The Cascade Volume 30 Issue 10 by The Cascade

JUNE 15, 2022

VOLUME 30 ISSUE 10

Trying to get back from the upside down since 1993

Change is in the air, and it’s carrying spores

FRASER VALLEY PRIDE 2022

STRANGER THINGS SEASON 4

B.C. TRANSIT DRIVER SHORTAGE

VOL. 30 // ISSUE 10

Creative Director Elyssa English elyssa@ufvcascade.ca

News Editor Rachel Tait rachel@ufvcascade.ca

Copy Editor Maecyn Klassen maecyn@ufvcascade.ca

Digital Media Manager Jeff Mijo-Burch jeff@ufvcascade.ca Varsity Writer Esher Sira Photographer Laura Ayres Production Assistant Aayush Bhatia Staff Writer Allison Holcik Distributor Gurtaj Dhami Illustrator Lindsey Roberts

Opinion Editor Kait Thompson kait@ufvcascade.ca Sports Editor Teryn Midzain teryn@ufvcascade.ca Arts in Review Editor Danaye Reinhardt Danaye@ufvcascade.ca Production Assistant Niusha Naderi Staff Writer Brad Duncan

10-13

Staff Writer Kellyn Kavanagh Illustrator Iryna Presley Illustrator Brielle Quon

The Shuffler Aaron Levy

CONTRIBUTORS Caleb Campbell

WWW.UFVCASCADE.CA

14 Snapshots.......9

@UFVCASCADE FACEBOOK.COM/UFVCASCADE INSTAGRAM.COM/UFVCASCADE Volume 30 · Issue 10 Room S2111 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529

The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It originated under its current name in 1993, and achieved autonomy from the university and the Student Union Society in 2002. This means that The Cascade is a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published in an entirely student-run setting. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds, and is overseen by the Cascade Journalism Society Board, a body run by a student majority. The Cascade is published every other Wednesday with a print circulation of 800 and is distributed at Abbotsford, Chilliwack (CEP), Clearbrook, and Mission UFV campuses and throughout the surrounding communities. The Cascade is open to written, photo, and design work from all students; these can come in the form of a pitch to an editor, or an assignment from an editor. Pitch meetings will be digital for the remainder of the semester. Please email managing@ufvcascade.ca to be put on the assignment email list. In order to be published in the newspaper, all work must first be approved by The Cascade’s editor-in-chief, copy editor, and corresponding section editor. The Cascade reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, homophobic, or libellous content. Letters to the editor, while held to the same standard, are unedited, and should be under 200 words. As The Cascade is an autonomous student publication, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, The Cascade’s staff and collective, or associated members. The Cascade is published on the traditional, unceded territory of the Stó:lō peoples. We are grateful to be able to work and learn on this beautiful land.

ARTS

Culture & Events Editor Anisa Quintyne anisa@ufvcascade.ca

Features Editor Andrea Sadowski andrea@ufvcascade.ca

FEATURE

Jr. News Emmaline Spencer emmaline@ufvcascade.ca

OPINION

Production Manager Elyssa English elyssa@ufvcascade.ca

CONTENTS NEWS

Managing Editor Sydney Marchand sydney@ufvcascade.ca

CULTURE

Executive Editor Andrea Sadowski andrea@ufvcascade.ca

20.......Study Break

NEWS Transit shortage......3 Skills National Competition......4 Professor Profile......5

4...... UFV joins UNAI 5...... Professor Emeritus status 6...... June Senate

OPINION Abortion rights.......6 Conscious Consumer.......7

7.......Editorial 8.......Sex and Relationships

CULTURE Cascade Kitchen.......14 Local photography.......15 CHASI working with BCCAT.......17

14....... Yarrow Days returns 16....... Fraser Valley Pride 17....... UFV Hub Club

SPORTS 18....... The Fraser Valley Bandits

Uyi Ologha interview......18

19....... IndoHoops Canada

Formula E......19 ARTS How High We Go in the Dark......21 New album from The Sylvia Platters .....22 Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers.....23

21......The Northman 23......Stranger Things season 4

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news@ufvcascade.ca News Editor — Rachel Tait

NEWS

Community //

Fraser Valley experiencing a driver shortage with BC Transit and interruptions in the schedule Cancelled buses affect students and faculty relying on the BC Transit service RACHEL TAIT Abbotsford and the surrounding Fraser Valley are currently undergoing a shortage of BC Transit drivers that is resulting in cancelled buses. This is causing disruptions for students and staff who rely on the bus service in the Fraser Valley to get to school and work. The 1: UFV and 12: UFV are the designated routes to the university, but those who are commuting further, or who need multiple bus connections, are having more difficulties getting to campus on time. “BC Transit is currently facing a labor shortage in a number of transit systems across the province, including the Central Fraser Valley Transit System. The organization is also experiencing continued service disruptions due to the ongoing impacts of employee wellness,” said James Weiss, senior media relations and public advisor for BC Transit. Weiss also confirmed that due to these challenges, BC Transit has had to cancel some of the buses on the schedule to accommodate this shortage. This shortage has been occurring throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and BC Transit is working to solve this issue in several ways.

To help improve the schedule and all the routes, the organization has set up an online platform called Voice of the Rider that enables commuters to give feedback based on their experiences. “I don’t think that they are optimizing [the current bus schedule and system] well because they keep cutting important bus routes like the one I have to take to get home, while continuing to keep the service on the ones that go relatively regularly,” said UFV student Clement Cameron. Cameron has been riding the bus for several years, and it is harder for him to travel to the university because one of the routes that is deeply affected by the shortage is 5: Hospital. Last semester he took a late class and had difficulty getting home because the last two buses were being cancelled on a regular basis. Cameron hopes that in the future, BC Transit will have more consistency, especially on the weekends. “Recently, I’d say that anytime I am possibly late or about to miss a bus, I take another route and I find another bus stop that I can go to to wait and possibly reach my class before it starts,” said UFV student Armaann Kapoor. He commutes on the bus for university and uses Google Maps to plan out how to get to the uni-

versity on time. Kapoor said that he was unaware that there were notification alert emails that people can sign up for to be informed of cancelled buses on the BC Transit website. “It’s still a good bus system, but it can be frustrating because sometimes it is un-

“The organization is also experiencing continued service disruptions due to the ongoing impacts of employee wellness.” predictable when the buses will show up and when they won’t. The driver shortage can be challenging for people who take the bus, particularly for students,” said associate professor Jessica Price. A regular commuter, Price has been teaching political science at UFV since the summer of

2019. She added that while professors can afford to take a cab in a worst-case scenario, students may not have the budget to accommodate the extra expense. Price also pointed out that it is not easy to determine which buses are going to be cancelled and that Google Maps does not give alerts. Price hopes that BC transit will have additional bus routes that come to UFV on a regular basis besides the 1 and 12 UFV. A commonality amongst those interviewed was that they were unaware of the rider alerts. According to Weiss, “riders may also sign up for route-specific alerts that will be emailed to them directly.” This can be found on the BC Transit website, and riders can click on the alerts to sign up for email notifications of cancelled buses. Weiss also encouraged students and faculty who take the bus to use Google Maps and the Transit app, and look on their website for alerts. Price said what she hopes for BC Transit is to have “more transit options connecting to UFV, and we could imagine having different cities in the Fraser Valley that are connected to each other too over time, because that would be a fantastic thing to have happen with the buses.”

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NEWS UFV //

NEWS BRIEFS Rivers rising and potential floods Due to recent rainfall and the snow still melting late into the season, rivers throughout B.C. are nearing capacity. Presently, the Fraser River is at a “high streamflow advisory” and may potentially be susceptible to flooding if there is any extreme weather within the next couple of weeks. Citizens are advised to avoid the fast flowing rivers and to stay away from any potentially unstable riverbanks. Those that live in potentially hazardous locations are advised to be prepared with a go-bag as a precaution in case of flooding. The Fraser River is expected to be at high flow until the end of June. Check for further updates on flood warnings at B.C. river forecast centre site. - Emmaline Spencer

Gas prices continue to soar Gas prices have been breaking their own record highs for weeks on end, with much of the blame for the rise going towards Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over the first weekend of June, prices reached a new high of 236.9 cents per litre, with the previous record of 233.9 cents per litre having only been set on May 14. Prices may potentially rise even more in light of summer traveling becoming feasible in a post-pandemic world. Beyond the grumblings of local citizens, the prices are beginning to impact businesses as well. Some of the main impacted business sectors are trucking, high end vehicle agencies, and boating companies. The continued rise may result in a slower tourist season for B.C. on a whole as people choose to stay local in lieu of paying the high toll that is gas. - Emmaline Spencer

UFV invited to join United Nations group connecting global universities ALLISON HOLCIK UFV has received membership to the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) in exchange for designing and completing a yearly project to help further the ten goals of the organization, which include topics such as poverty reduction, affordable clean energy and partnership between the 1,500 different organizations spanning 145 countries that are members of the UNAI. Since its launch in 2010, the UNAI has been focused on upholding the United Nations (UN) Charter, as well as completing a variety of projects each year with participating universities around the globe to help bring about international change. UNAI “[uses] scientific inquiry, academic research, and education to further the realization of UN goals and mandates.” Member universities are able to propose new projects, discuss their ongoing work in any field and how it pertains to the goals of the initiative. In return, the UNAI helps members connect with each other and offers coverage of the research and projects currently being worked on. This ensures that everyone can see what is happening in the ongoing work towards

climate sustainability, conflict resolution, and human rights movements. As part of the application process, UFV suggested some current and future projects that align with the 10 goals of the UNAI. These include the International Emergency Fund (IEF), which provides scholarships to post-secondary students fleeing humanitarian crises. As well, UFV has several research centers within the categories of social justice, human rights and heath, such as the South Asian Studies Institute (SASI) and the Peace and Reconciliation Centre (PARC). Various academic programs that are currently being offered to students will offer future research to fulfill the 10 goals of the UNAI, such as the Environmental Studies program within the School of Land Use and Environmental Change. UFV also created the Office of Sustainability in early 2021 “to navigate sustainability at UFV.” Membership in UNAI extends past the borders of UFV campuses as well. UFV has pledged to continue partnering with the community on various efforts, such as the Abbotsford Disaster Relief Fund which they helped establish after the Abbotsford floods in 2021. They have also cited the CityStudio project,

a collaboration between the City of Abbotsford and UFV, where students are invited to discuss ongoing community issues and offer solutions while “[connecting] with city staff to research, design, and implement projects through which [the students can] develop job skills, experience group processes, and network with sector experts.” Additionally, UFV has a chapter of the World University Service of Canada (WUSC), through the Student Refugee Program (SRP), sponsoring one to two refugees each year through a $2.00 levy in student fees each semester. Along with the current programs, UFV also brought forward its plans for the future with regards to the UNAI. The first of these plans is the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan, which was started in 2019 by the President’s Office, but which offers new goals and progress reports each year. Similarly, UFV has developed the IYAQAWTXW (House of Transformation) Integrated Strategic Plan, which lays out UFV’s plan to fulfill the goals of engaging learners, transforming lives, and building community over the course of next four years.

UFV //

How it happens: UFV students win medals at Skills National Competition A deep dive into mentoring Skills Canada competitors ALLISON HOLCIK On May 26 and 27, hundreds of post secondary apprentices from all over Canada flew to the Vancouver Convention Center to participate in the Skills Canada national competition. Featuring 16 hours of grueling competition, Skills is a national skilled trades competition for the best up-and-coming tradespeople of the nation. More than 45 trades are represented and the event introduced 3,000 visitors, including local elementary and secondary students, to the many opportunities availible when working in the trades. UFV students Connor Crevier, from the Welding Foundation program, and Taylor Smith of the electrical apprenticeship program were both in attendance, competing for Team B.C. and representing UFV along with their mentors. Chelsey Fulford, a welding foundations instructor and past Skills competitor and mentor, gave her thoughts on the process to prepare UFV’s competitors for Skills. She mentioned that she

always offers her welding students the opportunity to compete in the regional qualifiers for Skills, held at UFV each year. This year, 10 students participated in a “weld off.” The winner was Crevier of the School District 33 Youth TRAIN program, which allows high school students to attend UFV for half of the grade 12 year and get the first level of their welding apprenticeship paid for by the school district. He, along with Smith, progressed to the provincial level of the competition, with their mentors at their sides. Fulford talked about the long process to get Crevier ready for the national level after he succeeded at provincials. As part of the preparation, the UFV trades faculty got together and reviewed the blueprints for this year’s welding project, a ship inspired by the B.C. ferries. They focused on the order of completion necessary to end up with a perfect final project, and got Crevier to do multiple practice runs of the project. Fulford mentioned how difficult the mentoring process is for Skills, because

the blueprints that are sent out prior to the competition can change by up to 20 per cent at nationals. As Fulford and fellow welding faculty instructor, Matt Olafson, reviewed Crevier’s welds, they critiqued every step to help him improve, until they were all confident in the final project. Both Smith and Crevier progressed to the national competition, which was held at the Vancouver Convention Center for post secondary students, and virtually for secondary school students. At the closing ceremonies on Saturday, May 28, Smith earned a silver in Electrical Apprenticeship while Crevier won a silver in Welding for secondary students. When asked of future plans in light of winning second best welder in Canada for this age group, Crevier said he plans to graduate highschool and get his welding ticket, and then keep going with his apprenticeship and get his Red Seal. Skills Canada gave these two UFV students the opportunity to showcase their skills to all of Canada, and have some pretty great things to show for it.

