#MICRODOSING

I Tried Mushroom-Infused Coffee From A Toronto Cafe & This Is How It Impacted My Work Day

Raise your hand if you've ever done mushrooms at work? Technically, I can't raise my hand, but I tried mushroom-infused coffee from Strange Love Cafe and monitored my mood while at work.

© Provided by Narcity

Strange Love is a mood-enhancing cafe in Toronto harnessing the power of naturopathy and Chinese and herbal medicine through their mood boosts which can be added to any of their coffee or tea for an extra $2.50.

One of their three cafes in Toronto is right by my apartment, and after walking by one too many times, I had to find out for myself if this stuff actually works.

On October 12, I headed to Strange Loves' newest location on University Avenue to chat with the cafe's naturopathic doctor, James Yoon.

© Provided by NarcityLance McMillan | Narcity

What mushrooms do they use & how do they work?

Yoon explained how the mood boosts work and clarified that I wouldn't be ingesting any actual shrooms or psychedelics.

Yoon explained that "mushrooms are particularly rich in a lot of different nutrients and antioxidants" and are "typically known as adaptogens and what adaptogens do is they help your body adapt or be more resilient to stress."

"They essentially do this by helping bring down your stress hormone like cortisol," he continued. "In essence, [they] help you achieve a better state of calm, relaxation and generally just feel a bit more grounded throughout the day."

Strange Love currently offers three mood boosts including, a Brain Boost, Energy Boost, and Stress Reset. Each boost has its own featured mushroom, herbs and unique intentions.

My workday on mushrooms

I asked Yoon what I should get for my usual morning and afternoon coffee, and he recommended I try the Brain and Energy Boost.

The Brain Boost is made from ginkgo bilboa, bacopa, and lion's mane mushrooms and is said to increase sharpness, productivity, cognition and memory and may even alleviate anxiety.

For my morning coffee, I went with Yoon's suggestion of the Lovers Matcha with a Brain Boost and with the extra charge for oat milk, my total came to around $9.60 after tax.

© Provided by NarcityBrooke Houghton| Narcity

The drink was earthy, smooth and avoided the pitfall of tasting grassy or having any grainy texture, and thankfully, I couldn't taste any mushrooms or herbs from the mood boost.

Yoon let me know the effects of the mood boost usually take about 30 minutes to kick in, and by the time I got home at around 11:30 a.m. I was feeling it.

It felt like my brain was putting glasses on for the first time. Everything was super clear and in focus and I felt like I could write a breaking news story in a minute with zero sweat, but I did find myself fixating on small things.

Whether that was me or the boost, I can't be sure, but I was feeling very hyper-focused.

I work as a staff writer, so focusing is pretty important, and I usually rely on coffee to jumpstart my mornings.

By 12:30 p.m. I was still feeling pretty bushy-tailed, and by 1:30 p.m., the effects started to fade, but I wasn't feeling groggy or tired.

Usually, around midday, I need a second cup of coffee to stay sharp, but I honestly think I could have had my one drink and been fine for the rest of the day. So I decided to push my second cup to 3 p.m. to really test the effects of my morning Brain Boost.

At 3 p.m., I headed to Strange Love's location on Spadina and grabbed an iced latte with an Energy Boost for $8.76.

The Energy Boost is made from ashwaghandha, rhodiola, cordyceps mushrooms, and guarana and supposedly helps with energy, endurance, strength and mental stamina.

© Provided by NarcityBrooke Houghton| Narcity

The coffee was strong, and once again, the mushroom flavour was nowhere to be seen.

I got home at 3:45 p.m., and around 4:30 p.m., I started to feel the difference between the Energy Boost and the Brain Boost. The Brain Boost was very intense, and I did feel hyper-focused to the point where it almost became distracting.

The Energy Boost made me feel calm, mellow and in control. I felt my whole body relax, and I saw a noticeable difference in the tension in my shoulders.

After finishing some emails, I logged off work at around 6 p.m., and I was feeling pretty fantastic. I'm usually a couch potato after a long day at work, but I managed to go to two bars which is pretty impressive for me on a Tuesday night.
Does it actually work?

If I'm honest, I went into this as a skeptic. I was almost positive that any effect would either be a placebo or the equivalent of taking a multivitamin, but I was wrong.

I found both boosts to be way more effective than my usual cup of coffee, and I never experienced jitters, an upset stomach (we all know what happens when we have too much coffee) or a caffeine comedown.

However, mood boosts are an extra $2.50 on top of your regular coffee or tea, which could get expensive over time, so I would only reach for this once a week or for a special occasion.

