Thursday - June 26, 2025 - Sixty-five Fraser Valley drug deaths in 2025

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Good morning!

More than a year ago, a reader emailed us with a bunch of questions about the trains that run through the Fraser Valley. My husband is a train fanatic, and between his rail knowledge and my journalism skills, we could do a decent job of answering those questions and others. We asked readers to send us the questions they had about trains. The result was three massive mailbag-style articles on freight trains, passenger trains, and the history of rail in the valley.

One person asked how many people had died on the tracks in Chilliwack. Researching that answer led me to a massive dataset outlining every death, derailment, crash, and accident on Canada’s nationally regulated railways. Months of analysis, data visualization, interviews, and research showed that not only was Chilliwack the deadliest place in the Fraser Valley, but had one of the highest total train-related death counts in the country.

Given the size and scope of those investigations, it wasn’t possible to go into details about the impact railways have had on Indigenous people in Canada—particularly for First Nations in the Chilliwack-area. I am proud to be able to bring you that story today, as the final piece of my railway investigations for The Current. Trains have shaped our experience in the Fraser Valley for more than a century—sometimes in positive ways. But we can’t forget that the benefits of rail transportation for our goods, and sometimes ourselves, also comes with a cost on vulnerable people and their communities.

– Grace

The Fraser Valley Current is an Overstory Media publication. Click here to subscribe to our sister publication, the Georgia Straight.

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

Trauma and the tracks

This story deals with suicide, train-related fatalities, and Indigenous trauma. If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, call 988 to access BC’s Suicide Crisis Helpline. If you are Indigenous, you can contact the BC-wide Indigenous crisis line toll-free at 1-800-588-8717.

The cemetery at the Squiala First Nation is small and enclosed, with headstones placed neatly around its grounds. Across the road is a playground, and when the air is quiet, you can hear children playing.

A marker in the centre of the cemetery bears Squiala’s name; gravel paths lead from the monument to the edges of the graveyard. During funerals, families walk down those paths to remember their loved one. A crowd gathers, the grave is covered, and silence descends for a moment. Unless a train rattles by.

On an overcast February day, Squiala Chief David Jimmie stood beside the cemetery gate and considered the tracks that lay beyond. “Our cemetery’s right here,” he said. “While you're conducting your service and going through ceremony, you've got a loud train that comes through—it's just another aspect of that re-traumatization for some people.”

Since the 1980s, more than 120 people have died on the Fraser Valley’s train tracks. Data from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada doesn’t identify how many were Indigenous, but historic newspaper accounts and anecdotes show that dozens of Indigenous people have been killed by trains in recent decades, both in accidents and through suicide.

And deaths aren’t the only way rail companies have negatively impacted Indigenous communities in the Fraser Valley. Land theft, infrastructure costs, and a lack of co-operation with local First Nations has created issues for the Indigenous people who live next to CN and CPKC tracks.

• Today, Grace reports on how Canada’s railway companies have affected First Nations within the Fraser Valley, and talks to Jimmie about what he thinks needs to happen to improve safety on the valley’s tracks, and relations between the companies and the nations.

Related

Need to Know

⚖ A legal battle over $40 million worth of Langley land included enough allegations of perjury, forgery, and deceit to cause a judge to compare the case to a 'Shakespearean witches brew' [Langley Advance Times] / You can read the most recent court ruling in the case here [Canlii]

🏫 A teacher in the Chilliwack School District was suspended for one day after making inappropriate comments to vulnerable students [CBC]

⛪ A priest and a church employee were assaulted in a Mission church after mass earlier this month [Mission Record]

🚌 An Abbotsford man ended up in hospital after being assaulted at a bus stop on South Fraser Way Tuesday [Fraser Valley Today]

🏒 The mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, donned an Abbotsford Canucks jersey after the team’s Calder Cup win this week [Abbotsford News] / The Abbotsford Canucks host a community event tonight at Abbotsford Centre to celebrate [Abbotsford News]

🛩 A crash that killed a flight instructor and two students near Chilliwack’s airport two years ago happened because the small plane wasn’t going fast enough, investigators have found [Fraser Valley Today]

🚽 A private utility company that serves Sasquatch Mountain Resort has been hit with $120,000 in fines for failing to maintain their sewage infrastructure [Agassiz Harrison Observer]

🚤 Kids life jackets will be available to borrow at two locations on Cultus Lake this summer [Fraser Valley Today]

📸 CURRENT CAM: Congratulations to Tim Van Leeuwen, who was the first person to correctly identify yesterday’s Current Cam as the western end of Matsqui Island.

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The Agenda

Sixty-five Fraser Valley drug deaths in first four months of 2025

More than five dozen people died of toxic drug poisoning in the Fraser Valley in the first third of 2025. Sixty-five deaths were recorded between January and April of this year, with close to half in Abbotsford, where 27 people died. Seventeen people in Chilliwack and 15 in Langley perished. Three people died in Mission, while another three died in Hope, Agassiz, and Harrison combined.

The impacts are greatest in Hope area, which had the 10th highest death rate in the province. Abbotsford is not far behind and has the province’s 15th highest death rate, with 47 deaths per 100,000 people over the course of the year.

Although still historically high, toxic drug deaths have been declining across the region for the last two years. Whether that trend will continue in 2025 remains to be seen. Data from the BC Coroner’s service is only available to April 2025.

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🗓 Things to do

Sasquatch Days: Sasquatch Days returns to Harrison Hot Springs on Saturday and Sunday from 9am to 5pm. The 13th annual Sasquatch Days is co-hosted by Sts'ailes and Harrison. This year's events include war canoe races, medicine walks, and more. Details online.

Embroidery gathering: The Fraser Valley Needlearts Guild meets today at the Mission Library. The group meets every Thursday from 5:30 to 7:45pm. Get tips, share techniques, and enjoy good conversation. Details online.

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Catch up

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