THE STEW Magzine 11-10

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 1

the cabin fever issue ISSUE 1.2 | NOVEMBER 2010

Inside: Surviving the winter out west Page 4 Potato House Page 18 See the big picture in Chris Jordan’s photos Page 20

PAGE 2 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

Though I’m not sure if we’d be brave enough to actually eat it, we kind of enjoy the idea of a ‘Squirrel Pot Pie’.

November 2010

| THE STEW Maga

zine | PAGE 1

How to cook beaver, and other recipes Stranded in the middle of nowhere?

You might have to survive on what you can find. Here’s some recipes to make that wild game a bit tastier

EMBER 2010

ISSUE 1.2 | NOV

On the Cover: Christine Peters, here with her and her son’s dogs Smokey and Ice, is an original squatter. Still living in the trapper-style cabin that she built over 40 years ago on land that she just recently purchased from the Crown, she has lived off the grid since well before it became vogue to do so. She has raised a family in her small three room cabin, lived happily and without fuss, and is sill as much in love with the Chilcotin as she was decades ago when she came to the region. Her son, Dylan , is now building his own home not 100 feet away on her land.

OOPS: Nobody’s perfect, not even us here at THE STEW Magazine. It looks like we let a little inaccuracy slip into last month’s issue. In the Where’s Wally column (“Hunting ghosts, and finding ninjas, in Victoria”) we incorrectly identified the poet Robin Skelton. The name incorrectly appears as Robert Skelton. We apologize for this error.

ALSO: Music Nights at Big Mama’s Steakhouse are on Tuesday and Sunday, not Tuesday and Saturday.

COUNTRY STYLE BEAR Marinate bear stew meat in buttermilk and a tenderizer overnight.

Wash thoroughly.

Bear Stew Meat bacon fat Carrots Onions Celery Garlic Salt and pepper Dice bear meat into fork size portions. Brown quickly in a small amount of bacon fat. Put bear meat, vegetables, seasonings and enough water to cover meat in a pot. Cover pot tightly and simmer until tender over low heat. Blend vegetables to thicken gravy and simmer, add water if necessary to thicken as needed.

Correct seasonings and serve.

BEAVER IN SOUR CREAM 2-3 lbs 1 inch cubes beaver Bacon fat 1/2 cup flour 1 1/2 tsp sugar 1 tsp salt 1 tsp pepper 2 medium onions 1/2 tsp thyme 1/2 tsp tarragon 1/2 lb carrots

3 celery stalks 6 medium potatoes 2 garlic cloves Combine flour, salt and pepper in a closable bag or 2 quart closable plastic container and shake until mixed. Add beaver and shake until well coated.

Dice onions. Melt enough bacon fat in the bottom of a fry pan to saute onions and beaver. Saute onions and floured beaver in bacon fat, adding more fat as needed.

Place sauteed cubes and onions in a 4 quart pot with enough water to cover.

Add water to fry pan to deglaze the pan. Add this pan gravy to your stew. Slice carrots and dice celery.

Add carrots and celery to your stew and simmer until beaver is somewhat tender (about 30 minutes).

Taste broth and add salt or pepper to taste. Cook potatoes separately until soft. Simmer until potatoes are done ITALIAN RABBIT 1 frozen dressed rabbit 1 large onion, cut-up 1 small green pepper, cut-up 1-2 stalks celery, sliced 2 cloves garlic, chopped Salt and pepper 1/2 tsp. Oregano 1 tbsp. dried parsley 1-2 carrots, cut-up 3 tbsp. catsup or tomato paste 1 cup liquid (white wine, cider, tomato sauce, or water) 10 small russet potatoes Marinate rabbit in buttermilk for one day in the fridge. Brown rabbit with vegetables in hot skillet for 5-10 minutes. Place rabbit and other ingredients in crock pot. Cover and cook on low 3-4 hours. Serves 4-6. Cook potatoes separately and serve with rabbit

SQUIRREL POT PIE 2 dressed squirrels (2 - 2 1/2 lbs.)

2 cups water or chicken stock 2 celery stalks 8 small carrots 1 chopped onion 1 1/2 tsp. Salt 2 tbsp. butter Dash of black pepper Rolled dumplings oregano This is an excellent way to cook old squirrels which are too tough for frying. Wipe thoroughly with a damp cloth and remove all hair.

Remove any shot and scent glands.

Wash well inside and out with warm water. Cut into serving pieces. Put squirrel into a kettle; add vegetables, oregano, water or stock, salt, pepper and butter; heat to boiling. Reduce heat; cover tightly and simmer until very tender (2-3 hours depending on age of animal).

The meat should be almost ready to fall from the bones. Add water as needed.

Remove and blend vegetables on high. Return to pot. Increase the heat until liquid boils. Lay the rolled dumplings over the top of squirrel; cover tightly and cook for 12-15 minutes. Do not lift cover during cooking. Place squirrel in a hot serving dish and arrange dumplings around the edge. Cooking the dumplings in the liquid should thicken the gravy to just the right consistency. Pour gravy over squirrel and dumplings.

Add quartered apples or other fresh fruit for decoration.

Wild game recipes come courtesy of Easy Wild Game Recipes at www.wildgamerecipes.org and are reprinted with permission. Drop by their web site to order a copy of their new wild game cookbook 511 Easy Wild Game Recipes.

TWO CONVENIENT LOCATIONS Downtown 336 Mart Street Williams Lake, BC (250) 398-7821

TRY A CHICKE PIZZIOLN A

ONE DELICIOUS NEW SANDWICH!

or on Highway 97 1196 Broadway Ave Williams Lake, BC (250) 392-5751

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 3

Nutrition Facts Serving Size: 24 pgs Servings Per Container 1 Amount Per Serving

Winter in the West Page 4

Calories 540 Calories from KFC 540 % Daily Value* Fibre Mostly in the newsprint Total Carbohydrates 10mg Sugar Juli’s the sweet one Activism More than usual Global Warming 5g Pacific Garbage Patch 5g Sodium 1700g (from the Double Down) Ingredients (or things that helped us get through the last month): Hearing all the really nice things people had to say about THE STEW #1, participating in a few impromptu autograph sessions with our first issue at the Station House Gallery, watching Sage Birchwater play paper-boy for us at the same event, being able to travel out west for a weekend and call it ‘business’, Rock Band 3 on the XBox 360, learning that one piece of dark chocolate per day can actually decrease heart attack risk, learning that pumpkin beer is actually pretty tasty, not dying after consuming a Double Down from KFC, working from home, five road trips, countless teas from Tim Horton’s, discount bakery items, new $1 clearance sale pants, the price of Halloween chocolate on Nov. 1, dozens of horror films, bad comedy re-runs, the FOOD network, chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sammiches, and all the other comfort food we tried otu this month, hugs, fuzzy socks.

Double Down Page 17

Coming home to the Cariboo Page 7

We believe that just because someone says you can’t fly...

...that’s no reason not to try.

Chris Harris launches new book Page 15

Photographic Activism Page 20

Psycheldelic Music Fest Page 22

MAGAZINE

PAGE 4 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

A couple of the women we talked to are also featured in the Caitlin Press book Gumption and Grit.

WINTER IN THE WEST Surviving cabin fever living in the middle of nowhere

BY JULI HARLAND THE STEW MAGAZINE

Winters in the Cariboo Chilcotin can be a wild, wild time. Knee-deep snow and temperatures dipping to -30 is not unheard of, and yet with central heating, mall crawling, indoor rec centers, and, for the brave, heated ski lodges and snowmobile huts, residents have managed to fare their way through the winter months pretty good.

But what about our neighbors out West? When you think of cabin fever -- winters locked away in a remote cabin in the woods, fighting to stay sane (emphasised by the eye of Hollywood) it is places like Tatlayoko Valley and Tatla Lake that we think of. With a population count less than you would find at the Overlander Pub on a Saturday night (or a Wednesday for that matter) there isn’t the lure of the local Starbucks to while away the winter. Everyone surely must go crazy, or fly the coop, when you live out in the boonies, right?

Not so.

We at The Stew had the great fortune of meeting up with with Tatla Lake resident Marilyn Berwin and later a group of wild women out west (Connie and Gerry Bracewell, Sabina and Colleen Harris, and Dorothy Evans) who gathered together at longtime Tatlayoko Valley resident Connie Bracewell’s home to talk about how they manage to beat winter’s ‘cabin fever’.

PHOTO BY TODD SULLIVAN

COLD AS ICE  Tatlayoko Lake is actually glacier-fed, making it a challenge to frolic in, even in the middle of summer.

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 5

“We enjoyed it in the winter when we were ranching because the only thing we had to do was feed the cows and keep the fire going,” said Berwin. “But it was kinda like a slack time so you went cross country skiing or jump on the snow machine if you’ve got one.

“Now I go out cross country skiing or I take off snowshoeing, or I got a four wheeler when I was 65; it was my senile happy birthday present. Before that everything I drove that had a motor meant work. I am always on it. I love it. If we don’t get too much snow I make tracks and keep up on it, so I do that in the winter time mostly because it’s fun.”

She also creates some beautiful galleryquality landscape oil paintings, many of which cover the walls of the small church she has been a long-time member of in Tatla Lake. She has also sold countless prints, paintings and cards throughout the years — another way to keep herself occupied over the winter months. Though, she says, painting may have to take a back burner these days because her hands “just don’t work anymore.”

If getting out on your own doesn’t sound appealing, how about a communityorganized winter Olympics, complete with the running of the torch? Sound outrageous? That’s exactly what the residents of Tatlayoko Valley did last winter -- just for fun.

Their Olympic event took place over a full day last year with close to the whole community getting involved. The prep was detailed and well planned out, not to mention, “It was a good excuse to drink beer and hang out,” said Connie Bracewell.

“We have a natural lagoon on the end of Tatlayoko Lake, created by the rivers going by, and they cleared all the ice and had five rinks,” explained Gerry Bracewell, one of the original Tatlayoko residents. “We ran the length of the valley with a torch.

Grandparents, kids, everybody. We had a 90 year old who ran part way. I got the torch and ran part way.”

“Everyone who had a driveway would just stand in their driveway and carry it down to the next one,” Connie added. And anyone could compete.

For some, like Tatlayoko rancher Sabina Harris, winter is a busy time. Calving keeps her and her ranching partner Colleen Harris extra busy over the colder months. And her neighbors, she said, are always nearby to lend a hand.

Even though all the women we talked to had different stories and different ways of not only surviving the winter but enjoying the hell out it, the one thing that everyone agreed on was that community is vital.

“People say we don’t socialize, and then Gerry went through tons of stuff within four weeks that we’ve done,” said Connie.

“Sure we may drive two hours to go and see someone. In town people don’t even know their neighbors who live next door or across the street.”

“We know all our neighbors within miles of distance. And their families,”

WHERE PEOPLE COME

FIRST. OUT WITH THE BIRDS  Marilyn Berwin has a passion for birdwatching, as shown by her vast complex of birdhouses scattered around her yard. added Sabina. “We all help each other with all kinds of things.” The group of women gathered together nodded and chattered with agreement.

Although listening to these ladies it sounds like a winter-long community party, there are challenges as well.

Colleen tells a story about one of her family’s first winters in the Chilcotin: “When we came up here in 1968 from Michigan, when we came up here we had four kids — Connie was our youngest. We had number five 15 minutes before December 31st. It was minus 37 below. That was in Williams Lake. Out here [Tatlayoko] we had minus 47 below for six weeks.

It was a hardship for us because we’ve never been in that sort of scenario before.

I don’t know how to explain it because if you’ve never been through it you don’t know. But we lived through it, we survived it, we enjoyed it. It was a challenge for us.

“Then we almost lost Connie that winter. They had at that time the six-hour pneumonia and there was two babies lost in the valley at that time. And Connie, we feel she had an angel on her shoulder. She could talk so she came in and said, ‘Daddy I can’t breathe’ and, bang, we went into Williams Lake.

