in just 6 weeks! . . and learn how to keep that | excess weight off. OFFICE AID UELLA ANDREASHUK 218-1 ite Avenue: Castlegar, B.C. Ph. 365-6658 AUTO BODY & REPAIR WANETA PLAZA TOYOTA Complete Car and Truck Repairs AUTO BODY & PAINTING Bear Creek Road, Trail 364-2588 AUTOMOTIVE SUPPLIES Mon. 18 - , AUTO PARTS MITCHELL AUTO PARTS For All Your Auto Needs & & 707 - 13th St., Castlegar 365-7248 COURTESY USED AUTO PARTS © We Buy Cars & Trucks * Auto Wrecking® Towing © Race Cars & Speed Equipment Alex Miller 693-2224 Hwy. 22, Genelle Ed Wales COLUMBIA AUTO WRECKERS & SERVICE Wide selection om For Ford, a, Mopar 8 A AMC Parts, OPEN MONDAY DAYTO SA SATURDAY Columbie Gds. Rd., Trail 367-9717 (§=2) BUMPER To BUMPER. Fighting Inflation For Motoring Needs Now Under New management 1567 Columbie Ave. 365-7787 DEALERSHIPS WANETA PLAZA TOYOTA Beer Crock Rood. Trail 364-2588 CASTLEGAR CHEVRON 425 Columbia, Castlegar 365-2912 ) BEAVER AUTO CENTRE vu RENAULT Sales—Service—Parts—teasing Volvo Parts & Service 367-7355 or 367-7722 seer MAIN ST. MUFFLER Located at Castlegar Turbo 1335 Columbia Ave. Ph. 365-5411 CAR & TRUCK RENTALS CASTLEGAR CHEVRON WANETA PLAZA TOYOTA 365-2912 364-2588 apricots (April 20). Apricots are rapidly éoming into bloom throughout the Kootenay area. They are the first of the fruit trees to bloom and_are a welcome sign of spring. The blossoms are beautiful but they are also very sensitive. In 1983 a warm rain occurred during fall bloom of This resulted in conditions ideal for infection of the blossoms by a disease known as Brown Rot, resulting in ex- tensive blight of blossoms and branches, Because of the amount of spores present in the area from last year’s blighted branches and rotted fruit, severe losses will result this year if rain occurs di bloom time. The only way to successfully prevent this damage is by means of pr sprays. A should be applied after the blossoms start to open because it is the inside of the flower that must be protected. For good protection one spray should go on just after the first blossoms open. If it rains another spray should be applied at 50 per cent open and possibly a third at full bloom. Home gardeners should use either Benomyl or Captan. Commercih! growers should consult the production guide. Book draw for book festival During National! Book Fes- tival this week, Castlegar Li- brary patrons are being in- vited to take part in a draw for a Canadian book. The draw will be held in both branches and a prize will be offered for both adults and children. Author Gertrude Story will give a reading in the Castlegar Branch at 7:30 p.m. Monday not at p-m. as mentioned in last week's ar- ticle. and + Meals-on-Wheels of the t Births & Funerals BIRTHS DILLING — To Mr. and Mrs. Dave Dilling, a boy, born April 8. GALBRAITH — To Mr, and Mrs. Eric Galbraith of Nelson, a girl, born April 18. GRAVELLE — To Mr. and Mrs Ralph Gravelle of Nelson, a boy, born April 19. HODGKINSON — To Mr. and Mrs. David Hodgkinson of Nelson, a boy, born April 20. KEITH — To Mr. and Mrs. Sandy Reith of Nelson, a girl, born April 16. McKINNON — To Mr. and Mrs. lan McKinnon of Kaslo, a boy, born April 22. REMPLE — To Mr. and Mrs. Terry Remple of Meadow Creek, a boy, born April 24 ROGERS — To Mr. and Mrs. Bob Rogers of Fruitvate, a boy, born April 18. SCHMIDT — To Mr. and Mrs. Gory Schmidt, a boy, born April 15. STREBCHUK — To Mr. and Mrs. Stan Strebchuk of Hills, a boy, born April 20. woop — To Mr. and Mrs. Brion Wood ‘of Nelson, a girl, born April 22 DEATHS BOOTH — Harold Williom Booth of Nelson died April 23, aged 61 In lieu of flowers, donations to the Canadian Heart Foundation would be appreciated. COOPER — Mary Burns Cooper of Trail died April 23, ‘at the Trail . Mrs. number of years at Woolworths department Memorial donations may be made to the B.C. Cancer Fund, P.O. Box 310, Trail. MOLLER — Charles Edward (Bill) Moller of Trail died April 18 at B.C. Lung Association, Br ., Vancouver, VSZ wv ST. DENIS — Emil Raymond (Ray) 1. Dents, 64: of Trait, died Aprit 19 at the Trail Regional Hospital. be made Fund, Box 310, Trail. THAST — Patrick (rot) Thast died elowna Hospital April 19 following @ briet illness. He was 39. He worked at the CPR diese! shop for 10 years, for Comince for a short term, and Kootenay Forest Products for 14 yeors as. o welder. CASTLE TIRE (1977) LTD. SALES & SERVICE > 365-7145 1060 Columbia, Castlegar ERNIE'S