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| SKEENA‘ANGLER. -
Descent into the Dean

HE VANCOUVER of twenty years

ago is barely recognizable, Every-

one is in mation: men with sharp

suits and brief cases stride the
streets doing urgent business on cellular phones;
elegant women shuttle from one appointment to
another or hurry back to their offices from lunch
or shopping or errands; tourists spin aimlessly,
judging viewscapes, snapping pictures; gangly
kids with sci-fi hair, dyed shocking pinks and
greens and reds, flit from pod to pod socializing
randomly; strect vendors litter the pavement
with musicians and beggars. I give the remain-
ing coins in my pocket to a young man singing
a cappella in front of a bank machine.

Sections of the city, once reputable and im-
portant, have been left isolated and vulnerable
by a metropolis spreading outward. Wood-
ward’s has fallen victim to the mall and sprawl.
Once bulging with goods, the centre of lower
mainland shopping, the last word in modern de-
partment stores, it’s now an empty shell covered
with graffiti, swallowed by the slums. The
shops on Granville St. sell sleaze. Hookers
prowl the pavement. The population is dense
and pressing, the temperature continues to rise.
It?s no longer home; I’m glad 10 be passing
through.

After a day's lay-by Art and I are dragging
our gear into the South Terminal al Vancouver
International. After coffee we're welcomed
aboard Wilderness Air by the Hight attendant
who doubles as co-pilot. It’s the first time I’ve
been on a plane skippered by two young

and confident. Sixteen passengers fill the plane
to capacity, A roar of engines,.a whir of props
and we’re off the tarmac, gliding over the
estuary of the Fraser. Pleasure craft and fishing
boats lie. in the calm sea below like white
mushrooms pushing through a grayish green
moss.

As we wing over the coastal mountains the
fellows in front of us, excitedly snap pictures of
each other, the interior of the plane, mountains,
and fjords. Art reads a fat novel about the
shenanigans of the Yankee Central Intelligence
Agency. I take aimless notes, looking up and
out from time at tonsured mountain tops, roads
Streaming down them like veins. —

“We are beginning our descent,” says the
pilot. ‘‘Please keep your seat belts fastened until
the aircraft has come to a stop.”” The mountains
rise above us. Wisps of cloud. Goat bams. Rock
walls. We sink. Rubber bits runway, in mo-
ments we are slanding in the sun, surrounded by
mountains. We're only a few miles from the
spot where the first white man to cross North
America, the rugged Scot who pave Canada a
west coast, scrawled Alexander MacKenzie,
from Canada by land, July 22, 1793 on rock at
the mouth of Bella Coola River.

As the baggage comes off I wonder if those
words are still legible. I think about my trip by
Car and Gray Dog and Wilderness Air, and
think about the twenty five year old MacKen-
zie’s second trip — a trek over ten times as
long, voyageurs struggling with hundred pound
packs, packing canoes around the worst ob-
stacles of rock and water, negotiating peace and

single shot was fired in anger.

Van Egan is in the terminal. We shake hands.

Pete Sovercl, retired baltile ship skipper, former
senior advisor to two US presidents, now head
of the Washington State Steelhead Commilice
of the Federation of Flyfishers is there to grect
us too, We're nearing the Dean, moving from a
larger World to the world of stcelheaders. Famil-
iar faces and names are everywhere.
_A man with a week's growth on his chin
walks in the door wearing waders, a gua over
his shoulder and a bright orange can of bear
spray fastened to bis wading belt, He mumbles
something to (he woman behind the counter as
we pass, Small planes land and take off, the
hum of props and the raltle of helicopter rotors
in the distance.

Skelly is the chopper pilot. Sunglasses, hel-
inet. He gauges our baggage. We pack the
helicopter. He gingerly slides the rods between
the front seats. ‘Watch those things when you
get out al camp,’’ he shouts pointing at the
blades, ‘‘Don’t get out of the machine and go
around the back under any circumstances.’? Van
climbs in back, I slip in the front. We plug in
and buckle up, We're off. Narrow valleys. long
rivers, Goats stuck to the rock walls. Smoke.
 “There’s a fire in the park,” Skelly tilts his
head in the direction of Tweedsmuir. “‘They're
letting it burn. Letting’ nature take its course.’’
Soon we're at tree top level. The river is green,
beautiful. A large wall tent, people scurrying
about, the chopper sctiles gently on the bank.
We duck, then scramble out of reach of the
rotors. Group six lands, group five heads out.
On his way to the helicopter Craig Orr hands
me an orange Oy, a. General Practitioner .
“Welcome to paradise,’’ he says,

~ (Next week, the conclusion: Combat Fishing)

women, crisply and uniformly dressed, radiant ©

-

advice with natives so successfully that not a —

_ TERRACE STANDARD |

The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, September 28, 1994 - C4

Coaches of the year:
the decision Is yours

THEY ARE too often the unsung heroes of the local sports

scene.

