THE Winter 2010 CROW

Got Lactose? The dairy industry’s PR woes

Into the Dark A missing son, a family’s anguish

The Great Battle of Moose Jaw Oh discord, thy name is Multiplex

Burned Straight A hair-raising tale

Inside

The Crow is the annual student publication Welcome 5 of the School of Journalism, Faculty of 04 6 Arts, University of Regina. 07 Outside the Pack We gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of Transcontinental, Inc. The Great Battle of Moose Jaw 9 10 19 Editor: Patricia W. Elliott Photo Director: Robin Lawless 16 Got Lactose? Contributors: Adrian Alleyne 20 Homefield Advantage 27 Noel Busse Mitch Diamantopoulos Casey’s Gift 34 Bryony Fortune 24 Greg Girard Braden Husdal 28 Into The Dark Éva Larouche 33 Casey MacLeod 35 Derek Putz 36 Educating the Machine Jay Teneycke 42 Burned Straight 41 Additional Photography 40 Colleen Fraser Jodi Gillich 48 Place of Rescue Robin Lawless Danielle Mario 52 A Human Workplace 46 Sean Lerat-Stetner 47 School of Journalism AdHum 105 University of Regina 54 3737 Wascana Parkway Regina, Saskatchewan, S4S 0A2 Cover: “Shooting for a story on lactose, I used the Annie Leibovitz photo of Whoopi Goldberg ph: 306-585-4420 in a bathtub of milk for inspiration… fx: 306-585-4867 I was impressed with my being able to talk em: [email protected] my girlfriend into getting into a bathtub with seventy gallons of powdered milk.”

Volume 1 issue 8 – Winter 2010 ISSN 1708-1629 photo by Jay Teneycke

Design & Production Mark Suggitt

Printing Printwest, Regina Editor’s Nest

his issue of The Crow coincides with the thirtieth players were shut out of the home team, and how they fought their annual Minifie Lecture, and the School of Journalism’s way back in, matters. thirtieth birthday . It also coincides with some highly Indeed, overcoming obstacles is a key theme in many Crow sto - Tchallenging times for the Canadian news media, as long- ries. In ‘Casey’s Gift’ by Adrian Alleyne, we read about a mother’s held models of ownership and news delivery struggle through an struggle to find services for her autistic son, and her determination economic downturn. It’s guaranteed: owners come and go, business to help others in the same boat. It’s the key lesson of long form models rise and fall, and technological platforms change, then documentary journalism: you arrive on the scene looking for the change again. But if we look back 3,500 years, to when a citizen of victims—but the longer you stick around, the more you learn about the Mesopotamian town of Nugu carved people, and the more their strength shines details of the mayor’s corruption into a stone through. Anyone who has seen the missing tablet, it’s clear the work itself doesn’t In the Crow …the posters for Dylan Koshman, for example, can change much over the years. As Mitch Dia - well imagine a family shattered by despair. mantopoulos notes in his introductory article, questions get bigger, Yet the time Casey MacLeod spent with the journalism endures as the eyes, ears and Koshman family while researching ‘Into the voice of democratic society—and lately it’s the answers more Dark’ yielded a surprising abundance of faith found a pretty good home on the and hope. Saskatchewan prairie. complex. Another quality of thinking journalists— When our students fret over future they have this thing about sacred cows. They prospects, we tell them this: if you want to don’t like them. In ‘Educating the Machine,’ be a journalist, you will be a journalist. It Greg Girard zeroes in on our comfortable won’t be easy—but it wasn’t easy for James M. Minifie, either, to assumptions about higher education, and asks the all-important find his way from a Saskatchewan village to the battlefields of question: who really benefits? In ‘Burned Straight,’ Bryony Fortune Europe with a typewriter under his arm. Great journalism doesn’t turns a trip to the hairdresser into a consideration of why we rise up from comfort zones. It’s a struggle, and it starts at the bot - embrace the straight jacket of dominant cultural conventions, and tom with that first incredible story that has you knocking down at what cost. But sometimes people break out of step: in ‘Place of editors’ doors (and, one day, has them knocking down your door). Rescue,’ a pastor’s widow pauses in the middle of waxing a floor, hit Our school focuses on producing self-starters, innovators and criti - by the realization that her skills as wife and mother are no longer cal thinkers who thrive in any weather. So far, our grads haven’t needed. Braden Husdel picks up on the compelling story of a proven this strategy wrong. woman who, late in life, begins a journey to find her own purpose As faculty, we’re also aware that journalism education changes in the world. It’s a common theme in this year’s Crow: ordinary how people see the world. The questions get bigger, the answers people doing extraordinary things. Éva Larouche’s ‘What Makes a more complex. That’s what happened when student Noel Busse Workplace Human?’ ends the issue with eight hundred acres of returned to his home town. In ‘The Great Battle of Moose Jaw,’ an crops in the bin and a new appreciation for life. argument over where to put a hockey rink becomes tied to a city’s Throughout, our photojournalism students punctuate the collec - history, dreams and social divisions. Likewise, our cover story, ‘Got tion with what acclaimed photographer James Nachtwey calls the Lactose?’ by Jay Teneycke, links a seemingly mundane grocery-aisle most elemental and essential act of journalism: bearing witness to choice to the future of an industry. The quest for essential context the human condition. is why Derek Putz’s ‘Homefield Advantage’ is more than a sports story. In a province where football matters, the tale of how local — Patricia W. Elliott, Editor

page  the CROW The Healer Lee Donison gazes through the screen door of his south Regina home waiting for his next visitor. For over fifty years, Donison — without any training —has been mysteriously easing the pain of seemingly hopeless injuries with his healing hands.

DANIELLE MARIO Fight Tensions rise outside a downtown Regina pub.

COLLEEN FRASER

page  th eCROW Journalism outside the pack Thirty years ago, a School of Journalism was born in ‘the middle of nowhere.’ If you wanted to incubate journalism that was stubbornly inquisitive, committed to social criticism in the public interest, and passionate about the written By Mitch Diamantopoulos word, Saskatchewan was the place to be. Still is. photo: robin lawless

amed for Queen Victoria, the city sink its roots into the fertile soil of what This courageous enterprise was led by of Regina, Saskatchewan, is situ - had become a vibrant and critical campus, the School’s first director, Ron Robbins. As ated on the ancestral homelands now called the University of Regina. the CBC’s coordinator of staff training, Rob - Nof the Plains Cree, ceded with Although Smythe had retired seven years bins rowed against the relentless current of Treaty Four. It is the bloody terminal point earlier, his imprint on the university’s insti - vocational thinking—that training for jour - for both the Riel Rebellion in 1885 and the tutional culture and his path-breaking com - nalism could be reduced to a set of techni - On-to-Ottawa Trek of the unemployed in munications studies left important legacies. cal skills. Now, as director of the Canadian the Thirties. The legendary home of agrar - They created the intellectual conditions for West’s first journalism school, he faced an ian socialism and Medicare, Regina is the industry that doubted the relevance of any - only city I know of to have both a Riot and thing other than on-the-job apprentice - a Manifesto as its namesakes. Robbins rowed against ship. He met resistance, too, from working Into this crucible, one of the world’s journalists. Not without reason, they dis - leading communications theorists arrived the relentless current trusted the corrosive influence of middle at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina of vocational thinking class professionals on their democratic mis - Campus, in 1963. Dallas Smythe was sion to ‘afflict the comfortable and comfort recruited by Graham Spry, legendary leader —that training for the afflicted,’ as A. J. Liebling once put it. of the Canadian Radio League and the journalism could be Undaunted, Robbins’ school did not even father, thereby, of Canadian public broad - consider applicants to the two year pro - casting. Smythe had made his mark in the reduced to a set of gram without a degree already in hand, or U.S. as a pioneer of broadcast regulation at least two years of pre–journalism liberal and founder of educational television. He technical skills. arts courses. Robbins ensured a generation also taught the first-ever class in the politi - of journalists would graduate with a solid cal economy of communications. But Sask - a different kind of journalism school, one grounding in the social sciences, humani - atchewan was his home, and he found him - firmly grounded in the liberal arts and a ties and critical thinking. This was no small self drawn back by the open, progressive critical conception of communications. This service to the public interest at the time. spirit of social innovation that defined the implied an independent and critical ap - An increasingly complex, rapidly changing province in the Sixties. Here, he could be a proach to journalism, rather than simply world—and an increasingly well-educated pioneer again. During the next ten years, being captive to industry interests or con - public—demanded more depth, context Smythe championed the university’s ventional wisdom. and rigour from the press corps. famous Regina Beach Statement—a mani - Compared to formal instruction in mathe - At the same time, Robbins—who had festo for the liberal arts—and threw him - matics or philosophy or astronomy—which been a working journalist for the U.K.’s self into the highly contentious debates on go back thousands of years—journalism Press Association, the BBC and the Cana - the New World Information and Communi - education is a relatively young field. To dian Press—did not lose sight of the need cations Order at UNESCO. establish this School in 1980 was, there - for practical, hands-on instruction and By 1980, a new journalism school would fore, no small achievement. mentorship in the field. In fact, his school

page  the CROW photo : robin lawless After travelling the world, James M. Minifie’s typewriter—and his legacy—came to rest at the University of Regina. established the strongest internship pro - ship in perpetuity at the journalism school series. Every year, Minifie’s well-traveled gram in the country. Spanning a full thir - he found ed. Named for his wife Kay, it was typewriter shares the stage with a leading teen weeks, this paid internship remains a final act of affection and democratic con - Canadian journalist. Whether Joe Schles - the envy of journalism schools across the viction. inger, June Callwood, Arthur Kent, Peter country. It moved the School well beyond Gzowski, Haroon Siddiqui or any other of the bi-polar disorders of a narrow vocation - the thirty lecturers, including this year’s alism, on the one hand, and a disconnect - The state of journalism Tony Burman, each speaker has represented ed academicism, on the other. Robbins’ …is very much the the essence of what Minifie’s legacy repre - school emphasized the full sweep of aca - sents: the importance of Canadian journal - demic, professional and democratic rigours people’s business. ism to democratic society. and responsibilities. As the School’s gradu - Indeed, in this age of consumerism, fast ates fanned out, they played an important, food culture, and celebrity journalism, we vanguard role in redefining the best in are too apt to forget the formative and modern journalism across the Canadian his year we mark the School’s remark - defining relationship between democracy West and well beyond. Table founding with the publication of and journalism. We forget that the emer - The program quickly became well known the Minifie Lectures, named in honour of gence of a modern ‘public’ depended cru - and respected as one of the leading James M. Minifie, a crusading journalist cially on the rise of journalism as its eyes, schools in the country. It succeeded who journeyed from Vanguard, Saskatche - ears and voice. Without journalism, the despite early doubts that such an ambi - wan to cover the Franco dictatorship and struggle for hearts and minds would be tious program could be launched ‘in the popular resistance in Spain. At one point conducted in dark silence and democracy middle of nowhere.’ The School sank deep Minifie was captured by Franco’s forces. would surely be lost. That’s why the state roots in the region and cultivated its own Later, he lost an eye to the shattered glass of journalism is not simply a concern for distinctive and intensive approach to jour - from the blast of a German bomb while media owners, or even journalists. It is nalism education, accepting no more than watching an air raid in London. Like his very much the peoples’ business—and this twenty-six students per year. It also over - contemporaries, George Orwell and Ernest school remains centrally committed to the came the hinterland churn of central Cana - Hemingway, Minifie cleared a written path democratic mission of illuminating the pub - dian journalism graduates documenting the through the trauma and rubble of a world lic interest. ‘Rest of Canada.’ Creating an innovative that had been blown asunder by greed, centre of gravity outside the regional and hatred, and empire. In his name, the Mini - doctrinal mainstream was perhaps the fie family ensured a financial legacy to sup - Mitch Diamantopoulos is department head of greatest contribution of the new school on port the education of young journalists, an the School of Journalism, Faculty of Arts, the prairies. Certainly, Robbins believed in act that helped make the School’s founding University of Regina, and the editor of that vision to his dying breath, leaving his possible and invigorated public discussion -30-: Thirty Years of Democracy and Journalism entire estate to endow a student scholar - and debate through a free public lecture in Canada, The Minifie Lectures 1981-2010.

page  the CROW Waiting Braedon Woods of Regina’s acclaimed Do It With Class Young People’s Theatre awaits his cue at the first matinée performance of Willie Wonka Junior.

DANIELLE MARIO

page  th eCROW The great battle OF

archival photos (inset from left: Saskatchewan Archives Board ( R-A6842, R-B11601, R-B11601-31 ); other original photos: noel busse

n the 1920s, Moose Jaw’s River new millennium: short, thuggish sentinels tion. A controversial issue in its own right, Street was a glaring symbol for armed with music and liquor, the last out - the building’s fate pales when seen against everything wrong and right with posts of this small prairie city’s commercial the seething political backdrop of the I Prohibition-era Saskatchewan. The downtown. River Street beyond is stereo - industrial no-man’s land to the west of concept of sobriety got a hard kicking here typical urban decay, smattered with dere - downtown. on a nightly basis, and River Street became lict buildings, junk-filled lots and the occa - This land is slated to be the future site infamous for the bars, bootleggers and sional business. of the Moose Jaw Multiplex, which support - brothels that settled in this small southern The Royal was demolished in 2008 and ers say will simultaneously replace the prairie city at the confluence of Moose Jaw the Brunswick closed soon after, to make Civic Centre and the curling rink, keep the River and Thunder Creek. By 2009 the last way for a hotel-shopping complex designed WHL Warriors hockey team from leaving bar on the strip, Jake’s Saloon, was slated to imitate a historic streetscape. In March town, and revitalize the derelict River for closure. With the neighbouring Royal 2009, Moose Jaw’s city council voted to Street. On October 25, 2006, in a special and Brunswick Hotels, it formed the holy strip the Brunswick of its heritage building plebiscite, citizens voted seventy-one per trinity of Moose Jaw nightlife well into the designation, opening the door to demoli - cent in favour of investing $15 million in

page  the CROW Moose Jaw

A new hockey rink seemed like a good idea to some.

