Planning for the Future
VIU's Master of Community Planning
Rainbows
A Supportive Umbrella for Grieving Children
A nine year old girl whose parents have divorced steps into a room and sits next to another child, an eight year old boy whose mom has just passed away. An older lady walks into the room with coloured jars labelled with different feelings: red for angry, blue for sad, green for scared, yellow for happy, and purple for loved.
She instructs the children to pour each jar that they are feeling into a clear bowl. The nine year old girl pours in a little of each, so does the eight year old boy. The resulting colour of the mixture is brown-ish in hue.
The older lady explains that ...
Karen Battie
A Closer Look
A Fur-riendly Invitation to Kitties & Cream
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Kitties & Cream is partnered with CatNap Society, part of the Catspan Ferals Registered Charity. The cat cafe is not partnered with CatNap at this time, but with Catspan. Also, Catspan is not part of or related to Catnap. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
Feeling stressed? Missing your cat? Or just looking for an excuse to procrastinate?
You can relax and unwind while indulging your love for cats at Vancouver Island’s first cat café, Kitties & Cream, located off Fitzwilliam Street in the Old City ...
Thrifting for Thrift Stores
Reviewing Three of the Best Thrift Stores in Nanaimo
Thrifting is an economical, eco friendly, and increasingly trendy (not to mention fun) shopping experience. However, when my friends ask if I would like to go thrift shopping in Nanaimo, we often end up at Value Village.
There is nothing wrong with Value Village—it has a large store format and plenty of options to shop from whether it be shoes, clothes, or copious Nora Roberts novels. Value Village is far from the only thrift store in Nanaimo, though.
In this article, I am going to take you through three other thrift stores that I tend to have luck in finding things ...
People, Place, Potential
VIU's New Strategic Plan
VIU has developed a new strategic plan. People, Place, Potential will be implemented between 2021 and 2026 to guide the University’s activities.
The University made the announcement on Wednesday, November 3, 2021. In a press release, VIU President and Vice-Chancellor Dr. Deborah Saucier stated, “The Strategic Plan will help us chart the course to become the University we want to be … Building on our strengths, VIU envisions a unique educational experience that is more accessible, more inclusive and more deeply rooted in community.”
There are three core values in the Strategic ...
We Are VIU Mural
Expressing Individuality
VIU students may have noticed a new mural to the side of the VIU Library entrance on their way to study…or get Starbucks. What they may not have realized is that it’s a collective, worldwide project that has been years in the making.
The We Are VIU mural was officially unveiled as part of the WorldVIU Days celebration on November 1st. VIU Visual Arts graduate and ceramics artist Joe Lyons has been working on the piece over the last several years.
The project started in a fall 2019 world geography class. Lyons’ professor, Don Alexander, told his class they could write a paper for ...
Spider’s Web Dip
The Spookiest Snack Recipe
I love Halloween. I get to dress up, decorate my house, watch scary movies, and sneak from the candy bowl that I'm supposed to give the trick or treat-ers. But my favourite part of Halloween is making the snacks, which comes—in large part—from my mom.
She is the most extra of Halloween moms. Our front yard becomes a graveyard with zombie arms sticking out and a machine that creeps fog down our front steps, our living room is a mad surgeon's bloody operating table, and the bathroom always has a Freddie Krueger head stuck on the door.
My mom didn’t stop at the decorations though. ...
Terrifying Texts
Horror Book Recommendations
Halloween is coming up and everywhere you look is decisively spooky. If you’re literarily inclined, one way to indulge this seasonal atmosphere is to curl up with a good horror book.
Creative Writing students Kenzie Clarke and Erika Parsons are both huge horror buffs, and are happy to share their favourites.
Clarke has a broad taste in horror, from classic literature and 1920s silent films to modern-day Netflix series.
“I'm a big fan of atmosphere in horror, so some of my favourites are gothic horror, like [Bram Stoker’s] Dracula and The Turn of the Screw [by Henry James],” ...
A Ghostly Walk by Lantern Light
The Haunted Nanaimo Lantern Tour
What’s the best way to celebrate Halloween? Dressing up? Watching a scary movie?
How about a ghost tour?
I went on my first Haunted Nanaimo Lantern Tour several weeks ago. The tour is put on by the Nanaimo Museum and snakes through downtown Nanaimo, stopping at some of the city's oldest and most haunted buildings. There were probably 20 people, including myself and two staff members. Our tour guide carried a real lantern with her throughout the tour.
We began at 6:30 in the museum itself, at a set of footprints in front of the Mine Shaft. That’s right: there’s a ghost at the ...
Review of A Drama Class’s Dream
VIU’s Malaspina Theatre recently put on its first play with a live audience since March 2020 with A Drama Class’s Dream. The performance, which ran from October 13-16, is Theatre professor Ross Desprez’s adaption of the play-within-a-play from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The play was a fun, fantastic, and whimsy return to live theatre—for both the performers and audience.
The play opened with the house lighting remaining on and backstage equipment staying visible as the drama students playing drama students took to the stage. Some entered from the audience. The ...
Off to the Polls:
VIUSU Elections - Fall 2021
The polls are open again! For VIU Students’ Union (VIUSU) elections, that is.
From Tuesday, October 19, to Thursday, October 21, students can choose who they want to represent them at VIUSU. The voting will take place electronically via a unique link emailed to every VIU student. Votes can be cast at all hours until the deadline of 9pm on Thursday.
