INDEX
Asia-Pacific ties here highlighted in Citizen
The importance of strong economic and social ties between the Prince George region and the Pacific Rim will be highlighted in a series of articles and a special supplement in The Citizen this week and next.
The series will be presented in conjunction with the visit next week of the Asia Pacific Connections regional tour which visits in Prince George Oct. 9-12. Coinciding with that visit will be special events conducted by segments of the community, including the College of New Caledonia, the city and others.
Throughout the week, business people and interested residents will be able to follow not only the news of the visit through a special Connections roadshow, but through articles and photos appearing in The Citizen.
The special supplement on the connection between B.C. and Rim Countries is to be published Tuesday. Articles will appear daily, beginning Saturday.
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Citizen
Serving the Central Interior since 1916
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2,1997
80 CENTS (HOME DELIVERED: 50 CENTS A DAY
COMMUNITY
PAGE 13
Local players make minor soccer rock
PAGE 3 Students choosing health issues
SPORTS
■ Former Cougars defence-man Zdeno Chara is living life on the farm after being demoted by the New York Islanders. The six-foot, nine-inch Slovakian who played four NHL pre-season games is slugging it out with the Kentucky Thoroughbreds. /8
SHOWBIZ
■ Anne Murray says she’ll know when it’s time to bow out gracefully. She says she won’t be playing clubs in front of a couple of hundred people. She likens that to Wayne Gretzky playing in the minor leagues. /17
CANADA
■ More than 300 conservationists and conservation biologists descend on WatertQn, Alta., Friday for what might be the galvanizing moment in an unprecedented conservation effort in the Rocky Mountains. /6
Cornered by Baldwin
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
Julia Whittaker, curator of the Prince George Art Gallery, talks with spray bomb artist Andrew Mooney about a piece of his work on the wall of the skate park, while Jessie McKinnon works on a new painting behind them.
Spray-can artists appreciated
by DON SCHAFFER Citizen staff
It’s not graffiti, OK?
It’s spray can art, and like any other kind of art, it’s not as easy as the artists make it look.
Two young painters, Jesse McKinnon and Andrew Mooney, received a measure of legitimacy for their work Wednesday afternoon. Julia Whittaker, the curator of the Prince George Art Gallery, came to the Youth Recreation Impact centre to talk to them about their art and its place in contemporary culture.
And if you think she’d be talking over the heads of 18-year-old McKinnon and 13-year-old Mooney, you’d be wrong. They’re familiar with the works of the late Keith Haring, who started as a spray-can artist in New York, and they matched her concept for concept for a while.
“A lot of people don’t really understand it,”
said Mooney, whose work graces the walls at YRI. “They think it’s not art, they try to stop it.
“That’s why I like this place. They let you paint on the walls, they encourage it. It’s really neat.”
“Some people might say ‘that’s not art, that’s just crap,’ “ Whittaker said, “but my argument there would be: if you think it’s so easy, go ahead and try. It’s not easy.
McKinnon brought his sketch book and a photo album full of shots of large-scale artworks, some taken here and some on a trip to New York he took this spring.
“It’s part of the whole subculture,” McKinnon said. “But I do other stuff, too, I do water colors.”
“It’s been around since the ’70s, so it’s about time it’s taken seriously,” McKinnon said. “It’s also a more marketable phenomenon than other types of art.”
Lumber oversupply sends prices down
by KEN BERNSOHN Citizen Staff
This is the time of year when lumber prices usually drop, but this year they’ve dropped more than usual, says Keith Andersen, president of Lakeland Mills.
“Hemlock and fir lumber which used to go to Japan seems to be now going to the states, so the market is oversupplied,” Andersen said Wednesday.
Some of the lumber added to the U.S. market is from Coastal B.C. sawmills, but some is Oregon and Washington wood, he explained.
It’s traditional for lumber prices to be quiet at this time of year, with a slight move upward sometime in October, before going down again until mid-February. However, Andersen feels that upward movement may not happen this year due to the extra wood being sold in the U.S. market.
The Japanese lumber market died in April. And the Japanese economy has been limp for more than two years.
