Boulevard Magazine - November/December 2009 Issue

november/december

the magazine of urban living

2009

the arts people food homes

STROKE of FORTUNE A mountaineering lawyer climbs back to health

DIVINE INSPIRATION A downtown congregation raises the roof . . . and more

SOUNDS of the SEASON Listen in to local luthiers, new CDs and early music

AHOY for the HOLIDAYS Live-aboards plan their first Christmas

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contents

boulevard

volume XX ISSue 1 november/december 2009

52

features

58

88

116

14 conSIdIne comebAcK After a stroke, a legal eagle rises again like a phoenix

by Anne mullens

42 LUTHIerS UnPLUGGed victoria’s guitar makers create instruments that sing by rick Gibbs

68 GeT YoUr GoAT A cheese company ripens in the cowichan valley by elizabeth Levinson

36 dIvIne InSPIrATIon A downtown church does more than pray for help

by Jody Paterson

52 mUSIc For THe AGeS James Young’s passion powers early music by robert moyes

82 cds We Love Area musicians offer terrific new sounds by robert moyes

26 creATIve mIndS orca publisher doesn’t always go by the book

by Alex van Tol

88 HoT ProPerTIeS A condo non pareil

by Alicia Priest

84 TrIm THe TrImmInGS A couple’s first christmas afloat in the Inner Harbour by murray Sager

departments 10 From oUr edITor . . . And YoU 12 conTrIbUTorS Team boulevard expands

BOULEVARD Holiday Edition 2009

DINNER FOR SIX is simpler than you think BOTANICAL ART makes gorgeous, original holiday decorations FALLING FOR FASHION with styles that work for your real life And Much More!

Look for boulevard’s Holiday edition. coming november 8.

columns

22 HAWTHorn charity begins in victoria, in unsuspecting places

by Tom Hawthorn

58 FronT roW It’s getting colder, time to go inside to see art and artists from bc and Papua new Guinea; dances by black Umfolosi: an ehnes’ exploration of beethoven’s violin concerto: Japanese art through centuries; and two kinds of magic, those of favourite seasonal ballets and The Year of magical Thinking ; plus . . .

by Julie nixon 76 boULevArd booK cLUb Listen in as moms diss Three cups of Tea

by Adrienne dyer

32 PUbLIc cITIZen How public citizenship is being redefined by ross crockford

104 HoT deSIGn Hearths in the right place

by Shannon moneo 108 TecHnoLoGIA Laptop security in hotspots is not impossible by darryl Gittins

124 eATInG In Holiday delights to go abound in victoria by elizabeth Levinson 128 eATInG oUT breakfast dining, from fast to fancy by elizabeth Levinson

112 TrAveL neAr Snuggle up in Tofino

by Anne mullens 116 TrAveL FAr A cuba less travelled means more to experience by rick Gibbs

48 STATe oF THe ArTS Poetry emerges from the history of Port Alberni

by Alisa Gordaneer

120 LIbATIonS regional wines have their rewards by robert moyes

133 SecreTS And LIeS olympian ryan cochrane towels off

by Shannon moneo

ON OUR COVER: chris considine scales new heights on the Stelly’s climbing boulder. Photo by vince Klassen

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Have you Heard about the well-known local lawyer who came back from a stroke to practice his profession and to climb mountains again? And what about the congregation that is rebuilding its church’s roof even as it serves the neediest in our community? Then there is that passionate group spreading its love of early music with growing audiences, and the gritty man who once was kicked out of book stores but now publishes books being snapped up everywhere. Meanwhile, in workshops scattered around town, bands of guitar-makers love the sound and beauty they create with their instruments.

Welcome to another issue of Boulevard, the magazine that knows whatever Victorians do, they do it with determination, delight and style, and generally with a good sense of humour.

As the year draws to a close, we know our readers also like to meld the doing with the savouring, tucked up at home with family and friends after the day’s activities, or layering up the outerwear in true Victoria style, and heading out to find that new breakfast spot or nice spicy cheese (thank you, Elizabeth Levinson). Our story about hearths may help if you’d like yours warmed up style-wise. And if you’d like new, local music to listen to while you try our wine suggestions, check out our CD round-up.

The run-up to the holidays can be a hassle or it can offer the true gift of the season, which is to remember what makes life worth living: for example, a couple we know are finding this out as they plan their first Christmas as liveaboards, pared down to the essentials.

What is essential in your life, only you can say.

Whatever it is, we at Boulevard hope you are able to share it with those you love. — Vivian Smith CORRECTION: An incorrect e-mail address appeared in the November/December issue in our Libations column (page 131). To contact sommelier Britte Giese, go to britta@bgwineconsulting.com

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, 210-612 View Street, Victoria, B.C., V8W 1J5, or you can e-mail us at info@victoriaboulevard.com.

Check out our website: victoriaboulevard.com. VB

Contribute online at www.victoriahospicefoundation.org or call 250.952.5720

10 victoriaboulevard.com hospice-displayad-BOULEVARD-famefortunelove-colour-1aug2009.indd 2

editor

FroM our

09-09-18 5:04 PM

Ir r e s is t a b le

letters

Your

Cowichan winery toasts volunteers The wineries mentioned in “Picking Party: Harvest volunteers pluck the island’s vintage” (September/October 2009) aren’t the only ones that use volunteers to do harvest and bottling. Here at Rocky Creek Winery in Cowichan Bay, we also have a tour group come and pay the tour operator to harvest in the vineyard and taste the wines of the kind of grape they are picking that year.

We even get out our “primary tubs” to do a traditional grape stomp. We actually use the juice in our harvest.

Volunteers play a big part in our small winery and some of the other wineries on the Island, plus we enjoy their enthusiasm for the wines.

Linda Holford Rocky Creek Winery Cowichan Bay Catching the essence of Our Place spirit As a volunteer in the kitchen/dining room of Our Place, I would like to comment on how perfectly Thelma Fayle conveyed the spirit of this wonderful facility (“A Hundred Pairs of Hands,” July/August 2009).

It truly is a pleasure to work there with the dedicated and committed staff and the inspiring mixture of

volunteers. Thanks for looking at another aspect of homelessness in our community.

Kathy Robertson, Victoria Good design crucial for smaller spaces I am always anxious to feast my eyes on the latest Boulevard. I love the focus on arts, culture and design and like to scan the ads.

I particularly enjoy the local residences you feature but would like to see at least equal, if not more, attention paid to small homes and vacation cottages more compatible with environmental footprint concerns. Having recently downsized from a house to a 780-square-foot condo and built a 640 square-foot Gulf Islands’ cottage, I know good design is even more critical for small spaces than for much larger buildings.

Jennifer Margison, Victoria Sorry about the cold coffee I couldn’t stop turning the pages of your most recent issues.

The engaging stories and the fresh new design kept me reading long after my coffee went cold, twice.

You’ve turned me into a regular cover-to-cover fan.

Bill Eisenhauer, Victoria VB

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boULevArd THe mAGAZIne oF UrbAn LIvInG the arts people food homes

President John Simmons VP Finance melissa Sands Publisher Sue Hodgson Associate Publisher Linda Hensellek Managing Editor vivian Smith Associate Editor Anne mullens Art Director Jaki Jefferson Production Jaki Graphics, Kelli brunton Principle Photographers Gary mcKinstry, vince Klassen Advertising Sue Hodgson, Linda Hensellek, eve Hume, cynthia Hanischuk, Pat montgomery-brindle Marketing Coordinator Scott Simmons Pre-press Kelli brunton Printing central Web 46,000 copies of victoria boulevard ® are published bimonthly by boulevard Lifestyles Inc. mailing address: 210-612 view Street, victoria, bc, v8W 1J5. Telephone: 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.

12 victoriaboulevard.com

ourCONTRIbUTORS RICk GIbbS is a former high-school-English-teacher-

turned-writer with a particular interest in the West Coast music scene. A regular contributor to Boulevard, he has also written articles for national music magazines such as Coda and Penguin Eggs. His blog (islandjazz.ca) covers the coastal BC jazz scene and has been featured on CBC’s Hot Air. Given his lifelong interest in the guitar, the luthier article was a natural, as was the piece on Cuba, a land that inspired him with its music and independent spirit.

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. She brings her enthusiasm for local, organic, sustainable food to the pages of Boulevard in this issue, in both Eating In and Eating Out, and in the feature on Hilary’s Cheese in Cowichan.

“I loved lurching from latkes to breakfasts to cheese making,” she says. “What’s not to love about our local food scene?”

ShANNON MONEO has lived in five Canadian

provinces and now writes from the Otter Point home she shares with her two children and husband. During the wicked storms of 2006, their wood stove provided heat and a stovetop during lengthy power outages.

Now, having researched hearths, she is taking a cue from Jeff Smith and Stephan Burckhardt: it’s time to dress up the black box.

ANNE MULLENS, a journalist, author, and now associate editor of Boulevard, has won numerous awards for her writing. She met lawyer Chris Considine in 1993 when she was the first journalist to write about his client, Sue Rodriguez, and her fight for assisted suicide. “I knew Chris had an amazing story about his own stroke and subsequent comeback and I was eager to help him tell it in Boulevard.”

MURRAy SAGER is a writer, photographer, designer and

builder who has lived and worked on BC’s waterfront for the past 25 years. A Victoria native, he was educated in England and after a decade there, returned to Canada, where he lived on Baffin Island for four years.

He’s looking forward to his first Christmas afloat in the Inner Harbour, although thinking about it in August, when he wrote the story, seemed a little strange. VB

bY Anne mULLenS PHoToS bY dAnIeL coLLInS

In tHe courtyard of the Considine & Company law firm near Fisherman’s Wharf, a fountain sculpture has a silver phoenix spreading its wings and rising towards the sun. The fountain holds meaning for lawyer Chris Considine, who commissioned it last year. Like the mythic bird, Considine has experienced his own rebirth of sorts. In March 2003, he suffered a major stroke when a blood clot from a skiing accident

dislodged and travelled to his brain. And now, from those ashes, he has come back.

Considine, now 55, is a well-known Victoria lawyer. In the early 1990s he represented dying Saanich mother Sue Rodriguez, all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada to try to overthrow the prohibition against assisted suicide, splitting the court five to four and losing by the narrowest of margins.

chriS conSidine’S

coMeBack After a major stroke, a victoria lawyer rises to the mountaintops again

He has a busy practice, covering everything from personal injury and criminal defence to employment law and more. The father of four children, aged eight to 16, he is a fit, wiry man who has been a life-long mountain climber and was on the third Canadian Everest expedition in 1988.

As someone who guards his privacy, he had to be convinced to tell his tale of medical crisis and recovery.

He does so only because he hopes it might inspire others.

“I see so many people in my practice who have been injured or who are ill,” he says. “I hope that by sharing what I have learned it will help others to know, they, too, can recover.”

In February 2003, just days before his 49th birthday, he had a wrenching fall on a black diamond run at Whistler, smacking his head on a mogul. He got up and dusted himself off, but his neck ached and his head throbbed. He saw a doctor a few days later but with no visible sign of trauma he was told it was probably a muscle strain that would heal with time. After all, he was an exceptionally healthy man who, a few months earlier, in an executive physical at the famous Mayo Clinic, had been declared in the top one percent of men in his age group for health and fitness.

For almost three weeks, however, he took Aspirin to try to dull his neck pain and headaches. He flew on an airplane and continued to work. Little did he know that during the fall he had dissected his right vertebral artery in his neck, making tiny tears in two places in the lining of the vessel wall. Blood clots were steadily forming by the slow seeping of blood.

On March 8, 2003, as he dressed to go out to dinner with his wife, Susan, he sneezed. A clot dislodged. Instantly he knew something was wrong. Pain seared through his head, the right side of his face and arm went numb, and he could barely walk. He threw up. He didn’t understand why it should be happening, but he knew all the signs: he must be having a stroke. bottom (l to r): daniel “Get me to the hospital,” he Collins, Max Considine managed to tell his wife. and Chris Considine, At the Victoria General Hospital, both an MRI and a CT scan Summit of arete showed the tiny dissections of the Marianne, France. artery wall. Was Considine suffering primarily from a blockage or a Top pictures, clockwise bleed? from left: descending The wrong diagnosis would be Mont blanc; Chris ( l) deadly. Neurologist Dr. Wayne and dan (r), Zermatt; Shtybel made the tough call and started clot-busting drugs that morning ascent of thinned Considine’s blood. The next Col du Tour, France; 48 hours would be critical to see if Chris paragliding near Considine would throw more clots, hemorrhage, or pull through. the Matterhorn.

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Meanwhile, word had spread rapidly among the legal and media community that Considine was on his death bed.

Journalists started writing his obituary, a fact he learned in the recovery ward when his good friend, the late Judge Dermod Owen-Flood, told him he had been called to provide an obit quote. “Like Twain, rumours of my demise were greatly exaggerated,” Considine laughs today, but hearing it back then “just steeled my resolve to get better.”

His first concern was for his wife and children. “I thought, ‘I can cope with anything, even not climbing, just let me get through this to be there for them.’ ” After five days, Considine was discharged and his rehabilitation began. He could not work and was temporarily forbidden to drive. The stroke had damaged a part of his brain that controlled movement and balance. His intellect and reasoning were unaffected, but when his brain tried to send a message to his arm or leg to move, it was as if the neurological signal couldn’t easily get through. Most alarming for him, he couldn’t read for the first few days because his eyes wouldn’t focus.

Dr. Alan Bass, a specialist physician in rehabilitation medicine, remembers the day in April 2003, when he first saw Considine as a patient. “He was really quite disabled but he wouldn’t admit it. He was veering to one side as he walked, he couldn’t run, his right hand was affected and he tired extremely rapidly. But he said to me, ‘I would like to get back to normal as quickly as possible, please.’ ” Considine told Bass that one of his rehab goals was eventually to get back to mountain climbing, but Bass was dubious. “I didn’t know whether it would be safe or even possible. Not only does it take a lot of strength, coordination and stamina, but you are doing it in an environment where the oxygen is thin — and he’d had a significant cerebral-vascular event,” said Bass. Yet Considine exceeded all of Bass’s expectations over the subsequent months. “He is a quiet man, but he is as tough as nails.

Every time I saw him, he was one jump ahead of where I thought he would be.”

Along with rehab, Considine started to walk on flat ground, resting as needed on the benches around the town of Sidney. Soon he could do a flat block, then two. He then tried the flattest trail at Horth Hill Park in North Saanich, at first just making it from his car to the trail head. He went out almost daily, each time pushing himself a bit farther.

“I would say, I am going to make it to that tree, and the next day I would try to make it at least 10 feet past that tree.” Eventually he was walking up the entire slope.

To help rebuild the coordination of his right hand and rebuild damaged neural networks, he started to take classical guitar lessons, the first musical instrument he had played in his life. “I was so horrible, and my kids would

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lock me behind three doors, but it was therapy and I loved getting the sound of a note. It was much more interesting and challenging than some repetitive hand exercise.” At his 50th birthday party, almost a year to the day of his stroke, he played Lesson #3 from the guitar book for his gathered friends. “My friends were very kind. They said, ‘Obviously Chris, this is not going to be a career move, we hope!’ ” By the fall of 2003 he was back driving and slowly getting back to a full work load. And he had another idea about how to keep himself socially active and to get closer to his goal of climbing mountains again. He called Peter Mason, then the head of the climbing wall at Stelly’s Secondary School in Central Saanich, and asked if one morning a week he might have two or three male students belay him on the school’s climbing wall.

Dan Collins, then 17, a Grade 12 student and avid climber, was one of the volunteers. “At first I didn’t know he’d had a stroke at all,” recalls Collins, now 22 and in his final year of a chemistry degree at the University of Victoria.

“I just knew him as the older guy who drove a Porsche who would show up every Wednesday at 8:30 am with donuts. At first I was mostly interested in the donuts and the Porsche.”

Attached by climbing ropes and secured by the students so he could not fall, Considine began with the easiest ascents. The boys would sometimes assist by climbing beside him, showing him where to grab a hand hold or place his foot. Considine climbed all year, gradually building up his strength, agility and coordination, steadily doing tougher climbs. Over time “the guy with the donuts” became a valued mentor and climbing companion.

“It seems odd to say of someone more than 30 years older than me, but Chris has become one of my best friends,” marvels Collins, who, by the spring of 2004, was going out with his girlfriend and Considine on weekends to hike in the local mountains. It was on such a hike, in the summer of 2004, that Considine said he wanted to climb Mont Blanc, Western Europe’s highest peak at some 4,800 metres (16,000 feet). He wondered if Collins wanted to come with him. Collins’ stunned reaction: of course.

“Climbing Mont Blanc was a distinct rehab goal. It gave me something to really aim for. It would be the first big mountain since my stroke and I would be ‘going to altitude,’ ” says Considine.

In the summer of 2005, two and a half years after his stroke, equipped with ice axe and wearing crampons, Considine, accompanied by Collins and a European mountain guide, summitted Mount Blanc. Since then, Considine and Collins, occasionally joined by former Stelly’s student volunteer James Coccola, now also at UVic, have climbed many mountains. Considine foots the airfare and the guide costs, while Collins and others cover their own

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expenses. Some of the summits include the tallest peak in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Mount Whitnet in the U.S. They’ve completed the Three Peaks Challenge in the UK, climbing the tallest peaks of England, Scotland and Wales in under 24 hours. Last year Considine and Collins took Considine’s son Max, now 16, on climbs in Switzerland.

