Latest news with #DaybreakSouth
CBC
26-04-2025
- General
- CBC
Artist behind Kelowna's iconic sails sculpture dead at 91
The artist behind the iconic sculpture that dazzles residents and tourists along Kelowna, B.C.'s waterfront has died at the age of 91. Robert Dow Reid, known for creating Spirit of Sail — more commonly known as The Sails — died peacefully on Wednesday, April 23. In 1977, Stewart Turcotte watched as the fibreglass sculpture was lowered to the ground by helicopter. A longtime friend of Reid's, he said the piece was an homage to the artist's sailing roots. Born in Scotland in 1933, Reid had sailing in his blood: his grandfather was a sea captain. In his teenage years, he worked on whaling ships, Turcotte said. "He saw all the whales being killed," Turcotte told CBC's Daybreak South guest host Sarah Penton. "They threw all the teeth and bones and skin overboard after they'd taken all the blubber off, and for some reason Bob saw the ivory teeth and thought, 'you know, I can do something with this.'" B.C. log rolling world champion Jube Wickheim dies at 91 Spending time in Antarctica, Turcotte said his friend was inspired to carve seals, whales and porpoises into those teeth and bones. Reid met his wife, Isobel, in 1956, and they came to Canada two years later. They first landed in Regina, but settled in Kelowna in 1964. Turcotte recalled Reid's passion for using whale teeth for his art — and his commitment to his craft. "He had one mandible from a sperm whale with teeth in it, and to get the teeth out was fairly difficult. He knew that if he buried it in the ground, all the little bugs and gremlins would get in there and chew up all the soft tissue, making the teeth easier to get out," Turcotte explained. "But he never retrieved it, so it's still in his backyard somewhere in Saskatchewan. About 50 years or so down the road, somebody's going to be digging up this mandible and some zoologist is going to claim that sperm whales lived in Saskatchewan." Not only was Reid an artist, but he was also a shipbuilder, Turcotte said. While living in Kelowna, he spent 27 years building a 20-metre-long sailboat, made of ferroconcrete, with an art studio onboard. "This thing was a luxurious craft," Turcotte said. Reid moved the ship to Vancouver in two pieces and sailed it around the ocean for a couple of years, Turcotte said. "Ships were in his life forever." While most of his sculptures are small, made of antique ivory, teak, and honey onyx, he has two large pieces along Kelowna's waterfront, which have been photographed thousands and thousands of times by those who wander by. Spirit of Sail is an abstract piece but looks like a pair of sails. "It stands there on the waterfront proud," Turcotte said. Kelowna's waterfront is home to another of Reid's larger pieces, Rhapsody, another fibreglass sculpture that features three dolphins. Turcotte, who was friends with Reid for several decades, said he'll remember Reid's great sense of humour, his kindness and generosity. Predeceased by his wife Isobel, Reid is survived by his three children, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
CBC
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
From Kyiv to Kelowna: Artist documents journey to B.C. following Russian invasion of Ukraine in new book
When Stefania Miro awoke on Feb. 24, 2022, she felt like she was living in a different reality. Her home city of Kyiv had become a war zone overnight as Russian forces invaded Ukraine. "That morning started with explosions and with a missile attack from Russia, and everybody, like all my relatives, started calling me," she told Chris Walker, the host of CBC's Daybreak South. Now, she's living peacefully in Kelowna, B.C., where she's just published an illustrated memoir documenting her life as she fled Ukraine and ultimately landed in Canada. Before the invasion, Miro worked as an illustrator and artist and had just been offered a job by a Chinese company. The job fell through when the conflict began. "My whole life, everything that I was working so hard [for], just disappeared in one moment." The day after the invasion, Miro knew she wanted to leave the country. But it was hard to get out — public transportation was not operating, and it was a challenge to get to the train that could take her out of the city. Finally, she got out one week after the invasion started, with plans to journey to Kelowna, B.C., where her aunt had offered Miro and her mother a safe place to live. Revisiting such a traumatic experience wasn't easy; Miro said she started recording and writing everything she remembered from Feb. 24, 2022, until the day she got to B.C. soon after her arrival in Canada. "I feel the details are super important and they help also to feel the atmosphere and all that happened on a more deeper level," she said. Illustrating the book was tough, she said, because it brought up those vivid memories. "I like to draw the illustrations, but I remember it was also a painful process, and it brought lots of tears from me," Miro said. "I tried to make those illustrations very dramatic and to convey the atmosphere of the events. So it was painful, but I also hope that it's helpful for people." Miro said she found the writing and illustrating experience therapeutic. Now, living in B.C.'s Okanagan, she's trying to focus on her new reality. "I met so many new friends and good people," she said. "I just try to focus on the good things that happened in my life here." Her book, Light in the Darkness: Escaping the War in Ukraine, is available online.
