50 YEARS AGO (1970): The past week had seen five motor vehicle accidents on Graham Island highways. On Friday, July 10, a Volka wagon bug was rolled eight miles south of Tlell. The driver, R. Taillefer, apparently overcorrected on touching the edge of the pavement at speed, the car slewed across the highway and rolled on the shoulder. The driver was unhurt, but passenger Bev. Kendall was badly shaken up when thrown over the back seat. The car belonging to MITCO had recently had a major overhaul. It was extensively damaged.

40 YEARS AGO (1980): Masset and Haida television boosters pushed that thermometer “spirit” some 2,400 degrees past fever pitch in pledges and immediate contributions toward cost of the current “TV Enhancement” project being undertaken by the Masset-Haida T.V. Society. “Just shows how well the communities can pull together in a common cause,” commented Al Brockley on the Monday after the weekend before. “And we had kids through the studio like you wouldn’t believe,” he went on. “Those youngsters brought in their dimes and quarters … And would you believe that the Satellite Pig was stuffed to the order of over $300 by the time it was all over.”

30 YEARS AGO (1990): There was something of a truce in the dispute between the Haida and the Charlotte Princess, with no violations of the injunction ordering the Council of the Haida Nation not to interfere with the Oak Bay Marine Group’s sports fishing lodge. “We made the decision at the time that the activities we saw (on Thursday, July 12) were not such that it became necessary for us to effect any arrests,” said Sergeant Garry Spence of the Masset detachment, RCMP. While guests of the lodge couldn’t get to it that day, it was a fleet of commercial trollers in Henslung Cove, not a Haida blockade, that prevented them.

20 YEARS AGO (2000): Sandspit appeared to be heading for a showdown over JS Jones’ 2000-2004 Forest Development Plan, as some islanders were accusing the company of not taking other values into account. “I’m definitely not against logging, but there are definitely some values being missed here,” said David Loewen. Values like tourism, long-term community stability and the preservation of fish and mushroom habitat were raised many times during a forest tour hosted by JS Jones Thursday (July 13). About 30 people, including members of the public, tour operators and Ministry of Forests representatives took part in the tour, which looked at proposed and previously logged areas.

ALSO READ: From the archives of the Haida Gwaii Observer

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