WANT ADS
Buy or Sell Everything
Phone LO 4-2441
The Only Daily Newspaper Serving North-Central British Columbia
WEATHER FORECAST
Low -10, High 15, Sunny
Crown Life Insurance Co.
Wm. J. Shockey
District Representative
Phone LOgon 4-2441
Vol. 4; No. 43
PRINCE GEORGE, BRITISH COLUMBIA, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1960
7c a Copy
BY CARRIER 35c PER WEEK
/The Ncchakb River here is threatening to burst its banks and plunge into the Planer Row area of the city.
Ice on the river is forming conditions much !i!-:c those which have resulted in flooding in recent years.
Lumber operators in low lying areas near the river are anxiously Watching the river rise ami fall as it battles to break an ice jam near the Island Cache which is holding back a mass of ice floes stretching to the new Ne-ehako bridge. FINGERS CROSSED
Tom Dilworth of Prince George Planing Mills Ltd., which stands to bear the brunt of any flood, said today "I'm sitting with my fingers crossed." He said the river, which has risen about four feet in about three days, was "less than 10 inches from the flood point" at 10 a.m. today.
About four other lumbermen along Planer Row, heart of the lumbering industry here, are also keeping close tabs on the river.
Recent cold weather is blamed for the jam near the Island Cache, and other smaller jams which apparently are helpin? hold the huge mass of ice. The river has been open all winter but with the sudden cold moving ice jams quickly causing the trouble. REPEAT PROCESS
Mr. Dilworth said the ice moves several feet, then stops and the river rises dangerously close to going over the bank. Then it settles down a few inches and in a few hours repeats the process.
City Engineer Bill Jones said ithe ice conditions threaten the city's water intake basin near the old Nechako bridge. The basin is composed of gravel and grinding of the heaving mass of ice could badly damage it.
"At the moment the .situation hasn't reached any significant proportions but it's a potential h?7.ar<.l," he said.
The engineer said Planer Ttow will be in trouble before the intake basin. And he agreed the possibility exists of flooding similar to lhal experienced in former years unless warm weather frees the ice or colder weather solidifies the mass of ice floes trapped by ithe jam.
If the basin was taken out water would have to be taken directly from the river, reducing quality of city water.
Floods from ice conditions on the Nechako have caused havoc in the Planer Row area in past years, some of them with water reaching the CNR main line.
Surve
SAWMILL OWNERS'ALONG Planer Row are keeping their eye on the Nechako River today as ice jams threaten to raise the water level to the point of flood-
ing the banks. Jams at present at Island Cache are holding b'ack ice floes as far as the new Nechako bridge. �Hal Vandervoort Photo
Two automobiles belonging to Prince George motorists were reported stolen from the downtown area between 7 and 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Missing are: a 195b' turquoise-colored four-door Chevrolet belonging to Edwyn F-ranshaw, of 875 Vancouver. The car was taken from Dominion between Fiftli and Sixth; and a light grey 1951 Mercury belonging to Norman Harrop, 291 Wainwright. 11 was stolen from beside the Professional Centre on Third.
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP)� The swift Santa Fe Chief and a two-trailer oil rig collided Tuesday night with a mighty blast that set wildly jacknifed coaches afire and shrivelled the locomotive.
At least .seventeen persons died �14 ftussengers, the engineer and fireman of the passenger train, and the oil rig driver.
Sixty - eight were injured of whom 15 remained in hospitals, many of them badly 'burned.
A 'preliminary casualty list included no Canadian names.
SWIKT TK.XIX
The San Francisco-to-Chicago train, carrying 7(! passengers, was rolling through cotton and alfalfa farmland 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The time was 5:10 p.m. l'ST. The speed, a brakeman said, about 75 miles an hour. Visibility was fair.
Unaccountably t. h e oil r i g carrying more than 7,000 gallons
District Jaycee Reps To Attend at Smithers
SMITHERS�Fi rs t meeting for the reorganized Smi.thers Junior Chamber of Commerce will be at S. p.m. Monday in the municipal hall when district representatives from Kltiniat will attend.
