Wednesday - June 5, 2024 - Langley museum may finally open in February

☀ High 18C

Good morning!

Yesterday, I asked you folks to take a quiz to see if you could distinguish between BC’s fastest-growing cities and its slowest-growing municipalities. (If you haven’t taken it you can do so here. To read our story about which Fraser Valley cities are growing the fastest, click here.)

I promised results, and here they are: after about 500 plays, the average score was 65%. If you got seven of the 10 questions right, you were slightly above average. If you got fewer, you were below average. And if you got less than 50% on a multiple choice quiz with just two choices per question, I’m sorry, but the odds are that you probably would have been better taking the quiz blindfolded or letting your dog pick your answers.

If you’re curious about the average score for each question, you can check those out here.

– Tyler

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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

Building safer (owl) homes

For several scorching days in June 2021, an oppressive heat dome sat over western North America. In the Fraser Valley, inland from Vancouver, British Columbia, the temperature soared to 42.9°C. The previous June high for the area—set in 1982—was 34.7°C. Unable to escape the extraordinary heat, billions of marine creatures died—most noticeably barnacles, mussels, oysters, and clams.

On land, Sofi Hindmarch, a wildlife biologist with the Fraser Valley Conservancy, tallied the heat dome’s horrifying impact on young owls.

• Today, we share a story from our friends at Hakai Magazine about how the heat dome killed dozens of baby owls, and how researchers are trying to prevent that from happening again.

Related

Need to Know

🚌 Nine Fraser Valley buses have been yanked from the roads because a part has been recalled [BC Transit/X]

🔎 Abbotsford Police are looking for help finding a missing 31-year-old woman [Fraser Valley Today]

🚔 Impaired drivers caused two crashes in Mission in a 20-minute span; six people were hospitalized [Mission Record]

⚡ The United States used to rely on BC clean power, but less snow—and more clean power south of the border—may reverse that relationship [NY Times]

✈ WestJet announced its new “UltraBasic” fare that eliminates carry-ons and seat-choice; people are not impressed [BlogTO]

👉 A BC worker group wants nasal spray naloxone to be mandated on job sites [Vancouver Sun]

🚌 Mission council is asking the province to provide free transit to youth and seniors [Mission Record]

🗳 Thousands of people lost power yesterday in the Agassiz and Laidlaw areas [Fraser Valley Today]

⌚ A Columbia Valley farm property is still full of waste, despite the owners being told it had to be gone by the end of May [Chilliwack Progress]

⚖ Two Chilliwack women say allegations that they misappropriated funds from a non-profit are groundless [Chilliwack Progress]

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The Agenda

Langley museum may finally be fully open next February

Langley’s new museum, salishan Place, is expected to fully open by February 2025.

Construction on salishan Place began in 2021 (The Current reported on the museum’s plans for artifact preservation that summer). The township had plans to move into the building in January of 2023, with an expected museum opening by that July.

That did not happen, however. Now, a staff report to the township’s council says it is “on track to meet our target gradual opening in October 2024,” although the museum still won’t be fully open until at least February of 2025.

The first step of the museum opening is relocating the Fort Langley Library, which moved to the former Langley Centennial Museum building in February of this year. The new library space in salishan Place has its own entrance, and township staff are hoping to have the Fort Langley Library filled by mid-June.

How soon the rest of the museum opening can happen will depend on various factors. Although the report noted that the township move in to the museum as early as the end of May, a Langley spokesperson said there is “still work being done to inspect its complex systems, address any deficiencies, prepare programs and services, and other tasks.” In short, there’s still a lot to do.

When the township does take over the facility from its builder, the first steps will be to hire third-party food and beverage operators, as well as prepare spaces for bookings and events.

Staff will spend roughly eight to 12 weeks inspecting climate controls for the storage rooms, installing signage, cleaning the museum, and updating security. The big move, with all the city’s artifacts relocated to the museum, will take another five or six months. Staff will also need to set up offices, the printmaking room, and establish the public-facing displays.

In total, the gradual opening of the museum is expected to take seven or eight months. If the township gets access to the facility soon, it could be fully open to the public by next February.

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🗓 Things to do

Author talk: The Mennonite Heritage Museum in Abbotsford hosts a Q&A and book reading with author Jake Wiens on Thursday, June 6. Call 604-758-566 to register. Details online.

No crying: Shayna Jones' one-woman play No Mama, No Cry debuts at Langley's Bez Arts Hub on Friday, June 7, and Saturday, June 8. The play weaves a story of strength, shame, grit, and grace of a lineage of women who mother unlike the rest. Details and tickets online.

Beer & history: The Chilliwack Museum hosts its fifth annual Hops and Heritage fundraiser on Saturday, June 8. Head down to the museum from 3pm to 8pm for a beer garden, kids zone, and more. Tickets online.

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