Strange Love Cafe

© Provided by Narcity

Brooke Houghton| Narcity

Canada Edition (EN) 1 day ago

Price:💸

Address: Multiple locations

Why You Need To Go: You can drink mushroom-infused and mood-boosting coffee.

Website

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Narcity Media.

In Ontario, a vaccine passport is required to access some events, services and businesses, including restaurants and bars.

The Marathon Race Toward Fusion Power Could Be Reaching a Sprint

Isaac Schultz 

GIZMONDO

TODAY

In September, a very large, incredibly powerful magnet was unloaded in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance in Southern France to be incorporated into the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a major international collaboration that is attempting to prove the economic and technical feasibility of nuclear fusion.

© Photo: CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU/AFP (Getty Images) 

Technicians work on the bioshield inside the Tokamak Building at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Saint-Paul-les-Durance, southeastern France, on July 28, 2020.

Across the pond, within days of that massive magnet’s arrival, a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in collaboration with the private company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, announced their latest achievement in the race toward economical nuclear fusion: a successful test of their SPARC experiment, which runs on a relatively small, high-temperature superconducting magnet. These two magnet-driven experiments represent two approaches to fusion power, a holy grail of energy research.


Nuclear fusion has already been achieved. The record holder for controlled fusion power is held by a machine affectionately called JET, which produced 16 megawatts of fusion power in the late 1990s. The difficulty that physicists and engineers face now—and have been facing since fusion was achieved—is managing to get more power out of nuclear fusion reactors than is used by the machines to run the reactions.

Nuclear fusion is a reaction that produces huge amounts of energy, but it doesn’t occur naturally on Earth. If humans could safely and economically produce more energy from fusion reactions than it takes to power the reactions (and it takes a lot of energy to do that), we would no longer depend on carbon-based energy sources like coal, oil, and natural gas. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

© Photo: Nicolas TUCAT / AFP (Getty Images) A magnet.
The 110-ton magnet that recently arrived at ITER, one of an eventual six destined to be a part of the reactor’s central solenoid magnet. Sept. 9, 2021

Nuclear fusion describes a reaction that occurs when the light nuclei of two atoms fuse to form a single nucleus. In that process, an immense amount of energy is released. (This is Einstein’s E=mc2 in practice.) Things need to be extraordinarily energized for fusion to occur, which means they need to be really, really, hot, at 100 million degrees or more. Nuclear fusion is what makes the Sun shine, as hydrogen atoms combine to form helium, releasing energy in the process. If scientists could make that process work on Earth—and make the process work at scale—it would make energy a whole lot cleaner by cutting fossil fuels out of the equation.

“You can tell it’s it’s a hard problem, because people have been working on it for decades, with, you know, with really serious efforts, smart people, lots of money, big machines,” Martin Greenwald, a physicist at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and a member of the MIT-CFS collaboration, said in a video call.

None of this is to be confused with nuclear fission, which is what drives today’s nuclear power plants and produces energy by splitting apart heavy nuclei. Nuclear fission produces less energy than nuclear fusion and generates radioactive waste products, which fusion does not.

© Photo: Wikimedia Commons A tokamak at Princeton University in 1975.
The Princeton Large Torus, photographed in 1975, which demonstrated that fusion was technically possible.

ITER and SPARC both rely on machines called tokamaks, first invented in the 1950s, which confine superheated plasma made up of particles that can interact to produce fusion reactions. Tokamaks are built in toruses, which is just a geometrist’s way of saying doughnut shapes. Tokamaks aren’t the only machines built for fusion: There are also stellarators, which are like tokamaks but more twisty. If a tokamak is a doughnut, a stellarator is a cruller.

The devices are built to generate magnetic fields, in order to contain the plasma that makes fusion possible. The magnets recently in the news (ITER’s super-large one and SPARC’s relatively small one) are part of the tokamaks and are used to confine the plasma, keeping it out of contact with ordinary matter. Inside a tokamak, the plasma is reminiscent of cotton candy being whipped into shape; over time, a delightful array of blues, purples, and pinks are what we can see of the ongoing physics. (This normally cannot be seen, but one tokamak—the COMPASS tokamak in Prague—has a camera installed inside.)



ITER’s magnet is one 110-ton module of the eventual six-module central solenoid magnet; when completed, the central solenoid will be the largest superconducting magnet ever built, with a field nearly 300,000 times as powerful as Earth’s magnetic field, according to the Department of Energy. The entire tokamak will weigh 23,000 tons. ITER’s goal is to produce 10 times as much fusion power as the power the machine needed to make it—500 megawatts produced from 50 megawatts.

