Well said Ben!

Well said, and "Stewart Lake" should be "Stuart Lake".

Our trees are kinda like the cod in Newfoundland. They ain't coming back. Time to move on.

I agree with everything you have written here Ben, both about the forestry issues and Stuart Lake.

If there was ever a town in our immediate area that could benefit from the development of eco-tourism and other related economies, the Fort is it.

The Stuart/Trembleur/Takla chain is a simply WORLD CLASS waterway. Why there is not a full service resort on Stuart Lake is beyond me. Every other lake in BC of similar size has one or more.

We could talk about Stuart Lake and not even get into the Nation Lakes chain, the continental divide, the hunting opportunities, hiking opportunities, snowmobiling in the winter, First Nations involvement in the development of the businesses, etc.

As much as I love being on Stuart Lake when there are hardly any other boats around, it's simply astonishing that more people aren't drawn to that area to take in what it has to offer.

No the cod are not like the cod in Newfoundland. There the cod were fished by dragging by industrial fishers. The dragging of the bottom of the sea bed destroyed their living space and breeding grounds. That has to recover before the cod can recover. Here in BC the forests have been severely hurt by the Mountain pine beetle. Actually the forests have been hurt from BC to the southern US, east of the coastal mountains because Mountain pine beetle.
With that said, why is this provincial gov't , the BC LIberals, decreasing the replanting of the forests. They are just letting them rot in the ground and much is not replanted. The tree planters tell me that much less is being planted this year. Again another screw-up for the BC Liberals and Gordon Campbell.

Last spring there was a BC vacation section in the Vancouver Sun. The only area that was not represented was the Central Interior. Is it any wonder that
this area doesn't get recognition? As an
avid outdoor enthusiast I tell friends from all over what we have up here, yet all they know about BC is Whistler or the Okanagan as that is what they read & see over & over.
We need to spread the word, the North is open for business. Forestry will not come back in our lifetimes, oil & gas is a pipe dream & mining alone will not sustain the local economy.
I know tourism doesn't provide the high end jobs, but we have to start somewhere. Go to places like Leavenworth,Wa, a former milling town that reinvented itself to survive. Look to the east in Valemount
where winter tourism is a huge part of their economy. Towns like Fernie & Kimberly
are thriving because of how they have marketed themselves.
I have been all over North America & hands down this region has some of the best skiing, snowmobiling, climbing, hunting, fishing, mountain biking. You name it we have it, let's play to our strengths. Advertise it well , market it well & people will come & spend their time, money & will spread the word as to what a great place North central BC is.

The reason Fort St James does not get represented in promoting tourism is partially because they have few tour operators up there, but also because the way Tourism BC is set up.

The BC liberals privatized the tourism marketing to Regional Destination Marketing Organizations. In the south the regional districts already had such organizations in place and had limited sized geographical regions so the preferential marketing easily benefits all.

In Northern BC we have the Northern BC Tourism Association as the Tourism BC representative (funded by TBC provincial tax dollars) and this private (therefore no public reporting) regional marketing organization is a non-profit company with its board of directors that are mostly made up of tourism stakeholders from PG and Smithers (covering the northern half of the province)... and because of the vast size of the region.. communities like Fort St James, and Atlin barely register as a blip on the radar for tourism promotion even though they boast some of the best world class lakes anywhere. Its all politics and the government washes its hands of it...

You could call tourism promotion in Northern BC buy off money by the liberals to keep us quiet where it counts politically IMO and ensure the selected media gets their cut.

Now for the problem of Fort St James having no voice in our democracy because of their size and remote location. This is a serious issue that is not easily solved, but can be mitigated IMO.

Currently the Fort speaks with a divided voice as the 'us verse them' political road show comes to town every election. The fear campaigns are cranked up and the lesser of two evil candidates are elected.

