INSIDE COMMUNITY EVENTS B2 Around Town Canucks rule Rockfest TOM COCHRANE will headline the biggest rock and roll festival in Northern B.C. this summer, Cochrane, perhaps best known for his hit, “Life is a Highway”, is the former lead singer for Canadian FM radio cult band Red Ryder and a Juno award-winning solo artist. The fifth annual Vanderhoof Rockfest 2002, taking place over the Aug. 2-4 weekend, is jam-packed with a stable of legendary Cana- dians, including rocker Kim Mitchell, Jerry Doucette, the Stampeders, Glass Tiger, and the incomparable Doug and the Slugs. Charge tickets by phone by calling 1-250- 614-9100. PAT SLOAN, left, presented new mom Jolene Quast and baby Rowen with a gift basket last week, Promoting baby talk JOLENE QUAST, a Kitimat mom who gave birth to baby number three last week, is al- ready promoting good language development and hearing health in her new baby girl, Rowen, Quast is holding Rowen up right at eye level and making cheerful, friendly sounds. Over time, that kind of mother-daughter in- teraction will help Rowen. Jeam how to make © vocal sounds. Rowen, born at Mills. Memorial Hospital May 1 in the late afternoon, now has every- thing she needs to learn how to speak and un- derstand language. Pat Sloan, speech-language pathologist with the Northern Health Authority, handed her mother a gift basket filled with things like a rattle, bubbles, a board book, a puppet wash cloth and a spoon, items that will promote good speech and language development, and better hearing. The gift basket was given to the first baby born in May, Better Hearing, Speech and Lan- guage Month. Sloan says even very young babies can have their hearing tested. Speech and lan- guage testing can be done when the baby is a little older. By age 18 months, babies generally have a vocabulary of 10 to 20 words and are putting them together and using them frequently. She says those are usually words for things the baby likes — favourite foods, pets or toys. “Watch whal they’re interested in an how (hey’re communicating,” she advises. Call the health unit and ask to speak with a public health nurse if you have concerns about your baby or child’s hearing or speech. “Language skills are important for success at school,” Sloan says. Without them, it can be hard to learn how to read. Rowen has an older brother who is 18 months old, and a five-year-old sister. Fire up your browser THE TERRACE Art Gallery is poised to launch itself into a new medium. Right now, gallery coordinator Aron Stru- mecki is putting the finishing touches on the gallery's new website, Once it’s up and running, the sile will be linked off the Terrace Public Library’s exisling website, which is already home to a number of communily webpages, including the Meanwhile, attendance is up at the Terrace Art Gallery, Strumecki reports. Donations are up, tao. He says the Terrace Art Associalion, the non-profit group that operates the gallery, has joined in the planning for the city’s 75th birth- day celebrations by sponsoring a mural mark- ing next year’s anniversary. Meanwhile, if you’re ane of those ald-fash- ‘ joned gallery-goers who prefers to view her art in person, drop by the gallery to May 12 to _ catch Peter Dickson’s exhibit, entitled Walk- A-Boitl, Later on in May look for a youth art exhibit at the gallery, followed by something themed around Aboriginal Days in June and a mem- . bers’ show in July and August. Nurses hold yard sale “LOCAL NURSES are holding a garage sale ‘this Saturday to raise money for bursaries that assist nurses who are furthering their educa- tion. The RNBC garage sale takes place at 3529 Cory Drive from 8 a.m. to noon, - placed by metal grating. TERRACE STANDARD COMMU The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, May 8, 2002 - BI ITY: SECTION B ENNIFER LANG 638-7283 By JENNIFER LANG THE SNOWCAPPED mountains encircling Terrace recently provided a homey backdrop to twa young women who have temporarily landed in a different world. Tshe Lha and Choesto Drolma, bath 21, are “Tibetan. students who are spending the next. three months in Vancouver; where they’ learn English. Al the end of April, the two women came to Terrace for a short visit with their host and tour guide Dr. Isaac-Sobol, the region’s chief medi- cal health officer. Sobol! is a member of ROKPA Canada, an agency that helps Tibetans in remote areas re- ceive medical training. “We have lots of big mountains,” Choesto Drolma says of Tibet. “We can see lots of big yaks everywhere.” Back home they live in a town of about 20,000, where they altend the Yushu College of Traditional Tibetan Medi- cine. “Tibet is a very high place,” Tshe Lhe says. TERRACE S MOUNTAINS are a little ike those in Tibet, say Engl- ish students Ghoesto Drolma left, and Tshe Lha, who also toured “In the winter, it’s cald.” It's hot in the summer, but ice forms inside houses, and their school dormitory, in the win- terlime