Legalize pot? History repeats itself on west coast

10. August 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, Field Notes, Science Scribe, Vancouver Island, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Victoria from cathedral tower, 1897, from http://www.vintag.es/2012/09/old-photographs-of-canada-from-1858-1935.html
Victoria from cathedral tower, 1897, from http://www.vintag.es/2012/09/old-photographs-of-canada-from-1858-1935.html

Victoria from cathedral tower, 1897, before the mudflats where the Empress now stands were filled in and the causeway built. Victoria was home to a thriving opium-processing industry at this time, yielding substantial revenues for the federal government in Ottawa.

Four former mayors of Vancouver, three former attorneys-general, and municipal councils. All have gone on record supporting the decriminalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana in British Columbia. And now Federal Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau has pushed debate on the issue one step further, stating the drug should be legalized.

And thanks to all these letters and statements, residents of Greater Victoria get to watch history repeating itself. We have front-row seats in this latest development in our region’s long historical association with officially sanctioned production and trade in drugs.

For almost 50 years, beginning in the 1860s, Victoria reigned as the opium capital of the New World. Fifteen Chinese-owned refineries operated between Herald and Johnson streets in the late-1880s, and employed dozens of workers. In one year alone, they refined about 41,000 kg of opium. Okay, nowhere near the magnitude of output of B.C. Bud today, but significant for the time. …

Read the rest of this article in the Victoria Times Colonist….

Scarcity of mosquitos a quiet secret in Victoria

13. July 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, In the Field, Science Scribe, Vancouver Island, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , ,
Mosquito. Photo by Eli Christman (Gamma Man), Creative Commons

Mosquito. Photo by Eli Christman (Gamma Man), Creative Commons

“Incredible,” she said. “It’s evening, we’re eating outside, and THERE ARE NO MOSQUITOS. We’d never be able to do this down east. We’d be eaten alive.”

“it’s Victoria’s secret,” I told her. “If the rest of the country knew how few and how lame our mosquitos were, we’d be overrun.”

When Nature Boy and I moved to Victoria from Small Prairie Town, Alberta, we marveled at the lack of window screens in houses here.

It wasn’t until summer that we learned the reason. Victoria, we discovered in our own screenless home, boasted many annoying flies, huge spiders, and endless trails of tiny ants, but few nippers and biters.

Hooray! Nature Boy cheered, and promptly went out and fired up the barbecue. He’s one of those useful people the rest of us like to have around in mosquito-infested territories. The bugs love him above all other warm-blooded animals within carbon dioxide-sniffing distance. It’s just part of his animal magneticism.

We’d discovered another reason to be smug about living here.

But we don’t talk about it. Not only would the rest of Canada not believe us, but we wouldn’t want to call down the wrath of the gods by boasting about our good fortune or anything.

 

Continue reading this piece at the Victoria Times Colonist….

 

 

Victoria food scene titillates whole-body flavour sensations

05. July 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, Keiran's World, Science Scribe, Vancouver Island, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Food being prepared at an open-air food stall. Photo by Jirka Matousak

Victoria recently licensed 26 mobile food vendors to ply downtown residents and workers with grab-and-go lunches. Although a far cry from the 114 wheeled eateries licensed to operate on Vancouver’s downtown streets, it’s a welcome start.

Whether we’re eating tacos from the Puerto Vallarta Amigos truck at Yates and Wharf streets, snacking on a perogy sandwich from the Hungry Rooster on Courtney Street, or buying lunch from other vendors set up on private, and now city, property, we’ve long credited our mouths for our ability to taste. The tongue’s taste buds are tiny locks awaiting to be fitted with the sweet, sour, salty, bitter or umami (meaty) keys that are now considered the five major taste groups.

However, our sense of taste contributes only the broadest brushstrokes to what we call flavour. Flavour, say researchers presenting at the American Chemical Society’s annual shin-digs, is a complex, intricate, sublime sensation–combination.

 

Read the rest of this article in the Victoria Times Colonist….

(and let me know if this link doesn’t work)

Plant prolificity = something to sneeze at

15. June 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, In the Field, Science Scribe, Vancouver Island, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Plant-pollen particle. Pphoto by yellowikis, Creative Commons

Plant-pollen particle. Pphoto by yellowikis, Creative Commons

I’m allergic to plant sex. Specifically, plant sex of the windblown variety. Even more specifically, grass sex.

Lucky me, the Aerobiology Research Laboratories report high levels of grass pollen in Victoria this week, so I’m keeping eye drops and hankies on hand. The Ottawa-based labs use measurements of plant pollen in cities across Canada to track and predict local week-by-week allergy severity.

With so much of Victoria’s landscape bursting into bloom at this time of year, we could celebrate a Spring Sneeze-Up following April’s Blossom Count.

