Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Perhaps we may have felt our ears burning recently, such are the risks when you start to make news beyond your own borders.

Down the coast of the Pacific Ocean, Prince Rupert has become a key ingredient in a local election debate in an area called Humboldt County, California.

They're talking development in Humboldt County and while we didn't know it at the time, our container port development and our past history have proven to be interesting talking points for one of the candidates for office in Division five there.

Charles Ollivier, is the incumbent and in his presentation he used Prince Rupert as the example of what could come for his hometown, though he seems to be a little ahead of the game for the Fairview Container Port development.

They even lost their pulp mill, but now they’re back on their feet running a profitable container port. “If you look into Prince Rupert, it sounds just like Humboldt Bay,”

While we're quite sure that a profitable container port it shall be, we haven't even seen the first container come ashore yet. So perhaps his hyperbole is a tad ahead of the times.

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Regardless of the interpretation of our recent events, it's interesting to see how this new Prince Rupert story is resonating in areas far removed from the North Coast of British Columbia..

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The Rupert connection was presented as part of an article in the Arcata, California North Coast Journal of Politics, People and Art.

Views of the Bay

With the candidates for the Bay District board of directors
by Japhet Weeks

photos by Yulia Weeks

The Northcoast Journal

October 25, 2007

Division Five commissioner and incumbent Charles Ollivier is the lead advocate of total-makeover deep-port development. He’s been singing its praises since he first got elected 16 years ago, and he thinks his pet project has finally reached the home stretch. But his campaign platform may turn out to be a widow’s walk in the end.

“This is perhaps the most important election we’ve seen in this county for many years,” he said to me the week before last as we stood atop Bell Hill, looking out over Humboldt Bay.

Ollivier is a bon vivant. A retired longshoreman, his laugh is hearty and his hopes are high. His mantra is: “We can have it all.” That is, a working railroad, a successful port, living-wage jobs, a healthy bay and a bicycle trail connecting Eureka and Arcata. He pointed to the Redwood Dock in the drizzly distance, which the district recently acquired through a one-time lease buy-out.

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The barrel-chested 71-year-old resembles an opera singer, his hair brushed back in a froth-crested wave and his face contorting dramatically as he described his grand scheme for the bay.
There’s no doubt his enthusiasm is genuine.

“The Redwood Dock will be developed,” he said resolutely, gesticulating as he spoke, his slight French accent causing the ends of his sentences to crescendo. “We’ll make enough money from the Redwood Dock as a marine terminal to reinvest it in recreation and conservation.”

He recommends looking north to Prince Rupert, British Columbia for inspiration. Like in Humboldt County, a downturn in the logging and fishing industries once spelled disaster for that Canadian port. They even lost their pulp mill, but now they’re back on their feet running a profitable container port. “If you look into Prince Rupert, it sounds just like Humboldt Bay,” Ollivier told me with a nostalgic twinkle in his eyes.

In some respects, though, the comparison doesn’t hold up. Prince Rupert is strategically located on the occidental end of the shortest existing land/sea route connecting Asia and North America — 1,000 miles/68 hours closer to Shanghai than the port of Los Angeles. It’s also located at the terminus of a transcontinental railroad operated by Canadian National Railway. And their bay is naturally deep, ranging between 38 and 44 meters. On all three counts, our bay is no match.

Ollivier told me that when he first got elected to the Harbor Commission the “direction turned towards shipping port development.” That was 16 years ago. He doesn’t seem phased by how plodding progress has been. “Things move slow,” he admitted. So is one more term long enough for some real changes to occur? Ollivier certainly thinks so: “The climax is about to come for my 16 years of labor here,” he said.