It's all about the numbers, really. Despite what the following may suggest, it's really a story of population, not geography.
Allow me to explain.
Last Friday, my better half absconded to Ontario for six days of visiting family. I thought it might be interesting at one point to check out what was going on in Toronto and the surrounding area, since she had mentioned something about somebody being hit by a streetcar. The next 10 minutes were filled with a flood of headlines from The Toronto Star's website.
Within a matter of a few days, the city and surrounding cities had seen:
- an illegal daycare's owner charged with homicide after the death of a child
- a man charged with the murder of his brother
- a woman charged with the murder of her mother
- a man dragged half a kilometre to his death under a streetcar
- a woman killed in a car crash after a police chase
- a man involved in a two hour standoff with police on the country's busiest street
- a doctor accused of sex assault ordered to treat only male patients
- an update on the woefully inadequate funding for the battle against bedbugs
- a man arrested after his 13 month old daughter died
- two teens stabbed in a fight at a high school
- several designated historical buildings ready to be torn down, and one torched in a possible arson
- several other non-fatal shootings
- hospital bed shortages after a spike in serious flu cases
- a police officer killed after a man stole a snowplow and went on a rampage across Toronto
- a Paul Bernardo fan accused of stalking young boys
This is just a partial list, of course; there were other, lesser stories of other bad news, as well as the odd good news story included in the local news section.
In Smithers, the big news included:
- a water main broke and flooded a couple streets for an hour
- also...
- um....
- no, okay, the water main thing was pretty much it
This isn't meant to knock Toronto as the big, bad city though. I'm just trying to illustrate the extraordinary population difference between where I was, and where I am. 'The News' tends to happen where most of the people are. If five and a half million people lived within 100 km of Smithers, I'm sure there'd be just as many murders and accidents and controversy, but there would probably be some bear attacks to spice things up a bit too.
And yes, I know I promised more photos and less words; on that front, here's a photo from my driveway, looking towards Hudson Bay Mountain at sunrise (which I only get to see because it doesn't happen until 8:30 or 9 a.m. at this time of year):
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