Issue 416, February 19, 2015
“The Fiddle Remembers”
Early in 2008 my mother saw me on the cover of the Whitehorse Star wearing nothing but a straw skirt and a bottle of our local beer. That is how she found out I was running for Sourdough Sam. I don’t think she was shocked to see me in women’s wear, though — she knew …
What are those? “Whiffle balls.” What are they for? “Tic-Tac-Toe.” Five-year-old Nash Battersby is about to school me in the art of winning prizes at the Fun Fair at Whitehorse Elementary School, this Friday and Saturday. The whiffle balls are thrown into the nine-hole grid and, well, everyone knows what needs to be done. Nash …
My phone rang at 2:27 pm. Janessa was on the other end: “What’s going on dad?” “What are you talking about?” I said. It turns out the technology I use to reassure my family that I am okay works very well to inform them when I am not. As it should. She told me that …
Living in the suburbs, having children and a husband, driving a minivan: for some this may sound boring, but it is Cea Sunrise Person’s dream come true. Person’s memoir, North of Normal (published at HarperCollins) describes her childhood with her hippie-family in the wilderness. When she was only a few months old, she came up …
The city bus stops right in front of our home in the Whitehorse. I still watch every day for “my boys” to get off and come home, even though they’ve been gone for weeks. I was privileged to be a host mom for the Canada World Youth program from October 2014 to January 2015. We …
Jim Holland knows music like nobody’s business; not only is he a musician, he’s also an accomplished sound technician. Over the next few months Holland will be teaching full day courses from a series called Capturing Sound. Courses will take place at Holland’s studio, Green Needle Records. Sure, we all hear music on the radio and …
Harold Routledge did not remember that he had built this fiddle with his own hands; but the tunes, and the skill to play it, were memories that had not yet been robbed by Alzheimer’s. “There is something about music that it is so deeply ingrained to memories from a long time ago,” says Keitha Clark, …
Right on schedule, my sprout craving has arisen from where it lay quietly dormant since the fall, nestled snug beneath the desire for stews and roasted root vegetables. The herbs I’ve kept in the house are responding to the same cues, with tiny pale green leaves emerging from the nodes of their twiggy stems. I’m …
Food is a hardworking component of any television or film crew, serving as prop, symbol, characterization, and plot point for numerous scripts. Jerry Seinfeld has a cupboard full of cereal, and pizza-delivery on speed-dial, and when Seinfeld based an entire episode around waiting in line at a Chinese restaurant, it spurred a minor revolution in …
The Yukon Wildlife Preserve has been helping injured, orphaned, and sick animals for over ten years. Located 25 minutes from downtown Whitehorse on the Hot Springs Road, It is a very important place in Whitehorse because if animals need a home they can take refuge there and be safe. Staff at the preserve’s rehabilitation centre …
At 40 below, Fahrenheit and Celsius are the same; not that our dog, Shadow, cares about that. She may need to go outside to relieve herself, but her preference is to cross her legs, huddle in the back of her kennel in the kitchen and wait for warmer weather. We kennel her at night so …
Even if I’m sore I’ll still push on. When I feel poor I always push on. When I’m lonely I just push on. If I get sick I slowly push on. When I want to give up Somehow I push on. When I have no hope I seem to push on. Even if I’m sad …
Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic broke up in 2003 in Zagreb, Croatia. Like most post- relationship humans, they had ordinary objects kicking around their houses that sparked emotions, relating to the relationship, or the demise of it. The two artists joked about starting a museum. They asked their friends for their relationship remnants. They got …
The Overland Trail was a transportation corridor between Whitehorse and Dawson City constructed by the White Pass and Yukon Route at the turn-of-the-century. Spanning 530 kilometres, it took five days to navigate by horsedrawn sleigh or carriage — if the weather co-operated, that is. If not, the journey could double, or even triple in length. …