“And the road was not the way it is today. We got as far as Alexis Creek with my husband, she died a couple of times in his arms he figures; Mrs Sandborn at the Red Cross outpost is what we figured saved her life. The ambulance got there to pick her up and we said we don’t want to go through this no more. Not when it’s the sake of our kids.

“So we moved back to Michigan, had a disaster there, moved back here in ‘71 and we’ve been here ever since. It has been a really, really unique lifestyle, and we really, really love it. It’s a challenge, but anywhere you live is a challenge. It’s not a location, it’s just however you choose to look at it.”

Continued on Page 6

If Auto Department Manager Les Szmadyla looks right at home among the tools, tires and grease of the auto shop at Canadian Tire, it is with good reason. Les has been working with cars since he was young, back in his Winnipeg days. Since then he has had his hands in all kinds of auto businesses.

There was the year owning the Esso in Boston Bar; the auto parts franchise that he ran in Vancouver; and the ten years he spent running a tire shop on the coast before he and his girlfriend picked up and bought a hobby farm close by in Horsefly. After settling in on the farm he started his position at Williams Lake’s Canadian Tire and Les has been integral to the shop ever since. That was close to seven years ago.

“I just like helping people,” Les said about his Canadian Tire career, “and working for Brian is a pretty good deal - he’s a great boss.”

When not up to his elbows in engine Les spends his days as many Cariboo men do - watching playoffs, riding motorcycles, fixing up the house, or going hunting with his girlfriend.

“Got a moose this year. We went out for Caribou, it was disastrous.

When we got there it was close to 80 or 90 degrees out but we stuck it out. We ended up getting the moose. It was bad. Took us 8 hours to get it out of the bush, but we persevered - we got it.”

It is people like Les that help make Canadian Tire more than a great place to shop.

Canadian Tire: More than a store, we’re family.

1050 S. Lakeside Dr, Williams Lake • 250-392-3303 Mon-Wed 8am to 8pm • Thur-Fri 8am to 9pm • Sat 8am to 6pm - Sun 9am to 5pm Automotive Department: Mon-Sat 8am to 5pm Sun 9am to 5pm • 250-392-3697

PAGE 6 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

Continued from Page 5 Connie talked about her own battles with winter depression (S.A.D.). “Dorothy [Evans] and I help each other help each other, because I get quite depressed in the winter. And another friend of ours, she goes through it, and it’s like you’re so busy in the summertime and then there’s like nothing to do. So we’re constantly trying to keep ourselves occupied. Suddenly there’s no sun and it is hard.”

“I used to be fine in the winter,” Dorothy continued, “now I’ve got a knee that’s gone and my hip and my back are out and whatever so I can’t ski or go for a walk in the snow. So what do you do? If the weather’s good I go snowmobiling, but other than that you just sit in front of the sewing machine.

But if you’re depressed, you just don’t do anything. You can try and push yourself, but then you’re just going to screw it up.”

But rather than suffer in silence these ladies band together. “Gerry will say her house is dark and dingy and she needs to get out so we’ll just go over or she’ll come by and just sit,” says Connie. “We keep each other busy. We are

LUNCHING WITH THE CHILCOTIN LADIES  Connie Bracewell, here with her mother-in-law Gerry Bracewell, hosted a sit-down and dish-session for us and a number of Tatlayoko Valley ladies, where we could hear about life in the Chilcotin.

always planning things to do.”

“Every family situation is different in the valley. You can’t go by what Colleen does or what Gerry does or what Dorothy does or Sabina — each one of them is completely different. So Dorothy keeps care of her problem the way

that she does and Gerry the way she does and so on and so forth.

Lifestyle out here is so different than what anyone anticipates or thinks,” Colleen explains.

When people are feeling out of sorts in the Valley, she says, people band together and support one

another.

And not just emotionally.

“We all have hobbies. I think a lot of people in Williams Lake don’t have a hobby,” Connie says.

“Out here we’re all trying to make a little bit of extra money. So I got into making jewelry through my

The Graham Inn

children and I paint, so whenever I feel the urge, that does seem to pay off — people like to support me. And Dorothy, you should see all the placemats I have of hers, she is an amazing seamstress.”

Dorothy also has a little spot on her property aptly named the Sugar Shack where people can order meals to go. Sabina is working on her international cooking craft.

Gerry is an avid photographer and story-teller.

In the meantime the community gatherings continue, be it with groups of friends for pizza nights or entire community gettogethers like the annual school Christmas Concert, Game Night, Holiday Feast, or New Year’s Dance. Or getting together with your neighbors to help out with cattle. There really is always something going on.

“We’ve chosen this lifestyle. We can be ourselves. We don’t have to be anyone else, or pretend to be what we’re not. It is just who we are,” says Dorothy.

Maybe us so called “townies” could learn a thing or two about cabin fever from these wild women of the West.

The Gecko Tree Café and Mountain Mystics present

DINNER & CONCERT Series November 15: Wise and Weathered Featuring: Kim Barlow, Raghu Lokanathan and Catherine MacLellan Three songwriters build a strange and wonderful world from three bodies of work Dinner: A fabulous East Indian Fest myspace.com/kimbarlow www.raghumusic.com www.catherinemaclellan.com

Come experience our nature in Tatla Lake, Gateway to the Chilcotin

November 26: Wingdam Ramblers

• Liquor Store • Restaurant • Cabins • Groceries Cross country skiing only 4K away!

Gecko Tree

Featuring: Murray Boal and Bob Campell Their contemporary folk repertoire is peppered with banjo and mandolin, hinting at traditional music as well. Thirty years of friendship and sharing musical common ground is apparent in every performance and wins them new fans and friends wherever they go.

Dinner: A Holiday Feast www.murrayboal.com/wingdamramblers.aspx November Concert Series Tickets are $40/ea and include a night of entertainment and dinner. Book early -spaces are limited!

Dinners begin at 6:30 with the show at 7:30.

December 31: Grand Cariboo New Year's Eve Ball

For info / reservations call Nancy or Darryl at 1-877-408-2220 or 250-476-1112 www.chilcotin.bc.ca/graham_inn

Café 250-398-8983

54 N Mackenzie Ave Williams Lake

An enchanted evening of feasting, music, dance and comedy featuring talents from the Cariboo and across the Province: Maria In the Shower, Seth and Shara, Drum and Bell Tower, My wife's Quartet, Tom Salley's Band and so much more.

Details coming soon.

Early bird tickets on sale now at the Gecko Tree.

This New Year’s, you're going to have a Ball!

For more information or to book tickets for any of the events, contact the Gecko Tree at 250-398-8983 or visit www.mountainmystics.ca

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 7

Juli also spent part of a year of her young life at Christine Peters’ cabin, though she hasn’t yet run off to a build one of her own.

Coming home to the Cariboo

BY JULI HARLAND THE STEW MAGAZINE

In a time when youth are running from the hills and moving to the bigger cities 23-yearold Dylan Yland is going against the grain and settling in to life in the middle of the Chilcotin.

In a house he is building with his own two hands.

Born and raised for the early part of his life in his mother’s trapper-style cabin not 100 feet away from the house he is building now, Dylan spent a good deal of his teenage and adult years in 100 Mile House and Kelowna.

“I just got sick of it,” Dylan said. “Kelowna’s real nice when you just turn 19, and hit the bars and stuff, but the people out in Kelowna and the other cities aren’t as nice and friendly as they are out here [in Tatla Lake].”

The urge to move back to his childhood home started over a year ago when he was living in

Kelowna and had three weeks vacation. “I decided to come up here for vacation and I just ended up building a cabin just for fun, and when I built it I didn’t want to leave, so I figured why not move here,” Over last winter, Dylan, a drywaller / framer by trade, decided the small little cabin he had built on a whim was a little small to live in full time, so he started the process of building himself something little more permanent.

“Originally I was going to build an eight-sided, two-story building attached to my cabin, with a big walkway in the air,” Dylan explained, “but then that went out of the window. Then I was going to build this 16x16, but it is bigger than that, so then I figured 24x24. Then I decided I didn’t want my bathroom in the 24x24 so I built another room for it, and since I was building a bathroom I figured I would build another room with that.

“There wasn’t any real concrete plan it was pretty much just do it and fly by the seat of my pants.”

The almost complete showcase home now stands two stories tall with a crawl-space cellar, two bedrooms upstairs, and an open concept living space on the main floor, along with a modern bathroom and large entryway.

Dylan has been building his home on his mother’s land since April of 2010. “It was just trees before. I went out wading in two or three feet of snow with my chainsaw falling trees,” he says.

All of the trees used were pulled from the land to create the modern style space that he now calls home. With his mother, Christine Peters (pictured on the cover) giving a hand where she can as well as friends and neighbors lending support where needed, Dylan expects to complete the house by the end of November, just in time for winter in the Chilcotin!

! r e k c o R t o g We

• serving up the best

snowboards for 22 powderful seasons.

• free day pass @ MT.Timothy with board purchase.

• we thermally mold snowboard boots for a perfect fit.

• real snowboard tuning, waxing &rebuilds.

• racks of the hottest riding apparel

95 SOUTH 1ST AVE , WILLIAMS LAKE, BC V2G 1H4 PHONE: 250-398-7873 | FAX: 250-398-7272

PAGE 8 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

Fighting off the powerful urge to just hibernate To do, or not to do, that is the endless question of winter

BY TODD SULLIVAN THE STEW MAGAZINE

Winter’s almost here.

And I’m dreading it.

It’s already November 1, as I write this, so we’ve managed to get a decent reprieve from our typical snowfall. At the moment, the weather forecast says snow will be coming by the end of the week. And I know that first snowfall probably won’t last long. And I know it had to come eventually. But still...

The last few days have been so beautiful, with the blue skies, the unseasonably warm weather, the sun hitting its peak at that

slightly cockeyed angle.

With the snow comes the end of the beauty of fall, the start of the frozen, isolation of winter.

It’s going to be an interesting winter this year.

Working from home, I no longer need to leave the house as much as I used to. There are still events to go and cover, moments to go and photograph, but there’s less of a daily urgency to get outside.

Heck, I could probably just ask really nice and get someone else out to cover those events and take those pictures. I can do all the necessary interviewing by phone, right?

I mean, why not hi-

bernate this winter? Just hole up and not even go outside. Don’t bother switching over the tires, leave the driveway unshoveled. Hang a sign that reads ‘See you next spring’ in the window and leave it at that.

It’s tempting. But it’s probably not healthy.

There’s a reason there’s a reason they call it Cabin Fever. Those instincts to just hunker down and let the whole season pass over us tend to conflict with our desire for human contact. The need to be a social animal.

The need to fulfill a social ritual. Like going out for a beer with your friends.

These things seem harder to do in the winter, but they’re still just as necessary. I think the

survival of our sanity depends on it. Letting yourself get snowed in might seem like a good idea at the time (especially if, say, you just got a brand new video game), but when the only person you have to talk to is yourself, the conversations can get pretty stale.

Thankfully I’m not in that boat. I’ve still got a few people around who’ll talk to me. For now.

Though I’m not sure how long they’ll be staying if I decide to just let the snow pile up outside our door.

I know there’s plenty of outdoor activities to keep us all busy and active in the winter months -snowboarding, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, snowball fights, etc.

-- but I’ve never done as well in the winter. My ears

get cold. My nose runs.

My toes get tingly.

I’ll hopefully have a bit more free time on my hands this year, though, so maybe this is the time to try braving those ugly temperatures, to go tromping through the white stuff to build an army of snowmen in my front yard, armed to the teeth and willing to defend my property at all costs. The best way to fight that hibernation urge is to move around.

Keep active. Just do it, as that shoe company would say.

To do it, or not to do it.

This is the endless debate of winter. The debate we all struggle with, each year.

