pound. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 434.90 points to 25,014.86. The S&P 500 index was up 41.05 points at 2,681.05, while the Nasdaq composite was up 154.79 points at 7,183.08. Bangsund added that markets were helped by renewed optimism for some sort of clarity or diffused tension ahead as U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators have begun to meet. “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”
Cranes wait to load cargo containers at the DP World marine terminal at Port Metro Vancouver, in Vancouver on March 16, 2018.
The recipe for life, the universe and everything
If you wanted to build a universe, how would you go about it?
Well, there are several approaches possible. For example, you could have unique components for everything in it. Human particles would make up humans. Star particles would make up stars. Plant particles would make up each different type of plant.
Or you could just start with one material – a “universal clay” – and mold all of the components from this compound. The differences would not be in the material used but in how it was sculpted and treated.
Or you could select a few elements – such as earth, fire, water and air – and blend them together in different proportions to create everything around us. The difference between a human and dandelion would be in how much of each of these different components is present and how they are arranged. Transformation between, say, gold and lead could be accomplished by redressing the balance between these components. But the universe we occupy is both simpler and more complex than any of these models. It starts with energy, which is equivalent to matter and vice versa. This is the real meaning behind Einstein’s equation – energy and matter are just two forms of currency with the speed of light squared being the conversion rate.
With the massive amount of energy released in the big bang, it was possible for some of it to coalesce into sub-atomic particles which eventually combined to give us protons and neutrons among other species. Electrons belong to a different class, but these three components are the basis for all of the matter around us. Atoms are composed of a nucleus containing protons and neutrons surrounded by a cloud of electrons.
Initially, in our universe, all of the atoms were one of two isotopes of hydrogen –hydrogen or deuterium. Hydrogen is a bit quirky as it is the only element with names for its individual isotopes. There is a third one called tritium.
The difference between the three isotopes of hydrogen is the presence of a neutron. Ordinary hydrogen atoms, which make up about 89 per cent of the atoms in the universe, are composed of a single proton and a single electron. The proton is positively charged and attracts the negatively
charged electron. These two particles orbit each other although as the proton is much heavier (1,836 times), it is the electron which we see moving wildly about.
A small percentage of the hydrogen atoms (about one per cent of the atoms in the universe) are deuterium having a nucleus composed of a proton and a neutron. As the neutron carries no charge, it has little impact on the number or velocity of the electrons. It just makes for a heavier nucleus.
In tritium, the nucleus contains two neutrons but still only one proton. Indeed, the defining characteristic of all hydrogen atoms is the presence of only a single proton in the nucleus.
Put two protons in the nucleus and we have a helium atom. Helium makes up about nine per cent of the atoms in the universe. It is generated by the fusion of hydrogen atoms in the core of stars. Simplistically, two deuterium nuclei join together to give helium – although it is actually much more complicated. Because helium nuclei are emitted during certain types of radiation, they have a name and are called alpha-particles.
It is the fusion together of helium nuclei which allows us to build more complex atoms. A carbon atom is generated by fusing three helium nuclei. An oxygen atom requires four and so on.
One of the subtle points about the elements making up everything around us is that, with a few exceptions, even-numbered elements are more abundant than their neighbouring odd-numbered elements. That is, oxygen is more abundant than either nitrogen or fluorine when considering the universe as a whole. This building up of elements from hydrogen and helium nuclei occurs in the heart of a star. The rate is limited by the difficulty in generating beryllium, but the overall effect is to generate all of the atoms in the periodic table.
There are 90 or so naturally occurring elements and we have added another 28 to the table through synthetic means.
So, how do you go about building a universe?
You start with a huge amount of energy and from that you create elementary particles such as the proton, neutron and electron. By combining these sub-atomic constituents together, you get simple atoms such as hydrogen and helium. But put them in the oven to bake – in the heart of a star at hundreds of thousands of degrees under extreme pressure – and you can generate all of the elements across the periodic table. Roughly 4.5 billion years after that, chemists will have discovered all of the elements and organized them into the periodic table.
Warm water, disease killing B.C. sea stars
Hina ALAM Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — Warm waters and infectious disease have been determined as the causes of a dieoff of sunflower starfish along the Pacific coast, says a newly released study.
Sunflower sea stars are among the largest starfish in the world and come in a variety of bright colours, including purple and orange. Some of them grow to more than a metre long and are so quick they “literally run across the seascape,” said Joseph Gaydos, the senior author of the study.
“But when this disease happens it’s like a zombie apocalypse,” said Gaydos, who’s with the SeaDoc Society out of the University of California, Davis.
“It can have 24 arms and all of a sudden it’s walking around and its arms are just falling off. And then all of a sudden the whole body just seems to melt.”
So, what used to be a “big, beautiful sea star,” and weighed about five kilograms resembles a pile of calcified parts within days, he said.
“It’s just a really ugly and fast disease for these sunflower sea stars.”
In 2013, scientists began noticing populations of the species declining between 80 and 100 per cent in deep and shallow waters from Alaska and British Columbia right down to California. The population information was collected by scuba divers and deep trawls. Sunflower sea stars are found in waters from hundreds of metres to just three metres.
Diego Montecino-Latorre, a study co-author, and also from the University of California, Davis, said scientists found an association between increased water temperature and seeing fewer sea stars.
Gaydos said the temperature increases of the water were not the same in all areas.
Oceans are “not like a bathtub” with consistent temperatures throughout, he said, adding that some places in California saw an increase of about 4 C while places in Washington noted an increase of 2.5 C.
One of the theories put forward by scientists is that an increase in temperature makes the sea stars more susceptible to the disease that was already present, especially since sea stars don’t have complex immune systems, he said. Study co-author Drew Harvell, of Cornell University, said the heat wave in the oceans caused by global warming is making the sea star wasting disease worse and killing the starfish faster.
Gaydos said sunflower sea stars are voracious predators, and when they decline the numbers of sea urchin can increase. Such disease outbreaks can have a big consequence on the whole ecosystem, he said.
An illustration of the nucleus of a uranium atom is displayed at the Seoul Science Park in Seoul, South Korea, on April 3, 2013. Protons, neutrons and electrons are the basic building blocks of all matter in the universe.
January 31, 2019
an arts Compedium chronicles the arts Council’s early years.
On the rOad tO recOvery
Brad Baylis likes to say he won a headbutting competition with a moose.
On Aug. 26, Baylis, 39, was driving home to Prince George at about 9:30 p.m. when the vehicle he was driving collided with a moose near Fraser Lake on Highway 16.
The impact sent the animal into the car through the windshield, breaking every bone in Baylis’ face and leaving him near death.
Quick action from a resident living along the highway who heard the horrific crash, along with others who stopped to help, pulled the dead moose from the car to get to Baylis, who was airlifted to Vancouver General Hospital.
A cutting-edge medical procedure called brain microdialysis saved his life (as last week’s 97/16 cover story explained).
Sitting down to talk about his ongoing recovery a short five months after the accident, Baylis was emotional in his gratitude for everyone who has helped him, from the man who came out of his house when he heard the crash, first responders, emergency personnel, Prince George medical staff, Vancouver General Hospital staff, physiotherapists at GF Strong and family and friends.
He is especially grateful to his partner of two years, Carla Lewis, who works for the First Nations Health Authority as a traditional wellness specialist. She helps integrate alternative and traditional wellness into the mainstream healthcare system, lives in Burns Lake and is a member of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation.
“I was very fortunate to have the people around me that I did, especially Carla,” Baylis said.
“We had tons of support and I can’t imagine going through something like this without it,” Lewis said.
Taking a step back to think about how far he’s come, Baylis only knows what happened after the accident from what he’s been told.
“I don’t remember the accident or a
month and a half after it,” Baylis said, who suffers from no other injuries except those to his head.
There were a lot of factors involved that contributed to Baylis’ healing including his age, that he was healthy and the fact that he was rescued right away.
“First responders treated it as a brain injury immediately,” Lewis said. “And without that care Brad wouldn’t have even made it to the microdialysis. When Brad got to Vancouver General doctors told us he had a 50 per cent chance of survival just to be nice and then later they admitted he actually had less than a 10
per cent chance.”
Even after Baylis, a pipe fitter and quality control officer for a local company, was stabilized, his prognosis was uncertain.
“Doctors said they were going to take him out of the induced coma after a week and they had warned me that he might never come out of it or it could be months or days, they just didn’t know,” Lewis said, who had told doctors she wanted to be there at the time they took him off the medication.
It was only a matter of a few hours when Lewis saw Baylis struggling to open
his eyes. As soon as she saw that movement she immediately started to talk to him to let him know where he was and what had happened. His eyes popped open and he looked terrified, Lewis added.
She called in the nurse who couldn’t believe Baylis was awake.
“She told him if he was okay to give us a thumbs up and Brad gave us a thumbs up,” Lewis recalled. “After that it was a very slow progression – the first couple days he was awake for five to 10 minutes.”
Continued on page 2
christine hinzmann 97/16 staff
Citizen photo by James doyle
Brad Baylis and partner Carla Lewis talk about Brad’s recovery from brain trauma after an accident that saw his vehicle collide with a moose last summer.
Great support helping local man on the mend after horrific crash
Continued from page 1
Then gradually he was awake for 15 to 20 minutes and then a good month and a half later he was awake most of the day.
Baylis said he doesn’t remember anything from those early days in hospital. His children, Holden, 9, Bodie, 8 and Grier, 6, came to visit early on in his recovery and he has no memory of it but he remembers what someone told him his oldest son said before he went into the room to see his dad for the first time.
“I guess it’s too early for moose jokes,” Holden said to those left in the waiting room and Baylis loves knowing that his son had a great attitude going into it.
Lewis said that not only could they credit Baylis’ recovery to modern medicine but also to alternative healing practices that saw her consulting with his specialists to introduce supplements to enhance the healing process, including mega doses of melatonin, which contains high amounts of antioxidants that fuse to brain cells and can actually repair them, according to Lewis’s medical journal research.
When it was time to reintroduce foods to Baylis, Lewis said she’d bring homemade meals to him for optimum nutritional value. Baylis said he didn’t like the hospital food much.
“I will never forget this – I was on a puree diet and they pureed my toast and I had finally had enough and so I looked at the nurse and I said to her ‘how the heck is a man supposed to put peanut butter on this?’”
Lewis said they also did reiki, a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing.
Brad Baylis, 39, whose vehicle collided with a moose on highway 16 near Fraser Lake on aug. 26, is seen here during his stay at Vancouver General hospital.
“I had my cousin come in and do Reiki on him and that was when his brain was hooked up to the monitor and you could actually see all his levels changing, which was really cool,” she said.
There was another healer that came to help Baylis in the hospital.
“We had (Tsimshian and Haisla) healer Tom Smith come in and the things that he did were just mind-blowing miracle-level stuff,” Lewis said. “He also fixed me up. I was just walking around in an utter state of trauma and I felt like I was just barely holding it together and I went into a session with him and he put me back together.”