TOWING 365-5690 24-HOURS , iS... See Us for Used Automotive Parts 10 Cubic toot Ridis Dumping Transport SPRAYS - High Pressure Sprayer & Tank & IRRIGATES High Capacity Gear Pump MAINLINE ENGINES ARE AVAILABLE IN5-6& wo MODELS USIVE FEATURES OVER 15 USEF ORK board of directors attended an “ap- An “appr night” for Meals-on-Wheels volun- teers and the Castlegar Homemaker board of direc- tors was held Wednesday at the Legion Hall. Volunteer drivers and board members and spouses were entertained at a wine and cheese party hosted by the local Home- maker group. are a vital part of our service to the community, and as such, are a group very worthy of special recognition and ap- preciation,” said a Home- maker spokesman. “Some of our volunteers have been assisting us since the start of this ser- vice in 1975. Meal: preciation night” Wednesday — a wine and cheese a by the local Homemaker group. party host: Volunteers night held meals, prepared at the hospital, to 18-25 recipients three times per week,” she added. Board members spend much time overseeing the operation of the Home- maker service, which pro- vides many types of ser- vices to senior citizens, Wheels volunteers deliver well balanced, nourishing ped persons in tbe com- munity. — CasNews Photo by Ryan Wilon The service is funded by the B.C. government through the Ministry of Health's Long Term Care section. Refreshments were pro- vided by Meals-on-Wheels and the Homemakers. Door prizes and gifts were donated by West's Department Store, Castle- gar Drugs, and the Home- maker group. "May Day picnic on 6th The annual May Day Fam- ily Picnic will be held on May 6 at the Birchbank Picnic Grounds located between Castlegar and Trail, starting at 10 a.m. Open to all and organized by a small group of West Kootenay residents, the pic- nic provides an opportunity for friends to get together, enjoy the sunshine and cele- SAVING ATTACHMED THE CONVERTIGLE ONE HANDLES OVER ENGINE power unit to operate equipment: well CONVERTIOLE The MAINLINE Rotary Tiller Convert- [ty Maaliigahen poy weged HARVESTS & MOWS 44” Sickle Bar Mower SHREDS & GRINDS Combination rinder THROWS brate Workers’ Day. A variety of activities are planned, starting with a pan- cake brunch and ending with a sing-song. Games and events for large and small kids, including a talent show and a tug-of-war, will again be organized, with baseball, soccer, bocce, hors- shoes or whatever on the go the rest of the time. Len Embree will outline the history of May Day, which is recognized by work- ing people all over the world as “their day.” Sally Mckenzie, newly- returned from picking cotton in Nicaragua, will also be on hand to talk about her exper- iences. There will be, as well, a brief update on both the peace and the current situation in B.C. When the pancakes are gone, hot dogs, chili and var- ious other refreshments will be available. People are also welcome to bring their own picnic and to use the bar- becue pits. Hobbit Hill me Wed, , Pew. adventurous family yarn The quiet clatter of utensils and dishes was more subdued than usual in the monks’ dining room. Only a day or two before the reader had started a new book — a pioneer autobiography — and I was fortunate enough to have arrived at the beginning of the reading. The author had caught our interest almost at once and no one wanted to miss @ word of the gripping, real-life adventure. ‘The main character has been terribly injured in 1883 by 4 runaway steer while driving a herd of cattle to the CPR construction camps near Revelstoke. Despite shattered legs, broken ribs, and holes torn in his abdomen so large that the viscera is pushing through; despite a near barbecuing when the hut in which his friends put him burns down while they are drowning their sorrows in rum, he refuses to die. Covered with guilt and remorse, therefore, his partners decide to build a raft and take him down the Arrow Lakes to Colville to the nearest hospital in the entire area. We all follow the horrendous journey with intense interest but when the reader. comes to the passage :“about noon on the 16th day they suddenly realized that the raft had picked up speed. The sail was slack; it had to be the current carrying them into the river once more. Down came the sail and they rushed to man the sweeps as they slipped past the small community which would one day be called Castlegar and past the mouth