Boulevard Magazine Okanagan, 2023 ISSUE 5

Beauty on the inside. And out.

The new home of LUXURY FURNITURE

in the Okanagan Valley

HIGHEST QUALITY FURNITURE crafted with the utmost care and attention to detail

We aspire to inspire beautification of

SHOWCASING A STUNNING COLLECTION OF EUROPEAN INSPIRED FURNITURE

Essence® Bath Collection

64

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Photo by Lia Crowe

Makeup by Jenny McKinney Kelowna realtor Francesca Amante, photographed at Château Okanagan.

Photo

NATALIE BRUCKNER WRITER OUT OF THE SHADOWS INTO THE LIGHT

PAGE 36

“Writing Francesca Amante’s story was a genuine privilege, showcasing the resilience that shines through life’s challenges. Her journey underscores the importance of valuing oneself and speaking up—a lesson crucial for today. Francesca’s tale resonates as a beacon, reminding us to embrace authenticity and stand unwavering in our narratives.” Originally from the UK’s south, Natalie settled in Canada almost two decades ago. Today she lives in her Okanagan mountain cabin with her partner, rescue dog and about 100 wild horses. With over 25 years as a writer and published author, Natalie’s dedication to capturing the diverse spectrum of human experience is unwavering. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her renovating her old log cabin, or on her mountain bike or snowboard.

BOULEVARD Mario Gedicke GROUP PUBLISHER 250.891.5627 info@blvdmag.ca

MANAGING EDITOR Susan Lundy

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Lia Crowe

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Lily Chan

DESIGN Tammy Robinson

Nel Pallay

Maria Lobano va

ADVERTISING Mario Gedicke

Vicki Clark

Carien Wessels

SARAH D’ARCEY STYLIST

THE GIFT OF CREATIVITY

PAGE 48

“To create the fashion story in this edition of Boulevard, we imagined an editorial based on Renaissance paintings set in the modern day. I believe that telling a great fashion story always merges inspiration from the past with the present. It was also an incredible opportunity to share knowledge with the students from my Blanche Macdonald styling class and give them a hands-on opportunity to learn on a true fashion editorial set.” Sarah is a celebrity fashion stylist and style curator and is known for her exceptional creativity and attention to detail.

CONTRIBUTING Susan Beiderwieden WRITERS Natalie Bruckner

Angela Cowan

Lia Crowe

Sarah D’Arcey

Laura Goldstein

Susan Lundy

Darcy Nybo

Kaisha Scofield

Ellie Shortt

David Wylie

CONTRIBUTING Lia Crowe

PHOTOGRAPHERS Don Denton

Darren Hull

ILLUSTRATION Sierra Lundy

CIRCULATION Maria Zacarias DISTRIBUTION 250.763.7575

ELLIE SHORTT WRITER TAKE IT SLOW…AND EVEN SLOWER PAGE 64

“The slow food movement is something I’ve long been passionate about, so having the opportunity to write a piece that explores this topic was particularly meaningful. As a nutritionist, I’ve seen the health benefits of a more mindful approach to what we consume; as a cooking instructor, I’ve witnessed many times over the magic that happens when folks reconnect with food and flavours; as a mom, I appreciate how integral these philosophies are to the protection of our planet and food systems for future generations; and as a recipe developer, I love how tastier everything is when we take it back to our roots—hopefully you will too!”

Ellie is Boulevard’s regular Food and Feast section writer.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada

PHOTO BY LIA CROWE

Slow driver day

My teen-hood neighbourhood may have called me Little Hell on Wheels, but over the years my foot has lightened on the accelerator— prompted, I suppose, by a few expensive speeding tickets.

But “slowing down,” the loose theme of this edition of Boulevard, has never been a big part of my DNA. And it’s only been more recently that I have learned to enjoy the journey instead of just rocketing to my destination.

Back in the day, it was going too fast that prompted a car accident at the entrance way of my high school parking lot. Hello, Dad’s car all crashed up. And it was frustration with a too-slow elevator at an old hotel in Vancouver that caused me to race down the stairwell instead, tripping and careening headfirst into a concrete wall. Hello, concussion and elbow plate and pins. My ex-husband was a painfully slow driver. My grandmother drove faster than Derrick. Sometimes I’d slip my foot over to his side of the car and place it on top of his shoe to help him find the accelerator. My younger daughter inherited her father’s leisurely driving pace, but somehow, I find her meandering speed restful, whereas my ex-husband’s pace was just irksome.

Which brings me to Bruce, my current husband, and truly the nicest, most laid-back guy you could know—until he gets behind the wheel of a car (or watches his beloved Maple Leafs fall victim to Leaf-hating referees, which is all of them, apparently). In a vehicle’s driver’s seat, he revs up from happy-go-lucky to cranky, chugging out exasperated commentary on the lesser drivers of this world. Sometimes, after he’s finally able to pass a particularly inferior driver, he whips his head around to get a really good look at this person who has such shockingly bad driving skills.

Sometimes he blares the horn, something I never, ever do, partially because it seems so aggressive, but also because the horns on our vehicles are embarrassingly wimpy. For example, fellow drivers just laughed when we punched the sad, braying horn of our ‘78 VW bus. But Bruce’s horn-honking really becomes an issue for me when we’re in our right-hand-drive Delica, and everyone thinks I’m the cranky driver!

This winter we are planning to take a road trip through the United States and, as I’ve been counselling Bruce, this angry driver routine just won’t cut it in a country where many drivers are looking for any excuse to set off the handgun they have stowed in the console.

So, we’ve started working on Fast-Driver Therapy, wherein every time we encounter a driver who can’t find his turn signals, or who is obliviously hanging out in the passing lane or crawling along at 50 km in an 80-km zone, I begin leading him in deep-breathing exercises. If this doesn’t work, I move into the classic-rock humming phase—steering clear of songs like ACDC’s “Highway to Hell” and settling on something more like Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive.” Final trick up my sleeve is quoting selected lyrics from the ultimate what-is-the-point-of-it-all song: Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind.”

“We’re just a drop of water in an endless sea,” I might remind him soothingly if he’s inching towards tailgating the car in front of us. Or, if he mutters something like, “Nice car…learn how to drive it,” I might respond with, “You know, ‘all we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see!’”

It seems to work?

In all seriousness, though, slowing down—whether it’s in the fashion world or the travel or food arenas, as described in this edition of Boulevard, or the way in which we navigate the world—is a worthy goal. With offshoots in sustainability, mindfulness and good health, we should all choose to “stop and smell the roses” and savour the journey as even more important than the destination.

Go ahead, you can just call me “Little Heaven on Wheels.”

Susan Lundy Managing Editor

Susan Lundy is a former journalist who now works as an editor, author and freelance writer. Her latest book, Home on the Strange, was published in 2021 via Heritage House Publishing.

I meet Tanneke at her beautiful fashion and decor boutique in downtown Vernon to chat life, style and how—for her—they intersect. I am soon led upstairs to a gorgeous, modern home above the shop. It’s bright and white with contemporary furnishings and art, and comes complete with rooftop patio and veggie garden.

Originally from the Netherlands, Tanneke has a bachelor’s degree in business administration, with a major in marketing and communications, which has given her a good business sense and entrepreneurial spirit.

I begin by asking her how she came to open the boutique.

“In 1993, my husband and I did a five-week western Canada trip and I fell in love. I felt the urge to go somewhere new and start something new. In 1995, we applied for our immigration papers and got those very shortly afterwards. We sold our house and car, quit our jobs and booked our flight. Once in Canada, we travelled for a few months and then decided to make Vernon our home.

“In 2017, we bought a beautiful commercial building in downtown Vernon. I’d been eying it for years. We transformed it to partly commercial and partly residential, and [moved into a unit]. When one of the

TANNEKE OORDT, OWNER/OPERATOR OF THIRTY ONE & MAIN BOETIEK WORDS + PHOTOGRAPHY LIA CROWE

commercial units became vacant after some years, I started looking for a new tenant, but I also had a vision [for it]. That was the moment I realized, I’ve got to do this myself. It was February 2021, and I set a four-month deadline to come up with a plan. If by then I didn’t have a concrete plan in place, the unit would go back on the market. It was only days before that deadline that I opened my boutique on May 26. It was the right time and the right place for my next adventure.”

Although she enjoys the business aspect of running the store, interactions with customers are at the core of what she loves most about this work.

“I love customers who keep an open mind and don’t mind trying something on that they themselves would have never picked. When I go on my buying trips, I always have my customers in my mind, buying items specifically for them. And then it’s super fun to see them actually buy exactly the items that you bought with them in mind.”

When it comes to style, Tanneke describes hers as “casual dressy,” and goes on to say, “When someone wears the right style for them, you can see how comfortable and confident that person is. That to me is a good style.”

FASHION & BEAUTY

All-time favourite piece: My black Italian leather boots that I bought a very long time ago. I paid a fortune for them, which caused me some sleepless nights. But fast-forward 30 years, I still have them, still wear them, still love them.

Favourite day-bag: I stopped using large purses, and love my Le Dog

Fanny for day-to-day use. Fits my phone, keys, wallet and reading glasses, and that’s all I need.

Favourite work tool: iPhone—it gives me access to everything I need for my business, including my emails, calendar, and my Square.

Favourite jewellery piece or designer: My pearl earrings, a gift from my mother.

Accessory you spend he most money on: Shoes.

Moisturizer: Helena Lane Organic Skincare. I only discovered this a year ago, but it is a beautiful all-natural skincare line with by far the best sunscreen I’ve ever used in my life.

Scent: Active Humans natural deodorant, which can also be used as a room spray or cologne. Love their vanilla coconut and their sea salt. Must-have hair product: Ouidad.

STYLE INSPIRATIONS & LIFE

Style icon: Annika von Holdt (she is a Danish writer).

Favourite artist: I find this a tough one because I honestly am in awe of many artists, some well known, some hardly known at all. Having said that, Edward Hopper, Chihuly and Morrisseau are high on my list.

Favourite fashion designer or brand: Don’t have a specific designer in mind, but I love Danish designs—elegant, clean lined and feminine.

Favourite musician: Andrea Bocelli.

Favourite wine: Gray Monk

Pinot Gris.

Favourite flower: Dahlia. My late father loved those too.

Favourite city to visit: Vancouver, but that is also because I have been there so many times, and everything is easy and familiar. In general, I love big cities; they inspire me. In any city I am most content either in an art gallery or on a patio people-watching.