Maybe this year, it’s time for a change. todd@thestew.ca

SPEAK

Call or Fax us: (778) 412-2600 Email us: letters@thestew.ca Find us on the web at http://www.thestew.ca or Friend us on Facebook!

Keeping yourself busy in the winter months Projects galore will help fight off the approach of cabin fever

BY JULI HARLAND THE STEW MAGAZINE

The weather is getting chillier and the need for a sweater or heavier jacket is growing more and more.

Soon I will have to face that it really is almost winter in the Cariboo.

Facing that shouldn’t be terribly hard. I have always been a fan of the cooler months. Fall is particularly beautiful with the changing leaves and the colour-filled landscape of our region.

Winter has beautiful points also. I love the look

of the diamond-like sparkle of a new snow fall. I love a good snowball fight and snowmen are the epitome of child-like happiness. I especially appreciate the hibernation that the plant life goes into to ready itself for new growth in the spring. This year especially as I, myself — being just more than three months pregnant — am also feeling rather slumber-filled while preparing for new life in the spring.

And so, this year, to combat the onset of cabin fever I am planning the

upheaval of a room in our house to accommodate a brand-new person. Rather than flinging myself down a hill on sticks (though I know, I know, many pregnant women do it and love it) or trying to wobble my by then terribly rounded self around on skates (that, let’s face it, I haven’t been on in years), I will be happily tearing out carpet, painting walls, designing murals, sewing baby clothes, making blankets.

You know, in between naps. Because as my fourteen-year-old said: “You’re tired because you are creating life. And you’re old.” Out of the mouth of babes...

Though I know I can’t

spend the entire winter trapped in one room. Cabin fever is one thing, being stuck in one space focused on one thing all season would certainly make me insane.

So to add to my Martha Stewart inspired room transformation I would like to think that I will be continuing to do the things that keep me entertained all year long. Like travelling around the Cariboo and the Interior (usually for work, but hey, I still love it). Getting out to and being involved in the local Williams Lake Studio Theatre (though I may have to refrain from too much on stage shenannigans). And keeping up with, and doing more, volunteer

work in the community (something I have been a little lax in lately, but now that I am on my own clock I am excited about getting deeper in to).

And of course writing and gathering advertising for The Stew. Which makes me insanely happy.

So, although I won’t be a ski-bunny or a snow mobile aficionado during winter months, I am sure that I will be well outside the realm of cabin fever. Because staying sane isn’t about doing what everyone else is doing, it is about doing what feels right in your own soul.

As for the room transformation - it may not fare quite so well. juli@thestew.ca

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 9

Another, more popular method of ‘wineterizing’ involves travelling to a sunny beach somewhere like Mexico.

However, while more popular, it isn’t terribly affordable.

Winterizing can save you money Winterizing your home is very important…it may cost you some money initially, but in the long run it will save you more, and will help keep you comfortable during the winter cold.

One easy fix to help keep your home warmer during the winter months is applying weather stripping to your doors. As time goes on, regardless of how well built a house is, doors may shift a little and no longer shut adequately to keep cold air from seeping in.

For an added measure, you could make a draft snake to place in front of your door. You just need some fabric that is about 2 inches longer than the width of your door, and approximately 4 inches wide. Sew along both sides and one end, turn inside out, and stuff with batting (heck, shredded old CLEAN socks would work!), then sew the final end together. All you have to do is place it at the

Fine Frugality

By Angela Shephard base of your door for added insulation from door drafts!

Glass sliding doors are a little harder to insulate. Putting weather stripping along the edges can help, but if the door isn’t commonly used, your best bet is to shrink film over the whole door to help keep your home warmer for the winter.

Windows could also use shrinkable film to help insulate them, and if they are extremely drafty, you should use some form of insulation around the opening to help keep drafts out before placing the film on the window.

You can find kits for both the sliding

doors and windows for reasonable prices from your local hardware store.

Changing the filter for your heater will help with the flow of hot air within your home rather than making it fight to get through dirt (not to mention all the swirling dirt throughout your home). Also, try putting insulation on your hot water tank; even if it’s just an emergency foil blanket, it can help keep your hot water warm, which can translate into huge savings over a long harsh winter!

Here’s something few people think about: the power outlets and

light switches on outer walls! They are rarely insulated from behind, and can bring a draft into your home costing you more money in heating bills. And it’s so easy to fix -- simply buy some outlet seals, remove the plate for the outlet / light switch cover, put in the outlet seal, and put the cover back on.

If you have a fireplace, make sure that the damper / flue are closed when not in use.

You can also get a piece of styrofoam cut to fit in behind your fireplace doors to reduce the effect of breezes that may come through.

If you have glass doors, you can always put a picture or print on the styrofoam to show through and add to your home décor.

All in all a few bucks can save you big over the coming chilly months. If you know of any other cheap ways to bundle up for the winter let me know!

Here’s to a frugal and frost-free winter!

MAGAZINE THE STEW Magazine wants to know: If you had to be stranded in the middle of nowhere, what one thing would you bring with you to stay sane?

Send your answers to letters@thestew.ca

Todd Sullivan todd@thestew.ca publisher / editor-in-chief “My funky new cell phone can do everything. It’s got novels on it, it’s got games, you can surf the web, play music, and it’s ultra portable, so wherever it is I happen to be, it’s right there, in my pocket. Plus, it records videos, so I could vlog my entire, horrible, cabin-fever-esque experience.”

Juli Harland juli@thestew.ca sales manager / executive editor “How deserted is deserted? Nothing on the island? No electricity or shelter? Then give me a big old knife that I can build and hunt and whittle with. Is there some kind of electricity and shelter?

Then bring on the laptop! Maybe I can get a connection and get someone to come and pick my ass up.”

Angela Shephard angela@thestew.ca fine frugality (crafters beat) “A case of sunscreen — all I do is red, white, or peeling. If I am deserted at least I am not in pain.”

We’re smart. And sexy.

Jamie Horsely tonesoup@thestew.ca tone soup (music beat) “Assuming I've got enough food and heat and electricity, I'd have to bring my computer with all my music on it (no, my iPod doesn't hold nearly enough).”

Will Meeks whereswally@thestew.ca where’s wally (travel beat)

MEME

I like it X (where X is the location of your handbag, though it’s meant to sound like the location you prefer to have sex).

MONTH

Popularized by: Facebook

OF THE MEME [meem] noun An element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means

an image, video, etc. that is passed electronically from one Internet user to another

If were on Facebook at all during the month of October, you probably saw this meme, even if maybe you didn’t entirely know what it was all about. Women were encouraged to update their Facebook status describing where they like to put their handbag or purse, preferably in a way that would make it sound like they were describing where they like to have sex.

For example, one of these status updates might read something like “I like it on the kitchen table,” or “I like it wherever there’s room,” or “I like it someplace clean.”

So why were women encouraged to do this? It apparently has something to do with raising awareness about breast cancer, even though the status updates have nothing to do with either breasts, cancer, or breast cancer. While it certainly prompted some dialogues for the week or so that it spread across Facebook, those dialogues didn’t have much to do with cancer research, and were mostly about how we’re all a bunch of dirty-minded freaks.

SEE ALSO: The Bra Status Update (2010)

“I would take my dog. Misery loves company right? I have been lost in the woods with him before, he has no sense of direction but he's pretty good company.

Also, if I get hungry or cold, I could eat him and make a fur coat.”

Carol Davidson stir@thestew.ca stir (health beat) “If I had to be stranded somewhere I'd arrange to bring my La-Z-Boy couch (complete with built-in recliners) so I'd have a comfy place to lounge and sleep (two of my favourite activities).”

Torrey Owen torrey@thestew.ca vancouver seen (city beat) “I've never considered myself sane."

THE STEW Magazine is an independently owned and operated monthly arts and lifestyle magazine published in the Cariboo Chilcotin. All information contained in this magazine is correct, to our best knowledge, as of press time. Opinions expressed by correspondents and contributors are not necessarily those of THE STEW or its employees. We reserve the right to edit letters to the editor for grammar, punctuation, content, or length. All letters must be signed by the author. THE STEW Magazine accepts no responsibility for correctness beyond the amount paid for that portion of advertising space occupied by the incorrect item. We reserve the right to refuse any advertising or editorials submission which we believe to be inconsistent with the philosophy of this publication.

The contents of this publication are copyright The Stew Magazine 2010.

PAGE 10 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

Todd is still kind of disappointed that Torrey declined writing a column on politics.

It was actually because Torrey was so non-political that he seemed like such a natural choice to write about the subject.

Hello, my name is Torrey, and this is my column A couple months ago when I was living in Victoria, Todd Sullivan (the chief editor of this fine paper you’re reading) asked if I’d be interested in writing some political pieces for an upcoming project. I told him no, I don’t enjoy political writing, and that I was moving to Vancouver. Being a coy opportunist, Todd revised his original question and asked if I’d write a regular cultural article encompassing my Vancouver experiences. I quickly agreed.

For those who don’t know me, please allow me to introduce myself. I grew up in, played hockey at, went to school in, and was a resident of Williams Lake for most of my life. But after excursions to larger communities, I realized that small town life suited me poorly and that larger communities and cities were my calling.

So about three years ago I packed my belongings into

a rusty ‘91 Chevy Sprint and made my way to Kamloops to continue studying acting, sociology, and philosophy at Thompson Rivers University.

I landed a very good job in Kamloops and thoroughly enjoyed the majority of my schooling. In April 2009, I lost my job over the content of a stage performance I did in Vancouver so I had to reorganize my life. I managed to develop independent methods of securing enough finances to survive and I was able to make ends meet.

I also continued to attend classes but stopped paying for school. Instead, I audited lectures I found interesting, and gained knowledge without being credited or certified as knowledgeable.

In spring 2009 I had the good fortune of falling in love and I’m happy to say that we are still in love. My partner’s name is Laura and she is truly amazing. The two of us moved to Victoria in

Vancouver Seen

By Torrey Owen May this year, but after five months of living there, we concluded that Vancouver would be a more suitable home for us. At the end of September, we packed up everything again, with the help of my parents, and relocated to Vancouver.

Currently, we’re living with three wonderful friends, so there are five of us under a single roof and it’s proving to be quite enjoyable.

So there, three years of my life compressed into three paragraphs. Not bad, eh?

So what’s happening now? Well, being that I’ve failed to amass great amounts of wealth being jobless, I had to find employment. I’m very picky when it comes to jobs and I have a strong aversion to manual labor; I just don’t like digging, lifting, or hauling. I’m also not to fond of the service industry -- I’ve been there, done that, and I don’t want to do it again. I’m a good employee but I’m not what one would define as a hard worker.

I’m excited to say

however, that I found a job I somewhat enjoy: adult toy store clerk. Yes, I spend my days selling sex toys and porn and, as a bonus, I get to learn about all the various products and their functions; I even have plenty of time to read and write when it’s slow.

Yes, it’s a winning situation for me!

On the other hand, I’m certainly not willing to make a career out of selling sex toys, so I’ve decided to commit to doing stand-up comedy. I really enjoy being on stage and writing my own material so it is a natural progression in my life. I’ll be doing my first show on October 25. Well, it’s not really a show so much as five minutes on stage at an open mic night. I’m a little nervous but I’m also confident and very excited. I went to watch an open mic last night just to see what it was like, hear a few of the other comedians speak their material. As

expected, a few of them were really funny but some not so much. In truth some of them sucked.

Watching amateur stand-up can be as painful as medieval methods of attaining ‘truth.’

So there you have it. This is my first submission to the Cariboo’s newest paper, The Stew. I will have a regular column so I hope that you will follow my stories about Vancouver and its culture. I’m looking forward to attending concerts, dances, slam poetry competitions, plays and productions involving various forms of artistic expression and will enjoy relaying those experiences to you, the fine people of Williams Lake and surrounding areas.

