CONTENT

CANADIANS
TRUST
JAN/FEB 2019

MAKING FRIENDS, THE NHL IS

A MEMOIR NOT OKAY
PAGE 60 PAGE 52

SPECIAL REPORT:
SAVING SYRIA’S WHITE HELMETS
PAGE 94

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR FOCUS

PAGE 82

I SURVIVED A SHARK ATTACK!

PAGE 44

CAN YOUR HOUSE KILL YOU? ......................... 18

WHAT VETS WISH YOU KNEW ....................... 110
HEALTH NEWS YOU CAN USE.......................... 28
THE BEST IN BOOKS, MOVIES AND TV ............ 16
 Contents JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019

Cover Story Perspective

32 50 Ways to Protect 52 “Everything’s Not Okay”
Your Heart Like Nick Boyton has struggled with
Cardiologists Do injuries from his time in the
L I S A B E N DA L L NHL. By sharing his story, he
hopes to help current and
Department of Wit future hockey players.
42 Help Wanted F R O M T H E P L AY E R S ’ T R I B U N E
The search for a uniquely
qualified personal assistant. Heart
MARY CELLA 60 Won’t You Be My
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES Neighbour—and BFF?
After moving to the suburbs,
RD Classic I felt forlorn and friendless.
44 I Survived a Shark Attack! That’s when I spotted her, cool
PETER BREGG

An Australian spear fisherman and confident, taking out the

battles a dreaded great white. recycling. M E G A N M U R P H Y
R O D N E Y F OX F R O M R E A D E R ’ S
D I G E ST , A U G U S T 1 9 6 5 Health
66 How to Keep a Special
Diet Balanced
Tips for getting the nutrients
you need while avoiding meat,
dairy or gluten. J I L L B U C H N E R

P. | 94
ILLUSTRATION
BY JEFF KULAK

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 1

 Vol. 194
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
Human Interest
72 The Man Who Names Lakes
Des Kappel is in charge
of assigning monikers to
Manitoba’s land features—a job
that involves history, politics
and even the occasional
bruised ego. B I L L R E D E KO P
FROM THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Life Lesson
82 Pay Attention
Smart strategies for bringing
more focus to your daily life.
SARAH BARMAK
P. | 44
READER FAVOURITES
9 Finish This Sentence
13 Life’s Like That
24 Points to Ponder
51 Laughter, the Best Medicine
65 Rd.ca
2 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
| No. 1,156
Profile
86 The Hermit Priest
of Vancouver Island
At 95, Father Charles Brandt
has dedicated decades of his
life to protecting the natural
world. He’s not done yet.
B R I A N PAY TO N F R O M H A KA I
Editors’ Choice
94 Saving the White Helmets
Inside the daring international
operation to bring the
volunteers of the Syria Civil
Defense to safety.
S A L LY A R M S T R O N G
D O M I N I C B U G AT TO
80 As Kids See It
93 @ Work
112 That’s Outrageous!
120 Quotes
 Health
22 7 Surprising Ways Cold
Weather Helps Your Body
P. | 22 We think of winter as cold
and flu season, but the chilly
temperatures have powerful
biological upsides too. I S A D O R A
ART OF LIVING B A U M A N D J E N M CC A F F E R Y

Health
10 Learning to Share 26 Living With Lupus
Edmonton teacher Meheret How to manage when
Worku helps children in her your body attacks itself.
native Ethiopia stay in school. SAMANTHA RIDEOUT
TIM QUERENGESSER

Health
The RD Interview
30 What’s Wrong With Me?
14 Shaping a Better World A medical mystery resolved.
Designer Karim Rashid on L I S A B E N DA L L
objects that improve lives,
his best-selling trash can and
a hope for a more colourful
future. C O U R T N E Y S H E A GET SMART!

Culture 110 13 Things Your

16 RD Recommends Veterinarian Wishes
Our top picks in books, TV You Knew
and movies. DA N I E L L E G R O E N A N N A- K A I S A WA L K E R

Home 113 Brainteasers

18 Will Your House Kill You?
Some everyday items are more 115 Trivia Quiz
H AY D E N M AY N A R D

(or less) dangerous than you 116 Sudoku

think. E L E A N O R H I L D E B R A N DT
FROM POPULAR MECHANICS 117 Word Power

4 Editor’s Letter 6 Contributors 7 Letters

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 3

 Editor’s Letter
The Heart of the Story
WHEN MAKING DECISIONS related to my health, I like
to have as much information as possible. I come to
appointments prepared with questions for my doctor,
the most useful often being: “What would you do?”
For our cover story, writer Lisa Bendall asked 20 heart
specialists to tell us how they take care of themselves.
Their valuable suggestions can be found in “50 Ways to
Protect Your Heart Like Cardiologists Do” (page 32).
This edition also includes a unique Editors’ Choice,
created in partnership with The United Church
Observer, the oldest continuously published magazine
in North America. The Observer shares important val-
ues with Reader’s Digest: belief in the power of doing
good and in an individual’s ability to make a difference
in others’ lives. We’ve reprinted many of the magazine’s
stories over the years, but in a recent conversation with
editor and publisher Jocelyn Bell, we asked ourselves
how our two publications could combine efforts to
bring a meaningful story to our readers.
The result is “Saving the White Helmets” (page 94),
a gripping account of the rescue of Syria’s heroic vol-
unteer first responders. In August 2018, veteran Cana-
dian journalist Sally Armstrong and photographer
Peter Bregg travelled to Jordan and Israel to learn more
about the people and planning behind a secret interna-
tional operation that was, among other things, an inspiring
testament to the value of working together.
RO GE R A Z I Z

Send an email to
dominique@rd.ca

4 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

 Published by the Reader’s Digest Magazines Canada Limited, Montreal, Canada
Christopher Dornan Chairman of the Board
Dominique Ritter Editor-in-Chief
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VOL. 194, NO. 1,156 COPYRIGHT © 2018 BY READER’S DIGEST
MAGAZINES CANADA LIMITED. Reproduction in any manner in
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rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 5

 Contributors
PETER BREGG
(Photographer,
“Saving the White
Helmets,” page 94)
Home base:
Toronto. Previously published in
Maclean’s and Time. Today’s eco-
nomics in publishing make it very
difficult for journalists to travel
abroad to cover important stories
like this one. That said, it’s crucial
we send people to report at the
scene whenever possible—it’s only
by doing so that we can bring light
to the horrors of war and disaster.
SALLY ARMSTRONG
(Writer, “Saving the
White Helmets,”
page 94)
Home base:
Toronto. Previously published in
Maclean’s and The Toronto Star. Once
the world was aware the White
Helmets had been rescued, Canadians
deserved to know that this operation
was orchestrated, in part, by our own
diplomats and politicians. It was an
example of international cooperation
and decency at a time when President
Trump was standing for the opposite.
6 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
CÉCILE GARIÉPY
(Illustrator, “Won’t
You Be My Neigh-
bour—and BFF?”
page 60)
Home base: Montreal. Previously
published in The New York Times
and Esquire. The greatest length
I ever went to in order to make a
friend was in elementary school.
I started wearing the same top-of-
the-head ponytail as a classmate
because I thought it would make us
pals. I don’t think we ever spoke to
each other.
( B R E G G ) J O S H UA C A M E R O N ; ( A R M ST R O N G ) P E T E R B R E G G
TIM
QUERENGESSER
(Writer, “Learning
to Share,” page 10)
Home base:
Edmonton. Previously published
in Eighteen Bridges and CityLab. The
world has enough people talking
about what’s wrong. It needs people
doing something about it. Poverty is
endemic and can trap multiple gener-
ations if others don’t step in to help—
in a sustained way. I hope that anyone
reading this story will see that creating
change is a lifelong commitment.
 Letters
READERS COMMENT ON OUR RECENT ISSUES

LETTER
OF THE
MONTH

STAFF SUPPORT
Thank you for the article “To Nurse and Protect” in your
November 2018 issue. I’m a registered social worker and
psychotherapist and have worked in hospitals in the past.
I recently received training related to compassion fatigue
and vicarious trauma. As I read about Abida Dhukai’s experience
as a nurse in the ER, I couldn’t help but think she was
experiencing a high degree of the latter. It’s clear to me that
hospitals need to offer training to their staff on recognizing
signs of distress in themselves and how to address it. Had this
type of instruction been available, perhaps Dhukai would still
be working in that role. LINDA READE, Br ig hton, O nt.

