PRINCE GEORGE
'I'l'Yl /
High today: 20 Low tonight: 9 Details page 18
Citizen
Serving the Central Interior since 1916
TUESDAY, JULY 22,1997
80 CENTS (HOME DELIVERED: 50 CENTS A DAY)
TODAY
COMMUN
top local headlines
PAGE 11
Area 4-H clubs gear for shows at the Ex
PAGE 3
'Recall Ramsey’ group gets help
Airshow
special!
The 1997 Prince George Air Show goes Saturday and Sunday, and today, in a 24-page, full-color special section, we look at the planes, the pilots and the people who make it all happen.
WORLD
■ After 116 years in mothballs the USS Constitution, affectionately known as Old Ironsides, set sail under its own power Monday to celebrate its 200th birthday. It culminates a 3 1/2-year restoration that cost $12 million. /6
LIFESTYLES
■ The Woodyard, a collection of shacks and cabins on the shore of Great Slave Lake which has been home-sweet-home to Yellowknife’s down-and-outers for more than 50 years, is quietly disappearing. Lakeside land is just too valuable, so city fathers want to remake a bit of history as a waterfront park. /7
Cornered
by Baldwin 1W7
“This one is very user-friendly thanks to it’s lack of features."
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INDEX
Ann Landers..... ........7
Around Town____ ........7
Bridge..........
Business ........ ....14,15
City, B.C......... .....3,11
Classified ....... ....16-19
Comics ......... .......12
Crossword ...... .......12
Entertainment ... .......13
Horoscope ...... .......17
Lifestyles........ ........7
Movies.......... .......13
Nation.......... ........5
Sports .......... .....8-10
Television....... .......13
World .......... ........6
58307 00100 8
City wins student job challenge
Citizen staff •
It’s all tallied up and Prince George is this year’s winner of the student job challenge with Kamloops.
“We ended up with 143 jobs while Kamloops totalled 117,” said Corina Schlak, lead hand at the local Human Resource Centre for Students.
The two-week challenge ended
Friday.
The winner of the grand prize draw — a night on the town — is Sheila Bagu who hired a student for landscaping work around the Spruce Credit Union.
“We’re really glad we won this one, although I must admit Kamloops had a lot of rain during that time,” Schlak said Monday.
The challenge may be over, but it’s not too late to hire a student this summer for casual, part time or full-time work. Call 561-5165 for instant help around the home or business.
For example, London Drugs, opening at Parkwood Place in November, has its bid in at the centre for about 30 part-time students.
The student centre, offering many skilled people wanting to earn some money before school resumes, will remain open until Aug. 15.
There are also many students who want to work part-time while attending school.
So far this summer, the centre has produced jobs for 752 students. The goal is to reach 900.
UNBC receives major forestry research gift
by DON SCHAFFER Citizen staff
A huge contribution from Vancouver-based Slocan Forest Products and CEO Ike Barber will help the University of Northern B.C. expand its presence in forestry research.
Slocan and Barber announced Monday they will donate $900,000 to UNBC to enable construction of a „ ...__ . new forest labora-
...UNBC has an outstanding young forestry program, a
strong commitment to work in natural resources, some outstanding researchers in the area of mixed woods and growth and yield issues.”
JAGO
tory and create a boreal mixed-wood research chair at the Prince George-based university.
“Slocan. . .and the president, Ike Barber, has had a strong connection with UNBC from the beginning,” said UNBC president Charles Jago. “This is a wonderful gift — it makes me feel ecstatic.”
Jago said the
partnership established by the company and the university was a natural fit.
“This is an area where you have a very strong convergence of interest,” Jago said. “Ike Barber is one of the leaders in the forestry industry in B.C., has a strong interest in growth and yield issues, and UNBC has an outstanding young forestry program, a strong commitment to work in natural resources, some outstanding researchers in the area of mixed woods and growth and yield issues.
“It was a fit; it was just a matter of bringing the parties together and doing something that’s in the interest of both of us.”
“Along with the Slocan company, I am pleased to provide this financial support in order to focus research on the forests which are so essential to the people and the communities in which they live,” Barber — the chair, president and CEO of Slocan — said in a press release.
“This new facility and research chair will help to strengthen the economic and environmental base of these communities and provide a bright future for our young people.”
More than half of the total — $500,000, donated by Slocan — will be dedicated to the construction of a forest enhancement laboratory to be built near the student residences at the Prince George campus on Cranbrook Hill.
