The family of a missing Breton man who disappeared seven years ago are still hoping for help from the public.
Andrew George Nicoll was last heard from on April 21, 2014. His daughter, Bronwyn Taylor, had just been to visit him for Easter the day before.
Taylor says she and her father were very close and had been texting throughout the day. The last text she received from him was at 3:15 p.m. At that time Nicoll was outside working on his deck. At 4 p.m. Taylor sent him another text, but this one was never read.
When the text message went unanswered, Taylor wasn’t initially concerned. Her father lived on a large piece of land near Breton. The area was isolated and the cell service wasn’t always great, so she assumed it just hadn’t gone through.
It was when she received the call that he hadn’t shown up for work the next morning that she knew something was wrong.
As a former member of the Royal Navy, police officer and volunteer firefighter, Taylor knew that her father would not be irresponsible about his work shift. His employer, who also recognized that this was abnormal behaviour, had gone out to his home to check on him, but he wasn’t there.
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Taylor called the RCMP immediately and travelled out to his house. She says she can remember some people suggesting he just took off or perhaps killed himself – his wife had died of cancer two years prior – but what Taylor saw told her this wasn’t the case.
Taylor had just been to visit him the day before he disappeared. “He was in really good spirits. No indication of [him] being suicidal. He was not, whatsoever,” she said.
Nicoll had been working on his deck, getting his place ready to be sold. All of his tools were left out and he’d been in the middle of adding oil to his chainsaw.
He’d also put both dogs inside the house, something he only did when there were visitors coming up the driveway. Inside they could see that he’d gone grocery shopping that day, there was chicken thawing for supper in the microwave, and the dog dishes were filled with food and sitting on the countertop.
“The only reason the dogs would ever be locked inside the house would be if someone was coming down the driveway or he was using his chainsaw,” she said.
After a quick search, they also found his keys, wallet and jacket. His vehicle was still in the driveway.
There was no indication that Nicoll had plans to go anywhere at that time. “We were texting for most of the day,” said Taylor.
Seven years later, Taylor says she’s still hoping for answers. “To this date, we still have no idea what happened to my dad,” she said.
Taylor said her first thought when she arrived was that there had been a medical situation. She said there were several areas on his property that he liked to visit and they immediately checked all of those areas.
RCMP searched the property for more than a day. When they didn’t find him, Taylor used her connections as a volunteer firefighter and a peace officer for nine years, to ask for volunteers to complete a detailed search of the property.
“We did an extensive five-month search,” she said.
Unfortunately, nothing was found.
At one point they brought dogs out to the property, and the dogs indicated that there was something at one point in a creek that runs through his property. Because of the level of silt in that area, rescue workers were unable to use ground-penetrating radar technology to check for anything under the creek bed. And despite numerous efforts, they were never able to find what it was the dogs had located.
If you’re a teacher who has just headed back to school I have some bad news. Facebook says you’ve been doing it wrong. Or, to be more specific, you’ve been teaching the wrong stuff.
According to something I read on the social media platform, the education system is teaching kids the wrong subjects. And it has been for years.
Facebook obviously wouldn’t just allow someone to publish something without rigorous fact checking. That would be grossly irresponsible. So we have to assume there’s a degree of existential truth to the list of Subjects that Should Be Mandatory in Schools, but I’m not sure what.
I won’t bore you with the full rundown but it includes things like home maintenance, insurance, coding, balancing a cheque book and public speaking.
Wait, what?
Balancing a cheque book was an important skill back around 1990. These days it’s as much use as knowing how to change a roll of fax paper or memorizing your best friend’s phone number.
Keeping up with home repairs is a great thing and you’ll save a bunch of money if you can do them yourself, but as a subject it’s a little vague. Are we talking about changing a lightbulb or pouring a concrete slab for your deck? It would be good to know because one of these things is not like the other.
Insurance? I don’t even know what that means. Sure it can be an expensive mistake if you wind up overinsured. And it can be an even more expensive mistake if you wind up under insured. But I’m not clear on how they’re supposed to teach that in schools when there are so many variables and every case is going to be different.
Coding would be a very worthwhile skill in an increasingly computerized world, but I’m not sure it’s something we all need to be good at, the same as we don’t all need to be doctors, airline pilots or electricians.
And public speaking? Well, don’t schools already teach that? Isn’t that the point of every presentation you were asked to make in front of the class from Grade 1 show and tell onwards?
So if I was a teacher I’d ignore what Facebook says and stick to what I’m doing. You see a lot of criticisms of the high school curriculum, but the standard, traditional subjects have stood us in good stead. Sure, you don’t necessarily end up using everything they teach you in school once you enter the real world. After almost fifty years I’m still waiting for a Frenchman to approach me on the street, say “bonjour” and ask me how old I am or what the time is, but I’ll certainly be prepared if it ever happens.
And the other stuff, reading, writing and arithmetic, is still as important as it ever was. Yeah, we all carry a calculator with us these days, but if you’re trying to figure out whether 600 grams of cheese for $7.22 is a better deal than 450 grams for $5.07, you still have to know how to ask the question before your phone can give you the answer.
Teaching things like that is what school’s for. I hope that never changes.
A local woman has made it to the top after losing the most weight and was named the TOPS Queen for 2026.
Seventy-eight-year-old Pat Thoreson has been a member of the not-for-profit weight-loss club, Take Off Pounds Sensibly, since 1984. After losing the most weight in Alberta this year, Thoreson was crowned the TOPS Queen last May.
“I started out with a weight problem when I was growing up, so I’ve spent a lot of years at it,” she says.
