British Columbia Magazine

To contributing editor Larry Pynn, this grainy colour slide from 1986, taken in remote northwestern British Columbia’s Mount Edziza Provincial Park, is proof that outdoor equipment has come a long way, baby.

“I’m shown wearing a tasteless yellow-and-white baseball hat, bold-striped shirt, wool army-surplus pants and, gather ’round kids, an external-frame backpack.” With every step he took, that aluminum frame knocked against his head.

“I remember a lot about the first big hiking trip,” he adds. “My sleeping bag rolling down into a crater, a July snowstorm so thick we had to make camp where we stood, and wading through a chest-high swamp because we took the wrong valley coming down off the Mount Edziza plateau. But you know, I can’t remember a thing about that crappy little external frame backpack [aside from the head bumping]. Maybe gear isn’t the be-all and end-all of a great hiking trip, after all.”

Agreed. Though dare I suggest that our intrepid “Outdoor Advisor” might have looked just a bit happier in this photo had he been sporting a modern internal frame pack with cushy straps, ventilated panels, and weight-transfer technology?

Larry examines such modern features as applied to the day pack–which has evolved alongside multi-day packs–in the Fall 2011 issue. See “Day pack buying basics” for his tips on choosing size, panel configuration, hydration compatibility, material, and more.

The Summer 2011 issue of British Columbia Magazine has hit B.C. newsstands (and once the Canadian postal strike ends, subscribers should begin receiving their copies too). Our featured contributor for the issue is photographer Byron Fry:

At age 23, Fry is already pursuing a second vocation. Call him a Renaissance man–or simply a photographer who discovered that he loves baking bread in a wood-fired oven.

Fry, also a vintage motorcycle aficionado, is now spending his days building a farm-based artisan bakery in his hometown of Metchosin, outside of Victoria. Both of Fry’s grandfathers were bakers, which may explain his affinity for kneading dough.

But before Fry became a baker, he travelled to the Broken Group of islands in Barkley Sound to bring us images from an exciting archaeological dig (”Secrets of the Sound”). Fry had first noticed the project mentioned on a University of Victoria website and was eventually invited to photograph the dig. “The work they were doing was so fascinating, and the place itself, the Broken islands, was so captivating.”

The highlight for Fry was walking around rarely visited islands on old lookout trails, the paths worn from centuries of First Nations’ habitation.

“I’m just happy to have been part of that project,” says Fry. “And I am really happy for people to see what was going on up there.”

Check out Fry’s six-minute long slideshow in which he shares additional images, as well as sound recordings, from the assignment.

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.

To celebrate the launch of our Spring 2009 issue—including a truly unique travel piece on Saltspring Island—we’re inviting readers to enter our Saltspring Getaway Contest. You could win a $200 gift card for accommodation on this charming Gulf Island, plus $50 in spending money, and a chance to meet artist/author Nick Bantock, creator of the international bestselling Griffin & Sabine books. Click here for complete contest details; open to adult residents of Canada, excluding Quebec.

When we invited Nick Bantock to create original artwork for our spring feature, “Nick Bantock’s Saltspring,” we could hardly wait for the results. The artist is known worldwide for his collages. The wonderful abstract images he created to depict Saltspring, his island home, are indicative of how the artist sees the world. For Bantock, it is more meaningful to convey the essence of a place than to provide a literal view.

“If you show someone a photograph of a tree next to a beach in front of the water on Saltspring,” he says, “you’re not giving them anything other than ‘This is how it is.’”

To represent Ganges, Saltspring’s main commercial centre, the artist dreamed up a new species: the “flizzard”—half lizard, half fish. “In summer, Ganges is very much a tourist place, but in winter, it’s more for the locals, so I created a creature that’s half and half, to represent its duality.”

Evocative, imaginative, and mysterious, the final artwork beautifully evokes the spirit of Saltspring Island. See Bantock’s delightful creations in our online photo gallery. To see more of Bantock’s artwork, visit his Saltspring studio/gallery, The Forgetting Room (250-537-0096), or browse his website: www.nickbantock.com

Assistant Editor Shanna Baker profiles regular contributor Rosemary Neering, who wrote about Victoria’s fabled Empress Hotel for our Winter issue: 

When long-time Victoria resident Rosemary Neering moved from Ontario to British Columbia in 1965,  she didn’t expect to stay long. “I got hooked by the history, by the absurd, unbelievable, interesting, unexpected stories this province has…. It’s like the continents tips this way and all the strange ones end up out here.” 

