Has Twitter finally figured out the difference between our city and the royal child?
And Prince George at the centre of it all
Prince George at the centre of it all
All this week, provincial news has been coming out of Prince George. Multiple news conferences, announcements, etc involving the Premier, the leader of the opposition, various industry leaders, etc. There have also been tours of the UNBC campus, meetings with mayor and council and other connections forged between the city and people who make decisions elsewhere — all because of the Natural Resources Forum.
Now wrapping its 20th season with record-breaking attendance, the forum was created by now-former, then-current MLA Pat Bell in an attempt to get more people in the same room talking about some of the key economic drivers of the province. As a side effect, he also created one week every year where Prince George becomes the political centre of the province: It is now pretty much a given whoever is premier will show up for a day or two, and with him a few key ministers and because of that, opposition politicians show up. While there was much hand-wringing about whether to invite David Eby to come to the city to meet with mayor and council last month, the impact of the forum is Prince George got an early meeting, anyways. It’s maybe not as formal as what council is hoping for downt he line, but it puts things on the radar a little more than places that don’t play host to such a big event and it helps solidify the city’s role as a northern capital.
Letters to the editor:
In response to me trying to remember all the department stores that have closed over the years, Roxanne writes:
When we were young kids there was Sears, Woolco in Pine Centre (where the new Save On Foods is being built), Woodward's was where the Bay is now and there was a Kresge's downtown at 3rd and Brunswick, right near the Zellers. Kresge's was small but it had one of those old timey diner counters in the front corner.
I… do not remember a lot of these! You can write anytime by hitting reply to one of these emails.
Tax rates, COVID-19 vaccines and other news:
It’s not just the Natural Resources Forum: Prince George is hosting an international ski competition, too, and Tourism PG says the ability to handle both at once is a big win for the city.
But former city councillor Cameron Stolz writes we should expand our event-hosting abilities to help secure our economic future.
And while the snow for cross-country skiing might not be ideal, apparently it’s better than it is in Europe, according to some of the folks in town for the competition.
It’s definitely not a good time to go out on a lake!! Don’t do it!
Another forestry announcement: $50 million from the province to help get fire-damaged wood out of hard-to-reach areas and to local pulp mills. The B.C. Liberals are not impressed but maybe the Pulp and Paper Coalition will be.
BC Hydro twinning its transmission line to northwest B.C. (this after news that the LNG Canada terminal in Kitimat is going to be powered by natural gas because of an inability to get enough electricity).
The union representing inside workers at the city of Prince George is upset at the city’s handling of COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
Has Twitter figured out what Prince George is?
Many years ago I wrote a plea to William and Kate not to name their son George. The tongue-in-cheek-yet-somewhat-hopeful plea was to avoid Google, Twitter and other internet searches for the city from being overrun by people talking about the royal baby. It didn’t work, and those searches were rendered useless.
If you want a fun bit of dorky internet history, I then led the campaign to get everyone who used Twitter in the city to agree upon a new hashtag to identify the city, because at the time we’d been using #princegeorge. The main contenders, as I recall, were #princegeorgebc, #yxs (the airport code) and the now-universal #cityofPG. The city didn’t have its own Twitter account at the time but when they did join, they adopted it and there we are. That’s my own little stamp on the internet.
But, of course, not everyone was on Prince George Twitter and so I also had to come up with a convoluted search term to filter out people talking about both the baby and the county, which looks like this:
#cityofPG OR #pgbc OR #yxs OR "city of Prince George" OR "Prince George B.C." OR "Prince George British Columbia"
So anyways, when I logged onto Twitter last night to find any good conversations to include in this newsletter and saw “Prince George” trending, I assumed clicking through would show me a mash of stuff about this city, the county, and the royal child — so imagine my surprise when almost all of the top results were actually about the city itself! I don’t know if they’ve come up with some contextual way to filter out non-relevant results based on where I am and the origins of the tweets or what but it was pretty nice to see. I’m still not going back to posting on Twitter for reasons you can probably figure out if you’ve read the news over the past two months but if the site somehow survives into a new owner this will be at least one positive change amidst a sea of less-than-optimal ones.
That’s it for this week! Northern Capital News is a free, daily newsletter about life in Prince George. Please consider subscribing or, if you have, sharing with someone else.
If you’re new to the newsletter, here’s some posts you may have missed:
Turns out we need more firefighters, too — though maybe what we really need are paramedics.
Student at desk in box: a history of the School District 57 logo.
In 2023, how devastating of a blow is a mill closure to Prince George's future?
You can shares your thoughts by hitting reply to this email, or you can follow me @mstdn.ca/@akurjata.