A week of record hot weather in western Canada has forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes, as wildfires rage in parts of Alberta and rapid snow melt triggers flooding across interior British Columbia. By Friday, more than 13,000 people were under evacuation orders in Alberta, as 78 fires burned. Among the worst-hit areas was the territory of the Little Red River Cree Nation, which comprises three communities in the north of the province, where the 1,458-hectare (3609-acre) Fox Lake fire consumed 20 homes and the police station. The entire 7,000-strong population of Drayton Valley, 140 km (87 miles) west of the provincial capital Edmonton, was also ordered to evacuate late on Thursday night. A smoke column rises from wildfire EWF031 near Lodgepole, Alberta, Canada May ...
Read MoreTag: British Columbia
With health & safety protocols unmatched by virtually any setting and designed to protect passengers, crew and the communities we visit The first cruise ship to call on a Canadian port since 2019 arrived in Victoria on Saturday, April 9th. Holland America’s Koningsdam then sailed to Vancouver, arriving on April 10th. “We’ve worked a long time to make this day happen, and we are delighted to be back,” said Kelly Craighead, President and CEO of Cruise Lines International Association. “I want to acknowledge the support of British Columbia’s Premier John Horgan and provincial Transportation, Tourism and Health officials, as well as the Minister of Transport, Hon. Omar Alghabra and his officials, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Border Services Agency. They’ve all ...
Read MoreAtmospheric rivers of the kind that drenched California and flooded British Columbia in recent weeks will become larger -- and possibly more destructive -- because of climate change, scientists said. Columns in the atmosphere hundreds of miles long carry water vapor over oceans from the tropics to more temperate regions in amounts more than double the flow of the Amazon River, according to the American Meteorological Society. Flooding covers the Trans Canada Highway 1 after devastating rain storms near Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada November 6, 2021. Picture taken November 16, 2021. B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure/Handout via REUTERS These "rivers in the sky" are relatively common, with about 11 present on Earth at any time, according to NASA. But warm...
Read MoreNolan Paquette started working part-time at his local sawmill more than 20 years ago while still at school, pushing a broom on the clean-up team. Now 38, Paquette drives trucks and operates machinery at the same Western Forest Products-owned mill in Duke Point, Nanaimo, the third generation of his family to work in forestry on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. He is one of 38,000 workers in Canada’s westernmost province whose job, according to the industry, depends on the logging of towering old-growth trees, such as cedars, Douglas firs and western hemlocks aged at least 250 years, and in some cases more than a thousand. The dispute over felling British Columbia’s ancient forests has been thrust into the limelight by a months-long blockade of private logging company Teal Jones i...
Read MoreChristina Kelly did not picture marrying her American sweetheart in the Peace Arch Park - a 42-acre (17-hectare) stretch of manicured lawns and neatly trimmed garden beds at an otherwise unremarkable border crossing in the Pacific Northwest. Kelly, a 28-year-old Canadian legal assistant from Vancouver, had been crossing back and forth between British Columbia and Washington state to see her boyfriend without a hitch for two years. The start of the coronavirus pandemic, and the closure of the Canada-U.S. border in March 2020, forced a change of plans. Where many couples have reluctantly put off weddings, Kelly and her now-husband, who is in the U.S. Navy, decided to proceed anyway and tied the knot two months ago in the one place where they have been able to see each other during ...
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