North Shore News August 24 2014

SUNDAY August

24 2014

FOCUS 3

Turning Point opens LIVE 11

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Source of water contamination murky Authorities probe for answers to WestVancouver’s beach water woes JANE SEYD jseyd@nsnews.com

Three of West Vancouver’s popular beaches opened to swimming for the first time Thursday after weeks of residents being warned off because of

high bacteria counts in the water.

Despite the recent relief at Ambleside, Dundarave and Sandy Cove, there’s no denying it’s been a long hot summer of unusual swimming beach closures for West Vancouver.

“We’re getting a lot of

questions from the public,” said Dr. Mark Lysyshyn, medical health officer for the North Shore.

“People are very unhappy.”

So far, authorities still don’t know what caused the spike in numbers of E. coli bacteria, which is sampled weekly at swimming beaches. Not that they haven’t been looking.

After a sudden spike in coliform counts in mid-July, municipal staff ran dye tests in sewage lines that pass close to the beaches, to check for leaks — and found none. Staff also checked the Lions Gate sewage treatment plant and looked into the possibility of sewage leaking out through the storm sewers. None of that pointed to a problem.

Some people have speculated the initial spike in numbers — which sent counts climbing to more than 4,600 units of bacteria per 100 millilitres in one sample taken at Ambleside on July 18 and over 2,000 units in two Dundarave samples — may have been caused by a large ship dumping its sewage into Burrard Inlet.

It is illegal to dump

waste within 200 kilometres of the shore, but enforcement by Transport Canada relies on spot checks of vessels.

Lysyshyn said he’s meeting with Transport Canada officials next week to discuss those regulations.

Other theories about the source of the bacteria range from wildlife feces See Marine page 9

TransLink looks to update Phibbs BRENT RICHTER brichter@nsnews.com

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TransLink is inching forward with plans to give Phibbs Exchange a badly needed makeover.

The transit authority posted a request for proposals on its website this month asking for bids from firms interested in taking some high-level concepts for a resdesign and creating detailed plans and a budget for the project.

If it goes ahead, Phibbs Exchange will include shelters, landscaping, new lighting and bigger bus bays as well as improved access for pedestrians on foot, bicycle, in a bus or behind the wheel of a car.

“We really want our transit facilities to feel like they’re natural extensions of their neighbourhood and certainly the existing See Phibbs page 5

A2 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

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Sunday, August 24, 2014 - North Shore News - A3

FOCUS

A place of help and hope for recovery Turning Point 9-bed centre welcomes its first residents this month JEREMY SHEPHERD jshepherd@nsnews.com

Nine women wake a little after sunrise on an August morning in North Vancouver, wondering how to work and rest and live and love for the rest of their lives without drinking.

Shuttered by a shroud of trees at the north end of Lloyd Avenue, what initially looks like a bucolic bed and breakfast is the North Shore’s first and only women’s alcohol recovery centre.

The women do chores and meditate.

They try yoga and art therapy and they say the things they thought were unmentionable.

Group sessions are a place to rouse the emotions they spent years sedating and silencing with beer and wine.

Those conversations can happen because of the efforts of Turning Point executive director Brenda Plant and District of North Vancouver Coun.

Doug MacKay-Dunn, who championed the facility despite objections voiced by neighbourhood residents.

“We’re just trying to help people rebuild their lives,” Plant says.

During a tour of the house, Plant explains the health standards that must be observed in the kitchen and the lack of closet doors, an intentional omission intended to foster organization and cleanliness in the clients.

The program evolved from Alcoholics Anonymous and takes an abstinence-based approach, albeit with fewer religious overtones.

Admiring the fishbearing creek that runs alongside the house, MacKay-Dunn mentions the importance of nature as “a higher power.”

The term carries some ambivalence for Plant, who categorizes Turning Point’s

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When attempting to treat his own alcoholism, Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, drew inspiration from fundamentalist religious organization the Oxford Group. While Turning Point’s approach is rooted in similar principles, there’s also a willingness to incorporate new, proven techniques.

The women go over basics like hygiene, job applications and nutrition.

The program typically lasts between three and four months, with increasing levels of independence for the women who do their chores and keep up with their individual plans.

The first nine women to occupy the house will represent the full spectrum of recovery.

“We don’t want to have nine people figuring it out all at once,” Plant says, explaining senior residents will help the newcomers.

Both Plant and MacKay-Dunn see the

centre as part of a broader effort to erase a stigma and banish the phrase “He should just stop,” from the English language.

“Tell the diabetic to just stop being a diabetic,” Plant says.

••• Sheila isn’t her real name.

Even with a new job, a new life and eight years of sobriety, Sheila worries revealing her real name will get her fired.

She took her first drink at 14.

“I stole it from my dad,” she recalls. “I guzzled two beer and then I puked in the bathtub. And I loved it.”

Her father was a hardworking family man with a great sense of humour. And he drank.

“He would come home from work and you’d never know if he would be sober or not,” she says. “He used to beat up my mom.”

At about the age of 11, Sheila tried to be her mom’s bodyguard.

“Many times I stood

in front of her,” she says.

“I was filled with fear. My whole upbringing.”

The beer dulled her anxiety and dimmed her feelings.

It was a relief.

“At first it was just on the weekends. But then it got to a point where I really wanted to have it. I couldn’t stand the life I was living. I had no control, I had no power, and the only time I got a reprieve was when I was drinking.”

For the next few years she worked steadily.

“I was a hard worker, too. I’m just like my dad,” she says.

At 18, she started working at The Sidetrack, a pub under the Alex Fraser Bridge where The Accused with Jodie Foster was filmed.

“After we closed the pub it was basically open bar. I just got right hammered every night and drove home,” she says.

Bright and industrious, Sheila kept her life together, landing a job as a customs broker at the airport.

She was making good money but her drinking worsened. She’d walked away from car wrecks and was using harder drugs, including crack cocaine.

After calling in sick too often, she was fired.

Whether by oversight or wilful avoidance, no one realized she had a problem.

“I don’t think anybody knew,” she says. “Maybe they did know, but nobody said anything.”

At 28 years old she was on the street, stealing to support herself.

“I wasn’t good at it,” she says, laughing loudly at the memory of swiping a stairclimber.

After a few trips to jail she found her way to detox.

Sheila was sober for four years.

Discussing that period of her life, Sheila repeats a single phrase: “I just wanted to get everything back.”

She focused on work, squirrelling money away for a condo.

She also stopped going to meetings.

“People in recovery

would point that out to me, so I stopped hanging out with them.”

A relapse was coming but she had no idea how to stop it.

After realizing she needed more help, she decided to try Turning Point.

The centre was less militaristic in its discipline than others, but it’s the little things Sheila remembers.

“They gave me responsibilities like kitchen monitor. I know this sounds funny to you,” she says, laughing. “But it was huge to me at the time. They trusted me with the key to the kitchen and all the food . . . When I thought of myself as nothing but a thief before, they give you a little bit of responsibility and some trust.”

The treatment focused on relapse prevention, impressing on her that a relapse happens long before you have a drink in your hand.

