ary

eo

‘settlement in

TERRACE
_ KITIMAT

Published by Sterling Publishers Ltd.
PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AT 3212 KALUM ST., TERRACE, B.C.
Serving Terrace, Kitimat, Nass Valley, Stewart and: the Hazeltons:

Townsman

VOLUME 1 NO. 8

. shopping centre. The church and school are now located

AS SEEN IN 1927

THE CHALLENGE
OF THE NORTH
. Since Confederation
the wilderness frontier of
Canada has entirely shifted.
Then the prairies, which

-now ‘sends’ a substantial

representation to the house
of commons, .were known
only to Indians, fur traders
missionaries, and a few
exporers. The first task of
the newly formed Canadian
overnment was to arrange
or a transcontinental
railway to link up the infant
British
Columbia; and as astute
men as Edward Blake
argued earnestly against
the folly of wasting money in
laying arailway across such
permanently uninhabitable
areas as the southern parts
of the present provinces of
Manitoba,
and Alberta. As late as 1874
Sir William Butler wrote a
forbidding description of the

‘gite of the present. city of

Prince Albert to prove that
Europeans could never live
therethe. ~ ryear round:

The wealth and
habitability of the southern
Knowledge, ‘Today the push

, e@ pus

is north, Northern Quebec

- and Northern Ontario have

attracted miners and
farmers. Settlers are
raising vegetables, grains

and eatte and even fruits:
~ farnorthof New Hazelton on

Saskatchewan

the Skeena. A way to the
north of Edmonton for
fertile Peace River Valley is
rewarding its pioneers. The
push to the north is’
continent wide, and is on in
earnest. We dare not
predict what, by the end of
the century, will be the
population. of those great
central regions, which haye
all been proven valuable.
The Arctic and sub-Arctic
plains alone remain a
challenge to the pioneer.
Already, thanks to
'‘Stefansson, this vast
expanse is loosing its
mythological terrors. Here
are-one and a half to two
million square miles of.
‘grazing lands, with their,
native mosses, lichens
ferns and 762 species of wild
flowers. Yukon is yielding
her gold; but in Alaska the
annual catch of fish now. e
exceeds the products of the
mines in value, and
Canada’s Arctic waters
‘teem with fish. ;
The reindeer industry in
‘Alaska has proved so
profitable that Lomen & Co.
alone ship annually 10,000.
carcasses’ that bring a.
higher price than beef in the
cities of the United States.
Inspired by Stefansson the
Hundson’s Bay Co. has -
leased for raising reindeer
the southern: half..of Baffin

_Island.- an area.the size of —

the British Isles. If the proje:

;Atlantic at one
terrible .

of making . the

ct of domesticating the

-musk-ox'is carried out, a

new source of food will be.

available that will put to .

profitable use great tracts of

our Far North. Oil has been .

found between Fort Norman
and the Arctic.
What else the far north
will give, ‘time alone will
tell, But the Canadian Polar
regions are not as cold as
Siberia which is_ bein
voluntarily colonized.
as the climate .of the
time
presented
difficulties to the . French
colonists, and yesterday
that of the southern prairies
seemed an insuperable
obstacle to our fathers so the
belief, in which we were
brought up, that the Far
North was an impossible
region of perpetual snow is
fading in ‘the light of
scientific knowledge that
the whole of Canada is
habitable and productive.
One of the biggest problems
‘of the younger generation is
to discover ways and means
“notth an

Terrace

Fifty years ago this week

THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 1977

The old Catholic Church in Terrace has been torn down, * across the street from Caledonia Senior Secondary in
and the grounds are tobe the gite of the new Clover lawn

intrigal part of. Canada,

_instead o the hinterland it

has been. :

The Conserva’
Leader Give
Fine Welco: .

There wasabigc da
the G. W. V. Av. last
Saturday night to greet cion.
S.. F. Tolmie, the new
Conservative leader in
British Columbia, and to
also greet J. C. Brady, M.
P., and F. M. Dockrill, of
Telkwa, the Conservative
standard bearer in Skeena.
The Chair was taken by
John Nelson’ and the
speeches of Messrs. Brady
and Dockrill were short.
Hon. Mr. Tolmie spoke for

‘over an hour and he made a

splendid impression on his
audience. This was not the

first time the Conservative

leader. was in Terrace,
although it was the first visit
since becoming leader. He
is known to many althrough

the north and before another

election comes round he
hopes to be acquainted

personally with many more

Terrace. (photo from the Ed Kenney collection).

The challenge of the north

of the local electors. Mr..
Tolmie was accompanied on
the trip by Mrs. Tolmie who
is making her first trip
‘Ahrough the northern
interior. _—_
_. The Conservative leader
had intended calling at
Hazelton and New Hazelton
enroute to Telkwa on
Sunday and Monday, but
owing to a sink hole near
Bulkley Canyon on the
C.N.R. the party were
unable to get through until
Monday night and as a
public’ meetin was
scheduled for Smithers-that -
night he had to go through as
he had to make Williams
Lake by July 1.

Mr. and Mrs. Fulton and
family arrived from Prince
Rupert on Saturday and left
immediately for their
summer home at Lakelse
Lake.

Miss Elderkin — left
Monday for Vancouver for
the summer.

‘HG. Olson of Smithers, of
the Hanson Lumber &.
Timber Co., was in town on
business at the end of the
week,

Mrs. John McRae of
Prince Rupert and Miss
McRae of Smithers spent.
last week end in town the.

ests of Mas McRae at |