TERRACE-KITIMAT Hiking Club volunteers worked in No
Lakes. The trail off Hwy 37 south of Lakelse Lake is one o

The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, December 11, 2002 - A5

lovember to rebuild a 200. foot section of boardwalk on the trail to Clearwater
f 25 in the Kalu Forest District maintained up until now by the province.

Wrecked sites

That’s the bleak future some see as the province forges ahead with its
plan to offload or decommission forest service recreation sites and trails.

OURISM will suffer.as a
result of. Victoria’s plan to
dump forest service re-
creation sites and trails,
-eritics here charge.

Terrace Tourism president An-
nalee Davis is protesting the
move, saying it will drastically
cut access to some of the most
scenic spots in the northwest.
Celi Urging the: government to
dave ei? thethanda ofthe mini-
st'y of forests,'she said ie fo8k

“Groups must decide by next
week whether they will take on
sites and trails starting next April.

“The cost of the sites is small,
Davis argues, compared to the ty-
pical’ scale of government expen-
ditures and compared to their
value to residents and tourists.

Maintaining all 41° rec sites
and trails in the Kalum Forest
District — and upgrading some of
them. - cost the province only
$36,000 this. year.

“It’s nothing,” Davis said. “It’s
less than $1,000 per site.”

“The benefits far outweigh the
savings,” adds Chris Sturrock,
president of the Terrace-Kitimat
Hiking Club. “If I were the gov-
ernment, I’d focus on the big
things —not the nickel-and-dime
issues.”

The sites are popular altrac-
tions for tourists and residents
alike, he says.

“This-area is really well known
for its hiking trails,” he said.

The decision is expected to
save $5 million a year province-
wide, Critics point out that by
comparison, tourism generates

From front

+,
“~

A special report by Jeff Nagel

. nearly $90 million a year for

northern B.C. alone.

- Even the forests ministry’s de-
scription of local rec sites on its
own web site reads like a tourism
brochure.

“Soak in a hotspring along the
Douglas Channel,” it says.
“Check out interpretative trails at
Red Sand Lake, go rock climbing

tapl@hist Greco shike- histories,
raining ‘trails ini ‘the:Bear/Malley or

- pine areas.”

The’ decision of the forests.
ministry to get out of recreation
came as a result of the govern-
ment-wide core. services review
aimed at culting costs to balance

“if | were the govern-
ment, I'd focus on the
big things —not the
nickel-and-dime
issues.”

B.C.’s budget by 2005.

In the case of tec sites and
trails, Victoria hopes non-profit
users will take them over.

If that doesn’t work it will try
commercial operators. Otherwise
the sites and trails will be left
user-maintained or decommis-
sioned. .

That's the ultimate fate that
awaits most sites, Davis fears.

“Decommissioning basically
means wrecked,” she says.

So far the province has had ta-
kers for only a fraction of its rec

sites around the province.

Forests minister Mike de Jong
called the new policy an
“excellent opportunity” for local
groups to get invalved in man-
aging sites that are important to
them.

But Davis said rather than at-
tract new partners, the policy
threatens to drive away existing
Ones. .

ange bata co Gres

“They don't recognize . “that
“snowmobile into spectacular alz 3, community. groups: have been»in-.,.,

~ volved all along,” Davis said,
Snowmobilers,. hikers, cross-
country skiers have long helped
maintain and upgrade facilities at
rec sites.

One of the
latest exam-
ples was the
Terrace-Kiti-
mat Hiking
Club's volun-
teer work this
fall in helping
rebuild more
than 200 feet
of boardwalk

along the Annalee
Clearwater Davis
Lakes trail

south of Lakelse Lake.

But the club doesn't plan to
sign up to formally take over the
trails its members use.

Road deterioration is also ex-
pected, reducing access.

Victoria has said some roads
previously maintained by the for-
est service to get to sites will be

downgraded to “wilderness road”.
status — likely 4x4 access only ——

to save money.

Davis said. she feels recreation
sites and trails ought to be main-
tained by. Victoria as some small
share of the resource revenue the
province extracts from the region.

“We've been providing the
jobs and employment and the
work in the north and all the
money gets sent down south,” she
said. “This land belongs to the

“people,” ; a be
- Dissatisfaction. with parks 3 and, -
reereation policy, has, beer on “the,

rise on other fronts as ‘well!

She noted northwestemers are °

already angry about the elimina-

tion of the campground. at Ex- J)
chamsiks provincial park. “It will .

be years before that will ever be a
campground again, if ever,” Davis
said,

And regional district directors
are furious about the removal of a
dock at the papular Bishap Bay
Hotsprings recreation site south-
west of Kitimat.

