Canada and BC Archives - Page 22 of 35

by Marja-Leena

this and that

This morning as I sat at my computer next to the window, some movement caught the corner of my eye – six big crows were strutting about the lawn, looking for grubs perhaps? I was too slow getting the camera. Usually they are on our roof and chimney top, their heavy thumping often startling anyone alone in the house into thinking someone’s breaking in.

Yesterday evening was very memorable – we had Miguel and Mika here. Miguel is very much in love with this region after his two weeks here. Mika, who has only been here a couple of days loves what she has seen of Vancouver so far.

Delighted to meet her, we were very impressed with Mika’s accent-free English, thanks to Miguel’s coaching. During a little tour of our home and some of my art, Miguel made two interesting comments that really pleased me – how he could recognize our home and setting just from my blog descriptions, and how my art work looks so different and much better than on the web. We enjoyed much conversation and laughter in the evening sunshine on our back deck over a meal centered around BBQ’d sockeye salmon. As it cooled down, we moved indoors for dessert of blueberry kiisseli with whip cream and a few wild blackberries on top. After driving them back to their hotel by English Bay, we felt sad saying goodbye to them both but hope we’ll meet again someday.

Roundabout meanderings on the net led me to this exciting discovery: Sky Mirror by Anish Kapoor. Remember the Kapoor piece we saw in Brighton but didn’t know it’s name? That’s it, how beautiful! And, this surprised me:

The artwork itself, which was manufactured IN FINLAND is a six-metre wide concave dish of polished stainless steel weighing ten tonnes and angled up towards the sky. It reflects the ever changing environment, season to season, day and night. (caps mine)
—————
PS. Evening of Aug.27th – Things will be quiet on this blog for a few days. We’re going to the islands to enjoy some of the last glorious days of summer! I’ve been too busy getting ready to write another post, hence this short note.

August 25, 2009 in Blogging, Canada and BC, Other artists by Marja-Leena 23 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

‘ecological footprint’ author

I’ve been poking about the net looking for information on Bowen Island, just off the coast of Vancouver. In all these years that we’ve lived in the Vancouver area, we’ve never visited it. Now I’m eager to find out where a certain art gallery is located for I’ll be participating in a group show there next month. (More information on that later.)

I’ve long read and occasionally mentioned Bowen Island resident Chris Corrigan’s two blogs Parking Lot and Bowen Island Journal. From the latter, I checked out Chris’ blogroll and found James Glave.

Exploring his interesting articles, I found an astonishing one called Rees’s Thesis. It’s an entertaining and eye-opening interview of Bill Rees, the University of British Columbia professor who coined the term “ecological footprint”. Now, I didn’t know of or had forgotten Bill Rees so what a thrill to learn about this inspiring and creative man who lives in our own community. It’s a great story on what makes him tick and how he came up with this term, now the global standard for measuring an individual’s impact on the environment. Do go read it, please!

August 20, 2009 in Canada and BC, Concepts, Environment by Marja-Leena 5 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

meeting Miguel

Yesterday evening right here in Vancouver, my husband and I were very pleased and excited to meet Miguel Arboleda, author and photographer of the sublimely beautiful blog Laughing Knees. Miguel had arrived here from Japan a few days ago for a three week vacation in this area.

How amazing it was to meet and how quickly we fell into easy conversation. We found so very much to talk about: this area, our lives, the multiculturalism, politics, history in Japan, British Columbia, Germany, and elsewhere and of course blogging and some of our mutual blog friends. It was a most heart-warming evening over a casual dinner at a longtime Horseshoe Bay restaurant, so famous for it’s fish and chips that even Miguel had heard of it and wanted to try it.

The photo is taken against the restaurant’s wall of caricatures of many of the owner’s famous friends. Why the photo of Miguel’s feet? Miguel mentioned that in early days bloggers used to post photos of their feet instead of faces for privacy reasons. So, in a moment of hilarity, husband snapped this.

