- SKEENA ANGLER
ROB BROWN

Hatching ignorance
HE FEDERAL Department of
Fisheries and Oceans operates the Sal-
mon Enhancement Program. The Com-
munity Development is the part of that
program whose laudable mission is to encourage
the public to get closely involved with fish.

It is the CDP part of SEP that encourages the in-
volvement of school teachers and their charges in
the artificial enhancement of salmon.

Every fall classes from all levels of the school
system head for creeks and rivers near Terrace to
watch the local CDP advisor and his crew pluck 4
pair of ripe coho from their spawning beds.

At these egg takes the children are enthralled as
the crew seines the scarlet salmon along with a
bycatch of whitefish, and some of those robust trout
that always scem to escape the sting of my flies
during the fall season,

Herman’s point is a dramatic place just before the
first cold snap. A variety of bird and animal life is
drawn to the valley by the magnetism of the salmon
and their frantic rush to seed the grave]. Everything
there is in flux. The kids can see, smell and touch
the drama; unknowingly they are drawn into the
cycle of life and death. It excites them. It stimulates
thought, It’s an opportunity few children in the
world have the opportunity to witness in such
abundance and vitality.

The children return next spring to release the fry
they’ve incubated in an aquarium at school aver the
winter. The river is just opening its éy¢s when they
retum; it’s a still tranquil time but one‘full of gen-
fle, important lessons. Yet, for all the good lessons
that result from the CDP, some of the most impor-
tant lessons to be learned from the process of artifj-
cia] enhancement go untaught.

There is a dark, dangerous side to artificial
propagation of fish. Teachers need to teach it out of
respect for the process of leaming.

Unfortunately, teachers simply don't know about
the hazards inherent in fish culture, nor do many of
the DFO community advisors,

Because there is a lot of money devoted to it and

‘lot of jobs are tied up in fish culture there is a lot of
resistance to the fact that fish culture has been a
profound failure ecologically and economically,

Last year | stared into 4 tank of dead coho eggs
and listened as a teacher shrugged his shoulders and
wondered what he would teach now that his ova
had expired.

The lesson is this: when you jam eggs, or fry or

chickens or lambs or humans in a small area you
have manufactured excellent disease habitat.
“In the wild those coho eggs and the fry that
ultimately would have hatched from them would
‘have been dispersed throughout the ecosystem, less
vulnerable to pathogens and less likely to pass them
on to their brethren.

Fish hatcheries are keenly aware of disease this is
why they, like the people in agribusiness, make fre-
quent and extensive use of chemicals, all of them
toxic and many of them carcinogenic, on their Gsh
and fow] at every stage of their existence.

Chicken farmers do not release their Hock to the
wild. Fish culturists do, thereby introducing an in-

if sidious threat to wild stocks in the form of hatchery
bred fry that are vectors of disease for which they
have been chemically treated, and may well expire
anyway once ina wild, drug free environment.

In the wild, fish fry learn to be shy or die.

In hatcheries, fish learn that a large shadow ap-
proaching the aluminum trough they call home
means food, Wien they are introduced tothe wild,
hatchery bred fry are fat, sluggish and school up,
behaviour that attracts predators that prey, in un-
natural numbers, on the wild stocks too. The prob-
lems don't end there, Unnaturally large hatchery fry
compete in unnaturally large numbers for the same
food as the wild fry to the discomfort of the laiter.

Wild fry carry with them genetic information
edited over millennia by what Darwin dubbed
‘Natural Selection.’ Hatchery fish are not subject
to natural selection in their vulnerable carly stages.
In hatcheries the fit and the unfit survive. Some of
the unfit survive to adulthood and pass on their in-
ferior genes when they intermingle with wild fish.

“We should take children to hatcheries and show
them these buildings are usually atop prime, valley
botiom real estate, which is polluted by their ac-
tivities. Hatcheries make for large concentrations of

fish, which, once again, attract fish predators in

| numbers that do no good for the wild stocks.

| If we showed children the whole fish culture pic-
‘ture and let them decided for themselves, they
would decide that taking fish from the wild puts
them at risk and ultimately undermines their sur-
vival. They would grow up with the knowledge that
hatcheries are the poorest form of enhancement
only justifiable in the direst emergency.
~ And they would encourage their children to watch

| fish in thé wild and learn how salmon fit into the

wondrous, infinitely complex ecological fabric.

Bowling sti

Local Junior League
on of the best in B.C.

THE CLATTER of falling pins echoes through the
alley.

Giggles.

Cheers.

Sighs. .

It’s just another night at the Terrace Bowling Lanes.

