Page 4, The Herald, Friday, December 15, 1978

TER RACE/KITIMAT

daily herald

General Office - 615-6357 Published by
Clrevlation - 635-6357 Sterling Publishers

PUBLISHER - Laurle Mallett

GEN. MANAGER - Knox Coupland
EDITOR - Greg Middleton

CIRCULATION - TERRACE. Andy Wightman 635-6357
: KITIMAT . Pat Zalinski 632-2747

KITIMAT OF FICE - 632-2747 .
Published every weekday af 3212 Kalum Street,
Terrace, B.C, A member of Varified Circulation.
Authorizedas second class mail, Registration number
1201 Postage paid In cash, return postage guaranteed.

NOTE OF COPYRIGHT

The Herald retains full, complete and sole copyright In
any advertisement produced and-or any editortal or
photographic content published in the Herald.
Reproduction is not permitted without the written
permission of the Publisher.

LETTERS TO
| THE EDITOR

Dear Sir:

With the closing of another
year, I like to pause and
express a note of sincere
appreciation to the Terrace
Herald, and to the radio
station crTk and CrTK TY
or 8 ing the cause ol
the Canadian National In-
stitute for the Blind for the

‘year 1978.

My sincere recognition
goes taCampaign Chairman,
Al Purschke, members of the
Liens Clubs and their
volunteers for making this
year’s campaign the moet
successful ever conducted in
the Terrace area. The

generous contributions by

Dear Sir;

Previously, by phone, |
have expressed concern over
the imbalanced reporting of
your paper since the end of
the summer. Although the
reporting has not overly
suffered, your choice of
editorial commentaries is
completely outlandish.

On your editarial page you
conitnually feature the
comments of Shelford,
Campagnolo and Stevens.

Columns by Labour or NDP
spokespeople are rare.

More disgustingly, Atrill
and Jackson are continually
published. These two, are
noghing more than

the citizens of the Terrace
area provided the CNIB with
the necessary funds to
continue its extensive work.

As the representative of
the CNIB, I accept this
continued support with
sincere appreciation. These
contributions will permit the
CNIB to carry on its work in
the area of biindness
prevention and in assisting
those less fortunate persons
of our communities who

‘have suffered the loss of

sight through illness or

accident.
__ Sincerely,
Fred Koalenz,
District Administrator

apologists for everything
that is unprogressive in the
world. If Smithers’ Tom
or Ottawa Richard want a
forum let them write a
letter to you, the editor.
Their analysis are nothing
more than misinformed,
personalised idiocies! |!
T suggest that you either
ce your own editorials
(at half the cost!!) or
balance your opinion page.

.Terrace doesn't need a

continual misinformed
lecture, it needs a balanced,
journalistically-
professional, newspaper.

Sincerely
Paul Johnston |.

EDITOR'S JOURNAL |

BY GREG MIDDLETON

It is true that Iam a junk food degenerate, and even
as I write this Ihave a Mars bar on my breath. What is
worse, however, is that I also revel in junk literature.

No, Iam not sodepraved that I wallow in the trashy
movie magazines; the sick, celebrity exploiters; the
ones written in depressing little offices by burned out
hacks who never come closer to the stars they write
about than the occasional letter from a lawyer. Nor do
1 read the Harlequin Romances, the literary
equivalent of the McDonald's hamburger; a taste of
sauce, some relish, luke warm meat: but oh so
precisely packaged.

1 am an afficionado of the detective novel. Ever
since I had my first taste of warm blood in a Mickey
Spillane thriller I was hooked.

The cops and robbers shows on television didn’t do
any more for me than a home cooked hamburger
would do for a Big Mac muncher. They were all just
cheap imitations of real life rather. than the high
drama of an original Dashiel Hammet or Ray
Chandler.

All the while I was reading the early Mike Hammer
mysteries 1 can remember the exquisite agony, of
knowing that the one the Lucky Strike smoking
Private eye trusted, the always leggy blonde or
readhead, was the one to betray him. One of Mike
Hammer’s most endearing features was his usually
fatal (to his girl friend's) bad luck.

[recently saw a remake of a Ray Chandler classic,
with an aging Robert Mitchum as Peter Marlowe.
Even though Mitchum is almost twice the age of the
venerable detective story, The Big Sleep, and quite
literally walked through even the chase scenes, I was
entranced.

As a book of the month club selection I got a
collection of the Sam Spade stories that Humphrey
Bogart made famous. If you think there is too muc
violence on the tube and that there was an excess
amount of bloodshed in Cannon and Kojak, read The
Red Harvest. I’m not even sure it is possible to count
the bodies.

For a white, after I grew out of Mike Hammer, and
since I read faster than Mickey Spillane writes, I
moved into the Nick Carter series. While there are
tons of them, shelves of second hand book stores are
filled with the blonde, crew-cut shamus, he always
seemed a little too shallow.

