After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Shanon Fenske, now 41, was moved to join the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and serve overseas. The lengthy application process began in 2003, and by 2009 he was on the ground in Afghanistan. There, he lost a friend, saw many more dead, came under fire, and had a very close call under so-called “friendly fire.” He was assigned a piece of equipment—classified—that detected improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It was heavy and made him an easy target for insurgents. “It was a risky yet inglorious job. But I was potentially saving people’s lives,” he ...
By contributor Jenny Garceau
Since 2000, VIU has offered Special Topics in Child and Youth Care: Introduction to Working With Children and Youth Through the Medium of Art. The course was designed by Heather Sanrud, a professor with the child and youth care program as well as a registered art therapist, who believes passionately in the benefits of introducing art as a therapeutic avenue in professional practice when working with people of all ages and backgrounds, either one-on-one or in group settings.
The course introduces students to the profession of art therapy. Sanrud is ...
On Friday, November 7, VIU will host the 9th annual Urban Issues Film Festival. This educational, seminar-style event presents a variety of short and feature films on urban issues with a different theme every year. This year, five different films carry the theme “Equality in the City” and explore the topic of social cohesiveness, equality, inclusion, and citizen participation.
Planned each year in conjunction with World Town Planning Day, the festival is sponsored by the VIU Geography Department, the Geographic Students’ Union, the New City Institute, and the Planning ...
Interviewing big bands an hour before their show is an adventure. Out of the six or more members, two are usually out getting dinner, one is still at work, and one is busy selling merch. But meeting with any member of The Body Politic is also a treat, as this six-piece progressive metal formation spends most of their quality musician time touring Canada. When they came back to Nanaimo to promote their new EP Egressor, The Nav spoke to guitarist Dan Montgomery, singer Sam Britton, and keyboardist Rob Wilkinson about the best ways to tour, the worst sound technicians, and ultimate metal ...
On Friday, October 31, the 2nd annual Vancouver Island Psych Fest filled the Globe with experimental music, live painting, digital and organic art projections, a ghostly photography show, and inspired Halloween costumes.
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Digital Visions
Life in plastic, it’s fantastic. At least it is according to “Barbie Girl,” the 1997 hit from pop group Aqua. The song, for those who are unfamiliar, includes startling PG-13 lyrics such as “You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere,” and “I’m a blond bimbo girl in a fantasy world.” In 2002, Barbie’s manufacturer, Mattel, sued MCA Records for allegedly violating the Barbie trademark and turning Barbie into a bimbo sex object. The case was eventually dropped, but Barbie’s image was being increasingly criticized, not only by Danish-Norwegian eurodance pop groups, but also skeptical ...
By contributor Spencer Wilson
Going to see Birdman is like buying a chocolate chip muffin and then discovering, after the first bite, that it has raisins instead. It’s that special kind of bad where an auteur tries very hard to convince you of something, only to have it thrown back in their face. This is exactly what happens when director Alejandro González Iñárritu tries to convince everyone that superhero movies are ridiculous (we know, that’s why we go see them), and that Broadway is not as dignified as it appears to be.
Iñárritu has had a storied success directing films ...
Let’s talk about bunnies. Let’s talk about cute YouTube bunnies cavorting with puppies. Ready to pop an ovary? Throw some kittens in there. Got your attention? Good. What I really want to talk about is democracy. But stay with me here, okay?
We all pay taxes. We pay taxes to our city, our province, and our country. Whether they’re buried in our tuition, in our rent, at the gas station, or at the grocery store, we’re paying them. We pay the un-buried ones too, the ones you see clearly marked on your pay stub from work, or on your tax return at the end of the year. You finance stuff, ...
An IndieGogo campaign for a local feature film Beyond Control seeks to reach community support and raise funds to finish post-production. Beyond Control is being produced and shot in Nanaimo.
