Store that survived wildfire destroyed
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
The Grassy Plains Country Store & Restaurant in the Lakes District west of Prince George somehow survived one of the most devastating wildfire calamities in B.C. history, then promptly burned to the ground Wednesday morning. Even in the heat of the moment – perhaps because of the moment’s heat – it was an irony not lost on the dozens of residents who responded to the Southside blaze.
One of them, Xandria Ahlbrand, hadn’t even showered off the black smoke before she was planning fundraising efforts for the owners, Fayth and Gary Martin. “All they did through the whole wildfire summer, was give and give and give,” said Ahlbrand.
“They worked themselves exhausted, they didn’t charge a penny to anyone, and they contributed in every possible way, all summer. Every day, those firefighters had a buffet of free food, they had lunches to go, they had all kinds of supplies, and so did anyone who was in need from the evacuations. The Martins were heroes. That’s the only word for it. And now, they have been hit with this terrible loss so we have to show them that they are really appreciated, that we love them for what they did, and for this to happen to them is just crazy. And we’re going to help. We’re not a community over here, we are a family.”
Ahlbrand is unsure if the store and cafe had insurance, but she knows that the losses are inevitably larger than such policies will cover.
The Grassy Plains Store, after all, was the unofficial headquarters of the widespread, rural and geographically isolated Southside community in between Francois and Ootsa Lakes.
The only way into that region other than resource roads is the Francois Lake ferry.
Ahlbrand and her mother Catherine Van Tine Marcinek were driving to work at about 8:15 a.m. and noticed too much smoke coming from a rooftop vent. They pulled in and joined another passerby who had noticed the same. Before long, the black smudge also had traces of
flame coming out the vent, and soon the large interior was engulfed in flames.
The store also had an apartment occupied by a mother and two children. The growing cluster of onlookers checked the suite, found it empty, and moved next to clear out the adjacent buildings (one of them was a meat processing operation less than six feet from the store). They found some garden hoses and used them in vain as they waited for the Southside Volunteer Fire Department to arrive.
“They did really good work,” said Van Tine Marcinek.
— see ‘IT WAS GREAT, page 3
City drops in Maclean’s most dangerous ranking
Citizen staff
Prince George has been ranked 21st in Maclean’s annual ranking of the most dangerous places in Canada.
That’s down from ninth last year and due largely to a change in how the magazine reaches its conclusions.
“Every year, Maclean’s combs through crime statistics to rank the most dangerous places in the country. This year, we added a new measure we think is equally important – whether crime is getting better or worse in a community and how quickly,” wrote Claire Brownell in a story posted Monday on the magazine’s website.
“We looked at 237 urban centres across the country, calculating the difference between their most recent crime severity indexes – a measure used by Statistics Canada that accounts for the seriousness of crimes as well as their number –and their crime severity indexes five years ago.” Statistics Canada actually ranked Prince George 11th in crime severity for 2017 with a score of 174.68. But since 2012, the number rose 23.86 points. By comparison, Pembroke, Ont. saw its CSI rise by 33.59, good enough for 11th spot in the Macleans ranking, even though the total stood at 91.17 for 2017.
The CSI for No. 1-ranked Wetaskiwin rose 100.63 points to 257.54.
The new method follows on a tweak made last year, when the magazine decided to include towns with populations as low as 10,000 for the first time. In the past, the rankings had included only the 100 biggest cities in Canada.
The full rankings can be found at www.macleans.ca/canadas-most-dangerous-places-2019/.
HANDOUT PHOTO BY MIKE ROBERTSON
The Grassy Plains Country Store & Restaurant in the Lakes District burned down on Wednesday.
Nature Trust buys property to protect Caribou
Citizen staff
The Nature Trust of British Columbia says it has purchased privately-owned land near Mackenzie in the name of protecting a herd of woodland caribou.
The herd of about 50 animals typically congregates on the 245-hectare (605-acre) Kennedy Siding property, southeast of the community 186 km north of Prince George, from October to January where they feed on their main food source, terrestrial lichens, until the snow gets too deep.
From there, they move into forested portions of their winter range area, where the snow is lighter.
The property is completely sur-
rounded by Crown land designated as ungulate winter range, adding up to about 2,900 hectares (7,165 acres).
“Based on monitoring of radiocollared caribou, we know that about 20 per cent of the low elevation winter range use of Kennedy Siding caribou occurs on the property,” Dr. Dale Seip, a wildlife ecologist at the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, said in a statement issued Wednesday.
“Acquisition of this land, in combination with the surrounding provincial ungulate winter range, now ensures that the entire low elevation winter range of this “Threatened caribou herd will be protected and managed as
caribou habitat.”
Moose, elk, mule deer, black bear, grey wolf and grizzly bear have all been confirmed in the immediate area of the Kennedy Siding property. Woodland caribou are listed as a threatened species by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. “We are proud to add the Kennedy Siding property to the more than 71,000 hectares (175,000 acres) of vulnerable habitat we protect and care for across this province,” Nature Trust of BC CEO Jasper Lament said in the statement. “It is a win for this population of threatened caribou in B.C. and an example of what is possible when conservation partners work together.”
HANDOUT PHOTO BY DALE SEIP
Woodland caribou, seen here in a grove of trees, will get further protection with the purchase of privately-owned land southeast of Mackenzie by Nature Trust of B.C.
Inmate death ‘very disturbing,’ minister says
Kim BOLAN Vancouver Sun
Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth called the death of inmate Alex Joseph in the back of a B.C. Corrections van last month “very disturbing” and said he hopes three separate investigations now underway will get to the bottom of what happened.
“Of course, it is very disturbing when a situation like this happens, because it shouldn’t happen,” Farnworth said. “That’s why these investigations are currently underway and we are going to find out what happened. People deserve answers and the family members deserve answers.”
Farnworth said B.C. Corrections is investigating Joseph’s death, which happened Oct. 4 on the side of the road north of 100 Mile House after his fellow inmates tried for more than an hour to get the guards’ attention.
The RCMP is also investigating the death, Farnworth said, as is the B.C. Coroners Service.
Three of the other inmates in the back of the van told Postmedia that they were shouting and banging on the walls after Joseph, 36, of Fort St. James, passed out and slumped onto the floor. But the correctional officers driving the van didn’t check on Joseph until it was too late, they said.
The inmates also said they believed Joseph overdosed. He was snoring at first after falling to the ground, but then went silent and began to turn blue.
They all said they were involuntarily transferred to the Lower Mainland, far away from family members, because of a staff shortage at the Prince George facility.
Two of them said that police wearing tactical gear forcibly hauled them from their Prince George cells after they indicated they didn’t want to be transferred.
B.C. Corrections would not say why the inmates were transferred,
but only that such moves happen “on an as-needed basis.”
Shelly Bazuik, a legal advocate with Prisoners’ Legal Services, said the involuntary transfers can take inmates away from support networks.
“These involuntary transfers have had all kinds of heartwrenching and negative impacts on a prison population that is predominantly Indigenous,” Bazuik said, speaking generally.
Joseph was a member of the Beaver clan in the Nak’azdli Nation, near Fort St. James. He had battled addiction for years and been in and out of jail. At the time of his death, he was in pretrial custody on a number of charges, including assault causing bodily harm and uttering threats.
The inmates interviewed said they travelled in tiny compartments within the B.C. Corrections van, wearing shackles and handcuffs and sitting on metal benches without seat belts.
The provincial department said in a statement that its “vehicles are not equipped with seat belts, as they can be used as a weapon against staff, other inmates or to harm themselves.”
Farnworth said what happened to Joseph “is a very tragic story.”
“I do know that the officers are all trained in naloxone,” he said.
Asked how they could use the life-saving kits if they didn’t stop to investigate why Joseph was in medical distress, Farnworth said: “That’s why I want to see those investigations and find out exactly what happened.”
He said the government will take necessary action once the results of the investigations are known.
“That’s what these investigations have to get to the bottom of. What happened and why did it happen? And from there, we can go, ‘OK, how can we make sure that this doesn’t happen again?’”
Ministry rejects school district’s funding request for ward system
Citizen staff
B.C.’s education ministry has turned down School District 57’s request for $22,000 to cover the annual costs related to the creation of the new ward system. Instead, it will have to find the money from within its existing budget, minister Rob Fleming said in a letter, noting the school district receives $10.5 million from the provincial government for unique geographic factors. Mackenzie and communities in the Robson Valley are now guaranteed a representative on the school board under the new system, which consists of three
trustee electoral areas.
Last month, Bob Thompson was elected trustee for Robson Valley and Shuirose Valimohamed was elected by acclamation to represent Mackenzie.
The five Prince George trustees are Tim Bennett, Sharel Warrington, Betty Bekkering, Trent Derrick and Ron Polillo.
The six schools in the Robson Valley and Mackenzie electoral areas generate about $3.4 million of the total the school district receives for geographic factors, Fleming also noted.
In all, the school district received $130.4 million in operating grants for the 2018-19 school year.
TAPS program now at John McInnis
Citizen staff
The school district’s Transitional Alternative Program is in a new home. Also known as TAPS, it is now in the John McInnis Centre after a “long and productive time” at the College of New Caledonia, officials said in a press release issued Wednesday. With increased student enrollment at CNC, the college has run
out of room to accommodate the program, CNC president Henry Reiser said.
The plan was to move the program by June 2019 but the school district decided to make the move sooner, “based on the needs of the current cohort of TAPS students and the anticipated changes in staffing expected early in the new year,” Centre for Learning Alternatives principal Curtis MacDonald said.
Queensway closed
Queensway Street is now closed at Patricia Boulevard to allow the city to install a new sewer line. The city hopes to have the stretch reopened by the beginning of December. Alternate routes to the downtown from the south are available along Victoria and Winnipeg Streets.
‘It was great to see that
— from page 1
“The firefighters soaked down the buildings nearby and saved them all, everything, except the one store structure,” Van Tine Marcinek added.
An estimated 60 people joined the firefighting effort.
The store is a short distance from the Grassy Plains School, the community hall isn’t much further up the road, and it’s the hub of other nearby homes and businesses. There are only a handful of community clusters on the Southside, but Grassy Plains is one of the most notable hamlets in the forestry/agriculture enclave.
Private citizens, fresh off a summer of dogged wildfire fighting, much of it on their own terms, had water trucks and other resources at the ready. The Cheslatta First Nation rolled a number of useful people and materials to the scene.
The firefighters were grateful for the help.
“The 911 call came in about 8:20,” said firefighter Axel Orr.
“We were on-scene within a half-hour or a bit less. We had
big response’
three people on-scene from the department with our tanker truck and a rescue truck with foam.
We were also helped by a lot of community members and some of their trucks and other resources. It was great to see that big response.”
Although there were fuel pumps situated in the parking lot out front of the store, there was no gas or diesel in the underground tanks. That relieved some of the potential danger of the fire.
“Our main concern was the adjacent buildings. We knew as soon as we got there we couldn’t save the first building,” said Orr.
“It’s so sad. That’s all there is to say about it. The Grassy Store fed firefighters and they fed residents in need all summer long, they did incredible things, they did it all for free at great personal expense to themselves, but they didn’t think twice about doing it, and now this happens to them.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation. Orr said the origin seemed to be the kitchen, in the vicinity of a deep fryer.
At the time of the fire, Fayth Martin was out of town and
husband Gary could only join his neighbours in the effort to spare the adjacent buildings.
The family who lived in the store’s suite will be in need of some household items and personal effects, having lost all of their belongings.
Donation discussions can be directed to Lisa Orr at 250-6943609.
The volunteer fire department would also appreciate more personnel. Anyone living in their area who would like to join their ranks is asked to call 250-6943219.
“We are low in volunteers,” said Orr. There are an estimated 1,400 households among the communities of the Southside.
“We had three people show up to the call, and two others join in progress. An issue for us is how shorthanded the department is. We have the trucks, the gear, the physical resources, we just need more firefighters. The training isn’t intensive, and we need the people. I hope this is an incident that will show people how important the department is and will want to give us a call.”
Missing man found dead
Citizen staff
A Sinclair Mills man has been found deceased, Prince George RCMP said Wednesday. Foul play is not suspected in the death of Jeremy Shipley Bekken, 37, who had been reported miss-
ing on Oct. 21.
“The Prince George RCMP would like to thank the public and the media for their assistance during this investigation and request that the family be allowed to grieve the loss of their loved one,” RCMP added.
BEKKEN
Heather Park home to new playground
Citizen staff
Youngsters in the Heather Park neighbourhood in the Hart have a new playground to enjoy.
Recently completed by the city, it is wheelchair accessible and has several other features including a “friendship swing” that allows to children to swing together, swings with harnesses to give greater stability to those with limited upper-body mobility, a slide with rollers and an elevated access ramp allowing wheelchair users to have a raised-level playing experience.
The Heather Park Parent Advisory Council raised about $125,000 to pay for the structure.
“The Heather Park Parent Advisory Council saw a need in our area for more safe and accessible playgrounds that could be enjoyed by all children, and worked hard to raise the funds necessary to achieve our goal,” said PAC chair Rosalie Mellott.
“We would like to thank the City of Prince George for working with us to make our goal a reality. Children in the neighbourhood will benefit for years to come.”
Construction began in the summer and was completed in mid-October.
Earlier in the year, the playground at Duchess Park received an accessibility upgrade, and the city replaced playgrounds at Sanderson, Jackpine, Quinson, Starlane, and Ridgeview Parks.
to host town hall meeting
Citizen staff
Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty will be holding a town hall meeting on Wednesday in Prince George. It will be held in the Fraser Room at the Courtyard by Marriott, 900 Brunswick St., 7 p.m. start.
“Come out and have your voice heard,” he said in a press release.
Doherty will also be holding town hall meetings in three other communities during the same week. He’ll be in Vanderhoof on Tuesday, in Quesnel on Nov. 15 and in Williams Lake on Nov. 16.
Bike registered in Prince George, stolen in Penticton, found in Vancouver
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
Count Remko Schrik among the believers in 529 Garage.
In June 2017, he had just finished a ride at Otway when he came across a volunteer registering bikes with the program, designed to recover stolen bikes and prevent the thefts in the first place.
The make, model and serial number of Schrik’s Knolly Warden were taken, as was a photo of him with the bike, and entered into a system.
529 Garage is centred on an app that allows bike owners to send out an alert should their ride ever get stolen and help police track down ones that have gone missing.
To say his bike is high-end would be an understatement. It cost him $10,000 to gather the components to put the setup together. Even if it’s bought straight off the shelf, it’s an $8,000 bill.
“They’re designed and made in B.C.,” he said.
“You’re paying for the local labour and material.”