Hopefully, if I do my job well enough, I may even entice you to travel to Vancouver and check out the scene for yourself.

Thanks for reading. torrey@thestew.ca

Kamloops’ Green Hotel Winter Getaway Over 55 & CAA Members

Buy one batch of Vintner Reserve four-week wines and receive

$20 OFF your second batch.

Cannot be combined with any other offer. Sale ends Nov. 30, 2010

C A R I B O U

U BREW

225 Barnard St., Williams Lake • 250-392-BREW (2739)

UP TO

UP TO

Sunday thru Thursday

Friday & Saturday

%

%

35OFF 25OFF • 42" Flatscreen TV in every room • Indoor tropical courtyard • Pool, Hot Tub, Fitness Facility *Proof of age or valid CAA membership card will be required to check in.

Offer valid from November 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011

Reservations: 1-800-665-6674 www.kamloopstownelodge.ca 1250 Rogers Way, Kamloops, BC

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 11

Play Your guide to where to go and what to do for the month of November PHOTO BY TODD SULLIVAN

NATURAL BEAUTY ď ľ We made a spontaneous visit out to beautiful Rose Lake last month in between our stops at the Book Fest in 100 Mile House and Oktoberfest celebration in Lac La Hache. While there, we captured this moment of lakeside tranquility.

PAGE 12 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

Two beer-centered festivals in two months? Heck yeah!

Guess where we’ll be on November 5!

PHOTO BY TODD SULLIVAN

WE WANT YOU

TO JOIN THE STEW Are you looking for a part time job where you get to meet interesting people? Do you like talking about things like books, movies, and the lastest pop-culture trends? Do you have your own car? Are you somewhat computer savvy?

Do you enjoy drinking with co-workers?

Then you might be just what we’re looking for!

The Stew Magazine is looking for a part time advertising representative immediately. Interested? Forward your resume and cover letter to Juli Harland at juli@thestew.ca.

MAGAZINE

HOBBIT

Every Tuesday: Quesnel Single Social Club: Join us for FUN social outings; including.....

Dancing, Dinners, Hiking. Theatre, Barbeques, Community Events etc.

We meet every Tuesday, 7 PM at the Wee Chippie Restaurant, 490 Carson Ave., to plan out future events; have coffee and chat. New to town?

Would you like to meet some new folks? You do not have to be Single to join us. (All Welcome) For more info email us at qssg@live.ca or visit our website at www.qssg.org Fall Astrological Workshops at the Wil-

HOUSE

liams Lake Hobbit House with Martin Comtois: November 3, November 17, and December 1. All workshops are $15 each and start at 6:30pm. Personal Consultations and readings available. Contact the Hobbit House for details. 71 South 1st Ave, 250-392-7599.

November 3 through November 6 The Williams Lake Studio Theatre presents the murder/mystery “Who Walks in the Dark” written by Tim Kelly and directed by Sharon Hoffman. Tickets are available at AboutFace Photography and The Open Book, or at the door.

Kix 4 Chix

FITNESS INC.

Williams Lake’s Wellness Centre Unique Things for Unique Souls

Williams Lake's answer to fun, friendly and effective fitness and weight-loss for women

• Books • Crystals • Tinctures • Aromatherapy • CDs • Giftware • Jewellery • Singing Bowls • Local Made Products • and so much more...

Kix4Chix really is for women of all shapes, sizes and fitness levels!

Classes can be modified to the individual We are now offering yoga classes as well!

For the hands-on approach, come and visit both old and new practitioners in the areas of Reiki, Reflexology, Astrology, Healing Touch, All Types of Massage, and More.

71 S 1st Avenue

Leanne Kunka Owner

392-7599

Give us a call to find out how kickboxing can work for you 105b Mackenzie Ave, Call Nic @ 250-267-1672 or visit www.kix4chix.com

November 4, at the Cariboo Theatre, the Quesnel Film Club presents: Babies. Show starts at 7:00pm, tickets are $9/$7 for seniors. For more information please contact 250-747-7422 or 250-747-3979. The November 4th show is sponsored by Bo Peep Boutique.

November 5 at 6:30pm The Quesnel Legion presents: A Night to Remember, with music by the After Eight Ensemble.

Dinner and entertainment to honour veterans.

Music from the 40’s.

Cocktails 6:30, dinner 7:30, and entertainment at 9:00. Tickets are $25/ each; please contact the Legion Hall for more information.

November 5 through November 20 The Station House Gallery in Williams Lake is hosting “Anonymous Foot Work” a silent auction Gallery fundraiser that invites artists to work anonymously in a 12”x12” format.

November 5th the Quesnel Rotary Club presents: The Cariboo Festival of Beers at the Senior’s Center! Doors open at 7pm, tickets are $20.

Come and experience the northern interior’s largest beer tasting event! Your

ticket entitles you to: 5 free beer samples ($1.00 additional samples), a souvenir 6oz Pilsner glass, food service by Panago Pizza, door prizes, and designated drivers.

November 5 from 10am to 5pm The Royal Purple is holding its annual Xmas Craft Sale at the Elks Hall in Williams Lake - for more information call Gloria at 250392-3497 November 5 from 12 noon to 5:30 pm, for more Christmas goodies, the Sacred Heart School and Parish is hosting its Annual Christmas Bazaar at the Hall at 455 Pigeon Avenue in Williams Lake.

Start your Holiday shopping early and even stop by for the luncheon to kick off the day.

Starting Friday November 5th through to 6pm on Sunday the 6th come join other scrapbookers for a weekend of scrapbooking and cardmaking. Dinner is included on the Saturday night. Part of the proceeds will be donated to the Quesnel Fire Hall Charity. Tickets are $75 for the weekend. For more information please contact Paula Sword at 250-992-3920 or email apageintime@telus.net.

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 13

Local craft fairs are a great place to pick up local and personal gifts and treasures.

Especially handy if you’re not terribly crafty yourself or if you’ve given out as many paintings as people can hang.

November 6 from 9:00am to 1:30pm, The Canadian Cancer Society will host a forum called “Cancer Prevention Through Research” at the Pioneer Complex in Williams Lake. Guest speaker is Dr Carolyn Gotay,PHD - pre-registration is at the WL Canadian Cancer society’s office on 4th Avenue.

November 6 from 10:00 to 2:30pm the Horsefly Annual Craft Fair will be in full swing offering flea market finds, crafts, concession, hot lunch and door prizes.

For more information contact 250-620-3597.

November 6 from 1:30pm to 3:30pm, The Williams Lake Film Club is hosting a film in the Gibraltar Room.The film is called “The Power of the Powerless(USA).”The proceeds from the film go to the Learning Disabilities Association, so come out for an interesting experience. For more information contact Krista Liebe at 250-398-9149 or email her at krista. liebe@gmail.com November 6 at 7:00pm, Beeotcheese Bistro in Williams Lake.

New fiction from Caitlin Press and Highway 20 books: “All Those Drawn to Me” by Christian Peterson. The book launch and readings will be followed by music and dancing with the Wingdamramblers and Big Twang Daddy and Co, and more.

November 8 at 7:00pm

- 10:00pm The AGM for the Museum of the Cariboo Chilcotin in Williams Lake will be held at the museum. New members are welcome.

November 19/20 Urban Ink Productions presents: Looking Back, Moving Forward: The Arrival and Personal Legacy Workshop in Williams Lake. An integral theatre workshop, participants will gain a deeper appreciation for how traditional knowledge and ancestral research can be a source for creating and performing stories rooted in local history. For more information call Jesse Giddons at 250-302-9119 or check them out online at urbanink.ca

November 10th at the Billy Barker Showroom Yuk Yuk Comedy Night will be bringing laughter to the stage. Tickets are $10, Doors open 6:30, Show starts 7:30.

November 11 Join the Remembrance Day Service at 100 Mile House Birch Ave & 100 Mile Community Hall at the cenotaph 10:30am in front of Coach House Square, parade down Birch Ave to 100M Comm. Hall. Ceremony begins at 10:55am; hotdogs & hot chocolate avail. afterwards.; Legion is hosting an open house luncheon for those 19 years & older from noon till closing. For more information contact the Royal Canadian Legion 250-395-2511 November 12 11am to 8pm and November 13 10am to 4pm at the Elks Hall in Williams Lake The Early Christmas Craft Fair will once again be the place to go to check out local crafts and treasures for gifts or to keep for yourself. Admission is free!

November 13 at 8:00pm to approximately 10:00pm Dynamic Downfall and Still Before Nowhere will be playing an all ages concert at the Longhouse at the Williams Lake Stampede Grounds.

November 13 from 1-4 pm is the Timberland Alpine Ski Society’s Annual Ski Swap in Williams Lake at the Cariboo GM building at 510 North Broadway. Drop off usable ski items at GM on November 12 from 5-8pm or November 13 from 8:30am to 10:30 am for $1/piece. Ski Swap sales are cash only and all proceeds from the sale go towards the Timberland

Alpine Ski Society. For more information contact Lisa at 250-392-9612 November 13 6:00pm - 9:00pm Mount Timothy will be hosting their annual Dinner and Fundraiser. The event will be at Big Mama’s Steakhouse with a terrific buffet dinner.Tickets are $23.00.

Welcome donations for the auction.There will be Door Prizes,Buckets,and a fast paced auction to follow dinner. For information please contact Bob Patterson at 250296-3135.

November 13, Quesnel Art Gallery presents their annual Beaux Arts Fundraiser. The Gallery members Christmas Sale

of unique, original artwork. Great for gift-giving and self-indulgence.

Sale takes place between 10am and 4pm.

November 18 12:00pm to 12:00am, The Bank of Montreal is hosting the popular Quiz Night at the Overlander Hotel in Williams Lake to raise funds for a new mammography machine at Cariboo Memorial. The cost is $60.00 for a team of four - fax your team name and information to 250-392-6081 November 18 through November 20 10:00am 3:00pm. Ten Thousand Villages Craft Sale will be held at the Cariboo Bethel Church at 833 Western

Ave Williams Lake. This Fair Trade Merchandise event brings hand made gifts and crafts from over 30 countries. For more information contact 250398-6731.

November 18 6:30pm - 8:30pm, The Williams Lake Film Club will be hosting a film in the Gibraltar Room.The film is called A Woman in Berlin(Germany).The proceeds from the film will go to the Learning Disabilities Association.So come out for an interesting experience.

For more information contact Krista Liebe at 250-398-9149 or email her at krista.liebe@gmail. com

November 19 from 6-11pm, 20th from 10am to 11pm and 21st from 10am to 3pm is the Annual Marie Sharpe Elementary School PAC Scrapbooking Weekend! $50 registration includes lunches, brunch and Saturday’s supper along with snacks and drinks, goody bags, door prizes and more. For tickets or information drop in at Creative Accents or Margett’s Meats in Williams Lake.

November 19 West Park Mall in Quesnel presents their annual Craft Fair. Table rentals are free. Come see what the Cariboo crafters have for you this season! For more information please contact Debbie at 250992-6765.

After

Before

Fine art, fine jewellery, Pandora, Elle, Canadian Diamonds.

Breeze

The

November 5 &6 the South Cariboo Winter Arts & Crafts Fair will be held at the 100 Mile Junior Secondary School.

Come join the fun Friday evening and all day Saturday; approx. 50 artists, artisans and crafters from the South Cariboo and Beyond. For more information please contact Birgit Bienek 250-3951991 or email bebienek@ xplornet.com

GOLD & GALLERY

328 Reid Street, Quesnel Phone: 992-6060 • Fax: 992-6064

Fusion Hair Extensions & Custom Clip-ins Get long, beautiful, sexy hair!

• Adds length, volume, or both!

• Full stock of clip-ins in store • No pre-order necessay 12B N. Broadway Avenue Williams Lake

(250) 392-1994

PAGE 14 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

These days, everywhere we turn, we’re bumping into Sage Birchwater.

