Mac teaches English composition and literature courses at North Island College. He is also the instructor at Tōshikan Traditional Karate and Kobudō in Courtenay. “Through my practices, I get to explore and develop the physical, intellectual and emotional aspects of being. I love that I get to work with children and young adults. And, since I am a late-bloomer myself, I also appreciate the older adults who find their way into my classes to try something new and to share their perspectives, be it in writing or in martial arts. I am also inspired and refreshed by spending lots of time outside with my family on mountains, in forests and on the Salish Sea in this beautiful unceded territory of the K’moks First Nation.”
It is a universal truth, I think, that the further you move through adulthood, the more you’re aware that life is short. Through genealogy, we can reflect on the many […]
Words by Mac NewtonPhotos provided by Experience Comox Valley
The Vancouver Island marmot has lived on Vancouver Island for hundreds of millennia. In all that time, it has only ever lived on this island. Nowhere else in the world. […]
Except for Indigenous people, Canadians are settlers—immigrants themselves, or the descendants of immigrants. After my parents and I arrived in Canada from England and Ireland when I was four, we […]
Decades ago, I was sitting in a cinema seat in Toronto, gripping the armrests as the tension heightened, and whispering, “No, don’t touch that egg . . .” I was […]
Two “very pregnant” cats. That was the delivery at the door of the Kitty Cat P.A.L. (Prevent-A-Litter) Society at 8 a.m. the day I spoke with the society’s executive director, […]
In a field next to the ruddy red barn of the Black Creek farm owned by Margaret Douglas and Fred Hinz, a group of children with nature nicknames like Short-Tailed […]
Words by Mac NewtonPhoto courtesy of Fianna Wilderness School
In 1845, Henry David Thoreau went into the woods of Massachusetts and built a simple cabin beside Walden Pond. For two years, he wrote observations about the place and reflections […]
I enjoy the practice of traditional karate for many reasons, including what it teaches me about Japanese and Okinawan culture. But it could be considered surprising, given my family’s history […]
Words by Mac NewtonPhotos courtesy of Cumberland Museum & Archives
As the sun breaks through in a brief respite on a day of steady rain, the 11 acres of the MARS Wildlife Rescue Centre in Merville are alive with activity. […]
It’s a Tuesday, and when the doors of St. George’s United Church hall open at 11:30am, Gail, who is 70, comes in with about 100 other people for the Sonshine […]
For two decades it traveled and camped with couples and families, as most RVs do, but for the past 10 years the big Ecoline 350 has been fitted out as […]
The Baynes Sound herring spawn in March is a spectacle, and the largest of its kind. About 38% of all the herring on the west coast spawn here. Amidst the […]
On a sunny afternoon six years ago while riding my motorcycle home from Campbell River on the Old Island Highway, I noticed a pick-up truck waiting to turn from a […]
PHOTO BY SVEN KARSHOLT Branches of the same tree, nurtured by roots from the same source. While many people see no connection between traditional martial arts and yoga, the tree […]
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