Today Miguel is on his way to Victoria to meet friends there and go on the Juan de Fuca trail on the southwest side of Vancouver Island. I hope our currently rainy weather doesn’t affect his plans. Those who know him, know of his love for long wilderness and mountain walks. When he comes back to Vancouver, Miguel plans to do the Baden Powell Trail across our North Shore mountains. I’m sure he’ll be blogging about his adventures later. We are eagerly looking forward to meeting again when his partner joins him for the last week.

This certainly IS my year for meeting many blog friends. Making friends through blogs, emails and other web media is surely the late 20th and early 21st Century version of exchanging letters with pen pals. I remember fascinating stories of some of them meeting for the first time decades later in their old age. We’re fortunate that it’s a little easier today! In case you’ve missed them and it’s of interest, here are my posts about other meetings this year, of which all except one took place in England:

the Bondens and Hattie
the Hyams
Anna
Natalie and a group in London

August 10, 2009 in Blogging, Canada and BC by Marja-Leena 11 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

summer is…

fresh picked red currants
sweetened by sunshine,
precious last ones saved
for granddaughters’ picking pleasure
a record heat wave
sprinkler swirls sparkling water
to delight garden
and jumping children
a new roof
overheated workers
start early, quit early
nearly done

July 31, 2009 in Canada and BC, Home by Marja-Leena 17 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

weather fireworks

We had the most spectacular thunderstorm Saturday evening lasting about three hours. We rarely get them and usually only briefly. Dark billowing clouds were moving in from the east and the north, and soon multiple forks of lightning crackled over the mountains and the sea providing us with dramatic entertainment over our late supper. We were reminded of the prairie storms that we always found so exciting in our youth.

But this excitement was quite unexpected and worrying with a roofing job underway! Husband grabbed tarps and stapler and climbed up on the roof to cover up the exposed areas, particularly around the skylights. Fortunately one of the roofers who lived not too far way showed up to help after seeing from some distance that it was now raining over here. Very relieved we were that we had no leaks while the storm grew fiercer with heavy showers (but no hail like in some other areas).

As it slowly moved westwards towards a most unusual burnt orange sky, the sound of the thunder changed into very long deep rumbles which reminded me of childhood stories from adults who said g-d was rolling barrels across the sky.

It was also the night of the fireworks competition on English Bay so you can imagine how majestic that was! Youngest daughter had planned to be there but wasn’t sure if it might be cancelled like many other events were. Hopefully she’ll post some of her photos of our weather fireworks on her blog and I’ll link to them for you to see. There are also some great ones here.

The heat and humidity are getting worse, as are the forest fires, with record-breaking temperatures up to 35C (95F) and not cooling much at night. I fare terribly in heat and we don’t have air conditioning so I am spending more time down on the first floor lazily reading, watching a wee bit of TV, napping and occasionally (like right now) using this ancient spare Mac which doesn’t have my photos and files. I should be writing up more of our travel memoirs but my brain doesn’t want to think that hard.

Two wonderful books that I’m reading right now: K.A. Laity’s UNIKIRJA, Dreambook and Ekkerhart Malotki’s KOKOPELLI, The Making of an Icon. I’m also rereading bits of a book that I finished recently: William Golding’s The Inheritors. I may try to write a bit about those sometime.

I feel sorry for the guys working so hard up on our roof but I’m impressed by their endurance… puts me to shame.

Another distraction: tomorrow afternoon our middle daughter and granddaughters arrive here from England, for a few weeks’ visit. We are all excited.

July 27, 2009 in Books, Canada and BC by Marja-Leena 13 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

heat wave whine

too hot to plant my garden
(I’m way behind because of the trip)
too much weeding and watering to do
too hot to sleep, too hot to think, too hot to write

We’ve had only one partial day of rain since we got home two weeks ago. This record-breaking heat for this time of year is more like our usual weather in the latter half of July. Like most Vancouverites, we do not have air-conditioning, in fact our home is designed to take advantage of all the sun it can get, which is okay for most times of the year. I’ve noticed, besides the heat induced smog over the city, a faint smoky smell. Apparently it is drifting down from forest fires to the north of us.