See Men’s page 14

A4 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

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Sunday, August 24, 2014 - North Shore News - A5

Phibbs ‘horrible’ as is: Bassam From page 1

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It’s hard to get to from a pedestrian aspect,” he said. “It’s obviously a huge opportunity for us to make public transportation a little bit more enjoyable in North Vancouver.”

Bassam is optimistic the project will get the go-ahead, but only because the district has promised to chip in for some of the cost.

“It becomes much more

realistic this will happen if the district is putting money into the project, which is what they’re asking of us,” he said.

Those costs could be offset by revenue the district will generate from redevelopment projects in the area, he added.

“I think it will happen.

Between our willingness to pony up some more money and TransLink’s desire to actually do something for the North Shore prior to a referendum question…

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actually send some love our way,” he said, noting he is disappointed in how little TransLink spends on infrastructure on the North Shore compared to how much local taxpayers pay in to the organization.

Redesigning Phibbs is just one piece of a larger puzzle that will also see all of the highway interchanges between the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing and Lynn Valley changed to improve traffic flow and make travel easier for cyclists and pedestrians, Bassam said.

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facility doesn’t do that.” said Jeff Busby, TransLink’s senior manager of project development.

The existing bus bays are designed to only accommodate standard buses but TransLink is planning to eventually run “b-line” articulated buses along Third Street, Busby said.

The transit hub currently serves 16 bus routes and 15,700 passengers per day.

Though there isn’t a budget set aside for the plan and there’s no guarantee TransLink will follow through on the RFP, a Phibbs redesign has been on TransLink’s to-do list since 2012 when it was identified as a high priority in the North Shore area transit plan.

Unlike the TransLink mayors’ council vision released earlier this year, the Phibbs update won’t require voter approval by way of a referendum to go ahead, Busby said.

District of North Vancouver Coun. Roger Bassam said he welcomes the project to improve what is today a “horrible facility.”

“It’s really dated. It

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A6 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

VIEWPOINT PUBLISHED BY NORTH SHORE NEWS A DIVISION OF LMP PUBLICATION LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, 100-126 EAST 15TH STREET, NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. V7L 2P9. DOUG FOOT, PUBLISHER. CANADIAN PUBLICATIONS MAIL SALES PRODUCT AGREEMENT NO. 40010186.

Caveat emptor W

e bid farewell to Canada’s top general next month.

Lt.-Gen. Stuart Beare, after spending nearly a lifetime in uniform and three years as point man on every Canadian military operation, is leaving on an interesting note.

He’s not calling for more bullets, bombs or planes. He’s calling for diplomacy.

That tactic of averting war has fallen into disrepute lately, just as Canada has gone from emphasizing peacekeeping to creating a warrior nation mythology.

There may be times when war is necessary. However, no matter what our elected officials sell us, we should be mindful of what we’re buying.

We may be told airstrikes will be precise, the conflict will be short, or that a limited force will be expedient in neutralizing a narrow threat.

But that type of language — besides

MAILBOX

Aquarium editorial befuddles Dear Editor: I wanted to thank you for your Aug. 17 editorial regarding the Vancouver Aquarium. I will use it to enlighten my children and my future grandchildren, for it is the clearest example of doublethink since the Richmond, Virginia area school board attempted to ban Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird as “immoral literature.”

Indeed you have doubled down (so to speak) on the Vancouver Park Board’s doublethinking that we should coin a new term — quadruplethink. Orwell would be proud.

R. Peter Nixon Vancouver

being intentionally bewildering and bloodless —cloaks a lie.

War is long, and the wounds inflicted fester long after the cessation of hostilities.

The United States-led Operation Desert Storm in Iraq lasted six weeks.

The response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait seemed swift and tactical at the time.That was 23 years and four presidents ago.

Earlier this week, U.S. planes dropped bombs in Iraq following the seizure of Mosul by militants.

Violence is expected to intensify.

Weapons will be lost on the battlefield, waiting for future generations, simply because we never pick up after ourselves.

Earlier this month, approximately 4,000 Germans were evacuated from Dusseldorf so technicians could defuse a bomb.

It was a U.S. aircraft bomb, and it was dropped 70 years ago.

LETTERSTOTHE EDITOR must

include your name, full address and telephone number. Send your letters via e-mail to: editor@nsnews.com

The North Shore News reserves the right to edit any and/or all letters to the editor based on length, clarity, legality and content.The News also reserves the right to publish any and/or all letters electronically.

Bargaining fails education

Dear Editor: It is a tragedy that the issue that takes all of the energy and attention related to public education is how to settle an industrial-age-style collective bargaining dispute in a context where nobody actually in the room is going to suffer any serious consequence from failure to get an agreement in a timely fashion. It does not work for pretty obvious reasons.

There are no actual owners who will lose their businesses or workers who will lose their jobs if an agreement does not get done.The government representatives have job security and the union reps have guaranteed jobs to go back to. Nobody ‘in the room’ feels any direct pain from failure.

They can stick to the narrow selfish principles they have been mandated to protect while the broader value of public education in our society is diminished.

The real pain is the waste of the collective investment that we are all making in the next generation.The most focused and acute pain is the one felt by the parent whose child is having their chances of succeeding in life reduced by not getting the best education possible with the resources available now.

The hemorrhage of children to the private school system will compound the problem in the long term. The process of collective bargaining is the only (and dubious) value being served. Its dysfunction is undermining the long term viability of the public education system and ultimately, of our democratic, multicultural society that relies on the integrative and egalitarian effect of public education to regenerate itself.

CONTACTUS

Like money, energy and public attention are limited resources. If it is all spent in and around a ritualized process for determining how many people are going to be on the job site, the maximum amount of responsibility they have to have, and how much they get paid, then there is less to spend on improving quality of the tools they use, the adequacy of the space they occupy and the value of the outputs they produce.

Decisions of successive governments to continue to increase the share of public revenue that goes to fund health care over education (and every other ministry such as parks and environment) are ultimately based on values, not efficiency.They have been wrong choices that have increased the risks to our society in the future.

We have to find a better way to determine the priorities for spending the intergenerational trust called public education. And, when we all feel better about the way that the money is being spent, we need to increase the public education budget. Unlike what the sappy Telus ads say, the future is not friendly for our children.There needs to be a fundamental reconciliation and change in the process ... now!

Guy Heywood and Art Charbonneau North Vancouver Guy Heywood is a former chair of the NorthVancouver school board.Art Charbonneau is a former NDP Minister of Education who once fired him and replaced the board of school district 44 with a public trustee.They have since reconciled.

YOU SAID IT

“Will it sink or will it float?”

Conservative candidate for Burnaby North-Seymour and District of NorthVan Coun.

Mike Little discusses diluted bitumen and his support — or not — of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline expansion (from an Aug. 22 news story).

“Presumably, they’ve got a new flight to book.”

WestVancouver police spokesman Const. Jeff Palmer discusses the students who got lost along the Howe Sound Crest trail and missed their flight back to Korea (from an Aug. 20 news story).

“I thought, at one point, it was going to lick my hand.”