Which is perfectly okay. We think he’s pretty cool

November 20 the Quesnel Arts and Recreation Center are celebrating Family Day between 1 and 5pm. For more information on events please contact 250-992-8200.

November 20 marks the 10th Anniversary Taste of Quesnel Variety Dinner & Artisan Auction at the Senior’s Center. For more information or for tickets please contact 250-985-5816 November 20 *Audition Call* at 10am in the Kersley Community Hall. Please prepare a one minute song selection.

The coming show is “The Music Man”. Rehearsals will run weeknights and Saturday mornings starting January 3rd, the show runs Feb 23 through March 5.

November 20 at the 108 Mile Ranch 108 Mile Elementary School, come join the 2nd Annual Winter Bazaar. There will be Christmas gifts, treats, basket raffles, concession, Santa photos, music and more! From 10am-4pm.

For more information contact: Erin Hilstad at 250-791-5682 November 20 10:00am - 10:00pm, The Museum of the Cariboo Chilcotin presents the 6th Annual Cowboy Christmas! The Trade show will take place between 10:004:00pm and is a free admission event. Later in the evening, the Cowboy Concert will take place at 7:00pm. Tickets for the concert are $10.00 each. For more information contact the Williams Lake Museum of the Cariboo Chilcotin November 20/21 from 10 to 4pm each day Columneetza Secondary School in Williams Lake will be hosting the annual Mideaval Market. Tickets are $2 at the door. There will be many great local and provincial crafters as well as door prizes, music, and a concession stand.

November 21 the Interlakes Community Hall presents the annual Roe Lake / Interlakes Christmas Bazar. From 10am to 3pm the hall will be packed tight with crafts and holiday goodness.

For more information please contact Joanne Levick at 250-593-4570.

PHOTO BY TODD SULLIVAN

CELEBRATE THE WORD  Editor of the annual literary journal Lived Experience,Van Andruss, was joined by his fellow co-horts and journal contributors Sage Birchwater and Lorne Dufour at last month’s Book Festival in 100 Mile House where they were showing off their latest written treasures.

November 26 Winter Lights Festival kicks off with late night shopping, entertainment, horse and buggy rides, and a Santa Parade downtown Williams Lake. Festivities begin at approximately 5pm.

Friday November 26 Santa Claus Parade and Midnight Madness in downtown Quesnel. Another fantastic family gettogether, the Santa Claus Parade entertains young and old alike. The popular Parade is followed by a shopping extravaganza, where local retailers put on fantastic specials and stay open late in order to kick off the holiday shopping season.

November 27 form 10am to 5pm the Hobbit House at 71 1st Ave in Williams Lake will be hosting their annual Open House celebration.

Meet the practitioners both new and old, Come in for tea and cookies, start your holiday shopping, they will pay the taxes for one day only!

November 27 10:00am - 4:00pm the Made in the Cariboo Craft Fair is to be held at the Tourism Discovery Centre.

Registrations for space must be made by the 16th of November.

November 27 10:00am - 2:00pm, The Likely Craft Fall Fair will be held at the Likely elementary school starting at 10:00am- Xmas wreaths, garlands, jams and lots of Xmas pressies November 27 the Quesnel Arts and Recreation Center will be hosting their annual Christmas Farmer’s

Market. Come see what’s on the tables. For more information contact 250747-8543.

Nov 27 1:30pm - 3:30pm, The Williams Lake Film Club is hosting a film in the Gibraltar Room.The film is called America The Beautiful(USA).The proceeds from the film go

to the Learning Disabilities Association.So come out and enjoy a unique experience. For more information contact Krista Liebe at 250-398-9149 or email her at krista.liebe@ gmail.com November 28 11:00am - 2:00pm, The Big Lake School Christmas Auction and Tea starting at

11:00am - auction items, children’s handmade Christmas crafts, bake table and lunch is available.

December 4 at the Elks Hall in Williams Lake: Christmas Treasures Fundraising Gala! This annual fundraiser helps bring much needed attention and money to the

Cariboo Hospital Foundation Trust to help care for the Cariboo residents.

Entertainment this year is being done by Six in the City, cocktails at 5:30 pm, dinner at 6:30pm and the fun will last all evening!Tickets are $75, to pick yours up drop in to Cariboo Chevrolet or Remax.

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 15

Perhaps the Beastie Boys are simply planning to release a prequel to Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 20 years down the road, much like George Lucas did with his Star Wars trilogies.

The King of Pop makes more money dead than alive Well, we’ve been more than a year in waiting for the Beastie Boys to release Hot Sauce Committee Part 1. Last year they delayed it indefinitely. Now they have announced that Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 will be available, on time, in spring of 2011. With the announcement, they released the tracklist for the album, and guess what, it’s the tracklist that was announced for Part 1. So now Part 1 is Part 2 and there is no Part 1. What was Part 2 will now be something else, later, one day, probably, we hope.

Beastie Boys have also been nominated as inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year.

Alice Cooper fans have reason to rejoice as well.

Twice in the past decade Cooper fans have rallied together in attempts to convince the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame of his worthiness.

This year Alice finally has a spot on the nominees list. I

Tone Soup

By Jamie Horsley guarantee that if he doesn’t get in, someone is going to be very upset. A lot of someones.

Tom Waits, Joe Tex, Donna Summer, Laura Nyro, Darlene Love, LL Cool J, Dr. John, Donovan, Neil Diamond, Chic, Bon Jovi, J. Geils Band and Chuck Willis have also been nominated for Hall of Fame stardom this year.

Michael Jackson, who is already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, seems to be better off dead (Oops did I say that?). What I mean is, he’s making more money than ever before. He’s never graced Forbes’ Celebrity 100

list, but now that he’s dead, the only celebrity making more money than him, dead or alive, is Oprah.

The King of Pop can’t take down the Queen of Talk, but he can take down the King of Rock and Roll. Elvis is second on Forbes’ Top-Earning Dead Celebrities list with a mere $60 million. At $275 million, Jackson made more than all the other 12 late celebrities on the list combined.

Not impressed? How about even more than Lady Gaga, Madonna, Jay-Z and U2 combined? That’s impressive.

Speaking of dead celebrities still in business, Ray Charles just released a new album. Rare Genius; The Undiscovered hit shelves October 26 and is full of, as the title suggests, unreleased songs. It’s got all the classic Ray Charles sound, plus a lost duet with Johnny Cash. The song, Why Me Lord, was recorded in 1981 and originally meant to appear on one of Cash’s albums but never did.

29 years later, it’s now available for all to hear.

Do you like the Motown sound? Have you heard Cee Lo Green’s latest single, Fuck You? Or better yet, seen the hilarious video for it? I’m sure you have. The lyrics video went viral on YouTube, acquiring over a million views in its first 24 hours and later rising to over 7 million.

The official video now has over 14.5 million views. Cee Lo Green is now releasing his new album, Lady Killer, almost a month early. It will

now be available November 9 instead of December 7.

For those who prefer a softly crooned art rock ballad, Bryan Ferry has a wonderful new offering. Ferry enlisted a lot of help to make his latest, Olympia, a great album.

The first single, Heartache

By Numbers, is a beautiful collaboration with the Scissor Sisters. Other artists appearing on the album include Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno, Groove Armada, Nile Rodgers, Flea, Johnny Greenwood and David Gilmour. The album cover even features Kate Moss in a recreation of 19th century painting “Olympia”

by Edouard Manet. I’d even go as far as to say it’s his best work since Roxy Music.

Great job Bryan!

David Gilmour seems to have been sowing his musical seeds everywhere lately. His prog rock guitar stylings combine beautifully with The Orb’s ambient house vibe

on their collaborative album Metallic Spheres. This is an amazing album. Once you start listening to it you’ll want to just relax and happily drift away in a beautiful groove. It’s my top pick as tunes for an afternoon nap in a sunbeam.

I highly recommend this to everyone.

Collaborative albums being the thing to do these days, Elton John follows suit on his latest project, The Union, which features his long-time inspiration Leon Russell.

Russell is such an obscure musical legend, few people even recognize the name, but he’s played with and lent his talent to so many musical greats of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Leon’s rock / blues / gospel sound meshes perfectly with Elton’s return to his early ‘70s roots. The Union is a simply masterful album.

Follow Jamie on twitter at twitter.com/tonesoup toneesoup@thestew.ca

Gardening & Greenhouse Supplies Hydroponic Equipment & Supplies Smoking Accessories Organic Loose Teas and Accessories

Time for a change?

Let ‘Buddies’ fill his bowl.

Cool Clear Water 250-398-2899 1-888-498-2899 107 Falcon Drive, Hwy 97, WL

298 Mackenzie Ave S Williams Lake, BC • V2G 1C6 www.coolclearwater.ca

Home of

PAGE 16 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

We intentionally ran Carol’s column next to the stories about comfort food and the atrocious KFC Double Down. We’re not sure if one is meant to ‘win’ over the other, we just thought it would be funny.

There’s more to life than being a couch potato (really!)

Congratulations, the latest Family Guy marathon has ended, and you’ve managed to watch four hours worth of reruns while never getting off the couch. As far as being a full-fledged couch-potato you have passed the requirements with flying colours. Be honest though – how do you feel? Tired? Lethargic? Ready for bed even though it’s only 4:30?

If you ask me (a recovering champion couch-potato in my own right), what’s the point in engaging in any activity if it only makes you feel like a bag of mush, with about as much energy? With winter on its way, and the upcoming inevitable days of cold, poor light and slippery roads, we can all feel an overwhelming desire to stay inside and hibernate on the couch for the next five months.

Don’t give in to that desire and instead plan to get out of the house, and be active and busy this winter for the ben-

Stir

By Carol Davidson efit of your overall physical and mental well-being.

Winter in these parts should not come as a surprise (although every year it still catches some people off-guard) so we might as well embrace the winter weather and make the most of it, especially in an effort to combat cabin fever, feeling S.A.D (Seasonal Affective Disorder) due to low light, or just becoming a pasty-faced lump who hasn’t seen the sun in weeks. Conversation with friends and co-workers is a lot more interesting when we’ve actually done

something and participated in some kind of physical or social activity.

For most people who want to increase their activity levels winter doesn’t seem like the best time to start, what with the aforementioned snow, cold and lack of sun making it a bit more challenging to stay motivated and interested in new things. Fear not, maintaining your motivation while readjusting your schedule to encompass your desire to get healthier (or stay healthy) is not difficult at all, even in the depths of winter.

For starters, when you de-

cide to increase your activity level it’s easier to incorporate something new into your life in small doses. If you suddenly start spending 20 hours per week working out while putting the rest of your life on hold, you’ll soon be back to zero hours of workouts as the rest of your life inevitably starts to creep back in, and you start changing priories again. The end result is that the workout schedule you attacked with such zeal a few weeks ago will seem like a wasted effort with little to show for it. Unfortunately you end up feeling like you “failed” and the motivation to get back on track is hardly there. The trick is to not set yourself up for failure in the first place. Start small!

Go ahead and participate in your chosen activities with as much zeal as you want, but start slowly by committing only two to three hours per week to give yourself a chance to adjust to your new schedule. Over time you can

add a few more hours each week if you want to, but it’s really not necessary to live at the gym to experience positive benefits to your health (and yes, you can still watch the occasional Family Guy marathon!).

I’m not sure which is worse, those who never participate in healthy activities, or those who do nothing but work out – quite frankly both camps can be made up of boring people, so keep a good balance between your healthy activities and staying connected with friends and family.

