A trail runner accessing the park’s Tally-Ho Trail on Monday, Nov. 24, near the Natural Bridge day-use area, reported encountering a bear that charged them and made contact, according to Parks Canada’s Facebook page, Wednesday, Nov. 26.

“The runner drove themselves to the Golden hospital where they were treated for minor injuries and released,” the federal agency said, adding that Parks Canada wildlife specialists responded immediately to investigate the incident.

READ: ‘Be proud’: Revelstoke continues to slash human-bear conflict

Interviewing the person involved and surveying the area, they found that “the incident appears consistent with a defensive response by a grizzly bear during a surprise encounter.”

Parks Canada estimates Yoho to have between 11 and 15 grizzlies.

“Females with cubs are the first to den up, typically in mid-November,” the agency said on a separate page about grizzlies in Canada’s mountain national parks. “Males in particular stay up as long as they have food available to them, which can be well past Christmas.”

The incident comes four days after a grizzly bear attack in Bella Coola on Thursday, Nov. 20, that left 11 people injured, including several children. Four sustained serious injuries.

B.C.’s Conservation Officer Service reported Tuesday, Nov. 25, that multiple grizzly bears have since been captured in connection with the Bella Coola incident.

READ: 2nd grizzly captured following Bella Coola bear attack

As of Wednesday evening, Yoho’s Tally-Ho Trail and Natural Bridge day-use area remain closed to the public as the investigation continues. The closure extends all the way along the Emerald River between the Emerald Lake and Amiskwi Circle day-use areas. The Emerald Lake Connector route remains open.

“This is an important reminder that Yoho National Park is bear country,” Parks Canada noted. “Visitors must always be prepared and bear aware even during cooler months. Bears can be encountered at any time and in any place, from busy trails near town to remote backcountry sites.”

The agency encourages park visitors to always carry bear spray, keep it accessible and know how to use it. As well, giving bears ample room and not approaching them is important, Parks Canada said.

All wildlife incidents should be promptly reported to the parks dispatch at 403-762-1470.

Revelstoke Mountain Resort (RMR) shared on Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 25, on Facebook that it will push back its originally planned opening day of Saturday, Nov. 29. A specific later date has not been mentioned.

“To safely open the mountain, we require more snow coverage, especially at lower elevations,” RMR posted. “With guest safety and overall experience remaining our top priorities, we will continue to closely monitor the forecast. As soon as conditions allow, our teams are ready to spin the lifts.”

READ: International resort company buys Vernon’s SilverStar

A video clip of RMR operations vice-president Peter Nielsen said the latest snowstorm that came through brought great powder higher up on Mount Mackenzie, but not so much at lower elevations.

“Don’t worry — winter’s on its way,” he reassured.

Skiers and snowboarders who’ve purchased lift tickets for the original opening dates are instructed to contact RMR’s sales team for rebookings or refunds. Email sales@revelstokemountainresort.com or call 250-814-5011.

Opening updates and revised dates will be communicated via RMR’s website, social media and newsletter.

Nielsen emphasized that the delay of opening day won’t impact Light the Mountain this Friday, Nov. 28, where guests are invited to visit the resort village for live music, cozy fires, gear deals and extended happy hour.

After these festivities run from 5 to 8 p.m., RMR staff flip the switch to illuminate Mount Mackenzie’s holiday light display.

Call of the Wild “is a series filmed here in Revelstoke about the incredible dogs and people who make our town such a special community,” producer Celine Rytz shared on Facebook Monday, Nov. 24, the day before the series went live.

Along with Rytz and her dog Fella, the masterminds behind the series, the locally filmed episodes showcase everyone “from playful puppies inspiring local artists, to bush camp companions in remote tree-planting camps, to the local life-saving avalanche rescue teams.”

Rytz, a certified first aid instructor for pets, owns Backcountry Aid + Rescue Kit (BARK) that provides dog owners with training and resources for adventures in the bush. She’s also a dogsled musher and volunteer ski patroller for Revelstoke Mountain Resort, and alongside Fella owns a cat named Skiptooth.

