Author: James Westgate Snell

On the same day that Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal overturned four challenges to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion launched in 2019 by B.C. First Nation, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced the establishment of the Pipeline Projects Assessment Committee (PPAC), “a cabinet committee focused on evaluating potential pipeline projects in Saskatchewan, and possible government involvement in investing, stimulating, or generally advancing these projects.”

“Our government recognizes the necessity of further developing pipeline infrastructure to help our energy products reach key global markets,” said Moe.

Continue reading “Saskatchewan premier floats idea of oil pipeline to Churchill”

It only takes a small light to illuminate a dark room. If Northern Manitoba’s crime, addiction and poverty problems are the room, then NCN gas bar attendant Owen Spence is one of the lights.

The 25-year-old Thompson resident, who is on a journey of introspection and self-improvement, was recently a guest speaker during a YWCA Steps to Success customer service workshop. Spence regularly receives tips from customers at Nisichawyasihk Cree Nation (NCN)’s Cree Road gas station.

Continue reading “NCN gas bar employee renowned for outstanding customer service”

There is a special kind of loneliness that only glider pilots seem to appreciate…climbing thousands of feet above the mountains in columns of rising air, suspended underneath engineered fabric, with only a small reserve parachute separating the pilot from injury or death if things go wrong. It’s a beautiful sport in spring, summer and fall for the small, but stalwart, group of Elk Valley paraglider pilots. And they are pilots. The current open distance world record cross-country flight in a paraglider is 588.27km, a tasked achieved in Brazil this October. Climbs over 10,000ft are common. But as winter arrives in the valley, hopes of soaring flights are usually abandoned in place of speed paragliding, a death defying fringe sport comprised of adrenalized aviators who barrel-roll through canyons of ice at 120km/hr. Continue reading “Fernie paragliders achieve winter soaring flights”

Steelmaking coal is experiencing a moderate recovery after prices dropped to US$130/t in July of 2019, sparking layoff news at Teck Resources, North America’s largest producer of steelmaking coal, which has six operating coal mines in Alberta and B.C. that produced 26.2 million tonnes of steelmaking coal in 2018.

According to Statistics Canada, steel production in the U.S., Canada, and China – a key indicator for steelmaking coal markets – has risen from approximately 160 million tonnes in 1990 to approximately 760 million tonnes in 2008. Since 2008, at the onset of the global economic downturn, annual steel production has averaged around 725 million tonnes. Continue reading “Steelmaking coal experts optimistic on price despite emerging green-tech”

How I came to live with Hillary Clinton’s private yoga instructor, Nateshvar, started with a gunshot. My father. He walked into the bedroom that he shared with his two children and wife in East Vancouver, retrieved his prized hunting rifle from under the bed, and ended his decades long battle with mental illness.

I wasn’t surprised when I got the call from my stepmother. In a way, I felt relieved for the whole family, who’d been living under the dark cloud of my father’s paranoid schizophrenia since the late 70s. My brother Daniel and I repainted the bedroom and filled the bullet hole in the ceiling. Continue reading “Editorial: Suicide and Hillary Clinton’s private yogi”

Cattle ranching is a critical industry that binds together all chapters of the great Canadian agriculture story. The Waldo Stockbreeders Association in Jaffray B.C., which celebrated its 80th anniversary on Saturday, is part of the glue that holds the book together. The event took place in the Jaffray Community Centre on Saturday evening. Compared to Fernie, with its thriving nightlife and modern art scene, the ranching culture around Jaffray, with its large open fields juxtaposed to serrated peaks, is like visiting another country where cows still roam the range, men in cowboy hats fix fences, and children work in kitchens. Continue reading “Kootenay cattle ranchers roping in prosperity”