- Remember when? does now. But are those tales really true? ‘-couver Sun. ‘make any ’92 shopper cry. ’ the.other side of the story. ings of ‘$5,000 plus’?. Meat Leg of lamb: 63 cents/lb. Side bacon: 57 cents/ib. Pork picnics: 28 cents/lb. Prime rib roast: 59 cents/lb. PRP ROT TR ee eee ee nee ee eee eee ss ‘Canned goods Green beans 15oz: 11 cents Tomatoes 280z; 2/49 cents Peaches 15o0z: 19 cents Pink salmon 7.50z: 2/49 oe cents a ; -. Produce .. . ‘Bananas: 21bs./39 cents -_<.- ‘Potatoes: 201bs./79 cents > .c<” Qnions: Slbs./39 cents “Tomatoes: 2lbs./29 cents Soap products Tide (giant): 79 cents ‘Ivory liquid (gnt): 89 cents .Camay bar soap: 3/29 cents .. Dairy section -. Shortening 3lb: 79 cents ~ Cheese Whiz 11b: 57 cents Others on, Plain oats 3lbs: 39 cents "> Ketchup 20 oz: 39 cents “Bread 160z! 15 cétits - Flour 10]bs: 69. cents Coffee 1lb: 72 cents .-: Pickles 240z:; 49 cents -. Kraft dinner: 7/95 cents. Tea bags 120: $1.45 ~ Jelly powders: 3/18 cents », Soft drink 2 quarts: 39 cents fe Peet -- Appliances 21 inch colour TV: $288.88 *.: Washing machine: $399 “Dryer: $249 Upright vacuum: $99.95 = Portable sewing machine: + $58.50 - Clothing ~~... Ladies leather shoes: “sv §14,95-$21.00 - =. Ladies wool-alpaca coat: = $69.50 Girls coat size 7-12: $29.95 Housing Two bedrooms plus rec , room and _ additional “eB o.°. bedroom in basement: aj $14,000 bf For rent: bachelor suites at $35 per month and newly decorated two-room suite in Kitsilano $50 per month. 1 _ + (Note these are Vancouver ~ ‘houses and apariments!) Used cars Demonstrator ’58 Mercury Niagara, 6 cyl. - $2,295 _ °55 half-ton Chev pickup - «$895 TERRACE -- Everyone’s heard the stories, The ‘good old days’? when everything was so cheap and a dollar went way further than it When. local resident Basil Baxter ripped down an old shed on his property, he un- ~ covered the evidence needed to decide. . , Stuffed into one of the walls as makeshift in- sulation was an Oct, 1, 1958 copy of the Van- And, yes, the prices in the ads are enough to - But wait! The help wanted columns reveal > A20-bed hospital was seeking to entice reg- * istered nurses to apply for a job which paid up ' to $310 per month while hot-shot salesmen were expected to leap at potential annual eam- To try and put all this in perspective, BN FRIDAY. ‘Baby.food: 12 jars/$1.19° tals Price Index (CPI) and average weckly ings figures for both 1958 and 1992, Unfortunately, 34 years ago no figures spe- cifically for Vancouver, ar even E.C., of relentless inflation. gust 1958 was 23.1. 128.4, nearly six times higher. kept so it could only provide the national stats. First, the CPI which is calculated using literally thousands of items covering virtually anything and everything the average Canadian would purchase as part of everyday living. It takes into account the cost of a wide range of foods, housing, heat and light, clothing, - vehicles, even unhealthy habits like tobacco. It can therefore be reasonably assumed it of- fers a pretty accurate reflection of the effects The Canadian Consumer Price Index in Au- The figure for the same month this year was Proof positive that money doesn’t go as far window to past Statistics Canada was asked for the Consumer as it used to, until the wages stats are exam~ ined, StatsCan wams the method of calculating average weekly earnings has changed over the past 34 years so the earnings indices are not directly comparable. So, remembering the figures are just a rough guide, the organization’s historical statistics book records average weekly earnings in 1958 as $70.43 per week, The equivalent figure today (it includes overtime) is $547.04, more than seven times - higher. So, even if the eamings figures are not directly comparable, the evidence secms to strongly suggest the ‘‘good old days’’, while they may have indeed been good, were not necessarily better when it came to what a wage eamers’s dollar could buy. Below left, some of those pretty prices from the late fifties. Read 'em and weep. carm- WEIE om “ . won 5 Py oral OE CHEGKUP: cst a Megane hing th: faa tease Sal he Hae GE; herecy bm femvert Rotmeiayet Supports: id Norrows: VTFiabshierd ei en RAE “Tusa st ria Mi. ani - Ar ee VELL BUY a pottory et beck berieirets a eating. Pra : adinhcben: misnsnced” tekdy. thee 0 Gesatey Bede pire: coatay’ del i Vivend. Nebepniina’ SHIM! ROR AY Ta a af at tee arewastiy Whey: des 18 UAE: Miz a cedtg-risaytwat 3" iDticy Page Hs Rocks Block PGE etd i ie ado + ~ Hapeacardesee= ‘yeenha