Crazy canoeists
back in action

Paddlers Frank and Ben on the river again

THE PHRASE ‘‘glutton for punish-
ment” was tailor made for Frank Wolf
and Ben O’Hara.

The pair of paddiers recently bit the news
after their dramatic rescue on the Babine
River, The two were sick with giardia, cap-
sized their boat in the rapids of the Babine,
lost all their equipment and nearly
drowned.

But that’s not about to stop them.

O'Hara, from Ontario, and Wolf, from
North Vancouver, convinced their sponsors
to outfit them again with new equipment.

They received a new canoe, more clo-
thing, a new camera and film to record their
upstream trip across Canada.

“After frantically calling up our sponsors
it looks like the trip has a new lease on
life,”’ Wolf recently wrote on the Canadian
Geographic website that’s logging their
journey. ‘‘Despite our near-death experi-
ence, the adventure continues,’’

The latest chapter includes a lengthy
portage — all the way from Hazelton to
Smithers and east to Babine Lake.

Last Thursday the two were seen plod-
ding along Highway 16 toward Smithers.
They were wheeling the canoe, loaded with
equipment, ona portage cart.

Then a reader phoned the News lo say
he’d seen the paddlers pushing their canoe
— named “Night Flight to Gravy”? —
along Old Babine Lake Road last Friday.

The adventurers will put their canoe in
the water at Babine Lake, where they
would have ended up bad their boat not
capsized. The Babine River flows north out
of the lake.

O’Hara and Wolf plan to paddle and
portage their way to Takla Lake, the Nation
Lakes, the Nation River, Williston Lake,
the Peace River and then to Lake
Athabasca. They will continue following
lakes and rivers across Canada.

The canoe replaces ‘'Groovy Gravy,’’ the
original boat that broke in half after the (vo
let go in order to save themselves,

Pieces of it were found last week,

Gitxsan Ranger Rodney Harris found
what was left of the canoe during a routine
patrol of the river. He found one half near
the sewer plant in Hazelton, and the re-

mainder approximately 10 kilometres down

river. They also found a helmet.

According to Harris, there were holes in
the boat, and the top railings were all torn
out. There were no signs of a still or video
camera. ,

As for the remainder of the paddlers’ pos-
sessions, they now belong to the river,

‘T¢’s pretty tough (to find lost articles)
wilh the high water, but you never know
when the river drops,’’ Harris said.

For now the boat is at the Gitxsan
Rangers office, and will remain there until
Canadian Geographic can contact O'Hara
and Wolf, and figure out what they can do
with it.

- Their boat capsized in the raging rapids of
ihe Babine River the morning of May 12. A
high-risk helicopter rescue plucked one of
them from a canyon. The pair had no
serious injuries.

They began their journey on April 21,
from the village of Port Edward near Prince
Rupert.

Wolf figured when they first began the
adventure, it would take between five to six

‘months to make it to the eastern coast.

Just before they left last week for Babine
Lake, O'Hara posted this note on the web-
site:

“At this time we are gelting ready to
depart again, this time via a different route.

‘We can’t slop now, we both want to
complete this trip. Our sponsors ate amaz-
ing, resupplying us with gear and support to
keep going.”’

Student tops under hood

CALEDONIA = Secondary
School student Dalen Wiebe
is a national champ at
trouble shooting automotive
problems.

The grade 12 student
placed second provincially
and second nationally in
automotive service at a
Skills Canada competition
in Vancouver last week; >.
. “It was a good experi-
ence,’” Wiebe said, ‘It was
really fun.”’

In the competition Wiebe
spent half an hour at 10 dif-
ferent stations performing
various automotive tasks.
He was judged on the quali-
ty of his repairs and his at-
tention to safety.

T made some mistakes,”

: take place in Canada.

Part of the reason Wiebe
was so exhausted after the
competition is that he had
taken part in another compe-
tition while in the Lower
Mainland May 8.

Wicbe and Tom Fox, an-
other Caledonia Secondary
School student, tock third

provincial finals
BCAA & BCIT Student
Auto Skills Challenge in
Burnaby May 8.

Wiebe and Fox competed
against nine other teams
from across British Colum-
bia for the provincial
championship.

The two students, led by
instructor Doug Brewer,

he said. “‘] forgot to put on
my safety glasses for about
seven seconds, and that cost

Dalen Wiebe

eamed their trophies by
racing against the clock to
diagnose and repair a

“place:--in:- the ~ hands-on + ~
of the’

me some points.”

From 8 am, to 4:30 p.m,
Wiebe was checking
starters, computer systems,
brakes and back ends on
Gms, Dodges and Fords.

“It was really tiring,’’ be
said, “‘We were going hard
all day, Wednesday evening

I was just dead.”

His second place at the
Nationals won him about
$400 worth of Snap on
Tools and an invitation to
the Canada Skills worlds
competition next year in
Montreal. It will be the first
lime the competition will

deliberately ‘“‘bugged’’ 1998
Ford Vehicle. Teams had 90
minutes to complete the
work.

To win, teams had to per-
fectly repair their vehicle or,
have a combination of the
best quality of work and
shortest repair time.

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OPEN FIRE RESTRICTION ORDER
PRINCE RUPERT FOREST REGION

Effective May 22, 1998 at 1200 hours and until further notice, the lighting , fueling and use of open
fires for the disposal of waste as prescribed in Section 23 of the Forest Fire Prevention and
Suppression Regulation (B.C. Reg. 169/95) is prohibited within a part of the Prince Rupert Forest
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The area covered by this restriction order is that area of the Kalum Forest District north of latitude 55
degrees and 35 minutes and that part of the Bulkley-Cassiar Forest District that was formerly known
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