By contributing writer Len Corben
My mother’s Achilles heel was actually her most valuable asset. At least it was on the afternoon she entered the Lynn Valley Day walking race from 15th Street and Lonsdale Avenue to Lynn Valley Park on June 1, 1957, coming up 58 years ago now.
With this year’s Lynn Valley Day scheduled for Saturday, May 30, this is the perfect opportunity to tell the tale of my mom’s victory using a rather unorthodox finishing kick.
Thanks to our internet-connected world, a little piece of Lynn Valley history recently came to light.
Kim Wertenberger of Wapato, Washington, sent LynnValleyLife a photo of a much-cherished trophy that once belonged to her grandfather, Brian J. Ingoldsby. “I love it dearly and wanted to share it with you,” wrote Kim, who had unsuccessfully tried to make contact with someone in Lynn Valley years ago. This time, her internet search found an appreciative audience in the LVLife editorial office.
The trophy was given to Mr. Ingoldsby for winning the “Mile Flat Race” in 1921, 22, and 23. The race was run at the first-ever Lynn Valley Day in 1912, and again in 1913, but there is a significant gap in the dates while World War One interrupted such idyllic pastimes. (For a first-hand account of another Lynn Valley man’s experience of this period, see Walter Draycott’s online chronicle of The Great War.) It must have been celebratory indeed when Mr. Ingoldsby won the race when it made its reappearance in 1921.
Says Kim: “I was told that [my grandfather] qualified for the Olympics as a runner, but was spiked by another runner’s shoe so couldn’t participate. I’m not sure about the truth in that or even if I am remembering the story correctly…but he won this trophy three years in a row so he must have had some skill!”
When he was growing up in North Van, Neil Chrystal remembers that “Lynn Valley was the tough community where you didn’t want to go.” Now, as the CEO of Polygon Homes, Neil lauds the decades-long transformation that has vaulted the neighbourhood into one of the North Shore’s most popular places in which to live.
Longtime Lynn Valley resident Trish McMordie was well known for her sense of fun, community service, hospitality and love of reading and teaching. So it’s no surprise that all these elements are coming together to create a special event in support of the North Vancouver District Library memorial fund set up in Trish’s name after her passing from a brain tumour in October 2013.
A Whisky Library is a community event (for the over-19s!) taking place in the Lynn Valley Library on Saturday, May 9, from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m.
A distinctly festive air will permeate the gathering, which will see five whiskies each represented by a “whisky advocate” in the style of the CBC Canada Reads contest. Tastings will be offered of the five whiskies, each of which will be individually represented by advocates Grant Lawrence (CBC Radio), Mark Forsythe (former host of CBC’s BC Almanac), Catherine Barr, North Vancouver MP Andrew Saxton and Grandy Chu, and North Vancouver District Mayor Richard Walton.
Celtic ceilidh music provided by the Black Bear Rebels, an auction and refreshments (including a chocolate table!) will ensure that there will be plenty to entertain both whisky aficionados and abstainers alike. The library’s Trish McMordie Memorial Fund has already purchased a sit-and-play snake named “Piper” for the children’s department; funds raised at the Whisky Library will help further Trish’s love of bringing together children and books.
Trish McMordie was an avid member of the JP Fell Pipe Band, along with her husband Allan.
Tickets are $55 for a whisky-tasting ticket (includes five whisky tastings) or $25 for a non-whisky ticket. They can be purchased at any North Van District Library, or online. Trish’s two children, David and Janet, would assure you that there’s no better way to celebrate Mother’s Day 2015 than by buying your mom a ticket and bringing her along to this festive fundraiser.
Lynn Valley is home to nearly a dozen churches and congregations of various types. But in this age that is often described as “spiritual but not religious,” church leaders are increasingly being found outside their buildings, helping people of all backgrounds find the sacred in everyday life.
Lynne McNaughton is the priest at St. Clement’s Anglican Church on Institute Road, and an avid learner and teacher of Celtic spirituality. Lynne, who has a doctorate in spirituality and has led pilgrimages to several ancient Celtic sites in Europe, is looking forward to introducing interested locals to the tradition of Celtic practices that serve to inject an appreciation of nature and holiness into the everyday tasks of living.