Jim Waarderberg recently was elected chairman and Mo Banks secretary for the reorganization period.
Serving on the constitution committee are Mr. Waarderberg, Cliff Cunningham and Sleeve Poburan.
one of the largest timber sales recorded In the Prince George district, Oregon Pacific Lumber Co, of Portland bought close'to 150 million board feet near the PGE's Anzac siding Lit last Friday's auction.
Kidding went to $6 per 100 cubic feet as J.J. Saltzman's representative outbid The Pas Lumber Co. for the sale. Upset price was $2.50.
This will bring the total price over the 10-year contract to about SI.50(1.(1(10.
The sale price is described as higher than normal for timber in the Parsnip River area. It is located on the west side of the Parsnip about (!() miles north of Prince George.
The is Oregon Pacific's first purchase in Northern B.C., a 11 h o u g h the company has wholesaled cul lumber nut of this district for some years.
Oregon Pacific recently moved into ihe Kamloops area with a timbed sale purchase. Which it now is contracting out.
I of crude oil drove onto the tracks at a road intersection. The train, approaching the rig at a 15-degree angle, slammed into if.
The rear oil trailer wrapped around the locomotive and exploded with a fJuind�Hreus flam-Ing eruption seen four miles away.
The forward oil tanker was thrown 1()() yards, badly damaged and leaking, but it did not catch fire.
The train veered crazrly on, its four diese] units aflame, its forward trucks halted off to one .side of the track by the tremendous impact, of'the collision.
Nine of the II cars jacknifed into one another, some falling on their sides, like a row of huge steel dominoes knocked askew. SWEPT BY FLAMES
Flame from the initial explosion swept back the Ifength of the train, but only the forward cars in the tangled, ground-up jumble caught fire. The first three of the four diesel units were charred to blackened rubble � reduced, one witness suggested, to hardly more than half their normal size.
The last two cars remained on the tracks.
Eleven hundred feet of track were torn up, some twisted into grotesque loops around the shattered cars.
Fifteen ambulances came from four nearby towns. Helicopters helped shuttle the injured to three Bakersfield hospitals.
Engineer L. A. Snyder and fireman A. If. Hraley. both of Fresno, Calif., died In their cab.
Eyewitness John Holland said the oil rig driver, John Garrett,
left his vehivle on the (racks, | jumped and ran. When the train hit and fire exploded, flames spewed over the running Garrett, who died when he fell.
Hours after the crash debris was still burning. Several possible dead were still sealed in the wreckage.
Floodlight and generators were brought in so rescue and repair work could go on through the night. Priests were on the scene, giving last rites.
Cancer Rale
ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. (CD�-Health Minister James McGrath expressed growing concern Tuesday with the high rate of cancel1 deaths among the working force in fluorspar mines in the town of St. Lawrence on the southwest Burin Peninsula.
An average of three men of the 300-man working force have died of lung cancer each year since 1,948.
Dr. McGrath said recent tests linked th'e presence of hazardous radiation with an excessive high rate of Urns cancer among St. Lawrence miners. Fluorspar is a calcium fluoride u^-ud in metallurgical industries.
industrial Fire
SEOUL, Korea < Ik-uttrsi� Fifty-two workers, all but two oi them women, were burned to death' today when fire destroyed the Kukje rubber factory in Pu-san.
It was Smith Korea's worst industrial fin.
Pies From Exposure
An elderly man died about 9:30 a.m. today at Shelley after he was found near his shack suffering from exposure.
Dead is Charles Gagnon, 72.
Police went to the town 10 miles northeast of here this morning to pick up the body.
The man was believed to have been in Prince . George Tuesday night to cash his old age pension cheque. He was driven to Shelley by friends, and reportedly stopped with them to have a few drinks.
He left their house at midnight and was last seen near the school. He was found with frozen hands and in a "generally bad" condition on a path close to his shack.
He is survived by a brother Joseph, in Prince George, two daughters and two sons in Manitoba.
