Alyssa Gerwing, executive director of the Sidney Museum and Archives, gets into the Halloween spirit with a lit-up jack-o-lantern. With Treat Street cancelled, the Sidney Business Improvement Area Society has organized a series of other events and activities under the heading of Halloween Spooktacular. (Wolfgang Depner/News Staff)

The body of Capt. Kevin Hagen, from Nanaimo, was returned to Vancouver Island on June 27. He was one of six who died in a helicopter crash in the Mediterranean Sea in late April. (Devon Bidal/News Staff)

Carver Howard La Fortune’s life has changed as his carved wooden face masks have seen demand stretch across North America. (Arnold Lim/Black Press)

Tour de Rock alumni riders enter onto Oak Bay High’s field to hear how much the school raised in October. (Jane Skrypnek/News Staff)

Const. Derek Brand uses the radar to track drivers on Cadboro Bay Road in the Willows elementary school zone one September morning. (Travis Paterson/News Staff)

Jacque Sirois of the Community Association of Oak Bay helps remove decades worth of English ivy from a native Sculer’s Willows in the Kitty islet end of McNeill Bay. Sirois was targeting the big trees in a lead up to the CAOB ivy-pulling there, coming Sept. 12.

Oak Bay firefighter Trent Frenkel and former Esquimalt Fire Department Assistant Chief Steve Serbic prepare for Climb the Wall, a 48-storey stair climb up the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver in February. (Travis Paterson/News Staff)

George Blogg, president of the Portage Inlet Sanctuary Colquitz Estuary Society, voiced fears in August that Portage Inlet residents’ concerns about the McKenzie Interchange project wouldn’t be addressed before construction concluded. (Devon Bidal/News Staff)

Mike Gravelle (behind) returns to work in May at the West Shore Barber Shop in Langford although he’s immunocompromised. As a double lung transplant recipient, he’s used to the ‘new normal’ of pandemic health. (Aaron Guillen/News Staff)

In April, Tom Michell said Michell’s Farm Market remained extremely busy, with social distancing protocols in place. (Nina Grossman/News Staff)

Ken Lane, former director of the Royal London Wax Museum, pours tea for Queen Victoria in his Saanich home. (Nina Grossman/News Staff)

The Victoria Police Department said it was investigating allegations of assault during a rally at the BC Legislature in February. (Nina Grossman/News Staff)

Emergency crews respond to a fire on the balcony of a top-floor unit in a Langford apartment building in October. Goldstream Avenue was closed for a number of hours while firefighters extinguished the blaze. (Nina Grossman/News Staff)

Pam Buisa (left), Asiyah Robinson and Vanessa Simon organized a peace rally for the Black Lives Matter movement that drew thousands to Victoria’s Centennial Square in June. (Aaron Guillen/News Staff)

Isabella McGowan-Mills, second from left, smiles at Uptown Santa during his visit to teacher Leah Edgely’s Grade 1-2 class at Willows elementary on the last day of school before the winter break. (Travis Paterson/News Staff)

Tina Taylor looks through the broken glass of the front door at her business, Buttons’n’Bows Fabric Store, which was broken into sometime over the Halloween weekend. (Travis Paterson/News Staff)

B.C. Ambulance Services’ Island manager Brad Cameron (from right) with primary care paramedics Em Funk, Tyrone Trotter, Fiona Galvin and Peter Hill at the Leigh Road station. (Aaron Guillen/News Staff)

Firefighter Joel Anthony (left) helps fellow Saanich firefighter Josh Ward spray down his gear after extinguishing a house fire in the 500-block of Walter Avenue in July 2020. (Devon Bidal/News Staff)