Now I’m reading the Travis MeGee books of John
McDonald. That iaconic and almost morosely cynical
character refers to his business as salvage, There is
no false glory or heroics, just the stole march toward
the Inevitable,

T like my Dickens for a winter's evening. Give me
the Greek playwrights for Sunday nights and the
deeper human perspeclives. ~

1 will still read Orwell and Shaw and Faulkner and
Fowles. But on Saturday morning, with that black
Turkish coffee and fresh Danish pastries, I will spend
my time with the one who carries a smoking Smith
and Weston and leaves a trail of bodies. Yes, I gotta
have trash.

b

a

ne

i

Rod Taylor photo of the view from Brauns Island Bridge

FLOOD OF '36
Convinced them to move |

Reprinted from the AV Times

by Colleen Fitzpatrick

The recent flood In
Terrace received tons of
publicity, and the promise of
thousands of dollars in
government help.

Well, publicity surroun-
ding the Terrace flood of 1936
was by word-ol-mouth, and.
the only help received by
most was a helping hand
from a neighbor.

But that was sufficient
according to long-tim
resident Paul Hertel whgss
with wife and family, sut=
vived a three-week flood of
the Skeena River near
Terrace that year.

“Six months after the
flood, everyone had ac-
commodation,” said Hertel.
“But in those days, it took us
a day to throw up a house
until we could build a better
one.”

There were no deaths from
the 1936 flood, mainly
because everyone knew it

“" was coming. Unlike the flood

‘this year, in 1958 the Skeena
River was swollen not by
rain but by a high, melting
snow pack from the interior.

Residents of Remo, near
Terrace where the Hertels
lived, watched for two weeks
in June as the river rose
higher. _

“We were living behind the
railroad grade which
dammed the old river —
about 200 feet away from the
old slough cut-off. When we
saw the roots from trees
flowing by at breakfast one
day, I moved the Mrs. and
the kids out that afternoon,

down to Lindstrom’s place,”

Lindstrom's piace was one
of twa in the river valley
built upon a high knoll. By
the time Mrs. Hertel and the
children arrived, half the
population of the area were
there, too — and there they
stayed, for three weeks until
the river subsided.

About 11 ‘that night, the
railroad grade washed out,

‘just as Hertel knew it would.

He anchored his house to a
stump with a length of cabie,
which was the only thing
preventing it from rushing
downstream with llvestock,
trees, and the remains of
other houses.

Meanwhile, back at the
Lindstrom’s place, everyone
there had to keep moving
thei: beds to a higher place
as the water continued to
rise, Finally, sald Hertel,

their noses practically
scraped the ceiling as they
ran out of ways and means to

elevate the mattresses.
At3a.m., which is dawnin
the summertime up in
Terrace, the water was
higher than the door jamb,
Hertel had tied his boat with
a long line from the slough,

so that he and a couple of
friends could go out and
check the survivors. First,
said Hertel, they picked up
the pigs and sheep in the
barn, huddled high in the
hayloit. Then they went to
ath the other | ae of the
po an was , Up on
another high knoll.

“A couple of days later,
we went across the river
for a couple of little pigs
there, We put them on a
floating platform, but we had
to put the sow In the hayloft,
where she stayed until the

flood was over, She had hay

to eat, and there was sure
plenty of water!"

During the worst of the
flood, said Hertel, "I saw
whole houses come down,
and so much land was lcet.”

When the water settled and
people turned to rebuilding
from the havoc, Hertel found
he had to move his house
back from its original site,
300{eet from the river. There
was several feet of sand to
shovel out of the house, too,
before the Hertels maved
back in.

“And the Franks — they
had 20 acres of beautiful

A note from the editor:

Editor's note: This column
is reprinted from the Alberni
Valley Times. It may be
interesting to note that the
Alberal Valley has not only a
flooding problem, but a
recent study indicates the
probability is good that the
town will suffer another tidal

wave, The town, which is at
the end of an inlet much a3
Kitimat is, was hit by a tidal
wave a few years ago. There
was extensive property
damage but no loss of life,
There is currently a battle
going on there over a flood
plain bylaw.

bottom land. The flocd took it
all away.”

No train chugged through
that area for another three
months. The water had
Growned the tracks for at
least seven miles, six toeight
feet deep.

The only supply boat which
made it through during the
first few days afler the flood
contained beer, Hertel
recalled. There was, at least,
no dearth of drinking
material on hand that year.