Favourite app: Airbnb: great app to browse, dreaming about all the places I need to visit, but also about trying to find the cutest accommodations where I could stay.

Favourite place in the whole world: Honestly, I wouldn’t know. I guess home is where the heart is.

One thing that consistently lifts your spirits during hard times: Knowing that my family always has my back.

READING MATERIAL

What you read online for style: Usually Instagram.

Last great read: Judas: How a Sister's Testimony Brought Down a Criminal Mastermind by Astrid Holleeder. I just read it for the second time; it's an incredible true story about how a sister’s testimony brought down her criminal brother.

Favourite book of all time: The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

’m writing this article from the couch, where I sit with an ice pack on the inside of my left ankle. I spent the last few weeks training hard while ignoring a pain in my calf, which quickly morphed into a pain in my ankle. After spending yesterday at the beach, walking on uneven sand for two hours, my ankle and foot have decided they are on strike. I am now sequestered to the couch with an elevated foot and a regimen of rest, ice, compression and elevation. My body told me it was struggling, but I didn’t listen and now I’m paying the price.

I don’t think I’m alone in this experience. In fact, I’m willing to bet that you too have pushed your body beyond its capacity because most of us struggle to take breaks, slow down and properly rest and recover.

“No pain, no gain.” “Go big or go home.” “You can sleep in when you’re dead.” We’ve all heard these mantras chanted in the background of fitness and gym spaces, encouraging us to push harder and dig deeper or, my personal favourite, “enter the pain cave.” These phrases are often brandished alongside highly polished influencers and on fitness highlight reels that present movement and sport in a way that is edited and enhanced to the point of altered reality.

Increasingly there is an emphasis in the fitness and sport world on the “super human.” Athletes and presenters are shown accomplishing seemingly impossible feats, while influencers work out in glossy hair and makeup, pristine workout sets and zero sweat. These representations may be attempts at inspiration, but mostly they widen a divide between our own fitness experiences and the ones presented on our screen. When we are unable to connect to this representation of movement, the likelihood of satisfaction with our own accomplishments diminishes, often leading us to extend our expectations of what the body can and should be able to do.

There is undeniable value in developing the power to quiet those voices that tell us we can’t go any further—but what about when our drive to push harder and go faster overshadows our ability to find balance? How much of our movement practices are dictated by what we’re shown on social media? What happens when we ignore the warning signals of over-training, constantly pushing to maximum capacity? Maybe it looks something like me, working from the couch with an ice pack on my ankle.

Too much time in the “pain cave” quickly leads to burnout, injury and erosion of mental health, not to mention a reduction in the enjoyment we get from the movement itself. When it comes to sport and fitness, the goal should always be sustainability. In a noisy and overwhelming fitness world, how do we find balance?

How about we start by listening to the body and choosing our own intention, based on our own needs? Maybe we don’t actually want to “go big” or trade pain for gain. And I don’t know about you, but I definitely don’t want to wait until I’m dead before getting some sleep. Yes, we want to achieve success and productivity, but sometimes that means slowing down before “digging deep” and putting more emphasis on enjoyment over achievement.

Slowing down can be hard. Going for mental health walks, stretching, taking naps and completing accessory work can sometimes feel boring. We often think of recovery, rest and injury preven-

tion as an admission of weakness. We have to fight that temptation to push past exhaustion because even superhuman athletes need rest and recovery; in fact, many of them have whole teams of athletic therapists and injury prevention specialists.

Professional athletes also include progressive warm-ups, cooldowns, stretching and mobility work as a part of every training regimen because it is the most effective way to improve mobility and set the body up for success in every movement style. Warming up can consist of light cardio work, maybe a few minutes on a bike or some skipping with targeted stretching mixed in. The goal is to slowly increase the heart rate and prime the body for the work ahead. Cool-down work is similar to warming up, but is done at a progressively slower pace, lowering the heart rate back to resting.

Accessory/mobility work is a bit more complicated but equally important for priming and supporting the body. These movements will look different than typical training and are often focused on areas where the body could use extra support. For example, if you have tight shoulders or a shallow squat, you would do accessory work during your workout to help progress your range of motion and stability in these areas. This type of movement is adaptable to every style and level of movement and sport.

Supporting your training needs with mobility and accessory work is important, but will only go so far if you are failing to support your mental health. Listening to your body includes respecting the health of your mind, which sometimes means taking a break, slowing down and shutting off for a while. This can be done in a variety of ways. To find what’s best for you, try taking a step back and assessing where you feel most overwhelmed and, when possible, considering where you might try to slow down.

This might simply mean reducing screen time, taking a mental health walk or even a 15-minute mid-day nap. For others, there may be value in reducing social activities, spending more time on creative endeavours or adding meditation practices to daily routines. Each of us will require different paths and even those paths may change, depending on different stages of life. But the first step is to slow down, step back and take stock of imbalances.

We are all human and want to feel good about the choices we make. We are naturally influenced by the world around us, but unfortunately we are often seeing the world through the unnatural lens of social media, which can raise the bar to heights we have no hope of reaching. Taking a step back and assessing how we are effected by these representations of sport and athletics is important and can do wonders for our mental and physical health. The only person who knows what your body is capable of is you. Slow down, step back and listen to what it’s telling you.

Too much time in the “pain cave” quickly leads to burnout, injury and erosion of mental health, not to mention a reduction in the enjoyment we get from the movement itself.

good taste

Good Farming Karma

Okanagan soda company bubbles with success

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree at Farming Karma—but it did land in a can.

Farming Karma Fruit Co., a Kelowna-based soda business, is named for Karma Gill. Now in his 60s, Karma and his wife, Kuku, began farming in the Okanagan when they immigrated here 30 years ago. They worked as farm hands before buying their own land.

Now four generations are involved in the business, including Avi Gill, who is Karma and Kuku’s son. Together, Avi and his wife, Binny Boparai, launched the beverage brand in 2018. They both veered from their career paths to grow the company. It has since surged, with a distribution of millions, and is growing fast.

Both the Gill and Boparai families go back decades in agricultural heritage.

“We didn’t want to let go of that,” said Binny in an interview at the East Kelowna farm. “When Avi and I moved back to Kelowna, we wanted to continue that legacy of farming, but do something of our own to supplement it. Our parents put in a lot of work to build it to where they did. We wanted to be able to keep that and to have part of the business that feels like our own.”

Avi and Binny met while studying at UBC Vancouver—Avi in pharmacy and Binny in applied science. When they moved back to the Okanagan, the couple wanted to build something that would involve the family. Binny had by then pivoted to banking and finance.

“As a family, we thought, what can we do with our fruit?” said Binny.

The couple tried a few different ideas—including popsicles and apple fries—before launching their drink in 2019, just before the pandemic. It started with apple soda, using the fruit the family grows the most, specifically ambrosia apples.

Going into drinks allowed for scalability, but “it was tough timing,” said Binny. “We invested in all these machines and sales weren’t great.”

So, they put the machines to work and created other flavours. That was a tipping point for the business.

“We launched the peach and the pear, and all of a sudden we saw a lot of traction because everybody had something that they liked instead of just the one product,” she said. “This allowed us to grow the Farming Karma team. Every person on our team adds their unique value to the company, something that has contributed greatly to the success we have seen so far.”

They now have three drink lines and 15 different products.

Their fruit sodas (which are made from one serving of fruit and carbonated water) have five flavours: berry, cherry, apple, pear and peach. Most of the fruit is from family farms, and the rest is sourced locally from elsewhere in BC.

Due to overwhelming demand from their customers, in 2022 they launched spiked versions of their soda line. The Spirit drinks each have a shot of vodka. And this year, they expanded their offerings again, with mocktails.

“We were getting so many requests for these other flavours. Consumers are looking for healthy and sophisticated non-alcoholic beverage alternatives and our mocktails fill this need, while still delivering a delicious and enjoyable drinking experience,” Binny said.

The mocktail line allows them to expand the flavours they offer, including the Mellow Mimosa (mango), Musing Mojito (mint and lime), Mindful Mule (ginger and lime) and Conscious Cosmo (rhubarb and orange).

They’re considering adding a couple of more drinks to the mocktail lineup.

“Agriculture isn’t a very lucrative business. The land values are up but the crop itself is not paying a whole lot, especially for small-scale farmers. Some years it really leaves you holding the bag,” said Binny. “This allows us to diversify our revenue stream, while also building on our agriculture businesses. We’re still primarily farmers, but Farming Karma has allowed us to venture into manufacturing value-added food products. We now have a use for all the fruit we grow.”

The Farming Karma tasting room, located on the Rutland

WORDS DAVID WYLIE X PHOTOGRAPHY LIA CROWE

“This allows us to diversify our revenue stream, while also building on our agriculture businesses. We’re still primarily farmers, but Farming Karma has allowed us to venture into manufacturing value-added food products. We now have a use for all the fruit we grow.”

bench, is charming and fits in perfectly with the Okanagan wine-tasting culture and atmosphere. A window along the wall gives a peek into the production process.

“When you go to a grocery store, you don’t think about the process of how the products got there, or the role that farmers play in getting those products there. We bridge that gap through our farm-to-table experience when customers visit us. This adds to the conversation of food security, local foods, supporting small businesses, seeing the story behind it and how much work it takes to get to that can,” said Binny.

All three of Karma’s drink lines are on display, and they’re happy to provide free tastings.

A little further back on the property is a large building housing the new canning line and a lot of storage to build stock to supply grocery stores across Canada.

Initially, it was difficult to get into stores, but Binny said it’s getting easier as the business grows. The immediate demand for their new mocktails was mind-blowing, she said, noting that their first stock of inventory was sold out within two weeks.

Binny said the sodas are healthier than pop and juice because they have less sugar.

“There is a lot of focus on people wanting to consume healthier foods,” she said. “If we’re putting something out in the world, we want to feel good about it too. We want to feel that we’re adding to your family’s health by offering better choices. We wanted to be the healthiest in the category.My two-year-old drinks it and I feel good about that.”

Binny said the new canning line will greatly improve their capacity, adding they are already planning further expansion. Avi said he’s excited they’ve been able to grow a generational business.

“My parents worked really hard on the farm, and it feels really good that we’re able to further that. It feels awesome to put out good drinks into our community,” he said.

Check out farmingkarma.ca.