Since she joined TOPS, Thoreson has lost 72.25 lbs, though she says most of the loss was over the past couple of years.
Prior to joining TOPS, Thoreson had tried out a number of different groups in an attempt to achieve results, but with little success. She says she would lose a little bit of weight, but then would gain it back.
Living near Winfield, Thoreson would meet with the club in Bluffton. From spring to the fall, Thoreson would drive herself to the club every week. Over the winter, Thoreson’s husband would drive her so she wouldn’t have to drive in the dark.
As much as the group was about losing weight, the social aspect was also appealing. She says the club was extremely supportive, and she formed a bond with the members, which was one of the reasons that kept her motivated to return.
“We take turns doing programs, and we have contests. It’s just a good support club,” she says. “That has been another thing that has gotten me to this point.”
One of the women Thoreson met was Violet Schmidt, who was Queen in 1995, and the two became very close.
“Over the years, she was one of the best supporters that I’ve ever had,” she says.
Unlike other groups, Thoreson found the approach of TOPS refreshing. Each week there was a weigh-in for the members, similar to other organizations, but they focused on making healthy food choices rather than food or calorie restriction.
“It’s a food exchange,” says Thoreson. “It’s not that you can’t eat certain foods; you just think about the amount of calories and that type of thing.”
She says they allow themselves to eat the food, but just remain conscious of how much and how often they ate it.
It’s also cheaper than many other programs. To join TOPS, there is an annual fee of $49 USD. Thoreson says her club, which has since relocated to Hoadley, also charges a $5 fee for each meeting to cover the costs of the coffee and rental space. Other than that, there are no fees for information packages and no meals that have to be purchased.
Thoreson says the biggest weight loss came after she received an award for being part of the club for 40 years.
“I thought, ‘40 years and I haven’t really done a whole bunch,’” she says. “That’s one of the things that kind of shook my memory that this was why I was really here, not just to visit.”
She says she lost weight at a healthy pace and was able to keep it off thanks to the information she had from the group and the exercise regime that she stuck to.
“On Mondays, [my husband and I] would floor curl in the afternoon. Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I do chair exercises for one hour in Buck Lake on Tuesdays and Winfield on Thursdays. Then on Thursdays I would walk for three-quarters to an hour at Winfield as well,” says Thoreson.
As a Queen, Thoreson says she would like to advocate the importance of healthy choices to people.
“A person can do it if they just stop and think about what they’re eating and what they should be eating,” she says. “Even though it took me 42 years, I still go there. It’s not like you have to do it all of a sudden.”
Thoreson says she hopes people will hear her message and make time to attend a meeting at a nearby club to see what the organization is all about.
More information about the program can be found at www.tops.org.
Please be a predictable pedestrian
I remember when I let my kids walk to school alone for the first time. I stood in our big front window waving, and blowing kisses fighting the urge to jump in my car and follow them. I told myself repeatedly that if I didn’t get a call from the school wondering where they were, they must have made it safely and they did.
The route to school from our home on 54th Ave was pretty calm for the most part except for three crossings. The first was crossing the road that the old pool was on from west to east. There was no cross walk and it had some blind spots. People often picked up speed while driving and I would really hammer it into the kids’ heads “Stop, look and listen! Then get eye contact.” The other two crossings closer to St. Anthony School did have traffic lights, however some drivers liked to make that right hand turn while they were looking left. Again “Eye contact!” I wanted my kids to know the responsibility of being a pedestrian, after all we lived in town and walking was something we did often. I never wanted them to implicitly trust that the driver saw them, or wasn’t distracted. They needed to be predictable and patient for drivers. That first walk happened three years ago and my, how times have changed.
Whereas, before I directed much of my annoyance and outrage at drivers, now it’s the “pedestrians,” who aren’t actually on foot. I’m talking about people on an e-anything who zip and zoom from sidewalk to the roads, and who don’t make eye contact, don’t act predictably and generally are not respecting the rules of the road or the sidewalk.
Do I sound like a Karen? I hope so.
A few weeks ago I was walking to the library from the office, and there was a truck at the fourway stop to my right. I made eye contact, looked both ways and proceeded to walk. Then out of the blue to my left, an electric scooter came off the sidewalk onto the road, cut off my path of walking and zipped through the intersection, without stopping thereby cutting the truck off too. In this one instance not only could the person have hit me, but the truck that was ready to proceed could have gunned it and hit him.
Seinfeld is my mindless pleasure. There’s one episode I just watched where Kramer got into blows with a baseball player over a ball cleaning violation on the golf course. Jerry thought he was being too strict with the rules. Kramer’s response. “Hey, a rule is a rule and let’s face it without rules…there’s chaos.” This is what the roadways and sidewalks seemed to have devolved into, utter chaos.
So despite the fact that the current laws on electric anything are murky, and scooters shouldn’t be used off of private property, here they are. And while I would love to deliver the typical PSA to drivers, that says “Hey it is back to school, please watch out for pedestrians.” I also want to shout out. “Hey it’s back to school, please make sure your kids know the rules of the road, how to be a respectful pedestrian that acts in a predictable manner around vehicles, and non-motorized pedestrians! Please!!! For the love of…”
I am not just being a Karen on this one and I would like to put the general reminder that not more than a few years ago we had an e-scooter death in this very town when a scooter driver hit a pedestrian, knocking him down resulting in injury causing death.
So on one hand I would like all drivers to be aware of the pedestrians out on the sidewalk this school season but also, pedestrians or hybrid pedestrians please also do your due diligence and watch for traffic, and be predictable. Lets make sure everyone gets to where they are going in a boring and uneventful way this school year.