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 7

READER’S DIGEST

A HAPPY HAUNTING NEW OUTLOOK

Ray Bradbury’s RD Classic, “Fright-
eningly Good” (October 2018),
evoked a deep sense of nostalgia
both for the 1920s, when the story
took place, and the 1970s, when it
was first published. Told through the
eyes of a child, this tale was full of joy
and innocence but also spoke to the
universal experience of processing
grief. I expected no less from a mas-
ter of the written craft like Bradbury!
It’s gems like these that keep my sub-
scription to Reader’s Digest active.
Thanks for bringing Halloween 1928
alive in my own mind!
DINESH S. PARAKH, Ni a g a ra Fa l l s , O n t .
I spoke only English until the age
of 15, when I discovered my French
heritage. I switched to speaking
French much more frequently but
kept up with my English by reading
books and magazines, including
Reader’s Digest. When I had kids, I
made sure they grew up bilingual.
I recently read the November 2018
issue and was pleased with many of
the changes I noticed. I look forward
to future issues.
DENIS FOURNIER, S o r m a ny , N. B .
Published letters are edited for length
and clarity.

WE WANT TO HEAR
FROM YOU!
Have some thoughts about one of our
magazine stories? Send us your letters!
Reader’s Digest wants to hear what you
think. In every issue, one of the notes
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Write to us at letters@rd.ca.
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Contribute Send us your funny jokes and anecdotes, and if we publish one in a print edition of Reader’s
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be reproduced in all print and electronic media. Receipt of your submission cannot be acknowledged.

8 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

 FINISH THIS SENTENCE

Life’s too short to…

…allow …sweat
others to the small
stuff.
dictate …hold a ALYN
who you are. WARRINGTON SR.,
KSHIVANI PATEL,
TORONTO
grudge. BRANTFORD, ONT.

PENNY PEREIRA,
NAPANEE, ONT.

...drink bad wine and eat bad chocolate.

DIANE GAUTHIER, HALIFAX

...lose touch
with family.
CHERYL ASHTON,
SIMCOE, ONT.

…procrastinate!
JAN LOGTENBERG, DUNGANNON, ONT.

 Visit the Reader’s Digest Canada Facebook page for your chance to finish the next sentence.

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 9

 ART of LIVING
Edmonton teacher Meheret Worku helps children
in her native Ethiopia stay in school
Learning to Share
BY T I M Q U E R E N G E S S E R
P H OTO G R A P H BY A M B E R B R AC K E N
! MELES WUDIMA* FLED from
his village near Addis Ababa to the
Ethiopian capital because he had
nowhere else to go. He was five
years old and both his parents were
dead. He’d headed to his aunt’s, but
she had seven children and couldn’t
take him in permanently. Soon
Wudima was participating in the
street economy, along with roughly
10,000 other orphaned kids in Addis.
To survive, he shined shoes, sold
peanuts and begged.
Then, when he was about nine,
Wudima met Meheret Worku.
A year earlier, in 1996, Worku had
flown from Edmonton to her home-
town of Addis to visit her mother for
10 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
the first time in well over a decade.
Accompanying Worku were her hus-
band, Scott Smillie (a social worker),
and their two children, Rebecca,
three and a half, and Rachael, 18
months. The family had come with the
intention of helping street-involved
children, but without a set plan.
It was one of Rebecca’s questions
that finally pushed Worku and Smil-
lie to act. “Why aren’t they wearing
any shoes?” she asked about kids in
the street. Worku had worked as a
school teacher in Ethiopia, so chil-
dren and education felt like natural
starting points. And after learning
*Name has been changed.
“We always knew we were
going to do something in
Ethiopia,” says Meheret
Worku, who co-founded
SEEDS with her husband,
Scott Smillie.
READER’S DIGEST
that the principal of the Misrak Del
elementary school was paying for an
orphaned student’s uniform and living
expenses, Worku thought, This is
who I’m going to join forces with.
Worku had left Ethiopia in 1981 on
a scholarship to Germany, but also
to escape Mengistu Haile Mariam’s
repressive regime. From Germany
she moved to Edmonton, finished
her bachelor of science degree at the
University of Alberta, began teach-
ing, met Smillie and started a family.
These opportunities were thanks
to her education—a gift from her
father, a general in the Ethiopian
army. Worku Gebre Maryiam had
used his relative affluence to pay
for his eight daughters and one son
to attend private school, wanting to
offer them what his own sisters—
many of whom were illiterate—never
got. Back then, Ethiopia’s school
enrolment was just 25 per cent.
Maryiam died shortly before
Worku left Ethiopia. His final wish,
she says, was for his children to
someday return to help their country.
All children can attend govern-
ment school in Ethiopia, but many
don’t. Uniforms, books and other
expenses are one barrier; poor health
or being forced into work are others.
Smillie and Worku decided to focus
on getting orphaned street-involved
children with caregivers to class. Kids
like Wudima: Worku met him on her
second trip, and he started receiving
12 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
supplies and food and was provided
with housing shortly thereafter.
As the years ticked by, Worku con-
tinued to take calls in the middle of
the night and travel back and forth
between Canada and Ethiopia to
ensure Wudima and dozens of others
got necessities. From Edmonton,
Smillie organized financial donations,
including partnerships with the Knox
Metropolitan United Church.
Twenty-two years on, the group
the couple created—the Sustainable
East Africa Education & Develop-
ment Society (SEEDS)—is independ-
ent and supports 260 students in
Addis and the village of Amanuel,
and supplies the schools with desks,
water tanks and the like.
Wudima has stayed in touch with
Worku. Now 29, he has a job as a
tour guide. “Some young people are
addicted to drugs or they become
pickpockets,” he says. “If you have
school, that’s a good advantage to
keep yourself from everything.” Of
Worku, he says, “She’s like my mother.”
It’s a fitting tribute for an organiza-
tion that stays the course. “We’re in it
for the long haul,” Smillie says. “We’ve
seen, based on those original kids, that
education is the way out of poverty.”
Worku has an even deeper connec-
tion to their work. Seeing Ethiopian
orphans thrive, she feels she’s done
right by her dad. “That’s the dream
of my father I’m seeing—right there
in my face.”
 Life’s Like That
TELL IT LIKE IT IS I HEARD MY HUSBAND SCREAM
“NOOOOOO!” from across the
house and ran to see if he was okay.
I discovered him watching that
video of the raccoon who tries to
“wash” his cotton candy and then
appears visibly upset when it dis-
solves in the water.
@THEOUTLI3R