When the results go up, it is usually the team or individual
athlete that gets the lion’s share of the recognition.

The Terrace Standard wants you, the readers, to help
change that by nominating your own unsung hero in the
first annual Coaches of the Year contest.

Note the plural; with so many people putting in so much
work, it seemed unfair to single out just one individual. So
we’re going to get our panel of judges to select four coaches

for recognition.

Each will receive a special gold lapel pin and certificate of

recognition.

The contest is jointly sponsored by the Terrace Standard
and 3M under the auspices of the Coaching Association of
Canada. The CAC is dedicated to developing, supporting
and promoting coaching throughout Canada,

Judges will be looking at the following:

* respect for officials, opponents and parents and espous-

ing the philosophy of fair play;

* concern for the all-round development of the athletes
and instilling guidelines for responsible conduct off the

playing field or surface;

* setting an example af positive coaching; and
* demonstrating the ability to improve the athletic per-

formance of a team or individual.

You’ ll find an entry form on page C3. Just complete it and
drop it off at the Terrace Standard or mail it to 4647

Hounds pound West Point

Vilness
seals fate

IT LOOKED so good with just 15
minutes to go.

West Point Rentals, carrying lo-
cal hopes into the final. of the
Todd ~Gieselmann . memorial
hockey tournament final, had just
slipped on by the Kitimat Pound
Hound goalie to equalize, 2-2.

But the rest of the period
belonged to the raiders.

Four minutes later Kitimat
restored the lead then the Hounds
took advantage of a power play
advantage with 8:20 Ieft to go
two up,

West Point revived their hopes
four minutes later, also on the
power play but that was as clsoe
as they were to pet,

The Pound Hounds had a gold-
en opporlunil¥ to salt it away
with just over two minutes Icft
when the Terrace goalie was
caught stranded far out to the Icft
of the net. But the Kitimat
shooler missed the gaping net.

An exchange immediately after
that chance saw a West Pointer
ejected from the game and the
Hounds go on the power play
again,

Despile being shorthanded, the
home towners came close but it
was not to be.

The Pound Hounds put the
game away when Chris Vilness

_wheeled and. fired from the slot
with just 84 seconds left to make ©

it 5-3,

' And he followed that 19 sec-

ends later with an empty netter
that made the last minute aca-
demic.

Satisfying as the win was for
the Pound Hounds, they went
away knowing they’d had a
couple of close calls on the way
1o the title.

In opening round robin action
ibey bad only just held off the
Stewart Grizzlies 8-7 and were
given a 5-4 scare by Terrace’s

Precision Builders in the semi-.

final.
West Point had the same type of
experince in their scmi-final

against recreation league ,
champions All Seasons, that one
ending 4-3.

All Seasons had only just made
the championship round. After
clubbing Hazelton 8-2, they
stumbled against the Houston
Hungry Hill Panthers = and
squeczed through on goal dif-
ference.

Lazelle Avenue, Terrace, V8G 1588.

Closing date for nominations is Thursday, November 10 at
5 p.m. and the winners will be announced in the Wednes-
day, November 30 edition.

We'll include the nomination form in issues between now

and the closing date and will also keep readers updated on

nominations received. :

“Remember, your nominated coach can be from winter or.
summer sports, schools or outside. Let’ s get those nomina:
tions rolling in.

KICKING OFF the local hockey season once again was the
Tadd Gieselmann Memorial tourney. Teams from as far away as
Stewart and Houston made the trip but it was a Kitimat-Terrace
final.’ Above, a West Point forward goes up against a Pound
Hound in the corner, Below, 2 second period West Point attack

doesn't quite click as the puck slides across the goal mouth,

| _ SECTION
MALCOLM BAXTER 638-7283