Posts with the Aurora Borealis tag

Barris Beat

Smoke and mirrors

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Aurora Borealis as captured by Canadian National Geographic photo.

I had only been in the city a few days. When I arrived in Saskatoon that winter of 1972, I had a job – as a TV producer in the audio-visual centre of the University of Saskatchewan – but I didn’t have a place to stay. A friend directed me top a house rented by some U of S students. I met with them and and they said I could move into the available room – a kitchen on the second floor. They told me to bring my stuff a few days later.

I arrived at my new lodgings only to discover a phalanx of RCMP cruisers barricading my way into the house.

“Who are you?” asked one of the officers. “What’s your connection to this place? Clearly, I had walked into the middle of a police raid.

“I’m just moving in,” I explained. I later learned that the house where I was about to reside in Saskatoon was home to one of the busiest soft drug distribution points in the city.

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Barris Beat

Lucy in the sky…

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
Gerald Le Dain took several years to reach a decision on decriminalizing marijuana use.
Gerald Le Dain took several years to reach a decision on decriminalizing marijuana use.

The media came out in droves to hear an important pronouncement about law and the use of a controversial hallucinogenic substance in Canadian society. Then, three sober-looking legal figures proceeded to offer their findings. J. Peter Stein, Heinz Lehmann and the man after whom the report was named, Gerald Le Dain, unveiled their findings.

“The cultivation of cannabis should be subject to the same penalties as trafficking,” Judge Le Dain said, “but it should not be a punishable offence…”

If you thought those pronouncements were a recent dress rehearsal for the current Trudeau Liberal government’s plan to decriminalize the medicinal or recreational use of marijuana next spring, well, you’d almost be right. (more…)

Barris Beat

Surviving the night

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

NIGHTTIME_HIGHWAYAt about 3 or 3:30 in the morning, one hardly expects anything very important to happen. After all, most civilized people are asleep in their beds at that hour. But last Tuesday night, I didn’t have any choice. I had to drive a long distance – between Winnipeg and Saskatoon – to arrive in time for a media appointment the next morning.

As I drove my car rental late that night, I suddenly became aware that the sky was growing brighter in the wrong place. Not behind me to the East where the sun would be rising in a couple of hours, but to the North. I dimmed the lights on the console of the car and peered off to my right.

“The Northern Lights,” I said to myself in a hushed tone, as if speaking the words aloud would scare them off. “Aurora borealis,” I added. (more…)