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Terrace Ba Schreiber Vol. 28, No. 6 Terrace Bay Councillor George Ramsay and Nakina Reeve Vic Fournel were part of a Conference on Emergency Planning held at the Federal Study Centre in Arnprior, Ontario on January 31, 1983. Such conferences are Wednesday, February 9, 1983 held regularly for elected officials to alert them to their responsibilities in emergencies and help them to offset the effects of disasters in their communities. Nakina: a railway town in trouble Nakina is desperately trying to forestall a pull out of railway operations by Canadian National Railways that will devas- tate the economic base of this small.town of about 1,000 people. CN and Kimberly-Clark Woodlands are the major employers in the town located about 40 miles north of Gerald- ton on the CN mainline. The town's problems are being watched closely in its sister railway town of Schreiber and by local residents who remem- ber what happened to Jackfish when Cana- dian Pacific pulled out its railway operations. Nakina was founded 70 years ago as an operations point on the CN transcontinental line after an earlier com- munity, Grant, was clos- ed down. CN has now decided to phase out - Nakina and have its trains run _ straight through from Horne- payne to Armstrong. The town has fought similar attempts in the past and succeeded in stopping or at least re- ducing cuts planned by CN. This time however, it appears as if the town is in a fight it may lose. Interviewed last Fri- day, Nakina's town clerk said, "the only thing I can tell you is that Jack Stokes is doing his very best and has been in touch with Ottawa and Toronto on our behalf." Nakina's Deputy Reeve Raymonde Mer- cier said, '"'I made a submission to the Royal Commission on the Northern, Environment in Geraldton. The brief explained our problem and afterwards Com- missioner Falhgren said that he would do every- thing he could to help us."" Lake Nipigon MPP Jack Stokes has picked up the fight to retain the CN operations in Nakina and last week he took the matter up in an Open Letter to Prime Minister Trudeau . and Premier Davis. Stokes said: "C.N. contends that elimination of crew changes at Nakina will enable the railway to im- prove productivity, speed up train service and substantially re- duce operating expen- ses. When consolidation of assignments takes place at Hornepayne, the total number of available operating posi- tions will be 239. This represents a reduction of fourteen positions from the present com- bined' total at Nakina and Hornepayne. Ap- proximately eight non- operation positions at Nakina will be abolish- ed. This means that C.N. will walk away from a town that they and they alone created 70 years ago. This will mean the removal of 58° families from a small northern community without an industrial tax base and where they have recently completed a new water and séwage treatment plant and a recreational complex for which the tremendous financial burden will rest with those who re- main. One wonders whether or not large corpora- tions (Crown or others) who have been treated so tenderly by exempt- ion from municipal tax- ation should be allowed without question to abandon communities like Nakina when these same publicly owned en- terprises were respon- sible for their very being in the first place. A recent letter re- ceived from the Office of the Minister of Trans- port stated the follow- ing: ° "As C.N. is a Crown Corporation with its own continued on page 2 Opinion: public Libre 7Y omtario Terrace Bay > 2w0 es ss c.CoTeFeNe Forestry. _- its future and ours by JACK STOKES M.P.P. Lake Nipigon Riding For anyone who has taken the time to delve into the history of this important sector of our industrial complex it be- comes apparent that forestry and the man- ner in which we have managed it has been the subject of more studies and more analysis than any other subject. The Kennedy Report of 1948, the Brodie Re- port of 1968, The Hedlin Menzies Report and the Ontario Economic Re- port in 1969-70 and the Armson Report in 1976 all came essentially to the same. conclusions: That this was a resource to be husbanded and managed and treated as an agricultural crop, to be renewed and not to be treated as a resour- cé where one need only assert that we were not exceeding our allowable cut on a sustained yield basis and all would be well with the world. In spite of repeated warning by supposedly knowledgeable people in this august profession, our forestry resources were treated as an-end=t--.. less and infinite store- house of wealth to be harvested - hygraded or squandered, to make room for new growth. The conventional wis- dom of those in