Revelstoke Mountaineer Podcast Revelstoke Mountaineer

Councillor Nicole Cherlet is the chairperson of a committee looking into plans to revitalize Grizzly Plaza, Revelstoke's downtown gathering space. She reached out to revelstokemountaineer.com to speak about the project. Here's our late May, 2022 interview with Coun. Cherlet.

The Revelstoke Food bank is hosting a spring Fill the Van food drive on June 3, 2022, and also hosting a grand opening event for their new community kitchen and food bank. In this podcast, we spoke with Revelstoke Food Bank staff members Hannah Whitney, Community Food and Outreach Coordinator, and Erin MacLachlan, Co-director of Community Outreach and Development. The interview focuses on an update on the food bank since the start of the pandemic, when usage spiked. We looked at trends in the past couple of years, which include increasing systemic inequality in the community, incomes not keeping up with cost of living, and the food bank's efforts to eliminate barriers and dismantle stigma. For more, see our story published May 24 on revelstokemountaineer.com.

The B.C. government's ongoing strategic review of old growth forest practices in the province has generated considerable interest in Revelstoke, an area whose harvesting and milling sector has significant dependence on old growth forests.
In November, 2021, the provincial government announced another round of temporary deferrals of old growth harvesting in B.C. It followed an announcement of regional old growth deferrals in the Incomappleaux Valley area in September, 2020.
In addition, there have been several protests in the Revelstoke region, including a forest service road blockade in the Apring
In April of this year, the B.C. government updated on its progress to reach agreements with First Nations governments on its old growth review plans.
In late April following the announcement, we reached out to Nick Arkle, CEO of the Gorman Group, which operates Selkirk Cedar and Downie Timber Ltd. in Revelstoke. In an audio interview that spans just under 30 minutes, we sought Downie's perspectives on the B.C. policy changes and how the major local employer is responding.

After calls, emails, DMs, and many outreach attempts to current Kootenay-Columbia MP, Rob Morrison (Conservative), were met with silence, we reached out to the past two MPs for comment. In this interview, former Kootenay-Columbia MP, Wayne Stetski (NDP), discusses Morrison's non-responsiveness and his actions during the past weeks, which have seen a convoy to Ottawa, which Morrison supported, and a blockade at Coutts, Alberta, which Morrison, a former RCMP officer, also retweeted support for. Later, 13 were arrested and four charged with conspiracy to commit murder, which police say targeted at RCMP officers. In this Feb. 18, 2022 interview, Stetski reacts to Morrison's ongoing actions as MP, and discusses current events in Canada. This interview is one of two with former Kootenay-Columbia MPs, the other on Feb. 16 with former Kootenay-Columbia MP, David Wilks (Conservative).

After many attempts over the past weeks to reach Kootenay-Columbia MP, Rob Morrison (Conservative), for an interview on unfolding events in B.C. and Ottawa, former Kootenay-Columbia MP David Wilks (Conservative), now Mayor of the District of Sparwood, replied to a tweet at Morrison that we had tagged him in. He agreed to sit for an interview to discuss current affairs in the riding and Canada. Here is our Feb. 16, 2022 interview with Mayor Wilks, who, like Morrison, is a former RCMP officer. This interview is one of a pair of interviews with former Kootenay-Columbia MPs. The next with Wayne Stetski (NDP), who defeated Wilks in Kootenay-Columbia in 2015. Stetski then lost the riding to Morrison in 2019. The interview touches on security issues posed by the ongoing protests, including the Coutts blockade and the involvement of far-right groups in the protest movement.

Protesters opposed to pandemic-related restrictions and other issues gathered on the Trans-Canada Highway in Revelstoke on Feb. 12, 2022, a day that saw continued protests in Ottawa and blockades at blockades at border crossings in Ontario, Alberta, and B.C.
To cover the story, we opted for an audio format, producing this Revelstoke Mountaineer Podcast episode and you can see further reporting on the protest on revelstokemountaineer.com.
The protesters are mistrustful of the media, saying so many times in our interviews, so we told the protesters we’d be doing roughly five-minute audio interviews with each, then we'd them together into the podcast.
We spoke to four protesters:
Shawn Sanders, who was one of the leaders of the protest, volunteered to go first.
After that, protester Renee Shaw, who was dancing energetically and waving iridescent costume wings next to the highway, was quick to volunteer next.
After that interview, we addressed part of the crowd, asking for volunteers.
Michael Ferrera, who was manning the barbecue at the time, volunteered next. Finally, Sally Miller, who had stood close by and listened as Renee Shaw was interviewed, volunteered to go next.
The interviewees had lots to say. Our act of interviewing the protesters doesn't endorse their views or the factual claims that people made on pandemic-related topics; rather, it's intended to be a window into the perspectives of some Revelstoke community members meant to help listeners understand pandemic-related events happening around them in the community, such as the protest.