Boulevard Magazine - July/August 2010 Issue

V

BOULE ARD JULY/AUGUST

THE MAGAZINE OF URBAN LIVING

THE ARTS PEOPLE FOOD HOMES

A HAVEN and a home for healing SEE THE PRETTY FISH at a glass art show or live on a water garden tour THE

BARE ESSENTIALS Nudist camp must-knows HOT PROPERTIES A Salt Spring home

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WRY EYE Look over there! Why that’s Ed Bain on the ferry, and he is unsupervised

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BOULEVARDcontents

VOLUME XX ISSUE 5 JULY/AUGUST 2010

features 14 MID-LIFE ATHLETES You’re not getting older — you’re getting faster

By Tom Hawthorn 24 A HOME TO HEAL THE HEART Hoteliers build a home while enduring family loss

By Shannon Moneo 30 COMFORTABLE IN THEIR SKIN Sol Sante’s nudists in Cowichan bare all

By Anna Kemp 56 ALL THAT JAZZ Hermann’s keeps the jazz groove going

By Rick Gibbs

departments

62 FRONT ROW Emily Carr comes home to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in an exhibit of 60 paintings; watergardens are on show in a fundraising homes tour; the Vancouver Island MusicFest gets funky in Courtenay-Comox; the Other Guys Theatre Company delves into the masculine world of logging, and much more

By Robert Moyes 70 HOT PROPERTIES Leading the way on Salt Spring with an environmentally friendly home.

By Katherine Gordon

12 CONTRIBUTORS Meet some of our talented writers 42 CREATIVE MINDS Michael Burke spins gold with his Victoria-based Cordova Bay record label

By Tristin Hopper

116

104 TRAVEL NEAR Mount Albert Edward. Rugged but accessible, this mountain’s for climbing

By Jason Brown 108 TRAVEL FAR A life-enhancing, and sometimes life-threatening, trip to India

By Rick Gibbs

30

120 DINING OUT So many patios, so little summertime

By Elizabeth Levinson 126 SECRETS AND LIES Heating up the atmosphere with Andrew Weaver

By Shannon Moneo

70 56

10 EDITOR’S LETTER Finding a home to call your own 11 LETTERS to the EDITOR Your take on us

90

112 LIBATIONS The art and skill of pairing wine with food

By Sharon McLean

90 HOT DESIGN Tap into the earth and ambient air to heat and cool your home

By Steve Carey 96 TECHNOLOGIA Rejuvenate that old computer

By Darryl Gittins

116 EATING IN Save that fruit bounty in a delicious compote

By Elizabeth Levinson

100 BOULEVARD BOOK CLUB A bevy of beach reads

By Adrienne Dyer ON OUR COVER: A detail of artist Brian Kelk’s Fish in a Bag. His playful glass fish are part of the annual West End Gallery Glass Art Show. See Front Row, page 62.

Photo by Vince Klassen.

columns 20 HAWTHORN Giving thanks on Canada Day

By Tom Hawthorn 40 STATE OF THE ARTS What did the 2010 Olympics do for BC arts? Not much

By Alisa Gordaneer 124 THE WRY EYE Our new columnist turns his gaze on BC Ferries

By Ed Bain

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Life is about more than money.

editor

FROM OUR

Poet Maya Angelou once wrote: “I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”

I have found myself in hundreds of places over the years, from flea-ridden hostels to luxury hotels, from cozy apartments to well-appointed houses. I even spent months, twice, living in tiny trailers in Northern BC. In some of those spots I felt at home — but not all.

Now, after 28 years as a journalist, I find myself here on the pages of Boulevard as Managing Editor. Fortunately, it does feel like home — thanks to the talented team alongside me and to the fact that, as Associate Editor this past year, I have been slipstreaming behind Vivian Smith, learning from her deft editing style. When we decided to switch positions this spring, it felt as fluid as cyclists in the Tour de France changing leaders in the peleton.

Feeling at home is a recurring theme in this issue. Writer Anna Kemp put aside her trepidations (and her clothing) to spend time with those comfortable in their own skin at the Sol Sante nudist club in Cobble Hill, soon finding herself at home among their warm community. Writer Rick Gibbs explores how Hermann Nieweler has made a home for top jazz musicians and their appreciative audiences. Our Hot Properties feature details how a Salt Spring couple created an environmentally-friendly home they will feel content in for lifetime. And finally, Shannon Moneo’s moving story tells how pre-eminent hoteliers, Fredrique and Sinclair Philip of Sooke Harbour House, created a home of their own while enduring family tragedy.

In this issue we say a temporary goodbye to Public Citizen columnist Ross Crockford, whose insightful writing we hope will be back on our pages soon. And we are delighted to welcome radio and TV personality Ed Bain and his new column, The Wry Eye. So please sit back and enjoy this issue’s offerings. I hope you find yourself at home in the pages of Boulevard.

Please write to us with your stories of “home.”

See page 101 for more details.

Anne Mullens Managing Editor Victoria Boulevard welcomes your letters. Please include your name, address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for brevity and/ or clarity. Write to Letters, 1845B Fort Street, Victoria, BC, V8R 1J6, or you can e-mail us at editor@victoriaboulevard.com. Check out our website: victoriaboulevard.com. VB

10 victoriaboulevard.com

Boyd_Boulevard_Mar10_b

letters

The Mighty Uke Many thanks to Tom Hawthorn for highlighting the revival of the ukulele (May/June). Readers may like to know that the largest youth ukulele group on the Island is based in Victoria: the School District #61 Island Ukuleles.

This talented group from 12 middle and high schools regularly entertains audiences locally and performs around the world - including Hawaii!

Penny Stevens President, Island Ukuleles Music Society Saanich Politics still personal What a treat to see your cover story and great cover photo (May/June issue) — and how very timely. Denise Rudnicki’s nuanced article reminds us all of the ongoing importance of the early

groundwork done by SWAG and other groups who showed us how the personal was political. The article reminds us how far we’ve come . . . but also now with the Harper government’s recent reactionary stance on not supporting abortion as part of their maternal health initiatives as well as their recent cutbacks to women’s groups it reminds us of how much there still is to do.

Heather MacAndrew Victoria Closer to home Thanks for a couple of things.

I’ve lived in James Bay for the past 30+ years, and worked here for the last 6.

I often missed the latest issue when I couldn’t get downtown at the right time, so I was very pleased to see the brand new box right on Menzies Street with the May/June issue.

I’ve always enjoyed Boulevard, mainly for the beautiful design and great photos. I’ve noticed more and more substantive articles appearing recently, a very positive change in my mind. And you’ve added some great regular items, like the Technologia page, and the column by Tom Hawthorn.

Keep up the good work!

Jane Taylor Victoria

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Page 2

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victoriaboulevard.com 11

BOULEVARD THE MAGAZINE OF URBAN LIVING the arts people food homes

President John Simmons Vice President & Publisher Peter Baillie VP Finance Melissa Sands Associate Publisher Linda Hensellek Managing Editor Anne Mullens Associate Editor Vivian Smith Art Director Jaki Jefferson Production Jaki Graphics, Kelli Brunton Principal Photographers Gary McKinstry, Vince Klassen Advertising Linda Hensellek, Alicia Cormier Pat Montgomery-Brindle Debbie Alcadinho Administration Coordinator Janet Dessureault Pre-press Kelli Brunton Printing Central Web 46,000 copies of Victoria Boulevard ® are published bimonthly by Boulevard Lifestyles Inc. Mailing address:1845B Fort Street, Victoria, BC V8R 1J6. Tel: 250-598-8111. Fax: 250-598-3183.

E: info@victoriaboulevard.com W: victoriaboulevard.com Victoria Boulevard ® is a registered trademark of Boulevard Lifestyles Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the publisher’s written permission.

Printed in Canada.

OURCONTRIBUTORS ED BAIN is the long-time, well-loved “Weather Guy”

on CHEK TV and the host of The Q Morning Show (100.3 The Q) who for years has been heavily involved in community and charity events in Greater Victoria and on Vancouver Island. The winner of several broadcasting awards, including the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Gold Ribbon Award for Radio Humour, Bain now brings his unique wit to our new column The Wry Eye. DARRYL GITTINS, our popular technology writer, gives tips in Technologia on how to get a sluggish old computer running faster. On some days, Gittins might have a dozen computers running, of which the oldest is a six-year-old laptop he recently cleaned and restored. “I am quite happy with how it’s working.

It’s like getting a new system for free.”

ANNA KEMP is a local freelance writer and

photographer. A retired world traveller, Kemp now enjoys adventuring close to home. Visiting Sol Sante was definitely an adventure. “The grueling hours in the hot tub were taxing,” she says, “but I should be recovered in time for the World Naked Bike Ride.”

ELIZABETH LEVINSON is a food writer and the

award-winning author of Getting Fresh in and Around Victoria; the Guide to Going Organic and An Edible Journey: Exploring Vancouver Island’s Fine Food, Farms and Vineyards. In this edition’s Eating In, she picks seasonal fruits, then preserves them “for the middle of winter when no one expects to be served a local plum.” In Dining Out, she shares her favourite restaurant patios: “Dining outdoors in summer is Victoria’s most delicious attraction.”

SHANNON MONEO, who writes our Secrets & Lies

column, this issue also produces the moving feature, A Home to Heal the Heart. Like most of us, Moneo find herself fretting about the day-to-day uncertainties of life. But one day she ran into Sooke Harbour House owner Frederique Philip at the Salvation Army, and then later sat down with her and her spouse Sinclair in their first home, talking about life, love and the death of one of their children.

“Conversations like that put life into perspective,” says Moneo. VB

The

Running

Diva Marilyn Arsenault is just one of Victoria’s top master athletes finding joy in mid-life competition

THE RUNNERS WALKED the course before the event, following a sandy path looping around a hill covered in dirt and scrub. A steep but short climb with a quick descent was followed by a long, steady rise that all knew would be excruciating.

“Bloody hell,” thought Marilyn Arsenault. She had travelled halfway across the globe to Jordan for the biggest race of her life and she was not sure she would be able to finish without collapsing.

Much of the route was stony and hard. Rain created patches of slick mud, a treacherous hazard. The course had been carved alongside a nine-hole golf course in which the main feature was sand, and not just in traps. The scrubby moonscape offered one small oasis — a strip of grass placed at the finish line like a carpet. At least if she finished she would do so on turf.

Five Canadian women qualified for the world championship cross-country race at Amman last year. All but one were in their 20s, the prime of an athlete’s life. Arsenault was 41.

Not so old in real-life terms; ancient for someone about to make her debut on the running world’s stage.

Arsenault is known as The Running Diva.

The nickname refers not to prima-donna

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behaviour, but rather to her career as a lyric soprano. She has sung as Clotilda in “Norma,” Chocholka in “The Cunning Little Vixen,” and Papagena in “The Magic Flute” for Pacific Opera Victoria. During the day, she works as an administrative officer for the political science department at the University of Victoria.

The 5-foot-3, 110-pound dynamo squeezes her training regimen between a full workday and daily vocal exercises.

At any age, it takes dedication to maintain fitness.

Arsenault’s typical week is chockablock with running sessions and workouts. She begins the week with a 75-minute run on Monday morning, followed by a 30-minute evening run. Does a workout with intervals (sprinting, jogging, sprinting) on Tuesday mornings. No running on Wednesday.

A two-hour run on Thursday. Fridays are like Mondays. If she’s not competing, Saturdays include workouts with hard intervals. Sunday, the supposed day of rest, includes 90 minutes of running.

Believe it or not, she does not mind the routine. “We have so many beautiful trails,” she said. “Most of my runs feel pretty terrific just because of the environment I’m in. We’re pretty lucky to be living here.”

Several Canadian Olympic programs have established their training centres here — the rowers, the divers, the swimmers, the mountain bikers, the triathletes. They are served by coaches and trainers, creating a pool of talent in a city in which many older athletes find support for their midlife exertions.

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Arsenault squeezes her training between her full workday and her daily vocal exercises.

Sarah Macdonald, a lawyer, had been a competitive swimmer through her teenage years, even swimming for Simon Fraser University at age 18. But she gave up the pool only to return after her daughters began swimming. Soon, she began setting masters world records for her age group in such hotly contested disciplines as the 50- and 100-metre freestyle, as well as the 100-metre individual medley.

Sandra Froher, a fitness trainer who operates Muscle Lines, began her career as a competitive bodybuilder in 1980. After almost three decades of competition, she continues to win titles. At Las Vegas last August, she placed fourth in the category of Bikini Divas, won two other categories, and was named Overall Ms. Figure at the International Flex Appeal championships.

In the Times Colonist 10K race this spring, Maurice Tarrant completed the waterfront route in 47 minutes, 58 seconds, breasting the finish line three minutes ahead of his son. His 48-year-old son. Tarrant is 80. While he was finishing, one 50-year-old magazine writer was huffing and puffing somewhere about three kilometres behind.

The Running Diva finds a midlife sporting career creates less angst than she might have experienced earlier in her life.

“I come to the sport with a different attitude than a 20-year-old who might be more anxious at getting results.

Because it’s their identity. For me, it still feels like an extra

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thing I do. I mean, it’s important to me, but I know I’m not going anywhere further. I’m not going to the Olympics.”

She returned to running while studying vocal performance at McGill University in Montreal. A friend’s husband, Malcolm Balk, wanted her to try a body-awareness program known as the Alexander Technique as a runner. “I ran recreationally, for fun, but he decided to use me as a guinea pig to teach me to run with good technique,” she said. “He tried to teach me to run with a better form.” She soon discovered she had “an aerobic She got a coach talent,” honed, no doubt, by her and soon shaved breathing technique while singing.

After moving to Victoria in 2003, she joined the Island Road Racers. minutes from She got coach Jon Brown, a British-born Olympic marathoner her times. and soon shaved minutes from her times. In a few years, she went from novice to the varsity team at the University of Victoria.

Running inspired her in much the same way music did.

“It instills a deep sense of self and confidence. You’re alone doing it. It’s not a team sport. You have to rely on your inner strength and confidence.”

Arsenault’s appointment schedule has been filled with races. In April, she raced the Carlsbad 5000 (“World’s Fastest 5K”) in California, finishing as top masters woman, taking home a $1,000 US purse. The following weekend, she contested the Canadian Half-Marathon Championships, finishing as the top female master and fourth overall among women to claim a total of $1,200 in prizes.

Her goal for this year is to contest her first marathon in Toronto in September.

“A lot of older athletes are showing us we can keep improving longer than we thought,” she said.

The world championship in Jordan proved to be a test unlike any other. The downhill and level sections were not long enough for her to recover from the arduous climbs.

She felt her breathing was off. She knew she was in trouble.

She even walked for a brief stretch, which is not the way to contest any race, let alone the world championship. A passing teammate tapped her on the shoulder, encouragement to keep going. She knew she was not going to win, but she also did not want to finish in last place. Now, she was struggling just to complete the course, avoiding the humiliation of not finishing.

Near the end, she spotted a teammate collapsed across the course. She hurdled over the sprawled figure, like a steeplechase runner.

Minutes later, her feet touched grass. She had finished.

Her ranking: a humbling 81st. Not first, but not last. Not bad for 41. VB

PHOTO BY VINCE KLASSEN

hawthorn

BY TOM HAWTHORN

When the world needs a global anthem — or a modern day example of compromise, inclusion and dialogue creating a peaceable nation — it turns to Canada

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MY THANKSGIVING DAY comes on July 1, because I’m grateful to have been born in Canada.

Every Canada Day, tens of thousands flock to the Inner Harbour for a dawn to dusk celebration, culminating in a fireworks display inevitably described by the city as “Eh rated.” Several hundred don free red or white T-shirts to help create a living flag on the lawn of the Legislature.

Elsewhere, immigrants will dress in their finest for a formal swearing-in ceremony.

I’m not one for flag waving; I mistrust jingoism; I will never say, “My country, right or wrong,” or, “Love it or leave it.” But I’ll take a moment on the holiday to reflect on the people who have created this peaceable kingdom, a sustaining myth that manages to ignore our bloodlust appreciation for hockey, not to mention our military’s reputation for getting the job done.

A great thing about our grand Canadian experiment is that we are melding First Nations, two major founding peoples, and boatloads of immigrants from all parts of the globe. My own ancestors came from England and Ireland, Scotland and Galicia, homelands reflected in the family names of Starkey and Hourihan, Hawthorn and Kozak.

I’m a man of this land, the product of a soldier father from Manitoba and a young mother from New Brunswick.

My home addresses have ended with MB, AB, QC, ON and, for more than half my 50 years, BC. We are building a nation in which inclusivity is a pillar and health care a right. Peaceful dissent is constitutionally guaranteed and, perhaps, should be regarded as an obligation. We try to work out our problems through dialogue. Slavery ended in our part of this continent without a civil war. Even our own independence came via words and evolution. Let our neighbours be constitutionally encouraged in “the pursuit of happiness.”

In Canada, that’s a rock band name. We seek “peace, order and good government.” Oh well, two out of three ain’t bad.

Our unique genius has been a talent for compromise, a cliché to be sure, but Canada has much to share in that skill with the world. Not that our country does not face a slew of problems, from persistent poverty to domestic violence to the shame of the reserves and the slow pace of treaty negotiations. But we evolve. The land is no longer pillaged with such carefree abandon as it once was, because the citizenry said enough.

A new Canada has emerged from a liberal immigration policy initiated in Centennial Year, adding hues to the Canadian kaleidoscope, not to mention a Babel of languages. The red maple flag, deliberately chosen to be a distinctly Canadian standard, was adopted only in 1965.

Those of us who were children then are part of a new Canadian nationalism, one that has a different history and narrative than that of our parents.

The street celebrations during the Olympics surprised many of us. We’re not accustomed to flag-waving demonstrations with spontaneous singing of the national anthem. I think for many, especially those whose parents or grandparents were immigrants to this land, the celebrations offered a chance to express pride in an identity not always easy to define.

Canadian nationalism is an inward expression. It is about how we feel about ourselves. It is, in many ways, an abstract construction. We define ourselves by what we are not: We are not British, nor French, nor American, and we’re no longer quite what we were when we left wherever to come here. We’re something else. A hybrid.

