EXTRADELIVERED FREE EVERY SATURDAY • CIRCULATION 8,000 • VOL. 8 ISSUE 11 •MARCH 12, 2005 Building on the past

See pages 2 and 3 for the historic story of

Prince Rupert City & Regional Archives and Museum of Northern B.C. photos

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100 Grassy Bay Lane (next to the Recycling Depot in the Industrial Park) • 624-9450 250•624•5499 Page 2 Saturday, March 12, 2005 The Daily News EXTRA, Prince Rupert, B.C. EXTRA Feature Anyox — Building on the past

By Leanne Ritchie “It’s a significant investment that to power a community with 30,000 The Daily News will allow us to do a lot of homes. EXTRAEXTRA The day Jeff Wolrige, CEO of preliminary engineering work, Supplies and the crew are barged Phone (250) 624-6781 Anyox Hydro Electric, stopped by optimization of the plants’ designs, in and out of Anyox using the old FAX (250) 624-2851 the Daily News to talk about his testing of rock — it really helps our port, which ices up occasionally in Email: [email protected] projects, it was raining so hard the project advance significantly this the winter because of all the fresh Published by Hollinger Canadian Newspaper, L.P., at 801-2nd Avenue drops were bouncing back up off the year,” he said. water entering the Granby Bay. West, Prince Rupert, B.C. V8J 1H6. pavement. Anyox is the more advanced of Prince Rupert is where the company Authorized as second class mail. Registration Number 0221. The Despite the unavoidable soaking the company’s projects. Located gets its supplies and has maintenance Daily News Extra is politically independent and a member of the B.C. Press Council. for anyone who dared step outside, more than 100 miles north of Prince work performed. Wolrige looked noticeably pleased Rupert, the 44-metre high, 207- The Anyox Hydro Electric Publisher: Lynda Lafleur Managing Editor: Earle Gale with the deluge. Water, after all, is metre long concrete dam on Anyox Corporation also has another three Assistant Editor: James Vassallo his business. Creek was built in 1924 to power a projects in the far upper reaches of Accounting: Valerie Campbell Through his company, Anyox copper mine and smelter, and the . Reporters/photographers: Leanne Ritchie, Patrick Witwicki, Hydro Electric Corp., Wolrige is in abandoned in 1935, said Wolrige. This includes restoring the Display advertising: Ed Evans, Bhupinder Pawar the process of restoring several It also powered homes in the Kitsault Lake dam, which will add National advertising: Leona Astoria Classified advertising: Elaine Hidber, Dayle Alexcee historic, long-dormant dams around nearby community of Anyox with its another 14 megawatts and restoring Production: Trevor Kayzer, Ann Ferguson the abandoned mining towns of 3,000 people, supplying electricity hydroelectric facilities at Homestake Pressroom: Terry Hyde, Ken Basdeo Anyox and Kitsault, way up and hot water during the town’s Creek. (The company is on the verge Circulation: Margaret Bob, Barb Christenson, . existence. of achieving a third licence in this Libby Harding, Marg Bunkowski The Daily News Extra retains complete and sole copyright of any advertisement Wolrige is working to restore the The mine was closed during the area as well.) or photographic material published in the Daily News Extra. Reproduction is not infrastructure that once generated Great Depression and most of the “Everything to us is water so we permitted without the written consent of the Publisher. power for communities and mining remaining town structures were have hydrology stations on each operations of the early 1900s and consumed in a fire in the late 1940s. system and we gather data about how plans to use the dams as a “green” Wolrige said they’ve made a lot of much water is coming down at INDEX source of power, generating progress at Anyox, having acquired different times of the year,” said electricity that will be sold back into water licenses, land tenures, and Wolrige. “Every 15 minutes we get a Anyox Feature ...... 2 the market. rebuilding access roads to the storage reading and we correlate that to how With a new investor, the Quantum dam and power house. much flow there is...” Anyox Feature ...... 3 Leap Asset Management out of They are also in discussions with The Kitsault Dam was built to Toronto, investing $5 million into Powerex, a subsidiary of B.C. Hydro, provide electricity to the Dolly Education ...... 4 this year’s work projects, Wolrige to come to a power purchase Varden Silver Mine and the company said the company’s small crew is agreement. town of . The mine Books ...... 5 steadily moving forward to the day Anyox is scheduled to be on line operated around the turn of the when those dams again produce by late fall 2007, with the capacity to century and produced millions of Arts Briefs ...... 6 power. generate 30 megawatts, enough juice ounces of silver. History ...... 7 Memories ...... 8 Arts ...... 9 Film ...... 10 Children’s Festival ...... 11