alien 3 eee a3 * TIME MACHINE. John Diefenbaker was prime minister, Dwight Elsenhower was in the White House and Pope Pius Xll ruled in Rome when this copy of the Vancouver Sun was used by an un- known Terracite as makeshift insulation in a new shed he was building. It's dated Wednesday, Oc- tober 1, almost exactly 34 years ago to the day. The newspaper was found by local resident Basil Baxter when he recently tore down the now rickety structure. Hoop-la hits front page TERRACE -- It was a weird and wonderful mix of stories that made the Oct. 1, 1953 front page. Predictably, reports of a Royal Commission in- vestigation of the Second Narrows bridge in which 18 workers had died and the latest on the Nationalist and Communist Chinese shooting war got top billing. , Less earth-shattering was the outrage of fe- male UBC students after the Sun fashion editor had charged they wore “‘droopy, saggy and grubby’? clothes’. a Or what about a story out of New York des- cribing how ‘deluxe red, yellow and blue (hula) hoops costing $1.75 swiveled around the hips of 1,000 socialites, many of them multi- millionaires, in the wacklest post-midnight scene in the history of the venerable Aster Hotel in Times Square.” And a definite eye-catcher was the photo of Pope Pius XI announcing he was ‘‘beset”’ with a new attack of hiccups. Fortunately, Vatican of- ficlals were able to assure the world “there is no cause for anxiety.” The Bank of Nova Scotla had just announced it was getting into the business of personal loans - it’s stock immediately jumped $2 a share - and a Vancouver mun had been sentenced to two years in jail for an attempted hold-up of an East Hast- ings grocery store. Closer to home, Terrace residents were await- ing the official opening of the Nass Road which was eventually to be connected to the highway to Stewart and Cassiar. Speaking of Cassiar, share prices in Cassiar Asbestos were holding steady at $7.90 | Oct. 1 was also opening day for the 1958 world series, with the New York Yankees trying to avenge their previous year’s defeat by the Mil- waukee Braves. Warren Spahn pitched the Braves to a 4-3 victory. Incidentally, there’s no mention anywhere of hockey, probably because those were the days when it was a winter sport, And finally, Works minister Howard Green told the Vancouver Central Lions Club every member of Parliament should be bi-lingual. “T?’s a great weakness, a blind spot, not to un- derstand the language of one-third of Canada’s population,’’ he said. Plus ca change... iGHaALG BOidluall, FYGUIIGQVay, VOpPLOiuG! wu, 1oaL — Taye Ad LETTERS | 7 TO THE TERRACE STANDARD on land Dear Sir: The provincial government is committed to making substan- tial progress in the resolution of the land claims issue, and has been negotiating with the Nisga’a. The two parties would. ap-- pear to be close to an Interim Protection Measures Apree- ment (IPMA) which would es- tablish the process for consul- tation with the Nisga’a on de-- velopments within (he Jand claims area during the time that negotiations are. taking place. In the past while negotiations moved at glacier speed the ex- traction of resources con- tinued. The IPMA is a.commit- ment by the governments to negotiate in good faith. From this step the three parties would proceed to actual nego- tialions. It is umpossible for every non native person or interest group to sit at the negotiating table. Everyone agrees that this is a significant undertaking. The two sides are not equal in terms of political or economic strength. The Nisga’a are seck- ing justice and their success or progress relies to a Jarge extent on the political will of the group represented across the table - the government. While most citizens agree that a solution must be found there is not as much agreement on what “‘concessions’’ the government should make and litle agreement on what the impact of making those changes might be on the aver- age British Columbian. The provincial government - recognizing that land claims is a difficult issue - has estab- lished a third party advisory committee which is to provide an avenue for consultation, , with groups who feel they have an interest in the outcome of the land claims negotiation. In addition to that, the nego- Fishery continue Dear Sir: I would like to respond to Bob Hooton’s Ictter of Sept. 9, in which he continues to spew out half-truths, = skewed statistics, and unsubstantiated claims of doom and gloom. Hooton states that 23,000 