4 - Wednesday, January 1, 1992 - North Shore News Just the fax: Low tides and high ideals NOTHING ON the island of Provinciales grew much higher than waist level, except for the palm trees planted around the restaurants and hotels. This was one of those places where pirates used to get marooned. A crudely- printed History of The Turks and Caicos at the grocery store cost $17.50 American. I passed. Having been ripped off by a T&C customs inspector for five bucks cn my duty-free from Miama, on top of having had a major airline collapse from under me the day before, I was thus far singularly unimpressed with the country, which was actually not even a country, according to the cabbie. ‘Just a colony,” he sigh- ed. ‘‘Sometimes you get a princess coming for a visit.”’ That explained the left-hand roads. The taxi itself, a dented and pock-marked ’70s-era Cadillac, had some kind of engine problem and kept conking out on the little sand dunce hills as we wound along a half-paved road from the airport to what seemed like downtown Provinciales. We were looking for a ship, a black ship, I told the driver. You could see the scenarios playing through his mind: black ship? What the hell? Dope? A Hatian refugee scam? A mass escape from Cuba? He peeked at us warily in the cracked rear-view mirror. Ron George, my travelling companion, was beginning to get that what-have-I-got-myself-into | look, Freshly elected as president of the Native Council of Canada, he had just come from a potlatch near Burns Lake, B.C., where he had assumed his hereditary title as a chief of the Wet’suwet’en wolf clan. His traditional name was Tsaskiy, meaning ‘‘grizzly bear Bob Hunter . STRICTLY PERSONAL tracks.”” As you might have guessed, Tsaskiy was an intensely serious figure. Although only 46, his hair had mostly greyed, including his moustache. Equipped with a great deep baritone, he was a modern politica) animal as well as a hered- itary chief, Naturally, he had his cellular with him. And most of the time, he was on the cellular, talking to aides and associates back in Ottawa. In fact, one of his aides had a por- table fax with him, just in case Ron George found a fax machine Violence against women focus of public forum THE ISSUE of violence against women will be the focus of an upcoming public forum held at St. Navid’s United Church on Jan.7. The aim of the forum, accord- ing to the Canadian Federation of University Women, who are spon- soring the evening, is to allow the public to learn what is being done to help women and what needs to be done to prevent further vio- lence. Featured keynote speaker will be Capilano MP Mary Collins, minister responsible for the status of women. Collins will describe -_Chinesé: December. * Special _ + Reserve nowt “*. Seating up to“250 federal government initiatives designed to address the issue of violence against women. She will be joined by Pearl McKenzie, executive director of North Shore Community Services, who will discuss local initiatives. There will be a question period following the speakers. Admission is free, but dona- tions are welcome. The forum begins at 7:30 p.m. For more information contact the Canadian Federation Of Uni- versity Women’s B.C. West Region at 986-3287 or 922-8879. ing Court> fe) Restaurant. . Live Crab. wi $499 Bean 4 Ib. Dim Sum $1 rene “Now open 7 days texfield Ave., North Vag here in the Turks and Caicos, and dreamed up something to fax. A press statement perhaps about his journey to intercept the Columbus ships. A telegram to Indian Af- fairs Minister Tom Siddon maybe. Looking around the sandy hills, the long stretches of white beach, trying to make out a black ship on the foam-flecked water, listening to the Caddie’s engine die grin- dingly one more time, the wind whishing the bony scrub-brush and cactus, I just could not see a fax in the chief’s immediate future. Ron George, a.k.a. Tsaskiy, impatiently tosseG a stone as he gave directives and accepted polit- ical input from ice-throttled Ot- tawa via his cellular while stand- ing on a dusty clay road in the middle of a little istand desert in the Caribbean Ocean. The word *‘constitution’’ came up a lot. When the stone hit the ground it exploded in a puff of powder. I could see that the president of the Native Council of Canada badly missed his fax. How can you fight wars in Ottawa without a fax? That'd be like going into media battle without a copier, At least he had the cellular. After limping in the old busted Caddie from one end of the island to the other in search of a dock where a 200-foot former North Sea trawler might put in, we en- countered one piece of good news and one piece of ¢ .ir- nely bad. The bad was tha, « .st to come in and pick us up, the black ship and its entire crew would have to go through customs. With a dozen reportedly ‘‘militant”’ British Col- umbian Indians on board, plus a hardcore crew of animal rights saboteurs and eco-guerrillas, Sea Shepherd I! captain Paul Watson was not going to be thrilled to have to clear a major bureaucratic hurdle just to come in and get Ron and me, the well-known rule of travel generally being: the smaller the country, the bigger the bureaucracy. The good news was that there was an outdoor bar down by the beach with a VHF sideband radio where I could try to raise the ship and a pint at the same time, Stacking our knapsacks and sleeping bags in a corner on the Spanish tile floor, Grizzly Bear Tracks and | pulled up stools at the bar overlooking the beach, and ! got on the blower on the marine band, Channel 16, a Pavli Girl beer in one hand, and started calling the ship, In no time, a voice came back, telling me to switch to Channel 10. Eureka, we were in contact. A short time iatet, to the utter astonishment of the other patrons in the bar, a big biack ship heaved into view over the horizons, tak- ing up a position about a mile out, just beyond the reef. A Zodiac would be dispatched to come in and pick us up from the beach any moinent, a voice reported crisply over the sideband. “*Hey, you cannot do dat, mon,”’ the bartender said in Turks and Caicosese. ‘‘You gotta go thru de customs.’’ “Is that right, aye?”’ I replied laconically in Canadian, exchang- ing looks with Chief Ron, who smiled quietly and looked out to sea, Funny how getting ripped off for five bucks on duty free hooch can poison a man’s attitude toward a place and its entire regu- latory mind-set. Whatever You Do Don’t Shop Jan 1, 1992 We wont be here and to miss you. Happy athe New Year! from the Merchants of CAPILANO MALL NEW YEARS EVE 10AM-5PM, NEW YEARS DAY CLOSED, THURS.-FRI. 16 SAT. 9:30-5:30, SUN. NOON-5PM.