You wouldn’t know it from visiting the Team Broken Earth website, but Dr. Andrew Furey is the reason the special non-profit initiative exists.

An orthopedic trauma surgeon, Andrew felt compelled to offer his services when the 7 Mw earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, killing more than 200,000 people, and displacing and severely injuring many more. In June of that year, he formed a team of three—himself, wife and pediatric emergency room doctor Allison Furey, and orthopedic surgeon Will Moores—and together they travelled from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where they spent a week volunteering to help fix some of what was broken.

After returning from that first mission, Andrew founded Team Broken Earth, a volunteer task force of Canadian physicians, nurses and physiotherapists committed to providing aid in Haiti. Since its inception, the organization has carried out nine missions to Port-au-Prince, with the next one scheduled for October 2013. It has expanded in size, adding teams from Calgary, Alberta and Halifax, Nova Scotia, and in scope; Broken Earth now looks beyond the initial devastation of the 2010 earthquake, providing ongoing medical care but also looking to help make the region more self-sufficient in the long-term. They offer medical training to Haitian doctors, nurses and allied healthcare workers, and are working to develop sustainable community programs in Haiti.

As president of Team Broken Earth, Andrew has gone on every one of their missions, leading the medical care of more than 500 patients per week. He’s also responsible for setting the direction of Broken Earth and negotiating partnerships and sponsorships. But in spite of his pivotal role in the organization, he doesn’t take credit on its website.

His reason is simple: “Because it’s a team effort.”

He’s right, of course. Broken Earth is a joint venture with Project Medishare, an initiative of the University of Miami’s medical school. The non-profit receives support from a number of sponsors, including Andrew’s alma mater, Memorial University. And each member of Broken Earth’s medical teams raises their own funds to travel to Haiti for the weeklong missions.

But every team needs a leader. And in this case, it’s Andrew who leads Team Broken Earth to solid ground.

Andrew (bottom, right) with Team Broken Earth, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Fixing what’s broken

Born and raised in St. John’s (a.k.a. The Rock), Andrew was given a great foundation from the start. His family, whom he describes as “very loving,” included two younger sisters and a younger brother, a nurse and music teacher mother, and a father whose life story “was always an inspiration for me,” says Andrew.

After growing up in Newfoundland’s Mount Cashel Orphanage, George Furey put himself through school at Memorial University, and then went on to become a teacher, a principal, a lawyer and, currently, a Canadian Senator. “He’s led by great example, as has my mom [Karen Furey], obviously; you can’t do any of that by yourself,” says Andrew. “They’ve created a great learning and family environment. I feel spoiled by the environment they created.”

“Spoiled” by love and a thirst for knowledge, Andrew followed in his father’s footsteps, enrolling at Memorial University after graduating from Gonzaga High School in 1993. He completed a BSc (1997), an MD (2001) and a Masters of Clinical Epidemiology and Orthopedic Surgical Residency (2004). As he tells it, his interest in medicine stemmed from an equal passion for the science side and the clinical side of the field.

“I like being able to ask why things work and why they’re broken, and then being able to fix them,” says Andrew. “But I think ultimately it was the idea of making a connection with people, the human element of medicine and being able to care for people, that led me to choose my profession.”

Andrew completed his residency in 2006, and then accepted a one-year fellowship in Orthopedic Trauma at the University of Maryland’s R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. After that, “I returned to The Rock and have been happy here ever since,” he says.

Andrew, his children, and their sweet crib on The Rock

Life on The Rock

Today, he lives in St. Philips, Newfoundland, where he continues to follow his father’s lead. Andrew and his “superstar wife,” Allison, are “spoiling” their three children, Maggie (6), Rachael (4) and Mark (2), with a wonderful example of generosity, initiative and caring.

The Fureys in St. John’s, N.L., 2012

In addition to his volunteer efforts with Team Broken Earth, Andrew keeps a number of plates in the air—each of them very full. He’s actively involved in local community initiatives, including the Torbay Tri for Health, which he launched in 2010 with his brother-in-law, Mike Rudofsky, in an effort to raise funds and awareness for mental health.

Andrew (right) with Dr. Arthur Rideout (centre) at a Spin 4 Kids fundraiser, St. John’s, N.L.

Andrew (centre) with fellow Team Broken Earth members at a rowing fundraiser for breast cancer research, St. John’s, N.L.

On the professional side, Andrew works as Assistant Professor of Surgery at Memorial University, and is President of the Newfoundland Orthopedic Association and Director of Research for the Orthopedic Resident Training Program at the Memorial Medical School. He also sits on multiple national committees for the Canadian Orthopaedic Association (COA).

Such outstanding contributions to the local, medical and international communities haven’t gone unnoticed. Andrew’s recent accolades include the 2011 Rotary Emerging Professionals Award, the 2012 Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and the 2012 Memorial University Alumnus of the Year award. Still, from talking to him, it’s obvious that his greatest reward is being to draw on his expertise as an orthopedic surgeon to help heal those in need.

Steps in the right direction

As Andrew tells it, he was drawn to orthopedics because it offered a definitive path to recovery.

“There’s a very clear approach,” he says. “There’s not a whole lot of academic debate for the sake of academic debate. Everyone should be on the same page: ‘This is what the problem is, this is how we’re going to try to fix it, this is our plan and this is how the patient is going to recover.’ It’s a very step-wise approach.”

That line of thinking is what brought Andrew to Haiti in 2010. Watching real-time footage of the earthquake, he felt compelled to help.

“It really hit home, to see the frank devastation,” he says. “As I thought about it, in terms of patient care in trauma, I knew that people were going to generally die fairly quickly from massive injuries or general surgery injuries… but they wouldn’t necessarily die of their orthopedic injuries—the broken leg, the broken arm. But I knew they wouldn’t get the right treatment for those injuries.”

Andrew contacted his colleagues in Baltimore, who were already offering medical aid in Port-au-Prince, and put together a team to join their relief efforts. That initial weeklong relief mission went well. But unfortunately, the Baltimore group’s makeshift medical centre, comprised largely of tents erected around fallen power lines, was eventually deemed unsafe and shut down. So when the time came to launch Team Broken Earth, Andrew looked elsewhere for a partner.

That search led him to the University of Miami’s Project Medishare. “They’d built a hospital in Haiti that relies on international teams of physicians to help staff and support its daily operation,” says Andrew. It was a perfect fit. He joined forces with Medishare, creating a vital partnership that provides the fertile ground necessary for Team Broken Earth to thrive.

Installing medical equipment at the Bernard Mevs Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

To the ends of the earth

The notion of partnership, of forming a true team, is essential to Broken Earth’s success. As Andrew says, every member of the volunteer task force is “pushed to their professional and personal limits” on each mission. But they never reach the breaking point, and the reason is this: the team serves as a titanium crutch, there to prop everyone up when the time comes.

“You take this group of individuals who may or may not know each other, and you bring them down to this area that is extremely poor and is still suffering from the devastation of the earthquake,” says Andrew. “You ask them to treat injuries they’re not used to treating, and it’s 36 degrees Celsius and the power comes on and off. They’re all working outside their element, and everyone can be fairly stressed. But what’s nice about Broken Earth is that the team rallies around each other. No one appears stressed because everyone is there to support of each other; everyone leans on each other for professional and emotional support.”

Still, that kind of support doesn’t entirely ease the pain of losing a patient. Andrew recalls one devastating example (and there are many; you can read more in The Globe and Mail article on Dr. Spencer McLean) from an early Broken Earth mission. It involved an 18-year-old woman who had been shot in the abdomen by a stray bullet.

“We took her to surgery, but there was no blood available,” says Andrew. “If we had been in North America, there would have been blood products immediately available, and we would have had some time to fix the vascular injury that she sustained. But she bled out right in front of us, to the point where her arteries were still pumping, because she was so young and vital, but she had no blood left, so she was only bleeding saline by the end of it.”

Those who can, teach

Working in those conditions serves as a constant reminder to Andrew of how lucky he is—how lucky we all are—to live in Canada.

“You go down and you see the despair, you see the troubles that they face, and you know that you’re lucky enough to only be there for a week,” says Andrew. “But at the same time, you’re completely divided. You wish that every single person you saw had the same access to the healthcare and health facilities that we do.”

Since his first trip to Haiti in 2010, Andrew has seen a lot of improvements in the Caribbean country. But he’s keenly aware that they’re still in need of support. For that reason, Team Broken Earth has gone beyond its initial mandate to provide medical aid, and now helps to train Haitian healthcare workers and establish sustainable community programs so the nation can become more self-sufficient.

For his part, Andrew serves as Director of Orthopedic Surgery at Medishare’s Bernard Mevs Hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince and sits on the Board of Directors for Project Medishare-Haiti. He’s also involved with the Port-au-Prince education group that his Baltimore colleagues launched in 2011.

Leading an orthopedic fracture fixture course, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 2011

Looking ahead, Team Broken Earth is working with the Haitian Orthopedic Society to try to bring Haitian healthcare workers to Memorial University for medical training. Andrew foresees a number of logistical obstacles to this next step. But he also firmly believes that it’s worth persevering, and that they’ll eventually make their vision a reality. After all, his work in Port-au-Prince is proof that determination and dedication pay off, and that the power of the human spirit is limitless.

A healing force

“Out of the destruction in Haiti, there are great examples of hope and triumph that are pretty special,” says Andrew. “We see it in patient care, and we see it in the stories that we hear and the stories that we’re lucky to be a part of. We’ve also been lucky enough to visit a few orphanages and see that there are remarkable stories of remarkable people doing remarkable humanitarian work in this really troubled country.”

Andrew (back, right) and fellow Team Broken Earth members with some of the local children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Andrew acknowledges that it can be easy to lose sight of all the good that’s being done, particularly now that the media has shifted its focus off Haiti. And, he says, “It doesn’t help to have certain quasi-political figures question where the money is being spent and saying that we shouldn’t spend money there. Really, the solution isn’t to stop sending funds to Haiti. If we aren’t getting enough bang for our buck, the solution would be to say, ‘Okay, let’s figure out how we can get a bang for our buck,’ rather than not offering the buck.”

You wouldn’t think there would be any backlash to a medical mission like Broken Earth—one built on caring, generosity and a desire to give back. But Andrew has encountered a remarkable number of people looking to pick holes in their efforts.

“It’s incredible, the naysayers that come out of the woodwork,” he says. “They argue that we’re only providing help to people who are injured during the week we’re there for each mission. That’s totally true. But we’re not pretending to be anything more than that. We’re working with what we have. Down the road, I’d like to see myself in a position to be able to effect a little bit more change on a larger scale, in Haiti specifically and in the delivery of healthcare in general. But right now, this is what we’re able to do.”

Fortunately, the vast majority of people see this as the wonderful offering that it is. As Andrew says, “For every naysayer out there, there are 15 people who have something positive to say, and who would never dream that anyone could have anything negative to say about what we’re doing.”

What they’re doing—what Andrew is doing—is working together to give back to others in need and make a positive difference in the world. To help our broken earth begin to heal.

*            *            *

To get involved or donate to Team Broken Earth, visit brokenearth.ca. For their latest news, follow @TeamBrokenEarth on Twitter or ‘Like’ the organization’s Facebook page. To reach Andrew, email andrew@brokenearth.ca.

Thank you to Team Broken Earth Calgary’s Kimberly Carcary for recommending Andrew as a Kickass Canadian.

Of the many things Stephanie Case has proven (about herself and the human spirit), one is that it’s possible to go from hating running so much that you count down the minutes of every workout, to being so dedicated to the sport that you’ll literally run until your pelvis breaks just so you can try to finish a race.

Stephanie is one astonishing woman. I discovered her in a recent Queen’s Alumni Review article about her legal and humanitarian work with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and her ultrarunning fundraising initiatives for Women for Afghan Women (WAW). Since connecting with her, I’ve only become more impressed. She’s vivacious, open, humble, and doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the term “slow down.”

When Stephanie emailed me agreeing to be featured on KickassCanadians.ca, she let me know that her schedule was a little busy:

“I’m flying to NYC today, Liberia on Monday, London on the 21st, back to Canada on the 22nd, Australia on the 28th, Hong Kong on May 2nd and finally Bishkek on May 6th.”

But it was no trouble scheduling an interview, even though she was also co-editing the book UN Human Rights Council: Law, Practice and Politics in her “spare time” before starting her new position as human rights advisor for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Kyrgyzstan.

It turns out Stephanie is coached by fellow Kickass Canadian, and impossible2Possible (i2P) co-founder, Ray Zahab, who took her on after she won her first ultramarathon, RacingThePlanet: Vietnam in 2008. Since then, she’s racked up an impressive number of running accomplishments (and victories!). But, according to Ray, “Stephanie’s work around the world as a humanitarian is even more impressive then her running.”

Stephanie competing in RacingThePlanet: Vietnam, 2008. Photo courtesy of RacingThePlanet.

That stands to reason. After all, while she started out “hating running,” she has known all her life that the desire to help others was in her blood. “I’ve always been interested in social justice issues and human rights,” says Stephanie. “I think it’s my calling, in a way. It’s my passion. I’ve always put that ahead of everything else.”

Broader horizons

Raised largely in Oakville, Ontario, Stephanie graduated from Oakville Trafalgar High School in 2000 before returning to her hometown of Kingston, Ontario to study psychology and international development at Queen’s University. While pursuing her undergraduate degree, she also dove deeper into volunteerism. Her efforts included helping at a medical clinic and a school in Ghana, teaching English to Buddhist monks in Thailand and conducting wildlife biodiversity research in the Amazon jungle.

Stephanie on her first trip to Africa, with some of the students she volunteered to help in rural Ghana, 2002

After completing her BaH in 2004, she headed to the University of British Columbia (UBC) to study law. “I went to law school not necessarily to become a lawyer, but to get the skills to negotiate better and argue better; to fight for those who wouldn’t be able to fight for themselves,” says Stephanie. “To me, being a lawyer is so much broader than what most people think it is.”

Working with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), on a visit to the provinces, 2012.

With the wheels set in motion for her humanitarian and international relations work, a new idea took root. Stephanie had always thought of herself as a “school nerd” rather than an athlete. (This in spite of having been a sailor and sailing instructor, and having competed with Queen’s University’s top varsity rowing team.) But she decided to mark the completion of her first year of law school by running her first marathon.

Stephanie took up with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada’s Team in Training (TNT) and ran the 2005 Mayor’s Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska to raise money for cancer research. It was a cause near to her heart; her biological father died of cancer when she was two years old.

“Running the marathon was all about accomplishing something that I thought was impossible and raising money for a good cause,” says Stephanie. “I hated running at that point and the only thing that got me through finishing the marathon was thinking that I never had to run a single step ever again!”

But she surprised herself. After crossing the finish line, she felt a bit of a letdown. “It wasn’t the life-altering experience I thought it would be,” says Stephanie. “I was sore for a couple days, and that was it. I felt like there must be something more out there.”

Running the Gobi March, 2012. Photo by Zandy Mangold, courtesy of RacingThePlanet.