Baylis said the only real pain he experienced during the whole ordeal was because he had broken his palate bone that had been wired in place.
“As soon as they took the wires out, the headaches stopped,” Baylis said.
“And that’s pretty crazy,” Lewis said. “Because even with people who have mild concussion deal with headaches,”
Lewis said. “So he hasn’t had headaches, noise doesn’t bother him, light doesn’t bother him.”
“I think I’ve maybe had one headache, maybe two, since I’ve been home,” Baylis said, who was discharged from Vancourver General on Oct. 4.
During early days in hospital Lewis said some family members, guided by an elder of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, went to the accident site to call back Baylis’ spirit while he was still in the induced coma. They used a sacred bundle, which included spruce, cedar and juniper. It was then brought to Baylis in Vancouver and placed under his bed.
“And that was done the night before he woke up,” Lewis said. “So that was pretty amazing.”
It took a month for Baylis to be able to move and his first attempts saw him sitting on the edge of the bed and flopping back down. It took a couple of weeks of that before he could stand and then he
started shuffling his feet.
“Then day by day his steps with the walker got bigger and bigger,” Lewis said. “His progress after that was really rapid.”
After being released from hospital, Baylis attended rehabilitation at G.F. Strong and he went from a wheelchair the first week, to a walker for a week and then left that behind.
“The first day he got off the walker, we walked around Stanley Park, that’s eight kilometres,” Lewis said.
Both Lewis and Baylis believe some of his quick recovery was due to the fact that Baylis was an avid mountain biker before the accident that saw him at a peak fitness level. Baylis said he hopes to get back to it eventually.
“Today Brad has no weakness in either side of his body,” she said.
“Except my vision,” he said.
Baylis has lost 100 per cent of his peripheral vision in both eyes but still has 20/20 eye sight.
“We’re hoping that gets better because that’s going to be the difference between him driving and getting back to work or not,” Lewis said.
Little things that should improve over time is the loss of a significant amount of his sense of smell and the dozen titanium plates used to help reconstruct his face makes him more sensitive to the cold when he’s outside.
“The plastic surgeons said they could do something with my scars,” Baylis said, who has barely visible scars all around his eyes and nose that are the only indicator of the entire facial reconstruction. “But I’m just going to leave them. They tell the story and I’m keeping the scars.”
Handout photo
For the love oF the theatre
christiNe hiNzmaNN 97/16 staff
They fight really well.
At least that’s what Jack Grinhaus, artistic director at Theatre Northwest, said about his working relationship with general manager Marnie Hamagami and about how they make it work as they strive to ensure the Prince George professional theatre company thrives.
“It’s the same in any great relationship,” Grinhaus said. “We don’t take it personally – when it’s a business decision – whether it be the artistic business or the administrative business, which are the two sides of the coin here - we both respect that in each person’s department they have that final say. One of us might say ‘I feel strongly about this thing’ but it’s your world and you make that decision.’”
Grinhaus said that was the way it was between him and Hamagami even before the working relationship saw Hamagami take on the GM role, when she sat on the Theatre Northwest board.
“I knew then I could just be honest,” Grinhaus said, who has been with Theatre Northwest for the last five years. And when it comes to differing opinions, it’s worked out.
“We both say ‘you know what? I don’t necessarily agree with this’ and the other says ‘great, thank you for your feedback’ and...”
“I’m doing it anyway,” Hamagami finished Grinhaus’s statement with a laugh. Other times Grinhaus said one of them will think about it and call the other up the next day and admit the other one was right in the first place and carry on.
“That’s what really works,” Grinhaus said. “We have worked together for three or four years and we haven’t had a fightlike a fight fight.”
Even if one of them has to walk away, it’s not out of frustration but rather to think about what was discussed, Grinhaus said.
Even if they don’t agree completely, they always come together when they need to report to their board of directors, as Theatre Northwest is a non-profit society.
Hamagami, who has been general manager for the last two-and-a-half years, wanted to emphasize one thing.
“To be clear, our fighting is the exception – I shouldn’t even say ‘our fighting’, when we disagree – it’s the exception,” she said. “Ninety-nine per cent of the time we’re lockstep and another thing I think is really important for Jack and I and the way that we operate is that publicly we have each other’s back. It’s only when we’re making decisions and we’re in the process of working out our business that we can disagree about things.”
Grinhaus thinks it’s a good thing they can disagree because he certainly doesn’t want to work with someone who is always doing what he says, he added.
“We have very complementary skill sets,” Hamagami said. “There’s no overlap – we don’t have two artistic directors here, which makes it a lot easier for both of us.”
And that means between the two of them they cover all the bases, Grinhaus added.
“Like in any good relationship the key is communication,” Hamagami said. “We communicate often, we communi-
cate easily and when we do disagree it’s both professional and respectful of each other.”
As with many non-profits, the organization offers many tasks under one job title.
“This is a two-person operation that really is a six-person job,” Grinhaus said. “We’re each doing many jobs. I think what we both know is that we both give everything we have.”
Hamagami said when she was first hired, she and Grinhaus spent time defining the two roles as Theatre Northwest’s artistic director and general manager.
What makes TNW unique is that it is the only professional theatre company for about 700 kilometres, Grinhaus said.
“When you’re one of the top cultural institutions in the vicinity, and I say ‘one of’ because there are different aspects, there’s a responsibility there,” Grinhaus said. “There’s a responsibility to community. There’s a responsibility to 15 to 100 people you’re feeding, depending on how the year is going. That’s a big responsibility and you need to have trust there.”
Grinhaus said Hamagami brought a trust-based system into the building.
“We don’t micromanage,” Grinhaus said. “We hire people we believe can do the job. We don’t want to be looking over people’s shoulders.”
The business has an ebb and flow to it, Grinhaus explained.
“Some weeks you can come in three, four, five hours a day, some weeks you can come in for 10, 12 or 14 hours and it’s still not enough to get it all done,” he said.
Grinhaus said they’ve figured out when the busiest times happen, but surprises pop up all the time.
“But we know the ebb and flow and that’s when we can best help each other,” Grinhaus said. “For example, Marnie’s most difficult period is late August to early December.”
For Grinhaus it’s February, March and April.
“That’s when I’m building the season, writing the big grants, when I’m starting casting and sometimes directing, so that’s great too, because hers is more fall and mine is more spring, so then we can help each other,” Grinhaus said.
There are three keys for Hamagami. OK, there’s definitely four.
“Communication, communication, communication, and a sense of humour,” Hamagami laughed.
As a preventive measure and getting in front of the #metoo movement that continues to be part of the current entertainment headlines, Hamagami and Grinhaus developed some policies around intimate choreography that are now being used on a national level.
Inovations like that make Theatre Northwest a continued success.
“When I first got here I had to focus on both the art and the administration side and they both suffered,” Grinhaus said. “Now I can focus and the art has raised itself in the last few years.”
Grinhaus credits Hamagami with the outstanding ticket sales TNW has enjoyed recently.
“It only works because Marnie sees to it that word gets out and while I’m making sure the art on stage is at its highest level.”
— Theatre Northwest’s next production of its 25th season is The Occupation of Heather Rose, which runs Feb. 7 to 24.
Citizen photo by James Doyle Marnie hamagami and Jack Grinhaus of Theatre northwest prove it takes two to run a successful professional theatre company.
PoPular musician facing alzheimer’s head on
The annual Alzheimer’s Walk in May, will honour Granville Johnson, 71, who was diagnosed in 2016.
Before his diagnosis, Johnson experienced symptoms that didn’t quite fit the norm. He said he was happy to finally have a label put on it because for a long while some medical practitioners kept telling him it was all in his head - and now he knows it really is.
Symptoms started in 2010, Birgit Luesgen, Johnson’s partner of 18 years, said. He was then diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, which sees damage or disease to nerves that make up an intricate network that connects the brain and spinal cord to the muscles, skin and internal organs. There were other conditions as well but the first things Luesgen noticed that spoke to a form of dementia was when Johnson started forgetting things and misplacing others.
He’s best known in the community as a drummer and for the last two decades he’s been drawing and doing digital collages online.
“The only time I can get away from my obsession with Alzheimer’s is when I am painting pixels or I am playing my drum because everything else is completely co-opted by dementia,” he said. “And how that’s influenced me in my art is now I am writing songs about the experience.”
He already has three completed and he’s working on a fourth.
“So in a way it’s breathed new life into my heart,” Johnson said, who will soon be looking to set up a blog to give voice to his experience with the disease while he still can.
Johnson said he’d like to help remove the stigma that he didn’t even know came with the diagnosis.
“From my point of view the diagnosis of dementia is a lot like cancer, there’s a bit of interest, but there’s not a whole lot of support – yet,” he said. “I find it really strange – I read that one out of five people have some form of dementia, which means hundreds of thousands of people are part of “the club” – I call it the club – but it’s not very well recognized.”
Johnson said sometimes what’s in his
head won’t come out of his mouth.
“But I refuse to let it quiet me,” he said. “But at the same time when I’m in a discussion I listen rather than speak. I do tell everyone who I am interacting with that I have dementia so when I am stuttering over my words and having trouble I don’t have to fake it. I don’t have to hide it. I think a lot of sufferers out there just get very, very quiet and then life becomes very quiet and mono-focused. As Birgit can attest, I was very self-absorbed before this, and now it’s even worse.”
Although it has changed Johnson’s and Luesgen’s relationship, Johnson said it’s become better in some ways as they came closer to battle against what the disease has taken away and will continue to take away from them.
“Birgit has learned that you can’t argue with an Alzheimer’s patient,” he said.
“He’s got a good excuse now,” Luesgen bantered back. “We certainly have changes in how we interact and our relationship changes because I am now the care partner so I take care of him and he does take care of me in certain ways,
but still for me it’s now gotten even more important at this stage of my life that I’m living healthy so that we can manage for another few years depending how far this progresses, which is an unknown.”
Through this progressive disease, Luesgen said she’s learned to take a lot more things day by day.
“I can’t dwell on all the losses and all the things we can’t do anymore and what we had envisioned what we’d do when we retired,” Luesgen said. “We still have a very high quality of life and we just enjoy that.”
“There will come a day when the thought of the loss of yourself makes you a basket case,” Johnson said. “Then there will not be much cognitive direction at all.”
During that time period, Johnson said he’d like to move to the Lower Mainland because that’s where his three children reside. Johnson refered to the progressive stages of dementia as the second and third tertiary.
“And I don’t want Birgit to have to deal with that.”
Luesgen tried to interrupt because she has other ideas but Johnson insisted on finishing his thought.
“I don’t want Birgit to have to deal with that because I will no longer be me,” he said.
“Basically I will be a body, an immobile entity but my personality and all my cognitive worth and self-worth will be gone. I feel like at that point I need to reward my wife for all her support and give her her life without having to hang with me for who knows how long.”
Luesgen shooke her head but Johnson was adamant.
“No, who knows how long that will be – it could be five, 10, 20 years,” he said. “And by that time that’s not much time left for you, dear.”
