By MARGARET VANDERBERG

AN HOUR’S drive north of Meziadin,
Highway 37 turns sharply. west, then
north around a lovely sub alpine lake you
may know as Hodder.

A popular rest area there has picnic
tables, a boat launch, and a view of the
dramatic Snowslide Range on the far side
‘of the widening valley.

On good maps the place is “Mehan
Lake”, not “Hodder Lake” as shown on
the-rest area sign. Is the map wrong?

Jim Hodder was a telegraph operator
near Houston in. the early 1900s, lived"
at Hazelton in the late 1920s, built and
repaired bridges up and down the Tele-
graph Trail in the years between.

There is a Hodder Creek nearby, but
what is officially Hodder Lake is miles

_away, in the Upper Kispiox - both places
nathed for this James Hodder. .

an unnamed tributary of Hodder Creek,

‘which meets the Bell-Irving River 3km

north of the rest area, at the place where

Bell If Lodge marks the second highway -.

bridge across the Bell-Irving River, and

the point where Highway 37 begins to.

follow the historic Telegraph Trail.
When the highway was under con-

struction, from the north in 1968, the con-

tractor’s camp was.at Bell II and his ‘map

_ showed Hodder Creek but there were no
_. names shown for néarby lakes. ,

One of the road builders has said. “We

didn’t have a name for the lake, so we’

called it Hodder because of the creek.”
They didn’t"know: about the other

‘Hodder Lake in the Kispiox because they

were building a road, not setting official
lake names. °

But that lake and its twin across the
new highway already had names: Mehan
and Shirlaw, named in 1966. Since Forest

forestry maps might have shown them,
but the names were not on Ministry of
Highways maps. ,,

Truckers - talk to road builders, not
to mapmakers, so the name “Hodder”
spread. But officially, it’s “Mehan”.

For at least four decades the Canadian
Permanent Committee on Geographic
Names, .in co-operation with provincial
authorities, has had a project of com-
memorative names. If no local names can
be found and there is a compelling need
to name a feature, a commemorative
name honours Canadians who died while
in. the armed services overseas.

-Families are. usually consulted and
certificates issued to them to identify and

locate the feature. The family of Floyd

David Mehan may someday come to the

‘pretty lake on Highway 37 and may see
someone else’s name on the place sup- -

posedly honouring their loss.
Private Floyd David Mehan enlisted in

The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - A5

_ It’s one lake but it has two names

Vancouver and was serving with the. Ist
Battalion, Canadian Scottish Regiment,
Royal Canadian Infantry Corps, when he
was killed in action January 16, 1945.
Mehan is buried at Adegem Canadian
War Cemetery, Belgium where 848 Ca-

‘nadians lie buried, casualties in the liber-

ation of Belgium from Nazi occupation.
Neither Mehan nor Hodder is actually

the first name for this lake but the Gitxsan _
‘name, T’aabelkxwhit’ax, was’ not pub-

lished until 1995.

Nearby Shirlaw lake is named for

Norman George Shirlaw, a private in
the royal Canadian. Army Medical Corps
who also enlisted in Vancouver, and died

_ August 2, 1944,

He is buried at the Broached Military
Cemetery in the United Kingdom, with
otherservicemen who died in the London
area of battle wounds suffered in Europe.

In the fall of 1926 B.C.’s Dept. of

REVEREND

Hodder or Mehan Lake drains into

‘By SARAH A,
ZIMMERMAN

Campbell gets a little choked
up when he- thinks about
Remembrance Day.

The Anglican priest who
presides over the parish at
St... Matthew’s . Anglican
Church in Terrace spent a
tour of duty in Bosnia. with
the ‘Canadian Forces as a
chaplain from 1998-99,

The memories of his time ,

there with the Battle Group,

of the Third Battalion, The

Royal Canadian Regiment
based in Petawawa, Ontario,
remain vivid.

_ Though the conflict in
‘Bosnia was largely over by -

the time Campbell was sta-
-tioned there, it remained ‘a

. dangerous place to be.

Hidden land mines, ‘road.

side bombs and the threat of -

sniper fire made the region a
volatile place even as NATO

ened

; Forces made, and continue to

and keeping the peace ina
region that has a long history
of being wracked by war.
“tf you had to use an anal-
ogy it would be like being on
top of a pot that we sat on to
prevent the water from boil-
ing over,” says Campbell.

