A Dose of Inspiration

CITY LIFE STYLE

SASKATOON FEBRUARY/MARCH 2019

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Back to Basics

Text by Olenka Martynyuk

Everybody has some basics. Whether we talk of men or women, it is most likely a set of several styles that flatter the wearer and look appropriate for his/her style, occupation. They work in almost every setting.

Each of us has about 10 of these - good quality pieces, usually made by trusted brands. Think of a beige trench coat, that perfect cashmere sweater, a dark classically shaped skirt, a pair or two of jeans, a navy blazer and a crispy white dress shirt or blouse.

Such basics all fit into the philosophy of Marie Kondo* (@mariekondo) a Japanese woman and author of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” who invented the art of decluttering living spaces. She believes that we should only have things in our life that “spark joy”: if we don’t have a use for something and it’s just taking up space needlessly, it’s clutter—and is detrimental not only to our wardrobe but to a healthy mind.

Kondo’s formula makes perfect fashion sense for men and women today: don’t cram your wardrobe with things you never wear and, consequently, make more conscious choices as a consumer; reflect on the effect they have on the world around you. “Waste not, want not”, as the saying goes.

Anyway, most people have items that look good on them and which make them feel comfortable—a second skin of sorts. Look at the way Wall Street tycoons dress and the simple conclusion is that they mostly present a phalanx of pristine white or blue shirts—all cut in the same style—plus perfectly fitted, made-tomeasure suits (red carpet dresses for Hollywood’s female celebs notwithstanding).

Few of us these days care to waste time thinking about what to wear in the morning, so no different from people with some serious dosh to spend. You’re not going to hire a stylist who puts together

A Few Good Men

They’re not all under 40, but they don’t have to be in order to continue inspiring others

Chris Randall homeless persons advocate

The director of the Saskatoon Housing Initiatives Partnership, Randall has helped vocalize the plight of the city’s homeless and worked over the years with various local social welfare agencies to find shelter for such people in the city. He has also been active in a SHIP initiative to provide safe housing for members of the city’s LGBTQ2S youth, he was the director of StreetForce (which provided work opportunities for Indigenous teens without formal work experience), and is a former pastor at the City Centre Church in Riversdale.

Kevin Wesaquate Aboriginal rights advocate, poet, artist

This spoken-word poet and now Artist and Writer in Residence at Sas-

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looks for you on special occasions; most of us don’t have that kind of money. We waste time staring at the wardrobe in the morning or just before the big party fretting about what we don’t have.

Consider an approach I call “creative basics”: find a middle ground that stays true to your daily palette while also allowing you to think outside of the box on special occasions. Is this boring? Perhaps, but it should reflect your priorities: respecting what’s truly important and giving thought to the world we live in. Is this threatening to the fashion industry? Hardly. Fashion will always adapt.

Your wardrobe reflects your priorities in life, so declutter, tidy up and enjoy it more!

The bottom line? Understand what’s important to you. Accept the fact that we’re not living the life of the Kardashians, but don’t shy away from being your best self. Specialty items and designer brands remain relevant in today’s world as long as we know their place in our lives and can still look ourselves in the mirror before we head out of the door.

*On January 1, 2019, Netflix released a series called “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo”. In it, Kondo helps various American families declutter and guides them in tidying up their houses using her KonMari method.

katchewan Polytechnic first began to gain notoriety in Saskatoon with the Indigenous Poets Society, which he founded in the early 2010s to collaborate with other Indigenous poets and give voice to their stories and unique life experiences. At both Sask Polytechnic and SCYAP (Saskatoon Community Youth Arts Programming), where Wesaquate acts as mentor and inspiration to other Indigenous students and youth, this member of the Piapot First Nation is proving that a career in the arts can be fulfilling, financially viable and help express the culture of the Plains Cree people.

Curtis Olson property developer

In just the past five years, Olson’s office and residential projects have become well-known for their modern design, his interest in doing things with sustainability in mind, and his focus on inner-city revitalization. This father of two has also worked to give back to the community where his projects are located thanks to his past sponsorship of Park(ing) Day (an urban renewal initiative) and his involvement in the Riversdale Business Improvement District.