“And we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Luesgen responded. “It’s hard to say what it’s going to be like and what’s going to happen. I think we have to plan for the worst and hopefully live with the best.”
Johnson smiled at Luesgen. “This is brand new ground,” he said.
christiNe hiNzmaNN 97/16 staff
Citizen file photo by Brent Braaten Granville Johnson, who has performed in the community for decades, drummed at the IMss Multicultural summer Fair in 2015.
Citizen photo by Christine Hinzmann Granville Johnson and partner Birgit Leusgen take a moment during the local alzheimer’s society open house to talk about living life with the disease.
How glass arrived in Barkerville
sidebars to history by willow aruNe
Wandering around Barkerville is stepping through time.
On one of my visits I was struck by a thought about its construction. Certainly the surrounding hills provided the timber needed for building and blacksmiths could provide hinges, nails and other hardware. Indeed, the surrounding hills were denuded and what trees you now see are new growth. But most of the buildings have windows made of glass. Glass is fragile and heavy, especially in bulk. Given the conditions that existed when Barkerville was flourishing, how did the pioneers get glass for their windows and businesses and at what cost?
Trying to find the answer to those questions became a two-year hunt.
Fur traders added panes of glass to the supplies brought overland to the Hudson’s Bay trading forts that were sparingly used. Needless to say, glass panes brought this way made them very valuable.
Back then, few countries made window glass for export. In the area surrounding Barkerville certainly lots of sand and quartz could be found. Could some glass be actually made in Barkerville? Possible but no likely. The alternative was to bring window glass from the few mass produc-
ers of glass in England and the Continent.
The main producers of glass in the 1860s were to be found in Great Britain, Belgium and a much smaller amount in France. The largest producer was Pilkington Glass of St. Helen’s, near Liverpool. It was a private company until 1972.
The trip of window glass from St. Helens to Barkerville would be long and arduous. By canal from St. Helens to Liverpool, loaded onto sailing and steam ships to cross the Atlantic and then –there being no Panama Canal – around Cape Horn and South America or perhaps unloaded in New York and going across North America by the first transcontinental railway to San Francisco.
From there by steamer to Victoria and across the Straight of Georgia to New Westminster. Loaded onto horse drawn wagons, the glass would have to travel on the new Douglas Highway to Quesnel, perhaps travelling part the way by paddlewheel steamship. The last stage of the trip would be by wagon to Barkerville. Given the heavy weight of bulk window glass, the cost of transporting it would be very high, all of which would be passed on to those in Barkerville.
The Pilkington archives would provide records of the start of this voyage and the records and ship’s logs of Lloyd’s of London and the British Maritime Museum some detail of the ships that carried
window glass cargos. In the San Francisco Maritime Museum, at least one ship carrying window glass is recorded. We do have one letter that speaks of the high cost of the last part of these journeys. Father Reynard had arrived in Barkerville with his family just prior to the fire that all but destroyed the town. He organized the building of St. Saviour’s Church that remains in Barkerville today. The church needed window glass and an order for that glass was presumably made with one of several glass dealers in Victoria. The normal window glass of church might be stocked in Victoria or ordered from suppliers in San Francisco. There appears to be no record of where the stained glass of St. Saviour’s came from. It may have been assembled in San Francisco or England.
The one letter that gives us a hint of the high cost of window glass arriving in Barkerville was sent by Father Reynard to B.C’s Attorney General after the glass had arrived in Barkerville. The cost of freighting the all window glass from Victoria to Barkerville was six times the cost of the glass that has been bought in Victoria; the price of the window glass in Victoria included the shipping costs from Liverpool to San Francisco and then to Victoria.
The Hudson’s Bay Company opened in Barkerville just before the massive fire that almost totally destroyed the town. When it reopened, amongst the goods it carried was window glass in 10x12-inch panes, generally sold by the boxload. The is no record of the price demanded.
Handout photo
Barkerville historic site is seen here in full swing during their summer season.
EvEnts fEaturE music, hockEy and art
Coldsnap Music Festival
Friday at 11 a.m. at the Exploration Place, 333 Becott Place, Kobo Town presents free workshop Roots Rockin’ Calypso, while free workshop Fiddle and Cello is presented by Elizabeth and Elizabeth at 12:20 at the PG Conservatory of Muscic, 3555 Fifth Ave., and concert Dance Up a Storm by The French Connection goes at 7:30 p.m. at the Ramada Ballroom, 444 George St.
Saturday, Swagger and Wing workshop is presented by Red Haven at noon at the Railway and Forestry Museum, 850 River Rd., and the concert Coldsnap Turns Up the Heat featuring Kobo Town, Red Haven and Insterstellar Jays goes at 7:30 p.m. at the Ramada Ballroom, 444 George St. For more information visit www.coldsnapfestival.com.
FrancoFUN Festival
Friday, to Sunday, Feb. 10, the Prince George French Canadian Circle presents the 34th annual FrancoFun Festival featuring many activities throughout Prince Geroge, including an art exhibition, on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Cercle, 1752 Fir Street.
On Monday, outdoor enthusiasts will have the chance to enjoy a free skating party at the Oval from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Shows at schools will be presented by the group Father Garneau and The Rats of Swomp. A movie night with the biopic La Bolduc will be held on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Cercle des Canadiens. Finally, our seniors will have the chance to enjoy the show that will be presented at the Château and enjoy a hearty meal.
The 34th edition of the FrancoFUN Winter Festival will conclude with the traditional Sugar Shack at St. Mary’s Hall, on Saturday, Feb. 9, from 9 a.m.a t 2 p.m. with music from the Old Time Fiddlers, Father Garneau and Les Rats of Swomp. Once again we will hold a silent auction. This grand finale will be followed by the Downtown Winterfest on Sunday, Feb. 10 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information call 250-561-2565 or email infolecercle@gmail.com.
UNBC Timberwolves
Friday and Saturday at Charles Jago Northern Sport Centre, 3333 University Way, the Timberwolves play their final regular season home games against the University of Lethridge Pronghorns from the Canada West Conference at the Northern Sport Centre. Tickets are available at the door. On Friday women’s game starts at 6 p.m., the men’s game starts at 8 p.m. On Saturday women’s game starts at 5 p.m., men’s starts at 7.
Spruce Kings games
Friday and Saturday from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the Rolling Mix Concrete Arena,
888 Dominion St., enjoy the action as the Spruce Kings play on the road to the RBC cup. For more information visit www. sprucekings.bc.ca.
V-Day Prince George
Friday and Saturday from 8 to 9:30 p.m. at Artspace above Books & Co., 1685 Third Ave., the Nechako Community The-
atrics Society joins the global movement to end violence against women and girls. On Friday there is a benefit production of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues and on Saturday there is a benefit reading of A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant And A Prayer. Tickets $20 for each event at Books & Co. or at the door. All profits donated to charity 90 per cent to a local
organization working to end violence against women and girls and 10 per cent to the V-Day Spotlight Campaign: women in prison, detention centres, and formerly incarcerated. Warning: some content is extremely graphic and may be distressing to some. For more information visit www. facebook.com/pgtheatre.
CFUR Artist Showcase
Saturday from noon to 2 p.m. at Ritual Coffee Bar, 1085 Third Ave., CFUR is hosting an artists showcase the first Saturday of every month. First up is Brock Patch who will showcase his many talents. Everyone is invited to attend. Entry is by donation, which goes directly to the artist. For more information call 250-9605995 or email cfur_hello@cfur.ca.
Fashion Show and Sale
Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at First Baptist Church, 483 Gillette St., there is a scholarship fundraiser called Go Forth Scholarship Wedding Dress Fashion Show and Garage Sale. Entry is by donation.
Simon King Live
Saturday at 7 p.m. at Omineca Arts Centre, 369 Victoria St., comedian Simon King returns to Prince George for one night of hilarious stand-up comedy, with special guests Mike McGuire and MC Alex MacKenzie. Tickets are $20 at Books & Co., 1685 Third Ave. For more information call 250-552-0826 or email info@ ominecaartscentre.com.
Unist’ot’en and Gidumt’en Benefit Concert
Sunday at 7 p.m. at Omineca Arts Centre, 369 Victoria St., there is a night of music in support of Unist’ot’en and Gidum’ten, featuring Kym Gouchie, The Melawmen Collective and Sabina Dennis. Entry by $10 to $20 donation but no one will be turned away. For more information call 250-552-0826 or email info@ ominecaartscentre.com.
Stitch n’ b!tch
Monday at 7 p.m. at Omineca Arts Centre, 369 Victoria St., join a cozy evening of crafting and tea. Bring your projects or try something new. Drop-in is by donation. For more information call 250-552-0826 or email info@ominecaartscentre.com.
Teen Tabletop Meet Up
Monday from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Bob Harkins Branch, Prince George Public Library, 888 Canada Games Way, try your hand at a variety of tabletop games. All experience levels welcome. Bring your own decks for MtG, Pokemon or Yu-GiOh. For 13-18 yrs. For more information call 250-5639251 or email ask@pgpl.ca.
97/16 handout photo red haven is holding a workshop during the Coldsnap Music Festival saturday at the railway and Forestry Museum.
97/16 photo by James doyle
unBC Timberwolves foward Vasiliki Louka (#13) sets a perfect pick so foward Madison Landry (#6) has a clear lane to drive to the net against the university of Manitoba Bisons at the northern sport Centre.
Music tells us we shall overcoMe
LLessoNs iN LearNiNg Gerry chidiac
ebanese-American writer Kahlil Gibran said, “Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.”
If any group has experienced strife over the last several hundred years, it is the people of Africa. First having a significant portion of their population dragged into slavery and then having their territory pillaged by European colonials. One can wonder how they have managed to keep hope alive and it is significant to note the role that music has played in this.
African-American historian Jerome LeDoux points out how during slave times people would go to church and then gather at Congo Square in New Orleans on Sundays. There they would sing and dance, remembering their African roots. They also reflected on what they had learned in church, strongly identifying with the people of Israel enduring slavery in Egypt and the suffering of Jesus Christ. People sang “let my people go” and “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” LeDoux calls this music the “holy blues.” Secular musicians heard it and basically changed the words and created the blues. This then evolved into jazz, rock ’n roll and more modern gospel music. One song which came out of this tradition, Down by the Riverside, first became
popular around the time of the Civil War and it remains well known today.
In 2009, an organization called Playing for Change released their version of Down by the Riverside, featuring musicians from Serbia, Portugal, Brazil, Los Angeles, France, Japan, and of course New Orleans and the Congo. What this organization accomplishes by recording artists with differing styles from all over the world, singing and playing in harmony, is a testimony not only to the technical
skill of the Playing for Change team but of the amazing gift music is to the world. Playing in harmony is perhaps the most perfect example of the highest degree of human cooperation, what author Stephen Covey refers to as synergy. Each musician and singer has to not only have confidence in their own abilities but also listen attentively to the others, thus creating a sound that no one person could produce.