RESORT FEATURES

Two Distinct On-Site Restaurants

Indoor and Outdoor Pools & Hot Tubs

Private Beach

Fitness Centres

Full Service Marina

Tennis, Pickleball and Basketball Court

Health and Wellness Services

Meet Kristy!

Where were you born and where did you grow up?

I am an “original” Kelowna-ite! Born and raised here. How would you describe your fashion style? Frumpy…

lol…let’s say, “casual.” What do you read online? Every morning I have coffee with Castanet, and then I check out the top stories on Apple News, Globe

and Mail, Western Investor. Fave book of all time: Tough question! I read nightly, from about 10:30 pm to 1 am. I get through A LOT of books, reading for fun at this hour.

I love a good “whodunnit?” mystery/suspense book.

Fave musician: This changes. I’m currently enjoying Manchester Orchestra. I saw them in Las Vegas last year; it was an amazing venue and concert. Bingeworthy series? Yellowstone, White Lotus, Ozark, Outlander. Favourite app? Trailforks: it’s a great app for biking/hiking. Fave wine or cocktail? Shared a bottle from The Prisoner Wine Company with my hubby on our anniversary (lol!). Fave place to visit? The Hawaiian Islands: I got married in Maui 27 years ago. What makes you happy?

I love heading out to the trails of our local mountains on my mountain bike.

PHONE 250-866-0088

EMAIL kristy@janehoffman.com

Kristy Huber

REALTOR ® PREC

PHOTO BY DARREN HULL

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4860 Tuscany Lane, Kelowna, BC | $4,950,000

Prestigious gated community where luxury living meets unparalleled craftsmanship. This exceptional custom home spans over 8000 square feet, and was crafted by an esteemed Tommie Award winning builder. Situated on a generous 0.34 acre lot, the property boasts sweeping lake and valley views.

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For inquiries contact jane@janehoffman.com or call 250-862-7800

MLS 10276370 | 5 BED, 7 BATH, 8,541 SQ. FT.

MLS 10277024 | 5 BED, 7 BATH, 8,645 SQ. FT.

The problem became apparent the moment we stepped into our corner suite at North Vancouver’s Seaside Hotel. What struck us first—even before we noted the cosy-looking king bed or the egg-shaped swing hanging near the window or the bathtub beside a floor-to-ceiling window in the expansive marble bathroom—was the breathtaking view. The entire wall facing the ocean was glass and looked directly across the water at the Vancouver skyline. This room had so many little touches and comforts, the problem was obvious…we weren’t going to want to leave it.

View from North Vancouver toward downtown Vancouver.

PHOTO BY REUBEN KRABBE, COURTESY DESTINATION BC.

Already, our visit to North Vancouver had been a revelation. My husband and I started our day hiking with our canine travel companion, Zorro, in Capilano Canyon—just one of four canyons and multiple hiking options in North Vancouver. Choosing to enter the area at the Cleveland Dam, we drove up, out of the city, through a residential area and, within minutes, were staring across the Capilano Reserve at Grouse Mountain. It seemed impossible that this wilderness could be so close to an urban area. After crossing the bridge

above the dam, we entered a huge forest with multiple criss-crossing paths that swallowed up all the hikers, leaving us seemingly alone on the trails.

From here, we drove down to Lower Lonsdale, North Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhood—and another revelation. The area extends four blocks up Lonsdale Avenue and two blocks east and west, but its heart is The Shipyards on the waterfront. As we explored this bustling district, full of shops and eateries, we found Shipbuilders’

4 bed | 6 bath | 9,849 sq.ft. | MLS 10281280 | $6,700,000

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4 bed | 4 bath | 3,683 sq.ft. | MLS 10279877 | $3,998,000

This modern french manor-inspired home has seen extensive Tommie Award-winning renovations, taking inspiration from classical and modern motifs. Located on a 5.5 acre parcel in desirable South East Kelowna.

764 ROCKCLIFFE PLACE

2957 HARVARD ROAD

Square, where a community stage presents concerts, plays, markets and buskers at various times throughout the year, and Shipyard Commons, a covered public space for year-round gatherings, with a splash park in the summer and an outdoor skating plaza in the winter.

Also nearby is Lonsdale Quay, where a SeaBus connects the North Shore to downtown Vancouver. I was glad I set aside time to explore the Quay Market & Food Hall, with its 80-plus shops and food vendors selling everything from unique clothing to handmade chocolates.

Public art abounds at The Shipyards, much of it commemorating the thousands of people who worked here from 1906 to 1992. Apparently, over 450 ships were launched from this site during the many years of shipyard operations.

And the Seaside Hotel? Located right in the middle of all this wonderfulness!

After our hike and exploration of The Shipyards, the rest of our first day revolved around food—so many options! For lunch we settled on the dog-friendly porch of Raglan’s Bistro with its cosy and colourful tiki-vibe, great food menu and intriguing cocktail list.

For dinner, we chose to bring a delectable array of seafood from the hotel’s exclusive restaurant, Seaside Provisions, back up to our room (remember our problem?). The atmosphere inside the restaurant is warm, welcoming and buzzing with energy, while the menu presents a quandary for any seafood-loving diner. Between the raw bar (including oysters and ceviche), the small plates (like tacos and lobster rolls) and the mains (scallops, seafood pasta, risotto and steak frites), selection was tricky. And while our dinner was divine, it turns out that happy hour at Provisions is the real locals’ go-to event. It runs Tuesday to Sunday 3 to 6 pm, with daily drink specials and half-price small plates.

Day two began with an early dog walk along the North Shore Spirit Trail, a clearly marked 35-kilometre greenway that will

PHOTO AND VIDEO BOOTHS

PHOTOS COURTESY NORTH SHORE TOURISM ASSOCIATION

ultimately extend from Horseshoe Bay to Deep Cove. My walk meandered along the waterfront, through a float home community and past an off-leash dog park. But you can only get so far on foot! So, later that morning, we put Zorro into a backpack and rented e-bikes from Reckless Shipyards. With pedal power, we quickly zipped along the trail, eventually cycling under the Lions Gate Bridge and all the way to Ambleside Park in West Vancouver. Every time I get on an e-bike, I am reminded of how wonderful it is to explore on two wheels with a little help on the hills! If we didn’t have a full itinerary set for the day, we could easily have spent the next several hours exploring North Van on the bikes.

But we had plans, and those plans included beer! The Shipyards Brewery District features some eight breweries that line East Esplanade Avenue, just a block up from the Seaside Hotel. The North Shore claims fame to the birth of Canada’s craft beer-brewing boom started back in 1982, when Horseshoe Bay Brewery began brewing Bay Ale. That microbrewery is long gone, but the North Shore abounds with enough breweries to be a destination on the BC Ale Trail—and we enjoyed a few hours sampling their wares in cute, dog-friendly roadside patios.

But then? Another shock as we stepped through a door and into a whole different world. Esplanade Avenue is a busy industrial street, noisy at times. But a hush fell over us as we entered Copperpenny Distillery Co. and met owner Jennifer Kom-Tong for a tour of this new gin distillery that has already won multiple awards. Jen and her husband Jan Stenc spent 25 years in the film industry, travelling the world as set decorators, and you can immediately sense this influence. Set up like a European cocktail lounge, the tasting room—where you can sample gin, order classy cocktails and enjoy bar bites—is both lavish and cosy. It could not be more different than the street outside.

Both Jen and Jan grew up in North Vancouver and, while they don’t have a background in distilling, their creativity and dedication to perfection have resulted in the perfect cocktail of flavour. Sitting at the exquisite bar, we sampled several gins, impressed with all, but most intrigued by the unique oyster shell gin, created in partnership with Fanny Bay Oysters. To say we were simply impressed with this distillery would be a massive understatement.

And so it turned out that Copperpenny, along with the Seaside Hotel, Capilano Canyon and everything else, all amounted to yet another “problem:” we don’t live in North Van.

But no worries, we’ll be back.

But then? Another shock as we stepped through a door and into a whole different world. Esplanade Avenue is a busy industrial street, noisy at times. But a hush fell over us as we entered Copperpenny Distillery Co.

do.

Hike! North Vancouver is built on the lower slopes of mountains that rise almost a mile above sea level, and is composed of six mountain peaks: Black, Strachan, Hollyburn, Grouse, Fromme and Seymour. With all these valleys, canyons and mountains, this is a Mecca for hikers, climbers and mountain bikers. The hardest part might be deciding which area to explore first.

see.

Visitors to The Shipyards District can enjoy a bit of culture exploring a range of exhibits at MONOVA (The Museum of North Vancouver), located near the Lonsdale Quay. Also in the area, the Polygon Gallery features contemporary art with a focus on photography, emphasizing contemporary work within the context of historical and international art.

eat.

If you love seafood and a cool dining experience, Fishworks is a must-do—but make a reservation! This restaurant—with its high ceilings, natural wood accents and art from local artists—specializes in fresh, sustainably harvested seafood and a diverse wine selection. We had the seafood tower ($78 for two), feasting on an abundance of oysters, scallops, prawns, clams and mussels, crab legs, lobster tails and calamari. Swoon.

sleep.

Seaside Hotel is a dog-friendly boutique property with 71 deluxe rooms and suites with stunning panoramic views. Our corner suite was probably one of the most memorable rooms we have ever stayed in—stylish, unique and extremely spacious. The view of the Vancouver skyline, revealed or concealed via motorized window coverings, changed as the hours went by, ending each day in a mesmerizing display of distant city lights.

PHOTO: BRETT HITCHINS/ MUSEUM OF NORTH VANCOUVER

PHOTO: KINDRED & SCOUT/ DESTINATION VANCOUVER

PHOTO: COURTESY FISHWORKS.

PHOTO: COURTESY NORTH SHORE TOURISM ASSOCIATION

Out of the shadows into the light

Francesca Amante’s empowering journey to finding her voice

WORDS NATALIE BRUCKNER PHOTOGRAPHY LIA CROWE

MAKEUP BY JENNY MCKINNEY.

Navigating the weight of societal pressures and expectations can hinder our ability to express ourselves freely. Yet, there are remarkable individuals who rise above, breaking free from these constraints. They courageously extend a helping hand, guiding others out of the shadows and into the light.

Among them is Francesca Amante, Kelowna realtor, award-winning public speaker and upcoming TEDx speaker, founder of AMANTE Real Estate, AMANTE Women’s Conferences and AMANTE Talks Speaking Series Events in Kelowna. Her journey is a testament to the boundless power of resilience, the profound depths of self-discovery, and the indomitable spirit that resides within the core of every one of us.

Francesca’s story began in the coastal town of Prince Rupert, where she was born into a family touched by loss. The tragic death of her brother, who died in a car crash at the age of 17, cast a heavy shadow over her entire family and the community. In their search for solace, her parents welcomed Francesca into the world years later. Named in honor of her late brother, she carried the weight of his memory and the hope of bringing joy to her grieving parents.

From a young age, Francesca showed signs of being an old soul. She believed that by making her parents proud she could somehow alleviate the pain from their loss. This self-imposed pressure drove her to excel in every endeavor she pursued—from the world of competitive figure skating, where she won gold at provincial-level championships, to her academic pursuits.

However, her life took a transformative turn when her family relocated to Penticton when she was 14. A few years later, while on a youth trip acting as youth leader, a remarkable moment of vulnerability happened. While watching a speaker that moved her to tears, a young girl gently reminded her that “being you is enough.” For the first time, Francesca felt seen and heard.

“I realized then that I needed to start living for me,” she reminisces, as we both sip on our coffee looking out onto Okanagan Lake.

With newfound clarity, Francesca embarked on a journey of shedding the burdens of the past, embracing her authenticity and championing individuality. After working in the cosmetic industry for a few years, she entered the world of real estate and new-home development. Her passion for connecting with people helped her flourish in this new career.

In 2018, as the winds of change continued to shape her path, Francesca felt a calling to pursue her late brother’s unrealized dream of moving to Kelowna.

“I was offered a job in Kelowna, put my house in Penticton on the market and put an offer in on a house in Kelowna.”

But, as is life, things don’t always go as planned.

“Within two months, everything collapsed. The realtor didn’t have enough hours for me, the deal for the house in Kelowna collapsed and I was going through a divorce. At that point I thought, ‘Who the heck am I?’ In retrospect, it was a chance for me to stop being defined as a wife/daughter/professional, and figure out who I really was,” she says.

Over the next three years, Francesca immersed herself in a journey of self-discovery and healing. She delved deep into personal growth and the exploration of her strengths and passions—shedding layers of self-doubt and nurturing the seeds of self-love.

“Once I surrendered myself to that, things came together. I ended up buying a house in Kelowna and set up AMANTE Real Estate in Kelowna—everything fell into place,” Francesca says.

She became involved with Junior Chamber International (JCI), which provides leadership-training programs for youth, joining the board and eventually becoming the local chapter’s president. She has also served as a vice president on the national board for JCI Canada for the past three years. Her engagement with the organization—as well as her participation in the 2020 North American Academy in Washington, DC with JCI USA—deepened her connection to herself and her community, and even offered her the opportunity to step into her power as a speaker and leader.

One day, after sharing a post on Instagram about gratitude, an event leader from UBC Okanagan called her up. Intrigued by the raw vulnerability she saw in the post, she invited Francesca to be a speaker for a large gratitude event alongside TEDx speakers and inspiring leaders in Kelowna. Although initially plagued by doubts, Francesca took a leap of faith and the experience proved transformative; her speech resonated deeply with those who listened.

Standing before a captivated audience, sharing her rawest vulnerabilities and most pro-

“When I’m on stage, I feel like I’m actually helping people. It’s similar to how I used to feel on ice—profoundly free to be me.”

found truths, she felt an electric connection. It was in these moments that she discovered the true power of her voice and the transformative impact it could have on others.

Francesca explains, “When I’m on stage, I feel like I’m actually helping people. It’s similar to how I used to feel on ice—profoundly free to be me.”

Her innate ability to connect with audiences and inspire change quickly gained recognition. Winning prestigious speaking competitions, including JCI competitions, locally, regionally and nationally, her accomplishments culminated in a remarkable achievement—she was named the world runner-up speaker at the 2021 Conference of the Americas.

During her personal journey, Francesca has discovered her purpose: to bring people together, foster a sense of belonging and provide unwavering support. This realization gave birth to the AMANTE Talks Speaking Series, a platform Francesca created to organize events centred around shedding light on topics such as entrepreneurship, vulnerability and mental health. This in turn led to her creating the AMANTE Women’s Conferences, which have surpassed expectations in terms of attendance and impact. Francesca’s goal is simple—to let people know they too are seen and heard.

While Francesca admits to having moments where she doubts her profound gift, she continues to thrive. She has a busy schedule of speaking engagements, including an upcoming 2024 TEDx talk in Vancouver, a portfolio of luxury real estate clients, more AMANTE conferences on the horizon, and a wedding on the way (yes, she found love again!). Her journey serves as a beacon of hope, encouraging us all to walk out from the shadows of expectations and embrace our true selves.

She says, “You have the strength within you to overcome whatever obstacles you face. Embrace your uniqueness, find your voice and let your light shine. You deserve to be seen and heard.”

hot properties

QUICK FACTS

• 4,000-square-foot plantation-style main house

• 600-square-foot lanai (veranda) off the great room

• 3 bedrooms in main house, each with its own en suite

• Master has entrance to private outdoor shower off en suite

• Self-contained 400-squarefoot ohana apartment for parents or friends

• Swimming pool

• Storage for windsurfers, hydrofoils, surfboards

Paradise found

A BC interior designer’s multigenerational Hawaii getaway

WORDS LAURA GOLDSTEIN PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY HB DESIGNS

Flying above the frothy swells like some wild tropical bird on Maui’s North Shore, Jennifer Heffel is learning to wing foil. Standing on a hydrofoil board, she holds the colourful sail to get lift out of the ocean.

“It’s the most exhilarating feeling—you really feel like you’re flying,” she explains enthusiastically.

Accomplished surfers and windsurfers, both Jennifer and her husband Robert have been going to Maui for 29 years: “Since my daughter was 18 months old,” says Jennifer, co-founder and principal of North Vancouver’s HB Design.

So, when it came time to build a holiday home in Maui, she had two criteria: it must be close to the beach where wind and wave conditions are at their peak on the North Shore, which is the windsurfing capital of the world, and the property must reflect a generational family gathering place.

“My parents had a cottage at Lake of the Woods on the border of Manitoba and Ontario, and I come from a family of four sisters, so we all gathered there as kids and later with our own children and friends,” Jennifer explains.

That wonderful time of family get-togethers inspired her dream to build a home in Maui that would elicit those same fond memories and hopefully stay in the family for generations to come.

With the property located in residential Spreckelsville near the quaint town of Paia, it was pure serendipity to have an architect as a neighbour.

“In 2008 it was the perfect storm of good timing,” says Jennifer. “We purchased the property on a cul-de-sac, and we hired architect Jeffrey Lundahl and local builders who could bring my vision to fruition in 2010. Two years later we built an adorable 400-square-foot self-contained ohana (meaning “family” in Hawaiian) apartment on the property for my parents to stay in while visiting.”

With trade winds gusting at times up to 80 kilometres per hour in the area, the 4,000-squarefoot main house plus 600-square-foot “lanai” (like a veranda), is specifically designed in a U-shape around the swimming pool and courtyard to block the wind and any whirling sand.

For the house, Jennifer envisioned a traditional home based on a plantation style that originated in the early 1900s as pineapple and sugarcane homesteads in Hawaii. These homes are characterized by wide roofs, beamed ceilings, whitewashed interiors and languidly spinning ceiling fans that blend seamlessly with the Maui landscape.

“I wanted the house’s interior to feel like a beachy plantation home that feels comfortable with

just my small family of three, or 16 people visiting,” she explains. “That meant that I chose light-coloured floors so if someone came in with sand on their feet, who cares? You wouldn’t notice. Most of the furniture is slip-covered. In fact, I used a lot of beautiful indoor-outdoor fabrics so if someone spilled a drink or sat down in a wet bathing suit, no problem.”

Entering the Heffels’ home through the courtyard’s floor-to-ceiling glass doors, one immediately recognizes that it’s a stunning continuation of the vibrant exterior landscape. In considering the colours, Jennifer had gone down to the beach to photograph the ocean, sand, driftwood, shells and hibiscus flowers to give her interior palette a tropical punch of pinks and oranges from Hawaiian gardens, combined with the blues, chartreuse and aqua of the ocean and sea life.

A 30-foot-long abstract runner of swirling koi fish captures those hues along the breezeway that leads into the main house. Created by Burritt Bros. Carpet & Floors in Vancouver, it was made in Nepal and shipped directly to Maui. The other end of the breezeway is anchored by an Edward Burtynsky shipyard series photograph from Heffel Fine Art Auction House (where Robert is vice president).

Like many of the bespoke interiors Jennifer designs for clients, her vacation home reflects an airy elegance that is inviting rather than ostentatious. It’s no surprise that the Heffels love to cook and entertain here. The kitchen is defined by Shaker-style cabinetry with stainless steel hardware that she brought in from Spain.

Like

“I wanted the look to be simple and fresh and I didn’t want any upper cabinets anywhere,” she says. “I have that great pantry off the kitchen for storage. The island has the same cabinetry, and we put this sort of sea-foam-blue wash on the fir. And those pullup bar stools are like tractor seats that are molded to your behind and are really comfortable.”

Jennifer loves textured fabrics and draperies (even the high ceilings between the home’s beams are wallpapered in grasscloth). Her choice of the unusual Justine Stripe sheers, woven in Belgium by Opuzen, alternate from semi-transparent to solid. Hung in the dining area and great room, they perfectly frame the view looking out to the exterior pool and lanai.

“Yes, it was expensive, but it doesn’t fade or yellow under the intense heat here and it’s frankly one of the best investments of fabric I’ve ever made,” she says.

When Jennifer was working with the architect on the design of the house, she really wanted a dining area in which a table could accommodate up to 16 people.

The resulting choice “has breadboard ends so it can be extended—we’ve had a lot of really fun dinners there! The eight rattan chairs are from Crate & Barrel and the two wing chairs at either end are upholstered in leafy-patterned slipcovers, so if someone spills something, I just take them off to the dry cleaners,” she adds.

The great room that overlooks the spacious lanai is where the Heffel family congregates to watch films, sing along with the karaoke machine, and play board games in the evenings. Built-in light cabinetry and cosy slip-covered sofas exude a calming vibe, making it the perfect sanctuary to flop down and relax after a long day of beach sports. Pass the popcorn!

While the active couple heads down to the ocean daily to swim and windsurf, Jennifer says, “We really debated about putting in a pool because of the maintenance. But we realized that not everyone is a beach person. For instance, my parents who are in their 80s really like to just lounge and relax around the pool.”

