The letter I should have wrote to Mr. Christianson: Thank you for going to bat for me, for bending the rules, for talking the principal into letting me graduate even though technically, I had too many absences, for seeing my talent and telling me I had it, for knowing that I needed a break and giving me one so that I knew talent is not everything, so that I knew you need someone in your corner, someone who would step up like you did, to help out a kid in trouble when they needed it, without saying anything about me sometimes showing up to your Social Studies class smelling of beer and ...
In Nanaimo, I take a cab to work.
I spend the midnight shift serving subs, Japa-dogs,
and gourmet poutine, to the slurring, swaying,
bar crowd crying out for more pickles, less pickles,
no onions, more sauce please, this isn’t what I ordered.
But on my days off, I take a bus to work,
ask for no onions, and dream of my childhood:
privileged with perpetual days off, no pressure
to get good grades in school, catching the breeze
on my room’s balcony in the dry, scorching heat
of July in the Philippines.
Calesa carriages lined the sidewalk
just outside my family’s ...
Keeper’n Me by Richard Wagamese is the story of Garnet Raven, a three-year-old Ojibway boy. Taken from his reserve and put in foster care, Garnet is isolated from his family and culture and becomes ashamed of his roots. At sixteen, after a lifetime of bouncing around foster care, he leaves on his own. He hitchhikes for four years and eventually ends up on the streets of Toronto.
While serving a sentence for dealing drugs, Garnet receives a surprise letter from his brother, Stanley, who he has not heard from for years. In the letter, Stanley invites him to come home. After his ...
Yannis skipped the line with the appropriate aplomb, glancing over his shoulder to notice it stretch down the block. He shook the hand of the head bouncer, Rufus, who was about the largest, ruddiest Englishman outside the world of professional rugby. He hugged the squat, balding promoter Pablo Carlito Jiminez, and sauntered into the venue.
The place was packed and atmospheric smoke hung in the air. It was just beginning to dissipate as the first group of openers hauled their gear off the stage.
Yannis scanned the room for people he knew and headed backstage. His friend Donny ...
In my past two years as editor of the Nav’s art section, I’ve had the privilege of attending many shows. I’ve seen the calibre of performances produced and hosted by Crimson Coast Dance Society, whose shows have challenged me to examine my own beliefs on love, trust, belonging, and security. It’s difficult to put the effects their contemporary dance and music accomplishments into words. Even more difficult is describing a performance that needs to be seen, heard, and almost touched to be understood. Shortly after the spring semester comes to a close, Crimson Coast will be showcasing ...
In Canada’s residential school system, Aboriginal children faced systematic assimilation and abuse after being removed from their families. Today, the same thing is happening to Aboriginal children in the foster care system.
The residential school system was established because the Canadian government believed Aboriginal children could only be successful if they assimilated into Canadian society. Children in residential schools were forced to adopt Christianity and speak English or French; they would receive severe punishment if they were caught practicing their traditions or ...
It’s spring, and bird nests are popping up everywhere in Nanaimo. Some, however, are harder to spot than others. A mere one inch tall, Anna’s hummingbird nests are well-camouflaged, made of leaves, moss, cattail, and other plant materials. The female takes about a week to build it and uses spider webs to bind it together. Amazingly, the eggs are only 1.2-1.4 cm long.
Want to see more bird photos? Visit Birds and Bark.
In a society where our phones are constantly glued to our hands, it should be easy to connect with other people. Oftentimes, that doesn’t feel like the case. Social media can play a big role in making people feel isolated and lonely. Whether it’s scrolling through Instagram and looking at pictures of someone else’s fabulous trip abroad, or watching a video on Snapchat of your friends hanging out (and maybe you didn’t get an invite), it’s pretty easy to feel like your life isn’t as fun or fulfilling as others.
Dustin Vioen, founder of the app Joiiin, wants to change that. Joiiin is an ...
For me, mortuaries have always been a subject of fascination. Fortunately, I haven’t yet been put into the situation where I’ve had to familiarize myself with the industry or its inner workings. I have no post-mortem mindfulness and zero funeral knowledge. The prospect of entering into a frightening realm of quick decisions in a moment of weakness leaves me unsettled. What am I required to do when the inevitable day of loss arrives? Who are the people trained to help walk me through those undoubtedly surreal moments? These aren’t exactly things that get brought up over coffee, so I ...
Vancouver Island Children’s Book Festival (BookFest) will once again be celebrating and encouraging Canadian children and youth literature. The Nanaimo event hosts authors and illustrators from across Canada and nearly all genres that can be found in child and youth literature. The day will be filled with various panels led by Canadian talent. Artists such as Kim Soo Goodtrack, one of the creators of the show Wakanheja, and writers like David Alexander Robertson, writer of the 7 Generations graphic novel series.
Events range from a family story time aimed at children five and under, ...
The sound of construction is now a common background noise to anyone on the Nanaimo campus of Vancouver Island University. With the new Health and Science building a construction staple on the Nanaimo campus, the automotive building’s new facelift, and the construction on the Fisheries and Aquaculture Building (380), work is happening all over. And for a week in March, the Malaspina Theatre (bldg. 310) also had some work done.
The wood awning structure that covered the main entrance and west window to the lobby was removed as classes went on. Students and staff were still free to ...
The Navigator is turning 50 next year. That’s right, 50, the big five-oh. We’ll be an official quinquagenarian—say that five times fast.
We’ve been shaking things up at the Nav. As Spenser notes, we’ve made some changes to our format and content that we hope you’ve all been enjoying. If you liked us this year, you’re going to love next year. I can’t say what we’re planning yet, but I can tell you to keep an eye on our social media pages for big announcements leading up to our 50th anniversary volume in September.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has ...
