The Environmental Studies Student Association’s (ESSA) will be holding its annual camping trip at Camp Miriam on beautiful Gabriola Island. Members of ESSA and the Outdoors Club are invited to join us on an outdoors adventure, full of peer led experiential learning, hiking, yoga, and integral environmental education.

When: April 8, 9, and 10th 2011
Where: Camp Miriam, 835 Berry Point Road, Gabriola Island, BC
Cost: Food and Fuel estimated at $25

Site Information
Camp Miriam is nestled on the breathtaking shores of beautiful Gabriola Island, located a mere 20 minute ferry ride from the city of Nanaimo. The camp spans over 20 acres of stunning, lush greenery unique to British Columbia and provides its visitors with a secluded, quaint space to run activities.

The heated cabins have built-in bunk beds and are able to accommodate 8 people per room. The central camp building includes several large multi-purpose rooms, bathrooms, state-of-the-art kitchen, and a large dining hall with windows overlooking the serenity of Pilot Bay.

The trip to Gabriola from Victoria is roughly 120km and takes approximately 2.5 hours by vehicle. We will be carpooling from Victoria, if you are able to drive please let us know.

Contact and Registration
Space is limited, please e-mail Sara Fralin for more information and to register at sfray@uvic.ca

When: This Sunday Feb. 13th at 5pm.
Where: Nikki sanchez’s home: 350 King George Terrace (off fairfield road on the ocean, little boxy green house)
What: Bring any pre-loved (freshly washed) clothing, shoes, and accessories to give away, and take home someone else’s pre-loved stuff in exchange.

People are welcome to stay for Wholesome Sundays potluck afterwards (crafts, cooking, wine drinking etc.)
Take Care,
Nikki and Sara.

Please email me to discuss further – adampod@uvic.ca

First, the rabbits on campus, and beyond, were once pets, yes, but they have reproduced in the wild, and the rabbits that hop around the campus now are no one’s pets. They are 4th or 5th or more generation wild.

Second, in my perspective, plants are sentient beings. Plants have a wisdom far greater than we little humans would like to admit or understand. Thus, for me, to harvest camus, potatoes, carrots, or rabbits, there is no difference. They are all alive. They all feed us. They all support us to live another day.

Third, if you have a problem with taking the lives of animals for food, may I suggest you go protest at the University Center caffeteria, or better yet, all the grocery stores in your neighborhood for carrying meat and meat products that have been inhumanly raised, slaughtered, packaged, and shipped to your dinner plate.

Finally, there is nothing “inhumane” about – I will use the word harvest – harvesting rabbits or any animals with your own hands because the pain they feel is the pain you feel. Hunting is a deepening of a very powerful relationship between the animal and the human. In those brief moments there is no seperation between the hunted and the hunter. There is a realization, a true experienced realization that the animal is you. That animal’s energy, its power, its body will feed you and help you live another day.

Calgary didn’t create energy users, they may be clever but they aren’t that clever.

Personally I like the idea that Calgary, aka Canada (the industry is strong in six other provinces and the territories as well), is in charge. At least I know that environmental and workplace health and safety standards are being met, employment from high school graduate construction workers to high-tech software and custom metal design and fabrication is paying my taxes, royalties from production flows back to me, and I’m independent of unsavoury despots in nasty regimes.

Most Calgarians I know are a well educated group, resourceful and responsible. They care about the environment, actively use their parks and don’t consider themselves mouthpieces for the oil industry. Go to Mountain Equipment Co-op in Calgary and hang around, that’s a better finger on the pulse than looking in someone’s blue box. Many know more about climate change science, real science, not the media hype, than your average activist.

Calgary ain’t as pretty as Victoria. Winter inversions can trap an ugly smog layer against the city, dust rolls around in the arid air, and there’s more pick-ups than Prius’s. You won’t find a livelier city in Canada, silent of the whining and entitlement issues of some of it’s sisters but ready to party hardy. And include that attitude of success and possibility that revives one’s hope in Canada as a country of destiny. No wonder they get on some peoples nerves.