Foley calls public safety approach a ‘miserable failure’
The restaurant owner and president of Downtown PG gives city committee a failing grade
the previous night, Skakun served as the committee meeting’s chair.
Just a few days removed from speaking at a safe streets rally at the CN Centre, the board president for Prince George’s downtown business improvement association gave the community a failing grade on its efforts to improve public safety during a committee meeting at city hall on Tuesday, Oct. 21.
On that day, Prince George’s Standing Committee on Public Safety held its first meeting since the rally that drew more than a thousand people to the arena in the wake of a string of fires that have affected the city this year.
At the beginning of the meeting, ex-officio committee member Coun. Kyle Sampson and vice-chair Coun. Brian Skakun discussed Prince George’s approach to collaborating with the provincial and federal governments.
As Mayor Simon Yu was absent after also missing the city council meeting
Sampson spoke about the results of the city meeting the higher levels of government partway rather than dictating terms to them in recent years on files like homelessness, health-care infrastructure spending and housing.
He said that maybe city council needs to do a better job of bringing the public into those conversations, so it doesn’t think that progress isn’t being made.
Skakun brought up the letter from the owners of CrossRoads Brewing and Distillery, which burned down Sept. 5, that was delivered to Premier David Eby during the recent Union of BC Municipalities conference in Victoria.
“From my perspective, after having attended that rally last (week), most people that attended that rally think city council’s not doing nothing,” Skakun said.
Downtown Prince George president and Nancy O’s Restaurant Group president Eoin Foley asked for the
opportunity to speak. Foley recently called for city council to call for a state of emergency after fires were discovered near two of his restaurants, a request that council said it didn’t have the legal footing to pursue.
“I’ll grant you that the city has put some significant effort into some wins, especially the housing front and the encampment and you know, kudos to you on that, but the reality is the overall picture is still failing,” Foley said.
“All the approaches that we’re making as a community — not just city council, (but) ourselves, MLAs, MPs, everything — when you add it all up, it’s still failing … the community. Our buildings are burning down, we have fires every night, every single night. You guys know this because you ran a pilot project over 10 nights, you found 58 fires. It’s on a report that you created. The approach that we’re having, overall, is failing miserably.”
Foley acknowledged that a lot of the
problem is out of the hands of city council and city staff’s hands but said there are other things they could be doing and could be changing how they approach the province and the federal government to advocate for the systemic changes needed.
Those levels of government, he said, are not listening or treating these issues with the urgency that they deserve.
“This committee doesn’t treat it with the urgency that it deserves, I believe absolutely,” Foley said.
“I’ve been sitting here for a year and a half. I’ve been sitting in these meetings for 12 years in my role with Downtown Prince George. Twelve years longer than just about everyone here. I’ve seen a lot of time and effort put in these things and you know, we’re still losing. That’s the bottom line. We’re still losing this community. We need to change our approaches and how we get results.”
He said that provincial ministers are publicly humiliated and look bad if they’re seen to be ineffective in their given files. If Prince George and other municipalities speak up together and show Victoria that they are failing their citizens, Foley said it’s the only way the needle will move on the basic systemic changes needed.
At that, Skakun said Foley’s time to speak was up and gave a short rebuttal.
“I disagree with the comment about us being ineffective or not caring or whatever it is,” Skakun said. “I have grandchildren in this community. I’ve lived here for 50-something years. I care. Everybody that’s in this room cares.”
Foley tried chiming in again to say that he believes everyone cares but Skakun cut him off.
“You’ve had your turn to speak,” Skakun said, noting that the Safe Street Rally did not include presentations from any elected officials. “We went to your rally and the chamber’s rally and did not speak and we weren’t going to speak. So, I appreciate your feedback. We’ve got to carry on.”
The committee then moved onto its next agenda item.
COLIN SLARK Citizen Staff
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO BY CHUCK NISBETT
The fire that destroyed CrossRoads Brewing and Distillery in Prince George on Sept. 5 served as a flashpoint to accelerate the conversation about downtown crime.
Regenerative tourism focus of Industry Night
Crews start clearing out Moccasin Flats shacks
tourism.
The event, held on Thursday, Nov. 28, brought together industry leaders, students, and stakeholders to discuss how regenerative tourism practices can support sustainable growth, preserve local culture, and benefit the global environment.
The cleanup of makeshift shacks and structures at the Lower Patricia Boulevard encampment known as Moccasin Flats has begun.
This comes more than two months after BC Supreme Court justice Bruce Elwood ruled that the city was allowed to shut down the encampment on Aug. 14.
sponsored content
Discover Osoyoos’ Secret Season: Your Ultimate Fall & Winter Escape
Osoyoos: A Winter Getaway with World-Class Resorts and Plenty of Wineries to Explore
who had left and come back was arrested by RCMP.
Have you ever soaked in a hot tub outside when it was snowing?
The Citizen has been unable to reach an RCMP spokesperson to confirm the details of the arrest.
Moderated by Angela Keech, Indigenous tourism specialist for Northern BC, the evening featured a diverse panel of experts, each offering their unique perspectives on the future of tourism:
Erica Hummel, director at Destination BC, shared her extensive knowledge of destination management and strategies for improving visitor experiences.
A Citizen reporter on scene said the city’s manager of bylaw services, Kent MacNeill, spent time coaxing residents out of their shelters even after the 9 a.m. deadline mentioned in a notice zip-tied to the fence near the site had passed.
He said city workers would be coming back to the flats the next week to continue their work, with the intent of remediating the entire length of the encampment and setting up a more formal overnight camping site using concrete dividers.
Rob van Adrichem, director of external relations at the Community Energy Association, discussed how communities can integrate sustainability into their tourism initiatives.
Gagandeep Singh, general manager at Coast Prince George Hotel by APA, highlighted the importance of eco-friendly practices within the hospitality industry.
Lauren Phillips, owner of OVERhang, provided insights into the company’s commitment to eco-conscious adventure tourism.
Social workers and other bylaw officers were on hand to offer assistance to people at the encampment.
Front-end loaders and excavators were seen picking up debris and loading it into dumpsters as city staff picked items out of the shelters.
Let’s settle this common misconception: while Osoyoos sits at the heart of Canada’s only semi-arid desert, the experience here is anything but barren—especially in fall and winter. This is the valley’s best-kept secret, a time when vibrant summer crowds acquiesce into a serene, sun-drenched calm. The pace slows, the landscapes expose a quieter beauty, and the region transforms into a cozy, intimate retreat perfect for the savvy traveller.
From a personal perspective, as a local citizen of Central British Columbia, I’ve traveled south to visit Osoyoos a half-dozen times in the past ten years, admittedly each time during its legendary summer season. It sets itself apart from the rest of the country with its unique adobe architecture and desert landscape, punctuated often by thematically harmonious wineries. I could go off on a tangent about the value of these locations. In fact, I did, having written articles on nearly every spot. No lie, I have visited every single winery in and around Osoyoos. Every. Single. One.
The city has previously said people will be allowed to camp overnight at the part of the encampment near 498 Ottawa St. from 7 p.m. to 9 a.m. each night, but they will be required to leave and return each day.
The event took place at the House of Ancestors “Uda Dune Baiyoh” Conference Centre, a location that fostered meaningful dialogue and collaboration among attendees.
One resident was seen placing belongings into a shopping cart.
Regenerative tourism, an approach focused on giving back to the land and communities while minimizing environmental impact, was emphasized as an innovative solution for the tourism sector, especially as ecological awareness continues to rise globally.
By 1 p.m., most of the structures situated close to the encampment’s entrance near the intersection of Lower Patricia Boulevard and Fourth Avenue had been taken down.
At a meeting of Prince George’s Standing Committee on Public Safety earlier in the week on Oct. 21, director of administrative services Eric Depenau said that only one resident named in the city’s judicial application to finally close the encampment after failed attempts in 2021 and 2022 remained at the site.
“We were excited to provide a platform for professionals and students to connect and exchange ideas on sustainable tourism,” said Colin Carson, CEO of Tourism Prince George. “This event is a step toward building new pathways for a more sustainable and responsible tourism industry.”
MacNeill told The Citizen then that there had been two people in the area being cleaned up by city crews when they arrived in the morning.
He said that one person at the site
CNC president Cindy Heitman also expressed enthusiasm about the event, noting “Tourism Industry Night is a key opportunity for our students to engage with experts and learn about best practices for enhancing the visitor experience and strengthening the tourism sector.
Heck, I’m selling myself on the experience. I’d love to avoid the heat waves and the overcrowded tasting rooms. I adore the intimate nature of a personalized tasting experience. Black Hills Estate, Burrowing Owl, CheckMate, Church & State, Gehringer Brothers, Hester Creek, Mythology Vineyards, Phantom Creek, Nk’Mp Cellars, Silver Sage, Tinhorn Creek, and vinAmité are just a sample of the many wineries offering winter hours (I counted over 30).
My partner and I recently discovered the magic of an off-season escape, trading our usual tropical fantasies for a getaway right here in British Columbia, drawn in by the foreshadowing of incredible value and a more authentic rhythm.
Our home base was the Watermark Beach Resort, a year-round oasis where our spacious suite—complete with a full kitchen and balcony—offered the perfect amalgam of comfort and convenience. Waking up without the pressure of an itinerary felt like a luxury in itself.
But were you aware the majority of these locations remain open during the winter? You probably don’t consider traveling in Canada during its coldest months; many of us hop on planes to visit other countries, with costs frequently bordering on extravagant—those rare galivants that take decades to afford. Yet, with its desert climate, Osoyoos regularly offers the warmest temperatures across the country, with resorts rivaling those you have to pass customs to visit, allowing even frugal travelers to score an affordable stay. I’ve done both—the fancy refuge with outdoor hot tubs and heated pools and the modest single-room motels blessed with full-sized refrigerators to store the copious wine bottles from fringing vineyards. And yes, you can still accomplish this in the winter. Warmer weather often brings clean roads, with dusts of frost gilded from an orange sun.
The other 19 people named in the court order, had been offered hous ing opportunities elsewhere. To his knowledge, Depenau said that day, none of the people named in Elwood’s order had filed for an exception as they were allowed to do.
However, other people had started camping at the site since the court order was issued in August. With files from Chuck Nisbett
The true beauty of an Osoyoos winter is found by stepping out and progressing at the valley’s natural pace. With the Watermark as our starting point, we parked the car and didn’t return to it for two days, wandering into a world of local flavour. Mornings started with the rich aroma of freshly roasted coffee at the charming Junction 3 Coffee House, followed by a scenic stroll along the Pioneer Walkway. Lunch meant shared plates at Queen of the South Tapas.
And if your hearts drift away from fermented grapes, you’d still be enchanted by the Okanagan Art Gallery, the local Museum, and probably the best gelato I’ve ever had outside of Italy. And I mentioned the resorts. There is Casa Del Mila Oro, Sahara Courtyard, Sandy Beach, Sun Beach, and Watermark Beach, all of which I only discovered in the researching of this article. And checking out their off-season prices, I am floored at why more people don’t take part in this. I’m getting the luxuries of international resorts with over fifty wineries within a twenty-minute drive. And not just limited to weekend skimps, as there are numerous weekly stay packages from as low as $300.
When we ventured farther afield, a leisurely drive revealed the valley’s quiet beauty in its off-season glow. Many wineries remain open yearround, offering more personal tasting experiences. We spent an afternoon at Phantom Creek Estates, admiring the stunning architecture as much as the award-winning wines. A stop at the intimate Ramification Cellars felt like uncovering a hidden gem, and no visit was complete without sampling smallbatch spirits at Tumbleweed Spirits. What makes this season especially appealing is the abundance of accommodation options for every style—each offering exceptional offseason rates. For those looking to truly settle in, many resorts provide enticing snowbird and long-term stay discounts, as well as affordable “week-cation” packages, boasting fully equipped kitchens with dining areas, in-suite laundry facilities, private balconies, and views, all at rates lower than an apartment’s rent for the same period in Vancouver.
I also love the geography and architecture of Osoyoos, blending aboriginal ancestry with Spanish influences; you could be fooled into thinking you’d stepped into Central America if it weren’t for the satisfying reminders of still being in Canada. For those wishing for a more expected climate, you have nearby Mount Baldy, boasting one of the highest ski trails in the country. No embellishment, the resort sits at 1,700 meters above sea level, with the ski lifts clearing two kilometers.
I’m not even being facetious when I express my bewilderment that I have never visited Osoyoos in the winter. I know I’m already making plans. Why aren’t you?
To book your stay this winter, visit Destination Osoyoos to learn more about package options from resorts and hotels, events, and things to do. This four-season playground is ready to warmly welcome you, anytime of year.
After days filled with discovery, our evening ritual became a soak under the stars in one of Watermark’s expansive hot tubs—a simple, perfect pleasure that defines an Osoyoos winter. So, if you’re dreaming of a getaway filled with exquisite wines, legendary food, serene landscapes, and peaceful strolls, Osoyoos in the fall and winter isn’t just an alternative season; it’s the perfect one. Start planning your sun-drenched escape today.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY CHUCK NISBETT
Heavy equipment begins work clearing the east end of Moccasin Flats on Friday, Oct. 24.
COLIN SLARK Citizen Staff
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2024
PRINCE GEORGE CITIZEN
CITIZEN STAFF
Tourism Prince George, in partnership with the College of New Caledonia (CNC), recently hosted its latest Tourism Industry Night, focusing on the emerging concept of regenerative
Off-grid family ordered to tear down Aleza Lake home
Regional district steps in after learning they didn’t get permits before construction
COLIN SLARK Citizen Staff
The owners of a property in the Willow River area are hoping that the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George will extend their deadline to disassemble a house they built without a permit.
Amelia Parcigneau told The Citizen in a Thursday, Oct. 23 phone interview that her family purchased the property on Upper Fraser Road near Aleza Lake in summer 2024 with the intention of building an off-grid home to reduce her family of five’s cost of living.
“It’s a beautiful property,” Parcigneau said. “It was in horrible shape when we bought it. There’s a natural creek running through the property. There was so much garbage and railroad ties.”
After buying what she said amounted to around $10,000 worth of lumber and starting construction, the regional district issued a stop-work order on Oct. 28, 2024.
“At that point, we did not realize we needed a permit to build out there … we just did not do our research, that is on us 100 per cent,” Parcigneau said.
“But we still had to live in it during winter because we had nowhere to go. There’s no housing that we could afford. We could not continue building. We had paper walls. It was so cold that we almost froze to death.”
She said they looked into getting the appropriate permits, but among other things the family would have had to get an engineer to design trusses for the roof and pay for tests to make sure the structure was weatherproofed and airtight.
As the family is on social assistance and her husband is unable to work due to a hernia, she said the family couldn’t afford to pursue this route and told the regional district that they would
disassemble the home.
Parcigneau said they listed the property for sale on Kijiji and there were a couple of interested parties that ultimately were dissuaded after finding out it was located both within the regional district and the Agricultural Land Reserve.
At this point, she said, most of the house has been taken apart except for one area that has some of the family’s personal belongings in it.
Eventually, the plan is to take the lumber from the disassembled house and create two 12-by-eight-foot structures that would be small enough to not require a building permit.
Their financial situation, Parcigneau said, has forced them to travel to Williams Lake to find a rental home that would accommodate her, her husband and three sons at a price they can afford.
Though there have been threats, she said the regional district has yet to levy any fines on them.
“They’ve been threatening that since day one and that’s why I’ve been very respectful and given them numerous updates,” she said. “We’ve been so compliant and we’ve worked our butts off the clean the property. It’s just building material and it’s covered up, it’s tarped. You cannot even basically see into our yard from the street view. The grass is seven feet tall.”
They would like to continue to use
… so weather depending, we told the regional district that we would try and make it up there in November on our next payday, depending on whether it’s snowed or not.”
In telling her story, Parcigneau said she wants people to know that a family is being evicted without supports during a housing crisis.
“I don’t want money, I don’t want to sue them, I just want an extension and to have some compassion for a family,” she said.
As of Monday, Oct. 27, Parcigneau said by email that she had not heard back regarding a rescheduled inspection or further extension.
their own property as somewhere to camp during the warmer months, but Parcigneau said after some extensions, the regional district told the family they must have the house fully dismantled by Oct. 22 and were scheduled to dispatch staff to complete an inspection that day. That inspection ended up getting delayed and had yet to take place by the time The Citizen interviewed Parcigneau.
An email conversation between Parcigneau and regional district staff provided to The Citizen shows a bylaw officer providing the family with a list of agencies and government bodies that could provide them with assistance, including Carrier Sekani Family Services, the Prince George Native Friendship Centre, BC Housing and more.
“I tried everything,” Parcingeau said. “I went to legal aid. It’s not criminal or child protection, so they can’t deal with that.”
Now the family is now requesting a further extension into the new year to allow them to complete the work when the weather warms up.
Parcigneau said that the long drive between Williams Lake and their property combined with the need to rent a hotel room since they can’t stay at the site would be a further strain on their resources.
“We’re hoping for probably the middle of April,” she said. “Last year we got over 20 feet of snow out in Aliza Lake
The Citizen reached out to the regional district for comment and was told by a spokesperson that “as this is an active bylaw enforcement file, we cannot answer questions on it.”
The district’s website states that building permits are needed for any new building or structure or for accessory buildings greater than 10 square meters in area.
The page discussing building permits warns people not to start construction before they receive a permit as “Fees may be doubled for each permit application submitted if construction begins before a permit is issued (to a maximum of $10,000).”
The building bylaw for the regional district states that it has the authority to issue a stop work order if it is found the work is not being performed in accordance with the building code or applicable bylaws.
If a stop work order is issued, the owner is required to immediate secure the construction in compliance with applicable safety requirements, provincial laws and bylaws.
Also under the bylaw, the regional district requires people who start construction without a permit to pay for the administrative costs incurred through the issuing of a stop work order.
After a stop work order has been issued and 30 days have passed, the regional district can levy a $200 fee. Each subsequent 30-day period also comes with a $200 fee.
AMELIA PARCIGNEAU PHOTO
This photo shows a property near Aleza Lake in the Regional District of FraserFort George where a family built an off-grid house without a building permit and were then ordered to dismantle it.
Aquatic Centre to close for two years of renovations
The older of the city’s two public pools needs $37 million in upgrades
COLIN SLARK Citizen Staff
The Prince George Aquatic Centre will close for two or more years starting Jan. 1 so that more than $20 million in long-awaited repair and upgrade work can take place.
A media release issued on Thursday, Oct. 23 by the city said that during the work, the downtown Canfor Leisure Pool will be open with extended hours and increased programming until the Aquatic Centre reopens sometime in early 2028.
The work for the Aquatic Centre, which originally opened in 1998, is planned to take place in four phases. The release said that selected contractor IDL Construction has already started some pre-construction work, including exterior and interior building exploration.
Phases 1A and 1B involve energy efficiency upgrades, new insulation and exterior upgrades with a budget of $3.15 million.
Phase 2 will feature $7.9 million in structural repairs and upgrades, including new steel, columns and a dive tank sparger system. Spargers create a cloud of bubbles in a tank aimed at providing a softer landing for divers.
Phase 3 involves replacing health and safety items as well as tiles and
plumbing features, estimated at $4.5 million in costs.
The fourth and final phase will see the replacement of some major elements and improvements to the pool’s interior including light fixtures and accessibility improvements at a cost of $6.6 million. Combined, the four phases have a total budget of $22.15 million — the amount of borrowing the city had greenlit through an alternative approval process launched in July 2024.
To halt the borrowing process, 10 per cent of eligible electors in the city had to submit a form expressing their objection to trigger a formal referendum. When the city released the results of the process in August 2024, just 398
$46,931*
objections of the 5,512 needed had been received.
When the city asked for borrowing approval, it had already collected $14.88 million in funding for improvements to the pool’s building envelope from other borrowing and money provided by other levels of government in early 2020. However, it didn’t end up getting spent right away due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A spokesperson for the city told The Citizen by email that the original $14.88 million has yet to be spent.
Combined, the cost for the entire project is estimated at around $37 million.
During the closure, the city said that swim clubs, swimming lessons and aquatics programs will still take place
at the Canfor Leisure Pool. However, public swimming won’t be available between 4 to 7 p.m. from Monday to Friday and on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
“We know the closure isn’t ideal for regular Aquatic Centre users, but about 95 per cent of programming will continue at the Canfor Leisure Pool,” said civic facilities and events director Andy Beesley.