Now they are planning a climb in South America or New Tips for recovery Zealand for the winter Lawyer Chris Considine of 2010. Except for learned a few tips during his caution around recovery about how to avoid exposed ridges, where slipping into depression and Considine, if very frustration. “You can only fatigued, may still watch so much Oprah,” he encounter balance says. Here are his tips: plan troubles, there is little one thing a day to look now he physically forward to give a sense of cannot do. accomplishment, even if it is “I am not just walking a little bit longer supervising or on a trail; keep socially anything anymore,” connected to friends but says Collins. “We have keep the visits short and the completely left any numbers of people seen to idea that he has had just one or two at a time; a stroke. Now it is don’t feel embarrassed to just friends going retreat to a quiet place to rest climbing.” if fatigue or noise threaten In 2005, Considine overwhelm; keep life helped lead a interesting and challenging. fundraising campaign to more than double the size of Stelly’s climbing wall and to build an outdoor climbing boulder, becoming one of the school’s benefactors in the process. Now Stelly’s has one of Western Canada’s best public climbing facilities, open to people of all ages and all abilities for minimal cost.

During a climbing trip to Europe two years ago, Considine saw the work of Swiss sculptor Housi Knecht and commissioned the phoenix fountain for his office courtyard.

Now he hopes clients — or anyone else who passes by — may see the bird and be inspired.

“I can honestly say to my clients who are in pain and hurting, ‘I know where you are coming from, I’ve been there, and here are some things that may help,” says Considine, who almost every day after work dons a 16-kilo backpack and heads out for an hour to climb Mount Doug or another local hill.

And how does he suggest one might start? Put on a pair of running shoes and walk — even if, at first, it is just one shuffling step at a time. VB

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fall and winter fog rolls in at night.

This is also the time when local charities do the bulk of their fundraising. We will be inundated with pitches and appeals, asked to reflect on our good fortune even as we contemplate the heartbreaking circumstances of others.

As if anyone walking downtown could ever forget the many in need who surround us.

Children are great ones for charity. If not natural philanthropists, they have the right instincts.

The girls in my neighbourhood, who jokingly call themselves The Famous Five, as though they were a rock band, or a band of girl detectives, once spent a summer week selling lemonade to passersby. They set a table with chairs for themselves and for customers, taped up hand-

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printed signs, ransacked their parents’ homes for cups and pitchers and sugar and lemons.

They spent hours in the sun, proudly showing at the end of the day a tinkling jar of coins and a small wad of crumpled bills.

They insisted the money go to Royal Jubilee Hospital.

They were rightly proud of themselves, but not nearly as proud as were their parents. My daughter has a friend with a birthday near Christmas. Her annual party was one in which friends contributed small gifts to be placed in packages for children at the Cridge Centre for Families.

Cake and ice cream were served after all helped to organize the gift baskets.

Then there is the giddy fun that leads up to Halloween.

Until three years ago, children might have received a chunk of cardboard pressed flat. Little hands folded and bended the cardboard into a box with a coin slot in the top, to be worn on string around the neck, or carried in a free hand.

“Trick or treat for Unicef!” was a cry heard at the door, eager voices calling for candy for themselves and coppers for the world’s poorest children.

The campaign began in 1955, a genius idea in which greedy goblins learned the joy of helping others (without the suffering of sharing the extorted treats). Over a halfcentury, some $96-million was raised by Canadians for projects supervised by the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund.

The charity stopped handing out the boxes because the labour needed to roll pennies — and the costs of shipping such heavy packages — was too prohibitive. Now, children take part in a classroom program called Schools for Africa, for which money is raised in school and on the streets for students in Malawi and Rwanda.

The desperate circumstances of others can be jarring.

Those of us in middle age can remember the wrestler Whipper Billy Watson promoting the annual March of Dimes campaign. Perched on his shoulder, or being carried in his massive arm, was some poor child with leg encased in an Eiffel Tower of metal braces and leather straps. Who wouldn’t give up on buying a pack or two of hockey cards for that kid?

Not so long ago, the major charity in every city was the United Way and maybe a Christmas fund sponsored by the local daily newspaper. The business of charity has become more sophisticated with heart-wrenching direct-mail appeals and easy online donations. As well, hardly a summer weekend slips past without a runathon, bikeathon, or, in the Inner Harbour, paddlethon, all exertions for a worthy cause.

We buy Girl Guide cookies at the door and at the office; sign up to sponsor laps and kilometres; donate clothes to

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Big Brothers Big Sisters, or to Canadian Diabetes, or to Goodwill, the goods to be left at the front door, clearly labelled, before 8 am.

Not to forget bottle drives.

Or Cops for Cancer.

Often, the charitable impulse is sparked by a personal connection. We lose a friend or family member to cancer, or to heart disease.

I’m not immune to those appeals, but the ones that get me in the gut are the ones that aim for the gut.

That’s why I’m a fan of Gordy Dodd and his cornball furniture commercials. He and his family play host to an annual Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless, 600 hungry Gordy dodd and his folks served butterballs by a happy goofball. family host an annual Down in Trounce Alley, the Tapa Bar has been celebrating its thanksgiving dinner 10th anniversary all year long.

For every pizza they’ve sold this for the homeless, year, they’ve sent $2 to the Our 600 hungry folks Place Society, which provides meals, showers and other served butterballs by assistance to the homeless.

Over at the Mustard Seed at a happy goofball.

Queens Avenue, the lineup for groceries at the food bank starts hours before the doors open in the morning. It is cold on the sidewalk at that dark hour.

Once, this sprawling building was used as a marine garage. Now, volunteers offer coffee and snacks, distribute clothes and food.

“In the midst of it all I stood — a little transfixed — by the lives touched by poverty, brokenness and pain,” Rev. Chris Riddell wrote in a recent newsletter.

“A child in a stroller, unaware of their circumstance, just making due with whatever mom gives her; an addict asleep at the table amid the surrounding hustle bustle and a dear elderly man gathering bread from the abundant supply for friends back home at the complex, too frail to venture out for themselves.”

For every dollar the charity receives this year, 70 cents will be donated in these few weeks at year’s end.

On my last visit to the Mustard Seed, I watched a waif in a thin pink dress, the edges ragged from wear, reach for a heavy box filled with milk cartons. She was gently shooed away, lest the box land on her noggin. With her big eyes and thinness, she looked to me like Cindy Lou Who, the little girl in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, who knows the spirit of the season is found not in glittering gifts but in sharing. VB

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twenty years aGo, Andrew Wooldridge was the kind of guy who got himself kicked out of bookstores. In between lectures at the University of Victoria, serving in restaurants and hauling Kabuki Kabs around, Wooldridge spent his leisure hours drifting among the stacks at Victoria’s used booksellers.

“I always wanted to work with books in some way,” says the man who now heads Victoria-based Orca Book Publishers.

“I tried to get a job at a couple bookstores and was always turned down because I didn’t have enough experience.” Two of the bookstores he frequented — one on Fort, the other on Government — eventually asked him to leave. Permanently. Wooldridge shrugs. “Too much browsing, I guess?”

Now, at 43, Wooldridge presides over one of western Canada’s most successful publishing companies, fields 500 submissions every month from prospective authors, and is in the middle of a two-year term as president of the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia. And those used bookstores? Out of business.

Yeah.

Except Wooldridge doesn’t strike you as someone who seeks retribution. Soft-spoken, ready to crack a joke and adored by his staff, Wooldridge approaches life with a relaxed attitude. Although he arrives at Orca’s Balmoral Street office just after 7 am and puts in a full day, Wooldridge doesn’t give off the workaholic vibe. “I get the sense that it’s his life,” says office manager Melanie Jeffs.

“He checks his e-mails even when he’s on vacation. But

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he’s really laid back and he certainly doesn’t impose workaholic values on his staff.” Though Wooldridge works longer hours than most, he figures he maintains a good balance. “My wife may not agree,” he adds with a laugh.

But she does. “Andrew really has it figured out,” marvels Merry Watts, a human resources specialist who has made peace with the piles of books tucked into various corners of the family home.

(Many of them are cookbooks, emblematic of yet another of Wooldridge’s creative passions.) “He’s found his calling,” says Watts. “His work doesn’t seem like work to him. It just naturally blends into our life.” If he’s not at his desk or promoting Orca Books at trade shows across the continent, Wooldridge is kicking back with his two boys, ages 10 and seven. “We spend a lot of time around here,” he says. “Vancouver Island is this incredible spot where we can go to any beach any time we want.”

Growing up in Calgary and then on Salt Spring, Wooldridge wanted to pursue a career working with animals. But his love of books kept calling. Freshly sprung from UVic with an anthropology degree and a job mowing lawns for the city, Wooldridge realized he needed a change. He went back to school (Spanish and Russian film this time), and applied for a job at Orca.

That was 20 years ago. “I wanted to work in publishing because I like books,” he says. “I wanted to be an author like everybody else. It seems kind of glamorous.”

In classic industry style, Wooldridge started in the mailroom and worked his way up, doing every job from shipping to marketing to editorial. “I know every aspect of the business,” he says, acknowledging the importance of learning from previous mistakes. “It’s a tough industry to make a go of it. We’ve never stood still as a publishing company; we’ve always been growing.

We have an incredible staff here who work very hard.”

In 2009, Orca put out about 65 titles: five years ago, it was about half that number. Orca owes much of its growth to U.S. sales, which stand at $2-million (US) or about 60% of its market.

Other signs of growth include titles for reluctant readers, Spanish translations, a planned ESL partnership with a publisher in China and the recent signing of award-winning Canadian authors to a new line of short novels for adults. But if Wooldridge had to pick one reason behind Orca’s success, “it’s because the quality of the story always matters.” Any parent who’s ever picked up a copy of Waiting for the Whales or Jessie’s Island knows it, too.

But it hasn’t always been this way. Launched 25 years ago with a book about island pubbing by Wooldridge’s predecessor and partner, Bob Tyrrell, Orca started out doing regional history and guidebooks. “The first kids’ book was about 1990,” says Wooldridge. “It was Maxine’s Tree, and a logger tried to have it banned.” Since those early days, Orca has set its course on children’s books, which are universal in appeal and so have an

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international market. It publishes such writers as Nikki Tate, Richard Van Camp, Meg Tilly, Eric Walters, and this month, a book by Olympian Simon Whitfield called Simon Says Gold, written with Times Colonist sports writer Cleve Dheensaw.

Wooldridge is quick to credit Tyrrell, who now works as Orca’s editorial director, with the vision that helped his business grow while other publishers folded around them.

“He’s always been an incredible mentor,” says Wooldridge, “willing to make things work and to do the right thing.”

When Tyrrell finally handed the reins to Wooldridge last year, says Jeffs, “the transition was seamless. There’s a lot of trust between Andrew If wooldridge had and Bob.” “Andrew is a smart guy,” to pick one reason agrees Tyrrell, a former English teacher who, in 1984, decided for orca’s success, to self-publish his pub guide upon realizing he’d get a “it’s because the less-than-ideal return on investment from the bigger quality of the story publishing houses. “Andrew knows the marketing and editorial side of the business, always matters.” which is critical.” Even so, Tyrrell engaged in much mentoring and succession planning in preparing for Orca’s handover. “Andrew has been with the company a long time; there was a huge stroke of good fortune there. He’s the right guy to be running things now.”

For Wooldridge, who insists there’s nothing about his job he doesn’t like (except the paperwork), the payoff is in believing in what he does. Educators approach him at trade shows, thanking him for publishing books that kids actually want to read. “It sounds kind of corny, but you’re changing people’s lives one book at a time,” he says. A huge supporter of literacy causes, Wooldridge is convinced reading is the key to a smoothly operating society.

As a cultural arts industry, he says, publishers face the usual business issues, plus threats to government funding and the challenge of digitization. “We’re actively digitizing all our books, and most Canadian publishers are also doing it. BC publishers are at the forefront of the charge to digitize, in order to make a digital library available to everyone in the province,” says Wooldridge.

And what of that vestigial yearning to see his own books in print? Wooldridge grins. After all these years editing other people’s work, he says, “I realized how difficult it is to write a good story.” Then he laughs. “And I uh . . . I don’t take criticism as well as I should.” VB

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open a door beside a tattoo parlour, climb the stairs, and you enter what looks like a frat-house living room.

A mountain bike leans against a fridge. There’s an old couch, thin wood panelling, and a window overlooking the crater for Eric Charman’s once-promised Mozart tower on Yates Street. Only computer keyboards and walls of flatscreen monitors atop the second-hand office furniture hint that work goes on in this place.

Not exactly glamorous or surprising for a two-man Internet company. But the computers here run Vibrant Victoria, an online forum that’s unique to this city, and could transform its politics.

VV, as insiders call it, is a kind of online beer hall, where locals get together to debate civic issues. At vibrantvictoria.ca/forum, some 2,500 conversational “threads,” from restaurant reviews to real-estate developments, run thick with gossip and argument. Its 1,200 members, hidden behind pseudonyms, include a University of Victoria oceanographer, a crane operator, a garbage-truck driver, an equities analyst, realtors, secretaries, and a Victoria city councillor — the kinds of people who reporters

once befriended for inside dope, instead of just reprinting press releases. One member, a political consultant, recently told me that he cancelled his cable TV and his newspaper subscriptions; now he gets local news from free publications, radio stations, and websites such as VV. Vibrant Victoria is a spinoff of skyscraperpage.com, a website Dylan Leblanc started in 1997 after reading arguments about whether Kuala Lumpur’s spire-topped Petronas Towers deserved to be called the world’s tallest building. He began creating scale illustrations of skyscrapers for comparison, and since then his database has grown to 22,000 drawings, which he prints into posters sold at viewpoints like Seattle’s Space Needle. It has been cited by publications from Popular Mechanics to the Guinness Book of World Records. (I first found his site while researching an article about Victoria’s tallest building, currently the 62-metre Orchard House in James Bay, although the Hudson tower on Blanshard Street will be 10 metres taller when it’s finished.)

“It’s a great way of combining my interests of computers and architecture,” says Leblanc, 31.

In 1999, Leblanc created an online skyscraper discussion forum, which now boasts over 20,000 members worldwide.

He brought in Mike Kozakowski, a former UVic medical technology student, to help manage the business, and by 2006 they noticed that so many Victorians were discussing local issues on the forum that they decided to create a separate one just for this city. VV was born.

Since then, I’ve become addicted to it. A click on “new posts” at any time of day provides a stream of local reports, rehashed and commented upon. To an info junkie, it’s like cocaine to a lab rat. VV is the best working example in town of the online “crowd-sourcing” of news, in which users take advantage of the Internet’s powerful research capabilities, and then use it to link to external sites, documents, and photographs to back up their claims. (For some reason, none of our local publications have done this yet with their online editions.) During the past two years, as Victoria officials have debated old-tech sewage treatment and using trucks to haul away its sludge, VV members have identified dozens of European projects where sewage is generating biogas and electricity, proving that the public increasingly knows more than its politicians. VV’s anonymous chat even provides the occasional scoop: VV readers knew that Bayview condo developer Ken Mariash had an option to buy the historic E&N roundhouse, for example, several weeks before Times Colonist readers did.

“There’s so much news that goes unreported in the media,” says Kozakowski, 26. “But it does show up on Vibrant Victoria.”

Such forums bug the hell out of the old news media, which liken the Internet to a parasite killing its host by

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poaching stories and then reaping the hits. If anything, though, the relationship is symbiotic: as Leblanc and Kozakowski know from tracking who’s online, Victoria reporters regularly comb VV for info. And increasingly, web sources are doing a better job than big media outlets that continue to slash local news: VV’s busiest evening came on the night of municipal elections last November, when members provided instant polling results direct from City Hall, while local TV stations didn’t bother reporting them until their 11 o’clock newscasts.

This online demand for local information is changing not only the media, but local government too. A new generation of voters, raised on the rapid-response time and free-flowing information of the web, has started demanding greater transparency and accountability from its officials — a a new generation movement represented by of voters raised websites like disclosed.ca, which publishes thousands of with the Internet government contracts online. has started demanding Some governments are starting to listen. Vancouver greater transparency and Toronto recently passed “open city” resolutions, and accountability endorsing the free sharing of from its officials. their data. Nanaimo, a national leader in online government, not only puts video of its council meetings on the Internet, it hyperlinks the minutes so citizens can zip to the parts that matter to them, and share the video with others.

Even the Corporation of the City of Victoria, which has traditionally doled out its data in teaspoons, recently launched an account on Facebook, where it was immediately flamed by readers over downtown garbage, open drug use, and the rush to replace the Johnson Street Bridge. Welcome to the online world, Mayor Fortin.

Certainly, something has to change. According to a recent Maclean’s survey, Victoria was tied for second-last place in all of Canada for voter turnout in municipal elections at 26 percent, only one percent better than Calgary. Such woeful numbers are partly due to the fact that so many residents come from elsewhere and don’t feel invested in local affairs.

But I’d argue it’s just as much the fault of media outlets and governments that still rely on old-fashioned control of information and the means of debate.

But change is coming. While writing this, I received an e-mail from Barack Obama, asking me, as a U.S. citizen, to lobby my state representatives to support his health-care plan, with a direct link to all their addresses. Can Victorians do the same thing, and push to transform our own institutions using the power of the Internet? Yes we can. VB

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Members of an historic church, drawn by its call for social justice, now are raising the roof

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EastEr sunday, 2008. Provincial policy analyst Heather Smart woke up that morning with an unexpected urge to go to church. It wasn’t like her.

