Writing

As we stride up the steep slope in single file, the only sounds are the creak of snowshoes and the crunch of snow. The carbon steel crampons dig into the hardpack and our heavy breath billows out as clouds of vapour. Mountain hemlocks tower above us, their branches weighted down with thick dollops of snow. Up here on Mount Seymour, high above the city, winter is alive and well. Continue reading Protected Habitat Hidden in Plain Sight

For three Vancouver millennials, biking across Iceland was a breeze – an incredibly strong, freezing cold breeze. “It was almost comical, just how strong the wind was,” said Oliver Jorgensen, one of the mountain bikers, “It was difficult just trying to stay on the bike.”

“Jalen and I both ran track at SFU, so we had the endurance part down, but he was brand new to mountain biking, so he had a pretty steep learning curve,” said Jorgensen, “It was fun to watch him learning on the fly and taking a bunch of spills.”  Continue reading Mountain Biking Middle Earth

In the backstreets of Chinatown, nestled among stores selling dried fish and barbecue pork is the unmarked entrance to Eastside Boxing Club. Halfway up the staircase, the air turns tropical and fills with the primal sounds of a crowd reacting to a fight. Inside, a hundred or so members of the craft beer community stand shoulder to shoulder around a boxing ring, watching two girls slug it out. The girls’ long hair has been twisted into braids and their red faces bob around as they duck, block and jab at one another. A solid punch lands and the crowd erupts in cheers and gulps down their beers. Continue reading Blood, Sweat and Beers

In the tropical jungles of northern Thailand lies the ancient walled city of Chang Mai. Inside the crumbling walls is a labyrinth of busy streets and narrow alleys, lined with bars, temples and massage parlours.

Jenny and I were creeping along one of these alleys, moving quickly through the shade of a high stone wall. Jenny was up front, slinking past an old Thai woman folding laundry. Her arm was stiff by her side, pistol pointed at the cobblestones. I was bringing up the rear, my rifle at the ready.

Without warning, a backpacker in a Hawaiian shirt darted out from an alcove and doused Jenny with a bucket of water – SPLOOSH! She spun around, her face frozen with disgust, “Eww! He splashed me with moat water! It went in my mooouth!!” Continue reading The Drench Connection

“It was fun. The fact that it was illegal was part of the allure – it felt like I was getting away with something, like the thrill a kleptomaniac gets when they steal something. I felt like I was screwing the system in some way.” Eric stretches out, puts his feet up on the coffee table and  lazily runs his hand back and forth across his black crew cut. His body is compact and muscular like a fighting dog, and covered in fist-sized tattoos, many of them logos for sports teams, bands or automotive companies.  “I always paid my rent in cash, and it was kinda funny to me that I was handing over all this dirty money to my landlord.” Continue reading Dealer’s Choice

Ese Atawo clearly remembers the night she flew into Toronto, after leaving her home in Nigeria. “I was only five years old, and at the time, Nigeria didn’t have consistent electricity. So, as the plane was coming down, all I could see were lights, just lights everywhere. I was like, what the heck is this?”

Unbeknownst to little Ese, 30 years later, she would be preparing herself to step into the bright lights of the 20th Vancouver International Improv Festival, as the director of a comedy show performed solely by people of colour. Continue reading Black Comedy

I stood on the mountaintop and watched the sun slipping behind the Coast Mountain Ranges in a blaze of lilac and gold. Up on this ridge, above the tree line, at an altitude of 6,000 feet, there was no water to be found – it was all down in the valleys, in the streams and lakes. I tilted my stainless steel water bottle and the last trickle dribbled into my mouth. 

I was in the backcountry of British Columbia, standing on the boundary between Whistler Mountain Resort and Garibaldi Provincial Park. I was only about two hours drive from my home in Vancouver, but I was definitely in the wilderness, and I was very much alone. Continue reading A Path Through the Dark

The Queensland sun was yet to rise, but a new week had begun and it was time for Robert Black to tend to his bees. He dragged his weary old bones out of bed and shuffled across the hardwood floor of his farm house and put the kettle on to boil.

For thirty years, Black had spent each long day in service of his brood and business; caring for hundreds of bee colonies, transporting hives between farms around Bundaberg and robbing the white boxes of their golden honeycomb. It was hard work for an old man but it came with its own rewards.

As he stirred honey into his tea, the silence of the morning was shattered by the telephone ringing. It was his son, Stephen, calling from a nearby macadamia plantation. Continue reading Bundaberg Buzz Kill

There’s a place in Vancouver on West Broadway where the dull grey sidewalk is briefly interrupted by a stretch of faded yellow and green speckled concrete. Stretching above, the neon-laced marquee announces the screenings for this week with slide-in vinyl letters; today’s double bill is True Grit and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Above it all towers a vertical neon sign that spells the word HOLLYWOOD, the paint behind it peeling in large patches. Continue reading The Death of Hollywood