.... 4nd ‘Kitsumkalum rivers. by Scqtt Symoxs | ‘The plane heading north, for Prince Rupert and Terrace. Victoria. and the Sunshine Coast belay me~- _ that archipelago of islands, coastal mountains, the loveliest place to live in Canada, Our ‘‘banana belt’’, And fading behind me now, Vancouver, Simon Fraser University...that university BO curiously paradigmatic of much that is going on in Canada to-day, The battle between unions and management, Or between an Imaginary Canadian iden- tity and any real identity we atill have left, The battle between knowledge as technocracy and knowledge - a erlhanced being. Yes, the very architecture of so many of these new. universitles looking like a miap of,..the ” mod-media mind. A cynical knowlngness, as against any reverential contemplation of 8. . ; The clouds swallow the mountainscape. I talk with | my neighbour on the plane, explain that I'm going back to sea the B.C. north, Terrace, where I once lived six months, writing in the bush. I fell in love with the Terrace region, its Trum- ter Swans, Kermode ars, and the old fron- tlersmen, like Gunnar Edlund. I ask her [if she _ knows Terrace at all. “know “Terrace?” ‘she laughs-’my uncle, George Litt'e founded Terrace! Yes, he came from Atwood; Ontario, at the turn of the century, started a lumber mill. As the town grew he brought out Ontario maple and birch trees, to nt along the streets. His ther, my father, helped to build the little cettlement at ’ Kitselas, with all its old - Ontario | gabling . and verandahs...” Kitaelas, the small, and now mostly abandonned settlement about seven miles out of Terrace, Edlund lives, : We'are hopping over the mountain tops now, lake- studded. And the sudden valley of Terrace, at the conjunction of the Skeena ‘errace, and its near neigh- “pour Kitimat, embracing a region of some 60,000 people. As I enter the town [ cannot help noticing. those huge maples, birch trees, along the main streets. Anda street named Atwood. After settling in to a hotel, I set out ~ to find Gunnar Edlund, George Little may be the formal founder of Terrace, but for me Gunnar is “Mr. Terrace”, Gunnar spends part of the years in the old folks home, in Terrace, and as much time ag he can out in his settler’s cabin near _Kitselas. No, he’s not in the where Gunnar’ UND find Rik Daykin who also lives in Terrace, but has a cabin out near Kitselas. Rik assures me that Gunnar is . celebrating Spring out in Kilselas, He alse takes time to show the home he has racently acquired...’ large log home built In 1909, squared logs. The oldest house standing in Terrace, And inside, the high- ceilinged living-room, complete with a gothic niche in -the wall, for religious statues and a Cross. “'The original family here was Catholle”, Rik explains, There is'no train going out to Kitselas to-day. But the station-master smiles--‘‘tel] . you. what, I think 7 can arrange for you to goout ona work-train tomorrow. That’s better that. a seven mile hike through the Spring mud.” I wander through Terrace. At first sight. it’s like any mod- Weat town In North America. Except for those big old trees, and the spectacular site amidst the mountains. I notice a huge new K-Mart - bullding, looking tike a gray- concrete dungeon. One of the shoppers says “yes, we call it Fort Desolation. Their main coricern was to get it built in time for Christmas shopping last year.”, On to the City Hall, to see the one specimen of Ker- mode bear, stuffed, in the Foucll Chamber. ae utiful, like a pygmy r bear. Infact itis a sub specie of black bear, cream white. And not merely an “albina’’.: The game warden's' wife fells me-that there are probably about twenty in the Terrace region, They're rigorously protected. “Anyone who shoots a Kermode bear geta shot'", she says laughing. The bear. is unique to the Terrace area, and one of the islands further down the B.C. coast: The town has become proud of ita private -bear~it now ‘graces the town logo. “Terrace, Home of the Kermode Bear". I stroll the town, check another of the large hotels. A portralt. of Robbie Burns .