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NEWS UFV //

Math upgrading professor is the recipient of the 2022 Teaching Excellence Award Dr. Larsen opens up about teaching and being the 2022 recipient of the TEA award RACHEL TAIT Dr. Judy Larsen, who teaches upgrading math and math for teachers, was honored with the 2022 Teaching Excellence Award (TEA), recognized for her impactful teaching approaches in the classroom. The TEA winner receives $2,500.00 and a certificate. Larsen, who is currently on maternity leave and will return in the fall of 2022, shared her thoughts on teaching, the nomination process for the TEA, and how grateful she is for being bestowed with such an award. “Having the opportunity to see these pieces of evidence come together was a privilege, and I am thankful for being granted this opportunity. I hope that others who deserve this recognition will be nominated so that they can also experience this process,” said Larsen. She said that the journey for her after her nomination was “rigorous,” as a complete and thorough nomination package was put together that showcased her qualifications for this award. These included “letters of support from students and colleagues, student evaluations, and samples

of course activities and assessments.” Larsen found this procedure both “inspiring and affirming, since I was able to reflect on my work through the eyes of students and colleagues who wrote letters of support, and to look back on my work with as a whole the samples of course activities I provided.” When asked about her teaching process, Larsen said that she believes it is important to immediately recognize and celebrate the skills of her students, and points out that these skills do not need to be math-related. She asserts that drawing from life experiences is equally important when students are working together on math assignments, because they lead to what she calls “novel ideas” that she cannot “pre-teach” that can help with the learning experience. “My role is to facilitate and orchestrate generative collaborations and moments of ‘meaning making,’ as opposed to transmitting ‘meaning made.’” She goes on to say that this teaching approach is useful in giving opportunities to students to convey “tentative knowledge” in a supportive and “safe place” that allows them to test their theories and ideas.

She added that this can help decrease anxiety from students in case they are incorrect. Larsen said that many times students are afraid to make an error, but she affirms that it is all part of the process and it should be “embraced,” not feared. When asked about the “Building Thinking Classroom” framework, Larsen said that it was originally created by her “graduate supervisor, Dr. Peter Liljedahl,” and they have worked together over the years. She said, “Our collaborations have deeply influenced my thinking about learning.” “To explain it simply, the ‘Building Thinking Classrooms’ framework offers specific strategies for teachers to use to develop a classroom community where thinking is at the forefront. Part of the framework involves setting up the classroom in a way that challenges institutional norms,” said Larsen. She explained that instead of having rows of desks, students will sit in various “clusters,” and the instructor can teach where they feel most comfortable in the classroom. Students are taught to learn together, and “build” on what their peers are doing on the white boards. Larsen said, “The framework is aimed to use class

time in a way that harnesses the opportunities of everyone in the room together, so that learning can be the focus rather than note taking.” For the future, Larsen wants to resume working on research projects that focus on the “student experiences of building thinking classroom attempts in an online environment, analyzing ideas and how they emerge within social media professional development contexts, and another one I plan to begin will involve student beliefs about mathematics.” She added, “These all have a benefit to students and the university since they involve understanding more about how we can better support learning.” When asked what she felt was the most important aspect about teaching, Larsen reiterated what she said earlier about appreciating the students and their “capabilities.” She went on to say that “what I hope students take away from their university education is that there are many ways to view any sort of problem or experience, and that unique views are important and valuable towards any situation. However, knowing also that one’s unique view is not the only one is equally as important.”

UFV //

Dr. Peter Raabe and Dr. Greg Schlitt receive Professor Emeritus and look back at their UFV careers “So much has been built here at UFV over the years, and I've had a chance to be part of that.” EMMALINE SPENCER Recently, 14 professors of UFV have retired and been honoured with Professor Emeritus status for their years of hard work and dedication. Dr. Peter Raabe, previously a philosophy professor of UFV, and Dr. Greg Schlitt, a long-term math professor who has played a vital role in the development of the math, statistics, and science departments, were two of the professors who were awarded the Emeritus status. Emeritus or in this case, Professor Emeritus status, is a special title for retirees. It is a way to recognize the efforts and achievements made by a professor during their career. It also serves as a way for a university to show its appreciation toward a professor. “The framed award and the congratulatory letter I received from President MacLean showed me that the university recognised and valued my contribution to UFV,” said Raabe. Though retiring and receiving the title means an end to their

journey in teaching, it does not mean it is entirely over. As Schlitt said, “I'm not done yet! I have deep connections with UFV and hope in some ways to be able to continue contributing.” Having started as a sessional instructor back in 2003, Raabe has been on staff at UFV for over 15 years. Raabe was not originally a scholar, though; he didn’t start his journey into becoming a philosopher until his 40s. With the love and support of his wife, Raabe worked his way through an undergraduate, masters, and a doctorate all by the time he was 50. A few short years later, he was hired by UFV and has been with the university ever since. Schlitt was originally hired in 1992, at a time when present-day UFV was more commonly known as Fraser Valley College or the University College of the Fraser Valley. Schlitt has held a variety of positions during his UFV career that spans almost three decades, including being the head of the math and statistics department, the acting dean of science, the acting director of research, and the acting director of the school of land use and en-

vironmental change. In the many years that Raabe has been a philosopher, counsellor, and professor, he has made several achievements and contributions to the study of philosophy and to the university. To name just a few of his accomplishments, he has 48 published essays in peer-reviewed international journals, three essays published in books edited by other authors, presented at 56 international conferences in a wide variety of countries, and has published five books in five different languages. Schlitt claimed that his proudest achievement at UFV has been having the opportunity and joy of being able to play a major role in the development of the math, statistics, and science programs on a whole. Though he is retired now, Schlitt hopes and intends to still be involved in the UFV community. “My favorite accomplishment was to introduce, develop, and teach the Philosophy for Counsellors course (PHIL 367).” said Raabe. “This course made students aware that there is a significant difference between the physical brain and the intan-

gible mind, and that so-called ‘mental illnesses’ are not biological brain diseases that must be treated with harsh psychiatric medications.” When asked if he had any final words of wisdom to give students, Raabe said, “It’s normal to be sad or worried about things sometimes. Everyone has reasons why they’re sad or worried at times. Don’t turn to drugs when you feel sad or worried about stuff. All psychiatric drugs will give you troublesome side-effects. The best treatment is to talk with a family member, a friend, or a counsellor about what’s going on in your life that makes you feel the way you do.” In addition to that advice, Schlitt had his own final food for thought, stating, “UFV may not be big and flashy, but as a student-centred institution, its heart is in the right place. Its professors are subjectmatter experts hired with that studentcentre in mind. There's so much opportunity available for you if you engage with your professors and what you're learning. Take advantage!”

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NEWS UFV //

Revisions made to the transfer credit policy and to select certificate requirements Senate recap from June 10, 2022 RACHEL TAIT Senate is the academic governing body of UFV, with the university president and vice-chancellor Joanne MacLean as the chair. They are responsible for making decisions on everything academic, including: approving new courses and programs, approving changes to programs, and setting entrance requirements and the academic calendar. The Board of Governors, which looks at the business side of the university, is advised by Senate on matters of mutual interest. All at the university are welcome to attend Senate’s public meetings, held once a month. Senate makes decisions that impact the daily lives of both students and faculty. This article will recap the main agenda items of the hybrid Senate meeting on Friday, June 10, 2022. There was a brief discussion concern-

OPINION

ing the wording of the Transfer Credit policy (107) that was recently revised and brought to the board for approval. David Johnston, the university registrar, clarified how credits can be transferred from an unrecognized institution if two or more universities accept their programs or are approved by the UFV committee. The new revisions to the Transfer Credit Policy (107) will be clearer, more organized and easier to understand. According to the Senate agenda, these changes will come into effect on September 1, 2022. The proposed draft for the 2023-2024 “Budget Principles” concerning some of the revisions made to clarify the draft from the Senate Budget Committee meeting on May 19, 2022 was brought forward. The 2023-2024 financial planning environment, which sets the context for budget planning, reveals: the population for typi-

cal college-age students that is projected to increase in the Fraser Valley, major technology transformation at UFV due to the pandemic, lengthier processing times for international student’s visas and permits, and an expansion within trades programs offered at universities province-wide. Motions were passed concerning the changes made to the accounting certificate and the business administration certificate for Jan. 2023. These revisions were made to help expand the number of students who enroll into the certificate programs and to make it easier for students to transition into a diploma or degree program. The revisions being made to the accounting certificate include changing certain courses from required to optional, while other classes will become requirements within the certificate instead of being prerequisites for admission. The certif-

icate will also decrease from 37 credits to 30-31. Prior work experience is no longer a necessity to be admitted into the business administration certificate, as other options will be made available to students, and the credits needed will now be 30 instead of 36. It was also announced by Dr. James Mandigo, provost and vice president, academic, that Dr. Awneet Sivia, the 2022 recipient of the 3M National Teaching Fellowship Award, will be replacing Dr. Maureen Wideman, associate vice president of teaching and learning at the Teaching and Learning Centre. Wideman has been the vice president for nine years and will be going on sabbatical. The next senate meeting will take place on September 23, 2022 at 1:30 p.m.; the meeting location is yet to be decided.

opinion@ufvcascade.ca Kait Thompson — Opinion Editor

B.C. //

Abortion rights don’t end at the law; access is fundamental Although the majority of Canadians are pro-choice, stigma still holds us back KAIT THOMPSON If you’re used to ignoring the plethora of ads plastered all over the average Translink Skytrain station, it can be easy to miss, but it’s there; at the Commercial and Broadway stop on the Expo line in Vancouver, between the community college ads promising second chances and posters warning riders to stand back from the tracks, an offer for help is displayed. A poster advertising a “pregnancy crisis” counseling service, for those who find themselves looking for “options.” It greets riders just before they exit the platform and head out on to the street, and it’s an immediate signifier of the presence of an abortion clinic in the neighbourhood — but not for the reason you think. With the recent leak of a draft ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade threatening the status of abortion as a constitutionally protected right in the U.S., the topic has been on the forefront of many minds. To your average pro-choice Canadian, this may seem like another on a long list of things that draw a sharp line between our two countries; from our publicly funded healthcare model, to our immigration-friendly federal

policies, Canadians almost make a national sport out of being smug about our human rights compared to our neighbours to the south. After all, abortions are legal and freely available in our country. Which brings me to our second favourite national pastime: being blissfully, apathetically unaware of our own history. The fact is that there is no law guaranteeing abortion access in Canada. Decriminalized in 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s abortion law as unconstitutional, citing that the law infringed upon a woman’s right to “life, liberty and security of person.” From then on, abortion was left to be treated like any other medical procedure — governed by provincial/territorial governments and medical regulations. Surely, this must mean that abortions are just as accessible and available as any other medical procedure you might need, right? Not quite. If you live in the Fraser Health region — the largest health authority by population in B.C., and an area that includes regions as far east as Hope — your options are limited as there are, as of publishing, no publicly listed abortion providers in the region The closest listed clinic is in east Vancouver, near the intersection of

Broadway and Commercial; a long trek for those who live in the valley’s most rural communities. But what about those counseling centres? When you Google “abortions Abbotsford,” the top results show local addresses and phone numbers. Like that poster at Broadway station, we’ve all seen ads for “compassionate” and “judgement-free” help around our community. Unfortunately, they’re not nearly as open-minded as their carefully worded posters would suggest. I reached out to the closest one to me (and the top result on Google), the Hope for Women Pregnancy Centre, to request an interview for this article and was surprised when they declined. Joyce Arthur, the executive director of the the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), a pro-choice group that works to protect abortion rights and access, gave me some insight. “There's over 300 anti-choice groups in Canada, and half of those are these crisis pregnancy centres,” said Arthur. The ARCC maintains lists of all the anti-choice groups operating in the country, and so-called “pregnancy care centres,” which includes our local “Hope for Women” chapter. There are more than 15 anti-choice groups operat-

ing in the Fraser Valley, and many of them use co-opted language of pro-choice and feminist movements to camouflage. “At least one in three people who can get pregnant will have an abortion at some point in their lives,” claimed Arthur. “If people start sharing their abortion story, they'll find that other people around them have also had abortions too…ordinary people have abortions.” For the cost of the top ad rank on Google, organizations can catch vulnerable people looking for options before they can make it to a healthcare provider or a legitimate helpline (like the one operated by BC Women’s Hospital) and can give misinformation about their options. “They'll kind of exaggerate the side effects, make it much worse than it really is,” Arthur says. “They’ll never, ever talk about the side effects or medical risks of pregnancy and then childbirth, which are far greater than having an abortion.” Recent polls have shown that as many as four out every five Canadians support a woman’s right to choose, yet there is a lack of funding and a lack of provincial and federal policy enforcing and protecting the service, resulting in many regions in this country — including the Fraser Valley — being underserved.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2022

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OPINION Editorial //

The Cascade: …overworked and underpaid since 1993 ANDREA SADOWSKI This paper you hold in your hand is the culmination of 24 students' tireless efforts; it is an ongoing group project; it is an everevolving alternative press; it is the product of 30 years of trial-and-error; it is the only society on campus that is 100 per cent run by students. I joined the paper as a staff writer in the second year of my studies in 2019. I’m not an English or journalism or even communications student; I was just a broke girl looking for a hustle to help pay the bills, on top of being a full-time student with another part-time job. Over the years, my passion

for researching and writing became refined and my side gig slowly became my main gig. Working in various positions with The Cascade not only helped me develop soft and hard employment skills and a massive writing portfolio, but it became a source of friendship and gave me a sense of purpose. If you skim over the masthead, the thick, black column on the left side of page two that so often gets overlooked, you’ll see the list of names that helped write, design, illustrate, produce, and distribute this paper across mediums, platforms, and campuses. You could be one of those people. The Cascade’s purpose is more than amassing a conglomeration of words and pictures to

publish every other week; our main purpose is giving students opportunities — the chance to earn a bit of extra cash, gain experience in the journalism and publishing industry, hone in their skills, build friendships outside of class, and see their name in print. The Cascade is looking for talented people like you. If you’re reading this article, if you’re reading any articles at all in this issue, you’ve probably thought about writing for us and putting your own thoughts, opinions, stories and experiences into these pages. We can make that happen. Even if writing is not your thing, if you’re a business wizard, or a social media expert, or a video creator, a sound engineer, an archi-

vist, we’ve got a position for you here. In the words of the great Michael W. Scott, “You are creative. You are damn creative, each and every one of you. You are so much more creative than all of the other dry, boring morons that you work with.” Let that creativity shine, work for us, write for us, contribute to us in some way; these pages need your voice. Keep an eye on our “Job Opportunities” page to look out for positions we’re hiring for in the fall. But even if you want to remain an anonymous reader, I’m so happy you’re here and that you’ve given your time and attention to reading this humble, yet brilliant, publication.