With twice as strong a magnetic field, “you can have twice as small a device for the same performance,” said Ana Koller, a physicist specializing in nuclear fusion at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, in a video call. “But that track was pretty much until recently a dead end, waiting for a technological push from the superconductor side.”

As one might expect from extremely complex machines that take a long time to build, operate, and update, fusion experiments require something of a “constant duct taping,” according to Koller. As a big, international collaboration, ITER—first conceived 40 years ago—has had some delays along the way. ITER and the MIT-CFS teams are both racing toward the goals of running fusion reactions; ITER is currently expecting to run its first plasma in 2025, the same year that MIT-CFS expects SPARC will be complete. In turn, SPARC is laying the scientific ground for a pilot fusion plant called ARC, which could be operational by early 2030.

“This is not that kind of a race where the end goal is to humiliate and completely obliterate your opponent,” Koller said. “This is a race where we get diversity in fusion research that we can work with in the future—so not the one where the winner takes it all.”

Greenwald has been working on nuclear fusion for the better part of 50 years, but the recent technological innovation on the MIT team’s side is something of a watershed moment. “The idea of using high-temperature superconductors to get to higher field magnets had sort of been in our DNA,” he said, but until the recent engineering breakthrough, the team didn’t know how they’d manage it.

Now that they have, the MIT-CFS team is moving full-steam ahead with SPARC, the technology demonstrator for the eventual ARC reactor. ARC will be built the same way, with layers of flat superconducting material stacked on top of each other and chilled to 20 kelvin to generate a magnetic field. ARC hinges on SPARC’s ability to prove the concept. “The next step is to go a little bit larger,” Greenwald said, “to a whole facility, which is making net power.”

While ARC will be about twice as large as SPARC, it’s still way smaller than ITER, which was built with a larger vessel to hold more plasma and thus increase the likelihood of fusion reactions. The MIT-CFS team’s new magnets make it possible for devices to perform similar amounts of fusion to a machine 40 times larger in volume, according to an MIT release.



This is all easier said than done, of course, which the many years of research is testimony to. And if fusion is ever to become a useful path toward a cleaner energy future, it’ll need to be relatively cheap and scalable.

“We are physicists, we have to be skeptical in absolutely everything,” Koller said, “but we need that dose of optimism” in order to do the work.

When it comes to fusion, there are evangelists and skeptics and purported realists, though it can be hard to draw a bead on whose expectations most closely meet reality. The running joke about fusion power is that it’s always 30 years away, somewhere just beyond the scientific horizon. Whether you believe fusion is a pipe dream or nearly upon us, the progress that’s been made is undeniable. And maybe—just maybe—we’ll see some of that progress realized within the next decade.

Big fossil fuel producers' plans far exceed climate targets, U.N. says

© Reuters/Richard Carson FILE PHOTO: A maze of crude oil pipes and valves is pictured during a tour by the Department of Energy at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in Freeport

LONDON (Reuters) - Major economies will produce more than double the amount of coal, oil and gas in 2030 than is consistent with meeting climate goals set in the 2015 Paris accord to curb global warming, the United Nations and researchers said on Wednesday.

The U.N. Environment Programme's (UNEP) annual production gap report measures the difference between governments' planned production of fossil fuels and production levels which are consistent with meeting the temperature limits set in Paris.

Under the pact, nations have committed to a long-term goal of limiting average temperature rises to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to attempt to limit them even further to 1.5C.

The report, which analysed 15 major fossil fuel producers, found they plan to produce, in total, around 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting the degree of warming to 1.5C, and 45% more than is consistent with 2C.

The size of that gap has not declined much since UNEP's 2020 report, it added.

The countries analysed in the report were Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Representatives from nearly 200 countries will meet in Glasgow, Scotland, from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12 for climate talks to strengthen action to tackle global warming under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

FOSSIL FUELS

Despite efforts to strengthen climate targets, most major oil and gas producers plan to increase production until 2030 or beyond, while several major coal producers plan to continue or even increase output, the report said.

The plans of the 15 countries analysed envisage fossil fuel production increasing until at least 2040.

This would lead to about 240% more coal, 57% more oil, and 71% more gas in 2030 than what is required in order to curb the rate of global warming to 1.5C.

Of the three fuels, gas production is projected to increase the most between 2020 and 2040, based on the governments’ plans.

The International Energy Agency said in May that investors should not fund new oil, gas and coal supply projects if the world is to hit net zero emissions by mid-century.

"The research is clear: global coal, oil, and gas production must start declining immediately and steeply to be consistent with limiting long-term warming to 1.5C," said Ploy Achakulwisut, a lead author of the new report.