spawners are required to sustain the combined stocks of summer steelhead and _ then claims that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ (DFO) test fishery suggests that only 10,000 have so far entered the tiver. What Hooton carefully omits fo tell the public (who pay his salary) is that the DFO has told him that they icc] that the test fishery has substantially un- derestimated the number of steelhead that have entered the Skeena and that the number is likely to be significantly larger than the 10,000 he claims. Hooton also negiccts to tell. ihe public that the sports fish- ing for steelhead on the Lower Skeena has been extremely good this year. This confirms About ters tend to run soonest. Standing of Open up minds claims — tiators have been meeting with local community leaders and - interested groups to share in- formation and get an under- the concerns people have. They will then be much more able to present some.of those concerns. at .the . negotiating table. | I have attended two of those | sessions. The issue of local consullation has been brought forward each time. It is impossible for every. non-native person or interest | Broup to sit at the negotiating table. The government has and still is trying to come to grips with the structure for meaning- ful ‘consultation and the providing of iaformation (progress reports) during the negotiation process. No model for such consultation exists. Negotiations are delicate and in land claims ihey are dealing with some very sensitive is- sues. Some degree -of con- fidentiality is necessary as any- one who has ever negotiated should know. What is needed are construc- tive proposals for settlement. Rather than express old fears - most of which will never be realized; and some of which are self-serving - the negotia- tors necd to be presented formally with the local posi- tions on the issues which will be at the table: land, fish, mini- ng, forestry, etc, We need to get down to the specific concems and solutions we. can live with. We either leirn to share the resources and deal with the economic in- equality or investors will remain insecure about the fu- ture of business in this pro- vince. The issuc will not simp- ly go away. We need to participate in the dialogue whenever an op- .portunity presents itself, but we also. need to be ,open minded. Political _ aspirations _ should not get in. the way, of ar- ., Tiving ata solution.to a. prob-. lem 125 years old, Helmut Giesbrecht, MLA. for Skeena battles onward the DFO’s contention that the escapement of steelhead has been much larger than that claimed by Hooton. _~ Tn that Hooton - as regional biologist - is supposed to monitor the sports harvest, it is indeed curious that he chose not to report this in his letter. But the question of how many steclhead have escaped need not be debated in the newspaper if only Hooton and the provincial government would spend more time and energy doing their jobs, and less time publishing their nega- tive and damaging propaganda. I would suggest that Hooton: spend the time and money to actually enumerate the number of spawners cnicring the Skeena River. It’s a large and difficult job, but one that is necessary be- cause Hooton has proven time and again that the numbers he promotes arc simply not credible. Cont'd Page A11 letters The Terrace Standard welcomes letters to the editor. We ask that they be signed and a phone number be included. Letters are sub- Ject to editing for reasons of length and for good taste. Shorter tet- Unsigned letters are thrown away. Our letters deadline is noon each Friday. Our fax number is 638-8432. ; The Start is Jor people » learning how to read. Voting The vote on the con- stitution is Oct. 26. But you must get on the voters’ list. People will come to your door. They will put you on the voters’ list. They will come from Oct. Z to Oct. 7. = You must be 18 years of age to vote. And you must be a Canadian citizen. If you are missed from being put on the voters’ list, you. still have. a chance. : ’ This takes place Oct. 17 - to Oct. 19. - The vote on Oct. 26 is from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. If you have questions, call 1-800-267-8683. There is no charge. j / wants a new building. white building on Kalurn, 8 cost $800,000, B old building. Theatre Terrace Little Theatre It will replace the old near the hill. Diane Froelich belongs to Terrace Little Theatre. The new building will It will be bigger than the The group needs money.