Page 2 March 1986 Cassiar Courier

Cassiar - A Ghost Town

y Lee Coran

Do you want Cassiar to become a ghost town? Well,
this is a possibility, according to a letter Cassiar employ-
ees recently received from Peter Jones, executive vice-
president of Cassiar Mining Corporation.

The price of asbestos has dropped substantially in
the past few years, as have the sales. This has necessitat-
ed cutting costs in many areas — and more cuts are nec-
essary. in order to remain competitive.

One of the major expense areas in Cassiar is operat-
ing the townsite. For several years now Cassiar Mining
Corporation has made many representations to the
provincial government to provide some of the services
provided in other areas, such as power, water, sewage
systems, road maintenance, street lighting, garbage re-
moval, to name a few. However, although the govern-
ment has been sympathetic they are not prepared to
take any action. Because of the government's decision,
Cassiar Mining Corporation has had to look at other op-
tions to cut costs. Jones indicated that one proposal be-
ing considered was to close the townsite and operate the
facility on a “mining camp” basis.

We complain about things like having to pay more
for gas in Cassiar than in Dease Lake but we forget that
in Dease Lake average monthly power costs for a service
station might be in the $250.00 range, while in Cassiar
power for that same service station would be in the vic-
inity of $2000.00 per month, and this is without adding
in the extra cost of buying the power plant in Cassiar.
This huge inequity in power costs is because Dease Lake
power is supplied by B.C. Hydro at seven cents per kilo-
watt while in the Cassiar area residents and businesses
have to provide their own power.

Cassiar area waited a long time to get some govern-
ment offices, such as Human Resources, Government
Agent's office and Public Health Office. Now rumor has
it that these offices will be moved to Dease Lake. Peter
Wearing from the Ministry of Human Resources, Terry
Moran from the Ministry of Health and a spokesman for

the Ministry of Finance have all said that there are absol-
utely no plans to move these three offices to Dease Lake.
However, if we just sit back placidly and don’t do any-
thing, who's to say that six raonths from now this doesn’t
happen. We all remember the Game Warden — one day he
was a resident in Cassiar and had his office here and the

next day it was all moved to Dease Lake!

In another article in this issue, Keith Jones outlined
some of the taxes paid to the Federal and Provincial
governments by Cassiar Mining Corporation and their
employees. Add to this the taxes paid by Taurus Mining,
Erickson Gold, Finning Tractor, the Cassiar Schools and
all the other businesses and the amount is well over 10
million dollars. This from a community of approximate-
ly 1200 people. It. is time we, as individuals, began ask-
ing both the federal and provincial government what we
get in return and why we should be treated any different
than our neighbors 75 miles away in Dease Lake.

If we care about our community, we should be mak-
ing sure the government in Victoria knows we don’t
want to leave Cassiar — it is our home — and that we
want the government to begin treating us like other
areas in B.C. This means providing the services to us

which everyone else in the province just takes for granted.

M.L.A.
REPORT
Al Passarell

I am writing to you regarding a recent Writ filed in
Court to dissolve the Atlin Constituency by the B. C. Civil
Liberties Association. In the pending court case your Pro-
vincial Government will be defending the residents of the
Atlin Constituency, to keep Atlin a constituency.

When the N.D.P. was government they appointed the
Norris Commission to revamp. the electoral boundaries.
One of the recommendations was to take away the Atlin
Constituency and form it with the Peace River (Fort Nel-
son/Fort St. John) into Northland. The recommendations
never saw daylight because the N.D.P. were defeated in
1975.

Last year, Bob Williams. N.D.P., M.L.A.. Vancouver
East, speaking for the N.D.P. stated publicly in the House
that there should not be a constituency with representa-
tion in Victoria because we didn’t have enough people to
justify representation. This position, never denied by the
leader of the N.D.P., or the Executive of the N.D.P., help-
ed me make my decision to leave a political party that had
no concern for the North and its people. Your Provincial
Social Credit Government has always defended the need
and right of having an Atlin Constituency, even when
Social Credit did not represent Atlin in the Legislature.
This says a lot about the philosophy of Social Credit and
the needs of the North, compared to the N.D.P. who
would like the Atlin Constituency dissolved.