Fast forward to a bit more than a year later and Schrik was visiting his wife’s parents in Penticton when they became the victims of a heist on par with something an international jewel thief would pull off.
Both his and his wife’s bikes were attached to the bike rack on the back of their truck with a “big chain and a big lock.” When Schrik went out at midnight, they were still there, but when his wife went to let the dog out at 4 a.m., they were gone – as was the bike rack.
“They had taken the whole bike rack apart... and just taken the whole shebang in one shot,” he said.
The sight left Schrik heartbroken but also impressed with the lengths taken to make the theft.
“They’re sophisticated,” he said.
“They know what they’re doing.”
But in late October, an officer in the Vancouver Police Department called Schrik to say his bike had been found in the Downtown Eastside. Schrik said he was “surprised more than anything” to see it turn up at all, let alone where it was recovered.
“I figured they’d probably go away further than that, like into the States, just so people wouldn’t recognize our bike in
that community,” he said.
Whether that would have worked is debatable. Bikes stolen in Vancouver have been recovered as far away as Portland, Ore. and San Francisco, Calif., according to 529 Garage proponents.
A friend in Vancouver picked the bike up from police on Schrik’s behalf and it remains tucked away in a garage waiting for Schrik, who now lives in Kelowna, to make the trip to pick it up.
Because he had insurance, Schrik was able to buy a replacement.
“I’m not exactly sure what the end result will be with this bike,” he said. “I imagine I won’t get to keep it. I’ll have to
give it back to the insurance company.”
But Schrik remains an 529 Garage advocate.
“The program is great,” he said.
“If you’re in the right place at the right time, someone can set it up for you and it allows you to get your bike back.”
Anyone buying a secondhand bike can run the serial number by the program to make sure it has not been stolen, he noted. Just make sure you do so before you make the purchase.
“The one officer, when I was talking to him, said he has had people come to register their bike and it turns out it’s stolen and he has to take it,” Schrik said.
Race on to build tallest wood building
Derrick PENNER Vancouver Sun
For Dutch architect Do Janne Vermeulen, the “space race” to build the world’s tallest timber-based building is no longer a matter of pride, but more of a sustainable imperative.
“I don’t think it matters who gets the highest first,” Vermeulen said following her presentation to a sustainable-building conference in Vancouver.
“What’s interesting to see is that it helps to get attention for tall wood buildings,” which is the important part “because if you get one, you might get two, if you get 10 you might get 20 and with 20, you might get 100.”
Vermeulen’s Amsterdam-based firm, Team V Architecture, is in that race with its design for Haut, a 73-metre (240-feettall) hybrid mass-timber residential building in a new, sustainability focused residential district of that city.
And multiplying the numbers of buildings defined as sustainable, sequestering carbon in renewable wood construction materials, is becoming more important at a time when warnings about climate change are becoming more stark.
Vermeulen spoke Tuesday in a keynote address to Wood Works B.C.’s annual Wood Solutions conference, which is doing double-duty this year as a week-long gathering of international policy makers in collaboration with Passivehouse Canada and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Committee on
Pipeline
Forests and the Forest Industry.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in an October report, warned of irreversible changes if people don’t take immediate and substantial reductions in their greenhouse-gas emissions beyond what they are taking now. If people don’t, they are courting climate temperature increases in as little as 12 years that would speed up the melting of sea ice, cause droughts, famine and flood that are worse than previously anticipated.
Responding, in British Columbia, means implementing initiatives such as the province’s Energy Step Code, an optional set of energy-efficiency standards, or the Canadian Build Smart standards, according to conference organizers.
With wood recognized as a low-carbon option, “it is imperative to offer technical knowledge through learning opportunities in wood products and building systems,” said Lynn Embury-Williams, executive director of Wood Works B.C.
In past years, the Wood Solutions conference has highlighted local vanguard projects such as the all-timber Wood Innovation and Design Centre in Prince George, which is now home to UNBC and Emily Carr University of Art and Design programs aimed at fostering the use of wood in construction.
The 18-storey timber-hybrid Brock House residence at UBC has also taken centre stage at Wood Solutions. This year, however, the climate aspects
are more firmly at centre stage of the week’s events than in previous years when the focus was as much on promoting B.C.’s value-added manufacturing of forest products.
“That (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report is just another statement in a long series of statements that emphasizes the need for this kind of collaboration,” said Rob Bernhardt, CEO of Passivehouse Canada, about this week’s events.
Canada has a “very good policy framework,” with its Build Smart initiative, Bernhardt said, but governments need more encouragement in implementation.
“Doing is far more difficult than planning,” Bernhardt said.
And Vermeulen said she is hopeful that her firm’s Haut project, along with other projects that have been built or are under development stand as examples for a different kind of tall skyline than those dominated by towers built out of hard materials such as glass, concrete and steel.
“We imagine that a great big, high city can be soft, comfortable, and to a large part, made out of wood,”she said.
And Haut stands as an example for how well the project is being accepted, Vermeulen said.
“We managed to do it and we managed to sell the apartments and we didn’t encounter any insurance or mortgage or any kind of process problems.”
blast forces FortisBC to the open market for gas
Citizen news service
VANCOUVER — FortisBC is looking at several options to boost its stock of natural gas in an effort to get its customers through the winter after a pipeline blast squeezed off supply.
Sean Beardow, manager of corporate communications with Fortis, says the flow through the Enbridge pipeline that exploded in flames near Prince George last month has
reached about 55 per cent, far below what they’ll need this winter. He says the company is getting more fuel from an Alberta pipeline and has received permission from the B.C. Utilities Commission to purchase natural gas on the open market. He says they’re looking at on the spot market to import compressed and liquefied natural gas.
Enbridge has said it wants to get its pipeline capacity up to 80 per cent after the unexplained explosion.
HANDOUT PHOTO
Remko Schrik poses with his Knolly Warden mountain bike, which was stolen but then recovered thanks to 529 Garage.
Many drugs have powerful effect on brain
Our bodies are equipped with a multitude of sensors allowing us to discern different temperatures, feel pain, hear sounds, and distinguish subtle shades of blue, etc. We are constantly bombarded with sensory information but we only pay attention to a small fragment of the total information.
Some philosophers, psychologists, and others studying the mind-body problem argue the role of the mind is to sort through the millions of bits of information we generate with our senses every second and figure out which are important.
In this interpretation, the mind is a sorting mechanism which renders information such as the touch of your pants leg on the back of your calf as unimportant whereas the shooting pain in your abdomen means there is something wrong that needs addressing.
Perhaps more to the point, the only thing we would notice is the shooting pain as our mind races through possible alternatives and explanations for its source. Appendicitis? Cramps? Bowel disease? The hot, spicy sausage you had for lunch? While the pain is dominating our sensory input it will also be dominating our thoughts.
Is this a good view of the mind?
Perhaps. But it does point out the connection we have between our body and our mind. Our sense of ourselves comes from our interaction with all of the various nerves feeding information into our brain.
Various scientists have experimented with isolating a brain from its body.
Indeed, disembodied brains have been featured in science fiction movies since the early 1960s. Unfortunately, brains without bodies do not survive. Without somatic input, the brain shuts down and withers away. We are in constant need of input through our sensory network. But what happens if this sensory information gets distorted or deleted?
Many drugs – legal and illegal, natural and synthetic – alter the biochemistry in our brains. For example, selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRI) do exactly what their name implies – they selectively prevent the sending neuron from reabsorbing the serotonin releases
Colombia. Scientists found exposure to MDMA made octopuses more inclined to touch each other.
into the synaptic cleft.
That is, a signal travels down the axon to the sending end of neuron. Within the cell, small packages of the neurotransmitter serotonin are bundled into vesicles. When the signal arrives, these sacks combine with the cell membrane and release their content into the synaptic cleft. The molecules diffuse across the synapse and trigger a response in the receiving neuron – much like inserting a key into a lock.
The serotonin is then reabsorbed by the sending neuron to be recycled in a new vesicle to await the next signal coming down the neuron. What SSRI drugs do is to slow or prevent the re-uptake of the serotonin thereby maintaining artificially high levels in the space between the neurons which then keep activating the receiving neuron causing it to send signals.
This is one of several pathways by which drugs can modify the processing of signals in our brains. How, when, and where these sorts of interactions happen can have profound effects on our minds.
SSRIs treat depression as do monoamine oxidase inhibitors. The opioids modify the sensation of pain. Amphetamines fiddle with our ability to pay attention.
Some drugs, such as LSD and peyote, have profound effects on many areas of our brain resulting in hallucinations.
The ability to see things which are not actually there is a testament to just how much our minds depend on the chemical clues provided by our senses.
Hallucinations result from the hijacking of neural pathways.
While some of the information on the interaction of drugs with the human brain has been obtained through intentional and unintentional experiments with humans, neuro-scientists also use animal models to examine the interactions. However as animals lack the capacity to articulate the effects of the drug, the scientists observe other physiological responses such as brain wave patterns and respiratory rates.
Animals can also be observed solving amazing complex problems. Their ability to engage in problem solving behaviour while under the influence of a particular drug can be monitored and reveal something about the compound’s effects.
For example, scientists at John Hopkins have been studying the effect of MDMA, known as ecstasy, on octopuses. Octopuses have a complex nervous system and are able to use tools or navigate mazes while solving intricate problems. But they are not very cuddly animals inclined to close physical contact.
However, knowing we share similar biochemical hardware, the scientists were interested in seeing the effects of the drug on these solitary animals. The drugged octopuses were much more inclined to spend time with other octopuses instead of solving problems, reaching out multiple arms to engage in physical contact. Non-drugged octopuses avoid contact and typically only use one arm to make contact when necessary.
The mind’s perception of the world is formulated by the information provided by the brain through its sensory network. Drugs can have a profound effect on this information.
Oldest known animal drawing found in cave
Christina LARSON Citizen news service
WASHINGTON — Scientists have found the oldest known example of an animal drawing: a red silhouette of a bull-like beast on the wall of a remote Indonesian cave.
The sketch is at least 40,000 years old, slightly older than similar animal paintings found in famous caves in France and Spain. Until a few years ago, experts believed Europe was where our ancestors started drawing animals and other figures. But the age of the drawing reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, along with previous discoveries in Southeast Asia, suggest that figurative drawing appeared in both continents about the same time.
The new findings fuel discussions about whether historical or evolutionary events prompted this near-simultaneous “burst of human creativity,” said lead author Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist at Griffith University in Australia.
The remote limestone caves on Borneo have been known to contain prehistoric drawings since the 1990s. To reach them, Aubert and his team used machetes to hack through thick jungle in a verdant corner of the island.
Strapping on miners’ helmets to illuminate the darkness, they walked and crawled through miles of caves decorated with hundreds of ancient designs, looking for artwork that could be dated. They needed to find specific mineral deposits on the drawings in order to determine their age with technology that measures decay of the element uranium.
AP FILE PHOTO
A police officer shows seized MDMA tablets, also known as ecstasy, during a media presentation at the El Dorado Airport in Bogota,
Choosing people over politics
So many of the political pundits commenting on the results of the U.S. midterm elections Tuesday have been focussing on the bitter divisions in the country, to explain how Democrats regained control of the House but the Republicans, fuelled by U.S. President Donald Trump, solidified their control of the Senate. The United States is hardly united anymore, that is true, but the name of the country has always been sadly ironic. The tensions between urban and rural, the north and the south, the wealth and power centres in New York and Washington clashing with the rest of the country, have plagued America for more than 200 years. They are familiar to Canadians, especially the urban and rural divide, while our geographical split is more east/west and it’s Toronto and Ottawa that drive us crazy (and provincially Vancouver and Victoria). The difference, of course, is that, unlike our American cousins, we don’t have a civil war in our past. The closest our anger with one another has come to morphing into organized armed conflict was during the FLQ crisis in Quebec in the 1970s.
Even that was a little more than a handful of Quebecers so serious (and crazy) about independence for La Belle Province that they thought murder and terrorism were justified.
Americans, however, have always been
willing to pull up their guns and kill one another over ideology. Some feel that the current social, cultural, racial and political tensions across the United States will inevitably descend past random violence and into ongoing conflict, perhaps another civil war and even states leaving the union.
While that’s not out of the realm of responsibility, a calmer analysis of what’s going on in America, especially from the outside looking in, shows how superficial the “divided country” narrative is.
Tuesday’s election results show a huge swath of Americans outright ignore party politics. Even those who identify as Democrats and Republicans seem to go into voting stations as independents, easily moving back and forth between the two parties.
That led to a real mixed bag of results, as revealed by David Beard of the Poynter Institute.
Some Republicans who professed unconditional loyalty to Trump got the boot from voters, even in traditionally Republican areas like Kansas, while others won election over incumbent Democrats, like in North Dakota and Missouri. Some Republicans, such as the governors of Maryland and Massachusetts, clearly distanced themselves from Trump and won re-election.
In Iowa, a 29-year-old Democrat was elected over a Republican incumbent being investigated for ethics violations. In other states, Republicans charged with crimes ranging from embezzlement to insider trading were still elected.
Elsewhere, Colorado elected the first openly gay governor in American history.
Native American women will be in Congress for the first time and three of them were elected Tuesday – one from Kansas and two from New Mexico. The new Congress will also have the first two Muslim women ever, representing districts in Minnesota and Michigan.
Still in Michigan, voters there approved that state becoming the 10th in the union to legalize marijuana.
Over in Florida, where Republicans look to have won razor-thin victories for governor and the Senate, voters simultaneously endorsed an initiative that will let as many as 1.4 million people take part in future elections but who were previously not allowed to cast a ballot because they had spent time in jail.
When the political magnifying glass is put away and Tuesday’s election results are looked at through a simpler lens of good campaigns and appealing candidates, the United States looks less divided, filled with a majority of citizens who vote by personality, likeability and practicality, rather than hard-and-fast ideology.
Millions of Americans who voted twice for Barack Obama for president voted for Trump in 2016 and continue to support him.
Despite Trump’s numerous flaws, they were (and still are) drawn to his brashness, his charisma and his confidence. That makes perfect sense to the many Canadians
YOUR LETTERS
Does anyone believe anything will change after the vote is counted? Whether we still have FPTP or PR doesn’t make a lot of difference. We are still going to get broken promises and outright lies from those who get elected. It just seems that every election is a game of “bait and switch.” Every time these people open their mouths should be considered a contractual promise from which there is no reversal. Until they can be held accountable, there is no faith in what is promised. To give these people the title of “honorable” is pushing the limits of credibility. You can listen to them talk for five minutes and they say nothing of substance. It’s all doublespeak
and psychobabble. It’s a rare occurrence when an individual in government stands and speaks and stands by his/her statement. No wonder there is such a low turnout to vote, no one believes in what is said. We are treated like pawns and made to pay for some boondoggle that never makes any sense in the first place. Governments should not be allowed to finance their projects on the backs of our grandchildren. If the money is not in the bank, we can’t afford it. Cost overruns should be the responsibility of the entity who took on the job, not government. As an individual, if I tried that I would be sued and charged with fraud.
