SKEENA ANGLER ROB BROWN Lousy Fish ll hris Bennett has been fishing and gui- C ding on the central coast for a long ’ time. 1 first met him at Steelhead ; Society Annual General Meetings 20 years ago. Chris was a gangly young man with a mop of long curly hair then, He leaned on his vowels when he spoke, stretching them in the way I’d heard folks from the Midwestern U.S. _do. “When we fish over an area where there used to be a fish farm,” he told me in that dis- linctive cadence, “we get nothing, Those places ‘are dead zones.” In those days Chris Bennett's was a voice ' from the wilderness and voice in the wilderness. 4Fish farming on this coast was in an embryonic «stage then. The rest of us had reservations about the industry; Chris had none. He diagnosed the melanoma and appreciated its metastatic poten- tial when it was a small lesion. . ‘Last year Chris came upon lice covered smolts in the inside waters of the Broughton Ar- _ chipelago. Some of Chris’s guests. were fisher- men from Scotland. They knew :this destructive phenomenon. Chris took two smolts, a humpy and a chum, each carrying over 16 lice, to bio- logist Alexandra Morton. Morton began sampling with a long-handled dip net. She discovered that where farms were nearby the wild smolis were lousy; where there were no farms, the smolts were lice free, and that the number of lice per smolt increased with their proximity to the fish farms. - During this time the Department of Fisher- “jes and Oceans or DFO (now hiding under the — alias FOC) was made aware of the infestation and was asked for assistance. None was forth- coming, which, if you didn’t know the bizarre workings of DFO, may seem like strange beha- viour from the institution charged by the govern- * ment with the welfare of salmon. Alerted by a press release, CBC Radio. tracked down DFO’s Dorothee Kaiser, a fish pa- thologist who assailed Morton’s science and took pains to credit a high return of pinks in the year 2000 as the probable cause of the infesta- tion. ; Given her chosen field and the wealth of in- formation available from Norway and Scotland - documenting the linkage of lice to fish farms, _Ms. Kaiser's resolute reluctance to finger the _farms as-a likely source of the problem and her ‘reluctance to call for more investigation — espe- icially since Andrea Morton had, at that point collected 600 samples of lousy salmon smolts, 34 per cent of which were lethally infected — is, to be kind, curious. When First Nations and other local resi- dents called a press conference and demanded : that something be done about the lice crisis, the - DFO charged a certain Dr. Noakes with the task. Noakes whose day job is to head up the Aqua- culture Division for DFO in its Pacific Biologi- ‘cal Station, sent out a trawler which scraped the ‘ lice from the sides of the salmon samples it col- lected and any semblance of scientific validity with them. When the unrest continued to grow, Noakes dispatched seiner to an area in the Broughton where most smolts don’t migrate two weeks after the majority of the migration had ‘peaked, all the time assuring the public there was nothing to worry about. Even though Alexandra Morton had raised the issue to prominence and expended cansider- _ _ably more energy collecting samples that proved there was a very serious fisheries pro- blem than did: DFO, the only time they contac- _ted her was to threaten her with a fine for dip nelting without a permit. When 99 per cent of the pink salmon run failed to return the next fall DFO still refused to name the obvious culprit. , You'd think that the government institution charged with the responsibility of protecting Ca- ! nada’s fisheries would take a dim view of an in- ‘dustry that each year dumps the raw sewage equivalent of a city of 500 thousand inhabitants into our coastal waters ~ waste that. includes pesticides and a host of other deleterious che- micals, Given the fact that toxic exotic esca- pees, like the thousands of Atlantic salmon that ‘escaped from Stolt’s pens recently, are a ticking time bomb amongst wild indigenous salmon, you might expect your federal fisheries ministry to help the First Nations of the central coast tear up the footings of new aquaculture installa- tions. ; But no. After all this is DFOh-Oh, the dys- _ functional institution that wrecked the cornuco- pian cod fishery on our east coast. : The provincial government’s decision to lift the moratorium on salmon farm expansion ‘is stupid, but the way the federal. government has. aided and abetted the same industry is truly‘ scandalous. - ea YY Yellow tops as regular season ends By TYLER NOBLE THE MIDGET house hockey league wrapped up its regular season schedule Feb. 11, but in the end, there was no way of catching up to team Yellow for first place. When the league took a break for the holi- day season, Yellow was sitting 10. games above 500 and chead of team White by eight points. Despite going 5-5-1 in the new year, Yellow was able to complete their schedule with a commanding 10-point lead, Although Yellow’s performance tailed off in the home stretch, White’s 3-5-3 record since the break was well short of what was needed to overtake their rival, but enough to stay ahead of teams Teal and Red in the quest for second place. As Yellow and White cooled off, Teal and Red picked up their play significantly during the final six weeks. Both squads were well be- hind the pace at Christmas time, but turned LUCY PRAUGHT gets some tips from for TERRACE STANDARD. __ 638-7283 long. mer Olympic team the corner following the break. Teal went 6-4-1 in their final 11 games to claim third place, while Red went 4-4-3 in thal time. With the top two teams slipping and the other two making improvements in