FEATURE: Knockholt landfill gets five-year expansion
PROFILE: Gardener’s grape vine tastes true
PAGES 3, 6
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2012
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RCMP Sergeant gets a warm welcome By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
Andrew Hudson/Houston Today
SWEET SALES
From left to right, Kloe, 7, Abbi, 9, Tristan, 6, and Kiera, 5, do a brisk trade in iced teas on Butler Avenue in Houston last Tuesday. So far, a summer’s worth of the fifty-cent drinks has netted the group $30.
As he settles into his new post here at the Houston/Granisle RCMP, Sergeant Stephen Rose says he feels very much at home. Born and raised in Norris Arm, a Newfoundland forestry town of about 1,000, Rose says he chose Houston because of its size. If first impressions have it all, he made the right decision. Neighbours dropped by to say “hi” to him and his wife within a day of his move, he said, and his two kids quickly found playmates for an afternoon bike ride. Now his twelfth year with the RCMP, Rose came to Houston from Squamish, where he led between seven and eight constables, a four-man watch com-
“ “It’s a very safe community overall.”
- Stephen Rose
mand, and was supervisor of municipal traffic. Before that post, Rose worked as a plainclothes officer in Salmon Arm, where he mostly investigated drug crimes and repeat offenders, sometimes busting marijuana grow-ops of up to 5,000 plants. Rose also investigated a series of murders, a year and a half-long assignment that ended in successful convictions. See ROSE on Page 2
Design pro to plan biking trails on Harry Davis By Andrew Hudson Houston Today
Houston is gearing up to build a set of mountain biking trails down the south slope of Mount Harry Davis. Kelly Favron, a director with the Houston Hikers Society, says a $12,000 provincial
grant allowed the society to hire Daniel Scott, a trails designer from the International Mountain Biking Association, to draw up a master plan. Favron said it’s already clear that Mount Davis has lots to offer—it’s close to town, has an access road and its sunny, south-facing
“
“I think this whole region of Highway 16 is going to become the next Whistler-SquamishPemberton.”
slope is quick to shed snow and water. “My hope is that everyone will start their season coming
- Kevin Derksen
to our trails,” Favron said, noting that clubs in Burns Lake and Smithers have both built professionally de-
signed trail networks in the last six years, growing the sport locally and bringing in tourists as well. Kevin Derksen agrees. As president of the Burns Lake Mountain Biking Association—a six year-old riding club and trails society that just broke the
100-member mark— Derksen said the Davis trails will crown a hat trick for Bulkley Valley mountain biking. “I think this whole region of Highway 16 is going to become the next Whistler-SquamishPemberton,” he said. “There’s some fantastic trail getting rec-
ognized in the north.” After about $1 million in grants and Community Forest donations, the club has built a network of 23 mountain biking trails, some built by the same Gravity Logic team that constructed the mountain bike park in Whistler. See DAVIS on Page 2