Then all hell broke loose. By Noel Busse

the $36 million project, contingent on fed - f you head east down River Street and pipe. If you talk to some of the more eral, provincial and private investments to Iturn left on Main Street, you’ll find your - boastful twenty-somethings in town, they make up the remainder. But within a few self driving north past a melange of ant - might even tell you that they or someone weeks voters learned what city councillors ique buildings and modern develop ment: they know actually took a skateboard up had apparently already known: the cost an old apartment block on the right, a there once. was now estimated in the $61 million Rogers Video on the left. Keep going north One of the oldest large-scale arenas in range, raising the city’s stake to $34 mil - and you’ll eventually climb a hill that Saskatchewan, the building has a storied lion. In the ensuing years of petitions and reaches its apex at the Town and Country past. Jazzman Louis Armstrong drew a law suits, the Multiplex became mired in Mall and the Moose Jaw Civic Centre. crowd of 4,100 here when its doors first what seemed a perpetual standstill. Divi - The aging Civic Centre is one of the most opened on September 19, 1959. sions that had existed since the city’s unique buildings in southern Saskatche - In 1984, the Winnipeg Warriors became founding re-emerged, creating a portrait of wan. It’s a curious-looking thing, a baby the Moose Jaw Warriors and claimed the a community at war with itself. blue concrete building with a prominent Civic Centre as home ice. A source of pride Oh discord, thy name is Multiplex. steel roof that looks like a ski hill half- for the longtime teamless city, the Civic

page  the CROW Centre and the mall, located just a parking tures. Split in half by a web of railroad and lot away, formed an economic hotspot. Gaz - The Moose Jaw Times trains, Moose Jaw’s north and south are ing at the McDonald’s ‘M’ arches and the Herald reported that tenuously connected by just two heavily plastic Burger King obelisk across the travelled concrete bridges and an under - street is enough to tell the casual onlooker it had received an pass. With the Multiplex on everyone’s that this is where money is made. There anonymous phone call mind, the city’s collective consciousness were grumblings that the area’s success now matches the severity of the train-yard came at the expense of the city’s historic threatening the lives of that rumbles against its crossings. downtown. Moose Jaw was, for a brief time in 1906, Ten years ago, the idea of replacing the Mayor Dale McBain and the biggest city in Saskatchewan, bigger Civic Centre was nothing more than a twin - five city councillors. even than the provincial capital, Regina, kle in the eyes of local hockey fans. It was - just seventy-one kilometres down the road. n’t until a group of local businessmen The city’s growth would gradually be out - assembled and, dubbing themselves the and over the counters of its convenience paced by Regina, Saskatoon and, just Multiplex Steering Committee, contracted stores. Even today, ask a stranger on the recently, Prince Albert. Today the popula - Nustadia Recreation, Inc. to look at just street, “What do you think of the Multi - tion is just over 32,000, making it Sask - how feasible their vision would be. plex?” and you risk an eyeful of suspicion atche wan’s fourth-largest city. Where it should be built, why it should and an earful of silence. You might as well As prairie historian William Brennan tells or shouldn’t be built, and who’s going to ask for his ATM number, or which brick the it, Moose Jaw faces three challenges to its benefit were all questions asked in the spare key to his house is hidden under. self image: its proximity to the larger city city’s coffee shops, at its dinner tables, The city’s controversy parallels its fea - centre of Regina, its demotion from third

Saskatchewan Archives Board (R-A6842) Looking south past the intersection of Main and High Streets in this undated Moose Jaw photo. By 1906 it had become Saskatchewan’s largest city. It was a city in its prime, an economic hub for the region that retained a dash of the wild west and promised nothing less than the height of modernity. The CPR rail station anchors the southern end of Main Street, with a full range of shops, offices, hotels and banks extending north along either side.

page  the CROW to fourth-largest city in the province and, in both average income and voting behav - become the man that the Multiplex-pas - finally, the sense that there hasn’t been iour. The labour-friendly NDP, represented sionate viewed as either a champion of any tangible economic development since by MLA Deb Higgins, holds the southern reason or an arch-demon of delays. His the 1950’s. constituency of Wakamow Valley, while plain two-storey house with its closed-in “The lifeblood of Moose Jaw’s economy Warren Michelson and the business– porch, chipped cement walkway and mod - throughout its history was the Canadian oriented Saskatchewan Party hold court in est front yard, gave none of this drama Pacific Railway,” says Brennan. As a divi - Moose Jaw North. away. And it really didn’t need to. Just ask sional point on the CPR main line, the rail - In a town geographically and socially Swanson about the Multiplex and his feel - way employed workers in its freight yards divided, it’s not surprising that nearly ings were clear. and maintenance shops. The introduction every major project Moose Jaw has under - As one of just two people on Moose of less maintenance-heavy diesel trains taken in the last half century has been Jaw’s seven-member city council that year during the Sixties and Seventies hit the mired in controversy. The Civic Centre, the to question the Multiplex—Dawn Luhning city hard. Repair shops haemorrhaged Wakamow Library expansion, and the Tem - was the other—Swanson had breathed and employees, leading to the closure of many ple Gardens Mineral Spa have all seen their slept the city’s most contentious issue for of Moose Jaw’s key industries. share of bickering. four years. Eyes widening, he invited me The decline of rail yard work is con - inside to talk. It quickly became apparent nected to many of the economic issues in n an unusually temperate February that there was not a waking moment he the city. Meanwhile, the rail yard’s physical Oafternoon in 2009, the city was reach - didn’t spend thinking about the Multiplex. presence continues to divide the city be - ing the apex of the Multiplex debate: a Facts and figures poured out of his mouth tween its traditionally working class south second vote to be held February 25. By in torrents. “I have a stack of papers this and more entrepreneurial north, reflected now city councillor Brian Swanson had big about this,” he said, using his hands to

Saskatchewan Archives Board (R-A7647) Moose Jaw hockey passion captured in this undated (c 1910), unlikely and yet so poignant photo. An assemblage of hockey players, visitors and townsfolk pose on Main Street in front of the Maple Leaf Hotel, facing the CPR station. The team has just returned from a Saskatchewan-Alberta tournament. In the centre is the world heavyweight champion boxer Jack John - son and his companion Hattie McClay. Known faces in this photo (L-R): Percy Shand (with beaver collar), CPR conductor, Sam Delmedge (defence), unknown (printer), Jack Johnston, Ed Kern (right wing), Harry Miller (team manager), Hattie McClay, Bud Bissell (centre)(CPR mail clerk), J. (Chesty) Kain (goal), Jim Law (left wing), W.J. Stubbing (rover), and Mr. Dowswell (defence).

page  the CROW “In this instance, the city is going to spend $34 million out of a $60 million project,” he said, alluding to provincial funding that Multiplex sup - porters said was waiting in the wings for the city’s go- ahead. While the question for Swanson and the no-plexers was, “How can we afford to go ahead with this?” the question for the pro-plexers was, “How can we afford not to go through with this?” Saying no to the Multiplex would be like saying no to a $23 million gift from the im age: Saskatche wan Archives B oard (R-A7307) province, and saying good - bye to the Warriors to boot, according to Yet for Moose Jaw’s pro-Multiplex popula - McBain. carve a length of about a foot and a half tion, Swanson was the ultimate thorn in McBain wavered just once during the in - out of the air. He frequently ran upstairs to the side. Just as everyone had an opinion terview. When asked what would happen if search this stack for documents to back up on the Multiplex so, too, did they have one the February 25 referendum returned a nay his facts. on Swanson. vote, his shoulders slumped. “I don’t have For much of the city’s population, Swan - “Swanson=Joke,” read a post on discover - an answer to that.” son remained the proverbial naysayer. He moosejaw.com, a frequent battleground for admitted to me that he saw Moose Jaw as the issue. “This grandstanding fool has s the debate deepened, rumours flew a city with “several problems,” and had been the champion of the vocal minority Aabout who would benefit from the en - often pointed these out as city councillor: for too long.” suing property negotiations, although no jobs were disappearing, the hospital A reply read: “If we didn’t have Mr. one came forward to say exactly who and needed to be repaired, the city was too Swanson standing up for the people of this how. Darin Chow was one of a growing close to Regina, and the population was community, who would?” number of citizens who found the rising shrinking. Such words made him the sub - conflict distasteful. As a Moose Jaw city ject of ire among the city’s optimists. His n early November of 2008, the Moose councillor, Warriors president, and presi - opponents said he was standing in the way IJaw Times Herald reported that it had dent of the Saskatchewan Trial Lawyers of progress and prosperity. Swanson said received an anonymous phone call threat - Association, Chow was what some Moose he was a realist, compared to the “delu - ening the lives of then-Mayor Dale McBain Jaw citizens might refer to as ‘a mover and sionists” who thought the Multiplex would and five city councillors. While McBain a shaker,’ and he didn’t like the “innuendo turn Moose Jaw around. laughs it off now, city councillors were and misunderstanding” that had taken over Talking to Swanson that February day escorted to council meetings by police in his town. As referendum day approached, revealed this had become more than just a the weeks that followed. he complained: “There’s been far too much matter for city council. It was now per - Despite the threat, McBain remained emphasis in this community put on the sonal. He bitterly recounted what he saw calm and jovial. In an interview before the personalities involved in the project, and as personal attacks on his character, in - referendum, he sat contently, hands folded not nearly enough emphasis put on the cluding claims that he stood in the way of in his lap, going over the details of the project itself.” He described the contro - the development of the Temple Gardens Multiplex project with just a hint of pride versy as a blame game that caused both Mineral Spa, Moose Jaw’s pride. in his voice. He seemed certain the dollars sides to start looking for villains. “From 1986 to 2006 the population of would fall into place. “It embarrasses this community, quite Moose Jaw declined (by) three thousand, “Look at just about any project we’ve frankly.” and some people would have you believe done in this city; each one of them seemed Like many, he was looking forward to a that’s all (my) fault,” said Swanson. “I was to be horrendous in terms of cost. The City conclusion. the chairman of the spa committee! I of Moose Jaw continued to chug along… He wasn’t the only one. When February voted to drill the (geothermal) well!” and the Multiplex is the same kind of thing.” 25 finally dawned, lifelong Moose Javian

page  the CROW photo: noel busse

Trent Barnett joined the weary citizens who in at twenty minutes after eight. By nine The morning after the vote, the Times made their way to the voting booths. Al - o’clock, it was an unofficial win for the Mul - Herald’s front page headline read ‘Moose though Barnett had some misgivings, he tiplex. But it’s doubtful the debate ended at Javians say yes,’ making it an official victory voted in favour of the project. “It stretched the same moment. With sixty per cent in for the pro-plexers. A supplemental story, out so long that people were honestly fed favour and forty per cent against, it was far ‘Swanson in disbelief over outcome,’ ran on up with it,” he explained later. “It was no from a landslide victory, and showed that page three. The paper quoted the councillor longer a topic that people wanted to dis - considerably fewer people were in favour of as saying, “Oh, well, Moose Jaw wanted it, cuss…it was more, ‘What’s the weather like the project than when it originally won by they’re going to get it now.” today?’ rather than ‘What do you think of seventy-one per cent in 2006. As for McBain, after hearing the tally he the Multiplex?’” For someone looking in from the outside, went and had a glass of wine at the home of That night, a confident but anxious Mc - the furor surrounding the Multiplex might a fellow councillor, watched the late night Bain joined city councillors in the council have looked ridiculous, even laughable. But news, and then went home to bed. When room at City Hall as the votes rolled in. for the staunch advocates and detractors of the election call for mayor came that Octo - Brian Swanson was noticeably absent. Dawn the Multiplex, the stakes were nothing less ber, he didn’t answer. Luhning, the other ‘naysayer,’ was also no - than the future prosperity of their small, where to be seen. The results began coming struggling city.