Thunder look to balance size, speed and mentality
The Drayton Valley Thunder are getting ready to hit the ice for the pre-season, and head coach Jeff Truit says there will be some changes this year.
Truit, who is in his second season of coaching the team, says there were some lessons to be learned last year.
“I knew that this was a tough league coming in, and with a younger group,” he says. “We learned a lot of lessons in how we have to play and how we have to approach things.”
Truit says it wasn’t anything earth-shattering for him; he was aware there could be some improvements the team needed to work on when he started.
There were a lot of first-year players on the team last year, and so there was some inexperience to contend with.
“I thought last year that we got out-competed at times,” he says.
Heading into camp this year, Truit says they are focusing on bringing in more skill and speed, and they are also looking for bigger players.
“It’s going to be a very competitive camp. I think our scouts have done a tremendous job with the quality of players we’ve got coming in,” he says.
The coaches will be keeping an eye out for some of the taller players with more muscle mass this year. Truit says there is a place for every size of player, but he wants a team that’s a balance of players who are six feet or more and have power and the smaller guys who have the speed.
One of the areas that he saw needed to be improved was their game against the boards. He says the team needs to be able to win those battles. When the players head into that situation, there is a mental aspect to the win. Truit says sometimes size can affect how the player acts in the corners.
“We’re not sacrificing skill because these guys do have skill,” he says. “We look at that being a real positive for our team.”
Truit says there is a fire within every athlete regardless of their size, and each one has to work within the team to make it a success.
A lot of the recruits have worn letters on their jerseys from their past teams. Truit says even though these past leaders are coming into a new level of hockey, they know how to prepare for games and are less likely to get overwhelmed.
“They are very mature young men,” he says. “The nice thing about it is they’ve been leaders, they’ve had to take care of their teams and set the example on and off the ice.”
Truit says last year was a tough year, but as the players have come back, he sees a new level of focus. He says their attitudes have always been great, but they are willing to take on the responsibility of taking the team to another level.
“They know we have to improve,” he says. “They know that the pressure is on. They seem to have grasped that, and that speaks to the quality of their character.”
Truit says there is a mental aspect to the game that the players have to master as well.
“[As an athlete] you have to take it upon yourself to raise that level, and that’s a mindset that you’ve gotta come into,” he says. “And it just feels like now they are going to get it done.”
Truit says he sees the increase in the drive from the players, and he’s really excited about what the upcoming season will bring.
While the role of the captain on the team is an important one, Truit says they are all expected to help with the leadership.
“I care about the collective unit rather than just the captains,” he says.
Truit says one of the best things that fans can do to help the team is to fill the seats during games. He says it can be very intimidating for the opposing teams coming in to hear the cheers for the home team.
He says he believes the fans will be proud of the improvements that have been made to the area, including the taller glass, new clock, and screen. The atmosphere will be different.
“The fans here in Drayton Valley can be a very intimidating group when they’re loud and they’re cheering and supporting that way,” he says. “They did a great job for us last year.”
Make your AI posters newspaper friendly
When I first got into the advertising and sales side of the newspaper I didn’t know anything about anything. But I did know I wanted to make sure that we built our clients effective ads specific to newspaper marketing.
“Newspaper friendly” advertising is a stand alone subset of advertising, just like every social network has their own specs for effective digital advertising, and billboards have their requirements, and radio has their requirements. Newspaper ads that follow certain specs are more effective.
Why is this important for you to know? Because with the rise of AI, we have been getting many AI posters as graphic design submissions for advertising. As a jumping off point for our graphic designer this is fantastic intel, however as a carbon copy ad, these posters are not always newspaper friendly.
A few basic tips I share with people when they are considering submitting a draft design are these:
White space! Newspapers need white space. Too much of everything leads to a whole lot of nothing for the eye to focus on. White space allows your prospective clients to see your important messaging from a distance and draws them in closer to see more once interest is piqued.
Font size. The Free Press type font is 9pt. Advertising should be larger than this. In some cases much larger.
Font contrast. A dark font on a lighter background is the easiest to read. This is why newspapers are black font on white paper. Again this takes us back to white space.
These are the basics that I let people know about. This may mean that your newspaper ad is not a carbon copy of your promotional poster.
But our brand! You might protest.
Branding does not mean placing the same identical ad across multiple mediums. Branding requires you to ensure the big picture aspects of your company are included in all advertising such things like: colours, typeface, image themes etc.
You wouldn’t put a very detailed poster on a billboard would you? No. People driving at 70km per hour don’t have time to read all of the information. But you may put the same headline, with the same colour and similar imagery with a big bold company name. Social media advertising favours not just images but videos – branding may appear in the beginning and end of the video.
If you do choose to draft your ad graphics in AI here are some prompts I pulled from Gemini you could use in that will help make your ad specific to the newspaper medium:
Newspaper prompt guidelines from Gemini
1. Demand High Contrast and Grayscale Clarity
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“High contrast, strong key lighting, bold outlines, optimized for black and white print, crisp grayscale separation.”
Note: you can reference the same but in colour, the colour contrast will be more defined.
2. Enforce Simple Compositions and Ample Negative Space
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“Minimalist background, single clear focal point, uncluttered design, generous empty negative space for text overlays.”
3. Choose Graphic or Vector Styles Over Hyper-Realism
Phrase to include in your prompt:
“Flat vector art style, clean graphic illustration, sharp edges, print-ready layout, high-legibility design.”
