Friday - Feb. 7, 2025 - 1,500 dead after nine years of opioid crisis in the Fraser Valley

⛅ High 0C

Good morning!

Back in high school, I bought a copy of William Shirer’s Berlin Diary, the famous radio correspondent’s journal before and during the Second World War. At the time, I filled it with post-it notes for an essay I wrote about war correspondents. Today, I am revisiting the book with fresh eyes.

As a journalist, may I just say: things sure were different back in the ‘30s. During the Fraser Valley floods, I didn’t need to phone Tyler every few paragraphs to relay my story as it was unfolding, as Shirer did with his New York office during Parisian riots. (Many of the basics are the same. We still sent stories to the web a few paragraphs at a time as we were covering those breaking events, and communicated over Slack rather than the telephone.)

The biggest difference, though, was that Shirer’s friend Paul quit his job as a highly-paid newspaper sports reporter (today the ultimate oxymoron), and retired to the countryside in England—a gamble that Shirer said was a good one: “He’s written and sold three short stories and got a handsome movie royalty from one of them.” And that, apparently, was enough to live on.

(You can read Shirer’s whole book online, for those who are interested. It has some illuminating passages for our times.)

– Grace

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope 

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

NEWS

How to kill a fireworm

The blackheaded fireworm lies in wait on the underside of the cranberry’s leaves. It will stay there all winter, secluded in its egg until it emerges in spring to feast on the soft green flesh of the newly sprouting growth.

It will decimate the cranberry plant, and then—after it turns into a moth and lays more than 200 eggs of its own—its progeny will commence with their own destruction.

For decades, a cranberry farmer’s main defence has been synthetic insecticides sprayed from above. But a new saviour could be coming: a virus re-animated from cold storage and brought to the leaves of cranberry shrubs to wage war against the invading fireworms.

It sounds like the start of a science fiction film. It’s actually how BC cranberry farmers could protect their crops in the future from one of the industry’s most common and destructive pests.

• Today, Grace looks at how an Agassiz researcher is testing a decades-old virus against a tiny, but rapacious caterpillar.

Related

Need to Know

⚖ An Abbotsford daycare operator is charged with assaulting children between the ages of two and six [CBC]

🚚 A temporary parking lot for up to 90 semi-trucks has been approved in Aldergrove [Aldergrove Star] / You can read our story on Abbotsford’s unusual idea for truck parking here [FVC]

💸 A Mission woman lost $45,000 in a cryptocurrency scam [Mission Record]

🚒 Firefighters in Harrison spent three hours dousing a fire that broke out on a moored boat Thursday [Fraser Valley Today] / Sqéwqel Development Corporation confirmed this week that it has bought the Harrison Hot Springs Marina [Facebook]

🚙 A truck crashed in Chilliwack after losing a wheel Monday [Fraser Valley Today]

🚫 Abbotsford-Mission opera singer and ‘pro-life Ukrainian Catholic activist’ Dustin Hiles is no longer running to be a Conservative MP candidate [Abbotsford News]

🛑 Some Hope residents are petitioning against a gravel pit expansion on Kettle Valley Road [Hope Standard]

👉 Chronic understaffing, excessive workloads, and burnout have created a crisis among BC’s child welfare workers [Coast Reporter]

🐄 A Dutch linguist is learning how to speak the language of cows [BBC]

🍷 Discover new wines, new regions, and new favourites at the Vancouver International Wine Festival with 43 events in downtown Vancouver, February 22-March 2.*

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The Agenda

Toxic drug deaths decline, but still far higher than before crisis

More than 1,500 people have died in the Fraser Valley because of toxic drugs since 2016, when BC first announced a public health emergency due to opioid-related overdoses. The deaths account for more people than lived in all of Harrison Hot Springs in that year. And although the number of deaths are finally starting to decline, they are still much higher than before the start of the crisis.

In the last nine years, more than 580 people have died in Abbotsford because of toxic drugs. That is roughly one person every six days. In Chilliwack and Langley, one person died approximately every nine days.

Hope has consistently seen the worst impacts of the public health emergency in the Fraser Valley. With nine deaths in 2024, the community's death rate was twice as high as larger cities in the Fraser Valley. While Abbotsford recorded one death for every 2,300 residents, Hope lost one person for every 1,000 people.

Across BC, deaths because of toxic drugs are declining. In the Fraser Valley, there were around half as many deaths in 2024 than the previous year. (Although there were still almost twice as many fatalities as in 2016.)

Fentanyl was found in 78% of victims last year. Cocaine was linked to a little more than half the deaths, and meth in around 40% of people who were tested for drugs after they died. Most deaths in the Fraser Health region, where the Fraser Valley is located, occurred inside people’s homes, rather than on the streets. People who are using drugs can download the Lifeguard App to alert emergency responders or a trusted friend in case of an overdose. You can learn how to use a naloxone kit here.

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Classifieds

• Elvis Potato Dinner, West Langley Hall, Search Potato on EventBrite [LINK]

Annual FVC members can find a link to submit their annual classified in the weekly FVC Insiders Edition. Become a FVC member here.

🗓 Things to do

Cardiac fundraiser: Step Up 4 Cardiac Health comes to Abbotsford Centre on Sunday. Participants of all fitness levels are welcome. Details and registration online.

Spanish concert: Listen to the influence of Spanish music on composers of the 19th and 20th centuries on Sunday during Olé: Spanish Inspirations at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre. Details and tickets online.

Blues night: Blues artist Charlie A'Court comes to Harrison's Memorial Hall on Saturday for the Season of Performing Arts. Details and tickets online.

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Catch up

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