page  the CROW Got lactose? Milk—once the mother of all foods—has become controversial. By Jay Teneycke

he quickly gulps down the last of down the twenty-five centimetres of eso - breakfast. The lactose attracts a host of her breakfast and gingerly places phagus into her waiting stomach. microscopic organisms that begin to feast her dish in the sink. Looking out A rubbery elastic-like bag, the stomach on the unwanted molecules. Because she Sher kitchen window, Shannon Hoff - is where digestion begins. It gets to work, cannot digest lactose, the molecules sit in man starts to think about the day to come. unleashing a myriad of digestive enzymes her intestines getting heavier and heavier. She will be in and out of the office all day, and acids that quickly break down food so Eventually the body realizes something is and has a staff meeting at three o’clock. that nutrients can then be absorbed into wrong and begins to fill her intestinal tract After work, there is just enough time to the body. with water to flush away the irritant. stop at the grocery store to pick up a few One of the main components of the milk Sitting in traffic, Shannon begins to feel things for dinner. Hoffman drank is a carbohydrate, or sugar, slightly nauseous. She is congested, bloat- “Maybe we’ll have spaghetti tonight,” called lactose, which the body uses as a ed and has serious stomach pains. She she thinks. source of energy. When she was a child her glances at her watch. It’s only eight in the After dinner it’s off to the gym. She is morning and already her day is ruined. training to compete in her first half mara- thon this summer. Her goal is two and a Sitting in traffic, e live in a word that revolves around half hours. Wmilk. Canada’s 1.5 million dairy cows Raising a glass of milk to her lips she Shannon begins to produce 4.5 trillion litres of milk a year. drinks, letting the cool, smooth contents The dairy industry contributes an estimated swish around her mouth before swallowing. feel slightly nauseous. three billion dollars annually to the econ - An athlete for her entire life, she contem - omy, and employs 160,000 workers. Milk is plates the empty glass in her hand. As a a dietary staple and an icon of good kinesiology student she learned milk was health, promoted by our medical system as vital for athletes to develop and an impor - body naturally produced an enzyme called well as the Canadian government. tant part of a person’s diet. The calcium lactase, which is needed to break down, But it wasn’t always this way. found in milk is important for the growth digest and absorb lactose. But as Shannon Although it’s often assumed North Ameri - and development of muscle and bone, plus grew older her body slowly stopped produc - cans have a long tradition of drinking milk, it’s good for your skin and teeth. She ing the enzyme. Now her DNA has turned fresh milk wasn’t a major American bever - recalls memorizing the Canada Food Guide’s the switch off permanently. Thousands of age until the mid-nineteenth century, suggestion of at least two servings of milk years ago her hunting and gathering ances - according to Melanie DuPuis, a University every day, more for children and anyone tors’ bodies stopped producing lactase in of California sociologist. Before then, dairy over fifty. She knew that osteoporosis runs adulthood because there was no need. Ani - products mainly consisted of butter and in her family and that the calcium from mals like cattle and goats had yet to be cheese, which had a longer shelf life. Few milk would help keep her bones strong as domesticated, so no one consumed milk people drank milk by the glass. she aged. once they were weaned from their mothers. Cow’s milk was initially developed as a Oh shoot, it’s 7:30! Her mind snaps back As the glass of milk Shannon drank just replacement for breast milk during the to the day ahead. She grabs her car keys minutes ago moves from her stomach to baby booms that followed successive and heads out the door. her small intestine, a serious problem waves of nineteenth century urbanization, As Hoffman pulls out of the driveway, begins to develop. Since her body stopped DuPuis writes in Nature’s Perfect Food. her body is alive with billions of processes producing the necessary enzyme years ago, When the population boomed, food short - happening every second. Now fully awake, she cannot properly digest the carbohy - ages became a problem. An early solution her digestive system is in full swing, a fur - drate lactose. was to build cattle yards directly beside nace that begins breaking down her break - Within her small intestine the lactose breweries. The cattle were fed the fast to give her the energy she needs for molecules from her glass of milk begin to leftovers from the brewing process, a mix the rest of the day. The milk she drank ear - ferment, rather than being digested and of grains called ‘brewer’s swill.’ The result lier has traveled past her lips, tongue and absorbed into her body with the rest of her was a kind of economic recycling that

page  the CROW made milk plentiful and cheap. The quality wasn’t very good, though. In fact, many people believed it was danger - ous. Yet it provided needed nutrition, and brought milk into the fabric of North Ameri - can life. Due to an evolutionary mutation, lactose intolerance wasn’t a major issue in the early days of milk-drinking. Back then, most North Americans were of northern European ancestry. According to Harvard’s School of Public Health, only about fifteen per cent of people of northern European descent are lactose intolerant, compared to ninety per cent of Asians, seventy per cent of Africans and Native Americans, and fifty per cent of Hispanics. It was only when the population began to diversify that the controversial side of milk began to emerge. Were humans meant to drink cow’s milk? A quick Internet search reveals clearly drawn battle lines. Milk has become con - tested territory. On the one side is a group dedicated to eradicating milk and dairy from our collec - tive diets, citing everything from animal cruelty to possible steroids and harmful hormones found in milk. On the other hand, milk advocates promote milk drink - ing as something essential to good health. One of the main points of contention is over the issue of lactose intolerance. The idea that something like milk, so funda - mental to our dietary habits, might cause pain and discomfort can be difficult to understand for someone who doesn’t suffer from the condition. Thinking about milk has clearly changed. The last twenty years have witnessed a sharp downturn in consumption. In 1980, Canadians drank some 430 glasses of milk annually. By 1999 that number had drop- ped to 370. Part of the reason has to do with a new generation of fruit juices and sport and energy drinks that are directed at children e and teens. But a dramatic rise in lactose k c y intolerance awareness has also played its e n e T part. After all, most of the earth’s popula - y a tion is to some extent lactose intolerant. J

: o

Only a small few are not. t o h

As a result, today’s milk promoters find p themselves facing an uphill battle. Yet for

page  the CROW photo: jay teneycke people who can properly digest and could only be found in specialty and health of calcium into the body. While some foods absorb milk, the drink still has a lot to food stores, most grocers now carry a wide such as broccoli, spinach or almonds might offer. It’s a great source of calcium and variety of soy beverages, as well as rice, have more calcium than traditional milk, protein, as well as vitamins A, B and C. almond and hemp milk. Even traditional the vitamin D found in milk makes it easier Phosphorus strengthens bones and gener - cow’s milk is now sold with the lactose for the body to absorb the calcium. ates energy. Milk also contains niacin, removed to avoid painful stomach aches. The lesson: check labels when making which, perhaps ironically, the body uses any dietary changes. to make other digestive enzymes work more efficiently. Thinking about milk ushing the wobbly shopping cart past So should a person drink milk? Pshelves of cereal boxes, Hoffman finds The decision really comes down to the has clearly changed. her way to the dairy section. The pale individual, who should also consult with white florescent lights and the slight chill his or her family doctor, according to The last twenty years from the refrigeration units cause her to Melanie Rozwadowski, assistant professor have witnessed a pause. She sees a bewildering variety of of nutrition and dietetics at the University flavored soy beverages, rice and almond of Saskatchewan. sharp downturn in milk. There’s even a hemp product that Ultimately, proper nutrition is like a puz - looks a bit too exotic for its own good. zle. Milk is just one piece of a much larger consumption. Added to this is a wide selection of milk picture. If you take a piece out, it will no products that announce in bold lettering longer be compete until you replace it with that they are now lactose free. something that fits just right. But Rozwadowski cautions consumers to “There are just so many choices,” she Thankfully there are now many alterna - be aware that, while traditional milk is thinks. tives for people who want to limit the fortified with many nutrients, including Where her choice was once limited to a amount of dairy they consume in their diet. vitamin D, not all milk alternatives are. It’s simple decision like one percent milk or Dairy digestive aids that are in pill form also very rare to find cheese that has been two, the arrival of lactose intolerance as a and contain the enzyme lactase can now be fortified. dietary issue has brought with it a cornu - purchased over the counter in pharmacies Vitamin D has a special relationship with copia of alternatives. She picks up a car - and grocery stores across the country. the drink’s naturally occurring calcium, ton in each hand and begins to read the Where once milk and dairy alternatives helping the body absorb greater amounts label.

page  the CROW Cathedral Regina’s Holy Rosary Cathedral rings in a cold New Year’s eve.

JAY TENEYCKE Hom e f ield By Derek Putz

band of boys make their way few games. Selling peanuts during the first But becoming a Rider player was a dif - down the streets of Regina, quarter of the last game was the only way ferent story. When Foord was growing up, Saskatchewan, dressed in green that Stu could get into the stadium. For local kids rarely made the team. Aand white. The letter ‘S’ ripples this game, though, they have tickets in on a flag carried by the boy in the back. hand. Once inside, Stu almost feels like he t wasn’t that way in the beginning. When Twelve-year-old Stu Foord leads the charge. is on the field himself. He closes his eyes Ithe team was born in 1910 as the Regina But at this moment he isn’t Stu Foord. In and breathes in the atmosphere of Taylor Rugby Club, the team fielded mostly home - his imagination he’s Number 80, Don Nar - Field, home of the Canadian Football town players. Back then the rules of the cisse, running a post pattern past the hot League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders. game were closer to rugby. The forward pass dog stand and around the man selling the Twelve years later, Stu Foord slides open wasn’t introduced until 1929. ‘The land of programs. Stu looks back at his friends and the wooden dresser drawer in his old room the living skies’ continued to produce pig - grins. There is no other place to be on at his parents’ house, marveling at the skin talent when the team became the game day. The music from the stadium stockpile of Roughrider game day ticket Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1946, and for grows louder. Passing by the practice field, stubs. Ever since the day he fell in love the next fifteen years, no fewer than fifty- Stu stops to breathe in the smell of the with football, he rarely missed a Rider four players graduated from high schools or grass. It reminds him of his last game play - game. When the Riders were playing, his junior teams in Regina to play for the home - ing on this same field, as a member of the family knew never to bother him. “It was town squad. The best years were between Regina Minor Football League’s Steelers. just natural for me to be at the games, and the Roughriders’ 1966 Grey Cup victory and Finally they arrive at the entrance to the it was great because every single kid on their run of Western Conference titles east stands, what everyone calls ‘the sunny the block wanted to do the same thing,” through the mid-Seventies. Saskatchewan side.’ Too young for jobs, Stu and his Foord says. Being a Rider fan was a prereq - all-stars Wayne Shaw, Lorne Richardson, Bill friends have resorted to sneaking into a uisite for growing up in Saskatchewan. Baker, Ken McEachern, Ted Urness, Ted

page  the CROW In football-mad Saskatchewan, hometown kids rarely made the team. Players like Stu Foord are changing that. advanta ge

photo: derek putz

Dushinski, and Roger Aldag proved to the Clermont tried out for the team but was round the same time that local prod - league that players from Saskatchewan sent back to the Regina Rams. A product of Aucts like Clermont couldn’t find spots could excel in the CFL. Many of these play - the times, Clermont says that he and fellow on the team, young Stu Foord was starting ers spent ten or more years in the green Regina receivers couldn’t crack the lineup to take football seriously. One day the and white, and defined tough Rider foot - because Regina-born players just weren’t young Foord was invited to his minor ball on the prairies. getting the opportunities. Yet football was league football coach’s house. The butter - The number of Saskatchewan-born play - in his blood. flies started to poke at his stomach when ers stayed in double digits every year from Walking home from school when he was he saw his favourite player, American-born 1966 to 1984. Once 1985 hit, however, eight, Clermont was stopped by a minor running back Mike Saunders, and fellow Saskatchewan-born players began to dwin - league coach. The coach was short a player Rider Kevin Mason sitting at the kitchen dle. Alex Smith, a Riders’ coach since 1997, and asked him if he wanted to play. “I table. Saunders walked over and shook watched the field change through the late went home and begged my parents to let Foord’s hand. After a few minutes of talk - 1980s and 1990s. CFL teams began to rely me play football and I’ve been playing ever ing, however, Foord’s butterflies disap - more heavily on American-born players, since,” he recalls. peared. He realized that these big, intimi - who seemed dramatically better at skill After high school, Clermont joined the dating people were just regular guys. “It positions than Canadians. The U.S. also University of Regina Rams. He was selected opened up my eyes, and I realized that if had far larger pools to pick from. Increas - by the British Columbia Lions in the 2002 you just work at it, you can have a life like ingly, the scouts cast their eyes south. By Canadian Draft. But it would be another that,” Foord recalls. 1998, Mike Maurer was the only Regina- seven years before 2007’s Most Outstand - From Regina Minor Football, Foord went born player on the team, and only one of ing Canadian would find himself in his on to play intercollegiate football with the three Saskatchewan players. hometown uniform. Thom Trojans and developed a new outlook The following year, local talent Jason thanks to his coaches, Gerry Thompson and

page  the CROW Chuck Toth. They taught Foord that hard vastly improved. “The film from the States work pays off, no matter where you’re from. has always been really good,” Smith ex - “They really let you know what it was going plains. “But in Canada, even in the last to take to make it to the next level, and five years, the film is dramatically better even how to be successful in life alone,” than it was before (and) the level of coach - says Foord. ing has really improved not only in the After high school, Foord joined the new - province of Saskatchewan but across ly formed Regina Prairie Thunder junior Canada.” football team, and was the star there for five years. He could have taken the more traditional route of playing university ball, The Roughriders had but he relished the opportunity to be a nine Saskatchewan starter right away. Then, before the 2008 CFL season, Thunder coach Erwin Klempner players on the roster, managed to get Foord a tryout with the Riders. The rest was history. “The main including five from thing was that I had the desire to make Regina—the highest the team and that’s ultimately what hap - pened,” Foord says. number in eighteen Things had finally started to change in years. the province. Foord was one of three Regina-born players to join the squad in photos: derek putz 2008, which had five Saskatchewan players overall. Through hard work, Canadian players Stu Foord’s expansive pile of Rider Chris Getzlaf, one of Foord’s teammates, were breaking the stigma that they were game-day ticket stubs collected over was traded to the team during the 2007 lesser players than Americans. Just ten the years (top). Foord looking at his season. Like Foord, Getzlaf grew up in years ago, for example, Foord and fellow former high school in Regina, Thom Regina, a city where professional hockey— Regina running back Neal Hughes might Collegiate (bottom). not football—was the career path for many have been relegated to special teams. “(A young athletes. He could have followed his Canadian) running back was very rare,” Get - younger brother Ryan into the NHL, but zlaf notes. The assumption was that Amer - Chris found his passion in football. After ican halfbacks were superior. high school, he played on the Thunder, But Stu Foord says he always felt that made the jump to university football, and Canadian players had better knowledge of then was drafted by the Hamilton Tiger- the Canadian game and its rules, and he Cats in 2007. used that to his advantage. And while Arriving at his first training camp in American players will always come and go, Steeltown, Getzlaf knew he would be com - he says, it’s the Canadians, like Ray Elgaard peting with receivers who had NFL ex p - and Aldag who stick around for their whole erience. He assumed that they had to be careers. far better. But after the first day of tryouts, he realized that his own skill level wasn’t here could be even more local heroes in that far off. Tthe future. Len Antonini, vice president Getzlaf wasn’t the only one who noticed of Regina Minor Football, says enrollment that Canadians were holding their own. in the league more than doubled from 602 Riders’ linebacker coach Alex Smith, who kids and 25 teams in 2004 to some 1,500 scouts twenty-seven universities for the kids and 52 teams in 2009. With role mod - Canadian draft, could see Canadian players els like Foord to look up to, football is improving. In particular, Smith began see - once more becoming a tangible dream in ing more quality players coming out of the Saskatchewan. prairies. He chalked up the resurgence to Foord remembers well the night before better coaching, nutrition and fitness. As his first start with the Roughriders. Before well, the art of using film to study play had he fell asleep, a vision played in his mind.

page  the CROW Players Positional Breakdown Year Regina Sask Western OL/DL WR/SB HB/FB LB/DB Other Total All-Star It was more tangible than his childhood 2009 59 3 522-- daydreams. This time, he wasn’t Don Nar - 2008 35 2 212-- cisse. He was himself. He saw himself run - 2007 46 2 2211- ning for the goal line and scoring a touch - 2006 46 2 2112- 2005 46 2 2112- down. The next night, stepping on the 2004 24 2 2-11- field under the lights, he felt right at 2003 13 2 2- -1- home. After all, Taylor Field was the place 2002 14 2 3- -1- 2001 15 2 31 1- where he played high school and junior 2000 25 1 2211- football for nine years of his life. It was 1999 25 1 2111- also the place where he spent his child - 1998 13 1 111-- 1997 24 1 1111- hood watching his favourite team. He con - 1996 25 1 11-3- templated those who played on this field 1995 25 2 21-2- before him: Ray Elgaard, Don Narcisse, Cur - 1994 37 2 41-2- 1993 35 2 22-1- tis Mayfield and Mike Saunders, all his 1992 38 2 33-11 favourites. He remembered back to when 1991 49 2 43-11 he was a boy, and a player tossed his 1990 36 2 31-11 1989 48 2 52-1- gloves to him after a game. Foord wore 1988 36 2 51- -- the gloves for his entire minor league sea - 1987 38 2 611-- son that year. He made a mental note to 1986 27 2 61- -- 1985 39 2 61-2- do the same after the game, a game in 1984 3 12 372-21 which he would score two touchdowns, 1983 2 10 152111 including one on his first carry. 1982 2 13 28212- 1981 1 10 262-2- Those touchdowns were the beginning of 1980 5 13 274-2- a historic run for the team. Over a five- 1979 7 13 254-31 game stretch, Regina boys Foord, Getlzaf 1978 7 14 36413- 1977 5 10 35311- and Neal Hughes accounted for seven of 1976 6 11 35312- the eight offensive touchdowns scored. 1975 5 10 33223- Heading into the 2009 football cam - 1974 5 13 35323- 1973 5 14 36332- paign, the Roughriders had nine Sask - 1972 3 12 36222- atchewan players on the roster, including 1971 2 12 36222- five from Regina—the highest number in 1970 3 15 46324- 1969 3 15 46324- eighteen years. Not since 1979 had the 1968 3 14 66215- Riders fielded more Regina-born players. 1967 3 12 54215- Most importantly, these Regina athletes 1966 2 10 52215- 1965 29 5 2214- could soon become some of the best local 1964 39 5 3123- players to ever play on Taylor Field turf. 1963 29 5 4-14- The penultimate moment came during the 1962 38 5 3-14- 1961 49 4 4-14- 2009 Western Final in Regina, when all of 1960 3 10 25-131 the Roughriders’ touchdowns were scored Table notes: The Regina and Sask Total columns only take into consideration players by Canadian players. One week later at the who played in at least one game during the season noted. Players must also be born in Grey Cup, the team lost to the Mon - or have lived in Saskatchewan or Regina for most of their life to be counted. The Western treal Alouettes in agonizing fashion. Still, All-Star column includes the number of Sask/Regina players who were on the roster who fans could look back on their season with had received at least one West All-Star nomination in their career. Statistics prior to pride, knowing that football was once 1960 were unavailable. These numbers are compiled through Curt Phillip’s Player Refer - again a homegrown game in Saskatchewan. ence 1960-1996; 92 Years of Roughrider Football, compiled and edited by Edward Yuen; Back home, Foord places the old ticket as well as CFL Facts, Figures and Records (1997-2008). table: derek putz stubs back in the dresser drawer. He smiles. The game of football is just as fun for Foord as it’s always been. Some guys play Rider player for a portion of his life, he will toss a long bomb to the other, who has the for money; Foord doesn’t even have an always remain a Rider fan. Number 22 and ‘Foord’ stitched on his shirt. agent. He gives his all for football because When the 2010 season opens, a boy and It’s game day in Regina, and the boy it’s part of the place where he grew up, his buddies will run towards the sound and knows he can pretend to be anyone he and he proclaims that while he’ll only be a smells of the stadium. One of the boys may wants to be.

page  the CROW When Alexis Cuthbert had trouble gaining treatment for her son, she guessed other families were in the same boat.

So she decided to do something about it. Case y’s gift By Adrian Alleyne

photo: adrian alleyne

usic fills the room as mother sensitive to sound and his mother couldn’t doctor looked at her son across the room. and son play a duet. The figure out why he reacted the way he did “If you think that’s what it is, I’ll give you mother plays the flute and her to certain things. that diagnosis,” he said. It wasn’t the Mson the trombone. Their faces Doctors were reluctant to give any type answer she was looking for. She asked for a beam with joy, an expression that shows of diagnosis before the age of three. Kids referral to a pediatrician, who conducted a how close their journey has brought them. could be late developers and boys talked series of tests. “Well, you know I’m not Alexis Cuthbert first suspected that there later, they said. But then Cuthbert’s par - really qualified to tell you…but it could be, may be something wrong with her son ents saw someone on TV talking about it’s looking like that,” he said. Casey when he was two. He started to their child’s experience. It sounded like Next stop, a child psychologist. But speak, but his communication wasn’t devel - they were talking about Casey. they’d have to wait until January or Febru - oping. He didn’t play with toys in a usual Cuthbert didn’t want to believe it at ary for an appointment. She looked around manner, and wasn’t interested in playing first. She had experience working as a reg - for another city in Saskatchewan to take with other kids. As he got older he became istered psychiatric nurse, and had wit - him. Waiting lists elsewhere were even more withdrawn and more obsessive. He nessed the most extreme cases. longer. Saskatoon had a wait of eighteen was comfortable with his mother but when It was time to take him to the family months. So she started looking outside he was in a social situation he would re - doctor in Regina to get some answers. She Saskatchewan. move himself and play alone. He was very told the doctor what she suspected. The Three months later, she sat in the doc -

page  the CROW tor’s office in Medicine Hat, Alberta with disorder itself. “Medications aim at symp - Casey for the first time is a humbling expe - her son by her side. She thought about tom control in order to improve function,” rience. He’s only twelve but he’s person - how frustrating the last few months had explains Dr. Susan Petryk, a developmental able, energetic, smart and ready to get to been, how much time was wasted. To help pediatrician at Regina’s Wascana Rehabili - work. Casey she needed just one word, a name tation Centre. This might include medica - He arrives with a little jump to his step. for his symptoms. tion for hyperactivity, sleep disorder and “Hi Catherine, hi Catherine,” he calls out to In the end it was very simple. The child other related problems. his riding instructor, Catherine Sneath. He psychiatrist asked her a series of questions There’s no quick ‘cure’ for autism. even takes the time to introduce himself to about her son and his behaviour. She Instead, children and their families are the stranger his mom told him would be observed him in the room, and then con - there to watch him ride. firmed what Alexis had already suspected. With a little help from his mom, Casey Casey was diagnosed with high functioning “People kept on gets his boots on and runs off to gather autism. saying…‘You need the rest of his gear: the saddle, reins, and other equipment that most people don’t igh functioning autism is one of a help, you need help,’ know how to use. For Casey, it’s no prob - Hnumber of developmental disorders and I kept thinking, lem. This is a routine, this is comfortable. that fall under the category of Autism Spec - It’s the reason he was so excited when he trum Disorders (ASDs), among the most ‘Yeah, but who’s going came through the door. common developmental disabilities affect - Blue, an Arabian-Quarter Horse cross, ing Canadian children. In Saskat chewan, to help me?’” has been helping Casey with his develop - about one in 165 children born will have ment for the past five years. Blue is an ASD; autism is four times more common — Alexis Cuthbert twenty-nine years old. None of the other in boys than girls and is more prevalent horses in the stable have his experience than cancer, diabetes, spina bifida and and patience. He’s a calming influence for Down syndrome. assisted to set up a routine, keeping expec - Casey if the boy comes to a lesson over- Life isn’t easy for people with autism or tations and tasks clear, straightforward and excited. With Casey on his back, the horse for those caring for them. Kids with autism on schedule. Treatments include speech slowly makes his way around the riding express emotions in unexpected ways. If and language therapy, sensory integration ring like a grandfather walking with his they are irritated, they may respond with and motor skills therapy, as well as social grandchild. It’s easy to see why Casey is so rage. When merely content, they can ap - and play-related activities. Children with comfortable with him. Casey calmly guides pear uncontrollably jubilant. Other times it severe autism usually require structured Blue into a slow trot and then a gallop, may seem they’re uncaring because they education and behavioural programs. This taking directions from Sneath. Passing one fail to express emotion. Not being able to includes one-on-one teacher to student of the mirrors mounted on the wall, he communicate adds to their stress, affecting lessons, or lessons in small groups. Treat- slows ever so slightly and steals a glance. day-to-day activities like learning, commu - ments can be offered in schools, in the He looks as experienced as any other rider. nicating, and physical health. home or at an agency. As she watches from a nearby room, After the Medicine Hat trip, Cuthbert From her hours of reading, Cuthbert Cuthbert explains how far Casey has come. began reading everything she could about learned the earlier a child is diagnosed, At first, he just slumped down on the autism. She learned that the medical com - the earlier an intervention can take place, horse, with four volunteers walking care - munity had advanced its diagnostic tech - which can improve the chances of a child fully by his side. Now he sits up straight niques since her early nursing days. Today’s making gains. But unfortunately for chil - and rides all by himself. diagnosis falls across a range of disability dren in Saskatchewan, early intervention Sneath has been working with Casey levels, recognizing that no two people with isn’t always possible. Dr. Petryk acknowl - since he began riding five years ago. autism are the same. Doctors look for four edges the system is bottlenecked. “The “When you see someone reach their suc - characteristics: difficulty with social rela - situation is becoming worse because the cess, like Casey, who now is able to ride tionships; difficulty with verbal and non- kids need intervention as soon as autism is independently, it’s wonderful,” she says. verbal communication; resistance to even suspected but can’t get into programs It’s testament to what much-needed ther - change in routine; and difficulty with the until there has been at least some assess - apy can accomplish for autistic children. development of play and imagination. One ment,” she says. person may display all four characteristics, The value of therapy is abundantly clear ut it wasn’t easy to get this far. As while another may show signs of two. when Casey bursts into the riding stable Bsoon as she received the diagnosis, Although there are helpful medications, for his weekly session with the Regina Cuthbert began looking for services that they don’t treat the core features of the Therapeutic Riding Association. Meeting could help Casey. She soon discovered that

page  the CROW helped more than 150 Saskatchewan chil - dren, distributing some $38,000 to families. Each year it has continued to grow. Last year’s funding limit was $500 per child, but the foundation is hoping to raise the ceil - ing this year. As well, there are bursaries for summer camps, such as those offered by the Autism Resource Centre. Joy-ell Sahmueller’s son Isaac has au - tism. The Casey Foundation helped cover the cost of speech therapy and other pro - grams. “There’s a special summer program that the Autism Resource Centre runs and the Casey Foundation has helped us with Isaac attending some weeks in the program photos: adrian alleyne during the summer,” says Sahlmueller. “He Instructor Sneath and Casey with Blue, a 29-year-old Arabian–Quarter Horse cross. needs a one-on-one worker and he needs special programming, so that’s a big help for us.” they were either inaccessible because of and consultations, individual planned pro - Cuthbert’s goal is to assist as many peo - long waiting lists or extremely expensive. A grams, social skills groups, family support ple as possible, but she wishes there was single mom at the time, she knew some - work program, summer camps, a resource no need to begin with. thing needed to be done for Casey, but library and a website. Autism advocates may take hope in the wasn’t sure what that was. It’s a lot to deliver and there’s never en - fact that autism has finally appeared on “I felt like every day that I stuck my ough funding and resources to go around, the provincial government’s radar. In 2008, head in the sand and felt sorry for myself according to Theresa Savaria, executive the province announced $3 million in was one less day that he could get what - director of the centre. Saskatchewan is the annual funding for autism resources, which ever care he needed…It frustrated and only province that doesn’t have an inten - will go to staff and services in every health aggravated me at the time because people sive early intervention program, she notes. district in the province. As well, a provin - kept on saying, ‘You need help, you need “What is difficult about working at Autism cial autism advisory committee was formed help,’ and I kept thinking, ‘Yeah, but who’s Resource Centre is knowing we could help to provide the Ministry of Health with up- going to help me?’ ” she recalls. more families, but we are hindered by the to-date information on ASD support and The few services that were available in lack of funding and resources.” services. According to Savaria, it was an Regina were mostly managed through a Cuthbert knew she wasn’t alone. She also important commitment for the province to struggling, underfunded, non-profit organi - guessed that if she was having difficulties, make, raising hope that an early interven - zation, the Autism Resource Centre. Since then other families couldn’t be doing much tion program can now be implemented. 1977 the centre has worked hard to pro - better. So in 2005, five years after Casey Back at the riding stable, the lesson vide families with functional assessments was diagnosed, Alexis decided to launch ends and Casey runs to a cupboard stocked her own service for children with autism. with horse food and brushes. He laughs as The Casey Foundation is a non-profit Blue nibbles treats out of a dish. Then he organization that exists to enrich the lives gently begins to groom the old horse. of children while providing awareness and That’s the way riders thank their horses, funding to help families access treatment. his mom explains. Cuthbert explains that she wanted to cre - Like so many Saskatchewan children ate a place where people feel they can diagnosed with autism, Casey’s journey has come for help. Anyone caring for a child been long and frustrating, but not without who falls under the umbrella of autism promise. spectrum disorder can apply for funding Cuthbert says she never wants to give from the foundation. The only other crite - anyone false hope, but for her and Casey rion is funding must directly help the child, life got better over time. “For me the best whether it’s quality running shoes or swim - thing I guess I could say to parents is ming lessons. there are people who understand, and to In the past four years the foundation has try and get some sort of help.”

page  the CROW Big screen, small crowd Unlike other stories from Regina on inauguration day, this photo shows a sparse scene of few people watching the show in a large university theatre. The face of U.S. President Barack Obama and empty seats were a contrasting scene to the celebrations next door in the Lazy Owl student pub.