One of the services the Free Press provides is graphic design. Our graphic designer on staff, has worked in marketing and has a degree in graphic design. She has a keen eye and great understanding of the importance of typeface, layout, and focal point. If you draft your poster initially in AI send it our way to be rendered into a newspaper friendly format. Provide us with a png or pdf file, unflattened so we can adjust to make sure you are getting the best ad that will catch the most eyeballs.
The fact is the wrong ad style for the wrong medium is ineffective no matter the marketing platform you use. Over at the Free Press, advertising is part of the full newspaper package and we want your ads to be as interesting and eye catching to our readers as our editorial headlines.
Project takes snapshots of historic watering holes
Last Friday the Evansburg Inn was entered into the annals of history by the Beer Parlour Project, which has been making a photographic documentary of historic hotels across Western Canada.
Chris Doering, Rob Pohl, and Doering’s wife Connie Biggart are the founders of the Beer Parlour Project, which aims to record the history of hotels that were the focal point of their community when they were first built. The group wants to capture the essence of the building using a combination of digital and vintage flash photography of the building and the community of people who use it.
“My friends and I are history photographers,” says Doering. “So we go around and document historic buildings, machinery, or whatever the case may be.”
While they were out in the field working, they were often in rural areas. Often there were hotels in the community, some of which were still original structures from the first half of the 20th century, and they would stop in for lunch.
“Right under our noses is all these really interesting hotels with really interesting stories,” says Doering.
The trio started the project in 2022 and have been to about 50 rural establishments since then. Their goal is to visit 100 older hotels across Western Canada so they can publish a coffee table book. They’ve already secured an exhibit at the Alberta Art Gallery in 2028, which they are excited about.
The Beer Parlour group started their weekend on a Thursday at the Colinton Hotel in Colinton, Alberta. From there they drove to Evansburg on Friday, and on Saturday they stopped in at the Warburg Hotel and Saloon.
Though Doering, Biggart, and Pohl all have full-time jobs, this project is their main hobby. The group is funding their project on their own, though they are looking for some arts grants to help cover some expenses. As such, they try to get as many stops in as possible if they have to travel any distance.
Doering says they pick areas to focus on each time they are planning to work on their project. Once they have the area and have selected the hotels, they look into the history of the building and its relationship to the community. They also consider the cultural side of things and how people are involved in the history of the building.
“They’re really little hidden gems,” says Doering. “Outside appearances can be deceiving.”
Doering’s role in the project is digital photography, research, and handling most of the interviews.
“You hear some really amazing stories,” says Doering. “Some hilarious, heart-breaking — you name it.”
Pohl focuses on taking photos, often on his vintage tri-pod camera, and he also helps with some of the writing for the website.
While Pohl’s camera isn’t the best camera for the project, he uses it because he prefers to develop the pictures in his darkroom. It also provides a great ice breaker as patrons come up and ask him questions about it.
“It’s funny, the expectations of people now, especially the younger generation. [They say] ‘Can I see the back of the camera? What does the picture look like?’” says Pohl.
He says people are often shocked that it will take a month for the picture to be developed, but they always offer to send them a complimentary picture when it’s ready.
Pohl says now that they’ve been to a few different bars, had their stories told in the paper, and have been interviewed for television and radio, they can show that they are credible and have a legitimate project that they are working on. This could make it easier to secure grants to help cover some expenses, and it could also make it easier for them to get their work published in a book.
It hasn’t always been easy for them to get people to trust them. For the most part, owners have allowed them to come in, take some photos, and talk to people; however, some have turned them away.
“There is always a little suspicion because they think we’re either gonna portray their place as a dump and try to make fun of it, which we’re not. We’re trying to celebrate it, get people aware of these [places] and out there to enjoy them,” says Pohl. “We don’t use any images or take any pictures in a way to portray it in that light, so we’ve got to get that understanding in place.”
The other suspicion owners sometimes have is that the Beer Parlour Project is going to charge them for the work they are doing, which has never been the case.
The owners of the Evansburg Inn, Christine and Diane Maskell, say they were happy to participate in the project because they believe it’s important for small towns to be recognized and supported.
“Some people don’t even go off of Highway 16, and when they go to these small communities, they’re amazed at what they can find in them,” says Christine.
Christine and her mother-in-law, Diane, have owned the Evansburg Inn for nearly 26 years, and it was only recently that Christine decided to close the bar down on Sundays. Prior to that, she had been working every single day to keep the place going while raising five kids.
The best memories Christine and Diane have are of the people they’ve met along the way. The history of their time running the bar is tied to their memories of their patrons and friends.
Currently, Christine, Diane, Christine’s daughter Lindsey, and her daughter-in-law, Jacey, run the place.
“We do get along really good, honest to God,” says Diane. “They say that mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law don’t get along, but we do.”
The family run business has seen its ups and downs. Their family lost a grandson, son, brother, and husband when Robbie Maskell passed away in 2022.
But still, the women have continued to serve their loyal customer base. Christine is a Jill-of-all- trades, but she doesn’t touch the electrical. She does, however, handle the maintenance for the rest of the building.
“If it’s broken, she’ll fix it,” says Diane.
Over the years, their bar has been known as a place of respect.
“I say, if you respect the place, then I’ll respect you,” says Christine.
In the time they’ve owned the place, there have only been a handful of fights.
Diane recalls a time when Christine had to step in to keep the peace one night.
“There was going to be a fight — this was a few years ago. There was a regular sitting at the bar, and [Christine] knew he was going to go after [another patron]. She jumped over the bar and grabbed him, and hung onto him like you wouldn’t believe,” says Diane.
