Tuesday, May 2, 2023 edition — On settled land

Tuesday, May 2, 2023 | 🌤 High 25C | Forecast

Good morning!

I like my soccer—both playing and watching—but am relatively late to Welcome to Wrexham, a documentary produced by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny about their takeover of a lowly soccer team in Wales. Having started watching, I love it not because of the drama or celebrity faces—though those are definitely interesting—but because it’s not like your average reality television series or documentary. While it’s got some of the same aspects, it also avoids the sensationalism that can plague the genre. That’s because Reynolds and McElhenny aren’t just trying to please viewers, they also have to keep the community their profiling in mind or else they’ll anger fans of their soccer club.

It’s a dilemma and a challenge that is fascinating, and similar to what a local news organization has to deal with. It’s one thing to parachute into communities, it’s another to have to deal with the consequences of one’s own public-facing work. It doesn’t mean you have to pull your punches. But it does require one to be careful about getting things right—and willing to accept feedback when you make a mistake. Check out the series; I’d love to hear what you think.

One more thing: on Friday, we’ll learn if we can add a National Newspaper Award to our Jack Webster Award. Thanks to all you members who support the work we do and make it possible. You can become a member here.

NEWS

On settled land

Natalie Lang’s parents spent their first night on their new Sumas Mountain property sleeping in a tent.

It was the 1980s and like thousands who had come before them, the couple had just purchased land where they hoped to build a home, a life, and a family. Natalie Lang grew up on that land and that mountain, walking its trails, smelling the air from the surrounding forest, and watching her father occasionally fell trees for firewood.

Lang, now the author of a deeply personal new book, still lives on—and loves—Sumas Mountain. But she has also grown much more aware that she’s not the only one—and that many, many people have come before her.

All of which prompts more questions than answers.

“I desperately want to know how I, a settler, should approach and live on the land,” Lang writes. “I want to feel the earth as I struggle with this question, as I struggle to place myself in this world.”

• Current editor Tyler Olsen talks to Lang about Sumas Mountain, the wider public’s increasing interest and awareness of its long history, and why asking unanswerable questions is still important.

Need to know

👏 Beloved Mission councillor Jenny Stevens will be remembered at an open mic and tree-planting event this weekend [City of Mission]

🚑 Two kids were taken to hospital in Langley, and later released, after the car they were in hit a fence Saturday morning [Langley Advance Times]

📽 A video shows the moment a truck struck an Abbotsford overpass Monday afternoon [Abbotsford News]

🚨 Four prisoners were stabbed and seriously injured at Matsqui Institution in Abbotsford Saturday during a brawl involving as many as two dozen prisoners [Vancouver Sun]

⚖ The man who allegedly held up a Chilliwack bank and took people hostage appeared in court Monday [Chilliwack Progress]

🔥 A barn at a popular Abbotsford farm and market erupted in flames Monday morning and sent smoke across the region [Abbotsford News]

🔊 The District of Kent is looking for volunteers for its accessibility committee [District of Kent/Facebook]

🏒 The BCHL—in which both the Chilliwack Chiefs and Langley Rivermen play—is breaking away from Hockey Canada [Canadian Press/CTV]

😷 Abbotsford Regional Hospital has an ongoing COVID-19 outbreak [Fraser Health]

☺ TODAY’S SMILE: This dog is very excited to play with his cat friend; his cat friend is less enthusiastic [Twitter]

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY

A global food fair coming to Abbotsford

Feeling snacky and curious? Join others with an international appetite!

Featuring dishes from seven countries, live music by Brian Doerksen, and special speakers visiting from around the world—learn about communities different to our own, as well as the complex conversations we're facing here in Canada.

May 10 at 6pm. Limited tickets. Admission by donation. Learn more and register today.

The Agenda

Kwantlen group in lawsuits posts affidavits

Kwantlen First Nation’s legacy council is suing a group of band members trying to unseat the chief. And now that group has posted hundreds of pages of documents and affidavits linked to the case.

In late December, The Current wrote about the Kwantlen leadership dispute, efforts to hold a vote for a new leadership, and Ottawa’s passive support of the existing chief and council. Since then, the legacy council has filed for an injunction against their opponents in an attempt to uphold their powers in federal court.

Both sides have hundreds of pages of supporting evidence and testimony—known as affidavits—that they say support their version of events, and their rationale for claiming to be the legitimate governors of the First Nation. The opponents of the legacy council has now posted all their affidavits on its website, along with those submitted by their legal opponents. You can download them here.

New signs for trails in Abbotsford, Mission

Two increasingly busy trail areas will be getting better signs.

Tourism Abbotsford has received funding to create new wayfinding and interpretive signs in Sumas Mountain Regional Park. Meanwhile, just across the Fraser, new signs will also go up in the forests north of Mission, where Kwantlen Lands, Resources & Stewardship will helm a project.

Provincial funding for the projects ($15,000 for Sumas Mountain signs, $70,000 for the Stave West project) was announced earlier this week.

The current Sumas Mountain sign at a lower kiosk is outdated, Tourism Abbotsford’s Craig Nichols told The Current, and a lack of signs elsewhere make navigating the park’s trails “a bit of an adventure.”

Symmetry preferred by readers

Last week, Tyler wrote about his love for asymmetry in nature and then posted a fun poll asking you whether you prefer symmetry or asymmetry. The results were, funnily enough, nearly—but not quite—symmetrical. Slightly more than half of you like your life symmetrical. Slightly less than half of you embrace the asymmetrical. Make of that what you will.

One pro-symmetry reader wrote: “I like balance but every once in a while will purposely pick something out of balance as the contrast is striking, thinking of my garden. Have a great day.”

A lover of asymmetry countered: “There is beauty in life's imperfections! Also, if everything is in symmetry, wouldn’t it all be boring?”

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