Prince Rupert City & Regional Archives and Museum of Northern B.C. photos

Page 12 Saturday, October 9, 2004 The Daily News EXTRA, Prince Rupert, B.C. The Daily News EXTRA, Prince Rupert, B.C. Saturday, March 12, 2005 Page 3 EXTRA Feature

(This is not be confused with the wide. townsite of Kitsault, which is located “There’s so much water coming across Alice Arm, and housed up to through — it’s what they call a 850 mine workers and their families velocity barrier,” said Turpin. up until the early 1980s. It was “The fish cannot swim fast recently sold as a land development.) enough to get past that current so John Turpin, director of there’s no spawning fish above that P operations, explained the work they area.” B intend to do at both Anyox and A large waterfall at the mouth of Kitsault in the coming year. the Anyox River prevents salmon “At Anyox, we will be doing from navigating upriver. work to clear out the storage damn... The concept of developing a there’s 80 years of accumulated renewable energy source has debris in there we are going to be attracted the company a lot of cleaning up and we are going to be attention over the years. One of their doing further work on rock minority partners includes the pop exploration,” he said. singer Jewel, who was drawn to the The company has a two-kilometre project because of its location in the tunnel it plans to install between the north (Jewel’s from Alaska) and dam and the powerhouse and this because of its environmentally year, the company will be doing sensitive nature. some geotechnical work on this While they have some high aspect of the project. profile investors, Wolrige stressed At Kitsault, the hydroelectric they don’t operate like a huge multi company has a crew of four guys national corporation with plenty of who have been working since early employees, they have small crews January restoring the small highway who work to keep the operations that used to run up the Kitsault river. “lean and mean.” During the past year, they have While the areas in which they replaced a number of bridges along operate are considered remote, the roadway that had rotted and Anyox Hydro Electric has also collapsed. Not only does this help partnered with its neighbours. the company with access, it helps “We are very pleased that we’ve clear environmental damage — had very good working relationship caused by decades of neglect — with the Nisga’a First Nation and we which was impeding salmon. have an economic agreement with

They plan to continue with road the Gincolx (Kincolith) Village Prince Rupert City & Regional Archives and Museum of Northern B.C. photos construction to access the projects Government,” he said. again this year, said Turpin. “We had five different individuals There are a number of elements working for us over the last year and “We are going to be applying to the national have reaffirmed what they already know. which make Anyox Hydro Electric’s we have one full time employee who registry to have the power house identified as a “We think it's a good business to be in — projects environmentally friendly, worked with us all year and is in heritage asset, a little Canadiana,” he said, slowing down global warming,” he said. but of primary importance is the fact there again with us this year.” noting it would be better from an engineering “Although out projects are relatively small, the dams are all located far enough In addition, they recognize the stand point to replace the facility. still we are doing our bit to try and reduce. up their respective rivers to avoid historical importance of the area and They also have plans to fix up the old “The thing I like about it is ... basically we damaging any salmon runs, said Wolrige says they plan to seek Anglican graveyard this summer. are building the [plants] for 100 years so if we Wolrige. funding to preserve the old power All in all, the company is satisfied with its do it right we should be able to operate for 100 On Kitsault, for example, at about house at Anyox, one of the last progress. years ... maybe John and I won’t prosper that mile 13, Turpin said the river remaining structures which was not They’ve had a number of independent much from this project but our kids will love narrows to a canyon less than 10 feet consumed by fire in 1948. audits of their projects’ potential, all of which us.”