»

Page 4, The Herald, Tuesday, October 2, 1979

TERRACE/AITIMAT

daily herald

General Oflice - 635-6357
Circulation - 635-6357

GEN. MANAGER - Knox Couplane
EDITOR. Greg Middleton

CIRCULATION - TERRACE - 635-6357
KITIMAT OF FICE - 632-2747
Published every weekday at 1212 Kalum Street,
Terrace, 8.C. A member of Varlfled Circulation.
Authorized as second class mall. Registration number
1201. Postage pald In cash, return postage guaranteed,

Published by
Starling Publishers

NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT

The Herald retains full, complete and sole copyright in
any advertisement produced and-or any editorlal or
Phatographic content published in the Herald.
Reproductlan Is not permitted without the written
permission of the Publisher.

EDITORIAL

Terrace Alderman Al Purschke
commented in conversation the other
day that Terrace was quite a tough town.

urschke made the comment with a
note of some considerable surprise in his
voice, although he has Ilved here for
many years. His comment was made in
reference to the coverage this
newspaper has given to both police and
court news over the summer.

Many Terrace residents are un-
doubtedly somewhat surprised to
discover that stabbings, street fights,
and high-speed automobile ‘chases are
common occurances here.

Friday and Saturday nights in Terrace
see a good portion of the local police
detachment occupied in trying to contain
the rowdier element in only a few square
blocks of the downtown area.

While our staffing limitations don’t
allow us to continue our coverage of the
seamler side of Terrace night life and
the courts in which those who live this
life frequently find themselves, we hope
we have shed a little light on one part of
this community.

We would now call on city council to sit
down with the police and social service
organizations such as the probation
officers and department of human

rpsources,workers fo see if there are any
answer, sf such questions as what can
be doné about ‘the juveniles who hang

around on the street corners until well
past midnight.

A bandaid solution, would be to Iight
up the alleys and lanes In the vicinity of
Greig Avenue and Kalum Street.

While this would not offer constructive
alternatives, it would at least give the
police some assistance in patrolling this
area more effectively. It would make the
nooks and crannies less attractive to the”
underage drinker and the dope smokers.
It would give the peopie the police call
“shitrats’’ fewer places to lurk.

‘EDITOR'S
JOURNAL

BY GREG MIODLETON

One of the many things going on in Terrace over the
weekend was the Northwest Native Indian Festival,
Unfortunately, not too many people knew about it.

The festival is an annual event here in Terrace,
sponsored by the Kermode Friendship Centre.

While Vi Gelienbeck and the other organizers of the
event worked hard to prepare for it'and put it on, they
were apparently hamstrung about--advertising it
because they had trouble getting afirm date from the
school district for the use of the Caledonia gym-
nasium. wg?

That the coaches and teachers‘ have priority for
school events is only right. That the school board
hasn't been able to arrange a booking system is un-
fortunate for the community groups who have to rely
on such facilities to hold events here.

‘The situation highlights the need for a community
facility.

Native Indians in other parts of the country are
organizing arts and craft centres and using them as
the commercial basis to support community facilities.

With the movement toward recovering native ar-
tifacts and displaying them in the area they originated
from, perhaps this is something we can look to in the
future here. It would give us a museum too,

With the incentive city council seems to be giving to
the Kermode Friendship Centre, hitting them with a
tax bil, they might well took to something of this
nature, :

You can be sure that the native leaders took note of
the lack of respect shown by the city fathers to the
Indian community. No one from city council showed
up at the festival,

It had been hoped that NDP leader, Dave Barrett
might make an appearance. He was, however,
delayed on his trip down from New Aiyansh, where he
was meeting with the Nishga.

Frank Howard was in town though. He didn't show
up. That neither a delegate from cily council nor the
MLA felt an appearance was necessary can only be
seen as a snub.

Perhaps city council members don't think (bey need
a native vote. It would be interesting to hear how
Frank Howard feels on the question.

4

VANCOUVER (CP)
Canada's forests and forest
industries are in trouble
because of dwindling sup-
plies and rising costs of
wood, says federal En-
vironment Minister John
Fraser.

And the amount being
spent on research and
development in the ad-
ministration of forests is
inadequate, he says.

The purpose of a new
forest policy he will soon
present to cabinet is to
identify where for-lestry
research is needed and to
establish an agency to
coordinate all federal
departments involved in
forestry matters, hesaid at a
news conference Saturday,

The federal forestry
service in the environment
ministry has been sliding
backwards for several
years, he said.

