Coast Mountain News Thursday, March 27, 2014
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Vol. 30 | No. 6 Thursday, March 27, 2014
Serving the Bella Coola Valley and the Chilcotin
Page 3
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The community gathered to protest the cancellation of Route 40.
Bella Coola Community protests ferry cuts with rally at the wharf By eRneST Hall A boisterous crowd defied the near-freezing rain at the Government Wharf in Bella Coola March 15 for the noon hour rally coinciding with rallies up and down the coast protesting government cuts to BC Ferries services. The twin themes of the rally, sponsored by Bella Coola Valley Tourism (BCVT), called on the BC government to “Save the Discovery Coast Ferry” and “Give us back the Chilliwack”, a reference to the decision to pull the MV Queen of Chilliwack out of service as part of the cost-cutting measures announced last fall by the Ministry of Transportation. The change means that the MV Nimpkish, a 16-car vessel unable to make the direct sailing between Bella Coola and Port Hardy, is slated to replace the Chilliwack – which can carry 115 cars. The Chilliwack has sailed the route directly for 16 summers and can make the direct sailing in 11 hours. Opponents of the plan say it will repel tourists, rather than attract them. The plan will have the Nimpkish, which is the smallest vessel in the entire BC Ferries
fleet and which has no on-board amenities such as food services, sailing the often perilous Burke Channel after a transfer at Bella Bella, where there are few tourist facilities. The Transportation Ministry plans to refit the Nimpkish so that the nine-hour voyage between Bella Coola and Bella Bella will be more appealing. Rally placards included a demand to “Stop Todd Stonewalling” and an invitation to Christy to take the Nimpkish Cruise on the “New Todd Stonewalling Circle Tour”. Despite heavy protest, petitions and letter-writing campaigns since the cuts were announced in November, Transportation Minister Todd Stone and Premier Christy Clark have refused to budge on their decision to uphold the recommendations of BC Ferries. A rally organizer representing BCVT noted that an umbrella company that sends $1 billion worth of tourism business to Canada annually has recently informed Stone that the firm is boycotting not just the Discovery Coast but all of British Columbia. Local troubadour Doug Baker, the BCVT Vice-President, after 17
years promoting tourism development in the region, performed his specially penned “Give Us Back the Chilliwack”, asking if the cut of the Chilliwack was because the North Coast riding is NDP or because “you want us to join the LNG”. His song described the Nimpkish, with its open car deck so low that sea water overflows the deck in heavy seas, as a “toy in a fjord”. After refitting at considerable cost in recent years, the Chilliwack had been slated to operate for at least three more years. The government claims this ferry service has been under used (30 – 40 percent full) and losing too much money, but figures show that direct daylight sailings of the Chilliwack between Bella Coola and Port Hardy were 71 percent full. Tourism promoters have been asking for a rescheduling that would make the route more viable for the 2014 season at least. In a poignant performance, Nuxalk drummers Chris and Lance Nelson led a group singing a paddling song, saying the entire Bella Coola community is “on this journey together”, striving toward “the same destination”. Hereditary Chief Noel Pootlass
Doug Baker performs an original song in protest of the cancellation stressed the economic importhe larger vessel, will not be able tance of tourism to the Central handle the turbulence if shipCoast, the heart of the Great Bear ping on the Nimpkish. “But it’s Rain Forest, where an aboriginal not over till the fat lady sings,” she tourism industry is in its fledgling said, “and I’m still here”. stages. Chants of “shame” were Local Kathy Nylen, a tourism generated by environmental industry promoter who served engineer Ken Dunsworth who on the BC Ferries Advisory recalled the agreements coastal Committee for 12 years before communities engaged in with resigning in frustration with BC government in recent decades Ferries, noted that the mamto protect vast coast areas mography equipment that has because of its tourism potential. SEE NORTH COAST ON PAGE 3 come to Bella Coola annually via