SKEENA ANGLER

ROB BROWN

Louisa’s story

stared out across water. The sea
was capped. Caps of snow sat alop
the pilings. The sky was layered.
The smelter barely visible. 1 read
my impressions of Kitamaat Village in winter
into a miniature tape recorder when Cecil Paul
pulled up. He rolled down the window to ask
how my research on the story of the Kitlope was
going. He nodded when told him how I was
finding out there was a lot more to be found out.
“You should speak to Louisa Smith,”’ he said.
“She has much to tell.”’

] found Louisa at the village school where she
works as a councillor. We sat in her office. |
asked Louisa about her childhood, about grow-
ing up in the Henaaksiala Village near Kemano,
and about her education. She smiled warmly.
“We had no word for boredom in our lan-
guage,’’ she said, ‘“There was so much to learn
from my mother and my grandmother. We
learned of the land and the sea. We learned
where the plants grew and when to gather them.
We rode in canoes when the men poled up the
rivers to fish the culachon.’’

She held out her small hands and cupped
them. They turned into a bowl. ‘‘Our elders
gave us small baskets to harvest the riches of
the earth. As we grew our baskets did too.”

Louisa paused for the first time, looked out
the window, then looked at me again. ‘Then we
were taken away. Our parents were told it
would be good for us, When they objected they
were threatened with jail.’’ |

Louisa’s words played against the feelings of
high excitement | still recall from my first day
at school. Like most peaple my memories are
still vivid after many years. | also carried the
experiences of two decades as a teacher in grade
schools where I’d often watched as parents
shepherded their youngsters to the institution
where they would be spending ten months being
gently acclimatized to what might otherwise be
a large and frightening place.

For five year old Louisa Smith, knowing only
her loving family and a small, caring com-
munity, and speaking no English, the trip by bus
to Prince Rupert then boat to Porl Alberni was
filled with tears — tears and terror.

“I cried and cried for my mother,” she told
me. “My older brother and my sister tried to
comfort me. I was so frightened.”’

At Port Alberni Louisa was separated from
her brother and sister, severing the last slender
connection with home, the last source of com-
fort. Her terror became abject. A cold wind
Slarted to blow through the narrative, The im-
ages moved from animate to inanimate.

“T remember rows and rows of beds. The
matron had no understanding. ] was alone in the
strange world,”

Louisa reconstructed a harsh, foreign
landscape where little, confused five year old,
estranged and surrounded by strangers,
Struggled to convey her pain to ber jailers. With
difficulty she samehow managed to convince
them that she be allowed to visit her brother,

“'l was so happy to sce him, that I ran down
the hall speaking to him in our Janguage,’’
Haisla, like all native languages was striculy for-
bidden. Louisa was punished viciously. ‘‘They
Strapped our language out of us.”’

After a pain-filled year of oppression and
abuse, during which she learned her sister had
contracted a discase and was removed to a hos-
pital in Nanaimo, and that her brother had cs-
caped, Louisa clung to the hope that she would
return home at Christmas, But, it was not to be.
Her father had passed away in the interim, and
the powers, using cruel, cold, inscrutable ad-
Ministrative logic, decided,-Louisa should stay,

“T remember climbing up and hanging on toa
high window sill, screaming at the driver of the
bus to take me, then dropping to the ground like
a rag When he pulled away.'?

For the next three and a half years Louisa
endured the physical and emotional trauma of
what she still sees as a concentratian camp. She
remembers jogging around the field as the
physical education teacher - the woman with the
“long, long’’ whip - barked ‘Pick them up. Put
them down.’’ She painted a sharp picture of
how it felt to be a small, bewildered girl lost in
a large class filled with children of all ages. She
still feels the strapping administered across the
thighs. I cringed as she described the stinging
words, the humiliation, ihe disappointment of
being told that she would not be going home at
the end of cach year. She talked of the fence,
and I saw itas clearly as if it were In the room,

These peaple taught us the teachings of
Jesus with words, but they taught the opposite
with their actions,” she said sadly.

Pait Two Next Week

been selected to Team B.C,

638-7283

AIM FOR THE TOP. Local gymnast Eva Mataus spends 16 hours each week in practice. She and her coach Kris Fairless have

Local gymnast goes national

IT’S A first ever for Terrace!

A local gymnast and her coach
have both been selected to the
B.C. provincial team.

14-year-old Eva Mateus placed
fifth overall at the "Golden
Spike," a selection mect in Co-
quittam on January 13. The top
six competitors at that mect be-
come a part of Team B.C.

Her coach Kris Fairless will
join the team as well.