Continues on p. 23

inspiring

Feeling Inspired!

Text

by Naomi Zurevinski and Marina Pshebylo Photos by Amy Thorp Makeup and styling by Amanda Brown and Laura Crossman

For a small city, Saskatoon is home to many people—women and men alike—who are creating positive, lasting change (and looking good too)

Darla Lindbjerg is certainly not afraid of change. As the first female CEO for the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce, she’s been busy establishing a fresh perspective at the Chamber since taking on the role in May 2017.

“Based on surveys, the Chamber has been seen as a bit of a boy’s club in the past. When it was created 115 years ago, the majority of business owners and Chamber leadership were overwhelmingly white and male,” Lindbjerg says. “The fact that we now have a very balanced and diverse board, and strong female staff, is changing that perception. People have said we’re ‘new and fresh’, and I like that. I like that you can take an organization that has such a strong, positive history, and you can build on it.”

Some of the developments Lindbjerg has spearheaded include relocating the Chamber’s offices downtown, updating the annual Saskatoon Achievement in Business Excellence (SABEX) awards, and developing a five-year strategic plan, with a new team to implement it.

Although Lindbjerg has a host of education credentials Continues on p. 29

Darla Lindbjerg, 38

President and CEO of the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce; wife and mother of three

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Carly Rae Beaudry, 31

Sexual health advocate; somatic sex educator; Structural Integration practitioner; Holistic Pelvic Care practitioner; Arvigo Therapy practitioner; full-spectrum doula

For Carly Rae Beaudry, empowering and educating women about their bodies is something she sees as imperative in today’s world.

“Most women have no idea about their female anatomy. We’re not educated about uterine, menstrual or vaginal health, and women suffer tremendously because we don’t have the proper resources or know how to care for our bodies fully,” Beaudry says. “[My work is] about teaching women how to connect and have a relationship with their bodies.”

Beaudry, originally from Naicam, SK, has spent the last 13 years in manual therapy and body work, with training as a full-spectrum doula and a practitioner in holistic pelvic care, arvigo therapy and structural integration—all forms of body work centered on creating positive physical, emotional and psychological change.

For Beaudry, the inspiration behind her work comes from personal experience.

“I’ve always dealt with painful periods, I’ve had some really traumatic experiences with IUD insertion and removal, and I’ve had a lot of pelvic and uterine pain, so it was a lot of personal experience that got me into this work,” she says. “I’ve also done some humanitarian work in Kenya and Uganda, and that’s where I learned about birth work as well. It really opened up my whole world to women’s health and women’s healing.”

Beaudry says that many women have no idea what’s going on in their bodies, and very often symptoms and pain are seen as normal when they’re not.

“A painful period is not normal,” she says. “Women have come to accept that symptoms during their period are completely normal and we should just deal with it. A healthy period

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inspiring

Jeanny Buan, 32

Entrepreneur and business owner; designer; TV presenter; beauty pageant coach & judge

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Jeanny Buan literally does it all.

Originally from the Philippines, Jeanny moved to Canada with her family in 2011 after graduating with a Degree in Marketing from a university in the Philippines. She immediately went to work creating her own path to success.

Today, she owns a bridal wear company, an event planning agency she started herself, she has her own brand of handbags, and she still has time to coach and judge beauty pageants and host a show on local community TV.

At 30, Jeanny decided to go back to school and take a business course when she obtained a government scholarship to study entrepreneurship. Part of the program involved launching a business, and having always wanted to start a fashion brand, Jeanny launched Viahera Canada in 2017. From the Spanish word viajera, meaning female traveller, Jeanny started a handbag line that tied her love of travel with her cultural background. She designs the bags herself in Canada and has them made in the Philippines by Filipino women (who were economically devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013). They use all-natural materials, including grass, leaves and recycled materials, with turmeric and more for dyes. Not only is Viahera successful and thriving, part of her business plan involves giving back and making sure children in less fortunate countries have the opportunity to go to school.

