_ JENNIFER LANG 1Y POINT OF VIEW. ARON STRUMECKI A road to prosperity K PEOPLE, !'m only going to say this once, so step up, listen carefully, and pay attention. I guarantee that you'll be talking about this one around the water cooler this afternoon, and I bet you, you're going to think I'm crazy. _ The solution to our woe, my friends, has nothing to do with anything as uninspired as container ports, railway tourism or Olympian mascots. Such insipid drivel is the talk of - wimps, the plans of heedless mobs, and is the dreams of the unimaginative. ‘I'am proud, strong: and resilient! I come ‘from a long swaggering line of tree-tearing timber men and wild and savage settlers! I am a northwesterner, and proud of where I come from! Am I supposed to be content with the table scraps that our province and our country have built with our money? Heck NO, I say! What we need is a plan, a grandiose plan worthy of our ancestors. A plan so HUGE, monumental and ridiculously difficult that the mere mention of it will turn any southerner’s knees to water, while making every true north- westerner's back straighten with pride and- glee. What we need is a proper decent highway | south east through Tweedsmuir Provincial Park to Bella Coola, and then drive us a nice big “sold two-lane blacktop all the way south through the Pemberton-Whistler area, and con- nect with the great Sea-to-Sky Highway to the economic heartbeat of our province, Vancou- ' ver. Imagine the beauty. Just think about the freedom. One seven or eight hour drive and you'd be in the big city, watching movies in decent theatres, enjoying concerts of bands that! people have actually heard of, and relaxing in the company of your friends and family, No more seven or eight drive east, just so you can ; turn south, my friends. No more exhausting trips to places you don’t need to go. Sure, it'll be expensive as all hell, and would be the stuff of a civil engineer's night- mare: but let’s face it, if our government had poured as much time and energy into building us a decent road south instead of pouring money down the throat of Skeena Cellulose, our economy wouldn’t in nearly as much trou- ble as it is right now. Yes, there would have been a lot of people out of work, but let's face it, the bail-out pack- age for SCI was like a Band-Aid on bullet ~ wound, and only put off the inevitable. If they spent the money on developing us a proper road, not only would we haye pumped millions of dollars into the Jocal and provincial econ- omy, we would have provided the infrastruc- ture to build the industries we need the most, That's right; I mean good old value-added timber products. Believe me, it'll be a heck of a lot easier to build and sell all the wood furniture we wanted . ta if it only took a one-day drive south to the , Lower Mainland and beyond. Not only that, but for the first time in a long time, in B.C, and probably North America as a whole, we'd be opening up new territory to use “and settle. It'd be like a 21st century frontier, with all the convenience of modern society and all the natural beauty of a land we’ve taken for granted. With a little cautious _ thought, and bit of foresight, we could build new towns and settlements thal everyone, icurists and Canadians alike, would flock to. Yet it wouldn't just be new towns and vil- lages that would benefit. We often argue about how Terrace is the hub of the northwest, yet just wait until we get people coming through _ from the south, as well as the north, east and ~west. You only have to look at the map to see how we'd all benefit. But let's face it friends. There’s no use in crying over spilt milk. The time is now to de- mand a proper solution to our economic woes. We have a deadline, and we have a project to aim for that'll give our region the impetus we need to develop properly now and into the future. ‘We have the 2010 Olympics to look forward “to, and a dream that could carry us to a new future. If northwestern B.C. truly wishes to cash in on the Olympic dream, 1 say we demand a proper road that will bring us a direct benefit . instead of sitting back and wishing for some- thing to happen. Our future is in your hands! from northwestern B.C: to the Lotus Land in ; the south! That's right, we start at Kitimat, go . _ programs, TERRACE STANDARD > The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, August 20; 2003 - Bi 638-7283 RDKS EMPLOYEE Parrish Miller watches daughter Breeanna as on the Thornhill ‘bench. It won't be-long before children will be she balances on a beam being installed at Penner Street park able to play in the new playground. JENNIFER LANG PHOTO A new neighbourhood park is taking shape | hornhill Playground being installed next month will mark the first phase of the