Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2023 i Maclean's

Has there ever been a trickier, more complicated time to be premier of Alberta? The province faces a major doctor shortage, particularly in rural areas. The cost of living has shot up. The population, supercharged by a rapid influx of immigrants, is expected to hit five million soon, and the province lacks enough housing stock to accommodate everyone. Calgary has high office vacancy rates, an opioid crisis and a growing homeless population. Then there’s the environment. Over in Banff, the glaciers are melting. This past summer, vast swaths of the country were blanketed in smoke. And yet the province is totally hooked on the oil and gas industry. Despite all the talk of emissions reductions, carbon capture and alternative energy, about 26 per cent of the province’s revenue this year…

I HAVE A CLEAR MEMORY of sitting on a Toronto-area park bench in 1985 as my dad—a computer executive and jack-of-all-trades—explained the arms race between our cells and a new virus called HIV. The military metaphor worked for me, an 11-year-old burgeoning physician-scientist with a fascination for jets and Transformers. I thought, Wow, there’s a battle going on inside us, and we have to find the right weapon to win it. That analogy hung on through my adult years and graduate work in microbiology, where I studied phages: tiny, bacteria-destroying viruses alternately known as “nanobot soldiers,” “viral smart bombs” and “the perfect predators.” Phages, or bacteriophages, get their name from the Greek word for “devour,” and their food of choice is bacteria. In nature, there are more phages than any…

In October of 2021, Shawn Omstead of Toronto and his wife were preparing to host Thanksgiving dinner. “I noticed I didn’t have much of an appetite. A few weeks earlier, while visiting my sister up north, I noticed some shortness of breath while going for a walk,” says Shawn, then aged 55. Shawn was due for his annual physical but planned to postpone it until after he and his wife returned from a trip abroad to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. Given his symptoms, Shawn’s wife suggested going for his check-up before the trip. That turned out to be a wise decision. “The blood work results showed red flags everywhere,” he says. The diagnosis was acute myeloid leukemia (AML). A complex blood cancer with many subtypes AML is a cancer…

I VISITED ST. JOHN’S when I was 19 with the same itinerary that tourists from everywhere have followed for decades: I hiked to historic Signal Hill, where Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic wireless signal back in 1901. I walked back down to George Street’s watering holes and bar-hopped from O’Reilly’s to the Rob Roy to Trapper John’s with the unmistakable amble of a teenager way out of his drinking league. I capped off the night with a kiss: square on the lips of a cod. I was being screeched in, a local acceptance ritual whose passage transforms a come-from-away into a Newfoundlander, at least for the night. It was a blast. My trip to Canada’s easternmost capital—however fun and dizzying—was classic, brochure-variety St. John’s: bangers and mash, Quidi Vidi…

FOR MORE THAN SIX MILLENNIA, the thunderous hoofbeats of 30 million bison echoed across the Great Plains, drumming their presence into the land. Bison, the largest mammals in North America, were brought to near extinction by European settlers in the late 1800s. Now, the prairies of Wanuskewin Heritage Park in Saskatchewan offer a chance to see these long-lost beasts on their home turf: in 2019, Wanuskewin brought a herd of plains bison back to their ancestral land. The first six bison were transported from Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, and another five, including four pregnant females, came from a rancher in the U.S. Atop the viewing platform, you can see the herd’s dark humps and the smaller forms of this year’s calves winding among their mothers’ legs. Wanuskewin, which means…

FILM A TRUE-CRIME EPIC KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON October 6 IN THE 1920s, when oil was discovered in Osage County, Oklahoma, the Osage Nation became the United States’ richest people per capita—and ripe targets for greed, manipulation and murder. Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited adaptation of David Grann’s bestselling 2017 book, probes the real-life murders of as many as 60 members of the Osage Nation. Among the cast of famous faces are Scorsese regulars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, plus Canadian treasure Tantoo Cardinal, known for Dances with Wolves and Legends of the Fall. THEATRE AN ANGSTY ’90S THROWBACK JAGGED LITTLE PILL Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto October 24 to November 26 THIS TONY-WINNING JUKEBOX MUSICAL features all the hits (plus two new songs) from…

WICKED GAMES Readers reacted strongly to Luc Rinaldi’s August 2023 cover story on the Canadian parents who say their kids are addicted to the video game Fortnite. Many people thought the parents themselves were to blame: As a mother of two boys who were teens during the height of the Fortnite craze, I agree with the author: video games are addictive. But—and this is a big but—it is a parent’s responsibility to guide their children and monitor what they are involved with. Not some game programmer, not the company that produces the game and not the government. The parent needs to do their job and parent. My boys loved Fortnite, and it caused time-management issues until we put our foot down and gave them boundaries. And surprise—they followed them. J.…

With the thermal cycle at its core, Groupe Nordik has transformed the traditional spa into an immersive wellness experience. Its spas, located in Chelsea, Que., Whitby, Ont., and Winnipeg, Man., are each inspired by sauna culture and spa rituals from around the world, but with a distinctly Canadian identity. The immersive spa experience is tailored toward the health and well-being of its guests, with world-class amenities like saunas, steam rooms, outdoor baths, meditation rooms, and gourmet dining experiences. Guests can get pampered with a variety of massage and treatment options and enjoy ultimate serenity in the Källa flotation pools in Chelsea and Whitby, all while discovering the physical and mental benefits of thermotherapy — a three-step relaxation ritual that involves immersing oneself in heat, then cold, followed by a rest…

