B4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, August 24, 2005 p u ‘MARGARET SPEIRS - SKEENA ANGLER . _ ROB BROWN. Wild steelhead 2005 orkers are: tearing the face off the nondescript two-story across from the Terrace Co-op. A lanky young man pries ata lath over the doorway It’s dark in the stairwell. At the top ‘there’s the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. Natural | “light mixes with unnatural light and lights up walls, ']“covered with posters of wild places and. wild crea- tures in wild places. A back door opens into vacant _ gray office space where an electrician. manipulates . ’ wire. ' Another door leads to the main office of the : Terrace office of. CPAWS, the Canada Parks ‘and _- Wilderness Society. It’s a small purposeful room, .. Cluttered with boxes and paper piles the walls are “covered with maps and satellite imagery. It seems . more like’ a war room than an office. Bruce Hill pushes away from his desk rocks back i in his amply £ cushioned swivel chair. . a - The latest news of the latest battle i in ‘the war to “save the Stikine is good, he tells me. The Tahltan_ ‘| elders have repudiated their leader, a man named _/ Asp, for betraying their trust and entering into — - agreements with multinationals, and have ordered the multinational’s minions off their tribal terri- This bit tof good news: frofn the front is welcome, a little relief from what seems an endless struggle ,to.save the Norther wilderness from the depreda- “dong. of. multinationals: an incursion: into Spatsizi Parki-- planned haul road:that ‘would cross"dozens’” of salmon streams and exposé vast tracts of pristine forests to plunder; plans for dam construction in the far north, plans to suck coal bed methane from land in the headwaters of the Skeena. The Liberal: government of British Columbia is about as far removed from the principles of liberal- ism as a political party can be. A coalition of pro- development right-wing zealots that adheres to the neo-conservative ethic that was first inflicted on the British in the reign Maggy Thatcher then was tried in United States in Reagan Era and has‘now reached - its most extreme expression under the current Bush administration, the B.C. Liberals under Premier, _Gordon:,Campbell, are’ so wedded to the arcane ‘economic theories of Hyek and Freedman that they ‘trip over themselves in their haste to privatize the — province. B.C., they declare, is open for business. Most of province’s unexploited raw resources are in the northern part of the province, "which is why... - Bruce Hill works’ long hours, seven days a week these days and why he is exhausted. . Bruce Hill is in his late fifties. He’s a big man 2 “| who looks out of place leaning over desk tapping at a keyboard with hands that look more suited to packing a chainsaw or pulling on a wrench. He’s done both, working as a millwright in an Alaskan pulp mill before moving to the Lakes District in central B.C: where he worked as logger and ran a small sawmill. Tired of the grunt labour as well as the insecurity and stress of eking a living out of an unstable forest industry increasingly dominated by forest mining multinationals, Hill took up salmon guiding.© Guiding put Bruce in touch with fish, pulled him closer to their problems at a time when it was com- mon to have over a thousand and as many as 1,600 boats fishing sockeye in the approach waters to the Skeena River every summer. The sockeye run over- '. lapped the peak migration time for returning sum- mer steelhead as well as early part of the coho run. Where the former fish were enhanced as a result of the construction of spawning channels in Fulton River and Pinkut Creek the latter species were not and had also to deal with additional pressures as- " sociated with habitat loss. The problems accompanying mixed stock inter- _ ception were understood and accepted by fisheries scientists and fisheries managers but the problem persisted for social and political reasons, exacer- ‘bated by structural problems in the managing agen- cies. Though the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is entrusted with the steward- ship of all Canada’s fish, it delegates much the management of freshwater fish to the provincial governments. In B.C. the management of steelhead come under the aegis the fish and wildlife branch of the Ministry of the Environment. Over time the principled mandates of manage- ment agencies were attenuated as their staff come to realize that the size of their institution, the size of its budgets, the difficulty of their jobs and the secu- rity of those jobs is related to the service they pro- vide to what they perceive to be their client group. Nowhere in Canada is there a more egregious example of this phenomenon than