READ: Okanagan Humane Society rescues 21 abandoned cats from Cariboo property

In a trailer posted Monday, Rytz explains that Revelstoke’s untamed nature shapes community members’ bonds with their four-legged friends, which in turn deepens Revelstokians’ respect for the rich wilderness around them.

The trailer shows snippets of dogs of various breeds and colours touring the city’s streets, visiting local businesses, adventuring along snowy slopes and dense rainforest, and strolling along the Illecillewaet Greenbelt and Columbia River.

“Thanks to everyone in the community who pitched in and helped make this series possible!” Rytz said.

Eight episodes of Call of the Wild, each featuring different dogs and owners, are available now on YouTube at TELUS STORYHIVE. Dog lovers can watch the trailer at youtube.com/watch?v=JVCx-n3DPJs.

Delreé Dumont, a member of Onion Lake Cree Nation north of Lloydminster, Sask., is the illustrator behind This Land Is a Lullaby.

The book, written in Plains Cree and also an English-Cree version, won the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for illustrated books in young people’s literature.

Dumont, known in Cree as Wâpiski Kihéw Esquao (White Eagle Woman), began collaborating on the work in September 2024 after being approached by Orca Book Publishers. University of Alberta anthropologist Tonya Simpson, of Pasqua First Nation in Saskatchewan, was authoring the story, which explores spiritual relationships between Indigenous children, ancestors and their traditional Prairie lands.

“It has been such an honour to collaborate with Delreé on this lullaby,” Simpson, who wrote the book as a lullaby for her daughter, said in a release. “Her work has captured the spirit of the song more than I could’ve imagined. This book is really resonating with readers, and it makes me reflect on Indigenous concepts of relations and spirituality. I am hopeful about what these teachings can bring to the world today.”

Immersed since 2014 in styles such as pointillism, a neo-impressionist technique that uses dotted painting, Dumont eagerly accepted Orca’s invitation in 2023 to join the book project.

After her parents left the Onion Lake reserve in the 1950s, she was born and raised in Chilliwack, and went on to spend 32 years working in Alberta’s oil and gas industry.

“I thought, ‘What do I want to do when I grow up?’” she recalled. Initially getting into painting, “I never actually considered myself as a landscape artist. There’s so much to look at, from the dirt colour to the sky colour.”

But even in Saskatchewan, known too often for its flat southern Prairies, Dumont grew up appreciating the complex mountainous landscapes in the province’s north.

“We’re taught to respect the land and respect the animals,” she explained of the nature she depicts. “Of course, the mountains around me is my inspiration.”

Knowing the Saskatchewanian landscapes from when she was younger, illustrating This Land Is a Lullaby “just felt right,” Dumont said. “Everything in this book just resonated with me.”

“I have a lot of fond memories from the reserve, mainly because I was pretty horse-crazy,” she added, giggling while describing taking her steed for rides through the country.

After just a couple years getting comfortable with a paintbrush, Dumont had opened her own art gallery.

She ran it four years before stepping back to look after her late husband, who was diagnosed with leukemia.

Dumont has lived near Revelstoke since 2020, and continues to amplify her artistry through Delree’s Native Art Gallery.

Today, she’s so dedicated to her craft, her Portuguese water dog is named Dollie Dot as homage to the dotted style that pointillism is known for.

Also a passionate powwow dancer who enjoys painting fellow performers, Dumont said knowledge-sharing is an underlying theme of her and Simpson’s book – “that’s how we hand down our knowledge to others.”

Though she and Simpson haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy each other’s company in person, “one of these days we’ll meet for a high-five,” Dumont said with a laugh.

“It’s pretty surreal,” she added about receiving the Governor General’s Literary Award, with a $25,000 prize attached. “Even just being a finalist was pretty awesome.”

Dumont also credited Orca for being a great publishing partner on the project.

“I probably got an email every week just to encourage me,” she recounted.

