The news cycle is rarely boring, but even still certain events tend to stand out from the rest. Here are some of the stories that had readers’ heads turning in 2022:
Ducknana diehards descend on Beacon Hill in Victoria
Culture has thrown together a number of iconic combinations throughout the years. Peanut butter and jelly. Bert and Ernie. Lennon and McCartney. Duck and bananas.
Put them together and what do you get? Ducknana. The internet meme which circulated on websites like Reddit combines fruit and fowl into whimsical duck-shaped banana statues. READ MORE
Around 40 people attended a Ducknana event in Beacon Hill Park on Sunday, July 24. (Photo courtesy of Geoff de Ruiter)
B.C. mom saves pet goose from eagle while breastfeeding 4-month-old daughter
Call it a case of one mother looking out for another.
As Caitlin Oakley was breastfeeding her four-month-old daughter Willow one May evening, she heard the family’s pet goose Frankie outside. Sensing danger, Oakley flung open her door to find an eagle dragging Frankie up the driveway by their neck. READ MORE
Caitlin Oakley rushing out of her North Saanich home to help rescue her family’s pet goose from a bald eagle while breast-feeding her daughter. (Screencap/Courtesy Mike Lazic)
When pigs swim: B.C. deep water cameras capture rare footage of swimming sea pig
More than two-and-a-half kilometres below the ocean’s surface off of Vancouver Island, Ocean Networks Canada captured a rare sighting.
The Nautilus exploration vessel video-captured images of a sea pig swimming along at a depth of 2,584 metres in the Cascadia Basin. The marine animals, which are related to starfish and sea urchins, are usually found scavenging the ocean floor for waste morsels to feed on, and are very rarely seen. READ MORE
A sea pig swimming in the Cascadia Basin depths off Vancouver Island in summer 2021. (Photo courtesy of Ocean Networks Canada)
Trombone sends bear packing at St. John’s Academy in Shawnigan Lake
The saying “music soothes the savage beast” was put to the test at St. John’s Academy in Shawnigan Lake on May 27.
Over a period of several days, a black bear had been attracted to the smell of the school’s trash cans, which are kept outside in a wooden structure and not accessible to wildlife. Music teacher Tristan Clausen found a unique solution to the problem. READ MORE
Tristan Clausen, a music teacher at St. John’s Academy in Shawnigan Lake, scared a bear away from school grounds by loudly playing his trombone on May 27, 2022. (Submitted photo)
Sasquatch censored? Harrison’s landmark carving is camera shy in Google StreetView’s eyes
If not even Google StreetView can get a good shot of Sasquatch, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Local Facebook groups were amused by a quirk of the interactive map-making technology that normally blurs the faces of people pictured in StreetView pictures. READ MORE
Whether intentional or not, the face of Harrison’s sitting Sasquatch is permanently blurred on Google StreetView. (Screenshot/Google StreetView)
Wayward goat enjoying B.C. family’s hospitality until owner is located
When Cathy McCarthy heard that a wayward goat was wandering around an Abbotsford neighbourhood, she jumped in her car to go find him.
Sure enough, he was hanging out at Abbotsford School of Integrated Arts on Lower Sumas Mountain Road, where someone earlier had snapped a photo of him waiting at the front door. A sign above him read: All visitors must report to the office. READ MORE
A wayward goat at Abbotsford School of Integrated Arts. (Facebook photo)
‘A very sore throat’: 6-foot sturgeon found with fish stuck in mouth in Fraser River
A large sturgeon was spotted floating on its back in the lower Fraser River recently with a juvenile sturgeon down its throat. Due to scarce food sources in the Fraser right now, conservationists say it may have been an act of cannibalism. READ MORE
Fraser River Sturgeon Conservation Society volunteer Colin Bond had never seen anything like it. He photographed this large sturgeon floating with a smaller sturgeon in its mouth on Feb. 5, 2022 near Fort Langley. (Colin Bond/ Facebook)
B.C. mayor, family shaken after hail the size of grapefruits falls in Alberta
Courtenay Mayor Bob Wells and his family are safe, but their van was severely damaged in an Alberta hailstorm in August.
“We wrapped ourselves in blankets as soon as it looked like the glass was going to break,” he said. “Grapefruit-sized hailstones blew out the sunroofs and were trying to smash through the (sunroof) headliner – the interior part that keeps the inside dark. So we were holding that up to keep the hail out and it hurt like heck.”
Megan Wells was sitting in the back seat, wrapped in a blanket, when the window blew out. (Photo submitted)
Giant Elon Musk head by Chilliwack metal artist now complete, ready to be shipped
A nearly six-foot tall aluminum sculpture of Elon Musk’s head built by a Chilliwack artist is now complete.
Metal sculptor Kevin Stone built it for the creators of the Elon Goat Token ($EGT), an Elon Musk-themed cryptocurrency based in Arizona.
The piece is actually part of a larger sculpture that features Musk’s head on top of a goat’s body riding a rocket into space, surrounded by lightning. READ MORE
Kevin and Michelle Stone look at the six-foot tall Elon Musk head that they worked on together. They are seen outside their workshop near Chilliwack on July 5, 2022. (Jenna Hauck/ Chilliwack Progress)
Harrison-area photographer captures rare ‘hair ice’
According to The Smithsonian, this “angel hair frost” or “hair ice” has been studied for more than a century.
Hair ice is most commonly found between the 45th and 55th parallel on a cold morning. Although it’s not completely clear why the ice forms white, hair-like filaments, scientists believe hair ice is formed on wood surfaces through a phenomenon known as ice segregation. READ MORE
Ryan Kehler was hiking north of Harrison Hot Springs when he found this somewhat rare phenomenon known as hair ice or angel hair frost, formed on cold, wet wood under the right circumstances. (Contributed Photo/Ryan Kehler)
READ ALSO: 2022 in photos: Here’s what our reporters captured
