June 2024 Issue 187

Clifford Webb… A Life in the Details 10-4pm Cowichan Public Art Gallery 126 Ingram St www. cowichangallery.ca by donation runs to JUN 20

Jeeves At Sea chemainustheatre.ca to JUN 2

1Kindergarten Open House Sunrise Waldorf School 10:30-12:30pm 5179 Lakeside Rd. register @www. sunrisewaldorf.org FREE

Mill Bay/Deer Park Annual Community Garage Sale 8-2pm

2BackyardSessions:Quw’utsun

Elders Series w/Tlithl’kawi/ Rupert Scow Canoe Carving Sunrise Waldorf School $50 children/by donation www. cariburdett.com

Sacred Healing Sound Journey 5:30-7:30pm Collective Space 166 Station St. $33 www. adelinewholistichealing.com

Nature and Forest Bathing virtually on zoom 1112:30pm www.naturerx.ca +JUN 4/11

3(+JUN10/17/24) Reading and discussion group; Final Report of the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and

JUNE EVENTS

Girls 1:30-3pm Cowichan Library 2687 James St. FREE

4Weekly Sacred Healing Sound Journey 6:308:30pm Taoh Wellness 1485 Fisher Rd #1A $44 www. adelinewholistichealing.com +JUN11/18/25

Hand Lettering for Beginners includes materials 6:30-8:30pm The Hub @Cowichan Stn $55 jackandjaydesigns.wixsite. com/cards

5Figure Drawing 4-6 pm Cowichan Valley Arts Council 2687

James St. $100-145 cowichanvalleyartscouncil.ca +JUN12/19/26

Chemainus Wednesday Market 10-3pm Waterwheel Square, Chemainus FREE +JUN12/19/26

6Lila Community Choir sing for Folk Fest w/ Cari Burdett 6:30-8pm Lila Music Nature Centre 3228a Gibbins Rd. www. cariburdett.com $20-$25 +JUN13/20/27

7“Find a Feather” Batik Art by David Moss Excellent Frameworks Gallery, 115 Kenneth St. FREE runs to JUN22

Hub Market w/Local Vendors, 10-2pm The Hub @Cowichan Station

2375 Koksilah Rd. www. cowichanstation.org +JUN14/21/28

7-9A Scottish Mythopoetic Retreat w/ Dougie Mackay, Lila Music Nature Centre www.storyconnection.org/ bctour

875th Annual Mill Bay Community Flower and Garden Show 9-2pm www. millbaygardenclub.com/ show

Art Opening Printmakers Biennial 1-3pm Cowichan Valley Arts Council 2687 James St. FREE

Women’s Art & Wellness Circle includes materials 1-4pm Cowichan Valley Arts Council 2687 James St. $45-65 cowichanvalleyartscouncil.ca

Ryan McMahon @Osborne Bay Pub, 8pm 1534 Joan Ave Crofton www. osbornebaypub.com $30

Bottle Drive Fundraiser w/ hotdogs & face painting for school playground, 9-2pm Country Grocer parking lot, Cobble Hill

Festival Teaser, Cowichan Folk Guild Coffeehouse. 7:30-10:00pm, 246 Ingram St, Duncan $5 Members, $10 Public Open Stage at 7:30pm

10Open Studio drop-in 10-12pm Cowichan Valley Arts Council 2687 James St. FREE education@ cowichanvalleyartscouncil.ca +JUN17/24

12Warmland Book & Film Collective discussing The Shoe Boy: A Trapline Memoir by Duncan McCue 5-8pm online zoom link:WarmlandBFC@gmail. com

14-16Father’s Day Tall Ships Tours, Mill Bay Marina www.adventureco.ca/ tallships

2024 Cowichan Valley Bluegrass all ages Festival featuring Michael Cleveland Laketown Ranch Music Park Tix:cowichanbluegrass.com

15Paul Black Internationally renowned blues-rock guitarist CD Release 8pm Osborne Bay Pub 1534 Joan Ave Crofton www. osbornebaypub.com $20

16Chemainus Classical Concerts:Victor Fournelle-Blain/violin; JeanSébastien Levesque/piano 2pm St. Michael’s Church Chemainus $18-30 250-7488383

16Singing 101 w/Cari Burdett:Exploration of voice & catching a personal

song 10-1pm 3228a Gibbins Rd. Sliding Scale $30-100 www.cariburdett.com

19Aging Well Expo 10am –3 pm Cowichan Community Centre www. volunteercowichan.bc.ca

20Children’s book launch & reading

Have You Ever Heard a Whale Exhale? by Caroline Woodward 4pm 149 Kenneth St. www. volumeone.ca/events FREE

21Relaxation & Meditation for International Day of Yoga 4-5pm Duncan Library 2687 James St. FREE

Briar Rose & The Indigenous Memory of Mother Europe w/ Kakisimo Iskwew & Tad Hargrave 2-6pm Tix @ eventbrite.com $30

22The David Santana Jazz Trio Osborne Bay Pub 1534 Joan Ave Crofton www.osbornebaypub.com

Ready, Set: Plein Air! All day workshop includes materials 9:30-4pm Cowichan Valley Arts Council 2687 James St. $150-170 cowichanvalleyartscouncil.ca

22Full Moon Sacred Healing Sound Journey 5:30-7:30pm Coastal Garden 3025 Telegraph Rd $40 www. adelinewholistichealing.com

23Indigenous Day Celebration w/ Amanda Crocker natural

pigment paints & binders 12-3pm Rainforest Arts Gallery, 9781 Willow St.

28Chemainus Theatre Festival presents 9 to 5 The Musical info@ chemainustheatre.ca

HUB Film Club “Wicked Little Letters” 7pm 2375 Koksilah Rd. hubfilmclub@ gmail.com

Death Cafe @Cowichan

Branch Library 12-1:30pm Meeting Room FREE

29Kevin’s Bacon @ Osborne Bay Pub 8pm, 534 Joan Ave Crofton www.osbornebaypub.com $15

29-30The Fire Within w/ Stephanie Mackay & Cari Burdett, (peri)menopause workshop series 10am www. cariburdett.com runs JunOct

OUT OF TOWN:

2 Ichigo Strawberry Moon Market 45+ local artists 114pm 1240 Gladstone Ave, Victoria

8 Shake, Shimmy & Shop! A Middle East inspired dance bazaar fundraiser 11-4pm $5 under 12/FREE St. Andrews Church Hall Nanaimo 379 Fitzwilliam at Wesley St.

28 Fernwood Summer Nights Market 4-8pm 1240 Gladstone Ave, Victoria

June 2024 Issue 187

Cowichan Valley Voice Magazine

Publisher Richard Badman

Editor Sheila Badman

Contact us at: editor@cowichanvalleyvoice.com

250 746 9319 6514 Wicks Rd, Duncan BC V9L 5V2 Visit us online at www.cowichanvalleyvoice.com

Distribution Proofreader Calendar

Richard Badman Diana Pink Stephanie Sayers

Advertising Enquiries Please Contact us at info@cowichanvalleyvoice.com for A rate card, monthly offers and print ad specials.

Next Ad Deadline June 15 for July 2024 Issue 188 *Non Profit Community Ad Rates available please enquire. COMMUNITY CALENDAR LISTINGS ARE FREE!

Next EVENTS DEADLINE June 15 for July 2024 Issue 188 E-mail: Date, Event Title, Time, Location and Cost w/ subject “EVENT” to events@cowichanvalleyvoice.com

Cowichan Valley Voice Magazine reserves the right to omit and/or edit submitted listings due to space limitations

SPECIAL THANKS TO FOLLOWING VALLEY VOICES

Craig Spence, David & Ranji, Qwiyahwultuhw, Jared Qwustenuxun Williams, Rebecca Hazell, Sonia Furstenau, Judith Appleby, Chris Mercer, Bernie Dinter, Madeline Southern, Jessica Howarth, Stephanie Farrow, Krystal Aikman, Alle, Tamra N., Bill Jones, Dorian Redden, Grant Easterbrook, Allysa Simmons, Sarah Angell, Cari Burdett, Allysa Simmons, Lynn June, Emily Lore, Vida Glaser, Kristy Landry, Midori, Matt, Casey, and Brennan, Don Bodger, Jennie Stevens, Tanya Trafford, David Suzuki, Amy Luck-MacGregor, Hannah Auer, Bentley Christie, Germana Rovinelli, Robert Boyle, Alistair MacGregor, Dr Joanne Welham, Tina Foster, Joanne Sales, Judy Brayden, Jill Thompson, Shiloh Badman, Debbie Wood, the lovely Georgia Nicols, Nicolette Genier, and the wonderful staff at the Community Farm Store.

We welcome your story ideas & photo submissions; however Cowichan Valley Voice Magazine reserves the right to omit and/or edit all submissions for space, clarity, content and style. The opinions expressed in Valley Voice Magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the editor, publishers or other contributors. Please send a query email with your suggested topic prior to sending your article as space is limited and may not always be available.

Valley Voice Magazine is distributed through 450 + select locations throughout the Cowichan Valley- Malahat, Mill Bay, Shawnigan Lake, Cherry Point, Duncan, Cowichan Bay, Crofton, Chemainus and Salt Spring Island and to Cowichan Lake, Ladysmith and Victoria.

Cover Image: “Elemental Wolf” by Maynard Johnny Jr. Limited edition silk-screened serigraph, 24 1/2” x 22”

deadline June 16 for July Issue.

250 746-9319 I Text: 250 709-8846 info@ cowichanvalleyvoice.com

Amanda Crocker’s Art Connects to Her Heritage

Asa child, Amanda Crocker received a special gift from her father: a dreamcatcher crafted to ward off bad dreams.

“He bent and shaped a willow branch to create a hoop,” she says. “We come from a commercial fishing family. He used fishing line to weave a web. I have cherished and carried my treasured dreamcatcher with me over the years.”

This traditional item sparked Amanda’s curiosity about her indigenous background and ignited her passion for designing and creating art.

She has been an Indigenous support worker at Ecole Puntledge Park in Courtenay, and has a deep connection to the land she resides on and where she grew up, the unceded territory of the K’ómoks people—Pentlatch, Eiksan, Sahtloot, and Sasitla.

Her art and jewellery will be featured at the Rainforest gallery from June 4 to July 27, and she will hold a demonstration and meet-and-greet on Sunday, June 23 from noon to 3 p.m. Amanda works with with natural pigments, paints, and binders that include spices—for example, cinnamon and turmeric.

Her ancestry is a rich blend of English, French, Irish, Scottish, and First Nations. She is Coast Salish and a member of the Penelakut tribe. Her First Nations lineage comes from her father, who currently resides on Penelakut Island (he grew up on Galiano Island). Her mother hails from Hornby Island.

Amanda shares her love for art, design, beading, and painting with others. She also actively learns and educates about the diversity of indigenous cultures and Canadian history. Through her work with students, she continues to learn and grow, fostering a sense of cultural pride and understanding.

“I have reconnected to my indigenous identity and culture through lived experiences, making connections through my own education, and working as an indigenous support worker in School District 71,” she says. “To them, I am grateful.”

The power of art is a vocation for Amanda. “Sharing with others, especially children and youth, gives me hope. I want to help pave the way for our children, our future. I want them to feel empowered, gain confidence in themselves, and to understand the importance of finding their own gifts.”

Rainforest Arts is located at 9781 Willow Street, Chemainus. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. You can contact the gallery at info@rainforestarts.ca or 250-246-4861. Find out more at RainforestArts.ca.

craigspence.ca

Why We Should Read The Power of Story

Stories can heal. Stories can kill. Métis Nehithaw (Cree) author, lawyer, Elder Harold Johnson shares this teaching throughout his powerful book. “We are all story. We are the stories we are told and we are the stories we tell ourselves. To change our circumstances, we need to change our story…”

The most important is lifestory – the story you tell about your own life. He shares an example from his life of transforming a story of abuse and victimhood into one of resilience and survival. This latter story inspired him and gave him hope.

In addition to emphasizing storytelling in Indigenous traditions, he also draws on writer historian Yuval Noah Harari’s framing of stories through historical periods. For example, the religion story came about when the powers that be needed to keep peasants in place for the agrarian revolution.

Stories are important for healing ourselves now: “We all need to be in a story that tells us that we are wanted, that we are cared for, and that we belong.”

Many will experience deep discomfort in having their beliefs, what they thought of as truth, being called simply another story. And, this is the liberating power of what Harold Johnson is inviting us to do: to notice and be aware of our own stories and thus be curious about others’ stories.

As he says, “We are in a new age, and we need a new story. We need a story that will tell us who we are at this time in history, but includes all the new things we have learned, that tries to be more complete and doesn’t leave anybody out. The old stories from the last age can’t tell us what we are supposed to be doing now, nor what our purpose is.”

The Warmland Book & Film Collective – begun in 2018 as a response to the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada – explores, celebrates, and learns from Indigenous authors and filmmakers. We are welcoming new members – if you enjoy friendly, spirited, and interesting conversation, email us at WarmlandBFC@ gmail.com for the zoom link. All books we read are available through VIRL. We next meet online June 12 to discuss the book The Shoe Boy: A Trapline Memoir by Duncan McCue.

Submitted by David & Ranji, on behalf of the WBFC

TEN OLD BOOKS

Always something for everyone

Great Selection of Used & New Books • Bestsellers & Award Winners • Classic Novels & Timeless Favourites • BC & Canadian Authors Plus Local Cards • Crafts • Children’s Books • Jewelry • Unique Gift Ideas and More! 102-330 Duncan St 250 -715-1383

JUNE EVENTS

June 1st

EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION DEADLINE

for The Fire Within, Women’s gathering, Myth, Song, Crafting & Ceremony

June 2nd

Backyard Sessions

QUW’UTSUN ELDERS SERIES

Tlithl’kawi/Rupert Scow: Canoe Carving

*Event at Sunrise Waldorf School 2148 Lakeside Road, Duncan

$50, children by donation

June 6 6:30pm - 8pm

LILA COMMUNITY CHOIR SING FOR ISLANDS FOLK FESTIVAL

$20-$25, trades/scholarships available Every Thursday in June 13/20/27

June 7/8/9

A SCOTTISH MYTHOPOETIC RETREAT with Dougie Mackay

June 16th 10am - 1pm, SINGING 101

Exploration of voice & personal song, Sliding Scale $30- $100

June 21 2pm - 6pm BRIAR ROSE & THE INDIGENOUS MEMORY OF MOTHER EUROPE

Kakisimo Iskwew & Tad Hargrave, tickets, $30

June 29th/30th THE FIRE WITHIN

Stephanie Mackay & Cari Burdett, for woman (peri)menopause, song, myth, crafting & ceremony, June - October

Gathering for Quw’utsun’ Elders Series: Backyard Sessions, at the home of Qwiyahwultuwh-hw/ Robert Goerge in Georgetown.

Embracing Indigenous Wisdom: Quw’utsun’ Elders Series: Backyard Sessions

Open to everyone, the Quw’utsun’ Elder Series workshops were created for the community to engage in nature and art-based discovery through traditional cultural practices led by Knowledge Keepers in the Quw’utsun’ Valley.

From the beginning, Backyard Session workshops focussed on bringing all ages together to learn and connect with nature and ancestral knowledge such as; fire skills, plant work, canning, wool felting, cedar and basket weaving. We were honoured to have local Elders attend and offer their teachings and support in the workshops and it soon became clear that we wanted to learn directly from the Indigenous Elders in this community.

All Events at Lila Music Centre

3228A Gibbins Rd, Duncan 250 710 4174 cari@cariburdett.com www.joythroughmusic.com

We asked some of them if they wanted to lead and share their gifts of local knowledge, craft, stories and more and thus the Quw’utsun’ Elder Series, Backyard Sessions were created with much support from Hwiemtun, Fred Roland and his Sacred Cedar Centre, Quw’utsun’ Cultural Connections Society, BC Arts Council and Cari Burdett and Lila Music & Nature Centre.

“I loved every minute of our time with Qwiyahwultu-hw, Thuitsiye and the team that helped put the event together. The crackling fire warmed us all and was a perfect centre to hold the incredible generosity of Qwiyahwultu-hw and Thuitsiye. Honestly, I just

loved being in their company - no rush, wonderful stories, good humour. In all respects, that was a special day. I will hold the memory fondly from now on.” All the best, Val Murray, participant from Elder Workshop.

A recent workshop, held at the home of Quw’utsun’ Elder Qwiyahwultu-hw (Robert George) in Georgetown, was more than a gathering; it was a transformative journey that brought together individuals from diverse backgrounds, fostering a profound sense of unity and understanding. This event provided a platform for participants to engage directly with Cowichan First Nations Elders, explore Indigenous culture and embrace traditional teachings, leading to personal and communal growth.

Qwiyahwultu-hw welcomed invited guests to his backyard and acknowledged that this was an important step in reconciliation, by welcoming the general public to his family’s land.

Qwiyahwultu-hw says “I feel that it is important to have the Quw’utsun’ Elders Series, share their cultural teachings in building Nutsamaat Sqwalawun - One Heart One Mind. It is also important to build community together by sitting down and giving space to Cowichan Elders to share. It is important for the Elders to feel a sense of belonging in being a part of the greater community. These workshops create a sense of

Thuitsiye/

Pamella Bouque and Qwiyahwultu-hw/ Robert George

especially in the work of reconciliation and coming together.”

The first workshop in the year long series, was an afternoon of Coast Salish teachings through story, drumming, bannock and crafting. It was an opportunity for attendees to connect with Elders, Qwiyahwultu-hw/ Robert George and Thuitsiye/ Pamella Bouque and immerse themselves in cultural teachings for the morning. Pamella lead the crafting of worry bags and the storytelling with Robert used masks, felted birds and animal puppets, hand made by Pamella.

One participant shared her experience of feeling welcomed onto the reservation and reconnecting with her artistic passion by painting for the first time in decades. She also gained insight into the significance of worry bags in Aboriginal culture, a learning that resonated deeply with her and others.

The sense of being invited into the community and the elders’

emphasized the generosity and kindness extended by the elders, underscoring the importance of building bridges between different cultures. Through storytelling and teachings shared around the sacred fire, attendees felt a profound sense of belonging and connection to the land, deepening their understanding of Indigenous traditions. Emotions ran deep during the workshop, with participants expressing feelings of love, joy, and gratitude. The experience evoked memories of loved ones and elicited a sense of peace and grounding.

The workshop sparked personal and professional ideas among participants, motivating them to integrate Indigenous wisdom into their lives and work. One participant, a shelter worker, saw the potential of introducing the concept of burden bags to raise awareness of the energies individuals bring into shared spaces. Another committed to educating their daughter about Coast Salish culture, highlighting the importance of passing down traditional knowledge to future

generations.

Next workshop features Kwakwaka’wakw artist, Rupert Scow, where he will share traditional stories, practices and teachings from his village and family. His hereditary name is pronounced “Tlee Thul ‘Kaw Wee”. It means, I stand at the door of my grandfather’s house and I make people welcome. Rupert comes from a line of Kwakwaka’wakw carvers living in the Alert Bay/ Gilford Island area of Northern Vancouver Island. Rupert’s ancestors were famous for their beautifully carved totem poles. Their articulated masks were danced by dancers wearing their family house crests on their regalia of spectacular button blankets, aprons, and sometimes leggings, and arm bands. During the short, dark days of winter at the family Potlatches, they danced and sang the dramatic stories of their histories. Rupert still carries on the proud tradition of telling Indigenous history through the masks and totem poles they carve. He presently lives in the Quw’utsun’ Valley, where he is committed to meeting the local people and

Tlithl’Kawi / Rupert Scow

finding ways to collaborate in a good and meaningful way.

“I joined the Quw’utsun’ Elder Backyard Sessions, because this kind of work is bringing together First Nations and non First Nations people. I feel that we all need to work together to start the healing process. It’s why I’ve been gifting my artwork.” shares Rupert “I feel that it’s also important to give back to the community. I’ve been welcomed so warmly here in the Quw’utsun’ Valley, that I feel the need and wish to reciprocate. I also love to teach, as I get to learn as I share my knowledge of carving.”

“I will be teaching about carving a canoe”, says Rupert, “and talking about the traditions of the canoe and the big role they played in cultures up and down the coast. I will also show the students how to sharpen the straight knives. Each student will carve a mini canoe out of pine or basswood. We will also take time to explore the large canoe that I am carving and that will be set into the Salish Sea this summer.”

Overall, the Quw’utsun’ Elder Backyard Workshops exemplifies the power of intercultural dialogue and the importance of preserving and celebrating indigenous heritage. It serves as a reminder of the rich tapestry of traditions that enrich our communities and the profound impact of embracing diverse perspectives.

Upcoming June Workshop

Canoe Carving Tlithl’Kawi / Rupert Scow Kwakwaka’wakw Artist Sunday June 2 10am - 2pm Sunrise Waldorf School, 2148 Lakeside Road, Duncan $50 for materials and entrance, children by donation. Register: www,cariburdett.com/ quwutsun-elders/

Acknowledging Grief and Loss Workshop

Acknowledging grief and loss is a big one especially after the pandemic. Loss of certain ways of doing, change in environment and people moving on to the next world are part of the grief and loss of our times.