If private interest wants something, let them build it themselves. Quit throwing in taxpayer dollars in the name of employing people because that really doesn’t happen to any great extent. Does anyone really believe we will see any financial gain from Site C or from the Trans Mountain pipeline? I am not saying it is a good thing or bad thing, it’s just not infrastructure for our benefit as a population after its completion. And yes, they should be taxed heartily for operating on the land, I’m taxed heartily on my meagre piece of ground. After all, if you don’t speak up, you will be considered a peasant.
George Getty
Prince George
LETTERS WELCOME: The Prince George Citizen welcomes letters to the editor from our readers. Submissions should be sent by email to: letters@pgcitizen.ca. No attachments, please. They can also be faxed to 250-960-2766, or mailed to 201-1777 Third Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3G7. Maximum length is 750 words and writers are limited to one submission every week. We will edit letters only to ensure clarity, good taste, for legal reasons, and occasionally for length. Although we will not include your address and telephone number in the paper, we need both for verification purposes. Unsigned or handwritten letters will not be published. The Prince George Citizen is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to deal with acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please contact Neil Godbout (ngodbout@pgcitizen. ca or 250-960-2759). If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the web site at mediacouncil.ca or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information.
who voted Conservative in support of Stephen Harper but flipped to cast a ballot for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals three years ago. On both sides of the border, this massive bloc of voters don’t fit into easily defined categories for pundits and pollsters. They pay scant attention to politics outside of election periods, they hang up on anyone asking them to take part in an opinion survey, they vote by how they feel about the candidates with little or no mind to their platform, meaning they also vote against candidates as much or more as they vote in support of a particular candidate, and they have no loyalty whatsoever to any party or politician.
While the politically engaged endlessly argue for and against Trump, for and against Trudeau, for and against everything from free trade agreements and immigration to transgender rights and military spending, the quiet majority are too busy (some would say too lazy) working, raising families, paying bills and hanging out with family and friends to care about the political scene.
So perhaps the divisions in the United States, in Canada and in B.C. are less about politics or geography or identity or wealth and more about the people who really care and the ones that don’t care nearly as much.
Both groups get to vote and both do so but their thought process heading into the ballot box is completely different.
So maybe those mixed results aren’t so bad after all.
— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
Better to fix first past the post than go to PR
When your computer doesn’t function quickly, you upgrade its software. When your car doesn’t run smoothly, you repair the engine. You don’t throw them out.
So let’s agree, our rusty, dusty, fusty electoral system can use a tune-up, too. But instead we have been led into a false choice of the existing first past the post (FPTP) and proportional representation (PR).
There is a much better third option: fix what we have.
But no.
Rather than pursue simpler solutions, we are breathlessly into a bass-ackwards BC NDP move – mail-in ballots arrived before a campaign of big questions and few answers – to appease the powerravenous Green triumvirate and possibly hurtle us into a two-term test drive of what might be a lemon. The rush is unseemly and suspicious.
What would be better is betterment of the current system to improve engagement, transparency and relevance.
Like:
1. It’s 2018, my personal information is all over the internet, and I am in the clutches of e-commerce, so why can’t I vote online yet? Wouldn’t that increase voter participation and get a clearer picture of who supports whom? Before we add representatives, we would be better off adding voters.
2. While we’re on that topic, why not require people to vote? If we are keen on electoral reform, let’s start with the electorate. Before we change systems, shouldn’t we make voting mandatory – maybe through a small tax break to voters – to see what result we would get?
3. If we’re so concerned about representation, why not start by increasing the number of ridings so your MLA is more likely to live closer to you and more reflect the political sentiments of you and your neighbours?
4. Why must there be narrowly focused voting periods? Why just limited advanced polls and long lineups on the final day? If the PR referendum takes in ballots over five weeks, why not a one-week provincial election?
5. Why do we need a full election every four years? Why not partial elections every two or three years to capture shifts in our politics or send signals to leaders that they are either on track or off
course? Isn’t that the whole point of today’s mid-terms in the U.S.?
6. How about term limits to ensure greater turnover and succession in our system and limit incumbent advantages?
Or, if we’re worried about “safe seats” that elect the same party again and again, use technology to impartially tweak electoral boundaries between elections, as some political innovators have suggested.
7. If we are serious about powersharing across party lines, then why not require certain legislative measures to enjoy wider support than just the governing party’s? Certain financial bills, interprovincial trade deals, laws on human rights and measures for Indigenous reconciliation would benefit from cross-party input and support, and that would represent a broader perspective than any coalition’s.
8. At its core, most every government seems secretive and miserly with information. Why not open more government deliberations through more generous and rigorous freedom of information laws and routine disclosures? Wouldn’t that be a more formidable application of accountability than any new sprawl of political representation? Indeed, wouldn’t coalitions create even more collusive secrecy?
9. Why not require candidates to be nominated by their riding associations and live in those ridings so there is a clearer guarantee of local representation?
10. There is a reason it is called question period, not answer period, probably because it is almost absurdly dysfunctional and a theatrical fraud. Why not require ministers to answer questions by introducing – and, yes, more aggressively using and enforcing – a provincial version of the written questions and answers of the parliamentary Order Paper?
Sure, it will be slow, but even slow answers would be better than the non-answers we get. There is indeed a system to fix, but not one to replace – at least, not before we rev up the engine and update the operating system.
— Kirk LaPointe is the editor-inchief of Business in Vancouver and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
KIRK LAPOINTE Business in Vancouver Special
Talking about his twig has Pine weary
TORONTO — If you want to see an exhausted Chris Pine, meet him after he’s spent a day answering questions about his penis.
Following the September premiere of David Mackenzie’s Outlaw King, in which Pine stars as the Scottish hero Robert the Bruce, conversation at the Toronto International Film Festival focused largely on Pine’s instant of full-frontal nudity in the film. That such a brief moment should arouse such curiosity – and not, say, anything else in the two-plus hours of historical-epic savagery in the 1300s-set film – was for Pine a sad but telling commentary.
“The fact that visions of nudity, genitalia, making love are somehow the main attraction,” said an exasperated Pine in an interview alongside Mackenzie. “All of us go ‘Oo oo!’ like fifth-graders. Literally, it’s like talking to a bunch of 14-year-olds, whereas beheadings and all that kind of violence we’re so inured to that we don’t even question it.”
The irony is that Pine’s Bruce – like his supporting role in Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman – is a negotiation with traditional gender roles, even amid all the blood and guts. Pine plays the 14th century King of Scots, who won Scottish independence from England, not as a one-dimensional warrior but a man riven with internal conflict. Scenes with his wife (played by Florence Pugh) are sensitive and tender. When it’s pointed out that his performance – and even that flash of nudity – seems intended to deconstruct traditional masculine archetypes, Pine immediately brightens.
rich man who decides to throw it all away to do something selfless.”
“I mean, I pretty much wanted to do it the moment he said ‘historical epic,”’ Pine adds. Pine, with his shining blue eyes and a filmography littered with blockbusters, might not be the first actor one would think of for a bloodied, mud-caked Robert the Bruce. But Mackenzie saw something of Bruce in Pine’s desperate bank robber in Hell or High Water, a performance that seemed to unlock Pine’s full power as a movie star.
“There’s something about both characters: people struggling, people dealing with uncertainty and not sure whether or not to act,” Mackenzie says. “One thing Chris brings brilliantly to the work he does is the capacity to handle that uncertainty and a character who’s working his way through things.”
Literally, it’s like talking to a bunch of 14-year-olds, whereas beheadings and all that kind of violence we’re so inured to that we don’t even question it.
— Chris Pine
After Outlaw King premiered to largely poor reviews in Toronto, Mackenzie cut about 20 minutes from the film, which he had rushed to ready for opening night at TIFF. The 52-year-old filmmaker co-wrote and produced the film, which follows a pair of acclaimed releases from the director – the father-son prison drama Starred Up and Hell or High Water – that likewise analyzed masculinity.
“It needs to be de-constructed, doesn’t it?” Mackenzie says. “At this point in time, it feels like masculinity is coming under a lot of questions and it seems appropriate, as males, to be dealing with the subject of masculinity, try to find some nuance in there, try not to demonize or heroize.”
Breaking Bad movie in development
Citizen news service
NEW YORK — Bryan Cranston has confirmed that a Breaking Bad movie is in development, though he’s not sure he’s in it. Following reports that Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan is prepping a two-hour movie connected to the AMC series, Cranston on Wednesday called into the sports talk radio show The Dan Patrick Show and confirmed the project is indeed in the works.
Cranston said he hasn’t yet read the script and that his character, Walter White, may not even be in it. Cranston said he would “absolutely” return to the character if he was in it.
The two-hour spinoff is set to begin shooting in Albuquerque, N.M., in mid-November under
A&E IN BRIEF
Thompson gets top British award
LONDON (AP) — Actress Emma Thompson has received one of Britain’s highest awards from Prince William – and thought about giving him a kiss at the Buckingham Palace ceremony. Thompson received a damehood on Wednesday in recognition for her splendid career, an event made special by the fact that it was given to her by William, a longtime friend.
“I love Prince William. I’ve known him since he was little, and we just sniggered at each other,” she says. “I said, ‘I can’t kiss you, can I?’ And he said, ‘No don’t’!” Thompson was named for the female equivalent of a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honors List in June.
Hoggard case postponed
The case of Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard, who faces three sex-related charges, has been put over for three weeks. Hoggard, 34, was not present at a brief hearing in a Toronto courtroom on Wednesday where the next date in his case was set for Nov. 28.
The prosecution says they have now handed over most of the disclosure in the case. Police arrested the singer in July and charged him with one count of sexual interference and two counts of sexual assault causing bodily harm. They say the charges relate to three separate incidents involving a woman and a girl under the age of 16 that allegedly occurred in the Toronto area in 2016. Hoggard has previously denied engaging in non-consensual sexual behaviour, but has said he acted in a way that objectifies women. Allegations of sexual misconduct emerged before the charges were laid, which prompted Hedley to go on indefinite hiatus.
“I’ve been dying to talk about this stuff all day and we’ve gotten just myriad, mind-numbing questions about nonsense,” Pine replies. “I do think there needs to be a rebalancing of the world. The underlying bass note that we should be hearing is: that is precisely what we’re all used to and isn’t it kind of interesting that it’s so skewed that way, that any notions of tenderness or lovemaking on screen becomes uncomfortable? I think that’s probably the masculine and the feminine out of whack in this big, wide universe.” Outlaw King, which debuts on Netflix and in select theatres Friday, is the streaming service’s first big swing at that classic big-screen thing: the historical epic. It reunites Pine with Mackenzie two years after Hell or High Water, a high-water mark for both the Scottish filmmaker and for Pine, who calls the Oscarnominated neo-Western “one of my most cherished experiences making anything.”
While they were still making the publicity rounds on Hell or High Water, Mackenzie slipped Pine the screenplay. When the two sat down in London to talk about it, Pine acknowledges he had some issues with the script but that they quickly found common ground in the desire to make a film not overwhelmed by Scottish nationalism but about, as Pine says, “a
In the 65-day shoot in Scotland, Mackenzie and Pine hoped to recapture some of the freewheeling spirit of their quicker, lower-budget production in West Texas. That Bruce was a contemporary of William Wallace has led to frequent comparisons to Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, though Pine says they were seeking to make a very different sort of Scottish epic.
“How do you make the anti-Braveheart? How do you make the movie that hits all the tropes of the genre without – and I say this with all due respect –being manipulative?” Pine says. “Braveheart, I love. But how do you make the non-movie movie?”
Pine saw Bruce “nebulous” and “opaque” – someone who could be politician and warrior, hero and coward. “You cannot pin the guy down,” he says.
Before departing to shake off the day’s questions, Pine repeatedly mentioned Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind as a source of inspiration.
“To me, the primal aspects of the film are almost like men and women of the mud and of the dirt. It’s almost like you see them in this amoebic form. The earth that we come from,” says Pine. “We as humans are these dualistic creatures. We’re both aggressive and pacifist. We are feminine and masculine.”
Grinch film will only make you flinch
Mark KENNEDY Citizen staff
Every Who down in Whoville gets a new Grinch this season. Why, you may ask? The idea defies reason. Does the classic need help from a hot Cumberbatch? Or is this strange union a bizarre mismatch? The Grinch is the story you learned as an infant, starring a Christmas-hating heel and his doggie assistant. The fuzzy green villain hopes to make holiday gloom. Just like a wicked witch, but without the broom. He targets presents intended for tots. Oh, how horrific is this nasty crackpot.
Seuss never explained what prompted this act. Perhaps the Grinch wore shoes that were too compact? (Or maybe, just maybe, his head had been whacked?) Should he consult a cardiologist chart? The answer is clear: it’s because of his heart. In Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch, liberties are taken. Some are just padding, some quite mistaken. It’s suggested that our old friend the Grinch is an orphan, as though that excuses inflicting misfortune. There’s a new sidekick, a plump reindeer named Fred, and the remaking of Cindy’s mom as unwed. (Could she be a love for the small-hearted bad boy? Kind of, maybe, but look, this isn’t Tolstoy).
do it with an insouciant poise. Remember, this guy is the anti-merry – the same one played not long ago by Jim Carrey. Benedict Cumberbatch takes on the part, with an American accent – to give him less heart?
Our narrator here is Pharrell Williams, whose brief days at work likely paid him zillions. Kenan Thompson of Saturday Night Live fame, delivers a character who is kind of lame. But Angela Lansbury has a nice cameo (that woman’s as priceless as an unearthed Van Gogh).
Before you buy tickets and plan a nice dinner, ask who exactly in Whoville thought this was a winner?
The Grinch, diabolically, dresses like Santy Claus, in an ultra-evil cloud of guffaws. He beats by a few hours the real Kris Kringle. (No wonder this loner creature never mingles.) But a run-in with Cindy, as sweet as chocolate liquor, makes something grow huge – that’s right, it’s his ticker.
The Whos down in Whoville don’t mind that they’re gift-less. They gather together, sing and bear witness. Christmas, they say, isn’t about treasure: it’s about family, friends and being together. Then they tuck into roast beast. You, on the other hand, may feel fleeced.
Credit goes to the film’s visual effects folk, who made fur alive and gave texture to smoke. But retreading this story with a Cumberbatch, should send Hollywood bigwigs into the booby hatch.