Flowers are plants’ naughty bits, after all. Because plants suffer from mobility issues, they take advantage of wind, rain and animal pollinators to help them do the deed and make plant  embryos, or seeds.

We who suffer from airborne-pollen misery are merely immunologically protesting the presence of abundant, floating sperm released by plants without regard to Victorian propriety or the neighbours.

Continue reading this post at the Victoria Times Colonist….

 

 

 

In an area with many small municipalities, regional governance may endure

01. June 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, In the Field, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , ,

Here on the coast, where concerns about frost pass sooner, the warm-weather construction season begins earlier than most places in Canada.

At home, Nature Boy and I are moving on to Book 3 in the ongoing saga of our kitchen renovation. Outside, we get to experience snarled-up traffic due to the year-by-year march of road-repair projects throughout the region.

According to my property-tax bill, the region and municipalities accepted the necessity of upgrading subsurface infrastructure years ago. Those upgrades (and the tax notice) are other seasonal highlights.

 

Read the rest of this column in the Victoria Times Colonist.…

Looking up from Cattle Point

27. April 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, Science Scribe, Vancouver Island, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , ,
Milky Way Galaxy. Photo courtesy of NASA.
Milky Way Galaxy. Photo courtesy of NASA.

The Milky Way Galaxy. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Today is International Astronomy Day. While amateur astronomers around the world will spend the day and evening extolling and exploring the wonders of the night sky, Victoria’s chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada has additional reason to celebrate. After a year of planning, the society and the municipality of Oak Bay have designated our own Cattle Point as the first urban star park in western Canada.

Cattle Point, Oak Bay. Photo by Evan Leeson, www.ecstaticist.com

At night, Cattle Point (see here in the evening) remains a dark refuge within the Greater Victoria urban area. Photo by Evan Leeson, www.ecstaticist.com

Star parks conserve and promote dark skies and the ability to see the stars. They form part of an international initiative to draw awareness to light pollution and its effects on health and quality of life. Star parks in urban areas are rare, due to nearby city lights.

Canada’s only other urban star park is located in Saint John, N.B. Canada’s 14 other dark-sky preserves are found in rural or wilderness areas.

“We’re lucky here,” says Mark Bohlman, who leads the Victoria initiative. “We can see the stars when the weather’s good. There are very few other places in North American cities where you can see the Milky Way.”

….

Read the rest of this column in the Victoria Times Colonist

 

 Other sources, this editorial:

Victoria sky-light quality map

Welcome to Freedom 95, the new early retirement

06. April 2013 · 1 comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , ,
Retirement home for those on the Freedom 95 Plan

Retirement home for those on the Freedom 95 Plan

Living in Victoria, it’s hard to not know somebody living the life of retirement Reilly. Despite more and more younger people coming to the region, the local population remains, on average, older than that of most Canadian cities.

When I moved here, back in the flush of youth, I suddenly found myself with a circle of friends who were, on average, much older than any such circle I’d had before.

They’re all great people.

But I’m going to point out a downside to the difference in our life stages. When you work and many of your friends are retired and retired well, you get to hear them plan their getaways to ski condos, island cottages, on their boats, or somewhere exotic—not for a weekend as you are limited to, but for one, two, three months—oh, heck—maybe a year, while they rent out their mortgage-free homes in Victoria.

But that’s fine. As a gainfully employed individual, you regretfully turn down invitations to join these friends on their adventures because, well, you have to work on Monday. You tuck away the regret, and focus on the hope that, in 10, 20, 30 years —surely no more than that—you will be making those plans and inviting friends along.

Read the rest of this editorial in the Victoria Times Colonist….

 

 

Further reading and sources:

Statistics Canada’s How many years to retirement?

Jonathan Chevreau, Work longer, save more money, Financial Post

CD Howe Institute’s Later retirement: the win–win solution

Where Freedom 55 was conceived

Spring wildflowers, Knockan Hill Park

05. April 2013 · 1 comment · Categories: Hiking, In the Field · Tags: , , , , , , ,
Satin flower, Knockan Hill Park, April 4, 2013

Forget the hundreds of millions of cherry blossoms in Victoria right now: the first wildflowers of the year are blooming on Knockan Hill Park.

Shooting stars, Knockan Hill Park, April 4, 2013

Shooting stars, April 4, 2013

Sea blush, Knockan Hill Park, April 4 2013

Sea blush, April 4 2013

Satin flower, April 4, 2013

Satin flower, April 4, 2013

Satin flower, Knockan Hill Park, April 4, 2013

Satin flower, April 4, 2013

Fawn lily, Knockan HIll Park, April 4 2013

Fawn lily, April 4 2013

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