Mother nature is one of our biggest healers. We will use earth based practices in this two day grief and loss workshop including:

• Working with Water is universal in ceremonial cleansing,

• Working with clay and creating with our sacred Earth is grounding,

• Working with Fire is a reflection of our thoughts and attitudes, it can warm or burn.

• Silence meditation going inward, our Breath/Air work is all sustaining life. We will complete the weekend with a shared potluck, please bring food to share with ancestors and the group.

All my relations Qwiyahwultuhw

Acknowledging Grief and Loss workshop with Qwiyahwultuhw/ Robert George and Thuitsiye/ Pamella Bourque Healing through the Natural elements, land, fire, water, minerals and air. Healing ceremonies with meditation, breath work and the art of clay. Saturday, June 8th, 9am - 3pm, Sun June 9th, 9am - 12noon, with a potluck to follow. Limited Space 25 Seats. $195/both days. Email money transfer Robert to register and save your spot - rgeorge333.rg@gmail. com Please call with any questions: +1 (250) 4664073 George Town, 5632 Khowhemun Road, Duncan

White Sage for Cleansing

Close to the ferry in Crofton is a busy little coffee shop with very big heart. Recently, owners Amelia and Andrew added a metaphysical section because they saw a need for affordable spiritual supplies. “We continue to learn about our healing gifts on a daily basis and enjoy sharing that knowledge with our customers. Our goal is to provide quality energetic products so people are empowered to use them as they would like!” says Amelia.

A popular gift that customers come into the shop for are bundles of white sage (salvia apiana). This common perennial shrub is native to the southern west coast of North America and due to its abundance is used traditionally in ceremony by First Nations and Indigenous American tribes as a spiritual aid to increase intuition, connect with the spirit realm and as a cleansing tool for spaces and objects.

“There is some debate about whether it is culturally appropriate for non-native people to perform smudge, however we believe it’s all about the intention of the person using it.” shares Amelia “To us this means, as with any ritual, smudging should be done with respect and positive intentions. The key is to set your

intention before and during the smudge. This includes the harvesting of the plant. Ideally, you should collect your own sage if possible. If you don’t have access to your own sage, find a good spot to purchase from being mindful of how and where it was collected. The white sage we stock is grown on an ethical farm in California.”

*White sage is different than white Prairie sage, which is endangered.

How to Smudge

If you are interested in using sage for cleansing, you only need a few basic tools. White sage bundle, a ceramic dish or shell, matches (preferable) and an optional feather or fan.

Start in one area, light the sage and blow it out quickly. Keep your mind focused on your intention to clear any negative energy. Walk around the space you wish to clear, allowing the smoke to get into all the corners. Don’t rush.

Use your shell or dish to collect the ashes as you walk around and to put out the hot tip of the bundle when you are finished. Use sand to make sure the bundle is put out, like a cigar. One bundle can be used multiple times which is why you don’t want to put it out with water, which will make it harder to relight!

Please note: It is important to open windows during a smudge, to allow the dispelling of any negative energy that may have accumulated.

Visit us for white sage, beautiful shells and other cleansing supplies. Third Wave Coffee Company in Crofton, 1532 Chaplin Street near the Crofton/ Vesuvius ferry terminal. Open 7 days a week. 6am - 6pm weekdays, 8am-6pm weekends.

Reiki Wellness

250 743-8122

Valleyview Centre

Reiki, Foot Detox, Infrared, Acupuncture, Reflexology

Island Hellerwork

250 661-1687

Deep Tissue Bodywork, Somatic Transformation

Cobble Hill Dental

Family

250 743-3337

Life Changing Hearing Solutions

Country Grocer

250 743-5639

Bakery, Meat, Seafood, Produce, Deli & Floral, Supplements

Cure Artisan Meat & Cheese

250 929-2873

Charcuterie, Cheese House Made Pates

Liquor Plus

250-929-1999

Wine, beer and spirits on the Upper Level.

Valley Health and Fitness

250-743-0511

Full service gym/classes Fitness

the date!

Watch for the July Issue of Valley Voice for list of artists, guide and map for the Studio Tour.

MILL BAY & SHAWNIGAN LAKE

• Eileen McGann - painter and musician

• Charlotte Haggart - hand-made prints

• Joan Head - acrylics and oil

• Donna Birtwistle - watercolour and pencil artist

• Terry Harrison - flowers on glass and clothing

• Carolyn Lucas - photography

• Cori Mearns - watercolours

COWICHAN BAY

• Catherine Fraser - mixed media

• Carolyn McDonald - acrylics and mixed media

• Sue Coleman - watercolours

DUNCAN & CROFTON

• Catherine Taron - watercolour and acrylics

• Neil Fatin - photographic artist

• Rosemary Danaher - ceramic artist and jewellery designer

• Jocelyn West - mixed media

• Maureen Coles - watercolour and gouache

Coast Salish Artist Maynard Johnny Jr

Maynard Johnny Jr, a resident of Chemainus, began his career as a teenager, and has continued his self-directed development of artmaking. He is of Coast Salish descent on his father’s side from Penelakut Island and Kwakwaka’wakw descent on his mother’s side from Cape Mudge on Quadra Island. Recently, he began to venture from painting into jewellery and wood carving. He is inspired by notable artists including Robert Davidson, Art Thompson, Richard Hunt, and Mark Henderson. He was featured in the Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation 2 exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design, New York, in 2005. In 2009, Maynard’s work adorned the cedar gift boxes that were given to special guests at the Canadian Juno Music Awards. His works can also be seen

in film (Say it Ain’t So) and television series (Grey’s Anatomy).

This month’s cover art is called “Elemental Wolf” and is a limited edition of only 100 numbered original prints available and measures 22”x 24.75”.

The Wolf is Supernatural in that it transforms from Orca to hunt the sea to Wolf to hunt the land. Elemental signifies the Wolf is Supernatural and also signifies the Salish Elements.

Salish Eagle, Eagle design painting on paper 22”x 30”

Islands Folk Festival Memories...

Stories make up the bulk of my memories. Like how I’ve attended the Islands Folk Festival every year for over a decade. I’ve seen countless local and touring bands perform on all the stages. But nothing beats the time I heard Spirit of the West play Home for a Rest. Now, you might think it’s because it’s a great song buy a phenomenal band played live that I remember. But I’ve been to big concerts in stadiums where I saw amazing artists play songs that I could sing every word too, and in the end I can’t remember them nearly as well as this show at the folk festival.

You see, our eldest son was still small, and if you know our family you’ll know that for the most part I am a mister mom and have the kids as often as I can. Add to that the fact that my amazing wife is always volunteering at the festival, so she spends her time there running around looking after artists and doing what needs to be done. This means that most of the time I’d be puttering around with my son and she’d be working. So the day Spirit of the West played I’d been with the baby all day, but he

needed his mama to go to bed. So Asti, being the top notch mother that she is, took the baby to lie down in the camper we had on site. So I took my phone so she could call me when the baby was asleep, and wandered in the crowd listening to whoever was on stage, almost unaware of who was playing.

Then the famous ‘home for a rest’ song came on and it was amazing, of course it was. I stood not too far from the stage and watched the band play and, as expected, they nailed it. Funny, nearly a decade later the experience of the song playing isn’t what I remember best. What I’ll never forget is when I went back to the camper to check on my wife. She was so mad that she’d missed the one band she’d been waiting all weekend for. I got to hear the best song of their set, at the festival she volunteers at, while she was stuck with a fussy baby. Even to this day we still joke about it. And as we attend the festival every year I am never allowed to forget it. See it wasn’t the song that I remember, or the band, it was the story that keeps the memory alive.

So come make some good memories, eat some good food, and listen to some great music at the Island Folk Festival. Maybe I’ll see you there with a much better hawk than I had ten years ago.

40th Annual Islands Folk Festival. Enjoy live music, workshops, food, beverage garden, and artisanvendorsJuly 19-21 For tickets head to www.islandsfolkfestival.ca

Jared Qwustenuxun Williams

Celebrating 35 years in business!

A Life In The Details

Clifford Webb reinvented both himself and an art form: his wood engraving prints broke new ground. In doing so, he created an imaginary world for himself as much as for others, living for and in the details of his work.

To create a wood engraving print, you start with a drawing that will be reversed on the wood surface in order for it to face the right way in the finished print. Then you plan the darks and lights, which are created by carving away the sections that will be white, not touching the sections that will be dark. Then come the details: using sharp, fine steel tools, you carve your design methodically, patiently and thoughtfully. A slip of the hand and you can scar the picture. Plus, you are working on the end grain of a hard wood like boxwood that resists being cut.

Webb spent hours carving the blocks for his prints, his desk before a window, lamps adding more light, a magnifying glass allowing him to work precisely to

build fine details line by line. Yet out of this unforgiving medium, he created effects of light and shadow, curves, distance and movement far beyond what had previously been thought possible. He produced an idyllic, nostalgic world of rolling hills, lakes and country cottages; he also created robust industrial vignettes.

Look closely at one of his prints and you can see how he cut delicate side by side lines that give the illusion of space, distance and movement. This was his innovative approach, which left a lasting imprint on printmaking. It was in these details that he truly lived most happily.

Clifford Webb… A Life in the Details is showing at the Cowichan Public Art Gallery through June 20th. Gallery hours are 10 AM-4 PM Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Rebecca Hazell is a Board Member of the Cowichan Public Art Gallery.

Haida Agreement is Reconciliation in Action

On June 21st, Canada observes National Indigenous Peoples Day, a time to honour the heritage, cultures, and contributions of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. This year, the occasion is particularly significant in British Columbia as we celebrate a historic agreement between the province of B.C. and the Council of the Haida Nation, a step forward in the journey of reconciliation.

The Gaayhllxid • Gíihlagalgang “Rising Tide” Haida Title Lands Agreement is the first of its kind: a negotiated agreement between the Haida Nation and British Columbia, which officially recognizes and affirms the Haida Nation’s Aboriginal title over Haida Gwaii and surrounding waters. The legislation presents a staged transition to Haida jurisdiction, while maintaining

private property rights and existing government services. The recognition of inherent rights of governance and land title is a crucial milestone in the relationship between the Haida Nation and the province of BC.

What makes it truly remarkable is not just its legal and historical significance, but also the spirit in which it was reached. The negotiations leading to this agreement were not adversarial courtroom battles, but a collaborative effort spanning 20+ years. The fact that consensus-building and partnership shaped the process, rather than conflict and litigation, signifies a shift towards a more informed and effective approach to Indigenous land rights discussions. Through dialogue and patience, the province and the Haida Nation have built a foundation for a future where reconciliation is not just an aspiration, but a reality.

In some ways, this agreement is a full-circle moment in Canadian history; It could be seen as the beginning of a new era of respect for the Indigenous sovereignty that existed long before the arrival of Europeans. It recognizes the resilience and strength of Indigenous peoples and is testament to their enduring connection to the land. The work and dedication of the Haida Nation shows that we can shape an entirely new tapestry of governance in this province.

Let us celebrate this agreement as a model for future collaborations. Let us honour the spirit of openness and listening that made it

possible. And let us commit ourselves to walking the path of reconciliation, guided by the principles of respect and

cooperation, because in these values lies the promise of a brighter future for us all.

Sonia Furstenau, MLA Cowichan Valley, Elected House Leader BC Green Party

“The First” Island Printmaking Biennial June 8 – July 5

Printmakers Only Group of the Cowichan Valley (POG) is sponsoring the first Island Printmaking Biennial. The theme is “Affinity” - each printmaker submitted two

related works. Guests enjoy browsing the paired prints by artists from Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. The Biennial is a major show with more than 140 works exhibited in CVAC’s Annex and Main Galleries.

From making the plate to inking to the final pull, printmaking can be complex, utilizing a variety of materials

and methods. Techniques include etching, engraving, relief printing, lithography, screen printing and more. It takes a certain dedication to be a printmaker.

Visitors can appreciate this dedication in the educational area, featuring displays about printmaking techniques. They’ll watch prints come to life through artist demonstrations and engage with artists about their work.

printmakers_only_ group

Printmakers Only Group-POG

Biennial Opening Saturday June 8, 1 – 3 pm Don’t miss the Island Printmaking Biennial Opening on June 8. Spend the afternoon browsing the show and meeting the artists. Free.

OPEN CALLS TO ARTISTS

Introducing: Emerging Artists July 8 - 31

Registration is open for the second annual Introducing Show for Emerging Artists. See your works beautifully presented and widely appreciated in a busy public venue. Eligible artists must have recently completed a program in which they studied and created art. This can include Fine Arts, Visual Arts, Art Education or mentorship program.

WORKSHOPS AND CAMPS

Creative Canvas July 8 – 12

Focused, half-day sessions for teens. Details and registration on reccowichan.ca using code 72925

Women’s Art & Wellness Circle

Saturday June 8

This popular women’s art workshop is suitable for all ages, skill levels and mediums.

Ready, Set: Plien Air! Saturday June 23

Get ready to sketch and paint outside this summer. Make your own “pochade” or painting box, then learn tips and tricks for productive and inspired en plien air sessions.

Registration & details at cowichanvalleyartscouncil.ca

About Us Founded in 1971, CVAC is a registered charity dedicated to enriching our community through the lens of arts & culture. We provide 30 art exhibitions per year and arts-themed programming for all ages. We recognize that we operate on the unceded territories of the Hul’qumi’num-speaking peoples who have resided here from time immemorial.

From linoblock to print. Courtesy of Janine Duns

California Quail by Deborah Miller

The Cherhill Horse by Jeanne Lyons

David COLTER Moss

Mdistinguished artist hailing from the pristine landscapes of British Columbia. His exploration of various artistic techniques over the years led him to the enchanting realm of batik, marking a significant milestone in his creative evolution. Initially delving into batik on fabric, David’s curiosity and innovative spirit guided him towards experimenting with batik on watercolour paper, a medium that would become his signature. By infusing his works with natural and fabric dyes, he captures the essence of his surroundings, bridging the gap between the tangible

and the ephemeral.

Moss’s art is playful yet sophisticated in use of colour and form, capturing not just the visual beauty of his natural surroundings but also the emotional resonance they hold. Each piece serves as a portal to a world where the wonder of nature and the purity of artistic expression merge, offering viewers a glimpse into a realm where every hue and line sings of joy and discovery.

“With each brushstroke, I aim to honor the sacredness attributed to feathers around the world, hoping that my paintings may act as vessels of connectivity, carrying with them the revered qualities each feather symbolizes.

My vision is for these pieces to inspire a sense of interconnectedness and elevate spirits, reminding us of the powerful ties that link us all and the boundless development of the human spirit to rise and soar.”

June 7 - 22 “Find a Feather” Batik Art by David Moss at Excellent Frameworks Gallery, 115 Kenneth St. Free

Feather Bear, 30” x 22” $600

Eagle Beach, 30” x 22” $600

Cowichan Valley

uakers

The Religious Society of Friends

Our faith practice is based on these six core testimonies of the Quaker Faith: and also on the inherent belief that there is that of God in everyone. Silent worship allows us to discover the inward stillness where we can best hear the voice of God.

SIMPLICITY PEACE INTEGRITY COMMUNITY EQUALITY STEWARDSHIP

Join us for Meeting for Worship Sundays at 10:30 am in the beautiful St. Ann’s Garden Building, Providence Farm (A zoom option is also available)

For further information and directions: www.cowichanvalley.quaker.ca cvquakers@gmail.com or call Donna at 250.661.7751

Ihad been looking for a new spiritual home for some time, reading creeds and welcome statements from every church I could find in the Cowichan Valley when I stumbled upon the Quakers. I was intrigued and did some research, watched numerous videos on the Quaker YouTube channel, “QuakerSpeak,” and reflected upon what I was seeking. Quiet worship, and waiting for God to speak to me rather than listening to someone else’s interpretation of God’s words, appealed to me. I was prepared, or so I thought, to experience the holy, and so I went.

I was welcomed, quietly, with smiles at first as the Meeting started. I looked around the room: everyone sat in a circle in comfortable chairs, the fire was lit, some people had their eyes closed, some took off their shoes while others spread a blanket over their knees. Some

sipped coffee or water. Once or twice, someone spoke for a few minutes about the thoughts running through their heads. Did I hear God? No. But I did feel a current running through me, linking me to others who, despite their obvious belonging to this group, seemed to be seeking just like me. The hour went by very quickly.

Afterwards, there were introductions and “afterthoughts” as more people shared their ponderings and concerns. I was invited to stay for the monthly potluck lunch – always lots of food, don’t worry that you didn’t bring anything – and then I was able to participate in conversation. I felt the warmth, gentle curiosity, and loving nature of people who come together for deeper connection. Though many have different ideas and terminology about God and the nature of the universe, there was no judgement, only openness and a desire to engage. When I said goodbye, I was encouraged to come again. I did.

Aging Well Expo

Volunteer Cowichan is excited to host the Aging Well Expo taking place in the Cowichan Community Centre in Duncan on Wednesday, June 19th from 10 am – 3 pm. The Expo is open to the public with FREE admission.

Whether you are an older adult, a young adult, a caregiver, or someone interested in learning more about the healthy aging resources available in the community, you are encouraged you to attend the Aging Well Expo. The Expo features 35+ vendors, offering information about health, financial, legal, and physicalcare services and products available in the Cowichan Valley. It will also offer presentations and door prizes.

We are grateful to the Cowichan Valley community for supporting the Aging Well Expo. Our sponsors make it possible to host the Expo and our generous door prize sponsors have donated products and services that attendees have a chance to win.

Exhibitors to date:

BC Association of Response Networks

Better at Home

Canada Revenue Agency

Outreach

Cowichan Community

Policing & Engagement Society

Cowichan District Hospital Foundation

Cowichan Family Caregivers

Support Society

Cowichan Hospice

Cowichan Regional Visitor Centre

Cowichan Valley Lifeline

Gray Skills

ICBC

March of Dimes

Nurse Next Door Central

Vancouver Island

Social Prescribing Start Line Health and Wellness Group

Stonebridge Law

Thrifty Foods Sendial

Thrive Now Physiotherapy

Ts’i’ts’uwatul’ Lelum

Assisted Living

United Way Healthy Aging

UVIC-Institute of Aging and Lifelong Health

Vancouver Island Regional Library

VI Gaming Support

Volunteer Cowichan

Wellnessnews Choices for Health Living

If you are interested in being an exhibitor or would like more information, please visit our website. www. VolunteerCowichan.bc.ca

Aging Well Expo

Multi-Purpose Hall

Cowichan Community Centre

2687 James St, Duncan

Cowichan Valley’s residential repaint specialist off ering interior, exterior, and cabinet painting. www.abbottpainting.ca

DChris Mercer is a retired editor and recovering rose addict.

uring World War II, Canadians rallied for the cause by growing Victory Gardens to put fresh vegetables and fruit on the table. Buoyed by their success, enthusiastic gardeners in Mill Bay, Shawnigan Lake and Cobble Hill continued to share their passion with friends and neighbours. And part of this was the spring flower show. After the war, flower show hosts included the Farmers’ Institute, the Women’s Institute and the PTA. In June of 1949, Shawnigan Lake Garden Club hosted its inaugural Shawnigan Flower Show. Over the years, the show has featured everything from handicrafts to flowers, but it has always been a community show. In 1971, horticulturalist Hilda Beastall urged readers of

Celebrating our 75th Anniversary!

With its roots in Shawnigan Lake-Cobble Hill Farmer’s Institute spring fairs in the 1920s, the flower show was taken over by the Women’s Institute and PTA in 1945, then the Shawnigan Lake Garden Club in 1966, and the Mill Bay Garden Club in the 1980s.

her column in the Victory Daily Times to make the trip over the Malahat to discover “unexpected treasures”. Her words then ring just as true today:

“Small flower shows and larger ones, all are important in the scheme of community living. They

featuring a fashion show. Though much has changed since 1949, those gardeners 75 years back would immediately recognize the warm atmosphere of comradery evident in today’s shows. The display tables glow with a shared pride and deep enjoyment of all that gardening this unique environment offers.

bring humans together on the common level of beauty – the beauty of nature aided by the art of man.”

The 1950 show brochure reveals a broad range of support, with prizes donated by sponsors ranging from the Shawnigan Garage to jeweller Henry Birks & Sons to the Sunny Brae Dairy. By 1971, the Shawinigan Flower Show was a full day event, with an evening show awarding trophies and

Today, even if your garden is no more that three pots at the front door, the show is worth a visit: great food, beautiful flowers, plants to purchase, garden vendors, and a huge silent auction.

The show directly benefits local charities, (last year, Nourish Cowichan, the

Handicrafts such as quilting figured large in 20th century shows.

Floral arrangements then and now celebrate unique themes.

Early shows included an evening of prize awards and entertainment.

