Publisher: Shootin' the Breeze

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Shootin’ the Breeze Newspaper — Oct. 7, 2026

Written on October 7, 2026. Posted in This Week's Breeze.

This week in Shootin’ the Breeze

It’s National Newspaper Week, and this issue is a good example of what local journalism looks like when it stays close to the people, organizations and places that shape a community.

On the cover, a combine works after sundown north of Cowley as farmers make the most of mild fall weather to bring in the harvest.

Inside, Windy Slopes Health Foundation is looking for new board members as it continues raising money for equipment at Pincher Creek Health Centre. In Crowsnest Pass, the annual Bedpan Open raised about $40,000 for a new LUCAS CPR device and GlideScope at the local health centre.

Mental health and community support are also in focus. A McMan family event brought local service providers together at the Pincher Creek ag grounds, while retired RCMP constable Val Dennis gave Pincher Creek Legion guests a candid look at what police, paramedics and other first responders can carry home from difficult calls.

For families at St. Michael’s School, a new raffle aims to raise $20,000 for transportation, athletics, field trips and other student activities — including keeping the school’s Dragon Wagons on the road.

Arts and tourism take us into Crowsnest Pass, where a travelling Alberta Society of Artists exhibition explores life’s in-between moments and Bellevue tourism operators reflect on a busy summer that brought visitors from around the world.

This week’s On the Hunt feature pulls together local information for the 2026 hunting season, from wildlife management units and rifle dates to chronic wasting disease testing, Castle park rules, grazing leases, licences and important phone numbers.

In the Mailbox, Cornell Van Ryk continues his Alberta referendum series with a look at oil, export dependence and the economic risks he sees in separation.

And in My Little Corner, Shannon makes room for gratitude at Thanksgiving — for family, memories, community, journalism and the people who continue making time for this newspaper after 15 years.

News Media Canada also marks National Newspaper Week with a reminder that credible journalism starts with real people — people who report, verify and are accountable for what they publish.

Looking for something to do this month? Keep an eye on our online events page.

Event flyer for International Credit Union Day at Vision Credit Union on October 15, inviting community members to bring food bank donations in exchange for a wall calendar.

Print copies are available at:

Pincher Creek Co-op locations
Pincher Office Products, Rexall, Walmart and Pharmasave in Pincher Creek
O’Bies Mercantile in Lundbreck
Twin Butte Country General Store
IGA, IDA and Pharmasave in Blairmore
Remedy’sRX in Coleman

Subscriptions can also be purchased from the Shootin’ the Breeze office in Pincher Creek.

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Travelling Library a hit with Piikani children and elders

Written on October 5, 2026. Posted in Culture & Community, Education.

“Can I come travelling with you more often?” Piikani Elder Eric Crow Shoe asked Sam Bonwick as the Pincher Creek Travelling Library wrapped up its first visit to Otskoipik’saki Daycare Centre in Brocket on Sept. 17.

Sam, Pincher Creek Municipal Library’s outreach co-ordinator, and Piikani Nation member Annette Bad Eagle once worked together at Canyon School’s daycare in Pincher Creek.

The Travelling Library has long been a dream for both women. They want to use books to support reading skills and cultural awareness among young people of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage in Pincher Creek and Brocket.

Along with Elder Doreen Weasel Bear and Elder Eric, Sam and Annette held two storytime sessions at the daycare.

Dolly Provost, a child-care teacher in the infant room, attended daycare in Brocket herself in the early 1970s. Classes were held in portables then, decades before the current building went up.

Two child-care teachers sit with young children and books in a daycare play area.

Dolly Provost, front, and Maryanna Smith, child-care teachers in the infant room, help children practise holding and opening books.

“It’s good for the children,” says child-care teacher Maryanna Smith. “It’s a new experience having someone new read to them.”

Maryanna says that while the main language spoken in the daycare is English, individual words, phrases and daily routines are introduced to the children in Blackfoot as much as possible.

She was introduced to Blackfoot the same way as a child. When Elder Eric provided the Blackfoot words for moon and stars during the reading, Sam and others tried repeating them.

A bearded man in a cap smiles while playing guitar. Text promotes a Lloyd Spiegel concert at Empress Theatre, October 14, 2026, with ticket details and contact info.

Sam uses her own literacy development as an example.

“I used to read very slowly,” she says. “It was a real struggle. But I find the more I read, the quicker I get.”

In addition to supporting young readers, Annette and Sam want to encourage elders to share more of their oral stories with younger generations.

The plan is for Sam to return to Brocket with her box of books and for Annette to become a regular guest at the library in Pincher Creek.

Checks, balances and one Canada

Written on October 4, 2026. Posted in Opinions.

Cornell Van Ryk, a resident of the MD of Pincher Creek, has been posting his thoughts on the Oct. 19 referendum questions to social media. After readers asked us to bring the series to the paper, he agreed to walk Breeze readers through the ballot. He describes himself as a political junkie with no particular expertise, and what follows is his opinion. Readers are encouraged to research the questions themselves and draw their own conclusions.

Ballot Question 7

Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to abolish the unelected federal Senate?

Our political system requires checks and balances to prevent a democratic government from accumulating too much power and potentially becoming authoritarian. When we elect a majority government, the leader and cabinet have considerable power, making effective checks and balances extremely important.

Unfortunately, many of the checks on government power have lost their effectiveness over time. Majority governments face relatively few effective constraints.

The King’s representative has largely become a figurehead, routinely giving royal assent to legislation.

The Senate is appointed by the government of the day, makes relatively minor tweaks to legislation, and rarely challenges the government.

Individual MPs follow their party’s position rather than independently challenging the government.

Political appointment of judges can undermine the perception of judicial independence and, potentially, the effectiveness of the courts as a check on government power.

Poster for Pincher Creek Chamber’s 31st Annual Awards of Excellence on October 23, 2026. Ticket prices and event details are listed, with a link for tickets at PincherChamber.ca/tickets.

Even voters have become increasingly partisan, with many people identifying strongly with a political party and consistently voting along party lines, with no regard to competence or performance.

This is why the Senate matters. I support reforming the Senate, but abolishing it is the wrong solution. If we remove one of the few remaining institutional checks on government power, we simply give the government of the day even more power.

The Senate needs reform. I support an elected Senate with greater accountability and a stronger mandate to represent provinces and territories. But eliminating an important check on government authority because it is currently imperfect makes little sense.

Reform, yes. Abolish, no. I will be voting No to this question.

Ballot Question 8

Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to allow provinces to opt out of federal programs that intrude on provincial jurisdiction such as health care, education and social services, without a province losing any of the associated federal funding for use in its social programs?

I have looked at Question 8 primarily in the context of health care.

Canada’s health-care system is based on some important principles: universality, access based on medical need rather than ability to pay, and no patient charges for medically necessary insured services. The federal government provides health-care funding to the provinces while establishing national standards through the Canada Health Act. Importantly, the federal government can withhold or reduce health-care transfer payments when a province does not comply with the act’s requirements.

I believe Alberta has been increasingly pushing the limits of these principles. We are seeing proposals that could restrict access based on residency, greater reliance on private delivery, and a growing role for user-pay services. The concern is that people with the financial means could gain faster access to care than those who cannot afford to pay.

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I do not support a two-tier health-care system.

Question 8 would allow Alberta to seek an arrangement where it could opt out of federal programs while retaining the associated federal funding. In my view, this could remove an important federal safeguard and make it easier for Alberta to continue moving toward a two-tier system.

I believe health care should be based on need, not wealth. We all contribute to a system designed to ensure that when we need medically necessary care, our ability to pay does not determine the care we receive.

I will vote No to Question 8.

Ballot Question 9

Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to better protect provincial rights from federal interference by giving a province’s laws dealing with provincial or shared areas of constitutional jurisdiction priority over federal laws when the province’s laws and federal laws conflict?

I’ve studied this issue somewhat. I’m not a lawyer, so this is my understanding of the constitutional issues — not legal advice.

Canada’s Constitution divides responsibility between the federal government and the provinces. In simple terms, Ottawa has jurisdiction over matters such as criminal law, defence, banking and interprovincial trade, while provinces have jurisdiction over areas such as health care, education, municipalities, resources and property and civil rights. There are also areas where both levels of government have legitimate constitutional authority.

Sometimes valid federal and provincial laws can overlap and genuinely conflict. This is where the principle of federal paramountcy applies. When both governments have the constitutional authority to legislate but their laws cannot operate together, the federal law currently takes priority. The courts decide whether there is actually a conflict.

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Question 9 would change that principle. In provincial or shared areas of jurisdiction, it would give priority to the provincial law when it conflicts with a federal law.

I don’t think the paramountcy issue itself is my biggest concern. If federal and provincial laws genuinely conflict, the courts will still be there to decide the issue.

What concerns me more is the potential fragmentation of Canada’s legal and regulatory system. In these times where we desperately need to remove barriers to interprovincial trade, we should not be creating the mechanism to create more.

If this principle were adopted, different provinces could increasingly establish their own rules that take priority over federal legislation. Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia., Quebec and other provinces could end up with substantially different rules in areas where national consistency has traditionally been important.

Canadians don’t live and businesses don’t operate in 10 separate countries. We trade with each other, move between provinces, work across provincial borders and rely on common national standards.

Provincial autonomy is important, and provinces must be able to exercise the constitutional powers they already have. But I am concerned that Question 9 could encourage a shift toward 10 increasingly independent regulatory systems rather than one Canada with appropriate provincial autonomy.

For me, that potential loss of national consistency is a much greater concern than whether federal or provincial paramountcy should apply when two laws conflict.

I will vote No to Question 9.

An older couple smiles while leaning on a wooden railing outdoors, above text describing their $879 profit share from Vision Credit Union and a website link.

Question 10 will appear in next week’s issue.

Referendums

Randy Plain Eagle brings his story and his stage home

Written on October 3, 2026. Posted in Arts & Creative Pulse, Culture & Community.

Randy Plain Eagle always felt he was different. He liked playing with Barbies and with the girls, rather than doing what the other boys did, and the bullying that followed taught him to hide.

“It really affected me,” he says, “I didn’t want to be seen.”

So he started skipping school.

By the time he reached Piikani Nation Secondary School, he longed to be seen and dreamed of acting. The school learned he hoped to perform and brought in Trickster Theatre, which built a production for the whole school about Randy setting out on a vision quest.

