PRINCE GEORGE
                                                                                     High today: -7 Low tonight: -15 Details page 2
 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2001
Serving the Central Interior since 1916
 80 CENTS (HOME DELIVERED: 50 CENTS A DAY)
 ‘Cantor will fight its own battles'
 Affiliation with forestry groups set to end
                                                                                             by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff
    Canfor is pulling the plug on its membership in three major B.C. forestry associations at the end of the year because it doesn’t feel it is getting value for the millions of dollars it contributes to them.
    The forest company — the largest lumber producer in Canada and largest employer in the B.C. Northern Interior — is ending its involvement in the Northern Forest Products Association, the Coundi of Forest Industries and the B.C. Pulp and Paper Association. Canfor is examining its involvement in other associations as well.
    “We’ve had enough of this. It isn’t working for us,” Canfor CEO and president David Emerson told The Citizen Wednesday. “I’ve come to the point where I’ve said Canfor will fight its own battles.”
    Emerson said Canfor’s interests — the kind of policy issues it wants the associations to tackle — are simply not being given the consideration he wants. For example, the company has never received the support it has wanted in its fight against waterbed-ding of Crown timber fees. Waterbedding describes the practice of increasing the fees in one area when they’ve been lowered in another so that revenue to government remains the same.
    The problem is some companies benefit from waterbedding, while Canfor is hit hard, he said. “Even people in the North who I thought would be sympathetic have not been.”
    Emerson noted that millions more are also being spent on the B.C. Lumber Trade Council, representing industry in the lumber trade battle with the U.S., instead of the existing associations taking up the fight. And he’s not sure that batde should even be industry’s responsibility since it’s a fight over provincial forest policy.
    The associations were told about Canfor’s intentions 14 months ago.
    Emerson said he told the associations then that if some kind of restructuring could take place, ideally creating a single entity to effectively represent industry, Canfor might reconsider. That didn’t happen, he said.
    Emerson didn’t have an exact figure for its contribution to the three associations, but the company’s annual bill for associations Canada-wide is about $10 million a year.
    Canfor is the single largest contributor of the NF-PA, headquartered in Prince George, kicking in about 30% of its $4.5-million annual budget.
    NFPA president Greg Jadrzyk declined comment.
Meeting snub burns mayors
                                                                                         by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff
    The mayors of small, forest-dependent communities in the Northern Interior are baffled and angry because they haven’t been invited to a Vancouver meeting to discuss forest policy changes and the status of the lumber dispute with the U.S.
    The meeting today is the third of its kind Forest Minister Mike de Jong has hosted. Hundreds of industry and community representatives have been invited, including mayors from Cranbrook, Lumby, Squamish and from Vancouver Island.
    Prince George mayor Colin Kinsley was invited but decided not to attend because he’s chairing a regional district meeting today. But the mayors of Mackenzie, Vanderhoof, Fort St. James, Fraser Lake and Houston — among the most forest-dependent
  communities in the province — were not invited.
    Communities like Vanderhoof and Fort St. James have raised concerns with the reforms meant to resolve the bitter lumber dispute with the U.S. The communities are unhappy with changes that will remove requirements for companies to cut a minimum amount of timber each year and mill timber in the same area it’s harvested.
    Fraser Lake mayor Tony Thompson said he wants to know why they were left off the invitation list. If they need a bigger room in Vancouver, Fraser Lake would be willing to make up the difference in price, he said. “To me it’s a bit of an insult to be overlooked completely as a region,” said Thompson. “Maybe they don’t value our input.”
    De Jong could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be fine,
as long as you keep working.”  