Any-who, our Grinch decides to cancel the holiday, or make it as boring as, say, Groundhog Day. He hops inside chimneys to hoover up toys, certain to
Before you buy tickets and plan a nice dinner, ask who exactly in Whoville thought this was a winner?
— One star out of four
Jake COYLE Citizen news service
AP PHOTO
Actor Chris Pine, left, and David Mackenzie, director of the film Outlaw King, pose for a photo at the Shangri-La Hotel during the Toronto Film Festival.
the code name Greenbrier. Gilligan’s Breaking Bad prequel series Better Call Saul last month concluded its fourth season.
CRANSTON
HOGGARD
Managing editor Neil Godbout puts the news in perspective every day, only in The Citizen
Citizen staff
Skis, snowshoes, poles, boots, bindings.
All are necessary to tackle the snowy trails in and around Prince George and the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club is making all that gear a little more affordable this weekend.
The club’s annual ski swap of used gear is on for this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Caledonia headquarters at Otway Nordic Centre, just west of the city at 8141 Otway Road.
People wanting to sell their gear on consignment can drop it off at the Rotary Lodge on Friday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Equipment not sold should be picked up Saturday between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. The club will collect a 20 per cent commission on sold equipment, which will fund its winter programs.
This is the last weekend for early-bird pricing on club memberships, which allow access to the cross-country and snowshoeing trails at Otway.
Ski swap set for Saturday Louka lands top player honour
Early-bird prices, which include Cross-County B.C. memberships are: Skiing –adult/senior, $197; junior with adult membership, $49; junior without adult, $130; full-time student/adaptive skier, $130; family of four, $456. Snowshoeing – adult/senior, $77; junior with adult, $43; junior without adult, $49.
Cash, cheque or credit card will be accepted Saturday for membership payments.
The Caledonia club will host the 2019 world para nordic skiing championships (cross-county and biathlon), Feb. 15-24.
More information is available on the website, www. caledonianordic.com
Halifax CFL group starts ticket drive
Citizen news service
HALIFAX — The group aiming to bring a Canadian Football League team to Halifax has announced details of a season ticket drive and a name-theteam contest. It’s part of a push to gauge interest for a franchise in Atlantic Canada. The announcement was made Wednesday by Maritime Football Partnership and CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie.
Efforts to land a team in Atlantic Canada’s largest city cleared a major hurdle last month...
Maritime Football, made up of former Arizona Coyotes co-owners Anthony LeBlanc and Gary Drummond and AMJ Campbell Van Lines president Bruce Bowser, is looking to secure a conditional expansion franchise to begin play in Halifax in 2021.
Available for purchase immediately, season ticket deposits are $50 per package with a deposit placing fans on a priority list for season ticket membership and seat selection on a first come, first served basis.
Fans who make a deposit will be able to participate in an exclusive name-the-team contest where they will be asked to vote on name options and submit their own name choices.
The team name will be announced during an event during Grey Cup weekend later this month.
Efforts to land a team in Atlantic Canada’s largest city cleared a major hurdle last month after Halifax council directed city staff to do a business case analysis of the proposal.
— more CFL coverage, page 10
T-wolves sign high school star Landry
Citizen staff
Vasiliki Louka’s star shone brilliantly last weekend on the Northern Sport Centre basketball court.
So brightly, in fact, the grand poohbahs who run the U Sports Canada West conference decided Louka deserved official recognition.
On Wednesday, the fifth-year UNBC Timberwolves post was named the conference player of the week. Louka was a decisive force in leading the T-wolves to a pair of weekend wins over the visiting Winnipeg Wesmen.
The Wesmen were unable to contain the six-foot-four native of Athens, Greece, who has helped vault her team into a three-way tie for first place in the conference – a perfect 4-0 to start the season and their best start in seven seasons in the league.
In a 75-68 win over Winnipeg
on Friday, Louka had 22 points and also contributed 14 rebounds, three assists and one steal in 36 minutes of playing time. In the rematch Saturday, a 90-75 UNBC triumph, Louka put up 26 points, 14 rebounds and four assists in 34 minutes of game action.
Louka leads Canada West in total rebounds (58) and rebounds per game (14.5) and is fourth in scoring with 91 points in four games, a 22.8 average. She ranks third in the league in shooting from the field (36-for-65, 55.4 per cent average) and is also third for her 19 free throws (on 25 attempts).
Her brother, Vaggelis Loukas, is a forward for the UNBC men’s basketball team, which is off to a 3-1 start.
Both T-wolves teams have byes this weekend and will host the Trinity Western Spartans, Nov. 16-17.
• The UNBC women’s team announced Wednesday the signing of shooting guard/small forward Rebecca Landry, a Duchess Park Grade 12 student, for the 2019-20 season. The younger sister of UNBC
forward Madison Landry was the North Central zone MVP last season for the Condors and will resume her high school career with the Condors senior team in December. She’s part of the Junior Timberwolves club team.
“I am very excited,” said the five-foot-10 Landry, in a team release. “I have been around the program and these players for a
long time, so I think this is going to be a really cool experience. This is a perfect situation. I am happy how it all turned out, because this is something I have wanted for a really long time.
“I am really happy with how the team has been doing the past few years. They have been beating some big schools, and now we are getting into that realm of being a well-known basketball school. Making playoffs is something I am looking forward to.”
Landry led the Condors to the zone title and a fifth-place provincial finish in the double-A championship.
“Going to the rim is one of my strengths. I like playing defence, and I am pretty vocal, which is usually what coaches are looking for. I always give 100 per cent, and I am always trying to get better, every single practice.
“I used to play against a lot of the girls who are on the (UNBC) team right now. I like the support of my family, and the chance to play with my sister is really cool. We have never played together, so I am excited to see how we are going to connect on the court.”
Polars, Roadrunners hosting football playoffs
Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Prince George Polars quarterback Braden Reed can toss a football half the distance of the field with accuracy if that’s what his coach tells him to do.
The Polars have a crew of sticky-handed receivers to haul in those passes and they lined up on the turf at Masich Place Stadium next to Reed while he took the snaps last Friday night in the double-A varsity P.G. Bowl final. It turned out Reed didn’t need to use his passing arm to shred the Kelly Road Roadrunners’ defence. His legs did the job just fine.
The Grade 12 senior ran the ball 28 times for 266 yards and five touchdowns in a 49-8 rout of the Roadrunners which gave PGSS its second-straight B.C. Secondary Schools Football Association Northern Conference title.
That guaranteed the Polars will be the North’s top seed when they take on the Samuel Roberts Technical Titans of Maple Ridge, the Eastern Conference No. 4 seed, Saturday (5 p.m.) in the opening round of provincial playoffs at Masich.
“It was a good game, we really played a lot better than we did (in last week’s B.C. Secondary School Football Association Northern Conference semifinals) when we played Vanderhoof, we really performed like we should have,” said Reed, who made just three pass attempts.
A 50-yard punt from Darren Eikum pinned the Polars on their own four-yard line for their first possession and Reed marched them 96 yards into the end zone.
“I really stepped up for the game and feel I performed my best and I tried my hardest,” said Reed. “It was my last-ever P.G. Bowl and I definitely wanted to leave my mark.”
Reed said it helped having played Kelly Road late in the season (a 39-14 win on Oct. 18) which made it easier for the Polars to know what to expect.
The Polars have had to adjust to not having
fullback Gage Ridland in the offensive scheme.
The Grade 12 senior was the third-leading rusher for PGSS, averaging 56 yards per game, and was one of their top linebackers until he broke his collarbone in the Kelly Road game.
“He really opened up the run game on the outside – the way he carried the ball up the gut really made defences focus on him and they had to stack up a lot of players in the gaps and that cleared the way for me and Gavin (Murray) on the outside,” said Reed.
“I’m glad we’re still gelling without him and our players are willing to step up to the plate to replace him.” Murray and Gage Bernard have taken on Ridland’s duties at fullback and took advantage of the holes guard Tristan Serwatkewich and
a
championship
the rest of the offensive line opened for them. Murray gained 117 yards on 22 carries and had one touchdown.
The Roadrunners passed frequently with Brendan Watts at quarterback and he was under pressure constantly from the rush led by Max Vohar and Sasha Gajic.
“They had a couple big plays on us which resulted in their touchdown and two-point conversion but other than that we handled them well,” said Polars head coach Pat Bonnett. “Their quarterback played well and a couple of their receivers had a good game and their No. 10 (Logan Devauld) was good at running back the kickoffs. (Clay Thiessen) really messed up our backfield for a while until we double-teamed him.” — see
Vasiliki Louka of the UNBC Timberwolves women’s basketball team works in the offensive end against the University of Regina Cougars during a Canada West game last season at the Northern Sport Centre.
Brayden Michell of the PGSS Polars runs through the tackle of
Kelly Road Roadrunners defender during the P.G. Bowl high school football
game at Masich Place Stadium.
Ticats favoured to beat B.C. in playoff game
Dan RALPH Citizen news service
Turnovers will be a crucial key to victory in the CFL West Division semifinal.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders will entertain the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in that game Sunday afternoon. During the regular season, the two teams sported identical 10-0 records when they won the turnover battle.
Converting off turnovers was a big part of Winnipeg’s success as the Blue Bombers (10-8) scored a CFL-high 151 points in that category.
Saskatchewan (12-6) won the season series 2-1 but the Bombers intercepted starter Zach Collaros twice in their lone win, a 31-0 decision at Investors Group Field on Oct. 13. The Riders, meanwhile, won only two games this year while losing the turnover battle. By comparison, Winnipeg never won a game in which it lost the turnover battle.
Both teams sport solid defences but Saskatchewan defensive ends Charleston Hughes (CFL-high 15 sacks) and Willie Jefferson (10 sacks) were especially hard on opposing quarterbacks.
What’s more, Jefferson added two interceptions – returning one for a touchdown against Winnipeg – two forced fumbles and scored two TDs overall. The Bombers’ offensive line, anchored by stalwart tackle Stanley Bryant, surrendered 36 sacks, tied for third-lowest overall.
Bombers starting quarterback Matt Nichols completed 34-of64 passes (53.1 per cent) for 486 yards with two TDs and five interceptions in the three games versus Saskatchewan. But over his final five regular-season starts – all wins – Nichols threw seven TD passes against just one interception.
Winnipeg also boasts the CFL rushing leader in Andrew Harris (1,390 yards, 5.8-yard average, eight TDs). It was Harris’s fourth 1,000-yard campaign and second straight.
The Bombers’ defence is anchored by linebacker Adam Bighill, who had eight tackles, three sacks and a forced fumble in the shutout win over Saskatchewan.
Quarterback Zach Collaros is expected to play for Saskatch-
ewan, but threw for only 2,999 yards in 14 starts this season, his first in Regina. What’s more, Collaros has more interceptions (13) than touchdown passes (nine).
This marks the first time Saskatchewan has hosted a playoff game since 2013 when it won the Grey Cup. It also is the first postseason contest at new Mosaic Stadium.
The last time the two teams met in the playoffs was in 2003 when Saskatchewan earned a 37-21 road victory. The Riders also beat the Bombers in the 2007 Grey Cup in Toronto. Home field should be a big advantage for Saskatchewan, which was 6-3 at Mosaic Field before its rabid fans. Winnipeg was 4-5-0 on the road.
Prediction: Saskatchewan B.C. Lions versus Hamilton Tiger-Cats (Sunday afternoon)
At Hamilton, the Tiger-Cats (810) head into the East semifinal riding a three-game losing streak. Two of those defeats were to Ottawa, which cemented first in the East Division and home field for the conference final Nov. 18 at TD Place.
Hamilton and B.C. (9-9) split the regular-season series 1-1, each team winning at home. The Lions captured a 35-32 victory at B.C. Place Stadium on Sept. 22 but the Ticats won the rematch, 40-10 at Tim Hortons Field the following week.
In that contest, Brandon Banks hauled in two Jeremiah Masoli touchdown passes for Hamilton. Trouble is, Banks suffered a season-ending broken clavicle in the club’s 35-31 loss to Ottawa on Oct. 19. The loss of Banks is a serious blow to Hamilton, considering the five-foot-seven, 157-pound dynamo has 94 catches for 1,423 yards and 11 TDs. And the Ticats are 0-3 since Banks was injured.
B.C. makes the trek to the East as the crossover team, meaning it will have to go the long way to give head coach Wally Buono a championship in his final season on the Lions’ sideline. Unfortunately, history won’t be on the club’s side as no crossover team has ever reached the Grey Cup, let alone won it.
Buono has 18 career playoff wins – second only to Frank Clair
(22). He’ll make his 23rd playoff appearance in 25 years of coaching.
The Lions’ defence has been a big part of the club’s success this season, and it could be boasted by the return of linebacker Solomon Elimimian. He’s been sidelined with a wrist injury since the fifth week of the season but has taken the majority of reps this week in practice.
But life on the road this season hasn’t been kind to the Lions, who were just 2-7 away from B.C. Place. Then again, Hamilton didn’t exactly light it up at Tim Hortons Field, either, with a 4-5-0 mark.
Hamilton will play a home playoff game for the fifth time in six years and owns a 27-17 (.614) home playoff mark. Meanwhile, B.C. is 11-23 on the road in the post-season.
The Lions are a crossover team for the fifth time. Hamilton hosted the Lions in the 2009 East semifinal, earning a 34-27 overtime decision.
Prediction: Hamilton Last week: 4-0.
Overall: 53-28.
Roadrunners gearing up for clash with Grizzlies
from page 9
The Polars led 28-0 at halftime. The Roadrunners finally broke through late in the third quarter when Watts and receiver Brayden Richards hooked up for a 30-yard passing play. Watts ran in the two-point convert.
“That was our worst game of the season by far, we just came out flat, they got up on us early and we couldn’t dig out of the hole,” said Kelly Road head coach Ryan Bellamy. “Our tackling was too high to play against a guy like (Reed) and he made our defence look bad early and often and all night.”
Jason Kragt, a Grade 10 special teams
player, was handed one of the game balls in the Polars’ locker room after the game.
“He’s the kind of kid, it didn’t matter where we asked him to play, he’s just so willing and plays so well,” said Bonnett. “He’s at every practice and he lives in Hixon.”
Grade 11 running back Alexander MacPheat was moved over from his usual position at wide receiver due to injuries and in the fourth quarter scored his first touchdown of the season. Defensive tackle Thiessen was the player of the game for Kelly Road. The winner of Saturday’s game advances
to a playoff against the second seed from the Western Conference. It will be the first-ever BCSSFA playoff game in Prince George and Reed can’t wait to renew acquaintances with Titans defensive end Curtis Farnworth, who played with Reed on Team B.C. at the Canada Cup tournament in July in Calgary.
