Monday - Jan. 29 2024 - A house arrives in Lytton

🌧 High 15C

Good morning!

I’m looking at some cool work-travel cultural exchanges for a vacation some time next year. Some of the programs suggest the traveler prepare a special dish from their home country to share with their hosts at some point during their stay. Which made me realize that I have no idea what, exactly, qualifies as Canadian cuisine. Most of the food I know how to make is a westernized version of somewhere else’s food. Tacos. Fried rice. Curry. Even the first recipe I ever learned to cook was my great-grandmother’s spaghetti sauce, which was called “Granny’s Irish-Italian Spaghetti.” It involves two tins of Campbell’s soup and is delicious, but it’s not exactly Canadian cuisine.

So what does that leave me with? Poutine? I bet I could make poutine. I’m not brave enough (or good enough a cook) to emulate local chef Gerry Brandon and his take on fine Canadian fare.

– 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

A new Lytton house heralds hope

Michele Swan is going home.

Last week, a semi truck rolled into Lytton and unloaded her house.

Yes, the house was still mostly just lumber. It will take some time to piece together and assemble. A foundation still needs to be poured. But the arrival of just house pieces in town triggered an outpouring of emotion both from Swan and other community members when she posted a photo online.

Today, Tyler talks to Swan about what it means to finally start rebuilding.

Related

Need to Know

📈 The Nooksack River rose significantly Sunday, prompting a flood warning, but waters receded without significant impact to Canada [NOAA/BC Government]

⚖ The owner of an Agassiz hop farm has been fined $1 million after spending investors’ money on his own personal expenses; he complained of having to sell a sports car when the business floundered [CBC]

🌊 324 years ago last Friday a massive earthquake caused a huge tsunami that devastated the BC and Washington Coast [Washington State DNR]

🚍️ Striking Metro Vancouver transit workers have applied to set up picket lines in the Fraser Valley [CTV]

👉 Prospera Credit Union is closing its downtown Chilliwack branch [Chilliwack Progress]

😟 A disabled Langley woman and her family paid $200,000 for important renovation—but the work never got finished [Langley Advance Times]

📱 The province is planning to restrict cell phone use in classrooms [CTV]

📕 A Langley writer’s debut LGBTQ romance novel will come out early next month [Langley Advance Times]

☎️ Scam callers are pretending to be Abbotsford police [Abbotsford News]

👉️ A thief has been banned from Fort Langley after locals caught him during a Christmas Eve break-in [Langley Advance Times]

👏 Volunteers, firefighters and staff rallied after a Langley seniors centre damaged by water after pipes burst [Langley Advance Times]

🍕 Two more Freshslice locations are opening in Abbotsford as the pizza chain continues its rapid expansion [Abbotsford News]

👉 A man was arrested recently after walking into a Mission Sikh temple and making threats [Mission Record]

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The Agenda

Abbotsford median age nears the big 4-0

Abbotsford is one of British Columbia’s youngest communities—but there are still neighbourhoods where grey (or no) hair is more common than others.

With a median age pushing 50, Abbotsford’s City Centre is significantly older than the rest of the city, according to figures assembled by the City of Abbotsford as part of its work to update its new Official Community Plan. The median age in the city centre is 49.2 (so half of people are older and half are younger). No other neighbourhood in the city has a median age above the provincial median of 42.4. 

In the map above, we coloured neighbourhoods with ages below the city average green and those above the city age average red. Abbotsford’s youngest neighbourhood is West Abbotsford, city hall’s name for the pocket of Aldergrove that pushes into the city’s boundaries. In 2001, the median age in Abbotsford was 35.1. By 2021, it was 39.2.

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🗓 Things to do

🎞️ Film: Mission film society Reel on the River is presenting Danish film Rose on Monday, Jan. 29 at the SilverCity Cineplex Theatre. Details online.

🎨 Apply for a mural: Artists can apply to take part in this year’s Chilliwack Mural Festival. Applications are being accepted until Feb. 5. Details online.

🏒 Hockey: The Abbotsford Canucks host the San Jose Barracuda at Abbotsford Centre Feb. 2 and 3. Tickets online.

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Catch up

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