Pau. ST PIERRE A rents & Ppt QUESNEL — one leg in a cast, as usual, Doc Holly :humps up to the door on his well worn crutches. **Your wife said you had a lot of work done on your mouth. Can’t she remember which end is broken?”’ “I’ve had work done on my mouth, too. When I feel lousy, I usually go to the dentist and get him to bore and hammer me. Come in and have some overproof Jamaica Rum.” It’s a day for overproof rum. Almost May, but the snow is blow- ing across Dragon Lake and tapp- ing at the panes of Doc’s Hansel and Gretel retirement house. His wife Judy finds the rum and Doc talks about what it’s like to be 66 years old and retired from gen- eral practice in Quesnel. **...the blind dog is happy and confident as long as it’s accompanied by a seeing eye man.”’ a “*Underneath the plaster there are five or six broken ankle bones. The horse slipped and put 1,100 pounds weight on it and it was more than my ankle bones can handie now.” He has broken bones three times in the last three years. In 1987 a horse he was breaking broke his left ankle. When that healed he went to the 1988 Labor Day celebrations at Barkerville and rode down the main street firing blanks from a 44 magnum pistol, playing sheriff, something Barkerville never had, but never mind. you know what tourist communities are like. “‘] got pitched off and into the street and they had to pack me away in an ambulance. I hada concussion also that time.”’ This time there are more bones broken, but it all fits his style. Broad shouldered, bar- tel-chested, with spade teeth and eyebrows thick as the pile on the carpet, Alex Holly was doctor in this town for so long that some people thought he came in with the Gold Rush. He had, in fact, come in with his parents from Lucky Lake in Saskatchewan. Find a map, look under PD for Dustbowl and if you can find Lucky Lake you get a pailful of heifer dust for a prize. He graduated from Quesnel High School and worked his way through medical school at Univer- sity of Alberta, getting his fee money, eating money and fooling around money by working on survey crews in summers and doing other chores which involved get- ting eaten by bugs and threatened by bears. Doc shot a grizzly not long ago within sight of his house on the shore of Dragon Lake which is, in turn, in sight of the considerable litle town of Quesnel. If he’s not in the wilderness the wilderness comes to his home asking if he can come out to play. When he was 59, something he achieved seven years ago, he was plagued with asthma. “I was fighting asthma more than I was doctoring. One morning I woke up wheezing in a friend’s house at White Rock. I picked up the phone and called Holly Clinic. I said ‘1 won’t be in next week. I won’t be in any other week. Forever and ever 1 won’t be back.’” Glad to be rid of asthma at last, he hurled himseif into the great kitty litter caper. Alexander Holly of Lucky Lake, Saskatchewan and Quesnel, B.C. became a principal in a mine which scooped up diatomaceous earth, the ideal bathroom materia! for the house cat which has everything. He lost $50,000. That proves that being a doctor doesn’t make you an expert on cat poo. At the moment he is writing a column on local hospital affairs for the Quesnel Cariboo Observer, reading a lot, planning trips to Mexico and studying the Carrier Indian language. He thinks it would be fun to lead groups over the Mackenzie Trail to seek out Indian sites and find edible herbs and berries. In summers he drives a horse and buggy at Barkerville, portraying, with much authenticity, Dr. Thomas Bell of Gold Rush fame. His herd of 18 horses at Dragon Lake has shrunk to a mere four, but he still packs into the moun- tains with them. For many years he was a sled dog enthusiasz, but of his many great huskies and malamutes there remain only two. “‘The oldest is 15 and has Alzheimer's Disease. Completely out of it. The younger is 13, and blind. Blind in both eyes.”’ However, says Dac, he and the blind dog go for walks together when his ankles aren’t broken because the dog is happy and con- fident as long as it’s accompanied by a seeing eye man. He, like the blind sled dog, re- mains convinced that this is the best of all possible worlds. *“When you get home, tell your wife that the horse that broke this leg is the one I got out of her Ten- nessee Walker stud and it’s one of the best horses I’ve ever owned. A little clumsy, perhaps, but a great horse.”’ Hi Ps @ CLOSING OUT SALE ENTIRE INVENTORY UP TO 60% OFF Wide selection of cottor cushions, collars, kimonos, Mother's Cay. happicoats for SAIPAN GR ENTAL SHOP PASH KCVYAL SOUTH 929-8722 ___ erwin eee cer ne mre acm 9 - Friday, May 4, 1990 - North Shore News City to switch to low-energy lighting NORTH VANCOUVER City will be one of the first B.C. municipalities to take advantage of a BC Hydro program to convert currently low-efficient street lighting to High Pressure Sodium (HPS) street lighting. : By CORINNE BJORGE Contributing Writer The province-wide conversions could eventually save enough energy to supply power to 10,000 homes annually, according to Hydro. In addition to receiving 30 lights for being part of Hydro’s advertis- ing campaign for the program, the city has also committed to convert all the municipality’s ornamental . Street lights, setting aside $50,000 in next year’s municipal budget. “The conversion will provide an equivalent level of light and will result in lower electricity bills,”’ ci- ty design engineer Tony Barber stated in a report to the city Mon- day night. Barber’s report said the city will be able to pay for the system in 2% years through reduced elec- trical bills, and ‘‘thereafte: the city NORTH VANCOUVER CITY COUNCIL: _ would be saving $12,634 in annual electrical charges.”’ BC Hydro will convert its own street lights to HPS at no cost to the municipality. The city must also enter into a waste management agreement with BC Hydro for the disposal of any PCB containing capacitors remov- ed with the disposal of the mercu- ry vapor lights that are currently in use. Although BC Hydro has offered to store the PCB waste, city staff was unsure whether the storage site would be in North Vancouver City or in another municipality: FIRES Pperereaoe 2443 Marine Drive. 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