CBC
10-02-2025
- CBC
He left a white supremacy group. Now he's working to help others do the same
Tony McAleer was just 16 years old when he got involved with a hate group. He said he was into Vancouver's punk scene, where he met a group of skinheads. "They terrified me," he said. "I grew up as this sensitive, bright kid. I didn't get into fights at school. I wasn't good at fighting. I was a smart kid, not a tough kid. But these guys had the one thing that I craved at the time, and that was toughness." So, in order to gain the support of these "tough" people that gave him the power he so desired, he started spending time with them, and eventually participating in their violence. McAleer soon became active in the White Aryan Resistance, where he became a leader. But 15 years later, he left that life behind and embarked on a path of healing. He's since founded a non-profit, Life After Hate, which helps other people leaving white supremacy groups, written a book called The Cure For Hate, and starred in a documentary about his journey. He sat down for an interview with CBC's Daybreak South host Chris Walker ahead of a screening of The Cure for Hate: Bearing Witness to Auschwitz in Kelowna. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. How were you first drawn into white supremacy? I grew up in Vancouver in an affluent neighbourhood. My father was a psychiatrist. I went to an all-boys private school. When I was 10, I walked in on my father with another woman, and that really rocked my world and my teachers decided they should try and beat the grades back into me. I was beaten with a metre stick if I didn't get an A or B in major tests and assignments. That happened over and over and over again. To this day, I have never felt more powerless than I did. I'd gone from listening to Elton John and Queen to The Clash and the Sex Pistols. I'd gone to boarding school for a year in England and was introduced to skinheads then. It was at a punk show in Vancouver that I first met skinheads. People feared them. Nobody feared me. When I was with them, that sense of power, that false sense of power that comes with being with people that are afraid of you, was the exact opposite of that powerlessness I felt. It felt so safe to me. And in order to have their protection, I had to have their respect. In order to have their respect, I had to engage in the same street violence that that they did. I wanna talk a bit about how you got out of this life. In 1998, Nirmal Singh Gill was beaten to death by skinheads outside a Surrey temple. You met some of these people. How did that affect you? At the time, I was so disconnected from my humanity, I didn't feel anything for Nirmal when that happened. I just thought it was bad for business. It was bad PR. Hate is a very cold emotion. When we see the yelling skinhead with the Nazi flag, that's rage. Underneath the hate is cold and dispassionate. I was completely disconnected from my humanity. I couldn't relate to the humanity of another human being. It wasn't until much later that I had the opportunity to go back and work with that temple and work with his family — that was only just six years ago — to do that work of repair for both myself and the community. What was it that made you question all these beliefs suddenly? When I left the movement, I still had the beliefs intact. It's not just the ideas in someone's head, it was my whole identity. It was who I hung out with, the videos I watched, the music I listened to. It's challenging to get someone to admit that what they believe is wrong. I left the movement behind, but I was still a jerk. I still had all of the wounds that were spilling out all over everywhere. I used humour, sarcasm, putting people down, I could verbally destroy people without any violence. I was still a jerk because I hadn't dealt with the source of my anger and hatred, the source of my self-loathing. It wasn't till I met a counsellor — who was Jewish — in 2005. I went through about 1,000 hours of one-on-one and group counselling and really got to the root of who I was. In that first counselling session, I didn't want to tell the counsellor about everything that I had done. The more I tell him, the more he starts smiling at me. I go, 'What's so funny?' and he goes 'You know I'm Jewish, right?' I fell back into my chair. My cheeks flushed with shame. Here's a man who wanted to help me. We'd become friends at this point, he wanted to heal me, wanted to heal my family. And here I am knowing that I'd once advocated for the annihilation of him and his people. He said, 'That's what you did. That's not who you are. I see you.' And with that began a journey of running toward the pain and the anger and the wounds that I've been running away from my entire life. The more he connected me to my