CMS Food Bank, Cowichan Estuary Restoration and Conservation Association, the Shawnigan Basin Society, Cowichan Hospice and Somenos Transition House), as well as a college bursary for horticultural students.

A Community Show

When neighbouring garden clubs in the area merged as the Mill Bay Garden Club, the community show evolved to become today’s Mill Bay Flower and Garden Show.

This year the Community Flower and Garden show celebrates the 75th anniversary of this show on Saturday June 8th from 9 am till 2 pm. Hundreds of entries in more than 50 flower, plant and edible classes collected from gardens all over the Cowichan Valley will create a dazzling and often fragrant display.

Meadow Wren Flower Farm & Garden Services

• Sustainable garden planning and design

• Annual mason bee subscriptions

• Cut ower sales for weddings & events

• Seed & plant sales

• Workshops & educational booklets

Reach out for more information www.meadowwren owerfarm.com meadowwrenflowerfarm@gmail.com

Our Practitioners are certified with many years of wisdom and experience!

DEBBIE SHKURATOFF - REIKI MASTER TEACHER Teaching Usui Reiki - Level I & II, Advanced & Reiki Master Reiki Therapy/Chakra Balancing/Alignment - Foot Detox

ACUPUNCTURIST - GaChing Kong,M.Ed.,Ac Moxibustion - Breathwork

Nutritional Planning - Bodywork and Movement

CERTIFIED REFLEXOLOGIST - Francoise Moulin Aromatherapy - Healing Touch - Art Therapy

CERTIFIED SPINAL FLOW THERAPIST - Dana Schneider

Spinal Flow Technique

Daytime • Evening • Weekends • By Appointment Only #13 - Upper Level • Valleyview Centre • Cobble Hill www.reikiwellness.ca • reiki-wellness@shaw.ca

Master Gardeners volunteer to answer gardening questions next to the popular Mill Bay plant sale table.

Rose compete in eight classes, including best fragrance, pre-1867 specimens, hybrid teas, Austin roses and more.

The Cowichan Valley has ideal conditions for magnificent rhododendron.

CUT FLOWERS

Bring your garden indoors

Annual cut flowers - Cosmos - Dahlias - Stocks - Sunflower

Perennial cut flowers - Echinacea - Gaillardia - Lavender - Poppy - Black Eyed Susan Shrubs - Beauty Berry - Hydrangea - Lilac - Roses - Viburnum and many more....

Roses are justifiably considered the most popular garden plant worldwide. Their flowers come in exquisite forms, and many are fragrant. They can be mass planted for summer colour or cut for individual blooms indoors. Their forms range from compact shrubs and groundcovers to medium shrubs to climbers and long trailing ramblers. Blooming season can be a few weeks in spring for the native and rugosa types. The popular varieties will bloom repeatedly until heavy frost if the faded blossoms are cut off. There are classes of roses that are hardy in almost every climate zone. Canada is known for the especially hardy Explorer Series developed in Ottawa.

Roses – The Queen of Flowers

with modern characteristics of repeat blooming and disease resistance. Other breeders are developing landscape roses to give masses of summer colour, eliminating the need for planting annuals.

Plant breeders are busy making improvements. Besides beautiful flower forms they are working on repeat blooming, fragrance, and disease resistance. Every year a new series comes on the market with claims of wonderful improvements. One of the bestknown is the David Austin series from England which combine the form and fragrance of old English roses

The care for roses is not complex but should not be grown if deer are browsing your garden. A fenced in garden will be required if deer are present. The major pruning is done on a pleasant day, usually in early March when the plant is structured for the coming season. After that, pruning is the removal of faded flowers to encourage

repeat blooming. If foliage is kept dry, disease is not an issue for most varieties. Aphids can be annoying but easily dealt with between the fingers or with a mild soapbased insecticide. With basic care and cultivation, roses can bring a season-long joy both in the garden and indoors, living up to their reputation of being the Queen of Flowers.

Dinter, owner Dinter Nursery. Family owned and operated since 1973 offering 3 generations of horticultural knowledge

Bernie

Celebrating 45 Years in Business: Saltspring

Soapworks

Since 1979, Saltspring Soapworks has crafted soap, hand-cut and wrapped in small batches, full of fresh botanicals and fragrant essential oils. In the 45 years since they’ve been in business, Saltspring Soapworks boasts three generations of soap makers and has sold millions of handmade soap bars. Founder Linda Quiring wouldn’t have it any other way. “We had a great herb garden, so I started making soaps and salves,” Linda says. Her first craft show in 1980 turned the tide for Saltspring Soapworks. “I had a little pile of unwrapped soaps that went like hotcakes, and overnight, stores started calling!” In the coming years, Linda’s hobby grew to include a website, wholesale accounts, trade shows and three retail outlets. It just kept evolving in a very natural and organic

way, just like the products. In 2012, son Gary and his wife Amber took over the business. While honouring Linda’s legacy, Gary and Amber wanted to build on the business’s successes. “Once we took the reins, changes started to happen quickly,” says Gary. They focused attention on streamlining the brand and updating systems and equipment. They then launched a complete rebrand of the company in 2018. “We immediately saw the results of our efforts and, as a result, expanded our manufacturing facility on Salt Spring Island by moving from 1,800 sq ft to a 5,000 square foot factory in 2022.”

From the beginning, Saltspring Soapworks has been driven by the philosophy of ‘staying small in a big way.’ This approach keeps local folks employed and supports our communities, especially our customers, creating a sense of belonging and shared success. “We still sell soap at the Ganges Farmers Market most Saturdays, and this year, we’re celebrating a new, improved retail experience in Duncan,” says Gary. After 25 years, Saltspring Soapworks is moving its Duncan location to the other end of Craig Street, across from Just Jake’s Restaurant. The move is planned for June 2024. The updated boutique will carry the brand’s full

Saltspring Soapworks is committed to offering a complete line of

Be sure to sign up for the email newsletter for the inside scoop. saltspringsoapworks.com

Linda Quiring, Founder Saltspring Soapworks selling her handmade soap at the Ganges Farmers Market (1984)

OSBORNE BAY

Lila Community Choir to Perform at Islands Folk Festival

The Lila Community Choir is performing at the Folk Fest this year! We are so excited to be part of their 40th anniversary year and are honored to be able to collaborate with some amazing, local Vancouver Island musicians. We will be singing songs from Big Little Lions, Ed Peekekoot, Paul Ruszel, Deb Maike, Luke Wallace, T’uwahwiye’ / Philomena Williams & Qwiyahwultu-hw / Robert George and others. Over the eighteen years that we have been singing together as a choir, we have sung for Salmon, X’pey/ Cedar, Cowichan Hospice, Homelessness, refugees, Water, Rivers, and so much more. Our theme for this performance is honoring the grief and the beauty that surrounds us. It is a true gift to share our voices together in harmony and to invite the audience to sing with us as well. Singing is our birthright, it brings health and well being into all aspects of our being. Through singing we overcome differences of culture, age, religion, values and perspectives and we bring our voices together as one.

“Singing is a breath that is larger than yourself, so it joins you with space, with community, with other realms and our deepest inside places. You are joining your strands to everyone else’s, weaving something with the whole, and this extends the community outward into a force bigger than itself.” Anne Lamott

Interested in joining Lila Community choir? Come to a Thursday Night Drop In and try it out! Experience the community magic of joy and singing together. Drop in choir details: Arrive at 6:30 pm - 8pm, every Thursday until the end of June. All voices welcome to our yurt where you will be warmly greeted by people of all walks of life; elders sitting in chairs, younger folk dancing around. We welcome singers of all ages and stages. Choir nights are fun and we often share our songs at community events. Details www.cariburdett.com/ lila-community-choir/. Get in in touch with Cari for more details 250 710 4174.

National

Osborne Bay Pub Featuring Award Winning Live Music

With six releases under his name and two with his side project Lion Bear Fox, Ryan McMahon has established himself as one of western Canada’s most prolific singer/songwriters, leading to multiple Vancouver Island Music Awards and supporting slots for Burton Cummings, Tom Cochrane, Mother Mother, Lee Harvey Osmond and others. June 8, 8pm $30

The David Santana Trio is an extraordinary soulful jazz ensemble that captivates audiences with its dynamic and fiery style. Their performances are a testament to their passion for jazz, as they bring a fresh and vibrant energy to a varied repertoire of jazz standards and original compositions.

“I’m very excited to follow

his development as a new voice on the jazz scene in BC and proud to call him a peer here in Victoria. I have tremendous confidence in David’s abilities as a musician and composer.” - Ryan Oliver, Juno-nominated musician

After finishing his studies at the conservatory Escuela Moderna de Music in Santiago de Chile, David Santana won the Chilean national jazz guitar competition “Solo para bravos.” David Santana Trio, June 22, 8pm

Also appearing in June

• Paul Black CD Release Show, June 15th, 8pm, $20

• Kevin’s Bacon, June 29th, 8pm, $15

Osborne Bay Pub, 1534 Joan Avenue, Crofton. For pre show dinner reservations call 250-324-2245

Live Music listings and tickets available online at www.osbornebaypub.com

Cowichan Valley Auto Detailing

Brian Shkuratoff Owner

250 743-1150 shop

250 709-1990 cell/text

3061 Renfrew Rd, Shawnigan Lake cowichanvalleyautodetailing@gmail.com

www.cowichanvalleyautodetailing.ca

BBiomagnetism for Wellness

iomagnetism is a revolutionary, therapeutic, scientific modality to health and wellness. The Biomagnetic Pairs were discovered after 20 years+ of research by Dr. Goiz Duran.

“We all have bacterias and imbalances, but some are beneficial, like flora in the digestive system, and others create inflammation, pain and symptoms and can become problematic if left untreated. Biomagnetism is a natural alternative to pain killers and medications, but is also compatible with allopathic medicine and other modalities.”

shares Kathryn Lowther, a Certified Therapist in Biomagnetism and Universal Energy Healing “I often have clients with chronic issues, who are at a loss where to turn, as they say they have tried everything. It is so rewarding to be able to help some of them reduce or eradicate their symptoms and enjoy life again!”

Kathryn has been practising Biomagnetism, Bioenergetics (Distant/Remote sessions), and Energy Healing for 15 years. She works out of the Cowichan Valley and Victoria. “To me, there is nothing more rewarding, than hearing a client tell me they feel so much better!”

A session with Kathryn consists of muscle-testing for imbalances, then placing opposite polarity, medium-intensity natural magnets on specific areas of the body to enable the regulation of pH, thus boosting the immune system. (It is completely different than placing low dose magnets on the body, or using magnetic mattresses).

Treats: bacteria, virus, parasites, candida, glandular dysfunctions,

emotional imbalances, injuries, arthritis, toxins and allergies. Young children, babies, disabled persons and pets all can be treated using another person as a surrogate, or myself.

Some client testimonials: “I was diagnosed with systemic candida 20 years ago. In two sessions, the candida was gone as well as some other bacteria. A sensitivity and allergy to mildew that had arisen in the last years is also gone. Thank you, Kathryn.”

- M.E.- Victoria

“Kathryn has been treating my mother and it’s truly amazing the transformation in her health. She saved my mother’s life basically! With much appreciation.”- JP and Family, Victoria

“I was suffering from intense itching of my upper arms. No creams or lotions were helping, my skin was breaking down, and I was being awakened at night, driving me crazy. Two biomagnetism treatments from Kathryn solved this annoying problem, and I am very happy to say I am now ITCH FREE!!”

Thank you Kathryn! - Elaine P. -Cowichan Valley

Book online your biogmentic session online at www. purelywellness.com/kathrynlowther

Anyes and the Soul Comfort Team

Diabetes is a disease that we all must keep a careful eye out for. Our modern diet and sedentary ways are making it difficult for many of us to steer clear of this disease that in Canada impacts approximately 10% of our population (Prediabetics account for 6%).

Diabetes Facts:

• 3 million people in Canada have Diabetes

• 20% of seniors over 70 years will develop the disease

• 450,000 Diabetic patients will be stricken with leg or foot ulcers

• Diabetic limb and foot ulcers cost $15K /person yearly in home care

• Diabetes is the leading cause of leg amputations in Canada

Wool Supports Those With Diabetes

Diabetics struggle to produce insulin effectively, which impacts their circulation and immunity, and often causes damage to the sensory nerves in the hands and feet. Due to numbness, a diabetic may not feel an injury, blister or cut on their feet or legs (called peripheral neuropathy). This poor circulation and nerve damage can further prevent ulcers and wounds from healing properly, which in turn leads to chronic infections, and for a fair number, foot or leg amputation. Preventing these amputations should be of the highest importance though, as recovery and rehabilitation is a challenging road and costly. Many who are elderly do not recover well once they are wheelchair bound.

environment. For diabetics struggling with mobility issues, skin conditions, and more serious wounds and open sores…wool products such as underlays and footwear, provide proper air flow so these wounds can gradually heal. Wool is also naturally antibacterial and moisture absorbent, so the affected areas stay dry and strong, giving it the best chance to heal.

Wool excels at addressing common factors diabetics deal with:

1. Moisture: Sensitive diabetic skin loses the ability to regulate moisture, and needs extra help. Wool’s open breathable fibres wick away 30 to 40% their own weight in moisture, keeping the contact area dry and the patient comfortable, while helping the skin stay strong, healthy and bacteria free. Synthetics are not breathable and trap moisture between the fabric and the body. Wool has the highest moisture absorbing capacity of all fibres, creating thermal comfort and a stable micro-climate between the skin and fibre.

Prevention is a diabetics first line of defence (as well as regular foot checks and quitting smoking). Bedsores, coccyx sores and foot ulcers, should all be monitored and given the highest care. This is where medical wool products come in to provide some much needed extra support.

Many diabetics may not know that wool products can augment and bolster traditional diabetes treatment. Medical wool helps prevent and minimize diabetic complications by providing the ingredients for a healing

2. Pressure Relief: Wool’s coiled, spring like structure provides gentle flexible support. Its strands can bent up to 20,000 times before breaking, making it a work horse for many years. Studies have shown that patients resting on wool need only be turned every four hours instead of two. Wool beautifully suspends the body, providing buoyancy and pressure relief.

3. Chafing: Wool fibres fold in on themselves and flow with body movements. Marino wool is utilized as well, as it is the softest wool fibre. Pressure redistribution and how wool rolls and moves, helps those who are bedridden and

immobile, shift and turn with the most comfort and support.

Medical wool products which are most helpful to Diabetics: comfort pads, mattress overlays, heel and elbow cuffs, socks and insoles, plus customizable boots of all shapes and sizes. These wool products are 100% machine wash and dry-able to hospital sanitation standards.

So much more can be done to support those we love who are living with Diabetes. Wool is a surprisingly affordable adjunct to medical treatment, that can help minimize and greatly improve those complications that arise from Diabetes. Wool provides comfort, temperature regulation, moisture and bacterial control.

Wool has been used for centuries and is still proving itself to be a tour de force for patients that are bedridden and wheelchair bound. As a completely renewable resource that is also biodegradable, it ticks the boxes as being a healthy choice for both patients and the environment. There is even research ongoing, utilizing proteins isolated and extracted from wool fibres, to create an oral supplement which helps diabetics manage their insulin

and regulate their pancreas. Amazing. A health supplement derived from sheep’s wool!

At Soul Comfort, we have everything you need to support your healing journey. Stop by and let us custom fit you to your best medical wool solution today.

www.soulcomfortsheepskin.com/ collections/medical-line

Hidden Costs of Amputation:

• Limb amputations cost 65K

• 14 - 24% of Diabetics will require amputation 50% of those, will have to remove the other leg within 5 years

• 16% of patients die during surgery

• Costs upwards of 350K for amputation, rehabilitation, social services and prosthetics

• It is estimated that only 40-50% of senior amputees ever become fully rehabilitated

Traditional Chinese Exercise for Health

Wild Goose Qigong (Chi Gong)

Gentle movement • Calms your mind • Heals internal organs • Develops flexibility

Mondays 9 -10 am Tuesdays 6 pm - 7 pm (combined Qigong and Chun Yuen) Wednesdays 10-11:15 am

Northern Shaolin Chun Yuen Quan

Dynamic movement • Improves posture • Increases energy • Strengthens bones Tuesdays 6 pm - 7 pm (combined Qigong and Chun Yuen)* Wednesdays 9 am - 10 am

250 748 4060 rivendellrhythm@shaw.ca

www.WildGooseQigongCentre.com

If you love nature and the beautiful intertidal area of the estuary, the Cowichan Estuary Nature Centre needs your help.

Positions available:

• NATURE INTERPRETERS & CENTRE VOLUNTEERS

• BOARD MEMBERS

No experience necessary, just a desire to learn and share. Training will be provided. Call (250) 597-2288 or visit www.cowichanestuary.ca/ volunteer for more information.

• SNACKS

• SOUPS

• MEALS

• TREATS

• “BLIZZARDS”

• CONES

• CLEANSES

• SMOOTHIES

• SPECIALTY LATTES

• MOCKTAILS

• JUICES & MORE!

For the love of Fathers

Afriend of mine once told me that “Dad’s do things differently”. This month I wanted to focus on a special non-human creature that does things differently when it comes to parenting.

Most of you know that male Seahorses take on the role of incubator and protector, while the female goes off to forage. Did you know that here in BC we have a cousin of the Seahorse? It’s essentially a Seahorse that’s been stretched and rolled out into a straight line. This amazing animal is called a Pipefish.

larvae to tiny shrimp that we can barely see with our own eyes.

Like most marine creatures, spring means time to reproduce. After a male Pipefish has fertilised the female’s eggs, the female transfers the eggs to a special brood pouch that the male has, which is located on the underside of the male. After transferring her eggs, the female carries on her foraging, leaving the male to care for the eggs. It only takes a few weeks for the eggs to fully develop and hatch. When the babies are ready, the male Pipefish splits his brood pouch down the middle and releases tiny Pipefish into the wild.

You can find Pipefish in shallow waters, hiding among eelgrass strands or close to wharf pilings and seaweed, which they blend in perfectly. These beautiful fish are only about 13” long and about half the thickness of a regular pencil. They are usually varying shades of mottled green and brown.

Pipefish have a long skinny snout and tiny little lips that open just a few millimetres wide. They prefer to eat varying forms of plankton- from microscopic

Pipefish are not edible or fished commercially. There are a few Asian species of Pipefish that are dried and sold for medicinal purposes, but there are no markets for that here.

Dad’s do things differently, and that’s ok. To the human beings who are Dad’s or who step into the Dad role, we see you and we are grateful for your presence and role in raising our younglings.

Huy ch q’u, Dad.

Beach etiquette: Please be gentle with all creatures you find on the beach. The ocean is a hard place to live. If you turn a rock to look underneath, please turn it over and put it back exactly as you found it. The creatures that live under rocks need their homes to survive.

Madeline Southern Education Coordinator Cowichan Estuary Nature Centre Cowichanestuary.ca

WGeorgia, has been leading tours on land and sea on Vancouver Island for over 20 years.

hen Coastal Bliss Adventures opened its Cowichan Bay Kayaking location, we knew there was a history of bioluminescence in the bay. The question we had was whether people are willing to be kayaking as late as 11:00 pm! Moonlight tours had been a draw for a while, but they end earlier, just after the moon rises. When we started exploring the later evenings on the water, we knew quickly that bioluminescence tours would be a hit.

Bioluminescence is when living things produce light from chemical reactions in their bodies. Most people are familiar with fireflies, which are a common source of bioluminescence on land. While there are very few freshwater bioluminescent organisms, the sea environment is full of them. Many vertebrates and invertebrates produce chemiluminescence, or light from chemical reactions. We suspect that most of the bioluminescence in Cowichan Bay is produced by dinoflagellates, or tiny, plankton-like organisms. Dinoflagellates

A “Light” Evening Paddle in Cowichan Bay

produce luciferin, the light-producing chemical compound, and an enzyme called luciferase, or photoprotein, to

light up. For these creatures, if they are disturbed in the water, they light up with a tiny flash.

Paddling into the estuary only lets us see this spectacular phenomenon as the light dims to a very low light in the night sky. Once it is dark enough, tiny sparkles begin to show up as the paddle moves in the water. Eventually producing a blanket of light that follows the paddle. On some occasions, small fish will light up an area producing flashes in the water, or even large swaths of light under a boat.