It was his first time working with lights, choreography, sound and other performers. When it ended, the audience stood and applauded, and afterward, people came to Randy’s part-time workplace to tell him how great he’d been in the show.

“This is what I’m meant to do,” he remembers thinking. In those moments Randy experienced the validation he didn’t feel growing up.

He is now 33 and an artist building a career with Justin Many Fingers, his partner in life and work. September has barely given Randy room to breathe, but he is revelling in it all.

On Sept. 2 he started his second year of arts and cultural management studies at MacEwan University, taking a full course load, and on Sept. 18 made his runway debut at the Indigenous Fashion Show at Casa in Lethbridge.

Event poster for a Secondhand Dreamcar concert at the Empress Theatre on November 20, 2026, at 7:30 PM, featuring a photo of the band members.

The next day, he and Justin spoke at Lethbridge Public Library’s Word on the Street festival about the Niitoyis Method, a Blackfoot approach to creating theatre that Justin developed, modelled on the structure of the teepee, and how it shaped Randy’s one-person show Sugar.

Last Friday the pair were busy helping with the Drum Grid choreography that moved drummers and powwow dancers around Fort Macleod’s main street.

All of this followed Aug. 31, when Sugar, Randy’s show about addiction, survival and recovery, was presented at Piikani Nation for International Overdose Awareness Day.

Randy has big plans and getting this far took him across the country and back.

Leaving home

Randy grew up one of eight children raised by a single mother, with a few early years in Pincher Creek before the family moved back to Brocket. Like many Indigenous families, his carried intergenerational trauma, including addiction and children being removed from their homes. Randy saw that cycle repeat in his own childhood.

“When I was about 16, I finally started to walk into my own confidence, but I was still trying to figure out who I was as a person and as a young, Blackfoot man,” Randy says. “I was by myself.”

Around that time, the late Troy Emery Twigg brought a performance workshop to Brocket. Troy was a Kainai dancer, choreographer and director who taught across the country, including at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre.

Randy shared his desire to perform with Troy, who told him about “this really cool opportunity out in Toronto.” Finishing high school and the Trickster performance came first, but the teenager now had a goal and was set on making a name for himself.

Ace of spades card on ad for Chase the Ace at the Pincher Creek Legion

He spent weekends drinking and hanging out with friends.

“I’d drink all weekend, go home, wake up, go back to school,” Randy says. “I was managing it and just being a teenager, so at the time it wasn’t a problem.”

He was serious enough about acting to round up letters of support, look for funding and get a plan together. Randy’s mom and sister dropped him at the Greyhound depot in Fort Macleod, and 63 hours later he landed in Toronto.

Randy’s journey at CIT taught him to act, find his voice and create performances through an Indigenous lens. Ironically, it was also where he first met Justin, though the two came from neighbouring reserves.

There was a dark side to Randy’s time in Toronto and he discovered city life was fast and chaotic. It became a balancing act between school and the party, with him struggling to stay afloat.

“At that time I was still very much in the closet, not really stepping into who I am and what my identity is,” Randy says.

Along with the other challenges, he was young and naive, and navigating being a Two Spirit person.

After graduating, Randy hung onto the party lifestyle.

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“That would be OK on Friday but by Sunday, I was just so damn depressed and questioning everything I’m doing,” he says. “Why am I here? I’m so lonely. I feel so disconnected, I feel so lost.”

He was 23, “and up until then it was trauma after trauma after trauma.”

It was time to make the bus trip home to Alberta.

The long way back

Randy went to Calgary, where he hoped to put his experience and skills to work. He researched companies and did some workshops, but found himself still drinking and partying. Nothing had changed except being introduced to meth.

“I was in a new environment doing the exact same shit,” he says.

After a performance in Brocket, Randy and his friends celebrated with drinks as he’d learned was the norm in the Toronto arts scene.

“It’s not normal for native people,” Randy says. “That’s not how we celebrate.”

But it’s what they did, and it led to a crash in Calgary when the driver, who had been drinking, hit a pole. Randy almost lost his life. His leg was badly cut through ligaments and tendons, and doctors said he might not walk again. It was devastating news for the young man who loved to dance and move.

“That’s what made me feel free and so that fear of not being able to do that again was very frightening, but then I was introduced to morphine for pain management,” Randy says.

He found it numbed more than his leg. For a while, the emotional pain he’d been carrying went quiet and he felt almost “normal.”

He missed an audition, but when he heard the director was leading a workshop in Pincher Creek, he went to find her. She asked whether he’d be healed by summer and when he said yes, she hired him.

He was one of only four Indigenous performers cast in the 2017 production of The Dream Catchers, a Canada 150 show that toured coast to coast. He says it gifted him the hoop dance but it also brought him face to face with Canada’s history with Indigenous people, and the road was lonely.

“You just felt all of the weight of the oppression and I think that was when I first learned of the bad, bad history that Canada has with my people,” he says. “I just became really bitter on that project. Every time we finished the show I drank.”

When the tour ended, Randy had a layover in Calgary and chose to stay rather than continue to Lethbridge. That choice, he says, is where the cycle of addiction began to snowball.

He worked for independent theatre companies for a time but, as his addiction deepened, Randy lost his housing and cycled through detox and relapse.

After about five years in the city, Randy went missing. His family and community members went to Calgary to search for him, plastering posters everywhere.

“When I realized my face was on almost every pole, I realized that I was loved and that my family was there looking for me and trying to take me home. That was the moment when I started to try,” Randy says.

“Recovery is not a straight-and-narrow path. For me it’s always getting back up and keeping trying.”

Randy needed to get sober for himself and for his family. In 2022, he went through detox and about 60 days in the pre-treatment program at Inii House on Piikani Nation, then treatment in Medicine Hat. He has been sober since 2023.

It was time to go home.

‘You have a story’

Randy and Justin also reconnected in 2022. After a family dinner, where Randy’s mother told Justin what Randy was like when he came home, Justin said, “Randy, you have a story.”

He wasn’t ready to tell it yet.

“There was guilt and shame in my body,” Randy says.

Justin reminded him the story was a gift that could help people. Randy asked himself how he could use what he’d lived through and learned, and started to write.

A professional development grant took him to Decidedly Jazz Danceworks in Calgary, a company he had researched years earlier and written off as out of reach. He was invited as an artist in residence and Sugar was developed there.

The Canada Council for the Arts funded its research and creation in March, and it played the Ignite! Festival in Calgary this spring.

Then Randy brought it home.

He spent the summer in a student position with Aakom-Kiyii Health Services and Akoka’tssini Mental Wellness, and together they built the Aug. 31 gathering to honour loved ones lost to addiction, and offer support and wellness information to everyone who came.

The show opens gently, with a grandmother telling her grandchildren a bedtime story about the Niitsitapi, the real people. Then Napi, the Blackfoot trickster, steps in and hands candy out to the audience, promising a sweet story with a warning attached.

“There’s always a cure for too much sugar,” he tells them, “and that, my friends, is more sugar!”

Randy plays every role. There is Sister Bear, who shares the boy’s childhood and later leads him into the city’s nightlife; Kitty, a street-smart booster who turns shoplifting into an art form; Danny, whose sweetness is its own kind of danger; and the Candyman, who runs downtown. On the street, the boy goes by Shugs. Sugar itself gets a voice too, promising confidence and belonging to anyone lonely enough to listen.

There is the mother, searching for her missing son, walking the back alleys and visiting shelters with posters and desperate hope until someone on the street says they know him. When the young man is close to dying, the spirit of a grandmother, wearing his mother’s face, turns him back, saying “Family is medicine.”

The show doesn’t gloss over drug use, overdose or the sickness of withdrawal, but it also has humorous moments and ends with a joyful dance.

Sugar is not an exact retelling of Randy’s story but draws on his life and people he met along the way.

Justin says a powerful moment came in the talk-back afterward, when a woman said her daughter has struggled with addiction for years and that she finally understood her after seeing the show.

That’s the point. “To have people feel something and work through it, and remind them that they’re not alone and that hope is possible, no matter how hard you struggle,” Randy says.

Justin Many Fingers joins Randy Plain Eagle for the talk-back after the performance of Sugar.

Submitted photo

Coming home

Randy made the dean’s list in his first year at MacEwan, where he studies online to learn the business side of running an arts company. His versatility as a performer and speaker is opening opportunities for him to give back to the community through Plain Eagle Productions.

Justin completed a master of fine arts degree at the University of Calgary this year, with research on Blackfoot knowledge and performance. In Blackfoot, he says, there is no single word for “artist” because art has always lived inside ceremony, song, story and design.

Coming home was deliberate.

“All of our stories come from here,” Justin says, and Drum Grid showed what that can look like.

Maria Crowshoe started the A’sitapiiksi Powwow Club in June because her grandson wanted to learn to dance. She saw Randy’s posters and asked him to teach the young dancers confidence and performance skills. He ended up choreographing and brought Justin in.

It was challenging to carry the spirit of powwow, which is celebration rather than performance, into a staged show, but they figured it out. Justin also says the setting mattered. Fort Macleod is where rations were handed out after the buffalo were gone and seeing young dancers celebrate on its main street felt like hope.

Randy and Justin are developing two versions of Sugar. One will be a full theatre production and the other a touring version suitable for schools, treatment centres and conferences. This includes creating a plan for audience members who need support and protecting the actor himself.

Other work is underway, including a Napi creation story, speaking engagements, a Treaty 7 anniversary project and “Two Directions,” a movement duet exploring Blackfoot understandings of Two Spirit identity. They also want to build an arts network that brings other nations’ shows to southern Alberta and takes theirs on the road.

The boy who once skipped school, so no one would see him, now stands on stage asking audiences to see one another and trust that anyone can find their way home.

If this story raises concerns for you or someone you love, Alberta’s 24-hour Addiction Helpline is 1-866-332-2322 and the Hope for Wellness Helpline for Indigenous people is 1-855-242-3310. Aakom-Kiyii Health Services can be reached at 403-965-3919.

Thirty years on, Irene Hollander still walks for Terry Fox

Written on October 2, 2026. Posted in Community Life.