Conservation officer Sgt. Peter Busink laments having to shoot an extremely habituated bear (from an Aug. 17 news story).

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Sunday, August 24, 2014 - North Shore News - A7

VIEWPOINT

Who needs those robot writers, anyways?

I’ve had just about enough of these jerk-ass robots insulting our nonartificial intelligence and trying to sneak peaks at our private human bits.

First came the strange story of a drone bothering former Carson Graham football star, current marketing guru and generally well-liked Twitter person Conner Galway outside his downtown Vancouver condo.

“I heard this loud buzzing sound, like a pack of bees, then over the corner of the patio came this robot-looking thing,” Galway told The Province newspaper. It was a drone outfitted with a video camera, and it proceeded to casually peep into highrise windows for the better part of a night.

The intrusion no doubt enraged many a condodweller in the area just trying to enjoy a relaxing evening of looking at things through a telescope.

You know, stars and moons and whatever. Everybody loves astronomy.

Andy Prest

Laugh All YouWant Next came my annual fantasy football draft, one of my favourite nights of the year. The problem arose after the draft ended when the host website immediately posted a draft report card for each team written by an automated program.

Robot writing is a thing now, apparently — there are already programs that are performing churnalism, banging out numbers-based stories on sports, finances and even news events such as earthquakes for respectable organizations

such as the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times.

As a man who makes my living writing silly columns and sports stories you’d think I’d be worried, but I’m not. What’s there to worry about? I write good. I mean, me English know lots. I mean . . . phew, is it getting hot in here? Who’s that new guy in my newsroom and why is he wearing only a long string of ones and zeroes?

What’s your name, kid?

Johnny 5? Nooooooooo!

Anyway, My robotwritten fantasy football report was fine, although the robot writer chastised me for taking only one field goal kicker. Come on — it’s a standard-scoring, non-PPR, one-QB, one-K, no-IDP, three-keeper, 12team head-to-head league.

I think I can find someone else to kick a few field goals in Week 11 when Dan Bailey goes on a bye.

You guys all know what I mean, right? Stupid robot.

The real insults were fired in the report aimed

at my brother, a normally strong fantasy football player who has been getting approximately zero sleep lately thanks to a couple of wee children who love trains, Raffi, and not sleeping. There’s also his pesky PhD thesis that, unlike Associated Press news stories, simply refuses to write itself.

My brother in his hazy state forgot to change his pre-draft rankings and ended up reaching a few rounds too early for a high-upside rookie running back who, at the moment, is not a starter and may not actually get to, you know, play much NFL football this year. It was a mistake, but not a teamkilling one for my brother’s beloved GreenWhites (good for him, by the way, for slipping a CFL joke into the name of his NFL

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expired) Thelma and Louise or maybe I was talking about the hopes of Toronto.

I am aware that humans build the robots and, for the moment, tell them what to do. But if movies have taught us anything it’s that the robots will soon enough figure out how to think for themselves. And when they do, it would be nice if they would think of loftier things than peeping on hotties and talking trash.

Maybe it’ll be a good thing when the robots think for themselves. We have thousands of years of proof that humans are idiots. Maybe the robots will do better.

I believe in you robots.

Just stop it with the bad writing — I’ve got that covered. aprest@nsnews.com

CAPSULE

in public places is

DOUBLE DOWN

fantasy team. Go Riders!).

The robot, however, was merciless.

“Hey, remember that time The GreenWhites took Terrance West WAY too early and the entire draft room erupted in laughter?” It taunted in the draft report. “It was almost too hard to watch as The GreenWhites took (their) pick and drove any playoff hopes they had right off a cliff.”

Listen, you heartless machine — words hurt.

No one likes to be laughed at. I hope you never feel love!

No, wait. I’m sorry robots. I want you to feel love so that you’ll stop being creepy jerks. I would never say that any one person drove their hopes “right off a cliff ” unless I was doing a retrospective review of (spoiler-alert-

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Sunday, August 24, 2014 - North Shore News - A9

Marine life can be at risk

From page 1

being washed downhill to droppings from large flocks of Canada geese.

Peter Ross, director of the Vancouver Aquarium’s ocean pollution research program, said there are tests that could narrow down the question.

Some other jurisdictions have used microbial source tracking — a set of relatively new tests — which can reveal what species the E. coli is coming from.

In one Seattle case, testing showed pollution widely thought to be coming from leaking septic fields was actually coming from dog poop.

In cases of multiple sources, however, those tests don’t easily point to the main cause of contamination.

Lysyshyn said if tests came back indicating bacteria are from humans — as he suspects — it may not do much to solve the mystery.

Typically, said Ross, bacterial contamination that shows up in samples close to shore tends to come from the land, rather than the water.

When temperatures rise, warm ocean water rises to the surface and stays there, said Ross.

That warm layer of water is more vulnerable to any contamination.

While authorities test weekly for E. coli, that bacteria is not necessarily what health officials are worried about. Some strains of E. coli can be dangerous, while others are more benign. Scientists assume, however, that higher concentrations of E. coli mean that viruses like hepatitis, parasites and other more serious pathogens could also be present in the water.

Some of those can also potentially pose a risk to marine life.

In California, for instance, a third of all disease-caused death in wild sea otters is now caused by toxoplasmosis — an organism carried by

domestic house cats. One possible culprit? “The propensity of some home owners to buy flushable kitty litter,” said Ross.

Despite warnings from lifeguards, not everyone heeded the advice to stay out of the water, said Jeff McDonald, spokesman for the District of West Vancouver.

He acknowledged that for many residents, however, the closures have been frustrating. “We’ve had a beautiful summer and people naturally want to spend time on the beaches,” he said. “When you spend time on the beaches it’s pretty natural to want to spend time in the water.”

Motorists aid downed motorcyclist JANE SEYD jseyd@nsnews.com

A motorcyclist from Richmond escaped serious injury after two Good Samaritans in West Vancouver physically lifted up an SUV, which she was pinned under Thursday evening.

The accident happened just after 7 p.m., as three

motorcyclists in their 20s were driving around the off-ramp from the Lions Gate Bridge, heading to West Vancouver.

A woman on a Kawasaki motorcycle lost control on the curve, hit the centre median and was thrown off into oncoming traffic, where she bounced off a car before the driver of a Chevy SUV stopped

in time to avoid running over her.

As the woman lay pinned beneath the front undercarriage of the vehicle, two men raced over and physically lifted it off her, said Acting Sgt. Trish Aylett of the West Vancouver Police Department.

The woman was taken to Lions Gate Hospital

with non life-threatening injuries.

Aylett said it isn’t known what caused the woman to lose control of her motorcycle.

Inexperience may have been a factor, she said. No tickets were issued to any of the drivers.

The other two motorcycle riders were unharmed.

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ThV final wVVk of this concVWt sVWiVs fVatuWVs paWty music with Platform Soul and March Hare. Not up for dancing? Relax in the beer garden, browse local vVndoWs oW gWab a bitV fWom a food tWuck.

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The Mexican tall ship Cuahtemoc is coming to the Pier from September 2 - 5.