VICTORIA (CP) � The provincial cabinet Monday passed an order-in-council to extend a 1954 reserve on 'the shores of Upper Arrow Lake and the Columbia river.
� The order, which reserved land below the 1,400-foot level, also approved a new reserve covering all the watershed of the Duncan river, at the north end of Kootenay lake.
The moves were taken as first tentative steps in preparation for the projected hydro-power development of the Columbia river.
VANCOUVER (CP)� Surveys for a railway northwest from Prince George to the Yukon border are complete and construction is scheduled to begin sometime in June, an official of Wenner-Gren B.C. Development Company Limited said today.
E. M. Guhderson, a director of the company, said the railway will be standard type and will be 700 miles long when complete. Possible completion date for the project is not yet known.
Mr. Gunderson's comments followed an announcement in the Legislature Monday by Premier Bennett that work on the railway is expected to begin April 1.
An agreement signed by Swedish industrialist Axel Wenner-Gren interests with the government called for a railway to be started in the "second quarter of this year."
Mr. Gunderson said the possibilities of a monorail, rather than a standard rail, had been considered but surveys had led to recommendations for a standard rail.
He said no estimate of the cost was available.
The agreement with the provincial government covers the development of 'the Rocky Mountain Trench area by the Wenner-Gren interests.
MEMORANDUM
The memorandum, signed Nov. 16, 1956, stated: "... the principals shall cause construction of the railway to commence not later than April 1, 1960."
A later paragraph of the same memorandum states, however:
"Railway construction shall commence during the second quarter of VMO."
Mr. Gunderson said the dale was put back to any time in the second quarter of the year because it was feared northern weather wotdd delay work in April.
OWNERSHIP CHECK
He said the company's lawyers now are checking on ownership of private land affected. The company had not yet approached contractors, nor had it decided how bids would be called.
Asked whether work would continue steadily, he said: "Once started we will continue steadily until finished. There is no intention to stop or delay it."
"We may even rush it if we find demand for a railway warrants it."
Charge Dismissed
A charge of failing to yield the right of way against George II. Price was dismissed in police court Tuesday by Magistrate George Stewart;
Charge arose from a two-car collision Jan. 2:! on the Otway road. No one was injured in the accident. Price was defended by George Baldwin.
FULL SPORTS COVERAGE ON PAGE 4
Commercial Hockey League just going through the motions as schedule running out. Front-running Giscome dumped Rockets b'-3 and second place Cable defeated Columbus 10-5 in last night's games.
� � ' �
Bantam Division, Prince George Minor Hockey Association, nearing end of its schedule with only first and last places decided.
* * �
Old pros Ted Williams and Stan Musial differ on question of comebacks. Williams is.dubious and Musial hopeful on coming season. '
MONTREAL iCP) � Five firemen were believed killed today in a fire that swept through a business and residential block in northeastern Montreal.
The five were among eight firemen standing on the roof of a burning building when it suddenly collapsed under them. Three were quickly pulled to safety and rushed to hospital.
Firemen poured water on the spot where the other five were believed buried under tons of rubble.
Two bodies later were recovered.
Fire director Armand Durctle said he was sure that no one
arses Shiver
EDMONTON (CPl � The western Prairies shivered today in the heart of the cold air mass that covered Canada fr.om .coast to coast.
Edmonton recorded the coldest weather of the winter at 28 below, eight degrees lower than the previous low of 20 below set in January.
Other early-morning temperatures, all below zero, included: Calgary 26; Lethbridge 31; Medicine Hat 20; Prince Albert 32: Saskatoon 30; Moose Jaw 17; and Regina 18.
The lowest temperature reported to the Edmonton weather office was 38 below at Vermilion. 110 miles east of Edmonton. The forecaster said that probably was the lowest in Canada.
While the Western Prairies endured temperatures 25 to 45 degrees below normal for this time of year., it was relatively warm in Canada's northland with Whitehorse in the Yukon, usually cold, reporting 3 below.
Continuation of the cold spell was predicted by the weatherman.
