Last week I started off feeling maudlin as the worst parts of summer dragged on. This week I’m feeling better as the best parts of autumn come out: The sun has been shining, the leaves are colourful, the air is crisp and clean and the heat isn’t trying to kill us. I went skateboarding and horseback riding and hiking at Esker’s and I’m looking forward to the fall arts season with events and new exhibits starting up.

And, I need to write about the restaurants. For several months at the beginning of the year, the food scene here seemed to be in a downturn: with few casualties during the pandemic lockdowns, we saw the loss of several spots including longtime mainstay Cimo and the vastly popular Salted Cracker. Now, though, we’re seeing new offerings spring up in their wake: Wall of Fame took the place of Salted Cracker downtown and is offering a wide variety of lunchtime fare that has people lining up outside the door in its opening weeks, Mulino has moved into the space previously occupied by Cimo offering house-made pasta and desserts and at the long-closed Shooters location on Ospika, Om is offering up fuison Indian cuisine that I’ve not seen in the city before. All of these spaces are spreading by word of mouth and are filling new niches rather than being yet-another Browns’s/Brewhouse/Montana’s clone. On the scale of a city the size Prince George, is practically a restaurant renaissance.

And one thing I think is worth noting about all three of these locations is they are, as best I can tell, chef-led. They are people experienced in the local restaurant industry who have a vision for the type of food they want to make, rather than doing a straight-up market calculation of ‘well, pizza seems to do well and there isn’t a pizza place within x kilometers of this location so let’s build one here.’ As a customer, I’ve spoken to the people at each of these restaurants and the story is of folks who have been working in the industry at other locations and had a dream of bringing a new type of food to the table and now see an opportunity to do so. That’s been reflected in the quality of both the food and the service I’ve so far received — everyone involved seems genuinely excited to be doing what they’re doing, and from what I can see, the community is responding, as well. Time will tell if they’re successful but, for now, they seem to be on the right track.

Council agenda: Downtown recovery fund, transparency and questions about the encampment closure

Fresh from the Union of B.C. Municipalities, city council meets tonight. Among the items on the agenda:

• A presentation from the Prince George Airport Authority (numbers are up but still not fully recovered from COVID);

• A notice of motion from councillors Trudy Klassen and Brian Skakun asking for a policy around how the mayor and individual councillors communicate with city staff and other government agencies. They write:

• A motion from coun. Trudy Klassen to create an Arts Wall of Fame for the city.

• A motion to approve $20,000 to help the downtown core recover after last month’s explosion.

There’s also a letter from Amelia Merrick, who has been active in speaking up around how the city has treated homeless residents in the city and in getting resources to folks living in the Mocassin Flats and Millennium Park camps. This is correspondence so it would be up to an individual councillor to pull it for discussion, but some interesting stuff:

Look at these bear cubs sleeping in a tree

The same neighbour who sent me this video of bear cubs running around a backyard pool sent me new pics of the family this weekend, napping in a tree.

Look at those toeses!

Quick news

• Mixed weekend for local sports. The Cougars recorded a double hat trick and a shutout with a 9-0 win to open their season on Friday but fell 6-4 Saturday. Meanwhile, the Spruce Kings fell 4-1 on the road. In soccer, the UNBC Timberwolves had a victory on the men’s side and a loss on the women’s and in football the Kodiaks had another loss, making their record 2-5.

• B.C. United has chosen its successor to Mike Morris, who has been MLA for Prince George-Mackenzie since 2013. Kiel Giddens has had several roles in government and, more recently, has been a project director with the Coastal GasLink pipeline and is past president of the Prince George Chamber of Commerce. His candidacy was announced at Northern Lights winery, which is co-owned by Pat Bell who was MLA for the riding from 2001 to 2013 and he was praised by Morris, so the local party infrastructure is definitely behind him. He’ll be up against current school board chair Rachael Weber, who has already been chosen as the candidate for the B.C. Conservative Party, and whoever the NDP and Greens choose to run when an election happens.

• Speaking of school board, they’re meeting this Tuesday — the first since Sarah Holland and Shar McCroy joined the board following all of the… you know? If you don’t know the history yet, have a read here. Looks like there will be protests.

• The Exploration Place is hosting an exhibit from Burnaby’s Nikkei National Museum focused on the treatment of Japanese Canadians during World War II. It also has new Mr. PG thumb puppets.

• Dogs found in Prince George with porcupine quills in their faces adopted.

• Cooler temperatures helping wildfire fight and proof that the wildfires stress out deer can be found in their poop.

• Duplex construction is up.

• Crabapple lemonade.

PS. I saw a guy driving a Japanese Kei Truck this weekend and it looked awesome. Here’s an article on their increased popularity in the rural United States, and I can certainly see the appeal for one here.

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