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What a piece of work

OUG AND I are on the way to an ex-
pectant stretch of water on jhe upper
Kitimat River. Is Saturday.
science show Quirks and Quarks is
on the radio. Despite the former conservative
government’s determined effort to wreck the
CBC it remains an oasis in the vast desert of
predigested pabulum clogging the airwaves,

Quirks and Quarks is one of he best bits of
journalism on our national network. It’s good to
hear it has survived the Grits’ pogrom of stimulat-
ing programming.

As we pass Onion Lake an American
astronomer named Schumacher recounts how,
after a long, particularly arid spell of fruitless ob-
servation, feeling she might never again make a
significant find, she managed to make the
astronomical find of the century — quite possibly
of the millennia.

Ms, Schumacher discovered an oddly shaped
comet, later dubbed Schumacher-Levy, which
subsequently had the misfortune to be tom intc
five pieces when it came within the reach of the
differential’ gravity of Jupiter. Steadily each
satelite was pulled toward the gascous surface of
our galaxy’s largest planet.

On April 29 each of the comet quints hit with an
explosive impact roughly equivalent to a million
megatons of TNT — a blast a million times
greater than the one that flattened Hiroshima.

In interviews astronomers describe haw the ex-
plosions — though not invisible from earth be-
cause of alignment of the two planets at the time
of the hits — will be captured from millions of
kilometers away by a camera mounted on a satel-
lite bound for Jupiter. The pictures will be
beamed to earth via radio waves. Amazing, I
think, that our technological ingenuity enables us

. to probe these dark and almost unimaginably dis-

tant crannies of the solar system. Shakespeare
was tight. What a piece of work is Man!

The next item on Quirks and Quarks is ter-
restrial. Scientists at the Imperial College in
London have just completed a study on the ability
of ecosystems to deal with carbon dioxide. Four-
leen ecosystems, ranging from very complex to
very simple, were subjected to scruliny. The
scientists’ finding: the more complex an
ecosysiem the more capable it is of dealing with
CO2, This is an important conclusion, says one,
for it tells us that by simplifying ecosystems we
impair their ability to function in our best inter-
ests. By extrapolation, there is a good chance that
global deforestation is impairing the air con-
ditioning machinery of the planet, and hastening
the greenhouse effect — global warming.

We are crossing Chist Creek, moving up the
Kitimat Valley. Because our destination is oc-
cupied, we continue up the valley. Everywhere

_ there are huge clear cuts, At twenty mile we see

the valley has been mined as far as the eye can
see. What a piece of work is Man, indeed.

We are surrounded by simplified ecosystems,
for when all the trees arc removed from an old
growth forest, an extraordinary diverse and com-
plex ecosystem is made simple. In the process all
the miraculous natural dynamics once operating
there are overturned. We pass a tree planting
crew. Replanting the sites does not restore them,
it transforms them from forest to plantation.
Forests are complex, plantations simple, its
simple.

We pass the site of an old bur. Fires leave a lot
of big trees, they don’t drag logs through the soil,
they don’t build shaky roads or ruin watercourses
irreparably. Clear cuts do, Yet for decades forest-
ers and industry continued to defoliate the

landscape and worry about fire — even while |

they were lighting uncontrollable, highly destruc-
tive fires, caricatures of the real cvents, them-
selves. Why? Simply because the overriding con-
cem was for short term profit, not for the
sustained health of the forests or for the sustained
health of the creatures dependent! upon them:
creatures like us.

Clear cutting is a lamentable practice that began
in Europe over a century ago, when German for-
esiers, subscribers to (he philosophy that nature
existed to serve Man, sought an efficient way to
make the remnants of their ruined forests more
profitable.

If you buy the assumption that enormous profils
for giant corporations, and a boom and bust cycle
for a dwindling labour force is desirable, then
clear cutting is unquestionably the way lo pro-
ceed.

If you disagree with the timber managers we
mistakenly call foresters and believe in the notion
‘that the longevity of the resource ts rooted in vari-
ety and diversity, if you adhere fo the view that
long term economic health must-include’ healihy
forests not just plantations, if you know (and in-
dustry cannot escape this admission) that we
know next to nothing about how forests work and
the answers to how they do can only be found in
working, old growth forests, then yau cantiot help
but see that clear cutting is Impractical and
ultimately: ruinous; Next week. I'l) explore some
alternalives. :

WHEN THE Grande Prairie

Wolves lope on to the basketball
courts next season, they’l] be
looking to a Kermode for help.

Fernando Mil-Homens, a leader
on the 1992-93 Caledonia team
has signed a letier of intent to at-
lend the Alberia regional college.

Wolves coach Kelly Ohthauser
said it was Kermodes coach Cam
McKay whe tipped him to Mil-
Homens'’ talent.

And the Cal gzad’s performance
at last month’s identification
camp undertined it.

Impressed by Mil-Homen’s
“skills, quickness and under-
standing of basketball’, the
Wolves quickly offered him a
spot on the line-up,

Grande Prairie are one of only
two Alberta Colleges Athletic
Conference (ACAC) teams to
have made the playofis in four of
the past five years.

In their most successful season
of that run, 1992-93, the Wolves
were conference champions and
went on to finish fifth at the na-
lionals,

Mil-Homens will be joining a

team that will likely have only
three veterans to call on. Among
players the Wolves are losing is
another uorthwestemer, Joel

Mueller of Vanderhoof, an.

ACAC All-Star.

But, with newcomers of the
calibre of Mil-Homens and
Smithers’ Boyd Edgecumbe,
Ohthauser is still looking to make
another mn at post-season play.

‘We will be counting on Mil-
Homens to be a factor,’’ he
added.