After finishing her 30th Terry Fox walk Sept. 18, Irene Hollander stopped beside a poster near the Canyon School gymnasium in Pincher Creek. It honours her late husband, Wayne, who spent many hours in that gym as a volunteer coach and joined her on many Terry Fox runs over the years.

Wayne coached youth sports from the age of 20, including hockey, basketball and volleyball, often on Saturdays while working full time, and coached almost full time once he retired.

Irene and her friend Susan Knight walked the full route with Canyon School students, staff and parents, heading north to the walking path along the creek and returning to the school through the ag grounds.

In 1996, Irene was working as a hairdresser and could set her own schedule. She recalls volunteers organizing Terry Fox runs for the entire community.

When the leader stepped down, Irene approached Canyon School to see if staff would take on the event so the community could keep supporting the Terry Fox Foundation. She has not missed a year since.

Once, when terrible weather caused the school to postpone its walk, Irene went ahead on the original day, then walked the distance a second time a few days later when the school rescheduled.

Canyon School has five Terry Fox Lives Here banners from the Terry Fox Foundation marking its years of participation, and principal Jess Ames says the next should mark its 30th year.

Donor pledge forms were handed out to Canyon students at the start of the school year, and students raised more than $1,000.

Canyon School students gather out front before their Terry Fox walk. Principal Jess Ames says a record number of parents joined this year.

Irene Hollander stands with a poster honouring her late husband, Wayne, near the Canyon School gymnasium after her 30th Terry Fox walk.

At the age of 18, Terry Fox lost his right leg to bone cancer, enduring 16 months of treatment and learning to walk with an artificial leg. The young man from Port Coquitlam, B.C., set out from St. John’s, N.L, on April 12, 1980, on his Marathon of Hope to raise money for cancer research.

Averaging 42 kilometres a day, Terry’s mission took him nearly 5,400 kilometres across Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario, through all kinds of weather and terrain. Sometimes school groups and others joined him; other times Terry ran alone. By February 1981, his run had raised more than $24 million.

But Terry didn’t make it to Manitoba. After 143 days, his marathon ended Sept. 1 just outside Thunder Bay, Ont. Cancer had spread to his lungs. Cross-country runs were novel at the time, and Terry had won support from Newfoundland to his home province.

“I want to set an example that will never be forgotten,” Terry said.

He died June 28, 1981, at 22.

The first Terry Fox Run was held Sept. 13, 1981. According to the Terry Fox Foundation, runs in his name have raised more than $1 billion for the foundation’s research grants programs, the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network and the Digital Health and Discovery Platform.

Donations to the Terry Fox Foundation can be made online at terryfox.org.

Cancer Research, Community Legacy, Fundraising, Marathon of Hope, Terry Fox, Terry Fox Run, Volunteerism

A woman seated on a tall stool speaks indoors while holding a book.

Daughter shares Rose Potts’s residential school story at Vista Village

Written on October 1, 2026. Posted in Culture & Community.

Rose Potts was four years old when a crew from the supply boat that brought food to communities along the Mackenzie River took her and one of her brothers away to residential school.

“I have cried for my mother ever since,” Rose said.

Now 103 and a resident of Vista Village in Pincher Creek, Rose was at the centre of a talk her daughter, Margaret Potts, gave to about 14 residents on Thursday, ahead of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30.

“It’s not just a story or a day. It’s a life,” Margaret said.

She said that even though her mother carried some of the lifelong impacts of her residential school experience, Rose always believed people should be good to one another and care about others.

Simply walking alongside families affected by this trauma can help advance healing. That was one of the messages in a short film Margaret played. Produced by the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, the video shared clips of people speaking both before and after the visit and apology by Pope Francis in 2022.

In 1920, the federal government made residential school attendance compulsory for First Nations children aged seven to 15. Duncan Campbell Scott, the top civil servant in the Department of Indian Affairs, said the goal was to “get rid of the Indian problem.” Brothers and sisters were often separated, and children who spoke in their mother tongue were severely punished.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in 2008, gathered stories from residential school survivors across the country. In 2015 it released 94 Calls to Action, including one asking for a national day to honour survivors, their families and their communities. Parliament made Sept. 30 that day in 2021.

Recreation therapy aide Suzanne Teran and some of the residents present said they feel like one extended family. Learning on a personal level about what is going on in the lives of others is something that regularly happens at Vista Village, they said.

If this article raises difficult memories, the National Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day at 1-866-925-4419.

Allison Creek camp asks for pause on West Fraser harvest

Written on October 1, 2026. Posted in Environment.

A group camped near Allison Creek in the Crowsnest Pass wants a planned logging project paused until West Fraser Timber and the province release the science behind it.

Defenders of the Eastern Slopes set up the camp Sept. 22 in the Allison and Tecumseh creek watersheds, about 15 kilometres northwest of Coleman, where West Fraser plans to harvest about 454 hectares of forest.

The same day, the group says, its members spoke with contractors and West Fraser representatives as crews tried to move a bridge toward Atlas Road and a new logging road. The bridge has not moved and remains at the edge of a meadow, the group says.

DOES describes itself as a grassroots group of Albertans concerned about protecting the Eastern Slopes. It focuses on headwaters, native forests, wildlife habitat and threatened species.

“We are not a large formal environmental organization,” says Colin Smith, the group’s media spokesman, in a written response. “The group brings together people who are prepared to advocate directly for the protection of these landscapes.”

West Fraser and the province

West Fraser says its harvest plan follows the direction of the Alberta government’s Community Hazardous Fuels Reduction Program, which it says directs forestry companies to prioritize fuel reduction near communities identified as high-risk for wildfire.

The company says Alberta’s regulatory framework “includes requirements for forestry companies while harvesting, including strict provisions regarding critically sensitive areas and to protect water sources.”

West Fraser says it also obtains authorizations under federal regulations where required.

The company referred questions about the program to the province. It did not answer questions about the harvest timeline, species in the area or whether it plans legal action in response to the camp.

Alberta Forestry and Parks says the Allison Creek harvest was planned and approved under the current forest management plan. Under the fuels reduction program, which directs harvesting within approved plans to lower wildfire risk near communities, the department says the harvest’s design and timing were reviewed and adjusted to reduce community wildfire exposure “as soon as possible.”

The department says forest management planning weighs wildlife habitat, biodiversity, watersheds, recreation, wildfire risk and timber supply, and that harvest areas are approved through annual operating plans under Alberta’s timber harvest planning and operating ground rules.

Forestry and Parks staff monitor operations for compliance with approved plans and legislation, it says.

The department did not say what specific environmental or species assessments were done for this harvest, whether it has received concerns from DOES or other groups, or what its data shows about westslope cutthroat trout in the area.

The harvest area

DOES calls the area “one of the most diverse forests” in Alberta.

“The characterization comes from decades of field observations of the Allison Creek/Tecumseh Mountain landscape by people with extensive knowledge of the area’s natural history,” Smith says.

The group has described the proposal publicly as a 1,100-acre clearcut. Smith says that figure comes from West Fraser’s August presentation to Crowsnest Pass municipal council, which he says lists an initial proposed harvest area of 550 hectares and a current area of 454 hectares, about 1,120 acres.

According to DOES, the Alberta government and West Fraser have not presented “any scientific evidence” to justify the project.

Smith says that statement needs context.

“We are not saying that no scientific work whatsoever has been done,” he says.

Smith says West Fraser’s August presentation referred to an equivalent clearcut area analysis and an independent hydrologic risk assessment, which the company said found the proposed harvest to be low risk.

“But stating the conclusion of an assessment is not the same thing as making the science available for independent scrutiny,” Smith says.

He says DOES has not seen the complete hydrological assessment or its underlying data.

The group wants evidence on water quantity and quality, peak and low flows, sediment, stream temperature, fish habitat, and cumulative effects from past logging and roads in the watershed. It also wants evidence tying the harvest plan to wildfire risk reduction.

Smith says the group recognizes that reducing wildfire risk to Crowsnest Pass communities is an important goal.

“But that still leaves a fundamental scientific question,” he says. “Why these 454 hectares? Why this type and intensity of harvesting? What alternatives were evaluated? And what evidence demonstrates that this particular intervention provides the necessary wildfire-safety benefit while minimizing harm to the headwaters?”

Species

Smith says the area around Allison Creek, Deadman Pass and Tecumseh Mountain has an unusual mix of tree species, including western redcedar, western larch, ponderosa pine, western white pine, limber pine and whitebark pine.

Of those, whitebark pine is listed as endangered under the federal Species at Risk Act. Western redcedar is ranked imperilled in Alberta on Canada’s Wild Species database, a ranking that carries no legal protection. Nationally, it is ranked secure.

The group also points to westslope cutthroat trout in upper Allison Creek. Alberta’s population of the fish is listed as threatened under the federal act, and DOES says it is working to obtain the provincial genetic records on the trout.

David McIntyre, who holds a master’s degree from the University of Washington’s College of the Environment, says he first documented the area’s forest more than 40 years ago and has worked to protect it ever since. He describes the watershed as a “living sponge” that sustains the drought-affected Oldman Watershed.

Clear cutting and associated roads will disrupt creek and spring hydrology, McIntyre says, raising peak flows and worsening low flows while increasing sedimentation. He is also concerned about westslope cutthroat trout in upper Allison Creek.

McIntyre says the forest contains some of Alberta’s oldest trees, which he says serve as records of climate change over the past thousand years through growth-ring analysis.

What’s next

The group plans to continue taking action if construction proceeds. Smith says those actions will remain lawful, peaceful and safe.

DOES has not yet formally requested an environmental assessment or independent scientific review from the province or West Fraser.

Smith says the group intends to request the release of existing scientific assessments first. He says additional studies should then be considered where information gaps remain.

“We don’t believe the first step should necessarily be commissioning another study if relevant scientific work already exists,” Smith says. “The first step is transparency.”

Residents seeking time with town council face new rules

Written on October 1, 2026. Posted in Civic & Government.

Anyone hoping to make their case to Pincher Creek town council now gets five more minutes to do it, but they’ll need to do more of the work ahead of time.

Council adopted a rewritten procedural bylaw Sept. 28 that gives delegations 20 minutes instead of 15. It also requires written requests 10 days in advance, any slides by the same deadline, and a clear statement of what the delegation wants from council, such as funding or a letter of support.