Her biggest creative influence is her culture, and in the book, the illustrations are dedicated to her mother, who wasn’t an artist but a talented knitter and crafter.

“I learned my work ethic from her because she was a hard worker,” Dumont said, adding in the release that “receiving this award feels like she’s right there beside me, a full circle moment filled with love and gratitude.”

Last week at Arrow Heights Elementary School, she finished the second portion of a mountainscape mural that students had opportunities to add their own dots to. Dumont recently landed as a finalist for another book award as well — one based on nominations by children themselves — and has already signed on to illustrate a second literary work.

“It’s a Christmas story!” she remarked, with fingers crossed it will be published in time for December 2026.

Learn more about Dumont and her painting at delreedumont.ca.

The fifth-generation Revelstokian, who since 2018 has garnered a massive social media presence by sharing lighthearted messaging about body positivity and self-love regardless of shape or size, has surged to 100,000 followers this November.

Taking to Instagram as an online diary for sharing daily ups and downs during her battle with an eating disorder — an isolating experience in an outdoorsy mountain town prided on fitness — she quickly found that “a lot more people resonated with the online story.”

“It’s just kind of blown up,” Zahacy remarked, scrolling through her Instagram that’s skyrocketed from 82,000 to around 100,000 followers in just a few weeks.

Her most-watched video racked up 10 million views, and her TikTok boasts another 14,000 followers.

But Zahacy, a well-rooted Revelstoke local who simultaneously doesn’t see herself represented in the town’s hyperathletic crowd, aspires to also get her messaging off the screen and into the community she loves.

Following a years-long cyclical struggle with her weight and diet — sometimes losing up to 70 pounds, only to regain it — she sees herself in a much better place now than even a couple of years ago. Sometimes, her quest to shape herself into the perfect body strained not only her health, but also her relationships with others.

“I feel like mental health and weight go hand in hand,” she said. “I just want people to realize your weight doesn’t equal your worth.”

When not working weekdays at Grizzly Auto Repair as a service writer — where her front-desk coworker Brennan makes a point of keeping up with her posts — Zahacy spends weekends filming dance videos and other content from her home downtown.

This last year, “I’ve really branched out — shown my silly side, shown my dancing side,” she said. “Anything that is going to make people laugh, those are my favourite videos.”

Her social media style, which she calls “humour filled with an impactful punch,” includes using humour to put a positive spin on fatphobic content she encounters on the internet. Zahacy strives to change people’s minds about ideal body types, to make the digital world a healthier and more vibrant community.

“In a world so full of hate, we just need more space for people to bring out big, beautiful things,” she emphasized.

Though it took years for her messaging to accumulate enough traction, key to her success is that “it’s all about authenticity,” she advised. “If people don’t see themselves in you, you’ve got nothing.”

The past two years, Zahacy hasn’t gone more than four days in a row without posting. But the bigger her online presence gets, the more realistically she thinks it could become a full-time gig. Her Instagram already reaches some 23 million people, though with a 70 per cent concentration in the U.S., which she hopes to diversify with more Canadian viewers.

When asked about other body-positive creators she looks up to, Zahacy mentioned Sarah Nicole Landry and Alecia McCarvell, both of whom have more than two million Instagram followers.

“These two are the biggest body influencers in the world and, not to toot my own horn, they both follow me,” she noted. At first, when she messaged them, “they ghosted me — only for them to find me, which was quite a boost for me.”

Zahacy said she’s also made impressions on big names such as Sports Illustrated, Victoria’s Secret and U.S. singer-songwriter SZA.

Yet, she feels that the positive boost she’s giving tens of thousands of people around the world is getting missed by those who need it in her own community.

“This is a predominantly active, sporty town,” Zahacy said. “I would like my message to go out to people in this sporty community that aren’t as active… but want to showcase.”

Especially for more rural and blue-collar communities such as Revelstoke, finding support for her cause can seem challenging.

“This kind of advocacy wasn’t a thing when I was growing up in the early 2000s,” she recalled. “It was all about heroine chic and how to be as skinny as possible.”