Kayaking in the evening in Cowichan Bay is one of the best times. The thermal winds have eased, and the activity has died down, making it is a peaceful way to enjoy the evening and get a different perspective on the Cowichan Valley, looking up at it from the water of the Bay. We usually spend two hours on our bioluminescence tours, enjoying the sunset and eventually the in-water light show that comes with the gathering darkness. With the calm water, it is a perfect tour for beginners, and we can accommodate most needs with single, double or sit-on-top kayaks. coastalbliss.ca

Our delicious smoothies are made from whole foods, Naturally sweetened, and balanced with some plant based coconut or hemp milk

23 Kenneth Street, Downtown Duncan

Hemp Seed and Mylk Smoothies Urban Forest Bistro

Hemp seeds might be small but they sure do pack a lot of nutrition and health benefits into a tiny package. Nutritionally speaking they; provide all nine essential amino acids, making them a complete plant-based protein source, ideal for muscle repair and growth. Rich in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, hemp seeds support skin and heart health by reduce inflammation, supply essential nutrients like vitamin E, magnesium, potassium, and iron, contributing to overall wellness. A high fiber content that aids digestion and promotes gut health, as well as helping you feel fuller longer. With a mild, nutty flavor, hemp seeds blend seamlessly into smoothies without overpowering other ingredients. Our Creamsicle smoothie (mango, orange juice, hemp mylk) could easily be mistaken for a mylkshake but using hemp mylk turns it into a sweet treat that is also balanced in fat and protein, high in fiber and won’t cause large fluctuations in blood sugar. Feeling like more serious nutrition? Try out the Energy smoothie (blueberries or strawberries, pomegranate juice, banana, and hemp mylk), same great balance as the creamsicle but give your brain a boost with extra antioxidants found in berries.

With so many people looking for dairy free alternatives we decided that hemp seeds would make a great addition to our plant based smoothies without taking over the flavour. Interested in making your own? Try blending 1/2 cup of hemp seeds in 1 litre of filtered water for 1 minute, it can be that simple. For a smoother drink on its own we recommend straining through cheesecloth or a nut milk bag for best results.

For a variety of plant based no sugar added whole foods oriented smoothies check out our menu at urbanforestbistro. ca or come by 23 Kenneth Street, downtown Duncan, Monday - Friday 9am-5pm, Saturday 9am-3pm, and Sunday 10am-3pm.

Submitted by Jessica Howarth

Enjoy This Sunshine Filled Season, Steeped In Nature

WMarketing

e all have something that makes summer feel like it has officially arrived; for us at Westholme Tea Company, it is a refreshing cup of iced tea!

Iced tea can be a wonderful way to stay hydrated in the summer season.

The possibilities are endless, whether choosing a tea or herbal infusion; keep it classic and pure, add your favourite seasonal fresh herbs or fruits, drop in honey or maple syrup, craft your own homemade tea infused simple syrup or create iced lattes by pouring over tea ice cubes!

You can ice any tea you would like, but we recommend the following:

HERBAL TISANES

Crimson - tart and sweet

Honey bush - hints of honeysuckle flowers

Pure Spice - for a decaffeinated chai option

BLACK TEAS

Bengal - a rich smooth sip

Black Raven - bold and beautiful Masala Chai - steeped in tradition

GREEN TEAS

Green Dragon - well rounded green tea

Matcha - healthful grassy cup

Sweet Morocco - (or Morocco) fabulous minty delight

• more sustainable fashions

• more natural make up

• more body products

• more mens products

• more natural pet supply

We wanted to share our favourite recipes for inspiring your perfect iced tea!

Hot Brewing Method:

Prepare as you would using your preferred method for brewing hot tea using 1.5 x the amount of loose leaves you normally would. Allow the steep to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate or, prepare as you typically would for hot tea, but pour over plenty of ice immediately. This pour over method requires 2 x the

• more healthy snacks • more natural bulk foods

• more cleaning products

• more vitamin selection

• more household for YOU!

amount of tea.

Store in the refrigerator and enjoy within 3-4 days

A great tip for preparing in large quantities is to make ice cubes from tea. This allows for keeping tea chilled without diluting flavour.

Alle, Westholme Tea Company Communications +

Looking To Up Your Salad Games

Are you looking to up your salad game? One of my favourite summer culinary experiences is freshly harvested greens from the garden, drizzled in a balsamic dressing, fresh herbs and crumbled feta. An artfully crafted salad mix has a blend of colours, textures and flavours. Spicy arugula, the nutty flavour of purple mustard greens, and the soft buttery green lettuce leaves. At the Farm Hub, we feel that we are coming close to perfection with our salad mix. This June, we are

offering a behindthe-scenes workshop opportunity to learn how we make our famous market salad mix. We will give you a tour of the farm, talk about the varieties of greens we use, introduce some of the edible flowers and herbs, and walk through the whole process from selecting seeds, seeding, harvesting, and processing. We will talk about the way that a salad mix changes over the season, and discuss early season greenhouse growing, and extending your greens season into the fall. The workshop will conclude with a salad tasting, featuring local olive oil and balsamic from the Olive Station! Workshop cost: $15, and includes a bowl of salad. To register for the workshop, please email hannahsophia@ cowichang reencommunity.org

Hannah Auer is a community organizer, grateful to be living on Quw’utsun territory.

CTamra N., Cultivating community through local agriculture at Cow-op.ca

ow-op is turning 10 this year, and we are celebrating a whirlwind decade of supporting local farmers and sustainable agriculture. The “Cowichan Valley Co-operative Marketplace” (CVCM) is a producer-owned cooperative that provides a platform for farmers and food producers to sell their goods directly to consumers. As we take a look back on our growth over the last 10 years, we want to extend our gratitude to the consumers and producers that have kept our local food scene alive and thriving through it all.

Celebrate with us!

2024 Harvest Table Fundraiser

Join us this October at Birds Eye Cove Farm as we feast on the best of the year’s harvest. Together with member partners, Cow-op is curating an unforgettable evening and you’re invited! This extravagant evening of culinary delights will highlight the finest Cowichan Valley producers and products while supporting the long-term sustainability of our vital local food co-operative.

Where it all began

Cow-op.ca started selling its first products online in early 2015 and operated for several years from the back of Cowichan Green Community’s offices in downtown Duncan.

Growing Together - Celebrating 10 Years In The Cowichan Valley

original leadership Heather Kaye and Derrick Pawlowski (photo taken 2019 at Hope Farm)

By 2017, a second pickup location in Victoria was established, and Cow-op’s membership had grown to 50+ members, including some of the most beloved Valley farms like Providence Farm, Lockwood Farm, and Boots n Roots Permaculture Farm.

Over the next two years, Cow-op rebranded, gained access to a refrigerated delivery van, expanded operations,

published a popular cookbook, and said goodbye to our original Market Manager, Heather Kaye.

An unexpected twist

And then, in 2020, the pandemic hit. By April 2020, farmer’s markets and grocery stores were shut down. During the pandemic, Cow-op’s online ordering became an essential service and a lifeline for farmers, and we quickly pivoted to offering home delivery service. Two more pick up locations were added, we rallied an army of volunteers and staff to help keep local food moving every week.

Where are we now?

Today, Cow-op has become a cherished asset in the community. Things may have calmed down after the pandemic, but we haven’t stopped doing what we do best: connecting local consumers directly to local producers. Each week we provide a growing selection of the freshest local food, direct from over 80 Cowichan Valley farmers and food producers to customers.

Your Support Matters

Did you know that 5 major Big Box retailers hold nearly 76% of the Canadian grocery market share? As a non-profit cooperative we are proud to offer an alternative to shopping at chain grocery stores and empower consumers to make choices that align with their values.

We are all feeling the pinch of inflation and it’s more important now than ever to keep supporting the small businesses and farmers within our community. Ordering weekly groceries from Cow-op. ca not only keeps your dollars local, but also gives you access to the freshest and highest quality products around.

Join Us

Help us celebrate our milestone anniversary, and support local food security for the decade to come, by purchasing tickets to the Harvest Feast Fundraising Gala, to be held in October 2024 at Bird’s Eye Cove. To reserve a spot, and for more information, contact laura@ cow-op.ca

FARMSHIP

GROWERS COOPERATIVE FARMERS: Cooperative YELLOW POINT

Farmship is a group of farmers growing cooperatively on a 50 acre family farm in Yellow Point. We use growing methods that respect the land, the water, our pollinators and other beneficial beings. Good soil, compost, water and sunshine are the main ingredients we use. If our plants need extra nutrition we use OMRI compliant supplements in our fields. We offer varied nutritious locally grown fruits and vegetables for your household. We celebrate 11 years of CSA offering. We grow 60 different crops from asparagus to zucchini, enough for a varied seasonal diet. Option of 3 free pick-up locations or Delivery for a fixed $6 fee. Summer CSA 14 weeks - Fall CSA 14 weeks (28 weeks total) Harvest box $25 per week Bounty Box $35 per week www.farmship.ca/shop for details.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FARMS WITH COMMUNITY

Tattam Valley Farms FARMER: Brian Tattam GLENORA

I farm a 1/2-acre plot of land on my family farm in the Glenora area of the Cowichan Valley. The produce is grown with no chemical fertilizers or pesticides. I have farmed and expanded my crop selection over the last six years. Fresh and local vegetables are always the best choice. I do extra field tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans for customers who like to preserve tomatoes, sauces, and pickles. The Cost of your CSA is between $300.00$550.00. CSA program runs from late June to mid-October (about 16 weeks).

To sign up, please contact Brian Tattam at: tattamvalleyfarms@gmail or message me at: www.facebook.com/ tattamvalleyfarms/

GLENORA FARMS FARMER: Kandis (Garden Manager) and Glenora Community GLENORA

Glenora Farm is a 100 acre biodynamic farm running agricultural and therapeutic arts based day programing and residential support for people with diverse abilities. Our 2-acre certified organic vegetable garden feeds the residents of Glenora Farm. Surplus veggies are sold to the local community to offset the costs of and improve our day programs.

A weekly variety of mixed vegetables harvested, washed and packed by the community members of Glenora Farm. 11 weeks, $30/week gardener@glenorafarm.org

We offer a ‘You choose CSA’with pick up at the Duncan Market. Veggies also available at the Glenora Store and online at www.cow-op.ca.

Boots ‘n’ Roots Permaculture www.bootsnrootsfarm.com

Do you want to eat tasty, locally and sustainably caught salmon and help support local fishermen involved in sustainable fisheries? My name is Guy Johnston. I have been a fisherman for over 40 years. I use hook and line to catch salmon, a low impact commercial fishing method. A community supported fishery is direct fair trade between fisherman and consumer. As a member of a CSF you get the West Coast’s highest quality seafood at prices fair to both members and fishermen. Choose from whole or filleted Coho and Pink salmon shares. Also available limited shares of salmon roe. As a CSF member you will connect directly with the local fishing community and have healthy and sustainable seafood year round. 2024 membership shares are filling up fast, to make sure you get a share sign up soon. $200 per salmon share/$50 salmon roe share. Visit our website www. michellerosecsf.com for more information or contact us by email mrfishing@telus.net.

SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE

LOCKWOOD FARMS FARMERS:

Cammy & James

Lockwood

COBBLE HILL

We take pride in growing high-quality vegetables in a sustainable, ethical manner. From crisp greens and succulent fruits to fragrant herbs, every harvest reflects our dedication to responsible farming practices. We are so thrilled to be sharing the bounty of our land with the community this year via the Lockwood Farms CSA program! Our members will get to taste what we love to grow; large lettuce heads, colourful root vegetables, heirloom tomatoes, winter squash and much more! We ensure diversity so our members can try produce they may not have had before, gain knowledge of local farming practices, get recipe ideas via our weekly newsletter, & connect with us. Pick-up and Delivery options available both in the Cowichan Valley and Victoria. 22 weeksFrom the week of May 12th until Thanksgiving! 3/4 share (feed family of 1-2 people):

$660 ($30 a week) Full Share (Feed family of 3-4 people): $924 ($42 a week) Add a doz.Eco egg for $187 for the season.

lockwoodfarms.ca

3/4 share (feed family of 1-2 people): $660 ($30 a week)

BOOTS N ROOTS

Full Share (Feed family of 3-4 people): $924 ($42 a week)

PERMACULTURE FARM

FARMER:

With an Ecoegg dz: an additional $187 for the season

Kelly Raye GLENORA

Boots ‘n’ Roots works really hard at building a healthy, vibrant soil with lots of beneficial microbes, resulting in some of the most nutritious food in the Valley. Healthy soil results in healthy plants and healthy people. BNR is one of the few naturally grown market garden farms in the Cowichan Valley that practices true Permaculture techniques. This is a step up from traditional organic, and is the most sustainable and regenerative way to grow our food! We never use tractors or other heavy machinery, and practice a ‘no till’ method, where a lot of effort is put into creating a healthy soil food web - loaded with beneficial micro-organisms, fungi, and minerals. We make all our compost and fertilizers from scratch right here on the farm. We grow over 30 different veggies, herbs and berries Our CSA program is a ‘You Choose’ model, which works like a reloadable card. You get what veggies you want, when you want them! Great for people who would like to have choices. We grow 12 months a year, so veggies are available year round! www.bootsnrootsfarm.com

250-710-GROW 22 weeks CSA

May 12 - Thanksgiving

1-2 people $30 a week

3-4 people $42 a week

*add Eco Eggs $187/season

www.lockwoodfarms.ca

We grow plenty of them!

Thrill of the Grill

Much of our modern attention to fire comes with concerns about forest fires and global warming, It appears we have always had a complex relationship with fire.

When I think of our far off ancestors, I can imagine them huddled around a fire, breathing in the smoke and happily anticipating the taste of food fresh from the flames. Some things haven’t changed much. Today there is still something about the effects of heat and smoke that transforms food into works of art.

I’m not necessarily talking about meat here (although yes that does leap into your mind). Some of my favourite vegetables are elevated into something truly wonderous when cooked on a grill. Many common vegetables,

like potato, carrot and onion and peppers are some of my foundation products to create a great grilled dinner. Grill technology has also evolved. One of the major additions to our deck was the acquisition of a pellet smoker. It is the same technology developed for home heating pellet stoves and adapted to a smoker/ grilling platform. The effect is a combination of a smoker and a convection oven. The smoke produced is relatively clean (pulsed out in small doses) and the airflow allows heat to circulate very efficiently, cooking quickly without charring. This makes the food delicious and cuts out quite a few of the health downsides of charring food over traditional fuel grills. We use it for vegetable, fish and of course meats and sausages. As this style of grill becomes more popular you are starting to see it spread out through the country.

Summer is here and nothing beats fresh local food: vegetables, fish (especially salmon) and pretty much every kind of meat cooked on a BBQ (no matter what kind!). Grilling is the perfect choice for warm weather entertaining, a communal activity that brings smiles to faces and another amazing way to celebrate the food of the Cowichan Valley.

Bill Jones is a chef, author and food consultant based at Deerholme Farm.

Japanese Grilled Salmon

Courtesy Bill Jones, Deerholme Farm

You can use any type of salmon for this dish, Spring and sockeye are excellent, but so are less varieties like pink and chum.

Ingredients

1 side salmon (pink, chum, or others)

Salt and pepper

2 green onions, finely minced

2 Tbsp mayonnaise

1 Tbsp minced ginger

1 Tbsp miso

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp wasabi paste (or more to taste)

1/2 tsp sesame oil

sesame seeds for garnish lemon juice

Directions:

In a small bowl, mix the onion, mayonnaise, ginger, miso, soy sauce, wasabi and sesame oil.

Place the salmon on a grilling rack (I use a stainless cooling rack on my bbq. You can also use a cedar plank for a smokey flavour. I leave on the skin and cut into the salmon across the width, down to almost the skin. Spread the sauce over the salmon and allow to penetrate the cuts of the salmon. Place the rack on a hot BBQ.

Cook for about 20 minutes or until the flesh is firm. Press a finger onto the salmon to test doneness, the firmer the salmon the more it is cooked. I like it to be medium cooked and it will flake gently under pressure but still be moist.

Remove from the grill and transfer (using a long spatula) onto a serving plate. The skin should easily separate from the salmon flesh. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds and a squeeze of lemon and serve warm.

Holocene Distilling Presents... Sweet Tease Liqueur

Introducing our new Sweet Tease liqueur! We make it with byproducts from other local businesses. Do you know what cascara is? It’s the crimson husk of the coffee bean that is regularly discarded during the coffee production process. This husk has a sweet, fruity taste with notes of hibiscus, rose hip, cherry, and even tobacco. The cascara comes from a family-run, organic farm in Costa Rica, and is brought in by Morningstar Coffee in Langford along with their beans. We use it to make a tisane (similar to a tea, but without tea leaves) then we add a hint of lemon zest thanks to the peels we source from Good Life Juice in Nanaimo after they’re done with their delicious juice-making lemons. The flavour depth of the coffee husk coupled with lemon makes for one smooth and refreshing liqueur - perfect for anyone with an appetite for iced tea. It’s exceptional over ice on a hot summer day, swinging life away on the porch. To add a little more punch, try this out:

Porch Swing

In a rocks glass with ice, top with 1 part Wheat Whisky 1 part Sweet Tease Garnish with lemon

We run our grassroots distillery with the goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2030. This means we’re continuously developing innovative systems to harness, store, and repurpose energy generated during the distillation process. Beyond mechanical systems, we are passionate about collaborating with other small businesses and strengthening our community. We like to partner with local businesses to create unique products, such as working with Two Crows Mustard to make distinctive jellies and marmalades using our spirits. Local talent, Amanda Key, designs our Mixbehave labels, and we proudly brew Westholm Tea for our Lady Grey liqueur. If you’re interested in collaborating on a project, we’d love to hear from you! Email us at hello@ holocenedistilling.com

Sweet Tease can be found every Saturday at the Duncan Farmer’s Market or select liquor stores listed on our website, holocenedistilling.com

Dorian Redden

Marinated BC Spot Prawns

Courtesy Grant Easterbrook, The Olive Station

Ingredients

1 lb peeled, deveined Spot Prawns

3 Tbsp Persian Lime Extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 Tbsp Coconut White Balsamic Vinegar

1 Tbsp Thai Sweet Chili Sauce

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper Extra drizzle

Directions

In a medium size bowl mix together the olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, sweet chili sauce, salt and pepper. Add shrimp & stir to coat. Cover the bowl and set in the fridge to marinate for 1 hour.

Heat a medium sized skillet on medium high heat. Pour the shrimp and sauce from the bowl into the hot pan. Cook until shrimp are pink, about 5 minutes. Serve over rice, with lime wedges.

*Repeat directions for marinade and simply drizzle over prawns and rice

ON SITE BARBECUES AT THESE LOCAL PARKS

GLENORA TRAILS HEAD PARK

The Glenora Trails Head Park is an important eastern gateway to the Cowichan River Provincial Park, the central portion of the Cowichan Valley Trail (part of the Trans Canada Trail), the Cowichan River Footpath and Glenora Riverside Park.

The park features a reservable picnic shelter with seating for up to 60 people, and charcoal briquette BBQ pits (rental groups must bring their own charcoal briquettes). The shelter is adjacent to the public washroom building and the playground.

BRIGHT ANGEL PARK

Walking along tranquil, forested trails with the stunning Koksilah River flowing under the Cowichan Valley’s most popular suspension bridge, it’s not surprising that Bright Angel Park, located in beautiful Cowichan Station, is one of the most popular well-visited parks attracting 80,000 visits annually. Families with young children enjoy the playground and open grassy areas while park visitors wanting to cool off on a hot summer day can find a shady spot along the river.