project - By JENNIFER LANG YOUNG THORNHILL bench residents will soon have a new place to play. The Kitimat-Stikine Regional District is building a brand-new neighbourhood park on Penner Street, starting with a playground that’s being installed early next month. The regional! district is spending $60,000 to ’ complete the first phase of a two-year project, which includes $25,000-worth of playground equipment and a grassy play area. Regional district crews started working on the playground two weeks ago, after the site was partially cleared by Skeenass Ventures Inc. The same local company is making wooden fence posts for the site using some of the trees that were removed. The new park is the result of long term planning | by the regional district’ s community _ advisory committee. The regional district has put aside same money of its parks and recreation budget each year in order to develop the Penner Street park. Neighbouring residents helped pick out the playground equipment earlier this year, RDKS works and services assistant Darryl Bjorgaard said, The new park will have $25,000-worth of playground equipment ‘set to arrive in two weeks. A representative from the manufacturer, Playworld Systems, will oversee the. installa- tion, Bjorgaard said. Forget monkey bars — they’re passe. The new playground will have a plastic S- tube slide, a climber, a small suspension bridge and a matrix wail, among other items. ~ Most of the playground equipment that’ ] been ordered is made with vinyl-covered steel, which is sturdy and retains its colour, The Penner Street park is located on the southern side of a property owned by School District 82 that's designated for use for a future school and parking lot. The regional district wiil be initially re- sponsible for all costs, including construction, maintenance and operation for the foreseeable future. ; Athietic fields will be installed when ~ and if -—.the community has grown to support the construction a new school on Penner Street. The regional district was able to save some shipping costs because a Terrace elementary school ordered new playground equipment from the same company aS part of the ship- ment arriving Sepl. 2. The Clarence Michiel parent advisory council is renovating the school’s playground, UNBC chair heads to Winnipeg Administrator is named dean of a new enviromental department By JENNIFER LANG SHE'LL BE back. That’s the promise Leslie King had for friends and colleagues in Terrace Friday, as they gathered for a farewell party. King, who arrived here in 1999 to found the University of North- erm B.C.'s first stand-alone regio- nal campus — a storefront location in downtown Terrace - is once again poised to break new acade- mic ground. King, who has served as chair of the northwest region for the past four years, has accepted a position with the University of Manitoba. The former Fulbright scholar and London School of Economics graduate has been named Dean of the new Faculty of the Environ- ment. It’s just the third such depart- ment to be established at a uni- versity in Canada, King said as she hugged a succession of well- wishers. It's not the first time King has been an academic pioneer. She IT'S BEEN A SLICE: Leslie King helps serve cake at her going away party at UNBC last week. mont colleague joked at the time, | adding UNBC was a “perfect match for Leslie” because of its focus on environmental, interna- tional, northern and women’s stu- dies - “All areas to which Leslie has dedicated her life.” Her new position at the Uni- versity of Manitoba in Winnipeg is for five years. She said she leaves feeling sa- tisfied that she reached the initial goals she and UNBC set cut at the beginning. Three years after the Terrace UNBC campus opened, it offers a range of undergraduate courses and masters programs in educa- tion and social work so students can learn without leaving their home community. King also had a personal goal: developing a campus that fosters . a lively intellectual and- creative community. These days, it’s not uncommon to find poetry readings, guest lec- tures and other special events lak- ing place — the hallmarks of a university with a meaningful and relevant presence... “I feel very, very pratified aboul. the response of the com- munity to us being here.” While administering UNBC’s Terrace-based -academic pro- grams, King also managed to find worked at the University of Ver- mont for 14 years, where she helped. develop environmental In 1995, she became the found- ing chair of Environmental Stu- dies at UNBC Prince George, a the year before, brand-new university that opened “Get out your atlases!" a Ver- .. lime to. continue her research, -something that remains central to her. professional life. ‘Continued on Page B3