“Our research capacity is
half what it was seven or
;-eigbt years ago and yet,
‘acfoss the country,
generally we are not
replacing the annual cut,” he
said.hh

"The old reserve figures
that indicated our annual cut
was not exceeding our
reserve is unrealistic
because much of those
reserve figures included
timber which was growing
inhdpstant plwces og timber
which was uneconomic to
harvest."

Fraser said that although
forests are under provincial
jusridiction, the provinces
have indicated they want the
federal government te take
the lead in research and
coordinating forest
Management across the
country,

The forest imdustry can
augmenthits wood supply by
better utilization of the
existing forest, by more
efficient logging and
processing, and by har-
vesting more remote forests,
he said Friday at the annual
meeting of the Construction
Labor Relations Association
of B.C,

In terms of the number of
fires and acres burned this
year, we're pretty well on
average,” he said. “The 15-
year average is 1,350 fires a
year and 200,000 to 250,000
acres burned, We sre below
in acres but above in fires
this year — I like to think
that it's because of our in-
creased technology and effi:
ciency,"

Ontarlo’s worst year for
forest fires occurred in 1923
when more than two million
acres were destroyed.

Manitoba's forest
protection services reported
616 forest fires to date, a 75-
per-cent increase over last
year’s 362. The number was
still well below the 1978
record of 1,128 fires.

The majority of fires oc-
cured in July and early
August when there was a
period of intense electrical
storms and little rain for
about nine weeks.

Acreage burned up to lhe
end of July this year was
188,393 compared with the
same period last year when
36,984 acres were burned,

Boh Buck. a_ forest

FIRE SEASON
Second worst for

services.

protection
spokesman, said about 18,781
man days were spent
fighting fires this year while
the cost, to Aug. 6, was
almost $3.5 million.

The Manitoba cabinet
passed a special warrant for
$2.4 million after the original
$1.1-million
budget was exhausted.

A iate spring this year
meant fewer forest fires in
Saskatchewan and most of
the §98,900 acres burned
were in secondary protection
areas where timber is not
marketable and fires are not
fought unless they threaten
something of value.

Last year, about half of the
179,600 acres destroyed by
fire were in the primary area
where jack pine, spruce and
poplar trees are taller and
arger in diameter.

Keith Gorham of the prov-

ince's forest protection
division said dry weather in
June and July put them ‘‘on
the verge of a serious year,
but the weather broke for
us.’’
Four fires covering 200,000
acres in northeastern
Alberta still were
smoldering but under control
as of Sept. 21. So far this
year, 359 fires burned 400,-
000 acres of forest.

Roger Young, a
spokesman for the depart-
ment of natural resourmes,
said man usually
cOd3apht2’a, but this year
most were caused by
lightning. The province
spent $7.9 million fighting
fires compared with §3
million iast year when 657
fires destroyed 19,400 acres.

Alberta’s worst year was
1949, when 1.4 million acres
were consumed.

The worst year on record
in the Northwest Territories
may be this year, said John
McQueen, regional manager
of forest resources in the
N.W.T.

“It's far and above what
would bea normal year,’ he
said of the 376 fires that have
destroyed 3.5 milllon acres
so far this year.

Most of the fires were
caused by dry weather
followed by a hot spell and
lightning. .

McQueen said fires’. still
burning in the Great Bear
Lake area have yel to be
mapped and may bring this
year's totai to four million
acres destroyed.

The federal govecnment
has spent $2.5 million

firefighting .

fighting fires in the N.W.T.

this year compared with-

$360,000 last year when 148
fires were recorded.

Fire season in the Yukon
stillis open, but the toll so far
has been much lower than
normal, mainly due to fewer
lightning strikes.

John Doyle, head of fire
control in the Yukon, said
that so far there has been a
total of 65 fires, half the
normal number and the
lowest in 10 years.

There were 112 fires last
year and 166 in 1975, the
worst year on record, Fires
that were fought this year
covered about 950 acres,
Those that were not fought
were generally in remote
areas and affected timber of
Jittle commercial value.

So far this year in Quebec,
606 fires have burned about
7,500 acres of woodland
compared with the 1,059 fires
that took 12,-500 acres last
year. .

Marcel Guay, a
spokesman for Quebec's
forestry department, said
damage was exceptionally
low this year because ‘the

‘ summer was net as dry as

expected,

The worst year on record
in Quebec was in 1953 when
2,253 fires burned 575,000
acres. .

A wet summer in the Mari-
limes also produced fewer
fires and a low amount of
acreage destroyed.

