Briefly touching base

A heart-felt thank you, a heritage plan and a photo for Spring

First thing…

Last week in his North of Somewhere Substack, Darrin Rigo wrote an interesting piece on local journalism and media in Prince George in which he mentioned independent Substack writers including Andrew Kurjata, himself and ME! Along with great local newspaper, radio and social media sources. I cannot tell you how seriously chuffed I am about this! Chuffed as in “seriously pleased” that a newcomer to Prince George and the North and a pretty sad excuse for a Canadian could be mentioned in the same breath as these PG local heroes.

I suppose that I have thrown myself into and commented on everywhere that I have lived and worked but this is the first time that I have done so in a place where I could even remotely claim to tangentially “belong”. So it matters a great deal to me. It is the Canadian value that “you live here, you put down stakes, you care so you’re allowed to comment” in action.

Thank you Darrin and thank you Prince George.

Second thing…

In two weeks the asynchronous online course that I am teaching for UNBC will be finished (and what a ride it’s been!) and I will be back to writing more regularly for NORTHERN HERITAGE. One of the first things I want to do is to start a new section of the newsletter where I report on informal, chatty interviews with Prince George people about Prince George’s Heritage. Asking them:

• What are the heritage, places, people and events that you love about Prince George?

• What do you imagine for the heritage of Prince George?

• What do you want to retain for the future about Prince George?

I plan to track down all sorts of people from family, friends, neighbours, Uride drivers and baristas (all constants in my daily life) to fellow academics, business owners, local activists and tourists passing through. Heritage is what the people who live it, care for it and value it say it is — so we better ask them.

This is hopefully a dry run for a much larger and better organized community engagement project that I and others want to push through in the near future; I’ll keep you informed on our progress with that!

In the meantime, later this month I will start interviewing and reporting and let’s see what happens… Please, if you want to have your say or think of someone whose opinions would be valuable for this exercise, contact me at northernheritagepg@gmail.com and let me know.

Heritage matters and Prince George’s heritage matters to all those who live here, even if they may not be aware of it on a day to day basis. Let’s not wait until it’s threatened or, worse still, gone before we pay attention.

Lastly…

I may have one of the smallest balconies in Prince George but definitely one of the most loved — isn’t Spring wonderful!