WILDLIFE WEDNESDAY March 26th On V.I. Marmots

March 20, 2025

WILDLIFE WEDNESDAY March 26^th On V.I. Marmots

By Peter Karsten

Dear Nature Enthusiasts thank you for your attendance of the previous Wildlife Wednesday presentations and your support of the Purple Martin Project (PMPP).

We have another Presentation by an outstanding wildlife conservation scientist on Wednesday March the 26^th at 7:30 at the Community Back Hall. DR. Malcolm McAdie, DVM, MSc. Wildlife Veterinarian who helps conserve many wild species including wolves, snakes, Bald eagles and the critically endangered Vancouver Island Marmot (Marmota vancouverensis) will speak to us. The title if his talk will be “Ecology and Conservation of the Vancouver Island Marmot”. Malcolm works with the Marmot Recovery Foundation overseeing the captive breeding, rescue and release of the marmots in their natural range on Vancouver Island. In addition, he provides veterinary services to the North Island Wildlife Recovery Association to rehabilitate animals for release back to the wild. You will learn about one of the world’s most endangered species. Even Giant Pandas exist in greater numbers! The V.I. marmots are endemic to Canada. It lives nowhere else in the world and more specifically in the Vancouver Island Mountain range. Fewer than 30 remained in the wild twenty years ago when conservationists banded together to give the marmots a helping hand by breeding them in human care (ex situ) at the Calgary Zoo, The Toronto Zoo and under Malcom’s management at Tony Barret Mount Washington Marmot Recovery Centre. At one point there were more Marmots in direct human care than in the wild. Malcom will tell us how many there are in the wild today and what it takes to sustain a viable population. This is a most fascinating story that unfolded and unfolds right across Baines Sound in our very neighborhood. The Marmot Recovery Foundation was founded in 1999 it provides on-the-ground research, public awareness and funding for the breeding and release program. A worthy organization to support. We hope you can come and celebrate with us another wonderful event of species conservation.

Wildlife Wednesday is presented by the Purple Martin Preservation Project with funding support by Wildlife Preservation Canada. Entry is by donation.

Housing Fear and Loathing, and Changes to Local Bylaws

March 20, 2025

It was a full capacity Activity Centre Lounge for the Local Trust Committee’s “Public Hearing” process, held on Tuesday, March 18, where it was agreed that the original allocation of 15min of public consultation wasn’t sufficient. Instead, the LTC expanded the allotment to 2 hours, to hear questions and comments and concerns. Ultimately, the consensus was that a more adequate public hearing should be held at the Community Hall at a time better suited for working people and their families, than the 10:00AM start time on a weekday. As well, the community wasn’t given all the materials to be discussed in advance.

Bylaws 248 and 249 are to alter or eliminate the so-called “Density Bank”, and to remove the requirement for a Temporary Use Permit for potential accessory dwellings permitted on R2 residential zoning. This would affect 292 properties in R2 zoning, and there would be a restriction of 1600 square feet footprint on an accessory dwelling, and require Provincially regulated greywater and septic to be approved. The assumption is that the TUP is an impediment to landowners building accessory dwellings, but they would continue to be required to obtain a siting permit from Islands Trust. In the several years that have passed since an accessory dwelling became permitted on R2 residential lots, there have been 2 applications made, with only 1 built.

There were a range of questions, comments, and concerns raised, as a broad reflection of differing views regarding the obstacles to accessing housing including, capping too much growth, gentrification, market pressures versus the size of the footprint of housing and development, and impact to ground water and the environment. Denman’s population has grown at a rate of 20% every 5 years, with no sign of slowing, while there is no consensus on whether we need to implement policies that slow growth, or instead push for increased ferry capacity and other public services that will contribute to the current unsustainable growth rate, which taxes every shared amenity on our Island, and puts upward pressure on every expense.

We presently have an untold number of accessory dwellings that are “non conforming” to current bylaws, however the Islands Trust has chosen to not enforce the bylaws on this sort of housing until there are measures taken to alleviate the challenges for current residents who are “under housed” or living in an uncertain situation where their status may become questioned moving forward. In many of these circumstances, the landowner may be reluctant to bring the non conforming housing into the legal regulatory light, for fear of the expense of the entire regulatory regime.