HVad down to thV Foot of Lonsdale for one of the free public tours: September 2nd, 3pm-8pm September 3rd, 10am-3pm September 4th, 10am-12pm & 2pm-8pm More information at cnv.org/CommunityEvents

City FiWVfightVWs Cool Off

WhVn thVy’WV not cooling off kids at Hot SummVW Nights, ouW NoWth VancouvVW City FiWVfightVWs aWV cooling off thVmsVlvVs foW a gWVat causV, thV IcV BuckVt ChallVngV. Way to go. Details at als.ca

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How Can WV HVlp You? NVVd a bluV box, bikV map oW gaWbagV schVdulV? Got a quVstion about lawn spWinkling regulations, the Spirit Trail or the Green Can pWogWam? Just ask. WV’WV hVWV to hVlp. DWop by City Hall oW find dVtails onlinV. More information at cnv.org/StayConnected

GaWdVnSmaWt WoWkshops: Get Registered Registration is open for the popular fall GardenSmart woWkshops. ThVsV infoWmativV and pWactical sVssions demonstrate sustainable gardening techniques that help North Shore residents reduce waste and grow thViW own food. ThVWV is a $8.25 chaWgV pVW woWkshop.

Brought to you by the North Shorth Recycling Program, Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre and the Edible Garden Project.

Details and registration at gardensmart.ca

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A10 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

BRIGHT LIGHTS

The Prints Show

by Paul McGrath

Murray White 9J4 Rene Gaines

'QU ?(OJ$& )Q,W ,(S9JO=U(& Leon Kozlov 9J4 Andy White The Prints Show, now in its fourth year, took place Aug. 7 at the Lynn Valley Community Room.

The fundraiser for InspireHeath Integrative Cancer Care, organized by Andy White and Leon Kozlov, honours the memory of White’s mother Linda Rossetti. Every year 100 photographers donate 100 prints for the show, which puts them up for silent auction. The event has raised more than $9,000 to date. theprintsshow.wix.com

Sue Kwon 9J4 Sian Mill

Gina Alpen 9J4 Julia Donohue

Chris Duckworth 9J4 Melissa White

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Natahsha Prakash 9J4 Jacquie Pallard

Tamara Mayers< Madison Gueho< Ashley Petrie 9J4 Sarah Petrie

Please direct requests for event coverage to: emcphee@nsnews.com. For more Bright Lights photos go to: nsnews.com/galleries.

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Sunday, August 24, 2014 - North Shore News - A11

YOUR NORTH SHORE GUIDE to ACTIVE LIVING

Book recounts path to recovery

Author chronicles his struggle with alcoholism

and soda.”

Palmer, a seasoned journalist of 20 years for the CBC, turned indie filmmaker, questioned Pond as to why he had not ordered alcohol.

“So I just slowly started peeling away the layers and each time I would tell her another little layer, she would just keep saying, ‘We have to write a book,’” says Pond. “I said ‘Well, Maureen I’ve been hearing that for a while,’ and she goes ‘No Mike, this is an unbelievable story, you have an unbelievable story, we have to write a book.’”

Pond wrote 20 pages, gave it to Palmer for her opinion and she quickly steered him in the right direction.They continued writing together, with Pond inserting his knowledge as a psychotherapist and Palmer illustrating his experience with a cinematic flare.

“I could just feel myself changing, I could feel myself kind of evolving and healing really just from doing the writing,” says Pond.

The book took almost three years to complete but Pond says the response has been overwhelming.

“People will show up or phone, I get unbelievable emails from old friends and

ANNE WATSON awatson@nsnews.com

HEALTH NOTES page 13

Michael Pond had not yet hit rock bottom when he set out on the streets of the Downtown Eastside in October 2008.

His remarkable story would take several more turns, some for the worse, before sobriety would finally take hold. The Couch of Willingness:An Alcoholic Therapist Battles the Bottle and a Broken Recovery System is the West Vancouver resident’s harrowing story told through a raw, cinematic lens with coauthor Maureen Palmer.

Pond, a psychotherapist, had a successful practice in Penticton, but excessive alcohol consumption soon got the better of him. He lost his practice, his home and his wife and family.

As his drinking became worse, Pond says, he often felt he should write about his experience.Then, after a year of sobriety and getting back into the workforce, Pond met Palmer on the dating site Plenty of Fish.

“Our very first date, I met her at Steamworks (Brew Pub), I arrived on transit and we went in there and sat down,” he says.

“She ordered a chardonnay and I ordered my cranberry

SeeWriting page 13

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FIT&HEALTHY A12 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

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OUTDOORYOGA Free flow-inspired practices Thursdays, 6:30-7:30 p.m. until Aug. 28 inWaterfront Plaza outside the Lonsdale Quay Market, 123 Carrie Cates Court, North Vancouver. Participants must bring their own yoga mat. lonsdalequay.com BRIDGES A new support group for people living with a mental health condition meets every second Thursday, 2-3:30 p.m. at the Canadian Mental Health Association, 211-260West Esplanade Ave., North Vancouver. Group meetings focus on recovery, wellness and self-help strategies in a safe, friendly environment.

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Writing process part of healing From page 11 colleagues,” he says.

A lot of his relationships were healed through the process, says Pond, including with his ex-wife and three sons.

“It was a horrible ordeal for her to go through, to watch her husband, the father of her children, just completely unravel and watch him self-destruct and not know what to do,” he says of his ex-wife.

“But at the book launch, she came, we invited her, she came, and my three sons came and the in-laws, we had my family on one side, my mom and my aunties, brother and sisters, the room was just full of people.”

The experience has also given Pond a new level of empathy when treating his own clients.

“I really try to just approach people from a place of absolute nonjudgment and I don’t get into labelling. I’ve been trained in that medical psychiatric model and it’s all about diagnosing and labelling, and we need to do that at some level to come up with a good treatment, a good care plan, but in terms

of one-to-one relationship and doing counselling or psychotherapy, it needs to be about non-judgment and me demonstrating that I understand and I know how you feel, and you know what? I can say that now because I’ve been there,” says Pond.

His professional voice as a counsellor was often present in his mind throughout his ordeal.

“I’ve worked in this field for so many years and then here I am in my mid-50s actually feeling, knowing I have clinical depression, knowing I have a generalized anxiety disorder, knowing that I’m having symptoms of psychosis, hearing voices and extreme paranoid ideation and losing touch with reality and losing touch with the sense of self.”

Pond’s journey took him through rat-infested recovery houses and a 12step recovery program.

“When somebody relapses with alcohol, we kick them out of treatment,” says Pond. “It’s all based historically on you’re drunk, therefore you’re weak and flawed and defective and sinful and immorally correct and on and on it goes.”

He says those models are really about using punishment and confrontation.

“The system has to change,” says Pond. “The funds need to go into research, the funds need to go into education, the funds need to go into prevention and families.”

Since the book came out, Pond says he gets asked to speak “quite a bit now” and it’s become almost a level of activism.

Pond and Palmer hope the book will change attitudes and conversations about treatment.