Bylaw 1596-26 also drops three sections on petitions and changes how council chooses its deputy mayor. It passed second and third readings with one clerical fix and no other changes since first reading on Sept. 14.

The new bylaw repeals and replaces Bylaw 1596-24 in its entirety, following a months-long review by administration that found several outdated or incorrect clauses. The work is part of a broader review of town policies and procedures.

Delegations

The town’s chief administrative officer now sets the format for delegation requests, and submitting one doesn’t guarantee a spot at the next meeting. A person or group that has presented can’t return on the same subject for three months unless council waives the rule by special resolution.

CAO Konrad Dunbar said the goal is to give administration enough information to prepare for requests before a meeting, rather than fielding requests council has no information about.

“It’s not great for us when a delegation comes in and says, ‘We want this,’ and I don’t know about it,” he said.

The change can allow some requests to be dealt with at the same meeting rather than returning to a future agenda, he said.

Coun. Valerie Wynder questioned whether allowing the CAO to prescribe the format for delegation requests could unintentionally create barriers.

“I’m just wondering if limiting it to a specific online form or something might exclude some members of our community from being able to navigate that and have a delegation, because they maybe don’t have the skills to submit online,” she said.

She added that future administrations could interpret the provision differently and make it harder for some residents to bring matters before council.

Dunbar said the wording is intended to give the town flexibility as it moves toward more online and digital processes. The report to council says requests could come by form, online submission or email, as technology allows.

Coun. Mark Barber said staff would likely help any resident who struggled to submit a request in the required format.

The discussion also focused on whether council should make decisions immediately after hearing from a delegation.

Coun. Sahra Nodge said she supports receiving information in advance but does not want every request decided on the same night.

“Sometimes, there’s value in waiting two weeks to discuss something, because we can get caught up in the enthusiasm of a presenter and be very gung-ho and keen in the moment. And I’ve found that the reflection time from when someone presents something and then you’re deciding a couple weeks later is a valuable time to just kind of think about it,” she said.

Mayor Wayne Oliver agreed, saying there can be value in allowing a request to “percolate” before council makes a decision.

The bylaw gives council several options after hearing a delegation. It can receive the presentation as information, refer it to a committee, defer it to another meeting, appoint a special committee or deal with the matter at the meeting. Deciding that night takes a special resolution if the request isn’t a separate item on the agenda.

Dunbar said council retains that flexibility, and the changes were meant to create options for council, rather than obligations, while allowing administration to prepare items that are ready for a decision.

Petitions removed

The biggest change to the bylaw came at first reading, and it wasn’t in the original draft.

Nodge raised concerns that the bylaw’s petitions section conflicts with how the Municipal Government Act defines a petition, which is a formal process that requires signatures from a set percentage of electors.

She said using the same term for a much less formal process risks confusing residents about which route actually compels council action.

Dunbar said the sections were intended to address requests to council rather than create a separate public petition process. He noted other written requests can already be handled through the bylaw’s provisions on communication with council.

Council agreed the petition sections overlapped with the bylaw’s broader delegation and correspondence provisions and voted to remove sections 118, 119 and 120.

On Sept. 28, Nodge noted that a heading in the bylaw still referred to petitions, and council struck the word before passing the final readings.

Deputy mayor and committees

The changes also give council greater flexibility over the deputy mayor position.

The old bylaw provided for an automatic eight-month rotation. Council now chooses its deputy mayor each year using whatever method it considers appropriate. Dunbar said councils can use different approaches, including votes or dividing the position among multiple councillors.

Committee preferences are also handled differently. Councillors will provide their preferences to administration before the organizational meeting and staff will compile the responses into one summary for the agenda package.

Dunbar said this allows councillors to see which committees have attracted interest before making appointments. Council retains authority over the appointments.

Another change gives council, rather than staff, authority over councillor seating at the organizational meeting.

The annual council meeting schedule is removed from the body of the bylaw, and council instead sets its schedule by resolution at the organizational meeting.

Dunbar said this avoids amending the procedural bylaw whenever council wants to change a meeting date.

Correspondence and reports

The updated bylaw consolidates provisions dealing with communication to and from council. The old rules assumed signed paper letters, but Dunbar said most communication now comes by email.

Under the new wording, the CAO determines whether correspondence should go on an agenda, receive a direct response or be referred to the mayor, while council is still informed about what was received and how it was handled.

The bylaw also formalizes written council reports, following council’s June 22 direction to move away from verbal reports during meetings. Reports are due by 4 p.m. the Wednesday before each meeting, and a verbal report no longer counts.

One change doesn’t appear in the bylaw at all. When council finishes its agenda, the mayor now simply adjourns the meeting and notes the time, with no motion or vote, Dunbar told council Sept. 28. A motion is still needed to end a meeting before the agenda is done.

Council’s Oct. 26 organizational meeting will be the first held under the new rules, including choosing a deputy mayor and setting council’s seating and meeting schedule.

Shootin’ the Breeze Newspaper — Sept. 30, 2026

Written on September 30, 2026. Posted in This Week's Breeze.

This week in Shootin’ the Breeze

On the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, this issue carries stories of family, healing, recovery and coming home.

On the cover, a lone powwow dancer moves along Fort Macleod’s Main Street during Drum Grid, part of an evening that brought Blackfoot drumming, powwow dancing and a high school drumline into the heart of downtown.

Randy Plain Eagle was once a boy who skipped school so no one would see him. Now the Two Spirit artist has brought his one-person show, Sugar, home to Piikani Nation. His story reaches into addiction, recovery, art and the family who never stopped looking for him.

Stephanie English is walking again in memory of her daughter Joey-Tiiah and other missing and murdered Indigenous and two-spirit people. She shares the message behind the walk in her own words, while Hannah Noerenberg tells the story of the mother who keeps putting one foot in front of the other for her daughter.

At Vista Village, the daughter of 103-year-old Rose Potts shares her mother’s story of being taken to residential school at just four years old. And in Brocket, a travelling library is bringing books, Elders and storytime directly to Piikani children.

There’s plenty of community life in these pages too. Irene Hollander marks 30 years of walking for Terry Fox, the Livingstone Ladies sew care bags for women using the shelter, and a benefit concert helps Care Bear volunteer drivers keep their vehicles on the road.

On the news side, residents hoping to speak directly to Pincher Creek town council face new delegation rules, a camp at Allison Creek is asking for a pause on a planned West Fraser timber harvest, and the Aurora Centre explains how someone in a rural community can take the first step after sexual violence without even giving their name.

And there’s more tucked throughout the issue, including Mailbox, community photos and the people doing the everyday work that keeps southwestern Alberta connected.

Looking for something to do this fall? Keep an eye on our online events page.

Print copies are available at:

Pincher Creek Co-op locations
Pincher Office Products, Rexall, Walmart and Pharmasave in Pincher Creek
O’Bies Mercantile in Lundbreck
Twin Butte Country General Store
IGA, IDA and Pharmasave in Blairmore
Remedy’sRX in Coleman

Subscriptions can also be purchased from the Shootin’ the Breeze office in Pincher Creek.

Call us to subscribe.

Questions?

A woman raises a white cloth beside a memorial display with a red dress.

A Piikani mother puts one foot in front of the other for her daughter

Written on September 30, 2026. Posted in Culture & Community.

Beside a campfire under a full moon, in a supporter’s yard near Surrey, B.C., Stephanie English opened the small bundle of her daughter’s belongings for the first time.

Police gave her the bundle 10 years ago. It holds items found with Joey-Tiiah English, a 25-year-old mother of three from Piikani Nation who was reported missing in Calgary in June 2016.

Some of her remains were found weeks later in a wooded area of Calgary’s Crescent Heights neighbourhood. According to facts agreed to in court, she died of an overdose, and a man she had been using drugs with dismembered her body afterward and discarded it.

The man, Joshua Weise, pleaded guilty to indignity to a human body and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. Police searched a Calgary landfill but found no more of her remains, and Stephanie has never been able to bury her daughter in full.

Stephanie opened the bundle Sept. 23, partway through a run from her Piikani Nation home to Vancouver, surrounded by people who understood her grief.

Stephanie ran through a highway tunnel, up and down hills in the Okanagan, stopping in communities that have suffered losses like her own.

She made the run ahead of her ninth annual walk to Calgary, which starts Oct. 2. Her mother, Patsy English, Joey-Tiiah’s daughter and her own daughter followed in a vehicle. It was their first visit to Vancouver.

“This was primarily a spiritual journey for myself,” Stephanie says. “I am really humbled by what was going on; I am still processing what I experienced. I got a lot of support from the community of sisters that know and understand.”

She means families who have lost daughters, sisters, aunts, grandmothers and Two-Spirit loved ones to violence or disappearance, and who, she says, have too often seen police and society fail to solve or stop those crimes.

Stephanie is grateful for the reception she got in Invermere and other stops along the way. She recalls stepping onto the long Fraser River bridge feeling especially heavy-hearted.

For many years, she has carried the weight of running to create awareness of not only her daughter’s case but also the cases of many others. This time, she thought about how more and more people are speaking out.

“I pray that more people will wake up and get out of their silence once they start reaching out for help,” Stephanie says.

She believes the silence many feel over such losses is slowly starting to lift and says Indigenous liaison workers in police services are pushing their colleagues to take these cases seriously. Stephanie says she no longer feels institutionalized racism when dealing with police.

People seem willing to listen, she says, even if concrete actions have not been taken in her daughter’s case. As she ran, her spirits lifted, especially when she saw a pair of eagles and their young flying overhead.

At a small gathering in Vancouver-Hastings, people shared songs and prayers. There, Stephanie met people she calls sisters and brothers in the Sisters in Spirit movement, including Dennis Saddleman, the author of From Residential School to Word Warrior.

At the same Surrey campfire where Stephanie opened Joey-Tiiah’s bundle, she, her mother, her daughter and her granddaughter were gifted blankets with thunderbird, butterfly and star designs.

Much still weighs on her.

Stephanie says governments have not honoured the treaties signed with her people, and she points to a foster care system she calls broken, human trafficking she says is getting worse, and ongoing discrimination against First Nations people.

Above all, she continues pushing to recover the rest of Joey-Tiiah’s remains, which she believes are in a Calgary landfill.

“It makes me push harder with love, the more we get denied, the more I push deeper,” she says.