humanity, the more I could recognize the humanity in others. And the more I could connect to the humanity in others, the more I could recognize the humanity in myself. For people who have friends or family members who they see going down this path and might be wondering if there's any way to help them, what is your advice? You're not going to intellectually convince them. We want to challenge the ideas. It's not about the ideology. The ideology is how it's expressing itself. It's often about something much deeper than the ideology. Try listening to the person. Often people's grievance is real, what they do with the grievance is completely out of line. But sometimes they have a legitimate reason to be angry. We just try and listen to them. Just because you listen to someone doesn't mean you accept their values. And just because you listen to someone doesn't mean you are compromising your values. It's very important that we learn to call out behaviours, we call out ideology, call out the activity, but we need to call the human being in. If dehumanization is at the core of this, then we need to rehumanize them. The way that we rehumanize people is through compassion. When we're compassionate to someone, we hold a mirror up and allow that person to see their humanity reflected back at them. And that's how we can help rehumanize people.
CBC
05-02-2025
- Business
- CBC
B.C. grocers move toward buying local as tariff threat looms
Social Sharing At Ellis Street Market in Kelowna, Canadian-made products are clearly labelled with maple leaf stickers. Amid looming tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump, several grocery stores in B.C. are making it easier for shoppers to identify and purchase local products. And they say demand for buying locally has increased since Trump ordered a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods, which was initially set to come into effect just after midnight on Tuesday. But despite the 30-day pause on the tariffs announced Monday, grocers are still gearing up to move away from U.S. products. Ellis Street Market manager Chris Hansen says while it is not possible to fully move away from some U.S. products, they can highlight local items so shoppers can make informed decisions. "That means to galvanize all our farmers together and have them showcased in an upfront, prominent way," Hansen said on CBC's Daybreak South. He said many customers have expressed interest in buying local recently, and their shop has also called local business owners into the shop to provide demonstrations and showcase their products. "This is an opportunity for us to diversify, to get localized, to be part of our communities," said Hansen. "And realize how important it really is that we take care of ourselves first." What's the difference between 'Made in Canada' and 'Product of Canada'? 2 days ago Duration 1:05 Tyler Large, operations director for Country Grocer based on Vancouver Island, has also noticed demand increasing for local products in the last week. He says customers are shying away from products made in the U.S. while there has been an uptick in local products, such as B.C. cucumbers. "The customers are the ones that are going to tell us what they want and they're still very clear on buying Canada, buying local, buying B.C.," Large said on CBC's On The Island Tuesday morning. For grocery stores, Large predicts that produce will be most affected by the tariffs. And he said this may be the push local retailers need to diversify their supply chains and look elsewhere for produce, like Latin America and Oceania. "This is definitely a wake-up call for our industry," said Large. "I think it's going to have some really positive outcomes." Buy local campaign—on a local scale In Vancouver, Coun. Pete Fry is urging the city to bring forward a "Buy Local" strategy. It comes as several provinces, including B.C., work to explore trade alternatives. The motion, which he intends to bring forward as urgent new business on Tuesday, asks for a review of city procurement policies to prioritize local suppliers and to launch a Buy Local campaign in collaboration with businesses. "Team Canada doesn't start and end with the Prime Minister and the Premiers — it also includes your local elected representatives, local businesses, and you," Fry said Tuesday in a statement. While the pause is a great relief for many Canadians, the buy-local movement will likely continue now that the trade relationship has been threatened, according to David Soberman, a marketing professor at the University of Toronto. He says buying locally not only supports Canadian companies facing lost business from the States, but it will also insulate Canadian consumers if Canada enforces retaliatory tariffs on American products. Daybreak South Tuesday.