“There were isolated inci- ©

dents of people getting hurt

and so on...was it all out war —

or that type of thing? No not
at that stage of the game.”
As a military chaplain
Rev. Campbell says he con-
sidered the more than 1,400
Canadian soldiers stationed
in Bosnia during his six-
month tour his parish.
Campbell and a Catholic
priest took turns being sta-
tioned at two of the major
Canadian bases in Bosnia

_— Velika Kladusa and at an-

other base called Zgon.
» “We were responsible for
the spiritual and emotional

~ welfare of all the soldiers

serving in theatre,” explains
Campbell.
“In addition to that we

Doug.

their families back here i in
Canada particularly if there
were any difficulties like a-
family death or something
like that when a soldier had
to go home, so it was our
responsibility to make those |
arrangements.” 9

That not only included
helping deal with the spiri-
tual and emotional needs
of someone dealing with a

‘family death but also with

the complicated logistical
details involved with try-

ing to get a soldier out of a »

war zone ‘and back home on
short notice.

': The former Yugoslavia

has-a long history of bloody
conflict between various

‘ethnic groups in that part of

the world.

’The most’ recent con- .

flict. saw ‘ Bosnians, Serbs
and Croats fighting among
one another. In many cases
the conflict pitted families,

friends and communities that |

had ‘lived happily together,

“against one other. Neigh-
~ bours taking up arms against .

neighbours and families torn |
apart by the violence.

It was the intensity with
which various factions
fought that struck him.

“Just the senselessness
of hate — Serbs hating Bos-
nians and Croats hating
Serbs, hearing this kind of
stuff spoken of in schools,
it’s sort- of a nurtured hate
because you’re a Bosnian
and somebody else is Serb.
That continues to. bother

” he says.

Campbell saw the effects.
of the war first hand going
on rotations with soldiers,
meeting with local people .
and. in some cases seeing
the grisly realities of war
such as the uncovering of
mass graves where bodies
had been dumped after be-
ing killed. The images are
haunting and Campbell says
those are the images that
bother him the most about
his experience there.

“Apart from. putting, sol-

Service engineers suggested the “names,

a
Ne
Y

_#
Sete!

REVEREND Doug Campbell wears ; his beret and the medals he earned after serv-
SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN PHOTO

ing a tour of duty in Bosnia in 1998-99.

diers that had been killed in
planes, the mass graves were
probably the. most difficult
thing that I dealt with,” he
recalls.

Campbell had the mis-
fortune of being in Bosnia

when two Canadian soldiers’

were killed. One soldier was
the victim of an accidental
electrocution while helping
construct a building in one of
the camps. The other soldier,
Cpl. James. Ogilvie, 32, of
Berwick, Nova Scotia died
when the light armoured ve-

hicle he was driving went off

the road and flipped down an
embankment.

Rev. Campbell. helped

develop: a stone marker at

the roadside where the ac-
cident happened which re-
mains there today. __
Despite the often sad ex-
periences he had in Bosnia
he says there was also hope.
“There were enough in-
stances I suppose of real hu-
manity being exercised that
you saw God at work in that,
maybe it was a soldier giv-
ing up his rationed lunch to
some kid at the side of the

-road who didn’t have any-
“thing to eat or those kinds .
of gestures where you bring
Campbell.

smiles to faces,”
says. “You saw enough of
that humanity at work and
you got to be’a part of. that

so you saw God at work in

' saw something else at work
'” in other ways.” me

Kicks in. Soon after.he came. *

_ saying some prayers at the

special ways even when you

After his Bosnian rotation
Campbell worked with the —
Canadian Armed Forces as
a career counsellor and was’.
discharged at 55 years old.
when mandatory retirement

to Terrace to take up his post-
at the altar of St. Matthew's.
Rev. Campbell will be-

Remembrance Day ceremo- |
ny at the theatre and will lay
a wreath at the cenotaph.
Then he'll be. doing what
he prefers to on Nov. 11
— spending some quiet time
alone, reflecting.

Public Works wanted to See if it was fea- '

sible to build a trail up the west bank of

‘the Bell Irving River to connect Stewart

with the Telegraph Trail. ;
Meeting. Simon Gunanoot and fam-
ily north of Bowser Lake, a public works

surveyor learned from him of the extreme .

avalanche hazard from the mountains
now called the Snowslide range. The sur-
veyor reported that these massive slides

often run across and block the river, so _
‘any trail must stay to the east.

Although that proposed trail was nev-
er built, Highway 37 stays safely away
from the Snowslides. and away from
large beaver marshes too, by slipping be-
tween Shirlaw Lake. which drains south,
and Mehan Lake which drains north, and
by staying east of alow hill, ahill-which
has avo smalland, as of now, unnamed
lakes on its summit.

* Margaret Vanderberg lives in iT, errace ——

and has been fascinated with this, story

for years.

