The January-February transition is when we feel like a real city
Plus: Pollinators and pesticides
I was listening to the Coldsnap Festival 2024 Spotify playlist to decide which shows I want to go to (all of them but I don’t have infinite money) and started writing dates down on the calendar and I realized how busy the next little while is, entertainment-wise. Starting with AleFest this weekend we are moving into what is, I think, the most jam-packed few weeks we ever see around here: There’s the annual events of AleFest and Coldsnap and then usually some sort of competition out at Otway, plus the Iceman coming up, Theatre Northwest’s second half and other groups like the PGSO start getting back into the swing of things. A few weeks over Christmas and summer aside, there’s pretty much always some sort of live entertainment going on in the city, but this run from the end of January through to March seems to be when there is borderline too much — as in, there’s no way you could reasonably take it all in.
As a result, it’s also when we feel most like a city, to me — there’s more people out at restaurants, there’s sometimes multiple downtown events in a night — even weeknights! — and you get more out-of-town visitors taking it in. I think the Canada Winter Games deserve some credit for this, too — while most of this events pre-existed the Games, having them partner with or built around such a high-profile draw (Coldsnap, for example, was brought on to host free outdoor concerts that year) created a festival atmosphere in the city that there has been a desire to recreate year after year and, I’d argue, we’ve done a pretty decent job of it.
Anyways, break out your calendars because there’s a lot to pencil in in the coming weeks!
Budet talks: Pollinators and pesticides
As warned, other commitments mean I’m not able to closely follow budget talks. I only heard snatches of yesterday’s conversation, mostly around the nuts and bolts of basic maintenance services, primarily snow removal. The gist of it is snow removal is incredibly expensive BUT ALSO consistently one of the things people care about the most. Trying to slog my way off my street today, I understand why — it was cleared by the evening and it would be a real pain if we had a smaller snow removal budget and I had to deal with whatever soggy mess all that snow would have become given the warming temperatures this week. That, by the way, was another key point: The warmer winters we are getting are instilling a cost — it is coming with bigger dumps of snow when we do get it, but also the freeze-thaw is murder on the roads.
The other thing I heard of interest to me was Cori Ramsay asking for a report on how much money we could save on mowing boulevards in warmer months if we were to allow natural flowers to grow and maybe cut back on the use of pesticides. Environmentally-friendly and cost-saving, potentially! So I imagine that will come back to the table at some point.
There’s still another day on the calendar so I doubt any decisions are being made Tuesday night as I write this but if I’m wrong I’ll let you know in the next edition.
Quick news:
Fraser Lake is contemplating a future without its largest employer: reporting in the Citizen and My Prince George.
Really interesting report in the Citizen on the potential impact of the federal government’s decision to scale back on the number of international students admitted each year — for UNBC, that is 20 per cent of the student population and for CNC it is almost half — a full 40 per cent. I knew it was high but that’s an eye-opening figure. That’s 2,800 international students at the college alone, which goes part of the way to answering the question “why does it seem like the population has grown more than the census indicates?” — 2,800 people is 3.65 per cent of the city’s officially recorded population of 76,708.
Two successful Prince George boxers have started a new program to mentor the next generation.
Today’s song (with NSFW lyrics) is for the line: "I hit my dance like Enrique/Inglesias/I'm cold as glaciers." Also playing Coldsnap.
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thank you for the continued link attention to Fraser Lake and the closing of FLSM. I don't think it has been getting the attention it deserves in the media and discussions (maybe it is and I'm just missing out?). I know people who live there, who work for WFM, who have other businesses there, who have farms and ranches there, who work for the Ministry of Forests on West Fraser planning and harvesting in the Stuart-Nechako district and (no doubt) at the MOF regional office, and the indigenous communities of Stellat'en and Nadleh with employees, tenures, contracts and others partnerships with WFM. This has wider impacts than just the community of Fraser Lake.