Because Playing for Change draws artists from all over the globe who joyfully
share their time and talent, the songs they produce have a richness that perhaps has never been created before. Down by the Riverside is only one example of their amazing work, the profits from which are used to improve the quality of life in impoverished regions of the world.
As I reflect on the topic of the power of music, another story also comes to mind as well. It is more than 50 years since the huge rallies of Dr. Martin Luther King. The anthem of the civil rights movement was also from the “holy blues” tradition, We Shall Overcome. Masses of people sang this, and continue to sing, in beautiful harmony.
It is as if all of these songs of the “holy blues” contain a very deep and profound truth which we all know. Horrible crimes have been committed. There is tremendous injustice in the world, not only in Africa and the United States but in every country. Yet this music demonstrates that we can create harmony and when we do so we are living the highest essence of our humanity.
People have not only survived, we have been able to thrive despite horrendous wrongs being institutionalized, and it is music which has touched our hearts and given us hope. We know that better times are coming.
Thus the entire world joins Dr. King and sings in beautiful harmony, “deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome one day.”
Gerry Chidiac is a champion for social enlightenment, inspiring others to find their greatness in making the world a better place. For more of his writings, go to www. gerrychidiac.com.
Drowning in effort to book swim lessons
My continuing frustration with trying to get the kids registered in swim lessons has reached its peak.
Who are these women who know instinctively when the registration for swim lessons opens and have the ability to actually pick a time and day that is convenient for them and their family?
I have a picture in my head of a young mom with far more energy than me sitting happily at her kitchen table drinking coffee on a Saturday.
Her hair is not in need of a cut and her coffee pot has been cleaned at some point in the last two weeks.
She sips her coffee and casually scrolls through the City of Prince George leisure registration website and remembers what level her kids were in last without trying to track down the water-stained swim cards which are somewhere in her filing “system.”
She is not getting frustrated scrolling through the youth and the preschool swim lesson options and making notes, trying to find a time for her two kids to be in swim lessons at roughly the same time without having it be the worst time ever in the history of swim lessons.
The lessons she chooses are not full and she laughs at the idea of a Hail Mary waitlist.
This is, of course, after she logs into the site successfully on the first try without having to reset her password only to have the password reset option not work because somehow, the last time she was on the site, she managed to lock and freeze her account.
She will not have to wait until the pool opens so she can call and talk to a teen-
Home agaiN MeGan kuklis
ager to reset the registration account and feel moderately foolish.
She will not likely close the lid of her ancient laptop in disgust and frustration, feeling that her kids will never learn to swim because she can’t seem to manage a registration site.
She won’t have to look at private lessons as an option only to run the math to discover it is not a viable option.
She won’t stop what she is doing to imagine herself as a lifeguard, teaching her own kids to swim at no cost.
Meanwhile, I bet her kids are playing nicely together and not running after one another attempting ninja drop kicks on their siblings.
She won’t be interrupted to be asked if ninjas are real or for another piece of fruit (after they have eaten all of the fruit in the house within eight minutes of returning from the grocery store to refill the fruit basket).
She will not be asked for a treat, snack, second breakfast or lunch.
Her house will be clean and when she walks into her living room.
She will not step on any Lego or mysteriously naked, broken crayons.
She sips her coffee, signs up her kids in the appropriate swim level and manages to get both kids in at the same time.
Someone pours her another coffee, maybe she reads a book, relaxes.
97/16 news service photo
In this March 21, 1965 photo, dr. Martin Luther King, foreground row, fifth from right, waves as marchers stream across the alabama river on the first of a fiveday, 50-mile march to the state capitol at Montgomery, ala.
Tandy calls iT a career
Family first, career second.
Megan Tandy knows she’s made the right choice to retire from biathlon after 12 years with the national team.
The 30-year-old three-time Olympian from Prince George informed Biathlon Canada of her decision a few weeks ago after she learned she will have full custody of her eight-year-old son Predo indefinitely.
Based in Klingenthal, Germany, Tandy’s family situation unexpectedly changed earlier this month when her ex-husband Illmar Heinicke, Predo’s father, became institutionalized, unable to provide parental care for his son while Tandy was away racing.
“I decided for family reasons to stop racing,” said Tandy, from her home in Germany. “There’s no way forward from there. If I don’t race World Cup in January. then there’s no opportunity to qualify for the North American World Cups (next month in Canmore and Salt Lake City) and without participating in those races there was no opportunity to qualify for world championships. It was kind of a make-or-break part of the season.”
Tandy, who lives in Klingenthal with her partner Domenik Wolf and his nine-year-old son Leni, was unable to shed much light on that’s happened to Heinicke, who, up until last year, was coaching in Germany’s junior national program.
Heinicke, 46, first met Tandy in 2006, when he moved to Prince George to re-
place Knut Tore Berland as B.C. provincial biathlon team coach.
They moved to Germany in 2010 and separated in September 2014 after four years of marriage.
“He’s, for personal reasons, in treatment and not able to be present here for a longer period of time,” Tandy said. “I couldn’t tell you if it’s for stress or for a medical condition or for drug addiction, it could literally be anything.
“I can’t tell you that much because I don’t know that much, it’s a pretty tough situation I have over here,” she said. “I have my son and we’ve been through multiple custody battles and we don’t have great communication (with Heinicke) but it became apparent in November that Ilmar was going to be away for an extended period of time and unable to
be at his home in Klingenthal at all.
“So at that point I decided to end my season to be home with Predo, he’s my priority. It’s been a super-rough transition from planning how to progress my season to being a full-time mom but that’s OK, I’m enjoying it. Predo has always come first but I’ve never had a custody situation where I could be a full-time mom. Now that opportunity is presenting itself and it’s more important for me to be there for him during that time period than to be racing.”
Tandy started the season on the World Cup team after winning the Canadian team trials in November but her ski times in those first few World Cup events fell short of expectations.
Continued on page 10
97/16 news service photo
Megan Tandy competes in the mixed relay 2 x 6 km / 2 x 7,5 km at the Biathlon World Cup event on dec. 2 in Pokljuka, slovenia.
Ted claRke 97/16 staff
took up biathlon at age 12
Continued from page 9
Biathlon Canada informed her just before the new year she was being dropped down to the IBU Cup international B circuit, replaced on the World Cup team by Megan Bankes of Calgary.
Tandy was coming off a disappointing a 2017-18 season leading up to the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. She made the Olympic team and qualified for the pursuit after racing the sprint but a viral illness caused her heart muscle to shrink and that forced her to give up her spot on the team to Sarah Beaudry of Prince George for the rest of the Olympic competition.
Tandy did not race the final World Cup events last winter. Once she learned what was causing her to feel so fatigued and began responding to treatment she decided to extend her career for one more season.
“It was a crazy year, I started in the worst shape I’ve probably ever been with major health problems and then had one of the best summer and fall training seasons ever,” said Tandy.
“I was feeling totally stoked for the season, really excited to win Canadian trials and I couldn’t have started in any better way but I overdid it after trials. I was a little bit too motivated. I was willing to take the risk (training all-out). I wanted to be in the top-15, I didn’t want to train to be 50th if I’m looking at this as my last race season.”
Tandy’s World Cup results to close out 2018 were among the worst of her career. In Pokljuka, Slovenia she was 62nd in the individual event and 73rd in the sprint. In Hochfilzen, Austria she finished 87th in the sprint and in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic she was 81st in the sprint.
“The ski speed just wasn’t there and it was so frustrating,” she said.
Tandy first took up biathlon when she was 12, just starting to find her racing stride as a junior team cross-country ski racer with the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club in Prince George. She joined as one of the pioneers of a junior biathlon program overseen by volunteer coaches Jeremy Campbell and Fiona Coy. Working on a shooting range at Otway Nordic Centre they had tucked in the woods, using a snowmobile to haul in lights and other equipment, they trained young gunners like Tandy to become provincial champions. On her first try on the shooting range, using a rest in prone position, Tandy went 5-for-5 and was immediately hooked.
She was 22 when she first competed in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver-Whistler, where her best result was 35th in the pursuit. Her greatest Olympic moment came in Sochi in 2014 in the women’s team relay, where Tandy, skiing third in the order, was flawless in two shooting bouts, nailing all 10 targets without a miss. She tagged anchor skier Zina Kocher with the team in fourth place and the Canadian team finished an all-time best eighthjust enough to secure athlete assistance national funding for the entire relay team for the following season.
Tandy followed up her impressive Olympic performance with her best season on the World Cup tour. In 2014-15 she posted five top-16 solo race results and had five top-11 team relay finishes. “I never made it in the top-six, was never on the podium but I was really consistent, shooting well and skiing consistently,” she said. “I had two 20-for-20 races in that season, one was an individu-
al where I placed (a career-best) 11th and one was a pursuit where I raced from 41st position up to 14th. There were weekends where I felt I couldn’t miss a target and it was a cool place to be.”
Based in Germany the past eight years, Tandy had to adapt to training on her own, apart from her teammates. She had planned to retire after the 2018 Olympics but was encouraged by her cardiologist to try come back for her “bonus season” when he explained to her how remarkable it was she was able to compete at all last season, considering her compromised circulatory capacity caused by the viral condition.
Unlike their European counterparts, who are well taken care of financially, government funding for Canadian biathletes is uncertain from year to year be-
cause it is performance based. She won’t miss that aspect of being on the team.
“The IBU Cup team (which includes Burns Lake native Emily Dickson), they’re paying thousands of dollars every year to represent Canada on our international development circuit,” said Tandy. “It’s the hardest for our development athletes between 17 and 22 - they’re the future of our sport and yet if they’re not able to deliver exceptional results at that age that qualify them for federal athlete funding they’re really on their own.’
Tandy is encouraged to see the next generation of Canadian biathletes coming up in the world rankings. Two of the current national team members – Beaudry and Dickson – are products of the Caledonia club.
“Sarah impresses me, she’s a really
positive person and it’s cool to watch her develop and grow up as an athlete a few years behind me,” Tandy said. “She’s super positive. She had to drop one of her races at trials and had the guts to put all her eggs in one basket. She started the season on IBU Cup and by the third World Cup she had a personal best by far with a near-perfect race and a 12th place finish. She has lots of potential.
“Emily was definitely skiing faster this year and her times behind the top six athletes at trials wasn’t as much. In previous years that gap was minutes and this year it’s really closed and that’s exciting to see. For sure, there’s some ski speed improvements needed for international results but there’s time for that.”
Continued on page 11
97/16 file photos
Top, Megan Tandy practices at the Otway nordic Centre in 2007. Below, Tandy rollerskis in Miworth on an august afternoon in 2015.
Tandy competes in the biathlon world cup women’s 4x6 km relay at the alpensia Biathlon Centre in Pyeongchang, south Korea, on March 5, 2017.
‘So thankful for everything the Sport haS given me’
Continued from page 10
Tandy plans to spend the next few months completing her business administration masters thesis in sport management and is about to begin a new job as sport manager of a new biathlon club program set up by GK Software, the company that’s backed Tandy as her major sponsor the past two years. Over the next month she will help plan the club’s project to build an air rifle range in Schoneck, near Klingenthal.