“There may be some growing pains, but we’ve successfully operated with one pool during construction of the Canfor Leisure Pool and are confident we can do it again. This work is essential to keep the Aquatic Centre in great shape for years to come.”
$114,100*
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO BY CHUCK NISBETT
Competitors take part in the 2025 Prince George Barracudas Dental Moose Meet Sunday, April 27 at the Aquatic Centre, which is set to close for two years for renovations.
Have a fun (and safe) Halloween
Jacob Scarrow, 6, dressed as Mario from Super Mario Bros., shows his lollipop ghost to Charissa Scarrow, dressed as Kissy Missy from Poppy Playtime, while doing crafts in the School House at the Central BC Railway and Forestry Museum during the Pumpkin Express event Saturday, Oct. 25. Halloween is Friday night. When trick-or-treating, wear bright or reflective costumes that allow children to see clearly, stay on sidewalks, cross at corners and keep a cell phone handy in case of emergency. Drivers should slow down, watch for children crossing unexpectedly and arrange a safe ride home if drinking.
Salveo Clinic to be closed Nov. 1-11
MATTHEW HILLIER Citizen Staff
The Salveo Clinic, located in the Real Canadian Superstore at 2155 Ferry Ave., has been closed for several days in late October due to a lack of physicians.
Signage posted on the front door confirmed the closure was because of a shortage of doctors available to treat patients.
Other signage noted the clinic would also be closed from Nov. 1 to Nov. 11. The reason for that closure was not stated.
Staff at the Superstore confirmed to The Citizen that they had seen closures due to shortages over the past few months.
The clinic is listed as open on its website, and so far there have been no statements indicating it will be permanently closed.
The Citizen reached out to Salveo Clinic but has yet to receive a response by the time this issue went to press.
College of New Caledonia board votes to cut 8 programs
COLIN SLARK Citizen Staff
The College of New Caledonia’s board voted at its Thursday, Oct. 23 meeting to cancel eight programs as part of ongoing efforts to address an $8 million revenue shortfall, the school’s president said in a statement.
On the agenda for the meeting was the proposed cancellations of the following programs effective January 2026:
• Applied Business Technology
Admin Assistant
• Applied Business Technology
Online Office Clerk
• Applied Business Technology
Online Office Assistant
• Social Service Worker Applied Diploma
• Post Diploma Human Resources Management
• Post Diploma Tourism and Hotel Management
• Kinesiology Diploma
• Applied Science Engineering Certificate
A report attached to the meeting agenda cited reduced enrolment targets for international students after reductions put in place by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, a limited number of provincial attestation letters from the provincial government for international applicants, the introduction of programs needing to be aligned with the federal government’s classification of instructional programs, alignment with eligibility for post graduate work permits and a ratio of domestic to
international students instituted by the provincial government as reasons for the cancellations.
Received by email on Friday, Oct. 24, a statement from CNC president Cindy Heitman confirmed that the board voted to cancel the programs.
“As part of our ongoing response to an $8 million revenue shortfall, caused by a decline in international student enrolment, and in keeping with our commitment to delivering high-quality programs in the north, the CNC Board convened a special meeting on October 23,” Heitman wrote.
“At this meeting, the board voted to cancel eight programs.
“This decision followed a thorough and comprehensive review process, in accordance with CNC policy. Each
program was evaluated based on key criteria, including enrolment trends, financial sustainability, labour market demand, and potential for future growth.
“At CNC, students remain our top priority. We are committed to supporting those currently enrolled in the affected programs by providing clear pathways to complete their studies. This includes detailed teach-out plans and direct communication to guide students through their next steps.
“We recognize that these changes are difficult. However, they are necessary to ensure CNC’s long-term sustainability and our ability to continue offering high-quality, relevant programs that prepare students for meaningful careers and contribute to the vitality of communities across the north.”
CITIZEN PHOTO BY CHUCK NISBETT
Hospice looks to tomorrow with fundraising campaign
MATTHEW HILLIER Citizen Staff
Prince George Hospice Palliative Care Society (PGHPCS) is launching its fourth annual appeal campaign, themed Legacy of Compassion. Securing Tomorrow.
The campaign is asking locals to help strengthen hospice care in Prince George and sustain the existing programs that have supported families across the city.
Executive director of PGHPCS Donna Flood elaborated on the theme for the annual appeal.
“It is about looking at us as something we want to see into the future,” said Flood. “That it’s there for everyone, it’s there for me when I may need it, for when my parents may need it, that it will always be there to provide this care. Maybe you don’t need hospice now, or you don’t foresee needing hospice, but it is something that will become a legacy
and you can provide the funds for that legacy. It’s your own personal legacy to keep this legacy within our community.”
Currently, PGHPCS needs approximately $3.5 million a year to continue offering its services in Prince George.
The organization notes that 39 per cent of this funding comes from Northern Health, meaning the rest must come from local donations, fundraisers and sponsorships.
“We provide care 24 hours a day,” said Flood. “One hundred per cent of donations flow to them and to our community programs. Our community programs are based around grief and bereavement. We have children’s programs, family programs. We’ve seen an increase in the need for children’s grief, and we now have a children’s camp for children who are grieving, for people who are grieving the loss through the opioid crisis, for people grieving through suicide or an unexpected traumatic death. We’re there providing grief
for anyone, everywhere.”
In addition, PGHPCS has waived all daily per diem fees at its sites in Prince George, meaning these mandatory costs are paid by the organization itself — further highlighting the need for donations.
“There’s an increase in need postCOVID,” said Flood. “People are just looking for ways to centre themselves, to get back out and find a place where they can share their feelings. There’s been such a long period of isolation that we’re trying to get people to again get out, share their grief and try and gain back some normalcy in their lives. Even though grief never goes away, we help them at least live with their grief.”
Flood also shared a story that touched her about a young couple in Prince George and how care affected them.
“We had a young woman who was dying from an untreatable cancer,” said Flood. “When we got the first call from the physician, asking if we would take
her into care, we gave her a call and her partner answered and said, ‘We’re just on our way to the hospital. She’s in so much pain right now, we can’t talk.’ Our nurse said, ‘Give me three minutes and I will be there.’ The nurse got in her car, went to the home, and through our specialized symptom management, we got this woman in control of her pain. She never had to return to the emergency room.
“We supported her, we got her to the point that she was so comfortable, she decided, before she died, she wanted to make sure she got married. With the support of our nurses and our carers, she did get married. She married her partner, and why that’s important is because allowing her to meet her wishes was a huge thing. That only happened because of home hospice and the specialty care that our nurses give.”
To learn more about the services offered by PGHPCS, or to volunteer or donate, visit https://pghpcs.ca/
Costly public pool problem could have been avoided
KENNEDY GORDON Citizen Managing Editor
Editorial: Prince George’s costly pool problem was avoidable
The two-year closure of the Prince George Aquatic Centre starting Jan. 1 should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed Prince George’s long and troubled history with aquatic infrastructure.
Instead of tackling the big picture, council of the day opted for political convenience, choosing to patch, rebuild or replace one pool at a time rather than developing a cohesive long-term plan.
That short-sightedness is now costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
When the Canfor Leisure Pool was approved and built downtown to replace the aging Four Seasons Leisure Pool, the city knew the Aquatic Centre was already showing serious signs of wear.
Those issues were documented well before construction of the Canfor Leisure Pool began in 2020.
While the city prepares to spend $36.88 million on repairs and upgrades to the Aquatic Centre, a facility just 27 years old, taxpayers are right to ask how, once again, we’re stuck with another huge repair estimate that could have been avoided.
It’s a repair bill that almost matches the $39.1 million that the new Canfor Leisure Pool’s cost to build.
The answer lies not only in aging
concrete and corroded pipes, but in a pattern of short-term decision-making by successive city councils — the majority of whom (councillors Garth Frizzell, Cori Ramsay, Kyle Sampson, Susan Scott and Brian Skakun) are still sitting around the table today.
Failing to seize the moment to rethink how Prince George could modernize its aquatic facilities, our elected leaders forged ahead with a standalone downtown pool.
Instead of choosing to replace both the Aquatic Centre and the Four Seasons with a new combined pool and aquatic centre with greater efficiency and reduced operating costs they went with the political classic, kicking the can down the road at the expense of the taxpayer.
Further, the decision to build the Canfor Leisure Pool is one that now finds itself embroiled in a lawsuit over alleged design flaws.
The city is suing HDR Architecture Associates Inc., claiming the firm’s design mistakes caused delays, corrosion and an additional $1.3 million in repair costs during the Canfor Leisure Pool’s construction.
The dispute centres on the use of an allegedly faulty primer on steel beams, which the city claims led to rust, rework and missed deadlines.
The city says it’s seeking to recover its costs in court.
Even if the city ultimately wins that case, the damage — financial and reputational — is done.
The $39.1-million Canfor pool opened months late and millions over budget. Now, only a few years later, it’s the city’s other pool — the Aquatic Centre — that needs a $36.88 million overhaul. Second verse, same as the first.
We were told that the new Canfor Leisure Pool would modernize the city’s aquatic offerings, providing a stateof-the-art facility to complement, not replace, the Aquatic Centre.
Yet with the latter closed until at least early 2028, the city will once again be forced to stretch programming, refuse regional and provincial competitions, reduce public swim hours and ask residents to be patient while costly repairs drag on.
It didn’t have to be like this.
A smarter, more fiscally responsible choice would have been to combine the old Four Seasons and the Aquatic Centre into one new, purpose-built facility.
Such a plan — while ambitious — would have reduced long-term operating costs, eliminated duplication and allowed the city to design a modern aquatic complex suited to Prince George’s future needs rather than its past mistakes.
At the time, critics of the single downtown pool proposal warned that the plan would leave us with two problematic facilities instead of a single efficient one.
They argued that it made little sense to spend nearly $40 million on a new pool while another major aquatic centre sat just a few kilometres away, already
showing structural fatigue.
Those critics were right.
The upcoming closure will inconvenience thousands of users, including swim clubs, families, seniors and students.
While the city promises that 95 per cent of programming will continue at the Canfor Leisure Pool, it admits that public swimming will be severely restricted during peak hours. Once again, residents are paying the price for years of council indecision.
Prince George deserves better planning than this. City council after city council has chosen to chase short-term wins instead of addressing long-term sustainability. The result is two costly facilities, one mired in litigation and the other shut down for years of expensive repairs.
We go to the municipal polls in a year. As that next generation of civic leaders looks ahead, they should take this moment as a lesson: infrastructure planning requires courage, not convenience. The time for almost-but-not-quite fixes is over.
Prince George needs a clear, longterm strategy for its recreation and cultural facilities (in the Civic Core and elsewhere) that prioritizes efficiency, durability and value for taxpayers.
Council must shift to long-term vision going forward, not another short-term solution that fails to meet future needs and turns into the next multimillion-dollar problem.
editor@pgcitizen.ca
We
the financial
Nous reconnaissons l’appui financier du gouvernement
Kennedy Gordon Managing Editor
OFFICE (8:30a - 4:30p)
505 Fourth Avenue
Prince George, B.C. V2L 3H2
FRONT DESK AND CLASSIFIED frontdesk@pgcitizen.ca 250-562-2441
NEWS AND SPORTS news@pgcitizen.ca
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR editor@pgcitizen.ca
OWNER / PUBLISHER owner@pgcitizen.ca
Letters to the editor are welcome. The maximum length is 300 words. Letters may be subject to editing for length, clarity, grammar, spelling and legalities prior to publication. Please include your daytime contact information.
Cameron Stolz Owner / Publisher
Terresa Randall-Stolz Owner
acknowledge
support of the government of Canada.
du Canada.
OPINION
You know what downtown needs? More dive bars
The Back Story
It is heartbreaking to watch what is happening to downtown Prince George. The streets are starting to grow vacant gaps like the toothless mouth of a bar brawler who has lost too many fights. It seems like no one knows what to do, or who to blame. It’s a valid point. The crisis facing our town is nationwide. Homelessness is at an all-time high, and it just seems to get worse every year.
A couple years ago I wrote about the societal drift behind these trends. Government’s goal these past few decades has been investor good, not the public good. People are giving up on our society, I speculated, because our society has given up on them.
For what it’s worth, I want to talk about how Prince George City Hall has contributed to this.
Downtown Prince George has always had its gritty side. Folks suffering from trauma and addiction and pain have long taken refuge in the downtown.
But in the past, the city provided them with the space to do so.
From the McDonald to the Canada to the Columbus to the Prince George Hotel to the Roadhouse, Prince George had a lot of what you could call dive bars, for lack of a better word.
And I don’t mean that in a bad way. These places were heated, had bathrooms, regulated and taxed alcohol, and had cheap rooms upstairs.
In the intervening years our city government did everything it could to rid the downtown of these places.
It may not have been explicitly stated, but this was done in the name of universal catch-phrases like “cleaning up” downtown and “investor confidence.”
The historic McDonald Hotel was torn down to make way for the courthousein
the 1990s.
A place of refuge became a symbol of authority.
The Columbus Hotel burnt down in a fire in 2008, tragically killing two. The city actually owned that property at the time of the fire. It was never rebuilt and the lot sits empty to this day.
The city then purchased the historic Prince George Hotel, the Roadhouse and the building where Angelique’s Native Arts was located.
They levelled them in 2011 and replaced them with the Wood Innovation Centre.
That entire block increasingly has the sterile feel of an industrial business park, not a part of the downtown community the way the Prince George Hotel and the Roadhouse was (Angelique’s has relocated to Dominion Street).
The Croft is the last man standing.
People may hate this argument I’m making but the reality is the homeless
population in downtown Prince George is very much a community.
There are some predators and arsonists that belong in jail but there are a lot of folks who have names, who have stories, who could be members of your family. A lot of these people may be transient and have come here from other places, but that’s always been the case downtown.
The difference in the past was we had establishments that welcomed them into the fabric of downtown. This gave them a sense of belonging.
It gave people a sense that society cared enough about them that they would provide them a warm place where they could wrestle with their demons.
Our city, in all its wisdom, figured by levelling their spaces, we could eliminate the community once and for all.
Alcohol and barflies and boarding house rooms have been replaced with
cheaper, far more toxic drugs and cardboard mattresses kept warm with fires of burning garbage next to human excrement and filth.
The pain and suffering and boredom and alienation is now out in the open on the streets for all to see.
There are obviously many factors driving what we are experiencing in our beloved town that are by no means unique to Prince George.
And I also don’t know how you bring back places like the Prince George Hotel.
But I do know there are a lot of people downtown who aren’t ready to abide by strict rules and substance-free requirements of social housing, or who aren’t ready to go into treatment. And as part of an overall strategy we need those spaces for them to live that life they hopefully will one day leave behind them. Like we once had.
James Steidle is a Prince George writer.
JAMES STEIDLE
The McDonald Hotel was located where the Prince George courthouse now stands. It opened in 1925 and was torn down in the 1990s, according to a Facebook post by PG Designs.
OPINION
Two rezoning applications return to council agenda after cancellation
Sorry Tina, but we need this acute care tower. You could always move away from “downtown” if you don’t like tall buildings!
My dad has had multiple heart attacks and has been flown down to Vancouver or Kelowna each time which creates a huge time gap from the time of a heart attack to the time you get help.
This will allow people in Prince George to get immediate help, and for those who live further north they will only have to travel half the distance. This will also make a very beneficial change to Prince George.
I find it infuriating that someone can be opposed to this simply because they think the building is too tall or might generate more traffic, that’s very very cold hearted. When you live next to a hospital, expect changes, expect traffic, expect noise, you moved right next to a hospital! Now to stand in the way of the 320k people this hospital services is just sickening! Tanner Mcleod
Downtown PG president calls community’s public safety approach ‘miserable failure’
“If Prince George and other municipalities speak up together and show Victoria that they are failing their citizens,” Foley said, “it’s the only way the needle will move on the basic systemic changes needed.”
And that right there is where Foley was cut off because that is exactly where council is failing.
Yes they brought a letter from Daryl Leiski to Eby ar UBCM (sort of comes across as hiding behind a private citizen and business owner or at the very least, getting him to do the work for them).
If you want change you have to get in front of every camera you can. Keep repeating the message to anyone who will listen.
Become a thorn in the side of Victoria. Make this an issue that will cost them votes!! It may not cost them votes here, but other municipalities might start speaking up as well.
Council may not be doing “nothing” but I’d say they’re close enough
J. Jonah Jameson
Downtown PG president calls community’s public safety approach ‘miserable failure’
I think the city has done everything that can be done legally.
These fires aren’t confined to Prince George, other towns and cities are facing the same problems. What are the causes?
Safer supply assisting with drug addiction, leading to serious mental health issues, safer supply with no treatment. Oh, the province trots out notice of treatment beds available, but nowhere near whats needed.
The same goes for mental health treatment, nowhere what’s needed, and which should have been here for the last five years or more.
Our provincial government leaders are paying lip service to an ongoing serious issue and the federal government, while announcing stricter bail conditions on serious offenders, not repeat offenders is so full of holes it’s not going to make much difference.
We do not have solid leadership at the Provincial or Federal level.
ntil that changes, cities are powerless to do more.
Fred Vinson
Albert Koehler: Considering a ‘citizens on patrol’ plan for a safer Prince George
This plan is a good start but once the criminals are arrested, whats the plan after that? They currently get released at an astonishing rate. The RCMP wouldn’t be able
to keep with the increased calls nor would the criminals stay behind bars due to our soft on crime, soft judicial system Alucard
Prince George Aquatic Centre to close for two years of renovations on Jan. 1
I have had a yearly pass for a few years now, and I won’t renew with these service hours. They are terrible.
I think it’s a mistake to compare the closure of the Aquatic Center with the closure of the Four Seasons Pool while the Canfor Pool was under construction.
The Canfor Pool is much smaller and can’t support nearly as many people. This reduction in hours clearly shows that.
Haakon Sullivan
Prince George Aquatic Centre to close for two years of renovations on Jan. 1
This is devastating and embarrassing for the city. Why we didn’t shut down the Aquatic Centre for shorter durations during months where its use is low to avoid this long term closure is mind-boggling.
Technically I’m sure 95 per cent of programming will continue, but the Leisure Pool barely has swimming lanes, they are very short, and daily lap swimmers not associated with the swimming club will most certainly be left out to dry.
It’s also one of the few affordable places in town to get indoor exercise when winter rears its head.
But it’s also classic Prince George — why am I still surprised that the city management has no clue what its citizens actually want? rideyourbike
Adventures with first responders
MATTHEW HILLIER Citizen Staff
If you saw police officers, firefighters, and paramedics around the John McInnis Centre on Sunday, there was no need to worry — they were just showing students the ins and outs of being a first responder.
John McInnis hosted Adventures with a First Responder on Oct. 26 at the Westwood Drive school.
This event marked the second of its kind held in Prince George and was aimed at introducing Grade 11 and 12 students to some of the dynamics of being a first responder.
Students rotated through three stations to learn how to put on fire rescue gear, use high-pressure hoses, and practise stopping a traumatic bleed, administering an airway, and performing arrest and handcuff procedures.
Adventures with First Responders was a collaboration between BC Emergency Health Services, Prince George Fire Rescue Service, Prince George RCMP, School District 57 and the Yellowhead Rotary Club.
CITIZEN PHOTOS BY CHUCK NISBETT
on Sunday, Oct. 26.
LEFT: RCMP Cpl. Andrew Cooper explains the best way to put on handcuffs to Alex Srochenski, 15, as she follows his instructions to restrain Lilianna Bautista, 15, in the gym at John McInnis Centre.
ABOVE: Aubrey Anchikoski, 15, directs a fire hose to knock over cones across the parking lot at John McInnis Centre while taking part in the Adventures with First Responders recruiting initiative
Driver dies after crashing into house on Queensway
A tow truck operator checks the progress as he pulls a Chevrolet Corvette convertible off the front wall and window of a house at 2654 Queensway on Saturday, Oct. 25. RCMP reported that the driver died from injuries sustained in the crash, while the passenger suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Nobody inside the house, located on the east side of the busy corridor between La Salle Avenue and Inlander Street, was hurt. Damage to the house was $50,000, and the car was totalled at a cost of $50,000
CRIME NOTES
RCMP video shows person sought in recent homicide case
Prince George RCMP and the RCMP’s serious crime unit are asking for help in identifying a person recorded on video around the time of a homicide on the 1900 block of Spruce Street on Sept. 16.
