I’m writing this the day after attending my last Rossland City Council meeting.
Mayor Kathy Moore, one of the first people I met after moving to the Kootenays, said she would always remember my first day when we hiked up Mount Roberts.
Somehow I decided it would be an excellent idea to begin my career as a journalist, fresh out of j-school, by covering Rossland’s Canada Day Celebration, and as it was the community tradition to hike up Roberts on July 1, I decided I had to do that.
And I thought to myself, “I just hiked up a mountain in Deep Cove (North Vancouver). I can do this.”
Oh, how wrong I was.
I mean I did make it up the mountain — thanks to Simone for dragging me up — but it was so late by the time I got back down again that I had completely missed the cutting of the Canada Day cake at the museum.
I was afraid I’d already messed up big time on my first day, but I got a great picture of Moore on the mountain for the front page and my editor was happy, and I carried on.
Since then I’ve been up all kinds of mountains — most recently Granite and Grey with Red’s pioneers — and into the backcountry, and into a sewer treatment plant and to Kimberley to meet an astronaut and all kinds of places meeting all kinds of fascinating people.
I’ve covered multiple elections at all levels of government and gotten pretty used to the backlash that comes with telling the truth when no one wants to hear it.
I learned how to inject Naloxone into an orange and interviewed Prevail and Madchild from Swollen Members.
But now it’s time to go.
Following his big Griffin Poetry Prize win last summer, my husband, Jordan Abel, has been offered a teaching position at the University of Alberta and we are moving to Edmonton.
I will take with me the many lessons I have learned and lots of fond memories.
As I prepare to leave you, I ask only two things:
1. Drive safe;
2. If you are walking on Broadwater Road at night, or anywhere at night, wear something shiny.