“It’s a real slap in the face,”
Kitimat director Joanne Mon-
aghan told a forests ministry offi-
cial who met the regional board
last month. “People in the north
have so little already.”

Replacement of the dock at the
internationally known yachting
destination would cost $50,000 to
$100,000, the board was told.

' Efforts to turn the site over to
the. Hartley Bay band have
stalled, forests ministry official

Matthew Lamb-Yorski indicated.

He said parks ministry officials
‘have. so far refused to take over
the site, even though it’s supposed
to eventmally become a park.

Hiking club won’t take over trails

with user groups and donors to
marshall volunteer labour and
supplies to help rebuild sites and
break new trails like the one to
Gunsight Lake.

‘It’s clear he has a higher opi-
nion’of the value of the sites and
trails than the decision-makers in
government. —

: And he worries new operators -
if they materialize at all - may be

‘unable to keep up with the de--

mands without provincial cash
and some local administration.

“The sad part about it is we're
going backward,” Johansen says.
“There’s hundreds of thousands of
dollars ‘worth of infrastructure in
this district alone.”

“TPs like building a library or a
hospital and then saying it’s user-
maintained.”

, Johansen says the ministry al-
ready has six agreements with
local users covering some exisling
‘trails.

About half of those are with
‘Kitimat and Terrace snowmobile-
clubs for maintenance of trails
and alpine cabins. Those cover
‘Sterling - Mountain, Big Cedar

north of Terrace plus Clague
Mountain and Robinson Ridge in
the Kitimat area.

There’s also an agreement with
the Snow Valley Nordic Ski Club
to maintain (he Onion Lake cross-
country ski trails and with the Mt.
Remo Backcountry Society for a
cabin it operates on Larson Ridge.

In those agreements, the groups
agree to provide public access in
exchange for use of Crown land.

Johansen expects

ernment from any claims that
arise. “Much smaller groups may
not be able to afford or want to
take on the responsibility,” Johan-
sen said. “It becomes a bit of a fi-
nancial burden upon them as vo-
junteers.”

Terrace-Kitimat Hiking Club
considered signing up to maintain
trails up Thornhill Mountain, Bot-
nite Mountain and lo a waterfall
near the Exstew River.

But that’s now unli-

to strike more agree-
ments with the Skee-
na Valley Snowmo-
bile Club likely cov-
ering Trapline Moun-

“it's like bulid-
ing a library or a
hospital and then
saying It's user-

kely.

“We won't be sub-
mitling any propo-
sals,” said hiking
club president Chris

tain and Copper ” Sturrock. “We don't
Mountain. maintained. like the liability
And the Kitsum- issues.”

kalum band has expressed interest
in taking over Red Sand Lake.

But he is less optimistic the
ministry will get similar deals
with smaller hiking clubs to en-
sure walking trails are safe and
clear of debris.

That’s because the province re-
quires. those groups take on liabi-
lity insurance to shield the gov-

“We're more than willing to
help out, but not if it Involves us
being sued by somebody.”

Hikers may continuc to work to
keep trails usable on an informal
basis, he said,

Sturrock notes there’s little to

' stop rec site and trail users from

simply carrying out what mainte-

nance they want to do themselves

4

— without going through the pro-
vince’s formal process and paying
for liability insurance.

“If they’re not monitoring the
trails, how are they going to know
who's doing what to them
anyway?” he asked,

Liability isn’t the only expense
awaiting new operators. __

“It’s the proponeni’s respons-
ibility for all financial costs,” Jo-
hansen said, “If a picnic table is
destroyed or falls apart it will be
the proponent’s responsibility to
replace it at their cost.”

If non-profit, non-commercial

groups don’t volunteer to take on -

sites and trails, the forest service
says it may turn next to commer-
cial operators, although the land
would remain Crown Jand.

Hf that doesn’t work, the policy
indicates trails and sites with no
safety or maintenance problems
could be simply left open to the
public, ,

“It will become user. main-
tained until such time it probably

becomes a liability to. the govern-—

ment ‘and we'd go in and deacti-

vate it,” Johansen said.

CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE TERRACE STANDARD

The Mail Bag

Saddened at the loss

Dear Sir:

1 am saddened to hear that beloved artist and
mentor Freda Diesing has passed. This past fall
semester | have taken a Northwest coast native art
class and had the privilege of looking at her work.

She was an amazing artist and creator, as well as
the mother of Northwest coast carving. She
spearheaded a movement, an appreciation, for all
things beautiful.

Diandra Oliver, Vancouver, B.C.

Get it in the open

Dear Sir:

The recent letter to The Terrace Standard by Gary
Mills (“Too much German guilt” Nov. 20, 2002)
elicited a curious, private response. Mills, an

‘acquaintance of mine, had written that columnist
Hubert Beyer ignores the current Israeli-Palestinian
conflict in a guilt-ridden defence of Judaism.