“I’m really looking forward to stepping into a whole different set of shoes in the biathlon world,” said Tandy. “It’s pretty cool to step out of the sport and have something waiting for me right at home.”
Tandy is fluent in German and plans to utilize her extensive biathlon connections to help with her latest venture.
vibes from start to finish.
“It wasn’t a moment I would have chosen for myself with the family situation just to step out of the sport abruptly, but at the same point I’m ready for it. I want to be able to watch biathlon races on the weekend and see the Canadians fighting for it. It’s good to have the next tier of girls coming up and being ready to fill the shoes of the athletes who are retiring.”
Tandy is the second high-profile Canadian biathlete in the past two months to call it a career. Nathan Smith of Calgary, the country’s most decorated male biathlete, announced in December he was retiring after two years of dealing with a cytomegalovirus, an energysapping disease.
I’m so thankful I was able to represent Canada for so many years and I had so much support from different sponsors and family but also from home in Prince George the positive vibes from start to finish.
“It’s been pretty incredible, the sport has been my career for my entire adult life, I’ve spent the last 12 years pursuing it professionally,” she said. “It’s been a constant in my life when I’ve had in my private world lots of tough things going on. It’s taken me through a lot of highs and lows on and off the race course and I have no regrets. I’m so thankful I was able to represent Canada for so many years and I had so much support from different sponsors and family but also from home in Prince George the positive
Megan Tandy
Smith made a name for himself internationally when he won silver in the sprint at the 2012 world championships and later that season won World Cup gold in the pursuit.
“When I look back I’m so thankful for everything the sport has given me, it taught me so much about self-confidence, about falling down and getting up, about perseverance and teamwork and trust in others as well as trust in myself,” Tandy said. “This journey has given me so much I’m excited about potentially stepping into a different role where I can help give everything the sport gave to me to the next generation of athletes, whether that’s in Canada, Germany or somewhere else in the world.”
97/16 news service photo
Megan
Hard work aNd good times
John and Mary Row look back on family, business success
IseNiors’ sceNe
n the mid-1970s, the Federal Business Development Bank and the Chamber of Commerce of the day named John Row, the president of Crossroads Construction, as the Prince George businessman of the year. Here is his story in a nutshell.
John was born in 1931, just north of Prince Albert, Sask.
In fact, he was delivered by his father at their homestead.
He left the farm at the tender age of 16 and headed to southern Alberta for a job in construction. He moved to Nanaimo in 1950 for a six-month construction job and then moved back to southern Alberta.
In 1964 he moved to Prince George for work on the construction of the pulp mills and he has been here ever since. He started working for Crossroads Construction and bought the company in 1972.
John said, “I used to employ 200 construction workers. I got into the habit of putting the coffee on early every morning; that meant I had to be there before 7 a.m. My union workers would arrive well
before their 8 a.m. shift for their coffee and we would talk about the jobs and all it cost me was the coffee. I called it managing for success.
“We were a success and some of my employees worked for the company for 24 years with an average length of employment of eight years. Pete Jensen worked for the company for 36 years until he retired. We are still good friends today.
“The company is a lot smaller now; my son is the manager and we have only two employees. I semi-retired in 1995 but I still act as a consultant if they need me.”
Over the years, Crossroads Construction built the Victoria Medical Building, the addition for Reid’s Prescriptions, the Phoenix Medical Clinic, Lakewood Dental, the new Civic Centre, numerous schools and the Library Commission building at Quinn and 15th Avenue. His company worked on the construction of the Northwood, Intercontinental and the Prince George Pulp mills, as well as B.C. Chemicals Ltd.
They contracted all the way south to Castlegar, north to Fort Nelson, west to Prince Rupert, east to Grimshaw, Alta. and everything in between. John was an inspector on the University of Northern B.C. building project for eight years.
John met Mary Riediger in 1952. Mary was born in 1933, on the Oxly Ranch, in Stavely, Alta.
She had a twin brother and comes from a family of five girls and three boys.
John was doing some construction work south of Calgary and the wife of his boss just happened to be making Mary’s graduation dress.
Mary said, “I already had my eye on John and his car. I watched him drive by in his Model A and I fell in love with the car. Two years went by before I actually met him. His boss told him about me and told him to look me up sometime when he was in Calgary and he did. I let him chase me until I caught him. We married in 1955 and we will celebrate 64 years of marriage in May.
“I was attending business college in Calgary when John looked me up. After college I worked for the federal government in the office of the agricultural department in plant products.
“When the children started to arrive, I quit work and became a stay at home mom. I enjoyed being at home with my children. I sewed all their clothes and did lots of knitting. We grew a large garden and I either froze or canned all the produce.”
John and Mary have four children: Karen (Bob) Rutherford, Jack (deceased), Cheryll Johnson and Graham (Becky). They have seven grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.
John has been a member of the Rotary Club since 1978, the Shriners since 1968
and he has been a member of the Masonic Lodge since 1966. He has served as a director for the Prince George Construction Association for about 38 years and a trustee of the Carpentry Apprenticeship Joint Board.
Mary was a member of the Daughters of the Nile for 28 years until the group folded and she sang with the Sweet Adelines for 28 years until her voice wore out.
She was a member of the Master Bowlers Association, developed her skills, became a Master Bowler and taught youth bowling from 1968 to 1982.
Mary said, “I taught many great kids from the ages of seven to 12 years of age. I took a team to the Provincial Zone Championships and from there we went on to the nationals.
John concluded by saying, “We moved to Prince George in 1964 with the intention of only staying here for five years. That was 55 years ago and we are still here. Prince George has been a great place to raise a great family.
“We took winter vacations for 30 years but I stayed in touch with the office every day. Now, because of health issues, we spend our winters here at home.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our customers, construction associates and suppliers and all the wonderful people we met along the way to our retirement.”
Kathy NadaliN
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten Mary and John row have enjoyed growing their family in Prince George and are now enjoying their retirement years.
A diet of crAzy, risky wAys to lose weight
debra bruno 97/16 wire service
Welcome to diet season, when people are looking for a reset after the overconsumption of the holidays.
Before the 20th century, few people cared whether a person put on a few pounds. An ample middle was seen as a sign of prosperity and good health. Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, says people were “uncomfortable with extreme thinness, because it signaled wasting diseases,” such as tuberculosis and cancer.
Then several things changed.
One was that insurance companies, which had been compiling actuarial tables that looked at the risk factors connected to occupation, age, gender, height and weight, started to become more sophisticated. The “average” weight for men and women changed to “ideal” height and weight in the early 20th century, says Susan Speaker, a National Library of Medicine historian, because insurance companies saw a correlation between excess weight and early mortality. Those charts started appearing on the walls of doctors’ offices.
Fashion also played a role. In the 1920s, as the flapper look took off, women began wearing slimmer, figure-hugging dresses that often ended just below the knees and bared the arms. Being plump didn’t seem as pleasing in such attire. The advertising world, powered by new businesses, was ready to jump in with solutions.
The result? Here are seven of the strangest – and often unhealthy – strategies for getting thin.
• Smoking instead of snacking. A 1928 advertisement for Lucky Strike cigarettes said, “reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet,”until the confection industry threatened legal action. Cigarettes do burn calories and probably do substitute for snacking for some users. And those who quit smoking do tend to gain weight when they replace the oral gratification of smoking with eating. But no one can call cigarette usage a healthy approach.
• Speed pills to suppress your appetite. Amphetamines were first prescribed after the Second World War. They generally were discontinued in 1979 when addiction and the potential for abuse became better known. Amphetamines were used on the battlefields during the war to help sleep-deprived soldiers stay awake and alert. After the war, the drug company Smith Kline & French started selling the drugs for weight loss and depression. Similar to amphetamines were the “rainbow pills” of the 1940s, 50s and 60s, a colourful array of pills that included laxatives, diuretics, and amphetamines, and were connected to several deaths. Although amphetamines are out, methamphetamine (yes, meth) is still approved by the Food and Drug Administration for short-term weight loss for certain people.
• A diet “candy” with an unfortunate name. Then there was Ayds, a fudgelike candy that was designed to be taken before meals as an appetite suppressant. First introduced in the 1950s, Ayds grew
in popularity for the next 20 years. One commercial shows a thin woman wearing a yellow shirtwaist dress (that looks no larger than size 4 in today’s measurements) saying, “And I love being a size 10 again!” But there was something in those little brown squares - the supplement first included benzocaine, an oral anesthetic that would presumably numb the taste buds. Later Ayds were infused with phenylpropanolamine, a decongestant also used for urinary incontinence in dogs. But when the AIDS crisis hit in the 1980s, the word association appeared to be just too much. Ayds was withdrawn from the market in the late 1980s.
• All junk food, all the time. Also known as the “Twinkie diet,” this approach – more of an experiment than a serious diet – was tried by Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, in 2010. For 10 weeks, Haub ate Twinkies, Doritos, Oreos, and other junk food exclusively, but kept his calorie limit to about 1500 calories a day, a good 800 calories below what he would need to maintain his weight. And he lost 27 pounds. Today, Haub says he’s put back on all but seven of the lost pounds, but he feels the diet helped him jumpstart his weight loss. “I got to the point where I wanted to make some lifestyle changes, and used it as a way to start that process,” he says. His current diet focuses on whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and more mindful eating, he notes.
• Grapefruit. Sometimes called “the Hollywood 18-day diet,” or just the grapefruit diet, this plan, which has existed in some form since the 1930s and had a resurgence in the 1980s, restricted food to almost nothing but grapefruit and maybe a hard-boiled egg. It came in at somewhere between 400 and 800 calories a day. To be sure, a diet of so few daily calories is probably going to result in weight loss, so yes, many on this diet do lose weight. But being famished often meant that dieters turned to binge-eating and weight gain after the diet ended.
• The tapeworm cure. The concept is that a tapeworm living in the intestines consumes calories that might otherwise feed the human host. Elizabeth Tucker, co-author of Folk Culture in the Digital Age, said ingesting worms “could have pretty bad consequences,” including causing intestinal blockage and damage to the brain, liver and eyes. Oh, and there’s no evidence the tapeworm diet works.
• A spoonful of vinegar. The idea is to take a couple of teaspoons of the vinegar, diluted by water, before a meal, which advocates say induces weight loss by decreasing appetite and even reducing insulin levels. Robert Shmerling, senior editor at Harvard Health Publishing and rheumatologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, says no studies have conclusively proved that vinegar leads to weight loss, although it might cause a feeling of nausea that will make people eat less. The downside is that “because it is highly acidic, it can damage tooth enamel or irritate the esophagus,” which can lead to acid reflux.
Nutritionists say that as people turn their attention and efforts to shedding holiday weight, it’s worth remembering that lots of diets can help you quickly lose pounds; the issue is keeping them off after the diet.