The three bedrooms in the main house all have their own en

many of the bespoke interiors

Jennifer designs for clients, her vacation home reflects an airy elegance that is inviting rather than ostentatious.

suites and riff off the same beachy palette as the principal rooms, with striped fabric on the custom beds and headboards. Jennifer used a pebbled tile around the mirrors, backsplash and under the tubs and the floors of the walk-in showers. Off the master bedroom is a door leading to a private, heavenly outdoor shower.

“I’ve got tiki masks on the walls and big lava stones inside and what’s really funny is that we have never used the indoor shower once,” she laughs.

“We refer to our Maui vacation home as ‘our happy place,’ a legacy we hope our grandchildren will continue to enjoy.”

A MASTER-PLANNED COMMUNITY ARRIVES IN WEST KELOWNA FALL 2023

Set high above the horizon, Shorerise is an exclusive master-planned community that offers an elevated way of life. Inspired by the surrounding mountains, valley, Westside Wine Trail and Okanagan Lake below, this is a place where the architecture is distinctively Okanagan and the hillside trails offer a world of wonder outside your front door. Here, you’re only moments away from the beach, the lake, a round of golf, a hike or a glass of wine savoured with family and friends.

The gifts of Creativity fashion

PHOTOS BY LIA CROWE

STYLING BY SARAH D’ARCEY

Like the chaos from a scene in a Renaissance painting, art imitates life as life imitates art. Behind the scenes of a fashion shoot, things can be less than perfect in the pursuit of creating beauty. However, artistry always outshines everything, and the chaos has a beauty of its own. Blanche Macdonald Centre is the nesting ground for all things fashion and beauty and is responsible for nurturing some of Canada’s brightest fashion design talent. With the help of the fashion styling students, we highlight looks from three outstanding fashion design graduates—Rolla Summers, Amy Nunweiler and Daisy Cook—as we celebrate what’s happening in fashion right here in our own backyard.

On model: gown by Rolla Summers; shoes, Miu Miu from Turnabout Luxury Resale.

On Sarah (left): dress, stylist’s own; shoes, Isabel Marant from Turnabout Luxury Resale.

On model: jacket, pant an chaps by Amy Nunweiler; shoes, Mach & Mach from Turnabout Luxury Resale.

On rolling rack: butterfly gown by Rolla Summers.

Makeup and hair by Ksenia Ogolikhina. Model Hailey Poole.

Styling students: Tejal Anand, Sydney Winnicky-Hussey, Eurica Cuizon, Falak Kashyap, Ellison Nyback, Jay Carrillo, Klauris Wang, Hani Le Hoai, Nikki Mall, Carola Vidal Garza, Zohreh Rohi.

Photographed on location at Blanche Macdonald Centre’s atelier campus. A huge thank you to the school for hosting our fashion team for the day.

On model: jacket, bikini top, pant and bag by Daisy Cook; shoes, Manolo Blahnik from Turnabout Luxury Resale. Pink tulle gown, Chynna Mamawal Atelier.

Take a chance

Kelowna casino ramps up the fun, the food and the opportunities to win

Those of you who’ve been in the Okanagan for a few decades might remember the Kelowna Bingo Palace. The name was changed to Chances, and by 2005, the casino had added slot machines as well as off-track horse betting. The facility continued to entertain hundreds of thousands of guests every year, and then…COVID happened.

But that didn’t deter the owners. Instead, they took advantage of a government-mandated closure from March 2020 until July 1, 2021 and utilized the downtime to do some major renovations. Now, the 42,000-square-foot building has a new look and many more ways to have fun.

UPGRADES AND MODERN GAMING

“The main thing people notice about our upgrades is the gaming tables. All the new dealers are trained here, on site,” says Sean Quain, director of gaming operations. “We have blackjack, Ultimate Texas Hold ’Em, fast action poker, roulette and baccarat, with more to come soon.”

When you walk in the front door, Chances feels like a great place to meet friends and relax. There are slots and game tables out near the front entrance and the entire place gives a sense of spaciousness.

“We’ve kept many of our COVID-era spacing protocols, so it never feels crowded in here,” says Sean. “There are large walkways and spaces between slot machines. It’s a place that feels welcoming. You can come here and have some fun. Any time you go out, you spend money, and Chances gives you the opportunity to go out, have a good time and possibly end up with more money in your pocket at the end of the night.”

GOOD EATS AND DRINKS

Aside from slot machines, table games and off-track horse betting, you can also eat at Chances Casino Kelowna.

“We have excellent staff here and great variety,” says Sean. “The food is delicious and quite reasonably priced, especially when you consider where food prices are these days. You can eat at Longshots Lounge, Chances Bar or Chips Café.”

The café and lounge have different kitchens and different menus. Longshots has a regular menu, a brunch menu and a $10 lunch special. Chips also has a tasty-looking menu, with fish and chips, burgers, quesadillas, tacos and more.

There’s also a full-service bar on the main floor.

“We do have servers on the floor, but if you like, you can always come to the bar and grab a drink,” says Sean. “There’s horse racing on the main floor, and on big race days we also have it upstairs at Longshots Lounge.”

There are also special events, says Sean, like wine and paint nights, trivia and Saskatchewan Roughriders watch parties.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Another great thing about Chances? They are highly community-oriented.

“Community organizations that build Kelowna and the Okanagan Valley have always been top of mind for us,” Sean says. “We’re proud sponsors of Okanagan Sun Football, Kelowna Falcons Baseball Club, Shadow Ridge Golf Club Men’s League as well as the Central Okanagan Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, Kelowna Women’s Shelter, Mamas for Mamas, and the BC Children’s Hospital.”

The community involvement doesn’t end there. Chances Casino Kelowna is a big supporter of the Central Okanagan Hospice Association and festivals like Kelowna’s Parks Alive! summer concert series.

“We change our donations quarterly,” he said. “One quarter it might be the SPCA and the next, it might be the Burn Fund.

“Even if our guests don’t win, they can rest assured their money goes back into the community to support local causes.”

A total of 75 per cent of all money generated by the slots goes back into the community as regulated by BCLC.

MORE CHANCES TO WIN

It’s not all gambling and great food at Chances. The business also likes to give back to the guests in different ways.

All summer long, Chances offers a variety of promotions to say thank you to its customers.

Bored on a Monday night? Come to Chances for a live-hosted trivia night. The fun starts at 6 pm and you can win Longshots bucks and free play.

Do you bleed green? Roughrider nation, this is the place for you. Chances has food and drink specials during games, plus half-time giveaways.

“Wear your Rider’s green gear and we’ll give you $10 in free play,” says Sean. “When you purchase an entrée you are entered to win one of seven cash prizes.”

And if that isn’t enough, there’s one more prize that a lucky guest will win.

“We’re planning on giving away a one-of-akind, custom BMW R18 for our 21st anniversary this September,” says Sean.

Details on how to win are still to come, so stay tuned. For more info on Chances Casino Kelowna and all it offers, visit: chanceskelowna.ca

It’s a place that feels welcoming. You can come here and have some fun. Anytime you go out, you spend money, and Chances gives you the opportunity to go out, have a good time and possibly end up with more money in your pocket at the end of the night.”

lifestyles

Upcycle

Repurposing, visibly mending and creating sustainability in the fashion industry

WORDS LAURA GOLDSTEINWPHOTOGRAPHY LIA CROWE

W

hen the owners of upscale Victoria consignment fashion boutique House of Savoy filled their storefront window with mounds of used clothing on a recent Earth Day, it wasn’t a ploy for new business.

Rather, it was a not-so-subtle wake-up call for people to rethink tossing away clothing that will end up in a landfill. According to a study carried out by the University of Waterloo in 2023, Canadians dump close to a staggering 500 million kilograms (500,000 tons) of fabric clothing and shoes a year, many of which could be repaired, upcycled or consigned for reuse.

Enter the slow-fashion movement. While fast fashion is characterized by lower-quality, low-priced, mass-produced and machine-made garments, slow-fashion clothing is often handmade, better quality and higher priced; consumers pay more for quality items that last longer.

Other solutions to combat overconsumption and overproduction in the fashion industry include repurposing clothing in vintage and used-clothing stores, and using visible mending techniques to lengthen items’ lives.

Buying repurposed clothing initially started after the First World War, at a time when people had to recycle their clothes due to fabric shortages. How things have changed! But now, with the advent of slow-fashion awareness, people are questioning how clothing and textiles are made, as well as their environmental impacts.

“It’s trendy to buy vintage and consignment today, but we really saw an increase after COVID,” says Émilie Hamel, co-owner of House of Savoy, which is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year. “People wanted to make a bit of extra money and, in many cases, didn’t want to spend a lot for a work-at-home lifestyle.”

“And by consigning clothes, it’s kind of like an exchange: bring something in you’re not wearing anymore, and you get something in return,” adds co-owner Zenija Esmits. “And, when searching for vintage and antique pieces, people are looking for quality and so it’s also an investment.”

Demographics and social media have also changed fashion dictates for what women and men wear today.

“When we were growing up, we might have been influenced by a particular trend or celebrity. But today, young people know about the environment and are more concerned than our generation about where clothing comes from,” Émilie says. “Teens are very into original vintage ‘90s clothing probably made in the US at that time. We’ve had clients as young as 12 years old coming in with their parents to re-sell on consignment. Teens looking for vintage prom dresses is also very popular. We try to keep prices reasonable, and we have a big following of collectors outside of Victoria,” she adds.

With the booming film and television industry in BC, House of Savoy also attracts costumers and scouts for magazine fashion layouts.

On yearly buying trips to Paris and London, the intrepid pair scour thrift stores, charity shops and outdoor antique markets known as brocantes to discover one-of-a-kind treasures that may include Chanel and DIOR for their clients.

Visible mending is another area of slow fashion that the House of Savoy team embraces, noting on their website, “We believe that with a bit of TLC we can inject new life into what may have been an unloved item.” House of Savoy offers an in-house collection that features “thoughtful and fun repairs and embellishments on items.”

You may remember the hippie ’60s when it was groovy to customize

your old jeans and jean jackets with embroidery and colourful patches. The idiom “everything old is new again” rings true today more than ever with this growing craft.