The bar has become a memorial for some. A bench outside the Inn was placed there in Robbie’s honour, and inside, there is a column filled with messages for a loyal patron who passed away.
“He used to sit in that spot,” says Christine. “He did a lot of plumbing work and help for us over the years we were here, and he suddenly passed away.”
They held a memorial service for Jerry Lee, and his family asked if they could write messages on the wall. Christine pointed them to the area where Jerry always sat, and Jerry’s family and friends left messages for him there.
Several years later, those messages are still preserved, and Jerry is still remembered.
“He had some nieces and nephews that were five or six years old. They’re 18 now and they come in, and they so appreciate that we still have [the messages],” says Christine. “A couple of weeks ago his daughter came in, and she brought her daughter in and they were talking about it. It’s kind of nice.”
Pohl and Doering’s only regret with this project is that they didn’t start sooner. Many old hotels have been closing down in recent years.
“We’ve kind of missed the boat in a way. We should have started a decade sooner and we could’ve gotten a lot more, but we’re going to have no problem hitting 100,” he says.
The group is also really enjoying working on the project, and Pohl thinks they might push past 100 simply because they enjoy it.
More information about the Beer Parlour Project can be found at www.beerparlourproject.com.
“I strongly believe that if it had been a suicide or a medical event, we would have found the body on that very first day,” said Taylor.
Since there were no leads, the case eventually went cold. But Taylor never gave up hope. Every year she would post information to social media in the hopes of jogging someone’s memory.
This year she received a call from the Alberta RCMP Missing Persons Unit. They indicated that they were taking a look at the file and hoping to find something that might have been missed. However, since that time the home and land have been purchased by different owners and the situation might be more complicated.
“He was just such an amazing dad,” said Taylor. She says Nicoll originally met her mother in Prince Rupert, B.C. when she was a nurse. The two ended up getting married and living in England for the first eight years of Taylor’s life.
“They were soulmates,” says Taylor.
During that time her father was a police officer.
When they relocated to this country, Taylor says her dad was very proud to call Canada his home. Taylor was an only child, and because there was no family nearby, the three of them were very close.
“He was really just proud to be in Canada. He was so excited to be in Canada and have the opportunity here,” she said.
The family resided in the Edmonton area and Nicoll went into security, originally starting at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. It was there that he made many friends that would soon become his extended family.
“I’m still in contact with all of his friends that he made throughout his career. They’ve become like family to me,” said Taylor. “He just made an impact on everyone he met.”
Marvin Chick was one of the close friends that Nicoll made while working at the Royal Alex. He said he also worked with Nicoll when he started working with Transit, where Nicoll was a peace officer.
Download your Brazeau and Beyond Experience Guide
If you’re tired of trying to watch live performances from the balconies with binoculars, which is often the case at the large venues found in the city, then the intimate settings of the Eleanor Pickup Arts Centre and the Max Centre are just the ticket.
The two facilities have a full calendar of performances throughout the fall and winter months and they offer two completely different experiences.
The Max Centre is located in Frank Maddock High School and offers a wide array of “dinner and a show” packages featuring performances by tribute acts showcasing the work of some of the world’s best known musicians. When you book a ticket at the Max you get your money’s worth. An evening can last anywhere from three to four hours and includes a catered meal, a live performance and well priced drinks. By the end of the night there are almost always people on the dance floor or singing along with the performers. This is an excellent venue to get out with a group and have some fun.
The Eleanor Pickup Arts Centre is another performing arts venue that packs a punch.
The arts centre, formerly known as the Cardium Theatre, was the entertainment anchor in downtown Drayton Valley at the height of the mid-century oil boom. In recent years it was purchased by the local municipalities and refurbished into its current form, where it now acts as a venue for live music, comedians and other entertainers.
The Eleanor Pickup Arts Centre is the largest stage in this part of Alberta, is managed by a group of dedicated volunteers and works to bring in up and coming and independent artists to the area.
A night at the theatre includes moderately priced beverages and snacks, comfortable theatre chairs, and there is no bad seat in the house. If you are working dinner into your evening I would recommend going out for supper at one of the 40 different restaurants in town, and heading out for after-show drinks at nearby lounges and bars.
Upcoming performances at both venues are regularly advertised on social media or in the Drayton Valley and District Free Press.
The Drayton Valley and District Agriculture Society is raising funds for a local family whose child is fighting a rare form of cancer.
Shortly after his third birthday, Leo Grosjean was diagnosed with a rare cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma.
“His mom had just come off of maternity leave, and it turned out he needed 42 weeks of treatment including chemo, radiation, and possibly surgery,” says Tayler Vakoulich, one of the organizers of the fundraiser. “Even after that, there is a follow-up of 24 weeks of maintenance therapy.”
The ag society is working with a group called the Golden Circle of Champions, a program that originates in the United States and is just starting up in Canada, to help the Grosjean family cover costs while they care for their son. The group is similar to the Make-A-Wish Foundation with a cowgirl/cowboy focus.
The society was the one to approach the Golden Circle and put Leo forward as a candidate for their program. Typically, the candidates come through rodeos.
“[We] sponsor them and then this program sends them to the [Canadian Finals Rodeo] for the week, it gets them a hotel room, and it gets them all these really cool experiences where they get to go meet the animals and cowboys, and they get their own banquet,” says Vakoulich.
The Golden Circle also sends one of its Canadian candidates to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.
The ag society was the one who put forward the funds to cover the expenses of the CFR, says Vakoulich, because they wanted to go with a second option that the program offers. It helps people with different fundraisers to help out families.