Leaps and bounds

In the short term, though, there was law school and humanitarian work to focus on. Stephanie had no trouble keeping both in her sights. At UBC, she was a Blakes Scholar, Wesbrook Scholar and BLG Research Fellow. During her summer breaks, she took placements that enabled her to do pro bono work with Lawyers Without Borders (LWOB), travelling to Ethiopia, Rwanda and Liberia.

Then, while studying for law school finals in 2007, she got a little restless. For some of us, that might mean resorting to housework or errands as a way of procrastinating. But Stephanie doesn’t do things the way most people do. Instead, she distracted herself by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

“I loved it,” she says. “I just really enjoyed being outside and being with a small group of supportive people and trying something that I thought seemed impossible.”

Still, after the climb, Stephanie was left with a familiar feeling. “I just kept thinking, ‘There’s gotta be something more,’” she says. “‘There’s gotta be a way I can push myself beyond running a marathon and climbing Kilimanjaro.’”

At the start of the Gobi March, 2012. Photo by Zandy Mangold, courtesy of RacingThePlanet.

Racing the Planet

She found a way: the inaugural RacingThePlanet roving race, a 250km self-supported run through Vietnam scheduled for February 2008. “This, to me, seemed like the adventure of a lifetime, something I really wasn’t sure I would be able to finish,” says Stephanie.

After trying in vain to convince some friends to join her, she finally signed up solo at 3am after a night that involved “a few too many glasses of wine.” When she woke the next morning, she had buyer’s remorse. “But, you know, once you’re committed, you’re committed,” she says.

As with her first marathon, Stephanie attached her RacingThePlanet run to a fundraising initiative—this time, the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS)—and off she went! Having passed the New York bar exam, she juggled working for Shearman & Sterling LLP in Manhattan with LWOB fieldwork in Israel and the West Bank, on top of “training and training and training.”

Those were her pre-Ray Zahab days, and Stephanie says she had no idea what she was doing. The wrong shoes, improper technique and overtraining soon led to a bad case of patella femoral syndrome, forcing her to spend much of her training time—not to mention the money she was making as a law clerk—on physiotherapy.

To make matters more challenging, the race organizers had to re-jig the course shortly before the event because of mudslides, making the longest running day the first rather than the last. That meant 110km straight out of the block.

“Going into this race, I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to finish, that I’d make a fool of myself,” says Stephanie. “I just decided to go and take it one step at a time and see how far my legs could take me.”

Running RacingThePlanet: Vietnam, 2008. Photo courtesy of RacingThePlanet.

As she ran through the very muddy terrain, she made it past the 40km mark. And then the 50km mark. By the time she hit 60km, and then 70km, Stephanie realized that her legs felt better than they had several kilometres back. But it wasn’t until she was about 10km from the finish that she discovered just how well she was doing.

“The race director hopped out of the van and started running alongside me, and she said, ‘Do you realize that you’re in second place?’” says Stephanie, who recalls being thrilled to be the second female in such a challenging leg. When the director clarified that she was actually second overall, behind legendary runner Salvador Redondo Calvo, Stephanie says she “almost fell into the ditch. It was the first time I had run more than 50kms in my life, and I was reaching 110km with a pack on my back. I was completely shocked.”

It was then that Stephanie realized she was not only capable of running ultramarathons, she was born to run them.

After winning RacingThePlanet: Vietnam, 2008. Photo courtesy of RacingThePlanet.

Impossible to possible

From that point on, Stephanie started pursuing ultrarunning with the same passion and fervour she has always put into her humanitarian work. Her plan: Sign up for a race, then find a way to use vacation time to train and compete. Simple as that!

Swimming during part of RacingThePlanet: Australia, 2010. Photo by Chris Lusher, courtesy of RacingThePlanet.

In May 2008, Stephanie joined her newly minted coach, Ray, on the ONExONE run across Canada, covering 80km a day in every province and territory for 13 days straight (minus the four days Stephanie had to miss for work). “Through that process of running, basically shoulder to shoulder with Ray, he changed my running technique,” says Stephanie. “Since then, he’s coached me for all of my races. He’s been an incredible support over the years, and I’m immensely grateful for his wisdom and guidance.”

Even with Ray’s expert advice, Stephanie still faced some residual growing pains from her self-training days. The 2008 RacingThePlanet run left her with a pelvis that was “way out of line,” and she felt the full burden of that injury in early January 2009, when a 50km training race for RacingThePlanet: Namibia left her with a broken pelvis.

“I was almost crawling,” says Stephanie. “I was in so much pain, but I just wanted to finish.”

The injury forced her to take four months off training. But it didn’t keep her from completing the main event in May 2009. “I went into RacingThePlanet: Namibia overweight and undertrained,” says Stephanie. “It was the most painful race I’ve done, but it was my favourite race because I managed to run every day. I took every day as a bonus and I just focused on the sand and the people I was running with. It was incredible.”

One of many happy moments during RacingThePlanet: Namibia, 2009. Photo courtesy of RacingThePlanet.

Racing awareness

Life has continued to be pretty non-stop for Stephanie. Since 2009, she has worked for the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute in London, England, as a United Nations and Human Rights Officer for a diplomatic advisory group in New York City, and for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). She also managed to pick up a Master of Laws degree in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law from the University of Essex in 2011, on full British Chevening scholarship.

Stephanie’s running, which she continues to use “to raise awareness for causes that might not otherwise get awareness,” hasn’t slowed down a bit, either. She’s competed in all but one RacingThePlanet roving event, finishing each time as first or second female (except for the 2009 Namibia race). For the most recent RacingThePlanet event, the Gobi March in 2012, Stephanie was able to incorporate her interest in women’s rights into her work with UNAMA, using the race as a platform to raise $10,000 for Women for Afghan Women (WAW). The effort earned her a personal letter of commendation from the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General.

Stephanie with some of the girls she volunteered to teach on weekends during her post in Afghanistan. The girls were orphaned, or otherwise affected by war. Kabul, 2012.

Now, less than two months after returning home from Afghanistan, Stephanie is gearing up for her next role, as a human rights advisor with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). She’s heading to Kyrgyzstan to work on a police reform project that was started in the wake of inter-ethnic clashes in the south of the country in 2010.

On solid ground

It’s amazing that it’s taken this long, but Stephanie says she’s starting to feel the effects of her demanding schedule. After all, she used the R&R earned in Afghanistan for what she calls R&R&R—rest, recuperation and running. That’s why she has “only” one race on her current schedule: the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc® (UTMB) in August 2013, a 100-mile non-stop race through France, Italy and Switzerland.

After her Kyrgyzstan posting ends in December 2013, Stephanie is looking forward to living a “normal” life for a bit. She wants to reconnect with family and friends, and spend actual face-time with her partner, Stuart Blieschke, a runner and hedge fund manager she met during the Gobi March. But she doesn’t think that having a normal life will interfere with her ability to do the things she loves.

Stephanie and Stuart running the Grand2Grand Ultra, 2012

“I want to keep doing what I’m doing, and still be able to get married and have a family,” says Stephanie. “People always used to ask me when I was going to settle down, and whether I was worried that I’d never meet someone because I was always going to unusual places. But I think that when you’re being true to yourself and true to what you’re doing, everything else falls into place. And it seems to be going that way now. I’m lucky that Stuart’s very supportive.”

Stephanie and Stuart crossing the dessert in the Grand2Grand Ultra, 2012

Running for life

At the end of the day, Stephanie knows she can still answer her calling without travelling quite as much. What matters most to her is being able to serve others and make them happy. And, of course, being able to run. That’s the best way she knows to get where she wants to go.

Running the Gobi March, 2012. Photo by Zandy Mangold, courtesy of RacingThePlanet.

“The confidence I’ve gained from running that first 250km race in Vietnam has translated to everything else I do with my life—to my work and how I interact with people,” says Stephanie. “It was this incredible challenge I took on, and then I did it, and that was a lesson that carried on to other things. It taught me that I shouldn’t doubt myself so much at work and in personal relationships.

“Over the past five years, running has also taught me that it’s okay to fail. I’ve definitely had bad races and horrible races, but ultrarunning for me is just a parallel for how you go through life. You can have these incredible successes and incredible failures, and you learn equally as much from both of them, as long as you just leave everything out on the course or out on the table. That’s really all that matters.”

Winning RacingThePlanet: Nepal in 2011. Photo by Zandy Mangold, courtesy of RacingThePlanet.

Well, that, and one other guiding principle in Stephanie’s remarkable approach to life:

“Making sure you don’t squash other people along the way; making sure you help them instead. In ultrarunning, the friends you make become your friends for life, because you’re not just trying to run—you’re trying to survive. People go way out of their way to help you meet your goals and to survive. In shorter events, you get people elbowing each other and everyone’s having their own individual race. That’s not how I like to run. I like to run the way I live my life: relying on other people and having other people rely on me.”

*            *            *

For the latest on Stephanie, visit ultrarunnergirl.com, follow her on LinkedIn and YouTube, or email stephanie.case@yahoo.com.

There aren’t many people who are as good at so many things as Michael McGowan. He’s a runner, with the 1995 Detroit Marathon title (he finished in 2:18:11) and two showings with Team Canada (including the 1992 World Cross Country Championships) under his bib. He’s also a writer, with a slew of articles (The Globe and Mail, Saturday Night, Toronto Life) two children’s books (Newton and the Giant and Newton and the Time Machine) and a children’s television show (Henry’s World) to his credit. Oh, and he’s a filmmaker (he wrote and directed the feature films My Dog Vincent, Saint Ralph, One Week, Score: A Hockey Musical and Still Mine).

More will be revealed throughout the course of this article, and certainly throughout the course of Michael’s life. But for now, I’ll just say that he’s incredibly multi-talented—and incredibly driven—and leave it at that. Because I want to take a time-out to focus on the last of his noted achievements: filmmaking.

I first heard of Michael when I saw his second feature film, Saint Ralph, at the 2004 Summer Institute of Film and Television (SIFT). I absolutely loved the movie. You can read the Saint Ralph review on my film blog for more on that, but in a nutshell, it was funny and charming and revolved around running, which I also love. It was right up my alley, and got me curious to know more about its creator. After reading Michael’s bio, I was all the more impressed to learn that, on top of being a great filmmaker, he’d been an extremely accomplished runner.

Fast-forward to 2013 and my most recent encounter with Michael. I’d seen one of the two films he’d made in the interim (One Week) and learned more about his varied career, which included teaching English and working as a journalist. The more I discovered about him, the more impressed I became. So I was pretty excited when this latest encounter brought me face to face with Michael.

It went like this: My short movie, Bliss, was chosen to screen before his latest film, Still Mine, at the 2013 Kingston Canadian Film Festival (KCFF). You can also read about my experience at the fest, and the Still Mine review, on my blog. But the important things were that: I learned of even more great things about Michael, including his knack for carpentry, his commitment to Canadian film and his utter lack of pretence or attitude; and Still Mine is a wonderful film (it won the festival’s People’s Choice Award—and later that same weekend, picked up the Canadian Screen Award for Best Actor for its lead, James Cromwell).

James Cromwell (right) with Rick Roberts in ‘Still Mine’

Feeling out the course

It’s fair to say that my head has been spinning when thinking of how much Michael has accomplished. He seems to leap fearlessly from one thing to the next, and to excel at whatever he puts his mind to. Case in point: When asked why he decided to write his first children’s book, he says, “I just thought it would be an interesting challenge.” (That book, Newton and the Giant, went on to win the 2004 Silver Birch Award; his next book was nominated for it.)

In talking with Michael, it becomes clear that his wide range of interests was evident right from the start—even if he wasn’t always sure how to apply them. “I don’t think, as a kid, I really had any concrete notions of what I wanted to do,” he says. “(Writing and running), along with a lot of other stuff, were things that caught my attention. (But) I never thought about them as careers when I was young.”

Maybe he didn’t, but others did. The University of North Carolina recruited him for his running talents, so, after graduating St. Michael’s College School in Toronto, Ontario, he headed to the U.S. on an athletic scholarship. He spent his time there studying English and competing in “everything from 1,500m to 10,000m.” Then, when Michael graduated with a BA in 1989, he headed back to Canada, where he went to teacher’s college at Vancouver’s University of British Columbia (UBC) before returning to Toronto. But after a year of teaching English at his alma mater, St. Michael’s, he realized that he wanted to be a writer, and promptly dove into his career as a journalist.

Running down a dream

Michael also kept up his running, which paid off in spades when he won Detroit six years later. The winnings, he says, bought him another year in his pursuit of more creative writing. “I used it for the down payment on my land (in Mulmur, Ontario),” says Michael, who has since built up the property to house his production company, Mulmur Feed Co., not to mention his wife of more than 20 years, Shelagh McNulty, and their three children, Henry (14), Wiley (11) and Frances (9).

The house under construction in ‘Still Mine’

Michael hadn’t gotten into film and television when he bought the land in Mulmur, but his thoughts had already turned in that direction. It all started when he saw the movie Clerks in 1994. “I thought it was fairly accessible,” he says. “It seemed like a different way of making films, and one that I could sort of comprehend and thought I could maybe possibly do.”

So he did. The fact that he’d never before written for the screen didn’t phase Michael. He just sat down, applied the same discipline he used as a runner, and wrote the script for My Dog Vincent.

A friend of Michael’s who worked on Bay Street raised the money for the film ($150,000), and suddenly, they were off to the races. Michael hadn’t intended to helm the project, but it became clear that he was the best person for the job, so “I sort of ended up directing it, and then all of a sudden, you’re a filmmaker,” he says.

There he was, in 1997, the writer/director of a Canadian feature film. But as most newly minted filmmakers know, it’s not a steady gig. So Michael kept himself busy as a carpenter and journalist. And, with all that on the go, why not also create a stop-motion children’s television? He wrote Henry’s World, about a boy who has the ability to make his wishes come true, and Alliance Atlantis (now Alliance Films) happily picked it up and put it into production. By the second season, Michael had set up a stop-motion studio and was showrunning the project.

All the while, of course, Michael’s never-idle hands got busy writing the script for his next film, Saint Ralph. “I was already working for Alliance, so they produced Saint Ralph and it took off from there,” he says.

So far, the flight has entailed 2009’s One Week, 2010’s Score: A Hockey Musical (for which he also wrote most of the songs’ lyrics) and 2012’s Still Mine. Not to mention directing for several television shows, including Being Erica and Aaron Stone. Oh, and lots of running—“just to keep in shape,” he says, but you get the idea that he’s still remarkably fit.

Joshua Jackson in ‘One Week’

Tapping the source

Looking at Michael’s films to date, they seem to serve as tributes to various periods of his life and his many pursuits. There’s the reluctant Catholic schoolboy, but devout runner, in Saint Ralph, the dissatisfied English teacher in One Week, the passionate hockey player in Score: A Hockey Musical (as a child, Michael was obsessed with the sport), the meticulous carpenter in Still Mine. Even the boy with the amazing ability to make his wishes come true in Henry’s World seems to intersect with Michael’s life. It’s hard to overlook the recurrence of strong male protagonists who fearlessly run down their dreams.