“Visible mending is a slow-fashion art form that has its roots in Japanese sashiko, in which colourful embroidery is meant to highlight rips and tears, not cover them up,” explains Amy Walker, who teaches workshops in upcycling clothing with visible mending in Vancouver. Tiny stitches in swirling patterns and contrasting colours emblazon an up-cycled summer dress of Amy’s; her old coverall takes on a new life with the addition of vibrantly patterned patching, and holes in socks are treated to painterly multi-hued darning stitches.

Walker’s Experimending workshop at Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology (MOA) attracted over 30 hands-on participants of all ages, who each brought a previously worn piece of clothing to embellish. The class was followed by discussions on the historical role of visible mending practiced for centuries by mostly women in almost all cultures.

“If you love a piece of clothing but there’s a tear, no need to toss it out—just get creative and personalize it because it tells a story about you.”

Luxury brands and slow-fashion sustainability awareness don’t have to be mutually exclusive. However, sustainability does need to start from the top with fashion brands taking responsibility directly for sourcing fabrics and manufacturing their garments that in the long run will remain durable.

Senior apparel and textile sustainability strategist Myriam Laroche has carved out a niche career for herself as one of Canada’s most passionate supporters of sustainability and repurposing awareness in the fashion industry. The trailblazer was responsible for bringing 2017’s Eco Fashion Week to Vancouver, where she lived for 11 years. Now back in Quebec City, she recently launched her new agency Collective Détour that assists fashion brands in creating more sustainable futures.

“One of the ideas I worked on for national retailer Simons involved a discussion for a repurposing ‘take-back’ program, but frankly I think

education consultation

PURPOSE

Welcome to La Crème de la Crème. We are your skincare stepping stone. A place where you have product variety with guidance from certified skin specialists and their associates. We combine this with inboutique facial treatments to supplement your skin care routine while also offering luxurious bath & body products, candles, skin care accessories and more.

WHAT DO WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY PURPOSE?

You live in your skin for the entirety of your life and taking care of it is a key component to a healthy lifestyle. Understanding your skin and what it needs can be a little more complicated. When we say that purpose is a part of the process, we mean understanding the role each of your recommended products plays to protect your skin, keeping it healthy, and correcting any unwanted blemishes. Understanding the purpose gives a greater impact on your routine and can assist in the consistency of use, which is important to see results. Each product has a purpose and our job is to help you understand what that is.

each brand should be responsible for its own product recycling with a section on their websites to do so. Value Village has been a client of mine for 12 years and they actually pay not-for-profits by the pound for their clothes. That’s the investment they make to ensure that clothing and textiles don’t end up in a landfill,” says Myriam, also noting that the thrift store icon has opened Value Village Boutique on South Granville in Vancouver; it features two floors of repurposed designer and vintage fashions purchased through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada.

Slow fashion is also being embraced by Canadian designers like Vancouver-based Jason Matlo and Evan Ducharme, “who concentrate on creating smaller bespoke collections in response to fast fashion,” Myriam says.

International awareness to cut textile waste is gaining traction. France is introducing discounts for repurposing clothing to customers through subsidies to tailors, clothing brands and repair shops who join the free eco-initiative, Refashion. And as the slow-fashion movement gains traction, creative ideas are also gaining momentum. Imagine travelling to Japan without a suitcase, travelling in just the clothes you are wearing. Japan Airlines offers an innovative fashion option—renting your vacation clothes! Rental of preowned and end-of-stock apparel, including cleaning, can be reserved ahead on the website Any Wear, Anywhere, and then delivered to your hotel. Undergoing a one-year trial, the airline hopes rentals will cut down on carbon emissions from aircraft by reducing the weight of luggage and increase sustainable tourism.

The fashion is “slow,” but the ideas are coming in fast.

Buying repurposed clothing initially started after the First World War, at a time when people had to recycle their clothes due to fabric shortages.

Dress panel.

Mended coveralls.

Take it slow… and even slower Lessons from

in 2020 the world slowed down. It was a forced slowing down with heartbreak and consequences, but for some individuals, communities and even industries, there were profound lessons learned.

Certain folks found these lessons in their kitchens and gardens. With grocery shortages and restaurant shutdowns, many took togrowing their own produce and making their own meals. For the first time in a long time people had…time…and were increasingly drawn to cook methods that took up that time.

An oft-joked-about example of this was the sourdough spectacle, whereby novice cooks throughout the world became expert bakers, perfecting and comparing fermentation tips and bread-making tricks. Not only did this process require time, patience and a bit of an attachment to one’s abode to execute properly (it takes about 24 hours of feeding, folding, fermenting and forming, before actually popping the dough in the oven), but there was also a sense of connection and community that accompanied the exchange of pictures, recipes and even starters, as neighbours dropped bubbling jars-of-possibility on each other’s doorsteps.

Of course, the process of naturally fermenting bread didn’t begin in 2020. Sourdough is thought to be the most ancient form of leavened bread and was used throughout the Levant more than 5,000 years ago. In fact, “slow cooking” in general—whereby a dish takes many hours (even days) to cook—is integral to almost all indigenous cultures. Slow smoking, pit roasting and the use of earth ovens have been discovered archaeologically in almost every region of the world where humans have dwelt and is arguably one of the earliest forms of cooking.

As you might also imagine, growing one’s own food in the closest proximity possible, now perhaps a luxury reserved for those with roomy backyards or spacious patios, was essential to survival. In fact, cultivating, collecting, cooking and consuming wasn’t just a way of life, it was life, and almost every activity and interaction for

much of human existence revolved around these essential skills of survival.

To a great degree, we as a collective society have lost touch with our culinary and cultivating roots. Especially in North America, most store-bought food comes in plastic packaging, is shipped from all over the world, grown in overfarmed, biologically dead and nutrient-devoid soil, picked before peak ripeness, sprayed with all sorts of pesticides and preservatives, and then combined in recipes that boast the shortest prep and cook times. This is not a judgment statement. The demands of modern life for many leave little room (often literally) to grow one’s own produce, visit local farms, and spend hours a day preparing wholesome dinners. Even eating communally is a rare occasion for many; meals are often inhaled while working or watching TV, even while running errands or commuting. Access to time and space is a rare commodity these days, and for far too many, simple access to certain ingredients is impossible, especially in spaces known as “food desserts.”

However, when and where possible, trailblazers have been working hard to rectify this. One in particular is Carlo Petrini, who in 1986 founded Slow Food International in Bra, Italy. As stated on the website (slowfood.com), the goal is to “prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us.”

This now global organization has inspired many more communities, groups and individuals to advocate for what is commonly referred to as the slow food movement, recognizing that “through our food choices we can collectively influence how food is cultivated, produced and distributed, and change the world as a result.” While slow-food and other like-minded organizations have thoughtful and meaningful manifestos, outlining key philosophies and providing action steps for international markets, world leaders and changemakers, there are also important and impactful practices for the individual.

The first step is exploring at-home or community gardening. Not only does this create an immediate connection with, and deeper appreciation for, the food we eat, but from an environmental perspective, it decreases the devastating demands of monocropping and mass farming, significantly reducing the harmful impact of these problematic practices, while simultaneously ensuring more nutrient-dense and delicious ingredients in the kitchen.

If you’ve ever picked a tomato fresh from a vine or plucked a snap pea soaking in the sunshine, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Nothing compares flavour-wise. Researchers have also seen substantial increases in mental and physical health when research subjects start gardening, as highlighted poignantly in The Well-Gardened Mind by psychiatrist Sue Stuart-Smith.

The next step to reconnecting with our culinary ancestry is by spending more time in the kitchen. If this feels boring, daunting or lonely, you could try listening to a podcast while you prep, inviting friends and neighbours over to make meals together, and getting your family involved, especially young children. Make cooking (and even cleaning up) the activity, not a dreaded means to a rushed end. Another aspect of this essential return is simply slowing down the process of cooking itself. Take a note

from our ancestors: turn the heat down low…and even lower. Take it slow…and even slower. Let the flavours mix, meld and develop over sweet time. Savour the process as well as the end goal. Marvel over how a goopy little mess of microbes, with ample care and connection, can over time develop into a moist, crusty, warm and satisfying loaf of love.

While 2020 may feel like a distant memory, there are lessons we can lean into in our once again fast-paced world—perhaps in glorious resistance to our fast-paced world! Dust off those Dutch ovens and casserole dishes. Resurrect your long-forgotten sourdough starter, or better yet, ask around if any friends, family, colleagues or neighbours have a currently active starter that they can pass along. Share recipes, exchange tips, get the conversation about food, flavours, ingredients and methods going again. Get your hands dirty. Make your aprons messy. Marvel at how some little seeds turn into gardens full of delight. Catch a waft of pleasure as you tenderly clip a handful of thyme or sprig of rosemary. Get back in your kitchen. Cook with love. Eat with appreciation. Sink into each bite. Take it slow…and even slower.

The first step is exploring at-home or community gardening.

Rustic Sourdough with Honey and Rye

Ingredients

100 g sourdough starter (fed and bubbly)

250 g bread flour

200 g rye flour (darker or light rye is fine)

350 g water

25 g honey

10 g fine sea salt

Directions

STEP 1: AUTOLYSE

Weigh out your sourdough starter, water and honey into a large bowl.

Mix them together briefly. Then add your rye flour, bread flour and salt, and mix together with a wooden spoon or spatula (the dough will seem fairly shaggy and only just combined).

Cover your bowl with a damp tea towel and let it sit for one hour, until it’s fully hydrated and more smooth-looking.

STEP 2: STRETCHING AND FOLDING

Work your way around the bowl, grabbing the dough from the outside, stretching it up and over itself until a rough ball is formed. This will take about 20-25 folds to form the rough “ball” (keep in mind rye flour will make the dough stickier than you’re used to, so the shape might be a bit looser than expected).

Place the tea towel back over the bowl and let the dough rest for about 30 minutes.

Repeat this step for a total of four stretch-and-folds over a twohour period.

STEP 3: BULK FERMENTATION

After you’ve completed all your stretch-and-folds, place the tea towel back over your dough and let it rest and ferment.

*Note: the time this takes will depend on the temperature of your home. If your home is warm, then your dough will ferment faster and could be done in as little as a few hours. If it’s colder, it will take longer, possibly overnight. You’re looking for the dough to just about double in size, but not more (that means it’s over-fermented).

STEP 4: SHAPING THE DOUGH

Once the first ferment is complete, prepare a banneton or a bowl lined with a dry tea towel (whether using a banneton or lined bowl, make sure it’s not too wide so as to maintain the shape of the dough) and dust it liberally with flour (I use rice flour for this, as that seems to be a common recommendation).

