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Number of students returning is a wild card as B.C. schools set to reopen Monday

VANCOUVER – When students board the school bus on Monday in Williams Lake, B.C., they’ll be greeted by a bus driver wearing a protective visor and will take a seat by themselves unless they live with another student. Parents who take their kids to school will be asked to stay outside or make an appointment to reduce the number of adults who don’t need to be in the building.…

‘It’s a total bummer’: Young Sea to Sky riders feel Crankworx Whistler’s cancellation

Even though it felt inevitable, the official cancellation of Crankworx Whistler 2020 on May 26 hit young Sea to Sky riders hard. “It was kind of expected at this point, in a way, because almost every race has been cancelled at this point,” said downhiller Seth Sherlock.…

Whistler’s Canada Day festivities will take on a different format this year

Outdoor concert series cancelled; RMOW staff exploring ‘new ways to celebrate Canada Day in Whistler’

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Whistler’s Canada Day celebrations will look a lot different this year. The usual parade, street entertainment and evening concert will not happen this summer, according to a release.…

Bacuit Bay

Adventures on tropical reefs, sandy beaches all by sea kayak

Bacuit Bay, off the northwest end of Palawan Island, Philippines, boasts an archipelago dotted by a blend of tropical reefs, karst limestone outcroppings and sandy beaches, perfect for a sea kayak adventure. I was back in Corong-Corong, south of El Nido, flying solo as my paddling partner, Ian Taylor, had left due to an injury, assembling my Feathercraft collapsible under the watchful eyes of the same group of smiling kids as a few weeks earlier.…

Palliative care has been put on the backburner during pandemic, experts say

When Kathryn Butler Malette learned her younger sister was diagnosed with COVID-19, she was confronted with a waking nightmare: that her beloved sibling might die alone. While Ontario’s government has said facilities can allow end-of-life visits, Butler Malette said she was told the Ottawa-area long-term care home where her sister lives didn’t want to chance it, given the magnitude of the outbreak they were experiencing.…

Ottawa pledges millions to promote holiday travel in Canada during pandemic

Ottawa is earmarking millions of dollars to promote holiday travel inside Canada as it seeks to help the tourism industry weather the COVID-19 pandemic. The funds announced by Economic Development Minister Melanie Joly on Sunday includes $30 million originally earmarked for attracting foreign visitors through the federal tourism marketing agency, Destination Canada.…

Dirt Designations: Part 2

MORE stories behind the names of Whistler’s mountain bike trails

In this space last week, you read Jeff Slack’s 2015 story detailing the stories behind the naming of many of the mountain biking trails in the resort. Of course, five years is an eternity in the mountain biking world, and in that time, builders created and christened new trails, while others that flew under the radar were brought into the officially sanctioned fold.…

Ski area proposed for Kootenays will cater to backcountry skier

Expression of interest for Zincton Mountain Village submitted to province

There’s a prevailing mindset in the ski industry that says a resort needs to be within a two-hour drive from an international airport to be viable long-term.…

BC Transit to collect fares, allow front-door boarding on June 1

Safety measures to be in place for driver-passenger distancing

BC Transit is set to resume fare collection and front-door boarding on Monday, June 1. It will also be installing a temporary vinyl panel for physical distancing between the driver and passengers on buses without a full driver door.…

First Ride: Cannondale’s All-New Scalpel SE

pinkbike.com – FIRST RIDE Cannondale Scalpel SE Words: Daniel Sapp Video: Michael McQueen The Scalpel has been an iconic bike in Cannondale’s line for nearly 20 years. The full-suspension bike first debuted in 2001…

Here’s what a return to school will look like in the Sea to Sky corridor

Some students opt to head back to part-time classroom learning next week

Around 70 per cent of parents who completed a Sea to Sky School District survey say they plan to send their children back to school in June. Roughly half of the families in the district responded.…

Guns, drugs and Quarantino 10

“All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.” That famous, factually correct quote is attributed to French director Jean-Luc Godard (Bande à part, Breathless), but Godard himself attributes it to American movie pioneer D.W. Griffith (who pioneered the feature-length film, but is also best known for 1915’s The Birth of a Nation, which hasn’t aged well).…

Sunshine Coast Regional District urges BC Ferries to reverse course on evening sailings

BC Ferries is resuming service on the Horseshoe Bay-Nanaimo route June 3, but a schedule change on the Langdale run to accommodate the Nanaimo service isn’t sitting well with some Sunshine Coast residents or the directors at the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD). The new schedule puts the last sailing of the day out of Langdale at 6:30 p.m. instead of 7:40 p.m. and the final return tip from the Lower Mainland is changing from 8:45 p.m. to 7:25 p.m.…

Opinion: Multiple crises expose systemic flaws

The coronavirus spreading COVID-19 around the globe isn’t the first disease microbe suspected to have jumped from other animals to humans, nor will it be the last. That we know to a large extent why so many diseases are making that leap should help us resolve the problem.…

Robanske calls it a career

Squamish snowboard-cross racer retires after decade on national team

Among Chris Robanske’s proudest accomplishments in a decade on the national snowboard-cross team was the resilience he displayed in bouncing back from two significant injuries early on in his career. But a serious knee injury suffered at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, including a Grade IV dislocation, full ACL and LCL ruptures, a medial meniscus tear, near-loss of the lateral meniscus and blowing out three centimetres of lateral cartilage, proved to be too much for the Calgary native and Squamish resident to overcome.…