Williams Lake’s New Year’s baby born at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops Jan. 1
Published Jan. 4
The 2024 New Year’s baby for Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops was born Jan. 1 to a family from Williams Lake.
Exhausted but happy, Irish Topdas and her husband Carlo Sescon welcomed their son King Ezekiel Sescon at 1:34 a.m. New Year’s Day. According to mom, little King was not so little, weighing in at eight pounds, 10 ounces.
"I have been carrying this child for nine months and he looks just like my husband - not fair,” Irish joked Tuesday morning in an interview with the Williams Lake Tribune.
The family said they weren’t initially expecting to have their baby in Kamloops. They were told at their 37-week appointment that the maternity ward at Cariboo Memorial Hospital in Williams Lake would be closed from Dec. 27 to Jan. 2.
Irish said the couple both cried when King was finally born. Prior to his birth they had suffered a miscarriage. King also has four other siblings, two of which live in the Philippines, where the couple is from, but hope they can bring them to Canada, where they have lived for the last five years.
Williams Lake’s Rea Klar represents Canada at UN’s 3rd Global Peace Summit
Published Jan. 25
Williams Lake’s Rea Klar was selected as one of 11 people worldwide to attend the 3rd Global Peace Summit at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok, Thailand Jan. 10 to 12, 2024.
Klar, who graduated from Cariboo Adventist Academy in 2020 and attends Trinity Western University (TWU), was selected with two other TWU students out of 350 applicants. The three of them represented Canada at the summit.
“I felt very proud to represent the Punjabi community as well as Canada,” said Klar, noting the summit was a life-changing experience.
“Being able to meet the world’s top young leaders … was incredible, but also hearing the stories of guest speakers who have experienced human suffering like no other, that was really impactful.”
She encouraged young people to be bold in the space of adversity and discomfort.
“When you have a life where you don’t have to worry about war and go to school as a woman and have all these advantages, it’s your duty to help others.”
Cariboo’s William Belleau feeling at home on Hollywood’s red carpet
Published Feb. 15
Actor William Belleau is not intimidated by the company he’s been keeping, even if his coworkers include Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese.
The journey from the remote community of Esket (Alkali Lake), 45 minutes south of Williams Lake, to film premieres and festivals alongside A-list actors has been a long haul for Belleau, who has put in over 20 years of work to get to where he is now.
But Belleau connects it all back to sitting in the Paradise Cinemas in Williams Lake, watching movies as a young man growing up. Now, arriving on red carpets as part of the cast of Killers of the Flower Moon next to Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, Belleau is right where he always wanted to be.
“It felt like home in there, I didn’t feel like an imposter,” explained Belleau.
Sugarcane documentary wins directing award at Sundance premiere
Published Feb. 22
A new documentary about the former St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School won a directing award at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in January, where it had its premiere.
Sugarcane, the film, follows the Williams Lake First Nation’s investigation into the abuse and disappearance of children at St. Joseph’s.
“Any award the film receives is a testament to the power of the people that told their stories,” co-director Emily Kassie told Black Press Media.
Co-director Julian Brave NoiseCat, a member of Canim Lake Band Tsq̓éscen̓, east of 100 Mile House, has family who attended St. Joseph's. His own father's experience of being born at the residential school became part of the film, as did the healing journey between father and son.
“What’s remarkable about the film is the fact people were fighting for truth and accountability, but also reclaiming a way of life that was taken away. We wanted to celebrate that,” Kassie said.
Mary Skipp recalls the early years in Williams Lake
Published March 7
Mary Skipp was born on Christmas Day in Williams Lake in 1929, the same year the city was incorporated.
“We lived in a railway house on the wrong side of the tracks, as I say,” Skipp said, smiling.
During the Depression, men jumping on and off the train on her family the Latins’ side of the tracks would knock on her mother’s door and she would give them a whole meal.
There were only three students graduating from high school at the time her older brothers each graduated.
Mary lived in Williams Lake Seniors Village, up until she died in hospital on Oct. 14, 2024.
