Friday - April 26, 2024 - The stories of post-fire Lytton

🌧 High 14C

Good morning!

This is the last time you’ll hear from me in the Fraser Valley Current newsletter—at least for a while. It’s been a great year and a half, and you’ve all been an amazing audience. I’ve learned a lot in the last 18 months, and I don’t think there’s a better crowd anywhere with whom to share stories, news, information, adventures!

While I’m off on my next adventure (a European backpacking trip) and very excited about some of the plans I have lined up, I’ll always remember the awesome, very cool, superb readers that I got to write for in the Lower Mainland. Thank you for sharing your stories with me, and thank you for reading!

– Grace

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

The stories of post-fire Lytton

Lytton is an example. But it’s not just an example.

From the start, outsiders have pointed to Lytton’s destruction during 2021’s monstrous heat dome as an example of how climate change is super-sizing natural disasters—and how humans are ill-prepared.

Immediately after the fire, politicians proclaimed that Lytton could be an example of how to build a resilient community than can withstand future events.

And in the last three years, Lytton has proven to be another type of example: one that shows how our government systems are ill-suited to accommodate the speedy rebuilding of small and remote disaster-ravaged communities.

But Lytton isn’t just an abstract idea. It’s a real place with real residents. Many still live nearby. Others have been displaced for years. (While Lytton proper was nearly 90% destroyed—alongside a significant number of Lytton First Nations homes—its shops and institutions served a much larger area, many of which remains unburned.)

Over the last 18 months, as rebuilding stalled and those residents remained in limbo, The Current has tried to cover the situation with a level of depth and enterprise owed to any community going through such an ordeal. With no other local media covering the rebuilding work in a comprehensive and consistent manner, we tried to both explain the variety of factors that stalled progress and hold politicians accountable for broken promises. Along with revealing what has gone wrong, we have tried to highlight signs of hope when they emerged.

• Our coverage is a finalist for the E. Cora Hind Award for Local Reporting at the National Newspaper Awards. With the awards set to be announced this evening, we have finally collected all our major Lytton stories in one place for readers to catch up. You can find that here. We’ve included updates to stories, where developments have changed since we first published an article.

• We will announce whether we won an award in tomorrow's members newsletter. You can become a member and support our work here.

• You can also read about E. Cora Hind, a pioneer agricultural reporter in Canada, here.

Related

Need to Know

🩺 A celebration of life will be held for a celebrated family doctor from Chilliwack this weekend [Fraser Valley Today]

🟢 Three pedestrians were shot with a paintball gun in Mission [Mission Record]

📕 An Indigenous author visited an elementary school in Hope to help launch the district’s new anti-oppression curriculum

🚔️ An SUV crashed into the wall of a Langley motel [Langley Advance Times]

🎙️ A Mission singer is auditioning for Canada’s Got Talent [Mission Record]

👩 A potential new elective for high school students in Abbotsford could focus on “adulting” [Abbotsford News]

👨‍🌾 Langley Township mayor rejected the idea of using agricultural land to park big trucks [Langley Advance Times]

🏫 The Atchelitz Thresherman’s Association’s open house features local history, including an old Chilliwack schoolhouse [Chilliwack Progress]

🗳️ A former political advisor has joined the race for the federal conservative nomination for the Abbotsford-South Langley riding [Langley Advance Times]

🚁 Chilliwack’s new search and rescue facility received a $250,000 grant [Chilliwack Progress]

 🚨 Search efforts have ramped up to find an Abbotsford man who has been missing since Tuesday [Abbotsford News]

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The Agenda

Sumas Prairie residents sue governments for flood damages

Lawyers for Sumas Prairie residents suing the City of Abbotsford, the Fraser Valley Regional District, and the province were in court this week for a hearing that will determine whether the court case will be certified as a class action suit.

Caroline Mostertman and Ted Dykman first filed suit in January of 2022, alleging that governments failed to adequately prepare for flooding, and that they also failed to warn residents about the impending disaster. The hearing was slated to last all week.

A certification hearing is a critical step in a class action lawsuit. A class action lawsuit allows for a group of people to jointly sue an entity for damages they feel they are owed. But such a lawsuit needs to have a "representative" plaintiff that serves as the personal embodiment of a defined group, or "class." The hearing allows involved parties to make the case that the plaintiffs—in this case Mostertman and Dykman—should represent Sumas Prairie property owners who sustained losses in the 2021 disaster. The lawsuit argues that the pair are effective plaintiffs because the suit alleges the governments failed residents and business owners on Sumas Prairie, and Mostertman and Dykman both own property and run businesses in areas "historically protected by the Sumas Dike.”

The Supreme Court Justice in the case isn't expected to immediately make a decision on certification. A trial would follow at a later date.

Six Fraser Valley journalists celebrated for community reporting

Six Fraser Valley journalists were honoured for their reporting in the community at the 2024 BC and Yukon Community Newspaper Awards last week. Today, as we showcase our own (potentially) award-winning work, we’ll highlight those stories, most of which remain relevant today. (The Current was not eligible for the awards.)

Agassiz Harrison Observer editor Adam Louis won gold in arts and culture writing for his story on Carrielynn Victor’s murals in Agassiz and Hope. You can find the story here.

The entire category was swept by Fraser Valley journalists. Chilliwack’s Jenna Hauck received silver for her story on Anne Schaefer’s quiltmaking (read it here) and Abbotsford’s Ben Lypka took home bronze for his story on an art show by Robert Bateman students (read it here).

The Abbotsford News took home two awards for their multimedia reporting: Vikki Hopes claimed a silver for her story on Abbotsford’s homeless camps (read it here), and Ben Lypka won bronze for a piece on the Abbotsford Canucks’ growing popularity (read it here). Langley journalist Kyler Emerson also won silver for his photo of an explosion at Willoughby Town Centre (see the photo here).

Mission Record editor Kevin Mills was recognized for his work as a columnist, taking home bronze for his column “What’s on the front page this week?” (You can read it here.) The entire Mission team also won silver for their 2023 community guide. 

Finally, the Chilliwack Progress took home the gold for general excellence in its circulation category.

💾 Flashback Friday

This trestle bridge in Lytton was photographed in 1885. Trestle bridges like this one were built throughout North America in the 1800s as rail lines quickly expanded across the continent. You can read a history of trestle bridges at Lytton, where the Fraser and Thompson rivers join, here.

🗓 Things to do

🎞️ Film: The Abbotsford Film Society will screen Paprika, an animated film by Satoshi Son, at the Banquet Room on Friday, April 26. Details online.

🤣 Comedy: Flashback Brewing in Chilliwack will host a night of stand-up comedy on Saturday, April 27. Details online.

🎙️ Talent show: Mountainview Brewing Co. in Hope is hosting a talent show including performances by a "magician, comedian, punk band and aerial pole artist" on Saturday, April 27. Entry is free. Details online.

That’s it!

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