In Nova Scotia, 664 fires
burned 1,850 acres with 1,400
of those blackened in the
spring before the rains,

The province escaped
serious forest loss in 1878 wh-
zn 783 fireyo burned 1,800
acres, The — wogyt
yearhrecord in Nova Ycotpa
was in 1976 when, 453 fires
took more than 43,000 acres
— 33,400 of them in a single
blaze in the province’s
eastern tip.

‘In Prince Edward Island,
where most land is cleared,
there normally is a rash of
grass fires during the spring
and thiy year was no ex-
ception. However, acreage
burned was minimal and

-took place in blueberry

barrens and dried-out
grasslands.

An 800-acre area burned in
two fires in the province in

1878 was the largest in

_P.E.L's history.

Unusually heavy rainfall
substantially reduced the

FORESTS SAID
IN TROUBLE

VANCOUVER (CP) -
Canada’s forests and forest
indhwtries are in trouble
because of dwindling sup-
plies and rising costs of
wood, says federal En-
vironment Minister John
Fraser,

And the amount being

ent an research and
evelopment in the ’ ad-
ministration of forests is
inadequate, he says.

The purpose of a new
forest policy he will soon
present to cabinet is to
identify where forestry

research is needed and to
establish an agency to
wordinate all federal
departments involved In
forestry matters, he said at a
rews conference Saturday.

The federal forestry
service in the environment
ministry has been sliding
backwards for several
years, he said.

“Our research capacity is
half what it was seven or
dght years ago and yet,
ACrOBS the country,
generally we are not
replacing the annual cut."

B.C.

number of forest fires in New

‘Brunswick, where 161 fpres

consumed 155 acres of forest
between July 1 and Sept. 21.
During the same period last
year, 476 fires burned 1,900
acres.

Forest protection officials
expect about 400 fires to
destroy about 3,459 acres
during the fire season which
runs from April to the end of
October. Last year, there
were 946 fires that bummed a
tatal of 6,403 acres.

Statistics on forest fires in
Newfoundland were unavail-
able.

Forest fires caused by
man and lightning occured
more often and burned more
acreage in Western Canada
and Ontarlo thps year than in
1978.

However, a wet summer in
the Maritimes and Quebec
prevented fires from con-
suming as much forest there
as they did last year. :

British Columbia's fire .
Season, tot yet ended, was‘

the second-worst in numbers
since the B.C, Foreat Service
was established in 1912.
There have been 8,880 fires
so far this year, compared
with 2,252 last year.

The B.C. government has
committed more than $17
million to fight the fires,
most caused by lightning,
and the service is attempting
to get a $300,000 lightning
locator system established
using 10 computerized
lightning conductors.

“The i0 conductors would
provide us with an instant
record of every cloud-to-
ground lightning strike with
pinpoint accuracy,” says
Don Owen, head of the fire
protection branch.

Currently, aircraft are
sent up after lightning
storms to dztermine whether
any fires were started.

In 1958, the worst year
recorded in the province,
there were two million acres
destroyed by fire. This year,
50,-000 acres have gone up in
smoke,

Owen said the big fear for
tirefighters is that one day
B.C, will have a ‘California
situation” where fire sweeps
through a subdivision.

"It isn’t a good mix,
houses and people and. dry
forests, especially when you
have careless people.”

So far this year in Ontario,
where the forest fire season
ends Oct. 31, 156,000 acres
were burned by 1,455 fires —
most occurring in the area
from White River to the
Manitoba border and north
to the 54th Parallel.

Eric Astley, a fire
management forester with
Ontario's natural resources
ministry, said there was a
higher incident of lightning-
caused fires this year, with
$8 per cent caused by man
and 41 per cent by lightning,

Usually, man causes 75 to
8) per cent of the fires,
Astley said. -

The majority of fires took
place during a three-to four-
week dry spell in Northern
Ontario during the early
summer, Astley sald last
year’y 940 forest fired burned
considerably less acreage
than this year year because
of frequent rain. intervals

COMMENT

. week, detailing his efforts

By STAN PERSKY

Gyril Shelford’s all steamed up.

