Culture Editor

Pascal is a well-respected local theologian, author & humourist best known as a cultural critic, and for his interfaith advocacy of contemplative meditation practice.

For five generations his family has lived on the misty Coast of British Columbia, making he and his brethren almost White Indians in the truest sense. He was born to the world on the remote Malcolm Island in 1976 and was educated there amid the placid remnants of the old Finnish utopian colony of Sointula.

His most current interests are: collective intelligence, the marriage of spiritual transcendence with surrealism, the possibility of biospheric sentience, the biophysics revolution and the ideological significance of popular cinema.

This is all I was able to learn about him. When I asked for specifics, he merely chuckled and gave me some story about having worked at a militant organic dairy-corporation called "Unwilling Goat's Milk." Their slogan, he claimed, was this: "WE JUST TAKE IT!"

He told me that these were printed on the side of every milk truck underneath a huge image of a very startled goat... its eyes bulging widely in sudden, terrible disbelief.

I hope he was joking.

You can contact Pascal at pascal[at]jamesbay.org.

Science Editor

Reed has an extensive and diverse background acquiring, analyzing and interpreting physical data. His field experience has included: High Arctic radiosonde and ozonesonde flights, the groundtruthing of Russian MK-4 satellite imagery in southern Ontario and New York State, radiation surveys and spectroscopy research at Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, and biophysical inventories of local creeks in North Vancouver.

Recently, he has researched and written 2 climate change research papers for Environment Canada, constructed a comprehensive database of environmental consultants in BC, co-authored a research paper published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, and provided background research to support a Threats to Biodiversity mapping project for the Ministry of Environment.

His volunteer work has included UNICEF, SPCA, Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM), Friends of the Earth, Kinsmen, and the James Bay Beacon, where he currently assists with website maintenance and distribution.

You can contact Reed at reed[at]jamesbay.org, or visit his website: www.writeguy.ca

History Editor

Site Administrator

I come from small-town Nova Scotia, but before I came to rest in James Bay I lived in Ottawa, and more recently Hokkaido, Japan. I hold degrees in history and journalism, but I taught myself how to design and program websites. I started this website as a way to indulge my curiousity about the culture and environment around me.

When I moved to the neighbourhood last summer it seemed like just another quiet semi-urban neighbourhood. Sure, it was an easy walk to downtown, or to the beach, and I enjoyed the freedom of not having a car. But, I didn’t really get James Bay until this winter when I started running along the cliffs overlooking the Juan de Fuca Strait. I slowly became aware of the teeming human and non-human life concentrated along the shoreline, and I began to understand what makes James Bay unique.

I have since taken to more regular and leisurely visits to the beach, and have expanded my wandering to other parts of James Bay. I am fascinated by the complex interaction between urban culture and the tenacious creatures and forces of the natural world.

We like to flatter ourselves that we have this world under-control, that we can force it to submit to our will. It’s true that we do, through billions of individual actions, have huge and lasting effects. But on a personal level we are more like passive objects trapped in nature’s grasp, than the powerful and creative subjects we believe ourselves to be.

Most of us have abdicated any personal relationship with nature. We’ve retreated behind the lazy comforts of our machines and view the world through cookie cutter windows of mass-produced imagery. Most of what we know about nature and history is filtered down to us second or third hand. For many of us our neighbourhoods have become little more than bedroom communities, the places where we eat and sleep, while our lives are conducted elsewhere.

Jamesbay.org is an attempt to reconnect with the world in front of my face. I hope it will contribute to a deeper understanding, for myself and for others, of the place that we call home.