Some of the fundraisers they have include the Golden Boot, which is a golden cowboy boot that gets passed around during the Thursday Night Rodeos.
“It goes from $400 to $700 every night,” says Vakoulich.
Other fundraisers include 50/50s at their markets. For the past three months, all of those funds have gone to Leo’s family.
The group is also partnering with Stella Stevens from CFCW Edmonton, who works with the Golden Circle, to put on a concert in the fall, says Vakoulich.
“She’s helping us get an artist to do a nice big concert in town,” says Vakoulich.
They are also looking for items that can be raffled off at the Thursday Night Rodeos, she says.
Over the next few weeks, the Grosjean family will be incurring far more expense than usual, says Vakoulich. Leo will be headed to Florida for treatments with the hope that a change in treatment will keep the toxicity levels in his lungs down.
Those who would like to donate to the cause can participate in any of the fundraisers, such as the Golden Boot or the 50/50 raffles. They can also reach out to the Ag Society at 780-621-0030 or they can send an email to dvagsocietyinfo@gmail.com.
Folks, this month I find myself at war with nature. And so far it looks like nature is winning
Last night I was awoken by the sound of crashing from right outside the bedroom window. I looked out to see half of one of my tomato plants lying on the ground, while the other half was steadily being chomped by a full sized whitetail. Unruffled, the deer gave me a not particularly apologetic look before wandering over to poop on the lawn.
I suppose at least the deer are nice to watch, unlike the caterpillars we saw earlier in the season. The lesson we learned then is that while a single caterpillar is interesting to look at and potentially even cute in a creepy crawly kind of way, when that same caterpillar is accompanied by several thousand of his friends and relations it’s really kind of gross.
Meanwhile, as summer has hit its stride over the last couple of weeks it’s become increasingly important to sleep with the window open. At least it is if you’re me. It’s something that was driven into me by my grandmother; a woman who had tremendous belief in the health benefits of fresh air. Mind you, she also believed that if you ate apple seeds a tree would grow inside you, and that you could never have too much slightly used Christmas wrapping paper. But when it comes to fresh air, you know, I think she had a point.
A few lungs full of the evening air, redolent with the scents of roses and honeysuckle and carried through the bedroom window on the gentlest of zephyrs, lulls you to sleep like a half bottle of cheap Scotch on an empty stomach. But staying asleep, well, that’s a different matter, because sometime around 4 a.m., just as the sun is starting to sneak over the horizon, Mother Nature lets go with a positive cacophony of squawks and screeches as the magpies in our backyard prepare to greet the day.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of birds. I especially like them roasted, with gravy and new potatoes. But I speak as someone who finds it increasingly hard to stay asleep over the sound of his own snoring, so I could really do without any outside interference.
My final brush with nature (so far) has come in the form of a merry band of wasps who have set up home underneath our deck in an area that is both annoyingly close to the back door and inaccessible for wasp spray unless I’m prepared to go to the lengths of removing a couple of planks to allow me to get at them. I’ve set up a system where I sit in a lawnchair every afternoon and try to hit the wasps with a fly swatter as they come and go. It’s a simple task, but it involves quite a lot of swearing, because most of the time the wasps refuse to sit still and accept their fate. I suppose, on the plus side, it gives the neighbours something to talk about, but I can’t help but feel that somehow this is going to end badly.
Services
- Companion Animals
- Emergency and After Hours Services
- Ovine and Caprine Health
- Bovine Health
- Equine Health
- Avian Health
780-236-0654
- Investments
- Retirement Planning
- Tax Planning
- Estate Planning
Services Offered
- SEPTIC SYSTEM INSTALLATION
- NEW SERVICES DUGIN
- WATERLINE INSTALLATION AND REPAIR
- GRADE FOR FOUNDATION
- RV/PARKING PAD
- HYDRANTS AND CATTLE WATERERS REPAIRED AND INSTALLED
- COMPACTION AND PLATE TAMPING
- TRENCHING
- CULVERTS CLEANED AND REPAIRED
- FRENCH DRAINS
- DUMP TRAILER SERVICES
- ASPHALT AND CONCRETE CUTTING
- TRACKED SKID STEER WITH 78" BUCKET AND FORKS
- MINI SKIDSTEER
- LANDSCAPING
- INTEGRITY DIGS
- DRAINAGE
“He loved his family and he loved Canada,” he said. Chick said that when the couple moved to the acreage, Nicoll took on his wife’s love of animals and they had quite the menagerie. He said any animal that needed a home found one with the Nicolls.
“He was a friendly guy. He would do anything for anybody,” said Chick. He said that if Nicoll came across someone who was down and out, which he did often in his job, he would go out of his way to buy them lunch or help them out when he could.
Chick said when he first learned that Nicoll was missing he was confused and worried. “He wasn’t a person who would harm himself on purpose,” said Chick. He said that Nicoll loved his daughter too much.
Chick said he helped out with the search. And now he’s just left with questions. He says he has suspicions about what happened, but he doesn’t have any confirmation. “It is a big mystery for me,” he said.
He said that Nicoll had a big heart. He remembers one afternoon when they were going for a walk on Nicoll’s property they came across a porcupine that was drowning in the creek. Nicoll waded out there and rescued the animal, laying it out in the sun so it could warm up. “He went back and checked and it had recovered and gone on its way,” he said.
Tana Vea was another of Nicoll’s close friends, having met him at the Royal Alex. Vea had moved to Edmonton from Hawaii, and since there was little family in the area, they became each other’s family.