As part of the search, police released a photograph of a distinctive type of clothing similar to what the person was wearing.
“Police are currently looking for help in identifying a person of interest in the investigation, who was captured by CCTV in the area during the time of the homicide,” states Cpl. Jennifer Cooper, media relations officer for the Prince George RCMP.
“If anyone knows who this person is or where they are staying, we encourage them to call our non-emergency line or to contact Northern B.C. Crime Stoppers with the information.”
To help aid in the investigation RCMP has shared the video footage.
Police have issued this image from a video showing a person possibly connected to a recent homicide.
The man was wearing an unusual tan-coloured Burberry-style track suit and white and black flip-flops. Anyone with information is asked to call 250-561-3300 or anonymously contact Crime Stoppers at 1(800)222-8477 or online at www.northernbccrimestoppers.ca.
The incident saw police finding one person dead and another with gunshot wounds.
Police said it was a targeted event and they do not believe that there is any further risk to the public.
Were your tires slashed at Parkwood Place recently?
RCMP are asking for assistance in finding suspects in a tire-slashing investigation that began on Tuesday, Oct. 14.
Police say they were contacted by people who had been parked at Parkwood Place who had their tires slashed.
“Police have reason to believe there may have been others in this area whose vehicle tires were similarly damaged,” stated Cpl. Jennifer Cooper, media relations officer.
RCMP investigators are asking any witnesses or those with surveillance footage that may have captured the suspects moving through the area to come forward. They note that the incident likely occurred between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Oct. 14.
Woman wanted on charges by Prince George RCMP
Prince George RCMP are looking for 32-year-old Julianna Emily Johnnie Rutherford and are asking the public to keep an eye out for her.
Rutherford is wanted on one endorsed warrant for the following: failing to comply with a release order.
Rutherford is described as:
• Indigenous female
• 5’3” (160 cm)
• 188 lb (85 kg)
• Black hair
• Brown eyes
Rutherford is considered dangerous by local RCMP and they advise that she should not be approached if she’s spotted.
If you locate her or have any information about her whereabouts, contact RCMP at 250-561-3300.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY CHUCK NISBETT
Rutherford
New higher-quality counterfeit $50 bills circulating
MATTHEW HILLIER Citizen Staff
High-grade counterfeit bills may be circulating in the Prince George community, as one local business owner has discovered.
The business owner realized the bills were fake only after taking them to his bank, where they were run through the bank’s hologram scanner. Otherwise, the bills were virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.
The bank reportedly told the business owner that the two counterfeit $50 bills were among the highest-grade fakes the bank has seen in years.
The last reported case of counterfeiting made public was in January of this year, when there was a noted rise in fake bills resembling cash used in classroom settings, with others being photocopied bills printed on paper.
The Citizen spoke with the RCMP about counterfeiting in the city. Due to the nature of the crime, it is difficult to determine the origin and frequency of use, especially for higher-grade fakes.
“It comes and goes,” said Cpl. Jennifer Cooper, media relations officer for Prince George RCMP.
“We wouldn’t be surprised if we were getting some high-quality ones in. It depends on who is passing them through. Sometimes we get good-quality ones — higher-quality ones — and sometimes the quality can be pretty laughable. It just changes with whoever is passing them through.”
Cooper added that if a fake is discovered, it should be reported to police right away.
“It’s one of those types of crime that, if it’s not reported, there’s virtually no way for us to know it’s happening and track who might be passing the bills or even figure out where they’re coming from,” said Cooper. “It’s a type of policing that solely depends on people reporting it to us for us to know that it’s happening.”
Cooper also shared some advice for business owners who suspect a bill might be fake.
“We can’t assume that the person
who is trying to pay with that bill knew it was fake themselves,” said Cooper.
“We can’t assume that that person is the original counterfeiter. They may also not know they have a counterfeit bill. Explain that it might be counterfeit and ask if they have a different bill to pay with. Then advise them to check in with their bank or local police, and remain courteous — because if it is someone who is trying to pass off a counterfeit bill and knows it’s counterfeit, they would probably leave fairly quickly after they’ve been caught.”
She added that the experience can also be startling for the customer, as in most cases the bill was likely picked up in circulation.
“If it’s not someone who was the original counterfeiter, being accused of having a counterfeit bill can be a little bit alarming or startling,” said Cooper. “They also know that they’re now out that money as well, so it can be quite frustrating for the consumer.”
She added that most fake bills turned in to police are of lower quality, and if higher-quality bills are circulating, it would be very difficult for the RCMP to keep track of them.
According to the Bank of Canada, counterfeit bills are considered a loss to both the business owner and customer when accepted and they will not be reimbursed.
states the Bank of Canada.
Cooper also shared additional tips for locals who suspect a bill might be fake.
“Some things are: are the serial numbers matched on the left and the right side? Compare it to another bill that you think is more likely to be legitimate,” said Cooper.
“Are the watermarks the same or similar? Does the braille feel like it’s similar to our legitimate bill? Also, look at the foils. The last time we had a significant amount of counterfeit bills passed through town, the holographic foil was very clearly pieced together like a cut-and-paste job.”
There’s also the chance that a little bit of Hollywood fakery may turn up.
“Any individual who, knowingly or not, accepts a counterfeit bears the loss. In other words, there’s no reimbursement. It’s the same in any country. In Canada, it is a criminal offence to knowingly use or keep counterfeit money,”
“What we’ve also seen are counterfeit bills that have been used on movie sets,” Cooper said.
“They actually look very similar to real bills, but it does say on there that it isn’t real money. Double-check that it isn’t a movie prop.”
CITIZEN STAFF PHOTO
Counterfeit $50 bills like this one were circulating in Prince George in October 2025.
First responders headed out to 1,534 false alarms
COLIN SLARK Citizen Staff
Prince George Fire Rescue responded to 686 fire false alarms between Jan. 1 and Aug. 25 this year while the RCMP responded to 848 security false alarms between Jan. 1 and Aug. 16, according to figures presented to the city’s Standing Committee on Public Safety on Tuesday, Oct. 21.
Committee member John Zukowski had requested information on false alarms at a previous meeting.
Director of administrative services Eric Depenau presented the 2025 statistics and said that across all of 2024, PGFR responded to 1,063 fire false alarms and the RCMP responded to 1,264 security false alarms.
False alarms come with a cost to the city, Depenau said, including fuel, labour and maintenance responding to more than 1,000 calls.
Under the city’s Fire Protection and Emergency Response Bylaw, the city has the right to charge a fee to the owner or occupier of a hotel or public building where a false fire alarm occurs.
The bylaw defines a false fire alarm as “the activation of a fire alarm system by any means as a result of which fire department resources and services are provided and a member does not find any evidence of fire, fire damage or smoke.”
The definition of a false security alarm under the Security Alarm System Bylaw is similar and is listed as “means the activation of a security alarm system to which the RCMP is requested to
respond and upon their attendance at the alarm location, the RCMP can find no evidence of criminal activity or unauthorized entry.”
The city can charge the owner of a property where the RCMP attend to a false alarm $100. If the RCMP attends a false alarm where the owner or occupier of the property has not provided the police with the names, address and phone number of the owner, property representatives or the name of a guard services, another $100 fee can be charged.
Then, if the police respond to a false alarm and a property representative or named guard service doesn’t show up within 30 minutes, a $100 fee can be charged. In 2019, those fees were hiked to $112, Depenau said.
Bylaws are reviewed on a four-year cycle, Depenau said, and the security alarm bylaw will likely be reassessed in 2027 or 2028.
Present at the meeting was RCMP Sgt. Craig Douglass. He estimated that after police drive out to the site of a false alarm, officers can spend just a few minutes there if it’s deemed false straight away but in other circumstances might have to check the whole property.
He wasn’t sure offhand what the expense to the RCMP would be.
Zukowski said that the reason he brought up the bylaws governing false alarms is because while most bylaws have an avenue residents can pursue to appeal them, there isn’t one for this bylaw.
“You get a fine,” he said. “If you don’t
turn around and pay it, it’s applied to property tax. You’re SOL. You can’t call anybody at the RCMP to have it reviewed. Nobody in the city wants to even address it.”
He said he “absolutely agrees” that people who don’t take care of their alarm systems “need to be walloped with a fine.”
“But at the same gist, there has to be equity in all bylaws where the public has the opportunity to appeal it,” Zukowski said. “It’s the same thing with the laws. That’s why we have courts.”
Zukowski outlined a hypothetical situation where a new owner takes over a property with a lousy alarm system that keeps issuing false alarms. If they install a new system, the property has a history with false alarms according to the police’s records and could get hit with a fine on the first offence.
Depenau said that if there’s a request for a review at present, the person is directed to reach out to the RCMP and talk things over.
In his time as director of administrative services, he said he’s had two such cases eventually escalated to him where the officer in question reviewed their scoring for the situation and determined whether there should be factors that mitigate the need to issue a ticket. Officers have some amount of discretion with how they handle these situations.
Ultimately, the committee voted to ask that council consider revising the security alarm bylaw to establish an appeal process for fines incurred as a result of false security alarms requiring a police presence.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY COLIN SLARK
Prince George’s Standing Committee on Public Safety meets in a second-floor board room at city hall on Tuesday, Oct. 21.
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
False alarms come with a cost to the city, including fuel, labour and maintenance responding to more than 1,000 calls.
Man’s breach of court order means curfew, probation
BOB MACKIN Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A man who breached a court order to not communicate with children pleaded guilty Oct. 23 in Prince George and was sentenced to live under curfew for six months and serve six months on probation.
From Aug. 4-31, 2022, James Allen Prince was living temporarily in a residence with other adults when there were also four children present.
The Crown wanted a conditional sixmonth sentence under house arrest, but Prince’s lawyer successfully proposed a curfew.
Provincial Court Associate Chief Judge Paul Dohm opted for a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, with exception for urgent healthcare. He said house arrest would normally be appropriate, but in this case it was not necessary.
“I’m also mindful that Mr. Prince is 71-years-old and has other obligations
regards to his health and his family’s health, and in my view, a curfew would be sufficient in the circumstances to adequately address deterrence and denunciation in this case,” Dohm said. Dohm referred to the order being in
Man pleads guilty to sex crimes involving youth in two provinces
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 17 in Prince George Provincial Court for a man who pleaded guilty to sexual interference of a person under 16 in BC and touching the same young victim for a sexual purpose while they were in Alberta.
The man entered the pleas before Judge David Simpkin in Prince George court on Oct. 15.
He had also been charged with sexual assault and assault by choking.
The case is under a ban on publication of information that could identify the victim.
Court heard through an agreed statement of facts that the man had been working on a farm in a Robson Valley community but also had a residence in Alberta.
He met the girl, born in 2007, through a religious organization, and her guard ian allowed her to live with him and his wife for a year.
Crown prosecutor Anna Novakovic said offences occurred between July 1, 2022 and June 19, 2023 in B.C. and between June 1, 2023 and May 31, 2024 in Alberta.
During the latter period, the vic tim was working on a farm with the accused.
He took the girl to his house and they had sexual intercourse while his wife was out of town.
Novakovic said the guilty man was responsible for the girl’s day-to-day care while she lived with him in BC and Alberta.
“The accused was in a position of trust and authority in relation to her at all material times,” Novakovic told Simpkin.
At the time, Judge Peter McDermick ruled that what Prince did constituted sexual assault, but he did not act with sexual intent, because he touched the girls’ bottoms to get them out of his way.
Dohm told Prince that he “needs to be very mindful” that there will be consequences if he breaches the curfew order.
“I’m giving him a break by giving him the curfew rather than the house arrest that the Crown has indicated would be appropriate,” Dohm said.
Dohm also placed Prince under a twoyear peace bond with a $500 deposit and banned him from communicating with two people whose names are protected by a publication ban.
BOB MACKIN
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
A local nightclub bouncer went on trial for sexual assault in Prince George court.
Nightclub bouncer acquitted of sexual assault charge
BOB MACKIN Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A BC Supreme Court judge found a nightclub bouncer not guilty of sexual assault on Oct. 24 after a trial in Prince George.
Austin Ojakovo was invited by a patron at Ignite nightclub to a party at her cousin’s residence on Jan. 4. He arrived around 3:30 a.m. to 4 a.m. and they engaged in brief, playful wrestling on a living room couch.
The woman claimed Ojakovo raped her. But Ojakovo pleaded not guilty and denied any sexual contact or sexual feelings for the woman when he testified in his own defence.
“In this case, I have accepted some of what each of the witnesses have said, but not all of what anybody has said,” said Justice Alison Latimer. “Taking the evidence as a whole, I’m left with significant doubt about what occurred during the three-to-five minute wrestling match. I cannot conclude that the Crown has discharged its burden of proof.”
The complainant, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, had been drinking off and on for several
RCMP officer recognizes local shoplifter on security video
A man charged with four counts of theft under $5,000 pleaded guilty to shoplifting at London Drugs and was given a conditional discharge on Oct. 22 in Prince George Provincial Court.
Judge David Simpkin ordered Gregory William Felker to spend the next year on probation, complete 20 hours of community service work and attend counselling as directed by a probation officer.
Court heard that a Prince George RCMP officer recognized Felker from surveillance video in the store and went to Felker’s house after the March 27 theft.
“By the sound of it, you gave the item back to the officer, and it went back to London Drugs,” Simpkin said. “Very unsophisticated crime and appears to
A local man accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a house party has been found not guilty.
hours and admitted it affected her memory of the evening and early morning. She went for dinner at Montana’s around 6 p.m. on Jan. 3, took a ride on a party bus and went to a friend’s house where she drank and listened to music. Around 11 p.m., she went with friends to Ignite for dancing and drinking. She noticed Ojakovo, who she had met before and knew as “O.J.” or “Michael.” She invited him to join her at her cousin’s residence. She arrived around 1 or 1:30 a.m. and continued to listen to music, play cards and drink. Ojakovo followed about two hours later. She testified that “she came to,” and the next thing she remembered was Ojakovo trying to get on top of her
COURTNOTES
be totally out of character for you.”
Simpkin acknowledged that Felker’s shoplifting was related to drug abuse while caring for his father for the last four years.
Simpkin also banned Felker, born in 1962, from visiting any London Drugs, Real Canadian Superstore or Save-onFoods store in B.C.
The remaining charges were stayed against Felker.
Assault and breaches mean 11 more days of jail plus probation
Eleven more days in jail for a Prince George man who pleaded guilty Oct. 24 to assaulting a woman and breaching release order conditions three times.
Provincial Court Judge Michele
while there was nobody else in the living room. She testified that she was scared and crossed her arms across her chest and that Ojakovo pushed her underwear aside and penetrated her vagina once with his penis without her consent.
Ojakovo testified they were simply engaged in playful wrestling for threeto-five minutes. He told the court that the complainant pinned him down first and he had to use all his force to turn around, pin her by the shoulders and free himself.
“He was not shaken in cross-examination in his steadfast denials of any contact of a sexual nature with (the complainant),” Latimer said.
Peacock officially sentenced Jonathan Hans Hiltergerke to 90 days in jail, but he spent 57 days in custody and qualified for 86 days enhanced credit.
Hiltergerke, born in 1989, was ordered to serve four additional days in jail for the April 3 assault and breach of a release order when he committed the assault. He also received a consecutive seven-day sentence for two other breaches of release.
Court heard that the April 3 assault was reported by a neighbour of the victim, who heard someone say “don’t stab me, bitch.”
A roommate witnessed Hiltergerke hit the woman twice on either side of her head. He had previously been ordered to have no contact with the woman.
RCMP officers who attended said both parties appeared to be intoxicated.
On July 2, Hiltergerke broke his bail
Latimer could not conclude the effects of intoxication were wearing off by the time the complainant was seated on a couch in the living room beside Ojakovo.
Nor could she conclude anything of a sexual nature happened.
“When I consider whether the remainder of the evidence is able to satisfy me beyond a reasonable doubt that the touching was of a sexual nature, I conclude it cannot,” Latimer said.
All witnesses agreed that a third-party observed at least part of the couch wrestling, but there was disagreement about who the third-party was.
The cousin, who was in the kitchen, said she heard the complainant yell for help, but the complainant denied calling for help. The cousin testified that when she pulled the complainant and Ojakovo apart, they were both fully clothed.
Later, the complainant asked Ojakovo for a ride home.
“I have been careful not to rely on the evidence about (the complainant) asking Mr. Ojakovo for a ride home to support any stereotypical assumptions about how women who have been sexually assaulted should or might behave after sexual assault,” Latimer said.
conditions by drinking alcohol. On Aug. 9, he left a court-ordered treatment centre in Savona.
“I found it aggravating that, to your credit, you had phoned and let your bail supervisor know,” Peacock said. “But then didn’t disclose your whereabouts.”
After he is released, an 18-month probation term begins. That includes a condition to not consume any intoxicating substance and be sober if he is in the presence of the woman again.
Peacock said she was mindful that Hiltergerke has Indigenous heritage on his mother’s side and that the complainant is also Indigenous.
The Crown noted that Indigenous females are overly represented as victims of violent offences.
Court reporting by Bob Mackin, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
CITIZEN
Ex-teacher not guilty, signs peace bond
He agreed that his behaviour towards a woman and her child was problematic
BOB MACKIN Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A Provincial Court judge found a man who worked as a teacher in School District No. 57 not guilty of criminal harassment on Monday, Oct. 27, but ordered him to live under a peace bond for the next year.
Michael Duane Christie was accused of harassing a woman in Prince George shortly after the end of their relationship, between Nov. 1, 2023 and Dec. 14, 2023.
Christie, born in 1977, maintained his “not guilty” plea before Judge Martin Nadon, but admitted that his actions during that period would have caused the woman to reasonably fear for her safety.
Court heard that Christie continued to try communicating with the woman, despite her refusal to respond. She contacted RCMP after he approached her with a letter outside her workplace.
The woman’s child was a student in one of Christie’s classes. His conversation with the child about the end of the relationship led to a complaint against
A former teacher spoke to a student about the end of his relationship with the student’s mother, court heard during his harassment trial.
Christie with the school district.
“It’s clear that counsel have put a considerable amount of work into this, and I have, present in court, the complainant as well, who has been informed with respect to this resolution,” Nadon said. “So it’s my view that this is an appropriate way to deal with this matter.”
Nadon set the peace bond for one year in the amount of $500, without deposit and without surety. Conditions include no possession of any weapons as defined by the Criminal Code and not to go within 100 metres of or communicate with the complainant or her children.
The only exception to the no-communication clause is for Christie to write a
letter of apology to the woman. Once it is approved by a probation officer, he need not report again.
Christie’s lawyer, Hazem Osso, said his client has been engaged to be married for approximately a year. He is currently unemployed, after working in drywalling and as a counsellor with Carrier Sekani Family Services.
“He is on leave as a teacher, he hasn’t been fired,” Osso said.
“He would like to pursue and try to get back his teaching certificate and work at a private school to teach young individuals.”
The province’s online registry of teachers said Christie was suspended April 9, 2024 pending inquiry.
IIO probe launched after man’s death
MATTHEW HILLIER Citizen Staff
The Independent Investigations Office of BC (IIO) has launched an investigation into the death of a man in Prince George. A relative of the deceased person told the IIO that RCMP responded to a home in the area of Village Avenue and Lillooet Street for a noise complaint on Aug. 24 at about 4:15 p.m.
When police, arrived the IIO reports, officers were attempting to speak to a man believed to be the focus of the complaint when officers noticed him holding a possible weapon.
The officers then closed the door and called for assistance.
Police re-entered the room an hour later and found the man in medical distress. He was then later pronounced deceased.
The IIO was notified of the incident on Sept 22.
IIO investigations are carried out in cases where death or serious injuries occur during an interaction with police.
Witnesses who have not yet given a statement or who may have video footage are asked to contact the IIO toll-free at 1-855-446-8477 or via the contact form at iiobc.ca/contact-us/
Firearms charges stayed after hearing to test evidence
BOB MACKIN Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Crown counsel stayed charges Oct. 23 against a 36-year-old man accused of firearms offences.
In Prince George Provincial Court, Matthew Douglas Sweder was facing charges of careless use or storage of a firearm, possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose, possessing a firearm without licence and/or registration and occupying a vehicle while knowing a firearm is present.
