RemyScalza.com: Independent Journalism

The Big One: Vancouver is due. Are we ready?

Remy — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:48:35 +0000

When I came to Vancouver several years ago, no one told me I was moving to earthquake country. The city is vulnerable to the same type of megaquake that devastated Japan in March 2011, killing more than 20,000 people. Experts estimate that there’s a one in four chance of a cataclysmic quake hitting Vancouver within the next 50 years. But because the city has never suffered from a major temblor, almost no one is prepared. I investigated exactly how a quake might impact the city for Vancouver Magazine.

The Big One

By Remy Scalza for Vancouver Magazine

For someone whose business is disaster, Anne Ward is uncommonly charming. Today, Ward, an older woman who lives in Kitsilano but is originally from Saskatoon, is wearing two-inch silver heels, a shimmering gold shawl, and jade earrings with a matching amulet that looks vaguely Mayan. “I figure you got to look good while you can,” she says with a slight prairie twang. “It’ll come soon enough.”

Ward is president and CEO of Krasicki and Ward, an emergency preparedness supply store in City Square Mall at 12th and Cambie, right next to a beauty salon and below a Fitness World. The “it” she’s referring to is the big one, a major earthquake. In her store, you can buy earthquake survival kits, big bricks of high-calorie rations, crowbars and hatchets, solar-charged flashlights, emergency toilets in a bag called Wag Bags, and most anything else needed for the apocalypse. “You can try calling 911, if the phone lines are operational,” she says, raising a knowing eyebrow. “But you know what? You might not be their highest priority.”

Click here to read the full story in PDF version.

In Bodrum, Turkey, a Hotel for Art and Artists

Remy — Sun, 06 May 2012 00:35:38 +0000

Bodrum used to be an isolated fishing village and penal colony on Turkey’s remote Aegean Coast. But for the last decade or so it’s been the go-to destination for wealthy Istanbulus, not to mention whole colonies of British and Russian travelers looking for sun, sand and kebaps. Still, its appeal is pretty timeless – azure water, fresh seafood, rows of olive trees stretching along dry hills. I visited recently and reported back on a unique art-themed hotel for The New York Times’ In Transit blog.

In Bodrum, Turkey, a Hotel for Art and Artists

By Remy Scalza for The New York Times In Transit Blog

This spring, guests at Casa Dell’Arte will have access to a white sand beach, Balinese and deep-tissue massage and workshops with the Pakistani experimental video artist and provocateur Basir Mahmood.

Opened in 2007 by Turkey’s first family of modern art, the Buyukkusoglus, Casa Dell’Arte (casadellartegallery.com) is a 12-suite hotel outside the Aegean beach town of Bodrum that doubles as one of the country’s most important contemporary art galleries. Hung in hallways and guest rooms inside the airy manor home are hundreds of Turkish masterpieces collectively valued at more than $4 million, including seminal works by Fikret Moualla, regarded as Turkey’s van Gogh.

Click here to read the rest on The New York Times website.

Meet Me at the Rodeo

Remy — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:30:04 +0000

The Calgary Stampede – which takes place every July in the Canadian prairies – is among the most storied events in rodeo: a 10-day competition with millions in prize money up for grabs and a history stretching back more than a century. It’s also a huge party, which transforms the otherwise mild-mannered city of Calgary, Alberta, into a giant, debauched hoedown. I checked out the Stampede – and its unique version of cowboy culture – for Canadian Geographic Travel magazine.

Meet Me at the Rodeo

Story and photography by Remy Scalza for Canadian Geographic Travel

The men’s dressing room below the grandstand at the Calgary Stampede feels a little like a hospital waiting room, but not as clean. It’s a Thursday afternoon in July, toward the end of the 10-day rodeo competition, and cowboys wrapped in elastic bandages and ice packs are splayed out on a set of couches, grinding mud into the fabric and trading stories. Strewn across the carpet is a mess of well scuffed boots, spurs and chaps, frayed reins, blue jeans in various states of disrepair: the telltale detritus of a rodeo.

On one couch, Tyler Thomson, in a bright purple button-up shirt with Wrangler written across the back, is running through his hit-list for me: “Plenty of bumps, bruises, stitches, a broken thumb. But my knees, I guess you could say, have been my Kryptonite.” Thomson, 31 years old and from one of the most storied families of Calgary rodeo, has blue eyes, a million-dollar smile and one Canadian Professional Rodeo Association championship under his belt. “I think I’ve torn every ligament out of my right knee,” he says, “and I tore the ACL out of my left knee. Kept me out a year and a half. But nothing too serious, knock on wood.” In an hour or so, for the third day in a row, Thomson will mount a nearly one-tonne bull and try to stay on for eight seconds.