“I’d had no plan to go, but the first thought in my head that morning was: ‘Go to church.’ Right after that came a second thought: ‘Go to St. John the Divine,’ ” recalled Smart.

“And I am not an intuitive person. That kind of thing doesn’t happen to me. So I went.”

She’s been going every Sunday since, for reasons she still finds a little challenging to explain. “I almost felt it physically. There’s a rightness about St. John’s. And I wasn’t even raised Anglican.”

Church attendance in Canada is a fraction of what it was at its peak in the 1950s, when close to 70 per cent of Canadians could be counted on to show up for the weekly service. Now, Statscan reports just 20 per cent of us regularly attend church.

St. John’s hasn’t been immune to the shifting times. The church’s rector, Rev. Harold Munn, says regular attendance at Sunday service has fallen by a third in the past decade, from 300 to 200. But it has also seen a number of newcomers like Smart joining its congregation recently, people who thought they had no interest in attending church but then found themselves giving St. John’s a try.

So what is it that still brings new people through the door in secular times? Is there something about St. John’s in particular that draws them? Those are among the issues the Quadra Street church has been exploring with its congregation this year in the run-up to its 150th anniversary in 2010.

“I’d only ever been to St. John’s for concerts, so it wasn’t like I was familiar with it,” says Smart, an analyst with the BC Ministry of the Environment. “But almost right away, it just felt like a piece of the jigsaw had fallen into place.

There’s a strong sense of social justice there, of environmental consciousness. Every week pretty much, somebody stands up and says ‘I have a petition for . . .’.

They’re just a very outward-looking group of people.”

The conversations the church had with its parishioners victoriaboulevard.com 37

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this year were enlightening for what they say about the role of a community church in modern times, says Munn.

Church is just one item on a long list of potential Sunday activities for most people nowadays, he notes. A smart church knows it has to work much harder to engage people.

St. John’s has had an activist culture for decades, starting with its work to help found the Cool Aid Society in the 1960s and on through the boycott of Nestle S.A. because of its marketing of infant formula in Africa. Then came a long battle through the 1990s on behalf of BC’s Nisga’a Nation.

The church’s involvement with homelessness dates back more than 40 years, when the Cool Aid Society first got its start in a corner of the church. Cool Aid executive “st. John’s is such a director Kathy Stinson says St. John’s is the go-to church place of safety and for her agency whenever extra shelter beds are needed, because the church warmth that you can is always happy to help.

“They’ve come to the plate be challenged to do three times now to provide help with emergency shelter,” more than you thought says Stinson. “We’re so appreciative of them. St. you could do,” says John’s makes our community a better place.”

Jennifer Gerwing.

The St. John’s congregation counts many key social thinkers and activists among the flock: Munn himself, a member of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness and an outspoken advocate of safe injection sites; long-time city councillor Helen Hughes and her husband Ted, retired civil servant; former city councillor Bea Holland; University of Victoria nursing professor Bernie Pauly; Faith in Action’s Peggy Wilmot.

Their leadership and the church’s location smack-dab in the middle of homeless problems downtown have propelled St. John’s to the front of virtually every local effort around homelessness, drawing even more community activists into the congregation along the way.

“The first time I met Harold Munn was at a dinner party,” recalls Jennifer Gerwing, a PhD student at the UVic who joined St. John’s last year. “I thought to myself: If I ever go to church, I’m going to go to that guy’s church. He was just so clearly intelligent, didn’t take himself too seriously, wasn’t judgmental.

“I hadn’t been to church in years. I basically had no interest in it. But when I started going to St. John’s, I discovered I’d been right about Harold, but that the church was actually much more than just him. St. John’s is such a

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place of safety and warmth that you can be challenged to do more than you thought you could do: to reflect a little more, to be less habitual in your thinking. I have a lot of support in my home and family, too, but it’s different when you also have it in your spiritual life.”

Fellow newcomer Michael King started attending because he walked through the church door on a whim one Sunday morning while passing by on other business, and heard Munn delivering a same-sex blessing. That was a special moment for a gay man looking for more meaning in his life. “It ended up being the place where I met my partner,” says King. “How unusual is that: to meet a gay partner at your church?”

For Pauly, raised Roman Catholic, the choice of St. John’s was about “finding a Christian community that shared my values.”

She knew she’d found the right place when she saw how many familiar faces from her community social-justice work were among the congregation. “We shopped for a church that not only had those values, but practised them,” says Pauly.

The St. John’s roof campaign that’s currently underway (www.aspirecampaign.ca) is proof that church congregations still pack a punch as a community force.

For the past six months, the historic church has been appealing to its parishioners and the broader community for $750,000 for a new slate roof, which will restore the building to its original 1910

appearance and keep the church’s lofty ceiling and massive pipe organ safe and dry.

St. John’s also set out to raise an additional $250,000 from its congregation to help fund the 70-plus ministries that ensure the church stays relevant to its diverse membership, such as walking clubs, music, social advocacy, youth groups, environmental strategy, you name it. To date, the 300 parish households have raised an astounding $700,000 toward the million-dollar goal, with the majority of households giving $5,000 to $7,000. “And these are not wealthy people by any means,” says Munn.

Work begins on the roof this winter, with the new slate tiles to be in place by summer. The grand old church hasn’t had a slate roof since being damaged in a major fire in 1960, and heritage enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting the restoration.

“Structurally, the church is still in great shape, and slate will last for 100 years,” notes project engineer John Dam of consulting firm Reid Jones Christofferson. “It’s a very positive move for the heritage of the city.”

What a good church can offer in jaded, cynical times is hope, says Smart.

“I have strong hope for the church,” she says. “We have more influence collectively as a group than an individual, and we need that for making change. I have a sense that it just might be the church that leads us into this post-corporate world.” VB

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Robert Anderson and Dylan Rovere (below) lovingly craft musical works of art.

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robert anderson remembers exactly when his love affair with the guitar began. He was a four-year-old playing in the attic of his uncle’s farmhouse near Yorkton, Saskatchewan, when an old Gibson caught his eye. His cousins showed him how to sit and hold it and make a sound. “I sat there and I strummed that thing for so long that later on I had this big blister on my thumb,” laughs Anderson, standing in his light-filled Vic West workshop.

“Ever since then I’ve just loved the sound of the guitar.”

Today Anderson, 56, not only plays but also builds guitars, and he’s not alone. Throughout coastal BC, particularly on Vancouver Island, professional and hobbyist luthiers, united by their love of the instrument and commitment to quality, sculpt away in their sawdust-scented workshops, turning carefully selected pieces of wood into finely-crafted instruments, or what many in the craft call “art that sings.”

Well-made guitars, from elegant classical models to shapely jazz archtops, are beautiful objects. Crafted from tropical hardwoods like ebony and rosewood and local softwoods like Sitka spruce and Western red cedar, they reflect the passion of their creators for a centuries-old instrument that in its hand-crafted form stands as an aesthetic statement against the build-it-quickly-and-cheaply mentality so prevalent today.

Dylan Rovere, 37, who crafts steel-string acoustics in his Hillside-area workshop, says he loves earning his living “doing something that is completely ethically sound and brings something positive into the universe.” Rovere is deeply committed to a value-added approach that uses natural resources well by turning the best materials he can find into a high-quality instrument that will inspire its owner for years. Local bluesman Bill Johnson, who plays a Rovere dreadnought, a large-bodied flat top model, says Rovere’s guitars have outstanding sound, noting the remarkable tonal balance and sweetness of the upper register.

To show how he and other hand-builders get these qualities, Rovere holds an unfinished soundboard (the guitar top) up to his ear, tapping the treble and bass sides to detect where material needs to be removed with hand tools to get the balance he wants. Rovere will repeat the process

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many times before the piece is finished, something that can’t be done in a factory because there isn’t time.

Marcus Dominelli, 41, is equally committed. He is a well-regarded classical guitar builder in James Bay whose nylon string concert instruments are played by serious musicians throughout North America. Devoted to older building techniques and fine aesthetic details (special joints, handcrafted inlays) that demand remarkable skill, he says, “There’s a real satisfaction in being able to make it through the challenge and build a really nice product.”

This devotion to quality comes at a cost, though. All three builders emphasize how difficult earning a living can be despite the high prices hand-built instruments fetch. Anderson’s fingerstyle and parlour guitars, for example, have developed an international reputation: he’s one of a few luthiers who supply a pre-eminent builder “there’s a real in California. His guitars start at $6,000 (US), but he satisfaction in being makes only six to eight instruments a year because able to make it it takes up to 200 hours to through the make a single one.

Of course, not all builders challenge and build undertake this work to earn a living. Most, like John a really nice product.”

MacDougall, an electrical engineer who works with computers, are hobbyists who do it for pleasure. Six years ago he got into lutherie after he bought an expensive factory guitar that didn’t live up to its price. Having built cedar strip canoes, MacDougall decided he could do a better job himself. He’s now on his 15th guitar.

Retired marine biologist Steve Heizer started out building banjos but ended up creating guitars because he enjoys the greater artistic challenge they offer. Contrasting lutherie with his former science career, he says, “Now I get to work on the other side of my brain.” Even Heizer’s teenaged daughter Melanie, inspired by her father, has gotten involved. The first instrument she built, an electric bass, caused quite a stir in her mid-Island high school. “I shocked quite a few boys with it, which was fun,” she said. Shockfactor aside, she’s passionate about the artistic alchemy that turns wood into music and doesn’t plan to stop with an electric bass.

We have a lot of leading luthiers on Vancouver Island, says Anderson, and they are an important part of the Canadian scene. Toronto’s Linda Manzer, one of the world’s premier builders (her clients include Carlos Santana, Pat Metheny, Liona Boyd and Bruce Cockburn), says that Canadian luthiers are considered among the best in the

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world, adding that they are “nice, funny people who seem to build damn good guitars.” Michael Powell, the owner of Victoria’s Classic Guitars, supports this view, noting that our local and national luthiers are “clearly up there with anybody making guitars today . . . The quality of workmanship is as good as anything you’re going to find out there.”

That expertise is due in part to one man, Jean Larrivee, who moved his fledgling guitar factory from Toronto to Victoria in the 1970s before transplanting it again to Vancouver. He has since opened a second branch in California. Although Larrivee went the factory route, Anderson credits him with being the “father of Canadian lutherie,” and notes that most Canadian builders, including himself, Rovere, Manzer, and a host of others, first learned their craft from him or his disciples.

Anderson recalls visiting the factory in Vancouver when he was about to build his first guitar and having Larivee give him a tour and personally pick out the materials he would need and then sell them to him at below-wholesale cost. Local luthiers say this generosity is common, particularly here on the Island, where professionals and hobbyists alike share a deep camaraderie and seem more than happy to lend a hand to the newly smitten. And so, like Robert Anderson and the others, if you have developed a thing for a certain six-stringed instrument, this just might be the time to buy a hand-crafted one or even learn to build one yourself. here are some tips: Buy a hand-crafted guitar — while not cheap handcrafted guitars are generally better and more consistent than factory-built models and can be built with all the features you want, like special inlays. Before you buy, make sure to try it first. Google Robert Anderson Guitars, Rovere Guitars and Dominelli Guitars to contact local builders.

Build your Own — with time, patience, basic tools, moderate woodworking skills and good instruction, you can build your own for about $300. Start with a good book, such as William Cumpiano’s, GUITARMAKING: Tradition and Technology or start with a kit from suppliers such as Luthiers Mercantile International or Timeless Instruments. (timelessinstruments.com).

Take a course — Vancouver Island has its own school near Qualicum called the Summit School of Guitar Building.

Join the Islands Luthiers Guild — local builders are more than happy to help (see islandsluthiersguild.com). An Islands Luthiers Guild exhibitions and concert is scheduled for Sunday, November 1st at the Civic Centre in Qualicum.

For more information call the Summit School, 250-757-9903 or visit luthiers-international.com. VB

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Thearts wendy morton has created a rare treasure by mining photos and stories for a poetic history of the alberni valley: the lore of the nearby is worthy of inspiration

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In tHIs season of treasures and nostalgia, we tend to look for small mementos that call to mind pleasant times.

But far more than any material item, I think it’s the memories themselves that we crave. As the days wrap darkness around our shoulders, we draw close to the communal fire, craving stories to get us through.

If you go back in human history, those stories started as poems or songs that were often repeated. But now, poetry is largely overlooked, as too quaint or obscure to bother with.

Unless you happen to be like me, and enjoy poetry for that quick hit of pleasure, or insight, it can provide. Think of poetry as espresso for your cerebral cortex. Even if you don’t feel like you understand exactly how it works, or what

it’s meant to do, it’ll wake you up with something to think about. Besides, it’s usually short, and to the point: readers can get an emotional sense of story just as quickly, and possibly more powerfully, than they might from a longer piece of writing. So in a season of thoughtfulness, a book of poetry makes a thoughtful gift that’s also thoughtprovoking.

One such book is a new collection by Victoria poet Wendy Morton, called What Were Their Dreams? Valleys of Hope and Pain: Canada’s History (Black Moss Press). While the title might sound like a seminar on Canadian identity, the poems inside the book are tied directly to a Vancouver Island community. They form a provocative collection of true stories about the Alberni Valley, based on historical photographs and narrative accounts from real people: the kind of treasures that are harder to come by with each passing year.

“I wanted to capture an era and wanted to capture lives,” says Morton, and that’s what she’s done. Her poems tell the stories of a working class, hardscrabble life from Port Alberni’s early days — the McLean Mill’s plywood girls, who were employed to make plywood sheets at 37 cents an hour, for example — and of a town that, in the 1950s, saw its population and fortunes swell as people moved in to take advantage of the natural resources it had to offer. In one poem she writes, for instance: “Once we were one of the richest towns in Canada. The mills. Everybody had a car.”

And they tell the stories of the First Nations people who live and lived there, too, which reveal truths about Canadian history and identity that raise more than just idle thoughts.

As I read through this collection, it strikes me that finding inspiration can be a challenge for artists of all genres. There’s a certain expectation that art is meant to reveal something new: I think more artists, musicians and writers might follow Morton’s example, and turn to our nearby history to find ideas and inspiration. It’s a way of reviving communities and tapping into histories that might otherwise be lost.

For Morton, what was lost has certainly proven to be a treasure: she explains that this book started when she was trolling through a Kamloops thrift store two years ago and she discovered a red-leather-bound copy of Wrigley’s British Columbia Directory, circa 1922, that listed every town in BC, including many that don’t exist any more. And, says Morton, “It listed every person who lived there, except the First Nations, unfortunately.”

She turned to the first page, which included Alberni, as it was then known, and started to write poems based on what she imagined the people there were like. Eventually, that poem found its way to the Alberni Valley Museum, where it joined many others, to create a 2008 exhibit that showcased

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historic photos from the museum’s collection. “I saw immediate connections with images I knew we had in the collection,” writes exhibit curator Cindy Van Volsem in the book’s introduction. “With the poems in front of me, I had the joy of finding the photographs that embraced the words, and in a sense created photo-poems that draw those who see them into the history of this valley. And in a real sense, the history of Canada.”

While Morton’s poems brought words to the museum’s historic photos, members of the Alberni Valley community brought their own stories to Morton, who is renowned for her ability to write extemporaneous poems for people she’s only just met.

“In the exhibition, they set up two chairs, and invited people to come to bring their pictures and tell their stories,” says Morton. “It was really moving: I would take pages of notes. Some people came back two, or three, times. They wanted to say more.”

She adds that the historic photos, with their ghosts of sawmills past, and the real people who shared their memories both provided tremendous inspiration. “It was enlightening to me, to understand their lives,” Morton says.

“I loved doing it — they were all my teachers, the ghosts and the live people. It was my great historical education.”

Seven of the poems included in What Were Their Dreams? reveal the stories of First Nations people, all of whom talked to Morton as she worked on the draft of the book. “Six of them were residential school survivors,” says Morton, who adds that she found her own thoughts were put aside as she listened to each person’s story. “I was just there to give these stories a voice.” And to show, in poetry, what each person’s reality was like. “I could’ve done it in prose, but I wanted to do it in poetry, because it’s fast.

People can get it fast.”

If you’re wanting something equally fast and more metropolitan, a similar project can be found in A Verse Map of Vancouver (Anvil Press), an excellent new anthology edited by that city’s poet laureate, George McWhirter. Not only does it make an excellent seasonal gift for any big city literary type, but it’s a revealing portrait of another landscape and history, contributed by 92 poets with some connection, however tenuous, to the city of Vancouver.

As far as I know, there’s nothing like either of these books for Victoria — yet. But if there ever were a city ready for a poetic history, it’d be this one. Let’s see what the New Year brings — perhaps a shot of poetic espresso to shake away the winter sleep?