The charges stemmed from a Dec. 3, 2023 incident in Prince George. Had there been a conviction just for the possession charge, Sweder could have been jailed for up to 10 years.
The BCProsecution Service (BCPS) blanket policy is to not disclose the
reasons for directing a stay of proceedings, except when the assistant deputy attorney general decides it is in the public interest.
BCPS communications counsel Damienne Darby said the decision about Sweder was made after a voir dire, a hearing for a judge to decide whether certain evidence can be admitted.
“After reviewing the evidence and the rest of the file materials the prosecutor concluded the charge approval standard was no longer met,” Darby said. “In these circumstances a stay of
proceedings is the appropriate course of action.”
Back in August, Prince George RCMP sought Sweder after a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.
Sweder had previously been sentenced to seven days in jail and probation for a year in 2022 for resisting a police officer and breaching a release order.
In 2019, he was sentenced to a 70-day conditional sentence and 18 months of probation for mischief under $5,000 and assault.
Sweder
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
Sorry, bears — there’s a better use for all those apples
MATTHEW HILLIER Citizen Staff
Northern Lights Estate Winery, in collaboration with the Northern Bear Awareness Society, has announced that its annual apple gleaning program has collected approximately 60,000 pounds of apples thanks to overwhelming local support.
These apples were collected from residents by both Northern Lights and the Northern Bear Awareness Society to prevent bear attraction in the city, keeping yards clear of fruit that would otherwise bring uninvited and hungry guests.
The fall season is particularly active for bears in the Prince George area, as they often travel into the city to search for food before hibernating for the winter.
Doug Bell, operating partner at Northern Lights Estate Winery, spoke to The Citizen about how critical this program is, especially in the north.
“Of the 20,000 calls in BC about problem bears annually, 98 per cent of the calls occurred due to one of two reasons: either people have left their trash unprotected or they have not cleaned up their fruit,” said Bell. “When fruit rots on the plants or on the trees, it becomes a really bad attractant for wildlife, so by educating the public that there are other uses for these fruits and additionally providing donations to the Northern Bear Awareness Society for educational programs, we believe we’re able to help the community understand the importance of cleaning up their fruit.”
The program has been active since 2015 and was created when the winery approached the Northern Bear Awareness Society to reduce human-bear interactions in areas where they were common year after year in the city.
“Listening to the customers back when we first opened in 2015, one comment we received often was concern that if there was an orchard close to town, would we be attracting wildlife into the area?” said Bell. “The fact is, no, we don’t attract any incremental
‘Of the 20,000 calls in BC about problem bears annually, 98 per cent of the calls occurred due to one of two reasons: either people have left their trash unprotected or they have not cleaned up their fruit.’
wildlife into the area, although they do live here, and we don’t want to deter them from their natural behaviours.
However, we felt we could be part of a broader solution to the wildlife problem within the community of Prince George, and that’s what created the idea for this program.”
Since 2015, volunteers have collected an estimated 300,000 pounds of apples thanks to this program. Bell added that this year in particular saw a massive increase in collections.
“Production for apple trees in the north generally follows a two-year trend of one high-yield year and one lower-yield year,” said Bell. “However, this year was an exceptional season where the fruit production was very high, and therefore we anticipated a larger number of apple donations as normal; however, this exceeded our expectations significantly.”
Of the 60,000 pounds collected, 45,000 pounds were used for future wine production and processed into juice, while apples that were unsuitable or could not be processed were supplied as livestock feed.
In addition, 16,000 pounds were given
to Northern Lights’ sister company, Hobby Brews, where they were turned into personalized craft ciders and apple wine.
Bell said the program is both an example of good community stewardship and of protecting local wildlife.
“This program is a great example of community stewardship,” said Bell. “Not only are we supporting wildlife protection, but we’re also reducing food waste and creating opportunities for local brewers and farmers. It’s a true win-win for our environment and our economy.”
In addition to supporting the Northern Bear Awareness Society, this year’s program also helped provide support to the Northern Lights Wildlife Shelter in Smithers, which provides rehabilitation services for orphaned and injured wildlife. In total, an estimated $7,000 was raised thanks to donations from this program.
The Northern Bear Awareness Society also helped fund the Gleaning Abundance Program, which connects fruit tree owners with volunteer gleaners who have successfully harvested over 20,000 lbs of fruit across Prince George.
PATRICE SCHOENFELD/PEXELS
Northern Lights Estate Winery uses the apples collected by the Northern Bear Awareness Society to make its products.
Sinclar scaling back operations at three mills by 40%
COLIN SLARK Citizen Staff
Sinclar Group Forest Products Ltd. is indefinitely curtailing operations at its three mills in Prince George, Vanderhoof and Fort St. James by 40 per cent effective Monday, Oct. 27.
The move will affect Apollo Forest Products in Fort St. James, Nechako Lumber Co. in Vanderhoof and Lakeland Mills in Prince George.
“The significance of this action should not be underestimated,” the release stated.
“These production curtailments are equivalent to the closure of one full mill. This decision comes in response to a confluence of external pressures — from an unsustainable provincial policy landscape and persistent uncertainty around fibre supply to deepening economic challenges, all made worse by punitive duties and additional tariffs on Canadian lumber entering the United States.”
Also in the release, Sinclar president Greg Stewart said the decision will deeply affect the company’s employees, families and communities they serve.
“The challenges facing the forest industry in British Columbia are significant and compounding,” he’s quoted as saying. “We must take action to sustain
An award worth a million
Prince George business owner John A. Brink’s podcast, On The Brink, has passed one million YouTube subscribers. As of this week the show, which features Brink interviewing ‘fascinating and inspiring people from around the globe,’ has 1.03 million people subscribed. Hitting the milestone brings with it an award from YouTube.
our operations.”
Stewart called for collective action from the provincial government, federal government, First Nations, industry partners and other forestry companies on systemic issues threatening the forest sector.
Later that same day, BC Council of Forest Industries president and CEO
Kim Haakstad issued a statement saying that the federal government must make a resolution to the softwood lumber dispute with the U.S. a priority in the face of recent increases to tariffs and duties.
“At the same time, the provincial government must act decisively to stabilize the sector in BC—ensuring mills stay open, people stay employed, and forestry continues to anchor rural, urban and First Nations communities across the province,” Haakstad said.
“Forestry supports tens of thousands of good jobs, generates billions in economic activity, and underpins reconciliation and rural stability. Protecting that future requires immediate federal leadership on softwood lumber and provincial measures to get wood moving, strengthen competitiveness, and restore confidence in this foundational industry.
Every day the situation continues, Haakstad said, puts more workers, communities and families at risk.
TOYS • COMICS • GAMES
The interior of Lakeland Mills in Prince George is seen in a file photo. Parent company Sinclar Group announced that operations at this facility and two others would be curtailed indefinitely.
Non-profit makes sure isolated cabins survive winter
MATTHEW HILLIER Citizen Staff
A local non-profit manned by a group of dedicated wilderness volunteers has an interesting goal this winter.
The Prince George Backcountry Recreation Society (PGBRS) has been around since 1998 and has been building, supplying, renting and maintaining backcountry cabins ever since.
Currently, the group has six cabins in the Prince George area that have either been built or renovated by the group, with others in the McBride, Quesnel and Smithers area.
The group itself is made up of about 15 core volunteers; however, it also works alongside other groups such as the Caledonia Ramblers and Prince George Mountain Bike Club, among many others, expanding its already considerable resources and having thousands of other volunteers to call on if needed.
The group is currently engaged in restocking winter supplies and maintaining six separate mountain cabins across the Prince George backcountry. This work is often done through airlifts and volunteers and, due to their distance from civilization, often involves a lot of work and dedication from the backcountry team.
“We try to have up-to-date inventories, information about the cabins, and try to keep a tab on issues and things that need to be done,” said PGBRS president Alex Bevington. “Then when we resupply the cabins, we supply every cabin a little bit differently. We maintain a good supply of dry and split firewood; some cabins have propane, some have solar power for lights and recharging devices. Anything that goes into the maintenance of those systems and making sure that everything’s good. Once every few years, we may have a problem with a cabin like a broken window or wildlife encounters or things like that. Every once in a while there’s extra stuff that falls onto our plate.”
Bevington told The Citizen that often the most difficult aspect is coordinating equipment, supplies and especially
firewood out to these remote cabins.
Each cabin needs about 10 cords of cut and dried firewood for the winter, which is roughly a few dump trucks’ worth of wood. With the closest cabin an hour’s drive and half an hour’s hike from Prince George, and the furthest sitting on top of a mountain summit, large trailers and helicopter runs are often needed to drop off these supplies.
“We need trailers and big trucks and lots of people,” said Bevington. “Coordinating is very challenging. And it kind of means that when you pick a day, you’re sort of stuck with that day, even if the weather doesn’t look great,
maintenance issues or a single broken item can be dangerous for those who rent the cabins, which makes the work of his organization all the more important.
“We’re fairly low-commitment during the summer, which keeps our costs down,” said Bevington. “Then the rush in the fall to get the cabin stocked. We like to make sure the cabins are perfectly stocked before winter. In the winter, the cabins are very busy for skiing and snowshoeing — people who do backcountry recreation. We have to be really confident that the wood supplies are full, the propane is working, all these things that are just that much more dangerous in the winter. If you get to a cabin and the chimney pipe is missing or something like that, it would be very bad.”
These cabins are owned by the province; however, PGBRS is responsible for all maintenance, supplies and tracking any issues.
The group is a non-profit and is funded mostly through grants, along with support from locals and donations at the cabins.
These donations, for the most part, cover the cost of supplies and helicopter trips; however, Bevington said grants are often needed to help refurbish and build new cabins.
because there are so many moving parts. So anyway, all that to say this year has gone really well. The biggest challenge has been the weather, just in terms of the helicopter flying and then it being windy or snowy, or cloudy and those are all challenges but helicopter pilots are always wizards. If they say the weather is too rough, we will delay to another day.”
Volunteers also hike up to the more remote cabins and spend a few days and nights doing maintenance and ensuring the cabins are ready for guests and the winter season.
Bevington added that small
“We’ve gotten several rather large grants from the Northern Development Initiative Trust, which is based here in the north, and then a few from the province as well,” said Bevington. “There’s one that’s a regional economic development grant, and then another one that’s like a tourism grant that we’ve gotten. In the last five or six years, it’s been in the order of $800,000 or so that we’ve been able to use to renovate old and also build brand new cabins up in the mountains. We also get a little bit of money from BC Parks and a little bit of money from Rec Sites and Trails as well.”
Coordinating a helicopter is also no small task, and PGBRS often relies on support from other groups to fly out supplies to cabins, as Bevington explained.
PGBRS PHOTO
A helicopter drops off supplies to a remote cabin known as ‘The Farm’ in this photo taken last winter.
UNBC researcher earns kudos for work in rural areas
MATTHEW HILLIER Citizen Staff
UBC Northern Medical Program
associate professor and UNBC faculty member Andrea Gingerich has earned herself a place in an international fellowship thanks to research she has conducted in the North.
Gingerich has earned international recognition as a Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education (KIPRIME) fellow.
She is one of just 14 scholars worldwide selected for the prestigious Sweden-based program, and the only Canadian currently among the fellows.
“Andrea far exceeded all expectations while participating in our fellowship program,” said Jonas Nordquist, director of the KIPRIME Fellows Initiative.
“Her final presentation on the very last day was remarkable and genuinely outstanding. We are immensely proud of her. She embodies the very spirit of a true KIPRIME Fellow.”
Gingerich travelled to Stockholm to take part in the multi-day fellowship program, where she joined some of the world’s leading thinkers in medical education at the Karolinska Institutet — the same university that awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Gingerich spoke to The Citizen about how it felt to receive the honour.
“Overwhelming. It’s hard to describe,” said Gingerich. “It is such a big honour in our field, but it’s just sort of that
unbelievable, really kind of grateful feeling to be named as a fellow and be a part of this cohort of people who are recognized around the world.”
The Karolinska Institutet Prize is given to mid-career researchers who are nominated by previous KIPRIME Prize laureates and competitively selected for the program. Gingerich was nominated by former winners Professor David Irby and Professor Lorelei Lingard.
Gingerich was given the fellowship in part for her research conducted in the North on the ethical and professional complications of practising medicine in smaller communities, and what can be done to ease these issues.
“When we’re in rural communities as health professionals, those who stay have a sense of belonging and you need
to feel integrated into a community — and that means that you interact with people through many different roles,” said Gingerich.
“You will know people as patients, but also as neighbours and on sports teams and all these sorts of things. That makes it a bit ethically complicated because really that imagined ideal is that we would only see patients as patients and not form friendships with them, at the risk of power imbalances and that there could be conflicts of interest. Our rural practitioners need to do this to live well, so we wanna know how they do that well. What could we do to better prepare students and residents for learning how to do that when they go in and do their learning for clinical placements in rural communities?”
She added that living in small communities has helped her research into this complex topic.
“Being here as an educator, I see that we recruit people from small northern remote communities to be medical students with the intent that we hope they will go back and practise there,” said Gingerich.
“But that puts them into these ethically complex situations that we don’t have any formal training for at the moment. I was a not-for-profit doctor briefly in my rural hometown in Ontario. It’s something that I had to deal with. I think I was alert to it and surrounded by our students needing to grapple with something that I don’t think we should be figuring out through trial and error on our own — by haphazardly learning it through experiences and with mentors along the way.”
She also noted that in smaller communities, another ethical issue often arises — doctors often have their medical needs taken care of by their co-workers out of necessity.
Gingerich plans to use this data to help provide information and training to new medical practitioners in isolated settings to help them navigate what may be complex ethical issues.
Gingerich will now sit with KIPRIME fellows, who include scholars from Chile, Brazil, Denmark, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, the Netherlands, Mexico, the United States, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Sweden.
Expensive operations benefit from community, corporate support
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
“We’ve had basically two ways of doing it,” said Bevington. “One is through industry — we haven’t been able to make it work for two or three years now, but in the past we’ve had free helicopters from forestry companies and from oil and gas companies when they’re in the area, which is amazing. That’s a very large amount of money. Canfor, Carrier Sekani, different organizations have
helped us out over time.
“But the tricky part is when we have other organizations help, we’re mostly on their schedule, which is challenging with volunteers. We have no employees, so it’s hard to get people to take time off work. When we fly out, we have a bit more control, but it’s very, very expensive. It’s our largest expense of the year for sure, and it goes through most of the cabin booking revenue of that year.”
Bevington also told The Citizen why
he believes the work PGBRS does is so important.
“There are two aspects of it,” said Bevington. “On the one hand, I just feel like giving back, right? I’ve used a lot of infrastructure that other groups maintain. This is my way of giving back to the recreation community. I think everybody who uses these pitches once in a while makes the load lighter for everybody involved. Then number two, I think these are really good things for
the world — to get people outside in the mountains. These are places with or absent cell phone coverage, just getting away from devices and being outside with friends and pushing ourselves. I think it’s a really positive and healthy thing. We’ve made that argument a few times in funding — why is this important? We think these cabins and this type of infrastructure are a big reason why people live up here; it keeps people in the north.”
UNBC PHOTO
Andrea Gingerich of UNBC has joined the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden as a fellow.
What’s happening in PG
Ghostly Walks go from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 31. This is the spookiest month of the year to explore downtown Prince George and hear the ghost stories about so many of our buildings. Dress for the weather. There are no cancellations. Grab your tickets at www.pgghostlywalks.com
PG Haunted Maze Scare Nights go Friday, Oct. 24 and Saturday, Oct. 25 with medium scare going from 6 to 7:45 p.m. and extreme scare from 8:10 to 11 p.m. Located at the Agriplex. Extreme scare only on Halloween, Friday., Oct. 31 from 8 to 11:30 p.m. This year’s scares are bigger, darker, and creepier than ever. Can you survive the twists and turns of over 1,000 pallets, shadows lurking around every corner, and the chilling laughter echoing through the maze? For the littles there is a no scare day Sunday, Oct. 26 from noon to 3 p.m. Bring the little ones for Halloween fun without the fright. The lights are on, the monsters are gone, and friendly actors will be handing out candy donated by Sun Life Financial & Mothus Financial.
Moran Manor’s Halloween goes Thursday, Oct. 30 and Friday, Oct. 31 from 6 to 10:30 p.m. at 309 Moran Crescent. Celebrate Halloween by enjoying the spooky set up, animatronics, live actors and a haunted maze. Donations this year will go to the pediatrics ward at UHNBC and to the local Cancer Centre. Non perishable food item donations are also welcome. Nonscary goes 6-7:30 p.m. (no jump scare actors). Scary goes from 7:30-10:30 p.m. Please note there are flashing lights and fog machines used during the event.
50th Anniversary Studio Fair 2025, Northern BC’s Finest Professional Artisan Fair goes Friday, Oct. 31 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 1 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 2 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the CN Centre. This event is presented by the Prince George & District Community Arts Council as their annual fundraiser to support the programs available
Halloween Fireworks on Friday, Oct. 31 at 9 p.m. at 2656 Vanier Dr. Parking is available at Westwood elementary school, Vanier Drive cricket pitch, Westwood Mennonite Church on Ospika and Lutheran Church on Dufferin Drive.
throughout the North. Discover oneof-a-kind quality, handcrafted items — delectable gourmet food, luxurious soaps and candles, unique and fashionable clothing and accessories, handcrafted home decor, first class pottery and wood craft, heirloom quality books and toys. Browse and enjoy the beautiful craftsmanship. Delight in the true artisan quality coupled with one-of-a-kind items, lots of unique activities and tons of fun for the entire family. Entry fee is $10, children under 12 are free. Please bring non-perishable food items for the local food bank.
Halloween Fireworks on Friday, Oct. 31 at 9 p.m. at 2656 Vanier Drive. There will be hot chocolate and goodies available for purchase before and after the show. Parking is available at Westwood elementary school, Vanier Drive cricket pitch, Westwood
Mennonite Church on Ospika and Lutheran Church on Dufferin Drive. Dead Sexy, Crones and Infirmary goes Friday, Oct. 31 at the Legion 43 PG, 101-1116 Sixth Ave to celebrate Halloween. This is the Legions’ costume party featuring PG rock legends Dead Sexy and Crones along with Smithers-based powerhouse heavy alt rock band The Infirmary. Tickets in advance are $20, $25 at the door. For tickets visit www.madloon.ca/ tickets/p/halloween-dead-sexy-cronesand-the-infirmary
Fright Night Fever goes Friday, Oct. 31 from 8:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Blackburn Community Centre,2451 Blackburn Rd S. A spine-tingling night of dancing, delicious food, and devilish drinks. Dress to impress — costume contests will run all night with awesome prizes up for grabs. Live performances from two incredible
local bands. Snap memories at our Halloween-themed photobooth. Bar service provided by Worth A Shot Mobile Bar. Food truck by Wings N Things Food Truck PG. Need a safe ride home? Shuttle service runs from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. For tickets visit https://cariboonorth.com/product/ fright-night-fever/
Pineview Halloween Celebration goes Friday, Oct. 31 from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Pineview Recreation Commission, 6470 Bendixon Road. There will be a pumpkin walk at the skating rink while across the road at 6355 Bendixon Rd. there will be a haunted house by donation, including a scare-free walk for the little ones. A full concession will be open throughout the event and the evening will conclude with fireworks. Anyone who would like to reserve a space to hand out goodies at the pumpkin walk, can call the PRC office at 250-963-8214 or Judy at 250-963-9723.
Limelight, Spires and Grande Maul goes Saturday, Nov. 1 at 9 p.m. at the Legion 43 PG, 101-1116 Sixth Ave. Fresh off their debut release local powerhouse indie rock band Limelight will perform along with alt-rock child of Nathan Kelly, Danny Bell, and Connor Pritchard - Grande Maul and also the debut performance from local power duo Spires which features Rabbitt Soup and Johnny Bo Bonny of Kate Pike and the Loose Boots fame. Dress up and get weird. Doors at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance or $20 at the door. For tickets visit www.madloon.ca/tickets/ limelight-grande-maul-and-spires
Shaken Spirits goes Saturday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. at Knox Performance Centre, 1448 Fifth Ave. A night of Song and Spirits from Nove Voce and Tofino Craft Distillery. Tastings will include gin, cedar gin, whiskey, jalapeno vodka, limoncello and absinthe. For those 19+. Tickets at www.eventbrite. ca/e/shaken-spirits-tickets
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO BY CHUCK NISBETT
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
Russell Peters: RELAX World Tour goes Thursday, Nov. 6 at 8 p.m. at CN Centre. Comedy superstar Russell Peters brings his critically acclaimed tour to Prince George. Known for his razor-sharp wit, hilarious cultural observations, and unforgettable crowd work this is chance to see one of the world’s top comedians live. Get ready for an evening of laughter, insight, and side-splitting stories as Russell Peters takes the stage. For tickets visit www. ticketsnorth.evenue.net/RussellPeters.