The report was produced by UNEP, as well as experts from the Stockholm Environment Institute, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and think-tanks E3G and ODI.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Significant number of women, people of colour elected in Alberta municipal elections

CALGARY — The next mayor of Calgary says the diversity of the city's incoming council will bring "strength to decision-making" at a time when a significant number of women and people of colour were elected to municipal offices across Alberta.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Jyoti Gondek, the first woman to hold the city's top job in its history, will lead a council filled with rookies after only three incumbents held on to their seats during Monday's municipal elections.

The unofficial results show one-third of the city's 15 seats will be held by women and up to six will be held by people of colour.

"We have finally demonstrated that women and people of colour can be in leadership positions. I hope we have normalized this now," said Gondek. "I hope people will see that Calgary truly is a city that is inclusive and that, if you prepare yourself well, you can take on leadership roles."

Calgary wasn't the only Alberta city to make history Monday. Grande Prairie and Medicine Hat will also swear in their first female mayors after Jackie Clayton and Linnsie Clark won their respective seats.

Edmonton is also celebrating its first person of colour to become mayor.

Former federal cabinet minister Amarjeet Sohi, a Sikh immigrant from India, will lead the capital's most diverse council with eight of 13 seats to be held by women and four by people of colour.

"For too long, diverse voices have not been on the table," Sohi said during a Tuesday interview on the Real Talk online show with host Ryan Jespersen.

"Diversity means people bringing their real, lived experience … and that perspective — and then clashing of those ideas in a constructive way — allows us to be more innovative and more creative."

He said Edmontonians are facing "daunting" challenges, such as economic recovery and the COVID-19 pandemic, and having varied perspectives on city council will help to address those in worthwhile ways.

D.A. Dirks, a professor at Calgary's Mount Royal University who specializes in gender and sexuality studies, said more visibly diverse city councils are a hopeful sign but only if they result in meaningful change for the communities they represent.

"Visibility is important but it’s not the end (in terms of) encouraging folks who are not the usual suspects in politics to think of themselves as being potentially able to run," said Dirks.

"You have to change the structures that have been in place to impede more diverse representation in politics."

There are still far too few Indigenous, Black and sexually-diverse people in elected city roles, Dirks added, and that can inhibit meaningful work toward decolonization and inclusivity.

Voting results will be official on Friday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2021.

Alanna Smith, The Canadian Press

Jyoti Gondek

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Jyoti Gondek
Mayor-elect of Calgary
Assuming office October 25, 2021
Succeeding	Naheed Nenshi
City of Calgary Councillor
In office 2017–2021
Preceded by	Jim Stevenson
Succeeded by	Jasmine Mian
Constituency	Ward 3
Personal details
Born	1969 (age 51–52)[1][2] London, England, United Kingdom
Nationality	Canadian
Spouse(s)	Todd Gondek   ​ (m. 1996)​ [3]
Residence	Calgary, Alberta
Alma mater	University of Calgary
Website	www.jyotigondek.ca/meet-jyoti.html

The Mayor-elect of Calgary Jyoti Gondek delivering a victory speech at her campaign headquarters

Prabjhote Kaur "Jyoti" Gondek^[4][5] (born 1969) is a Canadian politician, currently the mayor-elect of Calgary, Alberta.^[6][7] She was elected Calgary's 37th, and first female mayor on October 18, 2021.^[8] She was previously councillor for Ward 3, which includes the communities of Country Hills, Country Hills Village, Coventry Hills, Harvest Hills and Panorama Hills,^[9] since 2017.^[6] She will be sworn in along with the incoming city council on October 25, 2021.^[10]

Born in London, England,^[11] Gondek is the daughter of Punjabi parents Jasdev Singh Grewal, a lawyer, and Surjit Kaur Grewal.^[12] She immigrated to Canada with her parents in the early 1970s, initially settling in Manitoba.^[3] She was awarded a Ph.D. in urban sociology from the University of Calgary ^[13]. Gondek also holds a bachelor's degree in criminology/sociology from the University of British Columbia, and a master's degree in organizational sociology from the University of Manitoba.^[11][1]

References[edit]