The facility will provide opportunities for a wide range of experiments on maximizing tree growth while maintaining or enhancing the natural conditions found in the interior of the province.
It is due to open in the 1997-98 school year.
The research chair, to be established sometime next year, will take up the other $400,000, donated personally by Barber. The chair will help ensure that research into boreal mixedwood forests found in B.C.’s northern regions is effectively designed and co-ordinated.
The person eventually selected for the chair will work closely with industry, university and government researchers and forest managers.
“A greater understanding of the ecological processes found in these forests and the impact on landscape management practices will help to ensure the optimum economic and environmental return to northern communities,” Jago said.
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
BACK FROM CAMP — Prince George youths (from left) Tracey Pasowicz, 13, Adam Lloyd, 14, Jamie Pasowicz, 9, and Damian Murphy, 15, arrive home at the Prince George Airport after spending a wonderful week at Camp Good Times. The camp for young cancer patients, near Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast, offers a week of fun and sun in the the ocean, on the beach and at campouts and cookouts. First-time campers enjoyed the activities and repeat campers were happy to reunite with friends from past years. All expenses and travelling arrangements are looked after by Camp Good Times, which is closely associated with the Canadian Cancer Society. About 150 B.C. cancer patients and siblings attend the camp annually.
Natural gas hookup likely
Citizen staff
If the Ministry of Municipal Affairs approves it soon, Ness Lake residents might have natural gas by this winter.
The ministry would have to do so before the Fraser-Fort George Regional District board of directors’ Aug. 21 meeting, said Donna Munt, administrative assistant in the regional district’s community service department.
“If we can get approval to them by Sept. 22 they’d like to start putting the line in right away,” she said.
Munt explained the ministry must approve the bylaw establishing the Ness Lake North natural gas local service area, which the board approved last week; once that is obtained the proposal comes back before the board at its August meeting.
The regional district board voted unanimously last week to borrow $45,660 to finance natural gas service to the-Ness-Lake Ntrrth Road area northwest of Prince George.
Munt said a busy construction year last year prevented the project from going ahead then.
It’s hardly a done deal yet, because there’s a 30-day period after the August meeting during which the project might be quashed. Barring problems, a letter will go to B.C. Gas requesting work begin. If the line is completed by the end of the construction season, the entire Ness Lake area will be serviced by natural gas. Residents of the area approached the board with a petition to have the gas line extended and connected with the Ness Lake Road line.
Those residents will pay back the amount in their taxes over the next 10 years.
Internet kicks off big adventure for city football team
Exchange trip arranged with young players from Ontario
by DON SCHAFFER Citizen staff
A little bit of high-tech experimenting has led 26 Prince George youths into a gridiron adventure none of them are likely to forget.
A team of 15- and 16-year-old football players from Gloucester, Ont., entered an exchange program with members of the Prince George Minor Football Association after finding the PGMFA’s World Wide Web Site.
“We have a really tremendous web site that one of the dads did for Prince George minor football,” said Dale Stannard, the association’s publicity director. “This young coach back in Gloucester, Ont., was looking, I guess surfing, and he found it and decided he wanted to bring his team here.”
That threw the organization into a well-organized flurry of fundraising, planning and training,
all for the cause of helping its players get a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
“It’s not just a football thing, it’s a life-building experience,” said Grant Barley, who along with head coach Reg Steward is preparing the team for the three games they’ll play here in early August.
“We certainly want to represent Prince George in a proper fashion. We have guests from out of province. We’re hoping to be pretty competitive on the field.”
Stannard said at first, the city group was planning to raise funds for a return visit next year.
“We thought, this is great, but there’s no way we can afford to go back, we just didn’t have the time. Somehow, they were put onto this YMCA Visions Canada program, and we qualified.
“The cost to the young people is unbelievable, really good. So the fund-raising is mostly to cover
expenses when the group is here.”
There are plans to take the visitors to Mount Robson and Barkerville, as well as a hike to Fort George Canyon, tours of Northwood’s pulp mill and Forests for the World, as well as a day at Camp Hughes, complete with pig roast.
Mixed in with that heavy agenda are three football games: one Aug. 2 at 7 p.m., one Aug. 4 at 10 a.m., and the last Aug. 6 at 7 p.m., all at Massey Place Stadium.
“A lot of these kids will never get on an exchange at school because of their academics,” Stannard said. “This is a real opportunity for them.”
The city group heads to Gloucester, a suburb of Ottawa, Aug. 15 to 22.
■ The Web site, for those interested, is at: www.fortress. net/pgmfa/pgmfa. htm
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