High today: -25 Low tonight:-33 Details page 2
        PRINCE GEORGE
Citizen
    Serving the Central Interior since 1916
MONDAY, JANUARY 22,1996
80 CENTS (HOME DELIVERED: 50 CENTS A DAY)
Gitxsan want deal nixed
Cold spell really digging in
                                                                                     by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen staff
     The current cold spell may not be setting any records, but it has staying power, a weather forecaster says.
     The now dominant Arctic ridge of high pressure, regularly setting lows in the middle -30s and rarely allowing highs better than -20, has been with us since Jan. 13, notes Jack Bowling.
     January is traditionally the coldest time of year.
     Since weather records began to be kept in this region, there have been worse cold snaps at this time of year, he said.
     Still, normal temperatures for
 mid-January are -17 for a low and -7 for daytime highs.
    “We’re well below that — by about 18 degrees,” he observed.
    An air inversion of sorts exists over Prince George, and wind speeds are insignificant.
    Yet winds are just enough to keep most pollutants cleaned out of the Bowl area.
    Forecasters expect no immediate change in this weather pattern. “The ridge of high pressure, full of cold air, is just not going anywhere,” Bowling said.
    Temperatures may rise slightly, by about three or four degrees, by the middle of the week. Then they will head back down lower again
toward the weekend — not setting any records but just returning us to the temperatures we’re seeing now.
   After a high today of -24, Tuesday morning’s low should be -33, and the high about -20. Wednesday’s low will be only -31, while the maximum temperature that day is expected to be -20.
   As the mercury heads back down again, Thursday morning’s low is predicted to be about -33, and the high around -22.
   If it’s any consolation, the same polar weather has the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Alberta, the rest of the Prairies, and indeed much of the rest of Canada in its grip, Bowling said.
  Standoff
  GANGES, B.C. (CP) — An armed standoff has turned into a manhunt after a distraught man who shot at police slipped out of a Saltspring Island home the RCMP had surrounded.
  The home was surrounded for several hours and Const. Gerrard Choquette was hit in the leg by either a bullet or a bullet fragment.
                                                     He was treated at the scene for a
becomes
superficial wound.
  An RCMP emergency response team involving officers from six detachments plus tracking dogs and a helicopter were combing the Mount Erskine neighborhood for Gary Douglas Bader, 42, of Duncan, B.C.
  Police surrounded the residence after the man’s parents told police their son was armed and acting irrationally. The home is in a quiet rural
manhunt
residential area of Saltspring, situated in the Strait of Georgia between the mainland and Vancouver Island.
  Residents in the immediate area were either moved or told to remain indoors and all roads were blocked off.
  Despite repeated attempts, police were unable to establish contact with the man who is believed to be upset over marital and business problems.
   VANCOUVER (CP) — Gitxsan natives are trying to derail their neighbor’s treaty talks because they say Gitxsan land is part of the mix.
   The Gitxsan say Nisga’a Indians are claiming land along the upper Nass River that belongs to them and they want to know more about the treaty that the province, the federal government and the Nisga’a are negotiating.
   A deal is believed to be close at hand and could set a precedent for the governments to solve other native claims that cover all of British Columbia and frequently overlap.
   “If the province, for its own reasons, doesn’t respect tribal boundaries, that would establish an incredible precedent,” said Gitxsan negotiator Neil Sterritt.
   “It becomes first-come, first-served. It’s going to be a nightmare in B.C.”
   The Nisga’a claim 25,000 square
kilometres of the Nass River watershed; the Gitxsan say they are only entitled to land in the lower Nass River.
   The Nisga’a claim also takes in some 80 per cent of the neighboring Gitanyow claim.
   Resolving the overlap has been the focus of discussions between the two groups for years, but with a Nisga’a treaty expected early this year, their neighbors are getting jumpy.
   Gitanyow leaders want the provincial government to resolve the overlap issue.
   Sterritt said the NDP government is anxious to reach an agreement with the Nisga’a before the election this year.
   “The negotiators have a certain amount of momentum and I think there’s pressure on them to get a deal. Under that scenario, the chips could fall where they may.”
          Today
 If you own mutual funds or are thinking of buying some, we have a treat for you.
 The 1995 performances of the various funds are listed on pages 22 and 23 today.
 Happy investing!
Freezing weather stops Iceman cold
Organizers forced to cancel event for first time in nine-year history
                                                                                                by TED CLARKE Citizen Staff
   Although it was a tough call, organizers of Sunday’s Prince George Citizen Iceman had no choice but to cancel it.
   The brutal cold snap which has gripped the city for over a week kept the temperature well below the -25 cut-off point for the multisport endurance event to proceed.
   “We made the decision at about twenty minutes to 11 when the in-town temperature was -29,” said Iceman chairperson Kathy Lewis, who gave the official word to about 40 individuals and 68 teams who showed up Sunday at Otway Nordic Centre.