the DFO whose allegiance to the fishing industry, fisherman and their communities on the east coast precipitated the collapse of the cod stocks and what was once the greatest pelagic fishery on the planet. Continued next week.... building: - TERRACE STANDARD. ae an i eles ee — Bas ee Ss 505 pee as ae % ee Se PENS RO TLE: champion. Ready for Demolition! Bart McClintock was unable to finish the race due to car problems. The real Demolition Derby is coming up on September 11 at the raceway DEMOLITION DERBY was a better name for the Terrace Speedway as cars crashed, rolled, and hit the wall in races August 14. . ‘Two cars hit the wall in the “C” Bomber main race after Tina Severeid’ at 2 p.m. Since and Jolynn Orango got tangled up on the front straight-away. Paramedics "shine. were out to ensure the drivers were all right, but the cars were damaged and unable to race again. Not ‘to be out-smashed by the professionals, drivers of the media chal- : lenge rematch also took their tumbles. In an effort to pass the Terrace Standard car on the inside out ofa a corner, Standard Radio’s Brooklyn Neys fishtailed then did a complete rollover, for- tunately landing rubber-side down. Paramedics and track officials checked both driver and car to ensure they were in racing form, which Neys proved after she snuck past Monarch Cable 10’s Chris Cain on the last lap to claim gold. Terrace Standard’s Susan Willemen came a close third, and NTV’s res I’s A family affair: Bob Goodvin and Maxine Smallwood, with daughter Donna Graf, practice their track and field events as often as they can in hopes of getting gold in their age divisions at the Games. Bob is competing in shotput, discus, javelin, and the 100m, while Maxine and Donna are competing in shotput, javelin, discus, long jump, 100m, and 800m. KAT LEE PHOTO + STANDARD RADIO’S Brooklyn Neys is all smiles after a first place finish at the Terrace Speedway, making her the new media challenge CONTRIBUTED PHOTO it is the final event of the season, the races will go on rain or Demolition Derby cars > will compete-in trophy dashes, appliance races, -water barrel races, reverse races and bag races, where drivers wear a bag over their head and passengers give directions. Cars will also drive off a specially-designed ramp to compete for the most rollovers, and Bomber cars are allowed to make any modification to their cars for this one day. ~ The Derby will also live up to its name by having a final smash-up race to see which one car will remain on the track. For more information on the rules, visit www. kermode. net/speedway. Turn to page B10 for August 14 race results | Hoping for g golden time. 4 at Games By KAT LEE OVER 100 seniors from the northwest are taking their “expertise to Cowichan Valley August 24 to 27 for the annual B.C, Senior Games. “There's lots of strong competition.” said Betty Nor- _ dstrom, President of the B.C. Senior Games for: Zone 10, which covers Terrace, Kitimat, the Nass Valley, Prince Ru- pert and the Queen Charlottes. The province is broken up. into 12 zones. “There's lots of very, very good athletes,” Nordstrom said. These very good athletes have a wealth of activities to’ _ participate in. Some of the 17 core sports offered every year are bridge. carpet bowling, cribbage, darts, five-pin bowling, floor curling, horse shoes, snooker and whist. More physi- cally demanding activities like.badminton, cycling, golf, slow-pitch, swimming, table tennis, tennis and track and field are also yearly events. The special medal optional sports events this year are archery, ice curling and ice hockey, lawn bowling, one-act plays and soccer. Nordstrom says the types of special events depend on whether the host community has the facilities to hold them. The Games have been growing in numbers and events since the first one held in Vernon June of 1988. During that first year, 650 seniors participated in 15 events; last year in Penticton, 2,722 seniors participated in 23 events. -Nordstrom herself started going to the Games in 1988 and has been to 13 of them, playing i in the slow pitch team, curl- ing, and now bowling. The six-person bowling team prac-. ’ ticed all winter, and she says other athletes have been self- practicing in their own sports throughout winter as well. “I guess that’s what the Seniors Games is all about, is keeping people active and exercising,” she said. ‘The Games are for anyone 55 years old and up. Zone 10 seniors meet once a month at the Happy Gang Centre and will be at Clubs Day in the Skeena Valley Mall September 10 to tell people what they're about. “We're always trying to ‘encourage people to join,” said Nordstrom. And they’ li be getting ready for next year" S Games i in Ab- botsford, in case anyone is interested. (638-7283 EEE