Column //

The Conscious Consumer: Time to rethink your avocado toast Conversations about sustainability in an unsustainable world SYDNEY MARCHAND I grew up hating avocados. I thought that they were mushy, strangely slimy, and tasted like dirt. I distinctly remember picking them out of salads, sandwiches, and sushi rolls — I truly despised them. But now, either by the influence of avocado toast trends or just the maturing of my tastebuds, I love them. Does this make me basic? Probably. Deal with it. There is no denying that this decade has seen an uprising trend in avocado consumption. Not only have we seen the popularity of this fruit surface on social media, but more recipes are highlighting avocados in items such as smoothies, sauces, and baking. The stats don’t lie. The number of Google searches for “avocado toast” in the past decade has continued to rise annually, with some sources predicting that the industry will grow economically by another 5.14 per cent by 2025 in Canada alone. A couple of years ago, I watched an episode of Netflix’s Rotten entitled “The Avocado War,” and I quickly learned that my favourite toast topper was contributing to some major cultural, political, and environmental issues. Mexico, specifically Michoacán, the state known for having the most ideal avocado growing climate year-round, exports 90 per cent of its crops to Canada and the U.S. Locals are known to refer to the industry as “green gold,” as the exportation of the

crop is a major money maker for the country. The state, however, is also heavily influenced by drug cartels, and as such, the cartels are closely tied to the avocado industry. As avocados are one of the country’s

ers’ of the fields and profit from sales.” Besides this sector slowly losing control to organized crime, the downside of this invasion is also, of course, that it makes the industry incredibly dangerous. Known for being violent, threatening, and ruth-

Illustration by Brielle Quon

leading agricultural exports, the cartels are apparently expanding their economic control to include the legal exportation of goods and not just illegal drugs. It sounds confusing, but basically, the cartels are broadening their scope of business, with the goal being to gain control over this sector of the economy. One source states, “By taking over lands used to produce avocados, [drug cartels] become ‘informal own-

less, the takeover of farms has caused an influx of wars, civilian deaths, and international threats. The term “Cartel Tax” is now a common term in the industry, as those who do not abide by their rules and refuse to pay additional taxes on cartel-run farms are reportedly tortured and killed. Yes, this is all because of avocados. It is that influential of an industry. While I think that these cultural and

economic issues are where the bulk of the concerns lie within the industry, we should not ignore the environmental impacts as well. Up to 40 per cent of pine trees are cleared each year by farmers in order to make room for more avocado crops. Although this is illegal, and many of these larger species of trees are sources of cover crops and their canopies prevent droughts, the high price tag that the industry brings persuades more farmers each year to switch occupations and accommodate more land for farming. Therefore, besides the frustration we may feel about the high price tag of avocados we see at our local grocery store, the industry stems from a background of some major political and cultural issues. Like many of the topics this column has discussed, it is ultimately up to the big-wigs in charge to make decisions on how to get this industry back on track. Tackling organized crime is undeniably dangerous and incredibly difficult to navigate; however, with the rising trend of avocado consumption in North America, it can also be argued that consumers play a role in increasing the value of these farms. The avocado industry is gaining momentum due to the demands from Canadian and U.S. citizens and in return, this ramps up the economic value of these Mexican farms. Personally, although my love affair with avocados is strong, I certainly do not buy as many as I once did. To me, the cultural impacts that the fruit represents are too significant for me to support.

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2022

OPINION Column //

Sex & Relationships: Channeling my inner Carrie Bradshaw Adventures from a twenty-something trainwreck giving unsolicited relationship advice ANDREA SADOWSKI I started this column a year ago as a way to channel my inner Carrie Bradshaw (famed fictional relationship columnist of the 90s sitcom Sex and the City) and to help me to process the intricacies of my situationships as they unfolded. Unlike sex columns in the past that have been written under psuedonyms, I have let readers into some of the most intimate details of my life, such as the age I lost my virginity, the time I got broken up with because I refused to give blow jobs on command, and the number of people I’ve had sex with, in order to destigmatize the conversation around sex. Trust me, there have been some articles published under my name that I stayed up at night thinking about whether I wanted them to be on record; since The Cascade doesn’t un-publish stories from our website, these articles about my blow job experiences will be on my Google search history forever and ever. But then I think about the readership of this paper: mainly UFV students, many of whom are entering university straight from a high school and were raised in the highly conservative Fraser Valley. I wanted this column to help clear the fog of shame that often surrounds the topic of sexuality. It’s no secret that the public school system has failed many of us in the topic of sexual education. If your upbringing was anything like mine, the girls were taken into one room to learn about our periods and changing bodies and how to ward off an evil male’s advances, and the boys were taken into a different room to learn about… their penises? I guess? I still don’t know what boys learned during that time; if you can give me any insight, please write a letter to the editor about your experience. Anyways, let’s just say my knowledge of female anatomy was so bad that I thought women peed out of our vaginas until the age of 18, when my friend drew me a diagram on a napkin in a sushi restaurant to explain to me where my urethra was. Top that all off with an immersive experience in evangelical Christian culture for my entire early twenties that ingrained into my brain the idea that sex was a shameful, lewd, immoral act unless it was enjoyed in the sanctity of marriage between a man

and a woman. I still have heaps to learn about sex and relationships, but I have learned a thing or two in my almost three decades on this planet, some of which I wrote about in this column and other articles in The Cascade. Allow me to share with you some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned so far: • There is no such thing as mixed signals — they either like you or they don’t, and if they like you, you won’t be questioning whether or not they do; it will be crystal clear. • Sexuality is on a spectrum. Your sexual identity or preferences don’t need to define you and discovering this identity can be an ongoing journey. • You can’t change your partner. No matter how much you love them, they will not change for you. You need to either learn to live with their perceived flaws or you need to let them go and find someone who lives up to your standards (I recommend the latter). • Hold high standards for yourself when it comes to choosing any kind of partner. Be picky. There is no need to sleep with or date any person who is interested in you; really ask yourself whether or not you really like them in return. • Don’t sleep with anyone who doesn’t value your safety and comfort by refusing or complaining about wearing condoms. • When you decide to break up with your partner, rip off the Band-Aid and break up with them for good. Don’t let breakups drag on and on by being in a seemingly neverending on-and-off relationship. Once the deed is done, block them and forget them. • How many questions they ask you on a first date directly correlates with the amount of time they’ll spend going down on you. • Speak up! Remember that your partner isn’t a mind reader; telling them why you’re mad or what move makes

Illustration by Lindsey Roberts

•

• • •

•

you cum, or generally just communicating what you’re feeling, will only improve your relationship. Don’t let anyone tell you what is “normal” in a relationship. No two relationships are the same, and as long as what you’ve got going works for you and your partner, that’s all that matters. If you’re in the mood to send nudes, take it at an angle where your face is not in the photo. Fart in front of your partner as soon as possible. Stop comparing your current partner to your ex. If you’re talking or thinking about your ex so much that they come up frequently in conversations, you’re not over them, and that’s not a cute look. The key to a female orgasm is clitoral

stimulation. Learn where the clitoris is located and proceed to worship this massive pile of nerve endings. • For the love of God, go to therapy. Especially after a break up. Counselors have a way of unraveling the mess of thoughts in your brain and give you insight into your life only a trained professional can. Take full advantage of the free counseling UFV offers its students and stop burdening your friends with your endless sob stories of your shitty ex. For the sake of brevity, I’ll stop here. I wish you luck in finding (and keeping) a partner who worships the ground you walk on, gives you Earth-shattering orgasms, and respects the crap out of you.

BRIEF BITS OF BITE-SIZED BREVITY

SN S AP HO TS

CURTAILED COMMENTARY ON CURRENT CONDITIONS

Illustrations by Iryna Presley

Fuck Tha Police: Great song, bad ideology It’s sunscreen season, baby I try my best to go for a walk at least a few days a week. It is a good way to clear my head, get a little bit of exercise and get a boost of sun-induced serotonin. Of course, spring and summer are my favourite seasons to soak up the sunny rays, but as the weather warms up and summertime quickly approaches, I am here to remind you to slather on your sunscreen. Although I am a stickler for wearing sunscreen on my face every day (even in the winter), this week I was quickly reminded to pull out the body SPF, too.

There is nothing worse than coming back from a relaxing walk outdoors or a trip to the beach, only to realize you are bright red, in pain, and your skin is beginning to peel. Not only that, but wearing sunscreen reduces your risk of melanoma by 50 per cent. While I am a huge advocate for getting outdoors and soaking up your daily vitamin D, please don’t forget to protect your skin from UVB damage and pile on the sunscreen, too.

Sydney Marchand

It has become normalized, especially among college-educated youth, to scorn the police. That isn’t to say that police should be immune from criticism — they should not. They should be held to the highest standards of conduct and transparency. Those who act against the welfare of those they are sworn to protect and serve should be rooted out, retrained, retired, or prosecuted, but the time of labeling the profession as a whole “fundamentally corrupt” should end. Police reform is a noble and worthwhile goal. If society demonizes the profession as a tool of oppression or a cadre of unrepentant, power-hungry goons, then who will that attract? Don’t court self-fulfilling prophecies. Corrup-

tion breeds corruption, cruelty breeds cruelty, and in a society where the police are militant thugs and murderers, the worst of society finds fellowship. No moral, ethical, and empathetic individual grows up yearning to join an organization they see as tyrannical. Police need reform, training, accountability, veneration, and respect, because at the end of the day, we still want and need good cops — but to achieve that, good people need to see themselves in that uniform. Ideally, future cops will be college-educated youths who learned the value of just and empathetic policing, but not if our narratives scare them all off.

Bradley Duncan

Too many books, not enough time In December, I made a goal to read 60 books in 2022. While I expected to surpass that goal, I noticed my T.B.R. list kept growing, and growing, and… I didn’t have enough time. Well, I do. I have enough time in the world. I was overwhelmed with the desire to read as much as I could, to read that fantasy quartet or that mind-bending novel or online web serial; I realized everything I amassed couldn’t be completed in a year, or even two. Not with school or a job, and surely not with other obligations. Is it possible to actually read every book in the world? I think about that

often. If you were hypothetically immortal, could you read every book that has ever been and ever will be written? I’m not sure what the ratio is between novels published and years one would theoretically live, but it’s interesting to think about. Right now my interests lean towards science fiction, namely Jeff VanderMeer, Martha Wells, P. Djèlí Clark, and Arkady Martine — if I could list all of my favourite authors, I would, but like always, I would run out of time.

Anisa Quintyne

I don’t know what I’m doing with my life When I graduated high school, I had this fear that I would end up homeless because I didn’t have a grand life plan. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t have a dream career. All I knew was that I wanted to go to university because, hey, what’s not to like about finishing assignments at 1:00 a.m. and forgetting to eat because the cafeteria closes at 4:00 p.m.? Well, I just finished my degree and I have no idea what I’m going to do next. And you know what? I’m 100 per cent

okay with that. Over my last year of university, I’ve done a lot of new things — I’ve moved out, drank alcohol, learned to skateboard, and gone to Ikea for the first time (crazy stuff, I know). Careerwise, I’m content to just try things out and see what I like and what I’m good at. I think that’s all we can hope for. See you never, UFV!

Danaye Reinhardt

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Transcendence: Finding healing and connection in a mushroom Canada is witnessing a sea-change on psilocybin, and this turning of the tide might be just what the doctor ordered. By: Bradley Duncan & Kellyn Kavanagh

have a mental health problem in this country. I know, I worry about even typing it, but it’s true. Social media, smart phones, isolation, and then to top it all off, the pandemic. Therapy sessions move to Zoom, classes move online, and customers yell at you at your minimum-wage job. It’s a lot to process when your antidepressants already aren’t working like they used to. Rates of anxiety, depression, and addiction are all on the rise. But there’s reason to be optimistic, albeit cautiously, and it comes in the form of a mushroom. It would be dubious to say that Canada has been a pioneering force in the field of hallucinogenic compounds; ancient peoples have been using mindaltering substances for thousands of years to delve into the mysteries of human consciousness, but it’s no small feat for a country to emerge from a half-century of moral panic. Illegal in Canada since 1974, psychedelics like psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca are worming their way back into the prohibition conversation. Canada’s federal government has several compelling reasons to relax its restrictions on psychedelic mushrooms. Though their nature and scope have been limited by restrictive laws, studies have routinely shown that psychedelicassisted psychotherapy can have radically positive effects on people suffering from debilitating mental illnesses like treatment-resistant depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Gaining another weapon in our arsenal in the fight for mental health is no small achievement; however, while advocates are quick to espouse the potential benefits across a whole spectrum of society, there’s an awareness that too much, too fast can cause a backlash. Wading into these murky waters is Canada’s health minister, who’s been gradually doling out exceptions for psilocybin treatment for select Canadians facing end-of-life anxieties since 2020 and has recently greenlit the applications of three patients exclusively to address their mental health challenges. This has left advocacy groups, encouraged by the policy shift, nevertheless frustrated that for every patient admitted to these trials, they see hundreds of potential beneficiaries denied. “It is faster and easier in Canada to get access to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) than it is to get access to psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy,” says Holly Bennett, communications director for TheraPsil. Groups like TheraPsil, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), the Psychedelic Association of Canada, and others, have been working to bring awareness, train, heal, and effect legislative changes, and like the fungi they advocate for, their networking efforts have begun bearing fruiting bodies. Change is in the air, and it’s carrying spores. Why are psychedelics so contentious? Is it the nature of the molecules themselves to be mercurial, or does that speak to our own human nature? As a society, can we harness the transformative properties of psilocybin without upending the social bedrock— or are advocates just tripping?

