ONE, 1 PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES ALEXIS CREEK -- The cabin was log; it was darker than sin and colder than charity. On Christmas cards log cabins are cosy, the light from their little windows is yellow as dairy butter and a bright star and crescent moon stand guard overhead, There was no star, no moon, no warmth, only a dank cold wind down the long meadow which beat upon the-old cabin that huddled among the poplars. The man pushed open the door, which groaned on rusty hinges. First he sniffed for pack rats. Nest he lita cundle, and then the drum stove, A characteristic of log cabins is May serve as model for other provinces From page & ; levels of government {to establish a three-way land claim task force. ‘Some of the B.C. tribal coun- cils have been waiting since 1979 - to get. at the negotiating table,’’ said Mathias. : Siddon conceded that the B.C. commission may serve as a model to review and possibly open old and controversial treaties in other provinces, First Nations leader Ovide Mercredi has suggested such a move. But Siddon noted it would like- ly not occur until after the federal election this fall. ’ Mathias expressed haope that the process will eventually draw in non-conforming B.C, tribal coun- cils. . “The First Nations Summit is supported by 22 of 28 First Na- tions tribal councils in B.C.,”’ the chief said. ‘Some First Nations do. not believe in the process of negotiation. The contradiction is they maintain their sovereignty while receiving government funds ‘— how sovereign can they be?’’ “he said. . Some concerns continue about the treaty process. “The jack of a cost-sharing ~agreement between the federal and “provincial governments is a grave concern to’ the First Nations,’’ said Mathias. : The chief noted that the com- mission will take two or three- months to ‘set up shop,’’ and expects ‘‘substantive negotiations to commence in early fall.’’ “We still have a Jong, long way to go,’’ said Mathias. + that once warmed, they retain heat for hours through long and bitter winter nights but once cold-soaked they become colder than the outdoors and can chill flesh 10 curdle it on the bone, He lit a gas lantern and then the pitch pine logs in the drum heater began snorting and the automatic damper in the stovepipe began te swing and rattle as the long battle to drive out the cold began. He unrolled a Jones Tent and Awning Yukon sleeping bag on the old iron cot and looked about him. It was a typical extra cabin, for use by people who come io help with calving, by truckers who couldn't make it to home base of a night or by casual wanderers such as himself, There was a table, some cup- boards, a propane two-burner stove, crockery, knives and forks, pots and pans, a steer's hide on the floor and a .22 rifle hanging on pegs on the wall, There was coffee, some sugar and matches sealed ina glass bot- le so the pack rats couldn't nibble the phosphorous heads and start a fire. On the wall was a 1984 calendar with Ace Reid's classic comic car- toons about the S Backward Ranch, Then, in the farthest corner, next to an old oil damp that had been designed to give golden light silently instead of the viperish hiss of a gas lantern, there the traveller found treasure, Riches galore, Capilano Mall, North Vancouver, B.C. Book shelves, Floor to ceiling, all bending under the weight of great books. Ranch houses are among the last homes witii good libraries. In Chileotin, people can get 30 or more TV stations on satellite dishes, but old ways diz slowly. Ranch people still prefer a printed page, provided a banker didn’t write it. The traveller set the gas lantern aside, He lit the old oil lamp and with it read the titles, row on row. He was carried back to childhood when he found Beatrix Potter waiting for him, the lady who talked to children but never talked down to them. He remembered the old hen in one of the stories who biamed her scanty chick production on having been badly frightened by a fox, but he also remembered Beatrix writing, “She always claimed it was her nerves, but the truth was, she had never been a good set- ter." Somerset Mitugham was on the shelf. So were Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain and John Steinbeck. He pulled out a thick book by Clifton Fadiman. Reading I've Liked. The man had spent a month with this very book while lying in Camp Hill Hospital in Halifax during the big war, As it fell open, every story, every page was as Camiliar as the smell of the bread Mother made, as the rustle of autumn leaves he wided through when a hoy. Friday, April 30, 1993 ~ North Shore News - 9 Gold on the walls of a north country cabin A book on English architecture. Another telling of the Royal Engineers in British Columbia. The Voyage Alone in The Yaw! by Rob Roy, On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers by Kate Marsden and Memoirs of Marie, Grand Duchess of Russia. The Lady's Not for Burning. The House at Pooh Corner. Anna Karenina. Also books written only yester- day: All] Ever Needed to Know | Learned in Kindergarten aid It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It by Robert Fulghum. Closing his eyes, he put out his hand and found one at random. The Days of Augusta, the sim- ple and sad story of the Shuswap lady on the other side of the Fraser. He did it again and got Mount- batten, Hero of Our Time. In this KEN BAXTER place, Augusta and Mountbatten kept company. The traveller took three books under his arm to the cabin table and after making some black cof- fee he sampled them, Howard Pyles Books of Pirates, Jane’s World Aircraft Recognition Handbook and Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall. He brought more books from the shelves and read a few of that. The great language of the Anglo Saxon people sang louder than the wall of the wind or the snap and snar! of burning wood in the azm heater. Qutsise-s.oee7ing rain began to iock the en of ice, but it didn't mucionatter to the man in the cold-soaked ~~——~e . cabin for he dwelt among the princes and sultans of Earth. NORTH VANCOUVER 988-632) JEWELLERS Importers of gemstones / manufacturers of fine jewellery Eaton Center — 1130-4700 Kingsway, B.C. 984-2040 430-2040