Introduction

When we were sitting down to plan this month’s issue with the theme of community history, we were excited to dig into the past and bring forward stories that helped residents understand Revelstoke from a modern perspective. An important priority in this exercise was to look at significant area events that historically did not include the voices or perspectives of all groups within the community. While entire books could (and have) been written on this topic, our reporter Melissa did an excellent job of highlighting just a few historical moments to help introduce people to this topic in Missing from the Record. We’re excited to share this with our readers. We also included a feature on the 30th anniversary of the Revelstoke Railway Museum, a story on giant trees to look at the natural history of the area, among some other interesting community stories.

While working on this issue, alongside the rest of the community, we experienced another collective moment together— the death of

Revelstoke resident and wildland firefighter Devyn Gale. Part of community journalism is helping to shape and share the public record, and while this was a tragedy that gained international attention, what shone through while telling this story was the community solidarity and spirit of the town, alongside so many around the province who are a part of the BC Wildfire organization.

We’re grateful to Devyn’s family who participated in producing this story amid their unimaginable grief, as well as to all the community voices who helped us share who Devyn was and her place in this community. While we can’t truly understand the depth of their grief, we hope there are moments of solace through sharing their memories and understanding the impact her life had on those around her. We are honored to play a small part in preserving her memory through these pages and will be donating to the Revelstoke Community fund set up in her honour.