“I’ve partnered with a school in Indonesia and in the Philippines, and a portion of the proceeds from the bags are sending kids to school there,” Jeanny says. “The money’s being used to build bigger schools and send more kids to school, the majority of which are girls. We’ve sent about 200 girls to school in the past year, and I’m hoping to increase that number this year.” So not only does her business create jobs in the Philippines with good wages and opportunities, but it also gives hundreds of children an education who otherwise might not have the opportunity.

Jeanny’s also no stranger to the beauty pageant world: she placed in the top 10 at Mrs. Worldwide, which comes as no surprise. She still frequently coaches and judges beauty pageants in

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Mallory Guenther, 31

Co-owner of Soul Foods Conscious Grocer; yoga instructor; Psychosomatic Therapist; advocate for sustainable and local living; step-mother of three

When Mallory Guenther moved home to Saskatoon in 2009 from Vancouver, she had plans of finishing her nursing degree. But after being diagnosed with a tumor on her pituitary gland, she shifted her focus and began looking at alternative forms of medicine.

“I tried the Western medical approach to healing, but my symptoms got a lot worse and I started to experience physical and mental health side effects from the medication I was on,” Guenther says. “I couldn’t spend time with friends and family and I became very isolated. It got to a point where I was like, ‘I can’t wake up every day feeling this way—there must be another way.’”

It was at that point that she decided to look into alternative health and began practising yoga. After making a decision to take some time off from school, she dove into the world of nutrition, completed a yoga training in Brazil, and hasn’t looked back since.

“I’ve been teaching yoga for seven years now. Through yoga, nutrition and looking at different healing experiences, I really attached to alternative forms of healing, and that’s how Soul Foods was born. It’s really a culmination of all the experiences and training I’ve received over the past decade,” she adds.

Guenther and her partner Chady Nasr own and operate Soul Foods, a community and health-conscious grocer, along with seven other co-partners. The pair initially opened Soul Foods in May 2017, and in July 2018 they expanded to a larger location in Riversdale. They have also been partners in another health-related business, Three Treasures Tonics, which they opened in 2017 with business partners and friends Mike Gaff and Sarah Rose.

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inspiring

Carly, from p. 17 is pain-free, symptom-free, and bright red; fresh blood for a few days and that’s it. Another thing is pain during sex: that’s not normal and we should not experience any pain during intercourse, but most women experience a lot of it.”

Beaudry explains that these are signs the body is not functioning as it should and something needs to be corrected. Educating women on what’s normal for their bodies stands out as her favourite part of her work.

“It’s amazing what happens when a light bulb goes off, especially working with teen girls that suffer every month with painful periods, and then after a few sessions you alleviate that pain for them. That can literally change a girl’s life. I know a couple of girls in Saskatchewan alone who have committed suicide because of their periods. That’s so wrong—this should never happen. We live in a system where girls are put on

Arlie LaRoche, 34

Co-owner of Farm One Forty; advocate for holistic and regenerative agriculture; wife and mother of two; soon-to-be restaurateur

the pill at an extremely young age, and then end up depressed, so they’re on antidepressants, and then they’re put on narcotics as painkillers. That’s not an answer.”

Moving forward, Beaudry has been training her dog to be a therapy dog, which she can use in her work too. She loves animals and has immense passion for travelling across Canada with her dog, and teaching workshops about menstrual, pelvic and sexual health.

“It’s our birthright to know about our bodies,” Beaudry says. “We’ve had that taken away from us through the patriarchal system that we live in. The amount of pelvic diseases and hormonal imbalances that women suffer through is skyrocketing, and in my opinion, all of this is unnecessary and can be prevented if we know how to care for our bodies.”

For more information on Carly Rae Beaudry and her work, visit carlyrae.ca.

– NZ

For Arlie LaRoche and her husband Brett, the opportunity to farm their own food went from a side gig to a full-time of job. Today, the pair own and operate Farm One Forty, a holistically managed farm in Vanscoy, SK.