James Cromwell in ‘Still Mine’

Yet when I mention this to Michael, he disagrees. “There certainly are some parallels, and I could certainly place some of the things in my life in the films,” he says. “But, I mean, with One Week, I didn’t motorcycle across the country, I didn’t have cancer. Or with Saint Ralph, I knew running and I knew the background of the world Ralph lived in, but it was 40 years or so before my time. And I grew up in a big family [Michael is the second of six children]; Ralph was an only kid. Still Mine is based on a true story. The fact that I knew the carpentry probably made it easier to tell, but that’s Craig Morrison’s story.

“So there are intersections with my life, and I’m always looking for a story that I can relate to, for sure. But (in choosing my projects), I don’t think, ‘This is me at this age or that age.’”

Still, Michael has no problem with people associating the films’ stories with his life. “I’m glad they feel personal, or that they feel like they could be my story, or part of my life,” he says. “I think that means that there’s a believability there, which you’re trying to achieve as a filmmaker.”

Michael (left) with James Cromwell on the set of ‘Still Mine’

Riding it out

Michael’s ability to create such a personal connection between the audience and his movies is a big part of his success as a filmmaker. His work has garnered a lot of attention worldwide, and a number of awards. To name a few (that I haven’t already):

• Saint Ralph won Outstanding Achievement in Direction from the Directors Guild of Canada (2005) and the Paris Film Festival Grand Prix (2005), and was nominated for several 2005 Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Adam Butcher) and Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Campbell Scott and Gordon Pinsent).
• One Week took home the Best Feature prize at both the 2008 Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) and Edmonton International Film Festival (EIFF), and earned its lead, Joshua Jackson, a Best Actor Genie Award.
• Score: A Hockey Musical was chosen to open the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), among many other festivals across Canada, and won the top prize at the 2010 Chicago International Music and Movies Festival (CIMMFest).

But although his achievements are mind-boggling, don’t think for a second that his success has gone to his head. After all, you have to keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times.

“Film is a roller coaster,” say Michael. “You get your highs and your lows in every film… I realize that you have to get lucky to be successful in anything, but especially in the arts. It didn’t come overnight for me. It was a struggle that, in hindsight, maybe appears easy, but it wasn’t, and there were a number of years where I didn’t think it would work. So, as a default, I appreciate and can enjoy the success and also maybe understand that it could be fleeting. I try to just focus on the work, and if the work reaches an audience and is successful, there’s a ton of people who have played a part in that, especially in film. I think it’s delusional to think that your success is solely a result of yourself.”

With that in mind, Michael’s approach to all his films is to “treat everybody the way you want to be treated.” The philosophy applies to the entire cast and crew, from grips and caterers, to A-List stars like James Cromwell, Geneviève Bujold, Gordon Pinsent, Campbell Scott, Joshua Jackson, Olivia Newton-John and Jennifer Tilly.

Olivia Newton-John (centre) and Michael (far right) on the set of ‘Score: A Hockey Musical’

Staying the course

With Michael’s eclectic career path, it wouldn’t come as a shock if he veered off in another direction altogether one day. But it seems as if the filmmaker’s life suits him. “I like the cycle of it,” he says. “It’s nice to disappear for awhile and go and write and sort of live a fairly normal life, and then come out in the world and try to make the film and edit and promote it.”

He’s currently on the second half of that cycle, busily promoting Still Mine. Having already played in several film festivals, it’s slated for a special screening on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario on April 17, 2013, hosted by Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages James Moore. After that, it goes on to open publicly in Canada, the U.S. and Australia in May.

James Cromwell and Genevieve Bujold on the set of ‘Still Mine’

Once Still Mine has been properly released into the world, Michael will go back to the deep well and come up with another story—one that’s “proudly Canadian,” as always, but also one that’s universal. “I’m proud of how (my films) have translated internationally,” says Michael. “That’s really important to me.”

So that seems to be that. Michael may have hung up his competitive running shoes, but he’s just getting started when it comes to flexing his many creative muscles. It’s been a great run so far. And fortunately for the rest of us, Michael is an endurance athlete.

Stephen Beckta. I’d heard the name for years, always used synonymously with fine dining in Ottawa, Ontario. His restaurants, Beckta dining & wine and Play food & wine, had won a slew of awards and generated a lot of buzz, in the city and beyond. But it wasn’t until he opened his third restaurant, Gezellig, that I really got a taste of what Steve is all about.

Gezellig’s opening coincided with the start of my planning for the upcoming fundraiser Wide Open: Kickass Canadian Photographs for CARE. It was also the new place of work for chef de cuisine Che Chartrand, whom I’d met during his days as owner/chef at Chez Eric in Wakefield, Quebec. Che introduced me via email to Steve, who happily offered Gezellig gift certificates for the silent auction.

Right away, I was impressed. Steve was warm, friendly and totally accessible. When I went in to collect the donation, he greeted me himself and made sure I had what I needed for the fundraiser. He also talked excitedly about the charitable organization he’s passionate about—the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa, for which he’s sat on the Board of Directors since 2011.

After that meeting, I knew Steve belonged on this website. As successful as his businesses are, and as delicious his food is (which I finally got to sample over the holidays at Gezellig—and by the way, their dense, scrumptious house-made bread is like nothing I’ve ever tasted), what is most extraordinary about Steve is his obvious commitment to sincere, caring service.

The reason is simple: “It’s about hospitality,” says Steve. “That’s the basis behind anything. Food and wine are merely tools to care for people; they’re basic sustenance that we all need. So it’s how you deliver that through love and caring, both in preparation of a dish or the delivery of it, that sets (restaurants) apart.”

Steve, his wife Maureen and their son Seanan enjoying a meal in the Beckta dining room

A path less travelled

One of the many things that sets Steve apart is a strong internal compass that he seems to trust readily, regardless of what direction others may take. While his classmates at Ottawa’s Cairine Wilson Secondary School focused on the usual homework-friends-activities, teenage Steve spent 40 to 50 hours a week working at various restaurants in the city. First as a busboy, then moving on to serve and cook, he spent time at “all kinds of non-fine dining establishments,” including Malibu Jack’s, Peter Martin’s, Yesterday’s, Dunn’s Deli and O’toole’s. He loved the family dynamic among his co-workers and he savoured the freedom of having his own income.

So in 1992, when his restaurant jobs kept him too busy to finish his Grade 12 English independent study project, Steve didn’t mind that it meant he’d be a credit shy of graduating. “I was much more interested in work than I was in school at the time,” he says. “I figured I would go back to finish at some time.”

He never went back. (Although he did eventually receive a high school diploma in 2011 from the current principal at Cairine Wilson, who decided Steve had earned his final credit based on “real-world life experience.”) Instead, he worked his way through the Ottawa restaurant scene, until “I had a bad breakup and then basically ran away to Europe for six or seven months,” he says.

As it turns out, the breakup was one of the best things that ever happened to him.

“So much of life and business is wrapped up in serendipity,” he says. “Things just happen when they happen; they happen for a reason and life provides the answers that you look for.”

What happened was this: He got a job in Amsterdam doing sales for American comedy theatre Boom Chicago. They were so impressed by Steve that they asked him to come back the following season as their Food and Operations Manager. “Suddenly, I’m 20 years old and I’m running a 220-seat American comedy theatre in Amsterdam,” he says.

He was also falling in love with the European culture that embraced togetherness and the simple, intimate act of sharing food in good company. It was a discovery that would ultimately shape his career and cement his success.

Puttin’ on the Ritz

After his second stint in Amsterdam, Steve returned to Ottawa and its many restaurants. While he was working at the Ritz 3 on Nepean Street—in the very location that would become home to his flagship restaurant, Beckta dining & wine—a friend told him about the sommelier program at Algonquin College, and right away his attention was piqued. “It sounded like something fun, and I thought it could really help me with my career going forward, so I signed up,” he says.

Steve describes his two years at Algonquin as “a great experience, with many wonderful teachers who taught me a lot.” The admiration is clearly mutual; in 2010, he was named Alumnus of the Year and invited to give the college’s convocation address.

At the 2010 Algonquin College convocation, Scotiabank Place, Ottawa, Ont.

Nearing his 1998 graduation, serendipity once again played its hand. Steve attended the wedding of some friends he’d made in Amsterdam and met a woman from Manhattan who caught his eye. They hit it off, and so, armed with his résumé, plus an exciting job offer from renowned chef Daniel Boulud (courtesy of his connection to celebrated New York City food writers Karen Page and Andrew Dorenberg), Steve joined his new lady friend in the Big Apple.

“And the rest is history,” says Steve. He spent four years working at some of the top restaurants in Manhattan, including Café Boulud and Eleven Madison Park, with Danny Meyer.

At Café Boulud, New York City, 2000

Then, once Steve had absorbed the knowledge he needed to excel as a restaurateur in his own right, fate decided he was ready to return home. Four years after the wedding that led him to New York, he attended another wedding where he met Ottawa’s Maureen Cunningham. Smitten, he moved back home to be with her—but only after honouring a previous commitment to spend two weeks learning under the management of Alain Ducasse (among others) in Paris, France. “Our phone bill was kind of crazy,” says Steve.

Beckta dining & wine

After Paris, it was back to Ottawa and down to business. Steve married Maureen in 2003, the same year he opened Beckta dining & wine.

Steve and Maureen celebrate their wedding day at Beckta, 2003

“Beckta was sort of a compilation of all of the ideas that I had come up with or seen that I loved along the years,” says Steve. “A lot of it was based on my experiences in New York. Each of my restaurants has its raison d’être, and with Beckta, it was making fine dining approachable in Ottawa. Instead of it being boring and staid and formal, we wanted to make it really fun and interesting and accessible.” Hence the restaurant’s trademark personable service and approach to the fine dining menu, which included tasting menus, canapés and petit fours—items that were a rarity in Ottawa when Beckta opened.

As it turns out, there was quite an appetite for that kind of place. Steve’s restaurant drew rave reviews from The Globe and Mail, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, The Montreal Gazette and The New York Times, earning points for serving up hospitality and customer service that were every bit as exceptional as its cooking.

Two weeks after opening, enRoute Magazine rated Beckta dining & wine the fourth-best new restaurant in Canada. It has received nine consecutive CAA/AAA four-diamond awards, and was named the #1 restaurant in the city by Ottawa Magazine in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Steve and his team also won the prestigious Gold Medal Plates competition in 2007. Beckta remains the most award-winning restaurant in the nation’s capital.

Steve himself has earned plenty of recognition as well. He was named Top Independent Restaurateur in Ontario by the Ontario Hostelry Institute (2007) and one of Ottawa’s Top 40 under 40 by the Ottawa Business Journal (2008), and was chosen twice as one of Ottawa Life Magazine’s Top 50 people (2003, 2010). He also won the Bill Joe Restaurateur of the Year Award from the Ontario Restaurant Hotel & Motel Association (2011), and was nominated twice for the Ontario Premier’s Awards in Business (2006, 2010).

Steve and Maureen taking over the building for Beckta dining & wine, 2003

Play time

But Steve has never been one to rest on his laurels. While making a huge success of Beckta dining & wine, not to mention welcoming son Seanan along the way, Steve started making plans for his sophomore restaurant.

In 2009, he launched Play food & wine. “With Play, we wanted to do something really fun,” says Steve, who enlisted Beckta Executive Chef and Partner Michael Moffatt to help make their second restaurant another huge success. “We wanted to make it clear that fine dining doesn’t have to be for special occasions; it doesn’t have to cost $100 a person, and it can be a very common thing.”

Seanan helping with the Play renovations

That was the thinking behind Play’s popular small plates and tapas selections, as well as Mike’s rotating menu. “We loved the idea of not committing to a single main course,” says Steve. “As a restaurant in the ByWard Market, we wanted to offer a place where people can come and have a great time, and enjoy great food and great wine, without necessarily committing to a big dinner.”

The recipe worked. Thanks to Mike’s inventive cooking, the team picked up another Gold Medal Plates victory, this time in 2010.

Steve (bottom, centre) and the rest of the 2010 Gold Medal Plates winning team

Mike’s 2010 Gold Medal Plates winning dish

Gezellig

With Play thriving, Steve started looking into opening his third restaurant, which he suspects will be his last. “Three is the perfect number,” he says, because it provides enough revenue and offers the right division of labour to hire a director of operations, freeing Steve up to “achieve a balance of life that couldn’t have existed before.”

That lucky number three comes in the form of Gezellig. With this restaurant, Steve says he and Mike “wanted to redefine what neighbourhood dining is. It doesn’t have to just be a more casual atmosphere. It can be something really beautiful and very unique, in an architecturally stunning setting. It can include great hospitality: simple things, like checking your coat. It’s such a part of our ethos.”

Gezellig also features fabulous sharing plates, extraordinary bread baked onsite every day, and a fun, diverse and accessible wine list dreamed up by Steve’s gifted sommelier and General Manager, Grayson McDiarmid.

Laying out tables at Gezellig during construction, 2012

A leading approach

Since opening in November 2012, Gezellig has drawn glowing reviews from critics and foodies alike. As with Steve’s first two restaurants, Gezellig stands out not only for its food but also for its exemplary hospitality—something I noticed the minute I set foot in the building.

Curious, I asked Steve if he has a secret to building such fantastic teams. “Building a great team means hiring the most caring individuals out there,” he says. “The people who just get off on making other people happy, whose excellence reflexes are just so ingrained that if something (goes wrong), they immediately go to fix it, to make it better.”

The first management team outing after Beckta’s opening, Ottawa, Ont., 2003

It’s a great recipe for success, but he left out a key ingredient: An exceptional leader.

Leadership is something Steve knows a lot about. He seems to have an innate gift for it, but there’s more to it than that. Outside of the restaurant business, politics is his true passion. His leisure reading time is spent almost exclusively on biographies of American presidents and other politicians, or boning up on the politics sections in The Globe and Mail and The New York Times.

He cites Abraham Lincoln as one of his heroes because “he succeeded without compromising his values,” says Steve. “He made up his mind about what was right and wrong, and he stuck to it.”

Steve’s interest in politics makes sense. “I love understanding great leaders and how they work, and what they did in order to be really effective and really inspiring for the people they were serving,” he says. “There’s so many great leadership and management lessons to be learned from politics.”

But it doesn’t mean he’s ready to switch career paths just yet. For now, he says he’s happy “serving all the politicos who come into the restaurants for dinner or lunch.” Those politicos include Prime Minister Stephen Harper, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty, Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird and of course the totally kickass Rick Mercer.

Warm, cozy, convivial

All politics aside, as Steve continues to lead his exceptional teams at Beckta, Play and Gezellig, he’ll keep his focus on food and hospitality—simple pleasures that he hopes Ottawans, Canadians, North Americans can learn to better relish and enjoy. It’s a wish that goes back to his time in Europe, when his eyes were opened to a culture that truly values the good things in life.