Coldsnap presents Jeremy Dutcher on Saturday, Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at Knox Performance Centre, 1448 Fifth Ave. Two-time Polaris Music Prize winner, Jeremy Dutcher is a classically trained tenor, Two-Spirit song carrier, polymuse, activist, ethnomusicologist, and member of Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation) in Eastern Canada. Jeremy’s music transcends boundaries: unapologetically playful in its incorporation of classical and jazz influences, full of reverence for the traditional songs of his home, and teeming with the urgency of modern-day resistance. For tickets visit www.coldsnapfestival. tickit.ca/jeremy-dutcher.
Winter Gathering goes Saturday, Nov. 8 at 4 p.m. at the House of Ancestors Conference Centre and Café, 355 Vancouver St. Local vendors will be selling handmade, unique gifts just in time for the holidays. Discover cozy winter décor, artisan treats, handcrafted jewelry, and more while enjoying a family-friendly, festive atmosphere. Support small businesses, explore the creativity of Northern BC. This is a free event hosted by the Vendor Vault.
Pineview Craft and Small Business Fair goes Saturday, Nov. 8 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 9 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Pineview Hall, 6470 Bendixon Road. Full concession both days. Enjoy the regular concession menu plus a couple new delicious items while shopping for those special
gifts. To book a table please call Judy at 250-963-9723. Space is limited.
Perk Up Prince George Coffee Festival goes Saturday, Nov. 8 with two session from 9 to 11 a.m. or noon to 2 p.m. at the Two Rivers Gallery, 725 Canada Games Way. This is a curated coffee-tasting experience featuring u to a dozen local artisan coffee roasters and shops. This is a chance to sip, sample and celebrate incredible coffee culture here in Prince George. All proceeds support youth athletes of the Nechako Karate Club, helping them represent Prince George on provincial, national, and international stages. Live music provided by Pat Emery. For more information and tickets visit www.zeffy.com// perk-up-pg--2025
home. Building community skills, one jar at a time. RSVP by calling Cheryl Doering at 250-562-6325 to register. Craft & Chat at the main branch of the Prince George Public Library goes every Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. in the magazine corner, second floor, where fibre artists are invited to bring their latest projects to share, vent frustrations, brag about successes, get and give help and join in lively discussions. Snacks provided. This event is in partnership with Great Northwest Fibre Fest.
Parkinson Support Group meetings are the first Saturday of each month at 1 p.m. at the Spruce Capital Seniors Centre, 3701 Rainbow Drive. Meetings are informal and are for sharing information about slowing down the progression of PD. There are guest speakers, special events and biweekly exercise sessions and positive social interaction. Use lower parking lot beside ball diamond to access the seniors centre.
Canadian Cancer Society is looking for Wheels of Hope drivers who make a significant impact on the lives of those battling cancer. By providing crucial transportation to treatment appointments you offer not only a ride but also a supportive presence. This role involves flexible scheduling, confirming travel arrangements, ensuring client safety while adhering to CCS policies. CCS will provide training as you join a dedicated team of more than 1600 volunteer drivers. Commit to a minimum of half a day to one day per week and be part of a mission to support and uplift those in need. For more information contact Wheels of Hope at 1-800-939-3333 or email volunteer@ cancer.ca or visit www.cancer.ca// living-with-cancer/how-we-can-help/ cancer-travel-and-accommodation-services-bc
Free Food Preservation Workshops go every Thursday presented by PG Aboriginal Business Development Centre, 1200 LaSalle Avenue. Want to learn how to make jam or pickle fresh veggies? No experience is needed. Just bring your curiosity. Participants will learn jam-making and vegetable pickling step by step. All supplies are provided and everything made will be shared among participants to take
Myeloma Support Group goes every third Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. at Commonwealth Financial, 575 Victoria St. Everyone is welcome who has been diagnosed, those who are caregivers, family members and friends. Wheelchair accessible parking at the back of the building. For more information call Viv Lougheed at 250-981-2618.
Trivia Night at Nancy O’s goes every other Wednesday at 8 p.m., 1261 Third Ave. Book a spot by calling ahead at 250-562-8066.
If you’ve got an event coming up email us at news@pgcitizen.ca to offer details including name of the event, the date, time and location, ticket price and where to get them and a little bit about what’s happening, too. LOCF
Jeremy Dutcher
Congratulations to each of the 12 finalists and honorees for their exceptional and noteworthy accomplishments!
We warmly welcome you to Ivy’s Family Kitchen, where our commitment is to share the genuine and delectable flavors of Vietnamese cuisine with our cherished guests. We invite you to join us at our restaurant, conveniently situated in downtown Prince George, and embark on a delightful journey to savor the essence of Vietnam.
The Citizen: A lifetime of achievement
KENNEDY GORDON Citizen Managing Editor
As it was when it published its first edition in 1916, The Prince George Citizen is once again locally owned and independent of Canada’s large newspaper chains.
Cameron Stolz and Therresa Randall-Stolz bought the paper from Glacier Media in February 2024 to prevent its possible closure.
Since then, they’ve doubled the staff, expanded the weekly paper to at least 48 pages with regional distribution of 23,500 copies; nearly doubled web traffic to 1.5 million pageviews a month; and, this year, saw reporters take three Canadian Community Newsmedia Awards for the first time since 2017.
It’s been a welcome revival for the city’s oldest surviving business (after the closure of The Bay), which is just one year younger than Prince George itself and older than the Chamber of Commerce that will honour it with a Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday night.
So how did we get here?
To mark The Citizen’s 90th anniversary in 2005, columnist Valerie Giles compiled its history. Drawing from that, here’s an updated look at our story.
Founded in 1916, The Prince George Citizen quickly became the city’s newspaper of record and its most enthusiastic booster. Over the decades, it evolved with the technology of the trade while maintaining its role as a community voice.
Early editions were printed on a small Miehle press that could handle only two pages at a time. By the late 1920s, upgraded presses, folding machines, and type-setting equipment improved efficiency and quality. Local residents often dropped by the office to share news, and telegraphed updates from Vancouver supplied provincial and national stories.
A new building on Quebec Street opened in 1927, housing three printers who produced both the paper and commercial print jobs. By the late 1930s, circulation had reached about 1,200 copies at $2 a year.
The Citizen earned national recognition in the 1940s, winning multiple Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association awards — including a 1944 trophy for outstanding community service despite wartime newsprint shortages.
Post-war modernization brought major advances: a new Miehle Vertical press in 1947 boosted output to 5,000 sheets per hour, and later equipment upgrades in the 1950s and ’60s introduced photo-engraving, offset colour printing, and faster production runs.
As Prince George grew with the pulp-mill boom of the 1960s, so did The Citizen. After a move to 150 Brunswick
Street in 1963, the paper expanded again in 1976.
Ownership passed from local publisher Binnie Milner to Southam Newspapers in 1969, then to Hollinger in 1996, and Glacier Media in 2005.
Southam’s investment in computerized word processing made The Citizen one of Canada’s first small dailies to go digital in 1981.
National attention came in 2006 when reporter Gordon Hoekstra won the Michener Award for his series of 35 stories exploring the causes of death among logging truckers.
After more than five decades on Brunswick Street, The Citizen relocated in 2017 to the second floor of the IWA Building at Third Avenue and Winnipeg Street, later settling at its current home at 505 Fourth Ave.
During this time, market conditions meant the paper stopped daily paid distribution and moved to a free weekly model. However, the paper’s website continues to provide 24-7 coverage of city hall, the courts, local sports and more, as well as the latest breaking news.
The paper and its website together are the most-read news source north of Kamloops, with coverage of Prince George and its surrounding communities.
More than a century after its founding, The Prince George Citizen continues to evolve with its community, and we continue to be the city’s trusted chronicler and strongest advocate.
EXPLORATION PLACE PHOTO
The Citizen was located on Quebec Street for several decades, as seen here in the 1920s. The paper later moved to a larger building on Brunswick Street, with its press in a separate building across the street. After a short move to another space, the business is now located at 505 4th Avenue.
Tourism PG’s new film highlights area’s ‘living story’
CHRISTINE DALGLEISH Citizen Staff
There’s a new Tourism Prince George video called Feel the Land, Know the People that was released recently featuring Lheidli T’enneh Elder Darlene McIntosh talking about what it means to live in Prince George surrounded by nature.
The short film was produced in partnership with Re:BC and its purpose is a call to travel with intention, to sink into the land’s wisdom, respect its histories and walk softly throughout the land, the press release said.
McIntosh is a respected Indigenous knowledge keeper whose voice echoes with the teachings of her ancestors. Her words transport viewers into the spiritual and ecological heart of the region, where rivers are sacred, trees breathe with us, and the ancient forest reminds us that the land is alive, the press release described.
“We breathe out, they breathe in. They breathe out, we breathe in,”she said, describing the trees as sentient relatives, rooted in tradition and time.
Showcasing the traditional territory of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, including the Ancient Forest/Chun T’oh Whudujut Park, videographer Geoff Tomlin-Hood first met with McIntosh at The Exploration Place’s Lheidli T’enneh exhibit and asked her to speak about the four seasons and the deep connection between humans and nature.
“People love living in Prince George because we have four seasons,” she said.
“We have spring, summer, autumn and winter and they are all so unique and each one gives us a certain energy. We unconsciously take it in but we don’t consciously realize what it gives us.”
Winter is supposed to be our calming season, McIntosh added.
A segment of the film focused on the Ancient Forest/Chun T’oh Whudujut Park and that winter scene left a lasting impression on the elder.
“Winter is the time you can relax and take it easy while knowing that we need
to go outdoors and take in the fresh air and go skating and do cross country and do whatever you want to do outside — take that beautiful walk where you see the snow glistening like diamonds, just take it all in,” McIntosh said.
“I thought about the Ancient Forest and how beautiful and quiet it was. It’s so spiritually connected, so grounding. There have been thousands of people visiting Chun T’oh Whudujut and they love it there. It is under Lheidli’s protection and that is so important to us.
We want to showcase who the Lheidli T’enneh people are through this natural phenomenon — the only inland rainforest in the whole world. How lucky are we? How lucky are we as a community that we can protect this beautiful area.”
It was important for McIntosh to speak about the deep connection humans have to Mother Earth and the water in and around Prince George.
“And the salmon,” she said.
“My mum used to talk about the salmon when she was a little girl growing up on the north side of the reserve in Shelley and she said at night when the salmon run came through all you could hear was the whistle because the fins were above the water and then when the sun came up you’d look at the Fraser River and it would just be a mass of red. She told me there were so many salmon that you could walk on the backs of salmon to the other side. Today our runs are tiny compared to what it used to be and that was at least
80 years ago.”
During the film McIntosh wanted to emphasize the connection between the people and Mother Earth.
“She sustains our life here and all we do is take from her, overpopulate and pollute our air and our water and our land and I thought we needed to plant a seed to say remember what you’re grateful for and what Mother Earth gives us,” McIntosh said.
“We’re all equal on this beautiful Earth plain.”
These thoughts inspired McIntosh to write a different kind of welcome to the Traditional Territory of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation as she is often asked to begin major events held throughout the city.
“So I wrote a traditional welcome with regards to Mother Earth, Chun T’oh Whudujut, our waters that we need to protect, our salmon that we need to protect and it just kind of flowed and then Geoffery the videographer put my words to what he filmed and the images are just beautiful,” McIntosh said.
This campaign aims to amplify Indigenous voices in tourism storytelling and encourages visitors to form deeper connections, recognize the sacredness of a place, and share in the responsibility to protect it. To travel not just to see, but to belong, the press release stated.
“This project is a perfect example of how authentic storytelling can shift the way we think about travel, and the impact we can have not only while we are there but after we have left,” said Kirsten Ovstaas, representative of Re:BC.
“Prince George isn’t just a destination; it’s a living story.”
This project not only showcases the beautiful scenery, it honours the proud culture of the Lheidli T’enneh and shares the true spirit of Prince George, said Carmen Herman, Interim CEO, Tourism Prince George.
“We hope this video will inspire people to not only visit, but to returned changed, more present and more connected,” Herman said.
To watch the 3:35-minute video visit youtu.be/p9emtLPeIUM.
RE:BC SCREENSHOT
Lheidli T’enneh First Nation Elder Darlene McIntosh is the narrator for the latest Tourism Prince George film called Feel the Land, Know the People.
RE:BC SCREENSHOT
Tourism Prince George’s latest film, Feel the Land, Know the People features nature surrounding the city.
Cat trap fever: It’s legal, but animal lovers don’t like it
MATTHEW HILLIER Citizen Staff
A long-held bylaw in the City of Prince George has been met with some controversy from animal lovers across the city.
The bylaw in question is Bylaw No. 8898, specifically section 17, which outlines the conditions and circumstances under which cat trapping is allowed.
The bylaw itself sparked conversation on the Prince George subreddit in early October when an individual who had recently moved to the city expressed surprise that the bylaw existed and even considered petitioning to have it changed.
The post received a lot of attention, garnering 105 comments that ranged from support for the original poster’s opinion to defence of the bylaw and its necessity.
Other posts included some surprising allegations, such as locals allegedly trapping cats on their property and dumping them in obscure locations, among others.
The bylaw states that cats trapped must be taken to an animal control officer or the Animal Control Shelter when trapped, meaning if true, these locals would be breaking city bylaws.
The bylaw restricts when and how outdoor cat traps can be used, requiring them to be placed in shaded areas and checked hourly.
Traps must be closed overnight and cannot be set during extreme temperatures.
The bylaw also stipulates that only “cats at large” can be trapped on a property owner’s private land (and where that person lives) and that outdoor cats must have identification at all times.
The Citizen spoke to Kent MacNeill, manager of bylaw services in Prince George, about cat trapping in the city, the difficulty in regulating it and the strain it can cause on the Humane Society.
“The main thing is that you’re following the letter of the law here,” said MacNeill. “Then it should be a fairly safe procedure, but it’s hard to regulate. If
Trapping feral cats is legal in Prince George, but some people strongly disagree with that bylaw.
people are setting traps, it’s hard for us to know that they’re actually being set. I think our big ask is that people need to realize that our Humane Society only has so much room for cats. We would suggest that they actually call the Humane Society and make sure, because there’s a chance you’re going to catch a cat that maybe doesn’t have an owner or that we’re unable to track down that owner, and now it’s going to a facility that may not even have the ability to take the cat on.”
The Humane Society is the designated drop-off for animals that have been trapped; however, taking in trapped animals can cause strain on the system, regardless of whether the animal is feral or owned by a local.
MacNeill added more detail about how the distinction between feral cats and strays can lead to clogging the system and costing animal shelter services in the city backlogs.
“There’s a difference between just a stray cat and what we would consider a feral cat,” said MacNeill. “We do have quite a few feral cats in the city of Prince George. Every city has a lot of feral cats, and feral cats are more problematic because they’re very difficult to rehome because they are basically wild animals, right? The Humane Society only has so much ability to actually, you know, manage a cat’s behaviour when it’s feral, right? So, yes, there’s no difference whether it’s your neighbour’s cat or whether it’s just an unknown cat that
trapping can also cause severe injuries, distress or even death for both the animal intended to be trapped or others that may accidentally be caught,” said Demers. “With this in mind, cat trapping should only be used in situations where an animal is in distress, needs treatment or assistance, or alongside a Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) program.”
Demers continued by stating the conditions in which cat trapping may be necessary.
happens to be running around without an owner.”
Often, trapped cats can be outdoor cats with owners, meaning animal control or the Humane Society has to track down the owners before reconnecting the cat, further straining resources.
MacNeill recognizes that occasionally this bylaw may be needed to trap feral or stray animals, but in the case of nuisance animals with an owner, he would always like to see proper communication between neighbours come first.
“I always want to see neighbours talking to one another as a first resort,” said MacNeill. “Talk to your neighbour. Typically, what we find is that people are upset that the cats are getting into their gardens. That seems to be the number one point — they use their vegetable gardens or their flower gardens, dig them up and use them as their restroom. The number one concern. We would obviously ask that you talk to your neighbour and let them know that this is troublesome behaviour and you would like them to keep the cat indoors. That would be the big thing.”
Kahlee Demers, manager of companion animal welfare policy at the BC SPCA, also commented in a written statement to The Citizen on cat trapping and the possible dangers it can cause to the animals it affects.
“As much as the BC SPCA recognizes that trapping may sometimes be the safest option for bringing an animal into care, it is important to remember that
“The BC SPCA believes that cat trapping is only necessary to support TNR programs for free-roaming cats — if an animal is in distress and requires treatment or assistance, or in situations where a missing owned animal needs to be humanely trapped by a professional to bring them home to their loving family,” said Demers.
In the written statement, Demers also provided the following tips to ensure any trapping remains humane: Place traps in locations sheltered from the weather.
Ensure that trapped animals are not left for more than four hours in a trap without access to food and water.
Or, if food and water are provided in the trap, check traps at least once every 24 hours.
Release any lactating females that are caught until the babies have been located and removed.
Demers also included reasons why cats in particular tend to be a focus of trapping and bylaw services.
“Cats continue to be undervalued by society compared to other companion animals and are born in numbers that far exceed available homes, which can lead to a greater population of unowned or outdoor cats,” stated Demers.
“However, it is important to understand that the sheer number of outdoor cats across the province far surpasses any animal welfare organization’s in-shelter capacity to bring them into care.”
Demers added that outdoor cats often follow a spectrum of socialization toward humans and can range from friendly to feral, meaning it can be very situational whether trapping an animal is in its best interests.
MONIKA ERDEL/PEXELS
Community helps spruce up seniors’ Willow River home
With a grant and donations from local businesses, they have a new roof
CHRISTINE DALGLEISH Citizen Staff
When Marie Hallam, 76, reached out to The Citizen in July to ask for a cash donation to get a new roof she seemed surprised to hear the answer was no.
Marie and husband Rick had reached out to several local businesses with a donation letter outlining her need for a new roof.
She included a brief family history of circumstances that saw the couple on a fixed income with a budget that wouldn’t stretch far enough to include necessary home improvements.
When The Citizen read the letter and reached out to hear the rest of the Marie’s story, she never dreamed we’d do better than donate a bit of cash but we did what we do best, we helped spread the word to the community that these seniors needed a helping hand and the community answered the call.
Marie told The Citizen she and Rick had bought their home on an acre in Willow River in 1968 for $1,800.
“And we’d like to stay in our home for the next 20 years or so because we love it here — we love our house, we love our neighbours, the peace and quiet and being so close to nature,” Marie explained.
“Rick and I have been together for 57 years and I plan to live until I’m 100!”
Marie’s husband Rick, 78, took ill in his early 40s with a hereditary form of kidney disease that had gone undetected until his kidneys began to fail. The disease was so debilitating it did not allow him to continue working and presented other health issues as time went by.
In her younger years Marie had worked on a cattle farm, then cleaned houses for a living later in life and had always volunteered extensively throughout the community.
“I would do a lot of housecleaning for free,” Marie said. “I’d take people to their appointments, make them meals, and pick up groceries and medications.”
Marie was volunteering at the Prince George Council of Seniors Resource Centre earlier this year, like she does, when she shared her story about needing a new roof with staff.
“For Rick, especially, it’s hard. We’re used to being the ones giving — not getting,” said Marie. “This is something I’ve never had to do, and it’s just heartbreaking that I had to put my hand out and ask people for help.”
The Hallams received a grant through the Prince George Council of Seniors called Seniors’ Emergency Pilot Program fund, held in trust by the Prince George Community Foundation.
Marie gratefully accepted the grant money but was still short about $5,000 to get the metal roof replaced, according to an estimate she had received from a roofing company earlier in the year. When a Council of Seniors staff member offered to help her set up a gofundme page, despite feeling uncomfortable asking for help, Marie held out
hope that they would be able to raise enough to cover the cost of a new roof but as time passed it became clear that there would not be enough money raised to get a new roof.