Cal basketball fans will remem-
ber Mil-Homens as a major factor
in the Kermodes run to the ’93
zone title,

The highlight came in game
two of the best-of-three series
against the Prince Rupert Rain-
makers.

The Kermodes having clawed
back from an 11 point deficit,
Mil-Homens sank the winning
basket with just 4.7 seconds left.

He becomes the first Terracite
to play for Grande Prairie since
Leona Tank was a member of the
Lady Wolves that took bronze at
the *89 nationals,

The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, May 11, 1994- Ci

Le “SECTION C
MALCOLM BAXTER 638-7283

MIL-HOMENS MOMENT. The high point of Femando Mil-
Homens (inset) Kermode career came with this winning basket in
the dying seconds of the zone final. The Grande Prairie Wolves
will be looking for the same kind herofes when he joins them.

THE SNOW-COVERED rock
face waiting for them is an 80
per cent grade at ils flatiest and
they are paying big bucks to be
there.

It’s just like taking a black
diamond at a ski hill, only we
go up it and the skiers go down
it,”’ says Jan Black, one of the
few Terrace snowmobilers
who compete on the hillclimb
circuit.

The challenge of being pitted
against a mountain this year
caused Norm Chapdelaine,
Black’s former travelling me-
chanic, to drop the wrencties
and take a competitor’s seat on
one of his two racing ma-
chines.

As a rookie to the sport,
Chapdelaine had a respectable
season, coming back from the
races with a coupie of seconds
and thirds.

Black, a four-year veteran of
the hillclimb, took top spot in
his class at Powder King Ski
Village’s World Series of
Hillclimbs and was runner-up
at Barkerville’s 11th Annual
Great Canadian Hillclimb.

The circuit, organized by the
B.C. Snowmobiling Feder-
ation, consists of seven races
around the province promising
approximately $80,000 in cash
and prizes.

Beginning in mid-February

Challenge at Silver Star Mtn.

No mountain too

with the race at Troll Resort - BLACK ON WHITE. Local snowmobller fan’ Black | is seen in ‘action. auxing the winters hil climb
Sid Hill near Quesnel, the sea- S@480n. He and rookie Norm Cheapdelaine travelled-the province tackling courses where the accent
son closes wilh the Okanagan |S increasingly on the skill of the rider than haw much maney he has to spend on his machine,

near Vernon at the end of
April.

As the sport has developed,
the accent has come more on
the skill of the drivers than the
thickness of their wallets.

Organizers are setting up
more races with obstacle
courses and fewer straight
climbs,

‘You need to know your
machine better and be a better
rider with a course,’” says
Chapdelaine. ‘“‘Without a
course, {t's just money —- who

‘competitors to six race entries

wilh a tree in his last. race at
Vernon, Chapdelaine will be
spending money on more than
_. just modifications to get ready
‘for the grass dragging s¢ason

Chapdelaine enters the pro
stock class on his $12,000 ma-
chine, allowing him to modify
things like the engine and ex-
haust while keeping a normal,

has the most power,”’
Race regulations restrict

in any of the three main
classes: stock, pro stock and

open mod. stock-looking body. * beginning at the end of Au-
Stock, one of the classes Both the Terrace climbers- fust, -
Black competes in with a race in open mod with $20,000: And the duo will be spending

a lot of their summer weekends
“on yet another form of racing:
- on fet-skis,

The first of those competi-
tions is slated for next month
at Prince Rupert's Sea Fest.

$10,000 snowmobile, restricts
climbers to a machine as it is
bought off the market...Any time and money as they want
modifications to the snow- {0 soup-up any part of the ma~
mobile disqualify a racer from _- chine.
this class. After a one-sided argument

machines, a wide-open class
for racers to. invest. as much

Rugby

TERRACE'S NORTHMEN
could be facing one of their
toughest seasons for some years.

That’s the prediction of North
Coast Rugby League president
Dave Hull after the team’s first
meeting with Smithers,

The addition of several new
faces, including a couple of one-
lime members of the defunct
Kitimat Snakes, has given the
Camels {is strongest roster in &
long time, he explained.

And the difference showed in
the May Day match up here. -

The Northmen led 10-0 at the |

break on a Rob Saarich try and

road to be rougher

Doug Wilson’s convert and later In the end, however, penalties of the five in the 27-3 rout of the

penalty kick.

But Smithers started to tum the
tide in the second half, coming
close carly when a Camel
pounced on a penalty that hed hit
the upright and almost took it
over,

The visitors did eventually
breach the Norihmen defences to
half the gap but Wilson quickly
rebuilt it with an unconverted try.

Smithers then pulled within a
converted try on a successful pen-

ally boot and Hull conceded ithe.
Northmen were feeling the pres

sure at that point.

were to cost the Camels, Wilson
putting two more between the
uprights for a 21-5 final.
Emphasizing ihe game was a lot
closer than the scoreline sug-
gested, Hull added, ‘‘The

Norihmen won't dominate as they -
have in years past.’’

Not that Prince Rupert are like-

ly to believe that afier the crush- .
" ing defeat they had suffered the”

night before. . .
Saarich and Graham Bayles

‘struck for a pair of tries apiece,

Ricky Fagan went over once and

“Wilson managed to” convert one

rainbow warriors.

Having been outscored 55-11 in
its two outings against Terrace,
the coasters were bracing for
nore punishment when they
hosted | the Northmen’ Saturday ~
night.

See next week's paper for the

_Tesult of that match

While the Northmen settle back
io enjoy a two-week break during
which the. wounded can heal,

Rupert and Smithen will decide
second spot in a double header

this weekend at Camelot, the

: Srolthereens ground,