Eva’s mom, Maria, who’s also
a coach, says the Golden Spike
was a very tough competition,

_ MUSH!
Chewing
up the
trail

QUINN AND | Jasper
brother and sister.

They’re two years old, weigh
about 65 pounds each, have ener-
gy that knows no bounds, and
love playing outside in the snow.

In fact, the colder it is, the hap-
pier they are because they don’t
need to bundle up to go outside.

Quinn and Jasper are Siberian
Huskies.

They belong io James Sprenger
and his wife Debbie, and are hap-
picst when they’re tethered in
front of a sled and racing through
the snow.

James says when he and Debbie
moved here a couple of years
aga, they decided to get a couple
of puppies.

But they soon found that when
they took them for walks, the
pups would take off and let their
hunting instincts take over,

So, James said he figured he'd
try them in front of a sled and let
them run in the wilds to their
hearts content.

And James says he enjoys it as
much as the dogs do.

‘Yt’s wild. The exhilaration is
similar to having a good line in
downhill skiing,’’ James says,

He and his friend Todd, who
also has dogs, often go out on
uns together.

“We go out for 10 to 15 kilo-
meters,’’ James says. ‘'That takes
about an hour and half.”’

He says six dogs is good num-
ber to have in front of the sled,
but he has done runs with just the
pair.

The dogs can go as fast as 30
kilometers an hour.

“I’ve had people say wow!
when they’re just being pulled by
two dogs.”

are

LOCAL RINGETTE organizer
Roger Tooms is hoping an up-
coming tournament will spark in-
terest in the sport in other com-
munities,

Terrace is hosting a five team
tournament this weekend, with
teams coming from Houston,

with top gymmasts from B.C.,
Washington, and Ontario taking
part,

‘*We're very excited and I'm
very proud,’? says Mateus.
‘We've never been out of the
province.”

As for Eva, she’s looking for-
ward to the challenge,

‘““f surprised when [ heard I
made the team.”’ Eva says ‘I
didn’t even know the people were
there to pick the team.’’

And now she says she’s going
to have to try harder,

“*Tt’s tough not to get frustrated,
when you don’t get the skills
right.”’

Her favorite event is the beam,
because she likes the skills it in-
volves.

It wasn’t an easy fight for Eva
to take fifth place.

Mateus says she injured her
tailbone in a fall on the beam just
five days before the meet, and
needed immediate physiotherapy
in order to be able to compete,

Eva stated with recreational
gymnaslics when she was five,

and began competing in grade
one.

She now trains 16 hours a week
and coaches 10-12 ycar-old’s for
another four hours,

Two other local girls also went
the Coquitlam mect.

Mateus says Chelcey Schul-
meister and Annie Wittkowski
both put in very consistent per-
formances.,

“A lot of credit must go to
coach Kris Fairless who’s hard
work is abvious.””

gnictaene nen inpiigae ir iniensoc0 meres
me - o } :

SIBERIAN HUSKIES Quinn and Jasper are tethered and ready to run. Owner James Sprenger

hopes sledding will catch on with more people in Terrace.

James says he and Todd will
often borrow each other's dogs
for mns to ensure all of them get
enough exercise.

And that, he says, is very im-
portant, or the dogs will become
testless. He says they once
chewed through his wooden fence
at home,

Quinn and Jasper take James
for a three or four kilometer walk

Ringette expansion pu

Burns Lake, Prince George, and
Quesnel,

Tooms says it’s tough to get
events like this together because
the teams are so spread oul, and
he’s hoping Kitimat, Prince
Rupert and Smithers will consider
Pulting teams together soon.

or run every night, in addition to
the sled runs.

In the summer he hopes to hook
the dogs up to a wheeled cart to
get them out.

“They're basically house pets,
James says, “But I’m fanatical
about the food. ] feed them high
quality food.”’

He figures there’s about five or
six people in Terrace involved in

He says members of the Terrace
executive would be willing to
travel to any interested com-
munity, alang wilh coaches and
players to answer any questions
and put on a demonstration.

And he says it would also be
possible to take along equipment
and Jet kids who've never tried

dog-sledding, but fecls the sport
will start catching on.

Dog are not currently allowed
on the trails at Onion Lake, but he
says lobbying is ongoing to hope-
fully get that changed.

He says groomers at the lake
are overworked and thinks it
would be a good idea if dogs
could groom a rin for their own
use.

shed

the sport give it a whirl,

‘We've never actually gone out
and tried like this before,’’
Tooms says. ‘‘Our membership
has increased considerably this
year and Kitimat with two arenas,
they must have the ice time.”'

For more information you can
call Roger at 638-0622,