2022 was a year of global resistance. Living wage, women's rights, environmental change, Indigenous and BIPOC rights were on display in the United States, Canada and the rest of the world.
In northern British Columbia, these global issues unfolded on a smaller scale. As Roe v Wade was overturned, CICK News investigated how to access an abortion in the north, using the platform of podcasting and radio as an actual guide (including phone numbers, contacts, and who to avoid). Doctor Sheila Smith provided insider information for listeners for this two-part program that aired in July 2022).
The full story is in this link here.
David Gillespie has been a resident of Quick, British Columbia almost his entire life. Quick is a community of about 40 people who live along the Bulkley River, on both the north and south sides. At points, the Bulkley is 20 to 40 meters wide, and access to both sides of the river was available by use of a 101 year old Howe Truss bridge (a wood and steel cantilevered structure). The single lane bridge allowed a maximum weight of 8 tonnes, so enough for a school bus, but not enough for a logging truck.
In June of 2021, the bridge was closed to vehicle traffic by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure (MoTI) and sat unused for the better part of 2022. Then in September 2022, the bridge was closed to foot traffic as well as Luxton Contruction, a company out of Delta, BC began work to demolish the bridge. In 2022, a Ministry representative Rena Gibson and David Gillespie spoke to CICK News to provide both sides of the question: why demolish when you can repair history?
Also in 2022, a monumental decision was passed to rename the colonized village of Queen Charlotte on the archipelago of Haida Gwaii back to an ancestral name of Daajing Giids (which means a cedar hat, or the child of a chief). CICK News covered all aspects of that story from the members of the Skidegate Haida Immersion Program who initiated the change back in 2019 to Queen Charlotte mayor Kris Olsen, as well as Minister of Indigenous Affairs for Bulkley Stikine, Minister Nathan Cullen.
Listen to the link below for clips from these stories covered by CICK News Producer Pamela Haasen in 2022.