* The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, April 10, 2002 - B]

TERRACE STANDARD

SECTION B
JENNIFER LANG
638-7283

INSIDE
COMMUNITY
EVENTS B2

ahi,

Around Town

Grant money offered
to exploring artists

ARTISTS AND artisans in British Columbia
who want to explore new media or learn new
skills are invited to apply for grant money.

The 2002 Visual Arts Development Award
program will be giving out $56,000 in award
Money to artists in the province to assist them
in learning new skills or exploring new techni-
ques — in traditional or contemporary methods
and media.

Grants range from $3,000 to $5,000.

Fourteen artists received grants last year.
One used the grant to learn how to silkscreen
photographic images onto a clay surface.

Another artist learned storytelling and how
to take traditional regalia from a First Nations
elder. A third grant recipient learned how to
build helium-filled structures,

Applicants should be planning to learn from
a senior artist, mentor or elder. Self-guided
programs will also be considered.

Applications will-be evaluated on the basis
of merit and quality of their proposals.

Those people who've reached a stage in
their career where they would truly benefit
from this type of exploration are strongly en-
couraged to apply.

The Visual Arts Development Award pro-
gram, now in its sixth year, was initiated and
is financially supported by the Vancouver
Foundation. It’s administered by the the Con-
temporary Art Gallery in Vancouver at 555
Nelson St.

The deadline is May 24. Application forms
are available at www.vada-awards.org

Deadline looms for
scholarship entries

TIME IS running out for graduating high school
students vying for $10,000 in scholarship

‘money offered by B.C.’s community newspaper

industry.

Anyone interested in applying for one of
three scholarships offered by the B.C. and
Yukon Community Newspapers Association
have until Monday to submit their entries.

Now in its second year, the B.C. and Yukon
Community Newspapers Association’s scholar-
ship program has doubled from $5,000 in
award money to $10,000, thanks to a matching
contribution from the B.C. Press Council.

Scholarships of $5,000, $3,000 and $1,500
will be awarded to three students who write
the best essay answering the question, “What
role does a community newspaper play in your
community?”

Students who are interested in applying
should submit a 500-word essay answering that
question.

That essay should be dropped off at the Ter-
race Standard before April 15.

Only one local
finalist will be
submitted the
BCYCNA, where
the top three
scholarship win-
ners will be selec-
ted.

“This is an in-
valuable oppor-
tunity for local
Newspapers to
give back to the
young people of
the communities
they serve,” says
Peter Kvarnstrom,
BCYCNA presi-
dent.

Kvarnstrom
notes it’s possible
the winner will receive the largest bursary pre-
sented in his or her community.

Peter Kvarnstrom

Plants, flowers needed

THE GREATER Terrace Beautification Socie-
ty is looking for donations of flowers, plants,
shrubs and herbs for its upcoming perennial
plant sale.

“We need plants," says Judy Chafin, one of
the organizers.

The merchandise at the sale is entirely de-
pendent on donations from the public.

The sale, now in its sixth year, fs enorm-
ously popular,

“The flowers were all gone in two hours and
we had 1,600 plants last year,” she says.

All proceeds go back to the community in
the form of beautification projects. This year's
‘fund raising efforts will support a landscaping
initiative underway at the rest stop near the
Old Skeena Hridge.

So, if you're cleaning up your garden beds
for the coming season and you've got some
perennials you can split and repot, donate
them to the sale.

Call Judy or Howard at 638-1237 or Alison
at 638-0063 to make arrangements.

The beautification sociely.is also looking |

for donations of flower pots, preferably five
inches in diameter or larger. |,

This year’s sale takes place May 11 at City
Hall, It starts at 8 a.m.

Mourning Mum

A loyal
Subject

By JENNIFER LANG
KATHY BAXTER, a woman who
has mingled with British royalty
more than ouce over the years,
found herself reminiscing about
the late Queen Mother last week.

On Thursday night, she set her
alarm so she could wake at 2 a.m.
to watch the funeral procession
through Central London to West-
minster Hall live on television.

“It was really quite impres-
sive,” Baxter said Friday after-
noon. “I think the last time I saw
something like that was when
Winston Churchil] died.”

Baxter, a prairie flower who
was born in Winnipeg to English
parents, has lived on both sides of
the Atlantic during her 74 years.

She’s seen the Queen Mother
in person three times: first in
1942, when King George VI and
his Queen, the Lady Elizabeth
Bowes-Lyon, visited Rochester,
England.

Baxter’s father worked at the
Shorts Brothers factory producing
fuel tanks for Sterling bombers
during the Secand World War.

He told his daughters the King
and Queen would visit the next
day — but not to tell anyone.

“We were sworn to secrecy,”
Baxter said.

The next morning, the 13-year-
old and her sister, 9, were the
only (wo people standing outside
the airport to welcome the royal
couple.

“The King and Queen gave a
good wave at us,” she remem-
bered, “We were thrilled to bits.”

The Queen Mother earned en-
during admiration for her refusal
to leave London during the Sec-
ond World War,

“They were quite amazing.
They would travel all over Eng-
land to see people, particularly
the areas that had been seriously
bombed. It was a risky thing to
do,” Baxter said.