There was also some discussion of the so-called “empty home tax” that the LTC has yet to opt into, where it would incentivize absentee homeowners to rent an empty home, and provide revenue for housing initiatives. While the last few decades have provided evidence that the Federal, Provincial, Regional District, and Islands Trust have not had any significant impact on the issue of access to affordable housing on Denman Island, there is a persistent and illogical belief that only government can provide the solutions. The Islands Trust has no legal jurisdiction on housing affordability, but only on land use and zoning.

The Housing Advisory Planning Committee that IT sponsored a year ago, has a report with some recommendations that can be found on the Denman Islands Trust website under “Planning.” We had a similar APC process more than a decade ago. Our community generally supports the encouragement of demographic diversity, while we are the oldest mean average age community in Canada, with more than 50% of residents exceeding 60 years old. Denman Island needs to find ways to support and encourage younger people and families, who are the glue that holds the fabric of our community together. We simply cannot wait another decade for another IT hosted APC to find that the housing crisis has only deepened.

Gina Romantica, Aka Gina-Rae Horvath: Almost Dreams

March 20, 2025

My mother has always created beauty, regardless of where we have lived; while camped in a tent on a building site she would wrap me in beautiful handmade quilts and pick fresh flowers for our outdoor table.

“I am in the discipline of making beauty; Beauty is my defiance of all that is ugly.”

My mother is in the business of beauty, portals, and stories.

“I’m not interested in truth, the truth is none of my business

My business is to tell a story

And that story is told between me and the model

I give the model space to tell that story”

In working with my mother, both in front and behind the camera, I have witnessed her create portals for her models to walk through, allowing them the space to express previously hidden sides of themselves. Part of the female gaze, which is so prominent within her work, is the allowance for women to show up authentically as who they want to be. These portals of allowance are captured within these images.

“The Model is a huge part of the narrative, I direct superficially, the model is the muse,

I feel I don’t want to explain myself to the models, I feel embarrassed to explain too much of what I am doing”

Like dreams, the familiar, yet disconcerting beauty of these image’s have a lasting impression.

To discuss the production and technical side of my mother’s work would prove quite boring, and would truly defeat the pursuit of mysticism and magic, her work speaks for itself in that regard. Professional and beautiful.

‘‘I shot a lot in my night garden, literally in the almost dark. Maybe with a flashlight or something.’’

To discuss the deeper themes, that is more interesting to me.

In watching my mother work, both as an artist, creator, and mother, I have observed the power of the feminine; ironically something she claims to not consciously think about. That is the beauty of my mother, she is purely who she is, without needing to think about it.

Feminine iconography has always played an important role in the discourse of art, a reflection of how women are valued, and what we are valued for. My mother takes this discourse and explores it through a raw feminine gaze with these works; from references to the Virgin Mary, the broken hearted woman, to the angry daughter and many more.

She plays with motifs of fire, masks and red ribbon repeatedly throughout this series of work.

I asked her about this, knowing that often my mother has an end vision or goal in all that she does, I hear her pause on the phone, pondering; “I can’t give you a damn good reason ’’

She claims to have been working instinctively with this body, building off of what the models bring forward, and tapping into something that is deeper than intellectual reasoning. The subconscious desire to create, and intuitively it just flows through.

She described the conceptualization of these image’s as “Leaking in from the ether”, explaining that the images happen quickly and intuitively.

‘‘I am exploring themes of strength and feminine rage. Beauty is being celebrated in a slightly unsettling way.’’

In working with her my whole life I have learned the value of the feminine, and how it transcends the traditional and contemporary definitions. Modelling with her from childhood to adulthood has given me the space to explore the definition of what being a woman means. To witness the fierce protection of a mother, the anger of a daughter, the love of a woman, and joy of a girl. My mother does not shy away from the crones, the sexuality, the anger and danger of women, nor does she ignore the softness, the beauty, and gentle nature, but rather gives them both space to exist and breathe.

