Today in BC

The TV series Big Timber follows Kevin, Sarah, Eric and Jack - logging, salvaging logs and working the family sawmill on Vancouver Island. Kevin Wenstob says working in the woods, the crew has come across many different animals including bears, cougars and even Sasquatch. ‘I've got fuzzy pictures, I've seen some big, weird prints in the snow that didn’t look like machine tracks, so I don't know’, says Wenstob. ‘It'd be possible and there's a lot of big peaks and a lot of snow that stays all year round, a sasquatch has got to have snow, so perfect climate for him’. The show is in its’ third season, and the unscripted format has garnered a large following. Sarah Flemming, a former operating room nurse has been general manager of the company for the last dozen years or so. ‘But you could call it the GMK, which is more like general manager of Kevin!’ The two told Today in BC Host Peter McCully, what it’s like to watch themselves on TV and have a production crew following them around day to day. Wenstob also talks legacy trees and old growth forests, and what the company is doing to minimize their environmental impact, as well as his thoughts on raw log exports versus added value wood products. You will find ‘Today in B.C.’ podcasts on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart and Google podcasts. If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this edition of ‘Today in BC’, host Peter McCully chats with two authors, Kate Gateley and Rob Wipond, about their first literary efforts on the first edition of the ‘Made in BC Book Club’. In the first segment of ‘Today in BC’, Kate Gateley who won top prize at the Canadian Book Club Awards in the sci-fi fantasy genre for ‘Tides of the Sovereign’, the first book in a trilogy. ‘Julia, the main character, she's in her thirties, she's found herself in university. She's not super satisfied. Very similar to my own experience. Not sure what to do with herself and feeling like she was on the wrong path, she's taking a course and this professor comes along Donal O'Brien, and he's like strangely familiar, and she can't figure out why. Long story short, they've shared past lives together, so they have been living through reincarnation and prophecy-based curses to defeat the big bad Cassius.  So, she goes one life to the next and she has to make some pretty big choices’, Gately says. Rob Wipond is an investigative journalist. His articles have been nominated for 17 magazine and journalism awards. He talks abouts his new book ‘Your consent is not required, the Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment and Abusive Guardianship’, and what was the motivation behind writing it. ‘I got very interested in it because it happened to my father. He reached out at a difficult period in his life for help at a local psychiatric hospital in Kelowna and was fairly rapidly turned into an involuntary patient and treated against his will. I was quite aghast that here a person with no mental health history of any kind, a career college professor of computer engineering, could suddenly be a certified mental patient, supposedly lacking insight and needing to be forcibly treated. I was just aghast and immediately started to wonder who else is this happening to and what's their story’, says Wipond. More can be found on the authors at www.kategateley.com and www.robwipond.com. You will find ‘Today in B.C.’ podcasts on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart and Google podcasts.  If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

‘Today in BC’, host Peter McCully chats with Bill Henderson, best known for being the founder of the popular rock band Chilliwack. In the 1960’s, Henderson helped formed the psychedelic rock band The Collectors, which went on to release three albums before disbanding in 1970. Henderson then went on to form Chilliwack, which became one of the most successful Canadian rock bands of the 1970s and 1980s, with hits such as ‘My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)’ and ‘Whatcha Gonna Do (When I'm Gone)’. Throughout his career, Henderson has continued to perform and record music both as a solo artist and with Chilliwack, as well as being a member of UHF, with Shari Ulrich and Roy Forbes. The trio recorded two albums. Henderson has also been an advocate for Canadian music and served as the President of the Canadian Independent Record Production Association (CIRPA) and has served as a director of the Canadian Association of Recording Arts and Sciences. (CARAS) ‘I was concerned about the industry, the way that I felt it manipulated artists and their careers.  I was mystified by some of the attitudes I met around the boardroom tables’, said Henderson. ‘I got an opportunity and the first one was CARAS. Someone asked if I would like to do it and I thought about it and I came back with what is it you want me to do?  