. Two CHAMPIONSHIP sporting events. Memories of Nike ‘March 19 marks a young | ‘Mountie’s murder here 20 years ago \NEWS A5- Founder’s Day Terrace celebrates George Little House reopening on the 100th anniversary of his arrival \COMMUNITY B1 Medal magic i. Our skaters top the medal standings in the Kla How Ya interclub competition \SPORTS B10. [oy $1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST _ 81,10 plus 8¢ GST _ outside of the Terrace. area) VOL.17 NO. 49 _” By MARGARET SPEIRS: ' will blast ‘into town over spring break, bringing | hundreds of visitors. ; . The’ Bantam AA Provincial Hockey Championships take place from March “19. to 24 and, the Junior All-Native Bas- ketball Championships start on March. 20.: “Terrace bantam reps qualify to play as. they are hosts, meaning they can -look forward to competition from Daw- son. Creek, Kitimat, Whitehorse, Ques- nel; Port Moody, the Okanagan, Trail, Richmond’s Seafair team and Vancouver Island’s Peninsula squad. - “Organizer Gillian. -Redpath said Ter- race hosted the bantam provincials in 1983 “when. the Terrace team was just __ awesome.” == “They won it two years ina row,” she ‘team.- _ Hotel rooms began booking up early. | ‘Some teains, ‘like’ Whitehorse - and Dawson Creek, booked in: the hope of. winning their zones, intending to pass on. ‘the rooms to.others if they lost. , Organizing chair Norma Gunnlagson said the city was growing very tight. on” hotel rooms.: "We've gotten a lot of grief on that,” she said, adding that hotels are booked solid. ; “Teams are wanting more rooms and we don’t know’ where to get them from.” Not including the home team, Gunn- . lagson said 160 players plus coaches and parents are expected. The tournament is about hockey and also about: ‘putting: ‘the city on the- map, she said. : “A ‘lot of these communities have no : TERRACE www. terracestandard.com thletes invade tov "A welcome banquet a at Kitsumkalum Hall on Sunday at.3 p.m. kicks off the ° Local hockey coach. John Amos talks about the bantam tourney, Page B4 " She invites iocals to come out fo sup- port their team. : _ “There will be some very good hockey “ played. during the week.” The opening ceremony. at the arena" may ‘include speeches from Mayor Jack Talstra and Bob. Storey, district’ ‘director. ‘of B.C. Amateur Hockey. ’ A trophy will be awarded to the win-. ning team and a fair play trophy will go - to-the squad showing the most sports: manship, on and off. the ice. The | Junior All-Native. . Basketball 7. cere wo | ee a — —_— Fe - etreassamaeescscsammmsmenssas Uf) Ml wrlccinesday March 16, 2005 Championships comes to town for the — . first .time, promising exciting . indoor ~ court action with 22 girls teams and 28 boys teams competing from around the | province. ~ op Regional teams are coming i in from Kispiox, Kitamaat, New Aiyansh, Green- - ville, Port Simpson, Prince. Rupert and ° ‘Gitwinksihlkw. . * Public relations tournament commit- tee member Brad Tait said the top three northern: boys teams come from Port © - Simpson, Greenville and New Aiyansh - while New Aiyansh, Gitwinksihlkw and Greenville have’ the, top northern girls - _ teams. For the first lime, a ‘three- on-three Un- der-14 tournament will be held for play- ers not ona junior team. Tait acknowledges that accommoda- ‘tions are tight with teams being billeted ~ week. Kitsumkalum have been invited to speak. Games start.on Sunday, - “March . 20° at Skeena, Caledonia - and Thornhill - schools.” - The winning teams will receive ‘cham- pionship medals and trophies. be good for business in Terrace: . “A lot of monies will be. coming into Prince Rupert gets during the February All Native Tournament,” he: ‘said, add- ing the event will determine. if the city ~ can host First Nations sporting events: in. --CO- operation with the ® outlying communi- ties. me, . Tait said hosting the provincials will. town like thé hundreds. of thousands - said, adding Wade Flaherty played for the ew \ ~ Lumber ct company taking shape \ By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN ‘LONG TIME sawmiller Terry Bennett has been selected as the Terrace Lumber Company’s mill manager once operations here begin. Bennett, a certified accountant, has been in- volved with Terrace mili operations in various’ capacities since the late 1980s when it- was : still owned by Repap. His resume includes working in a number of. capacities from comptroller to fibre supply man- -. ager and mill manager. Most recently he acted as a consultant for Dan. Veniez until New Skeena Forest Products went ; | _ into bankruptcy last year. Since then Bennett has been the on-site watch- dog for the Terrace mill for the receiver oversee-_ ing the sale of New Skeena’s assets. ° “T think what he brings is an infinite knowl- edge of the business of saw milling,” says John idea where we are, * Gunnlagson added. I Big party for George Little A SNIP of the ribbon by “George Little”, left, city councillor Rich McDaniel, mayor Jack Talstra and Tenille Lewis officially marked the opening March 10 of. * the newly-renovated George Little House. It’s.the anchor of.a designated tourist - |. friendly development zone downtown.and will also act as VIA Rail’s new station. . stop. March 10 was the also the first-ever Founder's Day in Terrace and marked ‘100 years to the day that Little snowshoed up the Kitimat Valley to camp beside the Skeena River. He later went on to claim land on which Terrace now sits. On the left, Evelyn Baxter blows soap bubbles while waiting for the first VIA train to stop at the new