Stories

Rules of the road: A hitchhiker’s christening

I stood there, straddling the white line that separated shoulder from highway, wondering whether I actually wanted to do this. The cloud cover broke and allowed the April sun to…

Stressed to Shingles

The Itch It started small; a spattering of circular bumps on my right breast. I assumed they were mosquito bites—it was summer in Yellowknife, a time when mosquitos infest the…

Anorexia: My Story

  When people hear me fluently speak unaccented English, they least expect me to say I am from Taiwan. And when my friends compliment my simple and nutritious eating and…

A woman with lofty talents

Coloured streamers dive and swoop from rigging on the 40-foot-high vaulted ceiling.  Trapezes and aerial hoops hang like empty bird perches above a pale wooden floor. A 25-foot window reveals…

Mr. Sandman and the hippocampus

Your eyes snap open and you feel an immediate rush of adrenaline surge through your body like a misguided thunderbolt. “How long have I been asleep?” you think to yourself. As…

Dumpstering 101: Picking produce

I was thinking headlamps and twitchy nerves. There was a feeling of darkness and deceit. But when I first emailed Julie Anne, my soon-to-be-guide to the underworld of dumpster diving,…

Footprints in utopia

Confucius may have said, “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life,” but can we really trust the advice of a…

Bikram with Bailey

I was too tall for the floor space. I adjusted my black Everlast yoga mat while in an awkward crouch for the third time. Lying down, my bare feet nearly…

Occupational Hazard

Photo 1 Two sun-freckled teenagers stand in a grassy field. The boy, six inches taller than the girl, drapes his arm around her shoulders. A flash is reflected in the…