A US magazine once ran a contest to find a more

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boring headline than “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.”

(They couldn’t.)

Some get a kick out of playing “Canadian, or dead?,” in which a challenger has to decide whether a minor celebrity is cadaverous, or a Canuck (and thus so wooden and spiritless as to seem deceased). While Americans laugh at our earnest dullness (or is that dull earnestness?), we have quietly infiltrated Hollywood and the television newscasts with stealth Canadians. Someday, Alex Trebek will read a Jeopardy! clue that will be the signal for our takeover. They won’t know what hit ’em.

Mostly, though, we do not impose our Canadian nationalism on others. Whatever the outcome of our role in Afghanistan that poor country will not be an outpost of the Canadian empire. We will not Whatever the annex the Sudetenland, or invade tiny Caribbean island nations that outcome of our flirt with ideologies not to our role in Afghanistan, liking. Though if the Turks and Caicos want to join Confederation, it will not be an I’m all for it.

The “world needs more Canada” outpost of the insists Chapter’s, the bookstore Canadian empire. chain, and I tend to agree. When the European championship soccer tournament needed a song six years ago, they selected “Forca” by Nelly Furtado, the Victorian-born daughter of Portuguese parents from the Azores. Organizers of this summer’s World Cup of soccer chose as a theme song the catchy and inspiring “Wavin’ Flags” by K’naan, a Somali immigrant who grew up in Rexdale, Ont. Both were selected for their universal appeal. Because we have become a home for people from many nations, who mix it up here so that we’re one big fusion, we have come to be the go-to people when the world needs a global anthem.

My Canada Day weekend will not likely include fireworks, or a flag hoisting, though the imbibing of one of the beverages with which our land is associated is a distinct possibility. I’ll think about my ancestors who so fortuitously chose this land and offer a quiet thanks.

Earlier this year, I joined a baseball tour of Cuba organized by a Vancouver company. Our guide, Clem, a bilingual Cuban, had recently immigrated with his wife and young son to Canada. He retains a great passion for his homeland, whose cuisine, music and people garnered his highest praise. (As, too, did the Caribbean climate.)

An American on the tour told me Clem would always be Cuban and would never integrate.

Au contraire, I replied. We’re not a melting pot. Clem can be Clem. His arrival here makes Canada just a wee bit more Cuban. VB

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A HOME TO HEAL the HEART

The owners of Sooke Harbour House work their way back from tragedy

OVER THREE DECADES, Frederique and Sinclair Philip built the Sooke Harbour House from a rustic, five-room B&B into an award-winning inn, creating an exceptional home-away-from-home for everyone from former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing to the likes of Richard Gere, Sharon Stone and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

BY SHANNON MONEO PHOTOS BY VINCE KLASSEN

And as the couple grew the 1928 clapboard house at the start of Sooke’s Whiffen Spit into a 28-room luxury inn and acclaimed restaurant, their four children grew up alongside the burgeoning enterprise. The children collected edible flowers from the garden, helped in the kitchen, bussed in the dining room. In fact, the family spent 16 years living in the Sooke Harbour House basement, and then the rest of their children’s formative years living in rental homes a short hop from the inn.

It was only in 2003, when all four children had finally passed the age of maturity, that Frederique and Sinclair finally bought a home of their own, a two-storey rancher “with bad stucco from the 1970s,” says Frederique. But just like the vision they had for the humble B&B, the couple saw the rancher’s potential. It was on a beautiful stretch of waterfront at the end of Murray Road, on a steep bank above Sooke Harbour, a stone’s throw from the popular boardwalk. It looked across the water to the rugged shoreline and hills of East Sooke Park, with the Olympic Mountains in the distance. Bald eagles regularly sat atop the nearby towering pines to then dive to the water below. It had its own deep moorage dock. The Philips knew they could make this house into their home.

This is more than a story of how the chatelaine Frederique, 63, and cerebral Sinclair, 64, created a home of their own, however. It is also the story of how renovation talk gave way to hopeful conversations about survival and then later tear-laden realizations of death when their third child, Nishka, just 28, came home to this house to die of ovarian cancer a year ago. It is the story about the passing of an exceptional young woman and creating a house that will always carry her memory.

“You need death for life,” says the philosophical Frederique. Today, she sees and feels Nishka’s spirit in each of the 20 rooms in what is now a four-storey Westcoast-inspired, cedar shake home that rambles up the side of that steep bank. Signs of the old stucco rancher are long gone. The top two floors are selfcontained suites, apartments designed by Frederique and decorated by Nishka.

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The two lower floors are where Frederique and Sinclair live and hold family gatherings.

The couple finds solace in this house, whose construction occurred while other parts of their life were deconstructing.

Strangely, it was death — the dying of Sinclair’s mother so many years ago — that brought the couple back to Canada from

In 1978 when Sinclair’s mother was dying, they were Canada bound, settling in Toronto. Sinclair worked as a researcher for the Steelworkers’ Union while Fred stayed at home with the two children, then 11 and 18 months. On a business trip west, Sinclair spotted the clapboard B&B for sale on the scenic spit and the rest is history. They moved west in 1979. Nishka was

The four-storey cedar

born in the spring of 1981 and Rissa, now 26, in 1984.

For 16 years, the couple, the four children, three dogs, two cats and Frederique’s brother Francis lived in the Harbour House basement, now the inn’s wine cellar. (It houses one of Canada’s top collections.) “It was a small place with low ceilings but it was very economical. We were there mostly to sleep as the rest of the time we were upstairs working. The children were always with us when they were not in school,” Frederique recalls. The kids grew up knowing of good local food and the importance of art. If the children weren’t helping in the gardens they were learning how to prepare a roux.

All four worked various jobs at the inn, but Nishka as a young adult worked for five years in the kitchen garden, collecting the herbs, buds and edible flowers for the restaurant’s nature-inspired dishes. An article in the New York Times in 2000 features a 19-year-old Nishka touring the famous writer R.W. Apple around the garden, pointing out all the various plants and how they would be used. Her picture was used to illustrate the article.

shake house, with fish motifs rambles up the side of the waterfront bank.

France in the first place. They met at a party in Nice in 1967. Sinclair was a Canadian boy studying political science and economics. Frederique, who everyone calls Fred, had recently returned from learning English in Illinois.

“I was pregnant when I met Sinclair.

People thought Sinclair was the father.”

By the time Benjamin, now 42, was born, the Sinclair-Frederique partnership was sealed. They spent 11 years in France, raising Benjamin, followed 10 years later by Jasmine, now 33. Sinclair earned his PhD in economics while Frederique, her masters’ in economics.

They entertained their artist and student friends with long meals prepared with food from their garden and local ingredients from their small French town.

Nishka, a talented artist, studied fine arts at the University of Victoria, her canvases finding an appreciative home in the Harbour House. By 2007 she was teaching art, French and English to Grade 8 students at Sooke’s Journey Middle School and teens at the Sooke high school.

Meanwhile, by 2007, Frederique was beginning the reno, intent on building a suite for her elderly father. “He wanted to leave Vancouver and come live with us and as he said, ‘‘Die in Sooke!!’ ” She hired a manager for the inn so she could focus on creating her home.

Frederique will never forget the day in January 2008 when she learned of Nishka’s diagnosis. Nishka had been suffering vague abdominal symptoms for months — bloating, stomach discomfort and intense pain. Frederique recalls that as a child, Nishka couldn’t stand anything tight around her waist. Was that somehow a subtle clue of something amiss? Her young age meant none of them,

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“Building was a great escape. I really loved doing it, immersing myself completely in something other than Nishka’s illness . . .” not even the doctors, suspected ovarian cancer, which typically strikes women in middle age or older.

A CAT scan a few days earlier had shown a large suspicious mass and she was scheduled for surgery. After the operation the surgeon came and told them the news: it was very advanced cancer, the prognosis bleak. “I cannot tell you how I felt,” Frederique says.

Then Frederique’s beloved 87-year-old father Robert, always physically strong and mentally sharp, took a sudden turn. “I think learning about Nishka’s diagnosis really affected him. He became a lot weaker and in some ways didn’t want to keep on going.” He passed away quietly in one of the rooms at Sooke Harbour House just a month later.

The family clung to hope Nishka could beat her disease with chemotherapy. Frederique spent many hours at the hospital with her daughter but she also found solace in her home. “Building was a great escape. I really loved doing it, escaping sometimes and immersing myself completely in something other than Nishka’s illness, the death of my father.”

The new house was now taking shape — a series of tiered levels up the steep bank, each with a balcony overlooking the ocean, offices for both Sinclair and Frederique, a modest but functional kitchen from which to prepare feasts for family and friends, an ocean view from almost every window. Taking its cue from the Harbour

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House, their home embraces the ocean theme, too. The balcony railings sport salmon as if swimming upstream to spawn. Some windows are round. One window is etched with a fish motif.

“The fish window, the round windows, the fish balcony railing all came as I was looking at the building as it was being framed. It started to look like a big square box and I didn’t want that look. Our body has nothing squared,” says Frederique, whose affinity for fish includes signing her name with a fish spouting bubbles. “I should have been a salmon,” she says.

In July 2008, Nishka’s chemotherapy was stopped.

“Those six months of chemo did nothing. It never went into

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remission,” Frederique says. As the disease progressed, Nishka moved home staying both at the Harbour House and her parents’ house.

Her last month was spent at Victoria General Hospital.

More accustomed to brokering wine deals, popularizing edible seaweed or promoting the Harbour House, Sinclair nearly lived at the hospital. He and Nishka played poker, watched TV (even fashion TV, a first for analytical Sinclair) and talked for many hours, often in a very straightforward way discussing things never previously broached. “We got to know each other really well. She told me, ‘It won’t make me happy to know you’ll mope around,’” he recalls.

Occasionally he went to work. Or else he escaped to the wilderness, hunting for mushrooms.

The hospital room was always brimming with visitors.

The nurses took to the cheerful Nishka, buying her a fairy costume at one point to cheer her up. But on the day she

found out that colostomy surgery had been unsuccessful, her “face went white,” Sinclair remembers. “It really was the end,” he says. In those last days, Nishka told Frederique she was no longer scared. In April 2009, not many days after her 28th birthday, 15 months after diagnosis, Nishka died.

“She was really an exceptional person, intellectually, artistically, emotionally,” says Sinclair, who admits he still battles depression over Nishka’s death. For Frederique, too, the seemingly invincible matriarch, it doesn’t take much talking about her daughter to have her tears flow.

Before passing, Nishka organized her own Harbour House ceremony, which more than 300 people attended.

“Make it short, give them a little food, a little bit of booze.

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Ask that people wear bright colours,” were Nishka’s instructions.

The obituary in the Sooke Mirror requested that in lieu of flowers people buy flowers, for themselves to enjoy.

Frederique’s and Sinclair’s home on Murray Road is now all but finished save for landscaping and putting away Niskha’s many belongings. It is a haven and a home, a place where they can finally put their feet up and welcome family and friends, remembering with love and tears their cherished Nishka. “She’s very present,” says Sinclair. Nishka’s many boxes of books, art supplies and artwork await unpacking by her mother. ”I try to honour her,” says Frederique, who plans to carefully and over time find a home in her home for her daughter’s treasures. VB

Nishka’s memories linger. Left, Nishka, circa 2000, age 19 in the inn’s Garden Room. Above, an entire wall in the new house is devoted to family photos over the years.

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STANDING NAKED in a shower beside a man I had just met felt a little weird at first. Don’t get me wrong, I am a West Coast girl and nudity isn’t really a big deal for me. I go to clothing-optional beaches, I skinny-dip when I can and I even once biked around downtown in my birthday suit for the annual World Naked Bike Ride. However, visiting Sol Sante, a nudist club in Cobble Hill, was something new for me.

Being nude at a beach or at a bike event is a moment in time with distinct boundaries. Being a nudist, however, is a lifestyle where day-to-day activities, from lying in the sun to washing the dishes, are done in the buff. Joining a club introduces you to others who want to do the same.

I had no idea what to expect, however, when I drove through Sol Sante’s gates. Though the club owns 175 acres close to Victoria and has been around since the 1950s, I’d never heard of it.

Club members use only a portion of Sol Sante’s sizeable property and keep it well-maintained. With mountain views and huge trees, grassy fields are mowed and gravel roads graded. Cabins and trailers have been spruced up with patios, retaining walls and flowering shrubs. As I followed one of the club’s golf carts to my guest trailer I didn’t glimpse any nudity.

Granted, it was a chilly day, but I kept alert for bare skin, wondering when I would be expected to strip off.

I was prepared, but trepidatious.

Club directors, Joe and Phyllis, took turns showing me the club and introducing me to others. Right away, Joe made Sol Sante’s anonymity rules clear: “A number of people don’t want it known they are members of a nudist organization. Up here we go by first names only.”

Joe works in a fairly visible job and prefers to keep his nudism private. Phyllis, however, is retired and

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forthright. “If I wasn’t proud I wouldn’t be here,” she says.

Now in her 70s, Phyllis became a nudist eight years ago after deciding to tackle things that challenged her. She first tried bungee-jumping and snorkelling, then accompanied some friends to a nudist resort in Palm Springs. She loved it. When she returned home she joined Sol Sante and never looked back.

“I love the sun. I think I was always a closet nudist,” she says, adding that becoming a nudist has helped her self-esteem.

“I grew up with a mother who hid her body all her life and made me do the same thing. I have found so much love and acceptance here . . . They don’t judge you by your body but by what is in your heart.”

Phyllis’ trailer sits on one of the club’s 65 lots. Members can purchase the right to occupy a lot, but the land itself belongs to the club. Club rules only permit lot owners to live there full time from April to October. Some are snowbirds who come up to Sol Sante for the summer. Many live nearby and come in for holidays and weekends or just the day. Phyllis has a house in Duncan, but plans to spend most of the season up at the club.

Visitors are welcome and can rent guest trailers or bring their own RVs or tents.

“If you want to become a member you are on probation for a year, to see if you fit in with everyone, and if you are willing

to participate,” says Joe. “We are a social club but we do everything ourselves.”

Says Phyllis: “Some people think we must be a bunch of swingers or voyeurs, but they couldn’t be further from the truth.

We’re very careful not to let people like that in. Everyone who joins has a criminal record check.”

As Phyllis drove me around in her golf cart the first day almost everyone we met was clothed and hard at work — clearing fallen branches, building porches, pulling weeds — not only on their own lots but in the common areas as well. The club runs on a volunteer basis. Nine elected directors organize the various aspects of operating the club and the work is done by the members.

“We never have problems getting volunteers,” explains Phyllis, the current membership director. “When we advertise a work party, we all work together and co-operate.”

During my visit, the club began restoring an old wooden building sinking on its foundations. In the morning, some 15 people dug around the base of the building and poured cement to stabilize the foundation. While they laboured, a couple of women prepared a communal barbecue lunch.

The nudity began in the afternoon when people filtered down CONTINUED ON PAGE 39

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to the clubhouse to use the outdoor hot tub. I followed into the change room and took off my clothes, hanging them up on a row of hooks. It felt like the change room of a public pool. The co-ed shower surprised me, but after the initial discomfort of wondering where to look as I chatted, I felt fine.

After the hot tub came the potluck, usually a weekly event at the club. I chose to put my clothes back on, but a few wandered through the clubhouse naked or wrapped in a towel or sarong. Everyone covered up waist down for Members feel dinner — club rules.

Other club events include more comfortable life-drawing classes, dances and sporting events. I was invited to the August long weekend salmon being naked at Sol barbecue at least 15 times.

“We have an incredible Sante than on a amount of fun together,” says Phyllis. “It’s like joining a huge beach in their family.”

Albeit an older family: most of the members are 50 plus; bathing suits. many are retirees. On this weekend I was the youngest visitor by a good 15 years. Although some families with children come up in the summer and many members bring their grandchildren, the club hopes to attract more younger people.

“When I first joined there were a lot more children and we used to plan children’s activities,” says Phyllis. “Now the children are grown up and just visit, or don’t come at all.”

I visited Sol Sante with one primary question: Why are people nudists? I asked everyone I could and the answers varied. People spoke about feeling free, about loving the sun and about being close to nature. For one European couple, nudism wasn’t an issue at all; for others, becoming a nudist was a difficult process of overcoming social conventions.

Many said what attracts them to nudism is the feeling of acceptance and equality. They felt more comfortable being naked at Sol Sante than they did on a beach in their bathing suits.

For me, the nudity in the end made less of an impression than the strong sense of community this group has built.

Everyone spoke with pride in their club and commitment to making it a safe, welcoming and fun place to let it all hang out. I may not be ready to call myself a nudist, but as the weather warms up, I suspect Sol Sante might see a little more of me. VB

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State of

BY ALISA GORDANEER

TheArts The dream was that the Olympics would give a cultural shot in the arm to the arts.

Did it happen? Some would say not.

NOW THAT THE FAKE SNOW has melted — or biodegraded? — and the Olympic mascots have found their destiny at yard sales around the world, it’s time to squint into the near past to figure out if it was all worth it.

I’m not going to guess about the impact the 2010 Winter Games had on BC’s economy, and I’m certainly not inclined to speculate about what the event did for the province’s image as a green (or inconveniently green!) place. But in light of ongoing

cuts to the arts, which some say have a direct relationship to the cost of inviting the world to last winter’s snow party, I’d like to ponder for a moment the cultural impact of Vancouver 2010. Surely there was an influx of people ready to experience Canadian and BC culture, and they came with a vast amount of disposable cash that gave the local arts scene a good shot in the arm, right?

Apparently not. I could carry on for a bit about how our tap-dancing Mounties and flaming fiddlers might affect how we look on the world stage, but I think we all know that the part that really matters — the part that does the most damage or creates the most hope — is what happens here at home after the crowds have flown.

I was kind of hoping for more.

Throughout the Winter Games, I confess I’d been imagining that some sort of new arts event might spring from the fresh snowmelt. Something we could be proud of as cultural citizens, whether we were on side with the anti-Olympic protesters or the cowbell crowd.