Such extremes this year with an unusually cold winter and late spring and now this heat which has forced many flowers, such as the late rhododendrons, to come to bloom quickly and to fade even more quickly. Just like me, that is, the fading. Hope to be back to the travel posts soon, but now I must find a cool spot somewhere…

June 4, 2009 in Canada and BC, Home by Marja-Leena 2 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Film: Recipes for Disaster

If you live in the Vancouver area, you will want to see this important film:

On April 16, view the third and final film of DOXA’s Documentary Film Series in the lead-up to our May festival. Recipes for Disaster follows a young Anglo-Finnish family as they rid themselves of all oil-based products for a year. The challenge proves to be more emotionally difficult than the family anticipates and John, father and instigator of the oil fast, must find a balance between living oil-free and keeping a functional family. For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

DOXA Documentary Film Series Screens Recipes for Disaster
 Location: Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour St., Vancouver
Date & Time: Thursday, April 16th, 7pm 
Filmmaker in attendance via Skype for Q&A after screening

Here is a short film clip.

This may sound familiar to some readers for I wrote about it over a year ago after seeing it on CBC. I recommend it highly!

In addition to the reviews in the DOXA link above, here is a review in The Tyee. The reviewer tends to focus most on the couple’s relationship issues and neglects thoughts about the wider environmental concerns. How do we manage and balance both?

April 14, 2009 in Canada and BC, Current Events, Environment, Films, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric by Marja-Leena 8 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

cultural identity & CBC

This past weekend Vancouver hosted the Juno Awards, which inspired Miro Cernetig to write an interesting and eye-opening article** for the Vancouver Sun.

It may be tempting to see the Junos — now this country’s most successful entertainment event — as simply a great bash, our homegrown version of the Grammys. But it’s about much more than music and awards. The Juno Awards, and the cultural protectionism that incubated its success, is proof Canada has become a leader in what’s called cultural sovereignty. While living next to the world’s largest economy, we have proven it possible to retain our cultural identity.

Read on** about the remarkable story of how Canada acted to create an international treaty protecting countries’ cultural sovereignty.

This sent me to the pages of the website for the International Federation of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity** or IFCCD. UNESCO made the decision to base the IFCCD in Montreal, Quebec because the coalition was founded there, which does not surprise me for Quebec is the most culturally strong and proactive of any of our provinces. Here is the IFCCD mission statement:

WHY IS THE CAMPAIGN FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY SO IMPORTANT?
BECAUSE CULTURAL PRODUCTS ENCOMPASS VALUES, IDENTITY AND MEANINGS THAT GO BEYOND THEIR STRICTLY COMMERCIAL VALUE.
BECAUSE, IN THE ABSENCE OF CULTURAL POLICIES, THE CITIZENS OF MANY COUNTRIES WOULD NOT HAVE ACCESS TO BOOKS, MOVIES, MUSIC, THEATRE AND
BECAUSE, IF THESE CULTURAL GOODS AND SERVICES CANNOT BE CREATED, PRODUCED AND CONSUMED IN THEIR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN, NEITHER WILL THEY CROSS BORDERS TO BECOME PART OF OUR WORLDWIDE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE AND, IN ESSENCE, OUR SHARED CULTURAL DIVERSITY.

This sure sounds to me like the mandate of any nation’s public broadcaster like our CBC. So I ask you, Mr. Harper, in light of Canada’s achievement and standing in creating this international cultural coalition, aren’t you embarrassed and ashamed to be destroying our CBC, which has been and still is the major unifying cultural organization in our country? You are ignoring the very mandate that Canada fought for itself and other countries!

SAVE the CBC!

*expired links removed

March 31, 2009 in Canada and BC, Culture by Marja-Leena 3 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

SAVE the CBC

CBC is Canada’s own publicly owned radio and TV broadcaster, a part of the very heart of Canada and its culture, connecting us all from coasts to coasts. It’s currently being decimated by Harper and his government, after already many past cuts. Please read this letter from Avaaz.org and sign the petition.

