LAKELAND - The past year was another year filled with news across the Lakeland and beyond. Staff at Lakeland Today pulled up the top read stories from 2023 according to our Google analytics - and to our surprise, the top read story was not a story written in 2023, but rather a story that was trending after it was re-posted on Twitter (now known as X) by federal politician Maxime Bernier. (Bernier is the founder of the People's Party of Canada.)
The story was originally written in June of 2021, but began trending again after Bernier made a social media post with the link to the story on June 4, 2023. Bernier's social media post stated his thoughts on how he believed forest fires raging across the country this past summer were caused by "green terrorists."
Staff at Lakeland Today never received a response from Bernier's office as to why he chose the specific story to post alongside his Tweet. The incidents that took place in 2021 in the Bonnyville and Lac La Biche areas were never attributed to "green terrorists" in any stories published by Lakeland Today/Lakeland This Week.
Top stories in 2023 according to Lakeland Today analytics: (Click on the headlines to read the original stories)
1. Glendon woman charged with 32 counts of arson (Story published in June of 2021)
2. RCMP say 881 at Surmount camp now clear for traffic (May 2023)
3. Glendon woman convicted of four counts of mischief, after admitting to setting 32 fires (Story published in February of 2022)
4. LOCATED: Missing five-year-old boy found in Frog Lake (September 2023)
5. RCMP arrest five individuals while executing search warrant in St. Paul (July 2023)
6. Police blanket area west of Lac La Biche (December 2023)
7. RCMP confirm missing Cold Lake man found deceased (April 2023)
8. Cellular and internet outage attributed to line cut near Edmonton (August 2023)
9. Confusion and concern, search organized by family of missing Cold Lake man (April 2023)
10. $250,000 lottery prize for Goodfish Lake resident (July 2023)