“The real challenge is what you do when the weight plateaus,” Bray says. “For most people, they’re unable to maintain that” since maintaining a weight loss requires permanent changes in eating habits and lifestyle.
Along with that, she says, is a growing understanding “that once we put weight on, it’s so hard to take it off. The newer thinking is ‘Don’t put it on in the first place.’”
No one has figured out how to do that either, she says.
97/16 news service photos
The grapefruit diet, above, or the all-junk-food diet, below, are just two of the craziest weight loss fads ever promoted.
addiction is a disease
Dear Ann:
Why do people blame the addict for their disease while not blaming people with other visible diseases?
The World Health Organization and the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons deem addiction a disease. This fact is not in dispute. People tend to think addiction is a personal choice.
Addiction is horrible and hellish. It is not something anyone chooses.
Picking up the first drink or drug may have been deliberate but when true addiction kicks in, choice is no longer an option.
Addicted brains are hijacked and no amount of personal resolve can overcome this powerful biological drive.
Imagine trying to stop breathing; it will never happen on will power alone.
The difference between addiction and other visible diseases is that addiction has observable actions which tend to hurt surrounding people.
If I have diabetes, you don’t see my high blood sugar hurting others. I don’t cheat, lie, steal or sell my body if I have diabetes. I do not conduct crime or break into houses.
The behaviour of addicts/alcoholics hurts other people – mothers, fathers, children and sisters; even strangers are impacted by drunk driving. These observable actions are why people blame addicts.
When you pick up a cup of tea, I tend to think this a personal choice. When you pick up a drink, we tend to think this is
ask an addict
also a personal choice.
People hurt by addicts direct their anger and pain onto to the person causing this. Many say “if you loved me enough, you would just quit.”
Unfortunately addiction isn’t about loving or not loving another.
If love could cure illness, there would be no diabetes, no cancer and no addiction.
Addicts hurt people.
Hurt people hurt people.
When hurt, people lash out at addicts and call them weak willed and immoral.
Unfortunately the lying, cheating and manipulative actions are indicative of the substance being used, not about the person themselves.
People tend to confuse alcoholic rage as being the alcoholic.
It is actually the alcohol, the drug which causes the behaviour. Society confounds the two and tends not to separate the person from the substance.
When a young child acts out, we are taught to separate the behaviour from the person. We tell them, “I love you but not your behaviour.” This should be true with addiction: “I love you but not your disease” (including addictive behaviours) but sadly it is not.
97/16 news service photo by Bebeto Matthews an addict prepares heroin, placing a fentanyl test strip into the mixing container to check for contamination last august in new york. If the strip registers a pinkish to red marker then the heroin is positive for contaminants.
What addicts need most is less stigmatization. People do not seek help when judgment prevails.
This is why it is important to be aware of the facts: addiction is not a lifestyle choice. Addicts who are actively ill already hate themselves enough without having more judgment from you.
As a closing thought, consider your
child falling on the floor with a seizure— urinating and defecating on themself. Consider your mother having had a stroke with verbal profanity now coming out.
These two conditions would be not be met with judgment or anger, nor would they be considered a personal choice. Sadly, addiction is.
TV show helps man use CPR on woman
97/16 wire service
When it came time to save a life, the mechanic turned to the lessons of Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute.
Cross Scott, a tire shop technician, was test driving a customer’s vehicle on Jan. 11 when he saw a peculiar thing: a sedan pulled over, its hazard lights blinking, according to the Arizona Daily Star. He got out to inspect the vehicle.
There was a woman inside who appeared unconscious as the car crept forward, he told the newspaper. He stuck a rock under the wheel and used another to smash a window, and two women who pulled over dialed 911.
He checked for a pulse. Nothing. Help could be minutes away. He had to act. But there was one problem.
“I’ve never prepared myself for CPR in my life,” Scott told the Star. “I had no idea what I was doing.”
Well, that’s not entirely true. He had seen Season 5, episode 14 of The Office.
In a classic scene from the TV series, Dunder Mifflin regional manager Michael Scott acknowledges his leadership style may have led to a heart attack, and, fearing future emergencies, he organizes CPR training for his employees. When he thrusts too fast on the practice dummy, the instructor tells him to sync his rhythm with a well-known disco hit.
“A good trick is to pump to the tune of Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees,” she explains, because at around 100 beats a minute, it matches the recommended tempo to perform chest compression on a patient.
The memory was seared into Scott’s memory. He crawled onto the woman
and began compressions while singing the song aloud, he told the Star, thinking of Steve Carell’s character hunched over the dummy and belting “Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.”
The woman, later identified as Clare, awoke after a minute and threw up, according to the Star. She was then taken to a hospital. Scott, recalling the words of a paramedic from the Tucson Fire Department, told the newspaper her fate could have been much different had he never intervened.
Of course, experts do not expect a passerby to shuffle their Spotify playlist to find the perfect beat while someone is in cardiac arrest but rather suggest songs many people know by, well, heart. The New York-Presbyterian Hospital crafted a list of popular songs that fit the criteria: Just Dance by Lady Gaga, Rock This Town by Stray Cats or Crazy in Love by Beyoncé.
Scott appears to have done the right thing despite a lack of training, said Jonathan Epstein, the senior director of science at the American Red Cross training services.
The organization encourages people to take one-hour CPR courses to familiarize themselves with the process, which has proved to increase someone’s willingness to help out in an emergency, he told 97/16 news service.
But failing that?
“Chest compressions alone are a benefit to the patient,” he said. “You can’t hurt them if they’re not breathing, so all you can do is make them better.”
Stayin’ Alive, with 106 beats per minute, is a pretty good candidate for getting in the 100 to 120 sweet spot.
Handout photo
Victoria-based musician sam Weber will co-host a workshop with Terra Lightfoot this morning starting at 10:30 a.m. at the Omineca arts Centre as part of the Coldsnap music festival. Weber will also be performing a show tonight at the Prince George Legion with naomi Kavka. doors open at 7 p.m., and the show starts at 8 p.m.
Weber takes Legion stage tonight
ness celebrities Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod in a hilarious pantomime.
It has been almost four years since Sam Weber has been to Prince George. On his two previous visits, he succeeded in winning fans over with his smooth, slowburn alternative rock.
The rest of Canada is now alive to the Victoria guitar slinger with the voice like a Salish Sea fog and he has just pushed a new EP out into the water. One of the places he most wanted to perform it for was P.G.
“We met a bunch of people when we were there the first time and we’ve been trying to get back,” he said. He and his band have been down in Los Angeles working with go-to producer Tyler Chester. As a musician, Chester has worked with a spread of stars from Joan Baez to Christina Aguilera to Jackson Browne and he is a veteran producer as well. In fact, the comparisons between Weber and Browne make a compelling case. He could be called a cross between Steely Dan and the Grapes Of Wrath. Or a mashup of Springsteen’s introverted side and X Ambassadors.
He could be called a lot of things, as long as it makes mention of his unmistakable command of the guitar and his way with stickhandling a lyric.
For those just getting started on Weber’s music, a good place to begin are songs like Burn Out, August, Valentina, and Anybodys with its video starring fit-
Weber got another star to step up for him the other day, totally out of the blue and unsolicited. He’s been smiling with the surprise ever since.
“Afie Jurvanen of Bahamas was on the George Stroumboulopoulos show and he said Ex Lover by Sam Weber was the best song of 2018.’ We’ve never had any accolades or recognition like that. That meant a lot. And that just happened so we’re like reeling from it.”
Weber didn’t even know how Jurvanen heard the tune. Music doesn’t move around anymore like it did up to the early 2000s when it was a predictable line of radio and music video. Now music can’t be aimed as surely by those who perform it, but it can also wander in ways unknown to the artist.
Weber estimates the peak of the music industry’s power was the 1990s “right before Napster came along, and that was the collapse of that wing of the music industry. But I’m barely disparaged by that anymore because where we make money and where we find joy is in playing live. I never really have the expectation of making money off the recordings. We can monetize just travelling around playing music for people. We are completely happy with that.”
It is also a shared experience. The relationship between artist and audience in a concert setting, large or small, is akin to an act of magic. And Weber said there
is also a deep personal meaning among musicians when they lock into each other. The fans who don’t play music probably don’t know just how organic a live performance is.
You might think you play the same old song one night exactly the way you played it the 100 nights before that.
Live music is not like painting by numbers, though. Every note struck by a finger on a guitar string or snap of drumstick or inflection in a singing tone creates a different pathway to the next one and the next one, and over the course of a concert, another world is created using the songs as merely a familiar frame around the ever-changing kaleidoscope image of sound.
That inter-relationship between himself and his bandmates can feel like an angry mess or it can edify your spirit.
“We’ve been trying as a band to listen to each other and reach this hyperconsciousness thing,” he said, with a shy laugh.
“I know that sounds super new-agey and weird but if everyone in a band context is paying really close attention to each other, you can reach almost like a meditative level. You can react to each other. You reach this point when your mistakes can just disappear.
“We’re not an eye-contact oriented band, but it can go as far as the relationships with the band members. It’s about having strong relationships with those people personally so when mistakes
happen they can just go by and not pull you out of the moment. Because when someone makes a mistake on stage, it is the responsibility of all the other players on stage to try and fix it, in terms of the fabric of the song. If the guitar player does something weird, the drummer can do something off of that and just make it this moment, rather than allow it to be an awkward situation. These are hard things to explain, but when you go out together and do 60 shows you start to dissect it at that level.”
Someone who gets what they are trying to do is Canadian alt-rock darling Terra Lightfoot. She and her band have been solid pals of Weber and his band. When they found out Lightfoot was performing at this year’s Coldsnap music festival (see story, page 16), and they were in the general area themselves, Weber rushed to book himself into P.G. as well so they could enjoy each other’s shows.
In a twist of fate, though, Weber is scheduled to be at the Prince George Legion tonight, the same night Lightfoot is playing her Coldsnap concert at the PG Playhouse.
To get at least a little time in the same room, though, Weber was invited by the Coldsnap organizers to conduct a free workshop with Lightfoot. That workshop happens from 10:30-11:30 a.m. today at the Omineca Arts Centre. Guitar players are encouraged to bring their own instruments; fans are encouraged to bring their clapping hands.
Lightfoot headLines CoLdsnap show
If you were a songwriter, you’d want Terra Lightfoot to cover whatever you did. She’d do it better than you and it would plump up with more authenticity than you imagined it had. You’d be wondering what the writer meant by that middle line in the second stanza, then remember with a jolt that she was giving answers for which only you had the original question.
If someone were going to write a song about you, you’d want it to be Terra Lightfoot. You wouldn’t be named in the song but you’d know.
Even if her honesty felt a bit painful, she’d never be cruel, she’s paint you right, you’d be ooo-la-la-ing right along with the background singers, and you’d hit the replay button as soon as the last guitar clang faded into the grey smells and neon buzz of the honky-tonk .
Lightfoot has never been to Prince George, so her two appearances this coming week are circled on her calendar. She’s looking to expand her audience to a new region.
