Thursday, June 22, 2023 edition - Lytton ready for rebuilding

Good morning!

A submarine disappeared at the bottom of the ocean on Sunday. It was full of tourists planning to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. At the time of writing this, the sub hasn’t been found despite extensive rescue efforts—though some noise has been recorded in the area that could be coming from the lost vessel.

While that’s a pretty scary story, at least one of the articles I saw distracted me with a fact about the Titanic that I had never heard before: the wreckage is about 690km off the coast of Newfoundland. I always imagined that the Titanic sunk somewhere up in the Arctic circle. You know, where the icebergs are supposed to be.

Tyler says that everyone knows this. In my defence, the uproar about the Titanic’s discovery happened about 15 years before I was born.

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WORTH KNOWING

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope

⚠️ Here’s the current smoke forecast / Check the BC Wildfire Dashboard here

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

NEWS

‘We’re in the rebuild:’ Lytton’s path back to life

Mike Blaschuk is excited.

Nearly two years after Lytton burned down, signs that forbid stopping whlie driving through the ruined town are coming down. And tomorrow, Blaschuk—Lytton’s new recovery manager—will visit the local school to pick up new signs that will go up in their place.

He doesn’t know what exactly the signs will look like. In a way, it doesn’t matter because they signal a new era of hope for a village that has had a rough two years.

“I can hardly wait,” he said last week at a community meeting.

(The school sits just south of the townsite and wasn’t damaged in the fire. It has remained open, continuing to serve students and families from the still-populated surrounding area.)

The new signs come as displaced residents finally start to get a clear understanding of when, where, and what they’ll be able to rebuild.

The village lifted its state of emergency last week, a move that signaled a shift of control away from the bureaucratic forces that have stalled the recovery and towards landowners and residents.

• Today, Tyler writes about how soon Lytton will “start looking like a normal residential subdivision and construction project.”

• Meanwhile, the Village of Lytton and Thompson Nicola Regional District have sued CP Rail, CN Rail, and Transport Canada for damages caused by the fire. They claim negligence by the rail companies and Transport Canada caused the fire. A response hasn’t been filed and the claims haven’t been proven. You can read a story on that here.

Need to know

👩‍🦽 A Langley student with special needs will go to the Cultus Lake waterslides after initially being excluded from her class’s field trip [Global]

🔥 The Lower Mainland campfire ban was lifted; bigger fires (and fireworks) are still prohibited [CTV]

👉️ Guards seized more than $41,000 worth of contraband from an Abbotsford prison [CTV]

➡️ One man was stabbed in an altercation with a group of teenagers in downtown Langley City [Langley Advance Times]

🎞️ Locals have launched a petition to save the Twilight Drive-in [Change.org]; Langley Township Mayor Eric Woodward said city staff will look at options to help the drive-in stay open [Eric Woodward/Facebook]

👨‍🚒 A hydro pole caught fire in Chilliwack leaving nearly 4,000 people without electricity yesterday afternoon [Chilliwack Progress]

🖼️ An Indigenous artist unveiled a new mural inside the recovery house where he was once a resident [Abbotsford News]

🚲️ A cyclist was hit on First Avenue in Mission; police said no one was ticketed [Mission Record]

🚧 Traffic will be diverted during construction near 242 Street and 56 Avenue in Langley until August; find a list of traffic impacts on the township's website [Township of Langley]

👉️ A sex offender accused of child pornography-related crimes is out on bail in Agassiz [Agassiz-Harrison Observer]

🌱 A new memory garden that honours past, present, and future volunteers opened in Fort Langley [Langley Advance Times]

📷 CURRENT CAM: Congrats to Cindy Austin, who was the first to identify Pioneer Park in Agassiz as the location of yesterday’s Current Cam photo.

SPONSORED BY FORT LANGLEY JAZZ & ARTS FESTIVAL

Jazz legends open Fort Langley Jazz Fest

Kick off the 2023 Odlum Brown Fort Langley Jazz & Arts Festival with a concert you won’t forget, featuring Phil Dwyer’s Connections Quartet.

