Leap Magazine: Discovery in Melanoma Clinical Trials

I've always been pretty blase about using sunscreen- on myself and my kids. None of us burn easily. But after meeting melanoma doctor and research, Dr. Smylie, I have had to reconsider my  approach to the inconvenience that is a minute of applying lotion to the years it may add to my/kids' life...

Read the full article, printed in Leap Magazine Summer 2013, here.  The original web address is here.

Open Mind: Evolution of Alberta's Construction Industry

There's been a lot of change in Alberta's construction industry since the global recession. In Alberta, however, it looks a little different than in other places. Construction continues to be robust in face of a global recession and it is one of the few places in the world where the construction industry has seen predictable gains over the past five years. With this growth has come greater competition as the world's companies come to Alberta for a piece of the profits.

In this article (published in Open Mind, Spring 2013) I talk to three different companies who have evolved- grown-differently. In part inspired by  succession planning, and in part due to competitive necessity, these companies offer insight into the industry's options at a time when competition makes it virtually impossible to be content with the status quo.

Spezzatino: Mining for Mushrooms

I pitched the idea for this feature after working as a tour guide at the Bellevue Mine Tour in the Crowsnest Pass, Alberta. The stripping of the coal mine's seams had ended half a century ago and I would occasionally have people ask me if anyone had considered re-purposing the mine. I'd ask, "Into what? Perhaps an underground swimming pool (the abandoned shafts were flooded with water)?" "No," they'd say, "into a mushroom farm."

There were rumours of such a farm in Drumheller, Alberta, and in fact, one of the US' largest mushroom suppliers used an old mine site for decades before technology made other above-ground farm settings more profitable. I was fascinated by the idea of re-claiming abandoned mine sites and when the opportunity to write about mushrooms came up for Spezzatino (an on-line magazine based in Toronto), it seemed like a great way to learn more about the possibilities.

Read the full article here.This article also appeared in the American magazine Fungi, Spring 2011.

Alberta Views: The Social Services Industrial Complex

When I first moved to Edmonton from my hometown of The Crowsnest Pass, I spent two years as a volunteer at downtown service agency, The Mustard Seed Edmonton. I then went to university, completed my BA as a political science major, then came back to the Seed as a summer student. Through the course of that decade, I would work in a half dozen positions. In my last position as Managing Director, I facilitated the difficult merger of our organization with a much larger one in Calgary. 

It was a decade that saw incredible growth in the scope and revenue generation of many non-profits in Canada. In this report (see screen shot to the right) "There is No Accounting for Landscape" published by The Institute for Non-Profit Studies at Mount Royal University College in Calgary, AB, author Cliff Spyker notes that government revenue sources grew from $54.3 B in 2000 to $124.6 B in 2008. A 129% growth rate- despite a significant recession.

This growth is largely due to a change in government policy- a shift towards government- contracted services.  For more on what this has meant for Alberta's non-profit sector and social service delivery, read the full article here. 

Gardener for the Prairies: Fruitscaping

It's that time of year: early plum nodules have replaced blooms, purple-headed chives are unfurling, the hops stretch from hibernation towards the sun. It's the time of year I begin to crave berries with my sunshine. This article was printed in  Fall 2011's Gardener for the Prairies and lists some of the many ways you can landscape a northern garden with fruit. Happy planting.

And if you are eating from your Northern garden, I want to know: what's staining your hands and bursting in your mouth right now?

Todd Babiak Profile: U of A Alumni Newsletter E-trail

This profile "The Making of a Storyteller" was based on a conversation over a fantastic lunch at Highlevel Diner with writer and Story Engine founder, Todd Babiak.  I'd read his book, The Garneau Block, when it was first published in serialized form in The Edmonton Journal. In preparation for our interview, I read it all in one shot over the weekend.

There were so many things that resonated in that book (printed a decade ago), with the life and times of Edmonton today. Story Engine is facilitating a unique 'branding' process for the city, and Todd is right in the middle of helping form the narrative that he hopes Edmontonians will tell and re-tell to their visiting relatives and on their travels in far away nations.  Coincidentally, it is a narrative that  regularly pops up in The Garneau Block: Edmonton is a good place to make things. And, Edmontonians are exceptional "makers". While our conversation wandered like a jack rabbit trail in Kinnard Ravine, we kept coming back to this idea about what makes us who we are: as writers, as parents, as neighbours and as Edmontonians.

As I walked to my van through the muck of the spring slush (of course, I decided to wear my lovely yet impossibly slippery Fluvog heels) I fiddled with the recording app on my phone. Todd's interview  was there. It registered 0:00 minutes of recording. "F^#*ing f#&$..."

Thankfully, Todd is a compelling storyteller and our talk stayed with me long enough to write this piece.

(PS. I was a little disappointed he did not wear the purple suit to our lunch.)

Hyperlocal CBC Finalist: Backyard Betrayal

Go to the Hyperlocal website, to check out other stories that map the experiences of our country's writers. The following story can be found at here. 



A decade ago, my back alley was dotted with shelled sentries: rusted Buicks and sheds shrunken by fire. Fence posts leaned like wind-swept trees; the pavement cracks were filled with the deflated balloons of last night’s tricks.  