Winter activities are generally thought of as skiing, show-shoeing, ice fishing, and snow-shovelling but there are loads of indoor activities, too, so if you aren’t keen on being outside when it’s really cold, there is still plenty to do. The Parks and Recreation department has a whole catalogue of activities to keep you busy (and signing up for a regular class helps

PROPANE SALES • PROPANE SERVICE 1125 HWY 97 South • Beside Tim Horton’s on Hwy 97

Phone: 250-392-2971 • 1-800-943-7678

you plan your schedule a lot easier). If you like to go to the gym, hire a trainer once a month to show you different kinds of workouts so that you will never have a boring workout routine again. Set up workout times with a friend (or two) so that you all keep each other on schedule and motivated. It’s lots of fun to share your experiences and see each other’s progress over several weeks or months.

Winter shouldn’t be a convenient excuse to hibernate all winter (tempting though that may be), and a modest activity schedule will be easy to incorporate into your life.

Find friends to go with you, or hire a fitness pro to help you progress and teach you new things.

Above all, make sure you enjoy your new activities and don’t forget that the whole point of becoming more active is to become a more motivated, healthy and interesting person! stir@thestew.ca

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 17

One of the benefits of running a magazine like this is being able to write-off the purchase of a KFC Double Down as a business expense.

Ease the blues with comfort food

PHOTO BY JULI HARLAND

We actually ate it The KFC Double Down officially arrived in Canada last month, so we had to give it a try. According to Wikipedia, the Double Down contains “bacon, two different kinds of melted cheese, the Colonel’s “secret” sauce... pinched in between two pieces of Original Recipe chicken fillets.” Our own Todd Sullivan scarfed one down and lived to tell his tale. Here are his thoughts.

It wasn’t terrible. That was sort of the surprising thing.

If you’re a fan of those famous 11 herbs and spices that KFC is best known for, it`s probably worth trying out, because that’s mostly what you taste. It`s like eating a great big hunk of KFC chicken. Like a great big boneless chicken breast. If you`re not already a fan, this is not going to win you over.

As for the rest of it, it was weird. It was chicken, but slightly goopy, slightly saucy. The cheese tasted like traditional fast food cheese, and the sauce was kind of spicy; honestly, it was hard to track down a better description of the taste, as the sauce was spread fairly randomly, and a good sized blob of it was lost due to the meddling hands of gravity. The cat enjoyed the fallen blob though.

The bacon was hard to identify. I would have maybe gone with a spicier, peppery kind of bacon.

It’s also worth noting that at 540 calories, 30 grams of fat and 1,740 milligrams of sodium, it actually surpasses the recommended daily intake of sodium, which is 1,500 mg.

So, you know, proceed with caution.

As time went on, I really started to notice the sodium.

My tongue started to feel as if I’d been hitting up a salt lick, and I spent the rest of the afternoon waiting to keel over from a stroke. Didn’t happen, thankfully.

As we make the transition from fall into winter, as the leaves fall from the trees and the first blankets of snow start to settle on the ground, it’s easy to let yourself feel a little bit too chilled by it all. At the start of the frosty season, sometimes we need something to warm our hearts, a little something to lift our spirits.

That something is comfort food.

Comfort food isn’t good for you. It’s not supposed to be. It’s supposed to make you feel warm and fuzzy.

It’s supposed to make you feel loved. If food could give you a hug, it’s comfort food that would be doing the hugging.

But where can you turn to for comfort food in the Cariboo?

Trattoria Pasta Shop in downtown Williams Lake is one great spot to get a little bit of dining room comfort.

Their fantastic selection of pastas might be a little bit carb-heavy, but sometimes that’s just what you need to scare off those winter blahs. If you’re not sure what to try, we hear that the linguini with chicken is a pretty good choice.

Of course, if by comfort food, you’re look-

Wine & Dine By the Stew Staff ing for something a bit more like mom used to make, Alley Katz Restaurant in Williams Lake should be able to fix you up with something fantastic. They’ve got a great menu of traditional favourites like sandwiches, burgers, soups and salads, with great specials that change every day.

There’s probably some debate as far as which choice is the most comforting, but here at The Stew, we definitely favour the pattie melt.

While enlisting our friends and family for some tips on the best spots for comfort food, Clancy’s restaurant in Lac La Hache received a great many votes -it’s clearly got a solid following of folks from around the Cariboo.

They might be best known for the Wimpy Burger (a gargantuan sandwich which would be a challenge for anyone to devour in a single sitting), but

the recommendations we heard were for the ice tea, the rice pudding, and for waffles with fruit and whipped cream (and, of course, for the fantastic ambiance).

If you’re looking for a big, sloppy burger, but you’re afraid you might rupture something if you tried to eat a Wimpy Burger, how about a visit to The Burger Palace in Quesnel, where you can get a variety of home-made burgers as good as, or better than, the ones at home. Juli’s choice is a mile-high burger loaded with cheese, mushrooms, beans and a hot dog thrown in for good measure. On top of a sizey burger patty.

And a large bun. With fries. Not quite Wimpy Burger in size, but it makes up for it in piles of protein.

Sometimes the right kind of comfort food isn’t food at all. Sometimes you want to just

sit back with something tasty to drink, and the Chartreuse Moose in 100 Mile House is a fantastic spot to do just that. They’ve got a few different varieties of both hot and cold drinks, but the one that caught our attention was the New Orleans Iced Coffee.

We might not always be able to afford to go out to enjoy comfort food, but that’s fine, as there are plenty of fantastic comfort food options that we can make up ourselves without too much hassle.

Try a bowl of Kraft Dinner or Chef Boyardee Mini Raviolis to warm the winter chills.

And if you want your comfort food with a bit more of adult flair, try a grilled cheese sandwich with sharp cheddar on sourdough (and throw on some tomato and bacon while you’re at it).

It’s just as good as a hug.

Every month in Wine & Dine we zero in on local eateries based on a given theme. Next month’s theme will be “Where do you like to eat that reminds you of family?” Send your thoughts and suggestions to Todd or Juli at todd@thestew.ca or juli@thestew.ca

New!

!

4.95 each

$24 Monsters Classic: Ham, Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Bacon

Tax Included

• Full Service hair Salon • Tanning • Hair Extensions & Custom Clip-Ins • Women’s Fashions • Trendy Jewellery

(250) 392-1994

12B N. Broadway Avenue, Williams Lake

10" Any Two Toppings Unlimited Quantity (Min 4 for delivery)

$6ea

250-392-2020 124-850 Oliver Street Williams Lake

11am - 11pm Mon. to Sat.

Monsters Italiano: Pepperoni, Salami, Green Peppers, Black Olives, Capicolla, Banana Peppers Monsters Chicken Tango: Chicken Tango, Tango Sauce, Pineapple, Green Peppers, Bacon, Tomato Cheddar Monster Mondo-Mix! Salami, Pepperoni, Onions, Ground Beef, Fresh Tomatoes, Pineapple, Cheddar, Bacon Monsters Meat Lovers: Ham, Pepperoni, Salami, Lean Ground Beef, Bacon Monsters Bacon Double: Lean Ground Beef, Onion, Bacon, Fresh Tomatoes, Cheddar Cheese Monsters Mediterranean: Lean Ground Beef, Onion, Green Pepper, Black Olives, Feta Cheese, Fresh Tomatoes Monsters Special: Ham, Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Onion, Green Pepper, Black Olives, Bacon BBQ Chicken: Chicken, Onions, Green Pepper, Toamto, Bacon, BBQ Sauce

PAGE 18 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

Using history to better the future, one potato at a time

BY JULI HARLAND

PHOTO BY TODD SULLIVAN

THE STEW MAGAZINE

WLCBIA Presents:

WINTER LIGHTS FESTIVAL & SANTA PARADE NOVEMBER 26, 2010 DOWNTOWN WILLIAMS LAKE for more information OR to pick up your teddy bear event passport contact judy o’neill at the wlcbia office

WATCH FOR BEARS! Santa thought Williams Lake was so good last year and is having his elves hide teddy bears in downtown businesses so everyone can have fun with the man in red and his teddy treasure hunt! These bears are not in danger and do not need rescuing. Santa asks that participants note the bears location and report them to the BIA for a chance to win prizes! Once the game is over the bears will be off to the Christmas Wish Breakfast where they will be paired up with loving families in time for Christmas.

The hunt begins on November 26!

Clue sheets will be available that night!

downtown at the corner of 3rd Ave and Oliver at 327 Oliver Street or call 250-398-5717

There is a lot of buzz these days surrounding a seemingly inconspicuous little house located at 49 Borland Street in Williams Lake, nicknamed ‘The Potato House.’ And for very good reason, says Mary Forbes, City Interpreter for Williams Lake, who is the driving force behind a local community group dedicated to buying and restoring this hidden piece of Williams Lake history, and turning it into a community sustainability center, complete with gardens, xeriscape and healing garden space, workshops, sustainability library, a meeting and office space for the community and non-profit organizations, all using green technology such as solar or geothermal.

“It is one of the last standing original houses, built by the Burokowski brothers in the 1930s,” Forbes explains.

“It ties into our origins with the railroad. Not only did the Borokowskis come on the railroad from Saskatchewan, but they also brought their brothers in on the railroad. Rumor has it, it’s not substantiated yet, I am still trying to get it substantiated, is that to build the Potato House they brought their books in on intra-library loan on the railroad and at night, by lamplight, would read a part of the book on how to build the house and then the next day they’d go build it.”

Her vision is not as pie in the sky as some would think.

The interest for this project has reached far and wide, garnishing support from the community, various non-profit organizations and even the City of Williams Lake.

Money, of course, is still the biggest hurdle. “Funding is the biggest issue right now.

Let’s say that we’ve had some money donated toward the purchase price but we haven’t reached it yet. We’re asking the community to come forward with dona-

tions if possible and we do have a charitable number and we will be giving charitable receipts for tax returns,” says Forbes.

As well as cash, Forbes and her group are also interested in partnering with some local businesses to work together to bring the house to working order, using green technology, of course.

“The whole house needs to be retrofit. It is original right down to the wiring. So electrical, plumbing — it has lead saudered plumbing. We need a low-flow toilet, the toilet has a lead toilet tank liner and the tank is wood. It is crazy.

“The furnace is the oldest gas furnace that our inspector has ever seen and she thinks that we could submit it to a museum and get a new heater in exchange.”

Businesses who get involved, either with cash or in-kind donations, will be recognized on the Potato House Board (PHB) website and Facebook page (both currently under construction), and all cash donations will be met with a charitable receipt.

Don’t have cash or a green-tech business but still want to be a part of the process? Forbes can use you too! The PHB membership drive is ongoing. For $20 / a year you can be a part of the Potato House team, bringing sustainability to the community on a level it hasn’t seen yet.

Any PHB member can

accept your membership fees. Or you could come by to any of the coming events that the PHB has coming up.

November 16 at 5pm at the Station House Gallery is the next board meeting, it is not too late to get involved there. On November 20, groups of the PHB will be busily decorating Christmas trees for the BIA’s Winter Lights Festival (for which the BIA is donating a $500 sum to the group’s cause).

And somewhere in the first part of December the board is planning a Potato Potluck, while members communally design and build the PHB’s website and blog.

“Our board and our members are invited to come and have a potluck and bring a dish made out of potatoes, and we’re going to eat and drink juice made out of potatoes and we’re going to make our website together in a group. We’re going to have a ring of laptops going and people can just go from laptop to laptop going ‘Oh I think you should add this....’” says Forbes.

The bottom line, says Forbes, is that this piece of history is in danger of being lost forever, and it is not too late to be pro-active and not only learn a little bit about history, but about how we can make our future a better place to be in.

For more information on the Potato House or how you can get involved, contact Mary Forbes at 250-8558443 or email wlpotatohouse@yahoo.ca

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 19

Chris Harris will be touring throughout BC during to promote Motherstone over the next few months, including a stop in Quesnel on December 11.

Explore an unseen corner of British Columbia

BY SAGE BIRCHWATER Award-winning photographer, Chris Harris, and acclaimed writer, Harold Rhenisch, have teamed up to produce yet another stunning coffee table book portraying the majesty and poetry of the Cariboo Chilcotin. The long awaited Motherstone: British Columbia’s Volcanic Plateau was launched October 16 at a gala reception in Exeter Lodge in 100 Mile House.