She saw the Queen Mother
again in the early 1970s at a gar-
den party at Buckingham Palace
when she joined celebrations in
honour of the National Council of
Social Services. —

The Queen Mother wore a pale
mauve dress, but it was Queen
Elizabeth I] who caught Baxter’s
attention.

“She had beautiful skin and
she had lovely eyes. She’s a bit
like the Queen Mother — when she

ROYAL WATCHER Kathy Baxter saw the Queen Mum in per-

son three times. She admired her listening skills.

looks at you she’s really interes-
ted,” Baxter said,

She brushed elbows with roy-
alty a third time - in 1986, the
year Baxter’s 20 years of volun-
leer service with the Citizen's
Advice Council earned her a
Member of the British Empire, an
order of knighthood.

Baxter, a present-day volunteer

-with the Mills Memorial Hospital

Auxiliary, had dispensed advice
through a weekly radio show for
II years, among other contribu-
tions,

Her service earned her the

MBE, bestowed by the Queen at a
special ceremony that included
the Queen Mother and other dig-
nilaries,

Baxter's affection for the royal
family traces back to 1937, when
the Queen and King George IV
toured Canada. She still has the
cream-coloured certificate Winni-
peg school children were given to
mark the visit.

Just in case, she has this ad-
vice if you’re ever in the presence
of royalty: “Don’t speak until
you're spoken to, like at school.
Smile, and that’s it.”

m Bus boys
CLOWNS Tomie and
Abdool join Potentate
Stanley Yee on the
lift into the new
Shrine bus. The bus

has been outtitted

with $200,000-worth

of renovations that

make it into a travel-

ling medical raom. It's

going to be a com-

fortable way to

transport young

medical patients to

Shriners Hospitals in

the United States

from Vancouver.

About 10 patients

from the Terrace Kiti-

mat area receive free

medical treatment at

Shriners Hospitals

each year. Yee, head

of Shrine Clubs in B,C

and the Yukon, came

to Terrace March 23

for an installation of

officers ceremony,

Nisga’a Treaty inspires new

exhibit at Royal B.C. Museum

By JENNIFER LANG
THE SOUND of drumming and singing will fill
the Royal B.C. Museum Saturday, when
Nisga'a elders, dignitaries and guests will
open a new exhibit — the Nisga’a Treaty Gall-
ery.

It’s a permanent display showcasing the
Nisga’a people and their 113-year struggle to
resolve the land question.

“We are expecting a large crowd,” said
Fran Johnson, manager of the Ayuukh! Nisga’a
department of the Nisga’a Lisims Government.
“It’s going to be a real day of celebration.”

Johnson has already seen the exhibit and
she’s pleased with the results.

“Looking at the exhibit will give people a
better understanding of the Nisga’a people,”
she said last week, as she worked on prepara-
tions for the cultural component of Saturday’s
opening ceremony.

The display uses photographs, portraits, ar-
tifacts, maps, video and sounds to bring
Nisga’a culture, and the quest for a trealy, to
life.

sound of a Nisga’a woman singing a traditional
song as they gaze at photographs of people
and places in the Nass Valley.

A large stone bow! sits on a pedestal at the

centre of the round room thal forms part of the

For example, -gallery-gocrs- will hear the -

exhibit. [t represents the Nisga’a
philosophy of the Common Bowl,
the concept of sharing demonstra-
ted in the feast system — and in J
the framework of the treaty itself. |

Along with all eight volumes
of the Nisga’a Treaty, several
other artifacts are on display, in-
cluding a ladle, a moon mask and §
a bent wood box, are displayed in
the Nisga’a Trealy Gallery. John-
son said those artifacts were al-
ready part of the museum’s col-
lection.

Gallery officials expect about
a half a million people a year will pag
see the new exhibit, located in- Bg
side the muscumi’s First Nations
Gallery.

The museum spearheaded the
project soon after the treaty received royal as-
sent from Parliament in Ottawa, on April 13,
2000 -— coincidentally, two years to the day
before the treaty gailery’s officlal opening.

- Members of the Nisga’a Ts'amiks Vancou-
ver Society in the Lower Mainland are plan-
ning to send a contingent to Victoria for the
opening ceremony, including about 50 daricers.

A delegation of Nisga’a Lisims Government
officials, including the elders council and ex-

ernment officials.

ecutive members Edmund
Wright, Herbert Morven and Jo-
seph Gosnell, will also attend.
Johnson said two. matriarchs,
# Doris Tate of New Aiyansh and
a Emma Nyce of Gitwinksihlkw,
will perform the ribbon cutting
ceremony.
The ribbon will be made from
customary cedar bark.
Four chiefs, Horace Stevens
from Lakalzap, Jacob Nyce from
Gitwinksihlkw, Rod Robinson
from New Aiyansh and Hubert
Stevens from Gingolx, will then
call out the Nisga’a name for the
exhibit, Hooklganh! Nisga’a.
“The Nisga’a name is rather a
tongue-twister,” Johnson said.
“It basically means the ‘treasure
chest of the Nisga’a’, meaning a wooden
chest.

“It engulfs everything. It holds everything
that is valuable to the Nisga’a.”

Rev, Rod Robinson will then perform a
blessing.

The extensive guest list also includes Liew-
tenant Govertor Iona Campagnola, Fitst Na-
tions leaders, and provincial and federal gov-