“The Japanese market is now buying about a third of the wood it was using before April,” said Gordon Andersen, Keith’s brother and a lumber trader for Sinclar Enterprises, the largest independent lumber wholesaler in the north.
There are two added pressures, say the Andersens. Timber harvesting fees are much lower for Eastern Canadian mills, so they can ship to Vancouver for less than mills here can turn logs into lumber.
Add to that the quota imposed two years ago which restricts the amount of wood mills can sell, forcing them to pay more to the government if they go over their quota.
These pressures have caused mills here to shut down, usually two or three weeks at a time. That hurts mill workers, merchants and raises costs for mills because the expenses can’t be spread across the usual volume of lumber, Andersen said.
Ann Landers..................14
Around Town..................14
Bridge......................23
Business ................18,19
City, B.C...............3,5,13
Classified ..............20-22
Comics .....................16
Motoring.................25-32
Crossword ...................16
Entertainment 16,17
Horoscope ..................22
Lotteries....................14
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Prince Rupert back on Alaska ferry itineraiy
VICTORIA (CP) — An Alaskan ferry will resume travelling to Prince Rupert now that the state’s governor is confident it won’t be blockaded again by renegade fishermen.
But provincial officials brushed aside suggestions that hundreds of Alaskan tourists should be compensated for the inconvenience they suffered during the three-day blockade last summer.
Alaskan Gov. Tony Knowles announced Wednesday the service would resume in December after being suspended since last July. “Good neighbors mend fences,” Knowles said in a news release.
The agreement came after Canadian officials assured Knowles that if there was another blockade, the Canadian Coast Guard and the RCMP would move quickly to release the boat.
Bob King, a spokesman for Knowles, said officials have received verbal assurances from fishermen that it won’t happen again. “We’re hoping the fishermen realize this was entirely misdirected,” he said.
Under the agreement, the city of Prince Rupert will ask Premier Glen Clark for an apology and compensation for the stranded passengers.
When asked if he would compensate, Clark responded: “Of course not.”
Clark has said he was not in favor of the ferry action, but added he sympathized with the fishermen who participated. That angered Alaskan officials who saw his remarks as lending tacit support for the blockade.
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“Okay. The basement leaks a little. But they fixed it.”
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
Keith Raddatz outlines his travel centre development proposal on Highway 97 South.
$15-million hotel complex planned for south of city
by DON SCHAFFER Citizen staff
Prince George’s commercial district expanded south Wednesday afternoon.
Kamloops investor Keith Raddatz was in Prince George to announce plans for a $ 15-million hotel and truck stop on Highway 97 South, just north of Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers.
The travel centre, as Raddatz calls it, is scheduled to open in November of 1998.
The complex will occupy 15 of the 44 acres of Crown land Raddatz is buying at the south edge of the city. The complex will have 80 to 100 rooms, restaurants, a lounge and other amenities, as well as a large area for truckers to stop, sleep and shower.
Raddatz said the development will create up to 250 full- and part-time jobs. He said it’s not part of any hotel chain, although it might be in the future.
Dale McMann, the director of the Prince George Region Development Corporation, said the new site gives retailers another attractive option if they wish to locate here.
“Right now thev’re looking at select loca-
tions within the city, and saying, ‘Yes, we want to be there but it has to be within a very narrow defined area,’ ” McMann said. “I think this has the potential to push those bounds considerably, to give them another alternative.”
Raddatz (he owns a truck stop outside Kamloops) said there were a number of reasons for his choice of the site, including talks with the residents around the property behind the Mr. P.G. site at the junction of Highways 16 and 97.
“I talked with the community — that’s my style — and that’s not going to happen,” he said of a big retail development at the site. “It’s too expensive.”
Mayor Colin Kinsley said he was pleased.
“Every week I’ve met with one developer or another pointing out pieces of land that we have,” he said. “Now that this one is there and we have the investor leading with his chin on this, that’s somebody else I can put them in touch with” regarding commercial sites.
“Having hotel suites close to the airport is a boon.” he added.
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