While hockey, basketball and other fast-paced
sports often get the most attention, bowling quietly
draws crowds of eager competitors week after week,

“I'd estimate about 500 people come through our door
every week,’’ says Marg Mumford, who, with husband
Doug, own the Terrace and Prince Rupert bowling lanes,

It's a sport pretty much anyone can play. Mumford says
she has bowlers ranging from three-years-old to the elder-
ly.

“T’'ve even got a grandson who bowled a 31,”' she says.
“And he’s not three-years yet.’

Mumford says participation in the sport is fairly steady.
Some years are up, some are down, but it pretty much
Stays on an even keel. A fad sport this is not,

But there’s an interesting difference in play between here
and Prince Rupert. League bowling in Rupert is very popu-
lar, but the lanes there have a low open-play turnout.

The opposite is true in Terrace, where the leagues are 4
litle low, but there’s a great drop-in crowd,

“It's quite interesting,’’ Mumford says. ‘Maybe it’s be-
cause of all the rain (in Rupert).”’

Last weekend the lanes hosted their biggest event of the
year — their annual Bowlspiel, Bowlers from around the
northwest descended on Terrace for the event.

About 32 teams in all came for the Bowlspicl, which
works out to some 100 good bowlers hurting balls down

_ the lanes.

The pins didn’t have a chance.

Bowling is actually quite good exercise, according to
Mumford, The sport gets you up on your fect and it in-
volves a good whole-body, non-impact workout that really
stretches the muscles,

TERRACE STANDARD |

ll draws crowds

Bowling has
- ancient roots

BOWLING’S REALLY a pretty simple game. So it
should come as no surprise that some carly forms of
the sport wer¢ discovered in ruins dating back thou-
sands of years,

In fact, versions of bowling balls and pins have been
uncovered in a Egyptian child’s tomb from 5200 BC:
In Europe, Germans played a similar game at village
celebrations, rolling stones at nine wooden clubs called
“Keglers’’. To this day, bowlers in Germany are some-
times called ‘‘keglers’’.

The Dutch actually brought the sport to the Americas
in the 1600s, where it became known as “Dutch pins”,
The area of New York City where many Dutch lived
and bowled is still called ‘‘Bowling Green”’.

The Americans quickly caught on to the sport and it
became a popular one for gamblers. But it didn’t take
long for moral do-gooders to label it as ‘‘evil’’, an the
slate of Connecticut actually banned “‘bowling at nine-
pins’ as it was then called. ;

However, those crafly Connecticutians quickly fig-
ured outa way to get around the law — just add a 10th
pin. Thats how traditional 10-pin bowling was devel-
oped. &

But Canadians, always wanting to be different, creat-
ed their own five-pin version of the game. Tommy
Ryan is actually credited with inventing the sport in
Toronto back in 1909. The game was then brought to
westemm Canada in 1923 by Charles Gibson:

The pin-count waffled around for many years before
the entire nation finally adopted the ‘2-3-5-3-2' count
in 1959, A few years earlier, in 1953, the first automat-
ic pin-setting machines were developed.

Deadline looms to name coaches

The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 12, 1997 - B7

eee - : ae

“In. the first month of the season you always feel it in
your arms and in your legs,’’ Mumford savs. “‘] think it’s a
great way to keep in shape. A lot of people don’t think that
about bowling, but it’s definitely good exercise.”

Mumford also points out that the lanes have both smok-
ing and non-smoking leagues, and all the children’s events
are non-smoking. —

Those young bowlers in Terrace are actually forming a
strong here basc for future successes in the sport,

The Terrace Lanes have..a comprehensive ‘yauth pro-
gram, and children can start'league play as young as four-
years-old. The youths progress from Smurfs, to Jets, to
Bantam, Juniors and Seniors.

**We have one of the best Senior youth leagues in the
province,’’ Mumford says. ‘‘For teenagers to stick with it
is really good. A lot of them have come up through the
program since they were little and they’re very good
bowlers,’

Mumford admits she isn’t a great bowler herself, just
average. But she also proudly points out that her husband,
children and grandchildren are all excellent at the sport.

“*] prefer to coach,’’ she says.

Terrace actually bas quite a few excellent bowlers, So far
this season there have already been two 400-plus games.

Jim Duffy recently bowled a 410, and Leif Thomsen
rolled a 403.

‘‘That’s really good,’ Mumford notes. ‘To do that you
uced a lot of strikes.””

