British Columbia Magazine

At British Columbia Magazine, we spend a great deal of time thinking about you, Our Readers. Would Our Readers prefer to see this stunning scenic photograph, or that one? Would Our Readers enjoy an article on Topic A—or is Topic B the better choice? Will this caption (or headline or sentence) be clear to Our Readers? Have we provided all the information Our Readers will require to fully understand the topic? And on it goes.

So when we get letters from you, telling us that you’re enjoying the magazine, it makes our day! We share them around the office and then get back to work with renewed vigour. Your constructive criticism is just as valuable as your praise—we take all feedback seriously.

In each issue, we include a selection of letters we’ve received from Our Readers, but there is never enough space to run them all. That’s where our website becomes useful. To see a full array of recent letters to the editor, visit www.bcmag.ca/issue.

While you’re online, click to our Contact Us page and take a moment to let us know what YOU think of the magazine. Include the subject line “Mailbox” and we might include your comments in an upcoming edition of the magazine.

Photographer David R. Gluns, whose work is featured in “Kootenays: 4 treks, 4 seasons” in our Spring 2010 issue, is a man with multiple interests. He’s a forest hydrologist, a pilot, a world traveller, a hiker, skier, all-round outdoorsman—even a former trekking guide in the Himalayas.

It’s not surprising then, that when it comes to photography, this sharpshooter prefers not to limit himself to any one type of subject matter. The downside to being a generalist? He needs a lot of gear—so much, in fact, that Gluns has devoted 2.5 rooms in his Nelson home to his photography! The contents of his camera bag on any given day depends on what he’ll be shooting, and where.

So just what does he pack in his camera bag for a day hike into the Kootenay wilds around his home? Click here to read our full web-exclusive article and find out!

[photo: Dave Wagg/Off Piste]

There are perks to being the designated photographer on a backcountry ski trip: the right to lay the first tracks in fresh powder. For our Winter 2009 article “The powderful Purcells,” David R. Gluns got to work and play in the mountains just outside his home in Nelson.

Between runs (and the occasional face-plant) Gluns snapped some breathtaking shots of the Purcell Mountains and of skiers at play on the snowy slopes. See our “Powderful Purcells” photo gallery for a selection of his best images.

For more on our Winter 2009 issue, click here.

Karen Davies of Victoria, winner of our Saltspring Island Getaway Contest, recently travelled to the southern Gulf Island with husband, Dai, to claim her prize. Karen and Dai met with resident artist/author Nick Bantock, creator of the bestselling Griffin & Sabine series of books, and subject of our Spring 2009 “Nick Bantock’s Saltspring” feature article. At Bantock’s airy Ganges studio, the threesome quickly fell into conversation about life, art, and politics.

“We were really surprised at Nick’s down-to-earth nature and lack of ego,” said Karen. “He’s very stimulating to be with.”

The gallery has a “happy feel” that invites discovery, Karen observed. “We loved the texture of Nick’s work,” she added. ”He creates the sort of pictures you want to be involved with, rather than just look at. . . . Nick was also very generous in the way he told us about how he works.”

The winner’s prize also included a stay at the Harbour House Hotel and $50 in Saltspring currency. Karen used the colourful bills to buy herself two of Bantock’s out-of-print Griffin & Sabine books, which, of course, Bantock personally inscribed.

The next morning, the couple visited Saltspring’s famous Saturday market, then kayaked to nearby Chocolate Beach.  All in all, it was, Karen sighed, a “wonderful getaway.”

Our adventurous Contributing Editor Larry Pynn has been welcomed into the Explorers Club. Based in New York, the multi-disciplinary club includes about 3,000 members in more than 60 countries; its honorary chair is the late Sir Edmund Hillary, first to climb Mount Everest in 1953. The organization was founded in 1904 to promote advancement in research, scientific exploration, and “the instinct to explore.”

It’s certainly not the first prestigious nomination for Pynn, also a longtime environment reporter for Vancouver Sun. He has received 15 journalism awards, including the Jack Webster Award for excellence in British Columbia journalism.

