Yes, really!  It is shameful to let this litter lie about when we have the fingers to pick it up and dispose of it properly.  Hey, I’m not scolding you.  There’ll soon be scores of people out with gloves and garbage bags and rubber boots picking up someone else’s droppings and turning our home into a place that makes us proud to live here.

You’ll make me proud to be one of you.  But there are some who don’t seem to care much about the appearance of our home.  (Yes I did touch down on the garbage issue a few weeks ago.)  It’s you that I am addressing today – and you should care enough to do two things:  get out there and help clean up your mess; stop scattering litter.  The satisfaction you will get from the simple act of hanging on to your own trash until you place it in the appropriate receptacle (there are a few around, you know) will amaze you. 

Now about the proper places to deposit your junk:  four of them do not include the wide spot in the road on the hill at Wildmare, nor the Dokkie school yard, nor the dumpster at the back of someone else’s business, nor the donation receptacle at the Thrift Store.  Come on!  What demon compels you to clutter pristine countryside or other people’s property?  You really ought to feel a jolt of shame but, perhaps, that is expecting too much of you.  

Yes, and neither do you have the right to toss your empties out on the roadside or leave them sitting on the curb on 51^st Street NW.  If you are mature enough to carry the change in your pocket to buy a slushy, surely you have the maturity to put the cup into the garbage bag and dispose of it properly – but maybe not.  Maybe that, too, is beyond you.  Perhaps we expect too much.

There are proper ways to handle your garbage:  recycle things like cardboard, batteries, computer parts, plastics, glass, and other stuff.  Use the great recycle facility we have here in town – or lose it.  The landfill is equipped to handle everything that can’t be recycled.  It does cost but most good things in this life have a cost – one way or another.  Whatever the cost, in every way it beats sullying our countryside and city streets with garbage.  I believe we can do it!

Merlin Nichols, Mayor

The January mill explosion in Burns Lake that left a community temporarily in disarray and still in pain was enough tragedy for one year but a second just like it is two too many.  Speculation about the cause{s} is unwise.  Jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions would be no wiser.  But there are causes and there are solutions for the mills that have not yet gone up.  We are just not sure what they are.

We have heard the Minister muse about the pine beetle connection and we are all (I am sure) aware of the volatility of wood dust, coal dust, grain dust.  In fact, any combustible dust suspended in air in the right mixture will ignite when presented with a flame.  I’ve experienced that detail in my own wood shop.  Happily, the volume of dust was limited and the explosion was confined.

We have heard comments of people closely connected to the Prince George and Burns Lake mills.  They are hurting and afraid.  Having lost their livelihoods, they wait for someone in authority to provide answers, some assurances that it is safe to walk again into a sawmill.

Our home town is a sawmill town.  It was a sawmill town long before gas and coal came to live with us, and a very long time before shiny blades began twisting electricity out of the wind.  I trust and expect that we will live in a sawmill town as long as the sun shines and the grass grows.

It’s been decades since I worked in a sawmill and years since I was privileged with even a tour of that fascinating industry, but I clearly remember the clean-up detail.  What about now?  Now is our time!  How can we cope with present fears and uncertainties?   (This one did wake me up in the night.)  I sincerely hope that the next event never happens!  If dust is the issue, let’s fix it – and I’m confident that it will be fixed.  Dust mitigation measures are not celestial secrets.

I’ve heard our governing authorities speak to the issue.  So have you.  Know what I think?  Sawmill operators are even more concerned than I am.   I am sure that they have their shoulders to the wheel this very moment.  They are wasting not a second to take every precaution available to them to ensure that disaster does not strike again, not in their mills, not on their watches.  Without a doubt, we are entering the safest period of sawmill operation that most of us will ever see.

Merlin Nichols, Mayor

In the context of our experience here in Chetwynd, how would we recognize social responsibility?  What do we naturally expect of the industries that settle in our area, extract our resources, profit by our sweat?  Is it right to expect anything from them?  Is not their primary responsibility to their shareholders and principals?  Of the three items two sentences up, only one can be honestly linked to the object.  Of the area, the resources, or the sweat, I can claim only sweat.  Our sweat is collectively ours; we had nothing to do with creating the area or planting the resources.  They were here before we came and will be here in some form when we are long forgotten.

But our questions still stand:  what is social responsibility; who owes it to whom?  It is a difficult concept that I do not have the conceit to define unequivocally.  I know of some ancient wisdoms that counsel the employer to pay honest wages on time and treat the workers with respect – which includes safe working conditions; and the worker is admonished to give honest output for wages received.  That seems to be the basis of a mutually satisfying relationship.  We have to extract the principles and apply them to our own circumstances in the context of housing, medical care, recreation, and other human needs.

It’s a given that workers need to stay warm and dry while they sleep.  After all, a well-rested operator certainly will produce more and stick around longer than the guy who’s propping his eyes open with stimulants.  Does the major-league employer have a responsibility to work with other social and government agencies, even to take the initiative, to augment the number and quality of housing units available for rent or purchase; or support recruitment of physicians?  I believe the answer is a qualified Yes, with a measurable advantage over time to the employer.

