Delores Funk experienced a very specific type of burnout in 2020/21: community leader burnout.

Funk is the mayor of Burns Lake, BC, a rural village in the North-western-Central Interior of British Columbia known for the inception of the International Mountain Biking Association, for its network of trails on Boer Mountain, as well as the gateway to Tweedsmuir North Provincial Park and Protected Area for sight-seers, hikers, hunters and wildlife appreciating. Burns Lake is a settler-village incorporated in the 1920s that is settled among First Nations villages including Wetʼsuwetʼen First Nation, Lake Babine Nation, Cheslatta Carrier Nation, Ts'il Kaz Koh First Nation, Skin Tyee First Nation and Nee-Tahi-Buhn Band.

Funk said the community saw both successes and challenge during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. One of the village's tasks was to build a water treatment plant with the Lake Babine Nation and Ts'il Kaz Koh for a manganese free water supply. That was a win.

The village also created a new tourism strategy hoping to encourage the members of the First Nations communities, settlers in Burns Lake and any visitors to take advantage of the great outdoors.

While these are successes to be celebrated, Mayor Funk still felt disheartened with the prolonged pandemic and its restrictions and health impacts on the population of Burns Lake.

Funk said she cannot help but "worry about the potential irreparable harm done on the social fabric of the people of Burns Lake and the First Nations communities."

She added she had no idea what a pandemic could do to the "whole system and everyone's psyche and that looking back in the future, we'll look back and see where we didn't need to spend so much time worrying or that we missed the mark on what was really important."

Listen to CICK's full interview with Mayor Funk below: