It was two years ago, while hovering over the Niger Delta in a two-dollar-per-second rented helicopter that Edward Burtynsky saw an oil-soaked scene of apocalyptic scale. Images of oily waterways flicker in dull rainbow hues; landscapes shine black and are littered with scorched trees; a boat speeds away from the helicopter. He had heard about […]
New York Times’ Daily 360 video: Spelunking for Antibiotics
It can take decades of research and more than billions of dollars to create a new antibiotic drug. Sometimes, the first step of the process starts underground, deep inside a mountain. I filmed this video with Emily McCarty, and Tim Chaffee and Nathan Griffiths did the editing.
Greater Victoria builders say they can’t find workers to build new homes, because they can’t find homes for the workers
The ‘vicious circle’ has deepened a persistent worker shortage during a period of record demand. Part seven of our labour series, Pay Check There’s a labour shortage in the construction industry, but it’s not for lack of people wanting to work. The number of new workers may even have increased over the past few years, […]
Westshore drug users are suffering in silence: harm reduction worker
‘If you deny that the need is there, then you’ll never build the services and you’ll never see it.’ The phrase, “Build it and they will come” is usually reserved for business and baseball fields. But Olivander Day, a harm reduction worker in Langford uses it differently. Day coordinates the Westshore AVI Health Centre, a […]
Where have the mushrooms gone?
It’s a bad year for certain kinds of popular mushrooms on Vancouver Island. We went mushroom hunting with two local experts to find out what’s happening It’s dumping rain when I pull into the tiny parking lot at Blinkhorn Lake in Metchosin. Andy MacKinnon and Kem Luther are Gore Texed and rubber booted, pocket knives […]
‘I hate to ask’: How a fraudster manipulated a Colwood single mother out of tens of thousands of dollars
Christine Hale says she lost as much as $100,000 to a man who told her he loved her while inventing lawyer fees and death threats Steven Vanbuskirk was Christine Hale’s first love. At 16, he was the first person who told her she was pretty and made her feel like she mattered. She was badly […]
Updates to Victoria emergency psychiatric care are insufficient, say teen advocates
After taking on the province in a public battle last spring, Ella Hale and Emma Epp feel brushed off by the system that promised change Psychiatric Emergency Services at the Royal Jubilee Hospital released an update last week on their efforts to improve care for people in a mental health crisis. But the two teens […]
#vanlife not just for influencers, says Colwood security guard
Overnight security plus a place to sleep a win-win for van dweller Raffi the dog pops his fluffy head out the RV window, eager for pets. Judy Dreger shouts a greeting from the kitchen in the back of her van, a 76 Dodge Chinook Sportsman with moss-green siding, where she lives with Raffi and Dexter, […]
Fairy Creek update: RCMP play waiting game with determined protesters
South Island old growth logging protesters not blinking at criminal charges The blockades on logging roads in the Fairy Creek Watershed are about to mark one year (Aug. 9) of working to prevent licence-holder Teal Cedar from logging old-growth trees. Arrests have topped 500, and the standoff north of Port Renfrew on southern Vancouver Island […]
‘Please tell someone:’ Langford woman whose mother was murdered begs abuse survivors to get help
‘I didn’t believe this could happen to my mom either, but it did’ Warning: This article contains content some readers will find triggering When Jacquie Bartlett heard her mother’s hushed whisper on the phone, she knew something was wrong. Her normally vivacious mother started calling only when her husband was out of the house they […]
Fairy Creek logging protesters may face criminal charges
B.C. Prosecution Service to review each case, will lay charges where evidence is sufficient The B.C. Prosecution Service might press criminal charges against some of the more than 400 people arrested at the Fairy Creek Watershed. Various blockades have been in place since August 2020, as protesters try to stop Teal Cedar Products from logging […]
Women hobby farmers are part of a food revolution
Raising livestock and families: the young women farmers of Sooke Kristy Sivorot does not shy away from hard work. She’s a nurse, a mother of two, a homeschool teacher for the last year, and a livestock farmer on the Sooke and Metchosin border. She didn’t grow up on a farm. She never had to collect […]