One of just three teenagers in a tiny Alaskan town abutting northwest British Columbia says he’s feeling sad and isolated after almost five months of a border closure that’s kept him apart from his friends, who live just kilometres away in Canada.
“I feel cut off. It’s pretty lonely now. I’m getting to the edge of depression,” said Ronnie Olynyk, who recently turned 19.
Olynyk lives in Hyder, Alaska, population 63. He’s the only youth of his age in the village.
His friends live in Stewart, B.C., just across the international border they used to cross freely with only a piece of ID. It’s also the only route out of Hyder by land.
“I’m pretty used to always going there for a sleepover or to go have a fire. It’s pretty difficult not to be able to hang out with my friends anymore,” said Olynyk, who has graduated from high school.
Olynyk, 19, says he’s feeling lonely and isolated since the border was closed five months ago between Hyder, Alaska, where he lives, and Stewart, B.C., where his friends are, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Submitted by Ronnie Olynyk)
“I spent most of my time in Stewart hanging out with all the kids that are my age and they’d come over here and I’d go there,” he said. “We’d dirt-bike or Ski-Doo.
“It feels secluded. I can leave my house, but I can’t leave the town.”
The U.S.-Canada border was closed to all but essential travel on March 21 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s scheduled to remain closed until Aug. 21, but as the number of cases of the disease surge across the U.S., many believe cross-border travel will be restricted for longer.
That’s frustrating for local leaders in Hyder and Stewart, who say there have been no confirmed COVID-19 cases in the area.
The people in Hyder “have essentially been stuck over there,” Stewart Mayor Gina McKay said. “When the [border] restrictions went into place, nobody thought that four-plus months later, here we would be with the same restrictions.”
Twin communities
Hyder and Stewart have been closely knit for years. Locals travelled back and forth across the border — sometimes several times a day — to shop, bank, go to school, attend church, visit friends and family, access cell service or gather firewood. High school students could attend class in either community, depending on class size in a given year.
“That border really has been, it’s always been, more of a technicality,” said Carly Ackerman, who lives in Stewart, owns property in Hyder and holds dual citizenship.
The international border crossing at Hyder, a community of 63 people in the Alaskan Panhandle. The only way in or out by land is through neighbouring Stewart, B.C. (Tjipke de Vries/Wikipedia)
Before COVID-19, summer tourists flocked to these twin communities to see glaciers and bears, get “Hyderized” — a local drinking ritual that involves downing a shot of 150-proof liquor — and enjoy the rugged scenery of the remote coastal valley, which is shadowed by towering mountains.
Surrounded by wilderness, the only way in or out of Hyder by land is the road that crosses the border into Stewart.
Stewart, in turn, is connected to the rest of B.C. by a stretch of highway built beneath 72 avalanche chutes.
These are the kinds of challenges that pulled American and Canadian neighbours together and blurred the international boundary, say local leaders.
Olynyk boating on the Portland Canal, a marine boundary between Canada and the U.S. He is allowed to cross over to Stewart, B.C., just once a week for three hours as the designated shopper for his family, following rules set by the Canadian government. (Submitted by Ronnie Olynyk)
But the pandemic has changed all of that.
Now, Olynyk is allowed to cross over to Stewart — which had a population of 401 in 2016 — just once a week for three hours as the designated shopper for his family, following rules set by the Canadian government.
He can shop, bank or buy gas. But Olynyk said he’s not allowed to visit his Canadian friends or socialize.
“Crossing the border for goods such as medication, groceries and other necessary goods has to be the only practical/realistic option for it to be considered a non-discretionary [essential] reason for travel,” the Canada Border Services Agency said in an email to CBC News.
Olynyk with his grandfather in Hyder, Alaska. The teenager has family on both sides of the border but has spent most of his life in the United States. (Submitted by Ronnie Olynyk)
Push for cross-border ‘bubble’
McKay and Ackerman are among those behind a new push to reopen the border for locals.
They’re lobbying federal Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair, along with officials in Alaska, B.C. and Washington, D.C., to allow Hyder and Stewart to form a cross-border “bubble.”
“We are two communities, two countries, but we are essentially one. We always have been. We take care of each other,” McKay said.
Olynyk said he’d love to see the border rules relaxed.
“Open the border to locals,” he said. “There’s no COVID here.”
He said he believes border policies are being decided based on infection rates in the continental U.S., far from the Alaskan Panhandle, so he’s trying not to get his hopes up.
A tourist walks toward the Canada border office, at the closed crossing with Hyder, Alaska. The international border is now closed to all but essential traffic. (Betsy Trumpener/CBC )
The teen said when he crosses the border each week, he asks the Canadian border officers if there’s any news on reopening.
“And they say, ‘We won’t know anything till you do,” Olynyk said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