The high at Edmonton March 2, 1959, was 37 above.
PARIS (AP) � United States concern over a now low-level French jet service to West Berlin helped trigger the Allied de-
Now Hear This...
A prominent P.G. businessman will be asked shortly to line up a couple of babes for a pair of visitors from the North. This was the gist of a long distance phone confab this ayem which was heard accidentally by a person trying to use his telephone for a local call. Which proves you never quite know whom you will hear when yo'uipick up that receiver . .
A Citizen reporter called on a story. The man answering the phone said the party called was not in, and added he'd sure enjoy getting back to bed quickly because he had pneumonia, so would the reporter please hang up ...
Bets arc good that SPCA man Gordon Hough got more calls about that deer on the Nechako River ice floe than did the game department. And there must be more effective ways to rescue this animal than standing on the shore and scratching heads . . .
City prosecutor Peter Wilson received the following wire from his grandson Pete in Vancouver last night: Born today, Geoffrey Wilson, a red-haired addition to the clan." Our Mr. Wilson's father bail red hair, but it skipped a couple of generations. Now the Irish is coming out again, the prosecutor commented today.
VANCOUVER (CP) �A Veteran geologist says British Columbia should use the Rocky Mountain Trench as an access route to the northern part of the province.
Dr. .M. Y. Williams, professor emeritus of the department of geology at. the University of
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay CPl Police used tear gas and high-pressure fire hoses today to break up a student demonstration against President Eisenhower shortly after his arrival from Chile.
The demonstration broke out at the height of a rousing-welcome just as the presidential motorcade was passing the University of Montevideo.
Students, who had jeered Vict-Presidenl Richard Nixon on his visit two years ago, unfurled a 150-foot banner reading "Down with Yankee imperialism in Latin America."
]).('.. said Tuesday the trench is a logical location for a great railroad from the U.S. to Alaska.
Transportation should be taken into account because power was being developed in the north, he said.
Dr. Williams, who has visited the north many times, said he deplores statements that ihe trench is utterly worthless land and has a bad climate.
The damming of 2(>5 miles of river valley would drown out rich mineral resources and potential farm lands, he said of current power proposals.
It would mean the loss of five percent of timber of the north, 500,000 acres of potentially arable land and large gold, coal, asbestos%and mercury resources.
There should be some consideration of general resources of the Peace River so that one resource may not be developed to the detriment of others*.
Smaller power sources are available in the Peace River for pulp and paper interests without destroying such a potentially valuable access route as the trench, he said.
A man who threw a stone through a CNR railway station after he had been ejected was fined $5 and ordered to pay $18.91 damages when he pleaded guilty to willful damage in police court today.
Romain Dauleuil had been returning to Sinclair Mills Sunday from Prince George when he failed to awaken in time to get off the train, and subsequently didn't get off until Ilutton Mills, about three miles further.
A CNR policeman told the court Dauteuil had become obnoxious in the Hutton station and as a result had been ejected. Dauteuil, however, claimed he only wished to remain in the station until daylight rather than walk through the cold to Sinclair.
After he was thrown out, Dauteuil threw a rock through the window.
Charged with joyriding, John Fuite Jr. was remanded three weeks as .an RCMP witness was away on holiday.
cision to resume high-level military flights to the isolated city, reliable informants said today.
Air France began daily Cara-velle jet service from Paris to Berlin, via Frankfurt, Feb. 24. The airline directed its pilots to fly at about 10,000 feet, which the Russians say is the altitude limit under Big Four agreements. The Western big three have never accepted this limitation.
Informants familiar with the background of the decision to resume high-altitude U.S. military flights gave this reasoning:
It was feared that unless such a decision was made the Russians � noting the Air France flights at 10,000 feet � would assume the West had given the fact to agreement to the altitude limitation. CEILING UNACCEPTABLE
The U.S. felt it necessary to underscore to the Russians that the 10,000-foot ceiling is clearly not acceptable.
France agreed with the U.S. that the principle of high-level flying must be reasserted at this time, French officials said. On the other hand, informants here said, Britain's decision to join in the decision was reluctant.