Stephanie invites all who are able to join her on the annual Sisters in Spirit walk to Calgary. Walkers leave from Range Road 274 and Highway 3 at 6 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 2.

The next day, community members will welcome them at the Awo Taan Healing Lodge in Calgary. From there, the walk continues to destinations in the centre of the city.

Stephanie asks those who cannot join what she sees as a form of bridge-building to keep the participants in prayer.

If this story raises concerns for you, the national support line for families and survivors of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people is available 24 hours a day at 1-844-413-6649. Alberta’s 24-hour Addiction Helpline is 1-866-332-2322.

‘We walk for those who cannot walk beside us’

Written on September 30, 2026. Posted in Culture & Community.

Stephanie English of Piikani Nation brought the following statement to Shootin’ the Breeze before setting out Sept. 20 on this year’s Calling My/Our Spirit Back Unity Walk. Inspired by the deaths of two of Stephanie’s daughters, it carries a message of remembrance and healing while honouring families of missing and murdered Indigenous and two-spirit people, residential school survivors and all impacted. This year’s walk, the ninth annual, is a walk, ride, run format from Brocket to Vancouver, and a finale at the Sisters in Spirit gathering in Calgary on Oct. 4. She asked it to be printed exactly as written.

Our walk is more than footsteps. It is my mother’s love for our daughters. It’s prayer and a call for Justice. My greatest dream is to one day bring my daughter Joey-Tiiah’s remains home from the landfills and to lay her to rest with dignity. Joey-Tiiah Gentle Woman deserves this.

Until that day comes, I will continue walking, not only for my daughters but for every MMIWM2S+ person and for every family still searching and morning praying and waiting.

I walk so our families do not lose hope or faith. I walk carrying the love of those who have gone into the spirit world, believing their spirits are beside us. Singing, dancing and praying, and reminding us to do good in this life.

I also walk for our younger generations. I want them to see that we can break cycles within our families and communities with truth, honesty and respect. We can follow our visions and teachings given us, stand together, protect one another, and protect the lands that held our people for thousands of years to this day.

This journey is about Unity. We must stand together as One people and One Nation.

No mother should have to fight to have a landfill searched for their Child. No human being should be treated as garbage or as disposable trash.

Until our loved ones are brought home, we will continue to walk, pray, speak their names and demand that they are not forgotten. As a mother, this is a 365-day reminder why I speak and seek help and support of the four directions across Turtle Island.

Search All Landfills. Bring Gentle Woman (Joey-Tiiah) and our loved ones home.

Protect our daughters, sisters, mothers, grandmothers/fathers, uncles, nephews and two-spirited, and our future Generations.

We walk for those who cannot walk beside us. We speak for those whose voices were taken and not heard.

And we will not stop until they come home.

This is for all walks of life, yet it hits harder for me as a First Nation mama bear.

Love,

Natowawhkii (Walking Holy Woman)

Stephanie English

Calling My/Our Spirit Back Unity Walk, First Nations, Indigenous Healing, Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, MMIWM2S+, Remembrance, Residential Schools, Two-Spirit

Dancers in regalia covered in long, brightly coloured fringe dance down Fort Macleod's Main Street past a stone bank building, while spectators and drummers watch from the sidewalk.

Drum Grid brings drums and dance to Fort Macleod’s Main Street

Written on September 29, 2026. Posted in Arts & Creative Pulse, Culture & Community.

Spectators didn’t stay put for Drum Grid: A Sonic Journey with A’sitapiiksi on Friday evening in Fort Macleod. They followed the beat.

The free street performance, part of New Music Lab’s Unfamiliar Trails: Coming Together Festival, saw the Coaldale Prairie Winds Secondary drumline playing Drum Grid, a piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning Diné composer Raven Chacon.

The drumline led the crowd along the town’s main street, from one stop to the next, where the A’sitapiiksi Powwow Club performed different dances at each location, including grass, jingle, and fancy dance styles to traditional Blackfoot drumming and singing.

The powwow club started in June, after Maria Crowshoe’s grandson said he wanted to learn to dance. Randy Plain Eagle choreographed the performance with Justin Many Fingers, working with the young dancers over about six hours of rehearsal in the weeks before the show.

Dancers were from the Piikani and Kainai nations and Fort Macleod.

Dancers in feathered bustles and headdresses dance down Main Street at sunset, backlit by the low sun, their long shadows stretching across the pavement past historic storefronts.

High school drummers with snare drums and hand drums stand in a row outside a red brick building, waiting to play.

Members of the Coaldale Prairie Winds Secondary drumline march down Main Street playing hand drums from sheet music, led by a man with a frame drum, with snare drummers following behind.

A line of dancers in colourful regalia performs on the street outside a laundromat, while hand drummers in cowboy hats sing and drum on the sidewalk behind them.

Young women and girls in fancy shawl regalia spin with their fringed shawls outstretched in a Main Street crosswalk, as a crowd behind them watches and films on their phones.

Three hand drummers sing and play painted hand drums outside a brick building, as a dancer in a black shawl decorated with shells and a beaded belt faces them in the foreground.

Young dancers in full regalia carry white, red and blue flags down the centre of Main Street under a cloudy sky.

Two girls in pink and blue regalia with fringed shawls and beaded crowns stand on the street, with jingle dress dancers behind them.

A fancy dancer in bright pink, green and purple regalia with feathered bustles and white fringe spins mid-step on an empty Main Street in Fort Macleod, lined with historic brick and stone buildings under a pale evening sky.

Jingle dress dancers in red, pink and green regalia lined with rows of metal cones dance on a sidewalk, one woman holding a feather fan, as other dancers and spectators gather behind them.

Members of a high school drumline in yellow and black shirts walk along a downtown sidewalk carrying snare drums and hand drums, led by an older man playing a frame drum.

Drum Grid, Indigenous powwows, National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, Piikani Princess

Heading for My Little Corner and editorial by Shannon Peace

Corner: Referendum fatigue is real, and so is Oct. 19

Written on September 24, 2026. Posted in Opinions.

If you turn the pages of this week’s issue with a sigh and feel weary at the sight of yet another referendum story, I understand. I feel it too.

This week’s paper leans more toward hard news than usual. It wasn’t planned, it’s simply how the stories came together.

There’s an article on campaign signs going missing around Pincher Creek, a look at who’s behind the signs popping up everywhere, and a report from a session where Piikani and Kainai members shared their questions about treaties and ID at the polls. Cornell Van Ryk’s opinion series continues as well, based on reader feedback. He’s a local willing to put his name beside what he believes.

The Mailbox is open to anyone who would like to respectfully share their thoughts.

Unless something significant comes up, you won’t see this much referendum coverage in one issue again.

So why keep covering it?

We hear in conversation that many people aren’t sure what they’re being asked. If that’s you, you’re in good company. A recent Angus Reid Institute survey found one in five Albertans said they found the referendum questions difficult to understand.

There are 10 questions on the ballot. Questions 1 to 9 are answered with Yes or No, and Question 10 offers a choice between two options.

With more than two dozen registered campaigns and a separation petition before the courts, it’s a lot to take in. Our team is doing the best it can to help, from as many angles as possible. It’s not an easy job!

My primary role right now is in fact-checking and editing. It takes time and care to check against sources and to make sure claims are attributed. It’s slow work and is why some of these stories took longer to publish.

The question that seems to cause the most confusion is Question 10. It ISN’T a vote to separate from Canada.

It asks whether Alberta should remain a province, or whether the provincial government should begin the constitutional process to hold a later, binding referendum on separation.

It asks whether Albertans want a separation vote, but it isn’t that vote.

Whatever your view, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read the questions before marking your ballot.

Elections Alberta is independent of the provincial government and of the campaigns. The questions, rules, and how and where to vote are found on its website at elections.ab.ca.

If voting by mail, request your special ballot by Friday, Sept. 25. Completed ballots must reach Edmonton by Oct. 16. I’m aiming to return mine at least a week ahead of that deadline but my package is yet to arrive.

Personal beliefs are clashing and there is division in our community. Being civil to one another isn’t the same as agreeing and doesn’t mean every argument holds up. It’s fine to disagree and to respectfully say so.

The same goes for the signs. Whether a sign speaks for you or not, the person who put it up is a neighbour who cares, just as you do.

Signs, speeches and newspaper stories can only do so much. On Oct. 19, it’s your ballot that counts, whichever boxes you choose to check.

On Oct. 20, the signs will come down and we’ll all still be Albertans. We’ll still live here, still be neighbours and still hold a variety of opinions.

The work after the vote will be finding our way back together as a community.

How we do that is up to us.

Alberta Separation | Independence | Bill 54, Referendums

Twin Butte mental health fundraiser aims for smiles, not sorrow

Written on September 24, 2026. Posted in Community Life, Health & Wellness.

Guests at this year’s Twin Butte mental health fundraiser are invited to dig out their best 1950s and ’60s outfits for an evening organizers want to be anything but sombre.

“We want this event to be happy, and for everyone to walk away with a smile on their face, and to know that everything is OK,” says Jeny Akitt, who owns Twin Butte Country General Store and Restaurant with her husband, Phil.

The store and the Twin Butte Community Society host the annual fundraiser Saturday, Sept. 26, at Twin Butte Community Hall. This year’s theme is Cheeseburger in Paradise. Cocktails start at 5 p.m., with dinner at 6.

The evening includes dancing, live and silent auctions, and live music from Peter and the Wolves. Tickets are $50 per person, with all proceeds going to the Canadian Mental Health Association, Alberta South Region in Lethbridge.

The Akitts started the fundraiser in 2022 with Jaime and Scott Mitchell, whose 17-year-old son, Zachary, died by suicide in 2021.

Akitt estimates that the event has raised close to $80,000 for the CMHA since it began, adding that its purpose hasn’t changed as the event has grown.

“We would just love for everyone to join us for this great event and to know that everybody goes through hard times and that we’re here to support you,” she says.

Akitt says the fundraiser is also about making conversations around mental health more common in rural communities.

“I think that starting the conversation and knowing that you’re not alone out there and that everything is OK and to talk about things that are bothering you or just how you’re feeling is not a bad thing,” she says.

The evening is intended to be a celebration, despite the circumstances that inspired it.

Tickets are available from Akitt at 403-627-4035.