It’s not unthinkable for a major arts event to grow from a major international sporting event. The now-vanished Manulife Literary Arts Festival, for example, came about indirectly after the 1994 Commonwealth Games brought a wide range of literary stars to Victoria, starting an excellent annual event that lasted nearly a decade. The Cultural Olympiad, the arts festival component of the Olympic celebrations, seemed like the kind of thing that could spill over into the future, with the happy result that Victoria and Vancouver audiences would have access to internationally acclaimed artists and performers at least once a year.

But if you ask local arts folks, that dream was pretty much extinguished along with the Olympic flame.

“I do feel that the opening and closing ceremonies made powerful use of our dance, music and performance poetry — so really they did cover a wide range of visual, performing and literary arts at the ceremonies,” says Victoria poet Yvonne Blomer, who hosts Victoria’s Friday night Planet Earth Poetry reading series. But it wasn’t really enough, she says. “I don’t think, speaking as a person in the written-arts/reading venues world of arts, that Victoria saw a rise in arts of that nature during the Olympics,” says Blomer. “The Friday night hockey game influenced my audience attendance, but for the most part no one really wanted to cheer on or discuss the Olympics, from opening ceremony to the end.” However, she says, “There was a cheer when I announced the Canadian women had won.”

Perhaps there was a small amount of national pride that you might hope could spill over into a support for

Canadian cultural endeavors but that doesn’t seem to be the case. “As far as any after-effect, it hardly seems like there was an Olympics,” says Blomer. “People just seem to carry on.”

While the Olympic ceremonies might have given the world the impression that Canada and BC support their artists in a tremendously showy way, Ian Case, general manager of Victoria’s Intrepid Theatre, points out that it’s all so much illusion.

“Certainly the current administration has not made it easy for the activities created by Cultural Olympiad funding to have much staying power now that the big party is over,” says Case. “With arts groups across the province facing significant cuts in gaming and BC Arts Council support, the work created during the Cultural Olympiad may not have anywhere to go. A relatively small amount of funding, provided by 2010 Legacies Now, may have provided funding that could have longer-term benefits. However, these benefits are likely to be limited as core support for the arts sector as a whole is eroded provincially.”

So, perhaps it’s a case of too little too late? Or a mere drop in the ocean of tears that’s become the story of arts cuts?

Some would say that any support at all is better than none.

For Victoria artist Arlene Nesbitt, who received third prize for work in a juried exhibition held in Qualicum Beach in conjunction with the Olympics, it’s about connecting with an audience that’s already likely willing to engage with the arts.

“Personally, I feel that those who are drawn to sports activities like the Olympics tend to spend extra time and money on live entertainment, dining out and maybe exploring the countryside if it is very different from their homeland,” says Nesbitt. “Art galleries and other visual art events may be interesting to visit, and get a feeling of the place through the visual arts.”

However, as one crafts gallery in Vancouver reportedly experienced, Olympic-goers were more inclined to buy stuffed mascots than to take home a piece of genuine Canadian art. “I doubt if people buy impetuously,” Nesbitt says. “The influence of what is seen takes time to be absorbed.”

So, perhaps we just need to wait. Maybe something big will come of it all, and I’ll be proven wrong. I’d like to hope so. Because otherwise, it could be as Intrepid’s Case says: “If it is indeed true what some are saying — that the current cuts in core support to the arts through gaming and the BC Arts Council are the result of the cost of putting on the Olympics, then clearly the Games had a significant impact on the arts — just not a positive one.”

Do you agree? Email: artstatevictoria@gmail.com VB

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CREATIVE

MINDS

BY TRISTIN HOPPER PHOTO BY GARY MCKINSTRY

Michael Burke spins gold with his Victoria record label MICHAEL BURKE DOESN’T DISPLAY any gold and platinum records, but it’s not because he doesn’t have any. In 10 years, the artists on Burke’s small Victoria-based Cordova Bay Records label have won seven Juno nominations, plus one gold, one platinum and one double platinum record. Still, none of these are to be seen among the cat scratching posts and overflowing bookshelves of his Oak Bay home.

In 2004, the Island Music Awards called Burke on stage to recognize him as a key mentor of the Vancouver Island music community. “It’s the only award I keep upstairs,” says Burke of the now defunct event.

Cordova Bay calls itself an “artist-oriented” label — and it’s a mantra the company takes to near-obsessive lengths.

Every Cordova Bay musician has the home phone number of staff members. When an album is prepared for distribution, Burke, 59, makes sure it’s a “shared experience” with the artist. “Everyone has some input as to what’s going on,” says blues guitarist David Gogo, a 12-year Cordova Bay veteran.

It hasn’t been the most lucrative way to run a record company — in fact, it’s only been in the last few years that Cordova Bay started turning a profit. But in a music industry

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managed by “suits” and driven by album sales, the Cordova Bay credo was simply to push high-quality albums out the door and worry about the bottom line later. Burke would find talent, nurture it and then shove it into the spotlight using every means at his disposal. When up-and-coming Indie rockers Acres of Lions hit the studio, Burke set them up with Warne Livesey, a producer who had previously worked with 54-40 and the Matthew Good Band. For folk singer Wyckham Porteous’ latest album, 3 A.M., Burke called up former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham to produce. In the UK, the slow-paced Please Please Me ballad has become a critical success.

“Michael has respect in the industry; if doors aren’t open he can at least knock on them — and that’s been a huge advantage,” says Gogo.

Born in Belfast, Ireland, Burke grew up in Toronto’s North York. During the 1960s, it was a “primordial soup” of artistic talent, says Burke. His classmates included musician and writer Paul Quarrington, renowned double bassist Roberto Occhipinti, and pop singer Dan Hill. Music — folk, rock, jazz or bagpipes — was everywhere, and it rubbed off on everyone, says Burke.

A passable drummer and a so-so clarinettist, Burke’s time in the North York music scene was largely spent as a manager; getting gigs and studio time for virtuosic classmates. His real talent, however, and his day job, was computers. Burke started

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writing code for school-owned Hewlett Packards. By Grade 13, he had computer accounts at York University and the University of Toronto, where he coded everything from digital hockey pools to one of the world’s first computerized dating programs. By his 25th birthday, Burke was programming IBM computers the size Burke finds talent, of a city block for Sears Roebuck.

By 1981, the dual careers became nurtures it and then overwhelming, forcing Burke to quit music and focus full-bore on shoves it into the technology. Looking back, it was the smart choice; the Internet was less spotlight using than a decade away, and Burke was well-poised to hit the ground every means at running. By the mid-‘90s, Burke’s Sea his disposal.

Change Corporation was supplying 70 to 80 per cent of Internet routers sold in Canada. He had climbed to the virtual pinnacle of Canadian high tech, and by 1998, Burke sat on a fortune of tens of millions of dollars. Now he could retire in triumph to return to the world of sticky-floored clubs and dim studios. “My plan was to go back and fulfill my goals in the music business that I had suspended,” says Burke. By 1999, Cordova Bay Records was up and running.

Supported by his Internet fortune, the label has the luxury of

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patience. Every single demo tape Cordova Bay receives — from an established singer-songwriter or a tone-deaf amateur rapper — gets a listen. In the label’s early days, Burke even penned personal replies, particularly to young people. “I would send a letter back with suggestions and observations,” says Burke. Rather than searching for chart toppers, Burke kept his eyes out for talent. During the current recession, as other labels fell back on proven sellers, Cordova Bay brought out Between Trains, a collaboration In the label’s early among folk guitarists Bill Bourne, Wyckham Porteous, days, Burke even and a 25-year-old singer-bassist Jasmine ‘Jas’ Ohlhauser. “I think it’s a cool little record, but in penned personal this climate, people are not putting out records like that — replies, particularly it’s too risky,” says Gogo. Similar fringe projects fill the Cordova Bay catalogue. Producer Daniel to young people.

Lanois is best-known for his work with U2 and Bob Dylan, but Cordova Bay released an instrumental harmonica album Snake Road recorded with his brother Bob Lanois.

If you’ve picked up a new CD of Chinese classical music

by Zeng Zhao-Bin or Zheng Bing lately, it’s probably a Cordova Bay release.

Ten years in, Cordova Bay’s artist-oriented strategy appears to be working, with Burke’s growing family of artists punching themselves into the soundscape. Acres of Lions, a recent Indie acquisition, is making inroads into Europe. Vancouver rockers State of Shock ran the gauntlet of major labels before they were wooed by Cordova Bay less than a year ago. Already they’ve scored two platinum singles, a gold record and a double platinum single.

A Cordova Bay heavyweight, Gogo is widely regarded as one of Canada’s leading blues guitarists. He’s toured with Jimmy Vaughan and George Thorogood, and in September he’ll once again hit the road as a solo opener for renowned blues guitarist Johnny Winter. Still, Gogo says he’ll stick with a tiny Victoria-based music label. “Cordova Bay doesn’t blow any smoke.” VB FOOTNOTE: When novelist, playwright, musician and filmmaker Paul Quarrington died of lung cancer in January, less than a week after his death, Cordova Bay released Are You Ready, Quarrington’s solo ode to his impending mortality. To honour their friend’s memory, the Quarrington Arts Society was founded by Burke and friends to fund artists who excel in more than one discipline. www.quarringtonartsociety.ca

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on the

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Victoria’s Inner Harbour, 1905, watercolour on paper, 15.2 cm x 23 cm

BOULEVARD

SUMMERTIME in Victoria is a glorious melding of sun, sea and sky, a time to reawaken to the pleasure of all that life on the Island offers.

We’ve thrown off our winter moods and we’re ready to enjoy the delights of the season, from downtown Victoria to Sooke in the west and Sidney in the north, to the Gulf Islands and up into the lush Cowichan.

Take your pick. It’s all here. Stroll the walkable city and pop into the many boutiques, quaint neighbourhood shops or brand-name stores in the malls. Now is the time to show your out-of-town visitors the stunning sights and many attractions of the Island, and don’t forget the hiking trails and parks. The adventurous may want to climb a nearby mountain, rent a kayak for a water-view of the harbour or join a whale-watching tour.

Others may crave a day in the many galleries that showcase the best of the region’s artists.

Summertime is festival time, a feast for music and theatre-lovers, foodies and arts fans all over the region.

And don’t forget the nightlife. Spend an evening on one of the many outdoor patios, enjoying the finest cuisine — from around the world and from the Island’s own gardens, farmyards and seacoast. Then step out and enjoy the nightlife — the concerts and the theatres — or just take an evening stroll on the beach and breath in the sea air.

Be a boulevardier and live luxuriously.

On the following pages you’ll find many ways to make the most of summertime . . . from the beach to the boulevard! VB

Summer in

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1.

CAMERON ROSE GIFTS Summer is here and we just keep getting better! We’ve been very busy this year finding even more unique and beautiful accessories for the ladies. We have increased our selection of irreverent cards and books to keep the tears of laughter flowing. Come in and see us soon for some fun. 2447 Beacon Ave.

Sidney By the Sea

Planning a small escape this summer? Summer in

250.656.8782, www.cameronrose.ca

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Sidney is a seaside delight.

PENINSULA COUNTRY MARKET This vibrant open air market has more than 50 vendors offering farm fresh products, jams and jellies, honey, homemade bread, cut flowers, assorted fresh meats, organic produce and a fine selection of arts and crafts.

Enjoy a country morning among friends. Live music, great munchies and a kid’s korral. Saturdays 9am-1pm at the Saanich Fairgrounds, 1528 Stelly’s Cross Rd.

From shopping, the arts,

theatre, dining or bookstore browsing, Sidney has it all.

Take a stroll along the sea-walk, or relax in one of our many beautiful parks and beaches;

3.

come for the day or spend the night. We have everything your heart desires . . . and the

WATERLILY SHOES Fashion forward

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parking is free!

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A FEW EVENTS . . .

Every Sunday - July 4th through to September 5th popular musicians like Time Benders and KatzenJammers perform in the outdoor Pavilion at Beacon Park, 2-4 pm

2537 Beacon Ave. 250.656.5606

Every Thursday - Some 200

4.

vendors transform Beacon

SHAW OCEAN DISCOVERY CENTRE

Avenue into the eclectic Sidney Summer Market.

July 3, 17 & 31, Aug. 7 &14

Dial “M” for Merlot - Muse Winery with the Peninsula Players presents the peninsula’s FIRST open air musical theater production.

Info: www.musewinery.ca For more information see www.sidney.ca

footwear, bags and accessories and recent recipient of the Chamber of Commerce Crystal Award for New Business of the Year!

From edgy Fly London and Miz Mooz to the laid back style from Naot and El Naturalista. In August look for Allegria, Dansko, Calvin Klein and Frye Boots. Drop by and see what your friends are talking about! In the Cannery Building,

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Discover Sidney’s award winning aquarium. Located on the waterfront, the Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre showcases live marine life of the Salish Sea. Take a journey from ‘sea floor to sea shore’ as friendly experts explain the marvels and mysteries of the ocean. Peer into seventeen massive aquarium habitats to see wolf-eels lurking in caverns and speckled sanddabs shimmying into the ocean floor. Get up-close and personal with a giant Pacific octopus in her overhead grotto.

Kids will love Peninsula Co-op’s Salish Sea school, a hands-on/hands-wet summer camp!

250.665.7511, www.oceandiscovery.ca

SB Summer on the BOULEVARD

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. . . shopping, arts and entertainment There’s always something fun

4

to do in and around Victoria,

from Sooke to Sidney and north to Cowichan. You can shop ‘til you drop, take in a play, art

show or one of the many fun

and sometimes dazzling events, or quietly browse through an art gallery or two. The ways to spend long, lovely summer days are, unlike the season, nearly endless.

A FEW EVENTS . . .

July 18: Hundreds of mint condition 1932 Ford deuces and other classic cars will be on display in the Inner Harbour.

July 18 - 22: The Pipes Around

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the Pacific International Organ Festival brings the world’s best organists to our local churches.

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SATURDAY, JULY 17: 23rd Annual Art Gallery of Victoria Moss Street Paint-In, 11-4:30 pm, Over 100 professional and emerging artists bring their studios outside. Then dance to the spicy rhythms of Kumbia from 5-9 pm.

See the event calendar at www.tourismvictoria.com

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6.

250.385.6815, www.belfry.bc.ca

250.655.5279 and The Oak Bay Fashion Exchange, 1509 Amphion St., 250.519.1044

BELFRY THEATRE – Billy Bishop Goes to War, July 20-Aug 15. Written and composed by John Gray and Eric Peterson (Corner Gas), Billy Bishop Goes to War has charmed audiences around the world. This summer, the Belfry presents an acclaimed new production of this Canadian classic, starring Ryan Beil and Zachary Gray. 1291 Gladstone Ave.

2.

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IMAGINE THAT! ARTISANS’ DESIGNS Discover exceptional artwork,

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unique gifts and a wide variety of art from over 90 BC artists and artisans. We are dedicated to bringing you only the best works by outstanding artists in all genres. An inspirational visit and well worth the drive! Find us in downtown Duncan.

Mon-Sat, 10am-5pm. 251 Craig St., City Square Duncan, 250.748.6776 www.imaginethatartisans.com

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FOOTLOOSE Treat your feet to the finest in

fashion and comfort with classic brands like Frye, Birkenstock, Naot, Josef Seibel, Think and unique footwear from El Naturalista, Neosens, Dolce Vita and Cydwoq. Check out our imported lines from Chie Mihara, Coclico and Argila. Step into Footloose, Victoria’s ultimate shoe destination. 637 Fort St. 250.383.4040, www.footlooseshoes.com Second location: Heart & Sole, 1014 Cook St. 250.920.7653, www.heartandsoleshoes.ca

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TEN THOUSAND VILLAGES

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2010 SOOKE FINE ARTS SHOW

July 24 - Aug 2. Open daily 10am - 8pm except August 2, closing at 6pm.

Admission: adults $8, seniors 65+ $7, show pass $15. Children under 12 are free. Purchasers’ Preview Night, July 22 with music by John Reischman & John Miller $25.

Seaparc Leisure Complex 2168 Phillips Rd., Sooke 250.642.7256 For more info: www.sookefinearts.com

THE SIDNEY FASHION EXCHANGE

has a new sister store! The Oak Bay Fashion Exchange is now open and is exclusively for plus size women, size 14-7X. Each store has all your favourite designer clothing and accessories at a fraction of the regular retail price. New consignors welcome. Stores are open Mon-Sat. 2493 Beacon Ave.

7.

WINCHESTER GALLERIES New paintings by Marney Ward, AFCA. Flowers have always been a source of joy and wonder for Marney, and she has developed her own unique style: large, vibrant, back-lit close-ups that reveal the spiritual essence of the flowers she paints and beyond. Show runs July 10 -24, with artist’s reception on July 10, 2-4pm. 796 Humboldt St., 250-382-7750 www.winchestergalleriesltd.com

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AVENUE CHINA & CHINTZ . . . closing after almost 18 years in business so owner, Jan can retire. New and vintage home decor, table linens, body & bath products, jewellery, sleepwear, baby clothes and toys, Lampe Berger, April Cornell homewares and vintage treasures from our storage. Please watch for our after summer sale. 2225 Oak Bay Ave. 250.595.1880

9.

21st ANNUAL VICTORIA SYMPHONY SPLASH takes place on August 1st. The day

begins at 1pm with children’s activities on the lawns of the legislature and ends with fireworks illuminating the floating stage while Maestra Tania Miller and the Victoria Symphony perform Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture at 10:30pm. Join us for all day activities, food, fun and music at the Inner Harbour. www.victoriasymphony.ca

10.

CRÈME DE LA CRÈME HOME & FASHION Finally! A store in Victoria with a

delightful mix of fresh California fashions alongside charming home furnishings and decor. Now you don’t have to go far to find Juicy Couture handbags, jewellery and clothing. Plus you’ll discover designer pieces by Michael Stars, Ed Hardy and “Oprah’s favourite” Kashwére robes.

Shopping has never been more fun!

1016 Fort St., 250.386.1177 www.CremedelaCremeVictoria.com

Savour Salt Spring this summer

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1

Unwind on Salt Spring Island Leave the hectic life

behind and get away to peaceful Salt Spring Island this summer.

Stay a few days at a charming B&B or luxury resort, shop the many

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boutiques and galleries, sample the local culinary delights, or just sleuth out a good book and relax.

