INSIDE: Sardis secondary whiz kid chosen for $17,000 bursary Pg. 3 F R I D A Y
February 11, 2011
ace is a familiar face 10 This N E W S ,
SPORTS,
WEATHER
His Emporium is a downtown must-see and so is Wayne Learie, according to reality TV
RCMP warns women not to walk alone
BY TYLER OLSEN tolsen@chilliwacktimes.com
W
ithin one randomly selected square foot of Wayne Learie’s Wellington Emporium a person can find: a pair of snowshoes; a plastic machine-gun toting gangster; a piano; and a rare Batman pedal car. It’s that diverse array of, well, stuff that drew a new reality show—Canadian Pickers—to Chilliwack and the Emporium, where it shot its season finale earlier this week. Pickers, for those who aren’t, are kind of like travelling salespeople, except instead of selling vacuums, pickers go door-to-door buying antiques and other long-buried re-sellables. Learie, who grew up on Vancouver Island, was just such a person for 25 years. After a year spent working at a Kelowna auction house (alongside an auctioneer named Stockwell Day), Learie embarked for Eastern Canada and New York State. Learie tells the story best (and in one breath): “I was a professional picker, a cold door knocker, someone who went doort o - d o o r, would
BY TYLER OLSEN tolsen@chilliwacktimes.com
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See ASSAULT, Page 3
E N T E R T A I N M E N T chilliwacktimes.com
Pick of the crop
Woman sexually assaulted
o u n t i e s a re a d v i s i n g women walking alone to use caution after a woman reported she was sexually assaulted while walking on Young Road Wednesday evening. Police say a 21-year-old woman was walking north on Young around 7:45 p.m. when she noticed a man following her. The man commented on the woman’s body, continued to follow her and exposed himself to her. She also reported being touched “in a sexual manner.” EB IRST T h e w o m a n First reported on was able to flee chilliwacktimes.com uninjured to a nearby house from which she called police. The suspect was described as being a white man, about 20 years old, with short blonde hair and blue eyes. He was reported to be five-feet tall and of stocky build. He wore a black hoodie with a white design on the front, along with baggy blue jeans and running shoes. Mounties are asking the public for help identifying the supspect. “Given the time of day, there was likely a high volume of traffic,” said RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Tammy Hollingsworth. “Police believe there could be witnesses that saw this incident.” While both this man and another man who exposed himself and
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Tyler Olsen/TIMES
Wayne Learie (above) and his Wellington Emporium will be featured in a new History Television reality show premiering this spring.
knock at your door anywhere between nineto-five every day and say, ‘Hi, my name’s Wayne Learie. I’m out buying antique collectibles, and give them a list of stuff. If they let me in their house I proceed to give them cash and buy stuff.” He would fill his pick-up truck with antiques, store them in a rented barn and, once a month, sell the lot to a big-city antique dealer. After moving to Chilliwack a decade ago and starting, then selling, a downtown appliance business, Learie’s eye fell on the vacant twostorey downtown building that would become his Emporium. Having moved up the picking ladder, Learie is now one of those dealers who buy from pickers and sell “I was a directly to collectors. professional Describing everypicker, a cold thing his store contains would take up door knocker.” the rest of this newsWayne Learie paper. But, for a general sense of things, here’s some of what Learie sells (and thus has bought): pinball machines; gumball machines; vintage swords; rebuilt ‘50s era gas pumps; a canoe; jewelry; native art; middle-age-style helmets; a suit of armour; an African shield and spear; records; a forbidding metal chair with a metal skull; a miniature six-foot-tall-plus tower; a pennyfarthing bicycle; a totem pole; an unremarkable pay phone; and statues of, in no particular order, a 10-foot-tall Hulk (holding a small Hulk in his fist), Homer Simpson, a giant lobster, T-Rex, Mike Tyson, Buddha, a drummer boy, an astronaut and a giraffe. The Canadian Pickers made two separate appearances at the store. About a month ago, the hosts—Sheldon Smithens and Scott Cozens— travelled the area and used Learie to appraise the miscellany that they purchased from local homes. Wanting to end their season with a bang, they returned Sunday and Monday to shoot more inside the Emporium and buy one or See PICKERS, Page 20
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