Cultivate Dad’s green thumb this Father’s day with a unique gift from TREEFROG TROPICALS. Top picks for dad; Bonsai trees and Carnivorous plants. Indoor and outdoor varieties available.101-373 Coronation Avenue, Duncan www.treefrogtropicals.com

Award winning AMPERSAND GIN brings together BC-grown wheat with seven cultivated or wildharvested botanicals and our own spring water. Dad will love it! www.ampersanddistilling.com

WESTHOLME TEA COMPANY

Celebrate Dad this Year of the Dragon with a wonderfully refreshing and decisive green tea full of vitality. 8350 Richards Trail, Westholme. Westholmetea.com

Treat Dad to a musical Summer experience! 40th ISLANDS FOLK FEST TICKETSI July 19-21 Enjoy 25 acts, 5 stages, food, beverage garden, artisan vendors and more! www.islandsfolkfestival.ca

SEA WENCH Men’s products at COMMUNITY FARM STORE Sea Wench Natural Shave Soaps, Beard and Hair Oil and Men’s Facial Oil. Make Dad’s daily ritual one without harmful parabens, or preservatives. 5380 Trans-Canada Hwy, Duncan (by the Brick) (250) 748-6227

Dad always needs a big handled mug! Large selection available at THE MUD ROOM CLAYWORKS handmade by potter Colleen Underwood in Cowichan Bay. 1725 Cowichan Bay Rd behind True Grain. www.cowbaymudroom.com

FOR FABULOUS COWICHAN DADS

HOLOCENE DISTILLING Dad will love our sweet tease liqueur! It’s the perfect addition to a glass of whisky, and we make it using byproducts from other local businesses. For more information visit holocenedistilling.com

WILD COAST PERFUMERY Award winning woodsy scents handcrafted in Cowichan Bay. Blended with over 20 essential oils, absolutes and resins. Truly natural. Open Wed to Sun, 1721 Cowichan Bay Road, Cowichan Bay www.wildcoastperfumes.com

REAL TOOLS SET by Moulin Roty FREYA SOPHIA WALDORF STORE

Great little budding builder set for your young one to work alongside with Dad. Woodwork patterns also available in store. Ages 6+ 5380 Trans-Canada Hwy, Duncan (by the Brick) (250) 597-4763

COWICHAN VALLEY AUTO DETAILING

Surprise Dad with a car looking its best and feeling like new with exterior wash and dry, interior wipe down and vacuum and window clean. Lots of extras to add on. Packages and pricing on website. 250 709-1990 www.CowichanValleyAutoDetailing.ca

MILL BAY MARINA This Father’s Day, give the gift of an unforgettable experience on the Historic Tall Ship Providence! 3 HR Cruises / Charter for your private group. Adventureco.ca

Rebalance and Energize with a Detoxifying Foot Spa Session

REIKI WELLNESS pamper Dad with a detoxifying Foot Detox Package or reiki session! Gift Certificates available Reiki Wellness at Valleyview Centre 250 743-8122 1400 Cowichan Bay Road, Cobble Hill www.reikiwellness.ca

Come to THE OLIVE STATION for delicious oils, vinegars and recipes to add to your perfect Father’s Day dinner or to gift to gourmet Dads. 225 Canada Ave Downtown Duncan www.theolivestation.com

MERRIDALE’s Whisky Jack’s: one of BC’s oldest craft whiskies, matured over 15 years. Final 100 bottles sold exclusively at Merridale. 1230 Merridale Road, Cobble Hill merridale.ca

TIGHT JOINTS WOODWORK

Cutting boards, Chef knives, butcher blocks, planter boxes, finish carpentry... We can make custom one of a kind treasures for all the great Dads in your life. 446 Jubilee St. IG: @tightjointswoodwork

LOCAL WINEMAKERS PAIRINGS FOR

A BACKYARD BBQ

UNSWORTH VINEYARDS

2022

Cowichan Valley

A light and vibrant expression of coastal Pinot Noir with a depth of flavour and complexity that impresses the most discerning of drinker. Aromas of cherry, dried strawberry with notes of dried leaves and subtle spice are complimented by flavours of dark cherry hallmark to Vancouver Island Pinot Noir. This wine will compliment any array of grilled local Spring and Summer vegetables. $39.90

EMANDARE VINEYARD

2022

On Father’s Day a lot of Dads will be reaching for that frosty cold beer. This Father’s Day, treat your dad to an extra special bottle of local Pinot Noir. Yes it’s complex, yes it’s ethereal, yes it’s evocative…… but for Dad, the best thing about this wine. Its chuggable! If you’re on the grill this Fathers Day. Pinot is perfection with whatever you’re cooking from cedar plank salmon, steak, lamb or your secret burger recipe. $40

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir

CLUB

YOLO: Live the boating lifestyle without the hassle of boat ownership

Conveniently located at Mill Bay Marina, join Club YOLO, our new membershipbased boat club that is both accessible and flexible. Here’s how it works: with a simple one-time membership fee and an affordable monthly payment, you gain access to our fleet of boats (see details below).

Bayliner VR5 - A comfortable boat for easy cruising, the Bayliner VR5 has plenty of seating, a roomy cockpit and all the essentials you need for a fun family day on the water.

Trophy T20CC - Want to try your luck at fishing or prawning? Then you need the right boat! The Trophy Center Console boasts a perfect “fishability” layout with plenty of room for your guests, your gear and your catch of the day.

Beneteau Antares 7 -

The Antares has plenty of indoor and outdoor space for entertaining and relaxing! The enclosed cabin makes for warm and comfortable year round cruising. Complete with a small galley, head and double berth.

Bridgeview Aluminum –

This boat is new to the fleet this season, an 18ft aluminum centre console. With its sturdy hull, it is ideal for fishing, prawning and beach exploration.

Members are required to have their BC Boating License and are provided with detailed orientations of each boat and how it operates. Our Marina staff take care of all the details so members can focus on having fun. From moorage fees to insurance, maintenance, and cleaning, we handle everything. All you have to do is show up and enjoy your day on the water.

Membership comes with a host of added benefits. As a member, you’ll enjoy a 25% discount on all AdventureCo accommodations, along with complimentary use of our kayaks, paddleboards, and e-bikes as well as access to the same fleet of boats at Port Sidney Marina. We have a few pet friendly boats and are adding two mooring buoys this summer for members to access, allowing them to tie up and swim.

It’s not just about boating; it’s about embracing the entire experience. After all, you only live once—so why not live it to the fullest with Club YOLO?

To learn more, visit us at Mill Bay Marina, go to our website (clubyolo.ca) or contact Ramona Coulombe at 250-252-6549 / ramona@mbmg.ca

Design and Installation

Co -produced with David Coulson Designs Photo credit Tony Colangelo

It All Began in a Garden

Three Stunning Summer Planter Ideas

June is upon us, and it’s the perfect time to jazz up your outdoor living spaces with some vibrant container gardens. Whether you have a sprawling backyard or a cozy little balcony, these three plant container recipes will add a burst of life and color to your outdoor area.

1. The Sun-Lover’s Delight

For those spots bathed in sunshine, this container recipe will thrive and instantly add some colour. Start with a medium-sized pot that is brightly coloured or white for a major contrasting impact. At the heart of the pot plant a Geranium. Its bold blooms in reds, pinks, or whites will be your showstopper. Surround it with sweet alyssum; their tiny white flowers not only add a delicate contrast but also a delightful honey scent. To finish, tuck in some trailing verbena on the edges. Its cascading blooms will drape over your container’s edge, creating a lush, overflowing effect. This trio loves the sun and will bloom profusely with regular watering and a bit of fertilizer love.

2. The Shade Retreat

Not all of us have the luxury of sun-drenched spaces - but not to worry, there are lots of plant

combinations for deep container to give greens and occasional blooms, it’s a perfect shade star. Next, add for its vibrant foliage in shades of ruby red,

Their mounded habit will fill in the gaps beautifully. Finally, add some English ivy at the edges. We always recommend keeping this plant in a pot to keep it well contained as it can spread easily. It’ll trail down your pot gracefully, adding depth and interest. This combo prefers a cool, shady spot where they can stay moist without getting soggy.

3. The Pollinator’s Paradise

Want to help out the bees and their friends while also crafting a stunning visual display? This pollinator-friendly recipe is both beautiful and beneficial. Choose a large container to give your plants plenty of space. Start with a Bee Balm, which is irresistible to bees and butterflies alike. Its tubular flowers in red, pink, or purple are not only a feast for the eyes but also for wildlife. Pair it with a Lavender, whose soothing scent will make your garden a fragrant oasis. Edge the container with some creeping thyme; its tiny flowers are a hit with pollinators, and it adds a lovely texture to the arrangement. This combination loves full sun and regular watering, and it’ll pay you back by becoming a hotspot for delightful garden visitors.

With these three plant container recipes, your garden will be a vibrant, thriving testament to your love for gardening. Each offers something unique – a burst of color, a serene green corner, or a buzzing wildlife hub.

Allysa Simmons. Old Farm Market Garden Centre

Bee Balm

Island Drone Services

Did you know that aerial drones can create photorealistic 3D models of buildings, landscapes and other real-world locations? The process is called photogrammetry, and it involves taking a series of photos from different positions and reconstructing them into a high-detail 3D ‘digital twin’.

A few weeks ago, I received a Parks Special Event Permit from the Cowichan Valley Regional District (CVRD) to perform the first-ever 3D drone scan of one of our most impressive local landmarks, the historic Kinsol Trestle,

which stretches 617 feet across the Koksilah River at a height of up to 144 feet. Drones aren’t otherwise allowed to fly at the Trestle, nor at any other CVRD parks, so I immediately started organizing for this unique mission.

I selected a high -tech micro-drone, weighing only 249 grams including its stabilized 4K camera; perfect for the large-scale yet intricate task. To keep it safely on course, I pre-planned several flight routes for it to automatically follow. Some sections would be flown at low heights overhead, in a grid pattern, while avoiding the surrounding old-growth trees. Other routes I designed to carefully scan up and down both sides of the bridge itself.

Flight planning I conducted twelve drone

flights over four days, starting with the autonomous sections and then flying the drone manually to some hard-toaccess areas for additional coverage. The mission captured almost 2400 photos overall, which I processed with a suite of specialized

software and prepared for final presentation.

Close-up view of the 3D model

The result is a highdetail 3D recreation of the Kinsol Trestle that documents its current status and provides a photorealistic reference model for the CVRD’s ongoing monitoring and planning operations.

You can check out the 3D model on the Island Drone Services website, or point your phone’s camera at the QR code in the ad to view it in augmented reality (AR).

Thank you very much to to the CVRD Parks & Trails Division for the opportunity to perform this project, and to the GIS Division for providing data for the pre-flight planning. Plus, a shout-out to everyone I met out there at the Trestle!

Andrew Jeffrey is the owner of Island Drone Services in Duncan, . He can be contacted at (250) 701-9931 and at www.islanddrone.ca.

Kinsol Trestle

Flight Plan

SOLAR LOANS AVAILABLE FROM VIRIDIAN SOLAR CO-OP

More than a unique and thoughtful home improvement project, a solar installation from Viridian Solar Co-op offers long-term benefits that fathers would appreciate such as: energy independence, reduced electricity bills, and making a positive impact on the environment. Perfect for dads who enjoy new technologies or those passionate about renewable energy. Going solar is a practical investment that enhances property value and provides a powerful example of responsibility and forwardthinking.

most of this eco-friendly idea:

Assess Your Space: Ensure that your home’s roof is suitable for solar panels, with enough exposure to sunlight. Understand the Incentives: Explore local subsidies and federal tax credits available for solar energy installation to maximize savings.

Choose the Right System: Decide between grid tie, battery backup, or off-grid systems based on your energy needs and property location.

Professional Installation: Use a certified installer to ensure your system is set up efficiently and safely. Empower that special dad in your life with the tools to make a lasting difference in creating sustainable energy. Solar loans - $40,000, at 0% interest for 10 years, through Canada Greener Homes - ask us how. Contact Viridian Solar Co-op for your FREE assessment today!

This 3.2 kW solar PV battery charging package was installed on a full time-off-grid property located on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

An 11.92 kW grid tie solar system installed in Cowichan

Submitted by Lynn June, Office Manager for Viridian Solar Co-op.

NATURAL HOME ACCENTS

LUXURY WOOD ACCENTS IN THE KITCHEN

When it comes to the kitchen of your dreams, luxury and comfort are key. One of the most important decisions to make, is what type of finishes

you want. While there are many to choose from, wood accent pieces can be a great option for several reasons. Wood has a welcoming and natural look that can enhance the appearance of any kitchen, making it appear warm and inviting.

Luxury kitchen furniture can range from a kitchen island or bar top, to a stunning dining table.

Live Edge Design specializes in solid wood furniture with a unique art experience for our residential clientele. We invite you to think beyond the edge with our custom luxury kitchen creations. Recently, Live Edge Design has expanded into this realm of furniture for the kitchen including bar tops with stunning resin work, custom breakfast nook creations and center kitchen islands. Luxury accent pieces made from wood can add texture, style and shape to modern kitchens.

At Live Edge Design, we work with you to design the perfect shape and size for your specific kitchen. The seamless look of a cascade island is a particularly strong choice for minimalist kitchens, allowing the wood to take the forefront visually. Wood in the kitchen can also bring many positive physical and mental effects. Many studies have shown that simply running your hand along wood surface triggers relaxation. Activity in the brain’s prefrontal cortex actually slows down and the nervous

system is activated, dampening feelings of anxiety or stress. These positive effects mimic how we feel when we spend time outdoors, exposing ourselves directly to nature.

If you are interested in a consultation about adding fine, luxury wood accent pieces to your kitchen, call Live Edge Design at 250-748-0763 or email info@liveedgedesign.com. This service includes site visits for measurements (if site is local), entire design rights reserved, and full client inclusion in the whole process. Live Edge Design typically works at a 10 week lead time for custom pieces. We are here to help make all your kitchen dreams come true. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Emily Lore, BID, CHS Marketing and Sales Associate at Live Edge Design

Maple burl kitchen breakfast bar top, Victoria

Selling Your Home in A Balanced Market

1. Look your best. 2. Price it right.

3. Time the market. 4. Get expert advice.

Ifyou are considering selling your home in the current market, consider that your home must look good and stand out from the rest. There are many property choices out there. Buyers will more likely go for the home that looks the best. If you are thinking of doing a bathroom or kitchen upgrade, now is the time to do it. Your yard should be tidy, tidy, tidy! First impressions like entryway sidewalks, doors and street views matter. Definitely declutter the interior. Remove your personal items such as photos and minimize art work. It should be empty enough that a new owner could visualize it as their own.

Price your home to sell. Pricing a home at a premium works best in a Seller’s market. When competition is high, as it is now, price your home to compete. It will save you the grief of future price reductions, many more days of being on the market and more days

keeping it ‘show home ready’. Decide when the best time is for you to present your home. When can it be the best home for sale in your neighbourhood? If there are many homes for sale nearby that are similar, wait until they sell. If there are pricier homes in your neighbourhood and you can price yours at a lower price, your home will look more appealing! If you are the only home on the market in your area, then there will be less competition.

Get expert advice. An experienced realtor who wants the best scenario for you and your home sale and will help you with all the above. Don’t just list and hope for the best, when you can do better!!

Contact Vida Glaser for expert advice to best present your home to the open market.

966 9177

a

Vida Glaser is

REALTOR with Pemberton Holmes working and living in the Cowichan Valley. 778

working years, the amount you contributed to CPP, how many years you contributed, and the age at which you start receiving your CPP retirement pension.

One of the most common sources of retirement income for Canadians is the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), a taxable monthly benefit that is intended to replace a portion of your income when you retire.

We have put together a list of the top five questions we receive about CPP.

1. How do I qualify for CPP retirement benefits?

To qualify you must be at least 60 years old and must have made at least one valid contribution to the CPP. To begin receiving a CPP retirement pension, you must apply through your My Service Canada account as CPP retirement benefits are not automatic.

2. How much CPP retirement benefit will I receive?

CPP retirement benefits vary from one person to the next. The amount of your CPP retirement pension depends on several factors, including your earnings during your

For 2023, the maximum monthly amount you could receive if you start your pension at age 65 is $1,364.60. However, very few people receive the maximum, and the average monthly CPP retirement pension (at age 65) in October 2023 was $758.32.1

3. Are CPP benefits taxable?

Yes, CPP disability, retirement, post-retirement, children’s, and survivor’s benefits are fully taxable as income with no preferential tax treatment. The CPP death benefit is also taxable in most cases.

4. When can I start to receive CPP retirement benefits?

The normal start date for receiving CPP retirement benefits is age 65. However, you can begin receiving CPP as early as age 60, or as late as age 70, or anywhere in between. If you start receiving your CPP retirement pension before age 65, your payments will be reduced by 0.6% each month (7.2% per year), up to a maximum reduction of 36% at age 60.

5. What happens to my CPP retirement benefits when I die?

#101-321

There are three types of CPP benefits relevant at death:

CPP Death Benefit –a onetime payment made to your estate (or other eligible individual) upon death. To qualify, you must have made CPP contributions for at least three years or one-third of the calendar years in your contributory period for the base CPP. The CPP death benefit is a single lump-sum payment of $2,500.

CPP Survivor’s Pension –a monthly payment paid to the legal spouse or common-law partner of a deceased CPP contributor. To qualify, the survivor must have been a legally married spouse or common law partner of a

deceased CPP contributor. CPP Children’s Benefit –provides a regular monthly payment to the dependent child or children of a deceased CPP contributor. The deceased contributor must have made sufficient contributions to the CPP, and the child must be under age 18, or under age 25 and attending (fulltime) a recognized school or university. The children’s benefit is a monthly flat rate amount of $294.12 for 2024, adjusted annually.

Kristy.Landry@ edwardjones.com

Do you know why Japan is one of the world’s leading countries in longevity?

Reasons for Japanese longevity include high-quality healthcare and a wellestablished healthcare system, relatively affordable medical costs due to the national health insurance system, easy access to hospitals, a high health consciousness leading to frequent health checkups, and the prevalence of a traditional healthy diet.

An essential component of Japan’s traditional food culture is miso. Just by continuing the habit of drinking one bowl of miso soup a day, it’s said to not only help prevent and improve lifestyle-related diseases but also offer various health benefits such as aiding in weight loss and promoting beautiful skin.

So, what is miso?

Miso is a traditional seasoning in Japan made by fermenting steamed soybeans with salt and koji, breaking down the soybean proteins. “Koji” is used in the production of traditional Japanese sake, shochu, soy sauce, miso, mirin, vinegar, and other products. Koji

Miso: A Japanese Tradition Made Locally at Neko Ramen

plays a role in converting sugars into alcohol and useful fermentation substances. While wine and cheese are also fermented foods, in Japan, miso, sake, soy sauce, and other products are made through fermentation with koji.

Japanese sake and soy sauce are highly regarded globally for their rich flavor, depth, and aroma, all born from fermentation processes in Japan.

Originally considered a luxury item cherished by

in fermentation due to temperature differences, and differences in appearance like red or white miso, have led to countless varieties of miso and recipes using miso.

While many ramen shops in Japan may use homemade noodles, very few use homemade miso. This is due to the extensive labour and care required in the process and the time it takes to mature. The warm climate of Cowichan Valley is suitable for miso making.

temples and the aristocracy, miso was rarely used as a soup base but rather as a condiment or medicine. Over the past 1300 years, it has evolved into a staple seasoning in Japanese cuisine. In various regions across Japan, miso with different characteristics is produced to match local ingredients, climates, food habits, and preferences. Factors such as the use of different ingredients like rice, barley, or beans, sweetness in warmer regions and spiciness in colder regions, variations

Neko Ramen offers a miso ramen made with homemade miso, without any artificial preservatives, taking two years to complete. In other words, it’s a special miso prepared with love from two years before Neko Ramen’s opening.

Please enjoy our homemade miso and Japanese ramen made with homemade noodles from this region with your lovers. Neko Ramen/s homemade preservative free miso is also available for purchase.

Neko Ramen 171 Canada Avenue, Duncan

Midori for Neko Ramen

The Duncan Garage has long been a cherished hub in the heart of the Cowichan Valley, serving up warm hospitality, delicious organic fare, and a welcoming atmosphere for over two decades. As the torch passes, we are thrilled to introduce ourselves as the new stewards of the Garage.

As longtime residents of the Cowichan Valley, we have a profound love for our community and a passion for providing exceptional culinary experiences and a safe space.

Together, we are committed to upholding the values that have made The Duncan Garage a cherished destination for locals and visitors alike. From our commitment to using locally sourced ingredients to our warm and welcoming atmosphere, we strive to honor Susan’s legacy while

With a deep appreciation for the legacy left by the previous owner, Susan, we are honored to carry on her vision and commitment to community nourishment. Susan’s dedication to sourcing local, organic ingredients and creating a safe space for connection and enjoyment has laid a strong foundation that we are excited to build upon.

As we embark on this new journey, we invite you to join us in celebrating the experiences, and connections that make The Duncan

forward to welcoming you into our space, sharing stories, and sharing meals together.

Cheers to new beginnings! Matt, Casey, and Brennan

Sands Funeral Chapel

Cremation & Reception Centre-Duncan by Arbor Memorial

Janice Winfrey Funeral Director

tel: 250-746-5212 • fax:250-746-7034 sandsfuneral.com/duncan email:sandsduncan@arbormemorial.com

187 Trunk Road, Duncan, British Columbia V9L 2P1

The joys—and frustrations— of writing

on memory, intuition, and imagination, writers and poets create possible realities that intrigue, entertain, and challenge audiences.

There are days I ask myself, ‘Why do I write?’ Wouldn’t it be easier to close my laptop and give up?

More than most vocations, writing is prone to bouts of selfdoubt. After all, as an author I am used to undermining every assumption with a question. Are my characters believable? Am I evoking settings in the minds of readers through my descriptions? Is there enough dramatic tension in my plot to draw them into its imaginary action?

And from a business point of view, I have questions, too. Authors are depressingly aware of how hard it is to sell a book— and getting harder in the age of multi-media, virtual reality entertainment. And how easy it’s becoming for anyone to ‘write a book’ in the dawning era of Artificially Intelligent literature.

So why keep at it? Why not type ‘The End’ mid-sentence and walk?

If my literary focus were simply a force of habit—in one incarnation or another, I’ve always been a writer—I might be able to kick it and find something else to do. But it’s more than that. The reason I continue writing is because my story isn’t finished. I haven’t experienced and expressed everything I can as an author; I’m still in the throes of self-discovery.

And that’s exciting.

This constant revisioning of my own ‘real world views’ and self-perceptions through writing is the dynamo that regenerates inspiration. To write compelling poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, authors take the givens of life and twist them in ways that entertain and challenge what is accepted as ‘normal’.

As the first reader of my own stories, I get to invent new, plausible worlds. And over time, those settings and scenes infuse my life’s experiences—they become believable and blend almost seamlessly into nonfictional memory and perception. It’s a process I want to share.