But today, her goal is “breaking the stigma of (the fact that) health is not linear in a mountain town,” Zahacy said. “Health is different for a skier or snowboarder than someone who works a sedentary job.”

In some ways, opening up with more locals about her Instagram page and mantra of body positivity won’t be easy for her, as someone who’s learned to handle criticism and rejection better on social media than in person.

Still, as a Revelstoke-based social media creator, “this is my home, and I want people to know what I do,” she said.

Reflecting on whether Revelstokians will come to embrace and echo her body-positive messaging in time, “I feel like the community’s always there if it shows itself,” she reasoned. “I just wanted people to know that I am here for a community, in a way they may just not know.”

As for handling negative comments online, “it doesn’t hurt my feelings anymore because I have that large community,” Zahacy explained. Even when haters do hate, she can at least still appreciate them for boosting her page.

Her advice for others in her shoes, whether struggling with an eating disorder or their body image, is unfollowing toxic social media accounts and reaching out to like-minded people in the same headspace. Of the thousands of commenters who react to her videos, the ones that always touch her the most are those who say, “You’ve helped me today.”

Despite Zahacy’s increasing Instagram metrics, her husband and high school sweetheart, Josh — though perhaps not making quite as many cameos in her videos as she’d like — remains her biggest supporter.

“As long as you like you, who cares what anyone else thinks,” she said. “I’d really like to set the bar, for when I have kids, to have a better world to grow up in… a less judgmental place.”

Zahacy can be found on Instagram at @yourdailydoseofselflove.

The living wage for the city rose from $25.50 per hour in 2024 to $27.80 per hour in 2025 — nearly $10 above B.C.’s current minimum wage of $17.85.

Revelstoke’s increase of $2.30 per hour to meet rising costs of living means someone employed in a 40-hour work week and paid the 2024 living wage could now find themselves needing to make about another $368 monthly to comfortably get by.

What’s more, a resident employed full-time at minimum wage is now earning $398 per week below the living wage, which adds up to a roughly $1,592 deficit over the course of a month.

For 2025, Revelstoke’s living wage was calculated by averaging three household types: two-parent, two-children families; single parents with one child; and single adults living alone.

READ: Nelson can be pricier than Vancouver, and other realities of B.C.’s living wage

In a release, Mayor Gary Sulz said the living wage increase “underscores the urgent need to address affordability challenges in our community,” with housing and food costs remaining the most pressing. The City of Revelstoke noted vacancy rates have remained low while asking rents, despite starting to decline slightly, still outpace inflation.

Food, the second-highest expense after housing, has increased by 3.6 per cent this year.

“Limited retail options and high transportation costs further inflate food prices in rural areas, placing added strain on low-and moderate-income households,” Meghan MacIsaac, the city’s community food coordinator, added in the release. “Revelstoke is feeling these impacts acutely.”

This comes at a period when visits to food banks across B.C. have surged by 81 per cent since 2019, according to Food Banks Canada.

“Through initiatives like the Zoning Bylaw update to promote housing affordability, partnerships to strengthen food security, and advocacy for accessible childcare, we are committed to building a community where everyone can thrive,” Sulz said. “These efforts reflect our shared vision for a resilient, inclusive Revelstoke.”

Living Wage BC, in its 2025 briefing for Revelstoke, said the provincial government must work to close the $9.95 gap between B.C.’s minimum wage and the local living wage.

READ: OCP calls for 11,000 homes over 20 years in Vernon

However, it also encourages businesses in the community to become living-wage employers. Currently, the Revelstoke Community Housing Society, Revelstoke Nordic Ski Club, Revelstoke Cleaning Co. and the Revelstoke-based Outdoor Recreation Council of BC are among those certified in the last four years to meet living wages.

Of the more than 450 living-wage employers in B.C., 98 per cent have benefitted in ways such as reduced staff turnover and increased productivity, according to Living Wage BC.