DANIELLE MARIO

page  th eCROW Into the dark What would you do if your child fell off the face of the earth?

By Casey MacLeod

f you were to walk through the door down the hallway so you can meet him. Dylan—who often lectured his older sib - of the Alix house in Moose Jaw, Sask - But that won’t happen. The young man is lings about staying in touch—never called. atchewan, up five stairs and across Dylan Koshman, and no one has seen or Shortly after two o’clock that morning, Ithe sun-warmed hardwood floors into heard from him since October 11, 2008. after getting into an argument with his the dining room, you would find yourself Two days before Dylan disappeared he cousins, he walked out the door of their face-to-face with a large photo of a good- talked to his mother, Melanie Alix, on MSN southwest Edmonton home into the dark, looking, smiling young man, with hazel about his plans for Thanksgiving. While wearing nothing but a t-shirt and jeans. eyes and a scar above his left eyebrow. The Dylan would phone a family member when - On the fifteenth, Dylan’s twenty-five- picture tells you a story of a happy, vibr - ever he could, Melanie says she talked to year-old brother Derek called Melanie. Dy - ant, kind young man with an obvious love him every second day on MSN. lan’s girlfriend hadn’t been able to reach of his family. You may even turn around, On the eleventh, Melanie saw Dylan was him for a few days, he said. Melanie knew look for him, hope to see him standing in online and sent him a message: “Happy something wasn’t right. the kitchen doorway or hear him coming Thanksgiving. I love you. Call us.” But “I think Melanie knew from the start,”

page  the CROW photo: casey macleod says close friend Alexis North. “She phoned investigation, Melanie and Denis refused to The group had no idea where to start, and and I came over that day and I brought her sit idly by, waiting for the phone to ring. the fact that Edmonton is the second most a sandwich. She had Dylan’s pictures all Armed with pictures and missing person wooded city in Canada didn’t make things over. She knew something wasn’t (right). It posters, and wearing shirts with Dylan’s any easier. They kept waiting for someone had already been four days, so you know picture on it, they hit the streets. Melanie to step in and point them in the right dir - something’s really wrong when you don’t visibly pales as she recalls handing out ection, but no one did. Undaunted, they hear from your kid.” posters in the West Edmonton Mall for the pressed on. Using Dylan’s house as a head - Two days later, Melanie and her husband first time. As she and Denis left the mall, quarters, they sent out groups to hospitals, Denis, who she married in 1995, were on they were surrounded by swirling discarded clinics, shelters and fast food places in the their way to Edmonton. leaflets, each one bearing Dylan’s face. area, and coordinated ground searches of After that, Melanie pleaded with anyone areas as wide as seven miles. he two arrived in Edmonton, six days she handed a poster to: “Please put this up Time passed, with still no clues. Eventu - Tafter Dylan was last seen. By now, the somewhere, don’t throw it away.” ally Melanie and Denis had to return to police had launched a full-scale search. The couple’s friends and family began to Moose Jaw without Dylan. Constable Sean Jenkinson of the Edmon - show up in Edmonton. Together they began Back home in Moose Jaw, Melanie pulls ton Police Service’s Missing Persons Unit conducting their own foot searches. “It was out what appears to be an average city was on Dylan’s case since the beginning. hard to sit there and wait for orders from map of Edmonton. But when she spreads it “There was the initial search done around headquarters,” explains long-time friend out on the coffee table, you can see the the residence and then I did a secondary Cheryl Styles, who travelled to Edmonton to coloured stickers: red for where posters large-scale search based on some informa - join the search. “You’d sit there and you’d were handed out, blue for areas of trees tion we received,” he recalls. The larger eat and you’d wait, and it was the wait - and bushes that they’ve searched and search enlisted about thirty civilians, three ing—we had to get out and do something green for areas Dylan frequented. dog teams and search managers. or we would have gone crazy.” Constable Jenkins is thankful for the While the police began to conduct their The experience was extremely frustrating. careful groundwork. “They’re the type of

page  the CROW photos: casey macleod Melanie and Denis refused to sit waiting for the phone to ring. family that you hope to deal with,” he from the force’s missing person’s website. Gurney says it’s cases like Dylan’s that says. “We don’t find anyone just on our It’s hard on the officers, too, when a case really stick with him. “It's just kind of the own. It’s not some magic that we do here— remains unsolved. nature of policing, you just after a while it’s with help from the public and the fami - “Some of the challenges are, in fact, learn how to deal with it. You don’t take it lies.” Dylan’s case has received extensive illustrated in Dylan’s case—the files that personally as much as you can, but at the media coverage, something Jenkinson cred - there isn’t a clear answer—as a lot of our same time you do get personally involved its to the continued efforts of the family. files we’re able to resolve,” says Jenkinson. in some of the files because that’s what But the mystery remains. “The ones that linger on, that’s a challenge helps you to really do a better job. definitely. And also there’s the toll it can “But you have to be able to turn it off at f the 6,664 missing persons files in take on families we deal with. We like to the end of the day. For the most part we OAlberta from 2008, ninety-six per cent finish things, so having no end is tough.” can, but of course there’s always that little were resolved. Of the approximately 1,500 Jenkinson and Gurney agree that the bit in the back of your mind.” missing person reports that were filed in length of time that Dylan has been missing While the Edmonton police have three Edmonton that year, 160 were exclusively is the most frustrating aspect of the case. binders of information on Dylan’s case, handled by Jenkinson and fellow officer On Dylan’s twenty-second birthday, April 11, they have no definitive answers. The last Constable Jim Gurney; of those 160 files, 2009, he had been missing for six months. activity on his cell phone came an hour three were carried forward into 2009, two According to Alberta Missing Persons, near - after he left his cousin’s house, and his of which the unit was “fairly certain of the ly all cases are solved within six months to wallet was found in a neighbouring yard. outcome.” The third case was Dylan’s. One a year; anything that runs longer is unusual Knowing Dylan had consumed alcohol year later, Dylan’s picture still smiles out and tends to raise alarm bells. before he left his house, police have raised

page  the CROW the possibility that he may simply have Edmonton. Talking about Dylan, she’s un- lain down somewhere, fallen asleep and able to hold back her tears. died of hypothermia. But Jenkinson is quick to point out that that is just one e still have the hope that he is possibility. “W alive, but we want to have closure, “Truly, the only person that knows what we want to find him no matter what, we happened to Dylan, is Dylan right now.” want this to end, not go on forever,” says Melanie, holding a Kleenex to her eye. eing back in Moose Jaw among family “Because there’s no closure, it is like living Band friends is a great help to Melanie in a nightmare constantly, waking up every and Denis, but they are still going through morning and realizing that this is not a their own “personal hell,” jumping every bad nightmare it’s something we’re going time the phone rings, and trying to main - through.” tain some sense of normalcy for the rest of But they refuse to give up, drawing on their children. Dylan’s older sister Tara each other, family, friends, and, in some lives in Red Deer and has travelled to cases, complete strangers for the strength Edmonton to help with the searches, and to press forward. has created a Facebook group about During the first three weeks after Dylan Dylan’s disappearance. Meanwhile brother went missing, family and friends made the Derek is taking Dylan’s disappearance very trek to Edmonton to do whatever they hard, Melanie says. The two were three could to help, including bringing food. years apart and more like best friends than With no deep freeze at Dylan’s house, that brothers. soon became too much of a good thing. “He has a sense of guilt, too: ‘It should - Not wanting the food to go to waste, Mel - ’ve been me, not him.’ We all wonder what anie thought of the many homeless people could we have done different to have this they had seen during their searches and not happen, and really there’s nothing.” her heart went out to them. So down to a Her two youngest sons, Tanner and homeless shelter went Denis with a box full Logan, are having a hard time as well. of baking. When Logan heard that Dylan’s pictures Once the couple returned to Moose Jaw, were going to be broadcast again he local organizations and restaurants began “I’ve never been angry became distressed. Twelve years old at the holding fundraisers for the family so they time, he knew the kids at school would could afford to continue their search. Back with God.” start staring and asking questions again. in Edmonton, an anonymous donor offered Tanner, two years older than Logan, has a $5,000 reward. In January, the Pattison had a rough go of it as well. He found out Group donated six weeks’ worth of elanie’s friend Alexis North feels that that Dylan was missing when he overheard billboard space in Edmonton, Calgary, MDylan’s case highlights a real gap in Melanie panicking on the phone. Saskatoon and Winnipeg. the system; if a child goes missing there are “I was working nights and all of a sud - Through it all, Melanie says it has been plenty of resources and national organiza - den the phone rings, and it’s Tanner,” re - her faith that has given her the most tions, but when someone over eighteen dis - members Denis. “And I can’t even un der- strength. A practicing Catholic, she says appears there is major lack of resources. stand a word he’s saying, he’s balling and that despite everything she has never ques - This is something that RCMP superintendent talking to me at the same time…I couldn’t tioned her faith. Michael Sekela of the Alberta Missing Per - understand what he was saying.” “I’ve questioned, ‘Why me? Why is this sons Initiative hopes to rectify. The initia - Dylan’s disappearance has also been happening to me? What did I do so wrong? tive runs out of Project KARE and includes extremely hard on Melanie’s mother Why am I and my family suffering so all police services in Alberta. The database Helen—with whom Dylan was very close— much?’” she admits. “But I’ve never been contains files on all missing persons and and her ex-husband Daniel Koshman, as angry with God. Millions of people suffer unidentified human remains from Alberta, well as some close family friends. and have had things happen to them that British Columbia, the Yukon, the North West “It’s survivor’s guilt, being here and don’t seem fair either, so I can’t be angry Territories and Nunavut, and allows officers being okay and knowing that he’s not. I with Him. God is a loving god. He’s not to search and cross-reference information. know I’ve struggled with that,” says Cheryl here to punish us. He’s here to help us They’ve had some breakthroughs. “For Styles, the friend who joined them in through this.” example, in 1996, a fellow went missing

page  the CROW “Even though there’s a lot of darkness we know that there’s light...I can’t give up...I’d never give up.”

from St. Albert, Alberta. Just last year they into the data base, and to eventually can’t give up. I’d never give up on any of found a human skull in Abbottsford, British include all of Canada. my children.” Columbia. There appeared to be a hole in Meanwhile, Melanie, Denis, Tara, Derek the skull, so we queried ‘shunt’ and we got and a couple of friends returned to Edmon - 2009 has blended into 2010. The an swer a hit from that file in Alberta and it was ton for the fourth time at the end of March, to Dylan’s disappearance is still out there, confirmed through DNA that that was one 2009. While handing out posters in down - somewhere. Until the case is re solved, Mel - and the same person,” explains Sekela. town Edmonton, a man approached them anie will continue to spend time at her pray - In Alberta there are 343 ongoing miss - and said that he had seen Dylan on the er table, holding onto the wooden cross that ing persons cases dating back to the early Light Rail Transit on the afternoon of March hangs around her neck next to a sterling 1960s. Saskatchewan’s numbers are much 23. So far the police investigation into the chain that once hung around the neck of her smaller, standing at ninety-six, dating all sighting has not turned up anything, but missing son, gazing at a wall of pictures, the way back to 1935. But that number is family and friends remain hopeful. posters, letters of support, and inspirational still too high in Sekela’s mind. He hopes to “Even though there’s a lot of darkness we sayings. Be hind a lit candle stands a ceramic soon add Saskatchewan and Manitoba files know that there’s light,” says Melanie. “I angel holding four letters: HOPE .

photo: casey macleod If anyone has information regarding the disappearance of Dylan, they are asked to please contact the Edmonton Police Service (1-780-423-4567) or CRIMESTOPPERS (1-800-222-TIPS).

page  the CROW Talking sex Popular sex expert Sue Johanson at the University of Regina Education Auditorium.

COLLEEN FRASER Body modified Body modificationist Sean Wilde performs scarification on his calf. He agreed to allow me to take photos while he was carving his leg late in the night among some friends with equally interesting modifications to their own bodies.