Wendy Morton launches her book, What Were Their Dreams? Valleys of Hope and Pain: Canada’s History, at 8 pm on November 20 at the Black Stilt Coffeehouse, 103-1633 Hillside Avenue. VB

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E

ARLY MUSIC Victorians flock to SOCIETY experience time-honoured music

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Several monthS ago James Young, artistic director of the Early Music Society of the Islands, ambled onstage at Alix Goolden hall and looked out glumly at a sold-out audience of 800. “You can probably imagine how thrilled I am to be standing in front of you right now,” he deadpanned, and the resulting roar of understanding laughter was music to his ears. He should have been proudly introducing Dame Emma Kirkby, a legendary soprano and arguably the most revered performer in the world of “early music,” otherwise known as European classical music pre-dating the Romantic era. Instead — and, making matters much, much worse, for the second time in two years — Young had to apologetically confirm what the audience already feared: Kirkby had cancelled. Although akin to informing opera lovers that Kiri Te Kanawa wouldn’t be delivering a once-in-a-lifetime recital, people were forgiving. The 60-year-old Kirkby couldn’t be expected to fly out from London with a broken ankle, and besides it would have been churlish to blame Young himself.

Later, during an interview, Young wryly concedes that Kirkby is the “crown jewel” that got away. In the next breath he has no trouble mustering an imposing list of musicians who did make it onto the stage. Premier artists such as English violinists Monica Huggett and Simon Standage, Dutch harpsichordist Ton Koopman and Toronto’s Tafelmusik are just a few of the literally dozens of superstars that the society has showcased over more than two decades. “We are presenting the highest-calibre music of any arts group in Victoria . . . world-class musicians,” boasts Young.

But the boast rings true. The realm of early music, which begins with Gregorian chant, spans the Renaissance and Baroque eras of Bach and Telemann, and can sometimes

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extend past Mozart and even Beethoven, is pretty rarefied compared with what the world’s symphony orchestras typically program. However, the greatest Baroque violinist can only charge a pittance relative to the plump cheque awaiting, say, Itzak Perlman for rattling off the Sibelius Violin Concerto in a major concert hall.

Early music can be a tough sell (and hence it is a relative bargain) at least until someone actually hears some and falls for its often-exotic charms. According to Young, a professor of philosophy at UVic who has been with the group since its second year, the society has been successfully if slowly cultivating an audience. “In the early days, we would typically get about 80 people out, whereas now we average about 400. And the number of annual shows has doubled, from four to eight,” explains Young. “We now sell over 3,000 tickets a year.” After admitting that “I don’t listen to the musical taste in Victoria is a note composed conservative, Young nonetheless believes that the 25-year-old after 1800 now, society has lots of room for growth. “When people hear our not if I’m given concerts they love them and will often come back,” he adds. a choice,” says “Getting them to the front door artistic director that first time is the hard part.”

Nancy Argenta, an James Young. internationally known singer now based in Victoria, has performed for the society several times. A Baroque specialist — she subbed for Kirkby that first cancellation — Argenta is a big fan. “The society is well organized and extremely professional,” she says. “And speaking as a performer, if you’re not getting a huge fee then you certainly enjoy being well taken care of and feeling appreciated.” More praise comes from Pat Weldon, who retired here from Toronto nearly a decade ago and was president of the board for four years. “James is the Early Music Society. No one else in the society comes close to his record of service,” she points out.

“He’s one of the living treasures of Victoria’s classical music scene and deserves more accolades than he’s received.”

Young embodies the passion aroused by the world of early music, which started to achieve some profile back in the 1960s, when a few pioneering musician-musicologists decided to perform the works of Baroque composers on instruments of the period. They chose harpsichords over pianos, and resurrected 18th century violins, cellos and flutes because they sound warmer than their modern counterparts. They also put a premium on replicating the original orchestration, resulting in a more intimate listening experience, one true to the composer’s intentions. And lest

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those ambitions seem dusty, fussy, and academic, be assured the music itself — alive, chiming with the rich timbres of antique instruments, and deeply involving — is anything but an aural museum piece.

The society’s bread and butter will always be the Baroque biggies like Handel, Bach, Purcell, and Corelli, but its programming frequently pushes the boundaries.

The earliest performance it ever staged was a bardic presentation of Beowulf, with Benjamin Bagby chanting the epic poem in Old English while plucking a copy of a seventh-century gothic harp. They have also presented Byzantine chants dating back 1,000 years, and spirited medieval and Renaissance ensembles that play peculiar instruments like sackbutts, viols and crumhorns. “We strike a balance between vocal and instrumental music, drawing from all the countries of Europe and featuring selections representing the court, church, and popular music of the time,” explains Young.

Early music spans centuries, cultures and sometimes continents, yet even when it is offbeat it can still be accessible. Last year’s season included an exploration of the roots of Italy’s Commedia dell’Arte tradition, and the music-meets-theatre performance was droll and weird.

And it was a definite crowd-pleaser, as certified by the deafening roar as a few hundred people in the wooden balcony stomped their approval at the funky music and funny antics.

Although Young doesn’t exactly stride about wearing a codpiece and doublet, you’d be forgiven for wondering what anachronisms might lurk in the back of his closet.

With two harpsichords at home (one Italianate, one Flemish — and, yes, you do need both), along with a few thousand early music CDs, a large copy of one of the medieval Lady and the Unicorn tapestries hanging in the study, and a telephone ring tone that chimes out the Autumn theme to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, this is clearly not Mr. Contemporary.

“I don’t listen to a note composed after 1800 now, not if I’m given a choice,” he admits. “Some people say I’m narrow in my interests but I listen to a thousand years of music that is derived from dozens of cultures and includes literally hundreds of genres.” Your typical iPod user shuffling from classic Rolling Stones to the newest Eminem raps might not get it, but Young swims in an ocean of amazing music comprised of glorious, inspiring, sometimes transcendent compositions that have more than stood the test of time.

The Early Music Society of the Islands celebrates its 25th season this year. Of particular interest will be the seasoncapping performance by Germany’s Concerto Köln, one of the world’s most elite Baroque orchestras, appearing at Alix Goolden on April 30. For information: earlymusicsocietyoftheislands.ca. VB victoriaboulevard.com 57

FrontRoW

By JulIe nIxon

artIStS FroM papua new GuInea and Bc’S northern coaSt unIte Alcheringa Gallery presents “Hailans to Ailans” (“Highlands to Islands” in Melanesian Pidgin), which showcases the work of contemporary indigenous artists from both Papua New Guinea and the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. “The artists from this show are playing with a number of really important themes that are definitely part of global discourse,” says Dan Lepsoe, curator.

Globalization, environment and cultural suppression are pressing matters for indigenous people all over the world, explains Lepsoe.

at the alcheringa Gallery, november 5 to 26: Clockwise from left:

origin of the eagle and Crocodile Clans by Claytus yambon, kwila wood, shells, natural pigments, 27 in x 6 in x 8 in, 2008.

Bird of Paradise by Kaua Gita, suspension hook wood, natural pigments, bush fibre, natural dyes, shells, 53 in x 15 in x 1 in, 2008. otto timbin Dancing Mask, wood, natural pigments, natural fibre, synthetic dye, 30 in x 15 in x 9 in, 2008.

Fever of Milamala by Martin Morububuna, (From Planting to harvest to Farewell of the spirits), oil on canvas, 43 in x 62 in, 2009.

Thus a crucial component of “Hailans to Ailans” is a cultural exchange and connection between indigenous peoples of the Pacific, between countries, between artists and audience.

“It’s a challenging show in many ways. It also confronts stereotypes about natives and Papua New Guinea; there’s just not a lot of understanding about what the cultures there are like,” says Lepsoe. But an incredible aesthetic experience is not to be lost in the discussion about issues.

“The work is really spectacular. . . . It’s a great celebration of what’s happening with contemporary New Guinean artists.” As shown in masterful sculpture in wood, metalwork, fibre art and painting, varying media testify to the enduring heritage and the irrepressible creative energy of indigenous cultures.

The exhibition is unusual because the artists will be in Victoria, representing their own culture, and because of a number of associated events, including an evening of performance at Mungo Martin House.

This international show takes place first at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery in London, England, on September 16; the second opens at Alcheringa Gallery (665 Fort Street) on November 5 and ends November 26. Call 250-383-8224 or visit the preview website at www.hailanstoailans.com for interviews, performance reviews, essays and more. pacIFIc coaSt SalISh artIStS celeBrated The Royal BC Museum hosts the groundbreaking exhibition “S’abadeb — The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists,” organized by the Seattle Art Museum in a two-year process involving Salish First Nations consultants, museum staff, humanities experts, native advisors and contemporary Salish artists.

“This is the first time, ever, that a comprehensive look at Coast Salish tradition in art has been pulled together . . . victoriaboulevard.com 59

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legend of the octopus, bentwood box by John Marston, Chemainus, 2007; e L bA ( D e tA I L )

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from the distant past right up until the present day,” says Tim Willis, the director of exhibitions at the museum.

Featuring more than 175 artworks gathered from scores of collections all over the world, this eye-popping exhibition includes a range of historic and contemporary pieces in a side-by-side arrangement that draws attention to the continuing cultural exchange of the Pacific Coast Salish people.

“It’s not on a timeline. You come across ancient and new together, which really brings the point home,” explains Willis. “It’s not a history lesson; it’s a celebration of this artistic tradition.”

“S’abadeb — The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists” exhibits at the Royal BC Museum from November 20, 2009, to March 8, 2010. For tickets or information, visit www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca or call 250-356-7226.

LAURA HARRIS StILL & DReAmIng - A tRIbUte to tUScAny Preview Day November 14th 10 – 5:30 Exhibition and Sale November 15th – 28th Opening, reception and artist’s presentation (1pm) November 15th 12 – 4 (artist will be in attendance)

2184 OAK BAY AVENUE, VICTORIA 250-598-2184 www.theavenuegallery.com

Black uMFoloSI perForMS With its charming a cappella harmonies, energetic dancing and vibrant display of movement, the Zimbabwean folk group Black Umfolosi has thrilled audiences all over the world. Back in 1982 they were a handful of school friends in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, who entertained themselves by singing and dancing together: Black Umfolosi is now an 18-member musical arts organization. This internationally acclaimed dance troupe offers a variety of excellent performances, and also provides workshops, outreach programs and arts training both in South Africa and abroad.

The core dance quintet performs its dynamic show in Victoria on November 26, a mélange ranging from gumboot dancing to “imbube,” a style of South African choral music victoriaboulevard.com 61

“Remarkable. It will break your heart.”

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Black Umfolosi’s core dance quintet performs november 26 at the alix Goolden hall.

whose lyrics explore social issues and human concerns like family, love and the environment.

Black Umfolosi performs November 26 at 8 pm at the Alix Goolden Hall. For more information, call the event line at 250-384-7469. ehneS playS Beethoven’S vIolIn concerto Canadian concert violinist James Ehnes has performed the world over with some of the greatest conductors alive today, won numerous distinguished awards, and recorded nearly two dozen records. With an international reputation that belies his years (he’s just 33), he now makes his Victoria debut on stage with Maestra Tania Miller and the Victoria Symphony.

Born in Brandon, Manitoba, to a music teacher and a former ballerina, Ehnes says he could have chosen any instrument to play, but it was the violin that fascinated him the most. At age four his father began teaching him violin, and five years later he became a student of esteemed Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin. Ehnes went on to study during the summer with Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School of Music, and then in 1993 at Juilliard. He graduated from Juilliard in 1997, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music. Fastforward to 2009 and you’ll find Ehnes with six Junos to his name, most recently the 2009 Juno for “Classical Album of The Year: Solo or Chamber Ensemble” for his CD/DVD Homage.

Ehnes currently plays a 1715 Stradivarius formerly owned

by Belgian violinist Martin Pierre Marsick. The instrument is on loan from the Fulton Collection.

62 victoriaboulevard.com

c e l e b r at i n g s m a l l V Exhibition and Sale December 5th-24th Preview day December 4th 10:00 am - 5:30 pm Opens December 5th - 10:00 am sharp!

2184 OAK BAY AVENUE, VICTORIA 250-598-2184 www.theavenuegallery.com

James Ehnes performs with the Victoria Symphony at the Royal Theatre on December 7 at 8 pm. There will be a talk in the west lobby 45 minutes before show time. Call the box office at 250-385-6515 for tickets. artIStS paIr theIr work wIth wIne Art and wine can make for a very merry Christmas, which is why seven local artists and Muse Winery joined forces for a two-day sale and show of art and wine, giving shoppers the opportunity to find out-of-the-ordinary gifts.

“People are looking for something different,” says Pauline Olesen, who creates vibrant fused glass pieces and distinctive handmade glass-bead jewelry. Each artist creates work in a different medium, including stone carvings by Craig Benson, the bronze animals of sculptor Paul Harder, landscape and nature photography by David Hutchison, acrylic paintings and limited edition giclée prints by Barry Tate, jewelry and stones by goldsmith Terry Venables, and glass pieces by Olesen.

The winery offers an assortment of gift baskets, as well as their wines.

KAREN MARTIN SAMPSON by commission

Woman in a Kimono (detail) oil 30"x30"

James ehnes debuts with the Victoria symphony, December 7.

NEW PORTRAITS & PAINTINGS www.karenmartinarts.ca tel: 1-250-282-0134 ksampson@saywardvalley.net victoriaboulevard.com 63

Morris Gallery

“A Christmas Inspired” at Muse Winery takes place December 12 to 13 at 11195 Chalet Road in North Saanich.

Call 250-656-2552 or visit www.musewinery.ca for more information.

”Majestic Giants” Oil en plein air 24 x 18

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“Oil on Canvas” Opening Reception Nov. 12, 7 - 9:00 pm Show runs Nov. 12 - Dec. 5

“Cobble Hill Farm” oil 42 x 44

On Alpha St. at 428 Burnside Road East 250-388-6652 morrisgallery.ca 64 victoriaboulevard.com

nutcracker varIatIonS, and cInderella Dance Victoria once again presents Alberta Ballet’s 2008 resplendent production of The Nutcracker, choreographed

by Edmund Stripe, with Tchaikovsky’s score performed by the Victoria Symphony. This remarkable retelling of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic fairy-tale ballet is the grandest production in Alberta Ballet’s history.

The Nutcracker plays at the Royal Theatre on November 27 and 28 at 7:30 pm, and November 28 and 29 at 2 pm. For tickets, call the McPherson box office at 250-386-6121 or visit www.DanceVictoria.com.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Pacific Ballet presents two variations of The Nutcracker. A family-friendly show,

summer sails, acrylic on canvas, 30 in x 40 in, by Barry tate, one of seven artists showing at Muse Winery, Dec. 12 & 13.

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The Nutcracker Suite and Sugar Plum Fair, takes place on December 29 (2 and 7 pm), offering games, crafts and photo ops in the lobby with none other than the graceful Sugar Plum Fairy herself. The performance, just one-hour long, is narrated by an older Clara and features specific scenes that are easy to understand by younger audience members.

On December 30 at 7 pm, The Sugar Plum Gala Ball features a full performance of The Nutcracker and a merry holiday soirée afterwards to celebrate the season.

Shows take place at the McPherson Playhouse.

For tickets, call the box office at 250-386-6121.

Finally, Ballet Victoria brings back Cinderella, an original production set in Victoria and danced to Sergei Prokofiev’s melodious score. With a few lighthearted adjustments, this modern (and amusing) version of an old classic features Prince Charming as a hunky movie star in search of his leading lady.

Cinderella plays at the Royal Theatre December 27 to 29 at 7:30 pm and 29 to 30 at 2 pm.

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Canada. In just the last five years, the gallery has procured over 200 Japanese prints, both old and new, and thus mounts the four-month exhibition “Glimpses of Japan” beginning on December 18. The exhibit features landscape, historical scenery, portraits and impressionistic images from the 18th century to the end of the 20th century.

On display are 18th and 19th century prints by ukiyo-e artists, works by printmakers of the shin hanga (new print) movement (1920s and 1930s), as well as pieces by major sosaku hanga (creative prints) movement of the 20th century.

“Glimpses of Japan: Recent Print Acquisitions” runs December 18, 2009 to April 11, 2010 at the AGGV. Phone 250-384-4101 for more information. the year oF MaGIcal thInkInG The Year of Magical Thinking is an unforgettable account of one woman’s journey through grief after the death of her husband in their New York apartment.

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends,” writes Joan Didion. The author adapted her best-selling and awardwinning memoir into a play, and this season The Belfry presents the Canadian premiere of this honest, personal meditation on mourning the loss of a loved one.

“It’s such a fantastic piece of writing,” says The Belfry’s artistic director Michael Shamata. “And putting the play and Seana McKenna together just seemed so perfect.” McKenna has performed an enormous range of strong female lead characters, from Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth to the iconic women of Tennessee Williams.

seana McKenna stars in the Belfry theatre’s production,

the year of Magical thinking, Joan Didion’s honest, personal meditation on mourning the loss of a loved one.

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cowIchanValley

A

By elizaBeth leVinson Photos By Phil iVes

A cheese whiz draws inspiration from French fromageries aS I meander down Cherry Point Road towards Hilary Abbott’s farm, I run into the man himself heading in the other direction in his wee Nissan S-Cargo delivery van. He’s taking another batch of his artisan cheeses to the family fromagerie a scant country mile away in Cowichan Bay. It’s an enviable little commute.

Hilary’s Cheese Co. is a well-known story in these parts: Hilary’s father had a client who wanted to open a cheese factory. Hilary (then a school administrator) and his wife Patty (then a banker) thought it sounded interesting and got involved. The result was the Cowichan Cheese Co. When other investors fell away, the Abbotts decided to pursue cheese making on their own and eventually bought the four-hectare Cheese Pointe Farm in the Cowichan Valley.

