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Vol. 64, Issue 174
Ride the Wild Wakes
LOREE DUCZEK PHOTO
Colden Thompson soars during the Water Ski and Wakeboard Alberta provincial championships at Alix Lake, Alta., last weekend. The 18-year-old native of Cranbrook impressed with big air and clean tricks en route to a second-place finish in Open Division competition. See Page 13 for more.
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Canal Flats Canfor mill to close in November Saw mill to shut down permanently November 9
T R E VO R C R AW L E Y A N D C A R O LYN G R A N T
Grizzly put down after chicken coop raid at Jimsmith Lake A R N E PE TRYSHEN
In the early hours of Monday morning, conservation officers responded to a call about a hungry grizzly bear. The grizzly was at a residence in the Jimsmith Lake area and had broken into a chicken coop to eat chickens. Conservation officer Ray Gilewicz said that while there weren’t any reports on the bear, it had to be put down. He noted the bear showed up just outside the city boundary in a fairly rural area with acreages. The landowner had
chicken coups. “At 2 a.m. in the morning, the landowner reported to CO services that this bear was on site,” Gilewicz said. “We attended and the bear was on site as reported. It was a young — probably a three year old — grizzly male, and it was eating the chickens basically in her yard.” He said there was a safety concern with the bears presence in the human populated area. “The decision was made that this bear was going to be put down
and it was,” Gilewicz said. It was Elisabeth Vanderkooy who called the grizzly in. Vanderkooy was
awoken by her dogs in the middle of the night. She could hear the chickens making noise. “I went out outside thinking it was a skunk
in the chicken pen,” she said. “Then I saw the bear on top of the [chicken] house.”
See GRIZZLY, Page 4
COs release bears A R NE PE T RYS H E N
With the many bear sightings and the frequency of those encounters that turn nasty for the bears involved, it may be nice to hear a story with a happier ending.
CCHHEEEEERRRHL E M C O M C IJ L OONN YYOUR K IJSH!! IONS CCHHAAMMPPIO
Jared Connatty, conservation officer, said in the case of a mature sow and her cubs, the results were positive for all involved. On Aug. 31, Conservation Officers trapped the three bears on a
large ranch property just outside of Hosmer, near Fernie. Connatty noted there were ongoing occurrences involving the bears, though nothing too serious.
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 12, 7PM
See COs, Page 3
The Canal Flats saw mill will close permanently in early November following an announcement from the company on Wednesday. “Our CEO and members of the senior management team were in Canal Flats today to announce the permanent closure of the facility,” said Corrine Stavness. “While we understand how difficult this will be for our employees and the community of Canal Flats, recent downturns in the oil and gas and lumber markets that the mill served combined with a lack of economically available fibre for the mill have brought operating losses we can no longer sustain. “Moving to permanent closure means that the employees impacted by this announcement will be entitled to severance. We expect the last day of operations for the mill to be No-
FIRST 500 PEOPLE IN THE BUILDING RECEIVE A FREE KIJHL CHAMPIONS RALLY TOWEL.
“We understand there are lots of pressures on the market, but four months is not a lot of time to see whether this is a workable solution or not, and things at the plant level seemed to be going fairly well.” Doug Singer
vember 9, 2015. We will be establishing a transition office to help impacted employees, all of whom will be offered opportunities to transfer to other Canfor divisions.” The announcement comes after layoffs in May that cut 81 jobs from operations that reduced the plant to one shift. Closing permanently will affect the remaining 70 union jobs and 10 management positions, according to Doug Singer, president of the USW Local 1-405.
See CANFOR, Page 4