A Brief History: Psychedelics have a long and storied history, but western civilization’s relationship with these substances is considerably more turbulent, tracing its roots back to the Columbian Exchange. The first Europeans to set foot in the new world brought more than guns and smallpox— they brought Christianity. In contrast to what the Spanish had to offer: a religion that relied on faith, Indigenous rituals involving psychedelic mushrooms connected the individual directly with the divine. Unwilling to share their spiritual monopoly, the Catholic church demonized the instruments of transcendence, waging a onesided war on all materials or symbols relating to the shamanistic practices. Admittedly, the Aztecs did have the more compelling sacrament, representing a tangible, and perhaps insurmountable threat to Catholicism. The Nahuatl word for psychedelic mushrooms translates to “flesh of the Gods,” so to allow the “mushroom cults” to continue unabated might risk the erosion of the church’s supreme authority. The Catholic missionaries’ attack on hallucinogenics was unrelenting, driving the tradition underground where it would remain practiced in small, isolated enclaves throughout the Americas. Centuries later, Time-Life magazine would run a story about the “mushrooms that cause strange visions,” reintroducing the “magic mushrooms,” as the article coined them, into the public sphere. Psilocybin mushrooms now joined the psychedelic landscape alongside lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), discovered by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann. First synthesized in 1938, Hofmann accidentally exposed himself to its effects in 1943 upon reexamining it, and experienced the first known LSD trip. The experience had a profound effect on Hofmann’s life— one that would come to be replicated so widely that it would challenge the very social order of the United States. Psychedelic substances are profoundly transformative, and not exclusively for personal wellness and social movements, according to proponents of the so-called “stoned ape theory.” In actuality a hypothesis rather than a theory, the idea points to psychedelic mushrooms as a crucial factor in the doubling in size of the human brain over the course of between 200,000 and 2 million years. Hypothesized by Terrence and Dennis Mckenna, it is succinctly conveyed by mycologist, Paul Stamets: “With climate change and as the savannah increased and as our primate ancestors came out of the forest canopies — they’re tracking across the savannah — if you’re a hunter… you look for footsteps; you look for scat. Then the most significant fleshy mushroom growing out of poop in Africa… is psilocybe cubensis. It’s a very large mushroom. You’re hungry, you’re with your clan, you consume it, and then twenty minutes later you are catapulted into this extraordinary experience. Psilocybin substitutes as serotonin, becomes a better neurotransmitter, activates neurogenesis, it causes new neurons to form — new pathways of knowledge.”

WEDNESDAY, June 15, 2022

That word, “neurogenesis” is key, as it’s the process by which the brain builds new neurons and neural pathways. Common in childhood development, the process restricts in adulthood but can be spurred on by introducing psilocybin. This is a critical element for the “theory” as the driving force for increasing our ancestral brain size, but also for mental health today. Where there are relatively few in the scientific community who lend the stoned ape theory much credence, it’s safe to say that as long as the emergence of human consciousness remains a mystery, the hypothesis will maintain its devout and loyal proponents.

Wanderlust: Kellyn In 2018 I lost one of the most important people in my world, my brother MarcAndre. Looking back on my life, nearly everything that became a passion of mine was directly influenced by the way I looked up to him. Marc-Andre was the person who helped make sense of the world when everything was chaotic and confusing. My whole life I’d felt out of place, and losing my brother made me feel more alone than ever. At the time of his passing, my family shared in their grief together, with many tears shed. However, perhaps due to the shock, I only felt this deep emotional numbness. I was present with my family, but mentally I was checked out. The months that followed I really struggled to feel emotionally connected to anything or anyone. When summer rolled around two months after the incident, my family and I went on a camping trip to Keats Island, a small little spot off the Sunshine Coast. We arrived pretty early in the day. I packed with me a two gram dose of psilocybin mushrooms and ate them almost immediately after setting up my tent. I spent some time walking around during the come up, mentally sifting through a backlog of files in my brain, analysing and processing all the feelings I had stored up in my head. The more I processed each thought, it dawned on me that this experience was the first time since his death I had a moment of pause. Travelling back and forth from Alaska, attending funerals and celebrations, and going from one place and person to another, I was never taking time to stop and process my own trauma. I was simply going through the motions. It felt terrible to be that checked out, and in that moment it felt like I was waking up again. Psychedelic-aided reflection in a calm environment helped me come out of that dissociative state. After a few moments of sombre reflection, I allowed myself to break for the first time since my brother’s passing. I cried like a madman in the quiet solitude of a small rock on the beach overlooking the ocean. Feeling the grief in such a strong way came with a co-occurring euphoria. The crashing ocean waves encouraged me to cry it out while the vibrant green glow of the forest calmed my soul. I felt a profound emotional safety that until then felt so far away. Once my tears finally seceded, I breathed a calm sigh of relief. The trip lasted roughly three hours. In that time; I met an absolutely sensational Alaskan Malamute named Wizard, swam in the ocean and met a harbour seal (no name given), did some journaling, and listened to Tea For The Tillerman by Cat Stevens. Obviously the trauma didn’t go away after the come-down. There was and still is a long road ahead of me on that front. However, that experience gifted me a new perspective on my profound grief, and helped me articulate it in a way that I could share with my family and allow us to move forward in the grieving process together. The value of an experience like that could never be fully measured.

“ Ancient peoples have been using mindaltering substances for thousands of years to delve into the mysteries of human consciousness ”

Early research, the psychedelic revolution, and the controlled substances act: Since US President Nixon declared a “war on drugs” in 1971, psychedelics, alongside a slew of other psychoactive drugs, including opiates, have been strictly regulated. Prior to the aggressive barriers placed upon conducting psychedelic research, scientists in the United States and Canada were looking at a number of applications for psychedelic substance use in psychotherapy. Studies were being conducted to measure the healing properties of mushrooms to aid in the treatment of alcoholism, anxiety, end-of-life distress in cancer patients, schizophrenia, and depression. In the modern era, the inquiry into these treatments has begun to make a renaissance. In 1944, Saskatchewan elected premier Tommy Douglas. At the time, Douglas was deeply invested in promoting medical research that would inform the development of public policies. Spilling into the next decade, Saskatchewan became a mecca for psychedelic research, particularly in the field of psychedelic mental health therapy. During the 1950s, LSD and mescaline treatment was starting to become used in the mental health field in Canada, instead of the common approach at the time; institutionalisation in a mental asylum. In addition to long term stays in an institution, patients suffering depression and anxiety disorders were given multiple doses of antidepressant pharmaceutical compounds, which are commonplace to this day. However, researchers were finding that providing single doses of LSD to patients delivered stronger results with fewer dosages. In America, the use of psychedelic therapy started gaining traction following largely in part to the work of Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, faculty members of Harvard University in the 1950s-60s. After meeting at the university, the two professors developed the Harvard Psilocybin Project. The project was designed to study the effects of psilocybin mushrooms on human consciousness. While the project made large gains in research alongside the developments happening in Canada, the methodology employed by Leary and Alpert came heavily under fire from Harvard University. The problem at hand was that Leary and Alpert were using the drugs themselves alongside their research subjects. Their actions were seen as unprofessional and frivolous, despite changes that were made to the study. The project came to a halt in 1963 when Harvard fired both professors. Because LSD and psilocybin were legal during the time of Leary and Alpert’s research, the recreational use of these substances spread like wildfire. With the growing popularity of psychedelics, Leary and Alpert continued to promote their use and became figureheads for the psychedelic counterculture hippie movement in the United States. In 1966, Leary gave a lecture to young psychonauts in which he coined the catchphrase “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” This historic saying became synonymous with the hippie movement itself. With psychedelics becoming so popular in the United States during the 1960s, the government felt that this was a problem needing to be contained. In 1970, the United States congress established into law the “Controlled Substances Act.” This act made psychedelic drugs, as well as other psychoactive substances such as cocaine, meth, and heroin, completely illegal for manufacture, use, sale, and possession. In Canada, the approach to scheduling psychedelics was a little more spread out over time. By the year 1968, LSD was already made illegal for possession and trafficking. However, psilocybin mushrooms weren’t made illegal in Canada until 1974.

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Wanderlust: Bradley

The New Age of Research:

My experience with “shrooms” began in 2020 in an “Intro to Today, we are in a better position to understand the nature of Psychology” course when a minor section of a lengthy textbook psychedelics than at any other point in history. Without diminishing focused on the psychological impacts of hallucinogenic drugs. the role of generational knowledge and ancient tradition, new fields of I’ve always considered myself a rational and grounded person study are beginning to peel back the layers of mystery that surround not prone to magical thinking, so the notion that there were these psychoactive substances. Science is beginning to enter yet drugs out there that could fundamentally alter someone’s senseanother realm that was previously the domain of the spiritual. of-self was fascinating. I began to seek out all I could find Psilocybin, and other hallucinogenic compounds, are on the subject, but it becomes increasingly difficult to tryptamines. Their chemical structure, while differing peer into the science and the transformative personal slightly among themselves, all bear a striking resemblance experiences without participating firsthand. Before to serotonin, another tryptamine, and a chemical long, I resolved to do just that. neurotransmitter produced in our brains. Serotonin is All my enquiries led me to two important factors to responsible for many functions, but notable among them consider: the importance of “set” and “setting.” Set refers is its relationship to mood regulation. The classification of to one’s mindset, or intention going into the experience, while antidepressant drugs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) setting denotes the physical setting of the environment. Both prevent the reabsorption of serotonin, allowing it to remain longer in factors felt crucial for me to get right, but first I needed a the synaptic gap with the intent of elevating and stabilizing our mood. hallucinogen. I decided on psilocybin in the form of psilocybe The psychoactive compounds are similar enough to serotonin that they cubensis, specifically, dried Golden Teacher mushrooms. readily bind with receptors in our cortex, causing them to activate. They were relatively easy to obtain through online retailers, Fooling our brain’s receptors in this way results in an altered state and I’d heard from anecdotal accounts that mushrooms of consciousness, which, thanks to modern technology, we can map are psychologically “gentle” for initiates compared to other and analyze with functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) and options. The first time I ate any of the disgusting mushrooms (I magnetoencephalography (MEG). FMRI facilitated the discovery of the don’t even like them in my entrees) I’d made sure to only have default mode network (DMN), our brain’s enough to constitute an imperceptible default state when not being externally amount — a microdose. A week challenged or stimulated. The DMN “ later, I ate considerably more; a emerges and solidifies as we reach Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy can adulthood, and is most active when low-to-medium dose. I hated it. I felt anxious and wound up. It was have radically positive effects on people we are introspective, daydreaming, profoundly unpleasant. Apparently, worrying, and reflecting. suffering from debilitating mental it’s a rather common side effect to In his book, How to Change your Mind, illnesses like treatment-resistant experience such unease with these Michael Pollan likens the DMN to a mid-range doses, as in the world of depression and post-traumatic stress “regulating valve.” The human brain psychedelics, there exists (at least is responsible for approximately 20 disorder for some) a threshold that one must per cent of the body’s energy usage, ” cross before the regular state of which makes it disproportionately consciousness lets go of the reins. I demanding of our caloric intake given resolved to go all in. its relative size. If your brain had to deal I selected the ideal day and time, set a reclining lounge chair with all the raw data that your senses took in, you would be completely out on my deck, cued up a relaxing playlist on my noiseoverwhelmed — instead, the DMN filters out the unnecessary cancelling headphones, and ate roughly 3.5 grams of the dry, information and handles the relevant tasks almost subconsciously. acrid mushrooms. Within twenty minutes, I was feeling funny. Professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and author, Alison Gopnik, Twenty minutes after that, colourful fractals were lapping likens the adult brain to that of a “spotlight” whereas the child’s brain is like waves across my mind’s eye to the rhythm of the sounds more analogous to a “lantern.” Spotlights, by their nature, cast a bright in my headset. Sometimes the experience would become light on the object of importance, but make it more difficult to perceive overwhelming, and I’d open my eyes to pause the dramatic those objects outside of the beam. This efficiency in the adult brain display. With a little effort, I stood up and looked out over the allows us to become very proficient at a range of tasks that narrows in view. scope as we age, and our underutilized neural pathways get trimmed I just kept thinking, “what was I afraid of? It’s not scary. It’s for the sake of efficiency in a process called synaptic pruning. not scary,” before realising I’d been saying it out loud as tears Conversely, the brain of a child is much more plastic than that of an streamed down my face. It was, in a word, bliss. Every seagull adult, and this is one reason that babies and children learn so that soared overhead was connected to me through our rapidly. They are wired to discover a world that they now relationship to the earth and our shared DNA. We would inhabit but played no part in constructing. They need to both be born, exist for a brief moment, and then move learn everything from scratch, and anyone who’s left on. Whether that sense of connection was genuine, their phone or iPad unlocked around a child will tell or a product of a presupposed expectation planted you just how adept they can be at navigating things in my brain before I’d set out was irrelevant — it was they don’t understand that downright stump adults. as real as anything I’d felt before. That commonality among This is because children do not have a preconceived notion of how experiences of people tripping is exactly what induced me to things “should” work. Kids are all trial and error. In a talk at a 2011 take this journey myself. I spent the rest of the evening gazing TED conference, Gopnik relayed that four-year-olds “are actually out over the world as the sun set over the mountains and the better at finding out an unlikely hypothesis than adults are when skies, streaked with fire, shone like the light of creation. Years we give them exactly the same task.” This distinction impacts the later, sunsets still stop me in my tracks. ability to problem-solve and makes children better at outside-theIt was pretty good. box solutions.

WEDNESDAY, June 15, 2022

So why discuss the brains of babies? Well, current research is showing that brains under the influence of psychedelics much more closely resemble those of children. In the words of Gopnik, “The short summary is, babies and children are basically tripping all the time.” This starts to make sense when you consider how difficult it becomes to replicate the joyous wonder of your youthful experiences, whether it’s the magic of a Christmas morning, or the adventure of exploring the woods behind your school or home. The closest I ever got to that feeling again was when I was tripping on psilocybin. If enough psychedelic tryptamines flood your synapses it essentially takes your DMN offline temporarily — or at least relegates it to the backseat of our consciousness, and research is beginning to uncover what that ultimately means for our mental health. The DMN is essentially who we are impulsively. The wellworn paths of our neural networks that are shaped by years of routines, habits, fears, and rewards can get so ingrained that they become challenging to deviate from, even when we want to. If you’re trying to start a new gym routine or break a bad habit, it’s gruelling because our brains want to use those solidified neural pathways. It’s like rolling a bowling ball down a lane that’s slanted toward the gutter — it takes a Herculean effort to get that ball where it’s not inclined to end up. Flooding our brains with tryptamines like LSD or psilocybin overwhelms our networks and results in neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. It’s this ability to “rewire’’ our neural networks that makes psychedelics so promising for combating addiction, depression, and other forms of mental unrest by levelling out the grooves in our cognitive terrain.