Individuals and businesses can donate auction items by calling Akitt or Mitchell Welding, at 403-632-9458, to arrange drop-off or pickup.

Folks who can’t attend can donate to the Canadian Mental Health Association online at cmha.ca.

If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, call or text 988 any time to reach the Suicide Crisis Helpline. The Alberta Mental Health Help Line is available 24 hours a day at 1-877-303-2642.

Council pushes back on provincial gravel pit rules

Written on September 23, 2026. Posted in Civic & Government, Environment.

MD of Pincher Creek council will tell the province it has concerns about changes that give provincial gravel pit approvals priority over local planning, following its Sept. 8 meeting.

Council also heard a neighbour’s objection to a proposed gravel pit east of Pincher Creek and agreed to keep subsidizing waste service at Castle Mountain Resort.

Provincial gravel pit approval changes

Council directed administration to send the province the MD’s concerns about proposed changes to how gravel pits are approved.

Alberta Environment and Protected Areas is updating its Code of Practice for Pits. The changes follow amendments to the Municipal Government Act through Bill 28 and recommendations from the provincial Sand and Gravel Task Force.

The province and municipalities have each played separate roles in approving aggregate pits on private land, with the province focused on environmental impacts and municipalities on land-use planning.

Bill 28: Municipal Affairs and Housing Statues Amendment Act, introduced a new section to the MGA that makes provincial approvals paramount. Municipalities are required to bring their land-use bylaws and planning documents in line with decisions made at the provincial level rather than running a parallel approval process.

The MD received information from Rural Municipalities of Alberta, which said in a Sept. 18 statement: “Based on what is known and not yet known about how x. 619.1 will be implemented, the change may introduce significant risks to municipalities, landowners and industries.”

The RMA lists:

—Impact of poor co-ordination and alignment across different government processes.

—Limited ability to appeal a pit registration coupled with a lack of public hearing or community engagement in the provincial registration process.

—Unclear division of roles and responsibilities with potential unintended consequences.

—Need for improved communication and inspection and enforcement measures to prevent expansion of operators with a poor history of compliance.

Proposed gravel pit rezoning

Council also held a public hearing on Bylaw 1374-26, which proposes changing the land-use designation of a quarter-section east of Pincher Creek (NE-7-9-1-W5) from agricultural to direct control. The proposed rezoning would allow gravel pit development on the property.

The public hearing drew a written objection from an adjacent landowner, but no one appeared in person to speak against it.

The neighbour argued there is no need for a third gravel pit within less than a mile of the site, urging the MD to explore alternative sites or expand existing pits rather than disturb native grassland.

The letter raised concerns about dust, noise, traffic and groundwater contamination, and said the pit could put the writer’s property, livestock and family at risk, and permanently harm land values. The letter asked council to reject the application and prioritize conservation of the grassland over further extraction.

Gavin Scott, senior planner with the Oldman River Regional Services Commission, outlined the history and reasoning behind the proposed amendment.

An open house is scheduled for Oct. 1 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the MD council chambers.

Castle Mountain Resort to keep free recycling and garbage service

Council agreed to continue providing Castle Mountain Resort Inc. with a fully subsidized cardboard recycling service and residential garbage bin after reviewing the expense of the arrangement.

Administration will write to the resort to say the service continues at no cost for now but could be revisited.

The cost varies, says Jessica McClelland, executive assistant for the MD. The landfill picks up a full cardboard bin at an average of $317 a trip, plus the landfill’s tipping fee.

“Some months it’s once; some months it could be twice,” she says.

Library seeks support for dark sky event

Pincher Creek Municipal Library asked the MD for financial support for a dark sky event planned for January 2027. The library plans to expand the program to two days, running 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day.

The total cost is expected to be $8,200. The library has already secured $6,000 through grants, leaving $2,200 to raise.

Council received the request as information and recommended the library contact the MD’s grant writer to explore other funding options.

Lundbreck growth study

Council gave second and third reading to Bylaw 1373-26 after a public hearing at which no one spoke and no written submissions were received.

The bylaw amends the MD’s municipal development plan, replacing an existing hamlet policy with new wording that requires the Lundbreck Hamlet Growth Study be referenced in all future development matters in the hamlet.

It also calls for the study to be periodically updated with current data and progress on its action items.

Council approves ALUS letter of support

Council also approved a letter of support for Alternative Land Use Services, which is applying for funding through the Ecosystem Services Grant Program.

ALUS pays farmers and ranchers to maintain wetlands, grassland and other habitat on working land.

Committee meeting

The MD council committee met earlier the same day. Committees make recommendations rather than decisions.

Food centre reports increase in demand

The Pincher Creek and District Community Food Centre told the committee it served 427 people between May 2025 and April 2026, including 282 existing clients and 145 new clients.

The number was up from 412 people in 2024-25 and 197 in 2023-24.

The centre provides free food hampers to eligible residents in the town and MD, based on a means test.

An average of 77 households were served each month. The centre recorded 785 deliveries and 140 pickups. People in Pincher Creek can have hampers delivered, while rural residents generally pick them up in town.

The centre reported $392,314 in income and $341,895 in expenses for the year. Board chair Davina Brown also reviewed the centre’s strategic priorities and outcomes with the committee.

Councillors discussed ways the MD could help promote the food centre, including a program that allows ranchers to donate beef in exchange for a tax receipt.

Tourism group seeks $12,500

Representatives from the South Canadian Rockies Tourism Association told the committee the organization is seeking municipal funding for the 2026-27 year to support regional destination marketing and management.

Senior board adviser Sacha Anderson and executive director Erin Fairhurst outlined the association’s work, which they said helps secure additional partner funding and supports tourism projects without adding to the workload of municipal staff.

The association said the municipal contribution would form part of an 80-20 funding request to the province, with the town and MD of Pincher Creek, and Improvement District No. 4 providing the 20 per cent local share.

The association outlined several areas of planned work. One is a resident sentiment campaign aimed at helping rural residents understand tourism and provide feedback about its growth.

It is also developing a detailed inventory of tourism assets across the MD. The inventory will include attractions, recreation sites, events, accommodations, short-term rentals and visitor services. The association said the inventory could help identify needs such as signage, parking, washrooms and trails.

Another proposed focus is public education around responsible recreation. The association plans to promote Leave No Trace principles, safety guidelines and appropriate recreation areas.

The association also detailed its regional advocacy work involving transportation, signage, trails, parking, cellular coverage and recreation access. It said a regional approach could help connect local priorities with provincial tourism strategies and future funding opportunities.

The association is also exploring a destination marketing fee, a levy on hotel and other accommodation bookings that funds tourism promotion. It said any such fee would require local discussion, industry participation and municipal consideration.

RMA convention plans finalized

The committee also reviewed plans for the Rural Municipalities of Alberta fall convention and trade show, running Nov. 2 to 5 in Edmonton.

Couns. Dave Cox and John MacGarva will take a budget and finance course Nov. 2, then join the remaining councillors, the chief administrative officer and the public works manager for the convention.

Catch the wind: Business loan partnership pitched to council

Written on September 23, 2026. Posted in Business & Economy, Civic & Government.

A regional non-profit is proposing a formal partnership with the Town of Pincher Creek that would give local businesses access to interest-free improvement loans, free consulting and business training.

The proposal by Community Futures Alberta Southwest includes loans of up to $25,000 for business improvements, with the town covering interest costs within a council-approved annual limit. It was presented by Mark Brown, executive director, at town council’s Sept. 14 regular meeting.

“Catch the wind” is a reference to the Cowley Ridge wind farm built west of Pincher Creek in 1993. Brown used it as a metaphor for the untapped energy of local entrepreneurship, saying ambition and local capital, like wind, generate nothing until something is built to capture them.

“There’s a second invisible force in the town: the energy of people with ideas and businesses to build,” he said.

Brown identified four challenges that can hold back small businesses: capital leaving the region when loans come from national banks, a financing gap for viable but unproven businesses that banks decline to fund, an aging group of business owners without succession plans, and entrepreneurs building businesses without outside guidance.

He cited a failure rate of about 75 per cent within five years for small businesses in Alberta.

To address those pressures, Brown proposed a partnership built around four components. The first is a referral pipeline, in which town staff would direct entrepreneurs who inquire about business licences or starting a business toward Community Futures for free consulting, coaching and training.

“Most businesses would get these services free. We provide up to six hours of free coaching or consulting,” Brown said in a later interview. “We also offer free online education, and then if a business decides they want to take that part of it farther, they can.”

The second component is a redesigned business improvement loan program offering interest-free loans of $5,000 to $25,000 over terms of three to five years.

Community Futures would administer the financing and report back to the town. Its own board, not council, would approve each loan, a process Brown said typically takes one to four weeks.

Brown said the redesign grew from a 2025 Community Futures survey of more than 900 business owners across southern Alberta.

“The research we did said that that program is still needed, but $10,000 doesn’t buy you much nowadays,” he said.

“So, they’re looking for an increase to that from $5,000 to $25,000 in amounts, up to five years, and again, interest-free, or the town would pay the interest on that loan over the course of that loan,” He said.

The third component is joint promotion, with Community Futures and the town advertising Pincher Creek’s business-friendly programs together rather than separately.

The fourth is a standing seat for Community Futures in the town’s economic development discussions.

Brown also described a separate service, the exit navigator program, aimed at helping business owners prepare for retirement or ownership transitions. He said it is underused but important for keeping storefronts from sitting vacant when longtime owners retire.

He asked council to direct administration to work with Community Futures on a memorandum of understanding. This would set out how the partnership would work, what it would cost the town and who would be responsible, while providing real numbers for council to base a decision on.

Community Futures has similar formal arrangements with the towns of Cardston and Claresholm, and Brown said he is also in talks with the MD of Pincher Creek about the program.

Community Futures Alberta Southwest is a non-profit funded by Prairies Economic Development Canada, the federal economic development agency for the Prairies. Brown described it as a one-year contribution agreement with Ottawa.

It serves Pincher Creek, Fort Macleod, Cardston, Claresholm, Waterton and other communities in the region from its office in Fort Macleod. Its focus is on economic diversification and support for the agricultural and tourism sectors.

According to figures Brown presented, the organization has funded 391 businesses and invested $21.3 million since 1999, with about $2.23 million currently circulating through repaid and re-lent loans.

