Editorial: A very Squamish story

This is a very Squamish story that involves a Quest dream, red tape that quashes a dream, a dramatic downfall, a death-defying twist, a generous donor and a five-hour wait on the Sea to Sky Highway.

About a decade ago, Liberian Gboko Stewart applied to attend Quest University and was accepted.

This in itself was a feat, as he said many folks he knew didn’t think he could apply without some Liberian government support.

Stewart told The Squamish chief that only his late mother and a young man he was mentoring had believed he could do it.

Then in 2014, in the midst of an Ebola outbreak in parts of Liberia, the federal government suspended the issuance of visas for residents and nationals of countries with transmission of the disease.

Thus, Stewart, a journalist by trade, was not allowed into Canada to attend Quest.

He eventually went on with his life — inspired by the passion for making a difference that Quest stood for, he says — and launched an LGBTQ+-focused online news magazine, JournalRage.

That work ultimately resulted in a credible threat to his life, however.  Fearing for his safety, earlier this year he arrived in Montreal as a refugee claimant seeking asylum.

Then in late February, Quest announced it was pausing its operations as of April 30.

So, Stewart had made it to Canada, but too late to attend the school.

He put out a call for financial help to get to see Quest before it ceased operations this past weekend.

After seeing the story in The Squamish Chief, a generous local donor stepped forward, and Stewart landed in Vancouver on Friday.

Thinking about all that has happened, and the opportunity lost, he got teary walking the campus, Stewart said.

The next morning he headed back up from Vancouver again for the 2023 Quest commencement but got caught in the traffic that was at a standstill due to a serious crash involving a motorcycle — spending five hours and a total of about $400 on Ubers in the process.

He missed the ceremony but made a more casual gathering at Mags 99 later that day.

(He wasn’t the only person stopped on the highway while trying to get to Quest’s ceremony.)

Reflecting on it all, Stewart said on Sunday, before he caught a flight back to Montreal, that he was incredibly grateful to the donor and glad he got to see the place that held so many of his dreams before it was gone.

“This was something that I never thought would ever happen,” he said.

He also said “quaint” Squamish seemed bustling and really could benefit from a university like Quest — and it needs a fix for the highway, like regional public transportation, so folks don’t have to spend hours and so much money to come and go as they please.

There couldn’t be a much more Squamish ending to this story than that.