Fans can expect to hear a mix of tracks from her New Mistakes album, her Every Time My Mind Runs Wild album and some carefully chosen covers to add some depth and fun.
“We’re doing it in the format of being a trio, which is really fun because it’s guitar-centric music and it allows the guitar to be the centre of it all,” she said.
“But at the same time it gives my drummer and my bass player a big chance to shine, so we are having a lot of fun with this arrangement. And it’s rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s country, and it’s folk, and it’s soul, and it’s kind of everything.”
Lightfoot is a true scribe within the craft. Lines like “I am burdened by a blindness to your flaws” and “every time my mind runs wild, you are always where it goes” carry her songs down the literary path more like a modern dirt-road poet.
When you run out of compliments for her lyrical balladeering you can move on to her smooth-burn Scotch whisky vocal tones, and then finish with her pinnacle asset of all, the guitar.
“I actually started on piano when I was five,” she said.
“Then I moved along to an acoustic guitar when I was in Grade 7 or something. My mom bought me a guitar at a garage sale. Then I just started playing electric at around 12 and I never put it down again, and I still haven’t. I noticed today on my guitar, Veronica, my beautiful Gibson SG that I’ve had for many years (it’s the one that looks like the one AC/DC’s Angus Young uses), there is a deep hole in the body. It’s a solid body. It’s gotten so deep. It’s like a tiny mountain range in my guitar’s finish, in my warped mind.”
You can clearly see the beginnings of that stum-scar in the video for her honeydipped song Ruthless.
If you took note that her devil-horned axe had a name, get ready for more. Veronica has sisters.
“For this trip I packed three. I had four, but I left one at home, at the last minute,” she said. “So I have Veronica, I have Charlotte and I have Ashley.
“Charlotte is an Epiphone that is newer but everyone thinks she is from the ’60s.” Charlotte is a voluptuous blonde that looks like the vintage arch-top guitars handled by golden age rockers like The Beatles and John Lee Hooker.
“Ashley is a handmade guitar made for me by a luthier named Ashley Leanne so I named the guitar after her.” Ashley Leanne Rowley builds guitars in Burlington, nearby to Lightfoot’s hometown of Hamilton. Rowley studied under master luthier Paul Saunders. She imbedded Lightfoot’s guitar with a unique image – a bird made of abalone.
Lightfoot crafts unique images of her own, carved out of chord and stanza. One of the most vivid so far is the single Norma Gale, a true old fashioned ode to the Canadian country music legend. Gale passed away before hearing the song, but Lightfoot crafted it after meeting her son who introduced the two singers, the younger struck with inspiration by the older.
“That song really has become something else,” Lightfoot said. “I did not write it with that intention, to get it where it’s sort of gotten to. I got to play it at the Junos, and Sarah Harmer texted me for the lyrics to cover it, it’s just been so cool. I don’t write songs about other people, generally, from their perspective. It’s usually about me or sung in the first person.
But her story just struck me so much I had to write about it. For a song to walk on its own is all I could ever ask for, and I didn’t know it would be that one, and I’m so happy that it is.”
Other Lightfoot songs have also gotten up and walked on their own, thanks to the appreciation of other musicians. A whole album was made in which Lightfoot was called in to collaborate with the National Academy Orchestra of Canada.
“That is an unspeakable privilege,” she said, remembering the sound of her songs renovated with orchestra arrangements.
“I actually couldn’t play with them in the first rehearsal because I was crying. I couldn’t sing because I was overflowing with gratitude. It was such a beautiful experience, and I highly recommend even going to see a symphony orchestra. There is something just so beautiful and visceral and it taps into where we came from, I think. And the instruments are so gorgeous, and the players are incredible –so much better than rock musicians.”
Lightfoot will show Prince George some of that material at her Coldsnap concert tonight at the P.G. Playhouse. The night also offers opening acts Grace Hoksbergen (Limelight Quest winner) and the Celeigh Cardinal Trio.
Lightfoot will also conduct a guitar workshop with Sam Weber this morning from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the Omineca Arts Centre. It’s free of charge and guitar players are encouraged to bring their instruments.
Frank PeeBLeS 97/16 staff
Handout photo by Dustin Rabin Terra Lightfoot will be co-hosting a guitar workshop this morning, and then playing a concert tonight as part of the Coldsnap music festival.
author explores goodness paradox
In the past century, millions of humans have died at the hands of other humans through mass genocides, serial killings, wars and nuclear devastation. As a rule, however, people today are markedly less violent than our distant ancestors. In The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution, Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham takes the reader through the most current knowledge about human evolution to explain why people have developed into relatively docile creatures while retaining a capacity for acts of unspeakable violence. “How,” he asks, “could our domesticated qualities and our capacity for terrible violence be reconciled?”
The question of how humans came to be domesticated has plagued philosophers and scientists for hundreds of years. Wrangham addresses this question with fascinating evidence from studies of primates, foxes, domesticated animals and hominid fossils to reconstruct the process of our domestication as a species. Chimpanzees and bonobos, which inhabit neighboring terrain in Congo and are genetically similar, provide useful living examples of animals that share much of our DNA and exhibit humanlike emotions and behavior. But while bonobos are relatively peaceful creatures, chimpanzees exhibit no scruples about killing friends, lovers and even infants. In this way, Wrangham argues, chimpanzees and bonobos demonstrate the violence and peacefulness that coexist in humans.
97/16 news service photo
Tina Chastant hugs her daughter rosalina Chastant, 5, in Gonzalez, La., on sunday, after they arrived to comfort Kim Mincks, left. Five people were shot to death in the community on saturday.
But how did they evolve so differently? In part, chimpanzee violence enabled them to compete with gorillas for resources, whereas the bonobos lived in an area with abundant foliage and little competition. Because violent bonobos were not necessary to the evolution of the species, they became more domesticated. But is there a way to go beyond mere theory and observe the process in action?
A Russian experiment with foxes underway since 1959 provides one interesting example.
Soviet geneticist Dmitri Belyaev selected a population of silver foxes and bred those exhibiting friendliness and a lack
of fear of humans.Within 35 generations, almost 80 per cent of these foxes were as tame as dogs. Presumably dogs underwent similar domestication processes that transformed them from wild wolves into household companions.
In addition to becoming tamer, domesticated animals tend to change physically as well, which Belyaev witnessed in the silver fox population.
Wrangham has studied embryonic development for clues as to why domesticated animals often have smaller bodies, white spots on their foreheads, floppy ears or curly tails, traits almost never found in animals in the wild. As species
become more domesticated, their form changes to resemble that of juveniles of their species. Humans changed from broader bodies with thicker bones and wide faces to lighter forms with narrower and almost feminized features. The difference in the body size of men and women also declined.
A popular myth is that foraging groups were peaceful until colonialism took away their mobility and restricted their traditional way of life, and that our capacity for great violence did not develop until we were in settled agricultural communities. But Wrangham cites numerous small-scale societies where brutal violence against other groups was the norm. He shows that in part, fear of the punishment meted out by governments in settled societies has gone a long way toward curbing violent impulses.
The author asserts that the capacity for cooperation is an important characteristic that allowed our species to flourish. He contrasts us with Neanderthals, who died out 35,000 years ago after living in Europe for half a million years, until Homo sapiens arrived about 43,000 years ago. Wrangham suggests that Neanderthals’ cognitive inability to cooperate with one another to pass on important cultural knowledge necessary for survival may have led to their demise, especially once they came into competition for resources with the invading Homo sapiens.
The Goodness Paradox pieces together findings from anthropology, history and biology to reconstruct a vivid and comprehensive history of how humans evolved into domesticated creatures.
Morrow unveils new book
frank peebles 97/16 staff
Trelle Morrow wrote such a necessary book for the Community Arts Council that they made it the subject of their latest feature gallery.
An Arts Compendium is a collection of the CAC’s early years. It was just released as part of the arts agency’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
Morrow, the city’s most decorated and prolific writer of local history, was in charge of compiling all the materials from the various artists and arts groups from which the CAC was formed.
He was also given access to the boxes of material held in the CAC’s own closet of saved materials dating back to 1968.
The book included the input of such foundational organizations as the Prince George Concert Association, the Opus 1 Choir, Theatre Workshop, New Caledonia Orchestra, The Alaska Music Trail and other now-defunct entities that enlivened the community’s quality of life half a century ago.
It also included vignettes from modern organizations and included information about the structure and evolution of the CAC and the buildings that comprise their Studio 2880 complex on 15th Avenue.
On the day the book was released to the public, it was also revealed that a number of pages had been blown up and framed to form a visual display in the feature gallery.
“That’s
a little surprise for you,” Morrow was told by Sean Farrell, executive director of the CAC, when the announcement was made.
“He’s such a beloved member of the arts community, a pillar of Prince George society,” Farrell said when asked about turning the book into an exhibit.
“It was this whole process. It involved so many people, and artifacts, and dusty old items, so it leant itself to a physical display.”
Morrow, a retired architect also celebrated for his building designs, is the author of 10 titles on the shelves of the Prince George Public Library, for which he has won three Jeanne Clarke History Awards, more (tied with the late Kent Sedgwick, who once wrote a book about Morrow) than any other writer.
He is also an active member of the Prince George Heritage Commission.
“He is a very busy boy,” quipped Doug Hofstede, the community services manager for the City of Prince George, calling Morrow a unique treasure “we are so lucky to have” as a documentarian of our local area.
Morrow has a number of projects underway and is glad to have An Arts Compendium behind him. It was a different process for him, more akin to an editor than a writer, but he enjoyed having such formative information tucked between two permanent covers, all together.
teaching pottery class in 1954 that is in an arts Compendium, the Community arts Council of Prince George and district 50th anniversary Book that he edited. There was a launch of the book and opening of a special exhibit at studio 2880.
you have to have quality information with which to work.”
He hoped this first edition would lead, at future milestone years, to updated versions that would carry on building the legacy of the CAC and thus tell the story of the city’s quality of life and health of culture.
Compiling the information is important work but you have to have quality information with which to work.
Trelle Morrow
The fragility of that knowledge is a problem in this city, he said. The documents and physical items that represent different arts organizations have largely been lost almost as soon as they happened, and the same could be said for sport or business or municipal work.
“I thought we had a pretty good smattering of the city’s arts community at that time, and it makes up an important document,” he said. “I love the compendium medium for documenting local history. It could be five times bigger on future endeavours if someone could persevere. This was my first attempt at a compendium. As an experiment, I think it turned out to be a good platform, a good format, especially if you have someone pushing at people to contribute and dig up the information. That’s what you need. Compiling the information is important work, but
The UNBC Archives, the public library, the Exploration Place, the Railway & Forestry Museum, these all have their place in holding onto papers and other physical materials that represent our community for future generations, but a key institution is lacking, he said.
“The city of Prince George will never be a cultural centre of the north until City Hall starts its own archives,” he said. “Archives are important, they should be available to the public, and municipalities need to run their own. And many do, but not Prince George.”