DANIELLE MARIO DJ Regina’s DJ Kracka Jack with some of his ammo.

SEAN LERAT-STETNER

page  th eCROW essay Educating the machine By Greg Girard

hey say formal education can make teaches his children and grandchildren how between North America’s business and edu - you a living, but s elf-education can to be independent and to keep his govern - cation worlds. Between 1896 and 1920, make you a fortune. So how did un - ment officials in check,” Perry writes in an over the course of twenty years, a small Tiversities come to garner so much article on his website, titled ‘Escape from group of entrepreneurs and investors began acclaim for bringing social and financial the Institutional Straightjacket.’ subsidizing university education in the success—as if they were a foolproof path “If you got out of school having…ex - U.S., investing more money than the gov - to prosperity? From a very young age chil - panded your mind and your horizons, that ernment itself. Andrew Carnegie and John dren are taught that education is impor - was a happy accident,” he concludes. “Pre - D. Rockefeller were among this elite group. tant, but not necessarily why. Most people cious little of that was actually designed “In our dreams…people yield themselves seem to inherently understand the disad - into the process.” with perfect docility to our molding vantages of ignorance, but opinions regard - hands,” reads the first mission statement ing the importance—indeed the purpose— “If you got out of school of Rockefeller’s General Education Board, of a formal education vary. penned in 1906 under the title ‘Occasional University of Regina president Vianne having…expanded your Letter Number One.’ The letter goes on to Timmons believes university prepares peo - mind and your horizons, declare that the board’s purpose is not to ple for a profession and is “a natural path “embryo” great artists, musicians, lawyers to a career.” When the president of a uni - that was a happy and statesmen “of whom we have ample versity says that post-secondary education supply.” Instead, “The task we set before is a natural path into a career, it’s no sur - accident.” ourselves is very simple…We will organize prise why so many people think university children…and teach them to do in a per - is the way to success. That said, there is — Perry Marshall fect way the things their fathers and moth - more than one perspective on post-sec - ers are doing in an imperfect way.” ondary academic institutions. “In a way, Think about it. The whole school day, it’s off-loading costs onto the individual,” If Petry and Marshall are both right, right from the outset of the elementary says Roger Petry, a U of R philosophy pro - then the purpose of the system they years, is structured exactly the same as a fessor. “It ends up being the student that describe is not to expand the minds and workday. You get to school at eight-thirty has to pay for his or her own training— horizons of individuals or to teach them to in the morning, you’re in class for two even though it’s the market and the busi - be autonomous, critical thinking citizens, hours, then there is a fifteen minute break ness community who benefit.” but to train them, at their own expense, to or “recess,” after which you come back to Petry’s insight echoes the sentiment of integrate into jobs that fuel the economy. class for a few more hours before a lunch prominent Internet marketer Perry Marshall. “I’m not sure I would agree with that,” break – and it’s the same thing in the “Only a fool would think that the true, responds president Timmons. “I would like afternoon. Every day is the same and, just altruistic intent of your local school system to think that our job as educators is to like the workweek, stretches from Monday is to teach your child to be an autono - educate individuals to challenge the sys - to Friday. mous, critically thinking, discerning voter, tem, as well as to fit into the system…we Here’s the catch: students only get citizen, scientist or entrepreneur who lives develop good citizens who think critically.” about an hour of instruction in any one an intellectually rich life and likewise Yet a link has undoubtedly been forged area, or class, each day. So even if you’re

“We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”

— Woodrow Wilson

page  the CROW d r a r i g g e r g

: o t o h p

page  the CROW lucky enough to actually be interested in sumption guarantees relief. Fast food and been rendered listless. At age nineteen he whatever subject matter has been approv - brand name fashion become what life is launched a skateboard manufacturing com - ed for the general curriculum, the system is really about. This is what school implicitly pany. Within a year, he figured out that it structured such that just when you start to teaches, accomplished by presenting stu - was the networks you make—not the prod - become curious about it, the bell rings and dents with material and class work that is ucts—that really matter in business. So he it’s time for the next class. Students aren’t began selling his network-creating abilities, given the opportunity to explore any sub - “In our dreams…people helping companies find each other and form jects long enough to become passionately useful partnerships. In a sense, he created interested in any one field. Instead they yield themselves with his own line of work, relying on life experi - are forced to ration and allocate time and ence as his teacher. Rempel believes the energy for each different class and, of perfect docility to our way schools grade students is a natural course, the homework that each class molding hands.” barrier against these kinds of creative leaps. requires—all completely oblivious to where If you receive an A+ on an assignment, individual strengths and interests lie. It chances are it’s because you did the same helps to condition people to be ‘well- — John D. Rockefeller, 1906 thing as other students, but did it a little rounded’ (or shallow and disinterested) better. “What that subconsciously teaches individuals. Somehow, though, eight hours you is that you have to just follow suit, of school each day still isn’t enough time and do your best, and hope that you come for students to become sufficiently well- out on top—or at least in the top end of rounded; homework is also necessary to not relevant to the experiences and ques - the pile,” Rempel says. ensure that students don’t waste too much tions they have about life right now. “The As well, formal education isn’t set up for time exploring the world when they aren’t net effect of making all schoolwork exter - diving into an interest with the kind of all- in class. The funny thing about homework nal to individual longings, experiences, consuming obsession that guarantees excel - is that it manages to combine the private questions, and problems, is to render the lence. Remple’s experience reflects the sphere of home with the public sphere of victim listless,” writes John Taylor Gatto in words of Gatto: “Growth and mastery come work. his book The Underground History of Ameri - only to those who vigorously self-direct. Meanwhile life within school is struc - can Education. Initiating, creating, doing, reflecting, free - tured to be boring, such that only con - Chris Rempel is someone who has never ly associating, enjoying privacy—these are

photos: greg girard

page  the CROW precisely what the structures of schooling job and a mountain of debt are likely to rial and took students on unauthorized are set up to prevent.” take time off to travel the world or find field-trips, all the while telling administra - This is of particular importance to recent themselves? Probably not many. Their fate tors what they wanted to hear so as not to university grads who so often emerge from is to become “indebted, subservient, well- raise any suspicion. “Your bureaucracy is a the halls of academia with copious amounts trained worker bees,” according to Marshall. mill that grinds up human beings and turns of debt and a desperate need to make them into fertilizer for a planned economy,” money. For a twenty-five-year-old carrying “Your bureaucracy is he said. It was a fairly damning speech to $50,000 in student loans, how long will it say the least, however, it seems to have take just to break even again? Remember, a mill that grinds up failed in affecting any real change in the one is not even guaranteed employment way the schools are structured and run. upon the completion of a degree. human beings and So what other choices are there? Matt Florek went to university to certify turns them into Basically there is nothing stopping peo - himself as a professional, earning a degree ple from learning—and becoming—what - in education. Three-and-a-half years after fertilizer for a ever they want, beyond the tendency to graduating, Florek has $35,000 in out - planned economy.” submit to the ‘norms’ and follow what standing student loans and has yet to find everybody else does. “Is there any wonder permanent employment. He lives in his why no one really gets ahead?” Rempel parents’ basement, waiting for a call from — John Taylor Gatto asks. “It’s because they’re all doing the the school board to fill in for another same thing!” Education and success aren’t teacher for the day. necessarily about training yourself just to “You expect to come away with some - John Taylor Gatto, the education critic become good at something for the sake of thing for all the time and money you put quoted earlier in this article, was named earning a living—it’s about finding out into it,” Florek says. “It’s something you’ve teacher of the year in New York City in who you are and what you are already good been told through family, school, you see 1991. In his acceptance speech (which was at so you can contribute positively to the friends and siblings go through and have also his resignation speech) Gatto claimed community as a whole. In the words of success, so it’s kind of embedded in the the only reason he won the award was Rempel: “Successful people aren’t doing mind.” because he didn’t follow standard proce - stuff that’s harder; they’re just doing stuff How many university graduates with no dure. Instead he taught unauthorized mate - that’s different.”

page  the CROW Sweet Job Andrea Boychuk of Dessart Sweets spends her days surrounded by Coca-Cola jawbreakers, Lucky Elephant popcorn and other treats.

JAY TENEYCKE

page  th eCROW Smoking Man Lawrence Moss enjoys a cigarette on an unusually warm winter night outside Moose Jaw’s Valley View Centre. Lawrence was brought to the centre when he was twelve years old, and has lived there since.

NOEL BUSSE

page  th eCROW Burned straight My reflection seems to glare back at me: a short skinny West Indian girl sporting hair like a Brillo pad. By Bryony Fortune

tanding in front of the full length out neatly at my sister’s side are the tools it’s as if a tug-of-war has broken out with mirror in my bedroom carefully con - of my imminent and unavoidable torture, my comb-wielding sister on one side and templating my reflection, I once one fine-toothed comb to make a path my abused scalp on the other. Sagain feel a slight twinge of disap - through my hair, one wide-toothed to actu - My eyes prickle with tears, but I don’t pointment. I had just washed and condi - ally comb my hair, one hard bristle brush complain. My sister is doing me a favor. So tioned my hair and, even after years of to help detangle knots and one container instead of voicing any irritability I close routinely doing so, I’m still a touch bewil - of hair grease. my eyes, quietly flinch and brace myself for dered. There is no gloss or bounce to my Gripping my hair she tugs my head from the duration. Once, twice, a dozen times hair, no flowing locks. Instead I’m looking side to side, again and again, a familiar the comb passes through my hair. With at my reflection which seems to glare back gesture. As she announces her decision to each successive swipe, the journey is more at me: a short skinny West Indian girl of start from the back of my head and work fluid, until finally the comb cuts through twelve sporting a full head of tightly gath - her way forward, I automatically assume the inch-wide section of my hair like a hot ered wool like a Brillo pad, where hair the position. Still sitting on the pillow, I knife through butter. Satisfied, my sister should be. Pulling at a string of hair, I swing my body around to face her, each leg grabs three pieces of hair and starts to resolve myself to what I am about to folded unto the other, my head tucked very tightly weave them into a single corn - endure. between her knees. Satisfied that I’m posi - row against my scalp. I sigh in relief, even My sister is sitting on the side of the bed tioned properly, she is ready to begin. though I know the whole process will be with a pillow placed at her feet. I fling My body tenses. As the comb touches the repeated over a hundred more times. I myself down onto the pillow with my back back of my neck, I don’t even have to look can’t help but think, “One down…” turned towards her. I’m at her mercy. Laid to know that it’s the fine-toothed comb Finally at the end of four hours, inter - that touches me, the one spersed with two bathroom breaks and sev - sister uses to make path - eral knuckle raps, my sister taps me on my ways along my scalp. head and announces, “I’m done.” Like a Painstakingly, she forges a blind man reading Braille, I touch my hair. trail through my mass of My body aches, my head throbs dully, but I hair, repeatedly making odd can just tell it’s been worth it. It’s always starts and stops every few worth it. The cornrows are tightly pulled inches as the comb gets against my scalp and feel a bit uncomfort - tangled. Finally when there able; it’s a feeling that I know from experi - is an inch-wide section of ence will last a few days. Slowly I make my my hair running horizontally way over to the mirror. My hair is stitched along the base of my neck, to my head so tightly that I now have a she applies the hair grease slightly Asian look around the eyes. But to my scalp; this helps to who cares? My hair looks amazing. A series both soften my hair and of intricately woven braids separated by prevent dry scalp. Grabbing irregular roadways come together in the the wide-toothed comb, she centre of my head to form a braided pony starts combing out the tail. Angling my head left to right, I could - knots and tangles. Each n’t be happier, if a bit sore. I once asked swipe of the comb pulls at my sister what she saw just before she pre - my head and my scalp tin - pares to braid someone’s hair and her gles, not in a pleasant way; answer was simple. “Nothing,” she said. “I photos: colleen fraser

page  the CROW never have a style in mind, I see what hap - Your hair isn’t Caucasian enough. is undeniable, therefore, that black pens.” Like an artist she sits before a blank Traditionally black women have embraced women’s quest for straight hair is linked canvas and lets inspiration guide her. European standards of beauty. Imagine with our desire for social status. tilling the soil under the beam of the mid - As early as the nineteenth century black t’s happened before or at least some day sun. You wipe the sweat from your women have been using hot metal combs Iversion of it. They practically salivate brow, glance at the big house and spy to temporarily straighten out kinks. But it over the phone during the initial interview. her—tall, with long cascading hair, her was only when Madame C.J. Walker devel - They want you. Walking into the room, the skin almost as light as the mistress.’ Step - oped and popularized the hair straighten - suit crisp, clean and well-fitted, your confi - ping forward she pours the mistress a glass ing method called the ‘Press and Curl’ that dence is at an all-time high. Your prospec - of lemonade and slips back inside the black women were able to come closer to tive employers look up, smiles at the ready. house. Scratching your own ‘woollen’ head, the European standard of beauty. Then there is a telling silence and smiles skin gleaming black from sweat, you go Though most black women today relax sag. They’ve gotten their first look at your back to tilling and dreaming of one day their hair, there have been brief periods hair. Dreadlocks. Furtively looking at each being a house-slave like ‘Millie’. As black where African traditions have won out. Dur - other they begin the interview, all the women, many of us have often imagined ing the Sixties there was the Afro, which while sneaking glances at your head. You this scenario. Where would we be if we owed its popularity to Black Power, a move - immediately know it’s over, you’re not were still slaves? Many of us know which ment meant to instill black pride and going to get the new job or promotion. category we would fall into: field-slave. It autonomy. Black men and women allowed

