The Northerner, Fort St. John, BC

Published Every Friday
Circulation: 12,000

MAIN MENU

Articles >
Classifieds
Slice of Life
Meet The Press
Subscriptions
Contact Us
Home

ARTICLES - July 10, 2009
Have you got news? Email us at editornorth@awink.com or call 250-785-5631

Solar Car Travels the Alaska Highway
for the Second Time

Hiedi Irvine
Staff Reporter

Marcelo da Luz getting out of his solar car in front of Super 8 Motel last week.
(Hiedi Irvine photo)

‘I’m glad we’re not being invaded’ is one of the many responses to the solar car Marcelo da Luz is driving to the Arctic Circle for the second time.

da Luz has already doubled his previous world record for most distance covered by a solar vehicle, at 35,800 kilometres when he and his team stopped in Fort St. John last week.

The driver’s home since moving to Canada from Brazil has been in Toronto, but because of certain rules and regulations, the journey to the Arctic began in Buffalo, N.Y. after he and his crew trucked it there in June 2008.

“When you think of solar cars you think of a tropical country in the middle of the summer driving on flat roads. Going to the Arctic Circle, the sun is low on the horizon, it’s a gravel road, on that gravel road you cross a continental divide three times, going up and down climbing massive mountains, it’s not the ideal place you’d expect to see a solar car,” said da Luz.

The car can reach 120 kilometres per hour and on da Luz’s best day he drove almost 500 kilometres. On his worst he said it was either six kilometres or none at all.

The car has been a passion project, as his entire crew has been volunteers and the funding comes mainly from da Luz, who said he’s broke from it and needs sponsors to continue.

His current team of volunteers has Josh Holton and Claire Nicholas are from Florida, and Michael Feith from the Netherlands.

Feith met da Luz last year while backpacking through the Yukon and stayed with him for three weeks. The experience inspired him to convince his professors at Inholland University to let him fly back, continue the journey to write a business plan to help increase cash flow for the project as his thesis.

“We’ve been in the middle of nowhere and at the end a big part of the town were standing hand in hand in a circle around the solar car and doing a prayer for us to have sunshine, people are just so sweet and kind, the experiences there are priceless,” said Feith of his experience.

For the Complete Story...Pick Up The Northerner Today!

Dam settlement reached

Hiedi Irvine
Staff Reporter

B.C. Hydro has righted a wrong done to the Tsay Keh Dene First Nations over 40 years ago, when the people were flooded out of their home as a result of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam and the Williston Reservoir.

Tsay Keh Dene voted yes to a final agreement with the province and B.C. Hydro over development of the reservoir and dam.

Eighty per cent of its members were in favour of accepting the agreement terms, only 167 of the 269 members of the First Nation took part in the two-day vote.

Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation Minister, George Abbott, said he hopes the agreement provides the people with more opportunities and advancement in a range of areas.

“We used to take things for granted, 40 years ago and 100 years ago that today are clearly seen as wrongs and obviously the flooding out of the Tsay Kay Dane village was one of those things,” he said.

“The disruption of their way of life was obviously very significant and so, in terms of looking forward, I think it does set some bench marks in terms of treatment of first nations. If and when issues like this should arise again in the future, it’s an important, historic and significant agreement from many perspectives.”

The litigation process against B.C. Hydro, the province and Canada by the Tsay Keh Dene First Nations began in 1999, for alleged breach of fiduciary duty as well as infringing on their Aboriginal rights as well as dangers related to the construction and operation of the dam and reservoir.

Chief Negotiator for the Tsay Keh Dene people, Eric Woodhouse said there’s been active conversation between the province and B.C. Hydro since 2003. The First Nations people used the river system, which got flooded out as a transportation system, and they would seasonally fish and hunt in parts of their territory.

“The closest thing I’ve heard some of the elders say was the concept was a huge beaver dam, they had absolutely no idea about what was about to hit them. In fact, when the waters did come up many of them actually got physically dislocated by the water coming into their cabins,” Woodhouse explained.

The final agreement will see one-time payments totalling $20.9 million, the majority of which will be placed in an endowment fund. They will also receive annual payments for approximately $2 million in acknowledgement of the impact of the reservoir on the people.

In addition, they will have direct award contracting opportunities, assurances regarding annual road maintenance, and capacity funding to allow the community to be engaged in discussion regarding impacts of new B.C. Hydro projects on the community.

The provincial government announced an agreement-in-principal between the province, B.C. Hydro and the Tsay Keh Dene First Nation recognizing the socioeconomic impacts of the construction of the dam and reservoir in 2006.

For the Complete Story...Pick Up The Northerner Today!

Northern Strikers take silver

Kelly Lapointe
Staff Reporter

Despite being the youngest team in the tournament, the U15 Northern Strikers took second place at the Alberta Soccer Association U16 provincials in Three Hills, Alta. over the weekend.

The local team won both its round robin games and the semifinal by one point.

Coach Dan Turner said it was an upset in the final and he thought his team could have beaten the gold medal winners, Rocky Mountain House. He said they were really hammering the net in the dwindling minutes of the game.

“I thought we’d tie it up for sure. I thought if we’d gone into a shootout, that would have favoured us,” he said. “Prior to the game I watched their team shooting and their technical ability was maybe not quite as good as ours.”

One of the biggest factors against the Strikers was their miniscule size compared to the older, bigger teams.

Even though the teams were only one year older than the Fort St. John team, Tuner said that one year makes quite a difference.

He said the Rocky Mountain House team had a “tremendous size difference,” which he said the coach used to his advantage.

“(They) matched-up well strategically against our smaller kids with his bigger, faster kids. And just kind of closed our passing game down. We have a really tight, quick passing game and they kind of have a long, over the top running game,” he said.

Turner said it was bittersweet because the Northern Strikers really would have liked to win, but the other team had their talents as well.

“We had the ability to do a little more if we had stuck to our strategy a little bit better, I think we might have been able to be a little better,” he said.

Turner said this tournament was the best of the provincials he’s attended in the past six years.

For the Complete Story...Pick Up The Northerner Today!

COPYRIGHT
The Northerner retains full, complete and sole copyright of any advertisement, written or photographic material published in The Northerner. Reproduction is not permitted without the written permission of The Northerner. All contributed material will be included in The Northerner only as space permits. We reserve the right to edit or re-write any aspect of contributed copy in order to make it suitable for publishing.