“It’s interesting because I had to just become completely open and completely honest and basically bare my soul, and I agonized over doing that in the beginning because I was also trying to rebuild a practice,” says Pond.

“Finally I just said ‘You know what, just tell it all,’ and what it’s done is it’s opened a lot of doors, I think, for people that have a lot of shame and stigma to know that it’s OK to disclose your pain and admit you have a mental illness and admit that you have a substance abuse problem.”

is limited. 604-926-7956 carolinesutherland.com ANNUAL HIKE FOR HUNTINGTON’S Help raise money for the Huntington Society of Canada with a three/fivekilometre hike Sunday, Sept. 7, 10 a.m. (registration begins at 8:30 a.m.) at the Rice Lake Loop Trail in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve, North Vancouver.There will be a

barbecue lunch following the hike. 604-682-3269 x6159 huntingtonsociety.ca GROUSE GRIND CHALLENGE The 2014 ClearlyContacts.ca event will take place Sunday, Sept. 7 at 9 a.m. Hikers of all ages and abilities are invited to tackle the trail in an effort to set a new record, beat their best Grind time, or simply complete their first trip up Mother Nature’s stairmaster.

Proceeds will support BC Children’s Hospital. grousemountain.com/events/ clearlycontactca-grouse-grindchallenge Compiled by Debbie Caldwell Email information for your non-profit, by donation or nominal fee event to listings@ nsnews.com.To post online, go to nsnews.com, scroll to Community Events and click on AddYour Event.

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A14 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

Men’s recovery centre needed in community From page 3 The centre let Sheila stay until she could get into subsidized housing.

Today, she dedicates her time to two women suffering from cerebral

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She takes them out, makes sure they’re taking their medication. They go swimming together and even on vacation.

“I make their lives happy.”

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income earners.

Plant estimates the money spent per patient at Turning Point is about one-fifth the cost of treating that same patient at a hospital emergency room.

For MacKay-Dunn, who responded to countless Man Down calls while walking a beat for the Vancouver Police Department, the new centre is only the beginning. He’s hopeful the recovery centre will eventually be augmented with second-stage housing.

“There desperately needs to be a men’s facility as well,” he says. “It’s an area of health services that is grossly underserved.”

The wait list was almost full before the centre opened its doors, according to Plant.

“We lose too many people off our wait list to relapse,” she notes.

There was some resistance from the community, including a failed petition to push the centre out of the neighbourhood.

Despite the fact that a house had occupied the site for nearly 40 years, and despite that not a single tree was cut down to make room for the centre, many residents said they were aghast at parkland being taken away.

Council received a few letters, ostensibly from children, asking if they would still be able to feed the ducks in a nearby pond.

“I understand that people are concerned,” MacKay-Dunn says.

“We’re not going to have a bunch of dope fiends in here. We’re not going to have people trafficking drugs that you might find in Pemberton Heights or in upper Lynn Valley or in Deep Cove.”

People struggling with addiction need to get help in their own communities rather than being exiled to the Downtown Eastside, according to MacKayDunn.

“If this is successful, people will be less inclined to be concerned about a similar facility in their neighbourhood,” he says.

The facility is supported by the Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, headed by new Pastor Jennifer Marlor.

The church dropped off welcome baskets for the centre’s first nine residents, something they plan to do every three months.

“Just a way to say, ‘You are loved,’” Marlor explains.

Sunday, August 24, 2014 - North Shore News - A15

SENIORS

Cabin folk feel art of the mountain

“Hollyburn Mountain means just about everything in my life,” says Ivan Holmes.

“Our cabin has been an anchor for me and my family.” The mountain that stands over West Vancouver has occupied a place in Ivan’s heart since 1944 when he was 14 years old.

A city boy, Ivan came to mountain life by degrees, beginning with a simulated cabin in the YMCA on Burrard Street. From this basement meeting room, clad in half-logs, bark side out, with painted windows and real curtains sewn by someone’s mother, Ivan and his pals in the YMCA Leaders’ corps would sally forth to practise woodcraft in the urban forest under Burrard Bridge.

A hike up Hollyburn mountain brought the boys closer to the real wilderness and inspired six of them, including Ivan, to build a cabin of their own.

For the next several years, they would make this journey regularly.

The boys would embark at the Granville Street

Laura Anderson

Memory Lane

ferry terminal, cross the inlet to the dock at 14th Street in West Vancouver, then it was by foot up the mountain to First Lake and Hollyburn Lodge.

They did not travel empty handed.

Everything had to be saved for, paid for and then packed in on foot: the lumber, the rope and axes and two-handed saws needed to build the cabin, the furniture, lamps and a stove, and of course, skis and outdoor equipment.

At a weekly salary of $3.50 a week at Cunningham’s Drugstore See Mountaintop page 16

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A16 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

SENIORS

Mountaintop dances made hard work worthwhile From page 15 at Granville and Davie, it took some time for Ivan to

earn his share of the $125 purchase price and the cost of materials, furnishings and supplies.

“It was all worth it,” Ivan says, “for the skiing and the hiking and the beauty of being on the

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mountain. And there were dances every weekend, with girls.”

Like so many young men who came of age after the Second World War, Ivan worked at many jobs, including pushing dirt at a Yukon gold mine.

They paid his way through university and led to a career teaching industrial arts. With no income during the summer and three children to raise with his wife, Henriette Shipley, Ivan continued his seasonal work at the gold mine.

When the Holmes family returned to the mountain they discovered the cabin had been demolished. Family and friends, including Lloyd “Arnie” Arneson, one of the original seven cabin mates, pitched in to rebuild.

For Ivan’s daughter Bev, the reconstructed cabin represents “our childhood, going up there from the time we were little. We learned respect for nature and for the environment and we passed that on to

our children. We hold the cabin in trust for them and for future generations.”

Bev and sister Patty are members of the Hollyburn Ridge Association, which welcomes those interested in the outdoors and in mountain life. The sisters came up with an innovative way to celebrate this unique mountain cabin community. Their idea, an exhibition of mountain life interpreted by Hollyburn artists, is an inspired blend of heritage and the creative spirit.

Hollyburn Ridge, Celebrating Mountain Art & Culture, is showing now at the Ferry Building Gallery in West Vancouver.

Fittingly, the gallery is on the site of the 14th Street ferry dock, the departure point for many an expedition into the coastal wild, including Hollyburn at our own back door.

The location and the exhibition remind us how close we are to our history here on the North Shore. The work of the Hollyburn Ridge artists affirms the connection to

nature that the mountain represents and inspires us to look with fresh eyes on the treasures in our own backyard.

“Restorative” might be Ivan’s choice to describe mountain life. A week in the classroom would stir his longing for the peace that nature brings and a weekend on the mountain would recharge his energy and enthusiasm for teaching. In his words, “the quietude of the cabin is music to the ear and to the soul.”

Hollyburn Ridge, Celebrating Mountain Art & Culture, is at the Ferry Building Gallery until Sept. 7. For gallery opening times, go to ferrybuildinggallery. com or phone 604.925.7290. Visitors will find an additional source of inspiration — the Ridgerunner, the Hollyburn Ridge Association’s newsletter.

Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. 778-279-2275 lander1@shaw.ca

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Sunday, August 24, 2014 - North Shore News - A17

SENIORS Seniors Calendar Notices LINE DANCING will be available Tuesdays, 10-11 a.m., during August at Mollie Nye House, 940 Lynn Valley Rd., North Vancouver. All levels welcome. Drop-in fee: non-members $4/members $2. 604-987-5820 mollienyehouse.com MEMORIES AND MORE A 10-week social recreation program designed for those with early to mid stages of dementia (along with a family member or friend) Wednesday, Sept. 24-Nov. 26, 1:30-3:30 p.m. at North Shore Community Resources, 201-935 Marine Dr., North Vancouver. Learn ideas to help with memory loss and connect with others in a similar situation. 604-9823320 karyn.davies@nscr.bc.ca

Social Groups & Outings

CURRENT CONVERSATIONS A lively gathering that will include movement, stimulating conversation, new ideas, laughter and an opportunity to reconnect with old friends or make new ones Fridays, 1:303 p.m. at Silver Harbour Seniors’ Activity Centre, 144 East 22nd St., North Vancouver. Tea, coffee and light refreshments will be served. $3. 604-980-2474

FORMERLY MARRIED CLUB A social group for formerly married men and women 55 years and older meets the first Tuesday of every month, 7:30 p.m. at Highlands United Church, 3255 Edgemont Blvd., North Vancouver. Weekly events are planned by committees and include dining, barbecues, theatre, games, dancing, tours, golf and more. 604-922-5839 604-986-8590 FRIENDLY FRIDAYS An informal group that meets Fridays, 9:30-11:30 a.m. at Mollie Nye House, 940 Lynn Valley Rd., North Vancouver. There is coffee and conversation as participants work on their own knit, crochet or other small projects.

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A18 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

TASTE

Place matters when it comes to wine

Tim Pawsey

Notable Potables Ultimately, though sadly, it’s not always obvious wine is very much about place: where it comes from, the land on which the vines are grown, and the people who make it.

We were once again firmly reminded of that last week when, on yet one more glorious Okanagan summer’s day, we found ourselves on the patio at Wild Goose.

The winery, established in 1990, on the vineyard planted more than 30 years ago by Adolf Kruger and family, enjoys a well-earned reputation. But last year the Krugers plunged into the world of winery dining and opened Smoke & Oak Bistro, which they describe as “southern Okanagan barbecue infused with German soul.”

The choice of southernstyle barbecue complete with Tennessee smoker fits so perfectly with the laid-back form and honest, down-to-earth approach that the winery is all about.

But what chef Sarren Wolfe’s succulent ribs, irresistible recooked beans (with Merlot reduction) and addictive spaetzle (a generations-old family recipe) really go well with is their Riesling, and their Stoney Slope Riesling 2012, in particular.

Sitting on the laid-back deck, it’s impossible not to be impressed by the stunning view, but even more so when you realize that this old-vines Riesling comes from the very vineyard at your feet, its meticulously tended vines marching up that gravelly slope with its abundance of small rocks left in place.

Look carefully farther up and you can still see the piles of larger rocks that Adolf and family cleared when they planted. He reckons 100,000 or more, each one touched by hand.

No wonder the Stoney Slope Riesling so much embodies Wild Goose. It offers up distinctive orchard fruits and a hint of petrol on the nose, followed by a luscious, mineral-toned, vibrant green-apple palate,

with a lingering close, and that unique stoniness is there throughout (VQA stores, $20-$22, 91 points).

And it is a perfect match for barbecue and ribs.

Maybe grab some while you’re at it.

It’s sometimes easy to forget that Germanic aromatics formed the very foundation of the Okanagan wine region, in great part because of Helmut Becker’s ground-breaking project initiated by Gray Monk and others in the mid 1970s.

The Stewart family’s history of fruit growing dates back to 1911, when current owners Tony and Ben Stewart’s grandparents founded Stewart Brothers Nurseries in Kelowna.Their father, Dick Stewart, later bought Sunnyside Ranch (settled by pioneering John and Susan Allison), which eventually (25 years ago) became Quails’ Gate Estate Winery.

As part of the quartercentenary celebrations, winemaker Nikki Callaway has made a range of smalllot wines (to be sold at the wine shop and through the wine club), which express a different style from the current regular and Family Reserve labels. Keep an eye open for the 2013 “small lot” Chardonnay,

'QU &$,JU> &L,+U ,T $QU !OL4 H,,&U WOJU(> OJ $QU @M9J9S9J &U(XU& 9& OJ&+O(9$O,J T,( O$& J9KU&9MU *OU&LOJS: ?G@'@ TIM PAWSEY more understated (think Burgundy) in style, with restrained French oak, appealing brioche notes and focused structure wrapped in juicy acidity (Tank sample, 91 points).

Quails’ Gate Orchard Block Gewurztraminer 2013, which is grown on a former peach orchard on the estate’s western edge, is a drier-styled expression of the variety, less overt than the Okanagan norm, but

still with those seductive, rose petal and floral aromas that set it apart, and stone fruit flavours on the palate, intermingled with a distinctive spiciness (at the winery, $22.92 points).

Belly’s Budget Best Mount Boucherie Pinot Noir 2012 Even though this Pinot is made on Mount Boucherie, the grapes are actually grown on a rocky, riverside site in the Similkameen, a

fact clearly identified on the label. Appealing, earthy, mineral notes up front, and lifted, bright cherry, with hints of sasparilla and a streak of very typical Similkameen minerality that runs right through ($20, 90 points).

Tim Pawsey writes about wine for numerous publications and online as the Hired Belly at hiredbelly.com. Contact: info@ hiredbelly.com.

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Sunday, August 24, 2014 - North Shore News - A19

TRAVEL

Swept along in Las Fallas revelry Each year Valencia puts on a party for the ages MANDY TRICKETT ContributingWriter

As night falls inValencia on Spain’s Mediterranean coast on this balmy March evening, energy and excitement are palpable in the noisy air.This is the week of Las Fallas, the mother of all parties, even in Europe where festivals and fiestas are a way of life.

Valencia swells to three million people for these festivities every year: they come to be deafened by earth-shaking firecrackers, to enjoy artery-clogging but irresistible street foods, and to wonder at the beauty of Valencian women in handcrafted regional costumes or the incredible, five-storey illuminations of the Tunnels of Light. But most of all, they come to see the flaming demise of more than 700 huge statues in an orgy of pyromania.

Some believe that Las Fallas (literally, the torches, and pronounced FAI-yass) has its roots in the middle ages, when artisans disposed of the broken bits and pieces saved during the winter by burning them to celebrate the spring equinox. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the fallas — there is no decent English term — were tall boxes with three or four wax dolls dressed in fabric clothing.Today, there are professional fallas builders, using cardboard, papier maché, polystyrene and soft cork easily molded with hot saws.These techniques have allowed the creation of fallas more than 12 metres high. Artists work year round on their creations and every falla tells a story, historical or satirical, political or humorous.