Click here to read the complete story in PDF version.

Canadian Geographic-Photography of Remy Scalza

Remy — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:12:11 +0000

I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember. But I’ve only been taking photographs seriously since I took a class with Pulitzer-Prize winner Pat Davidson at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007. My photographs have come a long way since then. They still have a long way to go. But I was honored when Canadian Geographic featured a collection of my best travel photographs in this month’s edition of its Field Reports, a monthly column that profiles Canadian photographers.

Field Reports

Interview with Remy Scalza

Remy Scalza’s first experience abroad was in his third year of university, when he spent a semester in Australia. After that, the Vancouverite couldn’t get enough of traveling. He spent nearly a decade in South America and Spain, teaching English as a Second Language and getting to know various cultures. He lists the Atlantic coast of Brazil and Cappadocia — a region in central Turkey where the Grand Canyon-type landscape captivates many a photographer — among his most memorable experiences.

Q What inspired you to pursue this career?

A There’s enormous satisfaction in capturing a beautiful image. Part of what appeals to me is that it’s a completely different side of the brain you’re using. In fact, sometimes on the spur of the moment, it’s hard to switch back and forth between thinking as a writer and thinking as a photographer. The writer side is hyper-rational, thinking out every detail. Photography has more intuitive elements. It’s more immediate and emotional . . . .

Check out the rest of the interview and a photo gallery on the Canadian Geographic site.

12 Craft Brewers Shaking Up Canada’s Industry

Remy — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 02:58:29 +0000

While Seattle and Portland are widely regarded as the epicenter of the West Coast craft brew renaissance, there’s a lot going on north of the border as well. In Vancouver alone, dozens of craft breweries have emerged in the last decade, producing a highly respectable lineup of IPAs and pale ales, wheat beers, stouts and even some decent lagers. I had the chance to meet the often eccentric, always passionate brewers behind the beer as part of an article for the Globe and Mail newspaper on the nation’s top craft breweries.

12 Craft Brewers Shaking up the Industry

Mike Doherty, with reporting from Remy Scalza and Christine Sismondo

It used to be that most Canadian craft-beer drinkers were converts. After years of imbibing the mass-produced, heavily advertised products of big breweries, they’d be introduced – by enthusiastic friends, opinionated bartenders, or sheer curiosity – to small-batch beers with bold tastes well beyond the “smooth,” the “cold,” and the “less filling.” But now, 27 years after Canada’s first craft brewery, Granville Island, opened in Vancouver, craft beers are becoming mainstream, even for younger drinkers. And as the industry hits a tipping – or a tippling – point, its brewers are reaping a harvest of rewards.

Craft beer is a growth sector, despite Canadians’ slackening consumption of beer overall. Our nation’s Big Three brewers (Molson, Labatt, and Sleeman) have all flaunted their “Canadianness” over the years, but they’re now foreign-owned, and locavore drinkers are turning to regional draughts. They’re also keen to educate their palates: in restaurants, the phrase “beer sommelier” no longer raises eyebrows.

More and more breweries are opening across Canada, many helmed by beer-loving experts from other fields, whose labours of love are proving profitable. The shared fight to expand their market niche and loosen alcohol regulations makes them a collegial group of brewers who, together, pride themselves on being different.

Check out the rest of the article on the Globe and Mail website.

Wedded Bliss in Jamaica? No worries

Remy — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 02:46:16 +0000

In most of my stories, I try to keep the “I” to a minimum – better to let the places I visit take center stage than go on about myself. But I had to make an exception with this story. Last year I was married in Jamaica, on a beautiful stretch of Negril’s seven-mile beach. Turns out there’s a huge market for destination wedding stories. I couldn’t resist.

Wedded Bliss in Jamaica

Remy Scalza, Postmedia News

In terms of spiciness, the Scotch bonnet pepper is about 30 times as hot as your average jalapeno – which probably explains why I’m sweating.

The jerk sauce at Best in the West Jerk Chicken Bar, a thatch-roofed shack alongside the main drag in Negril, Jamaica, is pretty much all Scotch bonnet peppers. I reach for a Red Stripe to douse the flames and pull my chair closer to the bar. Outside, sheets of tropical rain are falling, turning the dirt parking lot into a big mud puddle. “‘Bout time,” the bartender says, cracking open a beer for himself. “We need a break from de heat.” He’s right. It’s been 29 Celsius all week in Negril: gloriously hot and cloudless. There is, however, one problem with the rain. I’m getting married in 90 minutes on the beach. Just then, the wind picks up. Big drops whip sideways into the little jerk shack and sizzle when they hit the grill.

