Thursday - Jan. 25, 2024 - Why a Spuzzum Chief wants a ski resort

🌧 High 8C

Good morning!

Tyler’s been collecting readers’ shoutouts to their teachers (or their kids’ favourite teachers) and we’ve gotten some great responses. I figured it would be fitting to give a little shoutout of my own. I had an awesome high school English teacher. Her name was Ms. Aulin, and she got our class to read an epically violent Shakespeare play (Titus Andronicus, in which someone has their tongue cut out and other people get baked into pies). But Ms. Aulin first taught me in Grade 8, where she helped me submit a poem to an anthology of young Canadian writers. In hindsight, the poem was quite bad, but it was accepted for the book.

– 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

Why a Spuzzum Chief thinks a resort would improve a remote valley's environment

There are plenty of plans for mountain resorts in BC. But most such dreams never turn into reality.

Spuzzum Chief James Hobart knows this. He remembers a meeting with a group of resort-planning experts who pulled out plans for a half-dozen different projects.

“I said, ‘Wow those are nice,’” Hobart remembers, “And they said, ‘Yeah, none of these ever made it. They died on the drawing board.’”

Hobart obviously hopes his First Nation’s goals to build a resort in a remote mountain valley near the Coquihalla Summit might be different—in part because Spuzzum is a different kind of applicant. Instead of a resort builder having to prove themselves to locals and win support from local First Nations, Hobart and his community are the locals. And that, he thinks, will make it a lot easier to get to “yes.” 

• Today, Tyler talks to Hobart about his plans to build a resort, how he sees a resort improving the environment in the valley, and the endangered owls that he is also fighting to save.

Related

Need to Know

🚂 The Metro Vancouver transit worker’s job action could escalate to include Skytrain and West Coast Express [Global News] / The province has appointed mediator Vince Ready to try to resolve the dispute [CTV] / Last year, an MLA said that it was ‘unfathomable’ a TransLink strike would persist for as long as one as those in Whistler (and, later, the Fraser Valley) [FVC]

👉️ Cheam View United Church will hold its last Sunday service in downtown Chilliwack next month [Fraser Valley Today]; We wrote about how the church was looking to build housing here [FVC]

👉 Longtime Abbotsford MLA Mike de Jong may be considering running for the federal Conservative party in the next election [Jas Johal/X] / His plans may depend on the future of Abbotsford MP Ed Fast [Richard Zussman/X]

💰️ Mission organizations received $337,000 in grants from the city [Mission Record]

🛍️ A banner promising a new unnamed retailer is ‘coming soon’ to an Abbotsford mall has been up for six months [Abbotsford News]

🧑‍⚖️ A drug courier will serve eight years in prison for moving fentanyl between Victoria and Langley [Langley Advance Times]

🚓 Firearms and a truck were stolen from a home in Mission [Mission Record]

🏚️ There are no official plans to provide shelter for those facing removal from a homeless camp on Island 22 in Chilliwack at the end of the month [Fraser Valley Today]

➡️ Langley Township handed out $50,000 in parking tickets on large commercial trucks [Langley Advance Times]

👉️ Tourism Abbotsford will run Abbotsford’s Canada Day celebration next year [Abbotsford News]

⚡️ A power failure closed the Aldergrove Community Centre on Monday, the centre was still closed as of Wednesday afternoon [Langley Advance Times]

🚦 Five crosswalks in Chilliwack will get flashing warning lights [Chilliwack Progress]

The Agenda

Toxic drug deaths in Fraser Valley in the hundreds

The toxic drug crisis claimed 246 lives across the Fraser Valley in 2023.

Data from the latest BC Coroners Service report puts the number of province-wide deaths in the continuing toxic-drug crisis at 2,511—the highest number ever reported and 5% higher than last year. Ninety people died in Abbotsford, 61 in Chilliwack, 47 in Langley, 31 in Mission, 11 in Hope, and six people in Harrison/Agassiz.

With more than one death for every thousand residents, Hope had one of the highest death rates in the entire province. Central Vancouver with 552 deaths per 100,000 had the highest rate in the province, followed by Hope (127 per 100k), Alberni, Terrace, and Campbell River. Chilliwack also had a higher death rate, at 54 per 100,000 people, than the provincial average (45.7 deaths per 100,000 residents).

The majority of British Columbians who died last year were between the ages of 30 to 59. Most were men. While the number of deaths in most age groups rose last year, the deaths among young people (those under 19 and those from 19 to 29 years old) declined.

SPONSORED BY BC UNITED CAUCUS

Chilliwack Town Hall with Kevin Falcon

Join BC United Leader Kevin Falcon on Feb. 1 at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre (9201 Corbould St.) from 6:30 to 8 pm. From healthcare to cost of living to crime, Kevin Falcon wants to hear what matters to you.

🗓 Things to do this week/end

😍 Speed-dating: The Newlands Golf and Country Club in Langley is hosting a speed-dating event on Friday, Jan. 26. Details online.

👕 Thrifting: The Chilliwack Thrift Market will hold an indoor market in Chilliwack Heritage Park on Saturday, Jan. 27. Details online.

👨‍🎤 Tribute rockers: A pair of rock tribute acts—one to Bob Seger and one to CCR—will play the Chilliwack Cultural Centre on Thursday, Jan. 25. Details online.

Want even more? Insider members get a comprehensive events listing every Thursday, plus a weekly Saturday round-up edition with behind-the-scenes content. Becoming a member costs less than $2 a week and helps support the ongoing production of The Current’s newsletters and in-depth journalism. Become a member here.

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Catch up

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