For the past two cruise seasons the Salmonberry Trading Company Society has operated the Third Avenue Market, which offers a variety of homemade crafts and goods from a closed off section of Third Avenue just past City Hall, on cruise nights, but now the group is hoping that the market will be in a new location for the 2010 season.

Citing a CTV survey of cruise passengers last summer that listed Aboriginal experiences and eco-tourism as the thing passengers look for, society spokesperson Jo Scott says the move would be important in giving

passengers what they want while

visiting Prince Rupert.

“We’d like to provide space for Aboriginal dancers, cedar bark weaving demonstrations, salmon cooked on cedar planks and silver carving or story telling and coffee with an elder. We cannot provide Aboriginal experience in the middle of a city street, we can’t do it,” she told council at the October 26 meeting.

“We invited dancers but their regalia gets dirty and the elders can’t dance on concrete because it hurts their arthritis. We want to do it, we want to encourage that part of the community and, quite frankly, it’s tough for all of us to be on concrete for four hours and it’s tough to set up in half an hour.”

As well as expanding their offerings, Scott says the move would help reduce the opposition to the market they have received from some of the neighbouring businesses and it is also a matter of improving safety and benefiting the

vendors.

“We really want somewhere we could peg our tents so they don’t fly away. It got dangerous last year and they actually lifted off the ground and we had to close it down because the wind funnels through,” she said.

“We want to be closer to the ship and we want to give our vendors the opportunity to access as many of the tourists as possible.”

Among the options being considered are Mariner’s Park, which would have to be approved by the City, or the courthouse lawn, which Scott said is managed by a company out of Prince George that may not have a problem with the idea based on comments from a former lawn manager.