It added that municipalities such as the City of Revelstoke also alleviate local affordability challenges by becoming living-wage employers, supporting affordable housing projects and advocating better transit to cut personal vehicle costs.

Beauty in a Fall, which premiered Saturday, Nov. 8, at the Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival, was produced by Revelstoke filmmaker, skier and hiking guide Nat Segal, 37, and documents the story of backcountry enthusiast Julianna Howatt.

Originally from Alberta, 65-year-old Howatt began mountain guiding and mountaineering at age 19. Stunning but treacherous landscapes such as Mount Robson and Mount Assiniboine provincial parks, Mount Sir Donald and the Bugaboos became her stomping ground.

Yet “those days, I was Bruce,” she explained. “I was closed to the world.”

Looking back on that life, Howatt said she “wouldn’t have been able to survive” living authentically.

Living 60 years as Bruce, a life-altering climbing incident in 2014 changed the trajectory of Howatt’s identity.

“One of those things where I was rappelling off something that I’d done since I was a kid — rappelling off clothesline,” she said, recounting the 73 feet she plummeted to the ground. “Broke everything, long recovery and changed the rest of my life.”

Following multiple years of recovery, Howatt reapproached mountain guiding with a different stride: as CMH’s mountain safety manager.

However, still battling chronic pain, internal duress and PTSD on top of witnessing the perils of avalanche country and struggling to be accepted as transgender, she found herself thinking hard about her place in mountain guiding.

“There’s this layer of psychological safety that hasn’t been addressed in the industry,” Howatt explained. And though she described Revelstoke as particularly inclusive and accepting, “it’s like the art of kindness has been lost in our culture.”

Segal added that when she, cinematographer Colleen Gentemann and filmmaker Ryan Paul-Collins first met Howatt, they “couldn’t pass on the opportunity to work with her.”

Filming started in 2023, wrapping up by April 2024. The cinematography took Segal and Howatt everywhere from Banff National Park and Lake Louise, to CMH Bobbie Burns Lodge and Revelstoke’s Coast Hillcrest Hotel.

For Howatt, considering whether to share her story, “it felt like especially in these times, I had to say yes,” she reflected. “The biggest reason I said yes was Nat and her kindness. I mean, (the film) was vulnerable.”

Revelstoke’s Open Mountains Project, a non-profit society both Howatt and Segal have been involved in to organize inclusive backcountry programming and also Mountain Pride, is one initiative striving to make it easier for community members to have these conversations.

It’s no secret, Segal noted, that climbing, snow sports, guiding and mountain culture in general have historically not been very inclusive. As a female professional skier, she said she’s experienced this on multiple occasions firsthand, as well as through the experiences of peers and friends.

“Things are changing but there is still much public as well as passive discrimination that many don’t recognize,” Segal wrote by email. “As a community, we still have a lot of work to do. For me, this was why this film was so important to make, to reveal the real and sometimes invisible struggle that many people face in these industries and mountain culture.”

She added that through Howatt’s willingness to share such a vulnerable story, they both hope to break down the often-defensive reaction to these issues.

Now, the two friends are continuing the dialogue with the screening of Beauty in a Fall.

“I had no belonging in the human world as a kid, but I found belonging in the mountains,” Howatt reflected. “I could be me in an energetic way — feminine, unmasked, just me.”

As the film rolls out, “I guess I’m secretly hoping for allyship,” she added. “Because it’s on such a personal level, I hope it helps people connect.”

While Segal and Howatt put together the film, Revelstoke community members didn’t hesitate to pitch in where they could. Jessa Burke at Birch & Lace Salon, for example, provided hair-styling services.

“Whenever we told people we were working on this film, they were always willing to help,” Segal said.

Following its premiere in Banff, the film next screens at the Rossland Film Festival this Thursday, Nov. 13, then in Revelstoke at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 14, at the Revelstoke Performing Arts Centre. Tickets are $22.

“I just hope that Revelstoke comes out with an open mind and soaks up the story,” Howatt concluded. “The mountains are for everyone, because we can find solace in them.”