of the Kootenay River . . There was a pause among the silent, black-gowned diners as heads turned in my direction and smiles indicated a shared pleasure of common recognition. The book in question is called ‘The Rainbow Chasers’ and is the first work of pioneer logger, farmer, rancher, trapper, and most recently smelter worker and former Castlegar resident, Ervin Austin MacDonald. The introduction to the book gives the outline: In this rare, first-hand account of a Canadian pioneer, Ervin MacDonald tells the saga of his hard-won wilderness home and of his self-sufficient family who built it. Their tale of wanderlust begins in 1839 Bytown with father Achie MacDonald, who reached his peak as an Ottawa Valley “bull of the woods” by age 29, went prospecting for silver and gold from Leadville, Colorado, to Sonora, Mexico, drove Montana cattle to the remote CPR camps in British Columbia, and carved out a ranch for his young family near Fort Colville, Washington. His son Ervin, the story-teller, was motherless by the age of four and was serit to an orphanage along with his brothers and sisters. Those orphanage years of house keeping, woodcutting, discipline — and “scant” learning provided by the hardworking Catholic sisters — formed the boys’ training as companions in adventure. Reunited with their father when Ervin was 13, the male MacDonalds took up homesteading southeast of booming Edmonton. But the flat, bald, cold prairie disagreed with the mountain man in Archie, who dreamed of the lakes, rolling fields and wooded slopes of the Cariboo: he wanted to beat the railway to that unspoiled land. By now 68 and permanently lame from an encounter with a fractious steer, he and his teenage sons embarked on their biggest adventure. This hazardous pack journey across the Rockies via the Yellowhead Pass — without Joy Keillor Bridge sidewalk fair Sixteen pairs competed at with 100%, Clara Johnson Times are tough, and Hob- bit Hill Children's Centre is meeting the challenge of “making ends meet” by pre- senting a sidewalk fair and giant garage sale, May 5 at 10 a.m. at the Speedway lot on Columbia Ave. The family event will fea- ture clowns, puppets, music, artists, crafts, baking, plants, CGIT Car TERM DEPOSITS UP TO We wash, Super Sponsor's Silent Auction, clown-face painting and dress-ups, a8.well as a garage sale. If anyoné has unneeded items, bedding plants, crafts or baking to donate, call Hobbit Hill at 365-7280 or drop items off at the Hobbit Hill Children’s Centre, 749 1lth Ave. between Monday and Friday. Ya Ye pe annum the April 23 meeting. The average score was 91, with the following winners: Agnes Chariton and Bev Swain with 125, Dorothy Cameron and Pear! Palmer ro------- and Etuka Cameron with 99'4, Connie Miller and Mol- lie Palmason with 96, Norn Austin and Pauline Marquis with 93, and‘Heather Pottle and Rita Perrier with 92%. een =-4 Bring this Coupon for a Bonus oy Just for Participating in Our Portrait Promotion. ‘Frudsons Bay Company Do ee RSS ee oe ee map or compass and using makeshift rafts at river Cremsinge <- ted their discovery of that petial ranch site, ’ climax their search for the pot of gold.” Erwin MacDonald tells his family saga with the deceptive simplicity of the born story-teller, a trait most probably honed to a fine edge by listening to his father over many a lonely camp-fire. Frequent disappointments, savage pain and unremitting toil are described with a disarming casualness totally lacking in vain regrets or self-pity, while everywhere the pages are lighted by “A fa é and theb pi stru have pie flashes of joy in infrequent success, a wry sense of humour or a sheer super-abundant optimism which pushes everything before it — a controlled passion for living. While the book is autobiographical in form, it is in reality a loving salute to the man whom he admires more than anyone in the world — his father, Archie MacDonald. In his prologue to the book, Erwin MacDonald says of his father: “My father saw rainbows, too, but they were the kind no one else could see. Ephemeral bands of color hung in the morning skies just beyond the misty mountains on the horizon, anchored there by a pot of gold nuggets. All his long life, my father chased his rainbows, sometimes almost touching one in Mexico or Montana or the Yukon, but he never quite got his hands on a really big one. So he was always travelling on: one man