Featuring all local talent, this psychological horror is a coming-of-age tale about a girl dealing with her past and powerful perception. Written, produced, and directed by local filmmaker Raymond Knight, the entire production has operated on zero budget. Shooting has taken over a year in order to scout and secure locations, gather props, and work around the ...
By contributor Daniel O’Brien
Humans are social creatures, which means the greatest hurdle in truly intuitive communication with machines is their inability to generate and interpret social cues. Non-verbal communication like the position of our arms, where we look, and how we speak are all social cues that, at this point, machines are incapable of recognizing. Meet PaPeRo. He is about 15 inches tall and weighs almost 15 pounds, responds to his owners’ commands, recognizes their faces, and even follows them around the house. PaPeRo is not a dog or cat—he’s a small robot.
PaPeRo ...
The Mariners’ women’s volleyball team picked up their first home victory on November 1 when VIU defeated the visiting Fraser Valley University Cascades. The victory improved the Mariners’ record to 2-4 on the young season.
The Mariners got off to a hot start Saturday against the Cascades. VIU dominated the first set, winning by a score of 25-14. The second set went right down to the wire, with both teams trading points until the very end. Eventually it was UFV that picked up the second set win, 26-24. But it was the Mariners who gained momentum after the game was tied 1-1. The ...
The Mariner men fell just short in their bid for the provincial soccer championship. The team made it to the gold medal game, but fell to the Douglas Royals 2-1 in penalty kicks at the provincial soccer championships held October 25 and 26 in Squamish.
The gold medal match featured the top two teams in the league. The Mariners finished the regular season with a record of 10-3-2, good for first place in the PacWest standings. Douglas finished the season in second place with a record of 8-3-4. The game was a battle of wills, as both teams were exhausted, playing their third games of the ...
The Mariners’ men’s soccer team opened their season with a decisive victory over their Island rivals, the Camosun Chargers. The game was played Thursday, October 30 at the VIU gym.
The game started out close, with the Mariners taking the lead from the opening minute. VIU led after the first quarter, but it wasn’t until early in the second that they started to pull away. VIU opened up a 36-26 lead with three minutes left to play in the second. A 12-3 run by the Mariners late in the quarter gave VIU a 48-29 lead heading into halftime.
The Chargers tried to get back into the ...
The Mariners’ men’s volleyball team is off to a strong start to the regular season. The team has played six games this season and has been victorious five times. The team’s lone loss on the season was against Camosun in the team’s home opener on October 18 against the Camosun Chargers.
The Mariners’ most recent action was at home against the Fraser Valley Cascades on October 31 and November 1.
On Friday, the Mariners picked up a hard-fought victory. The Mariners took control of the game early, winning the first set convincingly 25-14. The second set was much closer, but the ...
The Mariners’ women’s basketball team opened their season on a winning note Thursday, October 30, in the VIU gym. The Mariners’ opponent in their season opener were their Island rivals, the Camosun Chargers.
The Mariners got off to a hot start in front of their home fans and looked like they were going to run away with the game early. The Mariners opened up a 13-0 lead in the game’s opening minutes, and had a 20-9 lead at the end of the first quarter.
In the second quarter, the Chargers started to make a comeback, cutting into the VIU lead. With five minutes left in first half, ...
The Mariners’ women’s soccer team picked up a big victory at the PacWest provincial soccer championship, held October 25-26 in Squamish, capturing the gold medal. The Mariners came into the tournament the favourite to win, as the team’s 11-1-3 record gave them first place in the PacWest standings at the conclusion of the regular season.
VIU’s opponent in the gold medal game was the Langara Falcons. The game was played in very wet conditions, which made creating offense extremely difficult. The Mariners played a steady defensive game, not allowing the Falcons to mount any offense on ...
VIU Media Technologist Johnny Blakeborough delivered a presentation on gender roles in gaming and how women are treated in the industry, as well as the increasingly hostile “gamergate” to a packed auditorium.