Make time for yourself with a soothing spa treatment or explore

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the natural beauty of this coastal paradise. We have everything you need to unwind and recharge.

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A FEW EVENTS . . .

July 4: The 8th Annual Lavender Festival at Sacred Mountain Lavender Farm. www.sacredmountainlavender.com Aug 13-15: The Salt Spring Jazz Festival hits parks, vineyards and local pubs and restaurants. www.saltspringjazzfest.org Every Saturday: Salt Spring Island’s famous market takes over Centennial Park in Ganges, 8 am to 4 pm.

See the event calendar at www.saltspringtourism.com

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1.

RED EARTH SPIRIT Gloria Valencia, an accomplished west coast silversmith, incorporates unique, often rare turquoise and other gemstones into her handcrafted silverwork. Born and raised in New Mexico, Gloria draws upon her Native American and Spanish heritage for the design and creation of her exquisite jewellery. Come see Gloria at the Saturday Market or contact her studio. 250.653.2046, redearth@telus.net www.redearthspirit.ca

2.

STARFISH GALLERY & STUDIO Newly opened, offers regular exhibitions of fine art, sculpture and photography by local artists Diana Dean, Stefanie Denz, Birgit Bateman, Anais La Rue and Andrea Collins. Mon-Sat, 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-4pm.

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1108-115 Fulford Ganges Rd. Grace Point Square, 250.537.4425 www.starfishgalleryandstudio.com

3.

GALLERY 8 (Formerly the J. Mitchell Gallery) A remarkable collection of contemporary art by outstanding local artists. Come and join us for our upcoming exhibitions: David Jackson – “Welcome Back”, July 17-Aug 7 and J.D. Evans & Bob Leatherbarrow, Aug 14-Sept 4. A great collection of diverse art!

3104-115 Fulford Ganges Rd. Grace Point Square, 250.537.8822 1.866.537.8822, www.gallery8saltspring.com

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4.

GARRY OAKS VINEYARD AND WINERY We grow grapes sustainably,

respecting the natural conditions — sun, wind, soil — of our vineyard. Our whites carry a backbone of minerality from our stony slopes. Our reds have a hint of spice we taste in the air. All have a trademark freshness that echoes our Salt Spring breezes. Come visit, or ask for our wines at fine wine stores.

1880 Fulford-Ganges Rd., 250.653.4687 www.garryoakswinery.com

5.

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6.

LI READ Invites you to live, boat or swim on Canada’s beautiful West Coast Gulf Islands! Call Li Read, Managing Broker, Sea to Sky Premier Properties, (Salt Spring), an affiliate of Christie’s Great Estates. Li offers you wise advice on all real estate matters, and will help you find your dream home! Visit LiRead. com to learn more about the islands, and to view Li’s extensive selection of fine properties! Why keep the islands waiting? 250.537.8763 LiRead33@gmail.com www.LiRead.com

7.

WILCO CONTRUCTION Building on a strong foundation, brothers Ian and Trevor Wilson began focusing on Salt Spring and the Gulf Islands in the mid 1990s. The company has built dozens of exquisite homes here – each custom built to exacting standards.

The stunning West Coast home featured in this issue of Boulevard’s Hot Properties is a beautiful example of what makes them a leader in quality home building.

Unit 3, Upper Ganges Rd. 250.537.1603 www.wilcoconstruction.ca

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SALTSPRING NATUREWORKS

Shop the bounty of locally grown vegetables and fruit, handcrafted artisan breads and cheeses, organic bulk foods, herbs, spices, teas, grocery staples and high quality natural remedies and supplements. Located in Ganges under the red roof of the Island Trading Building, across from the firehall. Mon-Fri 9am-6pm, Sat 9am-5pm and summer Sun 10am-5pm.

116 Lower Ganges Rd., 250.537.2325

MOUAT’S CLOTHING CO. Visit Salt

Spring’s must-see and must-shop stop offering islanders and visitors an outstanding selection of clothing. From edgy Italian designs to kids’ gumboots, Mouat’s Clothing Co. never fails to delight with the new and totally unexpected.

Manager Marnie McAughtrie extends a warm invitation to all visitors to find their way to the historic heart of Ganges and experience this landmark business first hand. 106 Fulford-Ganges Rd. 1.877.490.5593, 250.537.5593

Visit our new website: www.mouatsclothingco.com

9.

SEA TO SKY PREMIER PROPERTIES (SALT SPRING)

Spectacular oceanfront home offers a private, sunny beachfront & dock in a prestigious area. Enjoy panoramic views, 3 ensuite bedrooms, chef’s kitchen, great-room, elegant office and a master wing with exercise room.

Other features: beautiful landscaping, deer fencing and double garage.

LiRead.com/1589.htm $3,990,000.

Li Read, 250.537.7647 LiRead33@gmail.com

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Victorians and visitors are

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discovering the pleasures of the Humboldt Valley, Victoria’s sophisticated new downtown shopping district on Humboldt Street between Government and Blanshard Streets.

From fine art galleries to a premier

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ladies boutique, modern bistros to a European Kaffeehaus and ice cream parlour; from luxury hotels, spas, salons, interior design studios and gift shops to a custom jeweller, there is something for

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everyone in the Valley. You can even book a whale watching tour,

MACDONALD REALTY VICTORIA INC.

rent a scooter or car, exchange currency or engage a realtor.

Just follow the fuchsia banners!

FOR SALE 250-388-5882

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1.

ARMENI JEWELERS, providing the warmth of a family business, married with the style and class of a Manhattan boutique, where old world quality and service meets modern sophistication and flair. Silver, gold, coloured stones, diamonds, engagement rings, bracelets, watches and earrings. Simple gifts to timeless treasures, Armeni Jewelers offers choices for every occasion. 737 Humboldt St. (across from

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the Marriott Hotel), 250.388.6822

2.

WILLOW STREAM SPA AT THE FAIRMONT EMPRESS is an oasis tucked away in

Black Priestess by Elza Mayhew

Victoria’s Inner Harbour to help you relax your body while refreshing your mind and spirit. Open 365 days a year, offering spa services to suit your needs. Let us help you to Find Your Energy. Reservations and information at 250.995.4650. Are you a friend?

Join us at 721 Government St.

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www.friendsoftheempress.ca

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THE SKY IS THE LIMIT

An international award-winning design studio, offers architectural and interior design services for commercial and residential environments. Whether you are considering renovating, building a home, or strengthening the visual appearance of your office or business, principal Ines Hanl and her team will help create one-of-a-kind spaces.

780 Humboldt St., 250.385.5156 www.theskyisthelimitdesign.com

4.

THE OYSTER bar at Pescatores. Hip, fresh and bursting with energy, the Oyster bar offers up a great selection of local oysters, small plates and local beer on tap. The Oyster provides one of the city’s best atmospheres with high ceilings, a sleek bar and deep orange walls adorned with contemporary art. Try small plate specialties including freshly shucked oysters, cooked oysters, steamers and tacos. 614 Humboldt St.

9

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MACDONALD REALTY, for 65 years, a trusted name in real estate. Local brand, global reach. Our exclusive membership with Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™ affiliates us with over 700 member firms throughout North America and in over 35 countries around the world.

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CHURCH OF OUR LORD affectionately known as COOL, is beautiful with a rich heritage and faithfully serving Victoria since 1874. We invite you and your family to worship with us at a variety of services on Sundays. Our Community Ministry Centre is home-base to Sanctuary Youth Centre, Pre-school Daycare, Cridge Club for seniors, Thrift store and many other ministries. Visit us at www.churchofourlord.org

7.

WINCHESTER GALLERIES offers fine art at two Humboldt Valley locations. Discriminating collectors appreciate the galleries’ knowledgeable service and rare offerings from Canadian, American and international artists such as Riopelle, Picasso, Plaskett and Warhol.

Important sculptures including Roy Leadbeater’s dynamic “Music” are displayed on the plaza for all to enjoy. 758 Humboldt St., 250.386.2773 796 Humboldt St., 250.382.7750 www.winchestergalleriesltd.com

8.

FIRE & WATER FISH AND CHOP HOUSE

offers a palette-tempting menu prepared with the highest quality ingredients, in a tasteful, yet understated atmosphere. The Fire & Water lounge offers a cozy fireplace and the outdoor patio provides a great place to meet friends for an after work get together. 728 Humboldt St. (in the Victoria Marriott), 250.480.3800 www.victoriamarriott.com

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THE UNION CLUB OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Victoria’s most exclusive hotel,

isn’t a hotel at all. The Inn at the Union Club offers a private oasis in the heart of downtown with first class services and amenities. Guest rooms combine old world elegance with modern conveniences and can be booked by leisure or business travellers, members, non-members and affiliate club members.

805 Gordon St., 250.384.1151 www.unionclub.com

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SIDE STREET STUDIO is one of BC’s largest arts & crafts retailers who, for over 25 years, has been representing work by more than 300 local BC artists. Unique and original pottery, jewellery, glass-art, wood turnings, sculptures, textiles and West Coast art; all handcrafted and one-of-a-kind. Our website is the largest of its kind in Canada. 729 Humboldt St. 250.590.4644, www.sidestreetstudio.com

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HIGH ON

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Against all odds, Hermann’s Jazz Club keeps jazz alive in Victoria

Most Thursday nights at Hermann’s, the opening jam session features Tom Vickery on piano, Josh Dixon on drums and Sean Drabitt on bass.

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and the Tom Vickery Trio is deep into an entrancing rendition of My Funny Valentine. Not a single patron talks. Even the usual background clatter of dishes has stopped. The entire room is focused on the beauty of this classic tune. It’s pure magic, but only 16 people are here to enjoy it.

On nights like this, a loyal jazz fan has to wonder what it takes to get more people through the doors of one of the best live jazz venues in the country.

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Go elsewhere in Canada, including Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, and you won’t find a room like Hermann’s says Sebastian Picard, a 21-year-old University of Victoria student and part-time musician. “We’re so lucky to have a place like this,” said Picard who comes with his friends every few weeks for the jazz and the inexpensive, comfortable and spacious locale.

For the past 10 years, Gary Telford, 68, a retired librarian, has driven from Sidney most Thursday nights to hear the weekly jam session led by Vickery’s trio. He enjoys the variety of musicians who appear and the potential for a musical surprise.

“It amazes me that a town this size has so many great players.”

Joan Dick and Gary Spence, visit periodically from Salmon Arm: “We’ve never come when the music hasn’t been good,” says Dick.

Victoria is blessed by an unusual concentration of high calibre jazz artists and Hermann’s has been their home for nearly 30 years, making it the second oldest jazz club in Canada. Only the Yardbird Suite in Edmonton is older and it was established in 1957.

Logic says Hermann’s shouldn’t be here at all. Jazz clubs everywhere have been closing under assault from changing (some would say declining) musical tastes and the digital revolution that keeps people glued to electronic devices instead of out enjoying live music.

So how does it stay open?

The musicians credit owner Hermann Nieweler. Tom Vickery, 71, leader of the house band for 24 years, says, “I’m just amazed and I think everybody is, that it’s lasted this long . . . but he [Nieweler] likes the music . . . he likes the musicians . . . he’s just a big fan.” Vickery, a mainstay of the Victoria jazz scene, says the club has meant everything to him. “I’m still in awe that I can go down to this jazz club every Thursday and play this wonderful grand piano.”

Sean Drabitt, another prominent local player, calls the club “a labour of love.” Now 40, Drabitt first played Hermann’s when he was only 17. He left Victoria in the 90s, pursuing a career in LA, New Orleans, and New York, where he worked with some of the best jazz musicians in the world, including the esteemed Marsalis family. He’s well aware of how jazz scenes thrive.

“It’s important for a jazz community to have a meeting place and an outlet,” he says, noting that jazz is a highly social music.

Ross Ingstrup, the current head of the Esquimalt High School jazz program, points out that Esquimalt students have been performing at Hermann’s for 19 years. “It’s a huge boon to the program,” says Ingstrup, who adds that Nieweler and his staff have “tirelessly supported music education in Victoria.”

Nieweler credits others for the club’s longevity. “It’s actually the Victoria fans that have kept this place going and the staff

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and the musicians,” he says one morning as he shows me the memorabilia decorating the walls.

Wearing a black baseball cap and a plaid scarf, the gregarious 74-year-old proudly recalls how it all started in 1981 at the club’s original location, a hotel he owned on Government Street (now the Bedford Regency). Nieweler booked a Dixieland band from Friday Harbor at the suggestion of a friend and was

invoke the atmosphere of a New Orleans jazz club. Spoked metal wheels from an antique Alberta haying machine form the handrails for the stairs leading to the small green room behind the stage.

Inside, old instruments he’s collected decorate the walls along with numerous framed photos representing the thousands of musicians who have appeared here. In one, jazz icon Wynton

Nieweler’s devotion and personality can be seen everywhere in the idiosyncratic décor he has created. shocked by the overwhelming number of people who lined up to get in. He then brought in a local group (the Al Pease Trio) and a new jazz club was born.

“It became a hobby,” he says, explaining that he would book bands while working on building sites and running his construction business.

He moved the club to its current location on View Street in 1986, but in 2000 a $1.5 million fire, fortunately covered by insurance, broke out in the cabaret upstairs, gutting the building and ruining the club. It took him 18 months to rebuild.

Nieweler’s devotion and personality can be seen everywhere in the idiosyncratic décor he has created. The front entrance is marked by wrought iron gates built by a retired blacksmith to

Marsalis stands with a group of local players, photographic evidence of the many great musicians, including Kenny Wheeler, John Handy, and Renee Rosnes, who have played here.

But what of the future? Nieweler has been talking retirement for some time but wants to find the right person to take over.

“I’d like to keep the jazz club going,” he says, but adds, “Only certain people can do it — you’ve got to have a love with it, too.”

Walking me to the door, he laughs and suddenly reveals why he keeps going and why he’s perhaps reluctant to let go. “Like Churchill says, you can’t surrender. Jazz goes in your veins. Once it’s in your bloodstream, you can’t get it out.”

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Photo by Vince Klassen.

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individual pieces ranging from elaborate sand castings to the simple elegance of blown forms, this show draws visiting collectors (and has spawned a world-wide mailing list).

With those sensuous, nearly liquid colours and extravagant design sensibility, contemporary art glass combines technical excellence with a joyful artistic imagination — the stuff is gorgeous! “We expect over 4,500 people to drop into the gallery to see the glass,” says West End’s Amy Boyle.

“And there’s a sense of pride knowing that this is all Canadian talent.” Showing daily at the West End Gallery, 1203 Broad Street, from July 3 to September 25. For more info: 250-388-0009 or westendgalleryltd.com.

victoriaboulevard.com 63

Emily Carr’s Impressionistinspired Beacon

Hill Park, a watercolour on paper, was painted in 1909.

HOMECOMING QUEEN From her early embrace of modernism to an abiding interest in aboriginal culture, Emily Carr is deservedly the province’s most famous artist. But the Victoria-born Carr has always had a disappointingly small presence in the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. (Carr died before the AGGV existed, so many of her paintings were bequeathed elsewhere.)

That’s changing with an evolving, three-year exhibit at the AGGV called Emily Carr: On the Edge of Nowhere. This exhibit has 60 works, many on loan; Carr’s own paintings are complemented by works of the artists who most influenced her, from Group of Seven painters to Seattle abstract expressionist Mark Tobey. “There is also an interactive multi-media component that gives visitors an opportunity to learn about Carr and her paintings,” says Mary Jo Hughes, the AGGV’s chief curator. Along with seeing

short films and a digitized photo gallery operated by touch screen, people will have a chance to get hands-on and be a bit creative. “This is a solid introduction to Emily Carr’s personality, her work habits, her quirkiness, her special kinship with our landscape,” adds Hughes. “Emily is coming home.”

On the Edge of Nowhere opens June 30. For information, call 250-384-4171 or visit aggv.bc.ca.

SUCH FINE FOLK Despite a valiant effort to resurrect a major summer music festival for 2010, it looks like Victorians will have to wait until next year to catch the debut of the Global Rhythms Music Fest. Luckily, people can still get their fix of blues, roots, Celtic and all things funky at Courtenay-Comox’s fantastic festival. A top-10 finalist in CBC Radio’s recent “Best festival in Canada” contest, Vancouver Island MusicFest turns 15 this year — and anybody who has ever been there knows how delightful this well-run festival is. From superb programming to on-site camping and a gorgeous setting next to the Tsolum River just north of Courtenay, the familyfriendly VIM is almost too much fun to be legal. (And hats off to VIM producer and ex-Victorian Doug Cox, a dobro maestro in his

own right, who was a 2010 Juno-nominee for his Slide to Freedom II CD.) Marquee names coming this year include Roberta Flack, Adrian Belew, Joan Osborne, the Holmes Brothers, Nanci Griffith and Tony Trischka. Festival runs July 9 to 11. For tickets, 1-866-898-8499 or islandmusicfest.com.

A B i t S K E tc H Y o n t H E d E tA i L S

TUNING UP THE TOWN Fans of classical music have many options in multiple venues for the next two months. The Victoria Symphony is offering an encore performance of last year’s popular Symphony in the Summer, which involves more than a half-dozen, mostly free performances in a variety of venues

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Internationally renowned countertenor Daniel Taylor performs in the VCM concert series this summer.

over the latter half of July. The symphony first takes root at Butchart Gardens, presenting three different 8:00 pm shows that are free to Butchart patrons (July 20, 23, and 28). If you don’t mind sharing your Mozart with the herons and peacocks, the symphony also performs at Beacon Hill Park at 1:30 pm on July 25. As well, symphony music ensembles will be appearing at outdoor historical locations in the downtown (check website for details). And all this musicmaking climaxes with the needs-no-introduction Symphony Splash, which should draw over 40,000 fans to the Inner Harbour on August 1 at 7:30 pm. For more details, refer to the VSO website, victoriasymphony.ca.

The Victoria Conservatory of Music once again offers its Summer Series concerts involving the VCM’s various summer

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academies that draw approximately 350 top students from across the country. With two dozen performances spanning eight weeks, this series offers something for every classical music fan, whether your interests are guitar or flute, piano or Baroque singing, instrumental duets or orchestral repertoire.