“I am not afraid of the dark but I am definitely in the pursuit of beauty”

Almost Dreams is showing at the Hornby Island Community Hall

March 29 7-10 pm and March 30 12-5pm

Stanehill Park News

March 20, 2025

Stanehill Park News

By Peter Karsten, Parks Committee

The Community approved the establishment of the half acre Stanehill Park in 2009. It was a wild, impassable piece of forest left over from the development of the area into 5 and 8 acre parcels. Neighbours, members of the Parks Committee, cleaned it up, created pathways, benches and a park sign to become a small “pocket park” owned by the Comox Valley Regional District. Other enhancements had been namely a plant identification scheme by using pegs with codes in combination with a park plant guide to identify them to the visitors and the addition of a number of bird and mammal carvings. The wooden pegs weathered and became part of the forest again over the last 20 plus years. The plant community kept changing making the task to moving pegs around a bigger one than anticipated. In 2023 we published “The Stanehill Park and Plant Guide to take its place. It is a take-along on your walk through the park to identify plants with the help of over 80 drawings of plant and some 60 bird and animal drawings. The guide is available at the entrance of the park in a pamphlet box. You are welcome to take it home for other walks on Denman representing the BC Coastal Douglas-fir bioclimatic zone.

We are happy to announce Lynn Weaver as our new Park Steward to tidy up the pathways and stock up pamphlets in the box for you. For 2025 we plan to bring the somewhat hidden Park sign the forefront and create wooden plant labels to place with a number of plants. In that way the little forest becomes and outdoor education park or class room. We hope to see many of you enjoying the park as spring arrives.

Shucking Oysters: Red Flags

March 20, 2025

Shucking Oysters: Red Flags

By Alex Allen

You can’t use it as a tablecloth or mark on it, but when it has reached the end of its life you should destroy it in a dignified way by burning it privately. We’re not talking about a 1980s Grapevine. We’re talking about our Canadian flag. According to the Heritage department, this method of final disposition is “the way to preserve a tattered flag’s dignity.” And a way to preserve a tattered country’s dignity? Fly your flag with patriotic pride, which is not the most natural reflex for Canadians. As Ryan Montgomery wrote, “flag-waving, fist pumping, and screaming til you’re red-white-and-blue in the face puts a bad taste in our mouths.” That is until February 1, 2, 3, 4…it’s been the maple leaf forever.

We’re not a typically nationalistic bunch. But nothing like threatening our sovereignty, insulting our intelligence, and treating us with contempt, to get our patriotism boiling. In Ottawa, Vancouver, and Montreal, hockey fans fervently booed and jeered the star-spangled banner. In Montgomery’s words, “Where once drunk NHL fans stood silent with their hands over their hearts and their team-branded hats solemnly removed from their heads. Now, the deafening roar of national displeasure drained out the feeble voices of singers wishing they had taken another gig.”

In our current existential political climate, Bradley Miller, UBC associate professor of history, said the flag is a symbol of defiance. As the Trump administration continues to portray Canada as Enemy #1, we are witnessing a growing sense of unity across all sides of the political spectrum. And for many, that unCanadian feeling includes reclaiming our flag.

Stewart Prest, a political science lecturer at UBC, said people are again seeing the flag as a symbol of tolerance and inclusion, and of Canadian distinctiveness from the US. During the “Freedom Convoy” protests, it “came to symbolize a new form of identity,” he said, but now Canadians of all political stripes are being urged to wave the flag proudly.

At high noon, February 15, 1965, on Parliament Hill, Canada’s iconic red and white maple leaf flag was raised for the first time. Today the flag is again uniting us Canadians. Like the raised index finger greeting off the steering wheel, it’s a sign that we are a member of a select community. We are one. Yet the evolution of the Canadian flag was far from oneness. It was a time of aesthetic unrest. Politicians and Canadians fought with patriotic fervour on the idea of having a new flag and the finer details of the new design.

1964. Liberal Prime Minister Lester Pearson had proposed creating a new flag to unify Canada, recognize its ties to the Commonwealth and soothe Quebec. John Diefenbaker, the Progressive-Conservative opposition leader, wanted to stay with the British Union flag simply as a way of preserving Canada’s ties.

Eventually a flag committee considered almost 6,000 designs – most featuring the proverbial maple leaf. Others poured in with animals such as Canada geese, grizzlies, moose, salmon, bison and caribou. One design showed a beaver wearing a Mountie hat. Another with a Mountie and an Indigenous person shaking hands.

Despite the variety, the maple leaf symbol persisted. In October 1964, graphic artist Alan Beddoe presented the all-party parliamentary committee with 15 finalists. In the end, 10 of the 14 committee members voted for former UBC history professor, George Stanley’s flag concept, with a stylized 11-point red maple leaf, which after a few tweaks, is the current design we proudly fly today.

The original designers wanted a flag uncluttered and simple enough for a child to draw. Indeed, we can all attest to drawing maple leafs during our formative years. “The single leaf has the virtue of simplicity,” Stanley wrote. “It emphasizes the distinctive Canadian symbol and suggests the idea of loyalty to a single country.”

Bradley Miller, associate professor of history at UBC, said the design of the flag, with no military or religious symbols, makes it adaptable. “It represents whatever we want it to represent,” Miller said. “Having a symbol, a flag, that is as much a blank slate as ours is an advantage to a country that needs to be able to accommodate.” (Or at least pretend to accommodate.)

Now, about those red flags. Studies warn us to rethink our relationship, if for example our partner tries to control us on where to go, how to spend our money, and even what to eat. Other reasons, our partner lies, distorts history, accuses us of overreacting, making us crazy. If your partner shows no sign of rehabilitation, just walk away. And if all else fails you could raise a few white flags…

Cowboy Corner: The Teulon Rodeo and Tractor Pull

March 20, 2025

One thing I miss about growing up in a rural setting in the seventies was the sense of community spirit. We lived in the Interlake area of Manitoba and every twenty miles or so was a town of about eight hundred people with a school, grocery store, barbershop, and eleven churches.

Every town had a summer event where locals could display their baking or gardening prowess, there would be an open pit barbeque with the best beef and beans on the planet, a baseball tournament could be had, and of course, the good old prairie beer garden, where good citizens could get sloshed on piss warm flat draft for the princely sum of twenty five cents per plastic cup.

Our big showcase was the Teulon Rodeo and Tractor Pull, held the first weekend of every July. Locals poured in from miles around to find out who made the best pickled onions and to see who had the fastest horses and biggest tractors and to watch drunken farmhands pummel each other in the aforementioned beer gardens. I remember this super bad ass girl named Kim. Tougher than a two dollar steak and built like a brick school house. She drove a really cool candy apple red 1972 Dodge Charger with Thrush mufflers that did their level best to tame the 400 Magnum under the hood, and she didn’t take shit from anybody. She could hold her own in a fight with any man, and everyone called her Stomper. That summer she sported a cast on her right arm from when she was swapping out the headers on her car with one of those old bumper jacks and the thing fell on her, snapping her ulna. The previous week I witnessed her knock two belligerent, boozed up long haul truckers unconscious with that cast.

At any rate, my buddies Jamie, Mike, and I were busy watching the barrel racing event when over the public address system it was announced that the bull riding contest was up next and that any new entrants were to report to the center booth to sign up within ten minutes. Now, you had to be eighteen to enter this competition, and the three of us were only fourteen at the time, but we thought, what the Hell, let’s lie about our ages and see what happens.

So off to the booth we went, where we were greeted by a fifty something lady with a bad perm and a face that looked like five miles of bad road.

“What the Hell do you little buggers want?”, she barked, her voice hoarse and scratchy from years of chain smoking Rothman’s cigarettes and gulping down copious amounts of cheap rye.

“Three for the bull riding, ma’am!”, was my response.

She stared down at us over her glasses and scanned our tiny trio of terror. She knew damn well we weren’t eighteen.

“Ten bucks each! Go to the pit and my husband Herb will give you a number and tell you what bull you get! Now get the Hell outta here!”.

Jamie was first. The bull they gave him was “Buttercup”, a gentle soul with the bucking ability of a rowboat in a gentle breeze. Mike was up next, and his bull was well over twenty years old, blind in one eye, couldn’t see out of the other, hips ravaged by arthritis, and deaf as a post. The poor old beast could barely muster the strength to walk, much less buck someone off. Man, this was going to be easy.

Now it was my turn. I recall this big fat guy about fifty five walking up to me chomping on a spit soaked cigar stub. He wore these brown dress slacks, pointy cowboy boots, and sported a filthy white polyester shirt buttoned over his massive beer gut tighter than a mosquito’s ass stretched across a rain barrel.

