Go Nanaimo Blog

Live Tribute band The Neurotics

The Vancouver Island Symphony is hosting a fun on-stage event that will include ’60s-themed entertainment, food, and signature cocktails. Symphony Sizzle British Invasion will be held in the main floor ballroom of the Coast Bastion Inn, 11 Bastion Street, Nanaimo, at 5:45 pm on Friday, April 8, 2011. Live Tribute band The Neurotics will be there for dancing and sing alongs. Silent and live auctions featuring trips, experience, goods and services will be held. Live music, live entertainment, live fun. Come out and relive the Top Hits from the 1960’s. The golden oldies of the baby boomer generation. A blast from the past! For more information call the Vancouver Island Symphony at 250-754-0177. Admission is $150 per person with a $75 tax receipt available.

Alberni Outpost is presenting the sixth annual Reel Paddling Film Festival at the Vancouver Island University Theatre, 900 Fifth Street, Nanaimo, from 7 to 9 pm on Sunday, April 3, 2011. The Reel Paddling Film Festival is an international film tour presenting the world’s best whitewater, sea kayaking, canoeing, and kayak fishing action and lifestyle films of the year on screens in 100 cities across the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Europe.

With 34 inspiring paddling films short-listed for the world tour, including the ten festival category winners, audiences can expect to see stand-up paddle surfing, hairy whitewater action, sea kayakers exploring remote coastlines, headwaters canoe expeditions, international river travel films, motivating environmental documentaries, grueling kayak fishing battles, and hilarious short films capturing the lighter side of paddling life. Admission is $12.50 in advance or $16 at the door with half the proceeds going to the BC Marine Trail Network, an organization dedicated to building a human-powered water trail system along the coast of British Columbia.

UPDATE: Due to the ongoing strike at Vancouver Island University, the location of the Reel Paddling Film Festival has moved. The new venue is the Country Club Centre, 3200 North Island Hwy. Admission will be granted near the main rear entrance. For tickets and information call Alberni Outpost at 250-760-0044.

Dona Naylor with her work

The Nanaimo Art Gallery is presenting Explorations, a group exhibition by graduating Vancouver Island University students in their fourth year BA minor of visual arts. Explorations will be at the downtown Nanaimo Art Gallery, 150 Commercial Street, from March 30 to April 23, 2011. Everyone is welcome at the opening reception between 7 and 9 pm on Friday, April 1, 2011.

For many of these VIU students, this exhibition has been years in the making. Inspirations echoed in the artwork include the natural environment, photography, calligraphy, women’s sexuality, history, and philosophy. Some of the featured artists are Dona Naylor, Jolene Marston, Gail Beerman, Wendy Karpuik, Jessica Molcan, Angie Nielsen, Laura Feduk, Freya Kyrstein, and Jeanne Ironside. Explorations will inspire you with a wide array of artistic visions. By visiting the show, you’ll be supporting these students. Who knows you may find a piece you would like to take home!

British Columbia crooner Alan Moberg will perform at St. Andrew’s United Church, 315 Fitzwilliam Street, Nanaimo, at 7:30 pm on Saturday, March 26, 2011. Tickets are available in advance at West Coast Classic Floral, Lobelia’s Lair, Fascinating Rhythm, Tom Lee Music, St. Andrew’s United Church office, or at the door on the night of the concert for $20. Alan Moberg has been painting vivid pictures of the province he loves for four decades, and along the way he has released 16 albums and been inducted into the BC Country Music Hall of Fame for his western roots and country gospel music.

“When I was young” says Moberg, “I heard many songs about places in the US or back East, but very few songs about British Columbia. One of my missions has been to write these songs about BC and her people. Western roots is music that draws on all the aspects of life in the west – the coast and the fisherman, the country and the cowboys, the beauty of the land and the power of the sea, the dignity and warmth of the people.”

Alan Moberg’s concerts are rich and satifying, joyous and uplifting. He puts smiles in people’s hearts. He sings of traditional western themes like bravery, innocence, and survival. He has many songs about his admiration for the first peoples and the cross cultural friendships that exist in this beautiful land we share. Of course, a relationship with God often went hand in hand with survival living in the West, and Alan’s Amazing Grace or Whispering Hope could as easily be heard in the early days.

Howard White, publisher of Raincoast Chronicles says “Moberg does for BC’s interior ranchland and coastal rainforest what Ian Tyson and Stan Rogers did for the Great Lakes.” Like many of his heroes such as Johnny Cash, Alan Moberg has walked the long hard road of life and has known when to ask for a helping hand. As a result, good old fashioned country gospel music is part of his repertoire. His song This Could Be the Day has been sung in choirs from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Abbotsford, BC (where it was performed by the Mennonite Men’s Choir). Last summer Alan headlined the new Country Gospel Music Festival at Providence Farm in Duncan. He is also host of his own radio show, The Alan Moberg Show, which can be heard live on Wednesdays at noon on CFSI from Salt Spring Island.