Doing their part

DURING THE Second World War there were fears.
up and down that coast that the Japanese would attack
from the ocean. Harbours. were fortified, outposts were ©

had some responsibilities to

~ Chance encounter revives memories

“The main thing was readiness

By DUSTIN QUEZADA

ITS. BEEN more than 50 years
since Ron Gowe left the German
city of Zweibrucken, where he spent.
two years working as a military mu-.
nitions and weapons technician, and
~ he says he’d been anticipating some
kind of encounter that would bring -
him back there.

Gowe has yet to return to the
western German city but a chance

encounter in Terrace brought the
‘ memories flooding back. |

In early September, a German

‘couple caught Gowe’s attention.
. while he was eating lunch at a local

fast food restaurant.
“I asked them where they were

from and they said, “K-Town — do

you know where that is?’” Gowe

_ said.

K-Town is a short form for Kai-
serslautern, a city near Zweibruck-

en.

Zweibrucken, she just about fell out
of her chair,” Gowe said.

The intigued couple — Richard
and Maria ‘Finger - probed Gowe
further, asking him if he’d married a
German woman.

He said he hadn’t but he had dat-

“When I said I had been in ~

ed a young German woman who had
been from nearby Contwig.

“That's where my mother lives!”
exclaimed Maria. .

The conversation was cut short as
the visitors had to re-board their tour.

"bus but not before the two parties ex-

changed addresses.
“I thought that would be it but

. then this arrived,” said Gowe, mo-

tioning to a manila envelope'with a
correspondence from the Fingers.
The couple went on to meet with

» Gowe’s ex-girlfriend, Emmy Lang, -

and her husband, taking photos they
then sent to Gowe.

“We dated for quite a while,” said

Gowe. “Her dad owned a ‘kino haus’

(movie theatre) and next door was a>

small cafe — we ‘d meet and go watch
movies.”

‘Lang told her Surprise visitors
that she would like to call her for-

_ mer beau to catch up on the decades

since they last saw each other.

For Gowe, 71, it’s brought back .
- memories of his time as a young man
‘in the middle of Cold War Europe.
Just 18 years old when he arrived —

with his Petawawa, Ont.-based 427
(Fighter) Squadron in 1953, Gowe
said tension was high between the
Allies and the Iron Curtain coun-

RON GOWE with German girl-
friend Emmy Lang.

tries.

The squadron’s pilots patrolled
the border between then East and

. West Germany, just 11 minutes fly-

ing time from Zweibrucken.

Their mission was to deter and
ensure military forces from the east
didn’t invade.

in case something happened,” Gowe

- said...
“We did regular aircraft inspec-

tions to get the guns hitting in har-
monization.”
As a munitions and weapons stech,

.Gowe used to volunteer for other

jobs just to kill the boredom. .
While his. squadron wasn’t, in-

‘volved in combat, the signs of the

recently-concluded Second _. World

War were al] around the squadron
members.

“The amount of devastation in
town really surprised us — it was 85
per cent wiped out in one night,”

. Gowe said of the effect of aerial

bombing. “It was really plastered.”

The ruins of buildings were ex--
' posed, with partial walls standing

here and there, containing rubble.
Gowe took hundreds of pictures

during his tour in Germany and takes

pleasure in comparing the skeletal:

-biildings with the rebuilt ones in.

modern pictures, some sent by his
new friends.

Gowe had hoped to visit Ger-
many in 2005, 50 years after he left,
but found the prospect prohibitively
expensive. He has attended three re-
unions in Ontario of his unit.

manned and a general alert was maintained. -

Various units made up of volunteers skilled i in the
outdoor life or in seagoing were ‘set up to keep an eye
on things. at
A natural recruiting ground were the native villages
‘that dotted. the landscape up and down the coast.. These
and other volunteer units around B.C.. were informally
called the home guard and their more official title was |.
the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers. i: a

One of these units was formed by the Nisga’a people
of the Nass Valley. Because the Nass Valley opens out to
the ocean and the north coast is close to Japan and the
area is far away from the cities in the south, it was im-
portant that the Rangers in the valley be ready | for what .

. Might happen. — \

If the Japanese were to invade the province, common :
wisdom had it that they would do : so along the. north.
coast.

Several Nisga’a men were recruited and sent toa base
outside of Chilliwack. They learned how to use maps ;
and a number of weapons.

Already skilled in outdoor life and ways, their train- -
ing went easier at times than for other Rangers at the
base. "

After training, the Nisga’a Rangers were issued Ross
rifles, ammunition and uniforms.

Back at home in the Nass Valley, they kept watch for
signs of enemy attack. They also organized “blackouts”
‘and other defensive drills.

The Rangers received no pay for their efforts.»

At their height, the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers con-
sisted of 15,000 volunteers i in 138 companies around the
province.

The Pacific Coast Militia ‘Rangers were officially
stood down on September 30, 1945.

_ They are the direct descendants to the Canadian
Rangers formed i in 1947.

Bef ene ty