The concerts showcase the country’s rising young stars, the VCM’s acclaimed faculty, members of the Victoria Symphony, local groups such as the Victoria Guitar Trio and the Beacon Hill Brass Ensemble, and guest artists such as internationally renowned countertenor Daniel Taylor. The notably affordable tickets range from $5-$25 (with some shows “by donation”).

Running from July 5 to August 27, at 900 Johnson Street (at Quadra). For more information call 250-386-5311 or go online at vcm.bc.ca GUILDING THE SHOVEL Visual arts are on display this summer, beginning with Turning Tools into Treasures, eye-catching objêts by Salt Spring Island “metal artist” Karin Jones. A former goldsmith,

Karin Jones’ “Untitled (Shovel)”, Farm Tools Series, 2009. Standard spade (carbon, steel, ash). Silver and 24K gold inlay.

Jones is a specialist in Damascene Inlay, a rare and ancient technique for inlaying gold and silver onto steel. Although historically used to beautify weapons and suits of armour, the techniques have been applied here to farm tools such as shovels and scythes. Aside from their newfound beauty, these once-utilitarian objects are meant to inspire thought on agriculture-related issues, everything from the vogue for rural nostalgia to fears about food security and even a nod to peasant uprisings in previous centuries. Jones is one of only two artists in North America working in this unusual medium, and her show, aptly enough, is in a renovated barn-cum-gallery. Running from July 11 to August 15 at Salt Spring’s Point Gallery (look for the signed, walk-in entrance on South Ridge Drive, just north of Fulford Harbour). For gallery hours, call 250-653-0089.

THE PLAY’S THE THING For the last five summers the grounds at Camosun College’s Lansdowne Campus have come alive with the immortal spirit of the Bard, as the Victoria Shakespeare Society (VSS) attracts up to 3,000 patrons to its lively repertory presentations. This year’s comedy, Taming of the Shrew, has that epic battle of the sexes directed by VSS veteran Barbara Poggemiller. Then things get grim and cruel

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with Richard III, which is helmed by Ian Case, Intrepid Theatre’s general manager (and the man behind all those great site-specific Halloween shows at Craigdarroch Castle). “This isn’t ‘academic’ Shakespeare, it’s theatre for the people — the way Shakespeare might have done it,” says VSS artistic director Michael Glover. victoriaboulevard.com 67

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Running at Lansdowne Campus from July 12 to August 21, 7:30 pm. Tickets are “at the door” or through the McPherson Box Office, 250-386-6121.

See vicshakespeare.com We go from codpieces to caulk boots with Good Timber: Songs & Stories of the Western Logger. The latest in-house production from The Other Guys Theatre Company, who similarly delved into provincial history a few years back with the popular Moodyville Tales, is a hearty serving of musical theatre that explores the masculine world of logging. “It was inspired largely by the poems of Robert E. Swanson,” explains Ross Desprez, the main Other Guy. “He was the Robert Service of BC loggers and his poems really bring this particular group of hard-working blue-collar men to life.” The poems have been set to melodies in styles ranging from ragtime to bluegrass and blues, with the show itself presented in the main foyer of the Royal BC Museum.

“We’ve workshopped this a few times and the response has been pretty great,” adds singer/songwriter/playwright Desprez, whose earlier revues include Sex: the Musical and The Ballad of Jim Pane. “The music broadens the feeling for the era and gives real insight into who these people were.”

July 2 to August 28 at the Royal BC Museum, Mondays through Saturdays at 8 pm. Tickets available at the RBCM box office or by phoning 250-721-8480. royalbcmuseum.bc.ca.

ARTFUL ARTISANS Heading into its 10th anniversary, Metchosin’s Stinking Fish Studio Tour exudes the sweet smell of success.

Notwithstanding that whiffy name — “Metchosin” is derived from an aboriginal word meaning “stinking fish” — this is the most popular tour of art studios on the Island, attracting 12,000 locals and tourists, many from Vancouver and Seattle.

Two dozen participating artists include potters Robin Hopper and Judi Dyelle, printmaker Chiarina Loggia and steel sculptor Beverly Petow. Whether your passion is hand-blown chandeliers or stone statuary, jewelry or oil paintings, there is a lot to see . . . or buy. From July 24 to August 2, 10 am to 5 pm. Pamphlets available at public locations across Victoria (or google “stinking fish studio tour” for a downloadable map).

Over the Malahat, the first annual Current Threads showing of “fibre fine arts” runs all August in Ladysmith.

Presented by 15 members of the Vancouver Island chapter of the Surface Design Association, this will be a showcase for contemporary expressions of weaving, embroidery, wearable art, screen-printing on fabric, and felting. Although this group only formed about a year ago, individually these are veteran artists who show nationally and internationally.

“Our members are taking this far beyond traditional practice . . . it’s very modern, vibrant and colourful work,” explains

68 victoriaboulevard.com

Design Source WareHouse Boulevard Ad Half Pg 9.75 x 4 June 2010

Metchosin potter Judi Dyelle specializes in highfire porcelain; this bowl’s translucent, hand-carved image of a crane was inspired by a Thai sculpture in the artist’s own garden.

participant Judi MacLeod. “It’s definitely fine art and not craftwork.”

August 2 to 28 at the Ladysmith Waterfront Art Gallery, 610 Oyster Bay Drive. Daily shows, noon to 4 pm. For info call 250-472-2429. ladysmithwaterfrontgallery.com.

MAKING A SPLASH Most Victoria gardeners wear jeans when weeding and mulching — then there are those who pull on hip waders to tend the flowers. If you want to immerse yourself in the increasingly popular world of water gardens, then buy one of the 600 tickets for the Love of Africa Society’s 4th annual Water Garden Tour. A mere $25 gets you access to 11 of this city’s most spectacular examples of non-traditional landscaping. From Asian themes involving koi, water lilies and bamboo to sequenced pools and streams that are the focus of an elaborately landscaped estate, these are unique oases of serenity. “The gardens are absolutely gorgeous,” enthuses tour organizer Karen Hughes. “It’s not surprising that the large ones can be stunning, but a lot of people are struck by just how much beauty and privacy can be created in a small space.” Six professional designers will be on hand to answer questions, and virtually all the money raised will go directly to Tanzania to help fund an orphanage and a community medical clinic. “It makes for a beautiful day, the cause is great, and you can learn so much,” adds Hughes. The tour is July 10, 10 am-4 pm. For information: fortheloveofafrica.org or call 250-891-0762. VB victoriaboulevard.com 69

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“They’re friendly,” yell homeowners Mary Ellen Henderson and Michael Podbere over the canine cacophony. We negotiate the welter of panting dogs to settle in the living room armchairs. The dogs curl up nearby and Dodger the cat promptly leaps onto my notepad. I feel at home immediately.

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enjoy their southwestfacing views from the deck (left and bottom).

The presence of happy pets and the comfortable atmosphere is no accident. Mary Ellen, 53, and Michael, 61, designed and built the house in 2008. It’s the first home entirely of their own making, and the first place where they have finally unpacked all their boxes and really settled in.

“We’ve moved around a lot,” says Mary Ellen, who grew up on a farm north of Toronto and met Montrealborn and raised Michael in Toronto.

The couple had two homes together in Toronto, then moved west to Whistler in 1998, then to Salt Spring

in 2001. While building their new home, they moved again, this time to Victoria so that Mary Ellen, a professional LEED-accredited interior and residential designer, could go back to school to upgrade her qualifications. They moved back to Salt Spring when the home was finished.

The goal with this house is to remain in it for the rest of their lives. “Michael’s sons laugh at us when we say this one is for keeps because we’ve never stayed anywhere for very long. But this,” she says quietly, “is our ‘forever’ house.” For the first time, Michael and Mary Ellen say they are home for good, and it shows.

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74 victoriaboulevard.com

For Mary Ellen, building a brand-new house also gave her the opportunity to realize a long-held ambition to use sustainable materials and employ design features that would minimize the home’s environmental impact. She quotes her mantra, a Thoreau quotation: “What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?”

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Mary Ellen immediately began researching environmentally sustainable materials and technology. When they were ready to start building that fall, she handed a long list of items to contractor Ian Wilson. “I nearly fell over when I saw it,” laughs Wilson in recollection. “We had to start work right

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The couple have a short commute downstairs to their shared home office, the base for Michael’s wine-importing operation and Mary Ellen’s design business. After a day’s work, Mary Ellen enjoys a glass of wine upstairs on the daybed in the dining area with Sam keeping her company.

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Wilson did not succeed in getting concrete with fly ash, a recycled industrial by-product that reduces the high-energy cement content. “It’s a better choice,” says Ian, “but it just isn’t available yet for single residential construction.” But the couple was successful in almost 76 victoriaboulevard.com

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every other aspect of their plans.

“What we tried to do,” says heat system has seven Michael, “is to combine high efficiency different control zones, and low emissions with long-term allowing the couple to payback.” He points out that higher choose to have no heat upfront expense for some green in the master bedroom, technology and materials results in comfortable living lower long-term maintenance costs space temperatures and energy bills. For example, the couple invested in an induction stove. and pleasantly warm The appliance retails for $2,500 and bathrooms. up, and with twice the efficiency of gas, but uses far less electricity than cheaper conventional stoves. “Look at this!” exclaims Mary Ellen, grabbing a pot, filling it with water and plunking it on an element. Within 45 seconds the water is boiling. I’m convinced.

For heat and air quality, a radiant heat system was installed under the floors, with temperature controls in seven different zones: “That means we can have warm floors in the bathroom, a cooler setting in the living area, and the heat right off in the bedroom. The hydro bills are a fraction of what they would be with baseboard heat,” says Michael.

A heat pump for controlling air temperature is similarly efficient and a passive solar design captures warmth from a low winter sun angle. Roof overhangs keep the house cool in the summer. At Wilson’s suggestion, the couple also

installed an HRV, or Heat Recovery Ventilator, which extracts stale air, recovers heat from it, and adds the heat to incoming filtered fresh air. “That was an excellent idea,” says Michael fervently. “It works extremely well and we’re very happy with it.” A re-circulating pump, which uses very little electricity, provides instant hot water. A rainwater catchment system from the concrete tile roof will store more than 15,000 litres of water underground.

“Since this is our forever house, we also wanted to build a house that would endure,” says Mary Ellen. “So we looked for long-lasting materials.” When less energy is expended in maintenance and replacement of materials, that adds to the sustainability of a building, she said. The concrete tile roof for example, has a 50-year life span, and then is recyclable.

The fibre cement siding has the same longevity and is virtually maintenance-free. The recycled fir floors are already 80 years old, and the couple expects them to last as long again, scratches from dog claws notwithstanding. “It just adds to the homey atmosphere,” smiles Michael.

The couple also integrated the house design with efforts to maintain a reasonably environmentally-friendly lifestyle.

Their dual office allows them to work from home instead of commuting to their two businesses, West Edge Design for Mary Ellen and AIS Wine Imports for Michael. The openplan kitchen is ideal for entertaining and the media room is a cosy distraction from winter’s rainy weather.

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A pool table downstairs,

Because they now spend more time at home, their three-year-old fuel-efficient car only has 12,000 an extensive library are kilometres on the clock. “There’s no all reasons Mary Ellen lawn to mow,” Michael notes happily, and Michael enjoy “so no lawnmower.” After taking a staying home. course in organic gardening at Salt Spring’s Foxglove Farm, he is also eager to create a food garden on the property and cut down on trips to the grocery store.

Has the effort and expense been worth it? “Definitely!” exclaims Mary Ellen. “I probably sound like a real treehugger when I go back to Toronto and rave about this place,” adds Michael. “But when you do it and live it, you end up embracing it completely.”

“It’s all a matter of awareness, I think,” says Mary Ellen.

“More and more people are realizing how important it is to invest in sustainability,” she concludes. “The payback is a home that is easy on the planet and that you will want to be in forever.” the media room and

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SUPPLIERS AND TRADES: Contractor/builder: Wilco Construction Ltd.; Residential design, interior design & landscaping: West Edge Design; Electrical: Salt Spring Island Electric Ltd.; Plumbing/Heating/HRV: Tim Duke Plumbing & Heating Ltd./Salt Spring Sheet Metal Ltd.; Plumbing fixtures: Wolseley, Kitchen & Bath Classics; Cabinetry: Dan Johnson Woodworking; Fireplaces/tile/appliances: Salt Spring Home Design Centre; Specialty furnishings: Jesse Fisher Custom Woodworks; Doors: Prestige Window & Door Ltd.; Door fixtures/hardware: Victoria Speciality Hardware Ltd.; Woodwork/wine cellar: SRK Woodwork; Lighting: McLaren Lighting Ltd.; Stonework /masonry: Brian Stacey; Theatre/home audio: One Touch Smart Home Inc. VB victoriaboulevard.com 81

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GREATHOMES GREATREALTORS Welcome to Boulevard ’s Great Homes, Great Realtors. This advertising section, showcasing prominent Victoria realtors and a hand-picked selection of currently available property listings, appears in each issue of the magazine. We hope that you will enjoy it!

LESLEE FARRELL MACDONALD REALTY I am a Simon Fraser University graduate and passionate about boating, the arts and charity service. After 30 years in my profession, I feel as committed to my clients today as I did on day one. I provide expertise in luxury and waterfront properties, along with a top-ranking internet presence that is combined with leading-edge marketing tools. My wish is to deliver the ultimate concierge service to all of my real estate transactions.

SCOTT GARMEN - SUTTON GROUP WEST COAST REALTY I bring a unique breadth of knowledge and experience to the Victoria real estate market. My extensive real estate, finance and business experience, backed by my BCom, MBA and CA designations, helps ensure that I meet my overall goal of protecting and contributing to my clients’ wealth. I provide my clients with practical guidance and advice every step of the way ensuring a sound real estate decision is made.

The best is the least I can do . . .

DEEDRIE BALLARD RE/MAX CAMOSUN During my 17 year career in Real Estate, I have been listing homes in Greater Victoria. Diversification and knowledge combined with personalized service has made me one of Victoria’s Top Realtors. Giving back to my community has been a vital part of my life, having served on many boards over the past 35 years. When you work with Deedrie Ballard; Expect Excellence.

LISA WILLIAMS CENTURY 21 QUEENSWOOD REALTY LTD. A third generation Victorian, my passions are architecture, design and our fabulous West Coast lifestyle.

Working in Victoria since 1990, I specialize in waterfront, unique and luxury properties and have sold many of Victoria’s highest priced homes.

My mission is to exceed expectations, rise to every challenge and to always look for innovative ways to connect buyers and sellers!

LYNNE SAGER RE/MAX CAMOSUN I’ve been selling unique and waterfront homes in Victoria for 25 years and offer knowledge in construction and interior design from my family business. I’ve been a member of the Education Committee for VREB for four years and am presently on the Community Relations Committee. I pride myself on keeping my negotiating skills and personal contacts current.

DALLAS CHAPPLE RE/MAX CAMOSUN Named after my father, bandleader Dal Richards, I have a Mass Communications degree from the Sorbonne in Paris. I’ve been a Victoria realtor for 18 years specializing in Oak Bay and have consistently placed in the top 100 of RE/MAX’s 6,000 agents in Western Canada. My goal is to help clients find their dream home and ensure their decisions are wise, long-term investments.

PHOTOS BY BULLOCK & KIRSTEIN PHOTOGRAPHY

GREATHOMESGREATREALTORS

GREATHOMES GREATREALTORS BOULEVARD MAGAZINE’S REAL ESTATE

ADVERTISING SECTION July/August 2010

STUNNING LOW-BANK WATERFRONT beautifully situated on Roberts Bay. This 3 bed, 3 bath contemporary 2200 sq.ft. home takes full advantage of the unobstructed views from all of the main rooms. $1,399,000.

Contact Scott Garman, Sutton Group-West Coast Realty.

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It’s time to expect more from your realtor®

Scott Garman & a s s o c i a t e s “Scott maintained a high level of professionalism, ethics & patience during both our transactions. He negotiated an excellent accepted offer on the purchase of our new property and secured a fair price in a challenging market on the sale of our existing home.” Cheryl & Dan

10439 ALLBAY ROAD Stunning lowbank waterfront beautifully situated on Roberts Bay. Extensively renovated over the last year to exacting standards, this 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom contemporary home of almost 2,200 sq.ft. takes full advantage of the unobstructed views from all the

1250 BEACH DRIVE Unobstructed ocean views! A wonderful combination of a seller’s vision with a design by one of Victoria’s foremost architects, Pamela Charlesworth, makes this 2005 four bedroom, three bathroom renovated home special. This magical area of South Oak Bay has unobstructed views of the ocean, Mount Baker, sailboats, seals and the odd whale! Nearby is the Oak Bay Village, Marina, Willows Beach, and the prestigious Victoria Golf Club. $1,495,000 MLS 274410

main rooms. The main floor of open living was designed to wow your guests. Retire at night to a beautifully situated and appointed master bedroom which takes full advantage of the ocean views. $1,399,000 MLS 274674

1546 MONTEREY AVENUE Character, location, and charm only begin to describe this 1912 Oak Bay Classic. Featuring 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, this family friendly home will impress those seeking intact character of the period: spacious rooms, 9 ft. ceilings, original hardwood floors, beamed ceilings, built-ins galore, two original fireplaces featuring extraordinary custom tile work, and a private study. A bonus detached Garden Studio for the artist. $949,900 MLS 277371

599 ST. PATRICK Charming South Oak Bay address, less than 500 feet to the ocean and one km to the Oak Bay Village. Rustic 900 sq.ft. home seeking your major renovation ideas or a great investment property while you plan your dream home. Deep (32’x226’) lot with large private and mature backyard. $599,000 MLS 271213

250-896-7099 www.garmanandassociates.com email: sgarman@sutton.com #103 - 4400 Chatterton Way, Victoria, BC V8X 5J2 GREATHOMESGREATREALTORS

Sutton Group - West Coast R ealty

paddock, two garages. Amazing value and prime location on Saanich Inlet. $8,900,000 MLS#233557

$2,485,000 MLS#253844

$69

Call Leslee for

SHOWCASE OF HOMES Your Luxury Waterfront Specialist Email: leslee@lesleefarrell.com Webpage: www.lesleefarrell.com Phone direct: (250) 514-9899 Phone office: (250) 385-2033

Leslee Farrel Boulevard ad Dec 21 1

This charming Uplands family residence is the quintessential entertainment home, perfect for enjoying family life to the highest of standards.

