Thursday Auguat 4, 1955,

THE TRIBUNE, WILLIAMS LAKE

, B.S.

> Base 3

MAY BE ANSWERED

QUESNEL—Location of a hydro
plant to serve the Central Interior is
still an issue that has to be settled
| by the B. C. Power Commission, al-

aS: though a definite announcement
, = . may be expected as early as October.

i iskies -
. Fine Quality Gins and Real Rye Whi: 2 ‘Mite. te-the-etateiment made. last.
Bi y g a week by Chairman T. H. Crosby and
SIS SESS Commissioner H. H. Griffin when

they met representatives of the -vil-
lage commission and Board of
Trade.

Mr. Crosby stated the Commis-

This advertisement is not published or displayed by the Liquor
Control Board or by the Government of British Columbia,

sion’s committent with the City of
Prince George required an announ-
cement by December 1. He felt that
a decision would be reached before
then and the Power Comission’s
plans for this part of the province
could be disclosed.

Mr. Griffin added that so far the
Quesnel River appeared to offer the
best possibilities for hydro develop-
ment, though opposition from fish-
erles interests precluded a develop-
ment on the main stream at either

NOW!
Propane Gas

at a more Economical Price

100 Ib. Cylinders

either filled or exchanged

$9.50

Premier Denies PGE
Pass Route Decided

Premier Bennett last week denied
any decision has been made by the
government to extend the PGE into
the Peace River via the Pine Pass,

" He was commenting on a story
that appeared in the Prince George
Citizen the same day. The story,
which quoted a source “close to the
government’s policy - making level”,
stated that the Pine Pass route was
favoured over the Peace River Pass.
j We have quite a ways to go yet
before we can decide”, the Premier
stated. He added that the govern-
ment has not yet received engi-
| neers’ recommendations on a route
north from Red Rocky Creek, ter-
mination point for existing construc-

Bulk or Bottled Sales -

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Phone 7-Q

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ist - Hardwick Gas Range
Mrs. Joan Shaffer, Lac La Hache

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2nd - $50 merchandise
Eldon Ray, W. Lake

Kahi Propane Gas Co.

Railway Avenue Near Cattlemen’s Office

= tion contracts.

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- |HYDRO QUESTION FOR CENTRAL INTERIOR

THIS OCTOBER

Little or Big Canyon sites which had
once been considered as the most at-
tractive.

In addition to making a survey of
potential hydro sites the Commis-
sion is also investigating the feas-
ability of using thermal, or steam
generating, plants.

In answer to a question posed at
the meeting, the Commission mem-
bers stated they were definitely in-
terested in entering the gas field
and thought that the Power Com-
mission might be able to give better
service than a private company. At
the present time a consultant has
been engaged to go into all parti-
eulars regarding gas distribution
and when his report is in some plan
of action can be made.

NO REWARD FOR A

—Central Pres Canadian

No ladies’ man is ric Conrad, son of Sergt. Ed, Conrad of

Halifax, N.S. His father being stationed in Germany, Er

‘ie entered

the soap box derby held at Iserlohn. and tok third place in the
event. Appreciative of his prowess. drum majorettes showered
him with kisses but Erie appears to wish he were somewhere else,

As the aftermath of a recent visit
to Prince George of Bruce Hutchin-
son, well known B.C. journalist and
historian, The Financial Post of July
16 carries his impressions of the ef-
feeéthe northern extension of the

| paw will have on the economy of
this part of British Columbia.

PRINCE GEORGE, B.C.— Not far
from here a traveller with sufficient
immunity to mud and dust can see
a Spectacle which once excited his
grandfather and roused the nation to
findneial frenzy — railway builders
are carving the long-delayed grade
of the Pacific Great Eastern toward
the Peace River country.

Still farther from the rim of civil-
ization, in the region of old Fort Ver-
milion, yet another railway is await-
ed with the eagerness of men who
have hacked out the most northern
farm area in America and trucked
their grain 250 miles to the nearest
shipping point.

The vast territory known as Peace
River is not the true north as we
Know it in the age of airlanes but it
is the edge of the continent's arable
land, it makes crops grow about 24
hours a day, ripens the world’s best
wheat in 110 days and, though hard-
ly-a generation under the plow, is
‘aliggidy & primary Canadian asset.
GRAIN

Some fort million bushels of grain
moved last year out of a 1and in-
habited only by Indians and wild ani-
mals until the pioneers came in by
wagon in 1911; The Peace River crop
is served by the Northern Alberta
Railway, managed jointly by the
CNR and CPR,, but this line has no
western outlet and, at Grimshaw, the
top of its northern curve, falls far
short of the newly opened frontier.