The cheese production and distribution, and now The Cheese Shop and café, have evolved into something of a local success story, certainly a story that speaks to the determination to create high-quality food in a sustainable way. Along the way, the Abbotts, together with their daughter Bronwyn, who works in The Cheese Shop, have shown what one family can do to put local food on local plates.

The day I visited was an affinage day at the farm. Says Hilary: “It’s one thing to curdle and solidify the milk and get a pound of cheese out of it; the true mastery is how you finish the cheese in the aging room.” Assistant cheese maker Laura Chilcott, who has been schooled by affineur Denis Huet, is busy “painting” blackberry port from nearby Cherry Point

Vineyards onto the rind of several large Belle Ann goat-milk Tommes, which use raw goat cheese. The deeply hued port is used to seal and age this monastery-style cheese in the same way that monks have used cider, beer, wine, honey and salt.

Centuries-old cheese-making practices are now coming head-to-head with modern food safe policies. The challenge the cheese maker faces, particularly one whose factory is located in diverse farming country, is the ever-present risk of cross-contamination. Provincial disease control regulations are understandably strict, and the Abbotts go even further than required by having an in-house micro-biologist regularly testing the facilities and cheese. “We work closely with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control to ensure that our farming and cheesemaking operations remain separate and impervious to crosscontamination,” says Hilary.

I can see that the processing areas are immaculate. I am asked to don special shoes and not to touch anything. The plant has recently taken delivery of a used but spanking clean 1,000-litre pasteurizer and cheese vat from Quebec that Hilary says “speaks to the growing cheese industry in Canada. A few years ago a piece of equipment like this wouldn’t be available, but now cheese factories are necessarily expanding.” There are new large cheese presses, which are used to push the whey out of the molten cheese so that the rind can develop. The whey is pumped underneath the plant to an outside vat, where its contents are collected by Glenora Farm to be used as nutritious feed for pigs.

Patty abbott at the cheese Shop and Hilary making cheese.

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The Abbotts have always bought their cow’s milk from third-generation dairy farmer Joan Wilkinson and her partner David Lestock-Kay of nearby Shin Cliffe Farm, where the Holsteins are pastured so they can graze naturally. When I ask about the warm terroir of the Cowichan Valley (recently called the “Canadian Mediterranean” by Gourmet magazine), Hilary points to the grass: “The milk we use is so full-fat and colourful because the cows eat fresh grass. All that chlorophyll intake translates into a nice orange hue and distinctive taste in the cheese.”

I’m amazed to hear how much milk goes into cheesemaking. From 1,500 litres a week, the Abbotts make 150 kilos of cheese. Hilary tells me: “A little 100-gram Camembert-style cheese takes a litre of milk to make.”

Hilary and Patty have always favoured French cheeses because they believe that country “has shown the world a variety of different styles and tastes.” They feel, though Canadian cheese makers are renowned for great cheddar, that “everything is otherwise so homogeneous here. We micro-processors feel we have a blank canvas on which to dabble with small amounts of milk. Here at Cheese Pointe Farm, we try to emulate the great French cheeses using local ingredients.”

One such creation is a Valençay-style cheese, a pressed chèvre dusted with a brilliant black vegetable ash that is continued on page 75

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Beyond ordinary, there’s Cowichan.

Discover the magic of an old-fashioned Christmas in Downtown Duncan this season. Come and be enchanted by the playful and sophisticated windows created by our passionate shopkeepers. fill each and every Christmas wish with all that Downtown Duncan has to offer. Beyond ordinary, there’s Cowichan!

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Cowichan: A celebration of senses.

Just because the sun sets early in winter is no reason to call it a day! The Cowichan hums with activity in an exhilarating atmosphere of festivity and joyfulness. We’ve got cool little downtowns, rich culinary experiences and musical treats galore. We’re a short, beautiful drive from Victoria – and yet a world apart.

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leave the crowds behind and enjoy the best of the Cowichan this season. Tour our many specialty shops and charming boutiques for the latest fashions, fine works of art, home décor, elegant giftware and other holiday treasures. Then get mellow with good friends in our celebrated restaurants, bistros and wineries.

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The world can wait .

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continued from page 69

made by cooking pine needles with intense heat. The result is a cheese that is understandably called Eclipse, for a cutaway reveals the lovely white cheese in the centre, then a ribbon of black and then a white rind that is in fact the harmless mould which has grown through the ash. It’s one of those seemingly inexplicable mysteries of cheese-making for which Hilary has a perfectly good scientific explanation.

And I can certainly attest to its appeal on the palate.

Down in Cowichan Bay, The Cheese Shop bustles with locals and visitors ordering cheeses to take home and enjoying big bowls of homemade soup and made-to-order sandwiches at waterfront tables. In the midst of the bustle, I sample Red Dawn, a monastery-style, semi-soft “the milk we use is cow’s milk cheese; Valley Blue, one of four aged blue so full-fat and colourful cheeses produced by Hilary; St. Clair, a cow’s milk, Briebecause the cows style cheese with a white rind bloom and lovely interior eat fresh grass. paté (this cheese was named for Sooke Harbour House all that chlorophyll co-owner Sinclair Philip and Patty tells me it sells like intake translates crazy); and a nice sharp goat’s into a nice orange hue milk cheddar that “we only make when we have extra and distinctive taste goat’s milk.”

It seems extra goat’s milk in the cheese.” is hard to come by in these parts. While some of the Abbotts’ supply comes from Mill Bay, the rest must come from Chilliwack. Says Hilary: “It’s a tough business to get into, and we want to encourage more local farmers to raise goats for milk.” Goats don’t digest grass, so their milk — and the resulting cheese — is naturally whiter than the milk from those pasture-raised cows.

Many local grocers and restaurants carry the Abbott’s cheese, from Sooke Harbour House, Deerholme Cottage and The Oswego Hotel to the Market on Yates and Ottavio Italian Bakery and Delicatessen, but you can also drop into The Cheese Shop when next you’re meandering along the country roads in Cowichan Bay. I find nothing more satisfying than buying at the source and having a good chat about sustainable food production with Hilary and Patty.

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The Cheese Shop, 1737 Cowichan Bay Road, Cowichan Bay, 250-748-5992. VB

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BoUleVaRDBookcluB

By Adrienne dyer photo By gAry mckinstry

NoT THeIr cup of TeA Moms dump cold water on an award-winning memoirist’s Three Cups of Tea

the Book: Three Cups of Tea author: Greg Mortenson publisher: Penguin 2007 (paperback version) length: 349 pages this Issue’s Book club: Founded in 2003 by Leslie Grundison for young moms

the cluB: This month’s book club started seven years ago as a moms’ night out for a handful of women whose children attended St. Patrick’s Elementary School together. The club has retained most of its core members, and has grown to nearly 20 moms of toddlers to teenagers. Since the club meets roughly every six weeks and members often don’t see each other between meetings, catching up over food and drink (provided by the hostess) is the first order of business.

The club sets aside a portion of one meeting each year to select books for the following year. The selection process is informal, but the club always includes an evening devoted to children’s books, and an open night when everyone brings in her favourite book to discuss for a few minutes.

Past favourite novels include Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, The Road by Cormac McCarthy and the club’s all-time favourite, Our Lady of the Lost And Found by Diane Schoemperlen.

Laura Thomson hosted this month’s meeting in her historic Fairfield home, where she welcomed friends with a book-themed feast served with wine, a cake (made by her kids) depicting a schoolroom scene populated with Playmobil figures with K2’s snowy peak looming in the background, and, of course, tea. the plot: Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time chronicles the story of mountain climber Greg Mortenson, whose failed 1993 expedition to the summit of K2 led him to his life’s work building schools in remote Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Co-written by Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, the book

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is a long-time New York Times bestseller and was adapted into best-selling versions for young adults and children.

It is also required reading for Canada’s National Defence ministry members and U.S. special forces deployed to Afghanistan. the author: Minnesota-born Greg Mortenson played out his boyhood near Mt. Kilimanjaro, where his father co-founded the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center and his mother ran the International School Moshi. He built his first school for the impoverished Pakistani villagers who saved his life after his failed K2 climb, and has built 78 schools to date across remote Afghanistan and Pakistan, surviving peril along the way. Mortenson, who believes education for children is the key to peace, has received numerous awards and is a sought-after speaker around the world. He lives in Montana with his wife and two children.

Oregon-based David Oliver Relin is an award-winning editor and investigative journalist who has spent much of his 20-year career reporting on social issues affecting children. He has traveled as a reporter throughout Pakistan and much of East Asia, including three years spent in Vietnam. Three Cups of Tea earned him numerous literary awards, including the 2007 Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Book of the Year. why thIS Book?

Leslie Grundison chose Three Cups of Tea at the recommendation of a friend. dIScuSSIon hIGhlIGhtS: What would you do if your husband took off for six months and you had no idea of his whereabouts or whether he was alive or dead? So began this book club’s discussion of Greg Mortenson’s adventures. Mortenson’s reckless treks across remote and dangerous territory did not impress this group of mothers and wives, despite the long list of awards and honours bestowed upon the mountaineer-turnedphilanthropist for his many admirable deeds.

“Never marry a mountaineer,” was the evening’s mantra, especially not one like Mortenson, who spares little thought for the wife and children he leaves behind during each of his adventures. One member went so far as to call Mortenson a “mountain bum” who simply stumbled upon a chance to do something good during his life and luckily, stuck with it. While not everyone agreed, many found him patronizing in his approach to philanthropy. Mortenson’s neglect of his own family combined with his focused efforts so far from home point toward a somewhat misguided attempt to save the world.

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These observations sparked a lengthy discussion about foreign aid and the meaning of true charity. “We need to look at our own countries first,” said one member. “Even the countries who benefit from our foreign aid say we need to focus our efforts at home, where there’s so much need.” She talked the club felt about collecting books to send to a teacher-friend at an inner city mortenson’s school in Los Angeles, where books were as scarce as the school’s financial means. The teacher was neglect of his using her own money to buy books for her students, smack in the own family middle of a city housing some of the richest people in the world. combined with “It was a shocking example of the discrepancy between immense wealth and poverty, right in our his efforts so far own backyards.”

Despite its failings, members felt from home Three Cups of Tea illustrates the extreme importance of educating were a misguided children, especially girls. Educate a single girl, and she will spread the benefits to her entire community. attempt to The book also shows how far a little money can go, at home as much as save the world. in poor countries. After all, without the schoolchildren of Westside Elementary School in Wisconsin and their “Pennies for Pakistan” drive in 1994, Mortenson could never have fulfilled his promise to build that first school for the isolated villagers who saved his life. As Mortenson says himself, “overseas, pennies can move mountains.” cluB verdIct: Three Cups of Tea is a painfully slow read and as such, gets two thumbs down from this book club. The book’s redeeming virtue is that it sparks important discussion about the pros and cons of foreign aid and volunteerism, and heightens awareness of the importance of educating impoverished children. If you want to read this story, go for the young adult version instead.

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

Colin Holt and the staff at Bolen Books also recommend: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls VB

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acouStIc muSIc continues to be a rewarding niche, especially for listeners who seek heartier fare than the inanities of factory-produced club tunes, “radio friendly” pop, and other ephemera of the aural landscape. If you cherish individualistic musicians with serious talent, these CDs, all available by googling the album name, are definitely worth a spin.

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Although ex-Victorian Doug Cox is best known in these parts as the producer of the popular Courtenay-Comox Music Festival, many fans of acoustic music also revere him as a maestro of the dobro, that lap-style resophonic guitar played with a metal slide. On Slide to Freedom 2 (Northern Blues) he is reunited with fellow slide master Salil Bhatt, who plays the satvik veena (essentially, a sitar-guitar), for a collaboration that sings and stings. Both men are rhapsodic stylists who perform with a keening virtuosity, here laid overtop a percolating bed of tabla (a percussion instrument) and bass rhythms. This West-meets-East “slide show” isn’t exactly a new idea, so Cox shakes things up by adding funky New Orleans jazz vocalist John Boutte to several songs: Amazing Grace is particularly wonderful. Slide fans will love this one.

Joe Coughlin’s silken baritone has been synonymous with jazz standards for a few decades now, and there’s general agreement that he’s the best jazz singer in Canada. He has won the National Jazz Award for male vocalist for two years running. The Victoria-based Coughlin may scoot around in an electric wheelchair, but his career seems latterly to have become Porsche powered. After bringing out the acclaimed Things Turn Out That Way in 2007 he’s just released another fine album in Lowdown West Broadway (RoadHouse), which is a heady mix of familiar standards, a few originals and several little-heard classics from Ella Fitzgerald’s 1989 last studio

record. There are several standouts, but his version of My Foolish Heart absolutely kills. The other musical star here is fleet-fingered pianist Miles Black, who, along with his trio, backs up Coughlin with bluesy élan. Recorded live in Vancouver at The Cellar, Lowdown is a swinging affair that embodies grace and class.

West coast bluesman Jim Byrnes put on a hell of a show at the 2008 JazzFest and he’s gone even deeper and rootsier on his latest release, My Walking Stick (Black Hen Music). He is once again accompanied by the engagingly oldschool gospel trio The Sojourners and featuring guest stars such as fiddle whiz Jesse Zubot and guitarist Steve Dawson, who also produced this record. Byrne shines on a repertoire ranging from the title track (penned by Irving Berlin but famously popularized by Leon Redbone) to Robbie Robertson’s Ophelia and the Motown-era Looking For a Love. Sometimes spooky, sometimes ebullient, always compelling, Walking is a showcase for Byrnes’s gruffly handsome, warm-as-whiskey voice as much as the brilliant acoustic music that frames and supports his soulful pronouncements.

Founded by vocalistaccordionist Marion Siegel nearly a decade ago and long familiar to habitués of Pagliacci’s restaurant, the Yiddish Columbia State Orchestra has finally made a CD that will allow patrons to take the party home with them. Seven Good Years (self-produced) contains 13 good tunes: melodic, sometimes mournful but always raucously life-affirming tracks that are instantly recognizable as klezmer, that bittersweet form of Eastern European folk-jazz dating from the 19th century and forged out of the harshness and tragedy of the Jewish experience. Klezmer is a flexible, evolving genre, here played by a septet of all-stars that includes trombonist Nick La Riviere and fiddler Julian Vitek.

Seven, comprising a core of traditional tunes mixed with more contemporary songs, is a swinging affair that boasts tightly-sprung dance rhythms, sparkling solos, passionate vocals and all the joie de vivre you’d expect from a Pag’s house band. There is a CD launch party at Hermann’s Jazz Club on Saturday, November 7. VB

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BY MuRRAY SAGER

PHOTOS BY GARY MCKInSTRY

C

OUR FIRST

HrIsTMAs AFLOAT

with two households downsized onto one boat, christmas will be very, very simple

chrIStmaS thIS Year will come out of a box that

Murray Sager, on his “front deck” plans a quiet Christmas with his partner.

A small Christmas tree graces the light, airy cabin.

spends the rest of the year in mini storage. There’s a little tree I made out of plywood pieces that slot together and the best of the Christmas decorations collected or inherited over the years.

This is because home now is a 41-foot power boat moored in Victoria’s Inner Harbour. My partner and I have just over 300 square feet of living space, but it’s light and airy, with big windows all around and plenty of deck space outside during the summer.

We have a good working galley, an owner’s stateroom with a queen-sized bed, two bathrooms or “heads,” a shower, a twin V-berth up forward and a saloon. Ten lockers, some with shelves, some for hanging clothes, and 28 huge drawers hold what we have kept after disposing of nearly everything from two households at either end of the country. There’s even a minuscule washing machine.

Most visitors seem envious of the simplicity, the compactness, the freedom. But this change involved switching from full-time jobs to the life of contracts and freelancing, as well as having to become ruthless with what was essential. Our furniture went to auctions or friends. There were rainy Saturday garage sales, then charitable donations, until we were left with paintings, books and photographs that went into storage. We made a pact when we moved onto the boat that we would only bring aboard the best.

That principle will apply to our first Christmas on board this year, too. We’ve demonstrated that we were lugging around much more stuff than either needed, so presents will be small: a silver propelling pencil, annual passes to the Royal British Columbia Museum, a new Moleskin or a promissory note for dinner in Berlin in 2010.

Before becoming live-aboards, we talked about the way we wanted to live now, a simpler, more lean and independent existence. The more we talked, the more it seemed that living afloat might be the answer. And where else in Canada but on the West Coast can you do so year-round?

The boat wasn’t easy to find and in the end we bought an older, well-maintained boat in the United States. After that came the real “live-aboard” challenge: finding moorage.

The number of spaces for live-aboards has been slowly going down as regulations have increased. There’s resistance from people on land and reluctance among marina operators. The free and easy days of the “water gypsies” in the 1970s and early 1980s are gone.

It took a couple of attempts but we were lucky to find permanent moorage right in the Inner Harbour. So we have waterfront living, the constant spectacle of a working harbour and a short walk to town, so short that I don’t bother to use my mountain bike.

But you don’t simply move onto a boat the way you might move into a condo. The boat is a complex mixture of electrical and mechanical systems jammed into a small space floating on the water. Things go wrong, things break, new and mysterious noises need to be identified. We’ve had our share of problems, power off, pumps failing, a starter to be replaced. We puzzled over the correct water filter, and fought with the heads. At times the electric heat wouldn’t keep up with cold but after some tinkering we got the diesel furnace running.