Everyone is welcome to participate in the hands-on workshops, which will take place at Mollie Nye House, 840 Lynn Valley Road, over a series of Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m. Topics to be explored include:
April 20: Smooring the Fire: Mindfulness in ordinary everyday physical activity
May 11: Illumination: Beauty as spiritual practice
May 25: Celtic Knots as Spiritual Practice: Interweaving life and the sacred
June 8: Holiness of Rocks and Trees, Skies and Seas: Cultivating awe as a spiritual practice (This session will begin with a Celtic dinner at 6 p.m.)
Cost is $10 for each of the first three sessions, $20 for the June dinner session, or $50 for the whole series. Register by calling 604-988-4418 (St Clement’s Church, where messages are checked frequently) or email at [email protected]. Please inquire about babysitting should that be helpful.
LynnValleyLife recently caught up with Lynne to ask her some more questions about the workshops and her thoughts about Celtic spirituality in general. We’ve shared her answers, below:
What is it about Celtic spirituality that intrigues you? What do you think it has to offer people in the church and in the wider community?
Celtic spirituality has intrigued me for decades, as I have led pilgrimages to ancient Celtic sites in several countries. Although I am fifth or more generations Canadian, I have Irish, Welsh and Scottish heritage (as you might guess from my last name!) I see Celtic life as part of my own roots, my aboriginal heritage. My study of Celtic spirituality deepens my understanding of myself, who am I, how do I relate, and what matters in life.
I see Celtic spirituality as embodied, that is, having to do with our physical bodies. Spirit and body are connected, and I think this is something we are reclaiming today; that spirituality is not some separate ethereal thing, but our whole beings.
Celtic spirituality is also very communal. Our hope with this whole series is to have conversation in our neighbourhood that work against the isolation in our society, or a sense that our spiritual lives are only private and solitary.
What parallels might you suggest between the Celtic culture and ours on the Pacific coast?
I think that we are aware, as we live in the immense beauty of nature around us and at this moment are recoiling in horror at an oil spill, that we all need to reclaim a spirituality of deep connection to Earth; Celtic spirituality gives us some roots in that, some ways of tending to that.
One of the sessions will be about beauty and spirituality. Celtic spirituality honours and builds our imaginations.
When I have taught Celtic spirituality in Indigenous communities in Canada, we have talked about how Christianity arrived in Ireland in the fourth century with a much more respectful (less colonial and imperial) stance than it did in our country.
Christianity was strongly influenced by Celtic culture when it blended in to Ireland’s rural life, a life that was far more connected to the earth than early continental and urban Christianity. Earth and everyday life are, after all, infused with the sacred. I am fine if people call me pagan; it simply means “people of the Earth” – and aren’t we all!
What will people learn/experience in the workshops?
These aren’t lectures! I will give an introduction to a spiritual practice, some background and context, but this will be experiential learning. There will be practice, action, and discussion about how we might adapt these insights from the Celts into our real everyday lives. Be prepared to be playful!
Any hints about what a Celtic dinner might entail?
We are creating the closing dinner from foods that were traditional and considered sacred to the Celts. The food will be local, as much as possible – we’re not importing anything. Is that enough of a hint? Think apples, for instance!
Are you planning other community workshops in the future?
Yes, we plan to have offer other themes to engage people in developing a healthy spiritual practice. One example is embodied prayer – I know I pray best when I am moving!
While many Lynn Valley residents may have been coming home to a welcome dinner or stretching out in front of the TV Friday night, a handful of enthusiastic citizens were on the banks of Hastings Creek carefully placing a number of bucket-shaped, black mesh traps. And the next morning, they donned their gum boots again to see what had transpired while they slept.
They were volunteers from the North Shore Streamkeepers, surveying the numbers of year-old smolt in the creek to survey whether the fish population was healthy. What they found swimming in the traps put smiles on everyone’s faces.
As the fish were carefully released out of the traps and into a bucket for measuring and counting, Jan Lander tallied the numbers. The result? The best smolt trapping since 2006, with 27 coho smolts being counted, a large increase over the five or so that have been typical in the past few years. These are a sampling of the fish that were born in the Hunter Park area of Hastings Creek last year and have survived since then. Four crayfish and 12 cutthroat trout – many measuring 16 or 17 cm – were also amongst the fish counted and released.
The relationship between human society and waterways has not always been a respectful one. In earlier decades, the enthusiastic growth of industry, building booms and road construction commonly resulted in polluted streams, blocked spawning routes, and diminished fish populations. Even home gardeners had a negative impact, by introducing invasive plant species such as ivy, lamium, and periwinkle to stream-side environments.
