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By DAVE STOCKAND
' PRINCE G E on GE, B.C. (CPl—Boom is the word in British Columbia in this sum- mer of i964—a'nd the north-cen- tral interior of the province ’ the place where the bang la the biggest
The boom is the genuine ar-
ticle, not the all-too-common loud noise generated by hot air which has raised hopes high be- fore in the B.C. north only to drop em as flat as yester- day's sourdough bread. _ 1t rings true on the basis of work already started, through evidence offered by the cut- throat infighting in the forest in- dustry—money, in B.C., does grow on trees—and in the prob- lems that are the natural camp- followers .of progress.
Power dams plus trees by the. millions equal pulp mills, and on this equation the foundations are being built for a new north. ern economy.
The new era is also a partner- ship of rail extension and road- building, of mineral develop- ment and new natural gas
u
53
so .
It is a time that mixes the building of high -' rise apart- ments, hotels, motels, homes. schools and hospitals with more-than-occasional stabs of bitterness and disillusionment. LURES GAMBLE“
B.C.'s Social Credit govern- ment with its rail and highway programs—and, above all, with
PEIClLLIN FOR ILER WHALE I
tured killer whale a massive dose of Penicillin for its har- poon wound, and injection of
the $700,000,000 Peace River hy- droelectric project—is nudging developers into new country that carries with it all the risks, raw uncertainties and the possi- ble riches of the frontier.
The working monument to the future. momentum - builder of the present is the $73,000,000 Portalge Mountain dam on the Peace, into which the first con-
veyor loads of millions of yards com
of fill are being poured this summer.
This promised presence of power in the north country 'n 1968, along with technological progress, is the bait sending the barons of the forest industry on a merry chase for trees.
At the start, Peace power will be striking nearly 600 miles southwest to Vancouver and the B.CS lower mainland. point where industry is established al- ready and where most of the people are.
But during the wait for the Portage Mountain turbines to start humming, the project pay-
011 is acting like a hefty dose. of
r economic adrenalin in the north.
Work that can be done in wintertime is whittled dow n sharply by snow and cold. But wages of $5,500,000 were paid in 1963 when the number of work- ers on the Peace averaged 600. Now the tempo is being stepped
“P. DRAWS JOBLESS More than 1,000 men are at
13-12 to stimulate its appetite. (AP Wirephoto)
work at the Portage Mountain damsite this summer. At the peak of construction, a couple of years hence, the work force will have reached and perhaps surpassed 2,500.
One estimate is that Peace expenditure this year alone will exceed $30,000,000.
The heartbreak side of the coin is that the Peace has be- e a magnet for the un- skilled and the out-of-work in search of non - existent jobs. Many have flocked in from out- side B.C.
The bitterness of the newcom- ers arriving “on spec” is shared by the people of Fort St. John and Dawson Creek' and o t h e r northern communities who say they aren‘t getting a fair share of work at a project
5 parked in their own backyard.
The bosses at the project re- ply that the multi-million-dollar undertaking is not a pick-and- shovel job; that schedules just don’t allow time to train new men to handle heavy equip- ment in a job where mistakes caused by inexperience could cost millions of dollars: that in any event the agreement they have with unions headquartered in Vancouver decides their hir- ing policies in large part. HARD TO COUNT
Still, there are other thin-gs going or coming up, either al- ready launched or perched on the edge of the drawing board.
In a recent progress issue
dealing with over-all B.C. de- velopment, the Vancouver Sun had one article which noted: "Trying to find a total for new projects or the amount of money to be spent in B.C.‘s ex- panding industrial economy ll like trying to keep track of the country’s rabbit population. “Every time a total reached, another project, plant or plan is announced or ex- ed II
p . Keeping to the miscellaneous projects running in the millions of dollars, the B.C. hinterland's share of development includes: —The announced 220-mile ex- tension of the Westcoast Transmission Company Lim- ited natural gas pipeline from Chetwynd to Fort Nelson in the far B.C. north—a $60,000,- 000 project awaitingNation
Limited to put into production its molybdenum property Endako, no miles west of Prince George. Molybdenum is used in hardening steel in ‘ the manufacture of electronic equipment—a socailed space- age me
-Work proceeding this year, and scheduled to be com- pleted by the end of 1905, on a loo-mile branch rail line starting north of Prince George and stretching west- ward. This project ia being carried out by the provin- cially owned Pacific Great Eastern Railway, and wi open up untapped timber country in the Stuart Laine- Fort St. James areal.