In Pincher Creek, Community Futures has approved 96 loans totalling $5.31 million since 1999, with about $760,000 still in circulation.

Business Loans, Business Succession, Business Training, economic development, Entrepreneurship, Small Business

Treaty rights, ID hurdles top concerns for First Nations voters

Written on September 23, 2026. Posted in Civic & Government.

For some Piikani and Kainai members, the Oct. 19 referendum raises a question that isn’t on the ballot: what a provincial vote can mean for treaties signed with Canada.

For others, the harder question is whether they can prove who they are at the polls.

Both concerns came up Aug. 29, when about 30 members of the two First Nations gathered at the Fort Macleod community centre for a referendum information session billed as a chance to “be informed, be heard.”

Organizer Nicole Crowshoe Johnston’s main goal was getting First Nations voters registered and encouraging attendees to request mail-in ballots. The last day to do so is Friday, Sept. 25.

Johnston and guest speaker Stephen Carter urged a No vote on the referendum’s nine policy questions.

“Our treaty is with Canada”

One attendee asked how Alberta could enact anything affecting First Nations, “given our treaty is with Canada.”

Carter agreed, saying there “was zero discussion about what First Nations rights would look like in an independent Alberta.”

He said the referendum itself could not count as consulting First Nations.

The premier’s office disagrees that consultation is required.

“Seven hundred thousand Albertans signed petitions asking for a referendum on this issue. The referendum question does not trigger any duty to consult,” Sam Blackett, press secretary to the premier, said in a statement to Shootin’ the Breeze.

First Nations have already taken the argument to court. Johnston said they could not rely on a few chiefs to push back against the independence movement.

“We need to stand behind the chiefs,” she said, referring to court action by the Chiefs of the Blackfoot Confederacy over treaty rights and the Crown’s duty to consult.

On May 13, the Court of King’s Bench sided with Piikani, Siksika, the Blood Tribe and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, quashing the chief electoral officer’s decision on Mitch Sylvestre’s separation petition on treaty rights and duty-to-consult grounds.

The province and Sylvestre appealed. The Alberta Court of Appeal granted a partial stay allowing signature verification to continue. On July 24, Elections Alberta declared the petition successful, with 222,597 verified signatures, more than the 177,732 required.

Normally, a successful petition on a constitutional question goes to the justice minister, who must refer it to cabinet for a referendum before the next provincial election. Elections Alberta says those steps are on hold pending direction from the Court of Appeal.

Sylvestre’s petition asked: “Do you agree that the Province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?”

That question is not on the Oct. 19 ballot.

Question 10, which is on the ballot, is not a vote to separate.

It asks whether Alberta should remain a province, or whether the provincial government should begin the constitutional process required to hold a later, binding referendum on separation.

Johnston said that even if the separation question were overturned, the Oct. 19 vote and its other questions will go ahead.

Proving who you are

Several attendees described difficulties with recent changes to Alberta’s ID and driver’s licence rules. One man said his federally issued Indian Status card was not recognized when he sought a provincial ID card.

Others cited new costs including a $100 fee to replace an expired licence, plus the expense of obtaining birth certificates and marriage licences, especially for those who had lived in other provinces or the United States.

Attendees also shared practical help. One pointed to the ID program at Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge. According to Alberta Health Services, it runs Wednesdays and Thursdays from 8 a.m. to noon, helping homeless, at-risk and recently housed people, as well as others served by AHS programs, get Alberta ID and health cards.

Another said people living on reserves can get help proving their identity at home. Elections Alberta’s voter brochure confirms that voters on a reserve or settlement can have an attestation filled out by “a person in a position of authority,” such as a chief or chair, office administrator or elder, who can confirm their identity and where they live.

Johnston urged attendees to request mail-in ballots to avoid long lines, and volunteers with laptops helped people register on the spot.

“Who might be next”

Other worries went beyond the ballot box.

One senior who shares a Calgary rental with two grandchildren in post-secondary studies said the family pays $3,500 a month for rent and utilities.

“On my pension, it’s a real struggle to cover food and other basic expenses,” she said. “Even getting food from the food bank is tough as it is often old and mouldy.”

Another attendee raised Question 4, which asks: Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for public health care and education as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta charging a reasonable fee or premium to individuals with a non-permanent immigration status living in Alberta for their and their family’s use of the health care and education systems?

She said that if Albertans vote to charge immigrants for health care, Indigenous people could be next, citing relatives in the United States who became homeless after being unable to pay for care.

“When we start excluding people from services based on race, we have to be careful of who might be next,” Carter said.

Who ran the session

Johnston is a Calgary resident who describes herself as a community advocate with roots in Piikani Nation.

She is inspired by Tania Cameron, an Anishinaabe woman from Ontario who launched First Nations Rock the Vote in 2015. Cameron announced on Facebook Sept. 2 that Treaty 8 had hired her to educate members and mobilize communities for the Alberta referendum.

Carter has managed campaigns across the political spectrum, including for former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith, former premier Alison Redford and Calgary mayors Naheed Nenshi and Jyoti Gondek. He recently launched Alberta’s Voice. The registered third-party advertiser has raised more money than any other referendum campaign to stay in Canada.

Carter’s slogan sums up his position: Stay in Canada. Vote No to the Nine.

Though the session was promoted as a chance to receive information, Carter urged a No vote on all nine yes-or-no questions rather than explaining each one.

“If any option takes three lines to express, vote against it,” he told the audience, a line he returned to several times.

“I don’t trust Danielle Smith to do it right,” Carter said. “The nine questions remove us from Canada. They are separation questions under the guise of other topics.”

Blackett said the questions grew from the government’s Alberta Next town halls, and that “Albertans’ frustrations have been fuelled by the last 10 years of disastrous policies from Ottawa under Justin Trudeau that hurt Alberta’s economy and broke the immigration system.”

“During the Alberta Next town halls, Albertans made it clear that the status quo cannot continue. Albertans have demanded real change, and these nine questions are how we deliver it,” he said.

“Our government has been clear: we support a strong and sovereign Alberta within a united Canada. This means Alberta remaining a province of Canada while advancing provincial autonomy and fighting to undo Ottawa policies that harm Albertans and intrude on our constitutional rights.”

How to vote

The referendum is Oct. 19. Voters can cast ballots in person on voting day, at an advance poll, or by mail-in special ballot.

Special ballots must be requested by Sept. 25 and received by Elections Alberta by Oct. 16.

All 10 questions, and information on requesting a special ballot, are on Elections Alberta’s website at elections.ab.ca.

Town and MD approve $467,255 for six community groups

Written on September 23, 2026. Posted in Civic & Government.

Six local organizations will receive a combined $467,255 in 2026 funding from the Town and Municipal District of Pincher Creek after councils reviewed their requests at a special joint budget meeting Sept. 9.

Funding amounts are split equally between the town and MD.

The meeting also prompted a push to rethink the joint budget process, after councillors questioned whether recurring recipients should be treated as ongoing budget lines and raised concerns about incomplete financial information.

Councils also approved 2027 per-capita grants for 21 community groups.

Pincher Creek Municipal Library

The largest allocation is $285,000 for the library.

The library requested a 7.5 per cent increase in its municipal funding for 2027, followed by annual increases of five per cent from 2028 through 2030.

Representatives told councillors library visits are up an average of 10 per cent since 2022 and cardholders by six per cent. Programming sessions are up 25 per cent and participation is up 20 per cent over the same period.

The library also highlighted expanded programming, a reorganized children’s section and a partnership with United for Literacy. It would like to use the former Consistent Fitness space in the multipurpose facility for programming.

Library board members asked why they had not heard back on three expansion options presented months ago. Town officials said they cannot afford the $4 million originally sought from the town but are open to a lower-cost option.

Grant specialist

The Southwest Alberta Sustainable Community Initiative will receive $80,000 for its grant specialist position.

SASCI representatives said the program has helped secure $13.2 million in funding since it began in 2018.

The grant writer applied for $2.1 million and obtained $1.12 million in funding for 2025.

Humane society

The Pincher Creek Humane Society will receive $40,000. The shelter helped 276 animals in 2025.

The organization said veterinary costs are its largest expense at about $100,000 annually. It is exploring an in-house veterinary service to reduce those costs.

Heritage Acres

The Oldman River Antique Equipment and Threshing Club, which runs Heritage Acres Farm Museum, will receive $35,000.

The group had asked for $200,000 for redevelopment, conditional on securing more funding to hire staff. The club said the $200,000 would help unlock matching grants rather than cover operating costs.

Heritage Acres representatives said gate admissions for the museum’s annual show increased 64 per cent over the previous year.

The funding motion included an offer of a letter of support and future case-by-case funding talks.

Search and rescue

The Southwest Alberta Regional Search and Rescue Society will receive $22,255. The society’s 30 members have volunteered more than 2,600 hours, not including administration and equipment maintenance.

The group responded to 22 call-outs in the previous 12 months, including incidents requiring helicopter and long-line rescue resources.

Historical society

The Pincher Creek and District Historical Society, which runs Kootenai Brown Historical Park, will receive $5,000.

Council members said incomplete financial information from the society made it difficult to make decisions involving taxpayer funds.

The society’s board president said there was confusion over what financial information had been requested and what had been submitted.

Joint grants under review

The councils directed the joint grant subcommittee to review the history of the six organizations included in the joint budget and develop a policy and framework for the process. Councillors also raised concerns about financial reporting from some organizations.

Councillors said joint grants are discretionary and do not guarantee ongoing funding. The review is intended to clarify how organizations become part of the joint budget and how future requests should be assessed.

Per-capita grants

For 2027, councils also approved per-capita funding for 21 community organizations:

—Syncline Castle Alpine Trails Association, $380

—McMan Youth, Family and Community Services Association, $500

—Pincher Creek Dolphins Swim Club, $1,500

—Five-Pin Bowling Association, $2,000

—Pincher Creek Mustangs Football Club, $2,000

—Windsor Heritage Drop-In Centre, $2,000

—Coalfields Community Centre, $2,500

—The Cowboy Show, $2,500

—Group Group Youth Society of Pincher Creek, $2,500

—Adaptable Outdoors, $3,000

—Pincher Creek and District Agricultural Society, $4,000

—Pincher Creek Care Bears Society, $5,000

—Pincher Creek Royal Canadian Legion Branch 43, $5,000

—Pincher Planters $5,000

—SASCI, $5,000

—Pincher Creek and District Community Food Centre, $7,160

—Pincher Creek and District Chamber of Commerce, $7,500

—Community Hall, $15,000

—Pincher Creek Handi-Bus Society, $15,000

—Allied Arts Council of Pincher Creek, $20,000

—Pincher Creek Family Centre, $30,000

Correction: A Sept. 23 version of this story incorrectly reported that overall attendance at Heritage Acres Farm Museum rose 64 per cent over the previous year. The 64 per cent increase was in gate admissions for the museum’s annual show.