The boat is neatly divided into four well-defined spaces and we assumed we would need to designate a couple as our personal areas. A little to our surprise though, we seem to manage at the kitchen table, laptops open, both

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scribbling away and that extra space unused. There’s no more banging into things or consciously negotiating narrow spaces and low headroom. We almost glide through what we think of now as quite large spaces.

We do miss some things: a big shower, a gas range with industrial-sized burners, more bookshelves, a workshop.

But if we were on land we would be missing the parade of harbour ferries, the roar of float planes taking off, the barges, fishing boats and kayaks. We’d miss talking with tourists ambling along the harbour walk and commenting on the good smells coming off our barbecue.

The barbecue will create much of our Christmas dinner.

Even in the middle of winter it gets fired up and if the weather is rotten, I can sit and keep an eye on it from the wheelhouse. Our menu will lean heavily towards the best from the coast. We’ll start with a couple of dozen Oysters Rockefeller. Actually we’ll start by seeing We’ll start christmas dinner how far we can shoot a champagne cork off the by seeing how far we can back deck. We’ll get the oysters on Christmas shoot a champagne cork Eve from Fisherman’s Wharf, walk back to the boat and hang them in a off the back deck. then net over the side. Before the oysters go into the on to oysters rockefeller. oven, I’ll have a large filet of wild sockeye ready for the barbecue. I like to sprinkle the fish with some chopped garlic and rosemary (from our garden on the dock), then a shot of Scotch and a dribble of soy sauce. This can sit and marinate for half an hour while we demolish the oysters and champagne.

Salmon on the barbecue is quick, but I will have enough time to compose the salad: mango slices on a bed of mixed greens, some asparagus quickly steamed, and a handful of blackberries, picked in late August and frozen. Over the salad goes a little vinaigrette made with sherry and balsamic vinegar, olive oil, some dry mustard and crushed garlic.

When the salmon comes off the barbecue it goes on the salad and Christmas dinner is served.

We retain one traditional element, the Christmas pudding with hard sauce. The quality of bought puddings is generally excellent and a small one is more than enough for two. But hard sauce was always my task from when I was just a kid so that will have been made early in the day, with a sprinkle of nutmeg, to sit in the fridge to get hard.

So that will be our first Christmas, floating in Victoria’s harbour. We’ll probably keep the plywood tree up for a week. Then back in the box and off to storage. VB

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A sumptuous feast of a condo blends styles and colours boldly, yet seamlessly

SoMetIMeS, there’s nothing wrong with a little tension. Consider Garry Leach, for instance. A thread of creative tension runs through his life, borne of an inquiring mind curious about different worlds. A thirdgeneration Winnipegger, Garry graduated from the University of Manitoba with a degree in economics and went straight into the steel business. Now retired, he spent much of his working life travelling the world selling steel.

Along the way he delved into the cultures of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Italy, Japan and China, to name a few.

victoriaboulevard.com 89

hot

But Garry brought back more from his travels than souvenirs, in particular a passion for original and exotic art, history, and ferreting out the lesser-known versions of the past.

“I’m leery of getting into the retirement rut,” he says. “You know, get up, play golf, have lunch, then cocktails, and go to sleep and next day you start all over again.”

Not to worry. For him, few things are more fun than discovering lesser-known characters and hidden facets of the past. Something about South America stuck, he says, adding that he is drawn to the fantastical elements in many Latin novels, and to South American, Canadian and American history.

“Right now,” he says, “I’m reading a Marxist account of Latin American history. I’m not a Marxist but I think it’s important to hear the other side.”

The book, Eduardo Galeano’s classic Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, recently

gained notoriety when Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez gave it to President Barack Obama.

Carol Leach harbours her own brand of tension. An artist with a wide range of mediums and styles, Carol thrives on the dialectic between contemporary and traditional, realism and surrealism, urban and rural.

Given their respective interests, it is fitting that the prevailing mood of their sub-penthouse Swallow’s Landing condominium is more Old World than New. The 2,470-square-foot Esquimalt condo is their second home, their main residence is on Salt Spring Island. Perched on the highest point on Victoria’s Inner Harbour, the south-west-facing condo looks out at the Olympic Mountains, Ogden Point, West Bay Marina, and the sparkling sea. At its feet sits a protected Garry Oak grove. But as breathtaking as the outdoor vistas are, the indoor views are what captures a visitor’s attention.

previous page: Rich tapestries create opulence in the dining room. left: the kitchen seamlessly flows to other rooms. above: the long hallway makes a perfect art gallery.

Interestingly, the Tuscan interior of their city home, their pied-á-terre, contrasts dramatically with their ultracontemporary country home situated on 7 hectares of Salt Spring. In fact, “having a second place gave us a lot of latitude of what to do with this,” Garry says, sweeping his arm over his home.

While both styles reflect different parts of their personalities, the condo’s décor is a co-creation by them and Victoria designer Jeff Smith. Because the suite was shown finished and furnished, Smith initially worked with the developer to ensure it was marketable. He describes the original style as “Southern Californian”. Every room was

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painted the same colour — gold.

“It needed to be fairly neutral because we didn’t know who would be doing the purchase,” Smith says.

Then, about a year ago, the Leaches saw it, fell in love with it and hired Smith to make a good thing better. Smith says the assignment was like adding a sumptuous feast to a beautiful set of dinner dishes.

“A lot of condominiums will dictate that they be very contemporary and edgy,” says Smith. “This one gave me an opportunity to do something completely off the grid. Carol and Garry are more progressive than many other people and they are not afraid of colour. . . . Walking into their place is like eating a truffle.”

Rich, deep and delicious, the home is a feast for the senses. Sumptuous colours — chocolate brown, kalamata olive, blueberry, pomegranate red and Dijon yellow — dominate, along with furniture and fabrics in brocades and velvets. Everywhere the eye roams it meets fine art in the form of paintings, prints, blown glass and sculpture. Despite the traditionally-flavoured décor, the works are predominately modern. A large, dark-framed acrylic with oil

top: in the formal living room stunning art and a sumptuous décor invites relaxed conversation. the family room features a coffered ceiling and opens onto a southwest patio.

highlights portrays a flurry of spring flowers. The work, hung above the fireplace in the living room, is by Carol. Opposite hangs an oil painting by Jack Shadbolt. In the family room, a muscular bronze horse on a pedestal rears up. Three rooms — dining room, kitchen and family room — flow seamlessly victoriaboulevard.com 93

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into each other. Even though each room is a different colour, there is a consistency to the tone and quality.

The rooms are further tied together by rectangular coffering throughout the ceilings and by ceiling colours that match the walls, in contrast to many homes, where ceilings are painted white. Smith likens the effect of being in a room with white ceilings to “being a mouse dropped in a shoebox: you’re really aware of your containment.

But the moment you paint the ceiling out, the walls disappear and it becomes an environment versus a walled space.”

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As attractive as these rooms are, any visitor will inevitably gravitate to the dominant architectural feature of the suite — the hall. That’s right — the hall. Leading to the powder room, the guest bedroom, the laundry room, the master bedroom and second deck, the long, narrow hall with its high, barrelvaulted ceiling has a tunnel-like quality.

“The hallway drove the design,” Smith says. “When I realized we had this long interior hallway, I didn’t want to make it just a boring dark passageway. I wanted it to be an experience. Now, it’s a gallery with a wonderful sense of passage. It actually increases their square footage by making you want to be within that space.”

Paintings and sketches by Canadian artists such as Arthur Shilling and Travis Shilling, line both walls. Each work is lit by a small picture light and between each glows a tiny wall-mounted lantern. At the end, an alcove harbouring a metal sculpture of an otherworldly warrior beckons. One work stands out — a replica of what is arguably Group of Seven painter Tom Thomson’s most famous work, Northern River. The painter? Arthur Leach, Garry’s father.

“My father was an educator who liked to paint,” Garry says, adding that “If you didn’t have any interest in art, this hallway would be a wasted space. We immediately recognized that we could get a lot more out of this hallway than most people.”

Back in the family room, Garry says when it came time to choose a second home, they looked elsewhere, including Vancouver and California, where, with their sensibilities, they could have created a similar-looking environment. So why Victoria and why Swallow’s Landing?

“Victoria,” Garry says, “outperforms in many respects — it punches way over its weight.”

And the ultra-modern, concrete, glass and steel building?

“It’s a new building, modern, unique: the warmth we added to it,” says Carol. “We like both old and new. We have a feeling for both of them.” VB SUPPLIERS AND TRADES: Interior designer, furnishings, window treatments: smithdesigns; Painter: Gulnar Jamal Painting; Plumbing fixtures: Cantu Bathrooms & Hardware Ltd.; Built-in cabinetry: Heartwood Joinery; Counters and Tiles: Stone Trends Marble & Granite Ltd; Venetian plaster: Frank Csordas, Coventry Interiors; Coffered ceilings: Bickerton Brothers; Appliances: Trail Appliances; Flooring: The Finishing Store; Kitchen Cabinetry: Tower Premium Woodworking Ltd.; Lighting: Illuminations Lighting Solutions Ltd. /Arte de Mexico; Landscaping, garden features: Waterform Design Inc.; Masonry/Stone work: Artform Sculpture Studio Inc; Home audio/alarm: Simply Automated; Flowers: Verbena Floral Design

GreatHOMeS GreatRealtORS BOULEVARD MAGAZINE’S REAL ESTATE

ADVERTISING SECTION November/December 2009

kInG GeorGe terrace waterFront! truly one of the most spectacular waterfront properties you’ll find, with amazing views from both the main and beach house. $4,700,000. For details contact deedrIe Ballard, remax camosun.

PHOTO BY GARY MCKInSTRY

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, will appear in each issue of the magazine. we hope that you will enjoy it!

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.

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 current by recently completing Legal Update 2009 and Conflicts Resolution courses.

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.

dallaS chapple re/Max caMoSun Named after my father, bandleader Dal Richards, I have a Mass Communications degree from Paris’ Sorbonne University. 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.

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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.

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PREMIER 10 MILE PT. ESTATE! This incredible 2.21 acre gated estate w/luxurious 8000 sq.ft. home is easily Victoria’s most exceptional waterfront property . . . with low bank waterfront access, sunny, south/west exposure & tranquil, private & exclusive setting! $9,900,000

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LUXURY BAYVIEW VICTORIA CONDO! Enjoy exceptional harbour, ocean & mtn. views & non-stop sun from this exclusive, totally upgraded, 2 bedrm corner unit in prestigious bldg. just mins. from the Inner Harbour! $1,699,000

WATERFRONT TOWNHOME . . . in prestigious 'Seascape'! This spacious & airy END UNIT boasts spectacular ocean & Mt. Baker views, over 2200 sq.ft. w/ 2-3 bedrms, tons of potential . . . awaits your decorating ideas! $899,000

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STUNNING QUEENSWOOD 5200 sq.ft. home on gorgeous & totally private 1.26 acre park-like property just steps from beach access! ‘04 built with 4 bedrooms and 4 baths, fantastic design & beautiful finishing . . . private guest house too! $2,100,000

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Leslee Farrel Boulevard ad Dec 21 1

This classical post-modern residence is the ultimate find for a discerning buyer. Situated alongside an oceanfront park, you will be impressed with the spaciousness and light; combined with the ultimate in finishing and building materials. Beautiful ocean views, tranquil and chic! Offered at $2,595,000.

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This award-winning Inner Harbour waterfront residence offers world class views with warm and luxurious design. Over 3,800 sq. ft. complemented by 3,400 sq. ft. of decks and balconies. An upper level conservatory provides 360 degree views and entertainment centre. Incredibly well priced at $3,495,000 including GST. MLS#262297

This incredible penthouse is the crowning jewel of the harbour, artfully executed, fully furnished and lavishly appointed. Features include a private lobby, wine cellar and gourmet kitchen with greatroom. Views encompass the harbour, cruise ships and the Olympics beyond. A jewel offered at an incomparable price of $3,550,000 including GST. MLS# 264773

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GreatHomesGreatRealtoRs

HotDesign

By SHANNON MONEO PHOTOS By VINCE KLASSEN

HeARTHs

, whether traditional or ultra-modern, beckon with their warmth and style

The dreary, weT days of winter are settling in. For those lucky enough to have a home remedy — a fireplace — now is the time to gather in front of the glowing embers, as well as to consider, as Christmas approaches, what the designers call “mantle-scaping,” or dressing the hearth for the season.

If you don’t have a fireplace, you might like to consider some of the new styles and options.

Hearths, once the centre of a home as the source of heat, light and cooking facilities, are sparking homeowners’ interest as an area where both traditional and innovative design meets family gatherings and home entertaining. The hearth includes the fireplace, mantle and surrounding floor.

“Fireplaces were typically gathering places. We love to gather around the campfire. We have this fascination with it,” says Jeff Smith of Victoria’s Smith Designs, who has done residential and commercial design work since 1987. “As the economy changes, people are not going out as often. They’re entertaining at home, nesting. They’re happy to have people over for a glass of wine and canapés.”

And where do they congregate, particularly now when you can pull out all the festive stops? “When people are home at night, there’s nothing better than having a fire going,” says Smith, a Victoria native. “It’s nice to have a light source that doesn’t have a switch on the wall.”

And it’s a feature that can be reworked. The hearth is akin to a still life, Smith says. The scene is set by “mantle-scaping.” “It’s what you do on top. There’s so much more you can do than the mirror above the fireplace and pictures on the mantle. It changes seasonally and reflects the atmosphere at the time,” he says, be it Easter or Thanksgiving or Christmas. You can even update how you hang your stockings: one item new for this December is the pop-down stocking holder. Hidden in the mantle, a quick push releases the holders, making stocking-hanging easy.

Today, Smith, whose 1928 home features a modern, gasburning fireplace and an old-fashioned, wood-burning unit, says most of his clients moving into new residences lust for a fireplace.

“I can’t imagine not doing any project that doesn’t involve one,” he says. For the 90 per cent of Smith’s clients who already have a

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fireplace, their focus is remodeling. Custom design, often in the contemporary vein, is Smith’s bailiwick.

Smith Designs was one of the first in Victoria to use LuminOre. The product sprays on as paint and cures to metal. With eight fireproof metals to choose from, will it be bronze, brass or copper? Beyond the finish, Smith plays with shape. He’s designed an asymmetrical hearth, and at Suite 910, a penthouse at Swallow’s Landing, his circular, one-ofa-kind, pillar of silver and flame takes your breath away.

But for those who don’t have money to burn, a penthouse or a flue, you can still get fired-up. For about $1,600 you can buy a mobile, stainless-steel fireplace that produces flame using clean-burning ethanol. It can be permanently installed or bought on casters, so it can be moved from room to room.

What about the delights of a crackling fire that heats up a home? Design advances during the past five years have produced airtight woodstoves that burn 75 per cent less wood than older models. Those older stoves release 60 to

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90 particles of pollution in one hour, says Carol Wilk, owner of Wilk Stoves. The “really, really green” new models emit only one to four particles in one hour, so efficient that only a small amount of smoke escapes. This almost total incineration means less dust and the amount of remaining ash is drastically reduced.

Typically used to heat a home, woodstoves, made of steel, cast iron or soapstone and which cost from $1,250 to $8,000, are going upscale. “They’re becoming very, very pretty, more furniture-like,” Wilk says. While improved design may have led to more efficiency and less house-cleaning, Wilk recommends that wood-burning appliances be cleaned annually. “Important for the insurance aspect,” she says.

Doing business in Victoria for almost 30 years, Wilk Stove also does a roaring trade selling inserts for wood-burning fireplaces, with wood products representing 60 per cent of its business. The remainder (gas-burning appliances) falls into two camps: those used to heat sections of a home, known as “zone heating,” and the aesthetic fireplaces. “These are the grand fireplaces, the focal point of your home,” Wilk says. Prices for New airtight wood gas-burners start at $2,500, topping out at about $10,000 for stoves are designed the premier model.

Not far from Duncan, at his to reduce particles six-hectare property near of pollution and they Cowichan Bay, Stephan Burckhardt makes his hearth the do a good job. focal point at Christmas. The Swiss-born émigré, who settled on Vancouver Island five years ago, has a large hearth where vegetables get grilled or cheese is melted. In December, the nutcracker collection is marched out and along with cedar boughs and big candles, the hearth literally becomes the touchstone in the large living room.

As owner of Dancing Stone, Burckhardt knows a thing or two about hearths. He sells custom-made, carved stone mantles, 90 per cent of them wrapped around gas fireplaces.

Dancing Stone’s 10 featured models, priced from $2,850 to $7,750, are crafted from high-grade marble and limestone.

The price for customer-designed mantles varies. Turkish travertine limestone, a beige volcanic stone that wears well, is the hottest seller and also the stone used for Burckhardt’s hearth. As for styles, Dancing Stone’s traditional Provence is number one for West Coast homes. Contemporary stone hearths are an acquired taste. “When push comes to shove, only German people with stark leather and chrome and stainless steel interiors are interested,” Burckhardt says.

Customer Susan Bird straddles the transitional camp.

“It’s older looking, but streamlined,” she says of her off-white marble mantle. Living atop Gonzales Hill, Bird and her

Previous pages: A circular pillar of silver and flame is breathtaking.

A grand raised hearth defines tradition.

This page: A modern stone hearth is stylish and heat-efficient.

husband Reg designed the mantle to complement their wood-floored living room containing white leather furniture, Asian antiques and lots of windows.