Lack of volunteers ends Williams Lake Hough Memorial Cancer Fund Society
Published April 14
A long-time, non-profit society in Williams Lake aimed at providing cancer detection equipment for the hospital is calling it quits.
With only seven volunteers left whose average age is 78, Hough Memorial Cancer Fund Society members are pulling the plug on the society which has raised upwards of $3 million for early cancer detection equipment for Cariboo Memorial Hospital.
The society was founded in 1972 by Lillian Hough in memory of her husband, Bill, who died from undetected brain cancer.
"We, as a team, wish to thank deeply those people who have donated generously over the past fifty two years," said volunteer Mary Telfer.
Williams Lake’s Robin Dawes receives B.C.’s 2024 Community Award
Published May 16
Williams Lake’s own Robin Dawes was one of 20 people honoured by the province with a 2024 Community Award from the BC Achievement Foundation.
Dawes has been instrumental in helping to lead the Williams Lake Cross Country Ski Club in recent years and spearheaded a number of projects for the organization.
“Community Award recipients are recognized for their outstanding contributions in making life better through innovation, dedication, and volunteerism,” said Premier David Eby in the release announcing the awards.
Dawes' genuine and generous spirit have made her an integral part of the community.
Falling through the cracks, Cheryl Folden remembered
Published May 16
Two brothers hold a photo of their mother, Cheryl Folden, when she was in high school, younger than they both are now.
In the photo, she is beautiful, a warm smile turning the corners of her eyes. No one likely would have predicted this young woman would end up in a homeless shelter, dependent on crack cocaine.
But Cheryl’s picture-perfect smile doesn’t give away the struggles she was already facing early in her young life.
A survivor of childhood sexual abuse, she said she first experienced homelessness at 17.
She had her first child before graduating high school, and as a new mom, she said the social service workers told her to marry the father if she wanted to be eligible for support.
“What I needed was a counsellor, not a husband,” she said.
She spoke to the Tribune two times in 2023 because she wanted to be a voice for other vulnerable people living on the street.
On January 8, 2024, Cheryl died at 57 years old after experiencing abdominal pain for a couple of days. She had a doctor’s appointment for the next day.
Both her sons told the Tribune how they remember their mother as kind and loving.
“She taught me love is more powerful than anything you can imagine," said her oldest son Jason Myhr.
Ribbon skirt gown a show stopper at Williams Lake grad
Published June 13
For Williams Lake teenager Kaden Napoleon, her search for the perfect grad dress wasn’t just about finding the right style, it was also about making a statement about her cultural identity.
Of Saulteau and Secwepemc descent, Kaden and her Auntie, Courtney McKone, set out months in advance to find a seamstress, eventually partnering with local designer Tanis Artmstrong. The outcome was show stopping.
“It felt special,” Kaden said of the feeling of wearing the dress for the grad parade Saturday (June 8) and Dry Grad festivities.
“But mostly I felt grateful for all of the work that went into it.”
The dress incorporates the colours of Saulteau First Nation, and the medicine wheel. She chose red satin as the main colour “for my Kookum to see me,” she said, explaining “when we wear red our ancestors can see us.”
When thinking about what her grad dress could be, Kaden said she knew she wanted it to reflect her Indigenous culture.
“I’m trying to prove that we’re still here. We are not squashed.”
B.C.'s first female guide dies in Williams Lake at 101
Published June 27
One of the Chilcotin's most well-known characters, Gerry Bracewell, has died at 101 years of age.
Bracewell became the province’s first female guide at the age of 18 and the first licensed female guide outfitter in 1945.
She lived and worked in the West Chilcotin where today her son Alex Bracewell continues to run the Bracewell Wilderness Lodge in the Tatlayoko Valley.
On July 8, 2023, her family celebrated her 101st birthday at AgeCare Cariboo Place where she was residing in Williams Lake.
Several times she yodelled during the party, explaining that was something she always did to scare off the bears while out in the back country.
In 2015, she completed a book about her life titled Gerry Get Your Gun.
Corbett said the stories in her book were but a very small glimpse of a life of true western adventure in B.C.’s remotest cattle country.