To answer the question, ‘Why do I write?’ I must first ask, ‘Why do people read?’ It’s especially important to answer those questions in an era when audiences can watch movies or play video games on their mobiles, almost anywhere, any time. Why bother reading when seeing and hearing is so much more immersive?

Because reading is a creative activity. A book doesn’t compel audiences to see, hear, think, and feel; it entices them into the creative act of translating words into imagined experiences. Each reading of a book is a new invention. Being the first to imagine what the words might say is, for me, a joyful calling. Despite the frustrations, I can’t not write

Craig Spence, Chemainus 250-208-3825

Drawing

44 Years; Thousands of Stories

Don Bodger

It’s obviously impossible to condense 44 years of work as a journalist into one article. There’s just far too many stories that will always stand out in my mind.

The majority of my career was spent with the Cowichan News Leader Pictorial, which closed in 2015. I started as a 20-year-old with the Ladysmith Chemainus Chronicle in 1979, and later years included brief stints with the now-defunct Duncan Free Press and South Cowichan Echo, as well as the Chemainus Valley Courier, where I served as editor from June 2017 until my retirement in mid-March of this year.

Sports was my primary field of coverage for a large portion of those years. Typical of small-town newspapers, I was also responsible for entertainment and community stories and profiles, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and the mandatory hard news coverage that was probably my least favourite of all the beats.

I was fortunate to interview the Cowichan Valley’s top athletes many times during the last four decades, including several Olympians.

Tanya Clarke-Young, now a chiropractor in Duncan, was a frequent interview subject of mine while she was en route to ski ballet fame, culminating in the Albertville, France, Winter Olympic Games in 1992.

Emily Zurrer grew up in little old Crofton and went on to glory in two Olympics for the Canadian women’s soccer team. I remember featuring her in the newspaper as Youth Athlete of the Week after she scored five goals for Crofton Elementary School in an elementary-level game where her high skill level became readily apparent.

Melanie Slade grew up in Cobble

For more than four decades Don Bodger covered news in the Cowichan Valley. He’s written up sports, theatre, features, hard news... any stories that needed to be told. He wound up his career with a Gold award for Best Feature in the 11,000 and under category at this year’s B.C. and Yukon Community Newsmedia awards. Now he gets to tell his story..

Hill and eventually played field hockey for Canada in the Seoul, South Korea, Summer Olympic Games in 1988. I followed her progress from high school after I began working for the Cowichan News Leader in 1983.

Getting to know these people as well as so many others and telling their stories of personal achievement became a passion of mine.

In a roundabout way, that led me to create a yearly list in the newspaper of the Cowichan Valley’s top athletes. It started out to include adults but eventually focused solely on youth.

In the year 2000, I compiled my list of the top 100 youth athletes of the year, expanding it to 101 for 2001, 102 for 2002, etc. It became a feature that was more popular than I could possibly have imagined, and people still mention it to me today and how much it meant to them.

In conjunction with that list, I started a banquet for the top 10 athletes each year with a luncheon, guest speakers (that included several Olympians), and awards that later expanded to the top 10 girls and top 10 boys for a great celebration with their families hosted at Shawnigan Lake School.

Some of those “kids” I included in that list are now in their 40s and 50s, but it stuck with them to be recognized. Many never turned pro or made the Olympics, but several went south of the border in their various sports on scholarships and excelled.

Field hockey player Crystal Poland of Duncan, for example, concluded her time at Northeastern University in Boston as the school’s all-time leader in career goals with 78 and points with 179.

Yes, Cowichan Valley athletes obtained some big-time results around North America and the world (and still do), and I was pleased to be getting those stories out to the public.

It wasn’t all about sports, as covering the theatre was always of interest to me. During my first year at the Chronicle, I enjoyed doing an in-depth report with numerous photos on the Chemainus Hospital Day show coordinated by community icon Sandra Heydon.

Things tend to go full circle, and while writing about the shows at the Chemainus

Continued at cvcas.ca/don-bodger

JUNE EVENTS

JUNE 7

Doors 6:30pm/Music 7pm

Spotlight Coffee House THE SLIEVES

Youth Art Show (ceramics) in lobby 5:30pm

Shawnigan Lk Com Ctr

JUNE 9 3:30-6 pm

Acoustic Jam

All instruments, skill levels (adult)

Elsie Miles Park Pavilion, Shawnigan Lake

JUNE 13/14 6:30pm

JUNE 15/16 2pm

Wizard of Oz

Shawnigan Kids Theatre Troupe

Shawnigan Lk Com Ctr

JUNE 21 7-10 pm

South Cowichan Music Jam

TURNIP THE BEET

Malahat Legion, 1625

Shawnigan Lake/Mill Bay Rd

JUNE 23 3pm

Summer Solstice

Community Singalong

Elsie Miles Pavilion guests

Cowichan Folk Dancers

TBA

Sampler Workshop (adult)

4th Saturday, watch for details on our website

Shawnigan Lake Com Ctr

Most activities are FREE for CSAG Members!

YEARLY MEMBERSHIP $15

FAMILY MEMBERSHIP $20

For more info contact: hello@ cowichansouthartsguild.com

Introducing Cowichan South Arts Guild’s Community Arts Caravan

With no permanent home for the past eight years, Cowichan South Arts Guild has made the most of creating connections with various organizations in the three communities it serves, offering arts programming in shared and rented spaces. Building community through the Arts is at the heart of CSAG’s mission, engaging all ages from seniors through to encouraging families to create together with their children. Outreach programming, such as the popular Community Arts Tent, coordinated in various locations by CSAG’s Inspire! Youth Arts, requires the transport of supplies to carry out activities as well as the additional effort of loading and unloading (and storing) equipment and materials between event happenings. Here then, begins the story of ‘Whimsy’

Imagine creating a practical solution and a delightful little personality, all in one ‘ready to roll’ custom built Art House! From humble beginnings as a vegetable/ plant trailer on the roadside waiting for someone to see her potential, this attractive and unique up-cycled Mini Mobile Gallery is already proving herself to be worth a long wait. After 2 years of imagining, planning, designing and reconstructing - ‘Whimsy’ our Community Arts Caravan has finally emerged - and she has an exciting role to play in Cowichan South Arts Guild’s future!

‘Springing’ to life just in time for the

Spring Equinox, many loving hands and minds have been part of Whimsy’s evolution. Much gratitude goes out to everyone involved, in particular builder Marek Olsen, who skilfully worked his magic to breathe creative energy & life into our vision, adding beautiful details and character to enhance the charm of our little Arts Caravan. Huge thanks also go to BC Arts Council for their approval of this unique project.

‘Whimsy’ our Community Arts Caravan will now efficiently continue to offer CSAG’s established Outreach programming at community events in the south end, including Cobble Hill’s upcoming Music In The Park series (FREE, 6:30 - 8pm every Thursday through the summer). You’ll see her at local events such as Earth Day celebrations, some school events, Art of Storytelling Festival (co-produced by CSAG/Museum), SLCC Fall Fair and Market (Inspired! Storytelling Nook), and the Guild’s annual Winter Lantern-making Workshop and Spiral Walk (one of four seasonal Community Singalongs hosted by CSAG). Keep your eyes open also, for ongoing Community Arts Caravan POP UP experiences as ‘Whimsy’ gives out Family Art Packages at various locations throughout the year, in and around Shawnigan Lake, Mill Bay and Cobble Hill.

The story of Whimsy has only just begun, and we are inviting you to be part of it! For more info visit www.cowichansouthartsguild.com

Submitted by Jennie Stevens on behalf of Cowichan South Arts Guild (CSAG).

The Heritage Museum in Mill Bay

The Heritage Museum, located in a former church constructed in the 1800s, is an opportunity for the whole family to see the changes that time has created in our lives, all with your own tour guide.

The family friendly ‘Times They Are A- Changing Exhibit’, features over a dozen hand crafted life size figures that bring history to life and offer an intriguing look into the past. A sure way to bring back memories and create new ones.

Each display in the exhibit showcases changes through the eras. Step back in time and relive Rock and Roll, The 50’s Diner, a rotary phone, the school strap and don’t forget the ‘Out House’. Imagine driving the Malahat Highway in the early 1900s when everyone drove on the left side of the road and there were no guardrails.

The ‘Then And Now Display’ features a look at what is

here today and what was there before. Brentwood College was once the Queen Alexandra Solarium, the Mill Bay Ferry used to be an old tramp steamer that sank at the dock.

See the 500 pound steel door, once part of a hidden basement vault and hear how it was rumored to house illegal liquor during Mill Bay’s rum running days. See beauty treatments of the past that took 6 hours and consisted of cow urine and caustic soda.

So much more to do. Listen and watch interviews of relatives of the area’s pioneer families as they tell stories of the past. Try guessing the Mystery Artifacts. Children and adults alike can play the ‘Guess

The Object Game’, and win prizes.

Admission is FREE and the museum is wheelchair accessible so bring the whole family. (Private weekday

tours are available by contacting h_pool@shaw.ca) Open Sundays 11-3

The Heritage Museum 2851 Church Way, Mill Bay. www.heritagemuseummillbay. com

Boys Definitely Allowed

If the Spool Yard were a treehouse (how fun would that be?) that would be our Welcome sign. While sewing has always been traditionally associated with women, it’s exciting to see more and more men becoming interested in learning to make their own clothes and gifts, pushing back against traditional gender stereotypes while moving toward sustainable lifestyles.

These “sew bros” (a term coined by Esquire magazine in the early days of the pandemic) are raiding thrift stores for fabrics, designing their own patterns and sharing their makes online, inspiring people of all genders to think carefully about where their clothes come from and to find original ways of expressing their personalities.

At the Spool Yard, we have seen this

shift in action. There was the gentleman who wanted to learn how to make himself a pair of loosefitting Thai wrap pants. They turned out so well he returned to make several more pairs in different colours! And the dad who came in one evening in a bit of a panic. He was trying to create a canopy of clouds above a child’s bed that model airplanes would fly through. He needed to finish it in time for his son’s third birthday and his mother’s sewing machine had just broken down. (Spoiler: he got it done!) Or picture a grandfather and granddaughter snuggling up close as they learn the basics of how a sewing machine works. The benefits go far beyond the practical.

Do you have a man in your life (maybe it’s you!) who might be curious about learning to sew? We have lots of great options on offer this month. In addition to our regular Adult Learn to Sew sessions, the Boxer Shorts is a popular one-day workshop that is perfect for beginners. The Dopp Kit class is a solid introduction to learning how to make a structured bag, ideal for toiletries and shaving supplies. And our monthly Alterations & Repairs workshop will teach you how to hem those pants yourself or patch up a favourite garment that has seen some combat.

If you’re looking for an imaginative Father’s Day gift, consider a Gift Certificate to encourage a unique father/ child bonding experience. You can also talk to us about Private Lessons to get expert help with a special project. Hope to see you at our treehouse soon!

Tanya Trafford is an instructor at The Spool Yard.

June 1 1-4pm Dopp Kit $105 June 1 10am-12pm Alterations & Repair Workshop $60

June 2 11:00am-3:30pm Elastic Waist Skirt $150 June 1,8,15 10 am-12 pm Quilted Wall Hanging $175

June 3, 10 2-4pm Knit Top $145

June 9, 16 11am-2pm Wraparound Jumpsuit or Dress $180

June 10, 17, 24 10am-1:30pm Workwear Jacket $295 June 17 2-7pm Slip-On Jumpsuit $175

June 13 12-3pm Dopp Kit $105

June 15 10am-3pm The Perfect T-Shirt or T-shirt Dress $145

June 15 3:30-6:00pm How to Read a Pattern I $75 June 18, 20, 25, 27 12-3pm Adult Learn to Sew $375

June 20, 27 3:30-5:30pm Fitted A-Line Skirt $175

June 22 3:30-6:00pm How to Read a Pattern II $75

June 23 11am-4pm Everyday Collared Shirt $155

June 29 10am-1pm Quilt Lovers’ Tote $95

MAPLE BAY YACHT CLUB YOUTH SUMMER

PROGRAMS

2024 SAILING PROGRAM SCHEDULE

Each course is offered a couple times during the summer

9AM to 3:30PM

1 & 2 (420) CANSail 3 & 4 (420 or laser)

“X” marks the week the Course(s) are offered. All program dates subject to change. For current information, see https://mbyc.bc.ca/sailing-school/

Cowichan Summer

YOUTH SUMMER SAILING CAMPS

Non MBYC members are encouraged and welcome! Registration is now open for beginner and experienced sailors interested in learning to sail. Instructors are all fully certified CANSail coaches. Safety is of the utmost importance. Your child must be able and willing to follow instructions in order to participate. Sailing is a waterbased activity – be prepared for your child to get wet! Programs offered this summer are: Opti Basic, Ages 8+, Opti Advanced, CANSail 1&2 (participant must be 110lbs or more) CANSail 3 & 4 ~ 420’s & Lasers. If they are under 110 pounds they will be in an Opti, if they are over 120 pounds they have the option to be in a Laser and/or 420. This may vary depending on factors such as height and the coach’s judgement. Camps run 9am3:30pm. Private Sailing lessons

youthcoordinator@mbyc.bc.ca or phone 250-815-6900. To register visit www.mbyc.bc.ca all Camps run out of Maple Bay Yacht Club, 6337 Genoa Bay Road, Duncan.

Wilderness Kayaking

Bring your friends and family to Maple Bay and try Sea Kayaking, Stand up Paddle Boarding or join in on a Moonlight paddle, Bioluminescence paddle or Harbour tour. Our Kayak Kids Camp ages 6-12 - an introduction to kayaking $155+tax July 8-11; August 6-9. Learn kayak skills

Wilderness Kayaking, Maple Bay

Youth Sailing Camp Maple Bay Yacht Club

Youth Sailing Camp Maple Bay Yacht Club

Camp Planner

and safety, basic weather interpretation, on-water games and more. For more information call 250.7460151 or email info@ wilderness-kayaking.com

KIN PARK KIDS CAMP is excited to bring another fabulous outdoor summer experience for children ages 6 – 10 at KinPark Youth Urban Farm on Alderlea Street downtown Duncan! Our goal is to teach children how to grow, harvest, and cook healthy food in a fun, hands-on, and engaging

opportunities to expand their physical, social and practical skills in order to live sustainably. These activities include growing, planting, harvesting, cooking, building, learning, and much more!

Camp runs from July 2nd to August 30th. Costs are $225/week or $60/ day ($180 for week of Canada Day and BC Day). Register in our reFRESH Marketplace on 360 Duncan Street, or go online for our registration form at www. cowichangreencommunity. org/program-directory/. For more information please call 250-7488506 or email camp@ cowichangreencommunity. org.

Maple Bay

Kin Park Kids Camp

Kin Park Kids Camp

COASTAL BLISS ADVENTURES/ COWICHAN BAY

KAYAKING summer kids and youth camps have been running since 2012 in

the Cowichan valley, with inspired children returning annually, with some progressing onto leadership rolls as instructors. Our Day camps provide a mixture of water and land-based activities

instruct-ional programs and journeying for the older groups in: Kayaking, canoeing, Stand-up-paddleboarding, as well as landbased outdoor activities such as shelter building, beach exploration, chart and compass reading and environmental stewardship. We are once again offering youth multi-day overnight paddle and hiking programs.

Summer Kids Camps

Register early online or contact us for more details. Programs fill up quickly! Programs are listed on our website Coastal Bliss Adventures Kids Adventures with for various age groups starting at eight years. To book contact Coastal Bliss at 1-800-896-9525 or by email coastalbliss@shaw.ca. Register online at www.coastalbliss.ca.

Coastal Bliss Adventures / Cowichan Bay Kayaking Summer Camps

Coastal Bliss Adventures / Cowichan Bay Kayaking Summer Camps

Coastal Bliss Adventures / Paddle Boarding and Kayaking

Camp PLANNER

COWICHAN ESTUARY NATURE AND SCIENCE DAY CAMP Calling all nature explorers Ages 5-9! Come and join us for our Science and Nature Summer Camps. We are excited to offer our popular five-day camps in July and August. Campers will learn about the birds, plants, and animals of the Cowichan Estuary and explore eelgrass meadows, clam beds, mudflats, and the beaches at Hecate Community Park. During camp, we will explore tide pools, do experiments and crafts, play games,

learn about watersheds and estuaries and their important role in our local ecosystems as well as get to know our Coho Salmon Fry in our freshwater aquarium, meet and greet the creatures living in our saltwater aquarium, play in the mud and many other age-appropriate handson activities.

Our small grouporiented camps of up to 12 students offer a safe, hands-on learning experience for children ages 5-9. Monday-Friday. Fee: $275/child. Registration links on our website: www. cowichanestuary.ca or contact camps@ cowichanestuary.ca.

Cowichan Estuary Nature and Science Camp

Cowichan Estuary Nature and Science Camp

Cowichan Estuary Nature and Science Camp

Cowichan Summer

Adventure is calling at CAMP QWANOES!

Jump into the adventure and let friendship fill each day! Experience a world of discovery all in a spectacular oceanfront setting with a staff team from around the world. All we need is you! Endless activity options! Choose from our giant floating Aqua Park, Airwalk Village, the Triple Biscuit, concrete skate park, wakeboarding, zip lines, archery, outdoor laser tag… Qwanoes Beach, our Challenge Course and Land Activities are ready and waiting.

All star games! Everyday is something wild and new… and everyone’s a star. Prepare for action and a bit of summer craziness…plus our legendary

night games.

Enjoy our band in “Q-Town,” counselors, the Tuck Shop, Ice cream Island, Shave Ice Palace, hanging out at Carpetball, everyday day’s a new adventure.

It all makes for an unforgettable week where kids are accepted for who they are by staff who really care. Experience the best of a Canadian west-coast summer! For more info call 250-2463014 or www.qwanoes.ca. Register soon as space is limited.

Camp Qwanoes

Camp Qwanoes

Camp Qwanoes

Camp Planner

WARMLAND DANCE is excited to be offering all-ages Summer Dance Classes, intermediate and advanced Technique Workshops, 5 fulldays Musical Theatre Camp, Dance Cirque with Aerial Silks (FREE WORKSHOP!), and Adult Cirque Fitness in July and August. All Summer offerings are in our downtown studios, 225 Canada Avenue, entry off Kenneth street, next to the clock tower.

Full-Day Musical Theatre Camp Details:

Theatre Camp

FREE Dance Cirque lntro (4-15y)

Step into the world of musical theatre! Performers will develop skills in acting,

singing and dance while working on a mini production. The week will end with a showcase performance for caregivers and friends. No previous experience necessary. Please pack a nutfree lunch and water bottle, and have your performer dress for the weather as they will be outside daily.

Ages: 7 - 15 years, August 12 - 16

Monday - Friday 9:00am - 3:00pm at The Hub at Cowichan Station. www.warmlanddance.ca

Dance

Aug 12-16 M-F 9am-3pm the

ONE DAY ONLY July 24 4-6y 12:45-1:30pm 7+ 1:30-2:30pm

Dance Cirque Workshop (4-15y) 3-days Aug 27-29 4-6y 12:45-1:30pm 7+ 1:152:30pm

Jumps & Tricks Workshop (7+/12+)

Turns & Kicks Workshop (7+/12+)

Preschool Dance (3-5y) Tap & Ballet

Mini Dance (5-7y) Tap, Ballet. Jazz

Beg/lnter Dance (7 +) Tap, Ballet, Jazz

Adult Beginner Dance Ballet Tap, Jazz

3-day Jul 23-25 Beg-Inter 10-11:30am Inter-Adv l l:30am-1:30pm

3-day Jul 30-Aug 1 Beg-Inter 10-ll:30am Inter-Adv ll:30am-1:30pm

$79-$99

S70-$90

S70-$90

3-week sessions thru summer Thursdays start @2pm $45/class per session

3-week sessions thru summer Tuesdays start @2:45pm $45/class per session

3-week sessions thru summer Thursdays start @3:45pm $45/class per session

3-week sessions thru summer Tuesdays sltart @llam $45/class per session

Adult lnter Dance Ballet. Tap 3-week sessions thru summer Thursdays start @llam $45-55/class per session

Adult Cirque Fitness July 3, 10, 17, Wednesdays 10:30-12pm $ll5

Adult Cirque Fitness Aug 7, 14, 21, Wednesdays l-2:30pm $115 www.warmlanddance.ca

www.theclayhubcollective.com

Aerial Silks, Warmland Dance

Musical Theatre, Warmland

Musical

(7-15y)

Hub at Cowichan Stn

$350

Hemp has been promoted as a solution to a wide range of environmental issues — as an alternative to petroleum-based plastics, resource-depleting cotton, polluting fossil fuels, energy-intensive building materials, forest-destroying paper products and more. It’s even considered a healthy food source for people and animals and can be used to make cosmetics.

Should the hemp hype give us hope?

Hemp has been used for fibre, food and medicine for tens of thousands of years and is thought to be one of the earliest cultivated plants. Today, “hemp” usually refers to cannabis plants that are low in the psychoactive ingredients tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol (THC and CBD), but any cannabis plant can be used for its fibre.