Blakeborough was approached by VIU instructor Marni Stanley and asked to do the presentation. He said Stanley thought it would be a great topic to present for one of her classes.
“This is a very important issue to me,” said Blakeborough, “but I had never considered doing something like this.”
Preparing for the presentation was a lot of work. “I had to be on top of ...
Early in the BCHL season, the Nanaimo Clippers have had no trouble scoring goals. The team entered a two-game road series against Powell River Kings with 76 goals in 16 games, the most in the BCHL. But the Clippers’, normally high-flying offense was silent on October 31 and November 1 against the Kings.
In the first game of the weekend, between the two teams, it was the Kings who opened the scoring. A goal by Nic Gomerich six minutes into the game gave Powell River the early 1-0 lead.
The score stayed 1-0 until the second period when the Clippers tied the game. It was a power ...
The Nanaimo Buccaneers have sat in second place in the VIJHL’s North Division for most of the season. Nanaimo has even been in first for short stretches of the season. But the Buccaneers are still unable to solve their biggest rival, the Campbell River Storm.
On Thursday, October 30, the two teams met at the Nanaimo Ice Centre. The Buccaneers opened the scoring on a goal by Jordan Levesque to take an early 1-0 lead. But the Storm responded before the period ended. Kobe Oishi, Connor Logan, and Joe Gage all found the back of the net before the end of the first period, giving the ...
By contributor Kaleigh Studer
Babe Walker is on a mission to find zen, or at least a version of zen that fits her definition. The only problem is that she is a narcissistic socialite with too much free time on her hands. And she complains about everything. Not very zen.
Psychos is New York Times bestselling author Babe Walker’s hysterical follow up to her debut White Girl Problems. Babe Walker also happens to be the name of the main character of the novel who we’re introduced to as a ridiculous, pretentious, and incredibly hilarious young socialite.
Babe Walker is also the ...
By contributor Philip Gordon
What is the purpose of a poem? Poetry, something so often tied to emotion, can be a vessel to make us feel and think—to pause, laugh, or simply consider a part of the world in a new or unorthodox way. In Billeh Nickerson’s Artificial Cherry, the poem is a tool to capture moments and put them in plain English onto the page.
Nickerson, a humourous, outspoken, queer poet from Vancouver doesn’t shy away from poking fun at the absurd happenings in everyday life. In Artificial Cherry, his fourth full-length collection of poetry, Nickerson details off-putting ...
Let’s talk French. Not really, because I can’t speak French, so let’s just talk about Mon Petit Choux. This French café and bakery is in the heart of downtown Nanaimo on the corner of Commercial St. and Wharf St.—a wedge of Paris in our cultural hub. There are a lot of cafés downtown, but this one sets itself apart for students because it’s large enough to loiter a bit. That’s not to say they encourage people sitting around, but with free Wi-Fi and plenty of outlets for my laptop, homework came naturally after lunch.
The space is flooded with light from walls of windows, ...
Vancouver Island University’s Model United Nations (MUN) club has a new leader, Shantel Beute, who is hoping to improve the club’s structure and make it to the MUN conference at the University of British Columbia in January. In the past, MUN didn’t have a set student leader, which left it unorganized at times, Beute said at the first MUN meeting of the year. “It’s almost like the formation of a new club,” Beute said.
While the club will have the help of staff in the political studies department, such as Mark Williams and Catherine Schittecatte, Beute will cover most of the ...
By Kelly Whitside
On October 9 at approximately 4 pm, a bomb threat was called in to Vancouver Island University’s International High School. 75 people were evacuated from buildings 345 and 350. The campus remained closed to all, including buses and students living in residence, until 5:30 pm.
Students in class described being startled when a man in a hardhat demanded they evacuate immediately and assemble down the hill in Lot G, according to Philip Gordon, a Creative Writing student who was in a poetry class at the time.
Vehicle access to the Nanaimo Parkway via Fifth St. was ...
