From wild windstorms to bike lanes to drama at the B.C. Legislature, there's no shortage of news happening on Vancouver Island.
But we've also become known for a certain type of news story: the weird ones.
For example, a Gord Kurbis report on a fisheries officer's sasquatch sighting routinely shows up in year-end lists of our most-read and most-watched stories, despite first airing in 2014.
There's clearly an appetite for the unusual and downright hilarious stories coming out of the island, so read on as we present our five strangest headlines of 2018.
It was one of the most Canadian stories we've ever covered. When a Nanaimo neighbourhood was put on high alert over what seemed to be a break-and-enter attempt, no one could've guessed the culprit. Thankfully, Nanaimo RCMP gave a suspect description:
"It was best described as 12 inches high, somewhat overweight, a large tail and very large, yellow teeth," said Nanaimo RCMP spokesman Gary O'Brien.
In Nanaimo, no one can hear you scream
A Nanaimo couple made worldwide headlines for their, um, unique maternity photos earlier this year.
Nicole and Todd Cameron wanted to buck the trend of the traditional maternity shoot, so taking inspiration from the 1979 movie Alien, they staged a grisly series of photos in which Nicole gave birth to a blood-covered chestburster.
The battle between cyclists and motorists for road supremacy is nothing new, but the tactics used by one person in Victoria reached new lows.
In apparent retaliation for getting knocked down by a car, a cyclist at Cook and Yates pulled down his pants, defecated and flung his feces at the windshield of a car.
As witness Josh Loftus put it, he "whipped his pants down, laid it down and whipped it at the window like full chimpanzee mode. I have never seen anything like it in my life."
Adopted potbellied pig eaten by owner
Not all of the bizarre headlines in 2018 were laugh-inducing. Many readers were upset by a story on a Vancouver Island man who adopted a potbellied pig from the BC SPCA, then had it put down and butchered for consumption. While the action was not illegal, the BC SPCA said staff were extremely upset because they were led to believe the pig would be kept as a pet – and banned the man from adopting any animals in the future.
Senior casually 'shoos' bear away
Anna Stady, a 95-year-old Comox Valley woman, proved she's more fearsome than one of Vancouver Island's apex predators.
The wily senior shooed a black bear out of her kitchen not once, but twice in one day after it opened her cupboards and destroyed her sugar bins. She said she wasn't afraid of the bear because she's been around them her whole life.
In fact, "I was annoyed," Stady told CTV News. "I told him to go and then he just went about halfway to the backyard and I said ‘No! Go home!'"