because there’s no central. heating. In- stead, a lot of Tibetans burn yak dung. for fuel; there aren’t many trees. . . When You.don’t know. the, Ja eWape well, you’re forced to be ‘blunt. #0 Take: Canadian food, for instance: “It’s a very big, different taste,”: Tslie ‘Lhe explains matter-of-factly. “We don’t like it.” Tibetan ‘recipes call for lots of fragrant spices and mouth-watering chilies, These. mountain dwellers have also never tasted fish before coming to Canada’s west coast. Apparently, it’s sort of an acquired. laste. It’s said travel broadens. your. horizons. It alsy shatters your illusions. ~ “We thought in Tibet that weather in Cana- da was very warm,” admits Tshe Lha, who’s wearing a cozy Roots sweatshirt. “We came here, and it’s quite similar.” Visilors provide a welcome chance to see the Nass Valley and Prince Rupert with their host, Isaac Sobol, during their visit here last month. JENNIFER LANG PHOTO From Tibet to Terrace ourselves and our way of life as others see us. They were amazed by the sight of a motor home. “A car like a house!” Tshe Lha exclaims. “We never thought we can move a house!” __ She and Choesto Drolma were born in tents. Sometimes travel is awe-inspiring: the i "women were able to view a rare spectacle while i in Terrace — the northern lights. _ Both’say their travels: in. British Columbia will change how they think and feel about their lives, but they’re not sure how. Perhaps they don’t have the words ~ yet. Both praised the generosity and kindness of ihe people they’d met so far. One day, they’d like to come back again. ; And when asked what they’ll tell everyone about Canada when they get back home, Tshe Lhe said, “They have many different cars and many different houses and they have moun- tains with snow, a little like Tibet. People al- ways speak friendly. People have very good ideas.” Wood from Old Skeena Bridge heads into new northwest homes By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN THE AFRICAN iron wood which once served as decking on the Old Skeena bridge has found new life in a number of projects around the northwest. Roughly 13,000 linear feet of Ekki wood was salvaged last year when the bridge deck was re- Nechako Northcoast Construc- tion salvaged the dense, choco- late brown planks and sold them off to a variety of people and or- ganizations, “The wood has a remaining value, but that value was not as bridge decking and _ the {transportation) ministry thought it was appropriate that wood be distributed for use for worthy projects,” says district highways manager Don Ramsay. The North Pacific Cannery mu- seum near Prince Rupert bought some of the wood and is using it to reconstruct the aging and dila- pidated boardwalk at the histori- cal site. “It is putting new life back into an old place,” says the Port Ed- ward Historical Society’s Kim Mérrison. The planks of the boardwalk haven’t been replaced since the cannery was originally built in {889 and the worn out walkway THE BOARDWALK planks at the North Pacific Cannery Mu- That part of the project will see the boardwalk completed from the main cannery building to the old bunkhouse. The idea is to allow tourists to access the old Japanese bunk- house and the restaurant, Morrison says. The remainder of the board- walk beyond the bunkhouse will likely be completed after the tour- ist season. The old wood is also resurfa- cing around the Terrace area. Local woodworker Valentine Wahl picked up some small pieces of the hardwood and has begun making candle holders, — table lamps and vases. Because the wood is so hard and prone to splitling, Wahl fami- nates it with birch to maintain its integrity. ; Ekki’s classification as an iron wood is well earned, says the craftsman. “It’s heavy and very hard to work with,” says Wahl. “It’s like cast iron — every pass I make with the tools, | have to resharpen the tools every time.” Knox United Church also pur- - chased a quantity of the wood to * replace several benches in its out- door amphitheatre. “It’s done a beautiful job,” says congregation member and church maintenance director Don was due for a facelift, she says. Because the cannery isa na- tional historical site, any mainte- nance done there must be in ac- cordance with guidelines set out by Patks Canada. When the Ekki became avail- seum have not bean replaced since it was built in 18989. able, Parks Canada agreed the wood met its guidelines of niain- taining the historical integrity of. the site, Morrison says. “It was just a greal, great op- portunity that we couldn't pass Up,” she says. Reconstruction of the board- walk las already begun and Mor- rison anticipates the first phase of the project: to be complete later this ‘week, Strangway, He says they wanted the wood because of its historical value and because it is so strong and dur- able. “Now that we've pat it we’ve had a lot of peopls express- -ing interest in the history.” -