The veteran history writer shares the landmark hotel’s spicy history in “A century of secrets at the Empress Hotel.” Employees were eager to assist with the research, she says. “I got tremendous cooperation from people at the Empress saying, ‘Hey, let me tell you about this, this was really neat.’”

Not all the secrets were from the past, though, and some she simply couldn’t reveal. “That’s another reason for writing history,” she adds with a grin. “Dead people can’t sue.”  

Larry Pynn was in Tofino last weekend, testing out the waves at Long Beach, British Columbia’s best-known surf spot. And while it may not appear from this photo that our contributing editor was hard at work, the trip was all in the name of research. Pynn will write about hanging-ten and the like for a future Outdoor Advisor column in British Columbia Magazine.

This was only the second time the Tsawwassen-based writer has tested himself on a longboard. In 2001, a high-school friend living in Hawaii introduced him to Maui’s breakers. Pynn clenched his teeth so hard at the sight of each oncoming wave that he threw his jaw out.

This time, he benefited from the guidance of Sepp Bruhwiler of Tofino’s Westside Surf School and even managed a few times to stand on the board and travel several metres before “bailing out” in the shallows.

(You may not have been riding the big kahuna, Larry, but we’re proud of you just the same.)

“I had a great time” says Pynn of his surfing exploits. “My only regrets are that you can’t hide anything in a wetsuit, and that I live so far away from Tofino’s crashing surf.”

Larry Pynn of Tsawwassen got his first motorcycle, a 50cc Suzuki street bike, when he was 15.

“I immediately proceeded to drive it straight into a barbed-wire fence.”  A little older, questionably wiser, the veteran journalist rode his Harley-Davidson Sportster in the 24-hour, 1,600-kilometre Vancouver Island trip he profiles in “The Iron Butt” in our Fall 2008 issue.

This was Pynn’s second official Iron Butt Motorcycling Association ride–though after the first in 2004, he swore he wouldn’t do another one. How did his posterior fare this time?

“I felt pretty good, he says, adding, “I may have two Iron Butts, but I’m still working on my ‘Buns of Steel’.”

If you would like to know more about Pynn, a long-time journalist with the Vancouver Sun newspaper, check out his new blog: http://vancouversun.com/gonewild

Almost as soon as Jane Nahirny joined British Columbia Magazine as associate editor last December, she set to work researching “Our history in pictures,” a visual record of life in British Columbia over the past century and a half. Nahirny, a journalist and editor of 20 years, uncovered the stories behind the dozens of images selected for the essay, published in the Summer 2008 issue (on newsstands soon).

“Many times when I was working on developing the captions I would be moved to actual tears over the struggles–the lepers, city planners overlooking the smouldering remains of Vancouver, Terry Fox with his strength and courage.”

Collectively, the Saltspring Islander says, the archival photographs reveal a distinct spirit of tenacity, resourcefulness, and enterprise in the people–qualities that still hold true today.”There’s a real ‘can do’ attitude in this province….I see that in British Columbians I meet today, and I saw it in the British Columbians I met as I worked on this feature.” 

For a sample of images included in “Our history in pictures,” visit our “B.C. history” online photo gallery. 

Frances Backhouse had an advantage when working on our Spring 2008 wildlife stories–a biology degree.   ”Having the background knowledge allows me to focus on what’s happening right in front of me; I’m not sort of trying to fill in the background at the same time. It helps me know what questions to ask and what avenues of investigation to pursue,” she explains.

Though she once spent an intensive five months studying grizzlies as a biologist in the Khutzeymateen bear sanctuary (see “Grizzlies in paradise“), Backhouse was equally enamoured with sharp-tailed grouse (”Dances with grouse“). “Just being out there–Jared (photographer Jared Hobbs) and I and the grouse, and no one else around–was really special.”

The Victoria-based writer says she is happiest when her two passions combine. “Approaching the natural world as a biologist or as a writer sort of has the same effect for me. It focuses my attention and makes me observe more closely, using all my senses.”