Lightly flour your counter (also with the rice flour) and use a dough scraper to gently ease the dough out of the bowl. Then use a combination of the scraper and your hands (or just your hands) to gently form the dough into a tight round shape. *Note: if you’ve never done this before, I recommend looking up an online video tutorial.

Once the dough is shaped, place it into your banneton or bowl smooth side down, so the seam is on the top.

STEP 5: COLD FERMENT

Cover the banneton or bowl loosely with a tea towel and place into the fridge.

Try to leave it in the fridge for a minimum of five hours up to a maximum of 36 hours.

*Note: A longer cold ferment creates lovely blisters on your crust and a deeper sourdough flavour. It will also help your dough form a bit of a skin, which makes it easier to score.

STEP 6: BAKING

Once you’re ready to bake your sourdough, you’ll need to preheat your oven to 450 F.

Place your Dutch oven into the oven when you turn it on so it gets hot. Cut a piece of parchment paper big enough to use the edges as a “handle” to lower the dough into your Dutch oven when ready. Leave your dough in the fridge until the last minute (placing this dough cold into a hot oven will give it a better spring). When ready, take your sourdough out of the fridge and carefully place it onto the parchment paper.

Score your bread with a sharp razor blade or knife.

Mindfully take your hot Dutch oven out of the oven, place the dough into the pot using the parchment paper as a handle, smooth out any wrinkles/folds in the paper, put the lid on and place into the hot oven.

Bake for 30 minutes with the lid on at 450 F, and then another 15 minutes or so with the lid off at 410 F (the crust will be quite dark, and when tapped, the loaf will have a bit of a hollow sound).

Remove the Dutch oven from the oven, then remove the sourdough loaf and place it on a wire rack to cool. You’ll need to allow this bread a bit longer to cool due to its higher moisture content (if you try to slice into it too quickly, it might be gummy).

*Note: If you prefer a less crusty loaf, wrap in a tea towel and let it cool under that.

AMANTE TALKS

Take a note from our ancestors: turn the heat down low…and even lower. Take it slow…and even slower. Let the flavours mix, meld and develop over sweet time. Savour the process as well as the end goal. Marvel over how a goopy little mess of microbes, with ample care and connection, can over time develop into a moist, crusty, warm and satisfying loaf of love.

FEED YOUR IMAGINATION

Balsamic Thyme Pot-Roast with Parsnips, Carrots, Fennel and Onion

Ingredients

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

One 3-pound chuck roast

About ¼ cup olive oil, divided

1 large onion, peeled and roughly sliced

2 large fennel bulbs, trimmed and roughly sliced

4 medium-large carrots, peeled and cut in half longways

4 medium-large parsnips, peeled and cut into quarters longways

4 cloves of garlic, peeled

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

3 cups beef broth

3 sprigs fresh rosemary

3 sprigs fresh thyme

Directions

Preheat the oven to 275 F. Generously salt and pepper the chuck roast. Heat some olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onions to the pot, lightly sautéing them until slightly golden brown before transferring them to a plate.

Add a bit more olive oil and add the carrots and parsnips into the same pot and toss them around until slightly browned, about a minute or so. Place the carrots and parsnips with the onions. Do the same with the fennel and garlic and add to the other reserved veggies.

Once again, add a bit more olive oil and place the meat in the pot and sear it for about a minute on all sides until it is lightly brown all over. Transfer to a plate.

With the burner still on medium, use some beef broth to deglaze the pot, scraping the bottom with a wooden spatula or spoon. Place the roast back into the pot and add enough beef stock to cover the meat halfway. Add in the veggies, garlic and the fresh herbs, and drizzle everything evenly with the balsamic vinegar.

Put the lid on, then roast for three hours for a three-pound roast. The roast is ready when it’s fall-apart tender.

Blackberry Nectarine Crumble with Honey and Thyme

Ingredients

For the base…

4 cups sliced nectarines (you’ll want them to be ripe and juicy)

2 cups fresh or thawed blackberries

Juice of one lemon

2 tbsp honey

1 loose tbsp fresh thyme

For the topping…

1 cup ground almonds

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

½ cup chopped raw pecans

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp sea salt

¼ cup honey

½ cup unsalted butter, melted

Directions

Preheat the oven to 275 F.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the base ingredients. Transfer to a baking dish (about eight cups or two litres in volume).

In the same mixing bowl, combine the ground almonds, oats, nuts, spices and salt. Then add the honey and butter and stir until well combined. Spread the topping over the fruit.

Bake for 1 to 1.5 hours, until the topping begins to brown and the fruit below is bubbling.

Serve warm with ice cream, whipped cream or simply on its own!

*Note: If you notice that the top is cooking a tad too fast and over-browning before the fruit is bubbling, take it out, cover your baking dish with tinfoil and pop it back into the oven.

Sage Water

NATURE INSPIRED LIVING ARRIVES IN KELOWNA’S UPPER MISSION NEIGHBOURHOOD

FALL 2023

Nestled into the mountain hillside of Kelowna’s Upper Mission neighbourhood, Sage Water is steeped in history and rich in memory making. This is a place where wetland exploration comes naturally, and wildlife trails stand as a testament to the connection between the people and wildlife who enjoy this land to the fullest extent.

Surf, turf & sustainability

The magic of Antarctica— responsibly

ith climate change in our face every day, you might think twice about visiting Antarctica. It takes multiple flights totalling 17-plus hours in the air from the west coast just to reach the bottom of South America. From there, you either fly another two hours to the Antarctic Peninsula, or you board your boat for a two-day crossing of the Drake Passage. Whatever you decide, it’s a long way.

And yet Antarctica was my dream destination, a place I’ve been pining to visit since long before those two sinister C-words sneaked into our vocabulary.

How could I do it responsibly?

For starters, I would choose a cruise line that is 100 per cent carbon neutral. Then I would pick a fuel-efficient ship with features that reduce emissions. Finally, I would look for a company that offers active adventures so I could make the most of every day. (The fact I adopted a plant-based diet 18 months

earlier would help ease the guilt of travel too.)

Aurora Expeditions, a company that’s been operating for more than 32 years, checks all the boxes. Certified carbon neutral (it invests in biodiversity in Australia and a wind farm in Taiwan), Aurora operates two ships with streamlined designs and an innovative bow—the Ulstein X-BOW®—that allows ships to slice through waves rather than riding up and over them. (The X-BOW also means a smoother sailing.)

I chose a 10-day cruise aboard Aurora’s newest ship, the Sylvia Earle, named for the renowned oceanographer and described as “a floating ambassador for the conservation of the planet.” It’s got a fully equipped Citizen Science Lab where guests can help scientists analyze data or contribute their own. For instance, guests are encouraged to photograph and identify marine mammals for happywhale.com, an organization that helps contribute to our collective understanding of the world’s oceans.

The Sylvia Earle also has an enormous “garage” filled with equipment so it can offer activities including snorkeling, kayaking and ski touring.

I thought “sustainable” and “climate conscious” might mean a boat with just the basics, so boarding the Sylvia Earle was both a relief and a revelation.

My “standard” cabin had a king-size bed as well as a small sitting area and balcony. Public spaces on the vessel included a wellstocked library, several bars and lounges, a couple of restaurants, two outdoor Jacuzzis, a gym and a sauna with a picture window.

Soon after boarding, the 12 of us who signed up for the snorkeling program were called to a briefing. We’d snorkel twice a day with three guides watching us from two Zodiacs.

We’d be the first group to leave the ship each morning and afternoon. And we’d have time each day to explore on land as well as underwater.

In other words, daily surf and turf!

An added benefit of snorkeling, I soon realized, was that I immediately had a group of like-minded people to hang out with, most of us age 60 or older.

Snorkeling in Antarctica doesn’t feel quite as crazy as it sounds. We wear dry suits and underneath mine, I wore three or four layers of lightweight wool. The water temperature is about the same as the air—between 1 and 4 degrees Celsius, but without the wind chill. When I lowered myself over the side of the Zodiac into the Southern Ocean for the first time, it felt like someone was sticking pins and needles into my face, which was the only exposed part of my body.

But I became so enthralled by the colour and clarity around me that I soon forgot about the pain. The water in the Weddell Sea off the Antarctic Peninsula is intensely blue and crystal clear. It’s thought to be the clearest and cleanest water on the planet.

Two fur seals soon joined in our fun, swimming elegant circles around us, their lithe bodies torquing and twisting with ease. They must look at us in our puffy dry suits and wonder, “What are these strange, awkward-looking creatures?”

In the days ahead, we’d also be captivated by Adelie penguins that “fly” past us at breakneck speed in tight formation. Each time, it felt like they were staging an underwater aerial display just for us.

Small creatures surprised and delighted us too. Tiny translucent sea angels and sea butterflies are pteropods—swimming snails and slugs that appear to have wings.

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When I lowered myself over the side of the Zodiac into the Southern Ocean for the first time, it felt like someone was sticking pins and needles into my face, which was the only exposed part of my body. But I became so enthralled by the colour and clarity around me that I soon forgot about the pain.

“Once you start noticing these little creatures you’re going to be like, ‘Oh my God...this is incredible,’” said Ana, one of our guides.

“It opens the door to another world,” agreed Edie, her colleague.

One day, I spotted a long, gelatinous tube about the length of my forearm with orange dots along its body. It was a salp, also known as a sea squirt because of the way it propels itself by drawing water in, then squirting it out. Each of the orange dots was a stomach, Edie told me in the lounge that evening over drinks.

“And the neat thing is, they take in carbon dioxide and poop it out and it sinks to the ocean floor.”

Later, I learned that salps and their sinking fecal pellets “play an outsize role in damping global warming,” according to a February 2023 study reported in the research news site ScienceDaily.

Compared with suiting up and plunging into water that’s barely above freezing, our daily walks on land seemed tame. But Antarctica was all that I imagined and hoped for: wind-sculpted icebergs, mountains encased in glaciers, historic huts of early explorers, the rusting storage tanks of a long-abandoned whaling station, and most of all, colonies of braying, honking, squawking penguins, so numerous that on one island there was no room for us to land.

It’s true that travel is the best teacher. And after visiting Antarctica, I’m more passionate than ever about doing my bit to combat climate change.

