THE WEEKLY EH?! // March 4th, 2024
The latest highlight of FIVE things happening in the Kimberley/Cranbrook area this week + FOUR other items of some locals' interests from out 'round highway 95, eh.
Hi!
Welcome to the 4/3/24 edition of ‘THE WEEKLY EH?!’ newsletter!
Here’s Five Things
Since The 95EH Events Calendar gets updated with Kimberley AND Cranbrook area events on the regular (and it’s FREE for anybody to get their local events listed, just visit moun.town/events for the simple details), I find it helpful to do a weekly HIGHlight of FIVE things happening FOR the current week EVERY Monday, and, well… it’s Monday again, eh:
THING #1: The 2024 East Kootenay Career and Job Fair is taking place in the gymnasium at College of the Rockies' Cranbrook campus this Wednesday, March 6th (from 11 am to 3 pm). The event is free to attend for any job seekers out there and you can find a list of all the vendors OVER HERE.
THING #2: Lilith returns to Centre 64 on March 7th-9th to celebrate International Women's Day and showcase a variety of local talents — with ALL proceeds being donated back into the community (last year they raised over $15,000)! “The show is 100% run by volunteers. The purpose of the show is to celebrate local women's talent, foster connection among our community, and, most importantly, to raise money for women in need.”
THING #3: Speaking of International Women’s Day (which is this Friday, March 8th), Kimberley Alpine Resort will be celebrating with a meet and greet in Stemwinder with World Freeride Champion Katie Anderson (“Katie was crowned rookie of the year in 2020 in the Freeride World Tour and has graced the podium 7 times, won 3 out 4 competitions in 2023, and also won the world title in 2023 in Austria”)! Come say hello to Katie anytime between 8:30 am - 5:30 pm up at Stemwinder.
And over at the Cranbrook Arts Gallery, celebrate International Women's Day with the closing reception for "The Grandmothers" and "Woman's Work", featuring the artist Veronica Funk, who will be in attendance and will give a talk about her work at 6:30 pm — this event is free and open to all ages!
THING #4: Celebrate all things Nordic with Kimberley Nordic Club’s annual Nordic Fest this Sunday, March 10th — they have a whole bunch of fun events lined up (check the poster below for more details) + there will also be coffee and waffles and more… so get yourself registered OVER HERE or sign-up as a volunteer OVER HERE!
THING #5: Fans of alliteration and sharing seeds will be pleased to hear that Wildsight’s Seedy Saturdays has not gone away, it has just become Seedy Sundays (and the event returns this Sunday, March 10th, from 1pm - 4pm at Lindsay Park Elementary School)! “There will be activities for kids (games and crafts), get-to-know-the-seed library information, and a gardening lecture presentation. This year will highlight opportunities for seed exchanging — and we’ll even have snacks for you to enjoy and a seedling to take home!”
Of course, there's always more than Five Things happening in any given week, so don't forget you can punch “moun.town/events” into any browser window at any time and be magically taken away to THE 95EH EVENTS CALENDAR… where you can always easily find the full gamut of Kimberley/Cranbrook area events happening this week & beyond (because there’s always way more going on than I can mention here, with new events added on the regular)!
+ Four Ehs
And because there’s always more going on than just the local area events that get added to The 95EH Events Calendar, here are 4 other things that are proving to be top of mind for at least one local area person:
EH #1: Remember the ‘Marysville McDonalds’ thing from last year? Well, it seems that one of the results from all of that public discourse is The City of Kimberley is inviting community members to participate in shaping the future of drive-thrus and gas stations within city limits via a short survey (which also includes some questions on economic development priorities) — and you can take that 10-15 minutes survey OVER HERE!
If you’d like some extra context before doing the survey (the survey is open until March 31st fyi), here’s a Drive-Through and Gas Station Policy and Regulatory Considerations Staff Report that was shared on January 22, 2024 (which is also linked on the survey page) + you can watch City Council discuss some of their thoughts on drive-thrus on the January 22nd council meeting (the conversation starts at the 42:49 mark and ends around the 57:44 mark).