Two years ago Harris and Rhenisch set the bar high when their first collaboration, Spirit in the Grass: The Cariboo Chilcotin’s Forgotten Landscape, was nominated for two BC Book Prizes categories. Harris says the quality of Motherstone surpasses that effort.

Both Harris and Rhenisch have the gift to inspire. They are each adept at pulling back the veil of every day perception to reveal the essence of what makes our region unique.

Over the past twenty years, Harris has gone to great lengths to record profound images of the Cariboo Chilcotin landscape. He causes you to take a second or maybe a third look at the scenes you might pass by every day, and view them differently. That’s the gift of the artist. He also takes you to rare places few people get a chance to visit.

Rhenisch with his pen, takes you on a poetic journey.

Even when he’s writing prose.

His creative genius helps you see with different eyes.

In Motherstone, both the writer and photographer invite you to join them on an expedition into time; to peek into the beginning, and wonder how the landform we call British Columbia, and specifically the Cariboo

Custom framing and matting.

105 B N. 2nd Ave North Williams Lake 250-392-3814

Chilcotin, was formed.

Rhenisch uses the scientific expertise of university professor Dr. Mary Lou Bevier to augment his gut-felt romantic impression of the region that embraces the mythological thinking of telling the story of being in a place.

“It’s an interesting balance, the scientific and mythological,” Rhenisch says. “We had to have the science right, but at the same time it’s not a scientific book. We had to tell the story of being there.

Science couldn’t do that.”

As with most Chris Harris projects, Motherstone began with the germ of an idea years earlier that took on a life of its own. When Harris was on horseback in the 1990s, photographing in the Ilgatchuz Mountains with outfitters, Roger and Wanda Williams, he and fellow photographer, Kris Andrews, decided to take a side hike over a ridge to see what was on the other side. Harris came back with the image of a crater lake nestled in an undisturbed volcanic cone.

This became the seed for the Motherstone project.

“I vowed to go back there,” he says. “It was the heart of the Ilgatchuz volcano. How many people go through there in a year? It was a masterpiece of nature. I virtually don’t think anyone has ever been there.”

When he began the actual work of photographing for Motherstone, Harris wasn’t sure what the project was going to look like.

“All my books are total exploration,” he says. “I’ve learned to trust the process.

Doors start to open. I just like being out there hiking, physical and free, exploring with the camera.”

Harris decided he wanted to walk the ground he in-

• Personal one-on-one service • Computerized matt cutter • Fast and affordable

tended to photograph rather than travel by horseback. He hired guide outfitters Dave and Joyce Dorsey, and Roger and Wanda Williams to pack his camp gear and equipment two days into the wilderness of the three West Chilcotin shield volcanoes, the Rainbows, the Ilgatchuz and the Itcha mountain ranges, while he and his wife, Rita Giesbrecht, and friend, Mike Duffy, went by foot.

“I’m a mountain person,” Harris explains. “Mountains turn me on. I’ve ridden through these mountain ranges before, but this time I walked through every inch of it. When you walk you feel like you’re touching the earth. You feel the energy coming up through the earth.

Responding to that, creates imagery that really speaks to you.”

For Harris, encountering this undisturbed landscape and capturing the images was deeply emotional.

“I found I was in tears out there. The volcanic landscape is so untouched; so powerful.”

Hiking from their wilderness base camp, Harris returned to the crater lake that inspired the project years earlier, and noted only slight changes to the landscape caused by gravity and erosion over a fifteen-year span.

“Everything is moving,” Harris says. “I call them galleries. Freezing and thawing, rivers of rock moving towards the ocean. It’s as if the gallery is being hung every day. These masterpieces of totally undisturbed, patterned ground sorted by weight and colour, are six or seven million years in the making.”

He says the grand architect, Mother Nature, is still working on it.

“That’s a pretty powerful thought. I call this the truth.

To me that’s the ultimate truth, unadulterated, all this patterned ground. Once you’re aware of it, it’s everywhere. I see it everywhere now.”

Motherstone covers a vast region of volcanic activity from the edge of the Chilcotin Plateau where it but-

M A R G E T T S

M E A T M A R K E T Beef • Pork • Deli Cuts Lamb • Seafood • Fish WHOLESALE MEATS • RETAIL MEATS Custom cutting of Beef • Pork • Lamb Located next to Chuck’s Auto

photography

841B South Mackenzie Ave Williams Lake, BC V2G 3X8

PH: 250-392-2363 Fax: 250-392-2333

tresses up against the Coast Mountains in the west, to the North Thompson River basaltic columns in the east.

Over a two year period Harris photographed hundreds of magnificent images across the region, then he handed the project over to Rhenisch.

It was Rhenisch who came up with the term “motherstone” used for the title of the book.

Going back three billion years, Rhenisch says British Columbia was formed by the drifting of continental plates. Chains of volcanoes formed along stress lines in the western Pacific, drifted east, and smashed into North America.

“Very little research has been done on this region,” he says. “I spent three months researching to find out what the story was. Everything we have in British Columbia is

caused by continental plate movement. Rock is a record of a dance that happens in time.”

Rhenisch says he spent a lot of time to find a way to tell this story.

“It’s really the story of going out to the mountains and walking. We wanted the book to be the art of the mountains, where the mountains are creating the art. The earth is an expression of itself where you can walk across ground no one has ever walked on before. The earth is seeing itself for the first time through your eyes.”

He says through the images in Motherstone you can look back to the beginning of time.

“In fact you are standing in the middle. You’re part of it.”

Rhenisch says the name “motherstone” came to him as he was driving home to Campbell River from the Cariboo.

“It jumped into my head.

The red rock south of Spences Bridge talked to me. It’s nice to feel in this vast, empty universe we’ve got a home.

I’m of this place. I am this place speaking of itself. We are this place.”

More information on Motherstone: British Columbia’s Volcanic Plateau and details of the book launch schedule can be found on the chrisharris.com website.

Soft cover copies of the book retail for $39.95, while limited edition, numbered and signed hard cover copies are $69.95. Only 700 hard cover editions have been printed.

The Station House Gallery Calling all Artists and Artisans!

Sell your handcrafted giftware at the Station House Gallery during the month of Dec. Call Diane at 250-392-6113, email manager@ stationhousegallery.com or just drop in for information.

250-392-6113 Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 5:00 #1 Mackenzie Avenue North, Williams Lake

PAGE 20 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

For more information on Chris Jordan or his work, visit his web site at http://chrisjordan.com

tweet the

movies Pursuing activism through photographic art

BY TODD SULLIVAN THE STEW MAGAZINE

Sometimes it seems as if we’re living, perpetually, on the brink of disaster.

Whether it is earthquakes, hurricanes, global warming, or even seemingly endless oil spills, there are days when turning on the news only serves to make us feel like we are living on the brink of some kind of global disaster. Worse still is the sense that, as incomprehensibly tiny as we are in comparison to these disasters, there is very little we can do, as individuals, to help.

This problem of scale is an integral part of the work of photographer Chris Jordan, who was in Williams Lake last month for a presentation of his work.

“Does the individual matter?” Jordan asked.

“What’s the role of one person anymore, in this incomprehensible collective that we find ourselves in, of 6.7 billion people? Does one person matter?

“And, if one person doesn’t matter, which is, I know, the argument I’ve got in the back of my head all this time, then how do we begin to behave as a new kind of collective so that we can have the kind of catastrophically good effects on this world that are on the same scale as the catastrophically bad effects that we’ve been having on the world.”

Jordan was not always so activist-minded. Having gone to law school in his 20s, he spent his 30s as a corporate lawyer in Seattle, a career that made him quite wealthy, while also leaving him close to suicidal.

“I knew from the very beginning it just wasn’t fulfilling to me, and I felt stuck, and I just stayed there, and stayed there, and stayed there, because I was afraid to make the choice to take the risk of living.”

As he got closer to 40, though, his fear of change began to be replaced by a fear of not properly living his life. And that, he says, was a motivating fear.

So he decided not only to quit his law firm, but actually resign his license to practice law, and try to become a photographer. “For all 11 years I was a lawyer I was really passionately interested in

WIN

photography. That began all the way back when I was in high school. And I wanted to be a full time photographer.”

But it took him awhile to discover the kind of activist art that would eventually become his passion. “The photographs I was taking all that time were equally detached from anything really relevant in the world. I would just go and take beautiful photographs of beautiful, brightly coloured things.”

The attraction to beautiful objects found in unlikely places eventually led Jordan to photograph a gigantic pile of garbage that he had stumbled across in the port of Seattle. A print of the photograph, which became one his favourites, ended up gracing the wall of his studio, where it was noticed by two artist acquaintances, who began to see more in the image than just an interesting colour palette. “They walked right up to that print on my wall and they started talking about mass

2

HOCKEY TRIPFOR

A

THREE GREAT TIPS TO BE WON!

Saturday, December 4,2 010 Kamloops vs. Calgary (in Kamloops) 1 night stay at the Coast Canadian Inn, $50.00 gift certificate to Fox`n Hounds Pub & game tickets

Friday, January 7, 2011 Vancouver vs. Edmonton (in Vancouver) 1 night hotel stay, $25.00 gift certificate to Red Robin & game tickets

Saturday, January 22, 2011 Kamloops vs. Vancouver (in Kamloops) 1 night stay at the Coast Canadian Inn, $50.00 gift certificate to Fox’n Hounds Pub & game tickets.

VS

It’s food.

For thought.

THE FOURTH KIND: True abduction story that isn’t true at all. Mixed-in (fake) documentary footage is annoying. Milla Jovovich doesn’t help sexify anything.

THE WOLFMAN: The furry effects are impressive, but there isn’t much meat to chew on here. Anthony Hopkins gets to be evil, but we’ve seen that enough.

Give the gift of travel this Christmas.

Gift Certificates Available

VS

VS

Call our professional agents for quality one-on-one service

Scratch & Win with a Molson Canadian purchase. 50 winners will qualify for each game. Winner will be drawn down at the following dates and places.

December 4, 2010 winner drawn at the OV Pub on November 25, 2010 January 7, 2011 winner drawn at the Red Dog Pub on December 22, 2010 January 22 2011 winner drawn at the Red Dog Pub on January 15, 2011 Must be legal drinking age.

See server for details.

consumption. And it was kind of annoying to me at the time. Because they were misinterpreting my work.

“And one of them, in this really sweet way, finally he put his arm around my shoulder and he said, you know, Chris, when I look at this picture I see a macabre portrait of America. And he said, I don’t know why you took this picture, but maybe just by good luck, you finally took a relevant photograph.”

But as he began to look for ways to capture the issues of over-consumption photographically, he began to realize it was an almost insurmountable challenge. “I was willing to travel anywhere to stand in front of the grand canyon of our waste, and of course there is no such place.”

Which led him to photo manipulation.

Thanks to digital photography and Photoshop, Jordan was able to create canvases of things that could never actually be photographed. For example, he could illustrate how many cell phones are disposed of in the United States every single day (426,000), or how many brown paper bags are consumed in supermarkets every hour (1.14 million), or even how many barrels of oil are consumed ever two minutes (28,000).

His goal is to show not just the overwhelming amount of consumption, but also the individual’s involvement. His artwork appears as one thing at a distance, but upon closer inspection, each individual component can be seen.

“When you stand back at a distance you see this collective,” he said “And you can’t see the individuals that make up the collective. When you walk all the way up close, you see the individuals who make up the collective, but by then you’re so close to it that you can’t see the collective anymore.

“My hope is that when we can become collectively aware of these unconscious habits that are destructive to our world, whether it’s the number of trees we’re cutting down to make paper for junk mail, or whatever, we become aware of these collectively unconscious habits that we’ve gotten to, then collectively perhaps we have a new choice that we didn’t have before.”