I know from first-hand experience that it can be hard admitting when a family member is struggling with a mental illness. Whether it is depression or anxiety, substance use or problem gambling, confiding and sharing information about a loved one’s mental health struggles can feel embarrassing and shameful. Despite growing awareness and education regarding the prevalence of mental health disorders, stigma surrounding mental illness continues to exist. Not only do these negative attitudes and beliefs impact the individuals themselves, they also negatively impact family members. Feeling shame and embarrassment, family members may want to hide their loved one’s mental illness or addiction from others to protect themselves from judging eyes and covert whispers. Recognizing and addressing shame Shame is feeling flawed and inadequate, and can lead to distressing emotions and…

Zach Cressman, 20, is an aviation student living in Southwestern Ontario. One day in February 2015, at age 12, he was sent home from school after taking part in a physical education test. “I had scored half of what I usually did and my phys-ed teacher was worried,” recalls Zach. His family took him to the doctor, who ordered blood work. Later that evening, the family doctor called, urging Zach’s parents to take him to the hospital immediately. There, Zach received several transfusions before being sent the next day to London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) in London, Ont., for further testing. The diagnosis was aplastic anemia (AA), an acquired bone marrow failure condition where blood cell production is significantly reduced. Zach spent a year at LHSC for treatment until his…

My first summer in Whitehorse, my eyes were wide open. Sunlight streamed through my bedroom window at 10 p.m. A bald eagle swooped above me as I ran along the Yukon River downtown. My roommate brought home a fish she’d caught that day and cooked it up for dinner in our kitchen. Everywhere I looked, mountains. It was 2014, and I’d moved from Hamilton, Ontario, to Whitehorse for a job at the daily newspaper. I intended to stay a year. I’d gone to university in Toronto, and I loved the chaos of the big city; I didn’t hike, camp, or even much like spending time outdoors. Sometime that first summer, though, I told my mom over the phone, “I think I’m going to change, living here.” With a population of…

A LITTLE OVER a year ago, my older brother moved from Vancouver to Sechelt, part of British Columbia’s quiet Sunshine Coast, with his wife and two young kids. At first I was sad; after all, my niece and nephew would no longer be just a 15-minute drive away. But then I saw the bright side: I had basically landed myself a vacation home on a slice of British Columbia that everyone is scrambling to see. The Sunshine Coast is quintessential beautiful B.C.: think expansive sandy beaches; hypnotizingly blue ocean that looks like a painting; lush forests of towering evergreens, leafy ferns and squishy moss. And yet the region has its own identity, with a distinct island feel. It’s laid-back yet still pulsing, with a healthy dose of hippie kook. The…

THE FIRST TIME I travelled to the west coast of Vancouver Island, I hoped to experience the one thing that most people who go on an island vacation want to avoid: torrential rain, lots of it. It was storm-watching season, that period between November and March in the Pacific Rim National Reserve when skies bring the drama, waves rise to 20 feet and rain often falls sideways. I returned year after year, and every time I was mesmerized by the miles and miles of beach, the enchanted forests covered in drippy moss and lichen, the angular trees that line the rocky shores, shaped by years of thrashing wind and pounding waves. In this torrential paradise, Ucluelet—Ukee, if you’re a local—draws adventurous cold-water surfers who come to ride the gnarly waves,…

Prostate cancer treatment in Canada is rich with success stories. About one in eight Canadian men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, with more than 24,000 new diagnoses each year. And yet the vast majority of these will see it effectively treated with surgery and radiation if the cancer is found in the early stages. Because prostate cancer is so prevalent, however, the cohort of rarer and harder-to-treat cases involving advanced and metastatic cancer is still very large. For these patients, the treatment journey has historically been a lot more difficult creating a need for new approaches. Radioligand therapy: the next generation of cancer treatment The latest advance in cancer care, called radioligand therapy (RLT), is a new approach that’s bringing optimism to patients living with various…

I WAS IN GRADE 11 when my parents started talking about sending me to Canada for college. We lived in Muktsar, a small, crime-ridden city in Punjab, India. My father was a police officer, and my mother stayed home with me and my younger brother, Amanjit. My parents always wanted us to have more opportunities, so I moved to Toronto in 2008 for a computer networking diploma at Humber College. When I graduated, I told my parents that I wanted to stay. I heard that Saskatchewan had a nominee program where your employer could fast-track your permanent residency after 1,200 hours of work, so I moved to Regina and found a job with a company that made windows. I put in lots of overtime and hit 1,200 hours within eight…