EH #2: One of the questions in the survey above asked: “From your perspective, what are the top three economic development challenges or issues experienced in Kimberley?”— AND — after selecting ‘Cost and availability of housing’ and ‘Inequitable development’, I opted to use the ‘Other’ option for my 3rd answer and added:
We are living amongst the hard realities of colonial/imperial capitalism (ie. feigned reconciliation, ever-increasing income inequality, overconsumption, waste, pollution, climate change, local food security, mental health & addiction & housing crises, systemic poverty, manufactured scarcity, political divisiveness, etc), but we tend to only be given "options" that continue us down the same path that got us here (and will net similar results for most people). What we need is more thinking outside the box and more people, especially people in positions of privilege, willing to address the elephants in the room without fear of being reprimanded for upsetting the people who benefit the most from the elephants never being openly addressed.
I also gave a similar answer for the ‘Other’ option for the question “What are your top three priorities for Kimberley's local economy?” — and I would just like to say that I apologize for always being that guy 🙃 I know it’s annoying to have someone point out that the system we all feel there is no choice but to continue participating in for survival is the main issue that needs addressing (and I know bringing stuff like that up is easily dismissed as being unrealistic or unhelpful), it’s just that I also feel that if we always avoid talking about the root of our problems we will be left forever trying to put out a million interconnected fires instead of dealing with what’s starting all the fires in the first place (ie. colonial/imperial capitalism). Anyone else feel similar?
EH #3: But just because I think that we, individually & collectively, need to get to a place where we are more openly & consistently talking about the root of our societal problems (ie. colonial/imperial capitalism) instead of acting like it’s a word that can never be said out loud (ie. like Voldermort), that doesn’t mean that I think it is the only thing to talk about. For example, did you know that a new art exhibit called ‘Cosmos out of the Chaos’ will be showing at Art Gallery Kimberley from March 7th to March 17th? (“With a passion for the natural world, Revelstoke artist Sarah Hicks attempts to capture its beauty in her paintings, inviting viewers to share in her deep connection to the environment in the hope this will inspire them to cherish and protect it.”)
Because local life is full of stuff like that to talk about too (ie. it’s not all ‘doom & gloom’ just because one is aware of the ‘doom & gloom’ and sometimes randomly brings the ‘doom & gloom’ up in their newsletter every now & again).
EH #4: I guess what I’m trying to get at is: we all contain multitudes… even those of us who see a multitude of reasons for continuously bringing up the need to address colonial/imperial capitalism until genuine systemic changes start being made (or at least talked about more). So here’s me hoping that the number of people doing similar will increase in multitudes sooner rather than later, as our late-stage capitalism realities are just going to keep getting later-staged the more we talk about everything/anything but (and if anyone is interested in having these conversations locally and helping normalize these conversations locally, please let me know, as that is one of the things I’m interested in using my newsletter and blog for).
And that’ll be that from me for this week!
Of course, there’s always more ‘eh?!’ to share than the 4 EHs that came to my mind while putting together this week’s newsletter, so please make sure to follow/frequent 95EH on the Facebook & Instagram & Tumblr (as I share “ehs” on the daily). And for more Jeremy/HI54-specific stuff, you can also follow @HI54LOFI on the Instagram & Twitter & Facebook.
Because, hey… there’s a lot of stuff going on out there, eh?!
And until next week…
Please feel free to reach out to ‘hey@95eh.ca’ if you have any questions, comments, ideas and/or schemes — AND — if you think you know anybody else that might enjoy receiving this weekly newsletter about “some locals’ interests” in the highway 95/a area, please feel warmly encouraged to send them a link so they can have a think about signing up too!
And I’ll see you out on the URLs and/or IRLs… whichever comes first 🤘
🍻
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Jeremy // HI54LOFI