Town tour. A new self-guided tour of Terrace’s downtown is a walk into history \COMMUNITY B1 Skeena reloaded We take a tour of Terrace’s shiny new junior secondary school and its many features\NEWS A5 @ Hat trick eRe Se mm Terrace’s hookey : school is ‘riding a wave of success i despite our challenging. itimes\SPORTS B7 $1.00 pus 7¢ GST ($1.10 plus 8¢ GST outside of the Terrace area} 7 Wednesday, August 27, 2003 Black bear kill ban wanted here White Kermode gene could be in blacks By JEFF NAGEL KILLING black bears should be banned in this region because some of them are actually Kermode bears, one city councillor says. David Hull wants the province to make the change to protect all bears in the northwest — not just the white ones — from hunters and conservation officers. He cites scientific research that concludes the Kermode gets ils white coat from a recessive mutation in one gene. That means a white cub can be the offspring of two black parents if they both carry the recessive gene. Hull says it’s wrong to kill black bears that carry the. gene but there’s no way to distinguish them from regular black bears. “You're probably killing Kermode bears and that’s not really right,” he says. “There’s no way to tell which ones are the Kermodes and which ones Grade shift mulled PARENTS CAN expect the school district to pur- sue the idea of changing how schools are grouped by grades, says a local trustee. In particular, the con- cept of middle schools containing Grades 7 to 9 will be discussed, says Di- ana Penner, “It was brought up dur-" ing our reconfiguration meetings of last February with parents and there was a lot of interest,” she said. “] should add the pro- cess of how the dialogue about how this might work has not been discussed at the board level,” Penner added. The concept behind a middle schocl is that Grade 7 students are more closely aligned with older students and not with younger ones. “When you look at the maturity level of Grade 7 students, and their inter- ests, they feel they don’t belong with the little kids,” said Penner. “The concept that Grade 7s [in an elementary school] were viewed as the senior class in showing leadership seems to be changing,” she continued. Penner snid the middle ‘school concept is not tied to the board’s quandary of what to do with the new but never-opened Moun- tainview Elementary School on the bench. Although the board did complete the $3.2 million school last year, budget deficits and a drop in school populations forced it to keep the facility vac- Cont’d Page A2 # Grow, baby, KITI K'SHAN student Quade Louie checks out the progress of his pumpkin which he'll be entering in the Skeena Valley Fall Fair pumpkin contest this weekend. He's one of 21 students in Pat Davidson's class at the school who took part in the project to preduce a large pumpkin. Organizers distributed 80 official fall fair pumpkin kits this spring. For more on this, please turn to Page A10. And for other fall ant, fair stories, please see Pages 85 and B6, B7 and B14. JENNIFER LANG PHOTO grow aren't.” “Quit killing the Olympic mascot,” he added, referring to efforts to make the bear the emblem of the 2010 win- ier games. Hull says Terrace should also make every effort to block the killing of the creature that is already the city’s symbol. His argument gets some support from the leading researcher on Ker- mode bears. UBC professor Dr. Kermit Ritland tested black bears in the Terrace area as part of a three-year study that wrapped up two summers ago, Based on the results, Ritland esti- mates 10 per cent of bears in the Ter- race area are black in colour but carry the Kermode gene. That means for every’ 10 black bears shot- here one has the potential to give birth to a white cub — if it mates with another bear carrying the gene, The areas with the highest-concen- trations of bears carrying the Kermode gene are fo the south on Princess Roy- its owner says, his equipment. at al Island and Gribbell Island.