THURSDAY, JULY 19, 2018 Vol. 75, No. 29
Serving Fort St. John, B.C. and Surrounding Communities
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“The Only Newspaper in the World That Gives a Tinker’s Dam About the North Peace.”
police look for safe places
tate haugan shines on world stage
exhibit explores the peace
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Paddlers of all ages took to the Peace River July 14, 2018, to take part in the annual Paddle for the Peace. Turn to B8 for more.
Hotel buy an economic, cultural opportunity Site C stymied 9224 100 Street, Fort St. John, BC (250) 785-0463
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Fort Nelson FN buys landmark for $862K The Fort Nelson First Nation has bought the historic Fort Nelson Hotel with plans to turn it around into an indigenous showpiece in Northeast B.C. The First Nation sealed the deal for the hotel, along with associated retail, mobile home park, and townhouse developments, for $862,000 in May through a court-ordered sale. Chief Harrison Dickie says the purchase is an economic and cultural development opportunity for his First Nation and the region. “It was a no-brainer to pursue purchasing it,” Dickie said. “Owning that central, historic property gives us immediate place to showcase our local heritage and culture on a steady stream of year-to-year traffic.” The original Fort Nelson Hotel was built in 1952, with an addition built in 1980, ac-
cording to sale documents. The property lends itself well to careers the First Nations has been training its members for in culinary arts, hospitality, and carpentry, Dickie said. The plan is to target the emerging aboriginal tourism industry, Dickie said, and to “imprint” a First Nations cultural presence in the community through renovations. “There’s not a huge cultural presence in the Northeast like you would see … in Squamish, Whistler, Vancouver, Terrace,
Smithers. They all have that First Nations identity to their communities. This gives us an opportunity to do that,” Dickie said. “There’s a lot of models for success for similar projects. Imprinting our heritage, our artists’ work, our cultural design, our look and feel to the establishment and rooms gives an identity to the hotel instead of the cookie cutter look you see in the north.” See HOTEL on A3
Few reported UFO sightings from Northern B.C. in 2017 If aliens cruised the skies over Northeast B.C. in 2017, it appears they went unnoticed — or, at the very least, unreported. Ufology Research, based in Manitoba, released its 2017 Canadian UFO Survey this week, with 1,101 eyewitness accounts reported from across the country. “Results of this study show that many people continue to report unusual objects in the sky, and some of these objects do not have obvious explanations,” researchers write. “Many witnesses are pilots, police and other individu-
als with reasonably good observing capabilities and good judgment.” There were 128 sightings reported from British Columbia, mostly in the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, and the Interior. At least a dozen sightings were attributed to B.C., but no exact location was given. While there were no reports attributed to locations in Northeast B.C., there were a few sightings reported from Northern B.C. in 2017: • On June 10, a silent, bright white light was reported to be travelling east in Prince Rupert. • On July 24, an irregular
shaped object was reported to be moving in the sky in a photo from Quesnel. • On Aug. 8, a white, reflective disc-shaped object was reported high in the sky in Prince George. Other translucent discs were later found on photos. • On Dec. 22, a clouded orb near the moon was reported to be giving off a smoke ring in Prince Rupert. • On Dec. 23, two white objects were discovered on a photo of a winter scene in Prince George. On Dec. 24, white objects were also reported to be found on photo of scenery, again in Prince George.
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Construction of the $10.7-billion Site C dam was stymied by numerous safety and scheduling problems in the first three months of 2018, according to BC Hydro’s latest report to provincial regulators. The problems are outlined in BC Hydro’s latest progress report to the BC Utilities Commission, filed July 11. “While the Site C project remains on time and within budget, in the report we acknowledge two areas of concern that impacted the overall health of the project: schedule and safety,” BC Hydro President Chris O’Riley writes in his letter to the commission. “For these reasons we classified the overall health of the project for this quarter as ‘red,’ or having serious concerns.” From Jan. 1 to March 31, there were two lost time injuries, six injuries that needed medical treatment, and five other accidents that could have led to serious injury or death, according to the report. Among those was an accident in January, where shotcrete dislodged within the drainage tunnel that could have seriously injured a worker, and which shut down that work site for 24 days for a safety investigation. In another incident, “a member of the public lost traction when backing up his truck outside of the Site C gates and backed into a ditch due to winter road conditions,” the report notes. See SITE C on A3
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