All principal rooms are generous, creating a natural flow for entertaining in the home, looking out to the east-facing private back garden. Offered at $1,995,000 MLS#278127

Be the first to view this classic 1989 West Coast residence, situated on a 1.26 acre low bank waterfront in View Royal, offering complete privacy in a most serene and idyllic setting. Spacious rooftop deck is a bonus. Garden is very low maintenance leaving abundant time for kayaking! Offered at $979,000 MLS#272966

This spectacular 11 acre estate in the Cowichan Valley, offers over 700’ of low bank east-facing waterfront with a Frank Lloyd Wright style residence offering 7000 square feet of architectural excellence.

This is simply an irresistible home offering a serene lifestyle. Offered at $3,450,000 MLS#278047

Situated in the heart of South Oak Bay this incredible waterfront hideaway offers .71 acres and breathtaking views over McNeill Bay and Trial Island. Built in 1976 and recently upgraded it is a most charming family home. Offered at $2,295,000 MLS#273171

Situated on a private by-way, 30 minutes from Victoria on 2.83 acres of waterfront with 330’ of shoreline, this completely renovated residence is a modernist masterpiece ready for occupancy. Enjoy spectacular 180 degree views of Mt. Baker and the Saanich Peninsula. Enjoy amazing sunrises from your master suite, kitchen or spacious deck. Bonus 2 bay workshop + double garage. Offered at $2,050,000 MLS#272073

This Classic Uplands home is situated on a beautiful & private .64 acre garden on Beach Drive in the heart of the Uplands, a short stroll from the Yacht Club.

Fabulous country kitchen & entertainment size living room. 5 bedrooms & 4 baths. Offered at $2,395,000 MLS#277339

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Stunning five year old Zebra designed

Elegant, spacious, Beach Drive condo

Extremely well built, and appointed

home situated on a quiet street in the

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Broadmead Family home, is situated on

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Expect Excellence PHONE

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Deep Cove waterfront Custom 3,515 sq.ft. $1,998,000

Exceptional new kitchen In-ground pool $1,950,000

Elegant 6,500 sq. ft. waterfront home at Ten Mile Point. $3,998,000

Available for $1,998,000 with the purchase of adjoining 2715 Sea View Road waterfront home.

Proudly serving Victoria for 25 years.

PHONE 250.744.3301 • EMAIL lynne@lynnesager.com � WEBSITE www.lynnesager.com GREATHOMESGREATREALTORS

RE/MAX CAMOSUN CALL: 250-744-3301 TOLL FREE: 1-877-652-4880 WWW.DALLASCHAPPLE.COM DALLAS SELLS VICTORIA / OAK BAY

“MY GOAL, AS YOUR REALTOR, IS TO FIND YOUR DREAM HOME, AND ENSURE THE DECISION YOU MAKE STANDS AS A WISE INVESTMENT OVER THE LONG TERM.”

3123 Rutledge Street – Great Location!

Walk to Mayfair Mall, park and close to schools. Wonderful starter home featuring 2 bedrooms up plus a one bedroom suite down: great mortgage helper!

– $469,000

In Sold

Style and Panache!

Completely remodelled 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo offers over 1,000 sq.ft. of living space. New floors, beautiful cork floors in the kitchen, (with new custom cabinetry), new appliances and eating bar. Close to shopping, transportation and Oak Bay village.

– $329,900

Oak Bay – Goodacre House Turn-of-the-Century Beauty!

6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, spacious living room, family size dining room, large recreation room, this is a stunning family home. The garden lends itself to garden parties!

– $1,375,000

South Oak Bay! Fabulous views!

This spacious suite, 1 of the largest in the building, has ocean views from the living and dining rooms, both bedrooms and even the kitchen!

Steps to Oak Bay Marina, buses, shopping and of course the beach!

Complex features a pool and hot tub!

– $459,900

s!

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Oak Bay – Uplands! $1,650,000

Ocean Views!

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1st Ad! Great Mortgage Helper!

Spacious level entry end unit townhome features 3 bedrooms and 3 baths, eating area in kitchen, large deck, perfect for those evening sunsets!

– $519,900

This Gordon Head family home features 5 bedrooms/3 baths, 2 fireplaces, spacious rooms, fenced yard, close to parks, schools and transportation.

– $569,900

Treehouse Condo!

Begbie near Jubilee Hospital!

Shrouded by trees, yet bright and sunny within. 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom top floor condo with skylights in a magical setting. Eat-in kitchen, spacious master bedroom and living room with gas fireplace.

– $418,900

DALLAS CHAPPLE - RE/MAX CAMOSUN 4440 CHATTERTON WAY VICTORIA, BC V8X 5J2 OAK BAY OFFICE 2239 OAK BAY AVENUE VICTORIA, BC V8R 1G4 P: 250-744-3301 F: 250-744-3904 TOLL FREE: 1-877-652-4880 E: DALLAS@DALLASCHAPPLE.COM GREATHOMESGREATREALTORS

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LISA WILLIAMS QUEENSWOOD WATERFRONT Lovely 4-5 bdrm, 4 bth upgraded & reno'd home on private 1 acre property, with HW flrs, gourmet granite kitchen, main level family rm, super S/W facing pool, 2 double car garages & so much more! Exceptional value, assessed at nearly $2.4M! $1,995,000

RARE WATERFRONT OPPORTUNITY! Build your dream hm on this rare, sunny 1.3 acre property just 2 mins. from Cadboro Bay Village!

Gorgeous, peaceful setting on quiet cul-de-sac with lovely pebble beach . . . solid, well maintained 2300 sq.ft. rancher. $1,998,000

WEDGEWOOD POINT LUXURY! Gorgeous executive hm totally reno'd to the highest level . . . stunning! 3 bedrm + den, amazing gourmet kitchen, top-of-the-line finishing, expansive decks w/ocean views & so many extras! Parks, trails & beach access just mins. away . . . $1,368,000

TRIANGLE MTN. - EXCELLENT VALUE! Like-new 2008 blt, 4 bedrm home boasting HW flrs, spacious gourmet, granite kitchen, expansive main flr master suite, easy care fenced yard w/spacious patios, double garage, & views to the Olympics . . . close to everything yet quiet & peaceful! $658,000

CONTEMPORARY UPLANDS - NO-STEPS! Fantastic 4 bedrm hm on a beautiful & totally private .6 acre lot! This DiCastri designed hm boasts tons of natural light, open, flexible design, huge windows & skylights, HW & tile flrs, gorgeous patio w/arbor, manicured lawns & gardens! $1,598,000

SPACIOUS & ELEGANT FAIRFIELD HOME 5 bedrms, 4 bths, 4192 sq.ft. and fully self-contained 1 bedrm suite! Extremely bright w/super design, gourmet kitchen, HW flrs, huge rec rm, family rm off kitchen & so much more! 1/2 blk to waterfront & 1 blk to Beacon Hill Park & Cook St. Village! $1,198,000

WILLOWS BEACH! Spacious & sunny 5000 sq.ft.

5-6 bedrm, 5 bth hm just steps from the nicest sandy beach in Victoria! Enjoy spectacular s-facing views, high ceilings, huge windows & skylights, expansive private master suite, large office, games/rec rm, 2 separate 1 bdrm suites w/super views — super for your Universityaged kids, and lots of parking too! $1,799,000

LUXURIOUS HOME WITH INCREDIBLE VIEWS! Stunning ‘09 blt OAK BAY 5-6 bdrm, 5000 sq.ft. home featuring spectacular panoramic ocean & Olympic Mt. views from all main rooms! Gorgeous finishing, Brazillian HW, coffered & vaulted ceilings, luxurious, private master suite, easy nanny accom. & so much more! South-facing, easy care lot . . . just 6 mins. frm town! $2,690,000

GORDON HEAD - CALIFORNIA EXECUTIVE This lovely 4 bed/4 bth home is located on a quiet cul-de-sac, boasting hi-ceilings, gourmet granite kitchen, super family rm fabulous open design, lots of skylights, gorgeous 'Zen' gardens w/gazebo & in-law option . . . close to everything! $988,000

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250•514•1966 Direct www.LisaWilliams.ca

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HOTDESIGN

BY STEVE CAREY

Tap into Nature’s

clean energy sources

for your heating and cooling needs

The earth’s geothermal energy can take us from a beautiful naturally-occurring hot spring pool and — with our latest technologies — to clean and inexpensive cooling systems for our homes.

AT THE HEIGHT OF SUMMER, thoughts turn to cooling our homes more than heating them. But now is the perfect time to consider green home design technologies that do both.

Home heating and cooling are leading consumers of energy and producers of green-house gases. They are also a major drain on our wallets. Thankfully, new heating and cooling methods are environmentally friendly, comfortable and affordable. In particular, homeowners are turning to two technologies — geothermal and air-source heat pumps.

Geothermal and air-source heat pumps both use the principle of heat exchange: when two objects of different temperatures are near each other, the hotter surface cools and the colder surface warms up. Geothermal taps into the temperature of the earth, using buried or submerged coils as the system of heat exchange. An air-source heat pump uses the temperature differences of the outdoor air as the heat or cooling source. In essence, both systems work on the same principles as the refrigerator coils.

James and Victoria Ballantyne installed a geothermal system in their Oak Bay home during a recent renovation.

Since the house’s foundation needed rebuilding, the geothermal system was installed by Island Energy when the house was lifted and moved onto a new foundation.

The fact the family was increasing the house size to 7,000 square feet factored into the decision.

“In order to justify that luxurious amount of space, we decided on geothermal; otherwise, it would be more expensive to maintain, energy-wise,” James says. Aside from concern for the environment in burning gas to heat a large home, the Ballantynes were concerned about the potential for energy costs to triple or quadruple in future years.

“Imagine having a heating bill that’s $1,500 or $2,000 a month,” said James.

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method, such as fans, forced air or in-floor heat. The coil loop can be placed into the ground either horizontally or vertically. Horizontal alignment of the coils requires a large lot of at least 1,000 square metres (a quarter acre) and the ability to dig a 2 to 3-metre trench, but costs less overall and is more effective. Vertical alignment is used for properties with smaller lots, with homes on bedrock, or with heritage buildings undergoing a retrofit. Once in place, the ground loop is filled with water and anti-freeze, which absorb the underground temperature — warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

Though the cost to install is steep (between $15,000 to $20,000), the benefits are numerous. Geothermal is more efficient than gas and oil furnances and electric heating, which leads to cost savings, says Barry Milner of GeoTility, Canada’s largest geothermal installer.

When two objects of different temperatures are near each other, the hotter surface

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“For every unit of energy used running the pump, compressor and fan, we’re getting three or four units out of the ground for free,” he says, compared to the one-to-one ratio of electric or less than that for gas. “As well, the average house reduces greenhouse gas emissions by two to three tonnes a year.”

There are two ways to heat and cool the home with geothermal: water-to-air, where heat is pumped through airducts in your home; and water-to-water, where the water is piped through radiant in-floor heating, a toasty-in-thewinter, cool-in-the-summer method of climate control.

It’s a personal preference, say the experts. The Ballantynes went with radiant in-floor heating, something the couple and their children enjoy.

A geothermal system doesn’t create soot or fumes, which means better indoor air quality. Since the control

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units are placed inside, they require less maintenance compared to an outdoor system like an air source heat pump. And geothermal makes virtually no noise and is therefore much quieter than an air-source heat pump. A water-to-water geothermal system can be configured to heat hot water as a byproduct of the heat exchange from the ground to your home.

Older homes can be converted to geothermal systems, says Kyle Morrison of Pro Star Mechanical Technologies. New ductwork for forced air heat might be required for older homes to accommodate the greater volume of air a geothermal system moves, he says. Homes with cast iron radiators are more difficult to upgrade to geothermal because they require high water temperatures. Nevertheless, fixes are available. “My experience is that each older home requires a unique approach. There’s a great variety of equipment available, but it’s limited by the extent of the renovation and budget,” said Morrison.

Even commercial, heritage properties are making the switch.

Pro Star installed the geothermal system in the heritage Cornerstone Building in Fernwood, drilling vertical wells in the small yard. GeoTility retrofitted The Hudson, the condo conversion of the old Hudson Bay building at Douglas and Fisgard, and a 100-year old heritage, 1005 Langley Street, which now also sports a geothermal system underneath its footprint.

GeoTility recently developed an indoor drilling system that can

go through basement foundations, which made this possible.

An air-source heat pump, starting at $8,500, works by using the outside air temperature to cool or heat the home. It requires outdoor space for the unit, indoor ducting and a backup heating system. Once the temperature drops past zero degrees Celsius, an air-source heat pump loses efficiency, making a backup heating system necessary.

Peter Sundberg’s winter heating bills were more than $500 a month with an oil furnace in his 1947 house. After installing an air-source heat pump, upgrading insulation and windows, the bill was a little over $50 per month.

“We are saving hundreds of dollars a month. So the payback for all this stuff — probably $25,000 worth of investment — was just over four years. Where am I going to see that type of return on investment anywhere else?” says Green, who is a director of City Green Solutions, a non-profit organization that helps homeowners find energy-efficient options for their homes.

One of City Green’s services is conducting energy assessments for homes, looking for leaks, drafts and insulation problems. If your house is not well insulated, is drafty or has air leaks, you’ll be uncomfortable no matter what system you use. So fix heat loss problems first before you invest in the new geothermal systems or air-source heat pumps to ensure your efforts are not wasted in unnecessary heating loss. VB

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I HATE TO WASTE ANYTHING so tossing a completely good but old computer makes me nuts. Can you restore a system that has slowed to the point of being useless? Or is it time for the recycle bin? This column will help you try to get an old system functioning more smoothly and quickly or to know when it is time to start fresh.

First, computers built in the last six years should still be okay for writing, surfing and email, depending on specific hardware, notably the processor and memory (RAM). I recently added a gigabyte of RAM to a six-yearold laptop. It’s now running new programs nicely.

Computers slow down over time because of malware (viruses or spyware), too fragmented hard drives, or too much wear and tear on the operating system.

You could take it to a service centre, but a stranger will access your personal files. A safer option is to hire a tech who visits your location so that you can watch what he or she does, and perhaps learn a trick or two.

Before you shell out for a pro, however, try these steps.

If you can’t complete a step, move on to the next one, then come back to it later. The run time for these fixes can be long so I always do it when I don’t need to use the system and I do something else simultaneously. A watched computer never defrags! (Before you do anything, please back up your important files.)

Do some housekeeping Go to Ninite.com, and check boxes for CCleaner, Defraggler, and Revo. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and then click Get Installer. Icons for the three programs will

appear on your desktop. Now do the following: Clean the gunk: Run CCleaner. When it starts, click the clear Cookies check box, and then click Run Cleaner. The program will clean buckets of useless files. CCleaner can also clean the registry but beware, the Windows registry is very volatile — only the computer savvy should attempt it. See edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html for a good article on this.

Remove old programs: Revo Uninstaller does a better job of removing programs than the Add or Remove Programs item in Control Panel on a Windows-based system. Run the program, and then click any program listed that you no longer use. Click Uninstall. Follow the steps to remove the program. Repeat this for each listed unused program.

Put your files in order: Over time, computer files are broken up into smaller pieces and scattered over the drive, slowing down the system significantly. Windows provides a defragmentation program, but Defraggler is better. Run Defraggler, and then click Defrag. After it’s finished, run it again to do a thorough job.

Sweep for viruses Viruses and spyware may still be slowing you down.

Do the following steps to eradicate those bugs: Visit update.microsoft.com and install any high-priority security updates.

Verify that your virus scanner is up to date. If your subscription has expired, update it, or uninstall the scanner, and then install one of the freebies listed on Ninite.com. The choices are AVG, Avast or (Microsoft) Essentials. Note that you should only install one virus scanner on the system.

(However, you can run two or more spyware scanners, see below.) Run a complete virus scan.

Run the Malicious Software Removal Tool: microsoft.com/ security/malwareremove/default.mspx.

Run the Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner: onecare. live.com/site/en-us/default.htm. Click Full Service Scan and then follow the prompts. This will take a long time to run so plan to run it when you don’t need the system for awhile.

Install a spyware scanner and run a complete scan.

Ninite.com offers Malwarebytes, Spybot and Super SUPER spyware remover for free.

Fine tune your system Now check how your system is running. Go to PCPitstop. com. Click Overdrive, and then follow the prompts. The free scan provides an excellent summary of “Recommended fixes”, with details on how to apply them. Look at the Rankings tab and check the disk speed. If it’s anything less than 10MB/sec, a hard disk failure may be pending. PCPitstop may recommend adding memory. RAM is cheap and easy to add, and gives the best bang-for-the-buck to improve performance.

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Beware: Rogue Security Software If while surfing the web a pop-up says your computer is infected, DO NOT click the offer to fix it!

Doing so will install malware, preventing you from visiting web sites with fixes, and disabling tools such as Task Manager or System Restore. But if you do ever get tricked by a rogue program, try this: Click Start, click Shut Down, click Restart, and then click OK. While the computer restarts but before Windows opens, repeatedly tap the F8 key.

When the Startup Options screen appears, scroll to select Safe Mode, and press ENTER. After Windows starts, click Start, click All Programs, Accessories, System Tools and then click System Restore.

When prompted, select a date earlier than the installation of the rogue program and let it run.

A successful restore won’t affect any documents, but it will remove any program installed after the date you selected.

If the system is still not running well, it may be time to reinstall the operating system.

Consider a “Repair Installation”. This is effective, but unfortunately, not easy.

Search Google for “in-place upgrade of Windows”. And if you are running Windows XP, be sure to read the following: http://support.microsoft. com/kb/917964.

The last-ditch method is a complete system restore by using the manufacturer’s “System Recovery” disk. Warning: this will delete everything on the computer. Put the disk into the CD drive and then restart the computer. Now you have a clean slate.

