a acl tal tel at re eee ee as eT TE TS eee lL Eye to the sky. Sleet nor snaw Hoop heroes A battle royale looms for the high- | | Foul weather doesn’t keep a local } | New Kitsumkalum Hall hosts its tech satellite TV market in Canada\NEWS A9 | volunteer from feeding the fish\COMMUNITY B1 first-ever basketball tournament\SPORTS B5 WEDNESDAY JANUARY 15, 1997 Cheap By JEFF NAGEL AN ECONOMIC viability study of both Shames Mountain and Ski Smithers is planned to determine if - _ a financial aid package could help rescue the two troubled ski resorts. Human Resources Development Canada . has pledged $45,000 to finance the study, according to Terrace manager Shirley Kimery. - Shore: If the numbers come up right, there’s a possibility . the study could lead to government loans to refinance both ski hills. At a minimum, Kimery said, the. study may identify ways to improve both operations. “] think it’s going to be really good for the two communities,” Kimery said. Dave Andrews, business analyst for the 16/37 Community Futures agency leading the search for refinancing dollars, would not say what government program the money could come from, or how much money could be available. “This study is just to see if it’s even worth pursu- ing,” Andrews said.” ; -But Community Futures counterparts in Smithers are touting the idea as one way of bailing out the ski_ operation on Hudson Bay Mountain. Smithers is also in the middle of a community-wide effort to raise around $500,000 from the public by the end of January to save the operation. In Terrace, Shames Mountain Ski Corp. is losing Stewart plight called urgent GOVERNMENT interven- tion is needed immediately if legging contractors in Stewart are to survive. That’s the message Job Protection Commissioner Doug Kerley~got Monday when he met here with Stewart-area .loggers and industry representatives over the crisis now gripping that area. , Repap’s loggers — who were to go back to work this week - were told earlier this month not to expect work until] at least June. The problem is continued low pulp prices and high Ing- ving costs. The Stewart area contains a high proportion of pulp logs, which cost the company about $70 apiece to log and fetch only $30 on the market. Kerley told the Stendard he will recommend the povern- ment try to find a short-term solution to the situation. Financial aid, stumpage system reform, and relaxa- tion of road-building require- ments have all been raised as options. “We somehow have to find a temporary solution to get people back to work while the long-term issues are dealt with,” Kerley said. He said the implications for . Stewart will be “cata- strophic” if that doesn’t happen. “We've got to get back to work,” said Stewart mayor Andy Burton. “That's the bottom line.” Spring break up will start in mid- to late-March, so any delay in resolving the pro- blem could torpedo chances of getting crews into the bush scan. “Time is of the essence,” Burton said. “If we don’t get an answer in the next week or so, we're going to lose the season and these guys are going to be toast.” _ TERRACE & TAN money each year and directors have had to continue putting their own money into the operation. Shames president Gerry Martin said -Monday Community Futures aid would help the hill refinance its existing bank loans and loans from shareholders. “ft would allow us to consolidate some of the loans we have and pot them over a long period of ime ata low interest rate,” Martin said. “Basically allow us te put our house in order.” ose 0 Sey Martin said. any refinancing money wouldn't be applied to pay off the mountain’s existing govern- ment debls — $483,000 awed to the Kitimat-Stikine regional district for the lift system and a $502,000 federal-provincial tourism development loan that — =. 93¢ PLUS 7¢ GST _ VOL. 9 NO. 40 loans may rescue ski hills assisted with slartup. . Several local businessmen have each put hundreds of thousands of dollars into the operation - over and above their original $4.3 million investment — to keep Shames afloat: er “They're essentially at the end of the line,” Martin said. . . re “People have to realize it’s.at a point where the major investors are not: prepared to keep dumping money into it” ca re Martin said changes made this year, including a cutback on the number of operating days, will help save money, Continued Page A2 ge Taking the pledge MORE THAN 70 new Canadians took an oath of citizenship last week in Terrace. They came from 17 counties, and many had lived in Canada for more than a decade. Tony Ziegler, on the left, came to Cana- da from Switzerland more than 41 years ago. He finally decided to become a Canadian so he could have the right to vote. Friday's citizenship ceremony was the first to take place in Canada this year, said Judge Elizabeth Willcock. That means we were the first in Canada to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Citizenship Act. For more, see page 81, + School tries to tame rowdy girls By CRIS LEYKAUF VIOLENCE AND FIGHTS among a small group of grade eight girls at Thornhill Jr. Secondary is the reason for a meeting being held tonight at the school. The school’s Parent Advisory Council held two meetings this fall to tk about the violence. Parents, teachers and students were invited. Science teacher Daryl Anaka said the problem seems to be a group of grade eight