Some of his top adventures, Pynn says, have been in service of British Columbia Magazine. He made first ascents of three unnamed peaks—the tallest more than 2,400 metres–while researching an article for us on Clendinning Provincial Park, northwest of Whistler. (See “The Clendinning challenge,” Spring 2004.). To write “Pinballing down the Pitt” (Fall 2005), he made the first-known descent of the upper Pitt River, Greater Vancouver’s most remote tributary.

Other major journalistic exploits include a 19-day hike through the Northwest Territories on the Canol Trail, and exploration by kayak and foot of Sirmilik National Park in Canada’s high Arctic, north of Baffin Island. Pynn has also researched and written two non-fiction books: The Forgotten Trail: One Man’s Adventures on the Canadian Route to the Klondike and Last Stands: A Journey Through North America’s Vanishing Ancient Rainforests.

No question: our contributing editor is an adventurer of the first order. Congratulations, Larry!

Editorial staff never know what they’ll be asked to do—it’s part of the fun of working on a magazine. For our two new billboards in downtown Vancouver and a video spot now running on BC Ferries’ customer-information monitors, Associate Editor Jenny Manzer contributed . . . her legs.

Art Director Ken Seabrook designed the delightful ad, and Assistant Editor Shanna Baker photographed Manzer’s gams.

Manzer, better known for her editing and writing skills than her work as a leg model, notes wryly, “When Shanna pulled me into Ken’s office, where the rest of the staff had gathered, I knew something ominous was about to happen.”

Manzer may have been a tad reluctant to pose for the ad, but as rockers ZZ Top famously crooned, “She’s got legs . . . she knows how to use them.”

Thanks for being such a good sport, Jenny!

Click here to learn more about that exciting contest.

Our former editorial intern, Meghan Stothers, is the poster girl for Victoria’s Bike to Work Week this month. Meghan was the model cycling commuter while on staff with us, earning frequent fashion kudos for cycling to work in stylish skirts and heels. Meghan appears in the poster below with her daughter and a colleague at her new job with the Ministry of Environment.

Cycling commuters in close to 20 communities across the province will get into gear for Bike to Work Week, May 11 to 17. As of May 7, more than 530 teams had registered to participate in the Victoria event.

Bike to Work Week promotes cycling and the many benefits of two-wheeled travel, including reduced traffic congestion and pollution, and improved personal health. “Celebration stations” with food and drinks are part of the fun.

In June, Vancouver cyclists can become part of an installation at the Vancouver Museum entitled “Velo-City, Vancouver and the Bicycle Revolution.” The photographic exhibition, running June 4 to September 7, will explore “Vancouver’s human-powered revolution that’s changing the way people experience and relate to the city, their neighbourhoods, and to their own bodies.” Submit a photo of yourself and your ride online and answer a few questions to join the revolution.

As the editor of a magazine with 120,000 subscribers worldwide, I get a lot of mail. Most of it is electronic these days, so parcels by post tend to be something of a treat. And the one that came this week from Yourincontrol Holdings of Kimberley, British Columbia, was the most delightful package I’ve received since a reader mailed me a piece of what he hoped I could confirm was fossilized lynx poop.

Yourincontrol is the Canadian distributor of the Shewee—a sample of which the makers included in the parcel. According to the accompanying press release, “The Shewee is an ergonomically designed, molded plastic device that allows women to urinate while standing up, and without removing clothes.” The narrow, 17-centimetre-long funnel device looks rather like a small tool used to plant delicate seeds in the garden.

I’m having so much fun showing this around to people, I haven’t been able to bring myself to take it home to try it. The reactions are exquisitely amusing. Amazement. Disbelief. Horror. Feminist triumph.

“I blush just looking at it,” said Assistant Editor Shanna Baker, when I asked if she would like to blog about the product.

The inventor, 29-year-old Samatha Fountain—I kid you not, her name is Fountain—says the idea for the Shewee came to her while she was backpacking in Europe.