Recycle If you do all this and it is still slow, drop the system off at a “Return-It Center” (Encorp.ca).

Before you pass it off, use a disk wiping program to remove traces of your personal files. Deleting them is not enough, as files containing banking or medical information could be recovered. You can use Heidi’s Eraser to create a “Boot Nuke disk” that will permanently delete everything on the system. For more information, see www.heidi.ie/node/38, and note the “USE WITH EXTREME CAUTION” warnings.

Or you might consider removing the hard drive.

All you need is a Philips screwdriver. This video should help: youtube.com/watch?v=5lVnFlFrqhE. If you now want to shop for a new system, your timing is perfect. The back-to-school computer sales are just around the corner. Next issue I’ll talk about what to look for. VB

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BOULEVARDBOOKCLUB

A few of the season’s top reads, courtesy of Bolen Books.

BY ADRIENNE DYER PHOTO BY GARY MCKINSTRY

great book this summer Pick up a

Unleash your inner writer and send us your non-fiction stories on the theme of “home.”

with these top book club recommendations

PLEASE SEND US 100 to 300 words of your best writing on anything and everything to do with home. We are keeping it vague to allow you the greatest latitude on what you write.

We want details and anecdotes, humourous stories or poignant ones. Make us laugh or make us cry or paint an evocative picture.

All submissions will be edited. If your piece is selected

MANY BOOK CLUBS take a break during the summer

for publishing you will be contacted for review of the edited

but they certainly don’t take a break from reading. Long, lazy days call for long, lazy books — or perhaps a gripping trilogy, juicy whodunit or nostalgic romance as restful and satisfying as a day by the sea shore. To help you decide what to slip into your beach tote, camping pack or weekender, members of past-featured book clubs have pulled together some of their favourite reads, listed here with just enough detail to whet your appetite. So go ahead, choose your fancy. I’ll see you at the beach!

piece which will appear in a future publication.

THE NEXT CHAPTER: Gods Behaving Badly, by Marie Phillips, 291 pages.

Vintage Canada, 2007. “We read this book last year and loved it — light, fun, yet highly creative read. British writer Phillips has placed the immortal Greek Gods in a rambling old house in modern-day London. Apollo is a psychic on a reality TV show, Artemis is working as a dog walker and Aphrodite is a phone sex worker. Two mortals, Alice, the Gods’ house cleaner, and Neil, the nerd she loves, get caught up in the Gods’ drama and all Hades breaks loose. A romp, but Phillips still stays true to the powers and myths of the Greek Gods, creatively translating them to the present time.”

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen, 335 pages.

Algonquin Books, 2006. “US writer Gruen tells the story of Jacob Jankowskis and his work as a veterinarian for a travelling circus during the Depression. Told in flashbacks as an aged Jankowski waits in a nursing home for his children to take him to the circus, it is both a moving and well-constructed story with memorable characters and plot developments.”

Here is an example by our Vice President:

Cat House by Peter Baillie

It was the 3rd or 4th place I lived in after leaving home. The house was in a beautiful setting in an old neighbourhood in Burlington, Ontario featuring mature trees and red bricked houses Summer was a magical time except at first light when the birds roused my cat to lunacy. The bedroom was a loft that cut into the roof line. The cat would naturally seek

warmth next to me as we slept, but as soon as those birds caught first light, the cacophony would stir the instincts of the feline predator.

I would wake to claws as the agitated cat paced back and forth on my chest. Then the lunatic beast would spring at the ceiling, never seeming to realize the birds were on the other side of the roof.

Deadline for Submissions is August 15, 2010 To submit your story, go to www.victoriaboulevard.com click on “Enter Stories By” link and follow the prompts.

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THE DEADLY SERIOUS BOOK CLUB:

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The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan, 464 pages. The Penguin Press, 2006. “This book outlines all the major issues surrounding the importance of buying local food and about food security. Summer’s the best time to read this book, because that’s the easiest time to buy local food at farmers’ markets!”

Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, 320 pages. Little, Brown and Company, 2008. “An incredibly mind-expanding book, entertainingly written,” says one member about Gladwell’s book that examines just exactly how the world’s superstars come into being. As Gladwell writes about such ‘outliers’ as Bill Gates: “They are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.”

High Tide in Tucson, by Barbara Kingsolver, 304 pages.

Harper Collins, 1995. “A great book of 25 short essays — some funny, some serious — by an amazing writer.”

“And what about the obvious?” says another member, who recommends Prodigal Summer, also by Kingsolver, 464 pages. Harper Perennial, 2001. This tale, which takes place in Appalachia over the course of one summer, weaves together the stories of three characters at odds with those around them, and explores their relationships with the Kentucky wilderness.

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The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley, 384 pages. Delacorte Press, 2009. “This is a funny detective story that I found quite entertaining,” says one member about this clever murder mystery set in a sleepy English village in 1950. “The heroine, Flavia de Luce, is an 11-year-old girl and I wondered if it would be too saccharine sweet. It was not.” Indeed, Flavia, an aspiring chemist and self-appointed sleuth, is far too spunky and fearless to be sweet.

The Road Home, by Rose Tremain, 432 pages. Little, Brown and Company, 2008. “This British book won the Orange Prize for Fiction and is about Lev, an Eastern European who arrives in Britain to find work after the death of his wife.”

44 Scotland Street, a series by Alexander McCall Smith, 325 pages. Anchor, 2005. “With about five or six books in the series so far, McCall Smith’s books are very good reads for summer. Set in Edinburgh, Scotland, these books are highly entertaining with lots of great characters and humour. Each book leaves you wanting more!”

THE NAMELESS BOOK CLUB: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,

by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, 288 pages. The Dial Press, 2008. “I love books that are set in England in the past,” says one member who loved this captivating, gentle affirmation of the goodness of the human soul. Told through a collection of personal letters, the book tells the story of the villagers of the Isle of Guernsey during the German occupation of the Second World War. McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, by Alexander series offers plenty McCall Smith. Abacus, 2004.

— When wise, compassionate and funny Mma Precious of hilarious, uplifting Ramotswe opens the doors to Botswana’s very first private detective agency, she is adventures for an immediately flooded with calls for help from the colourful entire summer characters that populate the stories. “I lived in South Africa for 10 years and feel I know so of reading. many of the characters in these books,” says one member.

With 12 books so far, the series offers plenty of hilarious, uplifting adventures for an entire summer of reading.

The Secret Life of Bees,

by Sue Monk Kidd, 336 pages. Penguin, 2003. “A very inoffensive, entertaining book with just the right amount of fiction and reality combined — and was somehow uplifting!”

Adapted into a movie in 2008, and set amidst the racial unrest of 1960s South Carolina, the novel follows the coming of age of 14-year-old Lily as she searches for the truth about her mother’s death.

The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, 480 pages. Knopf, 2008. “My husband, who has NEVER been riveted to a book in all the time I’ve known him, read this paperback thriller and he was riveted throughout,” says one member about this first book in the internationally bestselling “Millennium Trilogy,” published after the Swedish author’s sudden death in 2004. The phenomenally popular first novel pairs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist with tattooed, fierce and brilliant super-hacker Lisbeth Salander. They are forced to team up to solve a decades-old crime, thereby exposing deeply buried corruption in a wealthy Swedish family.

Questions or comments? Want your book club featured in the magazine? Please email Adrienne Dyer at adyer@telus.net for more information. VB

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TRAVELNEAR

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY JASON BROWN

The measure of a mountain is good hikes, superb views and ready access: AFTER THREE HOURS OF SCRAMBLING along the snowrimmed, Martian landscape of the ridge that leads to the summit of Mount Albert Edward, our arrival is somewhat anticlimactic.

Though the weather was clear when we began our ascent from Circlet Lake, thick cloud has moved in and enveloped the peak in a blanket of obscuring white. Everything is softened and shadowless, every stretch of distance dreamily curtailed after 15 metres by dense and curling vapour.

We’re not alone at the top. A father and his daughter are resting on the flat stone that marks the high point of Albert Edward itself, fishing out the last bits of cold pasta from a shared Tupperware container. The edge just beyond them is a sheer drop off the mountain’s west side. My hiking partner Aaron and I, cooling rapidly now that we’ve stopped moving, zip our jackets, don toques and sit down beside them.

We are about to eagerly unwrap salami sandwiches packed that morning, when the cloud thins and a hint of golden sunlight livens up the plateau. Seen now through a hazy filter, the Vancouver Island Range stretches off westward towards Clayoquot

Sound. The tips of the more massive crags shine brilliantly and here and there scattered jewels of rich blue from small, glaciallyfed lakes dot the high-altitude landscape.

Salami and cold pasta are quite forgotten. The four of us quietly take in the rewards of our vantage point. The entire hike has been gorgeous and exhilarating but the top of the mountain is still the top of the mountain.

Normally, this kind of experience conjures up days of gruelling effort and hardship, enough to dissuade many from making the attempt. But what’s astonishing about Albert Edward isn’t how difficult it is, but how easy. It’s the sixth highest peak in the Vancouver Island Range, at just over 2,000 metres, and certainly its most accessible. The trailhead begins at the parking lot for the Mount Washington ski hill, which means the hike starts with a bang in Paradise Meadows, a board-walked section of sub-alpine meadow and marsh that’s laced with wildflowers in July and temporary home to southward migrating birds in September.

For those choosing the western side of the trail to Albert Edward via Lake Helen Mackenzie, the entire first quarter of the

Left: Hiking companion Aaron Shepard rests on the ridge between Jutland Mountain and Mt. Albert Edward.

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Right: Looking over Strathcona Park’s Moat Lake from the trail just past the Circlet Lake campground.

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Mount Albert Edward has it all approach, the boardwalk continues all the way to the campground at the eastern end of the lake. One could conceivably make the trip to this point with a baby stroller.

Thereafter, the well-maintained trail rises and dips past several lakes and meadows before terminating at the Circlet Lake campground, the standard point of departure for day-tripping to and from the peak. Allowing time for a lunch stop at Kwai Lake, a possible side trip to the Cruikshank Canyon viewpoint, and time spent fending off the aggressive hordes of whiskey jacks that gather the moment you pull out your raisins and peanuts, it’s about four hours from the trailhead to Circlet Lake.

In addition to the relative ease of the route, it’s also the amenities provided at each of the three campsites (at Helen Mackenzie, Kwai and Circlet Lake) that make this a “backcountry light” experience. All campsites are prepared with either pea gravel clearings or cedar platforms suitable for one large tent or two smaller ones. The outhouses are well maintained, odourless solar composters, and there’s

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ample room for everyone’s food in the steel lockboxes provided by the park to keep critters away from your tent.

The majority of summer hikers here are headed for the Albert Edward summit, but it’s entirely possible that weather, time (allow at least seven hours for the return trip between Albert Edward and the Circlet Lake campground), or just a more restful frame of mind may prevent you from attempting the peak. In that case, there are several more modest excursions With Mt. Albert available to you. Chief among them is the short and relatively Edward it isn’t flat route to Moat Lake from Circlet Lake. how difficult it is, Nestled against the sheer rock wall running between but how easy. distant Jutland Mountain and the sinister-looking peak of Castlecrag Mountain, this large and icy lake is breathtakingly picturesque. From the rocks on the eastern side of the lake there’s a good view of the tiny island with two A-frame cabins in the middle of Moat Lake. This is owned by the descendents of early park developer Clinton Woods and it’s the only parcel of private property in Strathcona Park.

Since discovering the pleasures of the area I’ve made the trek to the peak of Albert Edward three times. If you’re feeling masochistic, the entire trip, from the parking lot to the peak and back, can be done in one very long and exhausting day. But packing a tent, warm clothes and some good food and staying two or three nights is near-luxurious.

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DO’S AND DON’TS Do remember to bring cash to pay your campsite fees ($5 per person, per night) at the trailhead parking lot.

Don’t be shy about coming in the late summer. Sure, the evenings are that much chillier but what you lose in heat, you’ll make up for in wild berry bounty. In mid-September the huckleberries rise everywhere from the undergrowth like a purple mist.

Do be conscious of the limited access to water on your way to the peak. Short of snow, there is none to be had once you’ve mounted the ridge, so pack in what you’ll need.

The same holds true for the route to Castlecrag beyond Moat Lake.

Don’t forget the usual advice when hiking in bear country. Make use of the convenient steel lock-boxes at all campsites for storing your food and make noise on the trails while hiking.

Do be mindful of park prohibitions of hiking off trail in the park’s core areas. Alpine environments are ruggedly beautiful, but they’re also fragile and slow to repair. VB victoriaboulevard.com 107

TRAVELFAR

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY RICK GIBBS

TWO TRAVELLERS, FOUR MONTHS, 2,500 KILOMETRES AND ONE WE’RE ABOUT TO DIE. I’m as sure of it as I am that my wife and I were fools to take leaves of absence from our jobs, load up backpacks and travel to India, where we now find ourselves a few days into our journey, crammed into the back of a tiny tin can of a car piloted by a maniac named Satnam, who, yet again failing to understand the laws of physics, swerves blindly into oncoming traffic to pass the slow-moving truck in front of us.

Fortunately, we sneak past, just squeezing back into our lane before a huge bus roars by, its diesel engine spewing dirty exhaust through our open window and choking us.

What madness has brought us here?

Nothing more than the dream of throwing off our Western yokes for a time and travelling through a country that has long intrigued us. We didn’t make it in our 20s; now, in our 50s, we’re on what we hope will be the transformative adventure of a lifetime.

Forget the adventure — right now we’re trying to survive our spur-of-the-moment decision to climb into this deathtrap of a car.

Seduced over sweet cups of chai by Shaffi, a smooth-talking Delhi travel agent, we’ve delayed our plan to travel to Dharamsala, the northern Indian home of the Dalai Lama, opting instead for an unplanned two-week tour through the northwestern desert state of Rajasthan.

Our 2,500 km trip will take us through storied towns like Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Jaipur, before we loop back through Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, and return to Delhi, ready to start the next leg of our journey.

India is not for the faint of heart. Travellers commonly say, “you’ll either love it or hate it,” and for some, India quickly becomes an acronym for “I’ll never do it again.” But for those up to the challenge, it’s a destination without equal. Where else can you rub shoulders with the dead in the streets of a 3,000-year-old city (Varanasi), stand amazed before the architectural wonder of the world (the Taj Mahal), and behold the snowy summits of the highest mountains on Earth (the Himalayas)?

In 10 lifetimes it wouldn’t be possible to experience all that this complex nation of a billion people, with its multiple languages,

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India is a land of extremes. Driving from the Delhi airport to our Tibetan guesthouse, Rabsel House ( very low budget) on our first night, we witnessed terrible poverty and squalor: makeshift shanties crowding the roadsides, sleeping bodies littering the sidewalks and small, futile fires burning away in the darkness.

But over three days in Delhi we also experienced a few of the country’s wonders: the modern Baha’i Temple, a stunning architectural oasis of huge white marble lotus petals springing from cooling pools of water; Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, with its inner courtyard vast enough to accommodate the prostrate forms of up to 25,000 worshippers at once; and the Gandhi Memorial, where we

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stood before a simple but revered black marble platform topped by a glass-encased eternal flame that marks where Mahatma Gandhi’s body was cremated following his assassination in 1948.

In darkness, we arrive at Mandawa, our first stop. The journey has taken eight hours instead of the promised five.

Pot-holed roads, heat, dust, and fear have all taken their toll, but we’re alive. Satnam leads us to the inner courtyard of Hotel Mandawa where softly lighted walls awash with pastel green paint and decorated with Rajasthani folk-art refresh our tired eyes.

We’re served a delicious dinner under a starlit desert sky. We eat quietly, talk in whispers, and feel our muscles release and soften. This is simply the best Indian meal we’ve ever tasted: subtle spices, creamy sauces, and delectable A trip to India is flavours never experienced in Indian restaurants back home. not for the faint Our time in Rajasthan proves to be a good way to get of heart. The only our India legs. We visit historic forts, temples, and palaces, and way to prepare ride camels into the Thar Desert, where we sleep under is to go. skies ablaze with constellations new to our eyes. We even brave the Karni Mata rat temple, where furry incarnations of great souls skitter around our bare feet and lap at large bowls of milk and grain left by worshippers. And we cap off the tour with a pre-dawn visit to the breathtaking Taj Mahal, watching in silence as the iconic marble dome turns from rose to pink to white with the rising of the sun.

A few months later, on one of our last days in India, we see the sun set on the Indian Ocean at the southernmost tip of the country and reflect on the journey we’ve had.

We’ve met the Dalai Lama at his residence in the Himalayan foothills, watched bodies burning on the banks of the Ganges River, and enjoyed a hundred or more conversations with travellers, residents, and refugees. We may not have been transformed, but we’re not the same.

You can fly to India by heading east or west. Air Canada flies from Vancouver via Toronto and Europe, Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong, with roundtrip airfares typically starting around $2,500. For more information about itineraries, accommodation, and travel sites, guidebook sites like The Lonely Planet (lonelyplanet.com) and The Rough Guide (roughguides.com) are good starting points. The Indian Ministry of Tourism has a comprehensive website at incredibleindia.org but as one friend said, “The only way to prepare for a trip to India is to go. VB

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LIBATIONS

BY SHARON MCLEAN PHOTO BY DARRYL GITTINS

Learn to perfect the art of wine pairing with these tasting tips

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MY FRIEND CLAUDETTE makes fabulous breads and gourmet meals. She loves to find the perfect wine pairing and has posed some interesting challenges for me over the years. She once asked, “What goes best with watermelon and crab soup?” I did my best to help.

For those who don’t have a sommelier on speed-dial here is an introduction to wine pairing.

Although wine geeks may start with the wine and match food to it, usually the food comes first. Start by evaluating the dish as systematically as possible. Is it rich or light? Is it mild or flavourful? Is it acidic, fatty or lean? Is it spicy, salty or sweet?

Wine pairing assumes that you can characterize both the food and the wine, which can be difficult for the neophyte.

The cure is easy: simply taste, really taste, lots of wines (sigh) and build up your memory banks of smells and flavours. In my last Libations column I gave a primer for how to really taste and what the various terms mean. When you’re ready to pair follow these steps:

Match the weight and flavour intensity Weight and intensity are not the same. Potatoes have lots of heft, but little flavour, while Thai dishes are big on flavour, but light in weight. Mismatches in weight and intensity cause the food or the wine to be overwhelmed by the more powerful element.