Mumford says she thinks bowling in Terrace is here to
Stay. She and Doug have run the lanes here for 23 years so
they’ve seen it all,

**Some years are excellent,’’ she says. ‘‘Other years you
struggle, The most common reason why people stop com-
ing is they say they don’t have the time. It’s not usually be-
cause of the money, Bowling is actually quite in-
expensive.”’

That’s especially true for families, since a family of four
or even six can reiit a single Jane at an hourly rate.

And Mumford says they do get all sorts of families drop-
ping by on Sundays. They also have birthday parties and
office parties for groups, It’s a great way to spend a cold
winter afternoon, she says,

For more information on bowling, call the league at 635-
3911.

BOWLING IS A popular Terrace sport for both young and old. Here, seven-year-
old Joshua Durand shows aif his form. He's a very good bowler.

Midget

638-7283

ae

reps go
1-4 in -.
Quesnel

TERRACE MIDGET reps
could draw blood from their
Kitimat neighbours, but they
couldn’t crack the armour of
foes from Kamloops and
Quesnel.

The midgets were in
Quesnel twa weekends ago
for a four-team tourney
hested by the Gold Rush
City’s home squad,

The Terrace skaters nar-
rowly lost their first game 2-
1 to Kamloops,

Kitimat was next in line
and this time they went in
for the kill, hammering the
Aluminum City squad 9-2.

They couldn’t overcome
host Quesnel, whose
midgets prevailed by a 7-2
score.

A final game to separate
third and fourth place saw
Kamloops emerge on top,
relegating Terrace midgets
to the basement. -

Final placement order vas
Quesnel, Kitimat, Kam-
loops, Terrace. '

Entries piling up
at last minute

FOUR COACHES are now in the
tunning for 1997’s Coach of the
Year honours and there's still a
little time left to nominate someone
you know before Friday’s deadline.

Last week saw two more names
put forward for recognition —
longtime Terrace Minor Hockey
coach. Steve Smyth and Cassie
Hall: Elementary School sports
coach Dick Springer.

They join two earlier nominees
— soccer coach Nick Kolllas and-
hockey coach Steve Scott,

But time is quickly mnning out
for more entries.

This Friday, Nov. 14, at 5 p.m, is
the deadline,

All you have to do is turn to page
BS of this newspaper, fill out the
rumination form and drop it off at

the Terrace Standard office at 3210 .

Clinton St. Or you can write your
own reasons out for nominating
someone on a plece of paper and
fax it to us at 638-8432, Or you can
email us at standard @kermode.net
It’s a chance to pay tribute to:
Someone who’s put their time and

effort into helping others enjoy a

sport.

And in addition to getting public
recognition and appreciation, the
witiner receives a great jacket for a
prize and a plaque.

The two new nominees are both
veteran coaches in the area, ;

Bob Vick, who nominated Dick
Springer, says Dick has coached
students every year of the 20 years
he’s taught in this school district.
He’s been involved coaching vol-

" Teyball, basketball, floor hockey

and track arid field,
“Dick has volunteered numerous
weekends over the years preparing

and helping out with school touma-
ments,’ says Vick. ‘The students

he has coached over the years have .

always enjoyed his fairness, respect
and great attitude towards them.”
Dick Springer coaches with a

ing the approach that winning isn’t
really all that important,

The nomination for Terrace
Minor Hockey coach Steve Smyth

came all the way from Edmonton,

the new home of local minor hock-
ey organizer Warren Garten.

Steve has been coaching so long
here that he's found himself coach-
ing second generations of young-
sters, Garten tells us.

Presently coaching Terrace’s
bantam rep hockey team, Steve
makes a tremendous personal com-
mitment.

“The 4:30 a.m. weekly practices,
the weekly dry ‘land training, the
monssive amount of travel is more
than most people could bandle,”’
says Garten. ‘Yet Steve gives this
with pleasure year after year after
year,”

He’s minor hockey’s northwest
regional coach and makes a further
commitment to pass on his knowl-

“edge by leading coaching clinics at

all leveis in the northwest —~ there-
by becoming a ‘‘coach’s coach.’?
‘*His dedication to coaching has
made him a pillar in not only our
community but in the region in

; general,’’ Garien says,
“Yet's have fun’’ philosophy, tak- °

“The 4:30 a.m. weekly
practices, the weekly dry

‘land training, the mas-
_Sive amount of travel Is

mora than most people
could handle, Yet Steve

gives this with pleasure

year after year after
year,”

We'll print write-ups on the last-
minute nominees in this space next
week and then watch for the word
from our Judges the week after,

For all those players out there,
now is your last chance to spend a
couple of minutes thinking about
your coach and their commitment
of time and caring that makes your
experience and your game better. In
case you forgot, that entry form is
on page BS,