“My first concern was being able to supply my family with clean food, and then the community as well,” she says. “We started out both working full-time in the city and doing farming on the evenings and weekends as a hobby, just to grow enough food for ourselves and our family. And then it was like, ‘Why should we get to eat this amazing food and not share it with anyone else?’”

Both Arlie and her husband grew up on conventional farms in Saskatchewan, and after attending university and travelling, they realized they wanted to get back to their roots. While Brett still works in the city, Arlie works full-time managing the day-to-day on the farm.

“I used to have a desk job and I loved the people I worked with, and I was interested in the work I was doing, but I didn’t feel like it was my calling,” Laroche says. “I come from a long line of Scandinavian farmers and it was just in my blood, so it’s hard to ignore.

“The best part is working outside and with animals, and doing something physical every day.”

Farm One Forty is named after the 140 acres of land that they work, and what makes it unique stems from their holistic management style: they work to restore the land by mimicking the way that animals and their environment interact together naturally. They don’t use chemicals, hormones or routine antibiotics, and they raise grass-fed cattle and sheep, and pasture-raised pigs and chickens. They even produce their own honey.

“By definition, holistic management means dealing with the farm as a whole, which is why we don’t have only cows, or only pigs, or only chickens; we have a very diverse farm. It’s a lot more work because we have to have different infrastructure for all the different animals, but we feel that it’s worth it because that’s how nature works,” she says.

In addition to Farm One Forty, Arlie, Brett and two other partners have been preparing to open a restaurant in spring 2019 on Broadway Avenue in Saskatoon.

“It will be called Odla, which means ‘to farm’ in Swedish, and we’re working towards supplying the restaurant from our farm. We will definitely do that on the protein side, and then we will use as many vegetables as we can from the farm too. The restaurant is also going to have a retail side to it with a butcher counter. So it will be both a restaurant and butcher counter.”

When she’s not working, Arlie loves to do yoga, travel and spend time with family. Farm One Forty allows her the opportunity to watch her kids enjoy the same things she did as a child, and offers a chance to approach farming

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Tara Campbell, 33

Hip-hop artist and rapper; writer; owner of Beads, Rhymes & Life; mother of three

Tara “T-Rhyme” Campbell grew up listening to all kinds of music, but says she fell in love with hip-hop and rap in Grade 3. From there, she began writing her own music by age 10.

“My mom has a baby book and she said that when I was two years old my favourite singer was Michael Jackson. I’ve always been attracted to the rhythm and beat of R n B music, which is why I love hip-hop,” Campbell says. “I started making up songs which didn’t really make sense, and then I realized it was poetry. Once I understood cadence and flow through listening to other rappers, that’s when I started to write poetry that rhymed.”

In 2016, Campbell—who is Dene, Swampy Cree and Métis, and hails from Treaty 10 Territory—released her debut EP, Diary of a Mad Red Woman, which consists entirely of original music. Much of the inspiration for her music comes from her own life experiences.

“I think it’s important to portray your true self and true essence through your music, and I wanted to give an introduction to myself that was very real and raw,” Campbell says. “I get into a bit of storytelling in my tracks “Kill H.E.R.” and “Start Over” where I talk about my journey through a harder time in my life, where I fell into addictions and had to bring myself back to reality and my path. I think it’s super important to tell your story and to make sure that you include every bit of you, whether it’s your culture, beliefs or dreams.”

Campbell is currently working on a full-length debut album, which is a solo project. In January 2018, she released a collaboration project with Saskatchewan rapper Eekwol (Lindsay Knight)

called For Women By Women.

“The idea and title came to us after we took part in a local event for women in hip-hop. We were given a platform to create dialogue on what it’s like to be a woman in the hip-hop industry, and we noticed that a lot of people, particularly men, who claim to be part of the scene, were not in attendance. It was clear that they were not there to be an ally to us or our voices. That really spoke to us, and we decided we needed to do our own thing because we need to be the voices sharing our own truths and make it available for other women to listen to and feel like they can relate.”