the fatter part of the schedule, the games turned out to be more competitive and less predictable. Each team was able to win against each of their. opponents and many of the match-ups were decided by a margin of two goals or less, The goal-scoring race was tight all season Team Yellow’s Kristian Gough pulled ahead of teammate Eric Eide in the final few games, finishing the season with a league-best 31 goals. Teal’s Sam Gill finished second with 28, while Eide came in third with 27 goals. Chris Schlenker had the most goals for team White with 26, while Andrew McColl led team Red with 22 goals. Up next for the midgets are league playoffs, members Lesley Tomlinson and Andreas Hestler at a training camp for cyclists held in Terrace Feb. 7-9. Twenty-one people took part. JON RODERS PHOTO Cyclists pick up training tips from Olympians By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN LOCAL CYCLISTS got some valuable training tips from two former Olympians hosting a workshop here. The Feb. 7-9 camp was led by Andreas Heslter, a member of the 1996 Olympic crass country mountain bike team. Joining him was Lesley Tomlinson who was on both the 1996 and 2000 Canadian Olym- pic teams. The camp covered topics from fitness and nutrition to how to train for compeli- tive racing. Participants also .took part in. several workout sessions on cycling trai- ners and completed a clinic on bike 7 mechanics as well. The workshop sold out in less than two weeks with 21 people from Terrace and Hazelton taking part. Participants ranged in age from 15-61 and their interests in different types of cy- cling varied just as much with beginner eyclists, downhill mountain bikers, triath- letes and road racers attending. ; “They were so approachable,” said or- ganizer and participant Lucy Praught of the Olympians. “I think for the young puys to to talk to them one on one about ‘their training was really valuable.” Bluebacks bag personal bests THREE LOCAL swimmers got a taste of high perfor- mance swimming as they tock to the water at the B.C. senior championships in Vancouver. in order to. attend the event swimmers must meel certain qualifying times. ; Caitlin Scales, 15, Ed- mund Swan, 16, and Chris Mortis, 17,.cach made this year’s qualifying times in order to advance to the Feb. 7-9 meet. The locals swam in the same heats as national team swimmers and swim- mers much older than them, says head coach Mike Carlyle. The .teammates had three priorities for the . meet: to swim 100 per cent best times, swim in the same heats as high level. athletes and take stock of the techniques used by university level athletes. Carlyle says the meets was a success at ali levels. Each of the Bluebacks logged 100 per cent perso- nal bests and both Swan and Morris made it to the consolation finals. “To be able to partici- pate at a high level was very rewarding,” says Car- lyle, adding the swimmers were not intimidated by the level of competition and kept their cool. wi Medal winners TERRACE'S 14 and under boys and girls indoor soccer teams came home with some extra hardware after competing at the Northern B.C. Winter Games Feb, 7-9. The boys picked up a gold medal after defeating Prince George 2-0 in the finals, The girls fought hard to a second place finish tosing 3-1 to Williams Lake In the finals. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO weeks, which began last Thursday. On opening night, team Teal doubled up on team Yellow, 4-2. Sam Gill, Dustin Hystad, Ken Molitor, and Ryan Titcomb picked up markers for Teal, while Eric Eide and Landen Archibald scored for Yellow in a losing cause, Since the playoffs are not connected to the regular season in terms of standings, this time of the year is considered a whole new season; what happened earlier in the year is irrelevant and the playoff title is entirely up for grabs. _ The four teams continue the playoff journey at the Terrace Arena over the next three Games are Mondays at 8 p.m., Tuesdays at 7:45 p.m., Thursdays at 9:15 p.m., and Sunday, Mar. 2 at 8:15 p.m. A 12-game round robin runs until Mar. 6, with elimination games taking place Mar. 10- 11. The championship match-up is set for Thursday, March 13, NMien’s Soccer Terrace Men's Indoor Soccer standings to dan. 14, 2003 Team GP Internationals 12 Super BM (B) 12 Super BM (W) 11 Falcons 11 Ruins 10 Kitwanga 11 Goal Scoring Leaders Team Falcons Falcons Internationals Ruins Super BM White Internationals Player Sandy Williams Jason Harris Brian Lomas Marcel Page Mike Hubbard Gam Gordan seal Minor Hockey Midget House League Standings to the end of the season Team GP Team Yellow 36 Team White 936 Team Teal a6 Team Red 46 Goal Scoring Leaders Player Kristian Gough Sam Gill Eric Eide Chris Schlenker Jordan Wall James Inkster Andrew McColl Tanner Noble Dustin Hystad Tyler Sheasby Chris Webb Northern B.C. | Winter Games — Fob. 7-9, 2003 : Event Juveniie Open -Jordan Johnson W Team Yellow Teal Yellow White Yellow Yellow Red White Teal Teal Teal Joshua Durand ~~ Brandon Braam - Doug Swank. Eigure Skating PrePreliminary Ladies Rayven Algor Preliminary Ladies Jaqueline Leniuk: Lindsay Scharf Junlor Bronze Ladies Jamia Penner Kelsey Wilcox Junior Silver Ladies Stephanie Leong Senior Bronze Ladies Wreailing Femate 60 kg Female 65 kg Female 70 kg Male 45 kg Male 70 kg Male 74 kg Male 78 kg Male 89 kg+ Boye 14 and Under indoor Soccer Gila 14 and Under Indoor Soccer’ Peowee hockey Janet Lewis Kelssy Minhinn Joanne Hommeniuk Adie Sankey © Amanda Commerford Lindy MacRabbie Jamas Weget Keith Robinson Humphrey Davis NelsonNorberg Basil Morgan ‘Standing “Bronze: Bronze = Bronze Bronze | Bronze © Bronze 4th Bth 12th Bronze Sliver Bronze 8th ick Gold Silver Silver. Siar - Bronze - 7th 5th Silver Gold. $tver”