“It struck me how much easier it was for a guy to go to the toilet in a place where there were no facilities or nowhere to squat behind, so I came up with a way of effectively urinating like a man.”

I can’t testify as to the effectiveness of the Shewee, and we generally avoid editorial endorsements of products, anyway. But should you decide to buy one ($14.00 plus tax online at www.shewee.ca), please, pretty please, drop a comment here to let us know how it works out for you. 

Last week, CBC Radio invited British Columbia Magazine to share some budget-conscious spring-break travel ideas on their B.C. Almanac program. The half hour flew by as I chatted with host Mark Forsythe and listened to some great tips from callers.

As I said to CBC listeners, B.C. residents can view local travel as an opportunity, not a hardship, during these economically uncertain times. Travellers come from around the globe to enjoy what we have right on our doorsteps.

In our magazine’s Spring 2009 issue, international publishing sensation Nick Bantock—creator of the Griffin & Sabine books—demonstrates just how rewarding local travel can be on a whimsical tour of Saltspring Island, his Gulf Island home. You can read the full story online—and don’t miss the chance to enter our Saltspring Getaway Contest!

Here are some other ideas we shared on B.C. Almanac. There are exciting opportunities for every budget and in every region of the province—and plenty of good reading here on our website for even more ideas.

Vancouver Island

* Quirky alleyways of Victoria’s Chinatown are fun to explore with children; small imported toys for pocket change.

* Great deals on Victoria hotels; check in with Tourism Victoria online.

* Intriguing shores . . . for beachcombing and viewing eagles, seals, otters. Read associate editor Jenny Manzer’s article about Qualicum Beach.

Vancouver, Coast, and Mountains

* Vancouver: Daytrip to Granville Island’s sensory-rich public market on the fun little False Creek Ferries.

* Walking the Seawall is always free. Give the kids coloured pencils to makes sketches of the Stanley Park totem poles.

* XÁ:YTEM Longhouse Interpretive Centre in Mission: tours, workshops, pithouses, Transformer Stone.

* Check out Hostelling International Canada’s selection of budget B.C. accommodation. We also hear good things about The Upper Deck Guesthouse hostel on the Sunshine Coast.

Thompson Okanagan

* At Big White and Silver Star ski hills, purchase adult accommodation and lift tickets during spring break, and children 12 and under can ski for free.

* Cross-country ski or snowshoe on the Kettle Valley Rail Trail.

* Look for Ogopogo, the Loch Ness-like monster of Okanagan Lake. Bring binoculars.

Kootenay-Rockies

* Nakusp Hot Springs is open year round. Cheapest dip? Wednesdays, $4/person. Bring a self-contained camper for off-season stays, just $18/night.

* Two-night family packages at Fairmont Hot Springs; $368 for two adults and two children—includes “eco-adventure” activities such as wildlife tracking and snowshoe fondue.

* For snowshoeing, skiing, or winter camping, B.C. parks around the province offer a cheap and satisfying family outing. See assistant editor Shanna Baker’s profile of six top winter parks in Frosty escapes, online.

Cariboo Chilcotin Coast

*The Cariboo-Chilcotin region has some of B.C.’s best cross-country skiing. Historic Barkerville is closed in winter, but the restored buildings of the old townsite make for an intriguing ski destination.

Northern British Columbia

* Just outside of Prince George, Sugarbowl-Grizzly Den Provincial Park is a premier backcountry skiing and snowshoeing destination. Read our full magazine profile of Sugar Bowl-Grizzly Den online.

* Check out the Ski and Stay in Spring packages at Hudson Bay Mountain in Smithers, promising “sun, snow, and savings.”

As we approach the end of 2008, we would like to thank our loyal readers and magazine contributors for their support of British Columbia Magazine this year. We wish you all a wonderful holiday season and look forward to welcoming you back in 2009.

It’s going to be an exciting year, with our Summer 2009 issue marking the magazine’s 50th year of publication. That’s right: we’re turning 50! We have all kinds of exciting editorial content planned, so stay tuned: you won’t want to miss a thing!