“Dancing Stone can build around what looks good in your house,” said Bird of the BC-designed mantle, which was carved in China. Before Burckhardt could install the $6,700 mantle, the Birds had to ensure the top floor of their three-level home could support the heavyweight mantle destined to surround their wood-burning fireplace.

Now safely in use, there’s no mickey mantle treatment for the new hearth, particularly at Christmas. “Decorating it is what Christmas is all about,” Bird says. Artificial boughs and greenery, funky stockings, lights above the Claude Langevin winter painting and a large Santa Claus set the scene.

Decked out in the traditional mantle is Julie Gorton, who with husband Andrew Gorton, owns Heritage Homeworks, a Victoria building and renovation company.

Since emigrating from England seven years ago to Calgary, followed by a move to Victoria about one year ago, the couple, specialists in heritage conservation, has detected distinct Victoria tastes. Here, about 90 per cent of their hearth work involves renovations, with the remainder new projects. In Calgary, where Gorton says homeowners tear everything down and rebuild, it was reversed. “People here are restoring original fireplaces. A lot of the original features were lost. New owners want to try and return it to the original state,” Gorton says, adding that there’s a strong local appetite for Art Deco and Art Nouveau stylings. VB victoriaboulevard.com 107

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smartphone, and you’re about to type an important password. Can someone else see it? You betcha, if you haven’t taken precautions.

Substantial risks exist when you use public wireless networks or “hotspots.” While nothing is ever completely secure, the good news is that it’s easy to make your system secure enough so that thieves will move on to someone else’s system.

the risks Identity theft is a real and growing problem, especially at hotspots. At home, you should have a router that includes a firewall that helps protect against intrusions. If you don’t have one, install one. They are cheap (about $50) and a setup-CD easily walks you through the installation. Get a brand name such as D-link, Netgear or Linksys.

When you hit the road, however, you’re at the mercy of someone else’s configuration.

At a hotspot you could be tricked into using an unsecured bogus network. Anyone within wireless range could be running a fake site that looks like the legitimate hotspot. Instead of connecting to Starbucks’ wireless, you might connect to an information thief’s computer, and then they could scan your system for vulnerabilities, and even

use a key logger to record what you do.

Even legitimate hotspots have risks. An intruder could access your unprotected system, or monitor what you type.

You might be redirected to a fake site, so even if the connection is encrypted, you might unwittingly send information to a thief.

How can you tell? Look first at the web address for the hotspot’s logon page. Does it look right? For example, http://www.Starbucks.com/wireless looks legit, but http://192.168.0.1/freewireless does not.

Beware of “Typosquatting” sites, for instance, www. strbucks.com. You could land on these with a simple slip of the finger. Similarly, beware of “Phishing” in which an e-mail pretending to be a legitimate bank or business tries to trick you into typing your credentials on a bogus site.

Lastly, guard your computer from theft. If it is lost or stolen, the finder could rifle through your files. Even a small piece of personal information is enough for identity thieves to leverage more to build a bogus credit profile using your good name.

Before you leave home: Update your computer’s operating system at least every month or subscribe to automatic updates. In Windows, visit www.windowsupdate.com. On an Apple, click Software Update on the Apple menu, and then click Software Update.

Make sure your virus scanner is updated. If you don’t have a current virus scanner, don’t leave home until you do!

AVG Anti-Virus is free and very good: http://free.avg.com/ ww.download?prd=afe_.

Make sure your Anti-malware (also called spyware scanner) is updated. You can get the excellent “Spyware Doctor Starter Edition” free as part of the Google Pack: http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor/google_pack/.

Make sure your laptop firewall is turned on. This differs from the router’s firewall. Current Windows and Apple operating systems include a “software firewall” that provides additional intrusion protection. In Windows XP, click Windows Firewall in Control Panel. In Vista, click Start, type Firewall, and then press Enter. On a Mac, open System Preferences, click Sharing, and then click Firewall.

Create a “Standard user” account on the laptop for when you travel. A Standard user account has limited permissions, which helps prevent malware from doing anything drastic.

In Control Panel, click User Accounts, and then click Create a new account. On a Mac, open System Preferences, click Accounts. Be sure to apply a strong password (using a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols) to all accounts that can log onto the laptop. Ditto for your smartphone.

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Turn off file sharing to prevent someone on the same wireless network from accessing your files. For example, in Windows, if you open My Network Places, and then open Microsoft Windows Network, you can see all the other computers on the wireless network. A double-click may even open them if they are not password-protected.

File sharing is handy on a home network, but it’s a disaster if you are on the road. When you turn off file sharing, the computer no longer appears on the network. Look up sharing in the Help files, or search Google for “turn off file sharing” and follow the steps for your operating system. other precautions: Avoid storing personal files on the laptop or smartphone.

Even if the system is password-protected, if you lose the computer, a crook could remove the hard-drive and access everything using an external USB shell. File encryption is a good idea, but it has some tricky aspects and you need to do the research. Put “how to encrypt files” into Google to get you started. If you encrypt your files on a laptop, make sure you have a backup stored elsewhere as you may get locked out of your own files.

Password-protect documents that store sensitive data.

For example, in Word or Excel 2007, click the Office button, click Prepare, and then click Encrypt Document. I keep passwords and credit card numbers in one Excel worksheet that is password-protected. With a strong password, it’s reasonably safe.

Speaking of backups, be sure to save all important documents and photos in two locations other than the laptop, such as an external hard-drive, DVDs, or memory stick.

If you must do financial transactions that can’t wait until home, make sure you use a secure Web page. Look for an “S” in the httpS://. For example, https://www.scotiaonline. scotiabank.com is a secure site, whereas http://www. scotiaonline.theifwashere is not. Some sites show a closed padlock symbol to indicate that the Web page is encrypted.

Communication sent to either is reasonably safe.

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tips while in the café: Use a Paypal account instead of credit cards, and NEVER write your Social Insurance Number anywhere.

Be fast. It takes time to hack into a computer just like it takes time to trace a phone call. Write your e-mail offline, connect only to send and receive, and then log off.

While browsing in a cafe, only visit sites you know are safe. A hotspot is not the place to wander the World Wide Web. Lastly, trust your risk intuition. You’d be surprised how perceptive it can be.

Now enjoy that latte! VB victoriaboulevard.com 111

TRAVeLnEAR

By anne mullens pHoto By jeRemy koReski

In wintry Tofino, curl up to watch the surf, eat oysters and even chat with Atwood wheN The fall air turns cool, weather systems begin to churn over the Pacific Ocean and waves start battering the beaches of Tofino. Winter storm-watching has now become a mesmerizing tourist draw, but even better, to my mind, than ogling nature’s power in the pounding surf is watching surfers frolic in it.

Are they nuts? The air hovers around freezing. Frost, even snow and ice, sometimes coats the ground and caps the mountaintops. The water is a numbing 11° C or colder. I get chilled shopping in the freezer aisle, yet the surfers, clad head to toe in thick Neoprene with big grins across their only visible skin, dance like elves across the gnarliest of winter waves.

In November and December, such attractions make a trek up the Island to Tofino well worth a getaway. The summer crowds have thinned, deals and promotions are available with room rates up to half the price, and the rustic, rugged beauty of the coastline remains. Here are some things to see and do in Tofino this month and next.

LEARn To suRf oR wATch ThE PRos No, really, it is not just a summer sport. In fact, James Ricketts, head of the Surf Club at Long Beach Lodge Resort, says the ocean water is no colder in the off season: it’s 11° C all year round.

“It is no big deal if you have the right equipment,” says

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Ricketts, an ex-pat British surf dude who arrived in Tofino for a week-long camping trip in 2007 and stayed to start the lodge’s surfing school. Winter is Ricketts’ favourite time to surf, because waves are reliable and up to “double over head” (twice as high) as the surfers carving them.

Long Beach Lodge, on Cox Bay, is the only resort that has surfing lessons and equipment rentals right on site, enabling guests to walk just a few steps from their cabins or rooms for a lesson right on the beach. Although summer is by far the busiest season for neophytes to learn and many of the other surf schools shut down in January and February, Ricketts, 25, will give lessons throughout the year if hardy guests want them.

The lodge has insulated body suits in a wide range of sizes, complete with head-hugging hoods. Be warned, just getting the thick rubber pulled up over knees and hips is a struggle with Mother Nature. Also, rank beginners are advised to start with small waves less than a metre high.

Cost is $169 for 2.5 hours of lessons for groups from one to five and $29 per person equipment rental.

Some 200 of the world’s best surfers have just spent the last week of October competing in the O’Neill Cold Water Classic surf competition in Tofino and surf fanatics are bound to hang around into November just to catch more waves. So if November’s cold green crush is just a little too frosty for you, sit back and watch the pros. Long Beach Lodge offers rooms starting at $169 a night, well below their high-season price and the view from its Great Room lounge over Cox Bay can’t be beat.

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oysTER fEsTivAL The cold, green waters of Clayoquot Sound produce fabulous oysters. Oyster farming dates back to Greco-Roman culture and started in BC more than 100 years ago. Now, Crassostrea gigas, aka the Japanese or Pacific oyster, grows on long lines suspended into the deep, clear water off Tofino.

The 13th Annual Clayoquot Oyster Festival runs November 20 to 22 with tastings, farm tours, seminars, chef creation competitions, a gala dance and the appearance of the Oyster Bunny. The event sells out every year and is as popular with locals as with visitors. And, yes, those aphrodisiac rumours may even be true, thanks to oysters’ victoriaboulevard.com 113

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wRiTERs inn REsidEncE During those stormy days you feel like snuggling with a good book, the Wickaninnish Inn does one better, bringing an author along. Once again “The Wick” hosts its guest writer program. Margaret Atwood headlines this year.

Atwood will be with writer hubby Graeme Gibson November 27 to 29: the two are expected to talk about husband-and-wife writing teams. Atwood will also read from her latest book, The Year of the Flood. Later in the winter, rub elbows with Yann Martel, the author of The Life of Pi, who will be at the Wick with his writer wife, Alice Kuipers, from February 19 to 21. Google Writers Inn Residence for a more detailed schedule.

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BEAchcoMB And gAzE ouT To sEA Strip away the festivals, the famous writers, the topnotch restaurants and hotels, the great spas and the cool surfer dudes, and Tofino is still a draw for its location alone.

“It all comes back to the beaches — there are no beaches like it in the world,” says Lynda Kaye, the owner of the Chesterman Beach B & B. Her story of how she settled in Tofino is like many. She came for a short vacation six years ago from San Franscisco, was blown away by the rugged beauty and bought the B & B and stayed. “I never get tired of walking the beaches.”

Winter storms bring all sorts of treasures ashore, even the occasional glass fishing float, much coveted by beachcombers. And it is not unusual to stand on shore and look out to see grey whales and humpbacks with the naked eye. Most of the resorts provide slickers and umbrellas for beach walking on those rainy days.

If you want a respite from wind and rain, but still want to be outdoors, try any one of almost a dozen trails in Pacific Rim National Park, some flat with board walks through towering forest, some steeper trails.

And of course in winter, it is easier to book a spot at the famous Ancient Cedars Spa at the Wick. The seaweed wrap and salt scrub massage is worth the trip to Tofino alone.

After 30 years in Tofino, Dave Pettinger, co-owner of the Pacific Sands Resort, has a soft spot in his heart for the winter days.

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TRAVeLFar

TexT AnD pHoTo By Rick giBBs

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Away from big resorts, the real Cuba vibrates with history and culture i’m Nervous as my wife Pat and I approach the customs area of the José Marti Airport outside Havana one early December afternoon. I’ve had a four-hour plane ride from Toronto to get really worried about the lie I’m about to tell the Cuban authorities.

Rejecting resorts, we’ve opted to stay in casas particulares, Cuban B & Bs, on our first visit to this island nation. Various sources, however, have cautioned us not to say so when we enter the country. Instead we’re to give the address of a hotel as our first night’s accommodation. To do otherwise, we’re told, could trigger a torrent of questions and risk our being held at the airport until the authorities verify that our accommodation is legal.

Approaching the immigration booth with a damp wad of documentation in my hand, including the false address I’ve recorded, I feel my stomach tighten. The agent — not the AK-47-wielding heavy I’ve imagined on the plane but a lovely young woman perched atop a stool — quietly examines my passport, scrutinizes my face, and then asks the fateful question.

“Where will you stay?”

I can’t lie. “Casa de Martha,” I blurt. “Casa de Martha in Habana Vieja.”

Her brow wrinkles slightly. “Casa particular ?” she asks.

I nod, fearing the worst. But she stamps my visa, smiles, and says, “Welcome to Cuba.”

It turns out we’ve been misinformed. The address of a casa particular carries all the weight of a hotel. After all, why wouldn’t it? The Cuban government legalized B & Bs in 1997 to increase the flow of foreign currency into the country after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resultant loss of foreign aid. Income goes into the pockets of homeowners and, through taxes collected, presumably benefits all Cubans via government programs.

According to the Cuban National Statistics Office, more than 800,000 Canadians visited Cuba in 2008, making us the single largest national group of visitors by a long shot (Britain is next with just under 200,000) and a potent economic force. In the face of unjust American sanctions, many Canadians have a soft spot for Cuba, yet most opt to stay in resort towns like Varadero that primarily profit the large European and Middle Eastern companies that developed them. More important, resortdwellers can’t possibly experience Cuba’s citizens and culture as they really are.

A half-hour taxi ride in an old Lada takes us to our first casa.

Our driver, his broken seat belt looped over the emergency brake handle, delivers a friendly sight-by-sight commentary in passable English as we drive through the humid air along the Avenida de La Independencia into the city. Already filled with

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anticipation, we’re soon crawling through narrow streets deep into the heart of the decayed colonial splendor that is La Habana Vieja, old Havana.

The next morning, following a quiet night in a simple but clean, air-conditioned room in a second-floor apartment in an attractive 1904 building, we’re served breakfast by our host Martha and her housekeeper: fresh guava juice, sliced tropical fruit, tortillas (omelets), and coffee. Martha speaks no English and we little Spanish, yet somehow we communicate, learning that she’s a widow who established her B & B for income following her husband’s death.

Two days of exploring Havana produces moments of delight and insight: the deeply symbolic art in the stunning Palacio de Bellas Artes exposes the violent colonial roots of Castro’s revolution; a lengthy, pieced-together conversation in a restaurant with Franco, a cigar factory worker, uncovers the daily struggle of Cubans living on state-supplied rations that don’t see them through the month; frequent encounters with the inspiring Afro-Cuban music found everywhere in the city proclaim the cultural vibrancy of a fiercely independent nation.

On our third day we pile into a shared taxi with a Swiss travel agent and her Cuban boyfriend and drive 334 victoriaboulevard.com 117

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kilometres southeast to Trinidad, a 16th century town declared, along with the nearby Valle de Los Ingenios, a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988. Cobblestone streets, pastel-coloured 18th and 19th century houses, sun-drenched plazas, palaces, and churches, all concentrated in an architecturally inspiring central core, tell us why.

Our driver delivers us to the home of Sarahi and her husband Bernardo, our casa particular hosts for the next three days. Bernardo is a manager in one of the resort hotels on the nearby Ancon peninsula: Sarahi is a stay-at-home mom caring for two young daughters. On our first night, we sit under the stars at a large table in the inner courtyard of their 200-year-old home, as they serve generous platters of delicious rice and beans, flavorful sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, fried plantain, and the freshest seafood we’ve ever tasted.

The next three days deliver a Cuban paradise: quiet strolls along cobblestone streets, a leisurely steam train ride into the lush and historic countryside, a swim in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, an afternoon wander through the sleepy fishing village of La Boca, and each night the thrill of Afro-Cuban rhythms pulsating in the square of the Casa de La Música as local young Cuban men and women salsa with a passion and authority that the tourists who join them never quite emulate.

At the end of the week, when we return to Havana for our final night, we can’t say we know the country intimately, but Martha’s warm goodbye hugs the next morning tell us we’ve come close.

GettinG to CuBa :

You can fly Air Canada via Toronto or grab a charter out of Vancouver to Varadero.

December through March is the dry season. Expect to pay $25 to 45 (CAD) per night payable in cash (CUC’s — Cuban convertible pesos) upon arrival. Meals (breakfast and in some cases dinner) are optional and extra ($4 to $10 per person). All casa particular bookings can be made by e-mail but be patient — Cubans don’t enjoy the extensive Internet access we have and most don’t speak or write English. The best website by far is http://www.cubacasas.net, which is Canadian-run and non-profit. VB

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The differeNces between Old World and New World wines aren’t as profound as they once were, but even an untrained palate can easily mark certain distinctions. A classic French or Italian wine, for example, often has a certain subtlety when compared with the latest Australian fruit-bomb Shiraz.

Another way to “taste” is by considering the idea of terroir — how a vineyard’s soils, geology, and microclimate are reflected in the grapes that grow there.

All wines express the vineyard they come from, but European winemakers are more sensitive to this idea — after all, for centuries many European wines have been labeled by region (Bordeaux, Chianti, Ribera del Duero) with no mention of the grape varietal(s) in the bottle.

Two decades ago that notion of terroir was challenged.

With brash Australia leading the charge, New World winemakers were soon successfully marketing individual varietals to people who, intimidated by the fine print of a wine menu in a gourmet restaurant, were grateful to know what would be uncorked when they ordered a California Cabernet, say, or that buttery Down Under Chardonnay.