Mills then received a mailing of two photocopied
items: Jewish gravestones spray painted with Nazi
swastikas, and the emblem of the Jewish Defence
League (JDL). Though unsigned, similar mailings to
others point to a particular individual, who, it
appears, wishes to remain anonymous. Why?

Just above Mills’s letter appeared a letter I had
written concerning how mild, unthinking criticism can
turn into censorship. There is a connection between
censorship and the anonymous mailing Mills
sreceived. The anonymous mailer is negtigent in his
implied threat toward Mills, ignoring what Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch have
repealedly told us about Israeli culpability in
Palestine. And it should be noted that within Israel
itself, Peace Now and other activist groups object to
their povernment’s policies against the Palestinians.

This is not, however, to forgive the Palestinian
suicide bombers. Both sides suffer from the excessive
influence of extremists. Some years ago, when I was
at university in Montreal, an Israeli Peace Now
activist, Ari, stayed at our residence. He told of how,
wanting to show Israelis how they behave toward
Palestinians, he had dressed as-one (the head scarf)
and behaving harmlessly had a hidden friend video
encounters. Bigotry was amply displayed, though
there was some sympathy too.

After Ari showed the video, however, he received
a visit from an agent of the Israeli security force, the
Mossad. He was warned that if he ever did that again,
he would not live to tell of it.

Such intimidation is far beyond the anonymous
mailing to Mills. Yet, the two are of a kind in the
suppression of freedom of speech. Reprehensible
though some of what we hear and read may be, even
more dangerous is the prohibition of our right to
encounter this material, as weil as to present what
some may find reprehensible.

To press his point, the mailer to Mills uses the
power of an organization, the JDL, though he may
_ have no connection at all with it. “Evidently, Jewish or
“at least” sympathetic ‘to ‘Israel; ‘either “he | feels
intimidated enough to prefer: anonymity,-or-he prefers
.. to intimidate by posing as, sordidly, a secret agent.

I believe it is the former, and I would like to help
him enter the form of civil debate, which is sadly

. lacking in both Israel and Palestine. Declarations of

‘ background are crucial in such matters, as Canadian
philosopher Charles Taylor has shown in his work on
the politics of identity (it was Taylor’s work on
multiculturalism that got Trudeau to devise our
policy, and Germany has used thal work to revise its
laws to allow non-ethnic Germans citizenship).

Assuming the mailer to Mills needs to overcome
his alienation over being cither Jewish or pro-Israeli,
to help him I will describe my identity, with which he
will find some relation and hopefully security.

My family is highly mixed central European. My
father’s from Switzerland, traces back to Celts. But
his grandfather married a Jew from Germany, and the
Nazi race laws would have put him into a camp ~ bul
not me — though he grew up as an Evangelical
Christian. My mother’s side is German and Hungarian
Catholic. But also, not too far back, Mostem from the
Balkans. When | described this recently, it was
commented, “A real Canadian.” A compliment,
obviously.

What makes a real Canadian is the ability to
transcend ethnicity for civility. | have sympathy far
Israel and for Palestine, but only in the respect of
each for human rights. Canada’s gift to the world is
the thinking around how to create the multicultural

-political entity. Germany has accepted it. Are Israel

. and the whole of the Moslem world next? Let us
hope. Perhaps, then, the mailer to Mills will find the
courage to enter the debate, knowing ancther shares
at least some of his background and concerns. Only in
turning from intimidation to goodwill and reason is
any sane solution found.

David Heinimann, Terrace, B. C.

‘Let’ Ss ‘be neutral

Dear Sir:

We should not remain a pawn for-the U.S.,

_ expected to automatically join them in their
" aperessive posture to the world.
‘Being neutral would assure an unprecedented and
far reaching respect for Canada. Let ithe States, arm
and let them harvest the terror that they are nurturing
around the worid.

We should not fear. We are not fostering enemies
as our neighbours. Our greatest concerns as Canadians
is the subtleness and creeping sphere of dominance
by the indiscriminate marauders soulh of our border,
that on more then one occasion has threatened
Canada with bombing. With frlends such as this, need
we look further for enemies.

How about a referendum on whether or not Canad
should be a nation of neutrality?

D. L. Bulleid, Terrace, B. c.

About the Mail Bag _

“The Terrace Standard welcomes letters. Our
address Is 3210 Clinton St, Terrace, B.C, V8G
. 5A2, You can fax us at 250-638-8432 or e-mail
us at standard@kermode.net, No attachments,
please. We need your name, address and
phone number for verification. Our deadline is—
noon Friday or noon Thursday if It's. a! long.
weekend,