Tuesday, September 10, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
UNBC’s artist-in-residence sketches out the first piece of cedar for Nenachalhuya: The Cedar Plank Project.
UNBC launches cedar plank project Citizen staff The public will get a chance to watch artist Clayton Gauthier put his skills to work as he carves each of 32 panels selected to celebrate the diversity of First Nations across northern B.C. Until all the panels are completed, the member of the Cree and Dakelh First Nations will be on the University of Northern
Prince George campus twice a week. He will be found in room 7-204 near the Canfor Winter Garden, across from security, on Mondays and Thursdays and while Gauthier will work alone in the mornings, all are welcome to join him to chat and learn while he’s working from 1 to 3 p.m. on those days. The project was launched Monday. “This is a special opportunity for the uni-
versity to partner with multiple Indigenous communities in the spirit of reconciliation,” said UNBC president Dr. Daniel Weeks. “This project allows the entire campus community to learn from a highly-respected artist as he shares his expertise and knowledge.” Once completed, the panels will be installed in the Gathering Place at UNBC. “I really see the significance of art within
the community and worldwide,” Gauthier said. “Art is a powerful gift that we have from the Creator. We are surrounded by art, so having that understanding that this is art from this territory, I feel that’s really important.” Gauthier is also the artist behind a cedar sign now in place at Prince George Secondary School. He’s also a published author of the children’s book, The Salmon Run.
survivor to Municipalities turn up heat over gov’t’s Cancer lead myeloma march closed-door dealings with First Nations Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
Randy SHORE Vancouver Sun Local governments will turn up the pressure on the province to end their secretive dealings with First Nations when the Union of B.C. Municipalities meets this month. What flared up briefly as a small skirmish over dock-owners’ rights in Pender Harbour blew up spectacularly for Premier John Horgan’s government last spring when a wide-ranging land-use plan to conserve caribou was sprung on the residents of northeastern B.C. People in both locales were furious that they had been cut out of the process and in the case of the caribou recovery plan, the West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations had been given gag orders by the province that prevented them from disclosing the plan to their neighbour communities. So many municipalities have
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submitted resolutions demanding consultation in future agreements between First Nations and the province that the UBCM executive has made the issue its top priority for the coming year, said vicepresident Brian Frenkel, a Vanderhoof councillor. “There are five similar resolutions – we’ve seen them from the Northern Rockies, the Sunshine Coast, Vernon and Fort St. John. So that vaulted this to the top of our agenda,” he said. Land-use processes designed by the province and First Nations are expected to be applied across B.C. in the years to come, but the system relegates municipalities and regional districts to “stakeholder” status, according to the UBCM’s annual report. “The Community Charter recognizes local governments as an order of government, and that we should be working together
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on areas of mutual interest,” said Frenkel. “We aren’t just a box to be ticked by the province.” More than 300 private dock owners in Pender Harbour were shocked when a new dock management plan hatched by the province and the shíshálh (Sechelt) First Nation was announced last year. Several dozen docks will be demolished under the new rules. The plan is part of a package of First Nations reconciliation agreements that give the shíshálh a role in forest management, revenuesharing and title to several parcels of Crown land. The dock plan effectively sidelined the Sunshine Coast Regional District’s Official Community Plan, which local governments and community groups had been crafting for years, said district director Leonard Lee. — see ‘IT WAS, page 3
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Told 11 years ago she had just six months to live, Eva Patten has defied the odds. In 2008, she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a bloodborn cancer that strikes the kidneys and bone marrow. A day after chemotherapy was used to eliminate her bone marrow, Patten was given a stem cell transplant. Despite the effort, her condition worsened. Patten was placed in palliative care and told she had just six months to live. Just 41 years old at the time, Patten said the news was “pretty devastating.” “My kids were in their early, early 20s and my daughter had just graduated from nursing school actually,” said the mother of two and grandmother of three. “And yeah, I was kind of like, ‘I
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PATTEN have a lot of living left to do.’” But seemingly in the nick of time, Patten learned a potentially breakthrough treatment had come available in the form of a regimen of trial drugs. With nothing left to lose, she became an “unofficial guinea pig.” — see ‘I’VE BEEN, page 3
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