— where the rate ranges from 20 to.40 per cent. Ritland says it’s true protecting black bears around Terrace should pro- tect the 10 per cent.of them that carry the Kermode gene. But he. said that likely woukdn’t have a major effect on protecting the white Kermode populations. “I think it’s certainly more important to protect white bears than black bears,” Ritland said, noting white ones are 100 per cent certain to carry the gene. Cont'd Page A2 . Big equipment up for auction By JEFF NAGEL RITCHIE BROTHERS auctioneers will be here Sept, [8 to liquidate the equipment holdings of one of Terrace’s biggest logging contractors, K’Shian Construction is selling everything. And there was enough equipment that the auctioneers will come to Terrace rather than have the machinery shipped to Prince George. “It's a complete dispersal for. K'shian,” said George Willows, Ritchie Brothers’ regional manager. He said more than 150 pieces of equipment will be sold by unreserved auction — meaning everything will g0 with no minimum bids. “Qir the ‘block will’be: 10 logging: trucks; a couple: of dump trucks, a dozen tractors and excavators, at least three dozen assorted smaller trucks, and various log. loaders, grapple yarders and skidders. “It's a significant package,” Willows said, noting it includes both logging and road-building equipment. “It will attract a lot of interest. We’re already getting calls from New Zealand and the US." Willows said it’s unusual but not unheard of for the auction house to hit the road to go somewhere like. Ter- race. The last off-site auction in B.C. was 1998 in Fort: St. John. “It’s not an every day occurrence,” he said. Ht will be Ritchie Brothers’ third auction in Terrace. They also came here in 1982 and 1985. The sale so far involves primarily K’Shian equipment, but Willows expects other local contractors may add. equipment to the list. Richmand-based Ritchie Brothers has grown to become the largest industrial auctioneer in the world with 29 permanent yards around the globe. It will send 30,000 brochures to prospective customers across North America and in New Zealand alerting them lo the Terrace sale, company officials say, They predict several hundred buyers will come here for the auction. It will also be broadcast on the Internet and sales will take place at a rate of 50 to 100 items per hour. Sale is not end for contractor. K'SHIAN Construction is down but not necessarily out, Frank Cutler says the extended logging downturn and the continuing bleak outlook has prompted him to sel! “We just thought we would sell out at this time and set back and wait for a bit until the storm blows over and the economy comes back,” he says. “Then we'd get right back into it.” Cutler has done it before. He sold everything for $1.7 million ata Ritchie Brothers auction here in 1982 and Cont'd Page A2 Little house move awaits money THE HOUSE built by the founder of Terrace will move to a new location to play a pivotal role in the resurgence of the downtown once a crucial piece of financing comes in. Money from the federal softwood relief package is needed to flesh out the budget to move George Little’s two-storey home, now on Hall St., to a spot at the foot of Kalum beside the old Terrace Co-op where it will be- come part railway station, part ‘office space and part retail space. It's intended to anchor a new city designated tourist development zone, going north up Kalum to where it in- tersects with Lakelse, Brian Baker of the Terrace Eco- nomic Development Authority, which is helping to sponsor the project, says as much as $900,000 in cash and kind will be spent on the move and renova- tion of the Little house. But the softwood money must be in place first, he noted. That’s because it can be used only to cover expenses af- ter a project has been approved for as- sistance and not before. And since the Little house backers have asked for $400,000, forging ahead without first having that money in place would scale the project back, said Baker. “But [ will say everything looks very, very positive. We're in stage two {of the approval process] and after stage two, the money stars to flow.” Should things go the way. Baker is expecting, a- work crew will be able to get the home to “lock up” stage this fall, meaning they can work on the in- terior refinishing over the winter, “Once spring comes, they'll be able to get back outside and do the exteri- r,” said Baker, an addition to the expected soft- wood relief money and a city contribu- tion, the house project has the support of $132,000 from Human Resources Development Canada and a $25,000 grant from the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. The investment amount may sound substantial for one building, but Baker sald it includes street and light- ing work, “You can say it is a lot of money and it may take awhile before busi- nesses locate there and begin to gen- erate revenue, but there is potential there,” said Baker. - George Little’s house has had many uses over the years, including a stint ‘as a transition home for female vic- tims of violence, time, as the headquarters for a local group opposed te provincial govern- a ‘short-stay homeless Shelter and, for a very brief period of ment social services sand health care cuits, It was turned over to the city by its most recent owner, the Ksan House Society, last year.