He tied a leather glove to my right hand and slapped a number on my back and chuckled, “Looks like you drew the short straw today, kid!”, and proceeded to help me on top of my bull, Bonesmasher. I slid my gloved hand under the taut rope on his back and waited with trepidation for the chute to open. A deathly silence fell upon the crowd as it was announced that some fool was about to ride this notorious killer of mortals. The thing snorted fire and shit lightning out it’s ass and actually had rows of stick figure men, in groups of five with a line through each branded on it’s side, each one representing others that had fallen before me.

My heart raced as the big metal gate opened, and then……nothing.

As in nothing.

Bonesmasher just stood there, chomping on some grass he’d plucked from the ditch. Calm as a country lake. As peaceful as a spring breeze.

That was until old Herb jammed him in the ass with a 20,000 volt cattle prod.

The next thing I know I’m thirty six feet in the air and I’m thinking, “Boy, the hardware store could sure use a new roof” before being shot to the ground like a reverse bungy cord walloping my face into dry mud and wet cowshit. A monstrous hoof struck my head, cracking it like a Christmas walnut.

Then the worst of my fears had been realized. My hand was trapped under the rope and Bonesmasher was dragging me like a ragdoll. He charged at the terrified rodeo clowns, smashed through the fence, and proceeded to gore, mutilate, and generally terrorize the good townsfolk all the while dragging me and stomping on me along the way.

But Bonesmasher’s next move proved to be a critical error. He could have raced into the trees and disappeared forever with me in tow, he could have run acoss the ditch into the wheatfields, never to be seen again, but no. Bonesmasher chose to run through, yes, the beer gardens.

The very same beer gardens Stomper was arm wrestling any man foolish enough to bet five bucks.

The mighty Bonesmasher charged in, tables and chairs were tossed about, his thick horns laying waste to even the fragile wooden latrines. Men and women scattered as shards of broken glass and lumber flew everywhere. All this with battered and beaten me in tow.

Then suddenly, as quickly as it had all began, it was over. You see, Bonesmasher’s fatal mistake that day was to jostle Stomper’s left arm, causing her to spill her beer. She rose up, grabbed the terrified bull by it’s right ear, and a well placed blow to the forehead with that plaster cast sent poor old Bonesmasher to the ground faster than shit through a tall goose.

I awoke the next day in a hospital bed. I was pretty lucky. I had escaped relatively unscathed, except for the five compound fractures in my right arm where it got caught under the rope. My Dad was furious and told me that if he didn’t need me to drive tractor that summer he would have broken my other arm right then and there.

I think it also worth mentioning that my Mum won second place for her banana bread. Apparently she would have won first but from what I understand that scheming bitch Irene Fergusson paid the judges off.

THE END

The Afterlife Processing Center

March 20, 2025

Feb 28, 2025 /Gabriel Jeroschewitz

The Afterlife Processing Center

Given the establishment’s name, the fluorescent lights of the Afterlife Processing Center flickered an ironic touch. Death, or rather, the entity currently inhabiting the corporeal form most associated with Death (a tall, gaunt figure in a perpetually rumpled black robe, though today it sported a coffee stain that looked disturbingly like existential dread), sighed, a sound like dry leaves skittering across cobblestones. The whole scene was so absurd that it was almost comical.

“Another one, Brenda?” Death croaked, gesturing with a bony finger towards a shimmering portal that had just whirred into existence. Brenda, a perky, if slightly translucent, cherub in a neon pink tunic and sensible sandals, bounced over, her clipboard practically vibrating enthusiastically.

“Yup! Mr. Reginald Featherbottom, age 97. Natural causes. Lived a long and happy life. Loved birdwatching and prune juice. Sentimental farewell notes to his prize-winning begonias. Standard package.” Brenda chirped, ticking off items on her clipboard with a pen that floated in mid-air.

Death rubbed bony fingers against her temples, where temples would be if she possessed any anatomical features beneath the robe. “Brenda, darling, are you sure that’s all? Just ‘another one’? Don’t you feel… anything?”

Brenda blinked, her cherubic face creasing in confusion. “Feel? You mean… like empathy? For Mr. Featherbottom’s begonias?” Her innocence was both charming and slightly baffling.

