With the pandemic changing the way people work and go to school, the Rural Municipalities of Alberta has decided to ramp up their campaign to get reliable internet to those living in rural areas.
Kara Westerlund, a Brazeau County councillor and Vice President of the RMA, says they have asked everyone to check their internet speeds and report it to the RMA. The plan is to use the data to lobby the government for increased infrastructure and technologies.
“We’ve been running the tests since 2020,” says Westerlund. The information they were getting back led them to seek more results from residents.
However, the results the RMA are getting suggest this is not the case. “We were pretty hard-pressed to find anybody that could safely say they were seeing those numbers,” says Westerlund.
She says they are finding that less than 10 percent of the responders to the test survey are seeing the 50/10 speeds they should be getting.
Westerlund says rural internet is currently the top priority for the RMA. She says the organization, which reports Alberta’s municipal districts and counties, brings it up when speaking with the different levels of government, when talking to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, or whenever they are speaking with someone who may be able to help with it.
She says the customer operations performance centre (COPC) was saying rural residents in Alberta were receiving 50/10 service, meaning they could download 50 megabytes per minute and upload 10 megabytes per minute. This was considered to be served and was the standard the COPC went by.
“We’re saying, ‘Hey look, your information is faulty, this is actually what’s happening. So let’s start tackling this together,’” says Westerlund.
Westerlund says while the federal government has rolled out some money to help with rural internet, all of it was spent in Quebec because they were underserved. The hope of the RMA is to bring attention to the fact that rural Alberta is in the same situation.
“We’ve got their attention now and now they’ve ramped up the conversations to how we can solve this problem,” says Westerlund. She says the RMA realizes they also need to have the Internet Service Providers and the big companies like Rogers, Bell, or Telus on board to help with the process.
On a bright sunny day in mid May of 1986 I landed at Calgary airport, ready to build a new life in the Great White North. I had a full head of hair, a heart full of dreams and a full set of teeth. The world lay at my feet.
A lot has happened in the intervening years, much of it varying degrees of awful. The hair has gone and so have a couple of the teeth, but I continue to plug away in pursuit of the Canadian Dream. Here’s the story of my four-decade Canadian Odyssey, conveniently broken down in number form because it’s easier to write that way and after 40 years I feel like I’m due a break.
40: Number of years I have lived in Canada. Depending on how you look at it, that’s 480 months, 2,080 weeks or a staggering 350,400 hours (plus a few extra because of leap years). No wonder I’m exhausted.
27: Number of those years spent in Drayton Valley.
<1: Number of years I anticipated spending in Drayton Valley when I first arrived. Every time I think I’m out they pull me back in.
618: Number of kilometres (round trip) I used to drive every second weekend to see my kids. That’s the equivalent of a little more than 3,072 furlongs if you’re interested in that sort of thing, which, now I come to think of it, you probably aren’t.
9: Number of provinces I have visited, assuming you count 30 minutes at a truck stop in Brandon as visiting Manitoba.
1: Number of provinces I have not visited. As far as I can tell Newfoundlanders are somehow managing to cope with the disappointment.
4: Number of times a Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since I arrived.
36: Number of years since the last of those wins.
12: Number of times per year, on average, someone tells me they love my accent and asks what part of Ireland I’m from. I’m Scottish.
6.25 Hourly wage at my first Canadian job; picking up garbage at Foothills Stadium, which was then home to the Calgary Cannons of the Pacific Coast League. The Cannons were a great organization and the job was actually a lot of fun. Hauling bags of empty beer cups, sweeping up peanut shells and occasionally scraping nacho cheese off the bleachers for a Triple A ball team was also the closest I ever came to sporting achievement of any kind.
10, 3: Time in years and months I spent working at the Drayton Valley Western Review, making me the longest serving editor in the history of that publication.
6, 7: No, it’s not what you think. It’s the time I’ve spent in years and months working at the Drayton Valley and District Free Press, making me the longest serving editor in the history of this publication. What can I tell you? I don’t like change.
0: Number of times I have been voted Employee of the Month. Baffling.
12: What it used to cost, in dollars, to fill the tank of a 1977 Mercury Comet.