“When I lived in Amsterdam, I just fell in love with this whole concept of Gezellig, which is a warm, cozy, convivial time spent with friends,” he says. “English doesn’t have a word like that, that describes all those things. About five or six times a week, we’ll have Dutch customers come into the restaurant and they’ll just know exactly what we’re trying to do—create that feeling of warmth, intimacy and caring.”

Who better to create that feeling than a man as warm and caring as Steve himself?

*            *            *

For the latest on Steve, follow him on LinkedIn and @stevebeckta on Twitter, or email sbeckta@beckta.com.

Henry Smith is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. He tries to deny it, but his seemingly endless supply of ideas, creations and inventions, not to mention his razor-sharp wit, does little to support his argument.

I first crossed paths with Henry at Ottawa, Ontario’s Glebe Collegiate Institute (GCI), where we’d both recently transferred. He had moved in 1993 from a small English village near Cambridge, when his Canadian-born parents decided to return home after a 20-year stint across the pond. I don’t remember the exact moment we met, but I do know he sat behind me in a Grade 11 math class, and that I’d try to compete with him to see who could finish assignments first. (I’ll call it a draw; my artistic licence is valid.)

Even then, as a teenager, Henry had an obvious thirst for challenge and a strong desire to blaze his own trail. Example: Our math teacher often included a bonus question on quizzes, which was always much more challenging than the rest of the test. So of course that was the question Henry tackled first. Then, if he had time after demolishing the equation, he’d get through the rest of the test. Marks weren’t terribly important to him (although that didn’t interfere with him winning provincial academic awards and stealing the show at science fairs). It’s just that he was more concerned with exploring new things than conforming to standards.

We’ve stayed in touch since those high school days, and I consider it a great privilege that Henry is among my closest friends. His sense of individuality and independence, not to mention his uniquely clever mind, are endlessly inspiring to me. I often look to his example or wisdom when feeling insecure about my own approach to career and life. He’s unafraid of living according to his own principles, and it has served him very well.

Today, Henry’s at the beginning of a very exciting stage in his career as a game developer. In the summer of 2012, he left his job of seven years as a user interface (UI) programmer with BioWare to delve into his indie career. Under the company name Sleeping Beast Games (inspired by an episode of Cowboy Bebop), Henry launched his “practise” project, a local, multiplayer iOS game called Spaceteam, to great success and is about to start work on what he calls his “more ambitious” project, Shipshape.

But truth be told, Henry’s indie career began many years ago and even more miles away. It started with a bright, curious little boy living in England, whose father worked in artificial intelligence (AI) and always had a computer on hand, and whose mother’s creative flair was deeply infectious…

Sleight of hand

From what I can see, both Henry’s parents played a big part in making him who he is today. Arnold Smith spent much of his career as an AI research scientist for the National Research Council Canada (NRC). Louise Mortimer taught ESL at Carleton University while in Canada, but she also has a strong musical background; she’s currently a cellist for the Ottawa Chamber Orchestra (OCO) and Ottawa Symphony Orchestra (OSO), and a volunteer teacher for OrKidstra, run by Kickass Canadians Tina Fedeski and Margaret Tobolowska.

From left: Louise, Henry and his fiancée, Sara, Gatineau, Que., 2012

Both these influences—with their winning combination of logic and creativity—inspired young Henry, who never let his hands stay idle for long. He started making video games before he hit 13. But before that, he whet his appetite by drawing, making board games and card games, and, of course, building Lego constructs. He also played the piano and clarinet, though he remembers hating practising: “I loved to improvise and just do my own thing.”

He says his passion for making video games comes from a combination of all his interests. “I can make music and write stories and design art and solve puzzles. And I have to work with logic problems to make the game work. With programming, I can make things come alive. You can have an idea and program it and you can create an entirely new world or creature on the screen. It’s pretty amazing; it’s the closest thing to making magic.”

For Henry, the first glimpse of that magic came from playing on his friend’s Super Nintendo and old Amstrad computer. After gorging on games, like Street Fighter II, F-Zero and Dizzy, Henry set about making his own versions using HyperCard. “I didn’t copy them because I thought there was something I could improve about them,” he says. “I copied them because I loved them and I wanted to do the same thing… I wanted to be involved in creating a world like that.”

His younger brothers, Julian and Daniel, often pitched in, drawing on their own musical and artistic talents. (The whole Smith family is quite impressive; Julian is a published fiction writer living in Port Maitland, Nova Scotia, and Daniel is a professional cook and baker in Toronto, Ontario). Henry says that none of these “very simple, half-finished games” went anywhere. But they opened the floodgates for his learning and creativity, which ultimately led him to making his first finished game.

Squish

One of my earliest memories of Henry is that by the time he was in high school he was already earning royalties from a Mac shareware game he’d made. It was called Squish, and its premise was inspired by the game Lemmings. But it was another favourite childhood game that showed Henry the value of truly committing to his projects: TaskMaker.

“It was a black + white adventure fantasy, top-down, square tiles, fight monsters and so on,” says Henry. “I really liked this game and I figured out that its file system was pretty simple, because when you win the game, you get a special power where you can change the world and you can change the individual squares on the map to be whatever you want… It gave me the idea to make a map editor for the game, so I could make my own maps and walk around them.”

Then only about 12 years old, Henry reached out for help to finish things off—first from his father and then from the game’s author. Impressed that Henry was hacking his game “for good instead of evil,” the author sent along a free colour copy of the game. “That was the first time I got paid in some way for something I’d built,” says Henry. “I think that solidified in my mind that I could do something with this, and I could actually make games for a living and I would enjoy it.”

Squish screenshot

So he set about making Squish, a puzzle adventure game. At first, Henry didn’t intend to sell it. But when his family relocated to Ottawa and he started learning the programming language C++ at Glebe Collegiate Institute (GCI), he quickly cobbled together enough knowledge to make a version of Squish that ran as a native Mac application, and posted a free demo on bulletin boards, websites and FTP servers.

A few other Squish screenshots

Fans of the game promptly mailed in their $10 to order the full version. But the best part wasn’t the money. “I would get these personal letters from people who wrote, ‘I love your game! My six-year-old and I have been playing it. Here’s a picture he drew of Squish,’” says Henry. “It was awesome.”

Squish also attracted older players. Mac publisher Fantasoft Games got in touch and offered to take over publishing Squish. That meant no more handwritten letters in the mail, but it also enabled a wider audience and credit card transactions. “At its peak, I was making about $500 per month, which is an amazing amount of money for someone in high school,” says Henry.

Breaking the code

After graduating GCI in 1997, Henry enrolled in a Bachelor of Mathematics program at the University of Waterloo, with a focus on Computer Science. He entered the co-op stream, which meant that each four-month school term was followed by a four-month work placement.

Wanting to branch out beyond the school’s own placements, he found unusual alternatives for his co-op terms. One involved working from home on an indie game called Peregrine. It was a single-player fantasy role-playing game that “had a vague storyline to do with some gods in a world I’d created,” says Henry. “Everybody’s soul was linked to a star, and there was a special spy glass, and a lot of magic and swords and sorcery.”

Peregrine artwork by Daniel Smith

Once again, Daniel contributed artwork, and Henry learned a lot about what’s involved in making a game. One of the key lessons was that four months isn’t nearly long enough for a project of Peregrine’s scope. “I had to write programs in order to build the world of the game, as well as the game itself, and that took a lot longer than I thought it would,” says Henry.

As a result, the game was never completed. But it led to a major milestone in his career trajectory. While working on Peregrine, he launched a blog featuring his progress and Daniel’s artwork. Upon discovering the blog, “one guy made a fan site for the game, even though the game hadn’t come out yet,” says Henry. “That was one of the things that kept me going and knowing I was on the right track—having people who were interested in stuff I was doing even before I could get it out. That was cool.”

Irrational Games

In 1999, as his third co-op term approached, Henry and some fellow Waterloo programmers decided to branch out even further. They headed to Los Angeles for the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Henry hit the show floor, handing out as many résumés and demos as he was able.

The trip more than paid for itself. It led to a placement with Irrational Games in Boston, Massachusetts, which began as a co-op placement in 1999, but ended up leading to full-time employment and a break in Henry’s formal education, which lasted until 2002. “That was a great opportunity,” says Henry. “I was doing my dream job, pretty much, and I really loved Boston.”

He spent most of his three years there working on a game called The Lost, which was based on Dante’s Inferno. He recalls it as “a cool game,” but one that was somewhat behind the technological times, and it ended up being cancelled. Still, it was time well spent; he learned a lot, worked with a fabulous team and made connections with what would become a powerful company in the gaming industry.

“Irrational Games is now incredibly successful,” says Henry. “They went on to make BioShock, which is really popular. Now they’re working on BioShock Infinite, one of the most anticipated upcoming games.”

“Henry’s awesome. He’s a smart and talented games programmer—very clever. I’m so excited that he’s been successful in his first foray into indie gaming and I’m really looking forward to what he does next!” —John Abercrombie, Lead Programmer, Irrational Games

BioWare and beyond

In spite of how much Henry loved his time at Irrational Games, he eventually decided it was worthwhile heading back to Waterloo to finish his degree. So, with his work visa almost up, he did just that.

After graduating in 2004 with a BMath, Henry wound up in Edmonton, Alberta working for BioWare as a UI programmer, primarily on a game called Dragon Age: Origins. Then, in 2009, ready for a change, he transferred to Montreal, Quebec to work with Electronic Arts (EA), which had acquired BioWare in 2007.

“Working with Henry, I always found him to be energetic and full of new ideas to solve problems. He had a way of coming at a problem from a new angle, which often led to a novel solution.” —Trent Oster, Creative Director, Overhaul Games, Director of Business Development, Beamdog (formerly Executive Producer and Director of Technology, BioWare)

Let the gaming begin

Henry greatly enjoyed his time at BioWare. But one thing was never far from his mind: He wanted to get back to making indie games. When he had enough money saved up, he worked out a convenient departure date with BioWare (after completing his work on Mass Effect 3), and then took off on his own in the summer of 2012.

But first things first. Before launching into his games, he and his then-girlfriend of several years—the fabulous singer and Concordia University Masters of Anthropology student Sara Breitkreutz—spent five weeks travelling in Europe. The trip included a stop at his favourite place in Florence, Italy, by a church atop a hill, which is where Sara proposed (the two will be married this summer).

Henry and Sara, moments after their engagement, Florence, Italy, 2012

Then, freshly rested and newly engaged, Henry set about reviving his indie career. He put his initial idea for an ambitious for-profit iPhone game called Shipshape on hold, in favour of a shorter-term experimental project that would ease him into the swing of things and that he’d make available for free.

Spaceteam

Henry, who says his ideas “come from everywhere,” drew from a few specific sources for Spaceteam. There was the board game Space Alert; the digitally enabled folk game Johann Sebastian Joust; and the dream he had after seeing the short film Caine’s Arcade, a documentary about a nine-year-old boy’s cardboard arcade.

“I had a dream where my brother and I—it’s a dream, so it wasn’t really clear which brother it was—were wandering around this science fair in an old abandoned building. We sat down at one of the exhibits, which was kind of like the arcades from Caine’s Arcade. It was like a table arcade cabinet thing with two screens. One of the screens would flash text and instructions, and the other would have this really complex menu of options that you had to choose from. You had to find the option that matched the instruction on the other screen. I think I got the idea of what we were supposed to do, but my brother didn’t understand it, so I kept getting mad at him because he didn’t understand how to play. The user interface was terrible, but that gave me the idea to make a game like that, where one person would see something on the screen and the other person would have to respond to it.”

And so Spaceteam was born. Henry launched it in autumn 2012—to far greater acclaim than he ever anticipated. The game is nominated for a Nuovo Award at the 2013 Independent Games Festival (IGF), and received an honourable mention in the Excellence In Design category. He’s been invited to speak on a panel at IndieCade EAST in New York City, and is waiting to hear back on whether Spaceteam makes it into the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Boston. (If this Penny Arcade comic is any indication, I think it’s safe to say they’re already fans.)

He’s also racked up a slew of glowing reviews and has gotten many exciting (and excited) tweets, including from the Star Trek Into Darkness editorial team, IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer and Wired columnist Andy Baio, to name a few.

Although Henry was surprised by Spaceteam’s success, he thinks it might have come about in part because it’s so unusual. “Normally, in a game like that, everyone’s doing the same thing and competing with each other,” he says. “I wanted to make an asymmetric multiplayer game where people have different roles.”

It seems as though others wanted to see that, too. Case in point: this hilarious video of the guys at Giant Bomb playing Spaceteam. They were so into the game that they ran out of time for their usual review.

Shipshape

In between juggling media and speaking commitments for Spaceteam, Henry is gearing up for Shipshape, which he describes as “a sort of space game based on the board game Galaxy Trucker, with elements of Star Control II and Escape Velocity thrown in.” He plans to focus on creating an accessible touch user interface that’s as simple as it is smart.

Part of the reason for this is to create a great game that users will enjoy. But Henry’s also clearly excited about playing a role in changing the way people perceive and interact with video games. In particular, he’s interested in how they can facilitate education. “I think more and more people are going to play games, and that they’ll be integrated with life and school and work in ways that aren’t necessarily obvious—that are more behind the scenes and in the background—but that are still significant and beneficial.”

For the moment, though, Henry’s content to pursue Shipshape and take life as it comes. The way he sees it, “If I can sustain myself by making indie games, I’ll keep doing this for the foreseeable future, because this is my ultimate dream.”

Sara and Henry near her great-grandparents’ homestead, rural Alberta, 2012

By all accounts, Henry is at the start of a very exciting career—one that I expect will play an influential role in the industry. After all, he got me hooked on Spaceteam, and I’ve never been one to play video games. But more importantly, Henry has the courage to attempt to live his dream, and the talent, skills and intelligence to make it a reality.

Expect great things from this one.

*            *            *

For the latest on Henry, visit SleepingBeastGames.com, ‘Like’ his Facebook page, follow along on LinkedIn and @hengineer on Twitter, or email henry@sleepingbeastgames.com.

It’s not hard to recognize a Kickass Canadian when their résumé includes the following: member of the first all-women team to canoe across Canada; official guide for the Trans Canada Trail Northwest Territories research trip; 2007 Outstanding Experiential Teacher of the Year, as per the Association for Experiential Education (AEE); and co-author of an essay in the book Rendezvous with the Wild: The Boreal Forest, which was edited by Kickass Canadian (and fellow canoeist) James Raffan.

It’s even easier when they’re recommended to you with the following endorsement:

“I’m not sure I’ve EVER met anyone who is as infectious and passionate about experiential learning as Carrie Nolan. She has taught all across the country, including in small northern Canadian communities and on First Nations reserves, and everyone who meets her loves her. She changes people’s lives!”

That recommendation came from Grant McMillan, who worked with Carrie when she was teaching Outdoor Adventure and Administration at Briercrest College in Caronport, Saskatchewan. Her time there, much like the rest of her life since her early teens, has been marked by incredible canoe trips across Canada’s many waters.