Although Campbell is busy with her music career and being a mom—which she calls one of her biggest passions—she also runs a handmade beadwork business called Beads, Rhymes & Life, which is a form of therapy for her. In all aspects of life, Campbell emphasizes the importance of being true to yourself, “because when women inspire other women, we all become more powerful.”

“It’s super important that women and girls are given platforms and spaces that are safe to share their art, words and creative side. We all have to share these spaces and make room for one another, because at the end of the day, we’re more powerful when we work together rather than being in competition,” she says. “The (hip-hop) industry is very cut-throat, but your voice is super important and there are other little brown girls out there that are going to look up to you.”

To listen to T-Rhyme’s music and learn more, visit t-rhyme.bandcamp.com and t-rhyme.com.

– NZ

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Ying Tan, 28

Entrepreneur; fitness trainer & nutrition consultant; RMT; designer; Qigong practitioner

Ying shares two pieces of advice that she feels may help others reach their goals.

First, take care of yourself before anything else: “When I put myself as a priority, my performance level increases and I know I can accomplish anything I want to!” she says.

Second, pursue meaning through sacrifice rather than happiness through pleasure: “Your life choices, events and projects will have so much more meaning when you put in the effort to make your dreams happen.”

For Ying Tan, owning one business wasn’t something she could have envisioned for herself, nevermind the three she owns today. Having gone to university studying to be a mechanical engineer, she has been on a different career path ever since led by self-discovery, creativity and a pursuit of her passions.

Visitors to the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market might recognize her as being one half of the “Those Girls at the Market”—a raw chocolate business initially created five years ago by Ying to get her sister Julianna, who was studying in Halifax at the time, back to Saskatoon for the summer. After seeing some success at this venture, they set up shop at the Farmers’ Market and have now been doing creating tasty chocolate ever since. Both sisters have a background in the health and fitness industry: Ying owning a fitness

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company (she’s a former fitness model) and as a trainer and nutrition consultant, and Julianna with a degree in Kinesiology, decided to tackle the bad rap that chocolate has.

So, what’s so special about their chocolate? “We truly believe in the benefits of dark chocolate, so our business has a health focus. We only have three base ingredients [cacao paste, cacao butter and maple syrup], and then we add whole ingredients for flavour [coffee beans or cranberries and salt]. Our ingredients are also top quality organic, and we use the raw form of the cacao bean to maintain its nutrients,” Ying explains. They’ve mastered a treat that’s healthy for you without compromising on flavour or sweetness.

Ying’s second business, Strapped Lingerie, was very much a passion project she felt she needed to bring to life. “This was born out

of creativity, and it was not a project that I envisioned myself doing (right after university),” she says. The cool, sexy pieces have all been designed by her, and to make them she bought a sewing machine, learned to sew, created her brand from the ground up and made a website all by herself within just four months! Strapped is also size inclusive with a heavy emphasis on body positivity and enabling women to feel beautiful—and sexy.

So what does Ying do in her spare time? When not running her businesses, Ying keeps busy weight training, drawing, drumming in the band “Deige & the Dreamfish,” taking Mandarin lessons

once a week, reading and doing Qigong, a body-mind connection exercise similar to yoga. “Just last year I travelled to Thailand for a Qigong Teacher Training course. I fell in love with it and travelled to Europe, and back to Thailand to learn more,” she says.

Ying shares two pieces of advice that she feels may help others to reach their goals.

First, take care of yourself before anything else: “When I put myself as a priority, my performance level in everything increases and I know I can accomplish anything I want to!” she says. Second, pursue meaning through sacrifice rather than happiness through pleasure: “Your life choices, events and projects will have so much more meaning when you put in the effort to make your dreams happen.”

– MP

Naomi Mihilewicz, 37

Sustainable living spokesperson; horseriding teacher; mother of two

Naomi Mihilewicz wears many different hats and spends her time doing things she’s most passionate about: waste. She’s the Communications Coordinator for the Saskatchewan Waste Reduction Council, a certified horse riding teacher, sustainable living pro and most importantly, she believes, a loving mother to two children.

