November 2007

By Shayna Stock, with photography by Dominique Fenton
Briarpatch Magazine
December 2007/January 2008

In July 2007, Shayna Stock and Dominique Fenton set off on a cross-country journey in search of community, planning to document their findings in words and images. They introduced the project in the August 2007 issue of Briarpatch and posted regular updates on their progress to the Briarpatch website throughout the summer and early fall. (Read their posts from the road at Alternative Routes.)

After 11 weeks, 13,690 kilometres and 14 blog entries, Shayna and Dominique’s cross-country road trip finally came to an end on Canada’s west coast in late September. Here Stock reflects on what they learned and Fenton shares some of his photos from the journey.

Waist-deep at the Waldegrave farm near Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, with members of the Otesha Project, a youth-run organization that uses theatre to mobilize young people to create local and global change.

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By Aruna Handa
Briarpatch Magazine
December 2007/January 2008

Do the 100-mile diet! Eat local! Eat your scenery! It was with these slogans in my head that I decided to host two 100-mile Harvest Dinners this fall at my home in downtown Toronto. Sixteen people participated in each dinner, and each of us prepared a course for eight people and brought drinks to go with it. Those who were assigned the hors d’oeuvres concocted 100-mile cocktails, and the rest of us brought 100-mile wine: all of it from within Toronto’s foodshed. We enjoyed a bounty of locally-grown produce—Concord grapes, sheep’s milk cheeses, squash-stuffed ravioli made with Ontario Red Fife wheat, sourdough breads, cream of parsnip and apple soup, smoked trout salad, herb-and-chili-marinated flank steak, celeriac and potato mash, apple pie and pumpkin pudding—to name but a few of the dishes sampled. Most of the produce and meat was either organically produced or else grown without pesticides or herbicides, without antibiotics or growth hormones. And all of it was free of genetically modified organisms.

Or so we thought.

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By Robert Semeniuk
Briarpatch Magazine
December 2007/January 2008

Behind the recent headlines, Burma’s military dictatorship has been waging a brutal war against the country’s ethnic minorities for decades—and malaria is one of its most deadly weapons. Veteran photojournalist Robert Semeniuk reports from the Thai/Burma border on the Burmese struggle for survival.

Once a month, babies are brought to the clinic in Le Per Her, an Internally Displaced Person camp in Burma, where they are weighed and a blood sample is analyzed to detect any plasmodium parasites. Out of 26 children seen by the medics, 14 had malaria. Held close by her father, this young girl was one of the few showing any symptoms. Le Per Her is a small camp five hours drive north of Mae Sot, Thailand, just inside the Burmese border. The people here had to flee their village when the Burmese attacked and burned them out three years ago. Following the advice of clinic staff at the Mae Tao clinic, no names are used in any of the text accompanying the photographs.

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By Beenash Jafri & Karen Okamoto
Briarpatch Magazine
December 2007/January 2008

Can the environmental movement in Canada continue to organize on an agenda of “green” politics, devoid of any critical engagement with issues of race? Given Canada’s multicultural reality and the long-standing history of colonialism and racism in this country, we think not. The history of environmental justice activism sends this clear message: the movement must evolve by linking environmentalism to counter-colonial, anti-racist struggles. In other words, there is a need to redefine “green.” Eco-feminism has made significant changes to environmental politics, connecting feminism with environmentalism. We want to see a similar transformation towards an anti-racist grounding for the environmental movement.

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By Paul Beingessner
Briarpatch Magazine
December 2007/January 2008

Saskatchewan voters don’t change governments very easily. Prior to November’s election, the NDP government had been in power for 16 years. The Progressive Conservative government of Grant Devine before that held power for 10 years. And Devine, in turn, defeated an NDP government under Allan Blakeney that had reigned in Saskatchewan for more than a decade.

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Canadian Press
November 11, 2007

TORONTO - Tensions are running high in CanWest newsrooms from Montreal to Vancouver in the wake of recent layoffs at the company’s television stations and fears that more cuts are ahead amid an apparent push to centralize editorial operations.

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In Afghan Fields

By David MacKinnon, Battleford, Saskatchewan

In farmers’ fields the poppies blow
between the soldiers row on row
marked in their place, their place to die
The vultures so confidently fly
not seen amid the guns below
There will be dead, short days ago
Youth lived, saw dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, whose blood is shed
in Afghan fields

Take your offering to the foe.
To you whom power is bestowed
The branch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break the faith to those who die
they shall not sleep, though poppies grow
in Afghan Fields

(Note: Our editorial schedule for 2008 is now posted.

Briarpatch magazine invites contributions to our March/April 2008 issue focusing on the politics of gender and feminism. We are looking for feature articles, provocative essays, investigative reportage, news briefs, interviews, profiles, reviews, poetry, humour, and artwork that explore how gender intersects with other social issues and affects the lives of individuals and of society.

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An open letter to the leaders of the New Democratic, Sask and Liberal Parties of Saskatchewan

There is something surreal about this election, for none of you has had to fundamentally justify your pronuclear policies. Saskatchewan is now the major front-end uranium supplier of the global nuclear system, and this issue demands public scrutiny.

Last year Premier Calvert travelled to France to get support from Areva to build a uranium refinery here. Saskatchewan exports all its uranium, and some argue a refinery would add value before export, and strengthen the provincial economy. Meanwhile, Calvert is on record as opposing nuclear power here, and in this election has highlighted a commitment to expand non-polluting renewable energy use at home. What’s good for the goose (us) is, apparently, not good for the gander (those who import uranium from us).

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