This year the moccasin telegraph
has carried an electrifying rumor.
The railway, it is said, wiTl soon be
extended down the mighty gorge of
the Peace River to Great Slave Lake
and the mineral deposits of Pine
Point. The setlers have seen mys-
terjous survey parties in the bush,
heard second-hand stories from Ot-
lawa and feel the same hunger for
steel rails and locomotives whistles
that the empty prairies knew seventy
years ago.

Whether the hopes of these new
picneers are falsely based on the
latest of many paper railways only
the national government, the CNR
and the CPR know.. There is no
doubt, however, about the Peace
River extension of the PGE, which
has been promised by every British
Columbia government since 1916
and is now being delivered by that
master optimist, Premier W. A, C.
Bennett.

No doubt, that is to say, about the
reality of the grade running north
along the Crooked River valley from
the present terminus of Prince
George hut much doubt about its
further location.

As this is a project of first nation-
al importance, to he heavily subsidiz-
ed by the national treasury, Cana-
dians should, but do not understand
a large geographic puzzle and a large
economic gamble.

Here at Prince George a few miles
of almost level land divides the Arc-
tic from the Pacific drainage system.

The muddy water flowing in sum-
mer freshet past this town will empty
with huge brown stain, into the

—see your Travel Agent or

_ S INTERNATIONAL ROUTES.

Caxadiau Pacific AIRLINES

TELEPHONE 93

Strait of Georgia at Vancouver.
SUMMIT LAKE
Summit Lake,

Prince George’s

weekend resort, drains straight north |

by the Crooked and Parsnip Rivers
to join the Finlay*and form the
Peace River which, boring eastward
through the Rockies, finally swells
the Mackenzie River and the Arctic
Ocean.

The Peace River country is thus
cut in two by its great river, an en-
gineer’s nightmare of thousand-foot
canyons and shifting clay walls,

Post Writer Sees Litile -
To Justify Peace Rail Link

Essentially the problem of the
B.C. Government, in attempting to
link the Pacific seaboard, was to find
a route of maximum usefulness and
minimum cost. It could follow the
Crooked and the Parsnip Rivers
down to the Finlay and then the
Peace River eastward through the
mountains. Or it could avoid these
two sides of a right-angle triangle
and cut across the hypotenuse by the
valley of the Pine,

Each route has its advantages and
disadvantages. The longer, by Finlay
Forks, would tap perhaps the larg
stand of virgin timber left in Amer-
ica, gigantic stores of semi-anthra-
cite coal and supposedly rich miner-
als. The shorter, by some ninety
miles, could be built at smaller cost
but would open up far less country.
CHEAPER ROUTE

Apparently the Provincial Govern-
ment has chosen the cheaper route,
but is not finally committed. The
fifty miles of grade now under cou-
struction would be needed in either
case.

If Mr. Bennett has made up his
mind to follow the Pine River he
will have a fight on his hands."Every- |
body north of the Peace River natur- |
ally wants the northern route and |

eral policy, he still expects his new
railway to pay from the start.

Just how he will make it pay no
one in the Peace River country
seems to know or care. The people
there want and need a Pacifie rail-
way outlet, the taxpayers can pick
up the cheque and Mr. Bennett is a
highly popular statesman.

Certainly the grain of Peace River
though the world’s best by scientific
test and almost unbelieveable in its
yield, is too small a movement yet to
support interest charges and operat-
ing costs and, anyway. much of it
will continue to move eastward to
the Lakehead.

NATURAL GAS
Mr. Bennett is counting on natural
gas.

True, the fabulous gas of the Fort
St. John field will move to Van-
couver and Seattle by pipe but be-
fore it enters the pipe line it must
be scrubbed and its byproducts of
propane and butane extracted. These
Mr. Bennett proposes to carry on his
railway.

If he thinks they “will be sufficient
to cover the bill for construction and
majntenance, this reporter has
found no citizen of Peace River who
shares his optimism. No matter, the
Patient, dauntless and long-disap-
pointed people of the north want a
railway, see its grade slowly ap-
Proaching at last and, quite rightly,
expect to own not long hence once
of the most precious chunks of farm

without it no Social Credit candidate |land on the planet.

can expect to.save his deposit. Mr.
Bennett, a highly practical politican,
is well aware of the fact and, with
something like a stroke of political
genius, has divided the whole terri-
tery into two constituences for the
next election. He can count on win-
ning one of them at least.

The politics of a project estimated
to cost some $60 millions and certain
to cost more are of passing concern.
The econimics will be with the tas
payers of British Columbia and Ca-
nada for a long time to come.

The Federal Government candidly
takes a poor view of the whole
undertaking and refuses to subsidize |
it beyond some 60 miles north ot |
Prince George. Mr. Bennett is a man!
to whom doubts of any sort are re-
mote strangers. Outraged by the tea-|

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