An energy discussion came to the 亚洲天堂 Lake community last week.

The Community Energy Conversation made its stop in 亚洲天堂 Lake on Jan. 23 at St. John's Heritage Church to help people explore and understand the village's energy future. The event, put on by Northern Regional Energy Dialogues, had a conversation in Prince George earlier this month, and will have pit stops in Kitimat, Williams Lake and Smithers next month.

The project is an Accelerating Community Energy Transformation initiative led in partnership with the University of Victoria, University of Northern British Columbia and Northern British Columbia Climate Action Network that works with diverse communities across northern parts of the province to help identify interests, needs and opportunities in support of energy initiatives. 

Sinead Earley, assistant professor of environmental and sustainability studies at the University of Northern British Columbia, says these conversations are about taking time to ask communities across northern B.C. what they think about energy and what they want their energy future to look like.

"We're starting by recognizing, to the best of our ability, that this will look different in every place we visit throughout the first phase of this project," she said. We're hoping that the events act as opportunity for people to identify the assets that already exist in their communities, and how they would like to see community-driven energy initiatives roll out."

Identifying vulnerabilities and barriers holding communities back from implementing energy projects is also part of the discussion, which serves as the first phase of what will be a multi-year project. Regional workshops are part of the project as well.

Earley says a regional approach is important, as events like this help get a better sense of where communities stand, and hopes that these relationships will lead to deeper and longer research partnerships that will ultimately help communities increase capacity and financial investments around energy projects.

"We hope these will help communities learn from each other, particularly smaller and more remote communities who, we predict, may have similar concerns and aspirations," she said. "We hope the regional workshops might foster local, northern leadership in that way."