Pandemiversity
by Erinn Sturgeon There is no downplaying the major effect that the Coronavirus pandemic is having on people around the globe, university students included. For those of us who thought we’d be in a classroom knocking off a final exam right about now, the complications have been innumerable: Courses cancelled or transferred online, roommates who […]
Run Maria, Run
By Maria Elsser My mother would get up every morning at 5 a.m. to run 10 kilometres along the sleepy streets of Salt Spring Island before the sun rose. It wasn’t enough that she was raising four wild children, or that she single-handedly ran a three-acre farm. It wasn’t like she had endless time at […]
Please, No Frozen Graveyard For Me
By Rose Willow Photos: Anthony Hutchins As another autumn approached and the otters splashed in the little cove in front of our house, and the sky turned crimson at dusk, Tony refilled our glasses with homemade blackberry wine, and brought up the […]
The Man in the Pictures
“Hard to look at these, I miss him still.”
My mother’s sad tone seeps through as I read these words in her e-mail, accompanied by photos of a man who wears the same smile that she often does. The build of his body is similar to that of my Aunt Joan — tall and lanky. The man sits surrounded by friends in the myriad of photos, […]
The Youngest Ventriloquist in the World
By Alexandria Stuart The air in England’s West Midlands in 1907 was thick with the dust of coal fires. Once-white bedclothes, hung to dry, took on a shadowy tinge of grey. In a Birminghan home, in a spartan bedroom, the figure seated in a straight-back wooden chair towered over Ivy Johnson. The little girl stretched […]
Home Again
By Alexandria Stuart Nanaimo was in the middle of a heat wave as my boyfriend Sean and I set out on our “nearcation” to northern Vancouver Island, A/C on high. The familiar landscape of coastal British Columbia flew by: Moss-draped forests alternated with scabs of clear-cut, blanketed in pink fireweed as the land tried to heal […]
Home Again (Part Two)
The village of Sointula, Malcolm Island’s main port, looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. Brightly coloured sea shacks dotted the waterfront and the homes lining the main street, sitting on small, tidy fenced lots, were gaily painted. Sointula, meaning “place of harmony,” was settled in the early 1900s by Finnish immigrants fleeing […]
Seizure Salad
By Katelyn Ross Looking at the calendar, I’m reminded it’s been a stressful month. Many of the days when I should have been at school are marked with a yellow highlighter. The semester is ending and I’m under pressure and scrambling to catch up. I’ve missed my Creative Writing class almost every week. Today I […]