Today, most of the cars have been towed and sheds replaced with modest garages. Despite the upgrades, it is an alley where people still put out old furniture knowing it’ll be gone the next day, but the furniture is different now. Lamps with silk shades and recently removed bathroom vanities have replaced stained mattresses hosting bloated bugs. Bottles now sit separate from the trash- put out in a friendly way, almost like a tithe. Thankfully, it's an alley that still has grace for my overflowing compost pile and wild gardens: I like to think my cheery red garage door makes the stinking heap of veggies appear quaint and shabby chic.  

It is in this alley where my Italian neighbour introduced me to arugula and showed me the right way to mate a pumpkin flower (with another pumpkin flower, of course). Neighbours bond over gripes about city potholes and the growing army of tomcats. It’s still an alley where strangers can become friends. 

It’s also a place, I realized too late, where friends can become strangers. The sky was darkly preparing to deliver a mid-afternoon thunderstorm and I hurried to strap the kids into their seats for a quick errand before the torrent. I was rounding the van to the driver’s side when I saw him. The veins in his long, skinny arms popped out. Stretched like earthworms struggling for breath, they ended in balled fists that gripped black bags of bottles. His gait was slow, broken, cautious. His eyes were the vacant moons of a cheap high. He didn’t appear aware of me and I looked down to appear unaware of him. But I was hyper-aware of him. I knew him. I knew him from a place 600 kilometers away, from twenty years ago. Flashing behind my downcast eyes, I remembered another alley behind our elementary school. I was the new kid, but he stood out: the only boy with braids.  We acknowledged each other tentatively then. We would grow to know and like each other. We would finish school and go separate ways until this one day, in the middle of the big city behind my grown-up home, we would pass each other without visible pause. My heart beat with discomfort in this alley where dust rises from bumping cars and is trampled back down by the feet of bottle pickers and school children.  All along the road, the fences are being rebuilt. Just now, they are all a little higher and a little tighter than they were before.  

Alberta Venture: From the Farmer's Market to Supermarket- It's a Giant Leap

See Alberta Venture's April 2013 Issue for my piece titled: Secret Sauce.

Here's an excerpt:

While there may be an increase in consumer demand for local products, it still remains to be seen whether Alberta food processors can scale up to fully capitalize on it.

There are some notable success stories of Alberta food processers scaling up from the extremely local farmers’ market setting to retail shelves. CattleBoyZ BBQ Sauce, with its signature beer-style, latch-topped bottle, had its first retail sales in a small butcher shop in Calgary’s Eau Claire Market.
Now it’s sold in stores across Canada. Initially made and bottled in Joe Ternes’s kitchen, it was his family’s time-tested recipe. In 1994, Karen Hope was the Eau Claire Market manager, and she loved his sauce. Hope, a marketing specialist, and Ternes went on to form CattleBoyZ. Together they established the brand and found a manufacturer, and after a year of perseverance (and a bit of luck), the sauce was selling as a seasonal product in western Costco locations.

But the move from the farmers’ market to larger retailers’ shelves rarely happens so quickly. Another successful Alberta food processor, Kinnikinnick Foods, grew more organically, thanks mostly to the powers of the Internet. In the 1990s Kinnikinnick’s gluten-free baking products could be bought at Edmonton’s Old Strathcona Market, and at the time it was one of the few such products available. Jerry Bigam, the company’s current CEO, was a big fan and regular customer, and he decided to buy the company with the hope of expanding its operations. But after struggling to get shelf space at major retailers, he turned to online sales in order to grow the business. “We were the first company to supply perishable food on the Internet,” Bigam says. “For $10, we could deliver product anywhere in North America overnight.”

The online business helped them grow their sales by 60 to 70 per cent annually, and eventually major food distributors started calling them. They now supply product to 65 warehouses and 10,000 stores across North America. But for many local, small-scale processors interested in scaling up, there are significant and often systemic challenges. Ted Johnston, the president and CEO of the Alberta Food Processors Association, has some sobering advice for anyone looking to make the leap. “First,” he says, “they need to buy a giant bottle of Pepto-Bismol.”

Avenue Edmonton: Wooed by the Antique Auction

I'm  a furniture-phile and deal hunter who will willingly spend summer Saturdays hunting through stuffy second hand shops. That said, I'd never been to an antique auction until last fall when I took my virgin trip to Ward's Auctions for Avenue Edmonton (I had the mis-fortune of mentioning 'virginal trip' to the auctioneer, who responded, "I'll be gentle." Then I turned the unprofessional colour of rhubarb.)

"Tripping to Auction" may be the start of a life-long love affair. The deals are great, but the adrenaline rush and energy of the crowd is something else. Pick up the May edition of Avenue Edmonton, or link to: http://avenueedmonton.com/articles/tripping-to-auction.

If you go, please let me know if it captures your imagination too.

My girlfriend, Tina Faiz, dragged this desk to Edmonton from Seattle. The bookcase is from Strathcona Antique Mall, and chair I bought from a film director I met on kijiji.

The couch was the source of major marital tension: it was a five-piece sectional that I brought home without consultation during my "nesting phase" ( pregnant with my third kid). It filled our tiny living room: "but it has a turning martini bar in the corner," was my plea for keeping the massive monument to sixties largess. We negotiated a compromise: three sections. This arrangement has seemed to satisfy everyone, though it's not exceptional for 'sprawling'.

This table was from Stan's Pawn Shop. Quebec maple, the top was sanded by me and varnished by Mat. The chairs cost me $60 a pop through Kijiji.

This piece languished in the Strathcona Antique Market for two years when they finally dropped the price by $500. I saw it and loved it... probably would have paid the previous price too.