We find our first falla and shuffle around it, sardined by the throng, oohing and aahing at its complexity.

A dozen or so more fallas and we’re still oohing and aahing at every one: mythical creatures from Atlantis and the Titans, fairy tale scenes, even American presidents all come to short-lived life.

Short-lived because on the final night of the festival, around midnight, these fallas are burnt as huge bonfires in

5($"&$& @,(A .*=( (,!96 ,9 $%*"( 8(*=$",9& @%"8% @"?? :* 6*&$(,.*6 "9 = :?=-* ,) '?,(.

6!("9' ;=?*98"=3 B+="9#& 7=& /=??=& %*?6 =99!=??. "9 4=(8%0 ?G@'@ )%??CF./ MANDY TRICKETT the cremà (the burning), the climax of the whole gaudy event.

We follow a parade of gorgeous Spanish women in bright brocade gowns, which sweep the ground, making them look as if they are floating along.They are a feast for the eyes: sashes across shoulders, fine aprons of golden lace, elaborate hair styles swept back from haughty foreheads and held in place with golden combs.

They are heading towards the Square of the Virgin by the city’s cathedral, where a massive floral statue (10 – 12 metres tall) gazes down benignly on the milling crowds. Over two days, thousands of people have brought bunches of red and white carnations, which have been woven into the wooden frame to form a resplendent cloak for the Virgin and Child.

In contrast, promptly at 2 p.m. each day, the mascleta (an explosive barrage of firecrackers and fireworks) takes place in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, one of the city’s main squares.This display is not about colour but about noise, a symphony of noise lasting just 10 minutes with earthquake reverberations that make the entire city shake. Say goodbye to your hearing: the noise is indescribably loud. A

pall of grey smoke wafts on the slight breeze. No wonder the most popular souvenir to buy during Las Fallas is a kerchief that can be pulled, bandit style, over the mouth and nose.

This week, all our senses will be assaulted, not just our hearing.We follow our noses to street-side stalls selling churros (deep fried pastries), buñuelos (pumpkin fritters served with thick, hot, chocolate sauce), orxata (a sweet, milky drink made from tiger nuts), and sugarglazed fartons (pastry fingers

served with orxata) to get a quick sugar fix. Fires blaze in metal wheelbarrows as cooks toss skeins of large shallot onions called calçots onto the flames, searing them briefly on each side. Great vats of paella simmer on pavement grills.The smells of sweet and savoury foods blend together in the warm air and our taste buds will be corrupted forever.

After dark, with thousands of people all heading for the Tunnels of Lights, we can’t get lost.

We jostle along the uneven

pavements at the pace of the crowd, hemmed in by people and the narrowness of the small streets.We are swept along until, turning a corner, we suddenly see the first gorgeous display. It takes our breath away. Five stories high and a whole block long, the structure puts the U.K.’s famous Blackpool illuminations to shame.We see two separate Tunnels of Light: at the first, rock music pulses out into the night, deafening even with our fingers stuffed into our ears. At the second, classical music blasts out equally loudly. No wonder local residents often leave town during these celebrations.

On the final night, St. Joseph’s night, the fallas will burn in a riot of flames in what might be the world’s most extravagant legal pyrotechnic display. At one falla, a fuse cord is strung between the effigy and a tree and kerosene is splashed over the entire structure — in two other cases this is done by men who are smoking! Health and safety concerns have no place here, apparently, or maybe the gods of fiesta will protect everyone.The person lighting the fuse wisely stays well back as the flames leap up and great clouds of thick, oily smoke pour up into the night. It’s the kind of smoke that will surely blacken not only the facades of nearby buildings but also the lungs of the residents. As the flames really take hold, the audience steps back to avoid the wall of heat that emanates from the fastdisappearing effigy. It’s all over in a few minutes and the crowds move on: there are about 700 fallas to be

burned tonight.

These fires will purge the sorrows of the previous year, a dramatic spring cleaning to get rid of impurity and negativity. But surely after such hard work, such creativity and such enormous expense it must be hard to see everything go up in flames.

“This festival could not take place anywhere else in the world. Only Valencia would allow it!” Crammed shoulder to shoulder in the darkness, our anonymous new street-side friend is probably right.We have seen things here that would make any insurance company run for cover but it is what we have not seen that is intriguing.We have not seen a single instance of drunkenness or unpleasant or aggressive behaviour.

We have not seen a single out-of-control teenager. We have not had our pockets picked or cameras stolen.

Instead, we have seen elderly gentlemen tossing firecrackers with the glee of children, families enjoying the mild night air, swaying to the music of the Tunnels of Lights or reverently placing flowers at the feet of the Virgin.

If you are a person who dislikes loud noise and dense crowds, Las Fallas is not the place for you.The five days and nights of this fiesta-to-end-all-fiestas are one continuous, raucous, seething party. But the city survives this cheerful, annual onslaught and, like a phoenix, rises from the ashes each time to face another year. It is, quite simply, unforgettable: just don’t forget to bring the ear plugs.

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A20 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

PETS

Help your scaredy-dog conquer its fears Last week I discussed how dogs have greeting rituals, not only with other dogs, but with humans as well.

A friendly, social yet unfamiliar dog may not be all too willing to allow a human into its personal space on first meeting.

When a human reaches out to touch or interact with the dog, the dog may display avoidance behaviours such as ducking away from the hand or stepping out of the way of an intended touch.

This behaviour does not mean the dog is fearful, it simply means the dog is expecting that proper greeting protocols be respected before physical interaction takes place.

This week I’ll discuss fearful dogs, or dogs that lack adequate socialization and therefore act in a manner that is not inviting.

Fearfulness in dogs is a very complicated issue often related to past experiences, or a lack of past experiences from which to draw reference.

When dealing with a negative past experience, a dog will react when

Joan Klucha

Canine Connection

something in the present environment triggers its memory — a fearful response is always preceded by a stimulus, it is never unpredictable.

The route in the brain from the stimulus to the response is referred to as a neural pathway.The trick is to find what the stimulus is and then desensitize the dog to it.The problem is trying to determine all of the stimuli present when the initial fearful reaction occurred.

A common fear in dogs is the fear of men. An obvious stimulus would be a man.The not-so-

obvious might be the black hat the man was wearing, a particular cologne or a blue car driving behind the man at the exact moment.

It might be the large crow landing on the ground, a child yelling in the background, even the shade of a tree falling across the ground in front of the dog.

All of these are stimuli to a dog that the brain has placed in the memory along with the major event of the man with the black hat.This means that even though we may desensitize the dog to men with black hats, any one of the other stimuli present at the time of the negative experience has the potential to trigger a fearful response if the man with the black hat is not present. It gets even trickier when you realize that these stimuli can elicit a fearful response when presented together or separately.

Unlike fearfulness due to past experiences, when there is a lack of early socialization, there is literally no picture within a dog’s head that it may refer to. Since the dog has no

reference point to compare the current experience with, it may react fearfully towards men in black hats because of unfamiliarity rather than negativity.