Marie would stop by The Citizen every week to pick up a bundle of newspapers she distributed throughout her neighbourhood in Willow River because a lot of them are seniors and don’t get to town on a weekly basis, she explained.
When Marie dropped off her request for donation letter at the The Citizen when she came to pick up the weekly paper, Marie never dreamed of what came next.
It was just two days after Marie’s story was published that Jon Bower, chief operations officer of Ridgeline Roofing, reached out to the newspaper to say his company could most likely help Marie and Rick.
The Citizen connected Marie with Ridgeline and crew members went out to their Willow River home east of Prince George to inspect the aged roof to determine that their team would happily replace the it and repair any damage underneath the metal at no
cost to the Hallams.
“When Ridgeline offered to do my roof for free, I was overjoyed,” Marie said.
Reflecting on the past, Marie explained how her house remained unfinished all these years.
“When my husband took ill all those years ago, everything stopped on the house. All our money went to medication for him so there was nothing left for the house to be finished so it was just something we learned to live with. We had planned on putting siding on the house but things got away from us and before we knew it things started to fall apart.”
The Ridgeline roofing crew went out to Willow River on Monday, Oct. 20, to tear off the old roof and install the new one.
Noah Podolski, Ridgeline partner and foreman, was on site with his six-member team of roofers to get the job done for the Hallams.
“I have heard a lot of good things about Marie helping out in the community, so when we heard she needed a roof we thought we could help out,” Podolski said.
SEE ‘COUPLE’ ON NEXT PAGE
CITIZEN PHOTO BY CHRISTINE DALGLEISH
Ridgeline Roofing donated their time and materials to install a new metal roof on Marie and Rick Hallam’s Willow River home. Here is the crew with home owner Marie Hallam in the middle.
Families enjoying new gallery at The Exploration Place
MATTHEW HILLIER Citizen Staff
The Exploration Gallery, described as a new child-friendly and hands-on learning space, has been completed and is already popular, The Exploration Place has announced.
In a statement, the Exploration Place said that thanks to the gallery, the science centre has seen enormous engagement online and one of the busiest admission-by-donation Thursdays of the year.
Since the opening, attendance and membership sales have skyrocketed as young families and returning visitors reconnect with the museum and its new family-friendly focus.
The museum also reported that between May and October 2025, it recorded a nearly 10 per cent increase in visitation and a 14 per cent increase in overall revenue compared to the same period in 2024.
“We heard from our visitors that they missed the hands-on experiences that defined the Exploration Place for so many years,” said Alyssa Leier, executive director. “This project is our response. Seeing families fill the space again and hearing the laughter and excitement — it’s exactly what we hoped for.”
Plans for the gallery were initially laid in late 2024, and the gallery is reported to have grown piecemeal as the Exploration Place gained funding. The Exploration Gallery was created in large part due to local feedback calling for
the return of interactive, child-focused exhibits.
“This project is great for Prince George, but it also helps us in a big way,” Leier said. “It reconnected us with our community and strengthened the museum’s sustainability. People see that their feedback shaped these changes, and responding to that feedback has been a win-win for everyone.”
The science centre notes that it is still adding some finishing touches to the Exploration Gallery and that one final surprise — something long missed from the former Children’s Gallery — will soon arrive in a different part of the museum.
The Exploration Place adds that it was able to bring this new surprise thanks to stretching its remaining funds and donor dollars further than expected.
The Exploration Place thanked the Y.P. Heung Foundation, Canfor, Prince George Community Foundation, TELUS, BC Hydro, the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George and the Prince George Nechako Rotary Club for their support in getting the Exploration Gallery open.
Couple grateful for the donations of time and materials
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS
PAGE
“Things are very expensive nowadays, especially when you use high-end materials and when you really want something done right it costs a lot and we know that so once in a while we just like to help people who are in need and we want to give back to the community and do our part. We felt Marie was the perfect person to do this with so here we are.”
Kenton Friesen of Friesen Contracting was also part of the team that worked on Marie and Rick’s home.
“We’ve got Kenton here with us today because he’s an expert in metal just to make sure things are going smoothly,” Podolski said. “He’s here as an extra experienced hand on site.”
Marie and Rick installed their current metal roof 40 years ago.
“The roof was definitely coming to its
end,” Podolski said.
“There’s always some awkward spots on a roof and they had some leaking.”
“It rained last night and we had a leak in the kitchen,” Marie talked about the serendipitous timing of the new roof going on her house.
“I was afraid the water leaking into the kitchen was going to ruin the fridge but Noah and his team took care of it.”
“So obviously it’s an overdue roof replacement,” Podolski said.
“And so we took the old metal roof off and Marie wants to keep the metal to recycle it — which doesn’t surprise me. We did an inspection to make sure the roof deck is good and found an issue with some insulation so we fixed that.”
As part of the process Ridgeline put down DiamondDeck, which is a synthetic polymer-based underlayment used as a water-resistant layer beneath
metal roofing and then continued with all the steps to make sure their roof would last for years.
“I thought this was going to take days but the professionalism is just awesome,” Marie said.
As she watched the work in progress on her roof Marie took an emotional moment to talk about what it was like to get to this moment.
“This is like winning the lottery for me,” Marie said as she looked at Podolski.
“I wanted to thank Ridgeline for everything they’ve done and Noah, you’ve been an awesome person to come out and help us like this.”
“It’s been a joy,” Noah smiled at Marie.
“We’re just happy that we can help you.”
“Helping out wherever I could in community is something I have always
loved and cherished doing and I never expected anyone to say they’d give me a new roof and the gofundme just took off after that piece came out in The Citizen,” Marie said with great emotion.
“We never dreamed we’d get so much support. It was phenomenal and I want to thank everyone for all their help and donations. When Jon came out to inspect my house and told me Ridgeline would replace my roof for free my shoulders, that were so heavy before, were light for the first time in years.”
Editor’s note: The funds that came from the Seniors’ Emergency Fund pilot program with permission from the Council of Seniors and the gofundme donations will be redirected to get much-needed new windows in the Hallam’s home. Marie has also accessed the CleanBC energy grant for new windows.
EXPLORATION PLACE PHOTO
The Exploration Place is offering new child-friendly activities based on community feedback.
Fundraiser: Nove Voce Choir serving up Shaken Spirits
The musical event includes tastings of six Tofino Craft Distillery products
CHRISTINE DALGLEISH
Citizen Staff
Having planned months in advance and with the premium spirits on hand and safely stored in town since the summer, Shaken Spirits presented by the Nove Voce Choral Society is well and truly set to go on Saturday, Nov. 1 at Knox Performance Centre in downtown Prince George.
Imagine tasting a 90-proof Psychedelic Jellyfish Absinthe or the Cedar Gin at 73 per cent alcohol.
In all, six premium spirits from Tofino Craft Distillery are on the delightful sampling menu.
Tastings will be accompanied by songs performed by the international award-winning choir Nove Voce, which is using this event as a fundraiser for future travel to international competitions they keep winning.
Last year’s Hold My Beer event was so successful the choir thought they’d give it another go — but this time taking advantage of a choir member’s connection to Tofino Craft Distillery.
“They were so lovely to deal with and when I asked them if they wanted to be involved with a tasting event they said absolutely,” said Robin Norman, Nove Voce choral director.
“They’ve given us six of their favourite liquors and spirits we can taste, and we’ll get to serenade people during the event.”
The event will showcase Tofino Craft Distillery’s Old Growth Cedar Gin, West Coast Gin, West Coast Whiskey, Jalapeno Vodka, Limoncello and the one and only Psychedelic Jellyfish Absinthe — all craft, distilled, organic spirits.
The distillery offers guidance for tastings, including combining the alcohol into a variety of mixed drinks, so for the Jalapeno Vodka, the drink on offer will be a Spicy Caesar.
“Most people will want to drink the
During Shaken Spirits, a Nove Voce Choral Society fundraiser, Tofino Craft Distillery premium spirits will be on offer while the choir entertains on Saturday, Nov 1 at 7 p.m. at Knox Performance Centre in downtown Prince George.
whiskey neat,” Norman said.
There will also be other cocktail bases available to create a mixed drink from a variety of the other spirits.
“So people don’t have to down a half a shot of straight 90-proof Cedar Gin as part of the tasting,” Norman laughed.
“I should mention people aren’t getting a huge amount of these spirits to sample because there are six different tasters to go through. They will be smaller because of the 90-proof factor, and the Psychedelic Jellyfish Absinthe is at 73 per cent alcohol.”
Tofino Craft Distillery spirits have earned accolades on the global stage — West Coast Whiskey was awarded gold at the 2024 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, Old Growth Cedar Gin received silver, and Psychedelic Jellyfish Absinthe took bronze.
“These are quality spirits that add a lovely piece to this event,” Norman said.
“So people are going to be getting really beautiful, beautiful spirits, including the really fun one — the West Coast Whiskey awarded gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2024 — and also their traditional Italian Limoncello liqueur that’s really a sipper. The fun thing about the Limoncello is
“We were just in a really good position with this event as we got our liquor licence early, and in this circumstance it really pays to be a volunteer organization that tries to get everything done before the school year starts because we weren’t left with uncertainty as other organizations may be faced with at this time.”
Listening to a world-renowned choir while sipping premium spirits is one way Nove Voce will be celebrating its 20th year.
“This is our first event of the season and I was trying to incorporate some of our favourite pieces into the anniversary celebration that will be held in May, but some of the pieces just didn’t fit,” Norman explained.
that choir member Kathy Perreira has written a piece that’s called Lemon Smash and so we’ll sing that song as you drink the Limoncello.”
Norman would be remiss if she didn’t mention the Psychedelic Jellyfish Absinthe, which includes ingredients such as wormwood, anise, fennel, hyssop and lemon balm — creating a truly unconventional spirit.
“The distillery recommended we serve the absinthe with lemonade,” Norman said.
“They thought that would be a nice way to end the evening. This one is 73 per cent alcohol, so ‘enjoy responsibly with friends’ is what they say. I have to say I feel incredibly lucky that we managed to connect with Tofino Craft Distillery. They have been absolutely wonderful, their products are fabulous, and they’ve been incredibly supportive.”
Norman said several choir members volunteered to pick up the spirits in August and they’ve been in safe storage ever since.
“We were incredibly lucky because we didn’t have to make those hard decisions about not supporting government workers,” Norman said about the ongoing BCGEU rotating strike.
“We really love doing Halloween concerts and we’ve got five of our pieces that are wonderful and weird and creepy, and probably our favourite is one called Mulligatawny MacBeth by Canadian composer John Govedas, and it’s entirely based on MacBeth’s witches’ brew — ‘Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.’ So it seemed like such a natural fit that we were going to do that in front of a cauldron before we serve you absinthe. It all seems so perfect in my head.”
They’ve got another favourite they will perform called Chile Con Carne, which lends itself nicely to the Jalapeno Vodka, Norman added.
Other pieces we really love and will be great to revisit are songs like I See Fire by Ed Sheeran that the choir loves to sing, and Creep by Radiohead. Those are the highlights and they give you a really good sense of the mix of music people will hear during the event. So you’ll be a little bit scared but not too much. It’ll be a little bit creepy but not too much, and it lets us wear our black capes again. We haven’t done anything Halloween-y since the first year of COVID where we sang in a church parking lot with a rotating audience, so it’s going to be really fun to get to do this event.”
Space is limited. For tickets, which are $60 each, visit www.eventbrite.ca/e/ shaken-spirits-tickets.
Throwback Thursday: Week of October 30
Oct. 31, 1958: Three unnamed Citizen employees in masks try to spook classified advertising clerk Tammy Lamb as Prince George prepared for Halloween Night. CITIZEN FILE
PHOTO BY KEN ORR
Oct. 31, 1994: Tracey Dery, left, threw a fright into a group of young swimmers during the Monster Splash at the Four Seasons Pool. The centre’s basement was turned into a haunted house. CITIZEN FILE PHOTO BY DOUG WELLER
Nov. 3, 1975: Costumed students from Millar Addition school handed out candies to young hospital patients missing Halloween at Prince George Regional Hospital. The students made the treat bags themselves and parents supplied the goodies. CITIZEN FILE
PHOTO BY DOUG WELLER
Oct. 31, 2015: You Jingyu, an international College of New Caledonia student from China, carved her first jack-o-lantern at the Gathering Place during the college’s annual pumpkin-carving contest. CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Artist paints local classic cars for new charity calendar
CHRISTINE DALGLEISH Citizen Staff
It’s that time of year again when those old schoolers who like to write things down to start thinking about finding next year’s calendar to keep track of their activities and appointments.
Rick Mintz has once again painted pictures with a theme and then put prints of the paintings in a calendar for a fundraising calendar for the BC Children’s Hospital.
Mintz used to fundraise by helping organize a golf tournament for the Canadian Cancer Society when they had a kids’ camp at Nukko Lake but when the camp moved south he was approached by organizers to volunteer for the BC Children’s Hospital golf tournament.
“Before I came on board they were buying all the prizes, all the food, everything,” Mintz recalled.
“When I got there I said ‘oh no, we don’t buy anything’ so from then on everything was donated — steaks for the barbecue, hole-in-one and all the other prizes — and we made as much as $22,000 for the hospital during one golf tournament. Then COVID came and shut us down and after the height of the pandemic I just couldn’t get the volunteers back and I’d been doing it for 13 years and they’d been doing it for 15 years. So they were done and I don’t blame them. So that’s when I thought I have these paintings from along the Cariboo Highway — why not put them
Over the years Mintz has raised more than $20,000 for the cause.
into calendars and sell them.”
Mintz loves the idea of fundraising for such an important healthcare facility that cares for more than 4,000 Northern BC children during almost 10,000 visits each year.
“The more you deal with the hospital
the more you realize how critical it is to children in Northern BC,” Mintz said.
“I have no real connection to the hospital but I started the project and now I’m into it and dealing with the people down there, they’re really good and I think they’re pretty happy with my stuff
— this year I have passed a fundraising total of $20,000. I know it’s not much in the greater scheme of things but I know I am contributing in a small way.”
He also sells the original paintings that are used to create the calendar to add to his fundraising efforts.
This year’s theme is Cruisin’ Classics.
“The cover is of a friend’s car — I grew up with him in McBride and he lives in Kelowna now but all the pictures inside the calendar are from Prince George,” Mintz said.
“One of the guys that belongs to the Cruisin’ Classics Car Club asked me to do the calendar of their cars. So I thought ‘sure!’”
Rick’s favourite is showcased in the calendar is the ’69 Camero.“It’s my good friend’s car — I guy I golf with — and it’s a pretty car,” Mintz said.
“I am really impressed with the way I got the colour of the car because it’s a metallic green and it’s so hard to get the paint right. It’s my favourite for sure.”
Mintz’s BC Children’s Hospital fundraising calendar can be found at Studio 2880, Books & Co., the Central BC Railway & Forestry Museum, Omineca Arts Centre, Open Door Café in the Hart and during the Prince George & District Community Arts Council’s 50th annual Studio Fair at CN Centre from Friday, Oct. 31 to Sunday, Nov. 2 and other craft fairs held throughout the community.
For more information and to view Mintz’s artwork visit www.ramart.ca or reach out to him at rmintz@shaw.ca.
Province-wide measles cases inch up, all in Northern BC
ED HITCHINS Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Four new measles cases — all within the Northern Health region — have been reported by the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC).
The authority has said, as of its latest report on Thursday, Oct. 23, there are a total of 299 confirmed cases in the province, up from 295 on Monday, Oct. 20. That number hadn’t moved since last
Thursday, Oct. 16.
The four new cases increases Northern Health’s regional count to 226 confirmed, up from 222 in the report on October 20th.
This accounts for 75 per cent of total cases across the province, dwarfing the region with the second highest total — the Fraser Health authority — which has just 41 confirmed cases. Additionally, there are 19 cases listed as probable, which could push
Northern Health’s total up to 245.
Cases are considered active for the first four days after a rash manifests, the 10 days after other symptoms manifest or 10 days after an asymptomatic case is confirmed.
Symptoms of measles include coughing, runny nose, red and inflamed eyes which are sensitive to light and a rash, which begins on the face and/or neck.
The BCCDC warns an infection could cause complications including otitis
media (middle ear infection), pneumonia and diarrhea.
Additional complications include respiratory failure and encephalitis (brain inflammation).
Anyone experiencing symptoms is asked to contact their local healthcare provider.
The latest measles case count from the BCCDC can be found at https://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/ diseases-conditions/measles.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY CHRISTINE DALGLEISH
Rick Mintz has once again created a fundraising calendar for the BC Children’s Hospital. This year’s theme is the Cruisin’ Classics Car Club.
Local Sports Cougars’ cross-border clashes set to continue
After a loss to Seattle at home, the Cats are heading to the U.S.
TED CLARKE Citizen Staff
After three losses to the Prince George Cougars, six weeks into the season, the Seattle Thunderbirds decided enough was enough.
They think they’re a lot better team than their record shows, and they did a good job of convincing the Cougars — and their fans in a CN Centre crowd of 3,551 — that it’s indeed the case.
Boosted by the return of NHL first-rounders Radim Mrtka and Braeden Cootes together in the T-birds’ lineup for the first time this season, Seattle finally got the better of the Cats Saturday, winning 4-3.
Cootes, 18, picked by the Vancouver Canucks 15th overall in the June draft, led the T-birds’ cause with two goals and an assist.
He got reacquainted with his junior teammates in time for Friday’s 6-3 loss to the Cougars after playing three NHL games with the Canucks, who selected him with their first-round choice, 15th overall in the June draft.
The winner for Seattle came late in the game after a face-off win. Centre Colton Gerrior got a shot on the PG net and Sawyer Mayes got to the rebound and belted it in from close range with 3:55 left.
The 18-year-old Mrtka, the Buffalo Sabres’ ninth-overall pick in 2025, was picked as the third star in his first game since being sent back after a four-game stint in the American Hockey League with the Rochester Americans.
The six-foot-six 221-pound Czech takes up a lot of territory and his presence on the back end made offensive-zone entries difficult for the Cougars.
The Cougars had just six shots in the
first period and were limited to five in the third, on the way to being outshot 29-22.
The T-birds had the lead for a large chunk of the opening two periods. Brendan Rudolph got them going in the first period, taking a saucer pass from Cootes on his backhand to finish off a 2-on-1 rush four minutes in.
Seattle made it 2-0 on a power play. Cootes took a pass from Mrtka and found the net with a patient wrist shot from the left circle 13:37 in, his first in two games since his return from the Canucks.
Just before Cootes scored his first
of the night, Cougar goalie Alexander Levshyn appeared to hurt his right leg when he got his pad down on the ice to make a save on Cootes. He conferred with athletic therapist Dave Adolph during the media timeout but stayed in the game until he was replaced by Josh Ravensbergen with just 16 seconds left in the second period.
The Cougars cut the lead in half late in the period. Brock Souch stole the puck from Mrtka and gave it to his linemate, Terik Parascak, and the Washington Capitals prospect dangled around several T-birds before lifting a backhander in past Grayson Malinoski.
In the second period the Cougars tied it 2-2 on the power play. Jett Lajoie was parked in front of the net and had T-birds defenceman Kaleb Hartmann draped all over him but still managed to get a shot away after Kayden Lemire shoveled the puck into the crease from the side.
Cootes restored the Seattle lead when he scored form the slot after Carson Carels had trouble controlling a carom off the side boards.
Cougars left winger Kooper Gizowski, a 20-year-old former Lethbridge Hurricane, picked up over the summer in the WHL waiver draft, continued his remarkable goal-scoring streak, notching his 12th goal in 12 games to finish off a Prince George power play and that deadlocked the score 3-3, 1:33 into the third period. Gizowski was in his office on the right side, right where Parascak knew he’d be, and he took Parascak’s no-look pass from behind the goal-line and fired a howitzer into the top corner.
The Cougars got Ravensbergen to the bench for the extra skater for the most of the final two minutes but didn’t have a great chance until the final faceoff. Souch pushed the puck across to Parascak, who dove to redirect it, but it hit the post.
It wouldn’t have mattered anyway because time expired as soon the puck was dropped.
