In 2004, I worked in a one-person newsroom for the Caldonia Courier, a paper that cover the community of Fort St. James.

Founded by Simon Fraser in 1806 on the shores of beautiful Stuart Lake,Fort St. James was the economic and administrative capital of New Caledonia (an area that encompassed much of northern B.C.) for more than100 years.

Isolated and ignored, the community has seen its fair share of tragedy. I worked there in 2004 and - in the span of a year - covered two brutal murders; a months-long search for the bodies of two teens in love, who drowned in a frozen lake at Christmas; wrote about a man who died from alcohol poisoning during a stag party and chronicled the lasting effects of mercury poisoning on a nearby First Nation. (And there were many more stories that made me angry and sad to be in a part of Canada which we largely ignore.)

The murder of Fribjon Bjornson (CBC coverage) has many similarities to slaying of a mother in 2004. Even then, people from Nak'azdli were vary of the Mounties. Below is a story I wrote after charges were laid against a cousin of Barbara Joseph: