The shared borders with France and Switzerland have clearly contributed to a multilingual society in this very northern and beautiful corner of Italy
Newly retired and eager to explore some new territory, I admit I knew nothing of the Italian Alps. We flew into Switzerland, and then drove south through the 11-plus km of the Mont Blanc Tunnel into northern Italy. We were with old friends who know the area well because they have a son who lives…
Living with your environmental choices and the ones others make for you while on the road
We must reckon with the environmental impacts of our personal travel decisions in this time of climate crisis. For us, it was our current trip – to hike in northern Italy with friends, just after my wife’s retirement and, coincidentally, climate activist Greta Thunberg’s trip to New York from Sweden on a sailboat – that…
Where’s the evidence that the values this new world order has created produce happiness, fulfilment and the well-lived life?
A great article by Andrew Marantz in a recent issue of the New Yorker called Silicon Valley’s Crisis of Conscience details the struggle of American big tech to find its soul. The central theme is the growing awareness of big tech CEOs and senior executives that their endeavours are causing massive societal psychological harm. None…
Blackberries, figs, grey and humpback whales, and spawning salmon all herald the arrival of autumn
As August turns the corner to September, some notable and familiar signs of change occur at Skelhp, which is known as “The place where the ancients dropped down from the heavens and taught us how to make canoe paddles out of yew wood.” The blackberries that have been thriving over the past three weeks start…
Transmission Difficulties: The Dignitaries once had a place of pride behind my father's desk. My mother eventually sold it. Now we know why
For her 97th birthday, I offered to take my mother to Whistler for the day, especially to see the new Audain Art Museum. She was ecstatic at the prospect, and especially eager to see the in-house collection of works by Emily Carr and E.J. Hughes – her two favourite B.C. realist painters. Mom was a…
We need real leadership now to calm climate change. Will that come from government, citizens, non-government groups, business or a combination of all four?
Monthly heat records are becoming routine (July was the hottest month on record), and people are finally waking up to the reality that climate change is occurring at a much faster pace than most thought. Yes, denial continues in some quarters, but they’re increasingly seen as crudely self- serving, science-illiterate and therefore indefensible. Recent polling…
What are the new jobs? How do you train for them? Every old-economy business needs to plan for next-economy transitions
How does work change in an era of climate crisis? What skills will have value and how do we acquire them? What advice do we give young people entering the job market? How do we retrain those whose skills are no longer in demand? What roles do colleges and universities play in this workplace transition?…
Given that the climate crisis is upon us, where is our family’s money going to be safe? Most of us are not trained as investment bankers or economists, and yet we have to plan for our retirement futures, and for many, our presents. What’s safe; what’s not? Who really knows? Should we really try and…
Subtly at first, and then with growing purpose, both our daughter and son learned how to skipper in the tradition of Cappy
The Robinsons are a fairly nautical bunch. My great-uncle Leighton Robinson was port captain of San Francisco (1905 to 1941), and prior to that (1900 to 1905) captain of the Melanope, a three-masted square rigger, rigged as a barque (1,608 registered tons and 258 feet in length) for the Sydney-to-San-Francisco trade route connecting Australia and…
Our columnist hoped his summer vacation to Vancouver Island would be free of any overheated exchanges about the U.S. President. It wasn't
I’d really hoped that we wouldn’t meet over the summer vacation. I planned a summer kayak trip out of range of cellphones and far away from cities. And that part of the strategy really worked. He was nowhere to be seen in the Broken Group or even the Tiny Group of offshore islands in Barkley…
Go early, be prepared for any eventuality, plan well, concentrate on strong paddle strokes and keep your destination dead off your bow
It’s the classic ocean kayaker’s dilemma: should I wait or go now? You’re all loaded up. It’s probably early in the morning and you don’t want to delay others as your trip unfolds before you. Some or all of your trip-mates may have taken kayak water rescue courses and have at least some confidence in…
An aluminum landing barge picked us up in Toquaht Bay and dropped us off in a sandy cove opposite Willis Island campground early in the morning. We were launched once more to kayak with old friends off Vancouver Island’s west coast. We’ve previously kayaked with these friends from Kyuquot to the Brooks Peninsula and to…
The equipment has improved and been refined over the years, but the thrill of the backcountry remains the same
It all started in 1978 when we decided to fly to Haida Gwaii and borrow our friends’ kayaks for trip into Gwaii Haanas (then known as the South Moresby wilderness area). We were just married and finishing grad school, with plans to move to Alberta in the fall. Our pals in Queen Charlotte City offered…
Reflecting on Canadian culture at the Dog House Restaurant and small businesses dedicated to local artisans
As cities go, Duncan, B.C., is pretty small. In fact, it’s the smallest city by area (2.07 square km) in Canada. In 2016, it had 4,994 citizens. It was incorporated in 1912, as the star of Vancouver Island’s Cowichan Valley, an agricultural, mining and logging centre first visited by Vancouver Island Gov. James Douglas and…
Give yourself some time to evaluate options. Be honest with your ego and let your imagination troll through deep waters
A lot of my friends are retiring. And there are many retirement models being thought about, reviewed, argued and applied or avoided. But it doesn’t really appear to me that any of them were exhaustively analyzed before selection. In fact, many seem to be derived from previous family practice (i.e. what parents did), simply made…