B4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, October 15,2003

CHARLYNN TOEWS
Yard styles in the Shoe

DON’T KNOW how it is in other
] places, but in the Horseshoe we like a

nice mix of yard styles. Some neigh-
bourhoods are so homogenous it is, frankly,
dull. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

My block boasts a yard like a billiard table,
the scattering of rich-hued leaves looking like
Martha Stewart's design of autumn on a soft
carpet. The architect is actually the son-in-law
who is jovial about mowing, and likes jokes.
He talks loud because the mower is on!

We also have a grassless lawn, all plants
and flowers. [ love that. Mixes store-bought
plantings with indigenous, too, so it's pretty all
year round. So “Earthy,” yet practical and
kind.

My block has yard art of various sorts. Pain-
ted plywood here, a faux mountain stream hid-
den in the shade behind a tall straight fence
there. Some people are crazy about flowers,
oversized sunflowers in October. And the back
door neighbours tend their fruit trees lovingly,
constantly, as if they were small smart dogs.

‘it’s an excellent Secret

Shortcut.’

Nearby, fortunately, is an empty lot with in-
triguing foot paths and a secret fort. It’s an Ex-
cellent Secret Shortcut, but if I lived next

_door, I'd be tempted to fence it or buy it or
hire well-trained attendants.

A bit further away is the best Secret Short-
cut I've met in decades. A bike path someone
has mowed regularly all summer. One mower-
swatch wide, it skims literally two minutes off
our linear park loop. Near the tree farm en-
trance, also very well-kept. Hmmm...

Did you know there is a community of stone -

wall builders in the Horseshoe? Well, if you
‘start building or already have a Stone Wall
‘(not a rock fence!) they will drop by. Network-
ing and the sharing of information and exper-
iences will occur, naturally. No facilitator is
needed, unless you count the stone wall at
hand. "

If you don’t already know, allow me to
mention that dry stane walls (no cement) last
for decades and centuries. (Picture Scotland if
you like.) Dry stone walls with a curve built
into them have more strength than a chalk-line
wall. (There’s no straight lines in Nature.) Fin-
ally, planting certain types of low-lying
creeper/climbers actually integrates their roots
as part of the structure, an organic whole.

Lives and breathes and shifts and sags with
time, but ever stronger nonetheless.

Now don’t get all wound up about stone
walls, like you have to have one right away,
your yard is nice, too. Even if 1 don’t say
something at the time - or ever — I] do appreci-
ate you taking off those limbs, Brightens up
the place, more sun is always nice. And I] do
like to see you obsessing over rose bushes. If I
glare at you as you mow it is only because I
am jealous your grass is almost cut and mine
has grown so long it is now lying down.

I tread recently that men do not attach a
sense of self to the inside of their house, but
only to their workplace and their yard. Appar-

ently their brains do not perceive dust, whal-_

ever. I believe it. But let me also say that if a
hardware store offered Yard Tweezers for
Women concerned about Unsightly Stubble, |
would be first in line.

In my neighbourhood, The Horseshoe, so
named because of its particular original shape,
there is one homeowner who always culs his

‘Yard Tweezers for Women
concerned about Unsightly
Stubble.’

city-owned boulevard living right nexl to one
who absolutely refuses to do so. I can see both
points of view, ;

In my back yard, where experiments, are al-
lowed more so than on stireet-side, 1 have what
I think of as My Meadow. I do not tamper in
any way with the growth occurring there, The
first few years, 1 got a lot of wild flowers
(weeds), then I got a Free Tree. The tree is a
maple definitely, a red maple maybe. It is
lovely, thriving, obviously likes where it’s at.

If everyone in my peighbourhood left their

whole.-yatd: slowiey, Ji
forest would” pradua
again. Unused logging roads do that.
But then we wouldn't have the nice variety
of yards we enjoy now in the Horseshoe.

Ky yiead 8 eRe fg,
i bit ae jake over

TESS TESSIER shows her archive of her grandmother Mary P. Morgan's exploits in the far north to historian Dr. John Hart.

638-7283

Tough as nails

northern woman’s history is an archival gold mine

One adventurous

By JENNIFER LANG
TESS TESSIER's grandmother
might be a legend if anyone re-
membered her story today.