This year’s candidates are:
Arts & Humanities Faculty Representative – Siddhanth Arikari
International Education Faculty Representative – Saadhvi Thakur
Management Faculty Representative – Joshua Cartagena
Powell River ...
The “Halloween Bird”
Have you ever been walking in a forest near Nanaimo when, out of the corner of your eye, you see an orange-black blur dart through the trees? If so, you may have spotted quite an elusive bird. The Varied Thrush, or Ixoreus Naevius, comes out of hiding on Vancouver Island in October.
The males are well-known for their distinctively coloured plumage. The bird itself has a black or blue-black body with bright burnt orange colours on their belly, above their eyes, below their beak, and in stripes along their wings. These black and orange colours help to give them their very fitting ...
Take Cover!
The Great BC ShakeOut 2021
The Great BC ShakeOut returns to Nanaimo at 10:20 a.m. on Thursday, October 21, with the annual ShakeOut drill. This event is part of International ShakeOut Day (the third Thursday of October) dedicated to spreading earthquake and emergency awareness.
The City of Nanaimo October 14 press release states: “[The Great BC ShakeOut is] more than just practising the drop, cover and hold on response. It’s about awareness, knowing the implications an earthquake may have, and knowing how to keep yourself and your family safe.”
During the drill, residents and businesses will go over what to ...
A Call for Greater Climate Action at VIU
VIU students, staff, and faculty, along with community members, are calling on the university to take more action against climate change.
In an open letter addressed to VIU president and vice-chancellor Dr. Deborah Saucier, the signers asked the university to declare a climate emergency. This is something that the Nanaimo City Council, and other universities and colleges like UBC, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and Selkirk College have already done.
The letter applauds VIU’s current actions, including the implementation of a geo-exchange system. However, it encourages the ...
Students Speak:
Back to Class
Exploring Nanaimo’s Most Haunted Locations
The Hand They’re Dealt
Vaccine Cards on Campus
Students have a lot on their plate this year: school, finances, COVID-19 restrictions, and as of September 13, vaccine cards.
Proof of vaccination is required to access non-essential services such as restaurants, theatres, and fitness centers. Customers could use their paper vaccine cards (stamped after each dose) until September 26; now, they must show the digital version of the card with a scannable QR code.
How has VIU been implementing the mandate?
The university regularly sends COVID-19 updates to students. There are immunization clinics available on campus, and the ...
A Labour of Love and Honeybees
You couldn’t see them so much as you could hear them. The bees buzzed quickly past my head, busy collecting pollen for their colonies. It was spring of 2021, and I had gone to Jinglepot Apiaries to pick up some honey. I grew up with fresh, locally sourced honey where I lived in Alberta, spoiled by the efforts of the bees and beekeepers from my great grandfather's apiary. Store-bought just wouldn’t cut it for me.
I walked into the yard, and out of a little side building I saw Sol Nowitz, a man in his seventies with black circle glasses, a South African accent, and a sun hat on his ...
Ay Lelum:
From Snuneymuxw to New York
Remarkable would be the simplest way to describe the last two months for Ay Lelum.
Snuneymuxw sisters Aunalee Boyd-Good and Sophia Seward-Good went from figuring out what to do next after a fire destroyed nearly all their clothing stock, to walking down a runway at their own show in New York—all in the span of two weeks.
Ay Lelum – The Good House of Design describes themselves as “wearable art garments that embrace diversity, and [are] committed to sharing Traditional Coast Salish art and culture for all people to enjoy.” The garments can range from dresses to rain jackets to ...
Publishing
A Work in Progress
I check my inbox outside my English classroom and see a new email from The Malahat Review. They’ve decided not to accept the short story I’d sent for their consideration. They say one of the characters was unrealized. I had cut a significant section building his character at the suggestion of one of my Creative Writing and Journalism (CREW) professors. Getting my writing published seems impossible.
There are currently eleven “Declined” submissions in my Submittable account, three “Received,” and two “In-Progress.”
Zero “Accepted.”
I made it my goal to have my writing published ...
VIU Webinar to Address Housing Crisis
VIU's October 14 Engaged Citizens Speaker Series will address a crucial topic: housing.
Housing was already an issue before the pandemic, but with job losses and economic uncertainty due to COVID-19, it’s become a struggle for many Canadians.
The Engaged Citizens Speaker for the webinar, Leilani Farha, believes access to safe and affordable housing is more important than ever thanks to the pandemic. During her talk she will discuss the nature of the current housing crisis with a focus on COVID-19, and how governments and cities can appropriately respond. The session will end with a ...
Just Show Up
I think we can all agree that last year was a difficult one. It became so overwhelming that I had to drop some classes. Online learning and my disorganized lifestyle did not pair well together. I skipped classes or simply didn't watch the online lectures, and before I knew it I had a backlog of late assignments, lectures to watch, and too many upcoming exams with material I hadn't learned yet.
'This year will be different,' I thought to myself. 'I'm in my fifth year of university, dammit, I should have this figured out by now.' I promised myself that I would be on top of things this ...
Daniel Elliott’s Winds of Change Exhibit
There is a timely new art exhibit on display in VIU’s Malaspina Theatre lobby. Stz’uminus First Nation artist Daniel Elliott’s Winds of Change was unveiled last Wednesday evening, the night before Canada’s first Truth and Reconciliation Day, and runs until October 8, then again from October 12-13.
The exhibit turns a deliberate eye to themes such as reconciliation and residential schools in Canada.
“I want to temper this work, all the pain…with hope and love and culture and direction so that I could have it go in a way that is healing,” Elliott said. “This is more than just ...
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