1. ^ Jump up to:^a b White, Ryan (October 1, 2021). "Meet Calgary's mayoral candidates". CTV News Calgary. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
2. ^ "Theses Canada". Library and Archives Canada. OCLC 56963849. Retrieved October 19, 2021. Gondek, Prabhjote Kaur,1969-
3. ^ Jump up to:^a b "Meet Calgary's new mayor-elect, Jyoti Gondek". CBC News. October 9, 2021. Retrieved October 9, 2021.
4. ^ Dippel, Scott (March 25, 2018). "Five Calgary city councillors talk about their real names". CBC News. Retrieved October 15, 2021.
5. ^ "Outstanding Graduating Sociology Student Award - Canadian Sociological Association". www.csa-scs.ca.
6. ^ Jump up to:^a b About Councillor Jyoti Gondek. City of Calgary. Retrieved October 7, 2021.
7. ^ "Jyoti Gondek elected as Calgary's first female mayor". CTV News Calgary. Retrieved October 19, 2021.
8. ^ Meet Calgary's Mayoral Candidates. CTV News October 7, 2021. Retrieved October 7, 2021.
9. ^ "Ward 3 communities". Retrieved October 8, 2021.
10. ^ Toy, Adam (October 18, 2021). "Jyoti Gondek becomes 1st woman to serve as Calgary mayor". Global News. Retrieved October 19, 2021.
11. ^ Jump up to:^a b Hagenaars, Stephanie (June 18, 2021). "Jyoti Gondek weighs in on why she moved from volunteering to becoming a city councillor". Calgary Journal. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
12. ^ "GREWAL JASDEV - Obituaries - Winnipeg Free Press Passages". passages.winnipegfreepress.com.
13. ^ Gondek, Jyoti. Twitterhttps://twitter.com/jyotigondek/status/1011454383526047744. Missing or empty |title= (help)

These Climbers Are Making History As the First All-Black American Team to Summit Mount Everest


Climbing Mount Everest is not for the faint of heart... or lungs or any body part, for that matter. More than 300 people have died on the journey and about 6,000 have fully scaled the mountain, according to Reuters. Of those successful climbers, only eight of them were Black.

© Courtesy of Full Circle Only eight Black climbers have reached the top of Mount Everest.

But if Phil Henderson and his group of eight other Black American athletes are triumphant in their upcoming climb, they'll more than double that number. They'll also be the first all-Black expedition group to successfully summit the tallest mountain in the world.

Their mission is all part of a new project, called the Full Circle Everest Expedition, which was announced at the Outdoor Retailer Summer show in Denver this August.

"I believe this project is important to the development of our team members in their growth in the mountaineering space," Henderson told the Outside Business Journal. "It is bringing forward a greater conversation about Black and brown people in the outdoors and what that means: past, present, and future. Being that our entire team is made up of Black people, it is an important display of leadership, commitment, and teamwork to our community as well as the greater climbing world."

Related: Aretha Duarte Is Officially the First Black Latin American Woman to Climb Mount Everest

© Provided by Travel + Leisure Courtesy of Full Circle

Beyond being the first all-Black American group to climb Everest, the Full Circle team will make history by bringing the first Black American man to the famous Himalayan peak.

According to Outside Business Journal, the team includes North Face-sponsored athletes Manoah Ainuu and Frederick Campbell; Eddie Taylor, a high school teacher; Demond "Dom" Mullins, a combat veteran of the Iraq War; Abby Dione, owner of Coral Cliffs Climbing Gym; James "KG" Kagambi, a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) instructor with successful climbs of mountains in Africa and Europe; Thomas Moore, a Denver-based entrepreneur; and Rosemary Saal, a NOLS instructor who led the first all-Black American team to the summit of Kilimanjaro in 2018

"For us as a group, that camaraderie really makes a difference," Henderson, a former instructor at NOLS, told Travel + Leisure. "We're trying to make a point [about representation in the outdoors], but we also have the opportunity as a team to support each other and have that camaraderie on Everest. For most people, especially for Black people, that doesn't happen."

© Provided by Travel + Leisure Courtesy of Full Circle

Henderson, who has climbed Everest in the past without summiting, will lead the group of passionate climbers, but this won't be his first time serving as a guide; he previously led an all-Black American group to Mount Kilimanjaro's summit in Tanzania.

The Full Circle Everest Expedition group meets periodically at destinations around the U.S. for both training and team building. They've conquered mountaintops in Montana and Washington, but they're expected to take on their biggest challenge — summiting Mount Everest — in spring 2022.

"Success for us is summiting [Everest], yes, but it's also about bringing that camaraderie back with us," said Henderson, who emphasized the importance of representation and encouraging other people, especially Black people, to push beyond negative stereotypes and try outdoor activities.

"We want other folks to know that they're welcome here [in the outdoor community], too…Try it. You never know what you're going to pick up on or what you'll like until you try," he added.

To keep up with the progress of Henderson and his team, visit the Full Circle Everest Expedition website. To support their mission, consider donating to the team via GoFundMe.

Jessica Poitevien is a Travel + Leisure contributor currently based in South Florida, but always on the lookout for the next adventure. Besides traveling, she loves baking, talking to strangers, and taking long walks on the beach. Follow her adventures on Instagram.