«iiver.the Erant dogr...And att sign’ olitside ‘fhe red-plush @ room saying ‘Please wear shoes and shirts in this dining room!" On to the Northland Delicatessan for a snack lunch, A first-class “dell”, with the creamiest -hot chocolate in Canada. Musing on Gunnar. How often he came by our little cabin in the bush, always bringing fresh vegetables -from his garden. Leaving them on the-porch if we weren’t there, Gunnar, in his seventies, striding along through the bush to and from town, full knapsack on his tru _ old folks home right now. I - After’ Lunch I'm in troduced to one of the town’s major real estate dealers. A dignified older man. He eyes me with vivld suspicion-"'so ‘you're writing for the newspapers,ch? Well, about - two years ago there were articles on Terrace in the Vancouver Province and. the Toronto Globe. They described Terrace as the - boom town that bust.. Said there were 400 houses for sale here, and no buyers, Absolute nonsense: I checked, there were fewer than 25 houses available at the time. Terrace has grown rapidly in the past few years, We're part of a northern development line you Easterners don’t even know about, Edmonton through Jasper, Prince George, Hazelton, Terrace-Kitimat, Prince Rupert...over’ a million people, Those newspa ; case of the fiction of facts, It’s our spirit that counts, | And we're still growing. Tell . them that!” I stroll along to the town newspaper office. Browse : through the recent papers. A high leprechaun portrait of Trudeau, announcing his. arrival to speak in a few days. A weekly column by Jona Campagnolo, Liberal M.P. for the region, 1 try. several...‘“many. months of Planning, discussion, and. lobbying...construction... valued at $570,000...a bridge. , being constructed through a ‘$243,000 grant from the - federal government...1 will continue to monitor its progress,..etc,"" Stunned, Taskone of the editors‘‘do all Campagnolo's articles read like a government pork- barrel list?’ He smiles wrily, ‘yep, that's just what she does’’. watching Iona Campagnolo in Parliament, in Ottawa, popping up and down like a plastie’cereal-box prize, And contrasting her with the three-dimensional gusiness of someone like Jean Pigott, In the evening, tired, I dine alone in a small new restaurant French cuisine. I discover that the chef is Tunisian. He ’ Joins me,‘offering a braady, - and slaris talking of French classical and romantic poetry, quoting line after line from. Lamartine, de Vigny, and Hugo. . ‘ Next morning I’m on the early work-train loaded down with foods, a bettle of cognac, some Swedish bisuits from the ‘‘deli” {remembering that Gunnar came from Sweden). Half- an-hour later I'm getting off, in the bush, at Kitselas, The tiny white box of a station with the red message scrawled on it wall-- "“Shirley.from St. Laurent, Newfoundiand. Kisses help..." I turn into the bush, those iridescent blue jays following me, querulous at my arrival. The mud along the ald lumber trail sometimes up to my knees, The huge forests towering around me, massy. And the constant feeling of a humanoid face perring out at me, The feeling that must have given rise to the Sasquatch legend. Till I reach a clearing, a rise of purple crocusses. And the Indian graveyard at the foat of Gunuar's hillside. The old grave plots, carved stones, “Chief Sha-Gann..."" And one of the plots carefully tended, the plastic Flowers, Gunnar’s life-campanion lying there. As I tur up the hillside, the cleared land, the huge grey stumps standing like petrified dinosaurs. Gun- nar’s vegetable garden sprouting Its first rhubarb, And at the top of the hill, perched like a canary, the yellow clapboard cottage, with ita blue and red trim. The outbuildings all neat, bright. The neatly stacked piles of ‘firewood, Gun-. narland. I pold up the hill, take off my boots in the side shed, with its cedar-bark flooring, and knock. Gunnar opens, steel-grey eyes in- terrogating. Then — his Musical iaugh--"it's you. Well, I always knew you'd come back!" ; 1 step inside, Gunnar bubbling around in his stocking - feet, wearing a handsome floral sweater- coat, stoking up the stove, I drop into one of his old wooden chairs, catching my breath, getting out my of- fering of food and brandy. Scon we are drinking some of Gunnar’s mint tea. Gunnar perched erect on his chair, His body ag trim and neat aa home. “Where did you get that handsamea sweater-coat, Gunnar?” per articles were a. : the rattlesnake?" Bridge, maybe 