This week, Beauty in a Fall also premieres in Europe, and will subsequently tour around Australia and New Zealand.

Segal and Howatt first brought the film to the Vancouver Queer Film Festival in September, which Howatt said received a “really supportive and kind” response from audience members.

“I went into my experience with the intention of working through the avalanche, climbing events and trauma,” Howatt said in a release, “but what happened was finally embracing myself as a trans woman and coming home to myself for the first time.”

Amid the stigma marginalized groups face in Western Canada’s mountain community, Segal added in the release, “it is Julianna’s hope that her healing story will foster a deeper understanding and openness for diversity in the alpine world.”

Glacier National Park’s Balu Pass was the site of two avalanches last Saturday, Nov. 8, that each partially buried a skier, according to Mountain Information Network (MIN) reports shared with Avalanche Canada.

Shortly before noon, a group of four skiers descending northeastward into Connaught Creek got an unwelcome surprise when one member triggered a slope that sent their companion “for a ride” over a steep and rocky cliff.

Activating his avalanche airbag and getting carried 50 to 100 metres, the skier ended up half buried and lost a ski but sustained only bruises and “was lucky not to get hurt in the cliffs or trees.”

Photos shared by the skiers of the slide’s footprint should show a crown roughly one to two feet deep and at least 50 metres wide where the avalanche commenced.

An hour later, another skier quartet descending northeast into Balu Pass had one member caught up in a Size 2 avalanche that sent debris rolling 120 metres below.

Like the previous incident, the skier deployed their avalanche airbag as they got dragged down and ended up partially buried, but managed to self-rescue.

A Size 1 avalanche was subsequently triggered as one of their companions searched for a lost ski around the slope, but this slide didn’t cause harm to the group. Avalanches of this size pose little direct threat to humans, according to Avalanche Canada, but Size 2 occurrences can trap, bury, injure or kill backcountry users.

Noting the incidents online, the non-profit emphasized that “low snow coverage doesn’t eliminate avalanche danger” and that early-season backcountry users should “expect to hit rocks, logs, and open creeks in your travels.”

For Glacier National Park, Avalanche Canada currently rates avalanche risk in the alpine and treeline as moderate.

“If there’s enough to ride, there’s enough to slide!” Avalanche Canada adds. “Be sure to bring a transceiver, shovel and probe if you venture out.”

Parks Canada begins its 2025-26 winter permit season in the park this Saturday, Nov. 15.

Read the latest MIN reports at avalanche.ca.

She was referring to toothed jelly fungus, just one of hundreds of colourful fungi species found in the damp old-growth stands around Frisby Creek.

It was Oct. 9, the day before Peters and the Valhalla Wilderness Society (VWS) screened their highly-anticipated film, Safe Haven: The Rainbow-Jordan Wilderness, about the biodiverse and nearly-untouched inland temperate rainforest just north of Revelstoke.

The presence of other fungi, such as angel wing, make this ecosystem a “real old-growth forest,” said Tyler McKendry who, along with companion Václav Kuželka, joined Peters, Akash and Black Press Media on a boat ride to the Rainbow-Jordan.

“This is the best example of a fully-intact inland temperate rainforest,” Peters said. On this side of the lake, “you could basically walk for 20 kilometres through old-growth, which is unheard of. There’s nothing like that anywhere else (in the region).”

Besides faint remnants of heli-logging about 40 years ago and a deteriorated foundation and buckets from an old trapper’s cabin, “it’s a totally untouched forest.”

Passing by a sun-struck marsh, Peters commented that western toads and Pacific tree frogs have long “made this wetland part of their life-cycle habitat.”

Following moose tracks for an hour down a seldom-used human path, she stopped at the foot of towering 1,500-year-old cedars and admired their rich range of coastal lichen she noted shut down when the climate dries.

Pointing to dens under trees, and a trunk pockmarked with scratches and back rubs by black bears, Peters stressed the need to protect these many-centuries-old homes for mother bears and their cubs.