LOOSE PUCKS: Souch kept pace with Gizowski and maintained his WHL-leading 12-game point streak alive with his assist on Parascak’s goal in the second period ... The Cougars will be on the road for an extended six-game stretch. They’ll play three games this weekend, visiting Portland on Friday, Seattle on Saturday and Vancouver in a Sunday matinee, Nov. 2. Then they go back over the border to play in Portland (Nov. 5), Everett (Nov. 7) and Wenatchee (Nov. 8). The Cats return to CN Centre to face the Victoria Royals in back-to-back games on Nov. 11 and 12.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY CHUCK NISBETT
Cougars forward Jack Finnegan lands a right hand to the face of Thunderbirds forward Brayden Holberton as they duke it out at CN Centre Saturday, Oct. 25.
Boxing Wardogs give fight fans an unforgettable night
Inner City Boxing hosts a sold-out card at the Roll-A-Dome
INNER CITY BOXING CLUB
The fight card was called Night of the Wardogs. As things turned out, it was appropriately named.
Saturday night’s event at the Roll-ADome was hosted by Inner City Boxing PG, and members of the hometown Wardogs fight team put on a dominant display. In front of a sold-out crowd of about 600 people, Inner City boxers won six of their eight bouts.
Those victories included 16-yearold Thunder Innis beating Red Deer’s Morris Crow by unanimous decision in the final tilt of the night. In a co-main event earlier in the evening, 18-year-old Wardog Josh Greenwood punched his way to a unanimous decision against Devin Armstrong of Fort Nelson.
Other Inner City boxers who won their fights were Koehen McLeod, Michael Brooks, Adam Young and Ben Ruttan. Even though Canaan Woodrow of the Wardogs lost his bout against Quesnel’s Ethan Bartholet by split decision, their epic battle was chosen as fight of the night.
“It was totally electrifying,” Inner City coach Jag Seehra said of Night of the Wardogs. “It was such an amazing night.”
The card was the first one hosted by Inner City since 2013. Seehra and fellow coach Kenny Lally revived the club almost two years ago, and the Saturday night fights gave local fans a chance to see a new generation of Inner City boxers in the ring.
Innis, a proud member of the Key First Nation, is proving to always be worth the price of admission. With his victory against Crow in their youth 89-kilogram clash, he pushed his official record to 6-0. He also beat Crow last November in Calgary. This time, Crow tried to keep Innis tied up and was warned by the referee multiple times for holding. Ultimately, Innis was able to get free of Crow enough times to land some
Morris Crow (red) of Black Rock Boxing lands an uppercut to the chin of Inner City Boxing’s Thunder “War Chief” Innis during their 89KG Youth Main Event at the Roll-A-Dome Saturday, Oct. 25.
punishing body combinations and blows to the head. Innis finished with a flurry of punches in both the second and third rounds and was fully deserving of the unanimous decision.
“It feels great,” Innis said after the fight, with a Night of the Wardogs championship belt around his waist.
“I worked hard for this, and I got it. I didn’t get this because of chance, I got it because of design and what I’ve done outside of the ring.
“I believe I’m made for this,” he added. “I love being in front of the crowd, I love being in front of the lights. That’s where I shine, that’s where my home is, that’s where I do best. I love it in there. I feel like I’m at peace in there.”
The other main event saw Greenwood take on Armstrong in the 66kg elite category. Greenwood lost to Armstrong about a year ago but, after a pretty even first round on Saturday night, he started to wear down his opponent with some clean body combinations and strong finishes in each of the last two rounds. With time ticking down in the third,
technical knockout in the 78kg elite division.
The ref stopped the fight after Brooks pinned Charlie in a corner and started teeing off. The win was a sweet one for the 26-year-old Brooks because it was the first of his seven-fight career. He knew going into the fight that it would be his last bout because he’s going to change his focus to coaching.
“I feel speechless,” Brooks said after the win. “It still feels unreal to me. I’ve been waking up and the first thing I’m thinking about is getting in that training, and then I head off to work, and then after work it’s back to training. I’ve been doing that for the past year, and wow, it feels so unreal. Hard work and dedication pay off in the end.”
Greenwood landed a nice uppercut, which put an exclamation mark on his decisive victory.
“We wanted payback,” Lally said. “Josh followed the game plan. The kid has been working really hard, and he shined. To me, personally, I believe Josh looked the best out of all the Wardogs tonight. I’m very, very proud of him.”
McLeod was the first Wardog in the ring on Saturday, and he got the home team off to a perfect start with a victory by unanimous decision over Fort Nelson’s Dane Jensen in a 57kg junior C match. By the end of the first round, Jensen already had a bloody nose, and partway through the second, he took an eight-count from the referee. McLeod kept delivering combinations to Jensen’s body, and then in the third round — after Jensen tried to gain some momentum — McLeod landed a punch upstairs, which resulted in another eight-count.
Brooks gave the Wardogs another victory when he halted Kashtin Charlie of Burns Lake with a second-round
In the 64kg junior B category, Young took on Sonny Altrows of Williams Lake and had his arm raised in victory after a unanimous decision. The moment was a special one for the 14-year-old Inner City fighter because it was a long time in the making. Young made his ring debut a little over a year ago at the BC Bronze Gloves in Chilliwack and lost. After a year of steady training and no fights, he was back at the Bronze Gloves in early October and dropped a tough decision even though he probably deserved a better fate. Finally getting rewarded for his work had him smiling.
“It’s a great experience, I’m happy, got the unanimous decision,” he said. “I think I could have been a little better on the outside — I did a lot of brawling but I thought I did pretty good.
“I’ve been putting in the work for a couple of years now, and now it’s finally paying off.”
Ruttan earned his unanimous decision in the 88kg elite division against John Partridge of Fort Nelson. Ruttan was especially good in the first and third rounds when he was able to tag Partridge with a series of combinations. He also had an uppercut working for him and was able to keep Partridge off balance for stretches of the fight. Partridge had a good second round, but it wasn’t enough.
SEE ‘BOXERS’ ON NEXT PAGE
CITIZEN PHOTO BY CHUCK NISBETT
Timberwolves cooled by Heat
Timberwolves forward Aurora Cabrera knocks the ball from Heat guard Nevena Nogic’s outstretched hands as she leaps to shoot at Brownridge Court Sunday, Oct. 26. UNBC lost 88-48, but is promising more collective effort this weekend against the top-ranked University of Alberta Pandas.
Boxers called ‘totally electrifying’
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
The 63kg youth bout between Woodrow and Bartholet — the one picked as fight of the night — was a slugfest from start to finish. Both fighters landed some heavy shots, with Woodrow taking an eight-count at the end of the first round after being on the receiving end of a series of body blows. Woodrow kept his composure and kept attacking in the second. He started to tire Bartholet out as the fight continued. He left Bartholet bloody with a strong finish in the third, but Bartholet got the split decision, likely because of the eightcount in the opening round.
“That was a very, very close fight,” Lally said. “Ethan fought very well but we’d definitely like that one back.”
In the other fight that involved an Inner City boxer, Jacob Brent lost by unanimous decision to Luis Guerrero of Calgary in a 63kg elite matchup.
“They did amazing,” Seehra said of the full complement of Inner City fighters. “Every single kid showed up. They showed their talent and PG got to see what we see day in and day out with these athletes.”
The Inner City fighters will now head back to training, while Seehra and Lally look for the next opportunity to get them inside the ring.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY CHUCK NISBETT
UNBC targets return to men’s soccer playoffs in 2026
TED CLARKE Citizen Staff
The David-vs-Goliath scenario didn’t pan out for the UNBC Timberwolves and their season ended Sunday, Oct. 19 at Masich Place Stadium in a 4-0 loss to the UBC Thunderbirds.
The TWolves, needing to hang a pair of losses on the undefeated defending national champs to have a chance to clinch a playoff spot on the final weekend of the Canada West men’s soccer season, hoped the Trinity Western Spartans would run into a brick wall taking on the two bottom feeders of the Pacific Division.
That, of course, did not happen.
UBC spoiled the fun when they edged the TWolves 2-1 Friday, and the Spartans leapfrogged UNBC into fourth place with a 1-0 victory Saturday over Thompson Rivers in Kamloops.
As a result, UNBC (4-9-2) missed out on the postseason for the third straight year.
After such a promising start, winning three of their first four games then taking points from powerful opponents Mount Royal and Victoria, the TWolves lost five of their next six games to drop out of the playoff race.
“We had games that we threw away late — we were up against UVic in the 90th minute, up against Mount Royal in the 90th minute and we tied both of those, those alone there was four points we threw away,” said UNBC head coach Steve Simonson.
“There’s other teams that probably with a better performance we’re beating because we’re playing well in big segments of almost every game and then making defensive errors and that kind of led to where we were, needing something against the best team in the country.
“We did lose 2-1 Friday night but we were full value for the game, we played really well and then going into Sunday hope was lost because Trinity had done their job.”
In the season finale Sunday, the Timberwolves held UBC off the scoreboard until the 30th minute when Oliver
Herbert beat goalie Logan Pierce with a shot from close range.
Markus Kaiser struck again two minutes later. Henri Godbout (72nd minute) and Luke Norman (90th minute) followed up with goals in the second half.
Roku Vukic posted a two-save shutout. Pierce made five saves in goal for UNBC.
“If you just look at how we played in every single game, we’re very close, not just to a playoff team but a good team,” said Simonson. “My goal is not just to make playoffs but to get to playoffs and be good enough to push to the next stages.
“We played very evenly with UBC’s best 11 in Friday night’s game and we showed moments where we could play against UBC in ways we never could before and that’s one of the best-scoring teams I’ve seen in years.”
Now in his 10th season at the helm of men’s soccer at UNBC, Simonson admits the TWolves paid a price for their lack of Canada West experience. The emergence of first-year players Jamie Waldash-Chan (five goals, one assist) and Josh Jordan (three
“We don’t have in our starting 11 a core of people that are from this city that are rooted here. We have a lot of them and are proud of that, but we rely on kids coming from elsewhere to put us at the top of the U SPORTS level and sometimes it’s hard to keep them away from home.”
Unlike some university teams that break up after the season ends and the players are disbursed to club soccer teams, UNBC keeps its men’s and women’s team together and they continue to train together until the end of March.
“Geography says that the competition level we can get is minimal, there isn’t anything local that can challenge a top university team so we just do a long training phase where they train five days a week while they’re going to school,” said Simonson.
goals) and sophomore Wyatt Lyon (league-leading six assists) were pleasant surprises but the TWolves lacked a strong supporting cast of seasoned veterans.
“Because we’re still relatively young we’re not laden with fourth- or fifth-year players and you need fourth- and fifthyear guys that have the maturity to put you over the line,” Simonson said. “If we can retain that going into the next year to two years, I think we’re going to be very good.”
The TWolves will retain almost the entire roster for next year, with defender Demian Dron the only graduating player. Simonson is encouraged by a resurgence in Prince George youth soccer talent that appears ready to take the next step to university soccer, which should help the team’s efforts to build a squad of veterans. But he says it’s hard to predict how long his core players will continue to wear the Green and Gold.
“When I talked to my group last year I said 2026 would be this group’s best year and we lose only two or three to graduation after that, but you never know,” he said.
The players spend a great deal of time on fundraising projects and UNBC depends on community donors who contribute to the travel budget through the Adopt-A-Timberwolf program, but Simonson said the challenges of being a minimum six-hour bus trip away from the closest university team are insurmountable.
“We use exhibition budget money to get away for competition in the new year two to four times, but unfortunately the cost to leave here with a team of people is astronomical,” he said. “That’s our biggest disadvantage, the-season because of how expensive it is and the distance to travel to play games. It’s overnight and the cheapest we can play an exhibition game is $5,000, whereas in a big city you’d just spend $100 on referees and away you go.
“Financially, it’s a massive strain to try to keep up with the amount of games in the off-season that the other university teams can play. When we go play a team that’s playing every single week through the year, teams like UBC that have club teams playing in Vancouver where their players who aren’t getting university minutes can just play every week. Our second squad or our depth players don’t get those games and that’s really challenging.”
HARSH BANGA PHOTO
UNBC Timberwolves defender Hagon Kim looks for a teammate to pass the ball to during their Canada West men’s soccer game Friday, Oct. 17 against the UBC Thunderbirds.
Coach says high school boys volleyball never stronger
BC High School Sports has listed three local teams in the top five
TED CLARKE Citizen Staff
Prince George has long been a hotbed for high school volleyball talent.
The city has a long history of producing high school and club provincial champions and grooming provincial-calibre players who represent the city in national tournaments.
Jay Guillet has seen much of that history unfold in more than three decades as a high school coach, and what he’s seeing this year — especially in the boys double-A volleyball ranks — is something special.
For the past five weeks, BC High School Sports, in its weekly provincial rankings, has listed three Prince George teams in the top five.
“I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years and this is the strongest year in the zone that I can remember,” said Guillet, who started his coaching career in the mid-1990s with the Duchess Park Condors senior boys team.
“We’ve got three of the five teams (from Prince George that played at the Best of the West tournament last weekend in Kelowna) ranked in the top five and that’s unheard of — I’ve seen two but I haven’t seen three,” he said.
The College Heights senior boys finished eighth overall at Best of the West, a 40-team tournament earlier in October in Kelowna that included most of the top single-A, double-A and triple-A teams in the province.
To get into the eight-team gold division, the Cougars had to win their pool, and they did that on the opening day of the tournament with wins over Kelowna Christian, D.P. Todd and Seaton.
College Heights lost just one set in the three-match power-pool round.
“It was a tremendous weekend for our boys team, the guys really pulled through and persevered,” said Guillet.
“We had some very tough matches, which challenged us physically and mentally, and they held it together and stayed pretty steady for the most part.
“The competition was excellent for us at this time of the season. This tournament was the first time we got away because we’ve been playing local teams for four or five weeks.”
In the gold division playoffs, the Cougars lost the quarterfinal to Delta, then defeated Okanagan Mission before losing to Pacific Academy in the consolation final.
That win over College Heights catapulted Pacific Academy onto the top rung of the double-A boys rankings as they moved up from their third-place ranking the previous week.
College Heights, with seven returning seniors, remains second in the double-A rankings, while the Duchess Park Condors, coached by Gryphon Olexyn, dropped from first to third in this week’s poll.
The D.P. Todd Trojans remained unchanged, ranked fifth in BC.
Duchess Park also had a solid weekend. The Condors went 2-1 in their power pool, then went undefeated in the yellow division playoffs, posting wins over Sahali and St. John Brebeuf before they defeated the Prince George Polars in the yellow division final.
The Condors have beaten College Heights four times this season, including three tournament finals, but the teams didn’t face each other in Kelowna.
“We’ve had close matches with them and they keep pushing us to get better,” said Guillet.
“We’re pushing each other and the goal is to peak in November.”
College Heights Secondary School is hosting the provincial double-A boys championship Nov. 20-22.
The host team and the next best team in the North Central zone get automatic berths, but there could be as many as four Prince George teams involved, with three wild-card berths up for grabs in the 16-team tournament.
The Polars posted a 3-0 record in pool play at Best of the West to move up to
the second-division playoffs, and they went on to defeat F.M. Collins before posting a semifinal win over the D.P. Todd Trojans.
The Polars’ run to the yellow division final marked a best-ever finish for PGSS at the tournament.
Shas Ti Kelly Road Grizzlies and the Cedars Christian Eagles, who moved up to double-A this season after winning the provincial crown in 2023, have also benefited from the high level of competition at local tournaments and a strong club program with the Prince George Youth Volleyball Club, which competes in the spring and summer months.
“Shas Ti Kelly Road is knocking at the door, Cedars is competitive as well with a young team of mostly Grade 11s, and PGSS went 5-1 — they had a tremendous tournament,” said Guillet.
“Volleyball is going very well. There are some great girls teams, but the boys program is as strong as it’s ever been
in Prince George, and a lot of the credit goes to the community — not only the schools and the coaches, but our club volleyball system is producing some terrific athletes who have the opportunity to extend their seasons right after the high school season.”
Guillet pointed to former College Heights outside hitter Matt Shand and former Duchess Park setter Chris Zimmerman as examples of the type of high-calibre volleyball talent Prince George is producing.
Shand, in his fifth season of eligibility with the University of Alberta Golden Bears, is coming off a national silver-medal finish after winning the U Sports championship in 2024.
Zimmerman, a fourth-year setter with the Queen’s University Gaels, was the rookie of the year in the Ontario University Athletics Association in 2022-23 and last year won the Forseth Cup OUA championship after a silver-medal finish in 2024.
Life Events
Cy Fortin, 86, of Prince George, B.C., passed away peacefully on October 13, 2025, in hospice care, surrounded by family, friends, and the music of Hank Williams Junior. “Mon ami” will be remembered for his love of music, hiking, jogging, wine-making, welding, teaching and sense of humour.
Cy grew up in the French-Canadian community of Perigord, Saskatchewan, the fourth of nine children of Emile and Alida Fortin. He spent his early years around the family’s general store and garage before leaving home at 14 with his older brother, Greg, to work as section men on the Canadian Pacific Railway near Fairmont, B.C.
Cy realized manual labour wasn’t his path and took a welding course in Edmonton. In 1959, he moved to Prince George and joined Thompson Construction. He was then hired to help build Northwood Pulp and Paper Mill. Afterward, he worked as a maintenance welder at the mill, refining his trade over nine years.
In 1961, Cy was introduced to Irene Johnson, a nurse from the Kootenays. They connected over music and the outdoors. After Irene finished her cross-Canada nursing adventure, they married in 1965, settled in Prince George, and raised two daughters, Teresa and Laurel.
Cy began teaching welding part-time at the College of New Caledonia in 1972. To go fulltime, he completed his high school diploma at age 34. Over 27 years, Cy trained more than 3,000 students and championed trades education.
A lifelong learner, Cy read metallurgical, math, and history books in his spare time. In his final
Cy Fortin
February 23, 1939 - October 13, 2025
days, Laurel read to him from his 1956 welding textbook.
In 1987, he started a welding inspection business that took him across B.C., Alberta and the Yukon looking at bridges, pipelines and buildings. He retired reluctantly in 2018 at the age of 79. Cy loved music. He sang bass in the St. Mary’s Church choir and performed with the Cantata Singers, and a barbershop choir. In his 40s, he taught himself guitar and fully enjoyed being a B.C. Old Time Fiddler for over 25 years playing at dances, parties and seniors’ centres.
Cy and Irene spent a month each summer for 11 years as volunteer camp hosts in remote B.C. parks including Spatzizi, Naikoon and Kakwa. They also traveled across Canada, Australia, and to places like France, Kenya, Cuba and Thailand.
Cy said his greatest joy was “seeing my daughters grow up to become mothers to my grandchildren.” It surprises no one who knew him that his favourite things were “pea soup and my guitar.”
Cy is survived by his wife Irene; daughters Teresa (Alistair) and Laurel; grandchildren Sophie, Henry, Oliver and Abigail; and siblings Greg (Ann), Camille, Joan, and Docile (Clem). He was predeceased by Lorraine, Florence, Charlie and Genevieve.
Special thanks to Northern Health homecare nurses and aides for their care.
A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, November 15, 2025, at 11 a.m. at the Elder Citizens Recreation Association, 1692 10th Ave., Prince George.
- September 26, 2025
It is with great sadness that the family of, Michael Dwayne Butterworth announces his unexpected passing on September 26, 2025, in his home.
Mike was born May 22, 1969. He grew up in Prince George out in countryside of Pineview. Mike’s spirit lives on through his mother Arlie that he loved dearly. And he is now reunited with his father George along with other family and friends. His sister Myrna, nephew and extended family cherish the time they shared with him.
It was 18 years ago that he encountered his life partner, Denise, their love will endure forever; her children and grandchildren regarded him as family and will sorely miss Mike.
Mike’s life was a shining example of hope and inspiration to all who were fortunate enough to know him. His passing has left an immense void in the hearts of his family, friends, and countless others whose lives were forever transformed by his presence.
Mike enjoyed participating in outdoor pursuits such as riding his ATVS and his skidoo, particularly up to Tabor Mountain. Along with fishing and hunting with long time friends.
Mike’s legacy lives on through the countless memories of his ridiculously contagious smile and laughter, which continue to inspire and uplift all who were fortunate enough to have known him. A memorial service will be held to celebrate Mike’s life. Shenanigans will ensue at Blackburn Hall from 3-8, Mikey style. Giggity giggity! Nov 22, 2025.