The employee with frequent family time, time to putter in her own backyard, time to mentor his own children, time to contribute to community efforts, is an all-round happier employee who will in many ways contribute more to the company bottom line than the employee who has to hunker down in a camp room every night without a foot warmer with no kids to climb on her lap for a story.

From a strictly business perspective, the company that takes initiative, collaborating with other public and private agencies, to solidly root its employees in the host community through modern housing and access to in-town medical care will, in the long term, be a more successful producer, whatever its product.

Clearly, we can see a solid-line link between social responsibility and the bottom line.  The company that helps its workers settle into the host community will reap rewards.

Merlin Nichols, Mayor

Let’s start with an arithmetic lesson.  Today’s cigarette prices at one of your local merchants range from about $8 to $14 per pack.  If you start at the age of 12 to develop a modest habit of one pack a day, by the time you have reached the age when lung cancer is a definite possibility, (age 40), you have blown out your nose enough money for five luxury world cruises, a university education, half the price of a house in Chetwynd, or any number of other tangible items that could be purchased for about $102,200.  Notice just the financial value of that resounding negative?

Our stats for healthy lifestyle choices here in the north do not praise our frequent use of the powerful negative.  Because we do not say NO to some dietary choices, and because, in spite of the great opportunities we have for physical exercise that we obviously ignore (Old Baldy beckons every day), obesity in the 12-17 year range is 21% higher than the Canadian average.  Oh dear, what can the matter be?

What about saying NO to the sleazy character attempting to lure you into lining his pockets in exchange for the emptying your pockets and your future?  He doesn’t care about the fun you might think you are having.  It’s your money he wants; slimy jerk!

What about a big, healthy NO to the things that steal your time (your life, that is) and give you nothing of real value in return.  Can you imagine the enormous, lasting benefit of acquiring real skills in time management, reading, use of language, interacting with people – while still at home?

Here in the great Northeast, opportunities are beyond the imagination of millions who live in other parts of our world.  Yet we are scrambling for skilled workers in industry, in management, in health services.  Would you blow out your nose the opportunity to someday manage a gas plant, restore the hope of life to a broken body, or build a new bridge; would you let it leak out through needle holes in your arms?  How tragic!  How stupid!  How careless of the aging generations to let it happen!

There’s a powerful negative that supports a powerfully positive life.  We call it NO.  Believe it!  Use it!

Merlin Nichols, Mayor

Scholarship Criteria:

Confirmation of registration at a post-secondary academic or trade institution in the 2012 Fall Semester.

The candidate will have demonstrated consistent behaviour over time in the following key areas

• Kind and generous behaviour toward the elderly.
• Effective leadership in the area of encouraging healthy behaviour among peers.
• Effective leadership in the area of discouraging unhealthy behaviour among peers.
• Mentoring of younger persons.
• Protecting younger persons from growing-up hazards such as drug activity, bullying.
• Behaviour that demonstrates respect for the order of society.
• Volunteer activity.
• Other (to be described by the persons making the nomination).
• A one-time event demonstrating extraordinary courage and/or perseverance in the face of extreme peril may qualify a person for the award provided the post-secondary registration requirement is met.

Nomination forms are available at the District Office or click on the link below to print off the form.  Please submit completed nomination forms by 4:30 p.m.on May 18, 2012 to:

For further information, please contact the District Office at 250-401-4100.

Nomination Form

Life does get out of focus.  Where went the good old days when we had time to visit our friends, picnic on mountain, beach, and river, play with our kids, smell the flowers, skip rocks on the lake, watch grass grow in the meadow, count birds in the bushes?  Sleep was sweet then – ah, sweet it was!  Now there is scarcely time to eat the bread for which we labour and spectres steal our sleep – ah, sleep, sweet it was then!

The eighteenth century poet had it right:  in getting and spending we lay waste our powers; we lose our focus, dissipate our energies, compromise our priorities.

Our modern preoccupation with getting and spending isn’t new to this generation although we might have more stuff than our ancestors had to excite their acquisitiveness.  Long ago and far away a teacher urged his students to set priorities according to their real value.  This teaching is still valid in century 21.

We know of a powerful little word in every language on earth and perhaps in celestial realms as well.  It is No, and whatever else it may be called; it means just what it says:  Don’t ask me again; I’m not buying.  I cannot accept another appointment today.  No.  I will not.  I’m not buying outside of Chetwynd.  No!  In that one little word, used often, convincingly, and in right context, is contained immense power of control over our lives, our time, our peace of mind.

Have you lost your focus?  Have you discovered that when you think you are seeing double, you really are?  Want to get back the focus?  Try that powerful little word.  Believe it!  Say it with conviction!

Once back in focus, keeping the focus is a function of maintaining your value system, of updating it as required, and of using that little negative to carry the message of your convictions to yourself.  After all, if you convince yourself, you won’t need to convince anyone else. 

