Family fun turns into a wolf scare for tobogganers A tobogganing trip near Fort Nelson went from fun to fright for two families after they were chased by wolves. The families were on an outing 100 kilometres east of Fort Nelson Friday when two wolves started to chase a sleighful of three children, said 36-year-old Kyle Keays, who was among the group. The children -- one aged four, and two others, both three -- were being towed along the base of a hill by an all-terrain vehicle when the wolves appeared. Keays said his wife first noticed the wolves and shouted at him to watch out. The ATV's driver, Rod Barrie, turned around and pulled the sled back toward his truck. "I looked back and I just saw the wolves coming out of the ditch," said Keays, who works in the area as a gas plant operator. The wolves were within six metres of the children when the youngsters were hustled into the truck. At that moment, Keays' Rottweiler-cross, Shadow, intercepted the lead wolf and got into a scuffle. "When Shadow saw the wolves, he immediately broke free and bee-lined down the hill to attack the lead wolf," Keays said. As Barrie swung a shovel at the wolves, they backed off, but didn't run, said Keays, who grabbed his rifle from his nearby camp. "They definitely weren't afraid," he said. "They backed off 50 feet and started circling side to side."....
Alaskans Weigh the Cost of Gold The gold mine proposed for this stunning open country might be the largest in North America. It would involve building the biggest dam in the world at the headwaters of the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery, which it would risk obliterating. Epic even by Alaskan standards, the planned Pebble Mine has divided a state normally enthusiastic about extracting whatever value can be found in its wide-open spaces. Environmentalists and commercial fishing interests have mounted a well-funded public relations campaign against the project. Mining companies are investing hundreds of millions to make it inevitable. The two sides agree only that Pebble's fate is likely to pivot on the sentiments of a few thousand local residents who would have to live beside it. The effort is led by Northern Dynasty Minerals, a Vancouver company that signed a partnership this summer with global mining giant Anglo-American to develop the site on the peninsula between Cook Inlet and Bristol Bay, 180 miles southwest of Anchorage. The joint effort will spend almost $100 million this year on exploratory drilling and consultants hired to prepare an environmental impact statement that starts the permitting process. Though the mine itself remains years from reality, the priority is hiring. So far, about one-third of the 150 people working at Pebble's local headquarters in the village of Iliamna are natives from the surrounding area. "It's all about getting the 'social license,' " said one Northern Dynasty manager, using industry jargon for obtaining permission of the local community, and speaking privately because the company authorized only Magee to be quoted. "It's not rape and pillage anymore. It can't be." By all appearances it's an uphill battle. A recent survey by Bristol Bay Native Corp., which under federal law represents 8,000 natives with roots in the area, found 69 percent oppose the mine, 57 percent "strongly." The problem is salmon. Wild sockeye course through the bay and famously surge up the rivers that converge exactly where geologists found rich deposits of gold and copper....
Questions Linger at A Utah Coal Mine Nearly five months after a thunderous cave-in at Utah's Crandall Canyon mine, the cause of the original disaster is still under investigation and the fate of the mine is officially unresolved. Six miners were caught in the Aug. 6 cave-in. Ten days later, three men were killed in another collapse while trying to tunnel through the quivering mountain to the victims. After that, the rescue effort was abandoned. The state has said it will not declare the six miners dead without bodies, but it is not clear that the six bodies can ever be recovered. The mine's co-owner, Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp., will not say whether it plans to reopen it, but such a move, which would require the approval of the Bureau of Land Management, appears unlikely. The mine does not have much coal left, and since the accident, the company has stripped it of conveyer belts, power lines and other equipment and let shafts fill with water, said James F. Kohler, a bureau official in Utah....