Features

Peopleopolis

CORRECTION: The Downtown Core Area Plan projects 20 000 residents moving into the Downtown Core Area over the next 30 years and 10 000 new jobs. The previously published figure referring to 10 000 new…

Give rap a chance

I am an awkward-white-girl-rap-listener, and I believe there’s merit in it—in the unconventionality of my listening to rap and in the music itself. There are lessons to be learned from these…

Local comic artists on storytelling and life

Victoria is a city that’s known for its humble but prominent arts scene, consisting of contemporary and alternative visual artists as well as bigger local names, such as Emily Carr.…

Blackfish, wild: 100 days with sacred whales

I could hear breathing in the charcoal dark as silent bodies passed the shoreline; huge lungs, in huge animals, blow salty ocean spray into the night. It was my first…

South of the border: fear and loathing in the Sonoran Desert

“O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim For preacher and monk the honoured name! For, quarreling, each to his view they cling. Such folk see only one side…

Leaving Town

In my mid-20s, I found myself stuck in my hometown putting my university degree to excellent use as a cashier. So I took a job in Thailand as an English…

Loss of choice

I am a returning University of Victoria student, currently studying Psychology. I am in my late 40s, reasonably intelligent and well read. I have many interests: I love to learn, I…

What is love?

“I have three very quick questions—no right or wrong,” he starts off. “Okay,” I say, feeling a little blindsided. This is not how most of my interviews start out. The…

The costs of an active Canadian child

On a frigid winter night, Sam Anderson trekked across the University of Victoria campus, headed for the blazing lights igniting the black sky. Approaching the labyrinth of interlocking athletic fields—a Rubik’s…