mounted on a saddle horse leading a_couple- of pack horses along some mountain trail, looking for a strike. Looking for gold. First and last, my father was a prospector. Whenever he did make a strike, he worked it only until he got an offer from some development company. He had no interest in mining. For him the thrill was in the search. he was not alone in this. In a period that began with the California gold rush and slowly faded after the Klondike gold rush, thousands of men took up prospecting, chasing the rainbow throughout the west, unable to quit because there was always a chance that the pot of gold was just over the next hill.” When I left the Abbey some three weeks later we had progressed about one-third of the way through the the book and the story of the Rainbow Chasers had become almost an addiction with me and I was determined to get a copy at the first opportunity. When I announced this fact to Bunny she told me that she had just got a copy in the library but hadn't been accessioned yet. “Say no more. I'll read it and review it and then you can put it on your shelve,” said I magnanimously. It was read and returned in two days and I wrote to the author, via his publisher, sending a copy of my book to him and asking to buy an autographed copy of The Rainbow Chasers in return. Some time passed and then we got a phone call from Mrs. MacDonald from Vancouver, followed shortly by a letter and a copy of the desired book suitably autographed. The letter reads in part: “I'm sorry about the delay in getting this copy of The Rainbow Chasers to you. As I told you on the phone, Ervin would like you to have it for your home library. “There have been changes in our lives recently. Ervin’s health has not been good for the last few months and he is now in Shaughnessy Hospital. Therefore, I am having to adjust to being alone and it is not easy. “It amazes us that The Rainbow Chasers has been so very popular with people of all ages and how well it is selling. We are still getting complimentary phone calls, letters and reviews from newspapers across Canada. Among the most recent paper clippings were three from universities — Queens, Regina and Simon Fraser . . . Please continue writing your column in the Castlegar News — I've just renewed my subscription.” Mrs. MacDonald is too modest. The book is fully deserving of its rapid rise to fame. As Bruce Hutchinson says of it; “This fine book adds an new and human dimension to the old story . . . of one family typical of the forgotten men and women who, unaware of their achievements, were building our nation.” It certainly makes this aspect of our history, so often dried into dust by our historians, take on the vigor of real life adventure and the immediacy of personal experience as seen through the eyes of youth. Entirely readable for every age and available now in pocket-book from, through its publishers, Douglas and Mcli of V . If your b doesn’t have it, hound him until he does. e Incidentally, that phone call turned up the fact that the MacDonalds had not only been Bunny's neighbors in Castlegar when they were here, but that she and their daughter, Ruth, had been friends and classmates with the same maiden name MacDonald, in Vancouver Normal School some years ago. It is a surprisingly small world at times. REMINDER .. . For Your Shopping Convenience OMEGOODS FURNITURE WAREHOUSE will be OPEN TuDA? (Sunday, April 29) Noon to 5:30 p.m. Final Day the f Our S$ PRICE BREAK SALE URNITURE WAREHOUSE AT CHINA CREEK Your Carrier is Collecting Your Castl i News carrier will now be collecting for delivery of the paper for the past month, Please . . . won’t you have your money ready when he or she calls? G. PERRIERE | e CONCRETE WORK © SEPTIC TANKS © EXCAVATING © LANDCLEARING © TRUCK SERVICES Ph. 355-2473 Box 188 Slocan, B.C. VOG 2c0 THE i KITCHEN CORNER peal |: Gossamer es FULL LINE OF WILTON PRODUCTS LOCATED AT WANETA WICKER 1506 Cedar Ave., Trail 368-8512 H. (BILL) FEDDERSEN EXCAVATING ing Tile installation Septic Tonk Ba pumpitruck Service Sand — Gravel — Topsoil Slocan City 355-2456 ee (FALCON PAINTING & DECORATING 2649 FouRTH 4 vEN CASTLEGAR B ve vr amet 365-3563 71460 moons sentet® Our NEw Amro Guitar RS OF THE KOOTENAYS Gibson, Carol Magow Dianna Kootnil ikot# ADVERTISING SALES OFFICE 365-5210 Good Stock of Lighti Bath Accessories & Water Upsteirs in Treil’s Towne Squere Mall 368-5302.