Much of the hype is true — although whether cannabis is a medicinal cure-all is a topic we don’t have space to cover here.

Hemp cultivation and use were hampered in the early 20th century in North America and elsewhere. Largely because of racist drug laws, growing it was criminalized in the United States in 1937 under the Marihuana Tax Act, and in Canada in 1938 under the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act. Industrial hemp cultivation and production were legalized in Canada in 1998 and in the U.S. in 2018, leading many to reconsider its benefits.

Hemp fibre has numerous advantages over other materials, including cotton. It can also be used to make packaging and building materials that are more environmentally friendly than petroleum-based plastics and other materials, and it can be converted to fuel.

Many of hemp’s advantages are in how it grows — a reason it’s often called “weed.” It’s fast-growing and doesn’t require a lot of water or space, and has properties that can reduce the need for chemical herbicides

and pesticides. Its deep root systems store carbon from the atmosphere, prevent erosion and replenish soil nutrients after harvesting. It can also be used for cover crop as it can remediate contaminated soils and prevent weeds, nematodes and harmful fungi.

Cotton uses about 50 per cent more water than hemp to grow, and about four times as much when processing is included. Hemp can also produce about twice as much fibre per hectare as cotton. According to a study by researchers in Bangladesh, “Hemp fiber cultivation requires about 77.63 percent less cost in fertilization, seeds, field operation, and irrigation costs than cotton, the most recognized natural fiber.”

Cotton has a few advantages over hemp, but they’re not major. Cotton is softer and easier to process, although that means hemp is more durable. Hemp fabrics are also less colour-fast, wrinkle more easily and are more difficult to recycle. Hemp is also more expensive and requires a bit more energy to process, but its costs could come down as more enters the market.

High Hopes for Hemp?

fossil fuels, and is carbonneutral because the emissions it creates are offset by the carbon it sequesters when it’s growing.

Cost is also the main disadvantage to hemp bioplastic, but that’s partly because plastic made from fossil fuels is priced artificially low because the damage the industry causes isn’t factored in. Bioplastic made from hemp is biodegradable and much stronger and lighter than oil-based plastic, which doesn’t break down completely and is fouling our lands, waters and even our bodies. Hemp bioplastic has already been used for everything from packaging to car parts.

As for biofuels made from hemp, again, they’re far more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels — but also more expensive, for some of the same reasons. Hemp biofuels are mainly derived from oils in the seeds but can also be made from other plant parts and biochar. Hemp fuel is renewable, unlike

An added bonus: increasing decriminalization and legalization of psychoactive cannabis for recreational and medicinal purposes means a lot more cannabis hemp is being grown. Because the psychoactive cannabis industry mainly uses the buds, flowers and leaves, the fibre-containing stems and stalks can be used for other purposes, reducing waste. A win-win!

Overall, whether it’s used for fabrics, bioplastics, fuels, paper products or building materials, hemp has many advantages and few disadvantages. The biggest drawback, cost, will surely be reduced as more hemp is grown and more facilities are built to process it. It’s also far better for the environment than cotton, fossil fuels and tree-based paper products.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and cofounder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

DIY Mycorrhizal Fungi for Veggies

MAmy LuckMacGregor Certified Soil Food Web Laboratory Technician

ycorrhizal fungi are “obligate symbionts”, meaning that they need a host plant to survive.

Endomycorrhizal fungi, also called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi or AMF, are essential partners of 70-90% of all plant species, including the majority of the vegetables in your garden this year.

AMF don’t produce mushrooms. They propagate via underground spores, pieces of host plant roots, and viable hyphae. Sensitive to the heat and environmental factors in your compost (not to mention, lack of a host plant), and unable to survive passage through a worm, they are one type of fungi we don’t expect to find in thermal compost or vermicast, no matter how many roots you add to the mix.

Signs that your garden may be low in AMF include healthy proliferation of nonmycorrhizal plants (cabbage and amaranth families, mustards, sedges, reeds, lupins,

stinging nettle), increased weed pressure, vulnerability to drought, and roots coming up clean when you pull them. Seeing as AMF is nature’s way of providing plants with phosphorus, you might see signs of deficiency of this nutrient (older leaves and stems turn a dark green/purplish colour, plant will be stunted).

Luckily, there are ways to propagate indigenous AMF spores from the local environment that won’t break your budget and are probably way more effective than the lab-developed ones you find on the shelves anyway. I am still yet to find a product where the claims match what the microscope shows.

For serious vegetable growers, it is worth checking out the Rodale Institute’s Quick and Easy Guide: On-Farm Production of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungus Inoculum; you might want to start preparing your compost for this process now.

For the rest of us, Nicole Masters describes a method in her book, For the Love of Soil. About this time of year, go find

a host plant from a healthy ecosystem (a grass or forb), shake the soil from the top 10cm of its roots into a pot and then snip the roots into small pieces into the pot too. Add potting mix that is not high in/doesn’t have added phosphorus (these phosphorusgathering organisms are highly sensitive to chemical phosphorus fertilizer). Plant a warm season C4 grass such as corn, Sudan grass, or Paspalum spp. Tend it this season, allow to winter kill, and your pot of inoculum will be ready for next spring.

Wellness

Reiki Wellness

250 743-8122

Reiki, Foot Detox, Infrared, Acupuncture, Reflexology

Island Hellerwork

250 661-1687

Deep Tissue Bodywork, Somatic Transformation

Healthcare Services

Cobble Hill Dental

250-743-6698

Friendly, Family Practice We Welcome New Patients!

Resonance Hearing

250 743-3337

Life Changing Hearing Solutions

Food & Drink

Country Grocer

250 743-5639

Bakery, Meat, Seafood, Produce, Deli & Floral, Supplements

Cure Artisan Meat & Cheese

250 929-2873

Charcuterie, Cheese House Made Pates

Liquor Plus

250-929-1999

Wine, beer and spirits on the Upper Level.

Valley Health and Fitness

250-743-0511

Full service gym/classes Fitness

Close-up of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi connecting roots of plant hosts. Photo credit: Yoshihiro Kobae

Giving you back the luxury of time and a naturally clean

Providing professional, eco friendly cleaning services.

250 929 8381

www.cleanchoicecleaners.com

Licensed - Insured - Bonded

TWELVE MONTHS to zero waste

Stephanie Farrow & Krystal AikmanPlentifill Refillery & Sustainable Living Store

Ado is an organic gardener, foodie and father of three living in the Cowichan Valley. He holds a Certificate in Permaculture from Langara College, and is passionate about sustainability, food security, climate change and organic gardening.

Whether you need yard maintenance, or want to establish Edible Landscapes, Ado is a reliable, friendly and helpful person to work with. Services offered include: ~ Edible Landscapes ~ Yard Maintenance ~ Organic Garden Care Call or text for a free on-site consultation! 250.815.5789

Open: Monday - Friday 10am - 5pm Sundays 12 - 4pm

• 155 Craig Street, Downtown Duncan

Month six of our journey takes us outside to get dirty! Growing your own produce is not only fun and rewarding, but it’s also a simple way to reduce waste naturally. But we’re not going to chat about growing tips here, oh no, that’s definitely not my forte… instead, we’re going to reduce our garden garbage by simply buying less. I’ve rounded up 5 easy garden hacks using common household items, let’s go!

SALT ON YOUR TOMATOES

Epsom salts can be a handy gardening tool due to their magnesium and sulfate content, which can benefit plants in various ways. One effective use is to boost the growth and vibrancy of tomatoes. To do this, dissolve about 1 tablespoon of Epsom salts in a gallon of water and use this solution to water your tomato plants once a month during the growing season. The magnesium in Epsom salts helps enhance chlorophyll production,

which is crucial for photosynthesis and overall plant health. This can result in stronger, greener foliage and more robust tomato plants. Additionally, the sulfate aids in nutrient absorption, ensuring that your tomatoes receive the necessary nutrients for optimal growth and fruit production. This simple hack can contribute to healthier, more productive tomato plants in your garden.

BUBBLES FOR BUGS

Liquid castile soap can be a versatile and eco-friendly addition to your gardening toolkit. One useful hack is to create a natural insecticidal

soap spray to combat pests on your plants. To make this spray, mix 1 tablespoon of liquid Castile soap with 1 quart of water in a spray bottle. Shake well to ensure the soap is evenly distributed in the water. Then, spray the solution onto the leaves of plants affected by pests, making sure to coat both the tops and bottoms of the leaves.

CABBAGE SOIL TEST

Purple cabbage can be used as a natural pH indicator to test soil acidity or alkalinity. Simply boil 4-5 leaves in water for 10 mintutes, then let steep for 30 more minutes. Once the cabbage water is cool, pour it over a small soil sample in a container. After 30 minutes, observe any changes in color: if the water turns pink or red, it indicates acidic soil, while a teal or yellow-greenish color suggests alkaline soil. If the water remains purple-toned, your soil is neutral. This simple hack provides an inexpensive and eco-friendly method to assess soil pH, helping you make informed decisions about which plants are best suited for your garden’s soil conditions.

Bonus points, it’s also a fun science experiment with the kiddos!

NATURALLY WEED FREE

Vinegar can serve as a versatile gardening aid, particularly as a natural weed killer. Mix equal parts of white vinegar and water in a spray bottle and add a few drops of dish soap. Shake well and spray the solution directly onto weeds on a sunny day. The acetic acid in vinegar breaks down the cell membranes of weeds, causing them to wither and die. This method is effective for controlling weeds in areas like driveways, sidewalks, and garden paths. It’s ecofriendly, inexpensive, and doesn’t harm the soil or surrounding plants when used responsibly.

REPURPOSE FOR SLUG CONTROL

Old copper scrubbies can be repurposed in the garden as a natural slug deterrent. Simply unravel the copper scrubbies and place them around vulnerable plants or

Providing the Cowichan Valley with Raw Cold Press 100% Organic Juices & Nut Mylks NEW Bone Broths with Medicinal Mushrooms!

Available EVERY DAY at The Community Farm Store or WEEKLY online at cow-op.ca. Direct orders can be placed to hello@euphoricjuicery.com

garden beds where slugs are a problem. Copper creates a mild electric charge when it comes into contact with the slug’s mucus, deterring them from crossing the barrier. This hack is effective, ecofriendly, and provides a chemical-free solution to protect your plants from slug damage. Plus, it’s a creative way to give new life to old household items while

promoting a healthy garden ecosystem.

We hope these tips inspire you to have a look around your space to see if there are any other ways to reduce waste by using what you already have. And remember, if you run out of any of the ingredients that we mentioned they are available, packagefree, at plentiFILL (well, not the cabbage). Happy lowwaste gardening!

Summer Farm Market

Every Thursday in Duncan

Spring has officially sprung at the Cowichan Farm and Food Hub! Our team is busy seeding and transplanting in the nursery greenhouse, where we specialize in growing an interesting selection of vegetable starts, medicinal and native plants. We are always collecting unique varieties of seeds, and we are excited to share our locally grown plants with the community. We also grow seeds on site here, and have a collection of local seeds available for purchase here, including a selection of native wildflower seeds. This spring has also been busy in the field and in our two production greenhouses, where we grow a large market garden. The tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are all in the ground, and we are looking forward to a bountiful harvest this summer.

At the beginning of May, we started hosting our weekly farm market, where our seasonal produce is available for sale, every Thursday from 10am - 4pm at the Farm Hub (2431 Beverly St.) This year, we received funding from New Horizons Program for Seniors for our Elders’ Farm and Food Program, and we will be providing 25 local elders with $25 of produce weekly for the whole market season. We are so grateful to be able to share this fresh local produce with our community in this way.

As a team, we are all passionate about growing high quality fresh food, and connecting to this amazing community of local growers, homesteaders, cooks, and plant enthusiasts. The nursery is open Tuesday - Saturday, 9am - 4pm and Jan the “plant lady” is always happy to answer all of your gardening questions, tell you about her favourite varieties of peppers or the best way to deal with aphids, and share her favourite broad bean recipe. Come on down for a visit and meet your new favourite

Hannah Auer is a community organizer, grateful to be living on Quw’utsun territory.

In-Ground Worm Composting 101

OBentley Christie, Pacific Composting Co.

ne of the great things about vermicomposting is that it provides a unique opportunity to compost yearround indoors. What many people don’t realize, though, is that there is a fantastic outdoor vermi-opportunity during warmer times of year as well. One that allows us to harness the “power of worms” in a much more direct way, right in our gardens!

In-ground vermicomposting!

This approach takes advantage of the earth’s amazing ability to moderate outdoor climate extremes, while providing our plants with a much more direct line to the nutrients and growthpromoting compounds that make vermicomposting so special.

Basic In-Ground Systems

Simple worm composting pits and trenches provide a very easy and inexpensive option for testing out this approach in our gardens and

other outdoor spaces. One of the additional advantages of this choice is the flexibility of scale and design; you can truly build a system that’s perfectly suited for your own particular situation!

The only potential downside of these basic in-ground systems, is the reduced protection, which leads us to…

DIY Container Options

To provide your system with more protection from the elements, pests and predators, while still keeping things affordable, some form of DIY in-ground bin or bucket can be a great way to go! Our

personal recommendation for getting started is an in-ground bucket worm composter. Just make sure you choose a “food grade” container, and add lots of holes for drainage and worm migration.

Ready-Made Solutions

If you prefer a system that is attractively-designed and ready-for-action, you might consider Plastia’s Urbalive In-Ground Worm Composter. This is a compact (12 L) in-ground unit that has the

potential to boost fertility in all of your garden spaces. You’ll be up and running in a matter of minutes, and the ongoing care and maintenance is a breeze.

To learn more about simple in-ground vermicomposting solutions (and supplies) today, head over to PacificComposting.ca!

Plastia’s Urbalive

Why Building an Online Presence is Essential to a Successful Business

Technological progress is happening whether we embrace it or kick and scream our way into the future. It is changing how information is gathered, advancing science and healthcare, and transforming our social relationships and ability to connect to the world. In the last few years, there has been an increase in workfrom-home employment and a greater demand for the availability of products and services online. Businesses taking a digital approach to customer and client relationships are ahead of the curve by promoting their services and products to a much larger and more diverse audience.

Now more than ever, it is essential for businesses to establish a dynamic online presence through userfriendly websites and online social networking. As a frequent online user, I am more apt to purchase products and inquire about

services if a business is easy to find online and has a clean and simple website that provides necessary information in one or two clicks. The last thing I want to do is scroll through hundreds of posts on a Facebook page to look for answers. Don’t get me wrong. Facebook is great for networking and marketing. It is not suitable as a replacement for a business website. Oftentimes, it turns into a rabbit hole of distractions instead of representing a reputable business.

The first step to establishing a professional presence online should be a one-stop-shop website that contains all your business information, services, and products. Clients and customers should not have to navigate to another site, social media page, or external link to find out more unless they click on an ad campaign to get to your website. All arrows should point to your website. Social media is for marketing, networking, and building customer relationships. Your website allows clients and

Sarah Angell is a Virtual Assistant at Angell Web Solutions Inc., located in Mill Bay

customers to learn about your business, make contact, and engage in commerce. These digital platforms should complement each other and work together as a cohesive marketing network.

So, you have a business plan or a few loyal customers you obtained through the community and word-ofmouth. Still, you want to expand your reach, streamline your business operations, and establish yourself online.

What’s next?

Technology has simplified the business process with the use of organizational software, web-based applications, and cloud computing, yet navigating the Internet and the many digital technologies claiming to make our lives easier can leave us lost at sea. Do not fret! There are services available that can guide and assist you in understanding the digital world and save you time on

detailed tasks.

Virtual assistants are valuable assets you can add to your business processes without hiring a full-time administrative assistant. They are online gurus who can help you with everything from file conversions, image editing, web design, content writing, professional documents, online ad campaigns, social media management, data entry, and more. They are virtual secretaries a conference call away, and each has a unique skill set to cater to your business needs. You will be surprised how much you can accomplish with the help of an experienced virtual assistant so you can focus on building customer and client relationships.

www.angellwebsolutions.ca

Curious About a 1:1 Sound Healing Session?

IAdeline is an Energy & SoundHealer with a love and deep connection to Mother Earth

n a world where stress and anxiety are all too common, finding effective methods for relaxation and healing is essential. One such method gaining popularity is private sound healing sessions. This personalized approach to sound therapy offers numerous benefits, providing a tailored experience that can significantly enhance physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.

Sound healing is an ancient practice that uses sound vibrations to promote health and wellness. Practitioners employ various techniques, including singing bowls, gongs, tuning forks, and vocal tones, to balance the body’s energy, reduce stress, and facilitate healing. While group sessions have their benefits, private sound healing offers a unique, tailored experience. Adeline works on different levels and aspects, connecting with ancestral lineages to clear intergenerational patterns and what has been carried on in the family.

Private sound healing sessions offer a deeply personalized and potentially transformative healing experience. By harnessing the power of sound, these sessions can help you achieve greater physical health, emotional balance, and spiritual connection. Whether you are new to sound healing or looking to deepen your practice,

private sessions provide a tailored pathway to wellness and harmony. Embrace the healing sounds and embark on a journey to discover the profound benefits of this ancient therapeutic art.

The session begins with an initial consultation, where you share your intentions and concerns which helps in designing a personalized soundscape that addresses your specific needs.

As you lay down, Adeline weaves various sound healing instruments with her voice to create a symphony of therapeutic sounds. These vibrations work on multiple levels, promoting physical relaxation, emotional release, and spiritual alignment. The session ends with a debrief where Adeline may provide insights into your experience and suggest further sessions or practices you can do at home to continue the healing process.

Adeline Wholistic Healing has moved to Cobble Hill and will be accepting new clients on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays for 90 minute private sessions beginning June 1st. To celebrate this new step in her practice, we are offering a special discount of 25% for the first session in June. In addition to the monthly group offerings, a weekly intimate group session (maximum 8 people) will be offered at Taoh Wellness clinic in Cobble Hill. www.adelinewholistichealing.com

Healing with Hypnotherapy

HGermana Rovinelli, Certified Clinical

Hypnotherapist

CCH 30 years experience

ave you noticed any health patterns in your life that seem to have a common theme? Many of us have been challenged with a chronic emotional or physical condition that robs us of experiencing joy energy and happiness. It can be aches and pains, injuries, accidents, failed relationships, poor health, anxiety, depression, auto-immune disease to name a very few common problems.

We are often encouraged to accept a diagnosis or a label to make sense of our uncomfortable unwelcome condition or situation.

The upside is now we have a label, the downside is that we may resign and tell ourselves “ this is just the way it is, I have no idea why this has happened to me”. That’s part of grieving unpleasant news.

Germana Rovinelli CCH

Do you know that 97% of our physical, emotional and mental problems come directly from painful beliefs stored in our subconscious mind? That our beliefs that are often hardwired in childhood and or an unacceptable loss or trauma that becomes a type of elevator music that plays in the background of our mind. Think elevator music with a theme, this background unnoticed music fuels and creates our thoughts. How we filter and process the world our relationships with others and ourselves. This runs on autopilot all day, every day week year after year.

If our subconscious mind has accepted a painful limiting belief it will keep this belief alive as a self-fulfilling prophecy unless it’s corrected, cleared and healed.

Have you ever watched something good happen to someone and for a series of unfortunate events they seemed to end up in the same unpleasant life situation months or years later? Do you want to know why? It’s a painful belief staying active as a subconscious comfort zone.

Yes our subconscious mind has a comfort zone and if you carry a belief that (you’re not good enough, smart enough, you’re not safe, people won’t like you etc.) your thoughts will bath your system in those messages without you realizing it. The evidence will reveal itself in your health, mentally, physically, and emotionally.

There is hope. It’s good news…. Therapeutic Hypnotherapy can help you repair and reprogram limiting beliefs and improve your health, energy, relationships, income and personal happiness in as little as eight sessions. www.hypno4health.co

Inhale

the future...Exhale the past... Heartfulness

Yoga session in progress!

The International Day of Yoga this June 21st is an opportunity for people of all ages, faiths and backgrounds to come together and experience the transformative power of Yoga. The benefits of integrating Yoga into daily life promotes physical, mental and spiritual health which in turn can contribute to a more unified and peaceful world.

To celebrate this special day, Heartfulness Meditation invites you to a free relaxation followed with a meditation led by a Heartfulness instructor at the Duncan Public Library on Friday, June 21st at 4pm. In Sanskrit Yoga means ‘to unite’ with the divine within one’s self, balancing mind, body and spirit. Yoga is a holistic practice originating from ancient India that encompasses various physical postures (asanas), breathing techniques

(pranayama) which are preparatory steps leading to meditation (dhyana). Heartfulness Meditation is a modern spiritual practice rooted in the ancient tradition of Raja Yoga simplified for a busy lifestyle. Rather than focusing on controlling the breath or emptying the mind, Heartfulness Meditation is focusing on gently turning your attention inward towards the Heart Chakra. The emphasis is on gently ‘connecting’ and ‘experiencing’ the presence of the divine within the heart.