**!!%&!!: What that same tankful of gas costs today.
After fundraising for a year, the Beehive has been able to purchase a new van, which will help them to better accommodate their clients.
“It took a while,” says Lisa Dusterhoft, the executive director of the organization. “We kicked off the campaign in October of 2024. We were able to raise enough funds by November 2025.”
Because the van is a special order, once the Beehive received it, they also had to get it customized for their organization.
“It took six months for the vehicle to be ordered, delivered, and all the accessibility equipment to be installed,” she says.
The majority of the vehicle cost was covered by local businesses and organizations, says Dusterhoft. Along with the sponsorships, the Beehive was able to use money from the endowment fund they have with the Drayton Valley Community Foundation. They also plan to sell one of their existing fleet vehicles to cover the remainder of the costs.
Initially, the Beehive had a budget of $100,000 for the van. However, when they heard from MoveMobility, they were given an option for a ProMaster 3 van.
This new van came with a higher price tag of $155,000, but Dusterhoft says it was worth the extra money.
“[It] gives us a lot more flexibility,” she says. “This van actually can hold up to three wheelchairs at a time.”
Until recently, the Beehive wasn’t able to take in any more adults with disabilities who relied on wheelchairs because they didn’t have a vehicle that could accommodate them. With this new van, Dusterhoft says they will be able to expand on the number of wheelchair users they can work with.
The seats can also all be removed, making it easy for staff to adapt the van for whoever needs a ride.
Dusterhoft says getting a new van means more than transportation for their clients. It also means stability.
“It means that adults with disabilities in our organization are able to age in place,” she says.
In the past, clients with mobility issues have had to move to larger centres that had more accessible vehicles.
Currently, the Beehive has 37 clients. Dusterhoft says most of them don’t have mobility issues, and they’ve only had a couple of people who relied solely on wheelchairs in the past. However, they are at a point where many of their clients are relying on walkers and sometimes a wheelchair, so right now is the perfect time for a more accessible vehicle.
The Beehive owns three 24-hour group homes, as well as a supported independent living program. In the group homes, there is staff with them throughout the day. In independent living, the clients live on their own, and the staff come in to help them with different tasks as needed.
Dusterhoft says that while Drayton Valley is a small town, it’s not easily walkable for some individuals. Having a means of transportation for all the clients is a huge benefit.
The Beehive is hosting an open house on May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. to showcase the new van to its donors, board, clients and members of the community.
Early May is a special time of year. The snow has gone. The birds are back. There’s finally a touch of summer in the air, but still no sign of wasps or mosquitoes.
Early May is also that quiet little interlude between the deadline to complete your federal tax return and the arrival of your municipal property tax bill, which usually lands on your doorstep with a thud some time around the middle of the month.
Now I’m not here to complain about taxes. I’m sure you’re quite capable of doing that yourself, without any prompting from me. Personally I’m not especially keen on forking over large wads of cash to our various levels of government, or to anybody else for that matter. Just ask my wife. But taxes matter if you place any value on things like roads and bridges. Or if you appreciate the services of the police, or nurses or firefighters. Nobody gets excited about having a functioning sewer, but try doing without one for a while and see how far that gets you.
Someone has to foot the bill for those things and those someones, dear reader, are me and you. Taxes are the price we pay for living in a world that, for the time being at least, isn’t a complete and utter crapfest. And for the most part it’s a price worth paying.
But it does feel like there’s something cruel about the timing. You finally get around to filing your federal taxes in April. You’re getting a refund! Hallelujah!! That refund arrives!!! You cry out with joy!!!! You’re about to invest in that bust of Elvis, handcrafted from a single piece of macaroni, that you’re had your eye on for so long!!!!! And then, just as you’re heading out the door clutching a wad of crumpled bills in your sweaty palm, your municipal tax bill arrives and you’re right back where you started.
One hand giveth and the other hand taketh away. Or, to put it another way, poop.
I suppose there are worse things in life than breaking even. There’s failing to break even, for one example. So if the federal refund and the municipal bill more or less cancel each other out, at least you’re no worse off than you were before the entire process began.