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
But what about a university press that switched from newspaper to magazine format after 49 years? Please, I’m begging you: judge us by our beautiful, glossy covers.
The content behind those covers is also worthy of praise.
VIU was busier than usual this year, and I’m proud of the coverage we provided: Justin Trudeau’s town hall, the sexual harassment case against VIU, campus construction, and the lack of parking spaces—to name a few.
We published fiction for the first time, which contributed to our robust literature section. ...
An email was received by students on February 28, sent on behalf of VIU’s Health and Safety department regarding reports of dead rabbits around campus, and even down in the Rotary Bowl area. At the time, there was no answer to what was causing the sudden drop in population. Students and staff were advised to report rabbit deaths and not interact with any remains they encountered.
By March 2, another email was sent out. Tests done by BC Wildlife Health confirmed that the rabbits were dying from Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease (RHD). 26 rabbits had been found deceased on VIU campus as of ...
Mariners defenseman Turner Popoff isn’t trying to impress with his fancy stick handling skills or goal-scoring prowess. Instead, the fourth-year accounting major takes a far more blue-collar approach to the game he plays, relishing in the little things that hold a team together. With the team playing in their first BCIHL season, Popoff’s veteran leadership and work-hard mentality both on and off the ice has proven to be a tremendous asset.
He took time to discuss what playing hockey at VIU has been like thus far, and some of his goals for the team moving forward.
With the inaugural ...
The Mariners Women’s Basketball team had a busy past couple of weeks. They finished up the regular season with a 13-5 record and participated in the PACWEST basketball championships. VIU opened the tournament with an impressive 57-47 victory over the Quest Kermodes. Unfortunately, they fell just short of advancing to the gold medal game the following day, after suffering a 58-57 loss to the eventual tournament champion Capilano Blues.
“Obviously we would of loved to have played for gold, but I couldn’t be more proud of my team, and the way we competed. It just didn’t work out ...
The NDP BC Budget 2018 announcement will “carve a new path to shared prosperity for everyone in our province with a made-in-BC child care plan, a comprehensive housing plan, and record levels of capital investment in every corner of our province,” Finance Minister Carole James announced February 27.
The latter includes an investment to the BC Arts Council budget of $5 million annually over the next three years, for a $15 million total investment, is definite cause for celebration. As one participant asked at the BC Arts Council’s post-budget announcement meeting, “Where’s the ...
*Spoilers below*
Black Panther (2018) is a superhero film based on the Marvel Comics characters, directed by Ryan Coogler. Named one of the most anticipated movies of the year before it came out last month, it had raised a lot of expectations, being the first ever black superhero movie from the black community. After I got to see it in its first week of release, I can confirm it definitely fulfilled every one of these.
Black Panther tells the story of T’Challa (played by Chadwick Boseman) who has returned to his home country of Wakanda to become king after his father was killed in ...
As a teenager in a Fraser Valley mill town, playwright Nelson Gray suffered a traumatic experience that continued to haunt him into adulthood. In the mid-1990s, he began to develop a play that reflected on this incident and now, some twenty years later, the VIU English Department professor is about to have this work published. What makes the publication even more interesting is that the volume also contains another play that reflects on the same incident, but from a different perspective.
Gray’s play is entitled Talker’s Town and the companion play by well-known Métis writer Marie ...
On Sunday, March 2, The Shape of Water (2017) left the 90th Academy Awards with four wins: Best Production Design, Best Original Music Score, Best Director, and, finally, Best Picture. As a disabled person, I wish I could have pulled a Kanye-West-at-the-Grammys and taken the microphone from Guillermo del Toro during the acceptance speech, so I could explain ableism to all of Hollywood.
Ableism is essentially discrimination against disabled people on the basis of their disability. It is favouring abled people over disabled people, excluding disabled people, and not addressing ...
The first bullet hissed and broke air
spiraling from the rifle barrel; a kiss
adiós blown from atop the Mandalay Bay lair.
A Nevadan reaping concert goers’ bliss;
few shelter from a hail of depleted uranium.
Country music fades from Vegas Village stage
gunfire’s melody, the last note in their craniums
was a grueling testament to this day, this age.
Grotesque what one can do to another.
Sons, mothers, daughters, someone’s father
now just a memory; Vegas’ October
now shadows New York’s September.
Orange flames cast light on picture frame glass,
blissful faces a silhouette of ...
For some time I’ve wondered why the TV and Film industries are rebooting old content. It’s certainly not new. The most recent version of The Mummy is actually a revamp in a series of reiterations dating back to the original 1939 screenplay by John L. Balderston. The list of film remakes is so long that Wikipedia has separated them into two lists—the information is too vast to fit on one web page.
There’s also a difference between a reboot and a remake. According to ABC News, “a remake is an older story line with fresher faces … a reboot can have familiar characters but a new story ...
Recently both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh held events in Nanaimo. Trudeau held a Town Hall at the VIU gymnasium, while Singh hosted a “JagMeet and Greet” event at the Bees Knees Cafe along with Nanaimo-Ladysmith MP, Sheila Malcolmson.
The venues for each event were packed to capacity, and both started late. While Trudeau’s event centered around hearing as many questions as possible, Singh’s event focused on introducing policy ideas to a mostly NDP-positive crowd. Singh spoke on his policy platform, took three questions from the audience, then mingled ...
When I was 16, I burnt my forearm working at the fry station at McDonald’s. Angry grease spat at me as I clumsily lowered my slippery basket into the sizzling vat of saturated fat. Feeling the stinging heat singe my skin, I remained gripping my caged cargo until it rested in its temporary home. Working in a McDonald’s kitchen often brought me a considerable amount of physical pain, and my usual coping mechanism involved gritting my teeth as my throat made guttural sounds that no one could hear over the noise of fast-food preparation.
This instance was no different. I had become ...