Treatment: All of this brings us to why the decision to allow patients access to psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy is such a monumental shift in Canada’s relationship with psychedelics. Prohibited for nearly fifty years, there are now paths, albeit narrow, for legitimate, legal therapy and research involving psilocybin. The process allows for patients to address their mental wellness, whether end-of-life anxiety, PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, or a host of other maladies, in a safe, supervised environment, under the influence of powerful hallucinogens. However, our contemporary mentalhealth apparatus wasn’t constructed with these compounds in mind and requires a completely different set of skills and training from customary practices. “It is not like just giving a patient a pill, hoping it works, and checking in on them in a few months,” says Bennett. “It requires on-going trusting relationships between patients and their treatment teams, and a deep understanding of the nuances of this treatment by the patient’s therapists and prescribing doctors. “One challenge we are currently facing is the ability to continue to train healthcare professionals in the experiential aspect of psilocybin therapy,” continues Bennett, “and by this, I mean supporting healthcare professionals in legally undergoing their own psilocybin-therapy journey so they can first-hand get acquainted and understand what their patients may go through.” Essentially, if you want to help your patients navigate Wonderland, it’s a good idea to take a trip there yourself first. This is easier said than done, as healthcare practitioners must acquire an exemption, first through Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) and then through the Special Access Program, but “the Minister of

Health is not granting them anymore,” says Bennett. “We don’t know why.” According to Bennett, there are currently only 19 practitioners in Canada that have been granted this exemption. In the meantime, groups like TheraPsil continue to train healthcare professionals, but with only a pedagogic understanding of this practice, they have no first-hand experience of what their patients might experience. And patients experience a lot. High-doses of psilocybin typically result in distortions in perception, deep feelings of connection to nature and others, and mystical, spiritual experiences, but also may unearth deep-seated traumas, hardships, and adversities that require patience and understanding to navigate through. For decades, the gold standard of drug testing has been the double-blind study, in which some patients are given a drug, while others get a placebo. The trouble with psychedelics is that an hour after ingestion, nobody is ignorant as to what each patient received. Psilocybin just doesn’t gel with the present modality. Working with hallucinogens requires a totally different approach, but not a new one. Spelunking the unconscious requires reconnecting with our roots. Drawing upon Indigenous knowledge and traditions, and a good deal of trialand-error, researchers and psychologists in the 1950s and 60s learned the importance of “set and setting” in tripping. The intention of the patient, the environment, and the importance of someone there to “hold the space” so that the individual can relax and succumb to the process, are all critical ingredients in the overall success of the practice. Todate, TheraPsil has helped to train over 200 healthcare workers through their program. Just as important as set and setting is the work that goes into reconciling the thoughts, emotions, and images brought on by the trip. This process is referred to as “integration.” It is this time, while our ego has become more malleable and open to new ideas, that we can recondition minds, address trauma, and break free from addictive patterns. This understanding is not a breakthrough, but draws from wisdom long-held by communities of persecuted practitioners working in secret to bring healing to those in need. Like Indigenous communities before them, researchers, therapists, and guides introduced to these substances before their prohibition have kept the traditions alive, and now find their experiences backed-up by modern technology and scientific instrumentation. They are links in a centuries-old chain.

These individuals, however, represent a slim fraction of the healthcare community, and there are still further hurdles to patients finding treatment. Bennett laments that “there are so few doctors who are willing to support their patients through this application process due to the cumbersome paperwork, legal liability, and the need for nuanced understanding of this extremely bureaucratic process.” So, what’s the solution? In Bennett’s estimation, it starts with an end to the outright prohibition of psilocybin, but not without guardrails. “Patient safety and ethics are paramount in this field,” she says. Advocacy groups are very aware of the cautionary tale that is recreational LSD in the 60s. For lasting progress to be made, there needs to be a legislative solution. “TheraPsil has proposed a regulatory framework to the Government of Canada and our Federal Health Minister, Jean-Yves Duclos, for medical access to psilocybin,” says Bennett. “In this draft framework, patients and healthcare professionals would be in charge of deciding access to psilocybin, just like every other treatment option.” This is a far cry from the legalization trajectory of cannabis, but for very good reason — psychedelics carry much more cultural baggage, and arguably, the stakes are far higher. “We have seen far too many patients pass away while waiting for exemptions.”

Integration: To address our crises of addiction and declining mental health, advocacy groups are fighting for lasting, legislative change, but if psilocybin taught me anything, it’s that change is ubiquitous. Psychedelics are enigmas — powerful enough to erode faith and evoke spirituality in equal measure; they should not be taken lightly, but they should also not be discounted. We’ve known in this country as far back as the 1950s that when used responsibly, they can be a tectonic force for positive change, but it’s up to us, as a society, to nurture that change. Twenty years ago, after a decade of struggle, sobriety, and relapse, my father moved into a motel and drank himself to death. We have an opportunity in this country, but we had that opportunity before. For nearly fifty years, psychedelic substances have been rendered illegal in Canada despite extensive evidence of their benefits. We have a chance to do better now. Lives may depend on it.

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CULTURE

culture@ufvcascade.ca Anisa Quintyne — Culture Editor

Community //

Column //

Yarrow Days show their Shredded Tofu Sandwich true peaceful colours Cascade Kitchen:

ANISA QUINTYNE

Shredded Tofu Sandwich, 2022. (Andrea Sadowski/The Cascade)

ANDREA SADOWSKI The Cascade Kitchen is a student-run food column that brings you budget-friendly recipes and cooking tips. If you want to see your own recipe featured next, get started by reaching out to culture@ufvcascade.ca. I promise you, this is the best way you will ever consume tofu. If you’re thinking about how bland and tasteless this soybean product is, this sandwich will change your entire worldview on this protein-packed vegetarian staple. Shredding the tofu allows for maximum flavour absorption, and this easyto-make recipe will serve as your sandwich filling for the rest of the week!

Method: 1.

Prep time: 30 minutes. Serves: 5 Ingredients: ¼ cup vegetable broth ¼ cup soy sauce ¼ cup sriracha 1 Tbsp agave nectar (or maple syrup) 1 Tbsp tomato paste 1 tsp chilli powder 1 tsp paprika 1 tsp cumin 2 Tbsp sesame oil ½ red onion, diced 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated One block of extra firm tofu Salt and pepper to taste ⅓ cup toasted sesame seeds

4. 5.

Combine the vegetable broth, soy sauce, sriracha, agave, tomato paste, chili powder, paprika, and cumin in a small bowl, and set aside. In a frying pan, heat the sesame oil and add the onion. Saute until the onion is slightly softened, around three minutes. Then add the ginger and garlic and saute for a minute more. Grate the tofu into the frying pan, add the broth mixture and mix well. Let it all simmer, stirring occasionally, until nearly all the liquid has been absorbed, around 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper and remove from the heat. Add the sesame seeds to the finished tofu mixture and combine. Serve the tofu on a sandwich with your choice of toppings. I found this was best served on a fluffy hamburger bun slathered in vegan mayo, with a spoonful or two of this tofu, topped with a generous helping of kimchi and a sprinkle of green onions.

Unable to continue the festival for two years, June 4 and 5 marked the comeback of Yarrow Days, now cheering in full force with this year's theme titled “Feelin’ Groovy” in celebration of small-town living. Many members of Yarrow’s community came together that day, basking in the shared excitement of two dreadfully long missed years and the festival’s 50th anniversary to set the mood right. The celebration was met with hundreds of attendees dressed in their best 70s outfits, with many jutting out their denim bellbottoms and floral-printed tie dye shirts to really hit home the “Feelin’ Groovy” theme, accomplished with flying colours and much enthusiasm. Floats had the opportunity to show off their celebratory pride as the beautiful creations marched down the long strip of road, beginning at Yarrow Elementary and ending at Yarrow Mennonite Brethren Church. A variety of volunteers attended the parade, from horses dressed vibrantly with bows in their manes, old-time cars sporting their models in nearly every colour of the rainbow, to marching bands performing their musical talent across the community. And while Yarrow’s talented community paraded through the streets in homebrewed designs, candy was thrown in the air alongside other little trinkets, causing the younger generation to fall onto the cement floor as they searched for fallen pieces. Siblings Olivia and Ryan Keeping, who performed at the celebration as the brothersister duo Little Kings Olive Tree, described their experience with Yarrow Days and how the community had shaped over the years. “We both lived here our whole lives. So this has always been a really important day. It's just so much fun, you know, the community comes out,” said Olivia Keeping. “For me growing up, Yarrow Days was always the most exciting day of the year,” said

Olivia and Ryan keeping

Ryan Keeping. “As a kid there was cotton candy, there was face painting. You see all your friends have water balloon fights. I was wondering if people thought Christmas is so boring because I was like yeah, Yarrow Days is so important. “I think that this Yarrow Day specifically means a lot for people. It's the 50th anniversary, as well … we haven't had this for two years. It’s been tough, you know, in a small town where you have such a strong community. For me, it really just is about small town living and connecting with people.” After the parade, there was a gathering of people at the Yarrow Market. Food trucks served lemonade and shaved ice, baked goods were sold alongside gourmet chocolate, talented artists came out with authentic jewelry and even custom-made clothing. What impressed the crowd, however, was the spectacular talent that amassed on stage. Ryan Keeping spoke about their experience watching the performance and what caused it to happen. “The bhangra dancers are kind of the biggest event in Yarrow Days for a lot of people. Terry Sidhu owns the Rainbow Gas Station, and he's just like the sweetest guy, the nicest guy. “Everybody goes to that gas station. Unfortunately it's had a bit of a fire in the past year. But Terry hires these bhangra dancers to come out and Terry will also play the drums as well. I think it's part of Yarrow because it also shows the diversity in a small town, you know. This is quite unique in a small town way.” As the 50th anniversary of Yarrow Days came to an end, it was definitely an event that would leave an impact on the town’s memory for years to come. Watching it was an experience that stirred a particular nostalgia for the days occurring before the pandemic, and the same sentiment could be felt in the parade as smiles were seen and cheers were heard for the first time in years.

Yarrow Days. 2022. Olivia and Ryan Keeping. (Laura Keeping)

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CULTURE Photography // In honor of our in-house photographer, Laura Ayres, graduating and leaving The Cascade, we’d like to showcase a few of our favorite photos Ayres has captured during her time with us. If you’re interested in capturing visual stories for our publication in the Fall, see our “Job Opportunities” page at ufvcascade.ca to check out the opportunities available.

UFV Abbotsford campus as fall transitions to winter. 2021. (Laura Ayres/The Cascade)

Student Union Building. 2021. (Laura Ayres/The Cascade)

Pollinator garden workshop presented by UFV’s School of Land Use and Environmental Change and the UFV Office of Sustainability. March 2022. (Laura Ayres/The Cascade).

St. John Ambulance’s therapy dogs providing much needed serotonin to stressed students during exam season. April 2022. (Laura Ayres/The Cascade)

The School of Creative Arts 2022 Interpret Festival. April 2022. (Laura Ayres/The Cascade).

St. John Ambulance’s therapy dogs providing much needed serotonin to stressed students during exam season. April 2022. (Laura Ayres/The Cascade)

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CULTURE Community //

Fraser Valley Pride 2022 returns to in person festivities EMMALINE SPENCER From July 9 to 16, the Fraser Valley Pride celebration will be taking place in Abbotsford and Mission. The final and main event will be hosted at Heritage Park in Mission from 12:00 - 8:00 p.m. This year’s festival will mark the tenth anniversary since the first Fraser Valley Pride celebration. The weeklong pride event is hosted and planned by the Fraser Valley Youth Society (FVYS), a nonprofit organization that supports youth ages 13-25 that identify as LGBTQ+. The FVYS hosts informative workshop events in Fraser Valley communities and hosts weekly drop-ins with food, resources, and a safe place for youth to gather and hang out. According to Ali Slack, a representative from the team planning the pride festival, there will be a variety of events and activities being hosted

throughout the Fraser Valley area leading up to the main celebration on July 16. On July 9, to kick off the festivities, there will be an adult only “Tucked & Loaded: Pride Edition” drag show featuring Anida Tythole. This evening event will also feature other local drag performers. Following this will be a family-friendly drag queen story time event hosted on July 12 at the Reach Art Gallery in Abbotsford. In the evening, HUB co. Brewing will be hosting a trivia night that will be pride themed. There will be a youth (ages 13-21) dance and drag show on July 14. Entry will be by donation and will be open to other ages as well, but is meant to mainly serve as an event that the youth can feel comfortable attending. The dance will be hosted at the Mission Youth Activity Centre. The finale and main celebration will be hosted on July 16. As this will be the first year of in-person events since the pandem-

ic, and the tenth anniversary of the first ever Fraser Valley Pride celebrations, the event is expected to be extra special. One of the main differences between this year and previous years is that the event will be eight hours long, three hours longer than the last in-person festival, and will feature a variety of food trucks, a drag show, local performers, vendor booths, and local queer talent. Due to difficulties in securing the Jubilee Park in Abbotsford — the event’s usual location — the celebration has been moved to Heritage Park in Mission. The FVYS worked hard to find a safe place to host the festival and are looking forward to having everyone come out and celebrate together again. Slack mentioned, “I love seeing community, and especially from the perspective of working in a youth organization, seeing people find their space and find their peo-

ple and find safety and inclusion in such a grand way, because I think it means a lot when we walk by a door to a business and we see a rainbow sticker or that this is a safe space.” According to Slack, the annual window display competition will not be happening in lieu of focusing on the larger parts of this year’s celebration, but local shops and homes are still encouraged to do window displays and to post their displays to media while tagging Fraser Valley Pride. Slack also explained that due to the size of the event and the safety measures, they are still looking for volunteers, and invite anyone interested to contact Fraser Valley Pride at info@fvpride.ca. Follow FVPride on Instagram for more information on the events in coming weeks.