But although Carrie has developed a deep passion for canoeing, it certainly wasn’t a case of love at first sight.

Getting her feet wet

Carrie was properly introduced to canoeing when she joined the out-trip club at Parry Sound High School in her hometown of Parry Sound, Ontario. Before that, she hadn’t been much of an outdoors girl. Her parents and elder sister got their camping fix in early, so by the time Carrie was born, they’d gone on to other things. Fortunately, her best friend, Martha Martens (née Mortson), grew up camping with her own family, and encouraged Carrie to sign up for the out-trip club’s nine-day canoe trip through Algonquin Park in their freshman year.

“It snowed the first day and it rained the second day, and I thought it was the stupidest thing anybody could do with themselves,” says Carrie. She had no intention of getting in another canoe. In the end, though, peer pressure won out (“in my case, it was a good thing”), and she found her way back on the water.

“That has created a life time of paddling and being outdoors,” she says.

Paddling the Mountain River, NWT, 2008

One of her earlier leaps into the wilderness was through a “sisterhood” with Martha and Martha’s cousin, Kristi Vegt (née Mintz), while they were still in high school. They called themselves the FROG Sisters (FROG was short for Friendly Rambunctious Outdoor Girls), and took every opportunity to celebrate Canada’s great, vast landscape.

In the summer of 1993, before their last year of high school, the FROG Sisters got together to watch the movie Indian Summer, which is about a summer camp in Algonquin Park. Carrie and Kristi were so inspired that they decided to start their own canoe camp.

“We asked Martha if she wanted to join us, but she said, “I’d rather just paddle across the country,’” says Carrie. “That night, when we were just 17, ended up being pretty pivotal, because Kristi and I did start FROG Expeditions (two years later), and we ran it for four years. And Martha and I did paddle across the country.”

Martha (left) and Carrie on a sea kayaking trip to Mexico, 2005

Many Waters

The seed may have been planted in 1993, but the epic Many Waters trek across Canada’s lakes and rivers really took root in 1999, the year Carrie graduated from Lakehead University with an Honours Bachelor of Outdoor Recreation and a BA in Geography. She and Martha secured grants from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and attracted a slew of exceptional sponsors, including Bluewater Canoes, which donated a 17-foot yellow Kevlar canoe, and XY Paddle Company, which gave them their paddles.

The plan was to take two summers to cover 9,000km. They would start in The Pas, Manitoba in summer of 1999 and reach Saint John, New Brunswick by late autumn. Then in spring 2000, they’d paddle from The Pas to Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, completing their route between the Atlantic Ocean to the Arctic Ocean.

“But things never go according to plan,” says Carrie.

By the end of their first summer, they realized they’d have to extend their trip by a year. What was to have been a four-day stretch along Lake Superior, between Marathon and Wawa, Ontario, wound up taking 22 days, thanks to very rough waters. The paddlers were forced to skip a portion of their route between Wawa and Parry Sound, and still only got as far as Montreal, Quebec by October 14.

“(Throughout the trip), I’d been singing I’ll be Home for Christmas,” says Carrie, who had figured they’d actually be home long before then. “Martha and I started to find that not very funny when the snow started flying.”

The pair decided to pack it in, and add a third summer to cover the parts they’d missed that year—Wawa to Parry Sound, and Montreal to Saint John—after spending four months paddling from The Pas to Tuktoyaktuk in the summer of 2000.

Carrie sitting by Lake Superior during the Many Waters expedition, summer 1999

Weathering the storms

The choppy stretch along Lake Superior wasn’t the only obstacle nature presented. There were four-foot swells on Lake Winnipeg, ferocious thunderstorms, and even the tail end of a tornado in the Northwest Territories, about 80km outside of Fort Smith.

“It started with a wind that flattened a tent on us,” says Carrie. “We were on a sand bar island, so sand was blowing in the tent, and then came the hail and the rain and the lightening. The lightening was constant, and we were the highest point because we were on a sand bar. I remember reciting this scripture in my head, ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ Meanwhile Martha was reciting the steps of CPR, in case we were still alive after the storm hit. She was a little more pragmatic than I was.”

The storm did eventually blow over, leaving both women alive and well, except for one thing: they were without a canoe. “It was our mistake for not tying it down,” says Carrie. So there they were, stranded on an island in the Northwest Territories. They downed some chocolate bars and a couple Benadryl, then went to sleep.

In the morning, they called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for help, and were picked up by motorboat. When they still couldn’t find the canoe, their expedition took another detour. Carrie and Martha hitchhiked 700km to get a canoe that Carrie had left by the Mackenzie River on a trip two years prior, and then they hitchhiked 700km back with the canoe.

Surprisingly, Carrie says “people are actually more willing to pick you up when you’re hitchhiking with a canoe. They know you’re not up to mischief and they think you’re funny.”

After all that work, she and Martha returned only to find that their original yellow canoe had been discovered just 10km from where they’d lost it. Onward and northward.

Thinking outside the books

Between their second and third summers, Carrie and Martha spent four months touring with a slideshow of their trip, which they presented to about 8,000 youth in 150 schools across Canada. They tailored their presentations to each age group; for elementary school students, the focus was on Canada’s geography; for high schoolers, it was on achieving dreams. Across every grade level, the response was the same: amazing.

Upon completing the final leg of their journey in the summer of 2001, Carrie and Martha were recognized by the federal government for their remarkable achievement—both in paddling across Canada, and in spreading their knowledge with Canadian students.

Carrie says there’s a Many Waters book in the works, which will recount their stories and share their lessons. But she isn’t waiting to apply her lessons learned, either to her life or her teachings.

Putting the canoe to good use along the Keele River, NWT, 2008

Close encounters

When Carrie and Martha set out to paddle the country, they didn’t have a cause in mind. “Whenever people would ask about that, my dad would always say we were doing it be-cause,” says Carrie. “That was our cause. Because it’s out there and because you can.”

A large part of the appeal was simply in seeing the land they loved so much, and experiencing it at 5km/hour (what Carrie calls the “slow travel movement”). But a fundamental reason for the trip was that both women wanted to explore Canada through its peoples.

Throughout most of the trek, Carrie and Martha camped, but their tenting adventures were broken up now and then when they were “taken home by really hospitable Canadian people,” says Carrie. “We were invited into so many homes all across the country. You can be a tourist and visit places in Canada, but to paddle in and get invited into homes—and experience meeting people the way we did, and being embraced and taken care of—was jaw-dropping. The country is full of incredible people, and that’s everywhere, from Montreal to a small northern community… We had all kinds of wonderful experiences.”

Of the countless ways Carrie says the trip changed her, it’s those encounters with others that weigh in as the most significant. “Others” for Carrie includes not only strangers, but also animals, and even Martha, her closest friend since birth.

“Our moms were best friends,” says Carrie. “We played together in the [Parry Sound Pentecostal Tabernacle] church nursery, and alternated Sundays after church at each other’s houses, and it just kept going from there.”

Still, the trip required that the two friends meet one another continuously, dealing with the good and the bad.

“I think the biggest story of our canoe trip is that of friendship, because we are still friends,” says Carrie. “And it wasn’t always easy. But I think learning to be with another—with a friend, or a moose or wolves or people—in a way that actually works, has influenced a lot of my work with my students. It’s even in my PhD dissertation around encounter—how we meet the other and how we learn from that. I can see the roots of that in the expedition.”

A good education

Those roots are now fully formed, and have grown to yield many strong branches.

Carrie’s knowledge base draws on a formal education that includes an MSc in Experiential Education from Minnesota State University, Mankato (2004) and a PhD in the Philosophy of Education from the University of New Hampshire (2012). She’s also gained plenty of knowledge through her informal education, exploring Canada’s waterways both on her own and as a guide.

While teaching at Briercrest College from 2001 to 2006, she led students on a wide array of expeditions. One involved bringing an 800lb climbing wall on a canoe trip along the Mackenzie River, so that the group could offer a travelling summer camp of sorts to the First Nations communities they visited.

Carrie has been a frequent guide for Parry Sound’s Black Feather Wilderness Adventure Company, which she calls “one of the foremost guiding companies.” (As it happens, James Raffan also spent many summers guiding for them.) And she’s something of an expert when it comes to paddling the Mackenzie River, having been on its waters four times, including once to guide the author of the Trans Canada Trail Northwest Territories guidebook.

Fueling up along the Nahanni River, NWT, 2005

Having faith the size of a mustard seed…

All her experience in studying and practicing experiential learning comes together in Carrie’s current job. As Assistant Professor of Education at Ambrose University College in Calgary, Alberta, she teaches the ‘Society and Culture: Methodology and Practices’ stream of the school’s two-year Bachelor of Education program.

Part of what drew her to the position was the fact that, as a faith-based school, Ambrose enabled her to consider how one’s faith life influences one’s teaching life, and vice versa.

“We talk about teaching to the whole child,” says Carrie. “My students aren’t children—they’re 21 and older—but it matters to me to teach to the whole person, and I think a part of that is the spiritual side of ourselves. So at a faith-based school, whether it’s a Muslim school or a Christian school or what have you, part of the mandate is to address that part of the person, and I think that’s important.”

As a youngster, Carrie’s dream was to open a private Christian school, with an emphasis on outdoor education. Now, as a grown woman, she’s come to realize that she might be able to do more good as a professor. “In the position I’m in at Ambrose, I’m influencing tomorrow’s teachers,” she says. “I have 24 graduates a year, so 24 classrooms a year will be changed because of my work with those teachers.”

Just four months into her job at Ambrose, Carrie isn’t sure exactly what her long-range forecast will look like. But she’s certain that it will involve trying to continue to transform education.

Once in a lifetime

Carrie is equally certain of what it won’t involve: paddling across Canada again. “My husband [Jon Nolan] is so sad about that,” says Carrie. “He says, ‘Let’s just paddle across the country.’ But I tell him, ‘Honey, you missed that boat.’ Spending time outdoors and in canoes still means a lot to me, but (paddling across the country) was a full-on commitment for that time period… I’m so glad we did it, but you don’t do it twice.”

With her husband, Jon Nolan, on a trip to York Harbor, Maine, 2012

As Carrie reflects on that ‘once in a lifetime’ experience, and her many other adventures on our great nation’s lakes and rivers, she considers why Canada’s waterways are so very important.

“I think if you compared Canada to a human body, our waterways are our blood vessels,” she says. “What do our blood vessels do for the body? They get oxygen to the brain, they move good things in and bad things out. We couldn’t do what we do without that vital function in our bodies, and I think our waterways do that in some ways. I think they have very strong utilitarian value, just in terms of what we need water for—for our lives, for transportation, fishing industry, all those kind of things. There’s a huge utilitarian purpose.

“But there’s also a huge aesthetic purpose in that, really, it is what connects this country. Canada is what it is because of its waterways. That’s how our First Nations people got around, and why we see such a variety in the crafts that they made to do that. That’s how this country was opened up by fur trades. It’s our lifeline.”

Wonderfully, Carrie is here to help guide us to it.

*            *            *

To reach Carrie, you can email cnolan@ambrose.edu.

Photo: Green Bay Packers

There are a lot of football fans out there. I’m reminded of this every September, when people start changing their Facebook profile pictures to team logos (most frequently, from what I’ve seen, to the Green Bay Packers logo) and posting (or venting, or bragging) about scores, plays and calls.

It’s nice to know that one of football’s biggest fans is someone who’s spent the past 40 years living and breathing the sport. Gordon “Red” Batty—who in his youth had a fiery blaze of hair that inspired his colourful nickname—is the Packers’ head equipment manager. He’s been with the team since 1994, after having worked with the Houston Oilers (now the Tennessee Titans) and the Montreal Alouettes. And he still speaks about the game, and his team, with such reverence that you’d swear he was a kid in the stands raving about his favourite players.

The Packers’ Director – Football Operations, John Dorsey, recommend Red as a Kickass Canadian. After describing him as “truly amazing,” John elaborated: “You just have to meet him to know what I’m talking about. You will find such a genuinely compassionate, committed, driven, sincere and humble human being. One of the all-time best storytellers I’ve heard, and I know many. He has a passion and drive to make his mark on this Earth, with that special touch that only a few people have.”

I “met” Red a few weeks later over the phone, and John was instantly proven right; I did know exactly what he was talking about. As Red and I spoke, I found myself beaming on the other end of the line, fully aware of what a sweet deal I had. I got to hear firsthand accounts of some of the greatest players and moments in North American sports history, from a man who has an infectious enthusiasm and appreciation for it all.

As someone who has rarely followed professional sports, I felt a bit guilty that I was the one in such an enviable position (rather than, say, the friends with the Packers logos on their profiles). But at least I can share some of Red’s stories with you here. There are many. And they are great.

Getting to know Red

“Red has been around so many sporting events, and what’s great is that he shares all the stories. He’s got relationships with so many people in the sports industry that he’s a pleasure to be around and listen to. When you think of Red, you think of the passion that he has for sports and athletes. I think he loves every second of it, I think he appreciates the opportunities that he’s had to work with wonderful athletes and great organizations and share experiences with great people. He’s so energetic and passionate about everything he does. He’s a phone call away from doing whatever you need for a favour… He’s a great, great guy.” —Tony Granato, Assistant Coach, Pittsburgh Penguins

First, let me say that Red is indeed “truly amazing.” He’s friendly and gracious, humble and sincere. He eagerly offers to help out with any Kickass Canadians fundraising initiatives (as long as they don’t happen during football season). And he proudly talks about how he gives back to the Green Bay community, helping schools and parents outfit their kids with the proper football equipment.

“You have to be able to extend your experience and help out in the community,” says Red. “Young players are the future of the game, and the emphasis is on safety—now more than ever before.”

One of the most telling things about Red is that he always goes back to his roots. That plays out in many ways: his intense passion for hockey (rivaled only by his great love of football); his disbelief at how far he’s come; his drive to always keep learning and improving.

Red grew up in the Pointe Saint-Charles neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec. The fifth of seven children, he has five sisters and a younger brother. His father worked at a pharmaceutical company, his mother at the Hudson’s Bay Company, and both worked hard to make ends meet. The family lived paycheque to paycheque, and sometimes relied on welfare.

As a youngster, Red kept his focus on hockey, “because that’s a natural thing that all young Canadian boys do,” he says. “I played in the back parks, on the streets. We played ball hockey and ice hockey.”

Red adored the Montreal Canadians, and only really thought about football now and then when he ran into his neighbour, Bob Geary, who was the general manager of the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes. But one fateful night, Red unknowingly took a turn down a path that led to him spending a lot more time around his neighbour—and a lifetime around football.

TSN turning point

It all changed in 1973, when Red, his brother Greg and a few friends decided to hop the fence into the Autostade, which was then the home of the Alouettes.

“We were just a bunch of kids out in the neighbourhood causing a little mischief here and there,” says Red. But Bob caught them in the act and didn’t look lightly on their idle pastimes. Because he knew Red’s parents, he decided to lay down the law; though Red was only 13 years old at the time, Bob told him he’d have to work his way out of the trouble he’d caused.