BC Hikers used their turbans to save 2 men in waterfall pool

Brahmjot Kaur 6 hrs ago

Five hikers in British Columbia used their turbans to save two men on their trail when the pair unexpectedly fell into a pool below a waterfall.

Kuljinder Kinda and four friends were hiking in Golden Ears Provincial Park on Oct. 11 when a group nearby told them that two men had slipped on a slick rock and fallen into a pool above the lower falls and could not pull themselves back to safety.

Video of the incident is being shared widely after Kinda posted his recording on WhatsApp and it made its way to hiking channels.

Kinda said the people who stopped to help asked them to call emergency services, but they didn't have cellphone service. That’s when they came up with the idea to create a rope out of their turbans, one of five articles worn by Sikhs as headdresses usually made of cotton that protects their uncut hair.

© Provided by NBC News Kuljinder Kinda, left, and his friends at Golden Ears Provincial Park in British Columbia on Oct. 11, 2021. (Courtesy Kuljinder Kinda)

“We were trying to think how we could get them out, but we didn’t know how to,” said Kinda, an electrician originally from Punjab, India, who is Sikh. “So we walked for about 10 minutes to find help and then came up with the idea to tie our turbans together.”

Kinda and his friends removed their turbans and other articles of clothing to securely knot the fabric together and create a 10-meter (about 33 feet) makeshift rope to safely pull the two men back onto the trail. They threw the rope down to the men and instructed them to tighten it before they pulled themselves up.

"In Sikhi, we are taught to help someone in any way we can with anything we have, even our turban," Kinda said.

Kinda said he and his friends weren't scared for their safety.

"We just really cared about the safety of the men," he said.

The two men thanked Kinda and his friends before leaving. Their identities are unknown.

© British Columbia Ministry of Environment A warning sign posted for the waterfalls on the Lower Falls Gold Creek Trail from Golden Ears Provincial Park in British Columbia, Canada. (British Columbia Ministry of Environment)

The British Columbia Environment Ministry said there are warnings along the trails. “Signs on the access trails warn hikers about trail and waterfall hazards and to not proceed past the end of the established trails,” a spokesperson said.

Robert Laing, the search and rescue manager at Ridge Meadows Search and Rescue, was on duty when the incident occurred and was called to the scene, but the hikers had already been rescued. "We spoke briefly with them but only to make sure they were fine and did not require medical aid," he said. "They did say they did not see the warning signs regarding the hazards of approaching the falls."

The waterfalls are behind a fenced area, he pointed out.

Laing warns hikers to be careful around the creeks and rivers in the park. "Several people are injured each year as a result of slips or falls,” he said. “It seems about once every one to two years, someone will be swept over the falls and die as a result of their injuries.”

The hikers have been praised for their heroism and their quick response. Sikh Community of British Columbia shared the video on Twitter and said, “Kudos to these young men for their quick thinking and selflessness.”

US Senate appears poised to advance first Native American to lead National Park Service

The Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee appeared poised to advance the nomination of the National Park Service's first Native American director, and the agency's first permanent director in four years, at a hearing Tuesday.

© Greg Nash Nominee to be Director of the National Park Service Charles Sams III is sworn in during his Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee nomination hearing on Tuesday, October 19, 2021.

Charles Sams, President Biden's nominee for the position, emphasized the urgent need to address staffing shortfalls at NPS.

"The National Park Service cannot achieve its mission without a well-supported workforce, and I am committed to focusing on the caretakers of this mission. Staffing, housing, and other issues are impacting morale and deserve our active attention," Sams said.

Permanent employees at NPS declined about 6 percent over the last decade, according to data from the agency. In the meantime, however, attendance at national parks has spiked as pandemic restrictions are gradually lifted, particularly for outdoor activities.

Sams also said he would emphasize tribal outreach and a "spirit of consultation" as director.

"In Indian Country, we expect an open discussion with the federal government prior to making a decision, not after the fact," he said. "If confirmed, I will bring this spirit of consultation to my service as Director. I look forward to consulting with neighboring communities, stakeholders, local, state and Tribal governments, and Members of Congress, even when the conversations and topics are challenging."

The last permanent NPS director confirmed to the position was Jonathan Jarvis, who was sworn in in October 2009 and served for the remainder of the Obama presidency.

Also before the committee Tuesday were Brad Crabtree, nominated for assistant secretary of Energy, and Willie Phillips, nominated to serve on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The panel has not yet set a date for the vote on the nominees.

