Welcome to 2024, a year pregnant with possibilities, with hopes and dreams of a fresh new start. A year that could be the best year of your life.
Or it could be the worst year. Or it could fall somewhere in the middle. That’s the trouble with future looking statements. The future rarely behaves as it should. You think you catch a glimpse of it, but then it scampers off in a brand new direction.
Over on Facebook, I’m a part of a group where people try and predict what famous people might die over the next 12 months. I’m not a very good prognosticator, but here’s a couple of my predictions for Tumbler Ridge for 2024.
Expect to pay more for … well, mostly everything.
Covid did a number on the economy, and, while prices shouldn’t go up as much this year as they have over the last few years, expect the cost of things to go up, especially groceries, but also natural gas and electricity costs. The drought we talk about elsewhere in the paper means that a province that depends almost completely on hydro-electric power has needed to buy electricity from elsewhere over the last few months. Unfortunately, because Tumbler Ridge is near the end of the road, we see higher than average prices even during the best of times. 2024? Will not be the best of times.
This is the year that Quintette comes back on-stream.
For years (and years, and years), people have predicted that Quintette will re-open, and Tumbler Ridge will go back to the halcyon days of the 1980s, when Tumbler Ridge had the highest paid workers by capita in the entire province.
Well, Quintette will re-open in 2024, but it’s not going to be in a way that most people predicted. Instead, the property is now being run by Conuma, who run a much tighter ship than Denison used to.
The original Quintette coal licenses were acquired by Denison Mines Limited in 1969/70, according to MINFILE.
The first coal exploration on the property was undertaken by Denison in 1971, and Quintette Coal Limited was incorporated in December 1971. A significant exploration program was completed each of the following years to 1977. Smaller programs were conducted in 1979 and 1980. In 1982 the mine open, and remained in operation until 2000.
The mine provided employment for about 500 people, and in 2016 it was expected to come back and provide employment for 500 more. Then the bottom fell out of the coal market, Teck (who owned the mine at the time) decided not to spark up the mine, and the property languished until Conuma purchased it early 2023.
Instead of re-starting the mine at full capacity, the plan is to transfer the current workforce from the Wolverine Mine to Quintette. The company may choose to grow the mine in the future, but for now, the company is planning on keeping the workforce smaller and operate the site for longer.
Joey Moi will win a whole bunch of awards. Again.
I mean, seriously, the former Tumbler Ridge resident has been moving from strength to strength to strength over the last decade or two, and there’s no stopping the guy. He was the first producer in the genre to spend over 100 weeks at Number 1 on Billboard’s Country Producers chart, and has claimed 16 Number Ones on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, 15 Top 10 hits on the Billboard all-genre Hot 100 chart, and 36 Number Ones at US country radio.
He set the record for the most weeks spent at Number One on the Hot 100 Producers Chart at 28 weeks and has been awarded Billboard’s Number One Hot Country Songs Producer of the Year five times (2013, 2014, 2016, 2021, 2022). We bet 2024 marks his sixth time taking that award. And if not that, then one of the other dozen awards he’ll get nominated for.
The temperature will stay above average for much 0f 2024.
2023 was a really hot year in the BC Peace. While the peak temperatures didn’t hit the same highs as a few years ago (with the hottest day on record ever recorded back in June of 2021), the overall temperatures remained above average, and most of the months were overall the hottest ever recorded. This was best exemplified when the temperature hit 25 degrees Celsius IN OCTOBER.
Environment and Climate Change Canada has the next three months in the Peace above average, and that trend is expected to continue into the year. With the Peace Region already at a Level 5 drought, expect summer 2024 to be hot and smoky, and maybe burn-y, too.
There will be no Grizfest in 2024.
Work continues on the new fairgrounds. The stage has been built. There’s now power. But the TR Days Society needs at least one more year to find funding to run the music festival. But 2025. We are almost certain of that. But how hard will it be to restart after a seven (!) year absence?
What about all the rest? Things will happen. Some of them expected. Some of them not. Will there be forest fires? Almost certainly. Will we get evacuated? Probably not, but you never know. It’s good to have a plan in place in case, but don’t worry too much about it, because who of you by worrying can add even an hour to your life?
So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow has its own list of troubles to worry about.
Instead, live the heck out of today. Spend your entire life remembering (and regretting) the past, or sitting there hoping (or fearing) the future, and you’ll miss life.
The only moment you can truly affect? Is this one. Right now. It is, indeed, a gift. So take time to enjoy that gift. Be grateful for it. Live this moment to the fullest.
What are you doing still reading the paper? Go. Live. Enjoy.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.