“It will be kind of funny seeing him in P.G. because whenever I go down south for provincial teams it’s always like, ‘What? You’re from Prince George, what’s that like?’ Now they’ll be coming up to experience it.
“Having home field advantage really
Bartolillo wins U Sports award
Citizen staff
Francesco Bartolillo is the UNBC Timberwolves’ first national award winner.
That became official Wednesday night at the U Sports national men’s soccer championship awards banquet in Vancouver where Bartolillo won the studentathlete community service award. Bartolillo is a business major and as founder of the Timberwolves Student Athlete Society (TSAS) he raised close to $20,000 for various causes. To collect money for KidSport BC, which enables underprivileged youth to play sports, he started a soccerstyle two-on-two tournament which makes use of a tennis net as an obstacle while players use their feet and heads to keep the ball in the air.
Last year he developed the MVP of the Month, which has raised more than $10,000 in its two-year existence. The program annually benefits a young cancer patient, and to create support Bartolillo organized fundraising events such as the Fill the Bus Bottle Drive and the TSAS Flag Football Tournament.
Bartolillo also donates his time as a youth soccer coach.
“Fran’s contribution to the Timberwolves, the university, and the city of Prince George is admirable and deserves recognition,” said T-wolves head coach Steve Simonson. “His on-field actions speak for themselves, but his selfless actions off the field for his fellow athletes and members of the community is why he is truly a successful student-athlete at UNBC.
“The MVP of the Month and other community initiatives that Fran has led, and what they mean to the families involved, far outweighs anything that happens on the soccer field.”
The 23-year-old from Calgary is a four-time Academic AllCanadian. In his fifth and final U Sports season he led the T-wolves in goals (six) and points (10). He became the team’s all-time leading goal scorer with 16 career goals and ranks second on the team list with 25 career points.
Bartolillo was chosen for the Canada West Conference studentathlete community service award on Nov. 1.
helps, because pretty much every year except this year we’ve had to go down south for provs to play in Kamloops or Vernon. It’s going to be a game-changer being the home team for once.”
Saturday at 11 a.m., the Roadrunners face the G.W. Graham Grizzlies, 34-7 winners over Samuel Roberts Friday night in Chilliwack. The Grizzlies are seeded third in the East.
The junior varsity North Division-champion College Heights Cougars take on the South Kamloops Titans in a first-round playoff Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at Masich.
CP PHOTO
Bakari Grant of the Calgary Stampeders is brought down by T.J. Lee and Garry Peters of the B.C. Lions during a Saturday game in Vancouver.
Currencies
OTTAWA (CP) — These
provided by the Bank of Canada on Wednesday. Quotations in Canadian
The markets today
TORONTO (CP) — North American markets closed higher as health-care stocks gained on both sides of the border Wednesday in the aftermath of the U.S. midterm elections.
In Canada, the sector gained nearly five per cent as several cannabis stocks surged following the resignation of marijuana critic U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Aurora Cannabis closed up almost nine per cent, Canopy Growth Corp. eight per cent and Aphria Inc. 3.7 per cent. South of the border, Tilray Inc. gained more than 30 per cent on Nasdaq.
The American health sector also got a boost as divided government signalled that Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare will now be stalled, says Michael Currie, vice-president and investment adviser at TD Wealth.
“A Democratic victory means there’s very little chance of Republicans repealing Obamacare and that’s good news for the insurers,” he said in an interview.
The biggest gainers on the Dow Jones industrial average were large insurers like Anthem Inc. and Humana Inc., along with drug giants Merck and Pfizer.
“Just the fact that it’s a split House or gridlock means that it’s unlikely that either party will make any big inroads to fighting the big pharmaceutical companies over drug prices.”
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 545.29 points at 26,180.30. The S&P 500 index was up 58.44 points at 2,813.89, while the Nasdaq composite was up 194.79 points at 7,570.75
The election results were in line with market expectations and avoided the worst scenario of the Democrats gaining control of both houses of Congress.
“There is a consensus that Trump’s policies have been favourable to the market,” said Currie.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 76.72 points to 15,369.43.
The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 76.36 cents US compared with an average of 76.16 cents US on Tuesday.
The December crude contract was down for an eighth straight day, falling 54 cents at US$61.67 per barrel.
Election results could stall new trade deal
Andy BLATCHFORD Citizen news service
OTTAWA — Canadians are inspecting the new U.S. political landscape following midterm election results that many believe have added fresh trade-related uncertainty.
The Democrats’ majority victory in the House of Representatives could mean the ratification of the recently struck United States-MexicoCanada deal, known as USMCA, will have to wait well into 2019 – or even until 2020.
Experts predict the pact will eventually gain approval, but until it’s ratified businesses will have to deal with considerable unknowns as they try to make longer-term decisions on export strategy and investments.
“There will be a lot of uncertainty for a number of months and that uncertainty is not good for Canadian business interests,” said Lawrence Herman, a Toronto-based trade lawyer with Herman and Associates. “There is a chance that the Democrats would agree to have this deal approved. On the other hand, as we’ve heard, there are those in the Democratic party who don’t want to give Trump and the Republicans any kind of break whatsoever.”
Dan Ujczo, an Ohio-based international trade specialist, said Wednesday it will be a “political miracle” to have the USMCA voted on in the spring.
March, he added, is the earliest the deal could be voted on in Congress. Before that, the practical aspects of choosing a new
speaker and committee chairs’ settling into their positions will take up considerable time. He also noted the 2020 U.S. election season will likely begin as early as spring 2019.
“We’ll be lucky to get a vote in 2019,” said Ujczo, a partner in the law firm DickinsonWright. “I think we’ve got to realistically look at 2020.”
U.S. trade deals must be passed by both the House and the Senate, where the Republicans strengthened their majority in Tuesday’s vote.
Capri Cafaro, executive in residence at American University’s School of Public Affairs in Washington, said she doesn’t expect the obvious divisions between the parties to hold up USMCA’s ratification for too long. Cafaro, a former Democratic minority leader in the Ohio state senate, expects the deal to be very early business in 2019.
The Democrats have traditionally stood for free and fair trade, she said.
“It is more likely than not that this might be an area where Democrats could work with the Trump administration and push it forward,” she said. “I don’t foresee it being an issue, but you never know.”
Canada should also keep the worst-case scenario in mind – the USMCA fails to pass Congress and U.S. President Donald Trump decides to terminate NAFTA.
Trump has repeatedly called NAFTA one of the worst trade deals he’s ever seen and he did so again at a news conference Wednesday. He
Vancouver expects $30 million in first year of empty homes tax
VANCOUVER (CP) — The City of Vancouver says it has collected $18 million from the first year of its empty homes tax and another $12 million could still flow into its coffers.
The city says in a news release that it expects to generate a total of $30 million from the first year of the tax which is applied to vacant residential properties in a bid to ease Vancouver’s near-zero vacancy rate.
The city says $8 million raised by the tax in 2017 has already been earmarked by council for specific affordable housing initiatives.
More details of the first year of the empty homes tax are due to be released Dec. 1 in the city’s first annual report on the levy.
Owners of residential properties are also being advised they must submit a property status declaration by Feb. 4, 2019, in order to meet the provisions of the tax for 2018.
Owners who don’t declare that status will be taxed, which amounts to one per cent of a property’s assessed value, and owners who miss the due date by even a day will also face a $250 penalty.
Mayor Kennedy Stewart says the tax is an important strategy in managing Vancouver’s unaffordable housing market.
“Housing affordability is the most important issue in our city, and the empty homes tax is helping to free up more potential rental units that should be available as homes for Vancouver residents,” Stewart says in the release.
called on the Republicans and Democrats to come together in support of the deal.
“USMCA has gotten rave reviews,” Trump insisted as he addressed reporters.
“Now is the time for members of both parties to join together, put partisanship aside and keep the American economic miracle going strong. It is a miracle – we’re doing so well.” Canada will also scrutinize the midterm results for other cross-border impacts, including the fate of the Trump administration’s painful tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from north of the border.
Unifor president Jerry Dias, whose union represents auto workers, said now that the midterms are over Canadian MPs from all parties must apply more pressure to secure the removal of unjust tariffs he argues were imposed to score political points with the Republican base.
But neither Cafaro nor Ujczo expects the U.S. tariffs – which allies, including Canada, have responded to with countermeasures of their own – will disappear any time soon.
“I think barring significant market forces –that may have even more significant political implications – I don’t see the tariff issues going away,” Cafaro said.
Ujczo said he hopes the tariffs are lifted by the USMCA signing at the end of November, but he noted there’s an increasing expectation in the business community that the levies will remain in place well into 2019.
AP FILE PHOTO
A United Auto Workers employee installs the front doors on a 2018 Ford F-150 truck being assembled at the Ford Rouge assembly plant in Dearborn, Mich.
Brian George Clark
It is with intense sorrow that we announce the passing of Brian George Clark on 01 November, 2018. Brian was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan to George and Jeanet Clark on 13 June 1953. He grew up on his family farm with his 7 brothers and sisters where he loved being out on the tractor. He attended Brockville Bible College in Ontario and became an ordained minister. Later in life, he pursued a degree in Sociology at Queen’s University.
Brian was a very gentle and kind man, wanting to help those in need. He always put others first before his own needs. He worked hard his whole life, sometimes maintaining 2-3 jobs at a time. He surprised us all when he retired early to become an RV living snowbird.
Brian was predeceased by his parents and his brother Wayne. He leaves behind his wife of 15 years, Laurel as well as those who love him and will miss him immensely: his children - Brian Aaron Clark (Hiroko), Heatherleigh Jalbert (Paul), Pattie Mallett (Daniel), Vanessa Desmeules, Jacinda Desmeules, Sarah May Swain (Jakub), SallyAnn Swain (Neil), Holly Hammond (Kristoff), Allison George; his brothers and sisters - Dale, Larry, Joan, David, Glen, Ruth; and his many nieces and nephews. Brian was always so gentle with children and treated them with respect and kindness. He leaves behind many grandchildren who will truly miss his wisdom and kind hearted love.
A special thank you to Prince George Hospice who helped keep him comfortable until the end.
A celebration of his life will be held Monday November 19, 2018 at 11 AM at the Coast Inn of the North, Prince George. In Lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Prince George Hospice Society.
Giovanni Storti May 21, 1937November 1, 2018
It is with broken hearts that we announce the passing of Giovanni Storti on November 1, 2018 at the age of 81. Giovanni passed away peacefully with his family by his side, after a short battle with cancer.
Giovanni was born in Recoaro, Terme, Italy in 1937 and came to Canada in 1967. From 1967 to 1990 he worked as an Electrician at both Giscome and Shelley sawmills. From there, he pursued his vision and went onto build several houses on his own. In more recent years, he worked as a ski instructor at Tabor Mountain and his passion for skiing led to him to being named Ski Instructor of the Year in the 2014 Issue of CSIA Magazine. He was a very passionate, adventurous, intelligent man of integrity who loved skiing, fishing, hunting, singing and spending time with family and friends. Giovanni is the eldest of 4 children. He is predeceased by his Father Giuseppe Storti and his Mother, Eda Rompato. He is survived by Neris, his loving devoted wife of 51 years; 2 daughters, Brenda (Troy) & Lorena (Rene); 4 grandchildren, Sienna, Jonah, Rico & Serena; 2 step grandchildren, Jesse (Amber) & Rachel (Chase); 2 brothers, Bruno (Mirella) & Giordano; and sister, Anna, as well as, many special nephews, nieces and friends. He will be missed greatly and always in our hearts & memories. The family would like to express their sincerest gratitude to the Hospice House of Prince George and all the amazing people that work there. In lieu of flowers, a donation to the Hospice House would be greatly appreciated. Join us in celebrating Giovanni and the accomplished life he led. His funeral will take place on Monday, November 12th at 1:30 pm at Sacred Heart Cathedral, 887 Patricia Blvd.
BIRTHANNOUNCEMENT
Bruce Victor Swan
Nov 2 1945 - Oct 30 2018
It is with heavy hearts that, we the family of Bruce Victor Swan, announce his passing after a brief illness. Bruce was born in Vancouver and moved to Prince George in 1969. A 33 year member of the Prince George Fire Department; he retired in 2005 as Assistant Fire Chief. An avid fisherman, hunter, member of the Ridgeriders ATV club and the Overdrives car club, he enjoyed all aspects of the outdoors. Bruce is survived by his wife, Wanda, daughters Christina of Bermuda and Shaylen Bresett (Mike) of Chestermere, Alberta. He is also survived by his sister Judi Klick (Bill) of Salmon Arm, British Columbia and nieces Gayle and Lisa. He was predeceased by his parents, Edith and Vernon Swan. A Celebration of Life will be held at the Columbus Community Hall located at 7201 Domano Blvd., Thursday, November 8th, 2018. Doors open at 11:00 am, service will commence at 11:30 am. Refreshments and light lunch will follow.
Jean Irene Leeson
Apr 30,1939 - Nov 2, 2018
--------79Years------------
It is with heavy hearts the family of Jean Leeson announces her passing. After a week long battle of surgical complications, Jean passed away with family present in the I.C.U. of UHNBC. Jean is survived by her loving husband of 57 years Frank Leeson, Carla Power (daughter) and husband Warren Power, Heather Moffat (daughter), and grand children Frankie McMillan, Megan & Cody Teichroeb, and Ryan Moffat. Predeceased by her parents; Arthur and Ernestine Hawley, brothers; Fred Laing, Alex Laing, sisters; Millie Deschamps, Rose Trombley, grand-daughter Brittany Jean McMillan and son-in-law Blain McMillan. Jeans laugh was contagious and a warm hand squeeze was always in order when you met her. The door was always open at the Leeson House and what brought the most joy to Jean, was insisting you stay for a wonderful home cooked meal. Her most loved dishes being cinnamon buns, bread, pies, and cabbage rolls. Jean worked at PGSS in the cafeteria for many years and later at Beaverly Elementary until her retirement. Her hobby was cleaning, hard work, and was always there for her friends and family in need. The void she has left behind will not be filled. In loving memory of our wife, mother, granny, and loyal friend.
A celebration of life will be held Friday Nov 9 2018 at 10:00am at Columbus Community Hall 7201 Domano Blvd
The family would like to thank the staff on 3 South, in particular RN Nicole and Dr Lokanathan, she could feel your love and compassion.
Shirley Foster Howell Dec 29, 1936 - Nov 4th 2018
Our beloved mother, Shirley, passed away peacefully on November 4, 2018 at the age of 81 years old. Survived by twin brother Roy (Betty), children: Paula, Lloyd (Heather) and Shari, seven grandchildren and 8.5 great grandchildren. Service will be held at Assman’s Funeral Chapel on Thursday, November 8th at 1:30 pm.