However, it’s undeniably a bit of a downer, and not a great way to start the nicest part of the year.
But it is what it is, and you didn’t get where you are today by complaining about things you can’t change. So you buckle down and write a cheque to the municipality of your choice. It’s OK if you swear a little, as long as you do it under your breath.
After that, you put macaroni Elvis on layaway and hope for better days ahead. If you have time, you can look for spare change under the couch cushions.
And then you wait until next year when you do it all over again.
Organizers for the Drayton Valley Pro Rodeo are happy to say this year was a success.
Gus Pietsch says tickets were sold out for Saturday, with both Friday and Sunday also close to capacity.
In total, they had about 3,600 spectators for the rodeo.
The Horses and Hooch dance, hosted by the Drayton Valley Lions Club, was also a hit, says Pietsch. Tickets for that event were also sold out.
“It was sensational,” says Pietsch. “It was good to see the rodeo celebrated the whole week. It really felt like the event was growing more than just the rodeo, which is good.”
There were events held all over the community, including barbecues, a parade, and a chilli cook-off.
He says the feedback from residents was positive, especially regarding the parade. Pietsch says there are already people who are eager to sign up for the parade next year.
This year the rodeo gave out $90,144.12 in winnings to the cowgirls and cowboys who participated. There were eight categories this year, each with its own winner.
The winner for bareback riding was Ty Taypotat who took first place with 89 points on Duffy Rodeo’s 901 Miss Demeanor. Chase Tkach earned the win for steer wrestling with a time of 3.5 seconds. In team roping, Tate Schmidt and Kagen Schmidt took first place with a time of 3.6 seconds. Kole Ashbacher scored 87 points on Duffy Rodeo’s 37 Mojo Nixon in saddle bronc riding, earning himself first place. For tie-down roping, Jason Smith held first place with 8.4 seconds. Taylor-Jane Gardner won in the ladies barrel racing with a time of 13.34 seconds. Shaya Biever earned top spot for her time of two seconds in breakaway roping.
In the age where there’s a constant drive for more and more content, coming up with ideas of how to promote your business can become a full time job on its own and although that platform is free your time isn’t.
I mean – you signed up to be a business owner right? Not a videographer, copywriter, or graphic designer. The good news is newspaper advertising works differently from the social platforms that have you constantly chasing the next batch of likes and shares.
Grow Your Marketing Team
Print advertising with the Drayton Valley and District Free Press gets you off the hamster wheel and connects you with a copywriter, graphic designer, and an ad planner who are actually interested in learning the ins and outs of your business.
This person or people will work with you to generate creative ideas within your marketing budget. With their help you can get your creative juices flowing again and find ways to not just push content but to craft mindful creative content that will be seen and prompts action.
By advertising with your local newspaper you don’t just get an ad, you expand your marketing team exponentially. You get access to our professionals and we help you to figure out the direction you are looking to go with your business.
Stop The Disruption
Print ads are consumed like fine wine. Readers look at print ads longer and deeper than they do the disruptive advertising found on other media platforms. Tell me in the last time that you’ve binge scrolled your social media feeds – How many ads do you actually remember seeing? I am betting, not many.
Print ads are non-disruptive content for newspaper readers and therefore get the attention they truly deserve. They have a longer lasting impact for readers due to their longer shelf life, and after all, deepening the relationship with customers is really what you are looking to do.
So here are some ways you can position your local business with rural newspaper advertising:
- Thought leadership: Be a thought leader in the regional landscape of your industry. Use an ad space for how-to content, data presentation on regional trends. Newspaper readers are readers and so are more likely to read long form advertisements with interesting information. You can reuse this information on your website blogs, social platforms, podcasts and the like.
- Be action oriented: Ads are there to move the needle forward. A call to action can be as simple as moving an interested person from the print ad to “click to redeem in store coupon” – print to digital is easy to do in both the print and e-edition formats of your local newspaper. Using click through options and QR codes to specific URLs makes the cross over from print to digital platforms seamless.