Black women’s quest for straight hair is linked with our desire for social status. their hair to naturally grow into big balls skin the color of dark mocha and a sunny a black dot among a rippling tide of white of cotton. In the Eighties there was the disposition that shines through her snow- hands reaching out curiously like a group rise of the highly processed Jheri Curl, a bright smile, offering a kind of sheltering of pre-schoolers at a petting zoo, eager to curly moist-looking Afro named after its warmth. It is a warmth that has endured, touch. inventor, Jheri Redding. In the Nineties, despite her family’s punishing trek across With taunts about her hair being volley - there was a return to tradition. Some of the Sudanese desert that began her jour - ed from the sidelines, battering her confi - the most popular hair styles were: braiding, ney to Canada. And though she was forced dence and no doubt magnifying feelings of cornrows (hair braided to the scalp) and to flee her native Sudan as a nine-year-old, isolation, Halima straightened her hair for dreadlocks (heavily matted coils of hair it is there, whether acknowledged or not, the first time a mere eight months after that grow naturally). Though all of these where her interest in hair first took root. moving to Canada. And though it has been styles live on today, the debate among Growing up in a culture where it is a wo - sixteen years, she still remembers what it black women between straight or natural man’s duty to take care of the household, felt like looking in the mirror for the first hair still rages on. Halima was taught how to cook and braid time. “I loved it. My hair was nice, long hair by her mother by the time she was and straight. It was easy to manage.” It’s nsure of where I stand when it comes eight years old. These were important skills easy to spot the same sort of satisfaction Uto hair, I decided to submit my case to to know for a girl to avoid being branded a on her client’s face, while Halima’s nimble a professional. Not immediately obvious, useless wife and sent back to her mother’s hands seemingly dance through her hair, hidden behind a Regina Tim Hortons and household. Though Halima developed her plaiting in small extensions. nestled between an eyewear store and a skills with a comb early, talk to her mother Halima’s passion for working on African Better Business Bureau, lies Genesis. Inside for a few minutes and you’re easily con - /Caribbean hair is not surprising, with the its walls is the first line of defense in every vinced that Halima is in the wrong profes - lack of hair salons catering to this niche. woman’s arsenal to looking and feeling her sion. Listen to her mother extol Halima’s At her training school there were no black best, a jewel that, when found, is jealously talents as a cook, and you’re left longing mannequins for her to practice with. Her hoarded. A rare commodity to any woman, for a taste of her cooking. Mention this to only option was to bring in live specimens, a good hairdresser has the ability to trans - Halima and she scoffs, rolling her eyes. She her relatives, to work on. This gap in her form. And it is this ability that has made offhandedly admits to being a good cook, training program stoked her passion to one Halima Alli one of Genesis’ busiest hairstyl - a fact that is punctuated by the womanly day own a hair salon and beauty school ists. swell of her hips and not the narrowness of that teaches students how to work with all Walk into Genesis and it’s easy to spot her waist. But it is clear that being a chef hair types and textures. Halima against the shop’s freshly painted was never in the cards. These days Halima is not as concerned bright red backdrop. She has silkily smooth While most are forced to work in toil, day with having straight hair as she was during after day at jobs that offer her younger days. She’s much more com - nothing but a pay cheque, fortable in her skin and places less priority she is one of the few who on what others think. However, after a truly loves her job. She is handful of personal horror stories as a blessed with an opportu - client, which include a chemical burn, a nity to infuse women with trim that morphed into a haircut and, most a boost of confidence and recently, a botched weave sewn too tightly courage, both of which she to the scalp, causing her hair to break, she desperately needed when is now her own hairdresser. Today she she first moved to Canada. sports a short bob with red highlights. Tak - Halima remembers what it ing a break from the chemical and dyes to was like being one of only restore her hair’s health has become her two or three black families priority. in her school. To this day, Halima seems confident, sensible. The she still squirms with dis - next thing I know, I’m sitting in her chair. comfort as she recalls her What if something goes wrong? Oh God, schoolmates’ fascination what if she butchers me? I’m going to end with her hair and its coarse up bald, I just know it. What shape is my ‘nappy’ texture that begged head anyway, may I cou—- STOP! Nothing to be touched. It’s easy to is going to go wrong; you’re not going to imagine her days trekking be bald. But what if my ha—? What if down the school’s hallway, nothing!!

page  the CROW I squirm, gripping the armrests. Realiz - ing my foot has been tapping out an uneven rhythm I close my eyes and take deep breaths, focusing on the soft murmur of the TV in the background. The first touch tingles along my scalp sending a shiver up my spine and after several deli - cious seconds my back melts into the chair. Slowing I open my eyes to a reflec - tion of Halima standing behind me undo - ing my plaits. Our eyes meet and she sends me a smile meant to reassure, but I’m acutely aware that this is our first time together. Maybe this just might work out, or may - be it will be horribly painful. Running one hand through my hair Hal - ima asks me some questions as she passes off the container of relaxer crème to another hairdresser to mix. “Do you burn easily? Where do you usually burn?” As I answer her questions she divides my hair into four quarters then carefully applies Vaseline to my scalp to protect it, followed by a pre-relaxer treatment for moisture. Across the salon I watch the hairdresser photos: colleen fraser stir the liquid activator into the relaxer cream. My eyes prickle with tears but I don’t complain. My leg taps nervously once again. I had almost forgotten that my scalp almost ...I’d forgotten my scalp almost always burns. always burns. Sketching out a plan to pre - vent this, Halima decides to process my hair in two sections, the back half first and my eyes are stinging; it’s really burn - the truth that straight hair mattered more then the front. Slipping on her plastic ing. But I have to make it to ten minutes to me than any pain I had to endure. gloves she warns, “Make sure and tell me if or my hair won’t be straight. I need it to Chair facing the mirror I watch as Halima it burns.” Unease prickles. Sectioning off be straight! So I grin and bear it. Finally blow dries my hair and then flat irons it. an inch of hair at the nape of my neck, Halima motions me over to the sink and With each swipe of the flat iron my hair Halima dips a paintbrush-like wand into it’s time to wash it out. gets straighter and straighter, until it is the relaxer and paints the first coat onto The back half of my hair is now wet but hanging between my shoulder blades. But I my hair from root to tip, repeating until straight, all but hanging to my shoulder know it won’t stay that long. My dead ends the back half of my head is frosted with blades. I feel a moment of pleased satisfac - need to be trimmed. But can I trust her? relaxer crème. “I’m going to leave it for tion. My hair is long. But the front half Will a trim turn into a cut? As Halima picks about ten minutes. Tell me as soon as any - tells a different story. The hair is coarse up the scissors I close my eyes, heart thing starts happening,” Halima warns with little movement. Inch by inch Halima pounding. I hear the first swipe of the scis - again as she wonders off to another client. coats the relaxer crème into the top half of sors; it echoes. After a few minutes I take I simply nod. my hair. This time, though, my scalp starts a peek and relax. She’s trimming, not cut - Before the ten minutes are up I feel a to burn even as she’s applying the crème. ting. Later, I see no evidence of the mild distinct tingling in my scalp and I know I squeeze my eyes shut and say no thing. burns I had suffered. My hair is straight, what’s around the corner. If the relaxer Five, six minutes later, I can take it no glossy, full of shine and bounce. It even stays in much longer I WILL get a chemical more. “It’s burning now,” I say. I flinch passes my shoulders. Though I have given burn. Halima glances my way with ques - slightly as Halima washes my hair. Noticing, in and conformed to the European ideal of tioning eyes. I shake my head. No, it’s not she asks me if the water is too hot. I beauty, I’m pleased. Smiling widely I thank burning. This is a lie. Two more minutes quickly agree, too embarrassed to admit my new hairdresser. I’ve paid the price.

page  the CROW Inside Alcohol can help you not like what you see in the mirror. Conversely, it can help you forget how you feel.

LINDSAY THORIMBERT

page  th eCROW Man with coffee cup Coffee and cigarettes offer a break to writer Jeremy Putz.

COLLEEN FRASER

page  th eCROW Place of rescue By Braden Husdal

itting at a dining room table in for opinions and ideas, but only in Cambo - Canada, where Norm became pastor of a Canada just seems wrong for Marie dia do her decisions mean the difference tiny church in Rosthern, Saskatche wan. Ens. She looks relaxed but behind between life and death. For two years the Ens family lived there, Sher eyes you can see ideas, dreams basking in the relative ease of a stable gov - and prayers all being processed in an ns wasn’t always the one people looked ernment and economy. Although Marie and instant. The tanned seventy-four-year-old Eto for leadership. It was her husband, Norman still yearned to continue their mis - woman clearly belongs somewhere else. Norman, who took charge of people’s needs sionary work, they found happiness living Indeed, she’s only in Canada for a short when the couple first arrived in Cambodia in comfortable harmony with their neigh - time, fundraising for Place of Rescue, the in 1961. Working with the Christian Mis - bours. But a 1977 trip to France changed Cambodian shelter she helps run. Moving sionary Alliance, they spent a year studying all that. around her son’s Regina home, she seems the Khmer language in the capital, Phnom In France, the couple met refugees driven incredibly young for her age. There are wrin - Penh, before heading into the countryside from Cambodia by a murderous political kles around her eyes and mouth, but they’re to establish a church. Norm preached while regime and escalating skirmishes with Viet - wrinkles from smiling, not worry. She has Marie took care of the home front. She nam. As a Khmer-speaking minister, Norman the optimistic personality of someone who scrubbed floors, cooked and cared for their was an obvious asset to the nearly 80,000 accomplishes goals because she doesn’t two small children, Dave and Shelley, and Cambodians who had resettled in France. know any other way. In Cambodia, the their new baby Doug, born in a Phnom He and Marie felt they were being called country she now calls home, Ens is a Penh hospital in 1962. Caring for her grow - once again to serve God. It was time to teacher, consultant and guide, helping ing family was no small challenge in a return to overseas missionary work. those who are often unable to help them - politically volatile country on the edge of They made a brief return to Canada to selves. In Canada she’s a promoter and a an escalating war in Vietnam. In 1964, gather up their two youngest children and lobbyist, enlightening the privileged about bombs fell on the Cambodian side of the pack their bags for France. Splitting up the poverty-stricken and desperate children. In border, and the Ens family was evacuated family was a difficult decision, but by now both countries she’s continually called on for the first time to Thailand. Marie was the eldest children had their own lives in three weeks away from giving birth to their Canada. In Europe, the younger children youngest child, Rod. The following year attended a boarding school for missionaries’ they returned to Cambodia. But after a children in Germany while their parents brief trip back to Thailand they found worked in Paris. This was life for the next themselves stuck at the border, refused re- thirteen years, until all the children were entry into the country that was now their grown up and on their own. home. The couple stood accused of helping Then in 1991 Marie En’s life was shat - a Cambodian citizen depart the country to tered in an instant. That year, she and Nor - work as a radio journalist for Voice of Amer - man travelled to Ivory Coast to visit their ica. daughter Shelley, now a missionary in her The family waited out the next four years own right. While there, Norman suffered a in Thailand, eventually returning to Canada. sudden fatal heart attack. Marie had been Still, Marie and Norman refused to give up. married to Norman her entire adult life. She In 1971 they found their way back to Cam - had been with him every step of the way in bodia. By now the country was engulfed in their overseas missionary work. While he war and evacuations were a regular occur - preached God’s word to people around the rence. In 1975, after their sixth and final world, she worked behind the scenes, tak - evacuation, this time on a special embassy ing care of their children and the home and flight, they finally decided the risks of rais - making sure he could always count on her ing a family in Asia were too great. When for moral support. the kids finished their school year in In the blink of an eye, Marie no longer Bangkok, the Ens family moved back to knew what purpose she had in life.

page  the CROW Marie Ens had always been the pastor’s wife. Now that he was gone, what would she do with her life? ...It wasn’t long before the answer found her.

hrough all these years, the suffering in warring factions finally signed a peace set - moved in with her son’s family, pondering TCambodia had continued unabated. On tlement, enforced by the United Nations. what to do next. Three months later, she April 17, 1975, six weeks after Marie and The Khmer Rouge disbanded and a demo - was back in France. She cleaned and Norman were evacuated for the last time, cratic co nstitution was created in 1993, but scrubbed the Paris apartment every day, as the Khmer Rouge, a communist rebel group, she had always done, but it seemed point - seized power from Prime Minister Lon Nol. less now. Supporting her husband’s work Led by Pol Pot, a ruthless dictator, the Caring for her growing was all she’d ever done in life. She had Khmer Rouge forced civilians into work proj - trouble finding a new role. Between the ects aimed at rebuilding the country’s agri - family was no small grieving and the housework, she was get - culture on an eleventh century model. Any - challenge in a ting a few things done for the refugees, but thing considered to have Western origins she couldn’t fill her husband’s shoes. One was destroyed. Doctors, lawyers and teach - politically volatile day, in the middle of waxing the floor, it ers were executed en masse in the infamous country on the edge occurred to her that her work for the Killing Fields. In three short years, an esti - Alliance wasn’t worth the upkeep of the mated 1.6 million people died from over - of an escalating war apartment. She headed back to Canada. work, sickness and political executions. “I knew that I still had something to The Killing Fields finally came to an end in Vietnam. give and I didn’t feel very old,” Ens recalls after a series of border raids by the Khmer today. “There was always that voice that Rouge prompted a 1978 Vietnamese inva - said I should keep on helping others.” sion. Pol Pot’s forces scattered, but violence recovery remained a long road ahead for a Unsure what to do with her life, Ens between the Khmer Rouge remnants and a nation battered by war and poverty. prayed, talked with family members, and new Vietnamese-backed government contin - Meanwhile, Marie Ens faced her own diffi - prayed some more. Then, in 1994, she made ued throughout the 1980s. It wasn’t until cult recovery. After Norman died, she trav - the decision to return to Cambodia, this 1991, the same year Norman died, that the elled to Canada to be with her children. She time on her own.