Red started out cleaning the stadium gutters, but things began changing from the minute he got to work with the Alouettes. The team atmosphere provided structure, and there were new role models who took an interest in his growth.

In particular, Larry Smith, the former CFL commissioner and current Progressive Conservative Senator, and Peter Dalla Riva, a former tight end and now a CFL Hall of Famer, told Red he’d have to get his high school grades up if he wanted to keep working with the team.

Don Sweet, current kicking consultant for the B.C. Lions, and Wally Buono, current VP, Football Operations and General Manager of the Lions, were other Montreal players who kept a keen eye on Red, making sure he stayed in line. And trainer Dan Deibert, who passed away in 2004, had a great influence on him.

“Those were the guys that turned my life around, for sure,” says Red.

The results were plain to see. Red immediately stopped getting into mischief, and started doing better in school—academically and socially. He was offered the role of student council president in his final year, an honour had turned down because of his work schedule. The principal, though intimidating to other students, often stopped by Red’s locker for inside information on the Alouettes.

Red also learned about responsibility and giving back to others. After a tearful and reluctant request from his mother, he started handing over his paycheques to help cover the family bills.

The young man’s dedication paid off. Not long after graduating James Lyng High School in 1978, Red was made equipment manager for the Alouettes. But his quick and impressive climb, which began with his first step on that fence in 1973, did nothing to curb his appetite; if anything, it pushed Red to work even harder.

“I kept hustling and never gave up,” he says. “I always want to learn as much as I can.”

In the eight years Red spent with the Alouettes, the team went to the Grey Cup five times (1974, ’75, ’77, ’78 and ’79), winning the CFL title in ’74 and ’77.

All the way to NFL

The NFL came calling in 1981 in the form of Joe Galat. He’d left his job as the Alouettes’ defensive co-coordinator and taken a position on the Houston Oilers coaching staff. Remembering Red’s words when he’d left (“If anything opens up, I’m ready to go”), Joe put in the good word for him when the Oilers needed a new equipment manager.

Even today, Red marvels at his good fortune. He interviewed for the job, and soon, at the ripe young age of 22, Red found himself in Houston, working as equipment manager for the Oilers. Then, after 13 seasons with the team, he moved on up to the Green Bay Packers in 1994, where he’s stayed ever since.

“I still go to bed at night, or I drive down the highway, and I think about the things I’ve done,” says Red. “I mean this from the bottom of my heart: If it ended tomorrow, I would walk away with the biggest smile on my face. I can’t believe what I’m able to do. It is an amazing journey, no doubt about it, especially when you consider where I came from and what I had growing up.”

The Green Bay Packers

Red’s appreciation for his position is inspired by the fact that he works for such a unique organization. The Packers is the only non-profit, community-owned major league team in America. Founded in 1919, they’re the third-oldest franchise in the NFL, and have won more league championships than any other team (13), including Super Bowls I and II (’66 and ’67), as well as XXXI in ’96 and XLV in 2010).

When former Packers general manager Ron Wolf offered him the job of equipment manager back in ’94, Red asked his wife, Joanne, to think about it. The couple and their young daughter, Chelsei, would be uprooting from Houston to Wisconsin. But Red had no doubt that it was the right thing—the only thing—to do.

“I said, ‘We have to take this job. This kind of opportunity only comes once in a lifetime,’” recalls Red. “Joanne asked, ‘What do you mean?’ I told her, ‘It’s like working for the Montreal Canadians or the New York Yankees. It’s the Green Bay Packers. They’re a piece of American history.’”

Working the equipment

Red found his long-term home in Green Bay, and his time with the Packers has created a lifetime of memories. Among them: three Super Bowls, including two wins (1996 and 2010); and a second child with Joanne—their 16-year-old son Cameron, who plays on the defensive line for his high school team. Red’s children are also sharing in their father’s legacy with the Packers; Chelsei works at the Packers Hall of Fame at Lambeau Field, and, when he isn’t in school, Cameron works alongside his dad in the equipment room.

Cameron and Red in the Packers locker room; Photo: Green Bay Packers

On top of that, Red’s job has helped him build relationships with some of his counterparts in the NHL. He’s participated in a number of events with some of the best players in hockey, and often has NHL equipment managers as guests at NFL stadiums. This year, he’s already had staff from the Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks, Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues helping out.

“They work with me in the game,” says Red. “These are all hockey guys, and we share our jobs by working together.”

It’s no wonder Red attracts other heavy hitters from his field. He’s known widely as one of the best in the business. Red attributes his success to having good communication skills, being organized and being able to think ahead.

“You have to be able to speak to people from a range of backgrounds,” he says. “You have to be organized and you have to know your job, and you have to be able to anticipate what the players will need. In my position, everyone turns to me for the answer. In our profession, if you do something wrong, the whole country knows about it.”

When Red’s up to bat, that’s not a big concern. He knows how to get the job done. On a typical day, that job entails arriving at Lambeau Field at 7am and trying to get through the 10 items on his list. He juggles his “regular” daily duties with troubleshooting for any of the players who need special equipment, particularly those with injuries.

Two hours of each day during the season are spent at practise. It’s a responsibility that Red says is not only mandatory—because his department sets up the field and equipment for the workouts—but also essential.

“If you don’t go to practise, you don’t feel like part of the team,” says Red. “You want to stay connected.”

After practise, of course, comes the mountain of laundry the team generates, which Red oversees with his team of four full-time assistants and two season interns. There’s also the daily repair of equipment. And Red gives special attention to maintaining the locker room, which serves as the players’ home during the season, and is a point of particular pride for him.

Game days are when everything Red and his staff do throughout the week comes together.

“Everything the team is wearing—from the uniforms to jackets to gloves to helmets to shoes to the shoulder pads—I order every single piece of that equipment,” says Red. “And there are extra supplies that are needed. When I’m watching the game, I think to myself, ‘Wow, the Packers are out there and everything each player and staff member is wearing comes out of my office.’ That’s stressful. So you really have to do your preparation and do your research.”

On top of that pressure, there’s the emotional attachment to the players that he works with every day.

“You get involved with these guys because we’re all part of the team,” says Red. “You want to see them succeed, and if they struggle or have an injury, you feel for them. It works both ways. If the support staff is having a rough day, or I’m having a rough day because of the weather conditions, everybody’s around to support each other. It is truly a great big family.”

Super Bowl XXXI

That family passed a very big milestone on January 26, 1997. They won their first Super Bowl in 30 years, with a 35-21 victory over the New England Patriots. Red (among a few others) was ecstatic.

“This is the Super Bowl!” says Red. “Millions of people watch this game, and we won it. And my brother Greg and I—two Canadians from Pointe Saint-Charles, Montreal, Quebec—were put in charge of the Super Bowl trophy.”

Technically, Red was in charge, but he readily shared the experience with Greg, who followed in his big brother’s footsteps by working for the Alouettes, before going on to be equipment manager for the Ottawa Renegades. After Red finally tracked down the Lombardi Trophy, which had been passed from player to player following their big win, he put it in a very secure place.

“I stuck it in the trunk with the game jerseys,” says Red. “So you’ve got 46 sweaty jerseys from the Super Bowl—the Super Bowl!—and I stuck the trophy in there and locked the trunk, so nobody could get to it.”

Once the crowd thinned out, Red and his brother carefully washed the trophy with a steaming hot face cloth. “We shined it up like it was July 1^st,” says Red, revealing his deep-rooted ties to Canada. “We had tears in our eyes. We were so excited, we were happy as hell.”

With the trophy sparkling once again, Red eased it into a duffle bag and took it back to the hotel where the team was staying. He marched it up the escalator and into the ballroom, where the team was celebrating their Super Bowl victory. “I took the trophy out of the bag and I lifted it up like it was the Stanley Cup, and the room went crazy.”

Red took the trophy over to “the big bosses” (the team’s president, general manager and head coach) and proudly presented it to them. “Bob Harlan, the president of the Green Bay Packers (at the time), said to me, ‘Red, I want you to take care of this trophy the rest of the night, like you take care of the team, and I know it’ll be safe,’” says Red. “I said, ‘It will be my honour.’”

He took the trophy back to Green Bay the next day, where it spent two weeks in his care. Then, Bob Harlan bestowed another honour on him: he asked Red to escort all three of the team’s Lombardi Trophies—numbers I, II and XXXI—to Tiffany & Co. in New York to have the first two refinished and the new one engraved.

“I didn’t even know what Tiffany’s was, growing up,” says Red. “It’s an amazing journey, no doubt about it.”

Despite his pride in the team and its victories, Red hasn’t gathered any memorabilia for himself over the years. He has a small glass replica of the Super Bowl trophy above his fireplace at home, and that’s it.

“If you came to my house tonight, you wouldn’t even know I work in football,” he says. “When it’s over, I might regret not collecting anything. But right now, I live in it every day.”

Maybe Red doesn’t need any extra memorabilia because he has the most important trophies of all: two Super Bowl rings and two Grey Cup rings. He also has the memories and the stories he shares. Here are just a few more of his many, many tales from his unique and dazzling career.

On dressing the best at the NFL Players Rookie Premiere preseason event:

Every year since 1994, Red has served as the equipment coordinator for what is now called the NFL Players Association Rookie Premiere. He secures the equipment and jerseys for each rookie invitee’s trading-card photo shoot—the first time the new players will be dressed in their NFL uniforms.

“Go back 19 years, so take some of the current stars in today’s game—Peyton and Eli Manning, Adrian Peterson, even Aaron Rodgers, our star player. I’m proud to tell you I’m the first guy to dress them in a professional uniform. These are the cream of the crop, the top 35 guys going into the NFL each year, and I dress each one of them for the first time in their NFL uniforms. The top stars are in my hands for three days at this rookie premiere and I’m responsible for making sure everything runs on time. Those guys walk in there on Saturday morning and they put their uniform on, and it’s just like they’re in an NFL locker room. Their time has finally come. They’ve been drafted, and all of a sudden they get to put on the real uniform of their NFL team. I’m proud to say I’m the guy responsible for that.”

On partying with Team Canada Hockey after their 2002 Olympic win in Salt Lake City:

“I was in the stands like everybody else. I was just a fan. At the end of the night, after Team Canada won the gold medal, I was able to get into the championship party because of my trainer buddies. All the players are there, and I’m thinking, ‘This is unbelievable.’ And suddenly someone says ‘Shhhh!’ and Wayne Gretzky starts talking. I thought to myself, ‘This is a moment every Canadian wants to be part of, and I’m in the room, I’m there, I’m in it. I’m not reading about it or watching it on TV or listening to it on CBC Radio. I’m in it.’ I was able to be part of this major Canadian story.”

On working the Wayne Gretzky Fantasy Camp in Las Vegas:

In February 2012, Red stepped in for Edmonton Oilers equipment manager Barry Stafford, who was recovering from an illness and couldn’t make the event. Red arrived at the camp shortly after working the Pro Bowl in Hawaii. “Where does that happen in sports? Where do you go from working at the Pro Bowl with all these great players, and a week later, you’re with Wayne Gretzky and 10 of the world’s best hockey players?”

Red and Wayne Gretzky at the 2012 Fantasy Camp in Las Vegas, Nevada

On outfitting former Packers defensive end Reggie White:

(Football legend Reggie White was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006, two years after passing away in 2004 at the age of 43.)

“He was a phenomenal guy. He was a very strong Christian man, strong fellow in many ways, but most important of all, strongest in his faith. You didn’t have to actually see him in the building—you could feel him in the building, you could feel his presence. He was a battler, always physically drained at the end of a game. He would get to the locker room and he wouldn’t say a whole lot. And I’d say, ‘Reggie, are you alright?’ and he would say, ‘Go get the doc.’ And I would run over and get the doc and they would have their private talk. And I’d think, ‘Wow. 70,000 people just watched him play, and millions more on TV, and here I am taking his pads off.’”

On how a few Canadian treats helped lead Brett Favre to victory:

“The No. 1 treat that Brett always asked me about was those Canadian Jos. Louis cakes from Quebec. There’s also a store in Stratford, Ontario called Rhéo Thompson Candies that makes mint smoothies that Brett just loved. So I had a family friend bring me some of those smoothies, and I brought them to his locker for the 2007 Thanksgiving game in Detroit. Brett saw them and said, ‘You son of a gun, give me one of those.’ And once he had one, he had to have five, because he couldn’t eat just one. So he ate five, and then he came back after warm-up and had two more. So Brett ate seven of them before an NFL game! Then he went out there and played one of the greatest games he’s ever played.” (The Packers beat the Lions 37-26, with Brett passing for 381 yards and three touchdowns.)

Brett Favre and Red; Photo: Green Bay Packers

Play-by-play on a brilliant career

The stories could go on and on; Red’s mind packed full of incredible memories that he’ll eagerly share. Like meeting Gordie Howe and Mario Lemieux on the same night at the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs. Scrambling to put staples in the Alouettes cleats at the last minute, so the players wouldn’t slip on the icy fields during the 1977 Grey Cup. Calling the Packers up to pray over their revered “G” logo (a pre-game ritual) minutes before the Super Bowl. “I’ll never forget that,” he says. “That was the ultimate.”

For all his reverence for these legendary players and legendary moments, Red himself is the common thread holding a lot of them together. He’s played a key role in countless professional sporting events, and the best part is, he’s just getting started. There’s no doubt that the famous names that have walked through his life have stories of their own to share about Red, a humble equipment manager from Pointe Saint-Charles who has climbed to the top of his profession—grinning all the way.

We sold every copy of the limited edition photobook WIDE OPEN: A Canadian Perspective (now available as a free PDF download), and every silent auction item. Together, we raised more than $3,400 for CARE Canada (and counting—the online donation site is still up, for those of you who’d like to contribute).

Patricia Barr and her team at Wall Space Gallery generously opened their doors to us.

Kickass Canadians Tina Fedeski & Margaret Tobolowska, along with Louise Smith, played beautiful music.

From left: Margaret Tobolowska, Tina Fedeski and Louise Smith

Bridgehead kept us fortified with complimentary refreshments. And the rest took care of itself.

WIDE OPEN photographer Dever Villeneuve and guest

WIDE OPEN guests, including Brian Drury and young Kate Drury, husband and daughter of Kickass Canadian Julie Drury (not seen here)

WIDE OPEN photographer Caitlin Brookes and her husband, Scott

Kickass Canadian Cindy Teevens, with silent auction pottery donated by Kickass Canadian Kinya Ishikawa

Kickass Canadian Henry Smith and his fiancée, Sara

Art connoisseurs and ultimate Frisbee champions Kate Werry (left) and Danielle Fortin (Danielle will play for Team Canada at the 2013 World Games)

From left: WIDE OPEN photographers Amanda Large and Amanda Sage, Kickass Canadian Henry Smith and his fiancée, Sara

Thank you!!!

