Tuesday - May 20, 2025 - Haldi House renos move ahead

🌧 High 16C

Good morning!

My husband and I started watching North of North, a new Canadian sitcom about a young Inuk woman forging her own path in Ice Cove, Nunavut. The show is a joint production between APTN, CBC, and Netflix—and I cannot recommend it highly enough. The Inuktitut covers of English songs are amazing, and the costume design is stunning. (The characters spend a lot of time outside, and their parkas are spectacular.)

The show has received major acclaim from northerners and southerners alike, and is available to watch for free on CBC Gem. (You can also watch it on Netflix, I suppose.) There are only eight episodes, but the creators say another season is in the works. It cannot come fast enough.

– 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

Your playground memories

Kids these days just don’t have the same playground experiences they did in the past.

In this month’s FVC Perspectives call-out, we asked readers to share their memories of playgrounds and parks, and talk about some of the mishaps and near-misses they endured as children.

Most respondents talked wistfully of the old days, when ‘free-range’ kids could gain hero status by breaking an arm on a slide, or learn from a healthy dose of risky activity. Neighbourhood kids kept each other safe, and most played without much adult supervision. A few however, said they were glad playgrounds today are safer than in the past. (One playground spill lead to lifelong health issues for one respondent.)

Despite the dangerous side to the Fraser Valley’s old playgrounds, most respondents said they avoided major catastrophe. Around 53% of people said they had never been hurt on a playground or park, although the remainder had experienced some sort of injury.

• Today, we share reader’s stories of playground excitement, injuries, and mishaps.

Need to Know

🚔 A driver was arrested after he rammed into a police vehicle and three other cars in Chilliwack Friday [Chilliwack Progress]

💧 The Katzie First Nation is asking BC Hydro to let more water into the Alouette River, saying the Stave Dam is diverting water away from salmon spawning in the river [The Narwhal]

🏘 A report says there are more than 2,000 new condos sitting empty in Metro Vancouver [Global]

🐶 Mission RCMP rescued a dog stolen from a Kamloops home [Mission Record]

🗨 Langley Township Mayor Eric Woodward talked about development and working with other municipalities in his latest State of the Township speech [Langley Advance Times]

🛏 Nearly 70 new shelter spaces are opening for homeless residents in Abbotsford [Fraser Valley Today]

🧯 The Chilliwack fire department is reminding people to practice their fire safety plan after a string of apartment fires in the community [Chilliwack Progress] / An Abbotsford man is homeless after a fire destroyed his house last week [Abbotsford News]

🚓 RCMP ticketed three young men who fired roughly 100 shots into the woods near Mission [Mission Record]

🪑 Hope’s ‘bench guy’ has donated a new handcrafted seat to the FVRD’s Thacker Park [Fraser Valley Today]

📫 Canadian postal workers will strike this Friday, less than six months after they were ordered back to work without an agreement on a new contract [CTV]

🔥 Canadian wildfire smoke cooled the northern hemisphere by one degree in 2023 and may have led to India’s driest August on record, a new climate model suggests [New Scientists]

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SPONSORED BY CHILLIWACK MURAL FESTIVAL

Chilliwack Mural festival announces 2025 muralist lineup

The Chilliwack Mural Festival has confirmed ten muralists to paint from June 1 to August 17 in Downtown Chilliwack, District 1881 and Sardis. Muralists include AÉRO, Anaïs Lera, Jack Hendsbee, Andrew Hem, Connor Kouwehoven, Corey Moraes, Kayla Neufeld Gowans, Megan Oldhues, Tallest Cree, and TEMPONOK. The muralists were selected by festival curators Carrielynn Victor and Amber Price out of 1100 applicants and include Canadian artists from Chilliwack, Agassiz, Vancouver, and Toronto, as well as international artists from France and California.

The muralists will paint in Chilliwack in the weeks before the Chilliwack Mural Festival street party, which will be held in District 1881 and Mill Street on August 15 and 16.

The Agenda

Langley’s Haldi House renovations move ahead

Changes to Fort Langley’s waterfront are inching ahead, starting with demolitions and renovations to Haldi House.

Last week, Langley Township council approved the heritage alteration permit that would allow the township to move Haldi House from its current location and reposition it on the property.

The changes were first put forward last April, when council approved a $4 million project to move and renovate the heritage house. The project would see the house positioned closer to the road, and rotated 45 degrees to be closer to the railway.

Details presented in the heritage alteration permit approved on Monday, May 12 show that the house would be set on top of a new foundation which would eventually become underground parking. (The plan is to use it for storage while the rest of the Fort Langley waterfront is changed.)

The interior of Haldi House will have two single-occupant bathrooms and a large meeting space on the first floor, two smaller meeting rooms on the second floor, and another single-occupant bathroom and two meeting rooms on the third floor.

In order to move Haldi House, additions that were made while the building was a restaurant will be demolished.

Although the heritage alteration permit was approved by council—with Coun. Kim Richter opposed and Mayor Eric Woodward absent because he had a financial stake in the property—construction won’t begin right away. It is possible work could begin this summer, but staff said it could still take several months for the rest of the needed permits to move their way through the system.

As Langley Township is the applicant for the construction project, it will be paying development cost charges, application fees, and building permit administration fees to itself. The entire Haldi House project is expected to cost between $3 million and $4 million.

For more details on Fort Langley’s planned waterfront redevelopment, you can read our story here.

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SPONSORED BY THE YOUNG FARMER SERIES

"Where does your food come from?"

For Lacey Drozdowich, ag-vocacy means answering that question—and helping people understand the hard work behind every bite.

As part of our Young Farmer Series, the 21-year-old from Abbotsford is passionate about closing the gap between producers and consumers. From ag education to food system awareness, she’s using her voice to bridge the divide and shine a light on the real people feeding the country. Read the full story here.

Classifieds

• Cocktail Fundraiser - Sip, Shop, and Support Rising Piano Stars! [LINK]

• Dahlia tubers for sale at flowers.by.neelou@gmail.com

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

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