Missing referendum signs a police matter, not a town one, CAO says

Written on September 23, 2026. Posted in Civic & Government, RCMP & Public Safety.

Signs promoting Alberta independence have been knocked down or taken repeatedly in Pincher Creek since they went up Sept. 8, according to a volunteer with the campaign that placed them.

They asked not to be named for fear of being targeted in the community. They filed a report with RCMP on Sept. 10 for the first incident but not subsequent ones.

Pincher Creek RCMP confirm they haven’t received further complaints about damaged or removed referendum signs since then.

According to the volunteer:

—Signs near Community Hall were pulled down the evening of Sept. 9 and moved down the fence line. One was broken in half and others piled together under horse manure.

—Four signs placed in front of the library were knocked down or removed each night from Sept. 11 to 14, and replaced each following day.

—Two of four replacement signs at the library were gone the morning of Sept. 16 and four signs were taken down on Remington Avenue the same day.

—Two large signs along Highway 3 were on the ground Sept. 16 after standing the night before.

Shootin’ the Breeze is not aware of any damage to or removal of local signs advocating the federalist position.

What the law says

In a June 29 post on Facebook, Elections Alberta said it is responsible only for monitoring the messages on referendum advertising and ensuring advertisers include the required authorization statement.

Complaints are handled by the RCMP. Pincher Creek RCMP confirm that damaging or taking a sign can be treated as mischief or theft under the Criminal Code.

Town’s role

The Town of Pincher Creek has no power to set rules for referendum signs, or to investigate when they go missing, says chief administrative officer Konrad Dunbar.

“We want to maintain a neutral stance,” he says.

Dunbar meets with any campaign that asks. Local independence supporters met with him before Aug. 31 to go over proposed sign locations.

“It is not in our mandate — we are not allowed to direct sign placement or remove signs. But we can confirm whether the locations a third party advertiser has in mind are on public or on private land,” he says.

A 2025 provincial amendment bars municipal councils from passing bylaws or resolutions about election signs or advertisements.

Dunbar says that before the change, each municipality could set its own sign rules, which for a provincial vote meant a patchwork. The amendment “created equal access all across the board,” he says.

If town staff need to move a sign for safety or mowing, they either contact the organization responsible or briefly move and replace it, he says.

Waterton Avenue is part of provincial Highway 6, so provincial highway rules apply. They prohibit signs on medians and signs that obstruct sight lines, interfere with traffic signs or create other hazards.

Placement guidelines

In an Aug. 20 letter to the Town of Pincher Creek, Let Alberta Decide lawyer Keith Wilson said volunteers had been told to follow guidelines similar to Calgary’s sign rules.

According to the letter, signs should:

—Not be placed within about 15 metres of an intersection.

—Not be placed within about 10 metres of a crosswalk.

—Be at least two metres behind the curb or roadway edge where practical.

—Not be placed on medians or traffic islands.

—Be spaced apart from similar campaign signs.

—Not block sight lines for drivers, cyclists or pedestrians.

—Not interfere with sidewalks, pathways, transit, traffic-control devices, utilities or municipal operations.

—Be securely installed and maintained.

Wilson said the campaign will remove its signs promptly after the Oct. 19 referendum.

Dunbar says the guidelines are in line with provincial highway guidelines.

He invites anyone with questions about sign placement to contact him at 403-627-3156.

Alberta Separation | Independence | Bill 54, Election Signs, Referendums

Graphic with the text "Municipal News from the Town of Pincher Creek" on the left side, featuring a stylized image of people seated around a meeting table on the right.

Council holds off on cutting utility franchise fees

Written on September 23, 2026. Posted in Civic & Government.

Pincher Creek town councillors put off a decision on utility franchise fees Sept. 14 after debating whether trimming the charges to ease pressure on residents’ bills was worth the hit to the town’s budget.

Council also heard Northback Holdings’ economic case for its proposed Grassy Mountain coal mine, voted down a funding request from the library, and set a date for its tax recovery auction.

Council debates utility costs

Council deferred decisions on both the natural gas and electricity franchise fees to Sept. 28.

It was asked to set the franchise fee percentages for 2027 and 2028 at once, as the town now budgets on a two-year cycle. Residents pay these fees on their gas and power bills.

The natural gas fee with Apex Utilities has sat at the maximum allowable 35 per cent since 2024, bringing in about $849,000 in 2025. The electricity fee with FortisAlberta, capped at 20 per cent, brought in about $673,000 in 2025.

Coun. Brian McGillivray proposed reducing the gas fee to 30 per cent, saying residents are facing difficult choices between groceries, rent and utility bills.

Coun. Sahra Nodge has historically supported the higher fee because it allows the town to collect revenue from utility customers who do not pay property taxes. However, she said the increasing dollar amounts have changed her view.

Chief administrative officer Konrad Dunbar told council a reduction from 35 to 30 per cent would reduce revenue by about $134,000. He said that could affect the town’s target of a three per cent tax increase and that keeping services at current levels might require other changes.

Mayor Wayne Oliver said framing the fees as percentages was misleading, since a household’s actual savings from a five-point cut would amount to only about a dollar or two per bill.

He asked administration to report back on how much franchise fee revenue the town collected last year compared with what was budgeted. He also suggested councillors review their own annual utility bills before making a decision.

Northback outlines economic impact of coal mining

Northback CEO Brad Johnson presented council with findings from a socioeconomic impact study the company commissioned from the accounting firm EY to support its bid to revive the Grassy Mountain coal project in the MD of Ranchland, north of Blairmore.

Johnson said Northback provided EY with project data, including expected costs, employee numbers and other activities. EY then used Statistics Canada data and economic modelling to estimate the project’s broader effects.

The proposed mine would require about $1.4 billion in capital investment during a two-year construction period, Johnson said.

According to the study, about $1.2 billion of that spending could contribute to Canada’s gross domestic product during construction.

The study also estimates about $14 billion in additional Canadian exports over the life of the project.

Johnson said the mine could support about 9,577 full-time-equivalent positions during construction. Operations could support about 1,756 full-time-equivalent positions nationally.

He said the regional impact could include about 875 full-time-equivalent jobs, including direct, indirect and induced positions. Northback expects about 425 full-time-equivalent employees to work directly at the mine.

Johnson said the company expects about $3.8 billion in wages over the mine’s operating life and that about 90 per cent of its operating spending would remain in Canada.

The company is still completing its integrated application for regulatory approval. Johnson said Northback expects to submit the application within the next six months. That could be as early as December, depending on the completion of technical modelling, particularly related to water.

He said the regulatory process could eventually lead to a statement of concern process and additional information requests.

Oliver asked how Northback would address housing needs if the project proceeds, saying the region has limited housing options and could see an influx of workers.

Johnson said Northback has considered the issue and expects employee busing to be part of its plans. The company could provide transportation from Pincher Creek and communities farther east, as well as from Crowsnest Pass, he said.

Johnson also said Northback owns surface land in Crowsnest Pass and is open to discussions with the municipality about potential housing opportunities.

Library funding request denied

Council voted 6-1 against contributing up to $1,100 to Pincher Creek Municipal Library’s two-day dark sky planetarium program, planned for January 2027. Coun. Mark Barber was the only member in support.

The expanded two-day program is expected to cost $8,200. The library has secured $6,000 through grants and is seeking the remaining $2,200.

McGillivray questioned whether the town should contribute while looking for ways to reduce spending and support residents facing financial pressures. He said the request should have gone through the joint funding process instead.

Tax recovery auction set for November

Council approved the terms and process for its 2026 property tax arrears recovery public auction, set for Nov. 16 at 3 p.m. in the council chambers at town hall.

Council also set reserve bids for two properties heading to auction, a mobile home lot at $26,600 and a house at $313,400, based on assessed values.

Oliver questioned whether the reserve amounts were reasonable and why the figures must be discussed publicly.

Dunbar said the practice follows the Municipal Government Act’s requirement that current owners have the opportunity to recover their assessed value.

Regional water planning grant

Council agreed to join the MD of Pincher Creek’s application for a 2026-27 Alberta Community Partnership grant for a regional water and wastewater expansion and upgrade plan. The MD would serve as managing partner, with the town as a participating partner.

The proposed plan would examine the costs of servicing areas including the Pincher Creek Airport and Pincher Station.

The grant program can cover 90 per cent of eligible planning costs, up to $150,000. The application deadline is Oct. 1.

Council reviews second-quarter finances

The town recorded an operating surplus of about $2.24 million for the first six months of the year, largely because the full year’s property taxes were billed in that period. Council accepted the operating statements for the six months ending June 30.

Total revenue for the period reached about $9.18 million, about 75 per cent of the $12.15-million annual budget. Net municipal property taxes came in at about $5.66 million, essentially matching the full annual budget.

Other revenue was closer to the halfway mark:

—User fees and sales: $1.47 million of $2.92 million.

—Franchise and concession fees: $816,000 of $1.43 million.

—Government operating transfers: $623,000 of $838,000.

—Rental income: $322,000 of $829,000.

Total expenses stood at about $6.94 million, or about 52 per cent of the $13.41-million annual budget, in line with the midpoint of the year.

Salaries, wages and benefits made up the largest single expense category at $2.37 million, about 46 per cent of the $5.19 million budgeted for the full year.

Recreation and culture was the largest department expense at $2.08 million of a $4.22-million budget.

Spending on water supply and distribution, wastewater treatment, roads and protective services all tracked between about 28 and 46 per cent of their respective annual budgets.

Dunbar said administration has not identified any major concerns with the statements. He said the town is also working toward more detailed quarterly reporting as it moves through its two-year budgeting process.

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