This deeply personal practice through Heartfulness Yoga’s simple set of practices, seekers not only expand and deepen the sacred divine connection within but also contribute to the collective healing and evolution of humanity.

“ The best gift you can give to the Universe is the gift of your transformed self ” Daaji

Kamlesh D. Patel, affectionately known as Daaji, is the spiritual guide of Heartfulness Meditation, practiced free of charge worldwide. Also is the renowned author of many best seller books, including the newly released ‘Spiritual Anatomy’.

Explore and experience the benefits for yourself of the Relaxation, Meditation and Cleaning techniques by visiting Heartfulness.org or

download Hearts app or contact me directly at skypil0t@telus. net (skypil0t with a zero) to book a free session and introduction.

Wishing you all a peaceful and rejuvenating Yoga month and looking forward to see you at the Duncan Library on Friday, June 21st from 4pm to 5pm.

Heartfully, Robert Boyle

www.adelinewholistichealing.com 438-928-9984

SPIRITUAL ANATOMY

Happy transformative journey inward and onward towards the best 2024 version of yourself! Inspiring book for your New Year’s resolution and beyond. Available locally at independent bookstores www.heartfulness.org

SOUND & ENERGY HEALING TOUCH

Bill C-64 An Act respecting pharmacare

Spring will transition to summer this month, we will celebrate the Solstice, and the final sitting weeks of the House of Commons will conclude. It will be a busy end to the spring session in Ottawa before I return to working from my constituency office, and I want to take a moment to celebrate the work done to create Canada’s first national pharmacare system.

In February, using the tools we have through the Confidence and Supply Agreement with the Liberals, my NDP colleagues and I forced the government to introduce a legislative framework for the next steps of universal pharmacare for Canadians. Decades of activism, commitment, and perseverance have helped us deliver Bill C-64 so that we can help Canadians look after their health without worrying about the cost. When I think of this moment, I remember those who fought tirelessly to lay the path to get us to where we are today.

We need a universal national pharmacare system in Canada because one in five Canadian families cannot afford their prescription medications. Many Canadian families are increasingly being forced to make difficult choices every

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month between food, rent, or medication. Canada is the only developed country in the world with a universal healthcare system that does not currently cover essential prescription medications.

The Liberals have promised pharmacare for three decades, and they’ve spent that same amount of time making excuses and going back on their word. Because we used our parliamentary leverage on behalf of Canadians, we are going to deliver the biggest expansion to universal health care in fifty years.

As the first step, the program is going to cover contraception and diabetes medications and devices free of charge for everyone who needs them. Now millions of people will get the birth control options they need without worrying about

what it will cost. Millions of Canadians impacted by diabetes will sleep a little easier knowing they don’t have to budget thousands of dollars to treat their lifethreatening illness.

On May 7th, we successfully defeated the Conservatives’ attempts to block this historic change, as Bill C-64 completed Second Reading and was referred to the Standing Committee on Health for study. We’re working hard to make sure the bill is passed through Parliament and signed into law by the end of this month.

Everyone in Canada should have access to prescription drugs based on their need and not their ability to pay, and delivered in a manner that is fair and sustainable. As your MP, I’m working hard to make this a reality.

Ricki Weissbach, DHP

Denise Vanderlee, DHP

Alistair MacGregor MP for CowichanMalahat-Langford. NDP’s Critic for Agriculture and Agri-food and NDP Caucus Chair

Relief From Headaches!

Dr Joanne Welham is a Chiropractor with a special interest in cranial and TMJ adjusting.

“You don’t understand.” She told me upon checking in. I waited to hear what she meant.

“You don’t understand.” She repeated.

“You were my last stop. I’ve tried everything else. If you weren’t able to help my headaches, I was going to kill myself.”

I sat there in stunned silence as I thought about how to respond. Was she serious? I think she was.

My patient’s headaches were gone.

She found me when her friend saw my brochure “Get Your Head Examined!” She had fallen out of bed, hitting the night table on the way down. She knew there was a correlation with the new headaches, but had no idea who could help. Until she met me.

While there are many different causes of headaches, sometimes they can be

debilitating. Cranial adjusting shifts the bones of the head so they can line up in a neutral position. It is different from cranial sacral therapy, which works with your chi, or energy life force. I use both techniques to mitigate headaches. Treatment plans vary depending on the intensity of the headaches and the length of time that they have been present in your life. The patient above responded well, but it took several adjustments before the results were significant.

In her case the parietal and temoporal suture line was jammed together. She could not lie on her left side without instant dizziness. The accompanying nausea made her want to vomit. She had more time on her back, but after ten minutes the results were the same. This made sleep difficult, as she had only her right side to lie on. Treatment consisted of coaxing apart the two bones, and gently shifting them back into a neutral alignment.

It was a happy day when she bounced in and told me that she had woken up on her back. “No problems” she beamed. “ I slept great.”

Headaches from a mechanical source, such as trauma or an event will almost certainly respond to cranial adjusting. Book an appointment with me at Chiani Wellness Centre. I can help!

Bottle Drive at Cobble Hill Country Grocer for Sunrise Waldorf School Parents Association

Please join us for a fun, family friendly BBQ lunch and bring your refundables to Country Grocer, Cobble Hill. We will have hot dogs and drinks, and face painting for all. We hope to raise $3000 towards a few new structures in our playground

Last year, many of our older students requested more climbing equipment and structures. We realized that we already have a beautiful nature-based playground for the younger grades and outdoor garden classrooms, as well as a large field for sports and games, but there were no large climbing structures for our children to look forward to as they get older.

This year, in addition to plans for the climbing structure, and thanks to many donations, the Sunrise Waldorf Parent Association (SWPA) was able to add a GaGa pit to our playground for students in grades 5-8. The 5th graders specifically requested this after discovering the game on a field trip. The students have also been busy planing, sanding, and assembling the structures as part of their woodworking class.

Master Antioxidant Glutathione

Now we are almost ready to add a large climbing structure too! It is being built by Hazelwood Construction and Kinsol Play, a local naturebased playground company. We are excited about the natural logs and local, sustainable materials that will blend in with the natural aesthetics of the campus and our outdoor spaces.

Our students are looking forward to this new climber, which will be installed over the summer, and have been involved in fundraising through bottle drives and volunteering at our annual festivals.

Creating play environments that introduce older children to risk in a way that allows them to build confidence and practice risk assessment provides skills that will benefit them in their adult lives.

Country Grocer generously donates all BBQ supplies to support our event. Island Return-It Duncan will be collecting refundables.

Saturday, June 8, 10am2pm. Country Grocer, 1400 Cowichan Bay Road, Cobble Hill

Glutathione is the body’s master antioxidant and is involved in many of it’s vital processes. It is made from the amino acids glycine, cysteine, and glutamic acid, and is produced by the liver. Levels within the body naturally decrease as we age, thus cellular aging and increased prevalence to disease.

Some of glutathione’s many important functions include

• tissue building and repair

• making chemicals and proteins

• immune system function

• breaking down free radicals

• enzyme function

• regenerating vitamins C and E

• transporting mercury out of the brain

• helping liver and gallbladder process fats

• assists apoptosis

• anti-aging superhero

• autism aid

• cancer prevention aid

• improves insulin resistance

• forming sperm cells in men

• protect body from dis-ease

Reducing exposure to toxins and increasing intake of healthful whole foods are primary ways of increasing glutathione levels naturally. Expand your daily intake of selenium rich foods (Brazil nuts, mushrooms, seafoods), lean protein, vitamin C, and sulfur rich foods (cruciferous veggies, onions and garlic, MSM) all help to raise your glutathione level.

The supplements milk thistle, NAC (n-acetyl cysteine) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) all activate the production of glutathione in the body. It is also available more directly in capsule or liquid form, as well as in special formulas for regeneration and cellular antiaging. Many use these for therapeutic use, or just to feel better and improve cellular function.

May you feel your best in this season of your life.

Good health to you! Tina Foster, RHN Essential Remedies

So Much Scotch Broom! What Can I Do Now?

Scotch broom has gone to seed. We stop community cuts now because we don’t want to spread the seeds. Also, piles are a bad idea as we enter fire season. But so much broom remains. What can we do?

Broom that is cut properly in June will still die during the drought and heat of summer. But we must weigh whether it is better to cut now or wait until next spring. Three things to consider: Will cutting now increase fire danger? Spread seeds? Be most effective? Let’s talk about that.

On farms, private property and areas far away from public travel, broom can be cut and stacked on top of itself in an already infested area. Small piles only! Chop it small so it settles down quickly. It will disappear as compost does, or you can burn it next fall when rains return. Do not drag the broom over broom-free areas.

Careful pulling of small broom can help keep broom from getting established. Gently! Small broom has a stem smaller than a pencil. It should only have a thin single root with no branches and should come easily out of the

ground. Pulling broom with a larger root will disturb the soil, exposing hundreds of seeds from previous years – and those seed will sprout in the sun!

Don’t cut mature broom now. It is too flammable.

Pulling broom is best done when the soil is wet. Next winter, pull small broom! Anywhere and everywhere.

If you have lots of large broom on your property, in the winter cut it a meter above the ground. In the spring, cut it at ground level.

I hope that helps. Broom is a volatile flash fuel. It harms bees, creating a feast and famine situation, as it forms dense monocultures, and crowds out the native species on which bees and birds have depended for millennia.

There are many problems over which we have no control. But Scotch broom in our communities? We can do this! See you next spring! www.broombusters.org.

Joanne Sales, Broombusters

Have you noticed changes in the health of cedar trees, rivers, and other life in the watershed? We are witnessing rapid and unprecedented changes in the places we know and love, and in difficult times like these, we need meaningful ways to share sorrow, acknowledge losses, and respond with kindness and compassion.

At least 84,000* juvenile steelhead trout (fish up to nine inches in length) died last summer along a six kilometer stretch of the Quw’utsun Sta’lo’ (Heritage

Cowichan River) between Mile 70.2 and Skutz Falls. While it is reassuring that leaders are learning and planning together to prevent catastrophes like this, we still feel a range of emotions and know we are not alone. We launched Project 84,000 as one way for community members to acknowledge and mourn this loss together.

Our goal is to create a work of art that includes 84,000 crayon rubbings in the shape of fish – one for each fish that died - on a long roll of brown paper over 213 metres (700

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feet) long with fish on both sides. That’s the same distance as skating the length of the Cowichan Lake Sports Arena seven times, or walking all the way around the 400m track at the Sportsplex, and then some!

Over 155 people created more than 9,050 rubbings in April alone, and you, too, can participate in this simple, cathartic activity through September.

• Scan the QR code to learn where to participate at upcoming events.

• Drop off new and used crayons in the Recycling Room at plentiFILL (163 Kenneth Street, Duncan) and at the front desk of the Vancouver Island Regional Library, Cowichan Branch (2687 James Street, Duncan).

• Visit the art show in the Cowichan Valley Arts Council Gallery from September 30th to October 19, 2024.

• Participate in a facilitated community circle at the exhibit. Watch for details at https://cowichanvalley artscouncil.ca/

For more information or to request a Project 84,000 activity kit, contact: Jennifer Shepherd, Community Researcher, Xwulqw’selu Connections at (236) 8009011 jshepherd@uvic.ca or Judy Brayden, Cowichan Lake and River Stewardship Society, judybrayden@shaw.ca

With thanks to the Cowichan Lake and River Stewardship Society, Xwulqw’selu Connections, the Town of Lake Cowichan, and the Cowichan Lake Arts and Culture Society.

*Data Source: Cowichan River Fish Mortality Event Summer 2023 Impacts to fish and how to avoid a repeat – a presentation to Cowichan Watershed Board by Mike McCulloch – Anadromous Fisheries Specialist from BC Fisheries, West Coast Region, Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship

Judy Brayden

LUCKY DOG

What’s in a Name?

WDebbie Wood owns Lucky Dog U-Bath. She can be found on trails in the Cowichan Valley with her BF, Bonnie.

e give our dogs a name. Some dogs come with a name. We have no idea what their mother named them or what they call each other, but our dogs have a name that will bring on an emotional response for the rest of our lives. Choosing a puppy’s name is important.

I meet some dogs that are unfortunately named with the thought that she will forever be a tubby little fluffball and not grow into an adult dog. Name your dog for the adult you expect her to be. Do not name your dog something insulting. It’s demeaning and the joke is over soon. Your dog has to live with that name all her life. Your dog may not know it’s insulting, but she can feel the subtleties. Do not call your dog Shark. This is terrifying for people at the sea side when

Drop

you’re calling her. The name Bear, though popular, should also be given a second thought if you plan on forest hikes.

So, what is a good name for your dog? In practical terms, it’s ideal to have a name with two syllables. The first syllable gets the dog’s attention. The second syllable calls them over. Having a hard consonant in each syllable gives added punch as they are easier to hear. For example: Tucker would be a great name for calling a dog. Pivot, Keltie, Darby…. You get the idea. Working Border Collies have cool names that describe their actions. Fly, Spin, and Rush are great for farm dogs as they are called in with a whistle. Their name is only used for identification and affection. These are not great names for our house pets. They can work, they’re just not great sounds to communicate with.

No matter what your dog’s name is now, they have learned what you call them. And they are smart creatures. Having several names is not confusing. Think of how many names have evolved in your life with your dog. My Bonnie is also called Bon Bons, Bonnie McBonderson, Goldfish, Lady Bons, C’mear, and I’m sure others. She knows I want her

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attention more because of my voice than my words. And yes, you can change a dog’s name. I highly recommend changing a name when the dog has come from unfortunate circumstances and her name causes fear. A new life; a new name. A completely different name.

Dog names go through fashion waves. Ten years ago, you couldn’t toss a dog biscuit without hitting a Bella or a Maggie. The more recent batch of names tops out with Charlie

and Maisy. This can make things awkward at the dog park and, trust me, when booking an appointment. “You know, Charlie. She’s been there before.” While I scroll through the client list hoping for another hint. Whatever name our dog has been given or came into our lives with, we will never forget that name and what it meant to us. I’m not shaming anyone with an imperfect name, I just want to share that there is more to a name than just a pretty word.

badcomix

In this job we need someone who is responsible.

That’s GREAT! I’m definitely the one you want. At my last job, every time something went wrong, they said I was RESPONSIBLE!

Confessions of a Water Waster

Confession time. I am so embarrassed. But, in case I’m not alone, and others could learn from my scatterbrained ways, here goes.

This week, I put a soaker hose on a new row of blueberries that I have been carefully coaxing this spring. I know that soaker hoses aren’t the most efficient way to water, but I don’t have enough micro-drip line for this new bed yet, and I didn’t have time to hand-water. So, I turned on the tap and grabbed my phone to look up the optimal time I should water. I wanted to use a soak-pause-soak cycle, so the soil would absorb every drop. It was looking like 2-3 cycles of 5 minutes, with 30 minutes in between, would be best to first soften up the soil, then maximize absorption by the roots, with no waste. Great! So, come back in 5 minutes.

drip” and “capture the rain” and the dire impacts on our aquatic ecosystems from low water flows, including groundwater depletion. I coordinated a 5-year “Water Challenge”, on behalf of the Cowichan Watershed Board, to reduce water use across the region. So, this is something I know well, and care deeply about.

The next morning, my spouse turned the soaker hose off.

Why, oh why? How could I? Even more curiously, why the heck am I confessing it?

As Canadians, we are pretty used to water seeming limitless. This evidence that even an annoying water hound like me can forget a running tap is telling. I would never forget about any other liquid flowing freely - not gas, or milk, or beer - not a chance! I would also not forget if I was camping, and hauling my water. I didn’t think I would forget last week, but as the old saying goes, “no matter where you go there you are”.

by Shiloh Badman

Before I go on, I should probably reveal that I’m a pretty annoying advocate for water efficiency, as some readers of Valley Voice will know. I have previously written about how “it’s hip to fix a

So, this old dog is learning a new trick. My new motto for 2024, and humble offering to other potentially forgetful Valley Voice readers, is “TapOn/TimerOn”. I now carry my phone, and set an alarm whenever I turn on a tap. Drip by drop, I learn to live well with less water.

Jill Thompson has been a student of the school of home vegetable growing in the Cowichan Valley for 20 years, with much still to learn.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Aries (March 21-April 19)

The pace of your days is accelerating! You’ll be taking short trips, talking to siblings, relatives and neighbours, plus reading, writing and studying. In fact, this busy, exciting shift will last for the next year because Jupiter has just changed signs, which means all these areas are getting a huge boost! Your plans for the future will be larger and more expansive. You will entertain ambitious ideas and believe that you can do them, which means you probably will!

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Oh my! For the next 12 months, you’ll get richer! This might happen for many reasons. You might inherit. You might find a better paying job. You might see ways to make money on the side. You might get a raise. You might feel richer because you buy yourself something that increases your status in the eyes of others. Not only that, you will see ways to make more money. Some of you will travel and many of you will earn money by dealing with other countries.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

It’s all about you, dear Gemini. The Sun and lucky Jupiter are now in your sign. (It doesn’t get better than this.) You feel happier, buoyant and enthusiastic about life! You’ll be charming and diplomatic; and yet, at the same time, you’ll be enthusiastic and magnetic, which is why others will be attracted to you. All kinds of people and resources will be drawn to you, which means you’re looking at one of the most fortunate years ahead that you have had in over a decade. Get ready to dress for success!

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

This month you will feel a subtle shift because in many ways, there will be a sense of peace and privacy being restored to your world. In the past year, you have had more

interactions with friends and groups, sometimes to the extent of being too busy and too involved with organizations. For different reasons, you will start to protect and value your own privacy more. You might start to explore the spiritual and religious dimensions of your life more deeply than you have in the past.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

This month you’ll be more popular and eager to engage with others. Many of you will become more involved in groups and organizations. Some of you might take on a leadership role (which is second nature for you). Your desire to travel and expand your world will definitely grow. Very likely, you will give greater thought to your future goals as well. This trend will last for the next year, not just this month. Start thinking about doing things you wouldn’t have dreamed of before. “To infinity and beyond!”

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

This is a pivotal time for you because for the first time in a year, the Sun will cross the top of your chart in the next four weeks, making you look successful. However, lucky Jupiter will also cross the top of your chart during the next 12 months for the first time in over a decade. Expect wonderful opportunities to boost your good name and success. This ushers in a successful time for your profession, your career, your social status and reputation. Some of you might change your work to medicine, healing or something to do with travel. All hail Virgo!

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Your life will improve because you’ll attract numerous opportunities to travel in the next 12 months. Not only will you travel and explore more of the world, you will study and learn. You might go back to school. You might take courses. You might teach courses. Opportunities in publishing also exist, so you might publish or write a book. Likewise, opportunities in the legal field will abound! Similar chances

to explore advancement in the medical profession or anything to do with healing will also benefit you.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

Beginning this month, the next 12 months will favour you financially. This is because lucky Jupiter, which can expand, magnify and attract good fortune, will be sitting in one of your Money Houses! You might inherit. You might get money back from the government. You might get money from an insurance payout. You might benefit indirectly because your partner makes more money or gets a bonus. Perhaps a business partner brings money or something advantageous to the table.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

Great news! Lucky Jupiter is now in your House of Partnerships giving this area of your life a marvellous boost for the next 12 months! In fact, this is such a benefit to your relationships, the next 12 months are the best time for your sign to get married since 2012. Many of you will meet foreign people and people from other cultures. For those of you who do marry, you might marry someone slightly older or more well-established. This is a time of culmination in your life, which makes you want to go after everything.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

You’re heading into a fortunate window because planetary aspects will help you to improve your health in the next year. Plus, opportunities to improve your job will arise. And if you don’t improve your job, or

your nasty boss doesn’t get transferred or fired, then you’ll find a better job. Trust me. This is the best chance for you in over a decade to both improve your health and improve your work! In the immediate future, romance related to your work might percolate. In the longrange future, work-related travel is likely.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Some people get lucky, and this year, it’s you! For the next 12 months, lucky Jupiter is in the part of your chart that encourages the arts, romance, vacations, social outings, parties, sports events and involvement with children. All the fun stuff! Your creative potential will be enormous! Your health will feel vigourous and you will have a heightened feeling of well-being! This is also a good time for financial matters, especially financial speculation. (Mom always liked you best.)

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

You now have the delightful influence of Jupiter helping you to improve your family life in a beautiful way. Family members will be more generous and more loving to each other. In fact, some of you might expand your family through birth, marriage or adoption. By extension, you can improve your existing home, through redecorating or renovations; or you might move to something that you like better. You can make money through real-estate speculation or by buying and selling your own home. Kaching!

www.georgianicols.com

DIRECTORY OF LOCAL SERVICES

LINDSAY CAMPA, RMT

“Quality and effectiveness of services within Inuit communities are compromised by a largely transient workforce occupying these positions and implementing and operating services that are not developed or designed by Inuit. Effective service provision requires long-term, trusting relationships with the community they serve. This is particularly true in the areas of social work, education, health provision and law enforcement.”