photos courtesy: marie ens

page  the CROW hen Alleshia Ens came to Cambodia to Place of Rescue. In the beginning, the mor - For some, their parents died when they Wvisit her grandmother there for the tality rate of the women was equal to what were young. For others, they were aban - first time, it was this first experience that it had been at the military hospital because doned when a parent remarried, and they would become the one she’d always remem - of the unavailability of HIV-AIDS medica - were rejected by their new step-mother or ber. From the airport in Phnom Penh, it was tion. Today, thanks to Rescue’s awareness step-father. The people the children now a forty-five minute drive to the village of and fundraising work, medication is pro - look up to are their house mothers and Bak Chan, where her grandmother had set - vided free of charge and infected women their communal grandmother, Marie Ens, tled. In North America, this would be noth - are able to keep the disease at bay. who has welcomed them all into her ever- ing spectacular, simply a paved obstacle Located just outside the gated complex expanding family. that offers resistance only in the forms of and rising two storeys high on flood pillars, Twice a year Ens makes the long journey sensible drivers and traffic lights. But in Ens’ house has a bird’s eye view of all the back to Canada. While the trips give her the Cambodia, traffic lights only existed in the comings and goings of the orphanage and chance to visit her children and grandchil - heart of the capital city. Along the roadside, dren, they also are business trips. Rescue farmers hawked their meagre crops to the relies on the donations of organizations and passing traffic. The busy road to Bak Chan From Alberta to individuals from around the world to feed, was single lane and devoid of pavement. A shelter and nurture the orphans in the com - red dirt road played the part of highway for Ontario and back to pound. In Canada, Ens has a responsibility rural dwellers on their way to and from the to try and secure those donations. Daily, bustling hub of the city. British Columbia, she meets with various church groups Turning into the village, Alleshia saw for she criss-crosses the throughout the country. From Alberta to the first time the growing compound called Ontario and back to British Columbia, she Place of Rescue. Her grandmother’s house country, reaching out to criss-crosses the country, reaching out to as was the first building to come into view. as many people as she many people as she possibly can. Fundrais - When Marie Ens landed back in Cambodia ers, such as a Paul Brandt concert held in in 1994, she started out at the military possibly can. September 2008, have given Rescue a hospital in the capital, working side by side major financial boost. Plans are now in the with other members of the Christian Mis - works for a proposed Rescue takeover of sionary Alliance. It was in that hospital another Cambodian orphanage in financial that she saw the devastation HIV-AIDS was the surrounding area. Inside the gates, the need. While the compound in Bak Chan can wreaking on the people of Cambodia. Be - houses are laid out to the right, with the no longer expand because of space restric - cause poverty and child prostitution were AIDS buildings first and the children’s tions, the new orphanage would allow Res - rampant, women were constantly coming to dwellings just beyond them. To the left of cue to help children in another part of the the hospital in dire need of help, often the gate is a fishing pond and straight country. with small children in tow. After receiving ahead is a large garden. Mixed in among With so much taking place at Rescue in minimal amounts of medication, the women the children’s houses are a school, church such a short period of time, Ens has her were then discharged and left to their own and various recreation facilities. It is a com - hands full guiding the many shelter’s staff means to die in the streets. The inhumanity pact, bustling space. On that first visit, members toward her vision. She would like battered at Marie’s heart. Alleshia discovered it took just twenty min - to play a role in ending the problem of When Ens turned sixty-five, she became utes to walk around the entire complex. child prostitution in the country and she is an Alliance pensioner. But she wasn’t ready Children make up a large part of the pop - determined to help as many children there to stop working, and she hadn’t forgotten ulation. In 2004, Ens began building as possible. She sees no end in sight for her the AIDS victims. She and another mission - houses specifically for orphaned and aban - work in Cambodia and hopes to be an effec - ary couple raised funds from churches doned children. Today, more than 180 chil - tive missionary for another twenty years at across Canada, enough to buy a plot of land dren live at Rescue, with room for approxi - least. in Bak Chan and begin construction on a mately sixty more. They live ten to a house Looking back on her life, she counts six few houses. When the houses were ready in with an employed care-giving mother in evacuations from Cambodia. “The seventh 2000, Ens and a few other hired workers charge of each unit. The children in the time will be an evacuation to heaven, I began to bring in women they knew to be houses range in age from four to eighteen hope,” she says. “I don’t plan to leave terminally ill. Many were referred to them with the oldest helping care for the young - again.” by the military hospital and others were est, teaching them how to live and grow brought to them by Cambodian strangers among so many other bodies. What all the who had found the women in the street or children have in common is that they no countryside. They called their new home longer have a family outside the orphanage.

page  the CROW s n e e i r a m

: y s e t r u o c o t o h p

page  the CROW What makes a workplace human? By Éva Larouche

t was a beautiful spring evening in Farming was in Greg Sundquist’s blood. New Holland dealers also helped the team May 2008, and after a long day, Greg He was born and raised in the small com - by providing the complimentary use of two Sundquist of Watrous, Saskatchewan munity of Watrous where he ran a crop and combines. Iwas driving to his fields in a three- cattle operation with six thousand acres of “It was fantastic to see the number of ton truck loaded with ten tons of fertilizer. land and 150 cattle. At the same time, he people coming forward to help,” recalls It was dark. He was tired, but proud of worked for Farm Credit Canada for twenty Greg Sundquist. “I will never forget this.” his day. Seeding was about twenty-five per years as an appraiser at the Humboldt cent complete. office. Used to being independent, he ne of the cultural practices at FCC is the With his mind on the success of the day, would soon learn the value of belonging to Oemployee commitment to the success he wasn’t paying attention to the road he a wider workplace family. of others—the success of their peers and used almost every day and he never saw At the end of October, Greg still had their customers. There is clear evidence this the train coming at a hundred kilometres eight hundred acres to combine. It was commitment makes a difference. In 2009, per hour. The impact was so violent that he coming off at eighty acres a day, so it was FCC ranked eighth in a “best employer” sur - doesn’t remember anything. unlikely he would be able to finish the job vey of 145 Canadian organizations, carried Jo-Anne, his wife, was following him in before the snow fell. out by the human resources consulting firm their half-ton to the field. She saw every - After visiting him in September at his Hewitt Associates. But FCC didn’t always thing. She remembers everything. After the farm, his FCC co-workers realized that he enjoy such a high ranking in the annual initial impact, the truck disappeared to the was in serious trouble. One morning in the Hewitt survey, which has been measuring other side of the train. Before she could go Humboldt office coffee room, they put a workplace satisfaction since 1999. look for him, she had to wait painful mo - plan together to help. To be ranked among the fifty best em - ments until the train came to a stop. “It was obvious, Greg needed help and ployers, a company must meet several crite - Because Greg wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, we wanted to do what we could for him,” ria, including benefits, work processes, Jo-Anne found him ten feet away from the remembers co-worker Kendra Miller. “Greg managers, employee attraction, turnover, wreck of his truck. Hurt badly, Greg was is not only a co-worker but a good friend retention and absenteeism, pay, financial amazingly still alive and conscious. Staying as well. We have only six employees here, results and customer retention, just to as calm as possible, Jo-Anne called a but we knew that many others would come name a few. And it’s employees who fill out friend who was an EMT for the area. Twenty to the table if we asked.” the survey. Some 115,000 employees par - minutes after the call, the ambulance was A few emails to some FCC employees and ticipated in the 2009 survey. on scene and heading to Watrous first, other friends in Saskatchewan made things What makes a good workplace? then to Saskatoon. happen. Word spread throughout the According to Hewitt Associates, the Although seriously injuring his head, province. FCC employees, spouses and even most important measure is employee en - arms, hips, knees and legs, Greg survived retired employees from Humboldt, Sask - gagement. Engaged employees are produc - the accident. After several surgeries and atoon, Yorkton, Regina and Tisdale, de - tive, innovative and take ownership of physiotherapy sessions during the summer, scended on the Sundquist farm. results. he was back on his feet. Fortunately, the The team of twenty-five people brought The Conference Board of Canada adds: seeds were in the ground before the acci - four combines, trailers, highway tractor “There is a clear link between culture and dent. By summer, the barley and the wheat trucks, food and lots of determination. performance.’’ were high and a nice golden colour. The Some of the combines came from sixty kilo - While a cultural transformation takes fragrant coriander was growing well and metres away, a long distance for the gigan - time and effort to implement and also has the canola was at maturity. tic, slow-moving machines. John Deere and to be maintained, there are many returns

“It was obvious, Greg needed help and we wanted to do what we could for him...[he] is not only a co-worker but a good friend as well.”

page  the CROW When a car accident sidelined Greg Sundquist, his workmates were there for him. And that was no accident.

on investment that can be realized. And building a new culture. Ten clear and act - and FCC and it’s exactly what our culture one of the most important returns is that a ionable cultural practices were imple ment - teaches us.” company is retaining its great employees. ed, linked to two themes: accountability The atmosphere of the workplace and The next generation entering the workforce and “committed partnerships,” or team - the relationships with his co-workers are will be looking for a comfortable and flexi - work. what Greg Sundquist will never forget. ble work environment. ‘’In the past, it was the culture by de - “It was a unique moment in my life. The Looking at the website of the top em - fault,” says Joy Serne, FCC’s senior director support was unbelievable,” he says. ployer in Canada, EllisDon Corporation, you of culture. He says there are six more things that can see and feel the importance of culture The cultural practices implemented allow he’ll never forget about his ordeal. He and its employees. The values are up front employees to better communicate with wrote it in an e-mail that he sent to in the corporate video and the CEO talks each other and to actively participate in friends: only about his employees. the success of their peers, she explains. This approach is a shared factor among It worked. Within five years of concen - I am married to an angel the top ten best employers. For example, trating on building successful relationships Crying is not a bad thin g the engineering firm Cima+ ranked fifth in with co-workers, managers, customers, and Benefits and insurance at work Canada and first in Quebec in the latest even within the family, the company shot and outside work are very important survey. “We moved from the sixteenth rank up to eighth place, and remained there in Healing takes a long time to the fifth after having implemented sev - 2009. Life can change very quickly eral new steps that really benefited our em - Today FCC has the reputation of a strong My co-workers are real friends ployees,” explains Louis Farley, vice-presi - culture that attracts employees and cus - dent at Cima+. tomers from all over the country. Doubling Greg sold his animals last November, not “Our product is the knowledge and the its lending portfolio since the changes being able to do the hard work anymore. talent of our engineers and that’s why we were implemented, FCC has become both a However, the doctors are very opti mistic take care of them,” he adds. He believes a better place to work and to do business. about his recovery and gave him the all- program to facilitate engineers who have clear to go back to work in July to rejoin families is a major contributor to the com - n the Sundquist farm, the work started his FCC family. pany’s success in retaining employees. Oon a Thursday morning and was com - The first time FCC took part in the survey plete by Friday at midnight. Some eight in 2000, the company did not make the hundred acres of crops were in the bin and best employer list. John Ryan, CEO at the about 14,000 bushels of barley had not time, realized that the employees didn’t only been combined, but delivered to the really work as one team and that people elevator. were working to protect their own turf in - The Sundquists were blown away by the stead of taking ownership for the overall outpouring of support and generosity from company success. For him, the corporation FCC staff and others in their community. was successful but FCC could even be more But FCC’s current CEO, Greg Stewart, wasn’t successful if the employees worked surprised. together “This is just one of the many reasons I Clearly, FCC had a challenge to meet. wouldn’t trade you guys in for anyone else. Ryan hired consultants and set about You care about each other, our customers photo courtesy: Farm Credit Canada

Within five years of concentrating on building successful relationships ... the company shot up to eighth place, and remained there in 2009.

page  the CROW Witness

Excuse me, could you take my The university bus arrived This picture to me shows a picture?” I heard a voice ask. and he used the money I had person who has reached rock As I turned to face the man in given him for food to get on bottom. I wanted to make it this picture, he explained that the bus with me. He asked, black and white to give it the he wanted a picture for his “Does my face really look so definition and poignancy that obituary. He said that he was bad?” after the bus driver its colour equivalent lacked. I suicidal and knew he would looked twice at him. I told also wanted to make the cuts be dead soon. Afterwards he him it didn’t. He continued on his face less visible, as he said, “Actually, how about telling me about his life until was so self-conscious about you just keep that picture for he got off the bus near the them. It is hard for me to yourself.” He told me he had social assistance office, where look at this picture, but I been beaten up by a gang the hopefully some help awaited. know that it’s very important. night before because they This man reminds me how wanted his necklace, and he much people can suffer and had slept in the street. His how it needs to stop. face was covered in scratches and cuts.

JODI GILLICH

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This edition of The CROW was built with Quark Xpress, Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop on OSX, for main production/design/pre-press, and on WindowsXP for preliminary setup. Typefaces used are Erik Spiekermann’s Officina Sans for the body, set 9/12 , ligatures enabled, and Officina Serif for titles. Adobe Garamond is the title and text face for the photo-journalism pages. The CROW masthead and article photo cutlines are a Caslon variant from Adobe, suitably ancient, with a distinct capital ‘ C’ lacking a serif or chin on the lower aperture to minimize confusion with the capital ‘ G’ of other typefaces…it’s CROW , not GROW . The CROW is printed on FSC certified 60lb text-weight coated stock, with vegetable-based inks, on a Heidelberg Speedmaster 52-9 press.