Dirk Meissner responds to Kitimat letters

Dirk Meissner responds to Kitimat letters [originally posted on 04/03/07]
http://cponline.insinc.com/storyReadkoc.php?id=7070&t=8

My colleagues at the press gallery in the B.C. legislature in Victoria often tease me about my childhood in Kitimat – my small town with big adventures – as we trade barbs over lunch. It’s either, ”’Oh, no, here comes another Kitimat story,”‘ or ”’Dirk, give us another one of your Kitimat yarns.”‘

They aren’t stories, I say. They are all true.

Like the weekend it snowed almost four metres and people were shovelling snow from day until night to keep their roofs from caving in.

Or, every winter when the snow banks got too high, the radio station broadcasts warnings that children should not touch the hydro wires.

How about the one about the Kitimat River turning dark when the thousands and thousands of spawning salmon arrived.

And I’ll never forget hooking a 12-kilogram salmon with the reinforced steel gaff my dad made at his welding shop, an illegal catch but I hadn’t even reached my teens.

They’re wonderful memories.

I also remember my friends’ mothers yelling at a busload of helmeted riot police who arrived in town to break up a wildcat picket line at Alcan. And I recall eating, and hating, Wheatabix cereal and drinking powdered milk as another Alcan strike entered its eighth month.

As a teen, I sampled homemade red wine from my Portuguese and Italian neighbours who stored the stuff by the barrel in their garages. I remember neighbours bringing home a huge bull moose they shot and spreading the carved up carcass, including the head, horns and hindquarters, on their front lawn for all to see. The same thing happened when somebody landed a salmon weighing over 30 kilograms.

So it was with excitement and caution that I approached my assignment to visit Kitimat and attempt to find out why the 2006 census statistics found that it recorded the greatest population decline of any community in Canada from 2001 to 2006.

The population dropped 12.6 per cent to just fewer than 9,000 residents. When I was there Kitimat was pushing 14,000.

I really hadn’t been back for a prolonged visit since 1976 when my family moved to Kamloops in the B.C. Interior.

The first thing I did was drive by the house where I grew up. Then I drove around town: uptown, downtown, the ice arenas, swimming pool, the Alcan plant, the aboriginal Kitimaat Village. I checked into my motel.

I was in shock. There were boarded up buildings, empty apartments and shopping malls with what appeared to be more closed stores than open stores.

Kitimat was always billed as a planned community where every street came with a paved sidewalk and a functioning streetlight. It was also planned to comfortably accommodate 50,000 people.

But the boarded up buildings in the uptown Nechako Centre and the rusting pillars in the Service Centre, in the town’s industrial sector, looked like they hadn’t been touched in years.

The residents I spoke to said the derelict buildings had been closed for so many years, they hardly noticed them anymore. They’re just a part of the community. They blamed absentee landlords who are holding onto the properties until the good times return. They blamed the local council for allowing the buildings to sit unused and in disrepair. They blamed the uncertainty in the community that exists because of its love-hate relationship with Alcan, Kitimat’s largest employer.

Everybody had something to say about Alcan. The company’s relationship with Kitimat is all-consuming, they say. It’s economic, social and political.

I can understand Kitimat’s reaction to my Canadian Press story and the video we posted on the Internet. It’s tough when your community gets little recognition in the news beyond its borders, and then when it does, it’s negative publicity.

The story and video received a huge reaction from Kitimat residents present and past. Most of it was in the form of outrage directed at me and concern about what readers and viewers saw as a one-sided view of their community.

The Kitimat Chamber of Commerce wrote a formal letter of protest. ”We were greatly disturbed by the above noted article and astonished that this piece along with corresponding World Wide Web video were published,” says the letter from the Kitimat chamber’s board of directors. ”Your website makes the following claim: ”Our reporters, editors and photographers strive to make sure our journalism is accurate and properly sourced. CP policy is to acknowledge mistakes and correct them in a timely fashion.” ”Mr. Meissner’s article and video, in our minds fit none of the above criteria,” says the letter. ”His portrayal of a rundown, shabby and derelict town could not be further from the truth.”

The local radio and television station, CFTK, located in nearby Terrace, interviewed me about the story, asking why I wrote it. Danny Nunes of Kitimat posted his own video on YouTube in response.

I know the people in Kitimat have pride in their community and I can understand how they feel when somebody from outside of town is appearing to tell them and the rest of Canada what is wrong with their town.

Here are a few more examples of what Kitimat residents had to say: “Mr. Meissner’s portrayal of Kitimat was disgusting,” said Pauline Maitland, general manager of the City Centre Mall.

”His video added insult to injury. One wonders what his motivations were,” she said. ”Kitimat is a fabulous place to live. There are great things on the horizon and I for one wish that opportunistic, hungry pessimists would stop taking advantage of the dark side.”

Others said the story and video focused too deeply on the run-down sections of Kitimat, while ignoring the endearing qualities of the community. ”Our little town is a wonderful family town,” said an e-mail from Lea McIntyre. ”We don’t worry about our children on their way to or from school, or at the playgrounds. It is friendly, safe and beautiful. As far as the infrastructure goes, every town or city has an older section that isn’t their claim to fame.”

Others saw a conspiracy in the video, saying I was sent to Kitimat by the town council, Alcan or groups supporting or opposed to Alcan.

”Dirk, I had word today that when you were in Kitimat Mr. (Rick) Wozney (Kitimat’s mayor) drove you around our community,” said an e-mail from Roma and Ron Burnett. ”Is this true? If I do not hear back from you I will take that as a ”yes.”

There is no conspiracy, Canadian Press sent me to Kitimat to do a story timed to be published with the census results. It was part of a series of stories from across the country about Canada’s population trends.

My colleague wrote a broader story that examined the fact that five of the top 10 communities with declining population were in northern British Columbia. As that companion story indicated, many people feel the latest statistics belie the economic potential of the region.

It was a tough story to write about Kitimat and the video was emotional to shoot. Having lived in Kitimat and seeing the decline made it even more difficult. I hope it provides at least some insights into the challenges facing the town.

The reaction of residents to the story and video shows how deeply people care about their community and is a strong example of their motivation to make it an even better and more prosperous place to live.

I did see the new health centre, Overwaitea grocery store and drug store. I ate at the family-owned restaurants and spent a nice night at the golf course lounge.

Many people have said the story was too negative. It wasn’t meant to be negative. The country’s census has just found Kitimat with the largest population decline in Canada. The reasons behind the population decline will likely be debated widely and passionately in Kitimat.

Residents have pointed out that the Dairy Queen has only been closed since the fall. I was given two stories about the Dairy Queen when I was in Kitimat. One was it was hit with a fire an unknown time ago and has not re-opened. Others said there was a fire, but Dairy Queen has chosen not to re-open because it was the subject of a union organizing attempt and head office didn’t want a potential union shop in Kitimat spreading to other Dairy Queens. Dairy Queen’s director of operations for Western Canada says officially that the fire was last fall and that the company is “committed” to reopening its Kitimat location “within the next two months.”

One of the letters I received after the story and video came out accused me of wearing grey-coloured glasses on my trip to Kitimat. That observation caused me to reflect on my most recent experience in Kitimat – the experience of a former resident and as a journalist, somebody trained as an impartial observer and interpreter of people, places and things.

Everything I saw while in Kitimat was not dull and decaying, but though the sun was shining for most of my visit, the signs of decline, and not just population, were out in the open for everybody to see.

-Dirk Meissner, The Canadian Press, Victoria, B.C.