MOVING NORTH
Chetwynd is north of Prince George. Portage Mountain, the dam site, is north of Chetwynd. Fort Nelson is north of Portage Mountaln_ That’s the way the economic 'ball bounces these days in B.C.
And when you get down to it, in the long-range luck of B.C. economics, everything comes in tree
I e-r
.u p—
s. Here the potential is greatest —and the problems of progress equally great. What you find up here in the
stands of spruce, balsam, lodge- pole pine and scrub poplar—- and the scattering of "trees of other species" that get passing mention in forestry department timber-auction ads—are not the stately giants that poems get written about.
Joyce Kilmer, had he been a native of these parts, wouldn't have found inspiration without some heavy hiking.
,One transplanted West Coaster, standing on the out- skirts of Prince George and viewing the scruffy monotony of scenery, said:
“It's like they took that blade that shaved the whole Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team and sold it to the old cook down in the Chinese cafe."
Artistically, that about sums it up.
FORTUNE WAITS Financially, in what timber- men call decadent trees, in the
mats and scrubs that blanket the B.C. north, from the waste that sawmills burn now to get it out of the way, a fortune is waiting to be made.
Six different companies or groupings of companies would like to set up pulp shops in the north-central interior. Not all of them will ma it.
There is the problem of su- perimposing pulp mills on what has been a sawmill economy. Ideally, sawmill chips should play a large part in a pulp in- dustry, in the same way that a slaughterhouse uses everything
mmmmmulmul
putting theory into practice is another matter.
Bids for the timber needed to feed the proposed mills overlap. It is a battle. in a polite, gov- ernment - regulated way, and somebody has to lose out.
None ofithis detracts from the fact that the pulpmlll resources of the interior will be put to work soon—and that they are estimated to be capable of tripling the province's pulp and paper production on a sus- tained-yield basis.
POTENTIAL GREAT
Three miles north of Prince George the first concrete has I for a pulpmilll be operated by Prince George Pulp and Paper Limited, a joint venture of Canadian Forest Products Limited of Vancouver and the Reed Paper group of
England.
The t will cost $84,000,000 including working capital. Two years from now it will begin producing pulp, sackcraft for cement bags and liner board.
It is the first of its kind, the start of a yearvround industry carrying the rotten-eggs smell of pulpmlll prosperity. It won’t be the last. Counting coastal areas, represent on paper a capital Museum of close to $500,000,000. The estimate-in-theory is that
r reaches matur-
port 37 large pulpmllls, com- pared to the presentll,
The chips are down. The cen- tral interior will be getting its share.
Judge, Jury To Hear Break Case
Francis William Quinn oi Charlottetown was committed m . terday when he appeared be- fore Magistrate A.J. Haslam. QC, in City Police Court on a charge of break and entry. He pleaded not guilty. Appearing on a s e c o n d charge of damage to property Quinn was fined $20 and coats
to or 30 days.
James Carl MacCallum of Charlottetown was remanded without bail to July 28 on a charge of robbery. Three wu- nesses were called this morn- ing by crown prosecuter Alan K. Scales. The accused is no- presented by Lester P. O’Don-
B 0
James S. Gillan, Charlotte- town was fined $25 and costs when he pleaded guilty to a' charge of theft of goods valued at less than 50.
Weldon George Lowe, Char lottetown was fined $20, and costs or 20 days for speeding.
enough tim ity each year in B.C. to sup- A
INVESTMENT HIGHER Capital investment in New Zeal-and for new industrial pro-
000, compared with less than £5,000,000 in 1961.
jecta last year reached £11,000,-
, WRITER DIES
LONDON, Ont. (CP) — Joan . May, a feature writer with the London Free Press since 1954, died Friday in hospital. She had been in poor health for the last year. Mrs. May was born in Toronto in 1922, daugh- ter of Marjorie Wilkie and the late Harold Wilkie. She was past director and charter mem- ber of the London City Press Club and a member of the Lon- don branch, Canadian Women's Press Club. Funeral, services will be held Monday.
W weather has return- ed to rain-swept Vancouver
(CP Wirephoto)
Teen-age” are exploding
but the animal‘s squeal. But 6
the place... .1
,~ Their numbers are sky-rocketing annually. By 1970 we'l have 28.2 million of them in the United States What they spend on clothes. Dad alone knows. But when they come piling in to a party, you can figure the young hostess' spends / ~ ‘ about $14.50 per planned party, ’ and she does usually plan it:
erself. 72% of all teen-agar: read the daily newspaper...so that's theplacetohelpthem planwhatl 'to wear, what to serve at the
rty. In fact, whatever you ham
to sell them, tell them about it, in the newspaper.
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