- Event marketing: Discovering local events in the community newspaper is one of the top interest points for local readers. But don’t just churn out a generic “Come to our event”. Remember our readers enjoy spending time with the paper. Capitalize on that. When you advertise an event in the newspaper you have an opportunity to make an intimate connection so don’t treat it like a fly by night ad. Make it engaging, personal, and relevant. Call out the reader specifically “Calling all Free Press newspaper readers.” You can niche the demographic based on the action you assume they are doing when they are reading your ad.
- Coupons and promotions: If you are a retailer or a restaurant that has deals and promotions, newspaper readers take notice! Not only does the use of coupons help you track the effectiveness of your ad it also gets people in the door. Your business isn’t an online hop on and hop off bus ride, you need foot traffic and this is one way to do it.
- Minimize or maximize. When people book a print ad they tend to want to throw everything into it. This creates a cluttered, hard to read ad. Instead take the space to promote your one product or service that tends to get people in the door, then cross promote once you are in contact with your prospective customer. Alternatively you can also use the space to create an organized product catalogue, or flier page that showcases a number of products but in an organized and thematic fashion.
I said it before and it’s worth mentioning again. Forming a relationship with your local rural newspaper helps you expand your marketing team, and frees you to do what you actually set out to do – run a business set on building real relationships with your customers.
Drayton Valley/Brazeau County Fire Services spent 12 hours fighting a fire at the Drayton Valley landfill on Monday.
Crews responded to the fire at 2:10 a.m. Monday morning and were able to extinguish the flames by 2:30 p.m. The fire resulted in the closure of the landfill for part of the day on Monday. By 3 p.m., the public drop-off area was open. However, larger loads that would be offloaded into the landfill were still not permitted as of the Free Press publication deadline.
Jennifer Stone, the interim CAO for Drayton Valley, says they weren’t sure of the cause of the fire.
“We have not been able to determine the cause of the fire; it’s inconclusive,” says Stone. “It was in the middle of the night; nobody saw anything.”
She says the garbage fire was located on one of the landfill cells at the top end of the landfill site. There are a number of things in a dump site that can cause fire. One of the more common issues is lithium batteries that get thrown into household garbage.
“It could have been batteries,” says Stone. “It could have been anything.”
A dozer was brought in to build a firebreak, and the crews were able to successfully contain the fire. As of end-of-day Monday, there was still heavy equipment out at the site addressing hot spots.
“We will have an overnight crew there just to monitor for hotspots and to ensure the flames don’t reignite or anything like that,” Stone says.
“In this day and age, in this country, in this province, that is absolutely unacceptable,”
She says they are encouraging anybody to hop on and check out their speed. It’s a quick link and it’s easy. “A lot of people are fascinated by it,” says Westerlund.
It was Covid that really highlighted the issue for the RMA. Westerlund says they heard stories about parents driving into town with their kids and parking somewhere with free WiFi so their kids could attend classes.
“In this day and age, in this country, in this province, that is absolutely unacceptable,” she says.
She says lack of internet is hindering business growth, the education of children and college students, and those who rely on the internet to work from home.
Westerlund says they are well aware that fiber isn’t going to work for rural residents, but they are open to “any and all” technology that will help fill the gap. She says there are some technologies there, such as StarLink. However, the cost is not necessarily affordable for everyone.
“We’re not here to promote one company over the other, or one technology over the other, we’re simply saying, ‘Hey look, this is what’s actually going on,’” she says.
Anyone who wishes to participate in the speed test can visit www.RMAlberta.com/speed-test.
Sports! All your questions answered!!!
What’s this World Cup I keep hearing about?
It’s the global festival of football that takes place every four years.
Book club helps build community
Angela Patty and her family have lived in the Berrymoor area all her life, and she would like to see the Berrymoor Centre as busy as it was when she was younger.
It seems like yesterday, but it was not
On a bright sunny day in mid May of 1986 I landed at Calgary airport, ready to build a new life in the Great White North. I had a full head of hair, a heart full of dreams and a full set of teeth. The world lay at my feet.
Upgraded van gives Beehive extra options
After fundraising for a year, the Beehive has been able to purchase a new van, which will help them to better accommodate their clients.