Thanks, however, to greater awareness, tighter bylaws, and good working partnerships the health of urban streams has improved in many areas. Leading the charge in Lynn Valley have been an active group of North Shore Streamkeepers who safeguard and enhance the ability of local creeks to support healthy fish stocks.
People of all ages converge on the streams throughout the year to tackle a variety of tasks, from culling invasive plants, installing and maintaining fish ladders, testing water quality, restoring habitat and performing surveys. One volunteer even takes it upon himself to find out about new construction projects taking place near creeks; he then visits each site to ensure waterway protection rules are being followed and that filters have been placed in the storm drains. He returns to the site again once construction is complete to ensure the filters have been appropriately removed.
The North Shore Streamkeepers were established in 1993, and is a member of the Pacific Streamkeepers Federation. The Streamkeepers are a program of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which provides a multi-module training manual for those volunteers who wish to learn everything from performing a habitat survey to sampling water quality to trapping and identifying fish.
The Streamkeepers’ work has been recognized in a number of ways – Morten Creek was named for longtime volunteer Zo Ann Morten, and Mayor Richard Walton will be at Hunter Park at Donovan’s Pond on Saturday, April 25 at 11 a.m. to dedicate a new fish ladder installed by North Vancouver District in response to lobbying from the Streamkeepers.
What they’d really like, however, is for more volunteers to swell their ranks and learn for themselves the satisfaction of keeping our waterways healthy. To learn more, visit the North Shore Streamkeepers website or email [email protected].
By Chantelle Dawson, Treks 4 Pets owner
There is a lot of chatter about raw food diets for cats and dogs these days, but what does it all mean, and how does it benefit your pet? I will try and keep it simple in this post, explain why it is so beneficial, and give tips on how to feed your pets raw!
The entire TED talks conference is being live-streamed, at various North Van libraries at various times. See below for the schedule; we’ve bold-faced those events taking place in the Lynn Valley branch. Learn more about the sessions and the speakers here.
Livestreaming Location: Lynn Valley
Sessions:
12:30 – 2:15pm – TED Fellows Talks Session 1
3:00 – 4:30pm – TED Fellows Talks Session 2
6:00 – 8:00pm – Session 1: Opening Gambit
Livestreaming Locations: Lynn Valley | Capilano
Sessions:
8:30 – 10:15am – Session 2: What Are We Thinking?
11:00 – 12:45pm – Session 3: Machines That Learn
2:15 – 4:00pm – Session 4: Out of This World
5:00 – 6:45pm – Session 5: Life Stories
TED Discussion Lounge:
Capilano Library, 7:00pm – 8:00pm
Livestreaming Locations: Lynn Valley | Parkgate
Sessions:
8:30 – 10:15am – Session 6: Radical Reframe
11:00 – 12:45pm – Session 7: Creative Ignition
2:15 – 4:00pm – TED University
5:00 – 6:45pm – Session 8: Pop-Up Magazine
TED Discussion Lounge:
Parkgate Library, 7:00pm – 8:00pm
Livestreaming Location: Lynn Valley
Sessions:
10:30 – 12:30pm – Session 9: Just and Unjust
2:15 – 4:00pm – Session 10: Building From Scratch
5:00 – 6:45pm – Session 11: Passion and Consequence
TED Discussion Lounge
Lynn Valley Library, 7:00pm – 8:00pm
Livestreaming Locations: Lynn Valley | Parkgate
Session: 9:30 – 12:00pm – Session 12: Endgame
Received on March 12 from the Lynn Valley Legion.
|
Comrade Harold Finnegan, a beloved member of Branch #114 and Veteran of the Korean War, passed away this week. A Celebration of Harold’s remarkable life will be held at Branch #114 this Saturday [March 14]. Please join us for a Full Legion Ceremony and service for family, friends and Comrades beginning at 11:00 a.m. A reception will follow at the Branch.
|
A year or two ago, Lynn Valley Day was voted the North Shore’s best festival in the North Shore News’ Readers’ Choice Awards. That same year, Lynn Valley was voted the best neighbourhood in which to live. Coincidence? We think not.
The same things that make a great festival make a great hometown. That’s friendly people, an engaged citizenry, a commitment to our shared environment, and lots of volunteer help when it’s needed.