Garry Brade was born May 12, 1953. Garry was a long time resident of the Pineview area, owning & operating the Pineview Store from 1996, for 22 years. He passed away peacefully on November 2nd, 2018 at the Barrhead hospital where he was admitted on Oct. 9, 2018.
Garry was predeceased by his parents Gus & Lottie Brade, his siblings Grace Disterheft, Leon Brade, Richard Brade and Niece Diane Disterheft.
Garry is survived by One sister Janet Thompson, twelve nieces and nephews, and numerous Great Nieces and nephews. There will be a Service held in his honor Saturday November 10th, at 3pm, in the Barrhead drop in center.
WENSCHLAG, Marlene
Joan: It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Marlene Joan Wenschlag (85) on October 21, 2018. She passed away peacefully with her daughter Lorri by her side. She has gone to join her husband Mel, her daughters Joanne Lamble & Donna Penner and her son-in-law Stephen Lamble.
Marlene lived in Prince George for over 50 years and spent many of those working at the Four Seasons pool. She is fondly remembered by many who were taught by her, and others who were lucky enough to work with her and become lifelong friends. After retiring from the pool, Marlene did some traveling and eventually took up acting (her true calling).
She led a group of enthusiastic and talented actors in the ECRA Drama Club, and together they brought joy and laughter to many audiences throughout the years. Marlene will be remembered for her warmth, compassion, integrity and her sense of humour. She will be missed by her daughter; Lorri DeLong (Terry); her loving brother Tom McVie (Susan); her son-in-law Mike; her grandchildren: Kristine, Nicole and Caitlin Lamble; Alisha, Chantelle and Shelby Penner; Jason and Aimee DeLong, great grandson Harrison Penner-Cabral and her niece April (Tom) Ireland and Lisa.
A Celebration of Life will be held at 12 noon on November 10, 2018, Elder Citizens Recreation Association, 1692 10th Ave., Prince George, BC. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Elder Citizens Recreation Association in Marlene’s name. A Go Fund Me page has also been set up by Marlene’s family to receive donations for ECRA. Search under Marlene Wenschlag Memorial Fund.
FOUCHER,CARMENN.
TheFoucher’s/Kipping’s/LeFebvre’swanttothankso manypeople,forallthesupportandlovethatwe receivedwhileourmother/grandmother/sister/aunt/ cousin,CarmenNoellaGraceFoucher,wasgallantly fightingherbattlewithcancerandfinallysuccumbed onAugust31st,withherprideandjoysbyher bedside.
Duringthistimewecreatedastrongerbondand created/renewedfriendships.Friends/familywere generouswithensuringwewerewellfed,knowing wewerethoughtofbythemanybeautifulsympathy cardsandthemanybeautifulbouquetsofflowers. Wehaveahugevoidinourfamilybutweare promisingamongstourfamilytocontinuethe closenessthatCarmenworkedsohardatachieving. Wedidonelastthingforourmotherwhichwasthe tributetripweplannedwithher.Wetookherto Toronto,Montreal,TroisRiviere,Batiscan,andVieux Quebec.Iencourageyoutovisitmymothers websitewhereyoucanseeherlifefrombeginningto end(carmenfoucher.ca).Wealsohavecreateda LegacyFundinhonourofourparentsandallthe informationisonherwebsite.Fromallofher childrenandgrandchildrenwethankyoufromthe bottomofourhearts.
Power of music
Sheryl UBELACKER Citizen news service
It’s long been known that Alzheimer’s patients often retain musical memories, even when recall of names, faces and places has been lost as the disease relentlessly destroys key areas of the brain.
Now Canadian researchers believe they know why, thanks to the power of MRI brain scanning.
Toronto scientists enrolled 20 people with early-stage Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment in a study to discern what was occurring in their brains while they listened to familiar music and a composition they had never heard before while having MRI scans.
When subjects listened to the previously unknown composition, it lit up a region of the brain known as the temporal lobe, “which is what we would have predicted because that part of the brain gets activated when you listen to anything,” said principal investigator Dr. Corinne Fischer, director of the memory disorders clinic at St. Michael’s Hospital.
But when participants listened to familiar music – from a playlist of songs they had chosen going back at least 20 years – there was a much more extensive pattern of activation of several areas of the brain, including those involved with emotion and the processing of language, movement and memory.
“There’s always been this question of why music and the ability to appreciate music is preserved, even in the latest stages of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Fischer.
“And I think one of the things this tells us is that it may be not so much the music as it is that familiar aspect of the music and the fact that that’s activating parts of the brain that aren’t typically damaged by Alzheimer’s pathology.
“So that’s why even though you might not know your name, you may not know your environment, you may still be able to appreciate a song because it’s activating those areas that are not damaged.”
Lead author Michael Thaut, a professor of music and neuroscience at the University of Toronto, said it’s common for people in even relatively advanced stages of Alzheimer’s to call to mind the melodies and lyrics of songs from their past, as well as the autobiographical memories attached to the music.
“They remember quite a bit of music,” he said, adding that someone might say “‘Yes, this is Duke Ellington’ or ‘This was my favourite music when I went out with my wife.’ “But up to this point, we had no idea what the brain mechanisms are that drive these very long-lasting memories.”
That’s why the researchers are excited about their findings, which were to be presented Wednesday as a “hot topic” at the Society for Neuroscience conference in San Diego.
“This is the first study that we’re aware of that has actually studied these kinds of mechanisms and has come up with some ideas why the Alzheimer brain can retain
Kids Help Phone adds texting option
TORONTO (CP) — Canadian youth can now access mental health support through a free bilingual texting service being rolled out across the country by Kids Help Phone.
The charitable organization is introducing the 24/7 texting support option through a service partnership with U.S. based helpline and technology pioneer Crisis Text Line.
A pilot project begun in February in Manitoba and select provinces has logged more than 13,000 texting conversations between young people seeking help and trained volunteer crisis responders.
The pilot study showed that the most common issues affecting young people were anxiety, relationships and feelings of isolation. Twenty-four per cent of texters reached out because of suicidal thoughts.
The confidential service is accessible by texting TALK to 686868 for an English-speaking crisis responder and TEXTO to 686868 to reach a Frenchspeaking counsellor on any text/SMS- enabled cellphone.
The texting service requires no data plan, internet connection or app. For many young people, a lack of privacy, unreliable internet and limited data plans make it difficult to communicate by phone.
Phone and online Live Chat services remain core programs of Kids Help Phone, providing anonymous and confidential professional counselling.
Familiar tunes from past may give Alzheimer’s patients a cognitive boost, study says
music much longer than other stuff,” said Thaut, who designed the research and analysed the data.
“So I think this is a breakthrough study.”
For Colleen Newell, taking part in the research confirmed something she had long suspected – that her memory problems and difficulty with organization were signs of cognitive impairment.
“That’s one reason I went into the study,” said the 60-year-old guitarist, pianist and songwriter, one of about five professional musicians included in the research. “Not only did I recognize I was dropping (forgetting) nouns, but that my mother has Alzheimer’s.
“She’s 80, and she was having similar memory issues at my age. So I wanted to have a baseline to see what was going on.”
As part of the research, subjects were asked to listen to their playlist for an hour a day for three weeks, while trying to recollect associated life events and discussing them with family members or caregivers. They were then cognitively tested and also had their brains scanned again.
“What we found was there was improvement in brain functional connectivity, changes in brain activation and also improvements in memory scores, which told us that by exposing the brain repeatedly to this familiar music, people were actually improving cognitively and there was evidence that their brain was also changing,”
This is the first study that we’re aware of that has actually studied these kinds of mechanisms and has come up with some ideas why the Alzheimer brain can retain music much longer than other stuff.
— Lead author Michael Thaut
said Fischer.
Connectivity is a measure of information flow between different brain regions, an important component of neurological function; enhanced connectivity and the other changes suggest that repeatedly listening to familiar music may give the Alzheimeraffected brain a cognitive boost, said Thaut, calling the results “stunning.”
“So I think we’re sitting on something extremely important.”
Fisher said these are preliminary results that need to be replicated in a much larger study, and future research also needs to determine if the beneficial effects of routinely
No more judging of pot-using parents
I’m stressed. Revelatory, right? What parent isn’t stressed in 2018? The ’80s and ’90s parenting villages that once lovingly ushered child-minding from one home to another have been replaced with judgmental articles about gluten and screen time. Career-wise, I live a variable freelance life that involves daily pitching and daily rejection. My family is saving for my son’s college education while also paying for his preschool tuition. As I’m writing this, the cat has vomited on my bed. Like I said, I’m stressed.
My husband, Dave, likes to help, and so it was on the eve of my birthday a few weeks ago that he decided to bombard me with feelgood gifts: a weighted blanket, knitting supplies, chocolate and writers’ reference books. “There’s one more thing,” he said before disappearing to retrieve something from his car. Like a man with a dark secret, he returned with a sheepish look and a package clutched behind his back.
“Take this the way it is intended,” he began. “You said that childbirth changed your reaction to alcohol and you don’t like it anymore.”
“Yeah...”
“And you can’t turn your brain off when it comes to the baby and work.”
“Yes.”
“And sometimes, you wish you could decompress at the end of the day.”
“True.”
“Well,” he said, “do you want to try this?”
He handed me a package that included three tins of cannabis mints laced with various concentrations of CBD and THC. At age 35, I found myself in the middle of an after-school special.
I grew up around drug users. I never went in search of “the stash,” but it was always there: behind the breadbox on the deepest kitchen counter, in the back of a closet, in the air that smelled faintly of skunk and pesto sauce. It
made me nervous. The secrecy of it, combined with a rocky childhood and the harsh warnings from the local DARE program, formed my early and deep-rooted opinions: drugs were bad, dangerous and a waste of time. And so too, if only by my direct associations, were the people who used them.
Dave knows this about me, so it was hard to picture him perusing the aisles of a Seattle dispensary for my birthday gift. He decided to appeal to my analytical nature: in true engineer fashion, he launched into a 15-minute scientific presentation about CBD and THC. “That stands for cannabidiol and tetrahydrocannabinol,” he instructed. The CliffsNotes revealed that CBD is the second most abundant cannabinoid found in the marijuana plant. Often described as “nonpsychoactive,” it’s sometimes used to treat anxiety and seizures. THC, like alcohol and other substances, impacts the part of the brain that affects decision-making and motor skills. It also has the benefit of providing that euphoric response that many a stressed parent relies on after a long day. Before I lost my tolerance for alcohol, I was never opposed to having a glass or two of wine. The concentration of CBD and THC in my gifted mints, my sweet husband told me, were equivalent in terms of intoxication.
As amused and intrigued as I was by the presentation, I had a question.
“Do you think I need to get high?”
“No, not at all,” he said. “I just think you deserve a break.” Okay, then. Sign me up.
The Saturday following my birthday was the perfect opportunity. I’ll take one during nap time, I thought. My son sleeps for around three hours, about as long as it takes for two glasses of wine
listening to familiar music persist or are transient.
Still, the researchers hope their findings may offer the basis for a targeted form of music therapy, with a goal of potentially slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and possibly other types of dementia – none of which has an effective pharmaceutical treatment or cure.
“Alzheimer’s disease at this point is non-reversible,” said Thaut, who suggests people with the condition could mimic the study protocol on their own, by listening to familiar songs of the past each day and recalling the life events the music evokes.
“We cannot say you will be healthy,” he said. “But we can say if you engage in that kind of exercise with your family, your friends, with the caregiver, your spouse, even to go to concerts, just engage your brain in music, from the data we have there will be some cognitive benefit.”
While the research found that non-musicians seemed to make more cognitive gains than those who routinely play instruments, Newell said she hopes continuing the study protocol on her own “will bump me up to keep me going.”
“And also it encourages me to listen, just to listen to music,” said Newell, a worship leader at a Toronto Anglican church, whose role includes spiritually based music. “I guess just incorporating it more into my daily life.”
to enter and leave my system. One little mint would probably last that long. As he and Dave toddled upstairs to read a book, I popped 10 milligrams of a CBD/THC combo and turned on the TV.
Nothing happened in the first two hours. Maybe weed just doesn’t affect me, I thought. Or maybe years of peripheral exposure built up my tolerance. Those thoughts went away by hour three, when my legs began to grow and the sofa began to sink. Dave looked on with concern.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. You OK?”
“Yes. I just realized my legs are long. Do I seem high?”
“No, you seem like you... with long legs. How are you feeling?” How was I feeling? I couldn’t put a word to it, but I can tell you what I wasn’t feeling. For the first time in about six years, I wasn’t feeling stressed or preoccupied by the familiar pull of my Type-A brain – the one that never shuts off. I wasn’t worried about the kid or my career trajectory or the house or the college fund or the retirement fund. I wasn’t feeling much of anything. I was in the moment. I just was. The buzz that was meant to end with nap time lasted nine hours, and included playing with my
son and watching four consecutive hours of Home Improvement reruns on Hulu. I was enthralled.
“This show is so fun,” I said as my son and I snuggled and munched on handfuls of popcorn.
“We should have two more kids – two more boys!” I told my husband.
“Oh yeah,” Dave said. “You’re definitely high.”
The Lost Saturday ended with dinner as usual, followed by an unplanned nap for me on the sofa. I woke up feeling relaxed and hangover-free. Mine was not a brief high, and I can’t say that I’ll be popping another mint any time soon, especially with my threeyear-old in tow. But for parents with a higher tolerance and more experience, I could see how the occasional lozenge might be a useful alternative to anti-anxiety meds or “wine o’clock,” both of which carry similar effects and – inexplicably –half the stigma. For now, I have a lifetime supply of edibles stashed on the top shelf of my closet, and I don’t feel like a bad person – or a bad mom. And it is possible that leaving the door open to a therapeutic mint after my son’s bedtime on a Saturday night might lead to a more relaxed Sunday. I could use more of those.
CP PHOTO
Musician Colleen Newell holds her guitar at St. Saviour’s Anglican Church in Toronto. Newell took part in a new Alzheimer’s disease study run by a group of scientists in Toronto.
SARAH SZCZYPINSKI Special to The Washington Post
Guest Column
AP PHOTO
A marijuana plant grows inside Ultra Health’s cultivation greenhouse in Bernalillo, N.M.
P.G. armwrestler showcased in documentary
Frank PEEBLES Citizen staff
fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
There might be a lineup of actors squaring off to play Vern Martel in his biopic.