For more about Aurora Expeditions, see aurora-expeditions.com

secrets and lives — AND THE 7 SINS with MEGAN LINDOW

or Megan Lindow, family and business have been the two unshakable pillars in her life for as far back as she can remember. Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, Megan grew up in northern BC where her family ran a sawmill with her grandparents, aunt and uncle. But things changed dramatically when they moved to the Okanagan when she was 15.

“My dad is very entrepreneurial, and his sense of timing is almost like a superpower,” she says with a laugh, explaining that after the move, the family changed directions into the wellness industry. “My parents own Melt Mineral Spa, and that’s something we kind of fell into.”

Megan, who started in the marketing and social media department, was instantly drawn in and intrigued by the various treatments for challenging skincare issues.

“I didn’t believe in trying to sell something to somebody that I didn’t understand,” she says, and so she spent many hours learning all she could about the products and treatments. “Every year we’d take the entire staff from Melt to the annual spa trade show, and that’s how I found and fell in love with skincare and taking care of people’s skin.”

Megan had always talked about having a designated retail space, and when an opportunity came up in late 2019, they jumped at the chance to open La Crème de la Crème Skin Care Boutique.

Now, with Megan at the helm, La Crème has become a destination for luxury skincare products and treatments, and Megan is in heaven.

“La Crème is my absolute baby,” she enthuses. “I get to pick all the skincare lines we bring in and all the extras we bring in.”

She spends alternating weeks in Penticton working in the treatment rooms with her clients, and then in Port Coquitlam with her husband, managing all the other aspects of the business.

“My role is very big, but I love it,” she says. “I love the busyness, because it’s good for me.”

And Megan isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

“I’m starting a podcast, and I’m currently working on the third edition of our own in-house magazine,” she says. “We have a second location that’s just about finished in West Bank, and we’re looking at another location in Port Coquitlam.”

The 7 Sins

ENVY:

Whose shoes would you like to walk in?

No one. We all have our journeys and our stories, and what we put out for people to see isn’t always 100 per cent of who we are.

GLUTTONY:

What is the food you could eat over and over again?

So many things. I love food and have been cooking and baking since I was very young. Top three, in no particular order, are sushi, vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting, and loaded tater tots.

GREED:

You’re given $1 million that you have to spend selfishly. What would you spend it on?

Always a Disney trip. And I would take so many people with me and be so excited to say, “I got this. It’s on me.” With $1 million I’d visit every Disney park around the world in one big trip.

WRATH: Pet peeves?

I think I probably cause more pet peeves in other people than I actually have myself. But [one is] the way my little sister skips through episodes of shows to only watch the storyline she is interested in. Excuse me, there’s a whole show to watch, not just these two characters!

SLOTH:

Where would you spend a long time doing nothing?

My bed. I like to be comfy, and I’ve made my bed my comfy spot. I’m very all or nothing, so when I work, I’m on my feet all the time. So, on the opposite side, if I don’t have to be on my feet, I’m not.

PRIDE:

What is the one thing you’re secretly proud of?

My little sister. Secretly because most people hear me tease her or complain about her (especially as she made my pet peeves), but she’s a very cool character. She plays music by ear and has observational skills to rival top spies. And if she wants something in life— whether it’s getting a volleyball game together or travelling to Italy or moving to a new place—she makes it happen. She is a force.

LUST:

What makes your heart beat faster?

My husband, 100 per cent. We just celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary, and I can very candidly say he still gives me butterflies. I don’t have words for how that man makes me feel.

A very close second is a good blackhead extraction. I’m obsessed with them.

AUGUST 10/22: THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

I’ll skip details about a frazzled morning with kids and grandkids off to Rome. Leaving everyone except Mark and me. He drove half of them into the train station in Arezzo with the others following. Alone with the sounds of the dishwasher and wash machines, the emptiness hits. Now what?

It will be hot, so I close doors and windows against the noon sun. This VRBO villa is perfect for our family, but too quiet for two. The three-storey house sits on the edge of town between vineyards and the Tuscan Hills and Apennine Mountains in the distance. There’s not another soul in sight, and tonight it will be just us and the night noises.

When Mark returns, we plan the next few days, alone. The void fills with anticipation as we drive to Pieve Santo Stefano, home to the Little Diary Museum. Pieve is an unassuming town of 3,320 but was once loved by Lorenzo de’ Medici. Located 70 kilometres east of Florence, Pieve must have offered refuge from mosquitoes and heat, and relief from political intrigue. During the Second World War, the town was evacuated and razed by the fleeing Nazis. Only the former palace and a few churches hint at its ancient charm. Each year the town and museum host a three-day event to announce the winner of the best diary of the year.

Mark knows I journal and found us this unusual, out-of-the-way museum to explore.

Who reads the diaries of other people? Are diaries and journals the same? Why do I think diaries are the more scandalous form of auto-writing? And what country collects the diaries of its ordinary citizens as part of its national archive?

We drove through a narrow river valley in a forest reserve with steep mountains that was more like BC than the Tuscany of countless books or movies. Where are the pastel towns, domes, towers and endless vineyards?

When we arrive, our introduction to the Little Diary Museum starts in the hot office of one of the historians. Mark and I are embarrassingly unilingual so the guide provides a personalized tour in English. We will not be able to read any of the diaries and once again, I regret my inability to learn other languages.

The strangeness of the day wears off, replaced by the magic of the museum. Hours evaporate as we hear stories that are the “accidental social history of everyday Italians.” There’s the story about a solider and his love, a memoir by an architect who was the victim of a terrorist attack in 1970, a Jewish man who writes about fascist racial laws in Italy, and a farmer from Naples remembering his years in a Siberian prison.

A narrow corridor houses the overflowing Memory Wall. The alphabetized 20-drawers are filled with ephemera: mementos, letters, drawings, photos and postcards and, when opened, a voice. Actors were enlisted to read each diary to give voice to that story. Did I mention there are currently over 10,000 diaries?

The term diary is used in the broadest sense, as some are no more than scraps of paper. There are those smuggled out of the infamous Regina Coeli prison in Rome where 335 prisoners were held and executed by the SS. Among them was 17-year-old Orlando Posti, student and partisan, who rolled notes into his shirt collars which his mother collected for laundering. He wrote about his dreams and desire to become a doctor, about his girlfriend, but not the war or life in a closet-like cell with four other men.

In a windowless, air-controlled room, behind glass is the Bedsheet Diary of Clelia Marchi. A peasant woman who lacked paper to tell her story, she used an embroidered linen bedsheet that was part of her trousseau. In tiny neat writing she filled the sheet from top to bottom, pouring out her grief over the death of her husband of 60 years.

A closet-like room is dedicated to the eccentric founder, Saverio Tutino, a journalist. In 1984 when he was searching for a home for his papers, he asked in a national paper if other Italians had a diary in a drawer somewhere. If so, he said, do not let it become mouse food.

Diaries began to flow in and continue to arrive at the museum at the rate of nearly 200 a year. According to Edward Posnett, in The Guardian, “All are accepted and read regardless of pedigree or literary merit.” He said Tutino collected the “unwanted, forgotten and awkward documents to create a type of literary salvage,” which were alphabetized, catalogued, archived and taken out only a few times a year.

This all changed in 2007, when actor and playwright Mario Perrotta visited the museum for its 25th anniversary. Upon discovering the archived diaries, he spearheaded the drive for a permanent site to display the collection. In his book, The City of Diaries, Perrotta commented that the alphabetical nature of the catalogue forced people into an “eternal closeness,” in which “enforced cohabitation might place a fascist whose surname begins with F next to a freedom fighter whose surname begins with G.”

Both Tutino and Perrotta imagined the diaries moving about at night to free themselves to search for similar stories to share.

Back in our villa, I imagine the drawers on the Memory Wall gliding open after hours and in the inky darkness, luminous beings, flitting about like fireflies, filling the air with rustling, gurgling and voiceless babbling sounds until dawn.

Suddenly, a loud BANG comes from somewhere in the dark of our almost empty villa…

AUGUST 11/22: THE “RUSTLING OF OTHERS”

Daylight chases away my irrational fears, though my imagination ran wild last night. Awake long after Mark, in the dark, the loud noise made my heart race and didn’t make sense. The gate was locked, the kitchen grate was closed and the massive front doors were barred with a four-foot arm. If this had been a movie, someone would investigate the shadowy halls and dank cellar—but not me. I stayed put, turned on all the lights and a comedy on TV to lull myself to sleep.

Now in the light, armed with coffee, I search for the source of last night’s noise. I expect to find a wounded bird and broken vase on the second floor, where there’s a large fireplace with a chimney open to the elements. We’ve already chased out stray birds and mad hornets.

There’s nothing out of place when I check, so I return to my journaling outside. While collecting my train of thoughts about my last entry, I absentmindedly notice that the patio is damp. Tutino described the sound of the diaries moving about in the museum at night this way: “There is a type of special noise, a rustling sound of sprouts pushing up from the Archive after all these years… filled with the stories of Italians.”

Rustling, like the word susurrus, is a whispering noise. Not like the one I heard last night, but more like the soft breeze stirring the trees now. Looking up, I see an open shutter on the second floor. Ah, mystery solved! The wind must have come up to catch an unsecured shutter and slam it against the house, startling me.

I finish writing and close my sunflower-yellow journal as it’s time to explore another hilltop town. My thoughts linger on the role diaries play in preserving history and what happens to the “visceral first-hand accounts” of everyday people? Umberto Eco says, “to survive, we must tell stories” and our diaries and journals are home to some of those stories. What will become of them?

Who will mind your diary?

behind the story

Boulevard magazine and Blanche Macdonald Centre joined forces for this edition with an on-site fashion photoshoot at the school’s Atelier campus. Led by Sarah D’Arcey, Boulevard’s fashion stylist and a fashion styling instructor at Blanche Madonald, the shoot was aided by the school’s fashion directors Tyler Udall and Sara Armstrong, and showcased the new designs of three exciting Vancouver designers: Rolla Summers, Daisy Cook and Amy Nunweiler. All three graduates recently debuted their collections at Vancouver Fashion Week.

Working with Boulevard photographer Lia Crowe, the stylists and directors built the fashion story around Renaissance paintings, set in the modern day.

Says Sarah: “I teach my students about the importance of being on time, what it is like to work on set with a team, and set etiquette. I wanted to give them a real-life experience so they could see what it is like to work as a stylist on a magazine job. I also strongly believe in supporting Canadian fashion, so highlighting Blanche Macdonald’s designers was an important part of this shoot.”

PHOTO BY LIA CROWE

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