Couples choose to have a destination wedding for lots of reasons. It’s a chance to spend a whole holiday with family and friends, instead of just a hectic few hours. Guest lists tend to be smaller and costs lower. You get a vacation out of it. But paramount among the reasons we decided to tie the knot on the beach was the stress factor, or lack thereof. There’s an unwritten law that wedding anxiety is inversely proportional to distance from home and availability of umbrella drinks. This was important for us. My wife, Stephanie, was born without the Bridezilla gene. Aisle runners and wedding favours and matching boutonnieres don’t keep her up at night. And I’d be lying if I said I knew what a boutonniere was before this all started. So an island wedding seemed to make sense. It’s hard to sweat the small stuff when you’re sipping a banana daiquiri, feet in the sand, a few thousand miles removed from real life.

Of course, when it comes to the quintessential stress-free getaway, there’s still no place quite like Jamaica.

Click here to read the rest on The Province website.

Igloo 101: Snow camping in Vancouver

Remy — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 01:41:00 +0000

It’s that time of year again. While Vancouver drowns in drizzle, the mountains that tower above the city get walloped with dozens of feet of snow. I trekked up to nearby Cypress Mountain to partake in that most Canadian of rites, igloo building. Turns out it’s much harder and wetter than it looks. But the end product is still pretty cool. I wrote about the experience for the Sydney Morning Herald. And here’s a short video.

An ice place you have here

Remy Scalza; Special to the Sydney Morning Herald

Chilled from a day in the snow, worn out from hours of shovelling and stacking snow blocks, we worm our way into the tunnel of the igloo one after another. The wind’s howl mutes to a low hum. The day’s grey light goes black. I follow the pair of boots in front, crawling in towards the glimmer of light ahead.

The boots belong to Michael Harding, igloo evangelist. An outdoor guide with baby-blue eyes and snow-white hair, Harding has raised untold hundreds of igloos in this corner of western Canada. “They’re warmer than tents,” he’d explained earlier this morning as we climbed into the back country of the mountains outside Vancouver in his late-model Nissan Pathfinder. “They’re soundproof. They’re practically cozy.”

I’ve joined him and another guide for a one-day crash course in igloo basics, dragging along a friend from Vancouver for this most Canadian rite of passage. Not that I’m planning an assault on K2 any time soon. But even for armchair adventurers, there’s just something about an igloo.

To read more on the Sydney Morning Herald website, click here.

Pit Stop Turned Wine Country: British Columbia’s Similkameen Valley

Remy — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:37:39 +0000

For at least a decade or so, Canada’s Okanagan Valley in British Columbia has been on the radar of people who like to travel to beautiful places to sip wine and get a tan. The New York Times even called the area Napa North. It’s gotten to the point where you have to compete with tour buses for parking spots at some wineries. But right next door to the Okanagan is another valley where crowds aren’t a big issue: the Similkameen. Once home to gold and copper mines, the Similkameen has started the slow, gentle slide toward gentrification. For the moment, some great wineries and restaurants have opened up, but it’s still got lots of character. I checked out the valley for Western Living Magazine:

Sweet Valley High: Canada’s Similkameen comes into its own

Remy Scalza; Special to Western Living

Life in the Okanagan’s shadow isn’t always easy. The Similkameen Country, an isolated and starkly beautiful river valley tucked between the Cascade Range and the Osoyoos desert, has long been little more than a pit stop for travellers bound for the lakes and vineyards of interior British Columbia – a place to gas up the car, stock up on peaches at dusty roadside fruit stands and then blast on through to better-known destinations.

But wineries have proliferated in the last decade, with top vintners attracted by the cheap land, spectacular setting and uniquely arid climate. With grapes has come the first generation of progressive restaurants and B&Bs, keen to highlight the valley’s deep green roots and wide-open spaces.

Fruit Reconsidered
“When I was a conventional grower, anywhere from nine to 15 pesticides would have been put on a pear like this,” says 61-year-old Bruce Harker, owner of Harker’s Organics (2238 Hwy 3, Cawston, 250-499-2751, harkersorganics.com). Like many of his neighbours in Cawston, the “Organic Capital of Canada,” Harker ditched the chemicals decades ago.

His 30-acre farm is a great stop for a gentle primer on organics and a basketful of pears, peaches and specialty produce like organic rhubarb. The Harkers started the on-site Rustic Roots Winery (rusticrootswinery.com) in 2008, turning a portion of the harvest into award-winning organic fruit wines. Try the signature Iced Orin dessert wine, billed as “apple pie in a glass.”