'g Jetter to the Daily Herald last
re ra Mie a to turn the Skoglund Hot:
springs into a community and tourist facility, wasn’t

ir however. ©

oe though Cyril was also letting off steam at
latecomers to the project (personally I've no objection
to those who jump on the bandwagon as long as they
get the wagon to its destination) and possibly
forgetting that one or two other people have been
involved over the years, his point is clear enough,

Both the “brutal” Socreds and the “sensitive” NDP
have been indifferent to an opportunity that would.

nuinely serve the area. .
end ien't it typical of Shelford to be absolutely
honest about the fact that his own party turned down
the Hotsprings proposal more than once? The veteran
politician’s refreshing refusal to cover up is one af
the reasons that he probably has as many admirers
among NDPers as he does among the free enterprise
crowd. In fact, the election of Frank Howard in
Skeena last May was more a vote by the majority of
people here for social democracy and. against the
directionless Bennett government than a vote against
Shelford personally. Ironically, his support among
Socreds more likely represented diehard efforts to
keep the NDP out than endorsement of Shelford's own
often-frank criticisms 0: government.

What I can’t figure out is why Cyril Shelford’s
talentsaren’tbeing made we of by the government. I
realize that currently there’s a lot of talk about
political patronage going around, given the Tories’

headlong ;lunge into the porkbarrel of jobs and

favours, But there’s a difference between patronage
and proper public appointments. Surely no one would
accuse Bill Bennett of politics for finding something
meaningfu) for his former agriculture minister to do
in the public service, And surely there's a government
agency or commission which would be considerably
better off with the acquisition of Mr, Shelford’s blunt

honesty.

If Shelford is justifiably steamed up, Tory External
Affairs Minister Flora MacDonald is merely full of hot

air. :

I cringe whenever we Canadians take it upon our-
selves to lecture the world. But last week there was
Flora, urging the United Nations to pay attention to
human rights. . a ;

Frankly, I think Flora ought to save these fine
sentiments for home consumption. Then, after we did
something about the human rights of Canadian native
people, taught our children to respect the rights: of
East Indians, Jamaicans and others, and got our
famous RCMP to stop trampling on civil liberties, we
could go out and spread the word to the rest of the
world.

Ironically, while Flora wad putting Canada in the
forefront of the human rights fight at the UN, that
very day Finance Minister John Crosbie was in Malta
expressing Canada’s opposition to an appeal by poor
countries for more aid from rich states of the In-
ternational Monetary Fund. Apparently it’s all right if
they starve todeath, as long as they're guaranteed the
right to cast a democratic ballot while doing so,

If there have to be human rights lectures, I'd prefer
to hear them from the Pope (he's at the UN later this
week),

Meanwhile, back in the real world last week:
Seagram and Sons, the whiskey peddlars, pleaded
gulity to bribery and agreed to pay $1.5 million in
fines; MacMillan Bloedel offered to pay $8.4 million
for its part in an 18-year price-fixing con game in the
corrugated container business; the World Bank an-
nounced that the gap between rich and poor countries
is not narrowing at all; the U.S. is planning to end-the
year with a 13 per cent inflation rate; and last but not
least, Ottawa announced that food prices have risen
4.4 per cent since September, 1978 and it now costs
961.49 to feed a family of four for a week.

ATRILL THINKS

By THOMAS ATRILL

“It coat me a year’s wages, but it is the best
available,” said my friend about this new “sound
system.

Invited to his place to bear it, [ could hardly wait to’
witness the clarity and reality that he described. If1 -
remember correctly, his sound centre was
quadrophonic, ultrasonic, supersonic, realistic, and
expensive. He had ‘surround sound’, corrected sound
and hyper-sound. “Even better than the concert
hall,’’ he said.

Thad a few Mozarts and Tchaikovakys and a couple
of popular western albums that I would have liked to
hear, but 1 remembered the other music nuts who
wouldn't play anyone else's records, and I assumed
that he would doubtless have a recard library of his

own, So I left all my old and scratched records at
home. :

At his place, 1 was led into a music room which was
acoustically designed, with special wall materials and
sound deadeners on the ceiling. One wall was taken up
with shelves of long play alburns, a thousand or more,
T guessed, and another wall accomodated his array of

sound system components, A musi '
thought. po! music lover's heaven, I

ana tumtable and we sat back to listen.

Ue mm, Ooommp, Yaa, Yaa, Yaa, Boom Crash
What is that?” [I asked in ‘amazement
“The Filthy Shames In Concert, Maybe you would

like something older. Let me pl
sixties.” © play an oldie from the

Seeing me visibly squirm at the Beatles, he removed
them and asked me to select an‘ album from his
shelves. The Who, Kiss, Foreigner, Led Zeppelin,
Etc., ete., ad Nauseum. ‘No, thank you,” I replied.
em late for a very important appointment.” And I

I felt very sorry for him and for others who have
everything, to enjoy good music, Modern technology
has given them a fabulous means of Natening tot
best musie of this and any age; in living sound,

And most of those sound ayatems are prostituted and

forced to play the musical garbage that is so popular