girls, who are a little rowdler than usual, He described scuffles between girls which led to scratching and hair-ripping. “Girls are a little more brutal in what they do to each other,’” he said, “They have some per- sonal problems they need to work out — but not in this way.” And the school’s layout compounds the prob- lem. During lunch hours students congregate in an open areca, which has rows of lockers off to one side. There's seating for about 65 kids, but about 180 will be in the area for lunch. Teachers supervise the area, but they can’t be everywhere at once, and fights do go on between lockers. Previous meetings led to the suggestion of a games room to be run at lunch, and supervised by parents, Before Christmas about a dozen stu- dents would drop by to use it, and Anaka is hoping for more student and parent participa- tion, . “We're working at doing some positive ihings,’’ he said, © Student council is also getting involved, and er re will help put up posters on youth role models. A couple of students have also taken part in a youth leadership conference in Victoria. And some former students active in the communily have comg.back to talk to kids in the schicol, Anaka is hoping the students will be able to create some positive peer pressure. For exam- ple, when kids hear about a fight, instead of Tushing to watch, they could say how stupid they think fighting is. Without an audience many of the girls wouldn't be fighting, he said. "We want to start dealing with this now, be- fore we have a serious problem,” - Interested parents and students are invited to come to tonight’s meeting at 7° p.m. in the school library. Pe ee ee eee . fl sth: citi tala nti ntilinsaill, maith ite se) oleh sat nk nile, sthdbin sash in a. Treaty talks to go ahead Legal dispute not yet solved TSIMSHIAN TREATY talks appear to be on for this month in spite of a legal dispute between one mem- ber band and the federal government. Negotiators are scheduled to mect Jan 28-30 in Prince Rupert. But federal officials have still not signed a frame- work agreement that would officially send the treaty talks to the next stage — substantive negotiations. Negotiators had said that won't happen until the legal is- sues are resolved surrounding the scizure of 27,000 cubic metres of wood worth an estimated $5 million that the Port Simpson band jogged last year. The seizure took place in August after the band logged timber on reserve without a permit. A band spokesman said they went ahead with the logging because the feds did not have staff on hand to process their cutting permit ap- plication, Both the band and the Japanese company buying the wood had filed statements of claim, insisting the wood belongs to them. ; And VIH Logging, which carried out helicopter hauling for the band, has not yet been paid an estimated $900,000 for work it did. A ucew date has not yet been set for the hearing in B.C. Supreme Court. ° ‘We are asking the Supreme Court to declare the lags do not belong to either the Japanese firm or the first nation,” said federal spokesman Toni Timmermans. ‘'Then we can scil them and have the money paid to the courl, and have the court decide who gels what.”’ Meanwhile, Port Simpson band spokesman James Bryant , says he's hoping the matler can be resolved quickly so the band-run Lax Kwalaams Development Corporation can get back to logging and creating jobs for natives there. He said they plan to log another 60,000 cubic metres of timber on reserve land near the village over the next two or three years. “The cost to us is building every hour of the day as we sit idle here,”’ he said. ‘With the good weather, we could have started to get the boys back to work and into the bush. But we can’t do that until we get all this squared away.’’ Bryant said the band’s corporation should not have pro- ceeded without a cutting permit, but added there would have been no problem if the federal government had staff al the time to review the application. “We're going to definitely get our cutting permit in or- der first this tine. We learned a good lesson here,”’ He said the logging will mean work for 20 to 30 band members, Chief federal negotiator Pauline LaMothe predicted the dispute ‘won't affect treaty talks scheduled for later this month, She said the framework agreement is still in the office of the federal Indian Affairs minister, and she said it could be signed by the time the main table talks are on again. Telephone lines mirror growth THE NUMBER of phone lines bas increased here by 20 per cent in the last six years, reflecting a growth in population and the move to more electronic means of communications. There were 6,213 residential lines bere in 1990 com- pared to 7,495 at the end of November. And business line connections grew from 2,861 in 1990 to 3,488. Business and residential phone lines also increased in Kitimat and in the Nass Valley over the same period. But the numbers in Stewart have dropped from 423 residential lines in 1990 to 378 today. Business lines there grew from 241 in 1990 to 294, B.C. Tel spokesman Ed Clark said the growth in the Terrace area reflects increases in population since the turn of the decade. ‘But I'd be careful over how to use those numbers. We don’t separate out fax and data lines and we're seciig more residential customers now installing fax lines,” he said, stati tie eS