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CULTURE UFV //

CHASI continues to innovate by creating a repository dashboard for BCCAT “CHASI leaves the world a little bit better than how we found it.” EMMALINE SPENCER Recently, the Community Health and Social Innovation (CHASI) hub of UFV completed a project in association with the British Columbia Council on Admissions and Transfer (BCCAT). The project is a dashboard that operates as an open access repository of student COVID-19 impact surveys. Larissa Kowalski, a lead researcher, and Greg Laychack, visual project specialist, lead the team and assisted with coordinating this project. According to Kowalski, “The C in CHASI may stand for community, but it may as well stand for collaboration too. A considerable amount of collaboration, commitment and persistence has gone into building the dashboard.” This project began in the summer of 2021 and has only come to a conclusion within the

last few weeks. It required a great deal of perseverance and cooperation to complete. Ekaterina Marenkov, an assistant researcher, worked with other students and team members to aid in the production of the written aspect of the dashboard. Marenkov stated that “this included writing a literature review regarding the effects COVID-19 has had on post-secondary students, and a thematic analysis of all the student surveys conducted by post-secondary institutions and/or student unions.” Though Marenkov worked very hard in the research and writing aspect of the project, that is only one part of it. She mentioned, “My tech and artistic skills do not extend beyond writing and researching. This is just to say, I did not partake in the [visual] development of the dashboard. That magic was all created by my talented co-worker, Mara Haggquist.” Haggquist is the graphic design intern of CHASI and

was the lead when it came to designing and creating the dashboard. According to Marenkov, much of the research was found to be relatively consistent with her and other fellow students' experiences during the pandemic. In their findings it was nearly unanimous that the sudden shift to online learning had detrimental effects on students’ physical and mental health. Marenkov noted that “there were also some fascinating deviations across institutions with respect to student perceptions of institutional responses to COVID-19, their experiences with navigating online-learning platforms, and challenges associated with personal living situations.” CHASI itself is a group that has been created with the intention of creating a physical place where data and research can be fostered into innovation and action. The group supports the social, mental,

emotional, physical, and economic health of our local communities. Kowalski said, “I think what is incredibly special about CHASI is that our students bring both their personal and professional selves to their work, which creates a powerful nexus for learning and growth. The passion and conviction they bring to their work at CHASI inspires me every day,” when talking about the significance of the group. Students are invited to get involved with the team and future projects. CHASI provides a place where students can make an active difference in the world and find a sense of comfort in the disarray they sometimes find themselves in. Students can contact Dr. Martha Dow, director of CHASI, at martha.dow@ufv.ca or thehub@ ufv.ca for more info on how they can join or support CHASI.

Club Spotlight //

Make new friends and have fun with UFV Hub Club Building a community from a small discord group to an active and thriving club EMMALINE SPENCER The UFV Hub Club is one of over 40 official clubs and associations on campus. The club started during the Fall 2021 semester. The main purpose of the club is to bring together students from different disciplines and backgrounds through fun and interesting activities. There are plenty of activity or interest-based clubs on campus, like the Japanese Culture Club or the gaming club. The Hub Club stands out as different due to the focus being less on a specific interest or hobby. According to Andrew Vilan, one of the founders and outgoing president of the club, the point of the club is to “give all students a chance to meet with each other…and to just make friends.” The club describes itself as a group that

“aims to create exciting opportunities by hosting events for UFV members to connect and collaborate with each other and other organizations! UFV Hub Club will strive to bring UFV members from diverse backgrounds, and to unite them together by creating a vibrant and fun community for students to feel safe and excited!” Vilan states, “I started the club on my own in September [2021]… just trying to build a community during the pandemic.” Vilan is graduating this year and is presently residing in the club as an advisory figure helping the next club president, Lucy Park, take over and lead the club. To date, the club has hosted an array of events. The first non-official event hosted by the club was a paintball event held in late October 2021. It wasn’t long after this event that the club officially became the

Hub Club and started to host more events. In December, for example, the club hosted a series of online and in-person holiday movie nights. Entering into the Winter 2022 semester, the club began expanding in size and doing joint club activities. In February, they hosted a bowling night to help in raising funds for the Abbotsford Disaster Relief Fund. This was shortly followed up by a joint club activity hike with the Student Leisure Outdoor and Wilderness (SLOW) club. The last official event of the club before the summer semester was another paintball event that was jointly hosted with the SLOW club. According to Vilan, it is also common for members of the club to get together sporadically at parks in and around the Abbotsford area. Plans are still in the making for sum-

mer events, but students can expect to hear more about upcoming activities on the Hub Club’s Discord and Instagram page. Vilan mentioned that there may be a beach party/potluck on the horizon. The event will mainly be targeted at this year's graduating class, but will be open to all, including incoming students. As part of the intentions of the club is building the UFV community, the club is also a great place to discover other clubs at UFV. On the Hub Club Discord channel, there is a section dedicated to connecting members with other UFV clubs and associations. As the summer semester continues, the UFV community can expect to see more activities and opportunities to make new friendships as the Hub Club charges ahead.

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SPORTS

sports@ufvcascade.ca Teryn Midzain— Sports Editor

Athlete Q&A //

Surrey Basketball star Uyi Ologhola joins the Cascades men's basketball team Former high school basketball, football star and UBC football player joins the UFV Cascades men's basketball team ESHER SIRA The bright lights and big stage aren't new to Uyi Ologhola, UFV Cascades' new basketball signing. Ologhola is a multisport athlete who had one of the most prolific high school careers in recent history. Ologhola was a beast on the football field and a matchup nightmare on the basketball court while playing for the Holy Cross Crusaders. In addition to playing on his high school basketball team, he also played at Athelite, a Surrey basketball club, and was coached and mentored by former UFV players. Ologhola quickly made a name for himself in the Surrey basketball scene as videos of his monstrous dunks, and timely chased down blocks, surfaced all over the internet. In the 10th grade, Ologhola found himself on the football field. Early in his football career, Ologhola proved to be a nightmare for opposing teams' quarterbacks and showed promise that he could play football at the next level. Ologhola played football for the UBC Thunderbirds before signing with the Cascades to play basketball again. Ologhola sat down with The Cascade to talk about his offseason training and his experiences on the football field.

Why did you decide to sign with the UFV Cascades? I already had a good relationship with Coach Joe [Enevoldson]. I played at Basketball BC with him back in 11th grade and he was a phenomenal coach — a stand-up dude [who will] tell you what's going on. So it was a no brainer out of all the universities I could have decided; UFV was the one. What are some things that you've been working on to help get you better at basketball? Well I've been playing football the past year, so I had to add some extra [body] weight. I've been trying to lose that the past couple of months [with] jumping, drills, [and] running a lot. That's something that, in prior years, I wasn't too fond of, but I've learned to love it because it's a grind and you really see results quickly. I've also been working on shooting… I have been shooting, like, 1,000 shots every day. What are some things that you learned on the football field that have helped you translate to the basketball court?

I've learned the mental aspect. The mental stamina. In football, at the beginning of the season you're worried and scared when you have guys that may be bigger than you, stronger than you, faster [than you], running at you repeatedly over the course of a game. But over an accumulative period of time, you start to build that mental fortitude for when those moments come. So, mentally, I'm prepared to take whoever I need to take on the basketball court, and that was really emphasized on the football field. What are some things that you've learned from former Surrey or UFV basketball players? Manny Dulay played at UFV and he used to coach me at Athelite. He taught me a whole lot. Those days Sukhjot Bains was also playing at Athelite, and the coaches really tried to emphasize the parts of the game that he was good at and try to instill that to us they are phenomenal players. I've learned quite a bit from them and watching their tapes.

I was coming off a pretty disappointing [high school] basketball provincials, and in my football season, I was probably one of the top defensive ends in Canada. I saw my success in football, and it only took me two years to rise to that prominence. I was more [in] the mindset of seeing where football could take me. I thought, “Let me just dabble my feet in this for a year or two and see how it is. If I don't like it or it’s not working out, there's always basketball.” Why did you decide to ultimately come back to basketball? To be honest, it was really the physical toll you take everyday in football. You're practicing up to five hours every day of the week. I feel basketball is more secure, and it was always lingering in the back of my brain like, “Oh, basketball, basketball, basketball.” That's really what made my decision to go back to play. This interview has been edited for length and clarity

What was the mindset of deciding to play football in university rather than basketball?

Basketball //

The Fraser Valley Bandits' home games are a must-go this summer The Fraser Valley Bandits home games are a great night out to see the growing basketball community in motion, and to see highly skilled players live TERYN MIDZAIN If you are looking for something that is indoors and out of the potential trending weather hazard B.C.’s summers have been known for, going to see a Fraser Valley Bandits game at the Langley Events Center (LEC) is a perfect choice. The Bandits play a fast and impactful style of basketball that uses the depth of their roster to make smart but still exciting maneuvers and stylish baskets. The LEC is a great size to host the Fraser Valley’s pro basketball team, with a smaller arena that the tightknit B-ball community easily fills without feeling overwhelmed by the scope and length of the commute in and out of Vancouver. It's an easy and digestible 42-minute drive from Chilliwack and the

fight for good parking spots is avoidable, making the afternoon and night out more about the sport and the journey completely worthwhile. The Bandits' talented roster of local Canadian and international players play intense, rushing coast-to-coast on fast breaks, but also know how to slow down and pass the ball to create perfect opportunities for mid and long-range shots. Murphy Burnatowski has been one of the players that have stood out to be reliable and great leaders on and off the court. Dropping 27 points in the first home game against the Saskatchewan Rattlers on June 4, and 18 against the Hamilton Honey Badgers on June 7, Burnatowski has been on fire the last two home games, leading the Bandits in scoring with 15.2 points per game (PPG). Alongside Burnatowski as scoring lead-

ers are Alex Campbell and Shane Gibson, both with 13 PPG so far this season. Thomas Kennedy has been the team’s most consistent defensive player and a dominant inside-the-arc offensive weapon, averaging 7.8 rebounds a game while shooting 71 per cent field goals from mid-range and being able to explode to the rim from outside and dunk over opponents. The strong players and smart coaching from the Bandits have them sitting 4th in the CEBL standings with a 3-2 record. One of the best parts about the Bandits is the community they are building around the sport. Local players have been joining coaching sessions at LEAD basketball academy’s practices and games. The Bandits hosted 13 schools from across the Fraser Valley for a sold-out stadium on the team’s School Day Game on June 7.

The upcoming game on June 18 marks the send-off for the BC Basketball Festival the Bandits are putting on, a weekend-long event that will feature a 3x3 tournament, activities across multiple boys' and girls’ divisions, and more. I highly recommend catching a Bandits home game on June 18 and 24, and other games throughout the summer. With the concession by Triple O's, the beers provided by the local Ravens Brewing, and the seats filled with orange shirts and jerseys like a Lions game, the LEC feels like what a home stadium should be in B.C. Pro basketball is amazing to experience with a roaring crowd supporting the home team, complete with a 45-minute wait to slowly get out of the crowded parking lot and relive the highlights of the game.

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SPORTS Canada //

Vancouver’s loss at sports hosting One Stop Strategy’s promoter failure to put on the first Vancouver E-Prix is a complete cock up to grow the sports scene in the city and the West Coast TERYN MIDZAIN Vancouver lost out on a great opportunity to grow its global sports influence and be a part of a growing push in the sports and technology sectors when the anticipated Formula E race, known as an E-Prix, was canceled in April. The cancellation of the highly anticipated event comes as a major loss for race fans, and to be brutally honest, it is a total cock up from the promoters, the One Stop Strategy (OSS) Group. The OSS Group canceled the E-Prix due to their inability to adhere to criteria requirements, which included acquiring the land approval and rights from the landowners needed to host the race around False Creek. Despite these concerns, tickets were still being sold. Other speculations from critics of the race coming to Vancouver were based on the possibility that the Vancouver taxpayers would have to cough up cash for the hosting costs. A bad look for the mayor and city council during the re-election season, even though the motion to host the

race was passed by nine out of ten votes. Racing fans’ hopes for having an E-Prix aren’t completely blown away, though, as the meeting to determine whether Vancouver and the promoters have the land and are eligible to host the race in 2023 is hosted on June 17. The only official statement from the OSS Group has been an apology and their goal to bring the race to Vancouver for the 2023 calendar. The build-up on whether the land contracts will be ready for Vancouver to be accepted in 2023 has been met with some frustration from racing fans. Refunds for the 33,000 tickets already sold before the Group announced the race's cancellation aren’t being distributed until the decision on whether Vancouver will host an E-Prix in 2023 has been made. The loss of the E-Prix is a major setback for Vancouver and Canada. The 33,000 tickets sold showed promise for the city that it could create and deliver a larger net and platform for more sports franchises and events, a feat that has been proven difficult to accomplish, as the city has a tendency to drop the ball on promoting and

supporting any professional sport unless it’s a losing NHL team that has yet to yield any championship results and remains the only Canadian team to not have won a Stanley Cup. If this event were the World Junior hockey tournament, the issues and critiques that plagued the E-Prix would not have been raised at all, and there probably would have been a riot if it had been canceled. The Vancouver E-Prix would see a return of electronic autosport to Canada. Montreal hosted an E-Prix until 2017. It would also have been a return to racing for Vancouver and plucked the nostalgia heartstrings as the proposed track along the False Creek area and Canada Place was the same track used for the Molson Indy Vancouver race that closed in 2004. Automobile racing has been on a major promotional and financial rise, thanks to the growth of Formula 1. With the FIA looking to expand into the North American markets, Vancouver had, and potentially still has, a golden opportunity to be on the leading step for the growth in autosports across Canada, as well as open a great space for electric and

greener technology to develop. The race was going to be a major part of Vancouver’s 2022 Canada Day celebrations and would have been accompanied by a three-day festival called the Canadian EFest. The E-Fest would have included live music, esports tournaments, and a tech expo showing off future possibilities for the growing tech industries, and the performance in both domestic and racing electric cars. That’s not to mention the surge local vendors, artists, and tourism agencies would have received from international race fans. It’s terrible that OSS Group couldn’t do their jobs and get the E-Prix organized and contracted properly. While there is still some hope that Vancouver can be slotted in for Formula E’s 2023 calendar, the deadline is at the end of this week, and there has been little to no news from either the OSS Group or its CEO Matthew Carter on whether the landowners have been satisfied.