   “There was no way it was going to get to our cut-off and (the temperature) was too far away to even push it a bit.”
   Remarkably, this is the first Iceman cancellation in its nine-year history.
   “The first year they did it (in 1988), it was in the low -30s but that was before families and kids were involved,” said Lewis.
   Matt de Nys, who has competed in every Iceman since its inception, said the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club learned its lesson last year when it allowed the junior national trials to go ahead in -23 conditions.
   “They raced last year at minus-23 and they had quite a few cases of hypothermia,” said de Nys.
   “On account of that, they know what it can do to the athletes and they don’t want to put themselves in jeopardy.”
   “It’s an international rule now that they don’t run cross-country races colder than minus-20 and that’s sort of the guideline they have been fol-
                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Citizen photos by Brent Braaten
Despite the cold weather and resulting cancellation of the Iceman competition, not everyone was stopped cold. Suzanne Sharp, Jerry Rowe, Kelly Sharp and Dave Drysdale were among those who still went through the motions.
lowing. Here, it’s not that severe because we don’t go up any steep hills but they don’t want to take the chance with younger kids.”
Although city crews and volunteers worked diligently through the week turning the speedskating oval near the Multiplex from a rough dirt path to a relatively smooth sheet of ice, few got the chance to use it
 Sunday.
    Lewis said there’s no possibility of re-scheduling the event, which combines cross-country skiing, running, skating and swimming.
    “The (minimum) cancellation time is a week to a month before the event depending on the facility, so we have to pay for it anyway,” said Lewis.
     “It costs $17,000 to put it on so we’d have to pay twice and our budget just can’t handle that.”
     The budget was raised through entry fees and $6,000 in local sponsorship, which Lewis said will have to be returned.
     Even though the race was canceled, the Four Season’s Pool and Kin 1 arena were open to Sunday’s Ice
                                                                                         de Nys: unable to compete
Man competitors and the banquet at the Civic Centre went ahead as planned. The cost of booking those facilities was covered by a contingency fund.
   “Over the years we’ve built up a cushion for exactly this purpose, knowing that one year we’d have to cancel or have some problem but that will be pretty much gone,” said Lewis, who was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who registered.
   “The final entry turned out to be over last year’s. Everybody was waiting until the last minute and we ended up with two or three more teams than we had last year and about the same individuals. Pretty much everyone showed up.”
ENTERTAINMENT
  Ann Landers.................12
  Bridge......................27
  Business ................21-24
  City, B.C..............3,11,13
  Classifieds..............25-28
  Comics .....................16
  Community Calendar 12
  Crossword ..................16
  Entertainment 17,18
  Horoscope ..................27
  Lotteries...................13
  Lifestyles..................12
  Movies......................18
  Nation..................5,6,15
  Sports ...................7-10
  Television..................16
  World.................14,19,20
  5830?
  0010G
minutes
     n ii in Hi i m mi iiiiw i iiiiii i
     ■ Sense and Sensibility, Emma Thompson’s adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, won best dramatic picture honors at Sunday night’s Golden Globes. Other winners from motion pictures include John Travolta, Nicole Kidman, Nicolas Cage, Brad Pitt and Mel Gibson. Winners from television include Kelsey Grammer, Jimmy Smits, Cybill Shepherd and Donald Sutherland. Page 18
                                                                                  BUSINESS
    ■ Loaded down with debt? You’re not alone. Canadians are carrying more personal debt than ever before. There are no magic tricks for digging yourself out of the hole, but there are some simple strategies to get there in the most efficient way. Page 21
    ■ A mediocre Christmas selling season has led to retail bankruptcies across Canada this month and rumors of more to come. But analysts are divided on whether the B.C. market will experience an increase in retail casualties this year. Page
  24
 CANADA
     ■ About one in six Canadian peacekeepers return from the former Yugoslavia with serious psychological problems ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to clinical depression, says a senior military psychiatrist. Page 6
     ■ Aboriginals in the Northwest Territories are reclaiming their birthright under a policy of the government to recognize traditional names of places and geographic features. Several familiar European pla-cenames have been changed to tra-
 ditional names. Page 15
                                                                                      WORLD
    ■ Winning 85 per cent of the vote, Yasser Arafat emerged Sunday from the first Palestinian election with a resounding mandate to complete peace with Israel and lead his people to independence. Page 19
    ■ An aide says the Duchess of York, better known simply as Fergie, has reached an agreement to make sure she can pay her debts, which reports have said are as high as $6 million Cdn. Page 14
                                                                         SPORTS
   ■ With 27 games left in the season, the Prince George Cougars need to play .500 hockey the rest of the way to make the playoffs in the Western Hockey League. Is it time to start building for next year? Page 7
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