Use the positive power of a strong negative – when no is yes to life!

Merlin Nichols, Mayor

Take the sometimes-nasty (sometimes-pejorative) P words:  political, politician, politics (dirty, liars, backroom – you could think of other descriptives, no doubt, to attach to the P words).  Where did they originate?  How did they come down to us?  To answer both these questions in any detail would take a small book so we won’t make that attempt in 500 words.  However, we could take a shorter glance at the source and the outcome.

In the time of the Roman Republic (BC about 500 to BC about 15), the thing we call a city was called a polis, hence, politician, the city dweller.  I don’t think that meaning of the word ended with the demise of the republic but since then change happened.  Like the moth crawling out of its chrysalis, it no longer looks like the caterpillar that entered.  Now the politician (not to be confused with the professional government employee) is the person who does the sometimes-clean, occasionally dirty, and frequently inscrutable work of law making at all levels.

The politician doesn’t have an easy row to hoe.  Pulled here and there by every wind of change, she (usually he) has to be eternally vigilant to maintain integrity, avoid incurring debt or making impossible promises, and keep the door open.

I have this on-going debate with my wife:  I maintain I am not a politician; she says whether I like it or not, whether I admit it or not, I am.  Yes, I competed for election, but essentially, all I did was say, “These are the things I won’t do; this is how I will conduct myself in office; please elect me.”  What’s so political about that?

Now that I am in office, I am determined to keep to my code of conduct:  Respect the boundaries between the Mayor’s office and the staff; maintain a cordial distance between myself and all District employees; have an appropriate third party in my office when business people wish to discuss projects with me; ensure that members of Council are always informed when I am out of the office; let Council members to which duties have been delegated carry out their duties without interference.  You get my point.

Last week I wrote of being boss or not.  It is good for the Mayor always to keep in mind that there is no line of command between the Mayor’s office and any position reporting to the CAO.  Not the Mayor, not the Council, is the “boss”, in any sense of the word, of District staff.

Merlin Nichols, Mayor

However, there could be occasions during the months to come when a quick response will be crucial to the safety of the community.  A quick response in an emergency almost always rests on a foundation of understanding of the systems that keep the community operating smoothly.  This makes appropriate interaction with the District staff in the daily routines of District life so important.

Thankfully, the District office is staffed with highly skilled professionals who bring years of varied experience to their jobs and who job it is to provide reliable information and well-thought-through advice through the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) to the Mayor and Council.  Over the past months, I have come to respect and value highly the counsel I get from the CAO.  His advice is carefully reasoned and thoroughly supported with history and evidence.

Through the CAO (the only District employee hired directly by the Mayor and Council), Mayor and Council have access to other District employees and their backgrounds.  (You may not have realized that Mayor and Council do not direct District employees; our only official contact with staff is through the CAO).  By respecting the established reporting order and refusing to violate the boundaries, we maintain a cordial relationship with all staff and avoid the chaos that would ensure if Mayor and Council had the conceit to play at lead hand or boss.

So, why do I want to be Mayor if I can’t be boss?  Why not be content to whistle and rock away my remaining hours in the sun with a grass between my teeth?  Why shouldn’t I want to be Mayor?  I like you folk of Chetwynd who gave me this privilege, and I like the dedicated people whose hard work makes it possible, in the great scheme of things, for me to serve you.  But it’s not me; it’s all of us together who keep the wheels of town turning, the bearings greased, the tires balanced, the lights working.  Thanks to all of you, I am enjoying the honour you have given me.  Watch for the next episode of this exciting adventure in local government.

Merlin Nichols, Mayor

There is a wood shop in the industrial park next door to the District mechanic’s domain where one will encounter a different kind of work.  In his own domain, Joe proudly and quietly, or noisily, carries on his work of interfering with entropy – interrupting the inevitable disintegration of matter.  His shop is stocked with a little bit of everything:  a big Forstner bit, jigs of his own making, organizers, sanders, drills, adjustable lights, glue bottles, band saw, dust collector, drills, table saw, and much more – but never enough.  As one who works with wood in a shop, I can confidently affirm that no person who works with wood in a shop ever has the last tool or device she will need or want.  No person!  Certainly not me!  Probably not Joe.

Joe’s job, at least a big part of Joe’s job, is to keep those works of art in good repair, to reverse the occasional work of the rare vandal – shame on all vandals – as well as to obstruct the ongoing work of time, wind, rain, and sun, all of which conspire to limit our enjoyment of our works of art.  Each repair is a work of art in its own right, requiring Joe to carefully study the problem and, frequently, invent a way to restore the piece to its former glory.  Which glue will work most effectively?  How will the broken arm be reconnected?  How will the oil-base finish accept the water-base finish?  Joe does his research:  sand blast the piece with baking soda before applying the new coats of finish.

For the rest of the story you’ll just have to wait a while.  In the meantime, enjoy our works of wooden art.

Merlin Nichols, Mayor