1932, We was _ spring, the ground was . starting to thaw out. I was anything...” Gunnar talks I remember © advertising a ae - “Oh that, when I was back in Sweden a couple of years ago my nieces gave it to me..twenty-two nieces!” He says it with proud mirth. And [ notlee that he still has the old Swedish and Swedizh- American newspapers piled. beside the table, newspapers golng back twenty, thirty years. “How long ago did you ‘come to Canada, Gunnar?” “Now that was in the mid- twenties. We were just like cows on the boat coming over, yeah. Most of us didn't speak any English, We just had a number. I had twenty- five dollars in my pocket, and a ticket to the prairies, I went to Saskatchewan witha group. The farmers came and picked out the hands they wanted. Fifty cents a day to start, The farmer who picked me said “You'll be -§ good for kids”. I was small, and his wife had just died. He wanted a baby-sitter, Later I came here to B.C, riding freight up to McBride. We were cutting ties and pales”, “Where was It you sat on “1 was working for the railway, .at Spencer's having lunch, lt was early sitting on some grass and . rocks, by a stump, suddenly the ground began to let . jumped up and shouted. That Bnake poked its head up © angry, came out and began that rattling stuif, yeah. * Then moved away slow: We was all too scared to do- ‘with a musical Ilit that is almost Irish. His head bobbing up and down, his stocking feet twined around ’ the rungs of the chair. “When did you: come to Terrace?” ' “About 1936. Working to repair damage by a flood, yeah. Putting nails and tics back, all by Hand, Sixteen hours a day, twenty-five cents an hour it was. About $00 people in Terraceinthem | days. That's when I got my first home. Built It up the lumber trail herd. Built four . or five homes ground here, .. yeah, Always had a, gar- den... That's what I like beat - about Canada, I can have my own garden’, - I glance around the room, as bright as Gunnar's | sweater-coat, And the fresh — white ceiling. The tops of tin cans carefully nailed over any knotholes, and painted. : _ “Have you managed to buy thia piece of land yet, Gunnar?” d Ne, 1 just longa it. fy ollars a year. Icano it if 1 build one of thera ex. pensive houses, like $35,000. with a flush toilet, all that -” stuff, yeah...” He looks out _the window, the hillside he haa toiled and turned to garden sprouting before our eyes. All the hillsides Gunnar has clear, tilled, in . this area. The soil he as nursed, loved. His mate lying in'the ground down in the near trees, Kitselas, it is Gunnar’s land. He cleared gave it to us, Is there no way to thank him...for his life? Later, I'm back - in Terrace, Gunnar’s stoic dignity resonate in me, But my plane ls grourded. I have six free hours. I quickly phone a friend. Yes, he’ drive me there. Yes, they’re still out there, at the far end of the Lake, Scott. We hurry - out. Lakelse Lake, to the far end, out near where Al Capone once had his nor- thern fildeaway. Qut to a point--“there they aret"’ The Trumpeter Swang, only fifty feet away! They spend each Spring here; en route north. These majestic birds, Once clase to extinction, now back, a clarion in our land. So noble... - Noble—that’s the word | wanted. Gunnar--you are noble! : Scott Symons fs an award. - winning journalist and novelist who completed a serles of 12 articles for the Toronto Globe and Mall. The series covered Canada (in subject matter) from coast to coast. it has also been published in French, In the majo French-language Montrea, newspaper, La Presac. Symons, who Hve? In Terrace for six mot': . in 1976 and noted that “Terrace was kind to me” graciously offered this article te the Dally Herald as bls way of thank you to this NePphe B.C. community: Herald = reporter photographer Brian Gregg did the photos which ac- companied Symons plece In the Glebe and Mall and which are printed here, Ss fe: recently -. ~ . +, ore “or idl Vr pee Pes wey eae ' The Herald, Tuesday, May 22, 1979, Page ry ' TERRACE-KITIMAT KY cigs Right mildness! Right length! Right taste!, Warning: Health and Weifare Canada advises that danger to health increases with amount smoked —avoid inhaling. Average per cigarette— Regular: “Tar” 14mg, Nic.09 mg. King Sire: “Tar” 12mg. Nic. 09mg.