            INDEX              
Ann Landers........   ....17   
Bridge.............   ... .23  
Business ...........  .18-20   
City, B.C...........  .3,5,13  
Classified .......... .21-23   
Comics ............   ....16   
Coming Events......   , , 2    
Crossword .........   ....16   
Entertainment......   ....17   
Horoscope .........   .....7   
Lotteries...........  ....15   
Lifestyles........... ....17   
Movies.............   ....17   
Nation ............   ....6,7  
Sports .............  .. .8-12 
Television..........  ....17   
World..............   .14,15   
 canada.com
  JSBS
   Winter arrives Friday morning
   Winter officially arrives Friday, the shortest day of the year.
   The winter solstice, the farthest tilt of the northern hemisphere away from the sun, takes place at 11:22 a.m., said forecaster Tom Shalansky of Environment Canada.
   The sun rises in Prince George Friday, the day with the least amount of daylight, at 8:25 a.m. and sets at 3:52 p.m.
   After that, days do not get appreciably longer for a few days because, while the sun sets later after Dec. 21, it rises later in the morning for a brief period, too. The earth wobbles slightly at its farthest back tilt away from the sun before it begins to gradually face forward more toward the sun again. By Dec. 29, however, there will be more daylight in total as the sun rises at 8:28 a.m., but sets at 3:57 p.m., Shalansky said.
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
  BOARD OF EDUCATION — Lucas Groot executes a jump on his snowboard below the new Hart Bridge/North Nechako overpass. Sacred Heart School students use the slope on their lunch hour and are safely off the road.
Avalanche survivor recalls brush with death
                                                                                               by KAREN KWAN Citizen staff
    As she lay trapped in the frozen rubble of an avalanche, Elizabeth Hruby didn’t think she would live to see daylight.
    “I just thought I was going to die, because I tried to breathe but I couldn’t,” the McBride resident said Wednesday.
    Hruby, 20, was one of nine snowmo-bilers who survived a major slide that swept down McBride Peak near the village Sunday afternoon. Five sledders had to be dug out.
    The group had ridden about 1,000 feet up to a bowl area when the slide hit around 2 p.m., said Matt Elliott, one of the snowmobilers. One rider started up the slope but didn’t make it very far before the snowpack crumbled, about 1,000 feet above, he said.
    “1 saw the top of the hill break free and start to slide,” Hruby recalled.
    At first, she said the avalanche didn’t appear large and looked as if it would stop well before it reached the group. But the tide gained momentum as it neared them. “It was like a huge ocean, like the whitecap of an ocean,” she said.
    As the slide rumbled toward her, Hruby said she was stunned.
    She tried to start her sled but was captured in the tide. “I remember tumbling. It felt like water. It was even bubbling. Then everything stopped and I couldn’t move, like I was trapped in solid rock.” Then, she said she felt someone grab her foot and knew she was being dug out. “It felt like it was forever, but they said it was only a minute and a half.”
    Elliott, who managed to dig Hruby out, was luckier. Seeing the snow tumble down the hill, he said he leapt up in a desperate attempt to avoid it. “It hit me like a truck. It flipped me over and I was swimming and swimming, and it went light, black, light, black,” he said. He managed to extricate himself and quickly spotted Hruby’s boot sticking out of the snow. “I dug and dug and dug until I got her out.”
    The rescuers were able to locate their friends because parts of their hands or feet were protruding from the snow, Elliott said.
    Of half a dozen avalanches he’s seen, he said this was the largest.
    Though still shaken, Hruby said the incident won’t discourage her from snowmobiling. But she said she would take more precautions, such as wear-
  ing a safety beacon — that can help locate someone buried in the snow — and doing research into the avalanche hazards in the area. “I realize how lucky I am and I’m so thankful, because most people don’t survive avalanches.”
    Prince George avalanche forecaster Greg McAuley said the avalanche hazard on northern mountains is “considerable.” Slides can be triggered easily under current conditions, he said, because large amounts of snow are sitting atop a weak layer. McAuley advises backcountry users to learn about slope stability and to choose their riding terrain carefully.
    Avalanche information for general areas of the province are available on the Canadian Avalanche Association Website at: www.avalanche.ca
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