Death groaned. This was precisely the problem. The workload had been relentless lately. Eternity, it turned out, was a surprisingly busy place, predominantly when populated by billions of souls constantly transitioning, usually at the most inconvenient times. And the new interns? Bless their cotton-candy clouds, they didn’t get it.

“No, Brenda, not for the begonias precisely. Though I’m sure they were lovely. I mean… the sheer volume, Brenda. The unending stream. It’s… tiring. Even for me.” Death mumbled, slumping into a surprisingly comfortable, if slightly dusty, armchair that had materialized behind her. It looked suspiciously like it belonged to a recently departed therapist.

Brenda tilted her head, her halo wobbling precariously. “Tiring? But… you’re Death. Isn’t this, like, your whole… thing?”

“Precisely!” Death exclaimed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “It’s my ‘whole thing’! And it’s been a lot of ‘thing’ lately. Back-to-back pandemics, unexpected meteorites – honestly, the universe is showing off now. And everyone, everywhere, is grieving. The air is thick with it, like… like overcooked gravy. And I have to… process it. All of it. It’s an overwhelming task, even for Death.

Brenda still looked perplexed. “Process grief? Thought that was… you know… the grieving people’s job.”

Death sighed again, a sound that this time ruffled the paperwork on Brenda’s clipboard. “Oh, Brenda, sweet, oblivious Brenda. Grief isn’t just a human emotion. It’s… a cosmic energy. A byproduct of love, loss, and existential angst seasoned with a dash of ‘why me?’ And it has to go somewhere. And guess where it ends up? Right here, in the cosmic laundry basket of emotions that is… well, me.”

She gestured dramatically at the swirling vortex of souls that was the processing center. It looked a bit like a very sparkly, very depressing washing machine.

“Think of me, Brenda, not just as the Grim Reaper, but as the Cosmic Grief Hoover. I suck it all up. The silent sobs, the tear-stained pillows, the empty chairs at holiday dinners – all of it. Lately, the Hoover bag has been overflowing. It’s heavy, Brenda. Really, heavy.”

Brenda finally seemed to grasp the enormity of Death’s existential fatigue. Her eyes widened, losing a fraction of their usual sparkle. “Wow,” she breathed. “So… you’re like… grief-sick?”

“Grief-sick, soul-weary, existentially exhausted – call it what you will. The point is, I need a break. A cosmic spa day. Or at least, a decent cup of afterlife-strength coffee that isn’t lukewarm and vaguely tastes of despair.”

Just then, a booming voice echoed through the processing center. “DEATH! Get your bony behind in gear! We’ve got a surge in Sector Gamma-Nine! Someone invented a self-folding laundry machine that achieved sentience and promptly exploded, taking out a whole block of suburban homes.”

It was Destiny, Death’s perpetually stressed and caffeine-addicted supervisor. Destiny was a whirlwind of celestial energy, perpetually multi-tasking and sporting a halo that flickered erratically like a faulty neon sign.

Death groaned again, louder this time. “Sentient laundry machines now? Destiny? Is nothing sacred?”

Destiny zipped past, a blur of cosmic static and frantic energy. “Sacred? Death, darling, in this economy? Just get those souls processed! And try to look a little less glum. We don’t want to scare the newbies.”

Death straightened her robe, adjusted her hood (which had slipped rakishly to one side), and sighed dramatically. “Right then,” she muttered, moving towards the shimmering portal. “Let’s get this laundry sorted.”

As she stepped into the portal, Brenda called after her, “Hey, Death? Maybe you should try some cosmic yoga. I hear it’s great for soulaches!”

Death paused, a skeletal hand hovering over the portal’s shimmering edge. “Cosmic yoga, Brenda?” she echoed, a flicker of something akin to amusement in her empty eye sockets. “You know what? Maybe you’re onto something. Though I suspect I’ll need more than downward-facing doom to deal with this backlog.”

With a final weary shrug, Death vanished into the portal, presumably to face the existential fallout of sentient laundry machines. Brenda watched her go, then thoughtfully tapped her pen against her clipboard.

“Cosmic yoga for Death…” she murmured, scribbling down the suggestion. “And maybe a sensitivity training seminar for Destiny. And better coffee. This place could use a morale boost.”