They said we'd like you to represent the artist's viewpoint. I think I caused them a little more trouble than they were hoping to, because I pushed for some things that were, in my opinion, from the artist's viewpoint’. In 1989, Henderson had new gig, musical director for the Canadian edition of Sesame Street. Henderson's two daughters are also singers. Camille Henderson was a member in the early 1990s of the pop trio West End Girls. Saffron Henderson is a singer and voice actress. In 2019, Chilliwack was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame by Henderson’s good friend Randy Bachman. ‘The Hall of Fame said to me on the phone, this is not for you. This is for Chilliwack. It made me think, wow, how many guys have been in the band? I worked it all out to 26. So, I thanked every one of them in my speech’, says Henderson. ‘I also told them what the word Chilliwack means - as far as your canoe can go. I said, here we are. Our canoe still floats’! If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this International Women’s Day edition of ‘Today in BC’, host Peter McCully chats with Jessica James, commercial pilot and co-star of The History Channel’s ‘Lost Car Rescue’. Jess, who grew up in Nimpo Lake and currently lives in The Okanagan, is a role model for young women, demonstrating a taste for adventure and a drive for success within a male-dominated industry. Despite only 6% of all private pilots in Canada being women, Jess successfully obtained her private pilot’s license in 2013 in Victoria, B.C., and her commercial pilot’s license in 2017. Since then, she’s achieved multiple endorsements for flying. James was asked what the most impactful moment in her young career was to date. ‘I was flying with Harbor Air Seaplanes and I was helping a lady get off of the flight, she was of an older generation  and she was very sweet  and she didn't know me, but she took the time to tell me that she was very proud of me for being a pilot because she didn't have that opportunity when she was my age and that will always stick with me. I can tell you exactly where I was standing when she told me that’. As seen on ‘Lost Car Rescue’, she now uses her skills to fly over remote areas of Canada, scouting and recovering rare classic vehicles that have been abandoned or lost to time.  McCully asked James what her favorite area was to fly over. ‘One of the really cool things about this job is that I get to fly in some really neat places and places I would've never visited in Canada if it wasn't for the show. So I just try and stay present in all of those places that it leads me and I guess my favorite place continually changes’. As well, James talks about the new season of ‘Lost Car Rescue’ where she pilots a team of car-hunters who travel by air and land to uncover vehicles. If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment. You will find ‘Today in B.C.’ podcasts on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart and Google podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this edition of ‘Today in BC’, host Peter McCully chats with Warren Barr and Lily Verney-Downey of Pluvio Restaurant in Ucluelet.  TripAdvisor recently unveiled its Best of the Best Awards for 2022 and Pluvio Restaurant and Rooms topped the Best Fine Dining Restaurants in Canada category. The couple opened the intimate 24-seat culinary business in 2019. “It’s very rewarding,” said Verney-Downey. “We get a lot of cards, letters and even presents from guests after they’ve left just thanking us for a wonderful evening. It’s pretty amazing to be able to impact people that much through a restaurant. It’s awesome.”  Chef Warren Barr was asked about the movement today to create as many items and ingredients on the menu as possible. “There's all sorts of different ideas about what Canadian food is,” said Barr. “But I think where I've landed with it is we have all these cultural influences for sure, which is great because there's just so much to inspire us and for us to learn from and so many sort of resources are drawn as far as culinary inspiration goes. Executing these influences but keeping the product domestic, I think is what makes that interesting.” Because the restaurant is fairly small, Pluvio changes the menus fluidly in response to what ingredients are available. Verney-Downey says they are fortunate to have a wonderful sommelier on staff and in 2020 made a wine specifically for Pluvio with Avril wineries. If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Musical Merchandise Review annually surveys retailers right across North America and asks them to vote for their favorite product. This year, Riversong Guitars of Kamloops walked away with the award for acoustic guitar of the year, as well as being a finalist in Product of the Year, Ukulele of the Year and Electric Guitar of the Year.    ‘We were nominated for four which is pretty amazing’, says luthier Mike Miltimore. ‘It’s a testament to hard work, innovation and dedication to quality. When everybody else is coming out with a new colors, we're coming out with new designs’. Miltimore tells Today in B.C. host Peter McCully, that Riversong guitars has built guitars for Paul McCartney and Prince William and are used by musicians Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo and Trace Adkins. ‘We build the guitars to be on the biggest and best stages of the world, but to be a cherished instrument that gets handed down from generation to generation - that's the most exciting part for me’, says Miltimore. The podcast also offers a chance to listen in to the sound of the award-winning acoustic guitar, a freestyle piece, finger picked by Jeremy Shaw. You will find ‘Today in B.C.’ podcasts on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart and Google podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kirk Krack has spent the last five and a half years