crap.

So, yes someone died in Fernie on the weekend. Its uncredibley tragic and sad. A 21 year old man from Edmonton fell off the roof of the Northern and died. The incident has in no way anything to do with the bar Bulldogs. Rumor has it the guy was brought up there and was trying to gap the buildings, like he was trying to jump from one roof to another. However in a Vancouver paper today, "foul-play" is suspected. Crap.
This is very unfortunate and sad and my heart goes out the the family. Its just soooooo sad because its one of those deaths that could have been prevented.

That being said, this incident alarmed our community. From the moment I was up on Sunday morning, my phone was busy with people trying to figure out if it was a local that died. This panic was not devulged from a dark need to gossip, it was a knee-jerk reaction to account for all of our community members. Best friend or aquactince neighbour, or friend-of-a-friend, we needed to know what happened. It was this community protection vibe that circulated. We are all saddened by this incident, it hit us all in the gut. But what was remarkable to me was that we all jumped to make sure it wasnt "one of our own". Its kinda neat and comforting to me that I live in this kind of town, where we really look out for eachother. And ya, Im going to go ahead and say it - that we all breathed a sigh of relief in a small way that it wasnt a local. Its true, it doesnt lessen what happened. I just really noticed how we are all very protective of our people here in Fernie.


So, now aside from this sad unfortunate death, my protectional instinct for this town is alarmed again with Mondays Vancouver paper - its not exactly the headlines Fernie wants to be making. New media loves a good nasty story - trust me I worked in a major city newsroom for 5 years - and aside from all the amazing things happening in and coming out of Fernie this week (like the Fernie Team killing the Freeski world right now, our community spirit for the opening of Hot Tub TM, the fact we still have a base of snow, the Fernival Festival coming up, the Reel Film Fest this weekend) the news is going to focus soley on this tragedy - especially if they are suspecting foul play. ARGH. Im not saying this death isnt worthy of news, its that its a bad mark on our town right now, sucks, just sucks.

READ THE VANCOUVER STORY