BB - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, February 3, 1999 CHRISTIANA WIENS. ~ SKEENA ANGLER ROB BROWN Winter drive i's been snowing most of ihe night and all of the day: a dry light snow that obscures everything but the things in close. My windshield wipers hump with irritating mechanical certainty, barely touching the pitted windscreen because of the ice’ clots clinging to the blades. The road has no definition, ils bed is snow on ice. The Honda moves over it uneasily. A pickup packing snow machinery whips past me leaving a plume of powder as a wake. Minutes later, another powers by me heading the other way, then I’m atone once more, Well, not quite alone. The dog sits in the passenger seat staring intently ahead. ] look at her orange brown eyes and wonder what, if anything, is going on in her head. hum of the fan. I lean over and twist the volume, then look back and locate the road, In the distance dark shapes glide out from the busi onto the road- way. At first their outline is barely discernible be- hind the curtain of snow. As we approach they grow and become distinct, '“Pawsome,’” I alert the dog, ‘‘Moose, look at the moose!’ Moose, of course is not in her vocabulary, which consists of a dozen words, bone, treat, Kong, and her name prominent among them. “‘Moose,’’ I say again, urgently, whereupon she begins glancing around nervously. She spots them. We are closer. They are across the road, moving toward the gravel pit. The calf is almost the size of its mother, Pawsome is now wound up tight: she clambers all over me, barking, in the guttural bark formerly reserved for prowling move through the woods behind our home at , hight. I push her back with my right arm, and the " parking becomes a intermittent, breathy whine which makes her lips jiggle. Now we’re at the road to the gravel pit. I stop the car. We watch. The moose are moving quick- wall of the pit with long fluid strides, getting grayer and more amorphous with each stride until they vanish. In moments the dog is relaxed and looking straight ahead again, moose forgotten. The excilement over, the radio becomes promi- nent. The announcer quotes the Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Bank, somebody uamed Clegghorn or Claghorn — it ’s difficult to make the name out over the fan —- who has decided to give us all the benefit of his economic wisdom. Now that the government has realized a surplus, says Mr. CEO, high priest of usurers, potentate of filthy lucre, head of a bank that makes profits in excess of a billion dollars annually, the last thing they should do is spend il on social programs — frills tike health and education. Instead he exhorts his Liberal buddies to give even greater tax breaks to corporations, like his. I nearly drive off the road. It doesn’t surprise me thal a person in this fel- low’s position would have these uacharitable, shallow, and self-scrving beliefs, but to have the arrogance to trumpet them in public belies a sur- plus of chutzpah and deficit of heart. bank two blocks away from our home in Van- conver’s east end, Jt was a Royal Bank. We walked up to a nice lady behind a big counter who made a big fuss over the five dollars that was the first deposit of my life, | watched as she wrote some tidy figures in the columns of a little blue book and handed it over to me. The bank, said my mom, would use my money and pay me some- thing calied interest for doing so. She was right my money did grow, Over lime the interest and subsequent deposits enabled me to by a keen blue bike and later, a fishing rod. Things have changed a lot since then. Now in- terest on smaller accounts is ealen up by service charges. Somehow the giant, main frame banks have managed ta make us pay more and more to let them use our money for their benefit. Claghom, or whalever his name is, must be daft if he thinks be can convince us that giving him more money in the form of more tax breaks will fill the sails of economic ship with the winds of prosperity and speed us on our way out of our fis- cal doldrums. Trickle Down Supply Side econom- ics was piloted in the puppel dictator regimes of Latin America then in England under Thatcher. It was so good for the rich it was adopted by Ronnie Reagan and Canada’s greatest traitor, Brian Mul- roncy. These are the people who love downsizing, privatization, so-called free trade and many-tiered Medicare. The shenanigans of these corporatists have created a Canada where food banks and soup kitcheus are everywhere, where people sleep under bridges and ventilation grates while banks make billions of dollars in profits atid whine that even that’s not enough, No disrespect to the hard- working, and generally underpaid employees, that long as they have a greedy weasels for generals, they won'l geta uickel of my moncy. The radio is on but difficult to hear over the. bears andthe ‘dark -unidentifiable’ shapes” that — ly. They move up the lerraces on the steep distant - When I was seven, my mother took me to the work in the branches of the giant banks, but as. TERRACE STANDARD. 638-7283 Lake Jan. 24. AVALANCHE TIPS FOR SNOWMOBILERS PROBING THE SNOW: Snowmabilers fearn how to organize a random probe line in the snow at Lakelse Danger on the slopes | By CHRISTIANA WIENS IT’S a grisly way to go. Buried in a snow drift, nostrils packed with snow and desperately trying to breathe. Last winter, 24 people in Canada died in avalaiche-related accidents. Six of those people, or 27 per cent of Canada’s fatalities, were stlowmobilers. The oily other recreational user group wilh a higher fatality rate are backcountry skiers, who use skins to climb pristine peaks. Backcountry snowboarders come in third at 23 per cent of all fatalilics and hikers and climbers together make up three per cent of avalanche fatalilies in Cana- da last winter. **The sport’s becoming more popular and the equipment’s more advanced,” said Evan Man-: ners of the Canadian Avalanche Centre in Revelstoke. Snowmobiles also have more power than they did a few years ago, says Skeena Valley Snow- mobile Association’s Ron Niesner. They can get higher, faster and therefore get more access into avalanche country. And while high-marking — when sledders compete to sce how high they can get on a steep slope — may be fun, climbers should stop to watch fellow highmarkers at the side of the slope rather than at the bottom, where you’re most likely to be hil by an avalanche. When stopped, sledders should also point their sleds toward a safe area with their kill switches up just in case they need out fast. And since most ‘great high-marking siopes are also avalanche slopes, head up the slope one at a time. It’s basic snowmobile safely that’s beginning lo permeate Terrace’s sledding communily alter two local men died in an avalanche on Copper Mountain Jan. 3, 1992. Perry Turner and Peter Dobler’s deaths spurned the association to form its own avalanche rescuc team to help the search and rescuc team. Members also get rebates on transcievers, shovels and probes — vital cquipment to find- ing people accurately and fast and discounts on avalanche safety courses, like the one offered here Jan, 24. Joy Beedle took the course with her husband Jamie and said learning gives her peace of mind when riding. ‘“We ride almost every week,” she said. ‘It’s not just your own safety you have to think about.”’ From avoiding the avalanche to leading a res- cue here are a few tips to think about while tackling the slopes. Here it comes You're on the hill and you hear a distant rim- ble. It’s an avalanche all right and you have only seconds to get out of the way. Here’s what you can and can’t do to get oul of trouble: Call for attention. You've got to let others know where you are and warn others that an avalanche is starting. Plus, your chances of being found are a lot betier if. others know where you started off. Get out of the way. If you're close enough to PRACTICING WITH A PIEP: Rod Gee shows Joy Beedle how to read a trans- ciever, the emergency locating devices used to find victims fast. the side of a slope at the instant the avalanche fails, get to the side of the hill. This is the only way, experts say, you can outrun an avalanche. If you know you’re caught, hug a tree. A tree or a rock near you when the avalanche breaks will Keep you in place while the rest of the snow crashes down the hill. Punching your arm through the stable, secure layer of the snow underneath the slide also works. Swim, kick, fight. If yow’re caught in the flow, think of your favourite swimming stroke and do it. Fight to stay near the surface of the sulow. As it slows As the snow'stops moving it cools down from a from a relatively fluid state to a solid, cement- like mixture. So it’s important to prepare your- self before it solidifies. One last kick. Use your last bit of effort to propel yourself upward one more time. The higher you are the better your chances of sur- vival, Which way’s up? Even if you're upside down you should be able to use your peripheral vision lo see a difference in light as it seeps through the snow. If that doesn’t work, try using gravity and spit into the air hole you’ ve made around your face and chest. The air space. Most avalanche victims suffo- cate lo death because the snow they’re buried in doesn't lel any air through. In the seconds you have before the snow solidifies, make an air hole around your face and chest. The bigger, the better, Stick your arm up, Shove one arm as high as - it will possibly go. You may be able to break" the surface of the snow and let your searchers ° see your location, When it stops _ The experts have a couple different opinions on... whal to do when the snow stops moving — depending on bow much energy and oxygen . you're willing to consume, Dig yourself out. [f you can move a limb, do - What you can to wriggle yourself out. If you can’t move at all, don’t try. Shout. Some say that if you can hear your res- cuers tromping on the snow above you, yell. But most times they won’t hear you so only ycil if you’ve got a clear airpath and your vaice doesn’t have to travel through dense snow to Teach people, Stay calm. This may be the hardest thing to do, but many say it works best. Basically if you're buried, there’s really nothing you can do and i's up to others to help you out. Your lime, ‘once buricd, is measured in seconds so the more air you save, the better, The rescue | The snow. has settled and everyone in your group seems accounted for. Wait, there’s soine- one tnissing, What do you do? You have a 90 per cent chance of finding someone alive if you find and dig them out within 15 minutes of the time they were buried, so act fast. Your chances drop to 50 per cent if it takes you half an hour, and three per cent if it takes two bours to find your friend. Starl the search as soon as possible; if you wait for the local search and rescue team, you've wasted time. Everyone on the slope should be cquipped with transcievers, shovels aud probes to start working, Organize, You'll only have seconds to find out where the person was when the avalanche hit and where they were last seen. Draw a Straight line down the slope from there and you can determine the ‘‘likely burial area”, which sounds morbid but really only trics to answer the question, where'd the snow the buried per- son was last seen in, g0? Assign a leader to organize searchers, inark the last seen point with a branch and alert out- side help. The initial search. Look for visual clucs such as clothing and gear. Pick up each article of clo- thing and put it back to make sure there isn’l a hand attached to the glove, etc, Tell the rescue leader where each article is, so they can narrow down the search area and find out if you’re reading tomes froma transciever. ; Transciever search. Line up searchers with transcievers 20 metres apart to search the area. Have people with shovels and probes follow them. Pinpoint and Recovery. Have your most ex- perienced searcher lead the search once you’ve garnered a signal. Once you know where a per- _ son is, probe the site until you hit them and .. youll know how deep they are, Have the most + experienced first aid person follow them with a shovel so they can start digging once you know where the person is, . Digging Hints. Digging usually takes a lot longer than searching and the deeper they’re buried, the bigger hole you'll need to make. Try * not to get too many people too close and rotate diggers so no one tires and slows down, When you’ve found them Once you've found part of the body, dig toward to the head and chest area until they’re un- covered. Treat. the person as if they have spinal cord damage and don’t move them. Support their head and perform standard airway, breathing aud circulation checks while you wait for search ad rescue to reach you, To prevent getting in au avalanche, watch for warning signs such as cracks in the snow, evi- dence of natural avalanches, and heavy snow- fall, rain, blowing snow, or substantial warming on or tiear 30 to 45 degree slopes, ’ For nore information on recognizing avalan- che coiditions and surviving an avalanche, con- tact the Canadian Avalatiche Centre at 604-290- 9333 or . www.avalanche.ca, “Local snow- mobilers can contact Adoff Lubke at the Skeena Valley Snowmobile Association at 638-8792.