Community //

IndoHoops Canada tournament showcases elite Punjabi basketball talent The IndoHoops Canada tournament brings current and former Punjabi UFV players together for a community tournament which has been going on for more than 40 years ESHER SIRA June 3 to 5 marked the 34th annual IndoHoops Canada tournament that featured some of the best Punjabi basketball players from Surrey to the Fraser Valley — but that wasn't the whole roster. Teams from the United States also made the trip up to be a part of this high-flying tournament. The current organizers of the tournament are Sim Sahi, Surinder Grewal, and Virinder Braich, and have all invested their time into making this tournament a reality. The Cascade was grateful for the opportunity to sit down with the current tournament organizer, Sim Sahi, who chatted about the tournament and dove into its rich history. The passion and excitement for this tournament continues to be strong amongst its viewers and organizers, and it all starts with the tournament's history. Sahi explained, “Our first tournament was in 1985. It was run by our local Sikh temple on Ross Street in Vancouver, on their annual sports festival, every Victoria Day weekend.”

When talking to Sahi about his involvement in the tournament, he made it clear that this isn't his tournament, rather, it's the community’s. He explained that this tournament serves many purposes, stating “it's to push the game forward number one, because we're all basketball fans, but it's also a way of bringing the community together.” As The Cascade got to see firsthand, the community's involvement was more than evident at the tournament. Each venue was filled with fans, parents, community members, as well as all of the volunteers who helped to make this tournament come together. Although the tournament was originally to be held at two different venues, BC Prep and North Surrey Secondary School, a third was added at the last minute. The kindness of the community and volunteers persevered when the tournament had to reorganize games to be held at Semiahmoo Secondary School after Ajay Singh tore the rim off the backboard and left shattered glass all over the court after going for a monsterous slam dunk.

This year's tournament featured 15 teams and two divisions — an elite division and a 30 year old plus division. Both divisions provided entertaining and high intensity basketball but we enjoyed watching some of the younger talent show off in the elite division. There were many teams that stood out in the elite division including The Lads, which featured some of the best players in UFV’s history, including Parm Bains, Navjot Bains, Sukhman Sandhu, and Sukhjot Bains. The team was a force to be reckoned with on the court, blocking shots and scoring at a very efficient rate. As a viewer, it was a real treat to see them back on the same court again, playing with the high level of intensity and team chemistry that the community was used to seeing. Another team that stood out was I-5, which featured many current and graduating UFV players such as Jordyn Sekhon, Joban Pandher, and Vick Toor. I-5 was able to push the pace with their quicker guards to initiate quick offense and score the ball from a variety of spots on the floor. But the team who ended up winning the tour-

nament was Coast 2 Coast Elite, a squad mostly from San Francisco featuring former NCAA Division 1 player Varun Ram, and shocked the hometown crowd by beating The Lads in the finals 50-42. The IndoHoops Canada tournament is particularly special to certain members of the Punjabi community, as all players in the tournament are of Punjabi descent. To the players, this tournament is made even more special as many members of our UFV community had a chance to reconnect through the games. Fans were able to see this connection thrive as players from over the past 10 years of UFV history, and current members of the UFV men's basketball team, shared a moment after the tournament. They were given the opportunity to chat with one another, relive old memories, and come together for a touching group photo. Not only is this tournament special for the players, but also the community and fans, as they get to witness some of the best Punjabi talent that our nation has to offer.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2022

VOL. 30 // ISSUE 10

STUDY BREAKPuzzle Crossword Crossword // 1

30.10

Made by Anisa Quintyne

ACROSS

DOWN

1. Bite-sized donut balls found at a specific Canadian coffee chain.

2. A variety of savoury ingredients wrapped in tortilla bread.

5. A salad that contains ingredients like feta cheese, olives, tomatoes, and green bell peppers.

3. Cut up vegetables and meat stacked on a skewer.

6. A thin pasta usually covered in tomato sauce.

7. A fruit that once peeled reveals individual slices.

6. A Japanese seafood dish that is often paired with sashimi and miso soup.

Sudoku

Sudoku //

wn: A variety of savory ingredients wrapped in

ANSWERS: tortilla bread.

Cut-up vegetables and meat stacked on a skewer. Round, ﬂat batter bread with simple Across: 1. Timbits 5. Greek salad 6. Spaghetti 7. Oranges

Down: 2. Burrito 3. Kebab 4. Pancake 6. Sushi

ingredients. Usually served for breakfast. Japanese seafood often paired with sashimi and miso soup.

4. Round, flat batter bread with simple ingredients. Usually served for breakfast.

Across: 1. A bite-sized doughnut ball found at a

speciﬁc Canadian coﬀee chain. 5. A salad that contains feta cheese, olives, tomatoes, and green bell peppers. 6. A thin pasta usually covered in tomato

sauce. 7. A fruit that once peeled reveals individual slices.

7 9 2

1 5

7 6 3

9 8 7

5 3 6 9

Horoscopes // Your weekly life predictions as told by Ageless Azalea



Aries — Mar 21 to Apr 19 Leo — Jul 23 to Aug 22 Be generous and see the world unfold before You have too much to say but not enough ® you. It’s a slow process, but try and compliment words to express them. The Oxford English ® Buildsee yourthe own spark custom worksheet at education.com/worksheet-generator someone’s outfit today — once you Dictionary could not comprehend the string in their eyes light up, you will understand the true ©of2007 - 2022 Education.com sentences that overcome your mind, and mechanics of kindness. neither can you. While your brain works



Taurus — Apr 20 to May 20 Find comfort in your own solitude, but do not mistake this for isolation. Try to be kind to your body during these difficult times. Moderate your stress and do not allow yourself to adopt unhealthy habits once alone. Gemini — May 21 to Jun 20 Remember the dreams that you once had as a child? You know, the one about being an astronaut, or becoming a reclusive gardener who reappears once every few years to sell their zinnias for a quarter each? Embrace that. Pursue your ambitions and pay close mind to what your heart tells you, despite how pragmatic certain thoughts can be. Cancer —Jun 21 to Jul 22 You have trouble reciprocating your feelings; that’s understandable. Ignoring everyone around you… well, not so much. It's important to be communicative even when your tongue turns to stone at the thought of it. Nothing has to be monumental or over the top. Remember that the little things can matter too.

fast, take your time, re-think things over before you speak or press that send button, and prevent your mouth from gaining independence.

Virgo —Aug 23 to Sep 22 This upcoming week is going to be especially kind to you. Try to reciprocate that kindness with generous acts of love to your friends and family. Libra — Sep 23 to Oct 22 You have been carrying the burden of others for too long. Yes, you can set it down. Scorpio — Oct 23 to Nov 21 Your mind exists outside a set of rules the world has established in spite of you, or so you think. Your thoughts might be innovative, spectacular, and out of this world — but keep your ear to the ground and learn to humble yourself before upsetting the wrong person.

Sagittarius — Nov 22 to Dec 21 Constantly in flux against the inner workings of the universe, you find yourself Build your own custom worksheet at education.com/worksheet-generator without another force to oppose and © 2007 - 2022 Education.com stabilize your change. Who is your motor force? You ask yourself this question again, and again, and…

Capricorn — Dec 22 to Jan 19 Whenever someone asks what your future career aspirations are, your mind turns up blank and your mouth hangs wide open. Maybe do something about that.

Aquarius — Jan 20 to Feb 18 Like Ptolemy once said, the universe rotated around the Earth. And you, Aquarius, shine bright like many summer dawns — but also remember that Ptolemy was arrogantly wrong until a few thousand years later.

Pisces — Feb 19 to Mar 20 A sensitive soul will know when someone feels out of the loop. Connect with someone you vaguely know and strike up a conversation on animal rescue videos.

VOL. 30 // ISSUE 10

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2022

arts@ufvcascade.ca Danaye Reinhardt — Arts Editor

ARTS

Fiction//

What if a virus impacted life as we know it? How High We Go in the Dark explores a fictional world of talking pigs, euthanasia roller coasters, and a global plague DANAYE REINHARDT The novel How High We Go in the Dark, published earlier this year, is nothing short of creative. Author Sequoia Nagamatsu takes us through an ambitious collection of characters facing a global plague (sound familiar?) that targets children and the weak. Each story connects to the one before. We meet a grieving archeologist unearthing an Arctic virus in the melting permafrost, a recently infected young adult trapped in a dark void, and a scientist forming a friendship with a test subject pig who learns to speak — all while painting a bigger picture of this virus and its effects on the world as a whole. The most chilling story features a “euthanasia park,” where terminally ill kids are injected with a sedative and sent on an amusement park ride to die. Nagamatsu has written a part novel,

part short story collection that forms a world of warnings — what COVID-19 was, what COVID-19 could have been in another universe. It’s strange to read this, knowing that just three years ago, I could have read and enjoyed a book like this as escapist fiction. But it’s 2022. I can relate all too well to the themes of confusion, fear, and frustration found in these pages. It makes me uncomfortably grateful that as terrible as COVID-19 is and was, we never needed to go to the extremes found in this book. That is the challenge with a book like this. It’s bleak. I felt a similar sinking feeling when I watched Don’t Look Up, a movie in which two astronomers try to convince the world to care that a comet is going to hit Earth and destroy all life. Am I supposed to feel dread when reading How High We Go in the Dark? Am I supposed to feel relief that things aren’t so bad in reality? At times, it hits close to home when all I want to do is escape the reality of COVID-19.

Structurally, I find that there is always a risk when it comes to splintered novels like this one. It reminds me of Anne DeGrace’s Flying with Amelia, which similarly introduced new characters and a new story each chapter, only tied together by a common theme of Canada. The result was a mash of uninvested characters and forgotten storylines. How High We Go in the Dark, fortunately, doesn’t share the same faults. The common plague theme ties characters and events together much more seamlessly, and we see glimpses of familiar characters in new chapters. It’s a risk that pays off. Ultimately, Nagamatsu’s risk-taking and creative talent allow for How High We Go in the Dark to stand out from the crowd. It feels personal, it feels (unfortunately) real, and it’s definitely a book to try — just as long as you can stomach more themes of plague and pandemic.

Movie //

Robert Eggers’ The Northman is a cinematic masterclass Historical Viking-Epic The Northman maintains historical accuracy with a dash of fantasy, adds brilliant cinematography KELLYN KAVANAGH Robert Eggers’ The Northman is a historical-fantasy Viking epic released to theatres on April 22. The film tells the story of a young man named Amleth who watches his uncle murder his father and take his mother as his wife. Years later, an adult Amleth (portrayed fantastically by Alexander Skarsgård) has joined a crew of brutal Viking raiders. After one of their raids, he encounters a mysterious woman called The Seeress (portrayed by Björk, in her first acting role since 2005) who reminds him of his true calling — that is, to avenge his father by murdering his uncle and rescuing his mother. If the premise sounds familiar, that’s because this story is based on the ancient folktale that provided the inspiration for William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Blending light elements of fantasy with intense adherence to historical accuracy, Eggers more than achieves this goal. I won’t hesitate to say that this may be one of my favorite films I’ve seen this year so far. While set primarily in Iceland, the film was shot in Ireland. The cinematography is absolutely brilliant, which should come as no surprise to those familiar with Eggers’ previous films, The Witch and The Lighthouse. Joining the aforementioned Skarsgård and Björk, the cast also includes Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe, Ethan Hawke, Nicole Kidman, and Claes Bang. While certain scenes have beautiful colour grading for effect, the majority of the film uses

natural lighting, which adds to the somber mood of the story. Despite the brutality of the violence shown, the sights are a marvel to look at. Its two hour and 17-minute runtime had my attention completely hooked from beginning to end. By the time the credits rolled, it felt like no time had passed at all. A major theme throughout the film is the destructive path of toxic masculinity. The story shines a light on how a poisonous mixture of unbridled stoicism and bloodlust ultimately leads to more pain and destruction for everyone on the periphery. Violence leads to more violence. Blindly honoring authority and familial duty without critical reflection breaks the internal self when it matters most. This film will very likely attract a broad male audience, and as I watched this movie, I got the sense that everyone involved in the making of it was aware of this. The end result is a powerful critique that uses an ancient story to thoughtfully guide a modern audience. Perhaps my favorite element of Eggers’ direction in this film is the use of minimalcut takes, especially during the action sequences. Instead of cutting between multiple perspectives during these moments, the camera primarily follows Amleth’s point-of-view. This technique really allows

the viewer to feel completely immersed in not just the story being told, but the world in which it’s taking place. I watched this movie on my laptop in my living room and even on a small screen, it was easy to feel like a spectator within the film itself. The scene that ultimately stands out in my mind is an incredible climactic battle sequence which would be a travesty to describe here, for risk of spoilers. I would absolutely recommend The Northman to anyone who is a fan of Eggers, Vikings, or film in general. Of course, it would also be irresponsible of me to also not give a slight content/trigger warning.

This is a very violent film. The fights are shot realistically, with a good deal of blood and intensity. While not shown on camera, there is also a mention of sexual assault. While the fights are spaced very well in between, the intensity of the film makes the moments of brutality particularly wince-inducing. This is the type of film that does require a certain commitment from the viewer and is absolutely not meant to be a casual viewing experience. However, for those who love a well-told story with magnetic performances and brilliant cinematography, The Northman more than pays off.