Continued on Page 21

In honour of Halloween, We review a few spooky films, in 140 characters or less.

392-6581 TOLL FREE 1-800-737-7631

Serving the Cariboo Since 1978

MAGAZINE

www.allwaystravel.ca

357 Oliver Street, Williams Lake • Locally Owned & Operated Fully licenced and accredited Agency

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 21

tweet

Chris Jordan’s photos of dead baby albatrosses from Midway Atoll, like this one, have spread virally on the Internet, and have now been vieweed by millions of people around the world.

the

movies

In honour of Halloween, We review a few spooky films, in 140 characters or less.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: Another unnecessary horror remake. Jackie Earle Haley is good in the role, but the original film remains superior.

SPLICE: Canadian filmmaker Natali brings on the creepy, icky, sexually-confused sci-fi that Cronenberg used to. Go Canada! We’ve still got it!

Continued from Page 20 A choice, he says, which should include grief. “I used to think that grief was a bad thing,” he explains. “And I learned that when we grieve, we connect to a deep part of ourselves. Maybe the deepest part of our self. And when you drop into that feeling, then suddenly we have access again to our feeling of love for the earth, and for our compassion for each other, and for the other creatures of the earth. So I think grieving is an incredibly powerful and valuable process that we’re just missing out on.”

And it is grieving -- or, rather, the collective avoidance of grief -- that led him first to New Orleans, for a series of photographs that followed in the wake of the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, and then later to Midway Atoll, to try to capture on film an entirely new kind of devastation.

“About a year and a half ago I was approached by an activist who is passionately involved and interested in this phenomenon called the Pacific Garbage Patch.”

The Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean that is estimated to be somewhere between the size of Texas and the size of the entire United States.

But, much like his struggles to create photographic examples of overconsumption, the Pacific Garbage Patch proved difficult to

presents their annual

STORE-WIDE SALE

NOVEMBER 25, 26 & 27

Start your Christmas savings early!

299 Oliver St, Williams Lake • 250-398-8522

PHOTO BY CHRIS JORDAN

PLASTIC NOT FANTASTIC  Baby albatrosses on the island of Midway Atoll are dying of malnutrition after being fed bits of plastic from the Pacific Ocean by their mothers who can’t tell it’s not food. point a lens towards.

“So I was thinking, how can I visualize the Pacific Garbage Patch? How can I take a photograph of it, or make a digital photograph of it, that illustrates the horror of this problem? It’s just like global warming, you can’t even take a photograph of it at all.”

Instead, Jordan found a way to photograph the results of this catastrophic collection of garbage. “There’s a place where the Pacific Garbage Patch is surfacing in a way that’s just really shocking and astonishing and incredibly symbolic, and that is inside the stomachs of dead baby albatrosses.”

What happens, Jordan explains, is that almost a million of these seabirds nest there on this tiny island, and

then fly out to sea to collect food to bring back for their babies. Unfortunately, what they end up bringing back isn’t edible. “Because there’s more floating plastic garbage than there is food out in the Pacific Ocean now, and they can’t tell the difference, what they end up bringing back to the island to feed their babies is a whole belly filled with our plastic garbage: cigarette lighters, and bottle caps, and toothbrushes, and so on.

“Standing over these birds and looking at this plastic in them, to me it’s like looking in a mirror. To me, this is a metaphor for the American spirit. This is what we’re doing to ourselves.”

And while problems like that of the Pacific Garbage Patch are so incomprehensibly huge and overwhelming

Take time for yourself today Nov. Special 30 Minute Massage

$25.00 • Full spa & esthetic services in our locally owned & operated salon • All Canadian / Organic Products • Gift Certificates Available

adorn & Beauty Naturally 29 D 3rd Ave. S. WL

250-392-2889

that it can sometimes seem like there’s nothing to cling to, no hope at all, Jordan says there is a different lens we can use to look at the world around us.

“Just remember and recognize what an incredibly beautiful planet we live on.

How incredibly lucky all of us are to have been born, to get to be here, and experience the beauty and the

complexity, the miracle of life on this place that, as far as we know, is the most beautiful and complex place in the entire universe.”

It’s through that lens that he’s hoping to be able to view Midway Atoll through during two more trips, first this December, to photograph the adult albatrosses performing their mating dances, and then again next spring, when 350,000 baby albatross chicks will emerge from their eggs.

“And we’re going to go there and turn towards the ecstatic beauty of that process, and at the same time, with us knowing that just a few months later, a few months after we’re there, 40 per cent of them will be dead on the ground with their bodies filled with garbage from the Pacific Garbage Patch.”

It’s that very kind of contrast that has been such an enormous part of Jordan’s work, which has allowed him to create images that are both beautiful and terrifying, challenging and thoughtprovoking.

able for l i a v a s e s New Relea ight rentals! n one or two 370A Proctor St., Williams Lake (formerly Movie Gallery) Phone 250-392-4668 • Open 10am-11pm daily

Select your savings off our christmas coupon tree during

Moonlight Madness on NOV 26

lingerie • loungeweaR spanx • costumes private fittings

Lavender Lingerie 250.398.8268 | 275 Oliver St, Williams Lake, BC

PAGE 22 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

For those who might be unfamiliar, Raoul Duke was the alter-ego of famed journalist Hunter S. Thomas, of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas fame.

A psychedelic music-fest in the wilds of BC Monkeys danced with bears, humans with squirrels. Elaborate driftwood structures hung from trees as did hundreds of speakers, projectors and lights. Strange people sat in the trees playing even stranger music. Some people were dancing to this music, while others held conversations with invisible beings and inanimate objects.

It’s starting to get dark out now, the first night of Festivus, the dawn of a 72-hour party that would test the mettle of even the most seasoned partier or recreational drug user. I could not create an accurate timeline of these next three days, as time is not measured in the ‘normal’ sense of the word.

This three day outdoor music “festival” is Soundwave. It occurs each year on the west coast of Vancouver Island and brings hundreds of DJs, artists and stage performers to play electronic music for thousands of people who eagerly dance their faces off for hours and hours at a time. Both artists and participants spend the months leading up to the festival designing elaborate costumes and props to add to the psychedelia. A widely anticipated event for over a decade now, Soundwave is one of the largest outdoor music events on Vancouver Island.

The sprawl of tents

Where’s Wally?

By Will Meeks grows slowly at first but picks up pace as more and more weirdos, freaks and hippies pour into the campsite. Earlier in the week the campsite showed little sign of human life but now it looks like the beginnings of a beachfront refugee camp, on acid. Vendors are here to feed the masses; there’s barbecue, Chinese, smoothies and hot dogs.

Campers have factioned into small groups of tents. They decorate their camps with their affiliate militia logo and elaborate decorations.

A driftwood archway reads ‘THE IMAGINARIUM’ and leads to a mysterious maze of colorful sheets and tarps.

More cardboard: ‘DAYCARE AND NEEDLE EXCHANGE’ and ‘TEAM AWESOME!’ There is a midget running around disguised as Spider-Man. I wander around in awe, new and strange things around every corner.

Among the notably famous people attend-

ing are Gumby, the cast of Harry Potter and of course Raoul Duke.

One of the more interesting phenomenon are the furries. They wear fur hats with animal ears, boots and mittens that look like paws, and tails.

I would have feared for their lives, but it was not yet hunting season. A dozen Gorillas with suitcases filled, presumably, with bananas wandered through the forest from stage to stage.

We meet a poor fellow down on his luck who had been tasered several times by the RCMP and voided himself. Even so, he was in high spirits and I did see him later that evening, still quite happy, and having a pleasant conversation with himself. I suppose it’s hard to have close friends when your trousers are filled with shit.

Day two and I am still enjoying myself, feeling surprisingly little pain after last night’s bottle of tequila. After a quick trip to Ucluelet for replace-

Next Month: WHAT DO YOU GET FOR THE PERSON WHO HAS NOTHING? We explore the Christmas wishes of the less fortunate

IT’S A MYSTERY  We’re not really sure what’s going on here.

But we don’t really mind either. ment supplies, navigating through a roadblock and witnessing a high speed chase on the gravel, we return to the camp site for another night of weirdness.

Daylight brings with it a sense of reality. Where once was an alternate universe filled with psychedelic sounds and creatures, there is now what is best described as the collective hangover.

The best way to deal with this horrible creature is to grab it by the horns and pour hard liquor and ibuprofen down it’s throat. This will calm the beast. I am not a heath care practitioner, consult your doctor.

As the sun sets, fire-

dancers take to the woods armed with pyrotechnics. The forest is once again filled with the alien sounds of electronica, drums and bass. Armed with a backpack filled with high fructose energy drinks and vodka as well as my trusty camera I begin another recon mission.

I make my way from stage to stage, head bobbing, turning into a kind of shuffle to the beat, and before long I am in the thick of it, it can’t be helped. I am not a huge fan of dancing, but I become hypnotized by the sights and sounds and join the masses on the dance floor, if you can call it that.

Abandoning my camera, I am now just another freak.

The whole experience opened my eyes to the possibility that if you bring people together for a common cause, they will put aside their differences and work together to achieve something great. In this case, it was the greatness of an epic party. The creation of a place where rednecks, longhairs, stoners, trippers, and norms could all get along. Not your typical bush party.

If you wanna know more, check out the Soundwave facebook fan page for more info. whereswally@thestew.ca

November 2010 | THE STEW Magazine | PAGE 23

We’re smart. And sexy.

MAGAZINE

PAGE 24 | THE STEW Magazine | November 2010

(250) 392-3321

1118 Lakeview Crescent, Williams Lake, BC, Canada V2G 1A3 Fax (250) 392-3983 • Toll Free 1-800-663-6898 • www.overlanderhotel.com

MONDAY: Margarita Madness Jugs of Margaritas (or other slushie drinks) with fresh and frozen fruit, $17.95 + tax TUESDAY: Make Tuesday a great day with Customer Appreciation Day Hi-Balls $2.86 + Tax / Doubles $4.82 + Tax Domestic Beer Bottles $3.93 + Tax WEDNESDAY: Wings 32¢ + tax each (multiples of 10) Mini Salads (Tossed or Caesar) $1.03 + tax THURSDAY: Prime Rib w/ baked potato, chef veggie & tossed salad (+ $1.03 for Caesar) 8 oz $13.62 + tax / 10 oz $15.49 + tax FRIDAY: 2 for 1 Appys from 3pm to 6pm (sorry, no Nachos) You pay the higher price, the lower is on us

ROCK OUT. CHILL OUT. SATURDAY: 8oz AAA Sirloin & Prawns w/ baked potato, chef veggie & tossed salad (+ $1.03 for Caesar) $14.56 + tax SUNDAY: Burger & Fries $4.02 + tax or $6.03 + tax for Loaded Burger

TUESDAY: Burgers & Buckets $4.20 or $6.30 for loaded burger Buckets 4 for $16.90 ($2.23 ea) 6 for $25.40 ($4.23 ea)

WEDNESDAY: BBQ Back Ribs w/ baked potato, chef veggie & tossed salad $16.25 (Add $1.00 for Caesar) Domestic Draft Glass $2.25 / Pint $4.25 THURSDAY: Wings 35¢ each All flavours (multiples of 10) Hi-Balls $4.25 FRIDAY: Prime Rib 8 oz $16.25 / 10 oz $18.25 MGDs $4.25

SATURDAY: Steak Nite 8oz Sirloin w/ baked potato & prawns, chef veggie & tossed salad $17.25 (Add $1.00 for Caesar) Peel & Eat Prawns 35¢ each (Multiples of 10) SUNDAY: Burger $4.20 or $6.30 for loaded burger Draft Pint $4.25 / Hi-Ball $4.25

(250) 398-8033

1114 Denny Road, Williams Lake, BC