Phil Dwyer’s Connections Quartet brings together premier musicians in a one-of-a-kind concert including JUNO-award winner, saxophonist and pianist, Phil Dwyer; Juno-award winner Brad Turner on trumpet and piano; renowned international drummer Alan Jones; and Phil’s son, Ben Dwyer on bass.

The quartet will perform new and other works from over 40 years of playing in various configurations together. This illustrious group of artists will perform as two trios and a quartet, all in one with Phil and Brad taking turns at the piano with their alter egos performing on saxophone and trumpet.

Thursday, July 20, 7-10pm at Chief Sepass Theatre! Get your tickets today!

The Agenda

Snowpack (was) at record lows

The recent rainstorms that have hit southern British Columbia couldn’t have come at a better time.  

New data revealed that, as of June 15, the provincial snowpack was at record levels, at just 4% of normal. Across most of the province, no snow at all was detected. This year marked the earliest snowmelt at 17 different automated snow weather stations, many of which were located in the Fraser River basin.

The lack of snow has left southern British Columbia at high risk of drought. The recent rain (and even snowfall on some mountain tops) will have helped, but much more will be needed for the region to return to a normal state. Much of southern BC remains at drought or near-drought conditions.

The weather is expected to return to drier conditions over the next week, with temperatures in the high 20s.

Bamboo grower says plants won’t be invasive

The entrepreneur who wants to start a bamboo farm and production facility near Hope told the Fraser Valley Regional District his bamboo won’t invade neighbouring areas.

The Current previously reported on Sol Rodriguez and Bamboo Nations’ proposal to create a processing facility and bamboo farm on a plot of land on the north side of the Fraser.

Some bamboo gardens elsewhere have caused damage to neighbouring properties after the fast-growing grass spread uncontrollably. But in a recent response to an electoral area director’s questions, Rodriguez wrote that he plans to grow a “clumping” species of bamboo that grows from a single dominant main stem. Such ‘monopodial’ bamboo clump in diameters of about five metres, “therefore posing little to no risk to run onto adjacent property,” Rodriguez wrote. He noted that a Chilliwack bamboo producer grows the same type of species. He added that his facility could also install root barriers, if required.

In his letter, Rodriguez wrote that his processing plant would create around 25 full-time jobs, with the farm requiring around 30 hands during harvest. If the project passes muster with both the Fraser Valley Regional District and the Agricultural Land Commission, he said he hopes to start planting and building in the coming years, with production beginning around 2027.

The FVRD’s directors will decide Thursday whether to forward Rodriguez’s application to the ALC.

Throwback Thursday

The town of Hope, shown from a viewpoint overlooking the river, was a bustling place in 1890. You can see a photo of Hope from a similar vantage point in 1880 here. Construction of the CN railway had already begun. Flooding and fire would threaten nearby towns throughout the Fraser Canyon. The bridge at Hope would be the only one left standing during the floods of 1882.

🗓 Things to do

Thursday, June 22

Art show: The TANGLE art show will start on Thursday, June 22. Meet the two local artists it features and check out their work in a relaxed lounge setting. More info online.

Open mic night: The Bez Arts Hub in Langley will hold its weekly open mic night for the last time this season on Thursday, June 22 at 7:30 pm. More info online. 

Friday, June 23

Market: The Attic Treasures Market, a fundraiser for the Mennonite Heritage Society of BC, will take place at the Mennonite Heritage Museum on Friday, June 23. The market will feature vintage shopping, “objects of nostalgia,” and crafts and artisan goods. Details online.

Dog racing: The Matsqui Flyball and Agility Club is hosting its annual Flyball tournament starting on Friday at the Ag-Rec building in Abbotsford. (Flyball is like competitive fetch). Find more information online.

Drag show: Townhall Chilliwack is hosting a fundraiser for the Chilliwack Pride Society with a drag show and dinner on Friday, June 23. Find more info online.

Art show: The TANGLE art show will continue on Friday, June 23. Meet the two local artists it features and check out their work in a relaxed lounge setting. More info online.

Archive tour: The Chilliwack Museum is holding its free monthly archive tour on Friday, June 23. Details here.