LATE IN 2019, Larissa Roque, an architect with Anishinaabeg-owned Smoke Architecture in Hamilton, Ontario, received a request for proposal from Centennial College that was unlike any other that had come across her desk. “They gave us a poetry book and said, ‘Make this a building,’ ” Roque says. The collection in question was Living in the Tall Grass by R. Stacey Laforme, the elected chief of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. One of Laforme’s lines jumped out to Roque in particular: “I embody the past, yet I embrace the future.” The Centennial project, which broke ground in 2020, is a 133,000-square-foot, $105-million expansion built onto the A-Block, an existing (but aging) wing of the school’s Progress campus in Scarborough. Twenty classrooms, eight labs and extra offices for staff…

Margaret Barber was just 63 when she was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). “I’d been athletic my whole life,” she says. She knew something was wrong, however, when she started experiencing frequent illnesses, nausea, and stomach issues: “My immune system just disappeared.” Thinking it could be the start of a gluten intolerance, Margaret visited her GP for routine bloodwork. The results came as a shock to the entire family. “Our lives fundamentally changed that day,” says Scott Russell, Margaret’s husband, “I walked into the doctor’s office with one life plan, and I walked out with a different one; not worse, but different.” Understanding CLL Over 150,000 Canadians are affected by blood cancer with someone diagnosed every 24 minutes. Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia is a type of blood cancer manifesting in…

The Bas-Saint-Laurent is a 300-kilometre stretch of coast with a ton of personality: delicious food, surprise wine bars, technicolour sunsets, an artisanal chocolate factory you can sleep in. It’s also easy to miss entirely. I should know—I bypassed it myself maybe 50 times, travelling along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River between Fredericton, where I grew up, and Montreal, where I moved when I was 17. The goal: to get there as soon as possible, and that meant sticking to the Trans-Canada. The St. Lawrence always felt peripheral, and the tiny, remarkable towns that dot along its shores were completely out of sight. Then I had kids, and the approach to the drive changed: leave early, stop often. A fellow New Brunswick transplant suggested Auberge sur Mer—an inn…

The month I turned 40, I drove 1,319 kilometres from my home in Pointe-Saint-Charles, a neighbourhood in southwest Montreal, to Kegaska, a 124-person community in northern Quebec. At that point, I’d lived in Montreal on and off for a decade; one more year and it would be the place I’d stayed the longest. But most of my adopted province remained, if not unknowable, then certainly unknown to me. I wanted to change that. The mighty St. Lawrence is the pride of Quebec, and its lifeblood: four out of five residents live by its shores or tributaries. The river bisects the province, so to plan a road trip there is to pick a shore. While the south shore curves into the Gaspé Peninsula to form a shelf over New Brunswick, the…

I feel about Grand Manan, the tiny New Brunswick island in the Bay of Fundy, the way Anthony Bourdain felt about each sleepy little jewel of a restaurant whose very anonymity recommended it: I don’t want to ruin it with the fawning publicity it deserves. As far back as the 1950s, a reporter for Maclean’s declared Grand Manan “the island that’s too good to be true.” The island is only accessible by a 90-minute ferry from Blacks Harbour on the mainland, and the enchantment starts on the way over, as minke, finback, humpback and even the notoriously elusive right whales flank the boat. The cliffs above the corrugated sea are high and steep, and the lighthouses stand like the steeples of a church whose congregations lost their faith. But someone…

IN THE SUMMER OF 2003, lightning struck Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park, 25 kilometres north of Penticton, B.C. Flames scorched nearly every tree in the park and travelled north and east, eventually devouring 25,000 hectares and displacing more than 27,000 people. Twenty years later, the charred trunks left over from that firestorm form the backdrop of Paul and Tina Schlotfeldt’s home. “It’s rougher than a bear’s bum out here,” Paul says. Back in 2018, Paul, a geological engineer, and Tina, a retired tax consultant, were living in Squamish, B.C. They regularly travelled to the Okanagan to mountain bike and rock climb. Ready to move away from the Lower Mainland crowds, they asked a realtor to show them a few Okanagan lots where they could build their own home. She first brought…

In Canada, bladder cancer is the fifth most common cancer with over 12,000 patients diagnosed annually.1 While it can affect both sexes, it’s the fourth most diagnosed cancer in men, making them particularly vulnerable. For over 80 per cent of patients, the most likely indicator will be blood in the urine, yet symptoms can range from bladder spasms to back or groin pain. Most patients are diagnosed with nonmuscle-invasive bladder cancer, when the cancer has not yet grown into muscles surrounding the bladder. Sadly, one in four patients are diagnosed with muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Until recently, those diagnosed with advanced stages of bladder cancer were met with survival rates of as little as one year. Yet, new advancements in treatment options are providing optimism, having shown to extend life expectancy…

Your skin is your largest and most visible organ. That’s why it’s crucial to protect it by monitoring for skin cancer. There are two main categories of skin cancer — melanoma (or pigmented) skin cancers and non-melanoma (non-pigmented) skin cancers which include basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC). Melanoma is the rarest but most deadly form of skin cancer, while BCC is the most common but rarely fatal. cSCC is the second most common skin cancer and while also rarely fatal, it can become very disfiguring if untreated. “The most common risk factor for all three cancer types is excessive ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure over time, though with melanoma there can be some genetic predispositions,” says Dr. Carman Giacomantonio, Professor, Department of Pathology, Victoria General Hospital, Halifax,…