As the year of the dragon comes to a close, 2024 proved to be a frantic, frenzied and sometimes feverish year for Victoria residents and Victoria News journalists who provided daily, on-the-ground reporting for the community.
The stories that piqued readers' interests varied from frustrations with oversized pickup trucks in the downtown core to the creatures found in the waters off Victoria's shores to a reporter's day spent at the heart of the region's homelessness crisis.
Here are the stories that generated the most interest with vicnews.com readers in 2024:
1. Three dozen screening staff members fired at Victoria International Airport – Feb. 14
Thirty-six Victoria International Airport staff members were fired Feb. 6 and 7 following a complaint to the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA).
Preliminary findings prompted a deeper investigation into screening operations at the airport in December and January, CATSA said in an email. “The investigation identified multiple instances of incomplete screening at a non-passenger checkpoint by screening personnel employed by Allied Universal, CATSA’s screening contractor.”
CATSA’s screening officers conduct screening of non-passengers accessing restricted areas at major airports. Non-passengers include flight and cabin crews, airline customer service personnel, caterers, maintenance personnel, baggage handlers and other airport staff.
“The findings indicate that the personnel involved did not fulfil their core responsibility to protect the travelling public,” CATSA added. “At no point did CATSA request that the employer terminate the individuals involved.”
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said the employer – Allied Universal – intended to bring the majority of affected employees back to work with a corrective action after determining that their conduct deviated from standard operating procedures but was not grounds for termination.
The association reminded its members to comply with screening procedures at all times and follow CATSA’s standard operating procedures.
2. ‘Ban them’: Victoria residents fed up with ginormous trucks in downtown core – Jan. 1
A photo posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, of a large pickup truck with its box sticking out into the road sparked a conversation about whether or not downtown Victoria can accommodate the mammoth vehicle and others like it.
“Does that look like it fits in the space?” asked Tim Bracken, who posted the photo with the accompanying hashtag #Banoversizedtrucks. “Probably the most off-road driving this thing will ever do.”
More and more, Victoria is turning into a city that is made for pedestrians and cyclists, with new bike lanes being added every year. Many downtown streets that were designed decades ago can barely handle today’s cars and SUVs, with little-to-no room for larger pick-up trucks.
“I say ban them,” said Colin Smithe, who recently moved to Victoria. “What I love about the downtown Victoria streets is many of them are now designed for cyclists. That’s what we should be looking at, not allowing oversized trucks. Those things are dangerous. Outside of the downtown core is fine, but get rid of these beasts.”
3. PHOTOS: 2-foot long deep sea creature spotted off Victoria shores – March 21
At the tail-end of the winter season, Victoria diver Steph Brulot-Sawchyn and his brother spotted an unusual creature under the waves near Clover Point.
“I have not a clue what that thing is,” Brulot-Sawchyn recalled thinking when he saw the two-foot-long transparent creature with a jellyfish look.
“So I immediately, when I got home, posted it to iNaturalist and the Field Naturalists of Vancouver Island Facebook page,” he said. After some back and forth, online experts identified it as a siphonophore and there are only a dozen or so local sightings of the species – a deep sea organism – listed on iNaturalist.
The praya dubia or giant siphonophore generally lives in the mesopelagic zone, 300 to 700 metres under the sea, said Moira Galbraith, a marine biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
“They are kind of uncommon in our area,” she said in a phone interview from her North Saanich office.
“This is interesting that you see these. There’s no way you should be snorkelling in 300 metres, this is not their area,” she said. “They don’t have the ability to navigate stronger currents.”
Seeing it so shallow, and so far north is indicative of recent warming of ocean waters.
“These are all deep water so there’s something in this movement of water that causes some sort of welling that brings water from deep, I think,” she said.
4. Mover sued after missing Victoria ferry sailing, ‘threatening to dump’ items – Jan. 1
According to a decision by the BC Civil Resolution Tribunal, a moving company had mostly won its case against a woman who sued it after it missed a Victoria-area ferry and also threatened to “dump” her items.
Tamara Gorski hired Micro Logistics Group Inc. to move her from Vancouver Island to Vancouver. She was claiming $1,100 in costs and $3,300 in damages, while Micro filed a counterclaim that was seeking more than $1,700.
Gorski said Micro did not move all her items, so she had to finish moving the rest herself. She said she suffered mental distress as a result of Micro’s incomplete job.
One issue that arose was that Micro arrived at the Swartz Bay ferry terminal too late for a ferry so it had to take a different ferry two hours later, making it unable to reach a storage business before it closed that day, said the tribunal decision. Micro held Gorski’s items overnight.
“Ms. Gorski argues Micro did not properly plan its route or itinerary so should be responsible for the additional time caused by missing the 3:00 p.m. ferry,” read the decision.
