: Ae ive The Terrace Standard, 4, Wednesday, February 22, 2006 TERRACE STANDARD - ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 @PDRESS: 3210 Clinton, Street Terrace, B.C. - V8G 5R2: 7 TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 - FAX: (250) 638-8432 WEB: www. terracestandard. com - EMAIL: newsroom@terracestandard. com ~ Port man “7 left a good jobiin the city ~~ ~ Working for t the man every night and day - And I never lost one minute of sleeping » Worrying ‘bout the way things might have’. _ been.” THAT SNIPPETT. of a lyric from Tina Turner’s : Proud Mary about sums up David Emerson’s ° crossing the floor from the Liberals to take up a cabinet post with Prime Minister: Stephen Harp- ~er’s Conservative government. -There’s been plenty of outrage to go around “over the concept. of Mr. Emerson. who was over- fa! whelmingly 1 re-elected as.a Liberal in the Vancou- : ~ ver Kingsway. riding: on Jan. 23 now almost casu-_ wally. tossing his voters and supporters aside. © - That Mr. Emerson should resign and seek‘ again . - the confidence of the. voters of his riding. should _ go ‘without saying. But don’t count on that hap- “ pening. This is power politics i in the’ big leagues. On the surface, none of this seems to have a lot. ca to do_with the northwest. Think again. One of Mr. Emerson’s responsibilities is the. + federal government’ s Pacific. Gateway initiative. oe It was a strategy cultivated by the previous federal ~- Liberal government to, open up the. transportation a and Asia.’ _ In the northwest that n means the container. port mh, ; ‘at Prince Rupert, the most solid go-forward eco- - nomic initiative. for this region in decades. - In his previous life-as the Liberal minister for industry, Mr. Emerson flew to Prince Rupert last "year to personally announce federal dollars for the port. It demonstrated his level of commitment to the project. Now that he retains his cabinet seat, ‘Tegardless of what party now forms the govern- “ment, his commitment to the port continues. “TI very much am committed personally and emotionally to the north. As a kid, I had an af- finity for the area from Dawson Creek to. Prince George and to the coast, It’s in my DNA,” said . Mr. Emerson at the time. All of this then is good news for the northwest. . Also ‘good news is one of Mr. Emerson’s other aa responsibilities, international trade. This and the a port will go hand in hand. - » Obviously it isn’t going to hurt to have Mr. Em- . erson in the new government. Skeena - Bulkley Valley’ ‘MP Nathan Cullen,.although not in direct reference to Mr. Emerson’s situation, put it wise-. - > ly just recently when he said getting things done _.. ‘is more about relationships than about ideology. ~ “What does hurt is the fashion in which Mr. Em-. *- erson and Mr. Harper acted. That judgement may _ Serving the Terrace and Thornhill area, Published on Wednesday of ~ have to wait for the next election. . And another. snippet:in a rock and roll classic. “It’s from The Who. “Then I'll get on my knees and pray. We don’t get 1 footed again.” PUBLISHER/EDITOR: ~ Rod Link ADVERT ISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach . PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur - NEWS: Sarah A. Zimmerman ~ GOMMUNITY:. Dustin Quezada _.’° NEWS/SPORTS: Margaret Speirs - - FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping, Carolyn Anderson CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Alanna Bentham . _ ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Bert Husband, Susan Willemen 2008 WINNER AD ASSISTANT: Sandra Stefanik . NEWSPAPERS COMPETITION ‘PRODUCTION: Susan Credgeur ‘SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: . $57.94 (+$4.06 GST)=62.00 per year; Seniors $50.98 (+$3.57 GST)=54.55; Out of Province $65.17 (+$4.56 GST)=69.73 Outside of Canada (6 months) $156. ease 58 GST)=167. 89 MEMBER OF 8, (. AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION, CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION AND «BC. PRESS COUNCIL (www.bepresscouncil.org) Black Press Stories, photographs, illustrations, designs and typestyles in the Terrace Standard are the property of the copy- - fight holders, including Black Press Ltd., its illustration repro services and advertising agencies. ; Reproduction in whole or in part, without written permission, is specifically prohibited. _ Authorized as second-class mail pending the Post Office Department, for payment of postage in cash. each week at 3210 Clinton Street, Terrace, British Columbia, V8G 5R2. Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for their time and talents — PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT FOR THE PROFESSIONAL HOCKEY PLAYER. a Sawmill,”.a:story about a man’ named Jim Hurst and how, after over 25 years in the _saw milling business he was ||! forced to auction off his mill. and permanently lay- -off his 70 employees. Jim’s business was the eco- . homic backbone. of tiny Eure-. ka, Montana., a sawmill town: | since the early 1900s. The factor that drove this ~ décision was his. inability: to be able to access fiber. ‘Sound’ . familiar? . . From his office window, i im. -~could see the dead and dying ' trees standing ‘on hillsides just west of the mill. ‘They might as well have been standing on the moon, given the senseless environmental litigation that had engulfed the Western U.S. federal forests. _ This past month Dan Mill- er, our ex-NDP Premier, in a presentation at the recent natural resources forum in . Prince George observed that . “Resources play the predomi- nant role in earning the money that ultimately pays for health care, education and. social ser- vices.” He went on further to state ‘that “simply. put, too many - people who live in the large urban centers do not’ under- stand that our economic suc- cess depends on the resource sector. ‘ “It is only when Lower. Mainland and Victoria _resi- dents understand that 60 per cent of the money that pays for. _ their large double-double or * soy decaf frappuccino| comes from the export.of natural re- | ROGER HARRIS" sources, that there can be a: meaningful discussion of‘ eco-* ‘nomic policy for B.C.” ° | of the same views around re- sponsible resource develop- ment, views that many times got him in trouble with his own political party. But this is not an article to. beat up the environmentalists or “advocate for the resource industries, but rather. to ex- plore another view of the rural — urban divide David Baxter, an econo- ‘mists with the Urban Futures Institute in Vancouver, speaks often and passionately on the importance of rural communi- ties and the role they play in - driving the economy of the " province. His presentations are en- tertaining, informative and at- - tempt to raise the issue in the larger urban consciousness. Using. strong economic ex- -amples he shows. the role the resource industries play in the © provincial economy, .a notion the. populations of. larger ur- ‘ban centers quite frankly don’t ° MY VIEW : ' seem to understand or appreci- ‘ate. . 8 T like’ David. Baxter, “but. a his presentations don’t’hit the mark in creating the empathy weneed. — » 68 I don’t want the urban folks _ to understand the economic re-. _ lationship, although that is im- _’ portant. I want them to under- . §tand the social relationship. ° _.°.We need them to really ap- ~ preciate ‘that: we should have : the confidence in- each other to let.each of us decide how - best to manage the environ- “ments we respectively. live in. -That is a much harder lecture - tO give. ‘We in rural areas so we Dan Miller and share many” don’t line up to give our input . into decisions on rapid transit in the Lower Mainland. — Nor do we get. involved in whether or not a certain type of industrial development should or shouldn’t happen in” . Victoria. We recognize the people best equipped to make those decisions are the ones impact- ed by the outcomes. But there is no end of folks in the large urban centers who | have a view on any develop- ment that occurs quite frankly anywhere in the world. These are the kind of people who have opinions containing the notion “We Know Best”. - The lack of understanding of the value system that com- pelled each of us to choose to live in a rural setting is com- pletely discarded in their de- liberation. ‘There is: equally a ‘systemic lack. of confidence in our abil- ity to make informed and in- -telligent decisions around the _ environment and other impor- Those urban folk just c don't get it RECENTLY THERE’ was [ an article in Cross Country '| |: ‘ magazine ‘entitled “Death: of tant issues. _ This attitude comes from the oe ‘notion that we can’t be trusted - . With those important decisions — .as all of the informed people are sitting around a table in Vancouver. ' The problem with all of this " is as the urban’ populations - -. grow so does their'input into’ _important resource and land -_ use decisions. ter in elections, the urban view wins the day. : It is -why environrhental groups run their public rela- nities. | ° The