This is exactly the reason why John (TILMA) Rustad came out a few weeks back and blasted the BCSTV electoral reform changes that were recommended by the BC Citizens Assembly. Rustad does not want to run in an election where the voters have options and he has to run on why he should be elected, rather then on why the other person should not be elected. Rustad gets elected because of the system that allows party hacks to bury our democracy in talking points and the lesser of two evil outcomes.

My suggestion as an emergency measure that should be in place for all small communities until such time as we have a BCSTV system that can represent us is the following:

I think each small community like Fort St James... they have to vote in blocks and identify prior to the ballot what that block vote will be (not party, but specific candidate), and what are the rational issue based reasons for that vote... because of how it effects their community... so now the benefactor of their vote knows why they are elected... and the loser knows why they were rejected... and the community provides the legitimacy for the argument with their vote... so now with the voters endorsement of the block vote the politicians from all parties can not hiding from the issue. Quebec does it all the time.

I think these committees that need to be formed should represent unions, small business, government workers, special needs community activists, health, education, sports, and almost every aspect of civil society (balanced) other than corporations. They should be people that are informed on how the candidates platforms will affect their community and provide a open and transparent debate for the community to learn from and in the end vote to endorse a block vote for that candidate that will best represent the community. You would need stoics for this and not partisans.

This takes the money out of the election because the candidates can then focus on the committee with little in the way of financing and if the town respects their selected community leaders that represent them on this committee... then the town will vote in block to the recommendation of the committee... unless of course a primary issue of moral ethics conflicts, then obviously a person votes their own conscience... but the fact remains the vast majority of voters are ignorant of issues and really are vulnerable to propaganda as a result... not because some voters are stupid or anything, but simply because most voters have little time to research and know the issues and the agenda's of the candidates... other then the urban myths that are spread around for good or bad, but not for the informed.

I think these committees should not be municipal councils because they are after all picking a winner and the other towns in their riding may not pick the same winner, so therefore the responsibility for picking the loser falls on the committee and not the town itself. The committees should be funded through tax deductible donations that would otherwise go to the politicians. Furthermore politicians should be allowed to testify to the committee in an open and transparent fashion, but all deliberations should not be done in the candidates presence.

The debate in these committees should not be between the candidates, but rather between those on the committee whom the candidates issues will effect. And this debate should be controlled although fully transparent, possibly on community TV, and it should have an end goal that is not of saying some candidates are bad, but that this candidates would be in the best interest of the community after an informed inquest of all factors the community deems important.

You can bet Fort St James would have the candidates ear then, despite the political party masters who may also want to get their foot in the door... the fact remains the parties and candidates will take these committees seriously simply because of the optics of these kinds of potential block vote verdicts being made only a week before an election for everyone in the province to see and be aware of.

AIMHO

Every notice how our provincial tax dollars will partner with tourism operators for funding marketing campaigns through TBC RDMO's, but not a dollar is ever spent to market our provincial campgrounds, or forestry sites, or the 'public' assets that make this province so great?

There is a reason for that....

I tried to start an idea called Eco-tourism 2010 to focus on eco-tourism promotion for Northern BC, but apparently the provincial government feels only VANOC (the olympics) can market anything with the year 2010 in it, and so they funded a legal team to try and take my trademark away under the argument that the Olympics owns the rights to the year 2010 for any tourism marketing even if its is not related to the olympics and is not even in the general area of the olympics. So I've won every legal battle so far for the last four years and they are reaching the last of their appeals, but the fact is they have essentially won through the effect of litigation fear to anyone that would get involved and blunting any progress while they exhaust their appeals before the trademark office.

I think its too bad the Northern regions are not more prepared to take advantage of the world attention on BC in 2010 to promote eco-tourism in the north with the infrastructure, services, and marketing for this in place already. It is beyond me how the 604 can use our tax dollars to promote their multi-billion dollar party... and then at the same time say we are not allowed to benefit in the north by the tourism potential the provincial marketing expenditures in 2010 could generate for the North. They are so petty down south that they see us as competitors that need to be stopped rather than neighbors that should be assisted.