May 2017
In this issue
In the ’70s, B.C. gets two new sports franchises: the Vancouver Canucks (entering the NHL in 1970) and the Vancouver Whitecaps (originally of the North American Soccer League, in 1974, and, since 2011, Major League Soccer). Both teams fare better than the NBA’s ill-fated Vancouver Grizzlies, who crash and burn 25 years later. Outdoor gear icon Mountain Equipment Co-op launches in Vancouver with six...
Josie Osborne may have left behind a career as a marine biologist to be “consumed” by her role as mayor of Tofino, but there’s plenty of science behind her political modus operandi. Osborne, 45, was acclaimed to the office in 2013, after incumbent Perry Schmunk resigned, and won the election the following year. She swapped being nosy about the ocean...
Unless you peddle buttons, cardboard signs or television airtime, or you own a hot-dog stand near a polling place, this month’s provincial election is unlikely to influence what products you sell. And yet as politics becomes more polarized, not every company chooses to stay above the partisan fray. Nor can every business make that decision for itself.Vancouver’s Storm Crow Tavern/Alehouse...
I grew up in a small town, Kitimat, and my fiancée grew up in a smaller town, Harrison Hot Springs. We lived in downtown Vancouver for close to seven years. In 2013, we had sold the company, Marilynjean, and moved out to Coquitlam. We bought a house right on top of a mountain, and every single day I’d be walking...
In June 2014, Colin Pickell, a coffee shop manager in Ladysmith, set out to raise $7,000 on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter Canada. He wanted to publish his children’s book, called Who Will Tuck Me Into Bed?, and he needed money to hire an illustrator. After a 30-day campaign, Pickell had exceeded his goal by $221. A month later, Vancouver-based entrepreneurs Mark...
Auntie Kim’s Better Bickies are small-batch dog treats produced in Squamish using organic ingredients. Flavours include Peanut Butter and Jam (oats, peanuts, blueberries), Outback Snack (oats, kangaroo, blueberries, pumpkin) and Buffalo Cheese Puffs (brown rice, bison, cream cheese). HydroPaws Hydrotherapy and Wellness Centre in Maple Ridge has a heated 3.6-by-7.3-metre pool where certified hydrotherapists treat dogs’ injuries and chronic conditions, plus...
In late February at the Permanent, a venue hall in a restored 1907 downtown Vancouver bank, black-and-white-clad servers manoeuvre trays of short-rib mini burgers among groups of people gathered around paintings. They’re familiar works, including Irises by Vincent van Gogh, A Stormy Sea by Claude Monet and the curiously ugly Woman With an Umbrella by Edgar Degas. The evening feels...
As “chief dreamer” for Telus Communications Co., Allen Devine comes up with new ways to use technology. A concept may remain just that or end up being developed by Telus and/or another company. One area Devine is exploring is using the Internet of Things to prolong people’s independence as they age. For example, placing sensors around the house could monitor...
You probably know Britco for its tan-and-orange rental trailers, a fixture on construction sites. But the Langley-based company has other talents. The Britco Construction division recently married its expertise in modular building design with “passive house,” a building standard that is only now gaining traction in B.C. Although neither is a new idea, combining them allows swift construction of highly energy-efficient...
Mining companies everywhere are having a tough time finding high-grade ore because others have beaten them to it. At the same time, the industry faces pressure to clean up its environmental act. MineSense Technologies Ltd. seeks to solve both of those problems. Near its headquarters in South Vancouver, the cleantech company keeps a front-end loader retrofitted with ShovelSense, a data...