Let us look at the ramifications of the upcoming
court trial. If Atlin is dissolved, the residents will be
lumped into a new constituency whose majority centres

continued on Page 15

NU) Nae ares sa

SACRED TRUST

The deadline for the Wilderness Advisory
Committee to report to the Provincial Cabinet
has passed. One must wonder of what substance
committee members had in way of evidence
to base their recommendations upon.

The time frame given by the provincial gov-
ernment was totally inadequate. To suggest that
a review can be made of 24 unique wilderness
and park areas in a province with such diverse
eco-systems as British Columbia is unrealistic in
the extreme.

The government of Bill Bennett has public
servants on the payroll of the taxpayers of our
Province who should be and have been evaluating
these areas. Many of the boundaries of these
areas have been established after years of exam-
ination and input from ordinary British Columb-
ians during the past decades.

For Bill Bennett’s government to even sug-
gest a task on such short notice provides an
opportunity for input to certain special interest
groups (in particular corporations) and not to
people like you and me.

Those of us who thought of presenting a
brief to the committee were discouraged by the
time constraints. The committee placed an adver-
tisement in the Interior News in Smithers Nov-
ember 27, 1985, requesting submissions by the

By Jim Fulton, M.P

OTTAWA VIEWPOINT.

(Skeena)

deadline of December 19, 1985, — 22 days.
These submissions were available for perusal
and return comment until January 13, 1986, —
25 davs counting the festive season holidays.
Then 33 days later the committee was to make
its recommendations on park and wilderness
policy.

No government should ask any task force
to examine something of such significance as
our grandchildren’s inheritance in a few short
weeks. Bill Bennett already knows what path
he is going to take; his record on parks is a
sad one indeed.

For seven years | have sat on various Parl-
iamentary Committees including five years on
Environment, Parks and Forestry.

Never in my experience has a task of such
immense magnitude been proposed for a group
so small in numbers; to come up with
recommendations so potentially far reaching,
so quickly. The process is so haphazardly thrown
together. it .will have to. be completely redone
after the election.

The greatest service that this committee can
do for all British Columbians is to declare the
process for what it truly is — inappropriate.

Our democratic tradition is best served by
the so-called committee understanding the
sacred trust temporarily placed in its hands and
that the terms of reference in no way allows
adequate consideration of such values.

Letters to the

INDIAN LAND CLAIMS

As the Indian land claims issue heats up, I keep
hearing of the wonderful life in this region before the
white man arrived to spoil it all. No doubt after 100 years
or so it is easy for memories to become a little selective...
to romanticize the good old days and conveniently leave
out the unpleasant, if it fits the argument. We now hear
a lot about a land, orderly divided between tribes, and of
a well regulated system of government and land manage-
ment, with peace and prosperity reigning throughout.
We don’t hear about intertribal wars and slave raids
anymore, or about starvation and massacres. From what
| have heard, West coast Indians tended to settle some-
where where there was a plentiful supply of fish, and
some means of warning or protection from sudden death
at the hands of hostile neighbours. The largely peaceful
invasion by our white forefathers was — with few excep-
tions — not opposed, and it did tend to puta stop to the
inter-tribal wars. Kor over a hundred years now, Indian
people have generally accepted the white man’s ways
as an improvement over their aboriginal lifestyle. To-
gether we have, over the course of four generations,
lived through the transition from dog-sleds and canoes,
to pickups and jet-boats. Indian people have acknow-
ledged the government and laws established by the invad-
ers, and have no qualms about accepting an ever growing
array of benefits and gifts.