The hearing was largely without controversy or aggressive questioning, in contrast with recent confirmation hearings for Tracy Stone-Manning, now head of the Bureau of Land Management. In the early 1990s, Stone-Manning admitted to mailing a letter written by another environmental activist warning of tree-spiking, a form of sabotage meant to prevent logging.

Every Republican on the panel opposed Stone-Manning's nomination, and ranking member Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) seemingly alluded to it Tuesday, asking all three nominees if they had ever "collaborated with an organization that uses violence against fellow Americans." All three answered in the negative.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) also mentioned his concerns with Sams' lack of experience working directly for the NPS, asking him to "[c]onvince me that you're ready to take on this challenge having had no experience as a park ranger, or a park manager, or otherwise involved in the National Park Service."

In response, Sams cited his experience working on public lands issues in Oregon and committed to staffing the NPS with people experienced in national parks matters. King ultimately told Sams he intended to support his nomination.

The reconciliation project is vulnerable to cynicism — and Trudeau's Tofino trip didn't help

© Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press

 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is framed by a eagle statue as he visits Tk’emlups the Sewepemc in Kamloops, B.C. Monday, Oct. 18, 2021.

Justin Trudeau's visit to the Tk'emlúps te Secwe̓pemc Nation in British Columbia on Monday was a moment of reckoning — over the prime minister's latest vacation-related scandal and over his entire record on reconciliation.

That trip to Tofino was further evidence that Trudeau has, at the very least, poor risk perception. Most politicians have or acquire a keen awareness of anything that could get them into trouble. They learn to examine their actions in terms of whether something is likely to make them look bad.

Trudeau probably isn't completely oblivious to risk. But he is far less cautious than, say, Stephen Harper.

Maybe Trudeau assumed that since he was going to spend part of the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation speaking with survivors of residential schools, and had attended an official ceremony the night before, it wouldn't matter if he also departed that day for a short post-election vacation with his wife and children.

If so, he assumed wrong. But most politicians in his position probably wouldn't even have taken the chance.

The result, as Chantal Hebert wrote earlier this month, was a gift to the prime minister's critics — fresh fodder for those who insist Trudeau lacks either conviction or substance, or both.

The other price Trudeau paid for that trip was having to sit beside Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir on Monday as she explained — twice — how Trudeau's decision to pass on the community's invitation to travel there had caused "shock, anger, and sorrow and disbelief" in her community.

But this was about more than Tofino.

"I just want to state to the prime minister that, once again, we as Indigenous peoples ... acknowledge and are respectful of the commitments that we heard here today," said Terry Teegee, regional chief of the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations. "But I think we're beyond theatrics, platitudes and words. And as stated by many Indigenous peoples in this country, we need to see action."
'Were they just words?'

Teegee pointed to funding for new healing centres as an example. He also referred to Trudeau's latest election victory as his "third chance."

Kukpi7 Wayne Christian of the Splatsin First Nation, seated to Trudeau's right, recalled "this young man" saying in 2015 that Canada's most important relationship was with Indigenous peoples.

"It gave me hope. It gave many of our people hope," Christian said. "But were they just words?"

When it was Trudeau's turn to speak, he began with prepared remarks. But after a few minutes, he stopped looking down at whatever was laid out in front of him. What he said then was, by turns, thoughtful, conciliatory, introspective, defensive and insistent.

"I think we all thought that the contrast — from a government that over the previous ten years had cancelled the Kelowna Accords, ignored reconciliation, disrespected Indigenous people — that the contrast would be enough," Trudeau said, recalling his commitment in 2015. "That we'd be able to get things done quickly. That we'd be able to undo, rapidly, decades, generations, even centuries of institutional inertia."

That's essentially an admission of naiveté.

Trudeau said that "progress" and "action" have happened and that those who were on stage with him know that. "But not nearly enough," he added.

He pointed out that his government recognized and was implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and brought in legislation to protect Indigenous languages and transfer authority over child welfare. He insisted his government has turned over all its records on residential schools — a claim that is contested by some.

Trudeau acknowledged his government has "a lot of catching up to do."

"But let us not forget that what took generations and centuries to break can never be fixed overnight," he added. "Not if it's going to last."

He contended that responsibility for reconciliation rests with all Canadians — a somewhat gutsy argument to make aloud when one is being accused of not doing enough.

He then directly addressed the government's failure to meet its own goal of bringing safe drinking water to every Indigenous community within five years.

Canadians losing faith in reconciliation

"Let us not throw up our hands and say, 'Because there remain boil water advisories in this country, nothing has been done,'" he said, after repeating the latest tally of boil-water advisories. "As you, as Indigenous people and leaders, and as non-Indigenous Canadians look and challenge us all to do more on reconciliation, let us remember that it is urgent and important and we have to keep working on it, but we cannot let challenges — or things that are more difficult than we expected — cause us to throw up our hands."