When evaluating the weight and intensity consider not just the main ingredients, but also any sauces and preparation methods. Sauces can change the weight and the flavour of a dish dramatically: chicken in a cream sauce is very different from simple grilled chicken. Steaming or poaching lightens a dish, while roasting or barbecuing adds weight, intensifies flavours and adds smokiness.

Pair weightier dishes with full body wines such as oaked Chardonnays, Chateauneuf-du-Papes, or new world Cabernet Sauvignons and Zinfandels. Pair lighter dishes with lighterbodied wines such as German Rieslings, or Burgundian Pinot Noirs. Pair delicately flavoured dishes with more delicate wines like Vinho Verde or unoaked Pinot Blancs. Match flavourful dishes with wines with pronounced intensity such as Gewurztraminers, Viogniers or Shirazes.

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Match or contrast flavours No rules here. Simply try to echo the flavours of the food in the wine or be creative and contrast the flavours. Try to be as specific as possible about the flavours you are playing with. Pair mushrooms with an aged Pinot Noir or Nebbiolo, or asparagus with the greenness found in Sauvignon Blancs.

Match acidity Sour elements in a dish require similar high levels of acidity in the wine. It’s why tomato sauce pastas pair so well with Chianti. In summer I make lots of fresh salads with vinegar-based dressings and high acid wines like Sauvignon Blanc or Chenin Blanc make good pairings.

If you’re serving shrimps with lemon sauce, try a Chablis.

It’s usually unoaked and has great acidity — another wonderful pairing.

Counterbalance fats and oiliness High fat content often needs good levels of acidity in wine to “cut” it. Try Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling or Chenin for whites. Be cautious of rich cream sauces — they may clash with a higher acid wine. Chiantis and other red wines from the north of Italy tend to be higher in acidity and pair well with fatty food.

Counterbalance spices Many people naturally choose to drink beer with their curry. Why? Because spicy food can accentuate the perception of alcohol (the burn at the back of your throat), increase the perception of oak flavours and make the

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Counterbalance salt Saltiness in a dish can be balanced by a wine with refreshing acidity or a sweet, ripe fruit character. Port and Stilton make a heavenly pairing because the saltiness of the cheese is offset by the sweet, ripe fruit of the port (they also match on the weight and intensity scales).

Match sweetness Dry wines seem tart and over-acidic when drunk with sweet foods. If you have a fruit-based sauce for a meat dish, pair it with a dry wine that has a ripe fruit character, such as a warmer climate Shiraz, Zinfandel or Merlot.

Avoid bridging the dry red Saltiness in a dish wine of your entrée to your dessert — it’s risky!

can be balanced

Counterbalance tannins Tannins are found primarily by a wine with in red wines and are important to consider when pairing. The refreshing acidity protein in red meat softens the tannins, which is why red meat or a sweet, ripe works with red wine. Fish fruit character. (especially oily fish), eggs and salty foods all make tannins taste bitter, while sweetness and acidity in food increase the perception of tannins.

Finally, remember, we all have different palates. A good pairing is one that works for you. Experiment — buy six different wines and try them with your favourite foods.

Good food and good wine paired with good friends is always a winning match.

And what did we pair with that watermelon and crab soup? A crisp and citrusy 2008 Dr Loosen Riesling QbA and a peachy, spicy 2008 Stift Goettweig, Messwein Grüner Veltliner.

Both worked well.

This month’s recommendations: Summer calls out for bubbles on the patio! Try the NV Montalto, Sparkling Pinot Grigio ($17.99) from Italy, a fresh, delicate sparkler with lovely clean citrus notes.

The 2008 Ata Rangi, Sauvignon Blanc ($21.99) from New Zealand has lovely lemon and herbal notes with typical high acidity. It’s great with goat cheese salads.

For hamburgers or ribs on the barbeque try the 2008 Chapel Hills, Parson’s Nose Shiraz, $19.99 from Australia or the 2007 Juan Gil, one of my perennial favourites, ($24.99) a Monastrell (Mourvedre) from Jumilla in Spain. VB

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EATINGIN

BY ELIZABETH LEVINSON PHOTO BY GARY MCKINSTRY

summer in a bottle by creating compotes Capture and

jams

He conducted her about the fruit garden, where he asked her if she liked strawberries.

“Yes,” said Tess, “when they come.”

(Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy) NOTHING TASTES BETTER than our local fruit in season, but you simply can’t eat them all when they come.

So harness the urge to preserve.

With foresight and a few pleasant hours in the kitchen, the savvy home cook can put away summer’s sweet fruits to be enjoyed year-round.

Buying local fruit means you’re getting a more nutritious product. Those lovely peaches you found at a Saanich farmgate were probably picked that morning — not two weeks ago in California before being trucked to your local supermarket, burning fossil fuel all the way. You’ll be feeding your family a vitamin-packed whole food and helping our economy by supporting local farmers. When you preserve local fruits there is no temptation in December to buy Mexican strawberries. You can turn to your well-stocked pantry and select a jar of pears or blackberry-apple jam, or indulge your guests with lovely servings of macerated fruit.

I first started macerating out of sheer, hot-summer-day laziness. Having trawled local farm gates for peaches, pears and plums, picked blackberries at the side of the road, and “u-picked” strawberries at Kildara Farm in Deep Cove, I arrived home happy with my haul but exhausted. There was no question that the berries would be made into cooked jam, according to Mother’s fool-proof recipe, but I needed a quick, new idea for the stone fruits.

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My inspiration came from a recipe that I had long ago dog-eared in a book by the great Provençal cook Patricia Wells. She called her concoction confiture, but it is less like jam and more like compote or stewed fruits, so it has become known in my home as Lazy-Day Macerated Fruit.

Fresh fruits macerated in syrup and alcohol infuses them with flavour and renders them soft.

My version of macerated fruit is dead easy to prepare and serve, and, if you make a good quantity, you will always have dessert at hand. Soaking the fruit in alcohol is doubly rewarding as there is no need for a wine accompaniment: pour the macerating liquid into liqueur glasses to pair with the Fresh fruits fruit dessert.

First, find yourself a very large macerated in wide-mouthed jar (a commercialsized mayonnaise jar would do) syrup and alcohol that will hold a a couple of litres of liquid and about a kilogram infuses them with of fruit. Sterilize the jar. Select a colourful mixture of stone fruits flavour and renders (peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries and apricots work well, them soft. with a few figs and grapes for good measure). Gently clean but do not peel the fruit, and leave the smaller fruits whole.

Larger ones, such as the peaches, can be quartered but don’t discard the pits as they impart a nutty flavour to the finished compote (any pits that have come loose from the peaches can be included). Simply layer the fruits in the jar in whatever exuberant pattern you choose. Pour over one litre of simple syrup (boil up two parts sugar to one part water) and one litre of eau-de-vie (“water of life” from Victoria Spirits, victoriaspirits.com) or plain vodka.

Then: store the jar in a cool, dark place and wait for at least two months while the contents of your jar “ripen.”

The liquid will turn from clear to rosy as the sugar draws pigments and liquids from the various fruits. You can enjoy the compote as it is or over ice cream, as you sip the heavenly liquid from a glass as an after-dinner elixir. And you can keep adding clean, unpeeled stone fruits as they come into season. Does this process sound like feeding a sourdough starter? In a way it is, and that makes this method of preserving fruit a year-round winner.

Most importantly, the process, whether you be jamming or macerating, is relaxing in itself and is designed to bring joy to the cook.

Making traditional jam is a little more effort, but worth it.

For a copy of my favourite recipe “My Mother’s Blackberry Apple Jam,” email info@victoriaboulevard.com with “jam recipe” in the subject line. VB

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DININGOUT

BY ELIZABETH LEVINSON PHOTO BY GARY MCKINSTRY

On a sunny summer day, Glo Europub’s popular patio along the Gorge waterway brings out Victorians of all stripes.

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WHETHER YOU’RE LOOKING FOR casual or fancy, you’ll find that Victoria has an outdoor patio for every taste and budget. You can sip Pinot and savour poached halibut on a cloistered Italian patio one minute and enjoy an espresso and pain au chocolat on a dynamic urban plaza the next.

Here is a roundup of some popular offerings.

For a romantic night out, the enclosed patio at Café Brio evokes an Italian holiday — specifically, one in Ascoli Piceno, from where co-owner Sylvia Marcolini hails.

Chef Laurie Munn’s riffs on Italian classics start with fresh, locally-sourced ingredients. The lovely enclosed patio at Il Terrazzo is not just for romantics, but nothing sets a loving mood better than candlelight dining in this brick-walled courtyard with its multiple fireplaces, overhead heaters, colourful mosaic tabletops and plantings. The kitchen produces a confident repertoire of traditional northern Italian dishes including salads, risottos and highly praised pesce (fish), complemented by a Wine Spectator-awarded wine list.

Waterside patios are a special treat in summer. Glo’s site on the Gorge has ever-changing views of the busy waterway. Canoe Brewpub also dishes classic, unpretentious West Coast fare on a lively multi-levelled patio overlooking the Gorge. Another great waterside patio is Spinnaker’s Gastro Brewpub, on the other side of the harbour, with hearty food and award-winning beer. You can access all three by the little Harbour Ferries — a great night out for out-of-town guests.

When is a government dock really a patio? When Red Fish, Blue Fish makes the rules at the foot of Fort Street!

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America’s Matt Lauer ordered during a surprise visit last February) is one of summer’s great culinary delights.

Sidewalk patios put you right in the midst of the urban buzz. Bard & Banker’s new patio lets you order up a cold one and some honest, locally-sourced pub fare right at the corner of Government and Fort. Publican extraordinaire Matt MacNeil is attracting downtown residents and visitors alike with this casual picnic table patio, where full bar service from 11 am and the city’s best people-watching keep things lively. His pub up the street, The Irish Times, has an equally popular sidewalk patio.

Now that I am no longer Café Mela’s co-owner, I can boast that those in the know take their morning coffee and croissant on Café Mela’s European-style plaza in front of The Belvedere in the Humboldt Valley. They return in the early evening for beer and Dragonfly Hill Vineyard’s wines paired with new owner Ron Malzon’s small-plate offerings such as a selection of charcuterie or wild rice salad with chicken and grapes.

The Fairmont Empress Hotel’s veranda is a class act, with gorgeous overhead heaters, blankets on request and an unhurried pace that takes one back to the days of colonial splendour. No better spot exists for a lateafternoon Pimm’s cocktail or a light meal while overlooking the hotel’s front lawn with its ever-changing tableau of tourists — and reliably a stunning sunset over the Inner Harbour for dessert.

This is your last chance to enjoy the coveted Sunday Lunches at Fairburn Farm in the Cowichan Valley, because proprietor Mara Jernigan will be moving on at the end of this summer. Her leisurely six-course Italian feasts have received rave reviews in Gourmet, Saveur and Harrowsmith Country Life, and I think they deserve a listing in 1,000 Things to do Before you Die. Jernigan’s preparations reflect a light and respectful touch in the kitchen, and the veranda offers front-row seats onto a bucolic paradise.

Sometimes the most unlikely patio locations are tops.

The Flying Otter (as in airplane) has made an impressive landing in the Inner Harbour at the Harbour Air terminal with live music, cheap and cold beer and inexpensive but delicious pizza, fish and chips and even poutine.

The entertainment includes action-packed, sea-level views of our working harbour.

Other patios to explore this summer include Brentwood Bay Lodge’s seaside SeaGrille and Pub, Sally Bun’s tranquil back yard, the Superior Café’s lush secret garden, and Bon Rouge’s cozy, cloistered loggia. So many patios, so little time.

For information about addresses and operating hours please google the restaurant. VB

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Eye

BY ED BAIN

Sailing on the Queen of Smack Down

CUSTOM MASONRY interior & exterior

• FIREPLACES

• WALKWAYS

• BARBEQUES

• PATIOS

• HOUSE WRAPS

• RETAINING WALLS

Jamie Fry 250.538.2121 Justin Fry 250.858.8032 countrysidebc@gmail.com

www.countrysidemasonry.com We serve Vancouver Island and the southern Gulf Islands 124 victoriaboulevard.com

I RECENTLY had a lifetime to kill while sitting in line at the ferry terminal, so instead of my usual activity of digging out French fries from my air vents — they’re never as tasty as they look anyway — I started thinking about our love/hate relationship with our artery to the mainland.

Admittedly, the first few times on the ferry are great, floating on the vast Pacific, watching for whales (and not just in the cafeteria), stepping outside in the sea air while your dress blows up in the wind. (I’ve since learned to wear pants on all trips.) But after a while it gets a little dull.

A while back a fight broke out on the car deck of the Coastal Celebration as it was docking in Tsawwassen, a native word meaning “road to Ikea.” I bet one of three things happened: someone’s car door dinged another; someone was parked behind a guy asleep at the wheel; or someone got drunk in their motor home and was just looking for trouble.

What started the scrap doesn’t matter. What’s important is that the fight gave everyone a good show. After all, this is Canada: a hockey game could have broken out.

It got me pondering how to fight back against the boredom — and the high cost — of taking a BC Ferry in tourist season. It’s just a matter of time before the payment options will be: Cash, Credit or Kidney. Cashgenerating entertainment could help.

Why not take advantage of the recent interest in mixed martial arts and host ticketed fighting events on the car deck? I can see the posters: “BC Ferries presents: Ultimate Ferry Fighting Championships.” The marketing possibilities are endless. Fights could take place on the “Upper Cuts” car deck. Menu items could be renamed.

How about “The Sun Shiner” breakfast or a new entrée, “Turnbuckle Tortellini.”

A big celebrity bout could feature members of BC Ferries brass taking on customers: Get in the ring with “David ‘Haystack’ Hahn or “Debra ‘the Mangler’ Marshall.

Winners eat free for life! It’s “The Battle of The Buffet”!

Some other great ideas I had include: “Car Deck Octoberfest,” “Sail it your way, Captain for a day” and “Make a Pass in Active Pass Singles’ Cruise.”

Thankfully, a trip on BC Ferries is a lot more enjoyable than it used to be. (I sure don’t miss having smoke blown in my face . . . I think they eventually fired that cafeteria cook.) But there was a time you could take a roll of toonies on board, hop on one of the vibrating chairs and gyrate yourself across the strait. Sadly that wild ride has been removed since most people just sat in the nice comfy chairs ignoring the audio reminder to “buck up or get off.”

So what do we do? Continue to try and entertain ourselves by taking free tourist brochures off the display?

Or stand at the magazine rack reading Field and Stream while trying to look at the cover of Maxim?

Okay, here’s one last pitch: “The Coastal Casino” or “The Queen of Craps.” The provincial government certainly seems to be in love with gaming. (That’s the activity formerly known as gambling, as if a name change would make us feel less guilty when feeding our RRSP certificates into the slots.) Some of the games could even be ferry- themed. Line up three boats, get a free car and driver pass, or insert your Queen of Craps Club card and collect points for the gift shop.

Admittedly these ideas are about as likely to happen as “Oak Bay Rodeo Days.” But they did surprise us with their newly announced On Board Manicure and Pedicure service. Can’t say I’d want to sit beside someone having their toenails clipped, but it’s a start.

And now I’m thinking of other marketing opportunities for the region . . . how about The Greater Victoria Sewage Plant and Beer Garden . . . VB

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TERRY STOCKUS terstockus@shaw.ca 250.477.1100 Century 21 Queenswood R ealty ltd. victoriaboulevard.com 125

Do you call it “climate change” or “global warming”?

Global warming. Climate change describes what has happened from the Ice Ages to today. Global warming specifically refers to the consequence of human release of greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide.

Will Victoria be growing papayas in 10 years?

That’s difficult to address with any certainty. We know winters will get warmer. Summers will get warmer. There will be more rain but it will come in bigger amounts, less often, so there’s increased likelihood of extreme precipitation.

In 2008, your UVic office was broken into twice. Was this a setup?

I have no idea. It was crowbarred into twice in three or four days. They took a computer and ruffled through my desks. It was the only office broken into. We can speculate but we don’t know.

There are people who don’t like the work you do and think somehow you’re part of some kind of global conspiracy.

As a PhD in applied mathematics do you ever buy lottery tickets?

I do. I have one right in my pocket — Lotto 649. The odds are crazy but someone has to win.

Did the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize shared with Al Gore and others heat up your life?

It didn’t do anything on a daily basis. It pushed climate into the forefront of everybody’s mind. It makes the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) a target for those who are trying to delay, discredit anything.

What is the single biggest thing homeowners can do to reduce their carbon footprint?

Take a very close look at how they get about from A to B. In BC, 25 per cent of our emissions come from transportation. Always think about transportation in terms of energy efficiency. When you go to the store, look where the product was made. Buy local.

You call the Alberta oil sands a “poster child of environmental degradation.” Explain.

Pick your favourite environmental issue: Loss of natural habitat. Loss of biodiversity. Pollution of water.

Greenhouse gases. Toxic waste.

Extinction of species. Human health. It’s got everything.

What do you drive?

A Pontiac Wave, the most fuel-efficient GM car available.

Tell us something completely unknown about yourself.

My maternal side is Ukrainian and people who are Ukrainian have it in their blood that they’d love to own a farm. I would love to have a farm.

What’s your secret indulgence?

I’ve collected hockey cards since I was a kid. My wife thinks I’m mad. I don’t even know how many I have Lots.

As a father, what do you tell your children about global warming?

I view this as an incredibly exciting time for kids. It will be an age of innovation like we’ve never seen before because human beings are quite innovative. People are going to wake up. They’re going to look at northern Alberta and say why are we doing this when we could be doing something else?

The resisters are largely a bunch of grey-haired curmudgeons and they’re not going to be around forever. The young generation will step in to deal with this. I have a lot of hope. VB

SECRETS

&LIES ANDREW WEAVER, PhD, 48 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

Professor and Canada Research Chair, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria

BY SHANNON MONEO PHOTO BY GARY MCKINSTRY INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED

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