Through conservation efforts and education, humans have finally made space for our supernatural neighbours, the ...
Woodturning, one of the most ancient of crafts, is a way of producing wood creations using razor-sharp chisels and ...
Words & photos by
Jim Whyte
Colonialism has taken many forms and has had many legacies. Beginning in the 1840s, settlers on what is now called ...
Universal access
Julie and Ramesh Lad moved into their new home in February 2022. The home, which was custom ...
SOAKED AND STOKED
Founded in 2017 by friends Marie-France Roy and Alicia Gilmour, the WestCoast Triple Plank ...
Words & photos by
Sara Kempner
Beyond Kayaking
I first saw a presentation about West Coast Expeditions (WCE)’s guided sea kayak adventures ...
If your knowledge of chicory is limited, allow me to introduce you to this family of vegetables full of complex, ...
Cultivating stillness
We experience so much in our lives. Sometimes life’s momentum is so fast that we miss ...
Our devices can bring music and news from almost everywhere in the world. But most of the content is ...
When I first rolled off the assembly line decades ago, I couldn’t wait to hit the road for a life of adventure. ...
Words & photos by
RJ Herron
LIVING FROM LINEN
I’m Karla, and I create linen. That’s right, I start with a handful of unassuming flax ...
In 1979, a certain smell sustained the herring gillnetters of British Columbia. It hung from their bibs and clung ...
A steady stream of people stops in front of a typical home in Courtenay’s Old Orchard neighbourhood. They come by ...
A BEAUTIFUL MOSAIC
This is my first time writing in my own magazine. Writing has never been a passion of ...
Words & Photo by
Ian Adams
Finding a family doctor or health care professional is difficult enough in urban centres, but it’s even harder for ...
The ROAM team has selected some of their favourite winter items that we think everyone should know about. All are ...
In the summer of 2023, approximately 70 local emergency services personnel from the Comox Valley were deployed to ...
The earliest inhabitants of the Comox Valley lived lightly on these lands for millennia and didn’t capture their ...
i will always choose the trees
if i have to choose
between society
or the forest.
it makes sense
to me in ...
As I’m writing this, it’s October 24, and it’s snowing—the earliest snowfall I have experienced in the Valley—and ...
Reflections from an older resident.
Congratulations to the Comox Valley Collective on ...
Changing seasons, changing times
As I hear my feet crunch on the frosty ground beneath me and feel the crisp ...
Born and raised on Hornby Island, Kali Wexler is a self-taught Canadian wildlife conservation and nature ...
Jared was born and raised in Saskatchewan but spent his adult life in various pockets of British Columbia before ...
The Comox Valley has undergone some big changes since we published our first issue back in December 2014; many of ...
Words by
Zoë Cooper
Illustrations by
Alex Maertz
When I catch up with concert pianist Sarah Hagen, she is sitting on the floor of an airport concourse, halfway ...
In October 2023, I had the chance to speak with Wedlidi Speck. Wedlidi is Kwakwaka’wakw, Nuu-cha-nulth, and ...
Interview by
Dave Flawse
Photos courtesy of
Wedlidi Speck
I’m here to talk about winter squash: the wondrous genetic diversity they display, the dedicated farmers who grow ...
I was asked to share my story with you, and to keep it short at that. Bit of a hard ask for an old clock, but I’ll ...
Men’s broadly defined health issues—heart troubles, diabetes, liver disease—are deadly. So is depression. Many of ...
Paul Vroom grew up on Vancouver’s North Shore, ripping the slopes of Mt. Seymour. As a kid, he loved hanging out ...
Comox Valley Transition Society (CVTS) was founded in 1987 by a group of caring community members concerned that ...
Imagine two scenarios. The first is a quiet suburb of single-family homes—the Canadian dream—but with vans, ...
There is pure magic when the storm winds begin to blow from that direction. The sky glows and the air smells ...
One of the oldest buildings in the Comox Valley stands silent vigil on the highway to Campbell River. You can see ...
Words & Photos by
Jim Whyte
A group of women were gathered around a propane fire pit on Kye Bay in the fall of 2022. The sun was setting; they ...
The mountains beckon me throughout the year, but somehow their call in winter is different and holds a special ...
Words & photos by
Joanne McElroy
As we go into our 10th year of publishing this magazine, I am stepping out of my comfort zone. It’s often assumed ...
Publisher's Introduction & Photo by
Jenn Dykstra
Tyler and I stood crouched at the start line in Winnipeg this past April. Snow blew sideways, but our nervous ...
Communities in the Pacific Northwest are essentially human settlements in logging clearcuts. Whack down trees, lay ...
A curtain flutters through broken glass as fiery flakes litter the snow-covered ground. Despite the cold, ...
As the owners of The Lost Faucet Sauna House in Courtenay, we are constantly seeking out more knowledge and ...
In the fall and winter, most people don’t immerse themselves in the Salish Sea, but for geoduck divers, it’s ...
PHOTOS BY GWEN MONNET, SANDI PHYE, & CRAIG SOROCHAN
We respectfully acknowledge that the land we gather on ...
Reflections from an older resident.
I grew up and lived for much of my life in northern ...
Alex Guertin is the newest proprietor of Beaufort Vineyard and Estate Winery. On a warm evening in July, he tours ...
From one nest to the next
Nests are everywhere when you spend lots of time outside.
My mom has a ...
Chuck Burdick is a self-taught photographer working in multiple genres including macro, landscape, and abstract ...
As a creative generalist working in an array of art practices, Sarah Clark is less interested in becoming an ...
It was late summer when my husband and I first rolled into Cumberland in our old Ford pickup. The year was 1996 ...
Many witches, including myself, when asked how and why we became witches, will answer that they didn’t become a ...
The year was 1990. On the steep, raw edge of a Mount Washington ski slope, summer wildflowers stood in stark ...
I’m writing these words in the height of summer, when I barely have enough time to juice a cucumber. But it will ...
Nature, specifically the ocean, has long been the undercurrent of photographer and sailor John Kelsey’s life. It’s ...
Words by
Camilla Sampson
Photos courtesy of
John Kelsey
Darren Howlett is sitting in Locals Restaurant, a place he has a long history with. He’s worked in this dining ...
It is a universal truth, I think, that the further you move through adulthood, the more you’re aware that life is ...
Since 1983, Comox Valley Hospice Society (CVHS) has been working to support the physical, psychological, ...
At Cumberland Chinatown’s peak in the years just after the end of World War I, around 1500 residents bustled down ...
Words by
Erica Keen
Photos courtesy of
The Keen Family
The practice of pressing and drying flowers and herbs dates back centuries and is part of many Indigenous cultures ...
“Fungi make worlds. They also unmake them. There are lots of ways to catch them in the act. When you cook mushroom ...