JUST SAW AN ARTICLE about an

“easy at-home workout” you can do
in your living room with a kettlebell,
which sounds like a fun way to break
everything in my apartment.
RAINA DOURIS, ra d i o h o s t

They’re called werewolves.

HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES
@bizmichael
To save money, I suggested to one of
my grown sons that we all live toge-
WINNING STRATEGY
ther in one house. I could tell he
Everyone, everyone, hold up. I have an
didn’t think it would be cost-effective
idea. What if we all stand BACK from
when he asked, “Who’s going to pay
the luggage carousel and only step for-
for the therapist?”
ward if you actually see your bag?
VIRGINIA DAVIES
ANDREW CHANG, n e w s a n c h o r

I SAW A SIGN THAT SAID “falling

THINK ABOUT IT
rocks,” so I tried and it doesn’t.
“But you said you were 10 minutes
@ELLEOHHELL
away.”
First of all, I didn’t say where I was Send us your funny stories! They could
10 minutes away from. be worth $50. See page 8 or visit
@IMTHEEBROCK rd.ca/joke for more details.

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 13

THE RD INTERVIEW

Designer Karim Rashid on objects that improve

lives, his best-selling trash can and his hope for
a more colourful future

Shaping a Better
World
BY CO U R T N E Y S H E A
I L LU ST R AT I O N BY A I M É E VA N D R I M M E L E N

Your retrospective exhibit at the

Ottawa Art Gallery is called Cultural
Reshaping and you’ve said that the
role of a designer is to improve
the world. Can you expand on that?
Design is human-centric—it’s about
making our experiences better, more
functional, more seamless. People
make the mistake of thinking what
I do is superficial, but consider this:
when you get on an airplane, that
cockpit was conceived to be the most
efficient, most perfect interface.
Someone designed that. It’s amazing
how many objects we have produced
since the Industrial Revolution that
make our lives better, and our society
more democratic. All of us are living
a much better life than we were