Claims of exploitation and oppression are long
outdated, and are neither fair nor true any more. The
Canadian government spends far more money on native
people through social programs, health, education,
housing and other subsidies than it does on any other
group of Canadians. As far as “apartheid” accusations
native leaders are throwing around, I think they use the
word because it sounds good, and they are somehow try-
ing to milk sympathy for their cause from the South
African situation. Certainly, apartheid is becoming an
issue. It is being planned and pre-meditated by native
leaders, when they speak of Indian self-government,
Indian education, Indian justice and policing, not by
geographical units, but by racial units. We even have
widely advertised “all native” sporting events. If any-
one proposed an “all white” tournament, they would be
run out of the country for racism. What makes it all
right the other way around?

| know there are frustrations in Native communities
in spite of Government help, but a lot of these problems
are not going to be solved by land claims settlement
or self-government schemes.

Now I know I am treading on thin ice when I speak
of problems in the native society. Mr. Bannerman, a radio
announcer in the lower mainland, got into serious diff-
iculty recently, when he made some very derogatory
statements about native people, and well he should.
The things he said about native people could be said
about many ethnic or other groups of people to a great-
er or lesser degree, and the problems he alluded to are
certainly not confined to Indian people. However,
to pretend that there are no collective problems in the
native society is not very productive either. Statistics
show unmistakingly that as a group, Indian people have

editor

a much lower life expectancy than any other identif-
iable group of Canadians. That there is a much higher
incidence of unemployment, of brushes with the law,
of alcohol problems, of poverty, poor education, health
problems and accidental death. To pretend this is not
so, is to preclude efforts to improve those statistics.

Now there are many native people who do not
contribute to those statistics. These are largely the people
who have made the successful transition from an obsolete
“living off the land” lifestyle to a life-style that is more
in tune with our modern computer age. All of us have to
somehow keep up with a fast changing world. This spells
the difference between being a productive participant,
or a disgruntled onlooker. I would defy anyone to be a
successful participant in our modern society, if they stub-
bornly cling to customs and traditions of a hundred years
ago. | am not speaking of basic moral values, which are
ageless and should never be abandoned, but of customs
and traditions that are counterproductive to providing the
simple, every-day needs of an individual or a family in
our present society. The well-being and prosperity of any
identifiable group of people and the heartbeat of any
community is the sum total of their individual efforts. It
is the sum total of their individual industriousness, their
determination to be self-sufficient, their management of
time and money, their committment to educating their
children and the role model and home atmosphere they
provide their children. This determines the prosperity
and well-being of successive generations of any people,
whether or not they keep up with the demands of a fast
changing society. The socialist point of view has always
been that people can somehow abandon these principles
at will, and look to governments to take up the slack.
But governments do not solve social problems, they
only treat them. Basic social problems are grassroots
problems and must be solved by the individuals or groups
of individuals who harbour them. We do not help anyone
by taking over their responsibilities.

The native pre-occupation with traditional life-
styles is not going to solve their very real social problems.
We can talk about traditional food gathering, trapping
and hunting all we want. It sounds very folksy and ideal-
istic, but the facts are that the native people I know,
gather their food in a shopping cart at the supermarket.
Their needs are steady jobs and the skills and deter-
mination to make their way in our world as it evolves.
For instance, I don’t believe a settlement that would
result in more land available to native peoples would in-
it-self solve social or economic problems. I don’t see the
present reserve land base being put to very productive
use. Reserve lands are largely undeveloped. Forestry,
farming or gardening are rarely being practiced. Land is
only a source of wealth when combined with a lot of
hard work. And large amounts of money are not a
panacea for social problems. Quite often they have the
opposite effect. There are no political solutions to indiv-
idual social problems, and these problems are not solved
by protest demonstrations or trips to Ottawa. They can
only be solved by individuals in their own hearts and
homes.

P. Weeber, New Hazelton
More letters to the editor on Page 15.

—

———— .

Bits & Pieces
Hats off to the guys at the Royal Bank for buying
the gals red and white carnations on Feb. 14!

Speaking of the bank, why has Doug been so

startled lately?

A special note from one of the passengers on the
bus which went to the B.C. Northern Winter
Games in Smithers — the bus ride though tedious
was bearable by the good behavior of all the Cas-
siar competitors and we thank all of our contin-
gency for a smooth weekend and a good showing
at the Games.

Lou and Lee Vujanich and family will soon be
living in Vancouver. Lou is now Director of Hu-
man Resources for Labatts Brewery, B.C. Region.
Good luck in your new job, Lou!

