1 — With a unanimous 25 votes on Sept. 24, Lower Kootenay Band voters approved a land swap with the Regional District of Central Kootenay that gave them 474 acres on Kootenay Lake at Burden’s Cut and LaFrance Creek in exchange for 20 acres adjacent to the Lister landfill site. The deal also gave the LKB $300,000 in cash (determined by an independent evaluation) and $300,000 for a joint LKB-RDCK economic development initiative.
•More than 153,000 travellers entered Canada through the Creston Valley’s two border crossings during July and August, 105,345 (74,948 of those returning Canadians) through the Kingsgate port of entry and 47,797 travellers (38,070 Canadians) through Rykerts.
•Trinity United Church was damaged by a fire that broke out around 2:20 p.m. Sept. 22. The fire burned a large hole through the roof of the church hall, used for regular services, as well as other functions.
•Libertarian candidate Christina Yahn withdrew from the Kootenay-Columbia federal election race “due to personal reasons.”
8 — A 52-year-old Wynndel resident was arrested around 1:55 a.m. Sept. 30 after a lengthy standoff with police, who set up containment on the suspected offender’s property after an individual called Creston RCMP at 2:25 p.m. Sept. 29, believing his crew was being shot at while working in the 5500 block of Highway 3A.
•The day after electric car charging stations were activated Sept. 29, a Tesla owner drove up to the chamber of commerce to ask if the chargers were available to use. Two chargers are available at the chamber and a third is in the town’s Cook Street parking lot.
15 — The skateboard park at the Creston and District Community Complex was shut down Oct. 6, likely until spring, to allow necessary repairs to be completed.
•Donations totalled nearly $575 in the fifth annual Reach A Reader campaign, a joint effort between Black Press and the Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy (CBAL) to raise funds for local literacy programs.
•A 30-year-old Fruitvale man died on the scene after a boat struck a rock in Kootenay Lake near Riondel on Oct. 11. Three other occupants were transported to hospital in Nelson.
22 — After trading the lead for five hours after polls closed, New Democrat Wayne Stetski beat incumbent Conservative David Wilks to become the new member of Parliament for the Kootenay-Columbia riding. With a voter turnout of over 73 per cent, Stetski finished with 23,529 votes, 285 over Wilks’s 23,244, in one of the country’s tightest contests. Liberal candidate Don Johnston got 12,315 votes, and Green Party candidate Bill Green earned 4,115.
•The Prince Charles Theatre was a hive of activity the week of Thanksgiving as volunteers worked with a professional installer to replace 300 seats that were refurbished when the facility was built nearly 30 years ago. The project was made possible with $25,000 of community donations matched by the Creston and District Credit Union, and $57,000 in grants obtained through Regional District of Central Kootenay areas A. B and C.
29 — Seven hundred red and white tulip bulbs were planted around the Spirit Bear sculpture next to the chamber of commerce on Oct. 23. The 70th anniversary Dutch-Canadian Friendship Tulip Garden was one of 140 distributed across Canada to commemorate the 100,000 Dutch tulip bulbs sent to Canadians in 1945 in appreciation for the role Canadian soldiers played in the liberation of the Netherlands, and the hospitality Canada provided to the Dutch royal family in Ottawa during the Second World War.
•The Canyon-Lister Fire Department started an online fundraiser for the family of Margaret Blackmore, whose home was destroyed by fire on Oct. 22. A total of eight residents, including three adults, three teenagers and two toddlers, were left with nothing “but the clothes on their back,” said CLFD Chief Glenn Guthrie.