The decision also found that Gorski had “numerous large and bulky items that were not listed in her inventory. (Micro) says it didn’t know Ms. Gorski had three full storage units."
The tribunal blamed Gorski for Micro missing the ferry.
Gorski also said she suffered mental distress partly because Micro threatened to “dump” her items instead of keeping them overnight.
“If we don’t hear back from someone and the storage is not open (we) will have to take everything to dump station as we don’t (have) storage units (of) our own,” read a text message Micro sent to Gorski, according to the tribunal decision.
Gorski received $100, but Micro was awarded $1,630.51 in the counterclaim.
5. ‘This is my home’: Hope sinks for Greater Victoria derelict boat owner – Feb. 29
At the start of a crackdown on derelict boats, the Coast Guard announced it handed out the second-ever ticket under the 2019 Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act to a boat owner at the Village of Masset on Haida Gwaii, whose vessel, the Dorothy Gale, sunk and damaged a public dock.
For some, this was a small step in trying to fix the long-standing problem of derelict boats that are polluting waterways, especially in B.C., but for those who call the boats home, like Mark Crocker, it seemed to be part of a concerted effort against so-called “liveaboards."
Crocker, 64 at the time of the story being written, had spent 35 years living on various boats in the Greater Victoria area. His home of the past seven years — a big, blue metal sailboat named Illusie — was stuck on a breakwater in North Saanich.
“This my home,” Crocker said. “Everything I own is on board, and as far as I know, it’s been looted and vandalized.”
Coast Guard spokesperson Paul Barrett said boat owners are given plenty of opportunity — and coaching — to help solve the problems with their boats before it gets to the point of a financial penalty.
“It’s only in cases where that didn’t work, then the next step is to issue them a notice of assessment to say, ‘Hey, you’re responsible for this’,” Barrett said.
If owners don’t act at that point, they are fined.
The first ticket issued under the 2019 law was a $15,000 penalty assessed this past summer after a boat washed ashore in Cadboro Bay.
6. PHOTOS: Hawaii Mars navigates tight squeeze in move across Victoria airport lands – Aug. 15
The historic Hawaii Martin Mars water bomber made headlines during its journey to its new home on the Saanich Pennisula.
In April, Coulson Aviation announced that it was donating the last operational tanker, which was used to fight B.C. wildfires for over five decades, to the BC Aviation Museum to establish the plane as the centrepiece of a new B.C. wildfire aviation exhibit.
The tanker's final flight was on Aug. 11 when it left the Alberni Valley to a temporary parking lot at the Canadian Coast Guard station in North Saanich before inching its way to the museum.
“It's been a massive preparing operation,” Richard Mosdell, who piloted the campaign to save the plane, said of the final leg of the aircraft’s journey.
The bomber made a midnight move sometime during the week of Aug. 19 to 23 across the Coast Guard base, West Saanich Road and Victoria International Airport land to arrive at its new home at the museum.
The last shackles of the move came off on Aug. 29 as Hawaii Mars settled into its longtime resting place at the end of the 2.5-year mission, made successful by more than 300 individuals and a dozen organizations.
7. Opening Pandora's box: a day in the epicentre of Victoria's homelessness crisis – Oct. 31
On Sept. 23, Black Press Media spent a day with the outreach team of Our Place Society, a charity serving Greater Victoria’s unhoused population. The article delved into the daily reality of two front-line workers on Pandora Avenue's 900 block – the epicentre of the city’s homelessness crisis.
Outreach workers Madeline Tessmer and Cameron Harper started their day by cleaning the community centre as it transitioned from an overnight shelter into a lounging area while handing out coffees and connecting with those living on the street.
At the time, the community had recently experienced increasing stress levels due to a growing number of encampment cleanups conducted by city bylaws and police officers.
“We're just trying to stay on top of the updates and let as many people know as we can so [sweeps are] less of a surprise,” Harper said. “We want people to be prepared and give them time to pack up their belongings, keep their things safe, and be out of the way.”
Later in the day, the team encountered a young woman experiencing a "particularly severe" overdose, though the woman did survive.
“It's not good because usually after one or two doses of Narcan they wake up pretty quickly,” said Tessmer. “I think the hard part was seeing the chest compressions. Usually, paramedics always do artificial manual breathing.”
Painting a grim picture, one man experiencing homelessness, Tyler, explained that overdoses are often a way for people to escape the harsh reality of life on the street without fully considering the consequences of their actions.
“A lot of these people are taking that hit thinking that they want it to be their last one,” he said. “They wake up mad because you rob them of the opportunity to escape this life they live in. It's sad to think of it like that but that is the reality.”