Trudeau isn't wrong to worry about cynicism. According to new research by the Environics Institute, the percentage of Canadians who believe "meaningful reconciliation" will be achieved in their lifetimes has fallen six points in the last five years, from 68 per cent to 62 per cent — with an even larger drop among those aged 18 to 29.

The percentage of Canadians who believe the policies of the federal government are the primary obstacle to achieving equality for Indigenous people has also increased by 11 points, from 26 per cent to 37 per cent.

Those numbers could demonstrate that Canadians are coming to a more realistic understanding of the size and nature of the problem. But it's still fair to ask whether Trudeau himself has contributed to that increase in skepticism.

Trudeau might be tired of Conservative and NDP claims that he has accomplished nothing. But on the issue of drinking water, more people may wind up feeling cynical about the Trudeau government than about the reconciliation project itself.

A more cautious politician might have been more careful about tempering his promises in 2015. But the Trudeau approach seems to assume that aiming high is good.

Trudeau may be making an unconscious gamble that, in the long run, his government's policy record will matter more than his rhetoric. But his latest failure to look before leaping only creates more pressure on him to show progress before the next election — only makes it harder to continue pursuing the government's jurisdictional dispute with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

Fairly or not, Trudeau was already being accused of not doing enough. It would be an even larger problem for his party if those accusations are even louder whenever this government goes looking for a fourth turn in office.

Aaron Wherry 10 hrs ago

Tk’emlúps leaders' letter sets steps for PM to prove commitment to reconciliation


KAMLOOPS, B.C. — Senior members of a British Columbia First Nation have issued an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that petitions him to formally commit to seven steps he could take to show he is serious about reconciliation.

The open letter from family heads of the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc Nation comes a day after Trudeau visited their territory in Kamloops for the first time since more than 200 unmarked graves were found in May at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

In the letter published Tuesday in the Globe and Mail, the 13 family heads, including former Tk’emlúps chief Manny Jules, say they believe Trudeau wouldn't have visited "were it not for the grim reality of these unmarked graves."

They say they "want to believe the sincerity" of the prime minister's comments about the importance of reconciliation, but urge him to commit to "seven real acts" to add action to his words. Those include repatriating any remains of former students found on the grounds of the former institution in Kamloops, creating a permanent memorial at the site and building a healing and education centre.

"The families wanted to make sure the Canadian public knew exactly what we were presenting to the prime minister," Jules said in an interview Tuesday.

"That was the strategic reason, to reach the Canadian public and to be absolutely clear from the families' perspective that these are the issues we wanted to have resolved."

Tk’emlúps Chief Rosanne Casimir and members of her council knew about the letter before its publication, Jules said.

The Prime Minister's Office did not respond directly to the letter, providing instead a statement detailing Trudeau's visit to the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc Nation on Monday and comments he made.

"We need families to be able to grieve, to heal; and to do that, we need to support them in every way we can," the statement from press secretary Alex Wellstead said of Trudeau's remarks. "We have put forward resources, millions of dollars, and will continue to work with every and any community to make sure they have the resources necessary to do what they need to do to identify, to recover, to grieve and to heal."

The letter from the Tk’emlúps family heads also calls for control over taxation, rights and resources across their territories, recognition of that control by the courts, and the lowering of the Canadian flag to half-mast every Sept. 30 "in memory of the lost cultures, languages, childhoods and lives taken by residential schools."

Trudeau apologized several times Monday for not attending events in Kamloops to mark Canada's first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30. He was on vacation in Tofino.

Casimir told Trudeau on Monday that to truly honour the Sept. 30 date and the families whose children did not come home, flags should be flown at half-mast on that day.

The prime minister agreed, saying flags will always be lowered and a flag designed by the National Council for Truth and Reconciliation will be flown.

A similar petition seeking rights and title was presented by Tk'emlups ancestors to prime minister Wilfrid Laurier in 1910, the letter says.

That petition was not only rejected, "but the federal government supported the genocide of our people through the creation of residential schools, took away our voting rights, prevented our legal challenges relating to the title of our land, reduced the size of our reserves and formally removed our fiscal powers to ensure our sustainability," it says.

The letter says Canada will never achieve reconciliation "through words, apologies and mere signals of virtue," and adds that hard work lies ahead, pointing to a closing sentence in the petition to Laurier that they say remains true today.

"So long as what we consider justice is withheld from us, so long will dissatisfaction and unrest exist among us and we will continue to struggle to better ourselves."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2021.

The Canadian Press