Jim Hursts of the world * + are the people who have grown up and lived in a rural setting over generations. in their business practice are done. with an understanding that his business is generation- al in nature. . His responsibility. to his children is demonstrated in his management of "the land ‘today. As businesses like his are forced to close the migration of people to the larger urban centers will only accelerate. _As populations shift to the ~. cities, the loss.of the local ex-. pertise we need if we are truly to protect the environment for future generations goes with it. concern for the environment increases. public understand- ~ ing on how to achieve it is dis- appearing. ment appoints a special coroner dedicated to your industry, you “know your work is risky. _ And when 43 workers died | in 2005 in the forestry industry (no telling how many’ suffered severe injuries), double the’ number of fatalities the previ- ous year, it’s time to train for’ a second career. I’m told much of the danger stems from trying to log the . . higher, steeper slopes of moun- .tains as timber on the level in ’ the valley bottoms dwindles. If the crown had insisted upon reforestation by timber cutting companies from the be- ginning, perhaps we would have less need to log vertical slopes. Every farmer knows you have to plant if your plan to har- vest, but for some reason forest-— ers never got that concept. Now loggers are paying with their lives. One practice loggers used ‘through the years was the springboard, pictured in the January 4, 2006 issue of The Terrace Standard. It looks like the logger is kneeling on an ironing board glued perpendicular to the trunk of a huge cedar somewhere on THROUGH BIFOCALS| - CLAUDETTE SANDECKI the Queen Charlotte Islands. He’s holding’a chain saw, the chips are spraying, and the vista _beyond him resembles the Swiss Alps with little more than but- tercups between him and a bay. Springboards, I’m told, were first used by loggers in the old days. Two men worked a cross- cut saw back and forth, eight feet or so above the ground, to be above the snarl of roots so they could saw into a uniform part of the trunk. If a logger fell off the spring- board — which rarely happened ~ he fell on to reasonable level ground, if the springboard is used to- day, the logger perches over a steep incline with nothing but tiny branches below. Springboards were slabs 2 to 4 inches thick cut from a sapling ‘with a trunk diameter of about ‘eight inches. That produced a springboard narrower than a "man’s boot is long. To'position the springboard, one logger describes cutting a slot. into the root portion of the tree just half an inch bigger than the board is thick, then driving wedges underneath or above the board to ‘hold it in place. . WCB regulations insist every logger carries an axe with him. The logger describes being able to reach and cut around a whole trunk with just one springboard if you have slot right. — “You can swing the board around to just about anywhere you want it. Then you tighten the wedges again,” he says. From one to three spring- ~ boards could be set around a tree. Some even cut a board to lay across, like a construction scaffold. To get on the springboard, Certification could save lives | WHEN THE provincial govern- the logger jumped. He worked without a tether, yet fewer were injured then than today when log- gers work on snow-covered, slip- pery slopes without traction. — _ To expect a-man to stand on a slope in snow, wielding a heavy” chain saw, dodging limbs and. showers of. snow is goofy. And to do all this, risking life. ~ and limb every day, without even an extra few cents per hour, is be- yond comprehension. “Doesn’t that worry you, sit- ‘ting on a board 8 inches wide holding a chain saw?” I asked. “No,” the logger said. “If you’re worried you shouldn’t - _ have gone to work out there.” “Doesn’t your family worry a about you going to work in the morning when you're doing this?” I asked. “No, why worry.” That must be the attitude ‘necessary to go to work’in star- light every morning, weighted and start scaling a slope where a mountain goat would pay close attention. In a charged. political envi-, ; ronment, where numbers mat- ©. ' The great irony here is as. : tions’ campaigns in the Lower - Mainland not in rural commu-: - The decisions they:make. ««f .down with a monster chainsaw,:- Maybe the new fallers certi- - fication. program will improve safety in the woods to the point where no special coroner will be needed.