We live in interesting times.
Of course, interesting, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Still, some eyebrow-raising stories crossed the newsdesk this year, and here are some of them.
False 911 calls from smartwatches
Just 11 days into 2023, Kelowna RCMP issued a statement saying they were seeing an increase in false 911 calls.
Not from teens pulling dumb pranks, but from smartwatches while their owners were skiing.
“All have been the result of smartwatch owners unaware the ‘SOS function’ has been turned on,” said the RCMP.
Police say when a skier or snowboarder falls while wearing a smartwatch, the watch’s built-in SOS function contacts police and emergency services as if the person fell at home or was involved in a vehicle collision.
They say many smartwatch wearers don’t realize the feature is functioning, so police are asking smartwatch users to turn off the fall detection function when on ski hills or doing other sporting activities.
Plane crash not a crash at all
A police press release about an old plane crash that a hunter stumbled across in November led many to wonder if a mystery was on their hands.
RCMP said the wreckage, located somewhat near Kamloops, was 20 to 25 years old and that it was a small plane with no identifying marks.
However, shortly after the news came out, a search-and-rescue organization said it wasn’t a mysterious wreck, but an old plane they used for training exercises.
Fred Carey said there are “quite a few” fake crash sites across B.C., although he would not give the locations.
Massive lottery winners
For two lucky people, 2023 will be the year their lives were financially changed.
Kamloops resident Rhonda Malesku won $35 million in July after splitting a $70 million Lotto Max draw with an Alberta resident.
Upon checking her ticket, Malesku said she “let out a huge scream and kept saying, ‘I won $35 million dollars!’ I opened up the back door and started screaming it outside to my husband, Sam, and we both started shaking!”
“I called my daughter and started screaming it all over again to her. She immediately dropped everything and came over,” said Malesku.
In February, William Scott Gurney of Vancouver Island won $55 million with a lucky Lotto Max ticket.
“I was sitting in my office, (the jackpot news) was all over the radio,” recalled Gurney, who checked his ticket on the BCLC Lotto! App.
“I called my assistant to my office, and she initially read the number on my phone as $55,000 — she then realized it said $55 million and we couldn’t do anything all day after.”
According to B.C. Lottery, $859 million was paid out in prizes to lottery winners across the province this year.
Meet Snownado and Darth Blader
Two new, and quite massive, snowplows in B.C.’s Interior were given unique names this year.
In Kelowna, a naming competition was held for the city’s newest, and biggest, snowplow – a $230,000 machine capable of launching snow over a house and filling 500 trucks an hour.
The winning name: Snownado, which topped out a list that included Blizzard of Oz, Snow Mercy, Betty Whiteout and Snowasaurus.
In the Revelstoke area, Emcon Services will be clearing highways with Darth Blader.
Look, up in the sky! What is it?
A Fraser Valley resident visiting the Central Okanagan in February spotted something strange in the sky.
It looked like a fireball, but it could have also been a contrail.
At day’s end, though, Tyler Arden of Abbotsford didn’t know what he was looking at.
“I was loading up my van, around 7:10 a.m., or so, and as I’m loading up, I heard a delivery driver go by. Then I heard him stop and back up. And, as he backed up, I turned at looked at him,” Arden told Global News.
“And he pointed to the sky and said ‘Do you see that?’ And I turned around and looked and said ‘What the heck is that?’”
Arden said he watched it for about five minutes from the hotel parking lot.
“I’ve never seen anything like that. My first thought was a contrail, but the orange section of it never changed over time, which I thought it would as the sun came up.”
The H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver told Global News that it likely wasn’t a meteor or satellite debris.
“It was visible in the sky for too long for it to have been a meteor or a fireball,” the Space Centre told Global News. “The light from meteors and satellite debris don’t usually last for minutes.”
Career criminal crashes into stump
In Keremeos, a man called a career criminal was caught after unsuccessfully trying to flee from police in March.
In his way of getting away: A tree stump.
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RCMP said an officer on patrol spotted a suspicious vehicle around 7 p.m. and tried pulling it over, only to have the driver speed away.
The officer didn’t pursue it, but the vehicle was spotted later only, travelling down a dead-end road.
“The suspect conducted a U-turn and drove back toward the officer’s vehicle, colliding with it. In a further attempt to escape, the suspect reversed onto a homeowner’s lawn, and ultimately got stuck on a tree stump.”
Semi crashes into townhome
A semi-truck crashed into a Kelowna townhome in April, and, miraculously, an older resident and a baby inside the house weren’t injured.
One witness told Global News that the semi, hauling an empty flatbed, appeared to be turning a corner but instead crashed nose-deep into the condo.
Homeowner Samer Shehadeh said he “received a phone call from my mother in panic mode, saying something’s happening to the house.”