Dear friends,
Canada’s media networks have all been slammed by the recession. But the government is reportedly considering bailouts for its friends at private companies CTV and CanWest, while forcing the CBC to drastically cut 800 staff and programming.
Our CBC is a national treasure, and a pillar of public-interest journalism in a country whose media is owned by a few large firms. We won’t hear an outcry from their media outlets, and the CBC is too principled to use its megaphone to make the case for itself. We are the only voice the CBC has.
We urgently need a massive public outcry to Save the CBC, click below to sign the petition and forward this email to everyone who might care about this:
SAVE the CBC
The petition will be delivered directly to the government, through Parliament, ads, and spectacular stunts such as an airplane pulling a giant Save the CBC banner over parliament. In each case the number of signatures on the petition will be crucial to the effectiveness of the campaign, so let’s get as many people as possible to sign.
The CBC is facing a budget shortfall that amounts to just $6 per Canadian, but its request to the government for a bridging loan to cover this was denied. The deep cuts the CBC is making will damage the organization across the board, and they will not be the last. If we don’t stand up for the CBC now, it stands to die a death by a thousand cuts. Harper’s minority government is politically vulnerable and falling in the polls – public outrage could turn the government around on this, but it has to happen now. Let’s move quickly.
With hope,
Ricken, Iain, Graziela, Paula, Brett, Alice, Paul, Ben, Milena, Veronique and the whole Avaaz team.

PS – here are some links for more info on this:
The Star reports on how opposition parties accuse Harper of using the recession as an excuse to gut the CBC
Union says Harper government strangling CBC
Ian Morrison: Stephen Harper’s hidden agenda for the CBC
A crisis of identity – A reader’s letter to the Globe and Mail

I would add to this list:
Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. Check out their satirical campaign ads

And finally this article from where I learned that the CBC currently gets about $33 from each Canadian taxpayer, compared to $124 to support the public broadcaster in the U.K. and $77 in France. As a taxpayer, I don’t mind paying another $6 to save our CBC.
_______________
Added March 28th: This message came from J. in the UK:
glad to see you fighting the good fight for cbc. thought you might like to know that the tv licence in the uk is actually considerably more. a colour tv licence currently costs £139.50 (CDN$247.65) for one year. See the licence fee.

This is most interesting: The BBC is paid for directly through each household TV licence. This allows it to run a wide range of popular public services for everyone, free of adverts and independent of advertisers, shareholders or political interests.
The BBC provides 8 interactive TV channels, 10 radio networks, more than 50 local TV and radio services, the BBC’s website, and the on-demand TV and radio service, BBC iPlayer.

PS. Finland has a similar TV licensing system.

March 27, 2009 in Canada and BC, Culture, Current Events by Marja-Leena 19 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

English Bay: sky

This is the fourth and last of the series of photos that I took about a month ago in English Bay. The feeling of the immense sky overhead struck me powerfully. It made me realize again how closed in we are where we live, surrounded by tall trees and mountains, though still quite expansive to the east. We don’t see the sunrise until it comes over the mountains and the sunset falls behind the hill and trees behind us. Prairie people comment on missing the wide open sky here. I don’t really mind but I do love getting next to the open ocean especially when the sky looks as magical as this. It makes me think of our favourite retreat on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

(By the way, these photos are totally unmodified, merely resized and compressed for the blog. Colours may appear different on different computers, such as even on my husband’s MacBook Pro compared to my iMac. Also, as I mentioned in a comment at ‘reflections’, the scenes appear darker than real life because I was shooting against the sun. Maybe there’s a special term photographers use for this.)

The others in the series:
English Bay: trees
English Bay: beach
English Bay: reflections

March 6, 2009 in Canada and BC, Nature, Photoworks by Marja-Leena 15 Comments »

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this and that

‘ecological footprint’ author

meeting Miguel

summer is…

weather fireworks

heat wave whine

Film: Recipes for Disaster

cultural identity & CBC

SAVE the CBC

English Bay: sky

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