Municipal: Pitt Meadows council discusses social media policy. 3
Community: Festival lleaves downtown. 9
City: Pitt Meadows bans backyard hens. 5 We d n e s d ay, J u n e 2 4 , 2 0 1 5 · mapleridgenews.com · est. 1978 · (office) 604-467-1122 · (del ive r y) 6 04 - 46 6- 6 39 7
THE NEWS/files
The property has been vacant since the ferry operation ceased.
Ferry terminal has new owner Fraser Shipyard buys Albion property By Phil M elnyc h u k pmelnychuk@mapleridgenews.com
The lot where people used to line up for the Albion ferry to cross the Fraser River has been sold. Fraser Shipyard and Industrial Centre has bought the two-acre piece of property for about $2.2 million. TransLink has been trying to sell the property for five years, since the ferry shut down and the Golden Ears Bridge opened. Fraser Shipyard does marine maintenance and repair, but hasn’t identified a use for the property on River Road. “We’ve been in the business for many years,” said Elias Haddad, with Fraser Shipyards. “We do lots of work for B.C. Ferries. We do lots of work for Fraser River Pile and Dredge.” An affiliate company, Esquimalt Drydock in Victoria, handles the bigger projects, while smaller ships are worked on in Metro Vancouver from the Richmond location. See Ferry, 5
Tim Fitzgerald/THE NEWS
Jana Kaderabek stares up a tall cedars stripped of their bark in the UBC Malcolm Knapp Research Forest.
Barking up wrong tree? First Nations bands can strip cedars B y P h i l M e l nychuk pmelnychuk@mapleridgenews.com
Jana Kaderabek enjoys hikes to Mike Lake in Golden Ears Provincial Park, where the tall trees shelter trails from the outside world. But lately, the sight of majestic cedars shorn of their bark, by the park in an area slated for logging, is making the walk a little less pleasant.
Kaderabek says that on the trail that leads to the lake, between 40 and 50 cedars have had the bark removed for several metres up the tree. She complained to a park ranger, who told her First Nations bands can strip the bark and use it for handicrafts, such as making baskets. Kaderabek is worried that removing the bark will kill the trees. “If it is First Nations, somebody should be supervising them, no?” she said. “It’s just terrible. I love that Golden Ears Provincial Park. That is
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my health.” She’s also upset about extra bark left lying on the ground and wonders why that’s allowed to happen in a park that receives thousands of visitors. Chief Susan Miller, with the Katzie First Nation, said other bands, such as Tsawwassen First Nations, have agreements with Katzie that allows them in the area to remove bark for the use in handicrafts. “This year, we’ve had an abundance of requests. We’ll actually be having a meeting … to determine
how we’re going to address potential over harvesting.” Recently, a group and some individuals came out from Tsawwassen, while Vancouver school district and an aboriginal mothers group from Vancouver also took some bark. “We try to honour them while we can, but we do recognize we will have to put some limits on how much is going to be harvested, because we can’t take away Katzie’s first right to access the cedar,” Miller said. See Bark, 4
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