This concert in its series of Catch the Spirit is a fundraiser for historic St. Andrew’s United Church which needs to raise $750,000 over the next three years, with half of that going for a very badly needed new roof to cover the 151-year-old structure. Allison Crowe and Gary Fjellgard have already performed here this fall and winter. “It looks beautiful and it sounds beautiful” says Crowe of the sanctuary. “The music resonates so well. It is an acoustic jewel.” Listed in the Historic Places of Canada registry, the church is used as much by the community as by the congregation.

Cookbook author and inspirational speaker Cory Parsons will be at Nanaimo’s Costco at 2 pm on Saturday, March 26, 2011, to sign copies of his book Cooking With Cory. Throughout his life, Cory Parsons has always had a keen sense of adventure, and a love for food and exotic cuisines. Born in Kitimat, Cory Parsons is now a Vancouver Island resident and calls Nanaimo home. On a fateful day several years ago, Cory suffered a severe diving injury which left him a quadriplegic at the age of 23. Thus began an intense emotional journey that only served to strengthen his already powerful personality. Cory is now an inspirational speaker to elementary school students and people with disabilities. He continues to pursue his love of cooking and lives his life to the fullest in his wheelchair.

With his first book, Cooking with Cory, Parsons shows you that even in the kitchen, the only limits are those you place on yourself. Filled with great recipes for entertaining, Cooking with Cory will inspire you to improve your skills and your confidence in the kitchen. Invite your friends over and impress them with dishes like crispy prosciutto and artichoke salad, coconut chicken in a basil curry sauce, and vanilla balsamic sundae.

Cory Parsons: “Each meal is another opportunity to experience something amazing. Food has the power to influence us on many levels, from the sensations of how something smells, looks, tastes, and feels. Sharing food is my favourite part of entertaining and always brings people together–and then back for seconds!”

At noon on Saturday, March 19, 2011, concerned Comox Valley residents will demonstrate their opposition to Canada’s annual east coast commercial seal hunt in downtown Courtenay. The demonstrators will gather at noon at the corner of Cliffe and the 17^th Street bridge to remind people to make their voices heard by writing or calling the offices of elected officials. They will be standing in solidarity with Canadians of conscience also protesting in Nanaimo on Saturday, and those in other British Columbia communities and across the country gathering throughout the month to demand an end to the imminent slaughter.

“We think the government should implement a one-time license buyout and retraining for sealers”, says Denman Island activist Fireweed, founder of Citizen Support for Marine Mammal Protection. “At least half of the sealers who shared their opinion in an Ipson Reid poll were in favour of a buyout, so instead of stalling the government should be helping now by investing in economic alternatives.”

“We want the federal government to stop wasting our tax dollars trying to overturn the European Union trade ban that has justly rejected Canadian seal products, and to stop trying to dump these products on China,” says regional wildlife advocate, Michael Nestor. “The writing is on the wall”, adds Nestor. “More than 40 Chinese organizations urged Canadian Fisheries Minister Gail Shea and sealing industry representatives to leave China during a visit to promote seal fur and other products to the Chinese people earlier this year.”

According to the Humane Society of the United States, the National People’s Congress (NPC) of the People’s Republic of China has accepted two legislative proposals to ban Canadian seal product imports to China. A press release states that the proposed resolutions are a blow to the Harper government’s insistence that China promises to be a lucrative market for Canadian seal products.

“The BC SPCA and Humane Societies across the country and around the world are opposed to the hunt on grounds that it is inherently inhumane,” says Fireweed. “Trying to kill a moving animal with either the blunt force of a hakapik or a gunshot out on the slippery ice floes is a recipe for horrific suffering that has been documented over and over again by seal hunt observers.”

Vancouver Island Fiddle Camp will be at Seven Springs Resort in Parksville, BC, from Thursday, March 24, to Saturday, March 27, 2011. There will be three days of fiddle, piano, guitar, mandolin, and vocal instruction for students aged six years to 60 plus. Levels range from total beginners to advanced fiddlers, including classical players with no experience in fiddle music. There is also an Instructors’ Showcase Concert open to the public featuring all of the fabulous and talented teachers. The concert is at 7 pm on Friday, March 25, at St. Mary’s Anglican Church, 2600 Powder Point Road, Nanoose Bay. Tickets are $20 and $10, available at the Nanaimo Conservatory of Music or at the door.

Fiddle music is largely taught by ear in a group setting, and it is often more ‘social’ than other forms of music because of the opportunity to participate in jam sessions with other students. The music is lively, energeticm and full of joy, and is truly timeless in that it connects players of all ages and backgrounds. This camp is an excellent opportunity to learn new tunes from some of Canada’s finest folk music instructors. The two “headliners” are Gordon Stobbe (Nova Scotia) and Trent Freeman. Gordon teaches at camps and workshops all across Canada, and is also a prolific recording artist and the publisher of the most popular line of fiddle instructional books in North America. Trent Freeman (originally from Comox) tours the USA regularly as a performer and has won many awards for his eclectic style of playing.

For more information on the Vancouver Island Fiddle Camp, call Trish Clair-Peck or Kathleen Darby at the Nanaimo Conversatory of Music at 250-754-4611. Fiddle Camp registration closes at 5 pm on March 17, 2011.