A screenwriter couldn’t have written a better script than what really happened when the longtime arm wrestling champ made his comeback in Halifax at the national championships. At the bottom of his reach, his opponent pressing the back of his hand within a wafer breadth of the elimination table, a surge of emotional power overcame him and like a mythical hero on the brink of destruction, he halted the forces pushing against him, reversed the flow, and inch by inch his arm climbed the golden arch every arm wrestler lives under.
The wily veteran drew on some instinctual history and reversed the flow of that moment’s energy. Micro movements turned into a tide of muscle. His opponent had no answer and gradually succumbed to Martel’s unrelenting reversal.
He had come back to win the match, like he had come back so many times before.
Once, he came back from a motorcycle crash that took away the use of his left arm – an arm most athletes in his sport use as their main leverage weapon.
He had to come back from a broken hand bone that took him out of the sport for two years.
This time, Martel had come back from cancer, a bout that had him heading toward that final tap-out just like his opponent that Halifax day, but when Vern Martel rallies, there’s no human force that can stop him, even when it’s within himself.
If only cameras had been rolling for that last victory. What an epic film finale that would have been.
But wait.
There were cameras.
A documentary crew from Picture This Productions was in the process of filming some of the key athletes on this Canadian underground battlefield. One of the competitors they were told to focus on was Prince George’s “One Armed Bandit,” one of
the most decorated figures in the history of the arm wrestling sport (three world titles, plus innumerable Canadian successes). When someone wins as many national titles as Martel, that stands out, but when you come back from a nearly fatal illness to do it again, that’s another level.
“I’ve won everything out there. I had nothing to prove to anyone else,” Martel told The Citizen. “But despite cancer knocking me down, being able to get back to the table was a big victory for myself personally, and they (Picture This Productions’ crew) followed me through that right to the Candian championships in Halifax. I had a very inspiring moment there. It was almost like slow motion, when it was happening, and the crowd went crazy when it ended.
“Even the camera guy had tears in his eyes and David (Finch, director and co-producer) told me he could not have written a better script. And I was so drained, so emotional, to discover I could still have a mo-
ment like that after what cancer did to me.”
Martel’s story now forms part of the documentary series Arm Nation that is showing on APTN. The weekly half-hour show follows a number of arm wrestling stars from Canada, with special attention given to athletes like Martel who come from Aboriginal backgrounds.
“They are trying to change the view people have of arm wrestling, showing its family side, the generations that get involved in it, and all the countries that get involved,” said Martel. “It’s a sport that’s really taken off on a global level but isn’t in the public eye in Canada. I’m hoping Arm Nation can change that a bit.
At the last world championships there were actually more countries taking part than at the Olympics, and it is also really Paralympics-friendly. The IOC (International Olympic Committee) has been made aware of that over in Europe.”
Few can demonstrate these traits of the sport like Martel.
“I think finally, Canada is get-
ting a look at Canadians being involved in the sport because of Arm Nation,” he said. “I think the quality of the series is really high, there will be a good-sized audience for it, and that will lead to other opportunities for broadcasting on more networks. I’d love to see someone like Netflix pick it up. And if arm wrestling could ever get a sports network to televise it, that would be huge.”
As much as being an ambassador for his sport, and an emissary of inspiration, Martel is proud to always make it plain that he did it all from Prince George. He is already a member of this city’s Sports Hall Of Fame and now he will be seen by a nationwide audience on APTN. Arm Nation airs at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesdays in the Dene language. English language versions are aired Mondays at noon, Thursdays at 4 p.m. and Saturdays at 7 p.m. (Pacific Time).
Episodes in the series that have already aired can be viewed at will on the APTN website.
Citizen Photo by James Doyle
Vern Martel, a multi-award winning arm wrestler, is seen at his home holding up a sign for arm Nation, the 13-episode documentary series in which he is featured. the series is airing on the aPtN network.
Local matriarch of five generations enjoys her family
Nell (Dafoe) Glass is the proud matriarch of five generations all of which live here in Prince George. Here is a glimpse of her 98 years on this Earth.
Nell was born in 1920 in Hanna, Alberta in the middle of a snowstorm. Her grandmother had to deliver her because the doctor was not able to get to their farm to bring her into this world because of the storm.
Nell was always full of energy (and she still is) and throughout her life her father quite often commented and said, “Why not – she was born during a snowstorm.”
She was one of four children. Her mother passed away when she was seven years old and her older brother died of diphtheria at the age of six. When her father remarried, she gained three half-sisters.
Nell grew up on a farm and at the age of 16 she moved to Grenfell, Sask. and attended Bible school. Two years later, she moved to Port Coquitlam and finished Bible school.
She met Andrew Glass, an Air Force airman, in Lethbridge. She said that the chance meeting was a story by itself but to make a long story short she met him at a bowling alley and they got married in 1942. They were married for 15 years when sadly Andrew passed away as the result of the Asiatic Flu during the Asian Flu Pandemic of 1957.
The Asian flu outbreak caused an estimated two million deaths worldwide and is considered one of the three influenza pandemics of the 20th century.
They had three children, ages seven, nine and 12 when he passed away. As a military widow Nell first went to live with Andrews family in Vancouver. She bought a house in Point Grey and raised her children.
Nell said, “I worked at Woodward’s in downtown Vancouver for 15 years. I was diligent in all my work at Woodward’s and I loved the job and the people. I eventually moved to Port Coquitlam and bought into a laundromat and dry-cleaning business for the next 12 years.
“When the children were raised and happy in their lives I retired at the age of 60. I sold the big house and the business and bought a place in Phoenix, Arizona. I decided it was my turn and I went dancing every night except for Sunday and I was the head of the shuffleboard team.
“I knew everyone in the Palm Lakes community in Arizona and I wintered there for the next 26 years and spent the
summers on a rotating basis with my children.”
Nell loved her winters in Arizona and enjoyed exploring nearby caves and many of the Arizona canyons. She enjoyed cruising to Hawaii, Alaska and the Panama Canal and eventually sold the property in Arizona and moved to Prince George.
Nell said, “I recently moved to the River Bend complex and decided this would be my permanent residence because of the congenial staff members and all the new and friendly people I have met here.
“I love playing cards and especially bridge. I enjoy singing and I appreciate all music. I am in basically good health except for the fact that I have old Mr. ‘Art-the-ritis’ living with me but we manage to get along. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for the good doctors that installed my pacemaker three years ago. I also got a new hip a while back so I am a bionic woman.
“I will be 98 in a few short days and I am thankful to the Lord because I have so much energy. I have the ability to do active things and I am blessed with the feeling that I am full of physical power and life and that is a truly great feeling.
“I raised three wonderful children; Andrew, a business man and his wife Dianne live in Ontario and Norman (deceased) was an accomplished musician.
My daughter Sharon works at UNBC and her husband Ron Kell worked for the railroad in Prince George for 30 years and now drives the Northern Health Connections bus.
“I am so proud to say that I also have four grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren and one great-great grandchild. They are all such darlings and they all have a piece of my heart. It is a wonderful feeling to have five generations of our family living here in Prince George and I love them all dearly.
“For many years I cooked all the big holiday dinners until my daughter Sharon took it over. Now, I just go and enjoy my family and the great meal. They don’t allow me to do anything and I love it. Actually, at this point, I would probably just be in the way.
“Many times, I think back to the devastating time of my life when my
husband passed away. My father was always the man of the house and so was Andrew; he was strong and I relied on him. I lived with my in-laws for the first year after he passed away. It was a hard year for me and I thought that I was not going to be able to get past it or even live through it. I still thank the Lord for guiding me through all those difficult years. I survived it by learning to have a positive attitude and that made me strong.
“I have always been thankful that none of my children went astray and of course in my eyes they are all perfect. I don’t know how I would have survived without them.
“My family has been good to me and for some reason they all think they need to repay me. I want them to know that there is no such thing as repaying me. Regardless, they are always there for me when I need them.”
***
November birthdays that I know about: Nell Glass turns 98, Mary Kordyban, Shirley Bond, Eva Buchi, Noreen Rustad, Jim Rustad, Amelia Peterson, Ginny Jenkins, Lorraine Anderson,
O’Shea, Karen Loehndorf, Maurice
Victoria
Ken Royston,
Darrell Rutledge, Jan
Robin
Wendy
Helen Eberherr, Maureen Keibel, Ed Parent, Gale Russell, Randy Sokolowski, Jean Staniland, Maureen Suter, Rita Svatos, Ken Dahl, Eva Switzer, Margaret Toyata, Andrea Palombo, Myrna Lemke, Barbara Fairservice, Pat Collicutt, Dolly Girard, Vi Forden, Bill Roper, Bill Smith, Agnes Lavale, Marlene Arndt, Christena Benwell, Sylvia Fetterly, Sharon Halvorson, Lindsay Hick, Lucien Prevost, Leno Ouellette, Maureen Braun, Jack Paul, Sharon Paul, Annette Kennedy, Neil Hunter, Edith White, Fred Schaefer, Clarence Mork, Bill Heather, Roy Ceal, Charles MacDonald and Violet Symon turned 98 in October.
***
November anniversaries that I know about: 66 years for Roy and Ivy Whitfield, 65 years for John and Iva Lovett, 58 years for Ted and Carol Haugland, 53 years for Walter and Betty Wessner, 52 years for Vern and Verna Wright, and 42 years for Larry and Kelly Flath.
Ann
Mingay,
Nudds,
Bev Kelly,
Rivers, Carron Dunn,
Wright,
Schmidt,
Citizen photo by James Doyle
nell glass is matriarch of five generations of her family, including from left standing, Sharon Kell, 67, Michelle chapman, 47, and crystal chapman, 24. Seated is nell glass, 97, and Lily Mayhew-chapman, 16 months.
Kathy NadaliN
Seniors’ Scene
Sport a good way to build community
South African president Nelson Mandela said, “Sport has the power to change the world.”
This may seem a preposterous statement when we look at the greed, corruption and division that often makes the headlines in the world of sport. We read of doping scandals, owners not taking responsibility for the safety of their players, and athletes
Lessons
in Learning
Gerry ChidiaC
being blackballed for taking a stand on significant social issues. Scholars and
activists also refer to sport as mere distraction, something to draw people away from the significant issues of the day.
Are these things inherent to sport, or are they a manifestation of people simply forgetting the true essence of athleticism? As Shakespeare said, “Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”
What then is the essence that Mandela was speaking of? In order to understand this, we need to look at how Mandela used sport to change his own country.
Mandela became the first black president of a country that was deeply divided along racial lines in 1994. For generations white South Africans lived in wealth while black South Africans lived in poverty, without a say in the governing of their country. The wielding of unjust power left deep wounds of division and resentment in the hearts and minds of the majority of the population.
Rugby was the sport of the white South Africans, and they loved their national team, the Springboks. The rest of the company loved cheering for their demise.
When Mandela took power he knew that he had to send a clear message to his white minority and to the rest of the population that the new South Africa was one nation, one people. The upcoming 1995 Rugby World Cup was the perfect opportunity to do so.
As president, Mandela reached out to white South Africans with a hand of friendship and support, despite the fact that he had been imprisoned for 27 years by their state. He called on non-white South Africans to do the same, but he also called on the predominantly white rugby team to reach out to the black population.
In the end, he gave all South Africans an event that they could celebrate together. The underdog Springboks defeated the mighty All Blacks of New Zealand to win the 1995 World Cup, in
what many believe is the most significant rugby match in history.
Sports are about much more than winning. It is in this striving to win, however, that we learn to draw out our greatest potential, and learn to work together with people we may not normally associate with.
I recall talking about the history of integration in sports with my class when one of my student-athletes asked, “Doesn’t it just make sense? Wouldn’t they want to just put the best players available on the team?” Indeed, when does segregation ever really make sense?
Sports have a very special way of bringing people together, and we see many organizations using it as a means of education and community building. One such organization is Peace Players, which focuses primarily on the use of basketball to bring young people together in polarized American cities, in the Middle East, and in many other parts of the world.
In the summer of 2015, Villanova men’s basketball coach Jay Wright joined a Peace Players mission to Israel. In many ways, the divisions between Israelis and Palestinians are not unlike those that existed in South Africa during Mandela’s lifetime. Yet Wright observed these barriers break down between the young players on the court. The success of the team even began to bring the parents together.
Sport has the power to inspire and unite, to draw out the best in individuals and the best in humanity. These are indeed lofty ideals, but they are also very human ideals, ideals which are well within the grasp of each and every one of us.
— Gerry Chidiac is a champion for social enlightenment, inspiring others to find their greatness in making the world a better place. For more of his writings, go to www.gerrychidiac.com.
Local writer a finalist for national poetry award
Frank
PEEBLES Citizen staff fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Andrew Burton has always had a gritty pen.
The Prince George writer has written plays, short stories and poetry, most predominantly, and even though he hits veins of comedy and poignancy, the foundation has always been raw reality.
He has won international awards for his theatre work (he is the founder of Street Spirits Theatre Company, among other stage ventures) and critical acclaim for his verse has also been widespread.
The latest honour is in the form of national broadcasting attention. Burton was named, this week, as one of the Top 30 finalists for the CBC Poetry Prize. His poem Where You From? made the nationwide long-list and in true Burtonian fashion it scrabbles in the grime and chill of the Canadian gutters and alleys.
“Some of it came from my youth,” Burton told The Citizen. “I did have a period when I was about 15 to about 18 when I was living on the street in Winnipeg, and then later on I got into the helping professions and was back on the street working in that different way. The poem comes from that combination of experiences.”
Burton now works for Northern Health as a counsellor and advocate in realms like addictions, abuse, street risk, and all those nuanced levers that need to be pulled and pushed when your title is Social Worker.
“I’ve written a lot about street life, over many years – different aspects of counterculture,” he said. “I think a big part of my poetry has been observational stuff and sometimes very direct and sometimes not.”
Winnipegers, he said, will recognize their city in this poem. When he was a youth, he lived in a condemned apartment above a street-level prosthetic limb factory. The apartments were disallowed by city inspectors because there was no alternate fire escape route. The landlord offered the apartments up for off-the-books residents, and Burton was one among the “sketchy counterculture crowd” who didn’t mind taking the risk for a cheap room. He said nobody was worried because there were ways of getting out of a potential fire anyway.
References to different points of known Winnipeg geography and culture were also enjoined with aspects of Prince George.
“It’s a bit of a mashup,” he said. The concrete canyon between the Art Gallery and The Bay is out of Winnipeg, but “there’s a reference to the soup bus, and that is about the one that used to be a staple in Prince George’s
He’s been writing poetry for decades, using it as a means of personal expression, catharsis, arrangement of thought, and fun. A lot was for his own sake but he also knew he could move others with his words.