Weve heard everything now! We know that CP
Air has at times lost luggage but losing your lug-
gage between Watson Lake Airport and Cassiar.
Wonder why no one lets Keith Taylor handle
their luggage anymore.

=

If you*re wondering if Walter has moved his
living room outside — it’s not really so. This was
just the setting for a short video his group was
doing on “Life in the North” which will be
shown at the next Coughee House, tentatively
scheduled for March 16.

Condolences to Bonnie and Vince Gibson. Bon-
nie’s father passed away suddenly last month.

Ex-Cassiarite Wendy Zabot was all smiles recently
when she and her team mates won the silver
medal at a ladies broomball competition in AL
berta. When asked how she did it, she replied, “I
Just gave them the broom!”

We hear Fred Cadoret was planning a trip to
France so he went to get a passport. Imagine his
surprise — shock is more like it — when he was
told he would have to go to the American Con-
sulate to get a passport as he wasn’t a Canadian.
Your friend Pierre wouldn’t be very happy,
Fred!

Congratulations to Cameron Joseph who was re-
cently accepted into the Royal Canadian Mount-
ed Police. He will be leaving on March 10 for
Regina to begin his training.

Peter Jones, Larry Otto and Cec Pulsifer compet-
ed in the 50 kilometer Cariboo cross-country
Marathon at 100 Mile House on Feb. 1. Larry Ot-
to's time was 4% hours and he placed 16I1st in a
field of 1172. Peter's time was 5 hours and 23
minutes and he finished 292nd. Cec's time was 5
hours 51 minutes and he placed 377th overall.
Hugh Snyder also came in from Toronto for this
race. Weather and ground conditions made the
race more difficult than last year.

FAREWELL TO:

Adolph Penno who has gone to Faro as Site
Controller. Marie, Shawn and Travis will be
joining him at the end of June.

Rocky Wildgren who has gone to Oshawa to work
for General Motors.

‘ Sherry Arnold and children who have gone

South.

Dorothy Belleau, the cheerful nursing replace-
ment at the hospital, who took in the Sourdough
Rendezvous before returning to Kamloops.

Denise Clark, who will be leaving the Royal
Bank staff here and moving to Edson. Good
luck in your new home. ,

Verna Knowles Retires

* ;
Be a

cies a
Pe
8

Verna was presented with a set of luggage from her
co-workers. nite Sted oe

After approximately fifteen years as a clerk-cashier in
the Cassiar Retail Store, Verna Knowles retired on Feb-
tuary 28, 1986.

Verna and Ross Knowles and their three children,
Ellen, Donna and Richard, came to Cassiar on June 28,
1967. Verna worked in the store from August 1969 to
November 1970 and from May 31, 1972 until she retired.

Verna was very active in the community and one
group who is really going to miss her is the family of All
Saints Community Church. During the years of changing
clergy and congregations, she has been a faithful member.
Verna has taught Sunday School, sings in the choir, be-
longs to the Ladies Group and is a licensed lay reader.
During the times without a resident minister or vacation
times, she has kept the church services going. With the
Ladies Group she has been a tireless worker, helping with
the Christmas Teas and sorting rummage, and Thursday
evening choir practice will just not be the same without
Verna’s cheerful participation. ;

Several parties were held to wish Verna well in her
retirement and presentations were made by the store staff
and,by the Anglican Church congregation. :

Verna is moving to Madeira Park on the Sunshine
Coast and for the near future she says “I’m just not going
to do anything!” However, later she expects to do some
travelling — maybe a trip across Canada. Ellen and Rich-
ard are remaining in Cassiar and Donna is with the Royal
Bank in Whitehorse so Verna is not really saying “Good-
bye” to the north, as she will surely be back for visits.

who's news

Bob Langford will be arriving in Cassiar on March 17,
1986, as the Personnel Manager for Cassiar Mining Corp-
oration. For the past year Bob has been a Mediation Off
icer with the B.C. Ministry of Labour. Prior to that he
was Manager of Industrial Relations and Personnel with
Brinco Limited.

