Tom Gierasimczuk

It may be the Friday of the August long weekend—Vancouver Island’s busiest travel season—but you’d never know it standing out on the cedar deck of a months-old Wya Point Resort luxury lodge, trying to make out Ucluth Beach through the surreal blue-sky fog 200 metres below. Incredibly, even as traffic...

How did you get the idea to make such a unique but timely film? I heard about a program sponsored by Telus called Story Hive in which the company funds local storytellers to create local narratives. Getting funding depended on getting votes for your idea via social media. I had...

One of the province’s key differentiators in the cut-throat competition for international tourists just got some much-needed help. Launched earlier this month by Aboriginal Tourism BC, the non-profit, membership-based organization tasked with growing and promoting “a sustainable, culturally rich Aboriginal tourism industry,” the new travel agency will lean heavily on exclusive...

Let’s face it: capitalism is awesome. It drives innovation, progress and prosperity. It’s always been a path to something better—a better life for your family, a better education for your kids and, yes, a bigger screen TV. But capitalism is also easily corrupted and pliable, easily hacked to focus on profit...

When British Columbians reach for a brew, they’re increasingly opting for local craft beer. Microbrew sales have almost doubled in four years, from $6.2 million to $11.8 million, while at the same time the national brands have lost $126 million in sales. Clearly, a revolution is simmering and BCBusiness wants to...

After a late night of reveling at TED’s opening party at Vancouver’s old Convention Centre, TED curator Chris Anderson woke the 1,200 delegates right up by introducing Edward Snowden, the world’s most infamous (or revered, depending on your politics) whistle-blower. Beaming in from an undisclosed Russian location, Snowden controlled a...

It’s been a rough year for restaurants in Whistler. A dearth of openings combined with the quick closings of much-hyped concepts (sorry, Canada House), and just bad luck, like the fire at Los Sombreros, have cast a pall over culinary entrepreneurialism in Canada’s top ski town. But 2014 kicked off with...

Every town’s restaurant scene has it: the Bermuda Triangle location where restaurateurs beguiled by the seemingly calm waters disappear one after the other, marked only by for-lease signs between them.Victoria’s version was at 542 Herald Street, a heritage-building-lined promenade flanked by cafés, lofts, furniture boutiques and, until a few years...

UPDATED If the TED Talks had an Achilles Heel—the one thing that the technology, entertainment and design conference couldn’t dodge no matter how many impoverished geniuses it highlighted or free archives it posted online—was the fact that attending or viewing the live event as it happened was prohibitively expensive for...

Hyper Island—the Sweden- and New York-based education company that travels the globe preparing business leaders for today’s disruptive age—held its first Vancouver Master Class in December at the Museum of Vancouver. Eighteen people, including senior execs from Lululemon, B.C. Lottery Corp., and an Apple staffer from Cupertino, spent three days...

Laid-back Maui has always had an entrepreneurial streak. Isolation—4,000 kilometres from the closest mainland port—breeds a certain level of self-sufficient paranoia. But the recent velocity and obsession with creating from local resources has hit a fever pitch. Day trips throughout the Valley Isle these days are sure to include farmers markets of...