VOL. 30 // ISSUE 10

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2022

ARTS Local //

CHARTS 1 Pierre Kwenders

José Louis & The Paradox Of Love

Basia Bulat The Garden

Julie Doiron I Thought of You

Destroyer Labyrinthitis

PUP THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND

Apollo Ghosts Pink Tiger

Jordan Klassen Glossolalia

Patrick Watson Better In The Shade

Maylee Todd Maloo

10 Tanya Tahaq Tongues

11 Kendrick Lamar

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

Motto Red Dress (Single)

13 Wet Leg Wet Leg

SHUFFLE AARON LEVY CAT HERDER

CIVL Station Manager Aaron Levy is super stoked for Emma Hones, our very own systems administrator, to have been recognized this month as the Volunteer of the Year out of the many volunteers of the 109 radio stations that are members of our national association. Here’s some songs in honour of Emma, who adds B.C. to her list of former regional residences, after Georgia and Virginia.

John Denver - “Take Me Home, Country Roads” I didn’t know who this song was by, or really what it was all about, until Emma clarified for me that it’s NOT all that relevant to "just" Virginia, in the same way that it is to "West" Virginians, and their nuanced U.S. Senate representative, the younger of the Joes.

Ray Charles - “Georgia on My Mind” Sometimes I wonder if Ray Adam Ruzzo 15 The Land, The Sea, The Charles would have been somePeople what, or more so, forgotten if Jamie Foxx hadn’t ended up memorializing and immortaliz16 Drogue Pas Vrai (single) ing him in film with the release of the biopic Ray. You could say Milk Faction 17 The Kanye’s entire career pivoted on 1% it, too. And I do. Dream State EP

19 Tymo The Art of a Maniac sun 20 orion Getaway

Buy their new cassette tape and celebrate with some local talent in the big city

St. Vincent - “Masseduction” Named after a saint, this artist’s recent album talks about the pretty salacious history of singer Anne Erin Clark, and the relationships she has with her father, sex, and romance at large. Emma and I have referred to this track as a serious "banger." It’s on CIVL’s high rotation.

14 Mauve

18 Fáilte The Saltchuck Set (single)

The Sylvia Platters’ new EP Youth Without A Virtue comes out on June 24 with a celebratory show the following day

George Michael - “Careless Whisper” I’m not a huge fan of smooth jazz, generally speaking, but who doesn’t love (gag) the jazzy, silky sax sounds of this classic meme of a song from the man that told us we had to have faith. So, the sax reminds me of jazz, and that’s Emma’s wheelhouse. Jazzhands!

Olivia and Ryan keeping

ANDREA SADOWSKI The Sylvia Platters have been kicking in the Fraser Valley music scene since their inception in 2014. While the band has gone through member changes and stretches of silence over the past two years, their latest EP has the same punchy, danceable tunes that listeners have become accustomed to. In their unique, sort of unnameable genre of guitar/indie/power pop, The Sylvia Platters’ four-man band promises five new songs that won’t disappoint. The five-song cassette EP Youth Without A Virtue will be officially released on June 24, with a release show at the Red Gate Arts Society in Vancouver on June 25, the band's first live stage show in over two years. The choice to distribute physical copies of their music via a cassette tape was an idea born of cost-efficiency and nostalgia, as well the band's desire for fans to be able to leave their show with a tangible item. The title track of the album “is the sound of shattered illusions. Of finally letting go of a complicated past where fear and shame reign,” wrote Nick Ubels in an email, the band’s co-lead vocalist and lead guitarist. The album's upbeat and sanguine instrumentation is paired with substantial lyrics that attempt to process the band’s experience of growing up in the evangelical Fraser Valley, and the “pressure cooker social dynamics that can take hold in insular communities.” This theme in their songwriting grew organically through the band members’ shared experiences within evangelical Christian culture. “I think that we really do try to embody the collaborative spirit of being in a band,” said Ubels in

The Sylvia Platters. (Megan Lambert).

an interview with The Cascade. He described how one member may come up with a guitar riff, another may come up with the melody, or the lyrics, or the track title. The EP was recorded at The Noise Floor on Gabriola Island last summer, with the band waiting for COVID-19 numbers to go down a bit before officially releasing their much-anticipated set of songs. The band also welcomes a new bass player to the team — Stephen Carl O’Shea, whom the band had collaborated with before. Ubels stresses the importance of the music community in the Fraser Valley that he has been a part of for the past eight years. He describes Abbotsford as “this small city that nevertheless has managed to produce some really amazing music and a really healthy underground music scene.” The band knew early on that this was not going to be a career for them, but rather a creative outlet and community builder. “You don't have to be in it to make a career,” said Ubel, to encourage anyone fresh on the music scene. “You can be in it because you find it joyful and fulfilling and it means something to you.” If you’re free the night of Saturday, June 25, try making the trek out to Vancouver and celebrating the release of Youth Without a Virtue with the great lineup of bands that will play at The Sylvia Platters' first show since the pandemic. Other bands that will be playing with them at the Red Gate include AC-PDF, Primp, and lowercase dream. Follow the band on Instagram @thesylviaplatters to stay up to date on future Abbotsford shows, and listen to the release of their new EP on Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Spotify, and many other streaming platforms after June 24.

VOL. 30 // ISSUE 10

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2022

ARTS Netflix //

It’s all trauma and twists in new Stranger Things season DANAYE REINHARDT After three years, Stranger Things is back with a new, gruesome season. Split into two parts, Volume 1 is set six months after season three, with a new villain called Vecna murdering teenagers in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana. It’s everything you’d expect from a Stranger Things season — mystery, horror, ‘80s outfits, and a fair deal of Dungeons & Dragons. The episodes in Volume 1 are an average of 78 minutes long — a half hour longer than in previous seasons. But despite longer runtimes, it wasn’t until the third episode that things really took off. I didn’t feel that the stakes rose until the third episode, and I kept getting distracted by the ages of the actors, who now play characters several years younger (compared to previous seasons, when they were the same age as the characters). I feel like Stranger Things has lost some of its ‘80s charm, as it’s turned into a full sci-fi-horror hitting the ground running. But as the plot tightened and the character dynamics strengthened, the season proved that the Duffer brothers are still going strong. The show has gotten into the habit of splitting the large cast into smaller groups, each with their own separate adventures. This has worked extremely well because it allows for efficient pacing and fresh character dynamics. Steve and Dustin, for

example, were paired together on a whim in season two, and now their friendship is one of the best things about the show. But season four’s groupings are not all created equal, and the weakness of this season is that some of the storylines have less intrigue than others. What was Mike even up to this season? I’ve already forgotten. One of the more unique storylines — but much slowerpaced — is Eleven’s, the child experimentslash-superhero who deserves a break, guys, come on. She’s trying to get her powers back after losing them at the end of the last season, and she spends much of this season diving into repressed memories. We learn about the circumstances leading up to her escape back in season one, filling in details about

the experiments and the other children in the lab. A good directive choice was to have Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven, acting in most of the scenes from her memory — despite Eleven being a much younger child when the scenes took place. Even beyond this exploration of El’s traumatic childhood, this season is drowning in trauma. You can expect nothing less from characters who have witnessed horrifying monsters and untimely deaths as preteens. Max is reeling from her st e p - brot her ’s death. Hopper (who, spoiler alert, is alive and not well) is in a Russian prison with his demons. Then there’s my own trauma from watching the show. Vecna might not be as frightening as previous villains, but the murders them-

selves have moved straight into the horror genre. I’m not a horror person, okay? I’m going to be thinking about those demonpossessed murders for weeks. One thing that I miss in this season is the childhood friendship that was much more prevalent in season one and later seasons. Part of this is because the focus has gravitated toward more intense and gruesome stories, and part of it is because the characters have gotten older. New themes of romance and maturity have found their way into the show out of necessity — with the characters now 15, it’s bound to become coming-of-age. But this evolution tosses aside the simple friendship between four nerdy boys and the nostalgia of the ‘80s. The show — for better and worse — has become much more. Due to the unequal storylines, this season might have been underwhelming if not for the last episode of Volume 1, which brought some amazing plot twists and left me in anticipation for the last two episodes. The final two episodes, which will be released on July 1, are titled “Papa” and “The Piggyback.” While it was a wise decision to split the season in two — keeping Stranger Things trending as its viewers wait for Volume 2 — it would have worked better to have one episode released each week. But for such a binge-worthy show, I’m not sure anyone could wait an entire week for a new episode to air.

Movie //

The Rescue Rangers are back in action SYDNEY MARCHAND Attention all millennials: Chip ‘n Dale is back on the big screen. I repeat: the beloved Rescue Rangers are back, but this time with a modern and satirical twist. Released to Disney+ on May 20, the famous chipmunk duo takes the screen for what can only be described as an ultimate animation mashup in the new and improved Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers. The film features the famous pair after their acting contracts have expired and they are no longer A-list celebrities in Hollywood. Viewers follow them in the “real world” as we begin to understand the parameters around why their successful T.V. series came to a close. It shows what I would imagine is a pretty accurate depiction of washed-up celebrities. Much of the film does just this: it mimics the Hollywood world but puts an animated spin on it. Viewers are reminded that the celebrities we see on-screen or on red carpets are sometimes horrible people behind closed doors and many of them should not be idolized as role models. The main plot of the film follows Chip and Dale working together to solve police work as famous cartoons are being “boot-

legged” on the black market. The concept is actually quite hilarious, as viewers get to see a variety of bootlegged film concepts such as Ariel’s fish buddy, Flounder, being cast in “The Small Fish Lady.” It is entertaining and somewhat mocking of the knock-off spoof films we see today. What’s really special, though, is the broad range of characters that the film includes. Besides Flounder, the film features many classic Disney cartoon characters like the Coca-Cola bear, Clarabelle Cow, Roger Rabbit, Phineas and Ferb’s mom, and Pumbaa from The Lion King. Even “Ugly Sonic” makes an appearance and shares critics' commentary of how undesirable — and for lack of a better word, ugly — he is. His character includes everything from the bizarre little nose to the freakish human-like teeth. My personal favourite, though, is the film's antagonist, Peter Pan, who has grown up, smokes cigarettes, and rocks a plump beer gut. The wide array of characters was not only interesting because all the classics were set in one movie, but because each of them expressed how being the “best” version of themselves often meant that they needed to look the best. For example, Peter Pan loathed growing up because it made him less “appealing” to the public. His ap-

pearance no longer was deemed socially acceptable or beautiful and he contributed this to his self-worth. Many of the characters also underwent what was known as “CGI surgery,” which transformed one’s appearance from one animation style to another. This all stems from what they believed would make them socially accepted. Visually, this film is incredibly entertaining because it blends both live-action and animation on the screen. It has every style of animation Disney has ever developed, from the black and white Mickey Mouse era to the obscurely realistic The Polar Express fiasco, but it is set in real-world L.A. I’ll admit, at first it is a bit strange to watch, but it is this strangeness that kept me fully engaged and entertained from start to finish. Each character who represents a different animation style often mimics the commentary of critics and acknowledges how “terrible” their animation is compared to the latest rendition. It alludes to the idea that there is always a version of yourself that could be better but we are unable to recognize it in the moment. While the film makes a joke about it, there is no doubt that it mimics the current trends of plastic surgery and the expectations that social media set out in our own world. It reminds viewers that no

matter what procedures someone does to change their appearance, or how large of a following someone has online, it speaks nothing to the person they are inside. And yes, this is an incredibly cheesy take-away, and I’ll admit that there are not very many moral lessons in the film, but it brings forward a refreshing take on popular crazes. Although this movie is certainly kidfriendly, given the simplicity of the plot and creative visuals, many of the insinuations and jokes that the script makes definitely appeal to an older audience. Many youngsters likely wouldn’t catch all of the cartoon cameos or ironies in the scenes, but I think that is what makes this film so great. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of me watching early morning cartoons. I was carefree and certainly not under the same amount of stress or pressure that I am at 25. Rescue Rangers brought me back to those moments of simplicity in my life by reminding me of all of the characters that I loved so much as a child. Honestly, it just brought a smile to my face and reminded me to slow down and relax, and what more could you ask from a classic like Chip ‘n Dale?

Note:

Some of these events require tickets, and most are online. If something catches your eye, take to the internet for more details, including those about social distancing measures for in-person events.

UFV Events Sports Community Event

june Open Court @ Abbotsford North Gym, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m. Drop-in Basketball @ Abbotsford North Gym, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m

Sakay Na! (Hop On a Jeepney) @ Global Lounge, B223, 11:00 a.m - 2:00 p.m. Bays & Chardoneighs @ Singletree Winery, 6:30 - 9:30 pm. Backyard Flix @ UFV Green, 8:00 - 11:00 p.m.

Wheels & Heels Photoshoot @ Bench Forest Service Road, 10:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m. Valley to Shore Farm Tour @ Local Harvest Market, 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Fraser Valley Bandits versus Scarborough Shooting Stars @ Langley Events Centre, 5:00 p.m. Main Street: Tayos and Ten02 @ Main Street Night Club, 9:00 p.m. 12:00 a.m.

Campus Rec Culture

Drop-in Badminton @ Abbotsford North Gym, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m. Self-Care Yoga @ Abbotsford E150, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. Drop-in Pickleball @ Abbotsford North Gym, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. AYO Year-End Concert @ South Abbotsford Church, 7:00 - 8:30 p.m.

Open Court @ Abbotsford North Gym, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m. Drop-in Basketball @ Abbotsford North Gym, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Fraser Valley Bandits versus Montreal Alliance @ Langley Events Centre, 7:00 p.m.

The Sylvia Platters Youth With a Virtue Cassette Release Party @ Red Gate, Vancouver, 8:00 p.m.

Old Car Sunday in the Park @ Fraser River Heritage Park, 10:00 a.m. 3:30 p.m.

Drop-in Badminton @ Abbotsford North Gym, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m. Self-Care Yoga @ Abbotsford E150, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. Open Court @ Abbotsford North Gym, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. Paint Nite: The Original Paint and Sip Party @ Wings Abbotsford, 7:00 p.m.

U-Pass Distribution at CEP @ Chilliwack, A1422, 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Open Court @ Abbotsford North Gym, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m. Drop-in Basketball @ Abbotsford North Gym, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. Dungeons and Dragons drop in Adventures! @ Boardwalk Cafe and Games, 6:30 p.m.

View our website for more details on current, local events.

The Cascade Volume 30 Issue 10

Articles inside

Fraser Valley Pride

Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers

Local photography