Vea said that Nicoll was a stickler for grammar on all of their reports. He said he would bring out his red pen and mark everything up. Vea says there is a man who now works for the Edmonton Police Service who credits Nicoll for his skill in filling out reports. “He said Andy’s teachings with report writing helped him to get the position he has today.”
Vea said he also worked with Nicoll at Transit, where he was Peace Officer. He said Nicoll had eventually gotten promoted through the ranks until he became an investigator, mostly working on internal complaints.
Vea says one thing that makes him sad is that Taylor’s daughter is the same age as his grandson, and he knows that Nicoll and his wife would have loved being grandparents. He said he thinks it’s also hard on Taylor to not have her parents around now that she has children. “[Nicoll and his wife] loved their kid. She was their dream and they treated her as the princess in the house,” he said.
Download your Brazeau and Beyond Experience Guide
If you’re tired of trying to watch live performances from the balconies with binoculars, which is often the case at the large venues found in the city, then the intimate settings of the Eleanor Pickup Arts Centre and the Max Centre are just the ticket.
The two facilities have a full calendar of performances throughout the fall and winter months and they offer two completely different experiences.
The Max Centre is located in Frank Maddock High School and offers a wide array of “dinner and a show” packages featuring performances by tribute acts showcasing the work of some of the world’s best known musicians. When you book a ticket at the Max you get your money’s worth. An evening can last anywhere from three to four hours and includes a catered meal, a live performance and well priced drinks. By the end of the night there are almost always people on the dance floor or singing along with the performers. This is an excellent venue to get out with a group and have some fun.
The Eleanor Pickup Arts Centre is another performing arts venue that packs a punch.
The arts centre, formerly known as the Cardium Theatre, was the entertainment anchor in downtown Drayton Valley at the height of the mid-century oil boom. In recent years it was purchased by the local municipalities and refurbished into its current form, where it now acts as a venue for live music, comedians and other entertainers.
The Eleanor Pickup Arts Centre is the largest stage in this part of Alberta, is managed by a group of dedicated volunteers and works to bring in up and coming and independent artists to the area.
A night at the theatre includes moderately priced beverages and snacks, comfortable theatre chairs, and there is no bad seat in the house. If you are working dinner into your evening I would recommend going out for supper at one of the 40 different restaurants in town, and heading out for after-show drinks at nearby lounges and bars.
Upcoming performances at both venues are regularly advertised on social media or in the Drayton Valley and District Free Press.
The Drayton Valley and District Agriculture Society is raising funds for a local family whose child is fighting a rare form of cancer.
Shortly after his third birthday, Leo Grosjean was diagnosed with a rare cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma.
“His mom had just come off of maternity leave, and it turned out he needed 42 weeks of treatment including chemo, radiation, and possibly surgery,” says Tayler Vakoulich, one of the organizers of the fundraiser. “Even after that, there is a follow-up of 24 weeks of maintenance therapy.”
The ag society is working with a group called the Golden Circle of Champions, a program that originates in the United States and is just starting up in Canada, to help the Grosjean family cover costs while they care for their son. The group is similar to the Make-A-Wish Foundation with a cowgirl/cowboy focus.
The society was the one to approach the Golden Circle and put Leo forward as a candidate for their program. Typically, the candidates come through rodeos.
“[We] sponsor them and then this program sends them to the [Canadian Finals Rodeo] for the week, it gets them a hotel room, and it gets them all these really cool experiences where they get to go meet the animals and cowboys, and they get their own banquet,” says Vakoulich.
The Golden Circle also sends one of its Canadian candidates to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.
The ag society was the one who put forward the funds to cover the expenses of the CFR, says Vakoulich, because they wanted to go with a second option that the program offers. It helps people with different fundraisers to help out families.
Some of the fundraisers they have include the Golden Boot, which is a golden cowboy boot that gets passed around during the Thursday Night Rodeos.
“It goes from $400 to $700 every night,” says Vakoulich.
Other fundraisers include 50/50s at their markets. For the past three months, all of those funds have gone to Leo’s family.
The group is also partnering with Stella Stevens from CFCW Edmonton, who works with the Golden Circle, to put on a concert in the fall, says Vakoulich.
“She’s helping us get an artist to do a nice big concert in town,” says Vakoulich.
They are also looking for items that can be raffled off at the Thursday Night Rodeos, she says.
Over the next few weeks, the Grosjean family will be incurring far more expense than usual, says Vakoulich. Leo will be headed to Florida for treatments with the hope that a change in treatment will keep the toxicity levels in his lungs down.
Those who would like to donate to the cause can participate in any of the fundraisers, such as the Golden Boot or the 50/50 raffles. They can also reach out to the Ag Society at 780-621-0030 or they can send an email to dvagsocietyinfo@gmail.com.
Folks, this month I find myself at war with nature. And so far it looks like nature is winning
Last night I was awoken by the sound of crashing from right outside the bedroom window. I looked out to see half of one of my tomato plants lying on the ground, while the other half was steadily being chomped by a full sized whitetail. Unruffled, the deer gave me a not particularly apologetic look before wandering over to poop on the lawn.
I suppose at least the deer are nice to watch, unlike the caterpillars we saw earlier in the season. The lesson we learned then is that while a single caterpillar is interesting to look at and potentially even cute in a creepy crawly kind of way, when that same caterpillar is accompanied by several thousand of his friends and relations it’s really kind of gross.
Meanwhile, as summer has hit its stride over the last couple of weeks it’s become increasingly important to sleep with the window open. At least it is if you’re me. It’s something that was driven into me by my grandmother; a woman who had tremendous belief in the health benefits of fresh air. Mind you, she also believed that if you ate apple seeds a tree would grow inside you, and that you could never have too much slightly used Christmas wrapping paper. But when it comes to fresh air, you know, I think she had a point.
