The Haida Gwaii Tourism Association says it wants to fix up Port Clements' cub hall - a building which the village council voted to burn down earlier this year.
The building has not yet been torched, and meanwhile tourism association president Urs Thomas has written to the village that it would be an excellent spot for a visitor info centre and office. Mr. Thomas said an engineer has inspected the building and found that it is in sound condition and could be brought up to standard with minimal expenditure.
Council members discussed the offer briefly at their Monday night meeting, and decided to get more information from the tourism association. Mayor Dale Lore suggested that the renovated church would be a better visitor info centre location.
In other Port news:
• Mr. Lore reported that while he was in Ottawa for the TFL 39 court case, he met with Environment Minister David Anderson and Sustainable Resources Minister John Efford to discuss the oil and gas moratorium, along with Masset mayor Barry Pages and Council of the Haida Nation president Guujaaw. They also met with a finance bureaucrat to talk about restoring the full northern living allowance deduction for islanders.
• Mr. Lore then spoke at an oil and gas conference in Vancouver which was attended by many industry representatives.
"The message that I gave them was they promised they wouldn't come without an invitation, and there wasn't one in the mail," he said, adding that he had dinner with a senior geologist from Shell Canada. "He said he got the message loud and clear... He told us the companies weren't interested in coming to the this area and certainly weren't going to come over our objections."