Food supplies came a little
later, and a couple of Red
Cross boxes, but, said
Hertel, “Nobody gave us a
nickel,’

Three years after the
flood, the Hertels moved to
Vancouver Island — a year
in Duncan first, before they
settled in Port Alberni,

Hertel says he learned a
lesson from the flood of '36 —
never live on a river bottom,
unless you're aut of the
possible current,

“Like the Fraser. Freak
seasons are inevitable,”

Once, when looking for a
homestead along the Skeena
River, Hertel climbed a tree
to get his bearing.

“T was 25 feet up in the
tree, and there was six in-
ches of sand on the branches.
i told the guy I waa with,
“Let's get out of here. This is
no place for us.”

-Too many people live ina
flood-prone area, according
to Hertel.

‘They should look at the
soil, see if there was a flood
even 100, 200 years ago.
Sooner or later it wili come
again, just like tidal waves.””

/ OTTAWA
OFFBEAT

‘ BY RICHARD JACKSON

OTTAWA - Senior federal

public service managers propo ed

can’t manage, says Auditor
General J.J. Macdonnell.

And that’s not just the
departmental deputies and
the Crown corporation
presidents —- whe eae.
posedly are responsi
Pomming the federal shopona
businesslike basis — but
some 1,500 of the top
decision-makers of the
bureaucracy.

They can't manage, goes
on the Auditer General,
because they've never been
given management training
aml nobody in charge —

< presumably the Prime

Minister and his political
straw-bosses of the cabinet

— ever has told them how to
direct a bus
organization. .

What's. even more alar-
ming, says Mr. Macdonnell,
is that the government's non-
managing managers just
don't care that they can't

handle the i.
And so public never

geta full value, or even an
acceptable measure of value
for its tax money.

Every auditor general for
the last 100 years has been
critical of hit-and-miss
management and the’ who-
cares attitude of the
mismanagers. .

So the public has been the
steady loser. ~

This short-changing of the
taxpayers comes in an in-
finite variety of forme from
stupidity through ignorance,
indolence, deceit,
carelessness and negligence
to misappropriation,
forgery, theft and other
criminal practices,

But J.J. Macdonnell is not
your ordinary auditor
general.

For years your federal
“4,G.8"" were mice, or at
their flercest, pussycats.

And then along came
Maxwell Henderson, no
mouse, nor pussycat, but a
watchdog with a bark and

‘bite who guarded the public
treasury as if every last one’
of the billions of dollars in it

were his, -

But fierce as he was — and
he was so fearsome that the
Trudeau government tried,
and failed, by act of
Parllament, to pull his teeth
by stripping him of his
powers to cry “‘thief’ and

shout “fraud’' — he never
s a way of
eliminating waste, ©x-
iravagance and worse.
Then along came J.J.
Macdonnell,
He was the government's
own choice for the job.

They must have thought —
or they never would have
appointed him -~ that they
well ened *pareaucrat

-traine urea
well-tra veful fOF the’

job, would know his place in
th

own.
He came in from the cold
— the “autside world”
where payrolls must be met,
books fatanced, and a profit
made to keep the wheels of
production turning,

Qut “there” in the cold,
beyond the warm world of
government, there is oo
public puree and no tax-
payers’ pockets to pick.

So J.J. Macdonnell, a
successful business ac-
countant and financial
manager before he tool: the
government job, has béen
appalled at what he has
found in his few years in
Ottawa.

Initially, Hke Maxwell
Henderson, be thought it

enough toblow the whistle on
the slackers, the in-
competents and

dishonest. '

jie recited, In his annual
reports, “horror stories” of
millions of tax dollars
wa.ted each year by the
public service with its at-
titude of who-cares-there’s-
always-more-where-that-

. came-from.

Now suddenly this year it’s
different.

At last an auditor general
has had enough.

J.J. Macdonnell says flatly
that the job is beyond the
abilities of even senior
managers of the federal
bureaticracy.

So dump them, he says,
and hire businessmen with
JAmgwehow,,

We'd have to pay them a
lite more than we pay.
deputy ministers and Crown '
corporation executive of-
ticers — but not that much
more that it wouldn't be the
bargain of a taxpayer's
lifetime.

OTTAWA (CP) — More
than 5,000 Canadians died
in car accidents last year
and about half of them
involved drivers who had
been drinking more than
the law allows.

“And no matter what
we've done over the.
years, there’s no dif-
ference in the number of
drinking drivers,” says
H.M. Simpson of the
Traffic Injury Research
Foundation of Canada, an
independent agency
studying the behavioral
and medical aspects of
road safety.

Traffic deaths have,
however, dropped in four
provinces and the Canada
Safety Council says the
reason is mainly better
we of seat belts and
lowered speed limits in
Quebec, Ontario, British
Columbia and Saskatche-

wan.

But provincial coroners
and medical examiners,
who count the dead,
continue to report higher
purmbers of drivers who

n impaired.