To read the full article, click here.

Paid to Tweet: Profile of a social media specialist

Remy — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 00:12:10 +0000

We’ve all dreamed about it – A lucky few live the dream. In Vancouver, an increasing number of companies are looking for full-time social media experts. That’s right – People who get paid (well) to spend all day on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Skeptical about the qualifications of these so-called experts? I was. So I tracked down a new hire at Nature’s Path Organics, one of the world’s largest organic cereal companies, and spent some time with her on the job. I wrote about about the experience for BC Business Magazine:

What It’s Like to Work in Social Media

Remy Scalza; Special to BC Business

In her second-floor cubicle in an office whose walls are painted pumpkin orange, 28-year-old Christabel Shaler is eating gluten-free cereal with almond milk and checking Facebook. A status update she posted a few hours earlier has already drawn 14 comments and 56 Likes from some 135,991 Facebook fans. She clicks the refresh button and a new comment shows up. “I’m so plugged in I have to make myself take breaks,” Shaler explains, whipping through open windows on her 21.5-inch iMac with a twitch of the mouse. “I’m constantly online checking.”

Facebook addiction is hardly a problem in her position. Shaler was recently hired to fill the new post of social media specialist at Nature’s Path Foods Inc. in Richmond, the giant in organic breakfast foods with more than 400 employees and $200 million in annual sales.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Signs of Life in Vancouver’s Olympic Village

Remy — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 01:13:45 +0000

Photo credit: Brian Howell

I’ve written about Olympic Village a few times in the past year, and it always fascinates me. The whole neighborhood – something like 25 high-rises comprising eight city blocks – was built from scratch at a cost of more than a billion dollars to house athletes during the 2010 Olympics. Then, when the games were over, the place sat vacant – or nearly so – for at least a year: a ghost town right on the edge of downtown Vancouver. Well, things are finally starting to come around. You can see people on the streets, lights on in the condo towers and even eager recruits lining up for pole dancing classes. More on that in the article below, written for BC Business Magazine.

It Takes a Village: Signs of life in Vancouver’s newest neighborhood

Remy Scalza; Special to BC Business

On a recent Sunday afternoon, a free tasting of fortified wines has lured the thirsty and curious into Legacy Liquor Store, the cavernous new 8,600-square-foot private store in the heart of Olympic Village, now officially known as the Village on False Creek. Couples with monstrous strollers, the young and bearded of Mount Pleasant, and seniors in track suits and dark glasses crowd the granite-topped bar in back, sipping a mid-priced reserve from Jerez.

“I always think of this one as butter tarts in a glass,” says 31-year-old Legacy general manager Darryl Lamb, uncorking a bottle behind the bar. “With a little crème brûlée, flan, even Fig Newtons, it’s magic.” A line has formed, curling back through elaborate displays of craft beer and a maze of well-stocked wine racks. Between pours, Lamb explains that the healthy turnout today is hardly unusual: “The amount of walk-in traffic since we opened in November has been unbelievable. We’re already months and months ahead of our sales projections.”

In the throes of receivership, against a backdrop of lawsuits from jilted condo buyers and lingering controversies about concessions to developers and taxpayer-shouldered losses, the Olympic Village development and the surrounding Southeast False Creek neighbourhood (stretching from the Cambie Bridge to Main Street, and from False Creek to West Second Avenue) are quietly getting on with the business of business. Proximity to downtown, ample mass transit and an ambitious residential plan all seem to augur well for the area’s commercial future. “Developers are creating a lot of density and a lot of residential activity,” says Tsur Somerville, director of the Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate at UBC’s Sauder School of Business. “The fact that there are no readily accessible amenities there right now creates an excellent environment for retailers to go into.”

To read the full article, click here.

RemyScalza.com: Independent Journalism

The Big One: Vancouver is due. Are we ready?

Other Stories

In Bodrum, Turkey, a Hotel for Art and Artists

Other Stories

Meet Me at the Rodeo

Other Stories

Canadian Geographic-Photography of Remy Scalza

Other Stories

12 Craft Brewers Shaking Up Canada’s Industry

Other Stories

Wedded Bliss in Jamaica? No worries

Other Stories

Igloo 101: Snow camping in Vancouver

Other Stories

Pit Stop Turned Wine Country: British Columbia’s Similkameen Valley

Other Stories

Paid to Tweet: Profile of a social media specialist

Other Stories

Signs of Life in Vancouver’s Olympic Village

Other Stories