Mary P. Norman was a widow
by the time she headed north to
work as a nurse during a flu epi-
demic at Herschel Island, a whal-
ing station in Canada’s high
Western Arctic.

It was the start of a thrilling
second chapter of her life.

In 1927, Mary helped take a
husband and his ill wife on a peri-
lous, 2,000-km journey from Her-
schel Island to Edmonton by sled
dog, boat and finally by rail.

The adventure was spun into
headline news in the United
States, where the tale received
larger-than-life billing on the front

pages of the newspapers.

It was just one of her many
career highlights for Mary, who
once nursed five typhoid patients
in a cramped ice hut. After marry-
ing fur trapper Vincent Kost, she
ran a lodge and trading post at Ik-
lavik — near Iqaluit — that she

“The men said she couldn't
make two trips in a year, and she
said, ‘T'll show ‘em!’” Tessier
grins, a determined glint in her
eye. ,

It’s just one of the stories Tess-
ier, an author and grandmother
who raised seven children at a

Mary once nursed five typhoid patients in.a-

cramped ice hut.

later turned into a hotel.

Mary would bring shipments of
furs to Edmonton, where she
would sell them and buy her sup-
plies, returning up the Mackenzie
River in a scow, complete with
tents pitched right on deck.

homestead in rustic Rosswood,
has gathered as part of a massive
archival collection.

It's women’s stories Tessier
wants to share. Her burning desire
is to use the collection as a basis
for a documentary film. She thinks

younger women will be inspired.

Over the years, she tracked

down anyone she could find who
had lived in the western arctic in
those days, crisscrossing the
country in order to interview
people who had come south to re-
tire: Hudson’s Bay Company em-
ployees, Grey nuns, nurses, tea-
chers, police,
*”Her quest,took her to Ontario,
Newfoundland, Quebec. She has
dozens of audiotapes recorded
with their stories.

Unlike the men who were more
likely to be lured by dreams of
adventure and quick fortune, the
women who headed north in the
1920s and ‘30s were community
builders.

Continued Page B6

wing time
2S gt

THIS SMILE says it all - the new playground equipment at Clarence Michiel
Elementary is a big hit with kids, including these Grade 7 students who were
-found hanging around on one of the brightly-coloured pieces. The new play -
equipment, purchased by the school's parent advisory council, is the first real
playground the school has had in its 40-year history. So many students wan-:
ted to try it out, principal Cheryl Sebastian was forced to limit play time by. ,
grades. Each day, a different grade gets to use the new playground equip- —
ment. “It's just for the first couple of weeks, until the novelty wears off,” she
said, The school also has basketball hoops and some hopscotch squares.

Around Town —

ment.

1966.

tion.

his own terms.

zabeth Theatre.

Walk about

WALKING is a great way to keep fit. It’s also in-
expensive and doesn’t require a lot of fancy equip-

But sometimes it’s difficult to stay motivated,
particularly as the nights grow longer, the days
grow darker and, let’s face it, damper.’

Fortunately, the Hearts in Motion Club is back
in action at the Skeena Mall.

You're welcome to walk the mall in comfort at
7:45 a.m, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
morning. Presented by the Heart and Stroke Foun-
dation of B.C. and Yukon. For more info call 638-

UFO show delayed

DUE TO the intense interest, the Life Network has
decided to put off the air date of an episode of
Magnificent Obsessions that has a local connec-

The show featuring UFO sightings in northwest
B.C. — through the eyes of resident researcher
Brian Vike — was to have kicked off season two of
the show on Oct. 11.

The episode will instead air on Nov, 8 at 8:30
p.m. Eastern Standard Time, giving the network
lime to launch a media blitz for the UFO episode.

The show will be re-broadcast in late November
and then again in December. .

Summit Films, the company that produces the
series for the Life Network, promised to send more
details this week.

He’s agem
FANS OF Garnet Rogers take note: he's perform-
ing in’ Kitimat next week as part of the Kitimat
Concert Associations’s 48th season.
From tender ballads to contemporary folk songs,
Rogers is the real deal — an independent recording
artist who’s committed to carving oul a career on

With a smooth baritone, he’s also considered
one of the finest vocalists around. A self-taught
musician, Regers learned to harmonize with his
late brother Stan, the legendary balladeer.

The show takes place Oct. 25 at the Mount Eli-

For more information, call (250) 632-4542,

‘