station. It carried George Little and a group of local dignitar-: ies..A huge crowd braved rainy weather to greet the founder. There are more ~ pictures. and n more about Founder's Day on Page B1. _ out to homes i in Terrace. DUSTIN QUEZADA PHOTOS Ryan, the company’s newly-appointed chairman ; of the board. “He brings a very good reputation of being a . considered person as well.” Mo Takhar, who was instrumental in spear- heading the gathering of local people to purchase the mill, is the company’s president and CEO. The board of directors consists of local ac- countant Ernie Dusdal, logging contractor Gor- don Hull and. former co-owner of the Northern Drugs chain, Gerry Martin. Bennett’s appointment is in keeping with the "all-local make-up of the company’s executive — the first time he’s seen that happen in his nearly ~ 20 years working in the industry. “The senior managers were always in Van- couver or in the east,” Bennett says. “This is very unique . — it will be a very hands-on local opera- tion.” Bennett’s eager to take on his new role. “I have to say I’m quite excited about it be- cause I know there’s an opportunity to do well here and ]’m quite excited about the response from the community,” he says. “It’s going'to be my job to prove they’ve made the right decision.” . The company is now looking at filling other key positions. With the mill sitting idle since 2001, many former.employees have moved away or found other employment. “It’s getting the management. team together that is critical,” John Ryan says. “It’s the man- agers and the supervisors that have drifted away . ’ from the community that we have to recapture.”’ The next big challenge will be establishing a fiber supply. Yesterday’s announcement that the provin cial government is implementing an interim fix Cont'd Page A2 r 1 Gov't eases up on: rates © for wood oye By SARAH'A. ZIMMERMAN =“A REA’ FOREST licence holders-say ‘logging: will increase, “ _ here because the provincial government is cutting what it ~ charges for wood. Yesterday, the provincial government made a long await- ed announcement that will see the high pulp content wood unique to the northwest appraised on its own merits rather * than on the same values of the timber located in’the interior zone where the sawlog percentage is far higher. Since sawlogs are worth more than pulp logs, the prov- ince was charging more. But because of the high concentra- tion of pulpwood in this area, loggers were paying stumpage based on sawlog appraisals instead of on pulpwood, making logging here an expensive proposition. The timber pricing changes come into effect April 1 and will apply to the Kalum and Skeena-Stikine Forest Districts, © says Skeena MLA Roger Harris, who has been an advocate.” for the development of a special zone here for the past four. years. “This is an interim pricing adjustment that is going ‘to, - quite frankly, reflect the unique ecological transition zone’ that we live in, both in the northern coast line and the interior plateau,” he told The Standard last week: ‘This will probably put everybody back to work = quite _ frankly, that’s my expectation,” Harris said. The over mature and decadent nature of the nature ¢ of the hemlock and balsam trees that make up the fibre basket in . | the northwest has long been a source of a competitive disad- ; vantage to area licensees. That’s because the trees here are not: only high i in rot ‘content but difficult and expensive to access because. of the mountainous terrain. | ~The har vesting community has been calling for the cre- ation of a unique zone for more than 20 years. Area licence holders say the revised pricing system will have a substantial and immediate effect on logging here. - “We’re putting in two cutting permits for approval im- mediately,” says Rick Brouwer, a professional forester who - does consulting for Kalum Ventures, the company which holds a forest licence on behalf of the Kitsumkalum band. “If the permits come into effect April 1 then the loggers will be back to work April 1. It?s very good news.” Over the years, industry. representatives have met with Harris in an effort-to hammer out an agreement. Most re- cently licensees here met with senior government officials in December 2004 and the climax of the negotiations came just “Jast month when forest minister Mike de Jong was in Ter- race, said Paul Veltmeyer, general manager for Kitwanga’ Lumber. oo ak "“They’ ve come up with.a solution that I think everyone in the northwest is quite pleased about,” would like to give credit where it’s due with Roger (Harris) Pushing the issue in a.very short time frame to have it looked at.” The interim pricing system will see cutting permits and their associated stumpage rates evaluated individually re-. flecting a-more accurate description of the value of the tim- ’ ber. “What it allows us to do is to just be more competitive with the pricing of our logs both domestically and interna- _ tionally,” says Bernie Banovic, operations manager for Tim- ber Baron Forest Products. _ That means logs should be moving soon'— good news for ‘mill owners such as the Terrace Lumber Company, said Har- ris. oO “If the harvest community can’t go to work you’ "Il never - see investment in mills,” he said. “It is critically important that we have al] the tools in place to allow the harvesting community to go to work because in doing that we allow the milling community to go to work.” - _ Cont’d Page A2 Veltmeyer said, “I _ ° Mayor Jack Talstra, ‘organizer. Ches- we ter Nyce and’a representative. from.