And as the fluorescent lights flickered once more in the vast, slightly chaotic, and perpetually overworked Afterlife Processing Center, even the cherubs began to feel the weight of the universe’s grief, though perhaps, thankfully, just a little bit less than Death herself. After all, someone had to fetch the lukewarm, despair-flavored coffee, and even cosmic entities had their limits. Even Death grieved her duties, sometimes, especially when sentient laundry machines were involved. It was all just a bit too much, even for eternity.

Letter to the Editor – Peter Spurr

March 20, 2025

MOTT on East Road

Seedbeds of Liberation

March 20, 2025

“What is the problem with being ‘not racist’? It is a claim that signifies neutrality; I am not a racist but neither am I aggressively against racism.’ One either allows racial inequities to persevere, an a racist or confronts racial inequities as an antiracist. ” Ibrim X. Kendi

When I was a child, our family lived just outside of Penticton and at the age of 9, I was sent to a Catholic day school. I had never before seen an Indigenous person and in my class there were 4 Indigenous kids. Feelings of confusion were very common for me as I witnessed daily disturbing scenes of discrimination and racism. I sat behind these kids who were forced to sit at the front of the class. The teacher never included them in discussions or in activities. They actually only came to school maybe twice a week at the most. There was an unspoken rule that us white kids should ignore the brown-skinned kids. But I studied them closely as much as I could without being too obvious. They stuck together, laughed and whispered quietly to one another and watched us play sports and always ate the free lunch that many white kids had no need of. They all had long hair and drew pictures of horses and animals instead of writing, reading and arithmetic. Harry Kreuger, began walking close by my desk and for 3 years, he would half sing and half whisper my name repeatedly, as he passed by. I felt a deep fascination at his happy and beautiful voice. I did not tell my girlfriends or anyone about Harry and I did not try to stop him. I ignored him at recess and lunchtime and pretended he was invisible. Driving through the reservation, up the ski hill on the weekends, I hope to spy him out his yard. I felt sad and helpless seeing the poverty of the reservation but remained silent when my family members would make racist remarks about “those lazy Indians.” I felt guilty and shameful for hiding my true feelings but as a 9 year old, in the 60’s, racism was the norm.

Four years after I started Grade 4, in 1967, the Hawthorn Report declared: “It is difficult to imagine how an Indian child attending school could develop anything but a negative self-image. First, there is nothing from his culture represented in the school or valued by it. Second, the Indian child often gains the impression that nothing he or other Indians do is right compared to what non-Indian children are doing. They Have little reason to like or be interested in the school any.” Even though all children are harmed by racism and institutional learning, school must have been agonizingly alienating for Indigenous kids.

Becoming anti-racist is a scary and slow process for us settlers. Focusing on diversity without looking at issues of power, racism and white skin privilege only serves to uphold systemic inequities under the guise of multicultural education. “The ability to ignore racism is an example of privilege; those who are most affected by racism do not have the privilege to ignore it….it’s not ‘if I am racist, it’s how I am racist’ because of the colonial narrative that has been built in this country.” Jo Chrona, Indigenous Pedagogies. Is there a 12 step program for unlearning racism? The book “How to be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi is one resource I suggest. The novel “Slash” about an American Indian Movement activist, by Jeanette Armstrong, is compelling.

Today, March 17th, the Manitoba NDP’s Wab Kinew told the world that the remains of two murdered Indigenous wimmin, found in a garbage dump, were finally being returned to their families. Mardeceds Myran and Morgan Harris, both from the Long Plain First Nation, along with Rebecca Contols and Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, were murdered in 2022. A year and half later, the Manitoba Conservative government at the time, refused to search the landfill, even though some of their remains were found in a garbage can in Regina. They said it would cost too much money. As soon as the NDP’s Wab Kinew was elected, he found the money and was helped by the feds to find these murdered wimmins’ remains. We whites must all become anti-racists; yesterday is too late.

