Tuesday - Jan. 30, 2024 - Pride and Hope

🌧 High 12C

Good morning!

Somehow, a conversation with a friend turned toward Eastern Canada ski hills and Quebec’s most-famous mountain, Mont-Tremblant. “It’s like Quebec’s Whistler!” he may have said—or words to that effect. So I got curious: how did the mountain stack up against Whistler, or Silver Star, the mountain near to my hometown and where I would pay $5 for night skiing and another $5 for rentals.*

It turns out, it’s a wee bump, with a skiable area of about 250 hectares. Whistler and Silver Star each have about six times the skiable area, Wikipedia tells me. I’m not a huge skier though last weekend we did go to Harper Mountain, a secondary hill near Kamloops where everything—from the prices to the elevation—is smaller than the big resorts. It’s my type of place, where the kids can faceplant while riding the T-bar (and where their dad can do the same).

*Grace’s editing reply was “yeah okay in like 1952.” No Grace. This was this millennia, in 2002 or so. You were probably even born by then. 

– 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

Hope and Pride

Megan te Boekhorst made it (relatively) easy for Hope council to say ‘yes.’ And they did.

A year after Hope’s politicians denied the request of te Boekhorst and the Hope Pride Committee to raise the rainbow flag, they gave the thumbs up to a slightly different request that will have the same end result: the raising of a Pride Flag outside of Hope’s municipal hall in June.

But Hope Pride’s considerable victory last week did not come without angst—or confrontation.

• Today, Tyler writes about a fraught half hour, a councillor’s embarrassment of Hope’s hate crime response, and why te Boekhorst says a pride flag is more than just a symbol.

Related

Need to Know

🌊 Flooding closed Highway 1 between Lytton and Spences Bridge; the highway has since re-opened [Castanet]

⚖ A court ruled that Aldergrove Duty Free Shop owed a long-time employee severance after laying them off during the pandemic [Aldergrove Star]

👉 Abbotsford Mayor Ross Siemens said he is frustrated at the lack of funding for flood mitigation on Sumas Prairie [Global News]

🗳 Chilliwack MLA Dan Coulter will be running again in this year’s provincial election [Chilliwack Progress]

⚖ A lack of judges is impacting those trying to get justice for sexual assaults [Victoria News]

🏠 Chawathil First Nation has repaired more than a dozen older houses, and the band hopes to repair 75 more [Hope Standard]

🏒 If you throw your hat on the ice during a Canucks game, you might be able to get it back [Pass It To Bulis/Vancouver Is Awesome]

The province is cracking down on new private colleges looking to enrol international students; it’s also implementing minimum language requirements [CBC] / The federal government is capping the number of international students each province can admit [global]

✈️ There's only one way to fly non-stop to Thailand. Escape the cold and get lost in The Land of Smiles.*

*Sponsored Listing

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The Agenda

Nooksack overflow causes only minor flooding.

Torrential rains prompted a flood warning for the Sumas River and caused some localized issues, but the weekend’s storm didn’t do any serious damage.

More rain fell than had been expected in the Nooksack River’s watershed, prompting warnings on Sunday that the river could spill its banks and impact Canada. The river did rise quickly, entering its ‘minor’ flood stage and spilling water into the drainage of the Sumas River. But the scale of the overflow and duration of flooding was only a fraction of that which occurred in 2021. (You can see a graph of the river level here.)

The Sumas rose high enough to flood some low-lying areas. The city closed Willband Creek, MacDonald, and Haugen parks. Clayburn and Bateman Roads were also closed due to low-level flooding. But the water is expected to recede without any significant damage. A flood watch remains in place. Notably, the City of Abbotsford was able to keep the floodgates at Barrowtown Pump Station open, allowing water to drain into the Fraser. (We have covered that complex situation in multiple stories, most recently here.)

Abbotsford Mayor Ross Siemens used the storm to highlight the need for more than $1 billion of funding to build new dikes and a new pump station to avoid a repeat of 2021.

The City of Sumas, which has previously taken significant damage during flood events that have barely impacted Canada, also escaped major impacts.

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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.

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Catch up

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