Today the lines are even more blurred: winemakers from Chile to New Zealand are achieving greater sophistication, while even France’s snobbiest vintners have conceded that those upstart Aussies, by challenging conventions, did have something to teach the old masters, too.

The result for the wine drinker is a cornucopia of wellmade vintages in a broad range of flavours. A few notables to try: let’s start in the Okanagan at impressive Nk’Mip Cellars, North America’s first aboriginal-run winery. Their Qwam Qwmt Merlot 2006 ($26.99 at most BC Liquor

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Distribution Branches or LDBs, as well as VQA Wine Shop at Mattick’s Garnacha de Fuego Farm, Wine Barrel, BC Wine Guys) (Grenache), deep ruby in colour, is a smooth, see ya later oaky, fruit-driven wine boasting (Gewürztraminer), flavours of blackberry and black nk’mip (merlot), cherry and a dusting of spice and paiara (blend), cocoa on the finish. And it has enough tannins for aging potential.

Q (Quintessential) Distinctive regional wines are (Bordeaux blend). often more rewarding than those made from the most popular grapes in a bland “international” style. One great example of wine individualism comes from Spain’s Rioja region, where Tempranillo grapes produce a medium-bodied but flavourrich red. Riojas aren’t cheap, but a good-value one is the Beronia 2004 reserva ($24.49, LDB), a silky wine with a core of sweet berry fruit, dusty spices and a lick of saddle leather framed in toasty oak. Also from northern Spain but farther to the east comes Garnacha de Fuego 2007 ($15.99, LDB), a supple, mouth-filling, slightly rustic wine made from Grenache (known as Garnacha in From left to right:

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Spain) featuring flavours of dried cherries layered with spice.

Even in winter there is still a big market for white wine, and that brings us to the Okanagan’s See Ya Later Ranch, which always sports a pooch on the label. Any dog-friendly winery is already in my good books, but they also make excellent wines (mostly whites, but don’t overlook their yummy Pinot Noir). The 2008 Gewürztraminer ($15.99, LDB, VQA Wine Shop at Mattick’s Farm, BC Wine Guys, Wine Barrel) blooms with lush notes of peach and melon more so than the classic rosewater emphasis characteristic of the Alsatian and German versions.

The current enthusiasm for floral whites like Pinot Gris and Viognier has overshadowed one of the great varietals, Sauvignon Blanc. Although it’s done well by New Zealand, I’m a fan of one hailing from the Loire Valley, the Touraine, Domaine du Clos du Bourg 2008 ($15.99, LDB), notable for its crispness, delicate mineral layer, and a classic splash of grapefruit. It’s perfect as an distinctive regional aperitif, and a fine complement to everything from shellfish to wines are often more chèvre.

Economic malaise means we rewarding than those still need “recession reds,” those affordable wines that are made in a bland easy on the wallet and the “international” style. palate. People love Argentina’s Fuzion 2008 ($8.99, LDB), a quaffable blend of Shiraz and Malbec that offers bright flavours of cherry and berry. It’s certainly great value, but my favourite at-home plonk remains Italy’s Paiara Puglia Rosso 2006 ($10.99, LDB). This mix of Negroamaro and Cabernet Sauvignon leads with a rustic tang, but is soft in the mouth, spicy and full of character.

For a special meal this Christmas, raise a glass in salute to Church & State Wines, the Central Saanich winery that won two double golds at the 2009 All-Canadian Wine Championships. Their 2007 Cabernet-Merlot blend ($24.90, at the winery), which topped the under $25 Meritage Blends, is a medium-bodied charmer with a core of black currant and plum fruit with notes of mint, clove, and other spices.

Their aptly named Quintessential ($49.90, at the winery), bested the best from 173 wineries across Canada to be named “wine of the year.” The 2006, their second Meritage, is a classic Bordeaux-style blend featuring the five traditional varietals of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Malbec. Aged in French oak for two years, the “Q” balances lushness and elegance with seductive flavours of blackberry, currant, pepper, and spice.

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December holidays. Why would you even try? This is not the season for dieters; it is the long-awaited smorgasbord heavily laden from latkes and tourtière and stollen. We’ve been waiting all year for this, so don’t be shy. Enjoy.

First on this year’s calendar is Chanukah on December 11.

This happy festival of lights marks the Jews’ reclamation of their temple in Jerusalem from the Greeks. On that occasion in 165 BC, they found only enough oil to light the menorah (candle holder) for one day, yet it miraculously burned for eight days. And so, a candle is lit on each of eight days and lots of yummy foods cooked in and with oil are enjoyed.

Latkes — pancakes made from shredded potato that are fried in oil and served with sour cream and applesauce — are a firm favourite. Homemade Sufganiyot (jelly-filled doughnuts) and Bimuelos (honey puffs) also pay homage to the oil.

At this time of year, Victoria’s Jewish Community Centre makes so many latkes that I swear you can smell them even before you get out of your car in the parking lot. Rose Carr, Nancy Sector, Lynne Rauch and Bernie Moss preside in the kitchen here and from the beginning of December they turn out latkes by the plateful.

Says Carr: “From the moment I come into the centre in the morning, I’m cracking dozens of eggs into some 20 pounds of potato and onion. You can only fry so many at once, so it’s a continuous process for three weeks.” The Jewish seniors, in particular, look forward to these once-a-year treats. Carr tells me that, as a child, she used to grate the potatoes with her mother. “Latkes are a comfort food that brings everyone back to their childhood memories.”

The traditional Ukrainian Christmas always falls on January 7 but Canadian Roman Catholic parishes tend to celebrate it on December 25. Victoria Kaspryk of the Ukrainian Cultural Centre says: “In Ukraine it’s not about the presents; it’s spending time with your family — a nice, quiet time to talk and eat together and remember your relatives who have passed on.”

The Ukrainian holiday gets underway on Christmas Eve, but no one is allowed to partake in the feast until they have seen the first night star. After that, there are 12 traditional meatless dishes to enjoy (each dish is dedicated to one of Christ’s apostles).

One of the traditional dishes is Kolach, a round, braided bread with salt and a small candle in the centre. “We light the candle in memory of our passed-away family members. We’re kind of inviting them to join us, and we always set a place at the table for them,” says Kaspryk. Sweet additions to the Ukrainian Christmas Eve table are Kutya, made of boiled wheat (which symbolizes wealth), honey, poppy seeds and

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walnuts; and Uzvar, a compote made from dried apricots, pears, apples, raisins and prunes.

Once a year in December, everyone can sample the Ukrainian Christmas traditions at Victoria’s Ukrainian Cultural Centre.

A 12-dish meatless buffet is served and a host family is chosen to present the traditions and carols.

Victorians can enjoy a true French-Canadian Christmas delicacy thanks to Montreal-born Daniel Vokey of Patisserie Daniel. Made of pork, onions, potatoes, fresh herbs, and spices, the tourtières are cloaked in a decorative puff pastry. They start rolling out of Vokey’s ovens at the beginning of December and don’t stop until every order has been filled.

The Christmas season wouldn’t be the same without Cliff Leir’s organic sweet breads: the German Stollen (also known as Christstollen) and the Italian panettone. Both are delicious but very different. This year he continues from his new, state-of-theart, organic bakery Fol Epi. Leir starts making candied orange peel in the late fall to meet the demand for Stollen beginning in December. He then produces hearty, earthy Stollen that incorporates the candied peel, sultanas, sweet almonds, bitter almond oil, free-range eggs and Quebec butter (although organic butter is being produced in British Columbia, Leir chooses this one for its “beautiful flavour”) and grappa (which helps marry and bring out the flavours), together

with the bakery’s own Red Fife wheat that is stone-milled on site.

The panettone incorporates similar ingredients, but it is a more complex bake, “relying more on structure and fermentation than the Stollen, which is more about the ingredients.” Because the panettone is that much more difficult to make, Leir has developed a real appreciation for its lighter, more delicate texture: “Sometimes a batch will come out of the oven and be mindblowing.”

“It’s a pleasure to be part of holiday celebrations, of gatherings where people are sharing food,” he says. He marvels at the popularity of these speciality breads: “People keep asking me for them.” I’ll spell this out for my readers: if you don’t order ahead, you may miss out on two of the season’s culinary sensations.

Jewish Community Centre, 3636 Shelbourne Street, 250-477-7185. Latkes are served from December 1 – 18, Tuesday – Friday, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm.

Ukrainian Cultural Centre, 3277 Douglas Street, 250-475-2585. Call for date and time of this year’s Christmas buffet event.

Patisserie Daniel, 1729 Cook Street, 250-361-3234. Tourtière may be ordered in 10” or 4” sizes.

Fol Epi, 101 – 398 Harbour Road, 250-477-8882. Multiple loaves of Stollen or panettone should be ordered by December 15. VB

victoriaboulevard.com 127

eATingout Breakfast out, whether fifties-style or five star, makes a day start sunny side up

“Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged and well-provisioned breakfast table.� nathaniel hawthorne (1804-1864)

By elizaBetH leVinson pHoto By GaRy mCkinstRy

i have always taken the morning fast-breaking seriously precisely because it offers such pleasant prospects. Big culinary decisions in the early hours, having been made, can fortify us for a good day or set us up for mid-morning sugar blues and a grumbling tummy. However, the choice need not be daunting.

To wit: to begin with a virtuous glass of squeezed lemon in warm water? A detoxifying tisane? Or head straight to Café Bliss for a made-to-order, live, organic glass of “Clarity” juice that combines cucumber, pear, parsley and lime served up in a Mason jar? Follow that with a bowl of apple/cinnamon sprouted buckwheat granola served with house-made almond “mylk” and fruit, and you are making a healthy start to the day.

My own secret-no-longer pleasure is being served a proper cooked breakfast by a competent server (competency is imperative in the morning when everything should arrive more or less simultaneously and precisely as ordered). I do miss diner breakfasts (Jimmy’s on Fort Street, Brand’s Restaurant on Government) and the beautiful sea views and perfect pancakes in the Oak Bay Beach Hotel’s dining room, but Victoria still offers lots of choice.

Paul’s Restaurant on Douglas Street holds a special place in my heart. I’ve eaten eggs sunny side up since I could barely reach the counter (yes, in those days, the place had a counter with stools underneath it and a big bowl of 25-cent Roger’s Victorian Creams on top). Now I love to steal into one of the wood laminate booths and order up the best food-from-the-Fifties, all-day breakfast special in town: eggs, sausages, hash browns and toast with little packets of marmalade, served up on that fabulous thick diner china. That, together with a bottomless cup of coffee and equally bottomless chatter with the server, provides a stellar launch to any day.

I digressed on a recent visit and ordered a classic half-grapefruit followed by the so-called “short stack” of golden pancakes. Short means two cakes instead of three, but they’re wide enough to touch the edges of the plate.

These evenly cooked cakes absorb butter and maple syrup so fast that I simply had to lash on more.

I’ve cringed in recent years to see modern interlopers like huevos rancheros creep onto the menu and the servers’ crisp white dress uniforms replaced with black T-shirts and slacks, but generally Paul’s remains an icon and there is comfort in that, especially at 6 am, when the regular, victoriaboulevard.com 129

hard-core breakfast hounds bag their regular seats and call out for their first hot, black coffees of the day.

As partial as I am to traditional cooked breakfasts, there is simply no denying the appeal of hipster breakfasts in equally hipster eateries. I speak of huevos rancheros with house-made corn tortillas, salsa, avocado, goat feta, spicy red beans and roasted apple at Mo:Lé Restaurant; the vast omelettes with special hot sauce, sautéed potatoes and hot buttered toast at the legendary ReBar Modern Food; and the Shine Café’s Nemo Eggs Benedict stacked high with smoked salmon, avocado, red onions and perfectly poached eggs smothered in Hollandaise sauce and served with Scottish potato scones (more like a pancake but made of mashed potato — not shredded like a latke). These are meals worth getting out of bed for and — this is noteworthy to those of us who don’t wait well — truly worth standing in line for.

But the ultimate fast-breaking? With the demise of the Oak Bay Beach Hotel, I have moved my fine-dining breakfast habit to the venerable Fairmont Empress Hotel, where the view across the Inner Harbour is delicious at 7 am. Dining in your own town at a fancy hotel is a lot like being on holiday. There’s a lovely sense of anonymity and of civilized quiet around the room, save for the rustle of newspapers and the glug of juice being poured from a silver pitcher into a crystal glass.

You will pay more (but no airfare or accommodation costs are added to the bill) and you will have one of the best solo breakfast dining experiences anywhere. The luxury of wood panelling; the comfortable chairs and solid wooden tables set at a respectful distance from other diners; the choice of newspapers; enough silver and crystal to feel like you are dining at The Ritz; those adorable little jars of jam and honey to spread on white-linen-wrapped hot toast; and the pleasant surprise of being addressed by name: these are but some of the joys of five-star breakfast service.

On a recent morning, I drank orange juice and devoured a warm oatmeal crumble made of Canadian oats topped with seasonal fruit compote, coconut and granola, and served with vanilla yogurt, maple syrup and a toasted English muffin and felt there was indeed no “pleasanter prospect” than this “well-provisioned breakfast table.”

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Café Bliss, 556 Pandora Avenue, 250-590-5733.

Paul’s Restaurant, 1900 Douglas Street, 1-866-833-PAUL. Mo:Lé Restaurant, 554 Pandora Avenue, 250-385-6653.

ReBar Modern Food, 50 Bastion Square, 250-361-9223.

Shine Café, 1548 Fort Street, 250-595-2133.

The Empress Room, Fairmont Empress Hotel, 721 Government Street, 250-384-8111. VB

Visit thriftyfoods.com/lifestyle for upcoming classes and on line registration Or call 250 483 1222 for more information victoriaboulevard.com 131

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Ryan Cochrane, 21 olympic Bronze medalist, 1,500-metre Freestyle swim

By sHannon moneo pHoto By GaRy mCkinstRy

With Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics around the corner, winter sports are getting a lot of coverage and support. Is this good or bad for Olympic summer sports like swimming, which historically have got fewer dollars than ice and snow events?

There’s a good and bad side. The positive is more people are interested in sports. It’s frustrating sometimes. There’s so much more coverage for 2010. I hope there’s as much for 2012 (the summer Olympics in London). There probably won’t be.

Why did you start swimming?

At about nine years old, I had really bad knee, foot and ankle problems.

Swimming was one sport I could do that didn’t hurt me. Swimming wasn’t a sport on my radar as a kid. When I did it, I really loved it.

When you won bronze, Canada’s first Olympic swim medal since 2000, at the 2008 Beijing games, what was your first thought?

Disappointment, because I thought I could be on the top of the podium.

When I got back home I was pretty frustrated. It’s good encouragement for the next Olympics.

How many sponsorships did that win bring?

The medal itself, no sponsors. Team Aquatic Supplies has been with me a couple years. They’ve been really supportive. Odlum Brown has been really helpful. There’s been random support like the Laurel Point Inn. Island Swimming has been my biggest sponsor. The club is so supportive.

I hope more step up in 2012.

How do you get yourself into those full-body, skin-tight swimsuits, which can cause hands to bleed when putting them on?

The first time I put it on it took a half hour to get it to my waist. I needed three people to help me. I got pretty tired trying to put the suit on. Now it takes me about five minutes. ➤

It’s a shame we only have two feet.

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What do you eat and drink throughout a typical training day?

Fairly little. People expect me to say the 10,000-calorie diet. I eat about 3,000 calories per day. It used to be half that. I try to avoid junk food. Chocolate’s a big temptation. I have a quick bowl of cereal before morning practice. I have a big breakfast, my favourite meal, eggs, bacon. Not a major lunch. A big dinner.

I eat a lot of protein. I try to eat healthy.

You swim about 70 kilometres in a six-day training week in the static environment of a pool.

How do you maintain enthusiasm day after day?

When I was growing up, swimming was fun. I did it for the social aspect. Around high school it got more serious. I had to choose.

It gets very monotonous looking at the black line every day but I love to ravel, love to compete.

For world-ranked athletes, what’s more important, physical ability or mental stamina?

That’s a hard one. You need the physical side. When you get to the international level, that’s when the mental side is important. You have to be okay with doing monotonous training every day, missing out on things. You see the mental side at the Olympics.

You have to race against your idols. Grant Hackett (champion freestyler from Australia) never scared me.

I wanted to beat him. I don’t think you can put people on pedestals for what they do.

Everyone is beatable. I’ve always believed in short-term goals. Make provincials then win junior nationals.

Have you ever been offered banned substances?

Personally, I’ve never been offered. I believe swimming is one of the cleaner sports.

In Beijing, no swimmers tested positive. But drugs are always 10 years ahead of the testing. I can go to the World’s and win without them. It’s frustrating, knowing some are on them.

You figure they’ll either get caught or it affects their health.

After the Michael Phelps marijuana controversy, are you more aware of who around you is toting a camera phone?

I would never have done anything like that. It was kind of hilarious. I figured he (Phelps) would have known someone was watching. Sometimes I need alone time but when I’m in public, it’s an image you’re selling.

What’s your most valued possession?

Probably my iPod. I listen to music every second of the day. I don’t have a lot of valued possessions. I am really proud of my medal.

I really like to share it. It’s getting pretty beat up from all the wear and tear. I wish it was gold. VB

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