“I get on the phone with my mother-in-law and she’s in panic mode, going crazy. All I heard was baby, smoke, the whole house shook. That’s the highlights of what I heard.”
To make matters worse, while the house was being repaired, valuables were stolen from the home.
Shehadeh said the security company told him the suspects, possibly up to four of them, posed as construction workers.
It’s not known how long the suspects were inside the home, but Shehadeh said pictures from inside the house suggest the culprits spent some time inside drinking and ransacking the home.
“That’s the sad thing,” said Shehadeh, “as a society, it’s unfortunate that people can go that low.”
Man accused of operating canoe while impaired
It’s commonplace to see CounterAttack stops along B.C. roads, as police seek out drunk drivers.
In fact, in November 2022, a Victoria man gratefully thanked, and hugged, police for driving him home after he was caught and handed a 90-day prohibition.
But impaired canoeists?
That was the case earlier this year when Grand Forks RCMP said they received a report of an intoxicated man in a canoe in late June.
Contact was made with the man, but police said he refused to comply with directions.
“The man eventually made his way to a dock and hid under there for several minutes, again refusing to comply,” said police.
“After several minutes, a police officer was forced to go into the water and bring him out.”
RCMP said he was taken into custody but released when he sobered up, adding he was also issued a court date.
Vulgar t-shirt removed from store shelves
Social media can be powerful at times.
Case in point: A post asked Walmart Canada in April to remove a t-shirt that had a semi-hidden swear word on it.
The t-shirt has a recycling theme, all in a sans-serif font, and says people should recycle, reuse, renew and rethink.
However, the way it was designed was the issue. The shirt has RE in large letters, followed by the words ‘cycle,’ use,’ ‘new,’ and ‘think’ in smaller letters to the right.
Read horizontally, there’s no problem. But read vertically, the first letter of each of those four words spells a vulgar word.
The Twitter post, which has been viewed 2.7 million times said “I need this shirt before Walmart realizes what they have done. Find the hidden word.”
Walmart Canada told Global News that “when we became aware of some unfortunate and unintentional language in a recent t-shirt design, we removed the items from sale. We apologize for any unintended offence this has caused. These products can be returned for a full refund in stores.”
While Walmart Canada has removed the t-shirts, copycat items are available online.
B.C. beach named one of 50 best in the world
Not all interesting news has to be alarming.
A Vancouver Island beach was named one of the world’s 50 best beaches, which is not only interesting but also fascinating.
In May, a list titled The World’s 50 Best Beaches was released. Cracking the elite group: San Josef Bay, which was ranked 36th.
“Put on your favourite pair of shoes because you won’t want to miss this breathtaking beach in Cape Scott Provincial Park on Vancouver Island,” reads the report on San Josef Bay.
“After a good 45-minute hike, you will reach this amazing coastal wilderness and one of the most incredible unspoiled beaches you will ever see. Spend hours here exploring sea tracks and caves, take a refreshing swim, and feel the soft white sand under your feet.
“This beach is surrounded by calmness and rugged wilderness, making it a true unspoiled natural paradise. We highly recommend adding this beach to your ‘must-visit’ list of beaches around the world.”
The top three beaches were Lucky Bay in Australia, with its pristine white sand; Anse Source d’Argent in the Seychelles, off the eastern coast of Africa; and Hidden Beach in the Philippines.
“For San Josef to be recognized among the world’s 50 best beaches is terrific,” said Walt Judas, the CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of B.C.
“It’s a testament to the beauty of our province and Vancouver Island in particular. We can also take pride in the fact that San Josef was the only beach in Canada to be included in the top 50.”
Tree rings date ancient twin earthquakes
Continuing with the West Coast, a research team from the University of Arizona pinpointed back-to-back earthquakes around 923 A.D., thanks to some ancient tree rings.
In September, the university published a paper when the earthquakes struck the Pacific Northwest with estimated magnitudes of 7.8.
The university’s study required dive teams using underwater chainsaws to cut tree rings from dead trees at the bottom of Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish.
The earthquakes pushed a 25-foot cliff west of Seattle, which triggered a local tsunami and landslides that stripped mountainsides of whole forests and discarded them into nearby lakes Washington and Sammamish.
To harvest tree rings from the drowned stumps, the team strapped two canoes together and placed a large piece of plywood atop them to create a makeshift barge that would hold a generator to power underwater chainsaws.
“We measured radiocarbon in the rings of earthquake-killed trees to show that this spike occurred right where we thought it should,” said author Bryan Black.
“Combined, the evidence showed us that these trees from across the region died together, and this was in fact a linked event.”
No Ogopogo sightings
And, lastly, there were no reported sightings of Ogopogo in Okanagan Lake this year.
Most years, Global News receives calls and emails from people who claim they’ve sighted the lake’s mythical monster.
So, to have a year with no sightings is interesting indeed. Maybe he’s moved on to a different locale. Or maybe not ….
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