WIDE OPEN was a gathering of some of the best Canadians around. The group—which includes everyone involved in making the photobook and facilitating the event, to the wonderful guests who attended—consisted of so many generous, talented, creative people. It was inspiring to see them all come together.

For that, many thanks are owed:

To our primary sponsors, Andrew Morrisey, Broker, Re/Max Metro City Realty Ltd. and Brad Rollo, Owner, Bramel Developments Inc.

To Patricia, Tom, Ed and the rest of the Wall Space Gallery team, for not only hosting the event but also matting the 10 silent auction photo prints.

The 10 matted prints from WIDE OPEN: A Canadian Perspective

To the WIDE OPEN photographers:

• John Bagnell
• Dwayne Brown
• Caitlin Brookes
• Camille Dubois Crôteau
• Andrew Geddes
• Amanda Large
• Jim McIntyre
• Amanda Sage
• Dever Villeneuve
• Dominic Willsher

To Caitlin Brookes and Dever Villeneuve for volunteering throughout the event. Laura Nicol and Rosemary Tassie from CARE Canada, who helped plan the event from the start and who made sure everything ran smoothly. Dave O’Heare for setting up the sound system. The Kickass Canadians—those who attended the event and those who contributed quotes for WIDE OPEN. Tina, Louise and Margaret for lending their musical gifts. Megan Delaney and her Bridgehead staff for providing fresh coffee, tea and cookies. xquisit communications and The Printing House for being our signage sponsors. John Rapp, Lindsay Andrusek and Tafline Tong from Dovercourt Recreation Centre, for arranging to get us tables and chairs. And of course everyone who attended the event or contributed online.

Thank you also to our silent auction sponsors: Adobe, Continuum Fitness, gezellig, Kinya Ishikawa, Andrew King, Geneviève Laroche, Orienteers, Santosha Yoga, The Shoe Inn, Vitallife Integrative Medicine, Ben Wilson and Wonderpress.

WIDE OPEN: Kickass Canadian Photographs for CARE did KickassCanadians.ca proud. In one afternoon, it demonstrated just how caring we can be. Thank you!

In the 1970s, when Neil Collishaw started looking into the adverse affects of smoking, Canadians had no legislated protection from secondhand smoke. It took about 30 years of dedication, but since 2009, all Canadian municipalities have protected residents from smoke—at work and in enclosed public places. The thanks for this huge achievement go in no small part to Neil.

Currently Research Director at the non-profit group Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, Neil has built his illustrious career working with a range of departments and organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Bureau of Tobacco Control and Biometrics. He’s made huge contributions toward protecting Canadians—and, in fact, the world—from the harmful effects of tobacco. Highlights include playing a pivotal role in developing and implementing the Tobacco Act; being instrumental in launching the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC); and accompanying the late Heather Crowe on her cross-country campaign to protect Canadians from secondhand smoke in the workplace.

Neil’s achievements and ongoing efforts have earned him many fans, including me. But one of his greatest admirers is his eldest daughter, Rachel Collishaw, a history and social science teacher at Ottawa, Ontario’s Glebe Collegiate Institute (GCI) who was quick to nominate her father as a Kickass Canadian as soon as she caught wind of my website.

“I really feel that he has made a huge and largely unsung contribution to reducing smoking in Canada and around the world,” says Rachel. “I think he’s absolutely a Kickass Canadian.” (For the record, Neil is just as impressed by Rachel: “I’m very proud of my daughter. She’s co-written a textbook called Social Science: An Introduction, and she’s constantly excited about her ideas for teaching history and for teaching people how to think.”)

The man behind the machine

Neil’s professional work with smoking may not have begun until the 1970s, but his first lesson in the dangers associated with the addiction came about 20 years earlier, when he was a youngster growing up in London, Ontario. His father, Edward (Ted) Collishaw, who had been a radar technician for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), decided to quit smoking cold turkey and pass on some words of wisdom to his eldest child. They were simple and to the point: “I don’t think people should smoke.”

“Like many of his soldier colleagues in World War II, my father took up smoking,” says Neil. “I think about three quarters of them smoked. But I think my father was distinguished by being about the first guy to quit smoking when he learned about the health hazards.”

As Neil tells it, the first scientific publications that spoke out against smoking—and were taken seriously—came out in the early 1950s. When word reached Ted in 1954, he put his cigarettes away for good, and did his best to ensure that his son would never pick one up. It worked. “Just that one little talk from my father seemed to convince me,” says Neil. “I never tried smoking.”

Smoke in mirrors

Unfortunately, not everyone followed in the footsteps of Neil or his father. Today, six million Canadian adults smoke, and they represent only about 0.5% of smokers worldwide. This is in spite of the fact that smoking—both firsthand and secondhand—is a known or suspected cause of more than 50 diseases or conditions, most of which are incurable and/or fatal.

When I ask Neil why he thinks so many people continue to smoke, in the face of such disturbing facts, he has this to say: “Since the very earliest days of health information coming to light from the early 1950s, the tobacco industry has been systematically and deliberately throwing sand in the gears, in various ways. They’ve been creating scientific doubt (as to the truth of whether or not smoking is harmful), where none exists. And to this day, they fudge on questions about the health hazards of smoking.” He cites the ongoing joint Blais and Létourneau class action suit against “the big three” tobacco companies as an example. “Tobacco industry executives get up one after the other and give evasive responses when they’re handling questions regarding the health hazards of tobacco.”

This kind of doubt, which extends to include dubious journals and studies that use “dodgy science” and report skewed results in favour of the tobacco industry, serves to feed the toxic cycle of smoking. “If you’re already a smoker, or are thinking of smoking, any sort of doubt like that is going to give you comfort,” says Neil. Add to that the fact that cigarettes are highly addictive (and that tobacco companies “monkey the cigarettes to ensure continued addiction”), and you have a pretty dangerous formula.

Neil points out that both the matters of supply and demand (and the ongoing demand push) need to be addressed in order to arrive at a sustainable solution to banning smoking. He mentions the possibility of regulating the structure of the tobacco industry, so that profit-negating penalties would be implemented if they sold more cigarettes from one year to the next. But even if Canada were somehow able to suddenly shut down all tobacco companies, he says, “you haven’t done anything about the six million addicts. Even though they want to quit, they want to smoke, too… We already have a problem with illicit drug use, but of the illicit drugs we have, we have nowhere near anything like six million daily or near-daily users, which is what we’ve got with tobacco.

“So while we (at Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada) are all for diminishing tobacco supply, you have to think carefully about it—about how you’re going to diminish both supply and demand, more or less in unison. We haven’t even started doing that.”

Lighting a spark

In spite of Neil’s obvious passion for improving world health, he didn’t set out to be a champion for anti-smoking, or other healthcare issues. After graduating London Central Collegiate Institute (now London Central Secondary School) in 1964, he pursued natural sciences, and then switched to social sciences. He completed a bachelor’s degree in sociology at the University of Western Ontario in 1968, followed by a three-term Masters in Sociology from the same school. But his first job out of university promptly landed him in the fields of health and medicine; he was hired in 1969 to document the admissions process at the Association of Canadian Medical Colleges (now the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada – AFMC).

A go-getter from the start, Neil easily zipped through his daily tasks. So the association’s then-Executive Director, the late Dr. Wendell MacLeod, encouraged Neil to read various social medicine books, in between reviewing medical school applications. “I was blessed by the fact that Wendell MacLeod was the ED,” says Neil, who names Wendell as a posthumous Kickass Canadian for his outstanding life’s work, which includes helping to establish the Montreal Society for the Protection of the People’s Health in the 1930s, and organizing several people’s clinics during the 1962 doctors’ strike in Saskatchewan (which earned him the title of Red Dean, as he was Dean of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan at the time).

With Wendell’s encouragement, Neil unknowingly laid the groundwork for his career. The social medicine books were “very much in keeping with my own training in sociology, about how structures work and how social structures determine things—and of course they’re a big determinant of health,” he says. “So, sort of in my spare time working at the association, I became very familiar with what seemed to me an important branch of sociology: social medicine.”

Thinking long-term

When Neil finished up at AFMC in 1971, he and his wife of three years, Barbara Collishaw (née Varty), embarked on a year of adventures that included studying French at the Paris Sorbonne University, and having their first of four children (Kevin, born 1972). After returning to Canada, Neil spent a few years working at Statistics Canada in Ottawa, before moving in 1974 to the former Department of National Health and Welfare’s Long Range Health Planning branch.

“Long Range Health Planning was a small group of smart people,” says Neil. “We’d sit around and think great thoughts and write papers, and they really made a difference.”

One of the group’s main products, which was nearly complete by the time Neil arrived, was a policy document called A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians. It was presented to the House of Commons by then-Minister Marc Lalonde, and “it really changed the direction that the health department was taking, and put very strong emphasis on primary prevention,” says Neil. “The (social medicine) reading I’d done under Wendell MacLeod’s urging really came alive, because we were finally going to implement it.”

In the seven years Neil spent with the branch, he was involved with many papers and initiatives aimed at incorporating primary prevention to reduce death and disease, from things like alcohol abuse, lack of exercise and smoking. “We looked at all the risk factors,” says Neil. “At the time, people were used to analyzing health problems in terms of diseases; there’s this much cancer, this much heart disease, and so on. We turned the whole perspective on its head and looked at health problems in terms of risk factors. It seems normal now, but it certainly wasn’t normal in 1974.

“I think we were instrumental in making it normal that people think hard about smoking and alcohol use and exercise and diet. These were, and are, the major risk factors that Canadians face, and they interact with each other and they cause multiple diseases. And they’re the ones that, at least in theory, you’re able to change. So if you want to work on health improvement, you’re going to go after major risk factors.”

The writing on the wall

Ultimately, Long Range Health Planning was cut, along with “all of the long-range planning outfits,” in the early 1980s. But not before Neil developed a solid understanding that, of all the risks they’d analyzed at the branch, “smoking was far and away the biggest risk. It was then, and it still is now, by far the biggest risk that Canadians face, and indeed people all around the world. It’s the biggest killer, in Canada and globally.”

As Neil explains, although the “smoking epidemic” is on the decline in Canada, it’s still a major cause for concern. “Today, around 20% of Canadian adults smoke,” he says. “In the early 1960s, it was around 50%. So that sounds pretty good—until you look at the actual number of smokers, because of course the population has grown. In the 1960s, there were six million smokers. That number rose to seven million in the 1970s, and these days it’s at about six million again. So in 50 years, we’ve gone from six million to six million smokers. Our percentage is going down, but tobacco companies still get about as much money as they did 50 or 60 years ago.”

His point goes back to issues of tobacco supply and demand. So far, efforts toward reducing smoking have focused on reducing demand. But that’s an uphill battle when people are strong-armed into feeding their addiction by a hugely powerful industry that takes in around $400 billion in annual revenue. (Neil makes it clear that the profit-driven structure itself isn’t the inherent problem; but, he says, “if the purpose of your profit-making corporation is to deliver addictive poison that kills people, maybe that’s not so good.”)

Tobacco Act

With all this in mind, Neil left Long Range Health Planning with his well-founded belief in the dangers of smoking firmly formed, and moved to the department’s Bureau of Tobacco Control, and then on to its Environmental Health Directorate. As Chief, and then Head, of the Tobacco Products Unit, he was instrumental in preparing and defending legislation aimed at regulating the tobacco industry.

The law was adopted by parliament in 1988, and then immediately challenged by tobacco companies. In 1990, a Montreal court sided with the industry, but Neil again worked to help the government, this time in winning a reversal of the decision on appeal. In 1995, the decision was again reversed—in the Supreme Court of Canada and in favour of the tobacco companies.

The law was lost. But, says Neil, “it had been enforced for seven years, before the Supreme Court judgment. In that time, the world had really changed. The government couldn’t imagine going back to a state of having no tobacco regulation.”

The Tobacco Act was “quickly written up” and came into force in 1997, while Neil was working for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Not surprisingly, the tobacco industry challenged the new act as well. By the time the case went to court, Neil had returned to Canada and was again enlisted to help the legal team defend the Act. When it reached the Supreme Court in 2000, it was favoured nine to zero, and remains in force today.

A global perspective

While at WHO from 1991 to 1999, Neil accomplished a great deal in health promotion, and the prevention of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug use. Of his many achievements, he names one of the proudest to be setting the wheels in motion for the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, an international treaty on tobacco regulation. “In 1994, it wasn’t even on the radar screen,” says Neil. “Today, almost every country in the world is a member.”

Now, at Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada in Ottawa, he continues to be part of the Framework Convention Alliance, which is a global non-governmental coalition that’s involved as an official observer in tobacco treaty negotiations and management.

Heather Crowe

Neil’s work with Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada also includes a powerful contribution that yielded some of the most dramatic changes to smoking in our country—not only as far as new legislation, but also with regard to shifting public perception.

In 2002, Heather Crowe approached Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada. She announced that she was a lifelong non-smoker with lung cancer due to exposure to secondhand smoke in the workplace, and that she wanted to help protect other workers from the same fate. In response, the group made Heather their spokesperson for a national campaign in favour of controls on secondhand smoke.

Over the next couple years, while she received cancer treatment, Neil accompanied Heather across Canada. She travelled to nearly every province and territory in the country, speaking at city council meetings and talking with provincial representatives. “We just said, “Tell your story, Heather,’ and she would,” says Neil. “And her story was that she never smoked, but she worked her whole life in smoke-filled restaurants, and now she had lung cancer and she was going to die.”

Heather speaking at the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta., March 2003

That “disarmingly simple” story packed a pretty solid punch. As Neil says, nearly everywhere Heather went, legislation soon followed. When he started working with Heather, only about 5% of Canadians had legislated protection from secondhand smoke at work. By the time she died in 2006, it was around 80%; by 2009, it was 100%.

“That’s no easy task,” says Neil. “For that to happen, laws have to change in every province, every territory and the federal government. I credit Heather herself, and Heather’s story, for motivating people to make that change. We’ve had scientific evidence in favour of such a policy since 1981. But to get the body politic to move, scientific evidence is not enough; it’s probably never enough. It needs to be buttressed by real human stories.”

Toward a resolution

Heather’s contribution, along with the work of Neil and his colleagues, has had a huge impact on the health of Canadians. Over the past dozen years, the number of youth picking up smoking each year has dropped from roughly 560,000 to approximately 260,000. And although the tobacco companies are still raking in money from selling about the same amount of cigarettes that they did 50 years ago, the percentage of Canadian smokers has dropped significantly.

Still, the costs for the toxic addiction remain frighteningly high. Tobacco-related illnesses leave Canada’s healthcare system with a bill of about $17 billion annually, and result in six million deaths worldwide each year.

To remedy the problem, says Neil, “we need to start thinking big.” In his mind, that means setting a firm date by which tobacco will be phased out, and standing by it. He points out that other countries are already moving in that direction. For example, New Zealand’s parliamentary committee recommended that tobacco be phased out by 2025, and Finland passed a law in favour of abolishing tobacco (although no date has yet been named).