14 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

before that time—not just the people
who can afford to.
When you look at your extensive
body of work—comprising over
4,000 creations—is there one that
best achieves that objective?
The Bobble. It’s a portable water bot-
tle with a built-in carbon filter that
creates drinkable water for people in
over 100 countries, and was important
in moving society ahead. It’s not the
answer to solving the world’s drinking
water problems, but it’s a step.
The Bobble is also a good example
of something that’s not just func-
tional, but also sleek and sexy.
How does beauty play into your
creative process?
So much has been designed by this
point that, if I sit down and start
sketching form for form’s sake, it’s
going to end up being derivative.
When it comes to designing an
object, as opposed to, say, a hotel,
I tend to focus on its function, the
user and the production method.
Inevitably I end up with a form that
isn’t what I would have intended.
You have designed everything from
luxury hotels and restaurants to
manhole covers and vacuum clean-
ers. Is there a common look?
I have used the term “sensual min-
imalism” to describe my work. I’m
doing things that are fairly reductive,
but also using shapes that are
organic and human, whereas most
minimalists tend to be obsessed
with hard angles.
Twenty-five years ago you designed
the iconic Garbo trash can, which
has gone on to sell over seven mil-
lion units. How does it feel to be
famous for something into which
people toss their garbage?
On the one hand, I’m proud of it. But
also, that was a long time ago. Back
then, design was starting to focus on
the banal—light switches, thermo-
stats. That stuff used to be so ugly and
the attitude was: why should a utilitar-
ian thing look good? And then Garbo
came along. I just hope when I die, I’m
not still best known for a garbage can.
You tweeted that you’ve lost out on
jobs because product developers are
afraid of colour. Why is that?
As the Internet shrinks the world,
and the world becomes more
money-driven, it becomes more sim-
ilar. A pizza place in Brooklyn looks
like one in Egypt and the trend is no
colour. In condos, it’s grey walls and
beige carpet. That’s what sells. When
I was growing up in Toronto in the
’60s, it was wild—a psychedelic
moment. Maybe that’ll come back
now that marijuana is legal.
Karim Rashid: Cultural Shaping runs until
Feb. 10 at the Ottawa Art Gallery.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 15
CULTURE

Our top picks in books, TV and movies

RD Recommends
BY DA N I E L L E G R O E N

1
UNSPEAKABLE
In the 1980s, blood inadequately
screened by the Red Cross infected at
least 2,000 Canadians with HIV and
another 30,000 with the hepatitis C virus.
It remains the country’s worst preventable medical
crisis—the subject of a two-year inquiry, a 1,200-page
federal report and a $1.2-billion class-action lawsuit.
Unspeakable, a new miniseries from the CBC, dramatizes the
human stories behind those mind-boggling numbers, with help from stars Sarah
Wayne Callies (The Walking Dead) and Shawn Doyle (House of Cards). Jan. 9.

DID YOU KNOW? Creator Robert C. Cooper isn’t just professionally

invested in this story: he was born with hemophilia and contracted
hepatitis C three decades ago from tainted blood.
( U N S P E A KA B L E ) CO U R T E SY O F C B C

BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF

2 Marlon James
The winner of the Man Booker Prize for A Brief History of
Seven Killings trades Jamaican politics for swords and sor-
cery in this kickoff to a trilogy he describes as “an African
Game of Thrones.” The title characters, mercenaries both,
have been tapped by a slave trader to find a missing boy.
With his cast of shape-shifters, witches, vampires and
trickster monkeys, Marlon James leans hard into a fantasy
world made even richer by his outstanding writing. Feb. 5.

16 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

 THE FALCONER
3 Dana Czapnik
This delightful coming-of-age story set in Manhattan
centres on 17-year-old Lucy Adler, a basketball ace in
love with Percy, her rich best friend and fellow hoops
player. Debut novelist Dana Czapnik nails Lucy’s bur-
geoning awareness of class and gender and excels at
believable details (like Lucy’s trick of tussling with Percy
on the basketball court just so she can feel the weight of
his chest on her back). Jan. 29.

THE HEIRESSES REPRODUCTION

4 Two wealthy women navigate the
fault lines in their 30-year relationship after
one is jailed on fraud charges and the other
is tempted into the arms of a younger woman.
Everyone is a novice in this Paraguayan film—
it is writer-director Marcelo Martinessi’s debut
( T H E H E I R E S S E S ) T H U N D E R B I R D R E L E AS I N G ; ( W I L L I A M S ) PAU L J O S E P H
5 Ian Williams
A Vancouver-based poet, Ian
Williams stretches his legs
in this novel about absent
fathers and makeshift fam-
ilies. Reproduction is a mas-

and the first time stage actors Ana Brun and
Margarita Irun have appeared on screen—but
you’d never guess that from the assured and
poignant work on display. Jan. 18.
ter class in dialogue, as the
author gets in the head of a
14-year-old Black boy with
a gift for haircuts, a 16-year-
old white girl with a secret
and a middle-aged Portu-
guese divorcee. Jan. 22.
 HOME

