Qualicum First Nation celebrates reawakening of heritage language
Following a long and difficult process, the Qualicum First Nation earlier this year celebrated the reawakening of their native language, pentl’ach. The last member of their community who was well-versed in the language passed away in the 1940s, and it was the considered extinct.
“Over the years they pulled together and began to do the work of really reviving the language, which involves gathering of materials that have been documented about the language from various linguists and anthropologists over time and beginning to relearn that language and to begin teach it to the community.”
Nelson’s newest taekwondo expert is a 9-year-old girl
Isabella Lepage earned her black belt in taekwondo, along with a group of 11 other students ranging in ages up to 45.
Her kicks may not reach the heights of the martial artists around her, and her punches don’t have the same power as the adults three times her age. But Isabella is their equal, and she has the belt to prove it.
Okanagan athlete puts smile on (chunk of) ice
Vernon’s Shanda Hill put a happy face on a large chunk of ice in Coldstream’s Kalamalka Lake, then jumped into the eye of the face for a refreshing weekend dip. “Over 30 feet, an estimated 18,000 pounds and four solid inches thick, hand-chopping this smile with our axes was a good old-fashioned fun time,” said Hill as she posted the event on her social media accounts.
“It took a team effort and we all came together and made it happen.”
B.C. teen model headed for Paris runway, Times Square jumbotron
On a Saturday in September, South Surrey teen Annika Van Vliet was one of 500 people to be featured on a jumbotron in New York’s Times Square. It was the launch of the 2023 Buddy Walk, an annual event to raise awareness for Down syndrome in the U.S. The following month, she got to walk the runway during Paris Fashion Week.
Annika was diagnosed with Down syndrome at just 15 weeks in-utero, and is currently ambassador for both Canadian Down Syndrome Society and the Down Syndrome Resource Foundation.
Nanaimo woman tumbles to victory in cheese-rolling race in the U.K.
A Nanaimo woman took the term ‘knock yourself out’ literally when she entered – and won – a cheese-chase race during her trip to Europe.
Delaney Irving, 19, had been travelling with a friend and they decided they’d go watch a cheese-rolling race near Gloucester, England, that annually draws hundreds of people to watch and compete.
“My strategy was to just roll as soon as I felt myself falling and I ended up rolling down most of the hill. At the very end of the hill I got back up onto my feet, but soon after fell on my head and rolled across the finish line unconscious.”
Former Williams Lake blind man successfully swims Georgia Strait
Originally from Williams Lake, blind man Scott Rees successfully swam across the Georgia Strait in just under 11 hours on July 23 to raise more than $125,000 for Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind.
Rees admitted he felt the grind of the 11-hour swim and agreed it was the hardest swim he’d ever done. His longest swim before that was just under five hours when he was training for the Georgia Strait.
‘We figure she’s made over 1,000 quilts,’ says friend about 100-year-old Chilliwack woman
Nobody knows exactly how many quilts one 100-year-old Chilliwack woman has made, but it is a lot. Anne Schaefer doesn’t quite know when she started quilting but it was sometime after arriving in Chilliwack in 1952. She’s been with the church for 70 years.
Until four years ago, the quilts would be packaged up and sent overseas to refugee camps. Now, they stay in B.C. and are sent to different societies and facilities, such as treatment centres, transitional housing programs and permanent housing programs.
B.C. players dominate Canada’s first women’s pro paintball team
Thirteen years after Erin Scott first played paintball, she became captain of Canada’s first all-women’s pro paintball team, the Northern Lights.
The team is made up of seven other players – four of them also from B.C.’s Fraser Valley, one from Nova Scotia, one from Ottawa and one from Manitoba – all dead set on growing the sport.
Haida Gwaii man breaks world record for oldest male to do headstand
At 82 years and 43 days old, Bruce Ives performed his record-breaking headstand.
He learned how to balance on his head more than 65 years ago from a high school physical education teacher in Leamington, Ont, and while in his 60s and playing with his grandchildren, he tried again. Since then, he has made it a tradition to do a headstand every year on his birthday, June 25.
SFU degree presented in groundbreaking fashion to Penelakut woman with cancer
She did the work. She earned the honour. All that remained was determining a way to give Valerie Bob the proper recognition.
Bob, 66, was bedridden with terminal cancer at the time of the ceremony, so traditional thinking went out the window to make the special moment still happen. Doctors Dorothy Christian and George Agnes from the Graduate Studies office at SFU came to her home on Penelakut Tribe’s Tsussie Reserve to present Bob with her degree, with a circle of proud family members and friends in attendance.
Voice for the Voiceless: Rap and Hip Hop in the Kootenays
Two young hip-hop performers and recording artists are bringing the movement out from underground as they gear up for a concert in the Kootenays at the end of the month.
That both Strange 2ruth and Ray the Nihilist are Indigenous gives the music they perform a special resonance. In many ways, rap and hip hop, coming out of the urban Black experience, is a natural fit for modern Indigenous musical expression. It’s like the Blues, a voice of the Black experience that grew beyond cultural borders to become a music for everyone.
Seven-year-old girl’s quick thinking helps save grandfather’s life at Nanaimo pool
Seven-year-old Lucia Elizabeth Dell became the youngest-ever recipient of the B.C. Emergency Health Services’ Vital Link Award in October.
She alerted her mother and lifeguards at a Nanaimo pool after noticing something was wrong with her grandpa.