The Criminal Code of
Canada says it is an of-
fence to drive while
Lmpaired by alcohol or a
drug even if the driver's

blood = =aleahol = con-
centration is less than 60
milligrams.

Says Simpson who

complies the annual
statistics on the dead:
wore pot golng to see
much change unless we
.mount a dramatic
program that wilt provide
some meaning to drinking
drivers,”

DRUNK DRIVERS

Despite many cam-
paigns to keep potential
killers from getting into
the driver's seat, Slmpson
says the figures are-
depressingly consistent.

The latest statistics
available, from 1973 to
1976, show an average of
89 per cent of drivers
killed in accidents were
legally impaired.

However, those
statistics represent only:
car drivers, For
snowmobile operators, at
least 52 per cent were
legally impaired. Among
truck and van drivers, at
least 42 per cent of the
dead drivers were .im-

ired.

Simpson believes no
general program aimed
at the public is going te
make an individual more
aware of his or her re-

4 yl |

en a
¥ many
drinks.

Others are more op-
timistic and the health
department's dialogue on
drinking program ap-
pears to have aw:
public desire to talk about
the problem.

Maureen Jaques and
Barbara MacEwan, two
Thunder ay, Ont.
homemakers concerned
about drinking. began
what now is called the
Thunder Bay Committee
for Dialogue on Drinking.

Says Jack Nightacales
of the health depart-
ment’s information
service:

“They started out
talking to neig! and
bringing interested

le together In 1976,
And now with the local

. deliver

A continuing problem

high school introducing
an official provincial
curriculum about alcohol
and the student, the
school board has invited
them work with
parents who may w
advice about how to deal
with teen-age drinking,’”’”
_ The Thunder Bay group
out of a five-year
federal campaign which
has coat $3 million to date,.
said Nightecales.

“Dialogue on drinking
is a national alcchol
program introduced by
Health and ‘Welfare
Canada in 1076 in the
belief that talking about

problems is a
step towards solving
them," says R.A. Draper,
director-general of the
department's promotion
and prevention direc-

Newspaper ad-
vertisements began two
years ago, with provincial
co-operation.

“We did not set an
objective to reduce
alcohol consumption,”
says the department.
“Thereal basis was totry
to encourage people to
talk about drinking with
themselves and with gov:
ernment authorities who
must enforce the laws and
appropriate
treatment.”

The Alberta govern-
ment, for example,
produced 200,000 dia-

ogue-on-drinking
coasters for distribution

in provincial liquor
 plores,

Book review

by Greg Middleton

There is one photograph in Barry M. Thornton's new
book, Steethead: The Supreme Trophy Trout, which is
almost worth ‘the $14.95 price of the 159-page hard
cover fishing text.

One problem with the book is that it is tev obvious
that this Is the best picture the book has to offer and it
‘is used no less than six times if you count the tinie it
appears on the back of the dust cover. It is a good,
descriptive shot of a magnificent steelhead trout
coming almost straight up out of the water. It
demonstrates why the steelhead, a variety of rainbow
trout which goes out to sea to feed for several years, is
the most highly prized game fish. The fact that it is

overused, however, is just part of i
ee however just pa a repetitious quality

It is, nonetheless, a good book for a fisherman who
has spent a few years out catching his share of other
fish and is about to embark on steelhead expeditions.

While taking great pains to acquaint the reader with
all the jargon, the lingo peculiar to steelhead fisher-
men, he also makes a point of instilling the kind of
respect for fish and fishing that is a Hemmingway
trademark and part of the ardent Steelhead Society of
B.C. philosophy. The book is, in many ways, a
prolonged commercial for this sporisman’s group.

Thorton {s very conservation minded and takes
pains to make a point that a fish released, if it is done
carefully, is a fish that will live to challenge another
fisherman. He heavily touts such laudable con- .
becomeniet doctrine as ‘adopting a stream’ and

4 ‘stream guardian’ as w. isi
cate oe ee ee ell as praising the

One problem with the book is that it restricts ;
almost entirely to Vancouver Island and leaves ait
some of the best steelhead fishing in the world, that of

@ northern coast and the Queen Charlotte Islands.

In addition to the emphasis on the yocabul
fisherman, there are a number of good. Y roth
illustrating the life cycle of this very Interesting fish.
{It is, unlike the salmon, able to reverse the processes
which go along with spawning and return to the sea
and then come back to spawn again.) There are some
poe faces in! the Pictures, Among those who are

tured eir catches i
Liberal leader David Anderson ° former provincial

Although a good part of the sport of fishing is
collecting gear, the book doesn't streas this Sui es

without the pages and pages of rods and reel
8. This
pnitas a how-to book as a celebration, a lyric

Steelhead: The Supreme Trophy Trout, Hancock

House Publishers, 139 ;
illustrations 14.95. pages, Black and white