Neil acknowledges that getting rid of tobacco will involve a careful balance of demand control and supply control measures—the latter of which he feels has been sorely neglected. “It really is time to start intervening on the supply side of the tobacco equation, if we want to make some serious progress against the tobacco epidemic,” he says. But, at the end of the day, “where we really want to get is to a point where nobody wants to smoke anymore.”

Neil has his work cut out for him. Although Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada is delivering outstanding work, they still have to fight for funding. With the 2012 budget in March, the federal government announced that it was cutting Health Canada’s contribution program component of the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy (FTCS), which had been a primary source of funding for Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada (as well as for many other non-profit, tobacco-control community groups across the country).

“When the government announced the cut, they said, ‘Well, we’ve made such good progress on controlling tobacco, we don’t need to do this anymore; the problem’s solved,’” says Neil. “But, like I said, we’ve gone from six million smokers to six million smokers in 50 years. Doesn’t sound like it’s solved to me. So hundreds of groups that had been getting contribution money, including us, no longer get any support from the federal government because the government has a wrong-headed view of what’s going on.”

With so many obstacles to overcome, keeping up the fight against tobacco is a daunting prospect. But even after so many decades in the field, Neil is still clearly fired up about protecting Canadians’ health and making our country smoke-free. When I ask what drives him to keep pursuing his quest, his own answer is disarmingly simple: “Well, it’s not fixed yet.”

*            *            *

For the latest on Canada’s progress against tobacco, check out smoke-free.ca. To reach Neil, email ncollishaw@smoke-free.ca.

[Music—an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody and harmony.]

There’s much to love about music. It can change, delight, inspire, entertain and, if it speaks to you, even give you a voice.

But for Tina Fedeski and Margaret Tobolowska, co-founders of Ottawa, Ontario’s The Leading Note Foundation and its exceptional OrKidstra program, one of the most essential and powerful elements of music is its ability to create harmony. By bringing people together as musicians, it unites them in a way that creates a stronger group, and indeed a stronger community.

That community-building aspect is one of the reasons that El Sistema, the Venezuelan program on which OrKidstra is based, centres around music. The socio-political innovation was introduced in 1975 by José Antonio Abreu because he wanted to use music as a way to empower and unite the impoverished children of Venezuela. What began with 11 children playing in a basement garage has exploded into a deeply ingrained program, with more than 300,000 children across Venezuela coming together to study music six days a week. In the past 37 years, El Sistema has inspired many similar programs around the world; OrKidstra, which was founded in 2007, was the first El Sistema-based program established outside of South America.

There is much to say about Abreu’s initiative. In fact, it deserves an entire symphony written about it. But for now, I’ll direct you to el-sistema-film.com for more information on the revolutionary program, and ask you to focus your attention instead on a remarkable duet: Tina and Margaret, two gifted and inspiring women who have changed the tune of Ottawa’s community through OrKidstra—Tina as Executive Director, Margaret as Artistic Director.

The pair was first recommended to me by Kickass Canadian Emily Wilson, who studied the flute under Tina. Several months later, Louise Smith told me I absolutely had to profile the women. Louise is a passionate cellist with the Ottawa Chamber Orchestra (OCO) and the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra (OSO), whose home is regularly filled with live music (and laughter—often the result of dry British humour), and who passed on her artistic talents and generous spirit to her three sons. (Henry, her eldest, is one of my dearest friends and the reason I have the pleasure of knowing the Smith family.)

Louise is also one of OrKidstra’s cello teachers. Tina and Margaret brought her on board because, as Tina explains, “We were so impressed with her as a person. We have this saying that 80% of what a teacher imparts is who they are, rather than the actual pedagogy. That’s very much in line with the El Sistema philosophy; it’s important to choose teachers who are good people, who care, who have the right approach. We really felt that Louise was that type of person, as well as a fine player, and therefore an excellent fit for OrKidstra.”

OrKidstra

Maybe it’s time to properly introduce OrKidstra. The initiative is run by The Leading Note Foundation, which has a mandate “to give children from under-served communities the opportunity to learn and make music together, and the chance to benefit from the individual skills and community values that are inherent in music-making.”

OrKidstra takes place on weekdays after school, both onsite at The Bronson Centre and via satellite from York Street Public School, and is free to most participants (about 15% of the kids come from families who can afford to pay for lessons, so they’re asked to offer their support). Every year, approximately 200 youth aged five to 16 years take part in one of three OrKidstra programs: KiddlyWinks, a movement, song and percussion/recorder/xylophone program for five- to eight-year-olds; KidSingers, a choral program; and KidPlayers, the orchestral program itself. Some of the country’s finest musicians lead the various classes, with support from University of Ottawa music program students as well as mentors from the Ottawa Youth Orchestra (OYO).

“The mentorship program is really, really fundamental to the El Sistema philosophy and our own personal philosophy,” says Tina. “Abreu, the founder of El Sistema, says ‘The child who knows three notes can teach things to the child who only knows two.’ I always feel that we need to be teaching our children how to give back… When young players see somebody almost their own age playing at a very high level, they realize that they can do it, too.”

When OrKidstra started up five years ago, all its participants were beginners, which is why Tina and Margaret invited OYO players to serve as mentors. But now, after several years in the program, some of the senior OrKidstra participants will soon be in a position to become mentors themselves. “Five of our kids are actually auditioning for the OYO this fall,” says Tina. “So now, five years in, our older kids can come back and mentor the younger kids; we’re completing the inner circle.”

OrKidstra year-end concert, Ottawa, Ont., 2012

Building to a crescendo

There’s no question that OrKidstra is gaining momentum on all fronts. Thanks to Tina’s dedicated proposal writing, the organization regularly receives grants from the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF), the Community Foundation of Ottawa, the City of Ottawa and Telus. They’ve also had $115,000 worth of instruments donated to date and are starting to get “some serious corporate funding.”

OrKidstra musicians give many concerts throughout the year, including annual performances at Friends for Peace Day, and have attracted the attention of some pretty big music industry players. In 2011, Josh Groban chose OrKidstra as one of the first groups to receive a donation from his Find Your Light Foundation.

Margaret (far left) with Josh Groban (back centre) and 20 OrKidstra members who enjoyed free passes to the Josh Groban concert, Scotiabank Place, Ottawa, Ont., 2011

Tina and Margaret have both been called out for their outstanding contributions to the community. As Executive Director of The Leading Note Foundation, Tina received a 2011 Peace Award from Friends for Peace, and was named an Everyday Hero by Global National. She and Margaret shared a Leading Women, Building Communities award from the Ontario Women’s Directorate in 2012.

Tina (left) receiving her Peace Award from Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, Ottawa, Ont., 2011

It’s clear that, in launching OrKidstra, this unusual duo has done much more than bring music to hundreds of Ottawa youth who might not have otherwise had the opportunity. They’ve set an inspiring example of community, peace and harmony, and empowered participants to find their own voices.

Still, the opening notes in both Tina and Margaret’s stories always lead back to the music.

Silently the senses abandon their defences…

“When I was a kid, I wouldn’t talk about any of the things that were bothering me,” says Tina, who was born in Toronto, Ontario, and raised in Bedfordshire, England. “But you put the flute in my hands in an orchestra, and I felt like I was exposing myself. I felt so vulnerable in my expressions, but I couldn’t help but express myself. I don’t know what I would have done without that outlet.”

Tina found her outlet when she joined the Bedfordshire Youth Orchestra. As a child, she’d dabbled with the flute, recorder and piano. But after joining the formal orchestral program at age 12, she knew her passion lay in the flute. “It was really a life transforming experience for me, and that led to me wanting to take up music professionally because I’d sort of found my voice,” she says.

Margaret tells a similar story about the cello. She was also born in Toronto, and played the piano when she was a young girl. “I was never great at the piano,” she says, “but I absolutely loved the music that came out of it.” Like Tina, her deep connection to music was forged at about 12 years of age, when she attended Bloorlea Middle School and got involved in the “excellent music program” they offered at the time. “They showed us all the instruments. I’d never really heard the cello on its own before, but I heard a girl (at the school) playing it from far away and I was just so drawn to it… I found my voice through music.”

Utterly entranced, both Margaret and Tina made lifelong commitments to their instruments. Tina attended the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, then graduated in 1985 and played principal flute in the Spain Tenerife Symphony Orchestra until 1990. She returned to Canada for a six-month scholarship sabbatical at The Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta, but while visiting her sister in Ottawa, she fell in love with the city and decided to stay. (A few years later, she also fell in love with musician and engineer Gary McMillen, who went on to become her husband and co-founder of The Leading Note Foundation.) Tina made her home in the nation’s capital, working as a freelance teacher and a flautist for the likes of the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO).

Margaret, meanwhile, completed a Bachelor of Music Performance at the University of Toronto in 1992, and spent two years on scholarship at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia before joining the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) in 1994. Five years later, she accepted a position as cellist with the NACO, where she remained for 12 years.

Composing great new works

It was many years after Tina became acquainted with her flute, and Margaret with her cello, that another fateful pairing took place. In 2001, the women crossed paths as part of a trio at an Ottawa chamber music concert. Their friendship deepened in 2005, when Margaret wrote and produced an inspirational children’s CD called A Cello for Chelsea, which Tina carried at The Leading Note, the Elgin Street music store she and Gary opened in 1999. (Margaret has since released a second CD for children, called Zara the Maggini. Both recordings are available at The Leading Note and through CD Baby.)

But their friendship hit a high note in early 2007, when both women came across the El Sistema documentary Tocar Y Luchar (To Play and To Fight).

Tina and Gary, who watched the film together, had decided long ago that they’d wanted to do “something significant” for youth music in Ottawa. “We realized how music affected our lives, and we were also very acutely aware that it’s a very expensive pastime,” says Tina. “It’s really only available to people who can afford private lessons. We have never thought that that was quite right.” Seeing the documentary simply added fuel to the fire.

With the notes of a community-minded music program still ringing loudly in the couple’s ears, Margaret arrived at their store and delightedly announced that she’d also seen Tocar Y Luchar. “When I watched the DVD of El Sistema and its Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, and I saw what it has done to transform the children of Venezuela, my first thought was, ‘Oh my god—we’re neglecting our kids!’” says Margaret. “The results are compelling and you see how the children develop through music, and you just think it would be the answer, not for all kids, but for so many children. So when I saw the DVD, I thought, ‘Something has to happen.’ And I think Tina had the exact same feeling and we just had to make something happen.”

She did, and they did. Together with Gary, the women started OrKidstra from the ground up. These days, Gary is less involved with the program’s day-to-day operations, focusing instead on its behind-the-scenes mechanics (website, bookkeeping), as well as running The Leading Note and playing for the Ottawa Chamber Orchestra (OCO). But it’s clearly being carried by two pairs of very capable hands.

Tina combines her duties as the program’s Executive Director with freelance teaching and serving as coach for the wind section of the Ottawa Junior Youth Orchestra (OJYO). As OrKidstra’s Artistic Director, Margaret conducts its orchestra. She also teaches cello, through OrKidstra as well as at the National Capital Suzuki School of Music and Carleton University, because, she says, “I absolutely love teaching.”

Zomashax Sound Labs

As if she weren’t juggling enough acts, Margaret recently launched her production company, Zomashax Sound Labs, whose name is “every little bit of my family put together,” she says. “Zo” is for her 12-year-old daughter, Zofia, “ma” for herself, “sh” for her husband, Mehdi Shabnam, and “ax” for her 11-year-old son Max. She founded the company in 2011 after leaving her plum role with the NACO—which included performing with Pinchas Zukerman and his chamber music ensemble.

“Having a supportive family has just been incredible,” says Margaret. “When I said (to my husband), ‘I need to leave my job. I need to be free to be able to create my own things,’ he said, ‘Okay.’ You need that support to be able to do these things; you need the kids to be supportive.”

Her family’s encouragement—coupled with Margaret’s abilities as one of Canada’s greatest cellists—has led to wonderful things. Margaret just released her first Zomashax CD, Enchanten, which she describes as “music that can be appreciated by the whole adult world, not just kids. It’s a kind of new age cello instrumental album.” And, although the album is only a few weeks old, she already has plans for future CDs and compositions for films.

But that doesn’t mean she’ll ever give up on the dream she and Tina share for OrKidstra.

Tina (left) and Margaret speaking at the Symposium on Social Harmony Through Music Education, Ottawa, Ont., 2012

Conducting themselves with class

“My dream is to continue doing what we’re doing and offering it to more kids, but not at the expense of the quality—of the relationships that are happening and of the people who become involved in it,” says Margaret. “This is a grassroots initiative and it has to have the heart in it. As soon as you remove the heart from the program, it becomes a different program.”

Tina echoes those sentiments in perfect harmony. “We’ve got to build very slowly to maintain the program’s quality,” she says. “But ultimately, we want to be in a position to be able to offer the program to many, many more children. We are hoping to inspire the school board to put the KiddlyWinks program into the school day, and for our program to be the main afterschool program for kids who really want to take it further… Ideally, we’d like every child in Ottawa to have this opportunity, but that’s going to be a very long journey.”

It’s a journey well worth taking; the final destination is much greater than a series of lovely musical performances—although that certainly has great appeal. OrKidstra’s ultimate goal has never been to create virtuoso musicians; it’s always been to develop virtuoso people.

“(El Sistema founder) Abreu understands that we are much more effective when we are working together as groups,” says Tina. “When you’re playing together, you’re learning from each other, you’re being patient, you’re listening, you’re being respectful… You can create something bigger and more beautiful than your individual self… You realize that with all these skills and determination and hard work and commitment, you can get results. And it is made all the more clear when you’re playing music with other children, because you can see not only that you improve, but that the whole orchestra improves. Transferring that beyond the world of music, it becomes clear that each person plays a vital part in the success of a community.”

Nick Piper conducts OrKidstra members and the Simón Bolívar String Quartet at the closing performance of the Symposium on Social Harmony Through Music Education, Ottawa, Ont., 2012

As Margaret describes it, seeing such a transformation occur in the OrKidstra participants is one of her life’s greatest joys. “I’ve had wonderful musical experiences,” she says. “I’ve played great music with great musicians. But seeing that kind of inspiration (among the youth), and that realization that they’re part of a community—that really gets me… I can’t equate that to any experience I’ve had in the adult musical world.”

The women are quick to point out that OrKidstra also provides a valuable emotional and creative outlet for the children, as well as an opportunity to find their inner voices. But they can’t emphasize enough the value the program brings in giving hope to our youth.

“We have so many examples of things in the world that are not good,” says Margaret. “We’re inundated with all the things that are going wrong. But when you put all these kids together and show them what they’re capable of, you can actually show them some of the beautiful things about community. That we can care for one another, we can come together and work together and create beautiful things.”

*            *            *

For the latest on OrKidstra, please visit LeadingNoteFoundation.org and ‘Like’ the organization’s Facebook page. To contact Tina or Margaret, you can email tinafedeski@leadingnotefoundation.org or margaret@tobolowska.com. For more on Margaret’s creative pursuits, please visit tobolowska.com.