Because of the complexity of fear, it’s never a matter of fixing the dog to like men with black hats as much as it is learning how to redirect a dog’s emotional state to a more positive one so that a new neural pathway is created.This results in the dog creating a new picture in its head from the new emotional state around men in black hats.The focus is on the dog’s emotional state rather than the stimuli itself

because in reality, we will never know what is going on in a dog’s mind when it displays fear. All we can do is redirect the dog’s attention and encourage it to choose a peaceful response to create a new state of mind in the once fearful environment.

Training is a multistaged process.The first stage is working with a dog in a purely positive space and creating a “cue” that triggers a peaceful response.

It is then reinforced until predictable.The next stage is to introduce the negative stimuli in a controlled environment and use the cue to keep the dog

peaceful within this fearful set-up.These two stages may take months, not weeks, to perfect. Once the dog becomes predictable in the set-up it can then be tested in the real world.

Fearfulness in dogs is very complicated and working with a qualified trainer makes it less complicated. Next week I’ll discuss how to help the dog, the owner and the trainer when working with a fearful dog.

Joan has been working with dogs for more than 15 years in obedience, tracking and behavioural rehabilitation.

Contact her at k9kinship.com

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Sunday, August 24, 2014 - North Shore News - A21

YOUR NORTH SHORE GUIDE to THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

Teen has a need for speed Daniel Shaw flies toWorlds as worried mom hides her eyes ANDY PREST aprest@nsnews.com

Scan this page with the Layar app to see video of Daniel Shaw’s 40-foot Toonie Drop

From a very young age, Daniel Shaw liked to go downhill, and he liked to do it as fast as possible.

He remembers the joy he used to take in riding a pedal bike down a big hill in his townhouse complex. Or more likely he’s been told of the joy — the memories are probably pretty fuzzy given that he was just three years old at the time.

“I was just going down that as fast as I could,” he says. His antics earned him the nickname Triple D — for Daredevil Dan — that everyone around the complex called him except for one important person: his mother Lynda.

“I did not,” she says.

Lynda, in fact, was never a fan of the high speed hijinks. “We always went camping and did those kind of adventury things, but not crazy adventury. But he just had it in him.”

He still has it in him.

In fact Daniel, now 17, recently won the junior men’s title at the 2014 Canadian Mountain Bike Downhill Championships, a victory that earned him a spot in the UCI Mountain Bike Junior World Championships running Sept. 2-7 in Hafjell, Norway. It turns out he’s pretty good at this downhill thing — you better get used to it, Mom. The Shaws, including Daniel’s father Dennis, moved from Burnaby to North Vancouver when Daniel was six and one year later he discovered a place basically in his backyard where he could go even faster: Mount Seymour.

Daniel started heading up the mountain and testing himself on local trails like Mushroom and Corkscrew.

“It was scary,” he says, adding that his plan was always to “just make it down.”

A,($Q #9J6,"XU(3& /9JOUL )Q9W 8L9&$& $Q(,"SQ 9 $(9OJOJS ("J 9$ L9&$ WUUM3& 0(9JMW,(V 6,K+U$O$O,J OJ !QO&$LU(: 'QO& &"KKU( )Q9W W,J $QU N"JO,( 69$US,(> 9$ $QU 09J94O9J B,"J$9OJ 1OMU /,WJQOLL 0Q9K+O,J&QO+&< U9(JOJS QOK 9 &+,$ OJ $QU %0F B,"J$9OJ 1OMU E"JO,( !,(L4 0Q9K+O,J&QO+& &6QU4"LU4 T,( )U+$ 5;P OJ A,(W9>: ?G@'@ )%??CF./ SAM TOMKINS He was hooked though, and by age of 13 he’d built up enough confidence to enter the downhill competition at Crankworx — an annual festival in Whistler that Lynda was hoping Daniel didn’t know about.

“He found it himself,” she says with a sigh. “He came to dad and said ‘I really want to do this race.’”

It didn’t go very well.

Daniel was the only racer to show up without a soft tail bike normally used for downhill riding.

“We were just really newbies at it,” says Lynda.

“We put him in the race with a hard tail — you wouldn’t do that if you knew what you were doing.”

The tail wasn’t the only problem with the bike.

“My chain came off,” says Daniel. “I was kind of scared of what to do. I just rode down without the chain.”

He finished well back in the pack, but was not discouraged. He jumped right back into the competition the following year. It didn’t go well again, as Daniel managed to crack the frame of his bike — now a soft tail — on a wipeout.

“I just went too far

into a corner and slid out.

My handlebars grabbed the ground weird and put pressure on my frame.”

Daniel’s love of the sport finally started translating into podium placings last season, and this year he’s really taken off.The biggest win came in Kamloops where he ripped through dry, scorching conditions to beat the best juniors in Canada and become a national champion.

“That was the greatest race,” says Daniel. “The trail wasn’t very fun, but it just seemed to work out. It was very dry, it was about 40 degrees out. It’s weird — your throat just hurts the whole way down.”

Last week he finally cracked the Crankworx jinx as well, finishing third in the junior open category. Now he’s off to Norway to face the best in the world.

“It’s scary, but really exciting,” he says of the gigantic leaps his career has taken.

As for Mom, well, she’s starting to come around.

Slowly. She goes to all of Daniel’s races but still can’t bear to actually watch when he’s on course.

“I pray, and then I read,” she says. “Or I’ll talk to

someone else.Those races are so fast, it’s not a long time.You just kind of look the other way and distract yourself.”

Lynda admits, however, that the sport has helped her son grow and mature in ways she never imagined.

He’s learned to fix nearly every part on his bicycle because the family — despite generous support from friends, family and several local businesses — doesn’t have the cash to repair every $2,000 trinket that pops off. He’s done presentations in front of rooms packed with business people in an effort to gain sponsors. He’s learned how to make connections and build a support network, how to bring his friends along for the ride through side projects like photography and filmmaking. All of this from a kid who is still in high school, about to enter his Grade 12 year at Seycove secondary.

“I’m quietly very proud of him,” says Lynda. “I look at the long range and I see this is a guy who when he wants to do something, he’s going to learn how to find a way to make it happen. . . . He’s just mentally

disciplined in a way that I’m in awe of, really, in (his biking career) at least — if you looked at his bedroom, that’s a whole other thing. . . .”

Lynda knows that they come at this from two very different perspectives.

“His psyche is totally different from mine. He thinks I’m a worrywart. It’s just a mom thing.”

But her prudence has worn off a little too. Daniel made a stir last year when a video of him doing the Toonie Drop — an infamous North Shore feature that is basically a 40-foot fall placed in the middle of a tricky, narrow trail — won him top spot in a competition run by Pink Bike. Daniel was happy to win, but it didn’t make him want to push the envelope ever further.

“It was scary, it was so big,” he says. “I’m probably not going back anytime soon.”

He is, however, going to keep racing, riding fast enough to make his mother cringe. At heart, he’s still that young daredevil.

“I can just go really fast and then it gets scary,” he says. “That’s when it gets fun.”

A22 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

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Sunday, August 24, 2014 - North Shore News - A23

A24 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

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A26 - North Shore News - Sunday, August 24, 2014

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