Terrace and The Mills

Terrace is the town I grew up in. Many of my relatives live there and I have lots of great memories. My Dad was a builder and some of his work still stands -- he worked on church buildings, houses, schools.

Terrace is a hard working town dependent on the forest industry. Growing up in Terrace I had an uncle who was a millwrite, a friend whose dad own a logging company, a buddy who worked the green chain, and logging trucks outnumbered pickups. If a sawmills slow down, so does the town.

When I read articles like this one, that outlines the challenges that Terrace faces when the mills close, my heart aches.

... The city (Terrace) is a regional hub for social services, drawing people from Prince Rupert to the west, New Aiyansh and Iskut to the north, the Bulkley Valley to the east, and Kitimat to the south.

"The society service industry is one of the biggest employers in town," asserts Ksan executive-director Carol Sabo. "It used to be mills."

The community continues to struggle from a downturn in the forest industry, most recently evidenced by the indefinite shutdown of West Fraser's Skeena Sawmills facility last October and the closure of Terrace Lumber Co. in 2006.

The economy has bred a new type of poverty. Sabo cites the blue-collar worker who dropped out of school in Grade 8 to get a good-paying job in the bush and who now is faced with an annual salary of $25,000 and no prospect of paying the mortgage.

"It's a different type of poverty," she says. "They don't know how to be poor. It's a lifestyle change, a huge difference."

To make matters worse, it's getting harder for the poor to find decent, affordable housing. Within the past two years, she says, one apartment building that catered to single moms burned down, another was torn down, and a third was closed for an upgrade.

Read the whole article from the Vancouver Sun here.