Cassiar Courier March 1986 Page 3

Erickson Creek Column

by Pat Lewis Beaton

It’s really quiet around Erickson these days ...in
stark contrast to the day in January when the devast-
ating fire destroyed.the mill and caused all but 18 em-
ployees to be laid off. I personally was in Hawaii enjoy-
ing heat of a different kind when the phone call came —
THE MILL HAS BURNED DOWN!...Is this a joke? I
thought at first! No joke...the mill has burned down
and people’s lives all of a sudden took a different turn.

By the time we returned to Erickson five days after
the fire nearly everyone who was going, was gone. The
bunkhouses have been closed now and only one cook
works in the kitchen to feed the handful of workers
left on site.

Insurance people have come and gone. Plans are
being made to rebuild the mill. We’re all thankful no one
was hurt. The crew was at lunch in the cookhouse when
the fire started. Because renovation work was underway
in the mill at the time of the accident men were working
under the crusher and under the conveyor belts — some
say if the fire had started ten minutes earlier someone
may have been trapped inside. If...if...

But no one was hurt. Dennis Best heroically saved
the power house and shops from the blaze by cutting
the diesel lines with the shovel of a cat and by pushing
the load-out section of the mill back into the fire, away
from the shops. (This may not be a trophy, Dennis,
but it is a thank you from those of us who call Erick-
son home.)

Some people have stayed around Erickson because
they have children in school or simply because Erickson
is home, Also work continues at the Cusac portal site.
But it sure is quiet. We no longer hear that constant
hum of the old mill — and gone is the roar of the ore
trucks as they go up and down the hill.

One night in February A.J. and | watched the
Northern Lights in a glorious display that danced across
half of the sky. It was a magnificent sight. We stood
on the ice in the middle of McDame Lake with no art-
ificial lights to mar nature’s show. We commented on
how the fire seemed to mark the end of an era for Erick-
son and the beginning of a new chapter with Total Erick-
son and ‘soon a brand new mill. It’s time to look ahead.
Things can only get better!

PII FPIPPPPPAD

Congratulations to Gerry and Kiernan Loughran
on the birth of their son, Shane Kiernan, born on Jan-
uary 3, 1986, in Whitehorse, Shane, a brother for Danny
and Kevin, weighed in at 7 Ibs. 3 oz.

Welcome back to Tom McGrail who formerly was
Mine Superintendent at Erickson before he went to
the Lupin Mine last year. He worked as-a miner for six
weeks in Dec..and Jan. and has now transferred to Total
Erickson’s Mt. Skukum mine as Mine Superintendent
there.

Good-bye and good luck to Dennis, Heather, Aaron
and Collin Best who are moving to the lower mainland.
The Bests are long time residents of Erickson. Dennis
was the surface superintendent. °

We're all looking forward to Joyce Hebert’s return
to Erickson. Joyce was on the train that crashed in
Hinton, Alberta. She suffered a broken foot in the acc-
ident. Joyce’s son Bill pulled Joyce, an older man,
and three boys out of the wreck before it exploded
in flames, trapping some people from their coach inside.
It was a traumatic experience for all concerned and we’ll
be very happy to have Joyce back safe and sound at
Erickson.

While his Mom was experiencing the fright of her
life Jason Hebert was competing in the Northern B.C.

- Winter Games in Smithers where he won a silver medal

in judo. Congratulations, Jason! Apparently Gary Periard
was just about at his wits’ end — not knowing Joyce’s
condition and trying not to worry the young compet-
itor. Gary is good at balancing acts!!

Well...it’s March. Spring skiing is here...Easter is
on its way. Wear a smile for that Easter parade!

OPINION POLL

As a cost saving measure for Cassiar Mining Corporation it has been suggested that the

Cassiar Courier be discontinued.

Do you think the Cassiar Courier makes a valuable
contribution to the community?

YES

Comments

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Please voice your opinion on this suggestion and drop off this form at the store or Town Administration
Office or mail to Cassiar Courier, Box 100, Cassiar, B.C. VOC 1E0

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