working with James Cameron on Avatar two, the Way of water teaching actors and cameramen free diving. How does a kid from the prairies make it to the set of one of the world’s biggest movies teaching diving? ‘Yeah, It's funny, everyone wants to know that, right? When I explain where I'm from, Saskatchewan, I always explain it to my American friends, it's the land where you watch your dog run away for three days’. Krack’s parents gave the 14-year-old lifeguard, scuba lessons for his birthday and the rest is history. Having trained athletes like Tiger Woods, Military teams and actors and production people, Krack remains a strong supporter of the environment, having worked on the award-winning documentary, ‘The Cove’. ‘We were trying to shoot this documentary about the health and the state of the oceans and the pressure they're under and what we need to mitigate disasters for it, then we found this slaughter of dolphins that was still going on’. Krack is rejoining the Oceanic Preservation Society working on a multi-year project, four to six expeditions a year around the world which will take the next two to three years. The diver talks to host Peter McCully about working with Tom Cruise and stunt doubling as ‘Batman’. If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. David Suzuki joined the CBC in 1971 with the TV series, “Suzuki on Science.” In 1974, he developed and hosted the long-running popular radio program “Quirks and Quarks,” and several more TV specials followed. In 1979, he began hosting the ‘Nature of Things’, already in its 20th season. Studying zoology and genetics in the United States, Suzuki returned to Canada in the early 1960’s, at a time when science was booming, and the space race was on. ‘Americans revel in money, and I didn't like that. One of my heroes was Tommy Douglas. In the States, he would've been branded an outright commie, but the CCF at that time, now the NDP - was a legitimate party, I loved that we had Medicare, we had equalization payments’, says Suzuki. ‘I said, I have go to get out of this country. You know, I've never regretted that choice. Canada is different. I'm not saying we're better than the US, it's different. I prefer the differences in Canada’. Suzuki tells ‘Today in B.C.’ host Peter McCully that there have been some issues that the “Nature of Things’ has focused on over the years that he feels have made a difference. ‘Shows that had an immediate effect, like the program we did on the Amazon, back in 1989, a two-hour special on a great dam being planned known as the Great Whale Project. I believe that our program stopped that dam from being built’. A particularly personal and emotional program for Suzuki, dealt with Alzheimer’s. ‘My mother had Alzheimer's and her three brothers and, and her sister all died of dementia. I offered to talk about how it affected me personally, and I think the personal involvement had a real impact on the program itself’. Suzuki the author and co-author of over 50 books, says he will take on the role of an elder after retirement from the program. ‘I can just tell the truth and I can tell the truth on behalf of the one group that is least empowered in our society, and that's our children. If our children aren't at center stage in our conversation then what the hell are we doing all this, or not doing all this for?’ If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Randy Bachman kept busy during the pandemic with a series of projects that includes a new album with his son Tal, entitled ‘Bachman, Bachman’, and a rockumentary about the return of his cherished 1957 Gretsch guitar which was stolen from his hotel room 45 years ago. Bachman talks about the return of the guitar which took place on Canada Day, and how intimate an instrument it is. ‘You basically are putting your arms around it, you're holding it next to your bosom. It's like you're hugging your girlfriend, right? They breathe with you. They feel your heartbeat, you feel their heartbeat, and you become one’ The host of ‘Vinyl Tap’ for almost 20 years, Bachman says his favorite song writing effort was ‘She’s come Undone’, which was inspired by a line from a Bob Dylan song. ‘It was amazing, I just had Guitar Player Magazine call me and interview me that it was voted by their viewers of Guitar Player Magazine as one of the greatest rock songs of all time’. The founder of The Guess Who and B.T.O, recalled the late Ian Tyson. ‘He was a great guy, he was a real cowboy’ says Bachman. He’d say at the end of a tour, ‘I'm going back to the ranch, I got to get on a horse, I got to rope some cattle. ‘’This guy was starring in Yellowstone before Kevin Costner’. Bachman has owned over 1000 guitars in his life. He sold his Gretsch guitar collection back to the company a few years ago, the guitars are now on display in Savannah Georgia, he also has a number of guitars on display in the National Music Centre in Calgary. Bachman recalls some of his musician friends including Neil Young and Bill Henderson. as well as Broadcaster Terry David Mulligan. He told host Peter McCully who would be a member of his own all-star band and explains about the ‘YouTube Train Wreck’ show with Tal, that airs Fridays. If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada and the Member of Parliament for Burnaby South has been holding roundtable discussions in various locations throughout British Columbia. Peter McCully, host of ‘Today in B.C.’ caught up to Jagmeet Singh on Vancouver Island. Singh says that overall, the people that he has talked to in the sessions are offering feasible solutions to healthcare issues. ‘The solutions that are being proposed by some of the healthcare workers and residents are very achievable’, says Singh. ‘One of the solutions that we keep on hearing is the idea of a team-based healthcare approach where you go into an office with a nurse, a doctor, a physiotherapist, a dietician, a social worker to deal with the problems that people face with in a holistic way in dealing with it all together.’ The NDP Leader says that they are the party of healthcare, and they are defending Tommy Douglas’ vision of universal healthcare across the country. ‘The solution to a healthcare system that's not working isn't to make it two tier, isn't to introduce more for-profit options. It is to strengthen what we have and improve what we have and expand on what we have so that it's there for people’ says Singh. In a wide-ranging interview, Singh talks about affordability issues, the Canada Pharmacare Program and Affordable Housing. If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeff Hummel has been searching for clues to the SS Pacific since he was a high school student in Washington State. On November 4th, 1875, the SS Pacific departed Victoria Harbor, B.C. and about twelve hours later, it was on the bottom. It had collided with a ship called the Orpheus, on its' way to Nanaimo sinking in the first few hours of a hundred year storm. Newspaper accounts at the time reported as much as 200 pounds of gold were onboard the SS Pacific. In 2022 after a dozen offshore expeditions, the wreck has been found and Hummel’s company Rockfish Inc. has been granted salvage rights by U.S. Courts. Much of the technology required to find the wreck was built by Hummel and his team including the robotic dive vehicles. ‘In terms of the ship itself, it is an incredible state of preservation’, says Hummel. ‘We expect to find items made of leather, items made of clothing, items made of wool, perhaps bottles of wine with the corks still in them., it is beyond anyone's imagination of what's actually there, its' all there’. A group of 45 subscribers have financed the project to date. Hummel says they have spent about $2.1 million getting to this point and expects to spend $6-8 million to finish the project. Once the recovery of the SS Pacific is complete, the Northwest Shipwreck Alliance of which Hummel is a founder, hopes to create a museum dedicated to the SS Pacific. ‘The Puget Sound area has a great maritime history to it, strangely enough, there isn't a maritime museum, dedicated to that legacy’, said Hummel. ‘We want to build a large complex with a hotel and convention center. We have the right wreck to be the centerpiece of this project.’ If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this edition of ‘Today in B.C.’ host Peter McCully talks with Pindy Janda, Vice President of the B.C. Pharmacy Association about the nationwide shortage of children’s medications and new prescriptive powers for pharmacists. Janda says when it comes to the shortages of children’s pain and fever meds, it’s a combination of things that have resulted in a perfect storm for demand of the products. ‘We've had increased demand since the pandemic started in 2020 and then this year has just been unprecedented with numbers of patients getting the flu and the RSV infection, then the caregivers end up getting sick after the children are.’ says Janda. Pharmacists can offer advice with using alternatives and generic brands and Janda offers insight into the different symptoms and treatments for Covid, RSV and Influenza. More than one million people in the province are without a family doctor, this past October Pharmacists received expanded powers to extend prescriptions and this spring pharmacists will be able to prescribe for minor ailments, something the B.C. Pharmacy Association has been lobbying the Provincial Government for. Janda said, ‘Alberta's had prescribing rights and expanded scope of practice for years. They were ahead of us with administering vaccinations at pharmacies, when you see it happening next door, it's very much what about us? We have the same standard of education.’ If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this edition of ‘Today in B.C.’ host Peter McCully talks with singer Jess Moskaluke. The Saskatchewan performer had stops in British Columbia on her recent national concert tour talked about the influence of Shania Twain, Terri Clark, LeAnn Rimes and Martina McBride.  “I grew up in the nineties where all those fantastic powerhouse women were very popular and successful, that's what I grew up knowing country music as,” said Moskaluke. “So that was right around the time where Shania had her international album, her pop album and her country album, all which featured the same songs. So that kind of led me to believe that country is more about the content of the song than it should be about the production.” The 32-year-old singer talks about the album ‘Demos’, released during the pandemic, which she described as a peek behind the curtain into her songwriting process. ‘What we had done was done a deep dive into my catalog of songs that I had already written, and we hadn't yet fully recorded for whatever reason,” she said. “So what we decided to do was to take those songs, revamp them from afar since we already had the demos and then show people what a demo of a song looks like the day that you write it versus the day that you were recording it.’ The podcast features the acoustic version of the single ‘Knockoff’, in which the singer’s manager appears in a ‘Jess Moskaluke Lookalike Contest’.  “I didn’t win, but I’m still happy in the end,” said Moskaluke. While on tour Moskaluke was given an award for having 100 million streams of her digital catalog, and was asked how she felt about that. ‘I feel like I haven't really had time to even fully digest what the magnitude of that really means,” she said. If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this edition of ‘Today in B.C.’ host Peter McCully talks with the Green Party of Canada leader, Elizabeth May. Stephanie May, Elizabeth’s mother, was a prominent activist in New York during the 1950s and was successful in helping to getting a nuclear test ban treaty. “It's like being the daughter of a family of cobblers,” said Elizabeth May. “I'm going to know a lot about shoes. Being the daughter of Stephanie May, an activist.  It was totally my direction. It was charted at about age two.” McCully asked May about serving as leader of the Green Party for a second time after retiring as leader in 2019.  “I have to say this, Peter, I ran not because the party was in turmoil  or I was the saviour person to show up,” she said. “I needed to have the credibility and the profile of Leader of the Green Party in Parliament to be able to have an effective voice at the national level on issues that are critical and time is running out and there are many of them.” In 2019, May married John Kidder, one of the founders of the B.C. Green party, and says she and her husband wrote a book together last year. “We end up debating ideas and we wrote a book together that came out last year,” said May. “It's in the ‘Dummies’ series, Climate Change for Dummies, that was really hard work, and one of the reasons it was hard work was we kept coming up with new ideas, researching them, and then we had to convince the ‘Dummies’’ people that we could dumb down these new ideas and put them in a ‘Dummies’ book.” The wide-ranging interview includes May’s take on the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Rowe vs. Wade, and the COP 15 Biodiversity talks in Montreal. If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bob McDonald has been working as a science journalist and an author for more than 30 years, most notably as the host of the CBC television program ‘Quirks and Quarks’. “What we need is longterm thinking,” McDonald tells ‘Today in B.C.’ host Peter McCully, discussing how to solve the planet’s climate crisis. “Energy in the future is going to come from a lot of different sources. It's going come from the sun, the wind, the tides the earth, waves, whatever. That's the future. It's going to be multiple and fossil fuels will be part of that.” The book is called The Future is Now: Solving the Climate Crisis With Today’s Technologies and discusses carbon fuels, biofuels, wind, tides, solar, nuclear and other alternative energy sources. “Let's get over the fears and just move ahead with it and evolve our technology,” said McDonald. “I really believe we can do that. We've been to the moon and back, for God's sakes.  We're very clever, we're really smart. So let's evolve our technology and prevent another mass extinction event, which would be us.” When asked if the opportunity arose for a seat on ‘Blue Origin’ and a trip to space, McDonald said: “I'll be there in a heartbeat, it's been my dream to get into space.”  If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Host Peter McCully talks with Lucy and Stewart MacNeil about their Christmas concert tour that began on Vancouver Island and ended on Cape Breton Island.  The siblings are from Cape Breton Island and began performing together in 1980 while still teenagers (Lucy being only 10) and are classically trained musicians and alumni of Mount Allison University. “There's lots of different parts of Christmas that we can draw from in our shows, and I think that's why it comes across as natural and because we are drawing on real things,  it's not Tinsel Town,” said Lucy. “I do think that, as Canadians, there's something about our climate where we live and the expanse of the land we do share,” added Stewart. “There's things about the Christmas season and the darkness that comes and how it's so important for people to experience the comforts of home cooking, the smells, the sights, the lights, the sounds. These are things that get us through the dark months.” The podcast includes two tunes, ‘Toonik Tyme’ from the live album ‘Sessions’ (inspired by the Toonik Tyme Festival in Iqaluit) and ‘O Holy Night’. The Barra MacNeils won their first East Coast Music Award in 1991, and won a Juno Award for Album of the Year for TimeFrame in 1992, and a Group of the Year award in 2001.  