Until then, “I’d never seen such biodiversity before,” she recalled from her earliest expedition.

Turning to a hill of talus slopes, she emphasized that ecosystems such as these host all kinds of species, from insects and bats to amphibians, reptiles and small mammals.

The Rainbow-Jordan is likely “the largest pocket of intact temperate rainforest in the region” around Revelstoke, Wildsight Revelstoke branch manager Reanne Harvey said. “The forest itself has been in that space for over a thousand years.”

Along with remaining largely untouched and totally inaccessible by road, Harvey said the ecosystem provides prime bear habitat and would’ve historically been accessed by the region’s extirpated Frisby-Boulder herd of southern mountain caribou. Today, Peters reported the herd has just six caribou.

Safe Haven, originally planned to premiere in town last January but ultimately screened Oct. 10 at the Revelstoke Performing Arts Centre, chronicles the ecological value of this 84-square-kilometre ancient inland rainforest, which was first visited by biologists in 2017. Initial expeditions identified more than 360 species, including at least 20 rare species, and one biologist confirmed more than 100 fungi species within several hours.

The 30-minute film, produced in collaboration with Damien Gillis, advocates for the B.C. government to protect these expanses of hard-to-access and undisturbed old-growth from logging as a Class A provincial park. Unlike an old-growth protected area or Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area, park status would ensure legislated protection for the Rainbow-Jordan, Peters told some 200 attendees at the screening.

For Revelstoke, “this is something so special that we can have and enjoy so close to home,” she said. More widely across B.C.’s 140,000-square-kilometre interior wet belt, “we’re working to protect the last remaining scraps of this important habitat.”

Also filming just across the lake in the cutblocks around Downie Creek, Craig Pettitt, Peters’ mentor at VWS, described the atmosphere being night and day.

“When I come into here, it’s like being hit in the gut,” he said.

Before VWS even encountered the Rainbow-Jordan while using Google Earth, “the first thing we were looking for was forested valleys that weren’t industrialized, and that eliminated 99 per cent of the environment,” Pettitt explained.

Asked by an audience member why the Rainbow-Jordan was any more special than other old-growth stands throughout the Revelstoke Valley, Peters replied that most of these ecosystems are put at risk by increased drought and wind exposure, and bear little long-term resilience when the forests are small and logging has encroached all around them.

“They don’t have nearly as much of a fighting chance as (Rainbow-Jordan) does,” she said, noting it’s a “complete ecosystem.”

And while the Rainbow-Jordan’s three-metre-wide cedar hemlocks continue to stand the test of time, undisturbed by lumber licensees or motor vehicles, “if cut down, no one will ever see a tree of that stature on that land again,” Pettitt told attendees.

Wildsight Revelstoke helped bring VWS’s film and vision for a protected area to town, despite initial comments from snowmobiling and heli-skiing proponents — concerned about potentially losing parts of their recreational tenure adjacent to the Rainbow-Jordan — leading to Wildsight’s choice to postpone the original screening planned in January.

In a subsequent February meeting, Wildsight, snowmobilers, heli-skiers and other stakeholders managed to identify a shared goal of conservation while recognizing the recreational value of the land, Harvey explained, paving the way for a delayed but successful October screening. This time, VWS organized the event independently, with Wildsight arranging the date.

While VWS continues to push the province to protect the Rainbow-Jordan, Harvey said Wildsight has focused this year on engaging community members — the people closest to these old-growth ecosystems.

“We’re at the stage where we’re trying to build support for this site,” she said, noting the provincial government continues to make no commitments in response to the proposal. “We really need to sort of gain the public’s support to move this forward.”

At the same time, VWS is concerned about how mechanized recreation such as snowmobiling impacts landscapes for native species, especially caribou.

“We’re compacting the snow and increasing the efficiency of these predator highways for hunting,” she said at the screening, referring to wolves.