Michael Dwayne Butterworth May 22, 1969
Rose Marie Prokopchuk
October 31, 1943 - October 13, 2025
She was a loving and caring wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She always had a big smile on her face and ensured you never went hungry.
She passed away at home after a year worth of suffering and we would like to extend a warm thank you to all who helped her throughout this year.
Funeral will be held at St. George’s Ukrainian Church Oct 31st, 2025 at 10:00 am.
Simone Beth Lindstrom peacefully went into the arms of Jesus on October 19, 2025. She was surrounded by her greatest treasures her children Mandy – Josie (Christian) Dylan Tansem (Tom Tansem); Rodney – Ashley (Tyler) Julia (Kaiden and Audrey) Tyler, Denver, Kurtis Lindstrom (Charity Lindstrom) (Shy Bowden); Darcy & Myrna - Emma, Zoe, Markus Lindstrom. She was predeceased by the love of her life, Gene Lindstrom, her parents Leo and Joyce Martell, her brother Leo, and her sister Denise. She is survived by 11 precious brothers and sisters; her mother and father in-law June & Paul Chamberland, her brothers and sisters in-law and an abundance of cherished nieces and nephews. Her love of the Lord was second to none and beautifully reflected by Romans 8:3839 “ For I am persuaded, that neither death nor life, nor angels or principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord”.
She will be deeply missed and wholly loved by all who knew her, please join us as we lay her to rest at the Prince George cemetery November 1, 2025 at 12 noon with her Celebration of Life to immediately follow at the Blackburn Community Hall.
Cy Fortin
February 23, 1939 - October 13, 2025
Pamela Mary Hoecherl
July 31, 1950 - October 18, 2025
It is with broken hearts, we share the passing of a beautiful soul, Pamela Hoecherl. She leaves behind her devoted husband Chet, her daughters, Kerry-Anne (Fabian), Tennille (Dean), Farrah (Graham). Six grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Her sister, Sharlene (Eric), nephews, nieces and many dear friends. Taken too soon, although forever would not have been long enough. Love you always and forever, to the moon and back.
Celebration of life will be Saturday May 2, 2026, 1pm at the Hart Pioneer Centre.
Maria Renate Simmonds (née Firth) March 22, 1947 - October 15, 2025
With broken hearts and flowing tears, we announce that the Lord has called upon our Angel on Earth to Heaven.
Maria Renate Simmonds (nee Firth) passed away peacefully on October 15, 2025 surrounded by Family. Although our Mother who will be deeply missed and has left an emptiness in our lives we are at peace knowing that she has been reunited with her loving husband. Maria’s greatest joy was family. Whether baking her famous goodies or sharing a cup of tea with friends, her beloved family was always the focus, and she loved being surrounded by them. Maria was predeceased by her parents and husband George. She is survived by her sons Paul (Tanya), Phillip (Angela), Shaun (Deanna).
Siblings Eileen, Rennie (Patricia), Shirley, Barbara, Diane. Grandchildren Taylin (Bianca), Tristan (Jaeli), Shauna (Colby), Leah (Tavis), Karlea (Carter), Ryan, Joseph and Leonard. Great Grandchildren Brylynn, Kohen, Coral, Blakely and Colter. Numerous extended family members in England and Austria.
A Celebration of Life will be held for George and Maria at Lakes Community Church (22940 Chief Lake rd) on November 1, 2025 at 11:00 am.
April 9, 1957 - October 13, 2025
It is with heavy hearts that we share the sudden passing of Karen Marie Dennison on October 13th, 2025.
Karen was not only a loving mother, but also a wonderful friend, mentor, and businesswoman whose strength and kindness inspired everyone who knew her.
Karen and her husband, David Dennison, shared 50 beautiful years together—a lifetime built on love, laughter, and devotion to family.
Karen’s years in Prince George include attending school, raising a family and owning multiple businesses, including Toyland, Sassies Ladies Wear, Jr. Junction, Jacob’s Inn Motel, Hello Dolly, Tropical Pool & Spa, Mrs. Flowers, Princess Flowers, and Dahl Lake Limestone Quarry. She touched many lives with her generosity, wisdom, and compassion—always offering a listening ear, thoughtful advice, and a comforting hug. Her love and resilience will live on in all of us who were lucky enough to know her.
Karen is survived by her beloved husband, David Dennison; her children, Deanna Devlin (Derek), Nicole Campbell, and Dean Dennison. She will be fondly remembered by her grandchildren, Peyton, Kaitlyn, and Henley Devlin, as well as Clara and Kelton Campbell, and Audrey Dennison-Bloome. Karen is also survived by her mother, Melva Saunders; her sister, Kristine Pawluk; and nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her late father Karl Hebert and brother Ken Hebert.
A family only service was held on October 20th, 2025 in Cache Creek.
A Celebration of Karen’s Life to be held April, 2026. Details will be shared soon. We’ll miss her beyond words and hold her forever in our hearts.
February
Simone Lindstrom
Karen Marie Dennison
Barry Olin Bergman
December 2, 1947 – August 26, 2025
In the heart of a Saskatchewan winter, Evelyn Bergman travelled alone by train to Tisdale, where she welcomed a baby boy — Barry. A week later, she returned home to Reserve, a small lumber town run by the Pas Lumber Co., then the largest steam-driven mill in Saskatchewan. When the mill closed in 1955, the entire town relocated to Prince George. Barry’s parents, Albin and Evelyn, packed up their belongings — along with Barry, his sister Audrey, brothers Leslie, Warren, Wendell, and Terry, and their dog Skipper — into a 1953 Ford and set out for Prince George. When the car broke down near Quesnel, Uncle Gordon came to the rescue, towing them the rest of the way. They settled on five acres in Pineview, with no power, water, or phone, but as Evelyn said, “This is home.” Barry grew up surrounded by family, friends, and the great outdoors. He enjoyed hockey, snowmobiling, hunting, fishing, camping, and helping with chores around the home. He worked in local sawmills and, after his father passed away in 1980, took over the family property, building a new home and garage with the help of his brothers.
After his mother’s passing in 2011, Barry lived alone on the farm for several years before moving into town. Though life brought its challenges, he remained a quiet, kind-hearted man who worked hard and always welcomed friends and family with a bit of grumbling but always with warmth and generosity. He enjoyed visiting family and friends during the holidays.
Barry will be deeply missed by his brothers Leslie (Josie) of Victoria and Warren (Shirley) of Prince George, sister inlaw Lorraine of Peachland, as well as many nieces, nephews, and friends. Predeceased by 1 year old Lyle who lies with his mother in Sask. A private graveside service will be
Gary Simmons
Oct 28, 1981 - Aug 17, 2017
Happy 44th B day in Heaven. Our one and only Son Junior. Missing you Always! Love Mom and Pops, Sis Jamie, son Rubbyn, Nieces Julliette, Gabriella, Grand daughter Nicole.
Sylvain Pierre Lachance
May 25, 1958 - September 4, 2025
It is with great sadness that we announce the sudden passing of Sylvain Lachance on September 4, 2025, in Prince George, BC. Born in St-Méthode de Frontenac, QC, on May 25, 1958. Sylvain was a proud father, grandfather, and friend to many.
For 35 years, Sylvain worked as a taxi driver with Prince George Taxi — a job he truly loved. Known for his friendly smile and good humour, he made every passenger feel welcome and every ride memorable.
Sylvain will be deeply missed by his children: Jon, Beth, Tina, Ashley, Alicia, and Nicole; his nine grandchildren; and his two great-grandchildren, as well as his siblings Denis, Gracia, Gaetane Fernand, Christian, Carole, Sylvie, Renaud, and Danie, and numerous nieces and nephews.
A Celebration of Life will be held on November 9, 2025, at 1:00 PM at the Prince George Native Friendship Centre.
In Loving Memory of Robert (Bob) Roy Little
Robert “Bob” Roy Little
January 20, 1960 – October 12, 2025
It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Robert (Bob) Roy Little on October 12, 2025, at the age of 65, in Prince George, B.C. Bob faced his final journey with strength and grace after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, a brain tumour that he battled courageously for exactly one year from the day he first arrived at the emergency room.
Cy Fortin
February 23, 1939 - October 13, 2025
Born on January 20, 1960, Bob lived life on his own terms — full of curiosity, humor, and heart. A retired truck driver, he loved travelling, collecting rocks and tools, listening to music, and spending time with his many friends. Always up for an adventure, Bob enjoyed quadding, golfing, and tackling one of his trademark “small jobs made big.” He even loved to go fishing — though he never actually caught any — and could turn even that into a good laugh and a great story. He took pride in fixing up old houses and could transform even the toughest project into something worthwhile.
Bob and Dorothy shared 14 wonderful years together, filled with laughter, love, and adventure. They were happiest on the road, travelling the world and exploring 26 countries, as well as journeying across Canada with their granddaughter Khlan — a trip full of memories they cherished deeply. Bob cared deeply about people and community. When something mattered, he took action. He often handwrote letters to politicians, urging them to make changes for the public good, and played an active role in welcoming Syrian refugees to Canada, helping with fundraising and preparing apartments to ensure new families felt at home from the moment they arrived. He is lovingly remembered by his wife Dorothy Friesen, daughter Rae’Lyeh MacDonald, and granddaughters Thorah and Khlan MacDonald. Bob was predeceased by his daughter Jessica
Classifieds
ATV & TRAILER GET NOTICED
2016 Honda ATV 500 Deluxe includes: 2016 Dutchman toyhauler 26’, low kms on both. Combo price $35,000 + extra stuff. Ph 250.561.2402
Add photos to your Classified ad to sell your item faster.
Newly Updated • ECE run • Licenced Daycare. From 36 months to kindergarten. Great Government subsidy: Parents pay only $387/month full-time.
check out our facebook page
FOR SALE
EQUIPMENT FOR
• Power-Ladder Hoist Pro 200 - Honda engine
• Ladder Length - 16’- 4’- 8’-8’ Total 36’
• Plus 2 more Engine Hoists, Electric & Gas
• 4 Bostich Air Nail Guns - lots of Air Hose
• Extension Ladders - 1 20ft, 1 16ft, 2 14ft
• Ladder Hooks for steep roofs, 24ft Aluminum Plank
• Tools for roofing Shingles, Metal, Torch On, Shakes
• Fencing for Flat Roofs
• Roof Jacks for Steep Roofs &in & 12 in
• 2x6 Planks 2x10 Planks
• Propane Torches for Torch On Roofing
• Ass’t tools - Shovels, Brooms, Spudding Bars, Magnets for cleanup
• 1979 Ford F600 3 ton Dump Truck 16ft deck & sides
New tires & New Deck, All Steering & Brakes are Good
• Has 5 speed Main Transmission & 2 speed Auxiliary
• Fuel is Propane Only
• Good truck for hauling roofing & construction clean up
ASKING PRICE • $20,000 For Everything
CONTACT - DON MORRIS
4008 KNIGHT CRES PRINCE GEORGE 250-612-8144
In accordance with the Forest Range and Practices Act, Canadian Forest Products Ltd. (Canfor) invites the public to review its Forest Operations Maps (FOM ID: 2676) in the Prince George Natural Resource District.
The FOM describes areas proposed for Cutting Permit and Road Permit development within the next three years starting on November 25, 2025, and ending on October 24, 2028. We welcome your comments and feedback during the one-month review period starting October 25, 2025, and ending November 24, 2025.
The map is accessible for review and comment submission online at: https://fom.nrs.gov.bc.ca/public/ projects#publicNotices.
Alternatively, in-person review and comments can be completed at the following location during regular office hours (Monday – Friday, 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM):
5162 Northwood Pulpmill Road, P.O. Box 9000, Prince George BC V2L 4W2
Comments may also be submitted by mail to the above address or submitted via phone or email at: 1-250-962-3512; pg.fom.comment@canfor.com
* On Nov. 10, 1885, German inventor Gottlieb Daimler’s teenage son made the first long-distance test run of the world’s first motorcycle, the Reitwagen, which featured a wooden frame and wheels, no suspension system and a leather drive belt.
• On Nov. 11, 1831, Nat Turner, an American slave and educated minister who believed that he’d been chosen by God to lead his people into freedom, was hanged in Jerusalem, Virginia, for leading a revolt with 75 followers through Southampton County, killing about 60 white people.
RIES (March 21 to April 19) Don’t feel sheepish about looking to spend more time with a special person during the upcoming holidays. Do it because it’s the right thing to do.
• On Nov. 12, 1969, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed the extent of the U.S. Army’s charges against 1st Lt. William L. Calley at My Lai, Vietnam, in a cable picked up by more than 30 newspapers, saying that “The Army says he [Calley] deliberately murdered at least 109 Vietnamese civilians during a searchand-destroy mission in March 1968, in a Viet Cong stronghold known as ‘Pinkville.’”
TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) Nevermind letting misunderstandings repair themselves. Consider speaking up while the healing process can be shorter and sweeter, and it will leave fewer scars.
GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) Romance is easily awakened in the GEMINIan heart, especially around the happy holiday season. So, go ahead and make plans with a special someone!
• On Nov. 13, 1979, Philadelphia 76ers center Darryl Dawkins leaped over Kansas City Kings forward Bill Robinzine for a memorable slam dunk that shattered the fiberglass backboard. His equally memorable comment on the move, which was not his last and the sound of which spectators likened to a bomb going off: “It wasn’t really a safe thing to do, but it was a Darryl Dawkins thing to do.”
• On Nov. 14, 1882, outlaw Frank “Buckskin” Leslie shot and killed Billy “The Kid” Claiborne, who had publicly challenged him, in Tombstone, Arizona.
• On Nov. 15, 1984, Baby Fae, a month old infant who received the world’s first baboon heart transplant, died at California’s Loma Linda University 20 days after the operation. Three other people had received animal heart transplants, but none survived longer than a few days.
• On Nov. 16, 2001, British author J.K. Rowling’s most famous and beloved creation, the bespectacled boy wizard Harry Potter (played by Daniel Radcliffe in his first major role), made his silver-screen debut in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” which went on to become one of the highestgrossing movies in history.
• On Nov. 17, 1903, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party split into two factions: the majority Bolshe-
* On Nov. 11, 1984, the bronze “Three Soldiers” statue (also known as the “Three Servicemen”) was unveiled near the Vietnam War Memorial. Designed by Frederick Hart to honor the diversity of those who served in that conflict, it also marked the first time an African American was depicted in a sculpture on the National Mall.
* On Nov. 12, 1996, teens Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson checked into a Delaware motel, where Amy gave birth to their child. The
baby was later found dead in a trash container behind the motel, and the couple confessed to the crime after having previously claimed the child was stillborn.
* On Nov. 13, 1953, Mrs. Thomas J. White of the Indiana Textbook Commission called for the removal of references to the book “Robin Hood” from textbooks used by the state’s schools, claiming that there was “a communist directive in education now to stress the story of Robin Hood because he robbed the rich and gave
CANCER (June 21 to July 22) Moon Children can glow with their own inner light as the holiday season magic takes hold. It’s a very special time for CANCERs and LIBRAs together. Enjoy!
LEO (July 23 to August 22) It’s a good time for you fabulous Felines to take pleasure in your special gift for, well, taking pleasure! Look for this holiday season to give you every reason to purr.
VIRGO (August 23 to September 22)
This is a good time to let others who are in your life get a little closer to you. You’ll both find out what you’ve been missing for far too long.
it to the poor.” Her campaign, unlike Robin’s, was unsuccessful.
* On Nov. 14, 1941, “Suspicion,” a romantic thriller starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, made its debut on the silver screen. It would go on to win an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and a Best Actress Oscar for Fontaine, and marked the first time that Grant and Hitchcock worked together. They would collaborate again on “Notorious,” “To Catch a Thief” and “North by Northwest.”
LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Open up your eyes and see some welcome surprises that you’ve missed or overlooked for too long. What you find can lead to other favorable changes.
SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) What you expect to be potentially troublesome might simply be especially challenging and well worth your efforts to check out. Good luck!
SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21) A friendship might not seem as trustworthy as you’d like. This is OK. Ask your questions, get your answers, and settle the matter once and for all.
CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) A family situation moves into a new area because of (or maybe thanks to) some decisions you might have felt you could not avoid making.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) You could be cutting it very close if you hope to make holiday plan changes in time to avoid problems. Get a friend or family member to help.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20) Friends show how important you are to them. Keep these precious relationships thriving. They affect much that will happen to the fabulous Fish in the new year.
Homes & Living
Making Your Entryway Safe for Trick-or-Treaters
Halloween night is a time of fun, excitement, and community spirit. As children head out in costumes to collect candy, homeowners play a big part in keeping the evening safe and enjoyable. Whether you’re handing out treats or simply decorating your home for the occasion, it’s important to make your entryway safe for trick-or-treaters of all ages.
Clear the Pathway
Start by ensuring your walkway and front steps are free from hazards. Rake away leaves, move hoses or garden tools, and remove any obstacles that could cause someone to trip. If your home has uneven steps or cracked pavement, consider marking them with reflective tape or a visible decoration
dream door starts here
to help visitors see where they’re stepping. A clutter-free path ensures excited kids—and their parents—can reach your door safely.
Light It Up
Good lighting is essential on Halloween night. Replace burnt-out bulbs in porch lights and consider adding temporary pathway lighting or solar lanterns along your driveway and sidewalk. Soft, warm light not only helps prevent accidents but also adds a welcoming glow to your Halloween display. Avoid using open flames in pumpkins or lanterns—batteryoperated candles or LED lights are a much safer alternative.
Decorate Safely
Spooky decorations are part of the
fun, but make sure they don’t create hazards. Keep hanging décor, like cobwebs or streamers, away from walkways where they might snag on costumes. Avoid placing props or extension cords where trick-or-treaters will walk. If you use inflatables or light-up displays, secure all cords neatly and check that outdoor outlets are weather-protected.
Pet and Traffic Safety
If you have pets, keep them indoors and away from the door during peak trick-or-treat hours. Even friendly animals can become stressed or overexcited by the constant doorbell ringing and unfamiliar costumes. Additionally, consider parking vehicles in your driveway to give children more
space to walk safely along the street. Add a Friendly Touch
A safe entryway doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. Consider a festive welcome mat, cheerful pumpkin display, or light-up sign to make your home inviting. If you prefer not to participate, turning off outdoor lights signals that you’re not handing out candy—helping kids and parents know where to go.
By taking a few simple precautions, you can create a safe and festive environment for trick-or-treaters this Halloween. A well-lit, hazard-free entryway ensures everyone enjoys the night with plenty of fun—and no frights!
3 AI-powered scams to watch out for
(NC) One of the biggest transformations artificial intelligence (AI) is driving is in the area of fraud. AI lets fraudsters impersonate more easily, personalize their scams and move faster than ever before. According to Mastercard, here are three scams where it’s playing a major role, and ways to keep yourself safe.
The grandparent scam: This is a good example of how fraudsters can use AI to personalize their scams like never before. Fraudsters will target seniors with a phone call when they’re off-guard or vulnerable. Using AI they will alter their voice to sound like. a family member in distress who needs money right away. Calls like this are meant to play
on your emotions, so listen to your instincts. Ask yourself: Why would money be what they need, instead of help in some other way? If you are unsure, call them back using the number you have for them. Also, consider having a “secret word” that only family members know, to help verify identity.
The fake order: This is a type of phishing scam, where fraudsters send a message designed to look like it’s coming from a legitimate source, in order to get sensitive information or login credentials from you. A common version is sending a fake invoice or confirmation for an online order. Treat any unexpected messages like this with suspicion. Fraudsters often pose as businesses you trust. Never click on links or use
any contact information from this type of message. Reach out to the business yourself through the phone number or contact form on the company’s website. They’re victims of the scam, too, and can work with you to get to the truth. Authorized push payment (APP) fraud: AI tools can let fraudsters ask you for legitimate-seeming fast payments that often go through before your financial institution can react. They usually focus on impersonating quick but necessary payments, such as Canada Revenue Agency back taxes, bank overdraft fees or credit card bills.
Thanks to the speed of AI, all it takes is a moment’s lapse in attention for someone to send what could be an irreversible payment. But, AI is also being
used to strengthen fraud prevention. Payment providers, like Mastercard, have developed tools that work in the background while you complete a purchase. These systems are designed detect this type of fraud automatically, in real-time and stop the fraudulent transaction in its tracks. It’s up to all of us to be more cyber safe—better cybersecurity makes for a safer community. www.newscanada.com