In London, a foreign office spokesman today reiterated the British government's view that Allied aircraft have the right to fly into Berlin along air corridors at any altitude.
A woman found guilty in police court today of interfering with city building inspector in the performance of his duties was fined $1 after she complained of the inspector's "lack of etiquette."
Mrs. Mary Tymtschischin was charged after she told building inspector Ed Neff to leave her home at 1643 Fourth while he was there on a tour of inspection. Mi\ Ncff and an assistant fire marshal! had been there the previous day and noticed there were two illegal suites in the basement.
lie returned the following clay to inspect them, and was advised by Mrs. Tymtschischin her husband did not wish hiin on the premises.
"Somebody phoned him just for spite," Mrs. Tymtschischin claimed. "He doesn't do anything until somebody informs."
Mr. Neff doesn't have X-ray eyes," the magistrate said.
The accused complained that Mr. Neff had not knocked on the door before � entering the basement through a separate entrance. Mr. Neff admitted this, but pointed out that any dwelling with more than one family is public and no longer private.
Paul Tymtschischin, her husband, acted as counsel. He told the court he intended to appeal the conviction.
At one point a beleaguered Mr. Neff told the accused, "I beg your pardon � the next time I come I'll knock on the door."
'There won't be a next itime," was Mrs. Tymtschischin replied heatedly.
other than the five firemen was trapped in the building at the intersection of Mount Royal Avenue and Papineau Street.
The three injured firemen, released from hospital after treatment, were identified as Lieut. Fernand Dufort, 40, Ernest Des-roches, 46, and Parfait Boucher; 21.
Members of 20 families living in dwellings above stores in the block escaped safely after the first alarm was given at 5:15 a.m. A general alarm was called an hour later and the fire brought under control at 7:30 a.m.
The fleeing families, many of them in night attire, were taken in police cars to the homes of friends and relatives.
Cause of the fire, believed to have started in a two-storey storage building behind a millinery shop, was not determined.
No immediate estimate of damage was available. THREE SURVIVE FALL
T.iie three rescued fell to. the first floor, it was feared the other five plumetted from the roof right through to the basement.
Businesses destroyed or damaged in Ihe fire included five millinery stores, two shoe stores, one hosiery store, a drug store, and a Chinese restaurant.
Firemen became caked with ice and the buildings took on the appearance of weird winter ice palaces.
The loss of five firemen would be the biggest loss of firemen in one Montreal disaster within memory.
Four died June 17, 1932 when the tanker Cymbeline exploded in Canadian Vickers drydock here.
Death Toil Soars
AGADIR, Morocco CCP)�Agonized cries from earthquake victims trapped for more than 3G hours within mountains of fallen masonry spurred feverish new rescue efforts today;
Teams of sweating rescuers with pneumatic drills bored inLo the maze of concrete blocks and twisted girders as the estimated death toll soared to between 5,-000 and 0,000.
By dawn. 15 persons had been dug out alive, Reuters news agency reported. .Many more were believed trapped alive in the ruins.
While it may seem- chilly in Prince George, we're really in the hot air classification compared with Dawson Creek . . . which experienced 35 below on Tuesday, and Fort St. John with 21 below. Low here was "only" 10 below.
Sunny skies and low mercury readings will continue today and Thursday, with winds northerly at 15. . Low tonight and high Thursday at Prince George, -10 and 15;' Quesnel, -7 und 20; Smithers; -8 and 2.'5.
POi 'T River Itrgion Cloudy with clear periods tonight and Thursday; continuing very cold. Light Winds. Low tonight and high Thursday at Grande Prairie, -10 and 5.
Lasl 24 Hours
Prince Geoi
Terrace ......
Smithers ....
Quesnel .....
Kamloops .. Dawson Creek -35 Fort St. John.. -21 Fort Nelson .... -7 Wliituhurtio.......b
� 10 10 -10 -14 6
Precip,
n
31 24 19
5 .02 11 � 21 ^