The Department of Bioregion received a wonderful mention in a new article by Charlie Smith with the Vancouver based Georgia Straight titled “Watersheds of Cascadia revealed in map created by an organization that challenges colonial narratives”.
In the article, author Charlie Smith notes that “Many British Columbians have heard of Cascadia, which is region that includes the Fraser, Columbia, Skeena, and Snake river watersheds. According to a group called Cascadia Illahee, it encompasses all or some of British Columbia, Alberta, Alaska, Washington state, Oregon, Wyoming, Montana, and California” and that “Cascadia Illahee is a pro-LGBT and pro-Indigenous rights organization that challenges conventional colonial narratives about the boundaries of North American nation states. It does this by appointing diplomats, issuing passportsacknowledging that its residents live on unceded lands of dozens of First Nations, and creating its own departments.”
The full article can be read at: https://www.straight.com/news/1267256/watersheds-cascadia-revealed-map-created-organization-challenges-colonial-narratives
A Brief History of the Georgia Straight: Vancouvers alternative source of news for more than 50 years.
For those not familiar, the Georgia Straight is one of the largest remaining lifestyle and entertainment weeklies, existing for more than 50 years with a readership and distribution to more than 816,000 as of July 2016.
Regular weekly coverage includes Arts, Music, Fashion, Travel, Health, Food, and Restaurants, plus Vancouver's most comprehensive listings of entertainment activities and special events. Conceived as an anti-establishment alternative to Vancouver’s conservative daily newspapers, the Georgia Straight was born on the eve of the Summer of Love on May 5, 1967—the Straight showed itself to be a rebel with many causes, ruffling feathers and proving its mettle by tweaking the political powers-that-be.
Raided by the police and fined for obscenity in its early days, the Straight soon found itself banned from distribution on city streets. Willing printers became difficult to find. The paper’s founder, poet and UBC math student Dan McLeod, was even briefly jailed.
Despite the difficulties and harassment, the Straight became the first major Vancouver newspaper to give voice to the nascent environmental movement. In fact, contributors Bob Cummings, Irving Stowe and Paul Watson—who went on to found the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society—were among the founders and prominent campaigners for Greenpeace.
In the mid-1970s, McLeod hired a young Irish writer named Bob Geldof, who served as the paper’s the music editor before going on to form the musical group The Boomtown Rats, and later achieving international fame as a humanitarian.
Since those early days—which included staunch opposition to the Vietnam War, vocal support for the environment, a firm commitment to free speech and equal rights, not to mention some good old stickin’ it to the man—the Georgia Straight has both thrived and endured. As Vancouver’s pre-eminent arts, news, and entertainment source, the Straightis now even embraced by city hall, proudly winning a Mayor’s Arts Award in 2015.
