Monday - Dec. 18, 2023 - Yale's final store closes

🌧 High 7C

Good morning!

I found a bunch of old photos yesterday and I’m going to try and put them in an album of some sort. I know I could get a booklet made online, but I used to love flipping through my mom’s scrapbooks. (They’re elaborate creations with stickers and colourful paper backgrounds and captions written in special felt markers.)

I’m starting this project now because, after unearthing the photos, I realized that I can finally look at pictures from high school without wincing. It only took seven years.

– Grace

Also, in Saturday's member's only newsletter, Tyler looked into the economics of why gas prices in Langley and Abbotsford are the way they are. To support our journalism AND get access to every Saturday Insider edition (plus all past ones on our website) become a member here.

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

After 99 years and three generations, Yale’s last store is closing

The end of a 99-year-old family business might cause some to glower and mourn.

But the proprietors of Barry’s Trading Post in Yale aren’t moping. Maybe because they finally get to go on a vacation together.

• Today, we report on the final days of Barry’s Trading Post—Yale’s last roadside business—and what comes next for its proprietors and for local residents.

Related

Need to Know

👉 Flags in Mission were lowered in honour of a prolific volunteer who recently died at the age of 103 [Mission Record]

👋 A former Langley City mayor has been tapped to try to help Kamloops mayor and council stop fighting [Castanet]

🔥 A major fire in a Chilliwack townhouse was caused by a candle [CityNews]

🚧 The Marshall Connector, a road built to provide a better link between Chilliwack and Langley, has finally re-opened after a year of repairs [Fraser Valley Today]

🏥 A new urgent and primary care centre is being built in Mission [Mission Record]

🗳 Langley NDP MLA Megan Dykeman will seek a second term [Aldergrove Star]

💰 Mission’s fees to register legal secondary suites have upset some residents [Global]

🚐 A new wheelchair-accessible bus will provide transit for seniors in Chilliwack [Chilliwack Progress]

🚔 A man allegedly used a gun to steal a pickup from a home in Hope [Hope Standard]

🌲 Police in Langley are investigating an alleged attack by teens on a man with no home [Langley Advance Times]

📻 Tyler will be on the Jas Johal Show on CKNW 980 today between 4 and 4:30pm to talk about the biggest stories of the past year in the Fraser Valley. You can listen live here.

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The Agenda

Vedder trails get ‘dark mode’ maps

The City of Chilliwack has installed new, eye-catching maps along its most popular trail. The new maps on the Vedder Greenway, on either side of the Vedder Canal, point people to both their current location and the location of various attractions along the popular walking, biking, and equestrian route. (One online commenter compared the scheme to the ‘dark mode’ many phones have.)

The maps are the latest addition to the increasingly popular trail network in south Chilliwack. The city is also launching a new interpretive signage project with a significant Indigenous element that is being funded through a $750,000 grant from the provincial government. Over the last decade, the Rotary Trail along the Vedder has evolved from a relatively simple riverside walk to the city’s most prominent park attraction. Ads for new homes now regularly cite the proximity to the trail network.

The City of Chilliwack has been working on a new masterplan for the greenway for years, but despite a survey of residents in 2020, the plan has yet to see the light of day.

The maps aren’t the only new signage that might be coming to the Greenway. At a September meeting of Chilliwack’s parks advisory committee, Kelly Hawes, who represents equestrian users, passed on a request to have signs erected to promote the safe sharing of the trail between horses and humans. She also suggested the city consider erecting signs to remind users to clean up after horses.

🗓 Things to do

☕️ Seniors Holiday Social: Langley Seniors in Action is having a Holiday Social on Wednesday, Dec. 20. It will include coffee, connection, goodies, door prizes, and music. Email [email protected] for more info.

🎬️ Holiday tour: The Mount Lehman neighbourhood will hold its second Christmas Home Tour Dec. 21 to 23 to raise money to end human trafficking. Homes in the neighbourhood have been sets for over 50 Hallmark movies. Details online.

🎄 Christmas concert: Robert Sarazin Blake presents A Very Subdued Christmas, a family-friendly holiday concert, Dec. 21 at Bozzini’s Restaurant in Chilliwack. Details online.

Have an event to tell us about? Fill out this form to have it highlighted here.

Catch up

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