A few lungs full of the evening air, redolent with the scents of roses and honeysuckle and carried through the bedroom window on the gentlest of zephyrs, lulls you to sleep like a half bottle of cheap Scotch on an empty stomach. But staying asleep, well, that’s a different matter, because sometime around 4 a.m., just as the sun is starting to sneak over the horizon, Mother Nature lets go with a positive cacophony of squawks and screeches as the magpies in our backyard prepare to greet the day.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of birds. I especially like them roasted, with gravy and new potatoes. But I speak as someone who finds it increasingly hard to stay asleep over the sound of his own snoring, so I could really do without any outside interference.
My final brush with nature (so far) has come in the form of a merry band of wasps who have set up home underneath our deck in an area that is both annoyingly close to the back door and inaccessible for wasp spray unless I’m prepared to go to the lengths of removing a couple of planks to allow me to get at them. I’ve set up a system where I sit in a lawnchair every afternoon and try to hit the wasps with a fly swatter as they come and go. It’s a simple task, but it involves quite a lot of swearing, because most of the time the wasps refuse to sit still and accept their fate. I suppose, on the plus side, it gives the neighbours something to talk about, but I can’t help but feel that somehow this is going to end badly.
Services
- Companion Animals
- Emergency and After Hours Services
- Ovine and Caprine Health
- Bovine Health
- Equine Health
- Avian Health
780-236-0654
- Investments
- Retirement Planning
- Tax Planning
- Estate Planning
Services Offered
- SEPTIC SYSTEM INSTALLATION
- NEW SERVICES DUGIN
- WATERLINE INSTALLATION AND REPAIR
- GRADE FOR FOUNDATION
- RV/PARKING PAD
- HYDRANTS AND CATTLE WATERERS REPAIRED AND INSTALLED
- COMPACTION AND PLATE TAMPING
- TRENCHING
- CULVERTS CLEANED AND REPAIRED
- FRENCH DRAINS
- DUMP TRAILER SERVICES
- ASPHALT AND CONCRETE CUTTING
- TRACKED SKID STEER WITH 78" BUCKET AND FORKS
- MINI SKIDSTEER
- LANDSCAPING
- INTEGRITY DIGS
- DRAINAGE
Vea said when he heard about Nicoll’s disappearance, he was shocked. “I was just dumbfounded how that could happen.” He said that the disappearance was not in character with Nicoll at all. Especially with the way he left his house.
He also doesn’t believe that Nicoll would have had issues with anyone from his position as a peace officer. “Andy was never one who dealt with the frontline stuff. He was mostly behind the scene as a supervisor.”
Taylor says her dad was an intelligent, kind-hearted man who knew how to stand up for himself. Many times he would work with people that he knew were down on their luck and needed a bit of a hand to get started with life again. “He just treated them all with so much respect, and he ended up really being quite a lot of support for them,” she said.
Eventually, they moved out to an acreage near Breton. That was when Taylor’s mom was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer, and she only lived for another six months. She passed away on his birthday, two years prior to his disappearance.
Taylor said it was a devastating time for her father. “He was a little bit lost for some time there, but he was my best friend.”
With still no word on his whereabouts, this year Taylor is working to have Nicoll declared as deceased. She said with his career in the Navy, as a police officer and a firefighter, he deserves to have the full honours given to him, rather than just be a missing person. “No one has been able to pay any respects,” she said.
“My gut is telling me that somebody approached him on the property and something transpired,” she said. “I don’t know who or why.”
Nicoll didn’t like guns, and she believes that he would have gone along with whatever the situation was until he could get to a safe location.
Chick agrees with Taylor’s thoughts. “I think he was offering someone some help and there was some foul play.”
Vea wonders if maybe there was a hunting accident, and perhaps someone tried to cover it up.
“He didn’t have any enemies that anyone knows of, but being in law enforcement for that many years, it’s hard to know,” said Taylor.
Corporal Deanna Fontaine, a media liaison for the Alberta RCMP Missing Persons Unit, said “It can be confirmed that since the initial media release, Andrew George Nicoll, has been entered into the National Missing Persons Database and DNA has been obtained and is on file.”
Fontaine said RCMP are hoping that after this amount of time that someone will provide some answers. Fontaine says that if someone was scared to say something at the time, she hopes they will feel safe in coming forward now.
“If I knew for sure he was out there, I would tell him to come home and see his daughter and what a beautiful young lady she has become. She’s followed in his footsteps in a lot of ways. I wish he could see the eyes of his grandkids, too,” said Vea.
Anyone with information regarding Nicoll’s disappearance is urged to contact the Breton RCMP at 780-696-3520 or your local police. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), online at www.P3Tips.com or by using the “P3 Tips” app available through the Apple App or Google Play Store.
Project takes snapshots of historic watering holes
Last Friday the Evansburg Inn was entered into the annals of history by the Beer Parlour Project, which has been making a photographic documentary of historic hotels across Western Canada.
Society raising funds for child with cancer
The Drayton Valley and District Agriculture Society is raising funds for a local family whose child is fighting a rare form of cancer.
My battle with birds and my war on wasps
Folks, this month I find myself at war with nature. And so far it looks like nature is winning
Last night I was awoken by the sound of crashing from right outside the bedroom window.
Seasons in the sun (and rain, and smoke)
First it was caterpillars. Then it was rain. Then it was smoke. Then it was more rain. Then it was mosquitoes. Then it was moths. And then it was tornadoes.
