Weyes Blood
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Spring 2014 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism
Spring 2014 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism I said I wouldn’t do it again. In fact, in December, 2011, I wrote “A Fond Farewell,” a post saying goodbye to the Ryerson Review of Journalism after being the instructor on the award-winning magazine five times. But last September, I took the job again. And I’m glad I did: it was lots of fun and my fabulous students produced another outstanding issue of the venerable publication. Buy it on newsstands now or follow @RyersonReview because we’re going to start posting one story a day at rrj.ca.
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Klondike Creative Class
Klondide Creative Class What’s the Klondike really like today, more than a century after the Gold Rush? Well, according to one filmmaker who lives in Dawson City, it’s like Leonard Cohen’s Greece. Here’s “Klondike Creative Class,” my story about the coolest town in Canada and how it created a thriving arts community. And here’s an interview Maisonneuve editor Haley Cullingham did with me about writing what you love and capturing Canada’s North.
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The music that meant the most to me in 2012
The music that meant the most to me in 2012 Doing my radio show at CFYT in Dawson City (photo by John Lund) I couldn’t do it. There was so much fabulous music this year that I just couldn’t narrow it down to a Top 10. So here—alphabetically because there was no way I could rank them—are the twenty-five albums I listened to, and enjoyed, the most this year. Yeah, twenty-five (and it was hard enough getting it down to that). Europe – Allo Darlin’ All Music Guide calls this “twee pop,” which doesn’t sound like something I would want…
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Wild ending
Wild Ending This photo is from the canoe trip I did on the Snake River in the Peel Watershed with friends this past summer. A few days later, though, the sky wasn’t so peaceful. In fact, the end of our trip was pretty wild, but as I wrote in “In the Yukon’s Stormy Embrace” for Up Here magazine, my love for the Yukon remained unshakeable.
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It’s my funeral
It’s my funeral I wrote about memorials in a secular age. I was trying to be funny; my editor thought it was poignant. You be the judge.
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The words we use
The words we use Sometimes I don’t know what’s wrong with me: I spend my life trying to convince women to like me and then I go and write this. Of course, not all prostitutes are women and the rights and safety of prostitutes shouldn’t be solely a women’s issue and language is something everyone should love, but the people most upset by this piece seem to be women.
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Remembering a friend
Remembering a friend This guy died this week and that really pissed me off because he was my friend. Calling Chris Chenoweth a character seems like too much of an understatement. He was a complete nut–often infuriating, he was nevertheless totally loveable. And totally memorable. His obit nails it: “Full of fun, bluster and bonhomie, he was a grand personality who inhabited a wonderful world of his own invention and then invited everyone into it. Friends, baseball, hockey, sports memorabilia, the fair sex, kids, the law, politics, journalism, the Grateful Dead and cha all figured among the favourite things of this good, generous…
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That Summer in Elsa
That Summer in Elsa After my second year of university, I spent four months working in a mine in Elsa (I lived in a bunkhouse just like this one–maybe even this one–though it was in better shape back then). That was the first time I fell in love with the Yukon, but the summer of ’79 was more than that, as I explain in this memoir.
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Dawson City’s heritage building dilemma
Dawson City’s heritage building dilemma “Dawson City — big city problems in a small northern town” is a piece I wrote for Spacing magazine’s blog about what to do with unused (and underused) heritage buildings in the Klondike.