Their 1993 album ‘Closer To Paradise’ earned gold record status. They have been an opening act for Céline Dion and have toured regularly across North America and Europe. If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment. Toonik Time – MacNeil, O Holy Night - Adolphe AdamSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this edition of ‘Today in B.C.’, host Peter McCully chats with Carlow Rush and Jacksun Fryer, better known as ‘Funkanometry’. The Vancouver Island duo have competed on ‘World of Dance’ and most recently “America’s Got Talent’. When asked what he would be doing if he wasn’t dancing, Rush (who’s from Duncan) said: “I can't even answer that question. I don't even know what my life would be without dance, because it's literally all I do, just dance. I got a lot of the eggs in the dance basket though, hopefully it goes well.” Fryer, from Nanaimo, has a couple of hometown friends who competed on the TV show ‘American Idol’ - Cameron Whitcomb and his former prom date, Lauren Spencer-Smith. “It would be cool to put something together,” said Fryer. “We've made some videos with Lauren way back in the day.” Both Jackson and Rush teach dance, as well as performing as Funkanometry. You’ll find Funkanometry on YouTube, TikTok and Facebook.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early 1980s, teenager Peter Ducommun moved from Nanaimo to Vancouver to open PD’s Hot Shop with his late brother Rick, who later moved to Los Angeles for a career in comedy and acting. Now world-renowned, Skull Skates produces skateboards in smaller runs by choice. “Our stuff is made in Canada,” said Peter Ducommun. “It's worth saying because unfortunately the majority of the industry, I'm talking sort of 90 per cent now, make their skateboards in places like China and Mexico. We don't necessarily care where they're made. It's just that when you take something offshore and produce it in a large quantity, as most of the other brands do, it’s very difficult to maintain any kind of quality control at a level that we'd like to keep it at.” PD’s Hot Shop has two locations in British Columbia, in Vancouver and Qualicum Beach and one in Japan, said Ducommun. “We've always been connected with the music scene,” he said. “Which is how we got into putting out boards for different bands, but that's something that our Japan shop has really picked up and run with. They do, I think, two to four major national tours a year with several bands. It could be six to eight bands and half-a-dozen different dates.” Host Peter McCully asked Ducommun if still takes the occasional ride on the board at age 60. “As long as I'm breathing, I'm going ride a skateboard,” he said. “It's one of those things that once it enters your system, it's a hard thing to shake. I like to skate as much as I can. I don't skate in the rain and I don't do the kind of things that I used to do, but it doesn't matter, man.” If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this edition of ‘Today in B.C.’, host Peter McCully talks with Terrace Standard reporter Michael Bramadat-Willcock, who sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Originally from Calgary, Poilievre became active in politics at age 16 when he sold Reform Party memberships for Jason Kenney. He later worked as an advisor to Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day. Poilievre shared his thoughts and positions on a number of topics including LNG, pipelines, reconciliation and the ongoing inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act. If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca and you may be part of our audio podcast mailbag segment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Katrinia Kadoski lived in Clayoquot Sound for three years, caretaking ‘Cougar Annie’ Jordan’s garden, immersing herself in the folklore surrounding the legendary pioneer, while living off the grid. In her performance, Kadoski uses dramatic narrative, images, letters and original compositions to celebrate the life of pioneer Ada Annie Jordan, who earned her nickname by shooting dozens of cougars to supplement her income. On this edition of ‘Today in B.C.’, host Peter McCully asked Kadoski about the legend of ‘Cougar Annie’. “She was five foot two and had hands like a logger,” said Kadoski. “You hear the stories about hunting a cougar in the middle of the night and how it had two toes in the trap and how her son Lawrie was killed, and that the person that killed him ended up getting eaten by a cougar and the buttons of that guy's coat fell out of the belly when she skinned it open. It's these sort of things that you can't really make up that tend to live on for a long time in people's imaginations. I think it's ultimately what this story does to somebody's imagination. I think that's what makes it a bit infectious.” The California-born Jordan settled in the Clayoquot coastal rainforest in 1915 with her first husband and three young children. A five-acre garden she carved out of the wilderness provided food and income throughout her long life. She gave birth to eight more children in the remote location and rarely left the property until old age and blindness forced her to relocate to Port Alberni, where she died at the age of 97. Jordan was anything but a typical woman. She trapped more than 70 cougars, homesteaded a rainforest bog, opened a remote post office and outlived four husbands. Kadoski has been a musician from an early age, and recently released a box set of four albums, three of which were recorded during the pandemic, the single ‘Moonbeams’ is featured during the interview. If you have suggestions or comments, send a voice message to podcast@blackpress.ca you may be part See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.