The first time his scribery came to the attention of the national broadcaster was when he was living in Thompson, Manitoba prior to moving to Prince George. He would frequently drive to Winnipeg, a distance about equivalent to Vancouver from this city. His constant companion was the radio, and the only station that spanned the distance was CBC. As he rolled along one day in the 80s he heard an ad for a postcard poem – a fully formed piece that was both short and emblematic of the Canadian experience.
“I pulled over and sat at a diner in Ashern, listened in on conversations there, wrote what came to me at the table, submitted it, and I guess it struck a chord because I won,” he said.
It was a sparked fuse after that. The prairie edition of the CBC would hold quarterly poetry competitions and Burton submitted frequently, and would sometimes win.
Another interaction between he and the
CBC occurred when their World Service branch took one of his poems and arranged for an actor to read it over the air to the world. It was a Christmas piece for family listening.
That was honour enough, Burton said, but it was heard in England by a publisher who contacted him about supplying a regular series of family-friendly poems to their magazine.
He happened to also be publishing a series of murder stories to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. “It was really dark stuff,” he said, “then I had to switch my mind over to children’s poems for Parent Connection.”
His writing has ebbed and flowed over the years, but his pen has always been near at hand. He was part of the Murder Of Crows writing group that ganged up to publish some chapbooks of poetry, and he also produced two chapbooks as a soloist.
Storm Season and Word Games can both be found at Books & Company now, and they will be joined on Nov. 14 by Daymares, the new volume of poetry Burton will personally unveil at a book launch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. that day.
The CBC Poetry Prize will have its Top 30
whittled down to a shortlist with the ultimate winner announced on Nov. 14. The longlist was chosen by a panel of poets and editors from across Canada before going to a jury comprised of Jordan Abel, Kai Cheng Thom and Ruth B who will decide the finalists and winner.
Where You From?
by Andrew Burton
I am a castoff child of the city
I am from the back alleys haunted by threadbare rats scrapping over the remains of soup bus sandwiches vomited up by junkies too long in the needle to care
I am from the twilight time before the sun creeps up all stealth and anger hungry to chase the last husks of homeless souls from the shadowy places I am from denim clad zombies rolling from bar to bar to all night diner sitting where they can see the door where no one can get behind them I am from faded runaways hiding track marks with dollar store makeup trading sex for cocaine in the woods along the banks of the Assiniboine
I am from ghost riders too dumb to know they’re dead watching for the angles for that one clean cut that one tight score to brag about on the floor of a crack house in the Village I am from the rumble of traffic after midnight echoing back and forth in the concrete canyon between the Art Gallery and The Bay I am from strangers with no last names sharing a condemned apartment over a factory furnished with car seats and scavenged plywood.
I am from smiling and high fiving old friends speaking the rituals the magic words to connect a we are besties smile with one hand resting on a shiv in the back pocket.
I am from Old English in a brown paper bag drunk by the fountain on Broadway knowing the cops have us in their sights not giving a shit I am from the night
Citizen photo by brent braaten
andrew Burton, founder of Street Spirits theatre company, is a finalist for a national poetry prize.
cadets placed
Veterans Memorial Ceremony at cemetery filled with stark reminders
Christine HINZMANN Citizen staff chinzmann@pgcitizen.ca
With a blustery wind insisting hundreds of Canadian flags stand at attention for those lost in conflict, the Military Church Parade and Veterans Memorial Ceremony took place Sunday morning at Memorial Park Cemetery.
The 100 or so people who attended saw the event begin with a military parade where representatives from the Royal Canadian Legion, the RCMP, Rocky Mountain Rangers B Coy/2618 and the Rocky Mountain Ranger Army Cadets, Navy League Cadets and Royal Canadian Sea Cadets marched to the veterans memorial from the gates of the cemetery.
Chaplain Susan Scott presided over the ceremony and offered a remembrance prayer for those lost or who still suffer because of conflict. She included all those in attendance who serve their country and community as well as civilians.
A representative from each service organization was offered the opportunity to say a few words, along with those from federal, provincial and local government officials and Lheidli T’enneh representatives.
The most poignant moment came as several representatives lay poppies on the veterans memorial.
“Throughout our nation’s history Canadians have answered the world’s call,” Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty said. “In my mind, heroes don’t wear a cape. They wear our maple leaf on their shoulder, they wear shoulder flashes that say paramedic, EMT, police officer, firefighter. They are our military and today is a stark
reminder that freedom is not free. The great men and women who have answered the call – and their families – have sacrificed for you and your family and my family. Collectively, they have paid our debt for our safety, security and freedom and for that we say thank you.”
Linda Stacey and Steven Witte were part of the crowd of onlookers who bore witness to the solemn ceremony taking place.
“We’re here for the usual good and wholesome reason, supporting our veterans because they are the reason we have freedom today, but there’s another special reason for us and that’s Christopher Stacey, my step son and Linda’s son – we lost him two years ago at the Comox air force base.”
Cpl. Stacey, 29, was a firefighter at 19 Wing Comox who died in a car accident on March 26, 2016.
Stacey enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces in Prince George in 2008 as an infantryman, Witte explained. Stacey served with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light infantry in Afghanistan, Witte added. Stacey served in Afghanistan from Oct. 2009 until April 2010. In March 2013, Stacey transferred to be a firefighter and was posted to Comox that fall and remained there until his death.
Linda said this ceremony is the most important to her over and above the Remembrance Day ceremonies that will take place next Sunday because it’s at the cemetery where those who have been lost have been laid to rest.
After the ceremony, everyone at the cemetery was invited to go to the Legion to spend some time together.
Remembrance Day schedule
Citizen staff
The annual Remembrance Day ceremony takes place Sunday at the Prince George Civic Centre beginning at 9:15 a.m.
Following the traditional ceremony the parade to assemble will take place along Canada Games Way to the temporary cenotaph on Seventh Avenue, near the Terry Fox Memorial at 10:45 a.m.
After the outdoor ceremony the parade will turn back up Seventh Avenue, turn right on Quebec Street, left onto Fifth Avenue, left onto Brunswick, back to Ninth Avenue, and turn left onto Games Plaza. The review platform will be at Seventh Avenue, near Brunswick Street.
Dominion Street will not be blocked to allow full access/
egress for the Prince George Fire Rescue Service.
Parking will be available at the former Days Inn, with access on Quebec Street, Sixth Avenue, or Dominion Street.
Parking is also available at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena, city hall, and the public library.
Pay parking is available at the
Coast hotel and Courtyard by Marriott, accessible parking for those with a registered tag is at the parking lot beside the Four Seasons Pool, closest to the Civic Centre. As always refreshments are available at the Royal Canadian Legion, 1116 Sixth Ave. after the ceremonies.
Citizen Photo by James Doyle
poppies during the Military church parade and Veterans Memorial ceremony on Sunday morning at Memorial park cemetery.
Citizen file Photo
a rose with a veterans’ poppy sits of the cenotaph downtown prince george in 2010.
Halloween etiquette proves we still live in polite society
It is early in the morning, the day after Halloween and my kids are still sleeping off their Halloween hangover. If you know anything about my household, you would understand how unusual it is for me to be awake, showered, dressed, breakfast eaten, coffee-in-hand and alone.
The stars and planets have aligned and I am sitting on the couch, typing away, sipping coffee that is too hot; no one is complaining, needing toast or cereal or fighting with their sibling. I feel uncomfortable with the silence and my productivity.
Our Halloween was easy. Both of the kids wanted to wear the same costume as last year (Darth Vader and a Scary Ghost) and they resisted all of my attempts at a new costume.
We met my cousins at my mom’s house, as we do every year, because we are spread out throughout the city and there is excellent trick-or-treating in my mom’s neighbourhood in the Hart.
My husband and my cousins tease me every year calling me the Halloween Nazi although I do not find my attitude quite as funny as they do.
Just because I think that the children need to learn to not go traipsing through people’s lawns and should say “thank you” after they have received candy, does not mean that I am overly militant.
This is what I was insisting, in between yelling at the kids about inefficient trickor-treating and reminding the big kids to wait for the littles. I ignored my husband who was mimicking what I said in a thick German accent.
When I mentioned to the other parents that I hated it when the kids cut through people’s lawns, my cousin (who is used to me and my ridiculousness) very calmly said that it was likely okay that the kids were running around and to be expected on Halloween.
That was when I remembered why I cared about the lawns. When I was a young girl trick-or-treating in my
Home Again
Megan kuklIs
neighbourhood, an elderly man yelled at me and my friend for cutting through his lawn. He was mean and it scared us. I apparently have internalized a fear of being yelled at again and now am instilling the same fear in my children. Except, I don’t think they could even hear my protests about cutting through people’s yards over the sugar rush to their wee heads and the dull roar of adrenalin of being allowed to be out after dark, running without fear and, talking to and taking candy from strangers.
Halloween must be a little confusing because it is the one day in the year that we collectively throw out all of the rules of polite society.
Something wonderful happened on Halloween that made me feel optimistic about the kindness of future generations. Because it was a relatively mild night, there were more Halloween-friendly houses (pumpkins, screen doors braced open and spooky decorations) that did not have anyone home.
Presumably, the people were out trick-or-treating with their own kids or grandkids and did not have anyone to hand out candy.
Instead, many of the houses left their candy in large bowls on their porches. Any time I see a bowl, I always assume it will be empty because people are greedy but house after house had their bowls out and still half-full of candy.
I watched our kids run up to the house, take one piece of candy and run to the next house. The thought of taking the whole bowl of candy or more than one piece did not even occur to them.
Halloween rules applied but they were all still polite and respectful – even without me yelling reminders at them.
China’s ‘Useless Edison’ thrives on quirky gadgets
Anna FiField Citizen news service
YANG VILLAGE, China — His fans call him “The Useless Edison.” But inventor Geng Shuai doesn’t mind. In fact, he kind of likes it.
“People say my inventions are useless, but I think there are two dimensions to usefulness: practicality and amusement,” said the 30-year-old former welder, who left his job last year to focus full time on making his questionable contraptions, such as a motorbike with its own toilet.
“I like doing this. So it’s useful.”
Every country has its toolshed inventors. But China – which gave the world movable-type printing, gunpowder and the compass – has spawned a population of tinkerers who display the kind of outsize ambition that has helped the country become a global economic giant.
There’s a surprisingly large subset of farmers and other DIY devotees who have built submarines and light aircraft, various kinds of robotic plows and monster truck-style tractors.
Geng may now be the bestknown among them – a new kind of social media star whose calling card is his quirkiness.
Standing in his workshop in
this tiny village outside Beijing, Geng shows off his inventions. There’s the meat cleaver turned hair comb. And there’s a tennis racket-size watermelon-slicer.
There’s the earthquake-proof noodle bowl that swings in its stand to allow the eater to continue slurping through seismic waves. There are the slippers made from metal nuts.
But Geng is most proud of his hammer bag. It’s a hollow steel mallet with a compartment that slides out of the head. Perfect, he says, for storing your phone, keys and wallet. It has a strap so it can hang over the wearer’s shoulder.
“It’s very fashionable,” he said, modeling his creation. “And if someone tries to steal your bag, you can just throw it at them.”
But Geng, who grew up making things in his family’s pump factory, is a special kind of Chinese entrepreneur. He does not make money from his inventions. Well, not directly.
He makes a living through inadvertently hilarious videos –filmed with the Chinese beauty filters that make everyone look like an airbrushed star – in which he shows how he makes his inventions and then hams it up for the camera as he demonstrates how to use them.
With smoldering eyes, he combs his messy hair with the meat cleaver. He falls out of the slippers while trying to walk
down a country road in them.
And he presents a motorbike with a seat that lifts up to reveal a squat toilet. Just turn the throttle to flush. (Luckily the video cuts out before Geng unzips his fly.)
He now has almost 2 million followers on the video site Kwai, and they give him mobile phone “tips” for his performances – the internet equivalent of a busker getting cash dropped in a hat.
His biggest tippers get their names on plaques on the wall in his workshop, which is often the set for his videos.
Geng tries to come up with a new invention every week and to make videos two or three times a week. He makes about $150 every time he does a livestreamed broadcast – decent money in a town where five people can have a lavish lunch for a total of $25. He makes enough to support his family – he and his wife have two children – and his brother, who shoots the videos.
Geng attributes his fame to China’s rapid industrialization, which has seen millions of people migrate from rural regions to small apartments in the big cities, where they work long days.
“Chinese people love inventions and inventing stuff, but because of economic development, most people don’t have the time to do it,” he said.
Bad driving habits plus bad weather a deadly combo
New Car Dealers Association of BC
As weather patterns change, roadways are becoming slick as they are greeted by rain or snow, depending on where you live. It’s also dark earlier and traffic tends to move at a slower pace. And while many drivers will take a little extra time to get to their destination and adopt a more cautious approach, not all will.
All too often there are close calls or worse because drivers are speeding or simply not adhering to some of the very basic rules that accompany the responsibility that comes with getting behind the wheel. It is in this spirit that I have prepared my personal list of the top 10 worst driving habits, in no particular order:
1. Speeding: It goes without saying that as road conditions deteriorate over the course of the fall and winter, speeding is the leading cause of accidents.
2. Accelerating through yellow lights as they turn red: Slow down as you enter an intersection to determine whether it is safe to proceed on a yellow light – don’t accelerate as it simply increases the chance of an accident.
3. Not using your turn signals properly: Turn signals are intended to give fellow drivers warning that you intend to turn or change lanes. Signalling while you are already in the process of a maneuver defeats the purpose and poses a risk to you and other drivers.
4. Not checking blind spots: Drivers know that blind spots can be dangerous, but not even trying to check them is more dangerous, especially when moving into another lane. Use your rear-view mirror and side view mirrors, along with a shoulder check.
5. Cutting other cars off: If you are changing lanes, be aware of other vehicles around you. Know your surroundings and the speed at which other vehicles are travelling.
6. Not merging properly: Use the merge lane appropriately, easing your way into traffic in a cautious manner, using the entire length of the lane if needed.
7. Tailgating: It should go without saying but keep a safe distance between you and the vehicle in front of you, especially when road conditions are not at their best.
8. Using your cell phone: Stay focused on what should be your only consideration when behind the wheel of a car – driving. Leave your phone alone, it’s the law.
9. Ignoring stop signs: The sign says STOP. Enough said.
10. Ignoring pedestrian walkways: Slow down and look both ways when approaching a pedestrian walkway and allow a pedestrian to make their way through a walkway before proceeding.
It’s easy to be dismissive when presented with what may appear to be the obvious. However, numbers cited by ICBC, high-risk driving behaviours contribute to 43 per cent of all crashes that result in death or injury in B.C. Blair Qualey is president and CEO of the New Car Dealers Association of BC. You can email him at bqualey@newcardealers.ca.
Blair Qualey
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