While Mihilewicz loves being at home with her kids or out riding horses, her job is to be the face of anything and everything relating to sustainable living for the SWRC—a non-profit, non-governmental organization that champions the cause of reducing waste in Saskatchewan.

“My role is to make sure we are providing quality information to our members and the general public in the best way possible,” she says. “I publish a member newsletter, update our web content, assist in organizing our annual conference, organize Waste Reduction Week activities [Oct. 21–27, 2019] and run our social media,” Mihilewicz explains. She’s been with the SWRC since 2007 but eco-friendly living was how she was raised and how her parents met, both being involved with the Saskatchewan Environmental Society.

Now as she raises her own children, Mihilewicz is even more conscious of what she’s leaving behind for her children and those that will come after her.

“My kids are seven and three right now, and they both know how to separate their waste into compost, recycling and garbage. I am also really proud of the fact that I raised them both in cloth diapers and didn't use any disposable diapers or wipes on them,” she says. With her expertise in raising a family in an eco-friendly environment, she’ll be speaking at the Saskatchewan Living Green Expo in April on zero-waste parenting. Mihilewicz also wants people to know that life doesn’t have to change drastically all at once to accommodate greener living standards; she recommends starting with composting.

“There are ways to do it even if you live in an apartment. It makes such a big impact on the volume of what gets put in the garbage,” Mihilewicz says.

Reflecting on the past two years in particular, Mihilewicz feels proudest of two things: in 2017 during Waste Reduction Week, SWRC and The Hollows put together the Rubbish Dinner, which featured a three-course meal made primarily of ingredients sourced from local farmers and grocery stores that would have gone to waste. Then last year, she organized a car seat recycling drive and collected more than 300 seats that would have otherwise ended up in the landfill. So what does the New Year have in store for this enterprising eco-warrior? “New for 2019, I will be doing four zerowaste webinars for the public to teach and answer questions about living

Men, from p. 14

Dean Dodge CEO of Saskatoon YMCA

Being a part of the Y has been part of Dodge’s life since almost as early as he can remember, having attended YMCA summer camp in his teens and learning to swim with the organization. After 15 years working for the Regina YMCA, he’s been CEO of the Saskatoon branch for five years now and is credited with helping turn around this once-struggling organization. Affable, outgoing and self-assured, Dodge will help lead the organization at events later this year to celebrate the 50th year of the Y in its present location.

Chris Cole restaurateur

It’s hard to think of a person who lives his creed and beliefs so completely every day. A vegan and animal rights advocate, Cole started his own food truck two years ago and the success was such that not only has he started his own bricks-and-mortar restaurant serving “crave worthy, plant-based eats”, but he has also turned the entrance to the restaurant into a mini vegan grocery. In addition, Cole works tirelessly on social media and by volunteering to further education about the negative effects caused by

a more sustainable lifestyle. I have some great plans for Waste Reduction Week in October—including more repair cafes where people can have items repaired for free—plus teaching more riding lessons and taking on more students, which I am so excited about!” This busy mom has no plans to slow down any time soon!

For lots of great tips and simple ways to reduce household waste, check out The Green Living blog on the SWRC website: saskwastereduction.ca. – MP

large-scale animal farming, big-game hunting and over-fishing.

Beau Atkins lawyer

Bucking the trend to just clock hours and watch the fees roll in, Atkins made a change in his profession by starting a law firm—Edge Family Law—with a mission to keep struggling families together or, failing that, make the transition to separate life as painless as possible. In addition to his practice, Atkins volunteers with the local chapter of the Kinsmen Club, where he donates his time and energies to raise money for local charities.

Andrew McDonald marketing director, comedic actor

More well-known for creating memorable sketches with fellow members of the Saskatoon Soaps improv comedy troupe, McDonald is one of the driving forces at Wanuskewin Heritage Park, which in addition to pushing for UNESCO World Heritage Site status for the park, is successfully raising millions as part of a renewal and growth campaign to expand the park’s facilities, provide a welcoming place for understanding Aboriginal culture in Saskatchewan, and grow its appeal as a major regional tourism destination.

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