Janin Jenin 2024

March 20, 2025

I did a double-take with the name of Palestine Museum’s most recent film on Saturday morning. At first I thought it was a typo, as the film was by Mohammed Bakri, filmmaker famous for his 2003 film Jenin Jenin, about the Israeli rampage & destruction of Jenin Refugee Camp the year previous. But actually the Arabic word “Janin” means a fetus in the womb, a being that will be born, and Jenin 2024 was born of the incursion in 2002. Bakri is a deep thinker who doesn’t necessarily spell things out for his audiences. His title could mean Israel’s 2002 invasion – devastating but unsuccessful – gave birth to the Israeli military’s need to physically remove all the Camp’s residents. Or might it mean that the resistance spawned by 2002 gave birth to an even fiercer mindset on the part of Palestinians? They are down (and “out” – the Refugee Camp’s population has just been expelled) but by no means are they defeated.

In his original film, which has long been banned by Israel because it is too disturbing for Israelis to actually see what their military does, Bakri uses a handheld camera and shoots for 5 days in the midst of the invasion. He films several residents, including a young girl whose clarity and resolve are imprinted in my brain. In his new film, he revisits that young girl, now a mother of 4. She said in 2002 that the resistance would never die, that they would never stop in their determination to live in their homes, to have equality, to be free. That they would go on to have children of their own who would carry it forward, and that is exactly what she has done.

She now lives in the UAE, but her sumud – her steadfastness – remains as strong as ever. And now she has 4 offspring whom she is raising to resist the occupation.

Somehow Zionist apologists soothe themselves with the notion that Palestinians are “Arabs” who don’t really mind where they live, any Arab country will do. As Bakri said in the interview post film-showing, “the occupier will never understand the meaning of home”. (Palestine Museum, 15 March, 2025) When he revisits the Jenin Camp this time, he hears from many that they don’t want to repeat the “mistakes” of their ancestors, ie: they don’t want to become refugees in another place yet again. They are seasoned by their oppression and they know that if they leave they will not be allowed by the occupier to return. This is why we see so many thousands of Gazans returning north on foot to the rubble that once was their home. They are saying they would rather die in the place where their home was than be dispossessed again, like the 750,000 in 1948, and the 200,000 in 1967. And this, despite the fact that for 2 weeks now, not a single aid or food truck has been allowed into Gaza by Israel. UN-OCHA, which has tracked aid trucks to Gaza on a daily basis for years, now reports none. (Helena Cobban, Just World Ed, 15 March, 2025.) And Trump’s recent transfer to Israel of another $4 Billion worth of arms, without consulting Congress, seems to indicate that he is fine with this. After all, he has plans for Gaza.

The purpose of the intentional starvation of 2 million plus Palestinians is to pressure Hamas into returning the remainder of the hostages (or their bodies) to Israel. Hamas knows that once this happens, the bombing will start again, and will continue indefinitely, according to Netanyahu. It will continue until the ethnic cleansing is complete.

My question to the Israeli strategists behind this great travesty is: what about the rest of the Palestinians, of whom there are about 7 million? Will you have to dispossess/jail/torture/starve them as well? Can you not see that this staggering violence will only create a more determined resistance? As Nobel Peace Prize nominee, American-Israeli anthropologist Jeff Halper noted in a recent webinar, the Zionist project in Israel-Palestine is like all settler-colonial operations in that it has 3 stages:

Dispossession of the people from their lands.
Pacification of the people.
Normalization, meaning the world accepts that the colonizers have “won”.

The dispossession occurred in 1948, in 1967, and is underway yet again. Attempts at pacification have been occurring ever since and have not succeeded. Trump (Round 1) aimed for normalization with the shameful Abraham Accords, but once Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza began in 2023, that plan faltered. Saudi Arabia said they would not go along with it without a state for the Palestinian people. And now the Arab states apparently have the support of the EU for a rebuild of Gaza involving Palestinian control, a distant cry from the obscene “Trump Gaza” so grotesquely captured in the 2 minute video Trump himself re-posted in early March. It went viral and has to be seen to be believed. Despite the vitriolic bombast on the part of Israeli & US leaders, it seems safe to say that Israel’s “colonizing” project (Theodore Hertzl, 1897, founder of modern political Zionism) will fail.

Despite decades of lawsuits, harrassment, exorbitant fines, and the banning of Jenin Jenin, Bakri made clear his sense of purpose in the interview: “I will continue making films. I will never be silent. I will never give up” (Palestine Museum, 15 March, 2025). He is working on his next film: Gaza, Gaza, Gaza. And like his other films, Palestinians’ determined cry for freedom will no doubt be loud and clear. This is sumud.