Posts with the Russia tag

Barris Beat

In the face of cultural destruction

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Allied troops march past what remained of Ieper’s Cloth Hall after German bombardment during the Great War.

I’d got lost in the main square at Ypres, Belgium. I’d asked for directions from the man at a reception desk inside the town’s massive Cloth Hall. As I thanked him for getting me reoriented, I asked him about the story of Ypres’ recovery and restoration after the Great War in 1918.

“You know that the war levelled the city, yes?” I nodded, and he continued. “It was the forethought of the mayor and aldermen and others that saved our city after World War I.”

“I’d heard that,” I said.

“They gathered all the diagrams of buildings in Ieper (as Belgians call Ypres) and hid them in France,” he said.

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Barris Beat

When Canada’s sovereignty was young

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Arctic ice pack. carbon brief

Seventeen years ago, a number of Canadian and American scientists set off on a unique voyage – sailing the Bellot Strait, a narrow channel in the Arctic Ocean that separates the most northerly point of North American mainland from Somerset Island in Canada’s Far North.

For the first time in history their vessel crossed the strait in October (when typically it would be frozen). One of the scientists on the trip in 2006 noted that Canadian Coast Guard officials aboard the ship all had the same reaction.

“They were collectively terrified,” explained Michael Byers then director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues at UBC. Terrified that the strait was entirely ice-free during the voyage, and therefore open to passage. (more…)

Barris Beat

Resolve against a bully

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Putin, bully in presidential suit.

When I was in Grade 3, back in the mid-1950s, an older and belligerent kid chose me as his victim in the schoolyard one day. He picked on me because I wore glasses. He knew I had just arrived in the neighbourhood, so he teased me for being the new boy. He taunted me because he knew I didn’t have any friends to turn to. He made fun of my name.

“Hey, Teddy Bear,” he kept calling from across the yard.

Bad memories of that schoolyard experience returned to me last week when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his columns of tanks, trucks and soldiers charging across his western frontier into Ukraine. (more…)

Barris Beat

Principles worth competing for

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Diane Jones (Konihowski) in full flight over hurdles early in her career. University of Saskatchewan photo.

She said it was one the most difficult decisions of her life. She weighed every option. She considered the reactions of her peers. She wondered what other Canadians might think of her, that her choice might turn fellow citizens against her at the time she most needed their support. She agonized over it as she prepared for perhaps the greatest opportunity of her career.

“I considered giving up my Canadian citizenship,” she told me back in the 1980s at her home in Saskatchewan.

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