govern- ment and industry was that since the volume harvested in any given year was so much less than the allowable cut that there was almost unlimited room for ex- pansion and increased utilization. Unfortunately, and to the everlasting shame of professional they neglected to re- mind themselves, and to tell us, that their data with regard to allowable cut, species, and age classes were so out of date and inaccurate that we are now faced with the prospects of critical shortages in our lumber mills, many in one in- dustry towns, where the operators. must depend upon third party agree- © ments with prime licen- ce holders for their tim- ber requirements. It is the prediction of an ever increasing num- ber of foresters that many of these opera- tions will be forced out of business in the next 5 to 10 years because of shortages of sawlog material. It is common knowledge that up to 50 per cent of the vol- ume of a log which is processed ina sawmill is reduced to chips for delivery to pulp and paper mills. At least two major mills in Northern Ontario obtain up to 60 requirements from this source. Questions are now be- ing asked as to whether or not these companies can harvest timber from other sour- ces, to keep their oper- ations viable when this very important source of chips disappears. One wonders what the future holds for com- foresters, - "was per-eent=of ther fibre' many: instances resulted sufficient - munities like Hearst, Chapleau, Sapawe and others when sawmills are no longer able to find sufficient timber to sustain these opera- tions? It should be under- stood that prior to 1961 it was the responsibility of the licence holder, who enjoyed lengthy tenure, to regenerate 'cut over areas and en- gage in cutting prac- tices which would maxi- mize natural and artifi-_ cial replacement. The Industry's callous disre- gard for this responsi- bility prompted the De- partment of Lands and Forests (now Ministry of Natural Resources) to take on this task. Unfor- tunately their track rec- ord has been equally abysmal. For years they have operated on the theory that one third of the cut-over area in any given year should be artificially regenerated, nature would take care of one third, and the remaining one third would be left to: its own devices. The result was that the one. third that regenerated in in a survival rate as low as 30 per cent after 5 years. Black spruce swamps that were clear cut do not lend themselves to artificial regeneration, and no seed trees were left standing to foster, natural regeneration. Untreated areas quite often grew into -weed continued on page 6 Birchwood Briefs A new year has begun for us at Birchwood, and we are looking forward to our very own resi- dents' kitchen, which will be underway in the near future. Our friends and helpers from the Kinsmen Club have once again offered to assist us financially and with the carpentry work and designing of the kitchen, thank you very much fellars. Last week the Ladies Auxiliary held an afternoon tea at Birchwood, this is the first of many which we are calling, "The Friendship Circle Tea," to be held at different times throughout the year. Pam Jones intro- duced our speaker, Mrs. Alison Hill-Neufeld, from Pinewood Home, our sister home in Thun- der Bay. She is the co- ordinator for all the vol- unteer workers, and has a very successful pro- gramme put together for all the help needed on a volunteer basis there. She spoke on the great need for volun eers in Senior Citizens' homes, and of the many ways these helpers can be of the utmost value to our residents and -staff. For example, Residents need to be remembered not just on birthdays and at holiday times, they only come a few times a year. Many enjoy out- ings, it's nice to go for a ride, to be picked up to - go to church, to attend the different happenings in the area, to perhaps visit in your home, or have a~meal some place else for a-change, most of all they want contact with you. They also don't like to be always on the receiving end of things, so how about responding positively when we invite you to attend our social events. As soon as our kitchen is completed we will be able to show you what we can do. Support on a volun-. teer basis to help with the various activities, would be greatly appre- ciated, so give us a call even if you t ink your talents are few A pat on the hand, o a hug, mean so muc! So does writing a letter, read- ing when the eyes no longer see well, playing _cards, a game, sewing on a button, little things, but they mean so much. You know you could be a very important person in someone's continued on page 13 The Terrace Bay Winter Carnival "It's all for you, so come out and have some fun"