To put more pressure on the province for a Class A park, some 900 residents in Revelstoke and beyond have already signed a petition or written to B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Parks, according to Wildsight. Peters encouraged attendees on Oct. 10 to hand-write their own letters to the province.

As for the film, “I think it’s a great opportunity for people who can’t access the (Rainbow-Jordan) area to learn about it,” Harvey said.

Peters expects Safe Haven will be made available free online in 2026, following VWS’s tour this year screening the film across B.C.

If the Rainbow-Jordan can be preserved in its current form, “we still have something that remains that we can pass on to our future generations,” she said.

Perhaps Toby Spribille, a University of Alberta botanist featured in the film, put it best.

“One thing I really do hope for a place like Rainbow-Jordan is that it can serve as a safe haven.”

That moment — after four years of construction, 20,000 kilometres of track and six years ahead of schedule — marked the uniting of Canada coast to coast in its early days as a nation.

According to local historian Doug Mayer, who’s heavily involved with the Revelstoke Railway Museum and Revelstoke Model Train Club, “the completion of the railway was a big deal for the City of Revelstoke.”

Not only might the town not still exist today if it weren’t for the CPR, Revelstoke benefitted as an instrumental hub for maintenance, repair and dispatch for a 250-mile division from Kamloops to Field.

“Revelstoke is considered to be a very important location on the railway by upper management,” Mayer wrote by email. “Many times over the years, special events were organized to take place here.”

Tom Parkin, who grew up in Revelstoke and worked for the CPR in his summers before becoming a Parks Canada biologist and Canadian railway historian, emphasized that “the railway’s significance is still national.”

Shortly after the driving of the last spike, “they did carry the dignitaries in an official train all the way to the coast,” he said, adding military supplies were also delivered from Halifax to Esquimalt via the new CPR.

One painting by C.W. Jeffreys depicts Prime Minister John A. Macdonald standing on the exterior platform of a train in 1886, passing through the Rockies and Columbia Mountains with a peak penetrating the background. Parkin identified this as Mount Sir Donald in Glacier National Park.

However, the CPR experienced closures early on in areas such as Rogers Pass, due to a lack of infrastructure for excavating deep snow, he noted.

Parkin recently became the first Canadian to earn the David P. Morgan Article Award from the U.S. Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, for a series he wrote about a forgotten quarry that supplied stone for CPR construction and memorials.

One site he researched, a sturdy stone archway at Cascade Creek in Glacier’s east end, became a point of fascination when Parkin collected an engineer’s notebook detailing the construction process over seven or eight years.

“It’s withstood avalanches for 127 years,” he remarked of the archway, which today is difficult to access due to the original trail no longer being maintained.

While Revelstoke’s railway-scape is nearly unrecognizable now from a century ago, Parkin said the city remains a prime site for enthusiasts to admire trains.

“The way the town has evolved is a pleasure for me to see, even as a rail fan,” he said. “The significance of our two national railways (CPKC and CN Rail), I think, is diminished in the public domain. Railways are critically important to the economy of the country.”

Moreover, Rogers Pass — one of the CPR’s most challenging stretches for locomotives to traverse — remains decorated with names of key railroaders.

The pass itself was named for railway surveyor Major Albert Bowman Rogers, who helped first find it, while the one-mile Mount Shaughnessy Tunnel took the name of Thomas Shaughnessy, a mastermind behind the railway. Railway general manager William Cornelius Van Horne, an early proponent for forging a direct route through the Selkirk Mountains, is commemorated today by the Van Horne Range not far away near Field.

“Many of the engineers who built the railway have locations on the railway that are named for them,” Mayer said. “There are far too many to list.”

Fifty kilometres west at Craigellachie, where the Last Spike monument was expanded and moved slightly following the CPR’s centennial celebration in 1985, the site today displays a large plinth with rocks from every Canadian province, Mayer described. The monument continues to be restored in partnership with the Revelstoke Railway Museum.

Ten years from now, Mayer said it’s quite likely CPKC will throw a special 150th anniversary celebration at Craigellachie for the Last Spike.