An Arts Compendium is available in participating bookstores and at the Studio 2880 Artisan Gift Shop where the feature gallery has the companion art exhibition on display now.
97/16 photo by Btent Braaten Trelle Morrow looks over a photo of him
Crafts great teaChing tool
97/16 wire service
Teaching kids social and emotional skills is getting renewed attention, and arts and crafts are a good way to do that, at home as well as at school.
“Anxiety and depression are on the rise for young people,” says Melissa Schlinger, a vice-president at the Chicago-based Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, an advocacy and research organization that tries to make social and emotional learning a priority in education.
Jacqueline Jodl, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, concurs.
“Families and parents are requesting help with social and emotional learning,” she says. “Teachers also are really starting to express demand for it, and the business community continues to express demand for students with a broader cross-section of skills.”
Why does art help?
“Because there is a lot of invention and also trials and tribulations that get worked out in the creative process, a child can learn how to manage frustration,” says Marygrace Berberian, a licensed art therapist and clinical social worker.
“They’re also learning to connect to more emotional aspects of themselves that are not necessarily encouraged in other aspects of their lives.”
Four ways to more intentionally integrate social and emotional learning into
97/16 news service photo
In this november 2013 photo provided by Marygrace Berberian, students share artwork from school-based art therapy workshops at standing Tall, a public exhibit at new york university in new york. arts and crafts are getting renewed attention as a way to teach social and emotional skills to kids at school and during extracurricular activities.
youth art projects, at home, school or anywhere:
• Consider the specific needs of the child when selecting material. “Art materials range from being controlled to very expressive,” Berberian says. A
• Give kids agency over their project. Give students the freedom to “interpret a project or prompt through their own experience and perspectives,” says Christian Ortiz, senior manager of studio programs at Marwen, a visual-arts organization for youth in Chicago. For example, Marwen hosted a printmaking class in which students were asked to create small patches depicting what was important to them, he says.
Berberian advises parents not to dictate how a child should do an art project at home. Rather, they should be “affirming the child’s process” through dialogue: Ask kids about their creations, the decisions they made and why.
• Create a lesson along with a project. Melissa Mellor, a spokeswoman for Jodl’s commission at the Aspen Institute, recalls an art project that her first-grade son did in school that focused on learning from mistakes. The class read a book about a girl who made a mistake on a project and turned it into something beautiful. Then, each student received a piece of paper with marks already on it and, using permanent marker, was tasked with turning it into a new piece of art. The goal was to teach flexibility, problem solving, creativity and the ability to grow from mistakes.
child seeking control might benefit from beading or pencil drawing, for example, whereas a child who needs to let go and be more expressive might learn more from working with paints or clay, which encourage spontaneity.
• Make art together. “When people make art together or engage in creative processes together, it’s a natural form of empathy-building because you’re doing something together, mirroring each other and celebrating each other’s artistic practice,” says Berberian.
Senior an inStagram hit
elazar soNtag
97/16 wire service
Lan Lin doesn’t go around telling her friends she’s famous on Instagram. For that matter, Lan, 73, isn’t really sure how Instagram works.
Nevertheless, first-, second- and thirdgeneration immigrants across the country have rallied around the videos her daughter Lisa films as she cooks traditional Chinese dishes with her mother. Although she can’t for the life of her figure out why, Lan has become an online mother figure and cooking teacher for thousands of young people she’s never met.
In an early video posted to Lisa’s Instagram account, Lan stands in her tiny San Francisco kitchen, sporting her favorite floral print apron and pink plastic slippers. She’s making an enormous sticky rice casserole, laced with homemade Chinese bacon, dried shrimp and vegetables. As she cooks, she explains the recipe in Taishanese, the dialect she grew up speaking in Taishan, a city in South China’s coastal Guangdong province. Lisa leans over her mother’s shoulder, recording the video on her phone. “I asked my mom how much rice is in here, and she said seven cups,” Lisa, a lawyer turned food blogger, translates. “But she apparently used this cup to measure it.” Lan, or Mama Lin as her daughter affectionately calls her, holds up a tiny plastic cup she was handed on her flight to America 32 years ago. It’s been her standard of measurement ever since. Lan never relies on exact measurements or precise cooking times, so Lisa
retests her mother’s recipes before posting a simplified version to her blog. For many of Lisa’s 66,000 Instagram followers, cooking along is an afterthought. They watch Lan’s videos for a sense of belonging, a reminder of grandmothers still in China, dishes they haven’t eaten since childhood, recipes they never thought to learn before moving across the world.
On this November day, in her daughter’s Sacramento apartment, where she’s spending the weekend, Lan is wearing new pink slippers and a polka dot apron as she pours sweet rice flour into a metal bowl to make tang yuan, or black sesame dumplings. Lan, Lisa and their family always make some version of these glutinous rice dumplings for Chinese New Year, crowding around Lan’s counter and taking care not to stain their hands and clothes with the jet black filling as they form each ball. At first, Lan weighs the flour on a small kitchen scale and sprinkles in tablespoons of hot water, keeping her measurements exact, while she stirs with a chopstick.
“This doesn’t feel right,” she says, putting the chopstick aside and poking the dough with her fingers. “I’ve been making this without measuring anything for years.” Lan can tell the dough is too dry. Lisa’s efforts at a concise recipe have been defeated, the measuring spoons are thrown in the sink, and Lan smiles as she pours boiling water straight from her kettle into the bowl.
Despite what her daughter tells her, Lan isn’t convinced that any of Lisa’s followers actually watch her videos. “Don’t you think it’s weird that people like watching an old lady, and hearing an old woman’s story?” she asks, as we sit around Lisa’s island counter eating light, pillowy turnip cakes Lan has fried for lunch.
“She doesn’t really understand the whole Instagram thing,” Lisa, 32, says of her mother. “Sometimes I don’t understand why people enjoy watching us cook, either.”
When Lisa recorded the first video, she didn’t intend to share it. Lan had just turned 70, and Lisa realized she had lim-
ited time to learn from her mother. She wanted to post a version of her mother’s peanut candy to her food blog but was struggling to replicate its snappy texture and amber hue. So she asked Lan to make it while she recorded. When Lisa shared the video on Instagram, hundreds of excited followers reached out.
“That’s when I knew, this was different,” she recalls.
Jiar Fong, one of Lisa’s followers, came across the videos early last year and felt pangs of homesickness. Fong, 29, had just moved from Malaysia to New York City.
“When you live in your home country, all this food that you love is so easy [to find] that you never learn how to make it,” she says. “The minute you move, you wish you remember how your mom made it, how your grandma made it.” Watching Lisa’s videos, she was overwhelmed. “I teared up, being so far away from home. Now that I watch these videos, maybe when I go back home I’ll record my mom cooking, so that I can keep the recipes in my family.”
When she’s filming, Lisa often pauses her translations, to show her mother’s eccentricities. In one video, she pans to the busy, patterned apron Lan found in Chinatown for 99 cents. In another, she points out her mom’s little pink radio, balanced on the counter and blasting Chinese opera while Lan cooks. “I kind of know these are Asian mom quirks in the back of my head,” Lisa says. “I can spot it immediately. And I present it so other people whose parents are similar can relate to that. I feel like we have a personal connection.”
Gillian Der, another of Lisa’s followers, couldn’t believe what she was hearing when she first came across a video of Lan and Lisa chattering in Taishanese as they shaped and fried sesame balls.
“It meant so much that when I was watching those videos and seeing her make this food with her mom, I was also hearing these familiar sounds that I grew up with,” she said.
97/16 news service photos above, Lisa Lin makes a video of her mother describing savoury fried butterfly crackers. Below, mother and daughter work together.
‘Cuisines are living Cultures’
Continued from page 22
Der, 22, was born and raised in Toronto, and only heard Taishanese spoken in her own home. “Growing up, I didn’t have access to amazing cooks like Lisa’s mom, or even my own grandmother,” she says. “Now I can go to Lisa’s account and watch these videos and see her learning, and it reflects my own learning. When I hear the language and when I see the beautiful food that those two make, it feels like home.”
In 1986, when Lan moved to Portland, Oregon, from China, she cooked in her brother-in-law’s restaurant. But she didn’t think of it as a real profession. “Cooking was more of a survival thing,” she told me. Thirty-two years after Lan stepped off her flight with her plastic airline teacup in hand, cooking has become a central part of her life. When she isn’t in Sacramento with Lisa, she spends her time cooking for her husband and assorted children and grandchildren who stream through her kitchen, staying for dinner or picking up plastic containers of food on their way home. “She won’t say this,” Lisa tells me, “but I know that it’s hard work. But she is very willing to help her children. And there are certain dishes that, if my mom doesn’t pass over to the next generation, will just be gone.”
Lisa takes her mother’s recipes, which often have a dozen spices and other hardto-find ingredients, and adjusts them for her followers. “I’m targeting an audience that isn’t my mom, but people like me who grew up with these foods but don’t
necessarily know how to cook them,” Lisa explains. “I’m thinking about people who might not necessarily have access to the Asian supermarket. I try to simplify.”
Fuchsia Dunlop, the British food writer and cookbook author famous for introducing Western audiences to regional Chinese cooking, knows that sometimes traditional recipes have to evolve and become more accessible as they’re passed down through generations. “Cuisines are living cultures, and they’re always changing,” she says. Dunlop was the first Westerner to train at the prestigious
Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine in 1995, and has since adapted and translated hundreds of Chinese recipes for an English audience. “One shouldn’t be too conservative. You just have to accept that things change, from mother to daughter and father to son.”
Still, Dunlop, who most recently penned the cookbook Land of Fish and Rice, sometimes finds that Chinese cooking phrases or techniques can’t be directly translated into English.
Lisa knows this challenge all too well. In her videos, she regularly trails a few
steps behind her mother as she tries to translate, sometimes losing track of what Lan is doing, unable to identify a spice her mother has thrown in the wok.
When Lan is finished adding boiling water to the rice flour, and the sweet sesame paste is set to chill in the freezer, she pulls a black binder from Lisa’s bookcase.
In it are hundreds of pages of Lan’s handwritten notes, with little sketches accompanying every recipe they’ve made together.
The notes and drawings illustrate how to properly fold dumplings, wrap sticky rice in bamboo leaves, dehydrate dried shrimp and properly mix a variety of doughs.
Lan often shakes her head in exasperation when they’re done filming, Lisa tells me. “It would be best if you were still a lawyer,” she’ll say, “I wouldn’t even have to teach you any of this.”
No amount of explaining can convince Lan that running a food blog, in this day and age, constitutes a real profession. When she’s finished eating, Lan sits on her daughter’s couch and rests the black binder on her lap.
Opening to one of the last blank pages, she begins to sketch and neatly label each step of her process. Soon, she’ll hand the notes off to Lisa.
And as Lan’s admirers begin to meticulously measure out their own tang yuan dough, she’ll be back in her own kitchen, measuring rice and water and sauce with the same tiny plastic cup she’s used for 32 years.
97/16 news service photo Lisa Lin and her mother prepare fried sweet dumplings.
