“It’s been a long four weeks.”

That’s how Mayor Darryl Krakowka characterizes the time since his home of Tumbler Ridge, in the northern foothills of B.C.’s Rocky Mountains, was thrust into international headlines.

On Feb. 10, a mass shooting left eight members of his community — who he characterizes as family — dead alongside their killer, an 18-year-old who reportedly had struggled with mental health issues.

Among the deceased were the shooter’s mother and younger half-brother, as well as five children, aged 12 and 13, and an educator from the local Grade 7-12 high school.

On Thursday night, the district held a small ceremony to mark 30 days since the mass shooting, observing a moment of silence and a prayer before raising the flags at town hall to full mast and relocating a portion of the memorial outside the district steps to another nearby location.

The event, the district says, does not mark the end of their grief, but “represents a step forward as our community continues to support one another and begin the process of healing.”

Krakowka says there is still a long way to go in that process, and he is supportive of a pending coroner’s inquest which will act as a fact-finding forum into what led to the tragedy, as well as the need to give impacted people a space to share their experiences on the record.

But he also wants the people who have never heard of Tumbler Ridge to learn a little bit more about what makes the community of roughly 2,400 people special — from its waterfalls to its local clubs and events to its rich paleontological heritage and dinosaur footprints which have earned it the status of a UNESCO Global Geopark.

“We are more than just a shooting,” he said in conversation with CBC Radio West host Sarah Penton.

“The tragedy will always be here. But we need to make sure that Canada, the world, knows: We’re in God’s paradise.”

You can read excerpts from Krakowka’s full conversation below, or listen to the full interview.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How are you? How are people doing?

I think the community is all in different stages of what’s happened on Feb. 10. Some are grieving, some are angry. Everybody’s still supporting people in this community.

We’re one big family, I’ll say it every time. You see people out in the community, communicating and hugging when they need to, with all the support we have in town for our students and our youth and our children, and the adults, I think it’s so important for them to reach out when they need that, as well.

I was wondering if could ask you a little bit about OpenAI. We learned over the last couple of weeks that OpenAI had banned the shooter for dangerous content and didn’t tell police. The family of Maya Gabela, who was critically hurt, they’re suing the company. And you were involved in a meeting with the head of OpenAI, Sam Altman, and David Eby last week. I’m wondering from your perspective how that meeting went.

I’ll just say I was at the meeting and I shared the perspective from the community. Other than that, I didn’t have much to partake.

We also spoke with gun safety advocates. They’re calling for more information about the guns that were used in the shooting. I’m wondering what questions you have about the firearms that were used.

As the RCMP work through their investigation, more information will come out and they’ll make their announcements … I think that’s a great question for the RCMP.

I also want to ask you about the fact-finding inquest from the coroner.

I think it’s a stage of the process, for sure. I think we need to find out it there are things that could have been done differently, to prevent it from happening again in the future, whether that’s the province or across Canada.

There are also calls for a public inquiry, both provincially and federally. What do you make of those calls?

That’s Premier [David] Eby’s call, if he decides to call for an inquiry.

Would you like to see one?

I’ll wait until the inquest is done to see what comes out in regards to the recommendation from the jury and then let the province, the premier, do what he thinks is right.

Inquests, inquiries, they can be hard on the people who take part. What are your thoughts, as a member of the community, do people want this?

I’ve obviously not heard from every member of the community … but again, I think it’s an appropriate stage, to do a coroner’s inquest.

So again, to not be specific about what I’d like to see, I think it’s important to just let it be transparent. I don’t want to specifically say I would like to see or hear, or what my thoughts are, because I think it’s better to be transparent and let that flesh itself out, rather than look at one specific process.

How are things at the school?

I think there’s different scenarios. Right now, we’re at stage one of the process, so they’re in Atco trailers.

Some of the students obviously want to come back to school and they did … But from a student side, right now, they’re in a secured area and they’re not able to leave for lunch, and stuff like that. The school board did provide lunches for the last two weeks, so I think that’s helped.

But some of the older youth, they like to go to town for their own lunches or just walk around.

So, you know, I think that is something we need to listen to, what the youth want … The school district may have a better pulse on it that I would.

To me, the biggest thing is communicating with the community as a whole. I think it’s very, very important that we listen to the children, we listen to our youth, the teachers and the community, as residents.

And what are your hopes for the future of your community?

We had a tragedy on Feb. 10. Google “Tumbler Ridge,” it’s probably the first thing that pops up.

Tumbler Ridge is more than what just happened on Feb. 10. We had a very traumatic and huge tragedy, we’ve lost some loved ones in our community. We had two seriously injured, one of those seriously injured members is back in our community, it was great to see her come back. Right now, all our thoughts and prayers are with Maya, we can’t wait for her to come back.

I think it’s so important to have that outlook of, “We went through that, how do we get over that stigma?”

It will take some time but Tumbler Ridge is well-known for the hiking trails or backcountry. Kinuseo Falls is higher than Niagara.

I believe media can help, instead of only coming when we have a horrific tragedy, come back in the summertime and help us showcase the community, our backcountry. We have so many non-profits and organizations, the museum, dinosaur fossils.

We’ll never forget what happened on Feb. 10. But we also need to make sure that people realize, Tumbler Ridge is known for more than just that shooting. It’s so, so important.

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