Some everyday items

are more (or less)
dangerous than you think

Will Your
House
Kill You?
BY E L E A N O R H I L D E B R A N DT
FROM POPULAR MECHANICS
I L LU ST R AT I O N S BY I ST VA N B A N YA I

Electrical Outlets Will It Kill You? It might. A jolt from

The Fear: If you stick a fork or a bobby
pin in a socket, you’ll be electrocuted.
The Reality: If you stick something in
a socket, you could get a nasty shock.
The left slot is connected to the neu-
tral wire, the right is connected to the
hot one, and the electricity flows
from hot to neutral. Sticking some-
thing into either slot will disrupt the
flow and send it into you.
a standard 120-volt outlet could trig-
ger cardiac arrest.
Toasters
The Fear: Fishing a slice of bread
out of a toaster with silverware will
electrocute you.
The Reality: While chances of elec-
trocution are slim, it’s still a bad idea
to stick anything besides bread into

18 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

a toaster, according to the National
Fire Protection Association. Even if
you unplug the appliance, you could
damage the heating element, which
could shock you or start a fire the
next time you make toast.
Will It Kill You? The odds are pretty
remote. You largely risk a shock or
perhaps a burn.

Small Appliances Around Water

The Fear: If you plug in an appliance
while your hands are wet, moisture
will transfer the current from the
plug to you.
The Reality: Since water conducts
electricity extremely well and elec-
tric currents flow where there is the
least resistance, they will usually go
through that water—and into you—
if the opportunity presents itself.
Your body is more likely to resist
electrical current if your skin is dry.
Will It Kill You? It could. If your
hands are wet when you plug in your
iron, you might get just a shock. But
if you do it straight out of the shower
when your whole body is wet, then
yes, you could die from a fatal shock
to your heart.
Silica Gel Packets
The Fear: The gel packs in product
packaging all say “Do not eat,” so
they must be deadly.
The Reality: The American Associa-
tion of Poison Control Centers docu-
mented 33,705 incidents of people
eating silica in 2010, nearly 90 per
cent of them involving children
under six. But none died from poi-
soning, because silica is chemically
inert and nontoxic. The real danger
is from choking on the packets.
Will It Kill You? No, but keep the
packets away from young children.
Microwave Ovens
The Fear: Microwaves emit radiation
that causes cancer.
The Reality: There are two types
of radiation. Ionizing radiation, the
kind that’s emitted after a nuclear
explosion, is the bad stuff. Microwave
ovens emit non-ionizing radiation,
a less dangerous kind, and at a low
level. Microwaves operate at about

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 19

READER’S DIGEST

three gigahertz, which

is fairly low on the electro-
magnetic spectrum.
Will It Kill You? No. Go
ahead and hover while you
wait for that Hot Pocket.

Cellphones
The Fear: Radiation from
your mobile phone will cause
brain cancer.
The Reality: The good news
is that cellphones, like micro-
wave ovens, give off non-
ionizing radiation—the safer
kind. Your phone emits about two The Reality: Bisphenol A (BPA), a
gigahertz of radiation per second, chemical found in hard clear-plastic
less than a microwave oven. But a takeout and food-storage containers,
few studies have shown an increased does leach into your food when
risk of brain cancer with heavy cell- microwaved. Although studies have
phone use. linked it with asthma, diabetes, car-
Will It Kill You? Probably not. But diovascular disease and reproductive
research is ongoing. problems, among others, Health
Canada maintains that the amount
Plastic Food Containers of BPA in everyday plastics is safe.
The Fear: Microwaves pull chemicals Will It Kill You? No. But best to
out of plastic and allow your food to use a non-plastic (glass or ceramic)
absorb them. dish labelled “microwave safe.”

POPULAR MECHANICS (JULY 30, 2017). © 2017 BY POPULAR MECHANICS, POPULARMECHANICS.COM

TIME TRAVEL

Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today.

It is already tomorrow in Australia.
CHARLES M. SCHULZ

20 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

HEALTH

7 Surprising
Ways Cold
Weather Helps
Your Body
BY I S AD OR A BA U M A N D JE N Mc C AF FE R Y
ILL U ST R A T I O N BY HAY D EN MAY NAR D

BOOSTS YOUR BRAIN it when it’s warm in order to keep its

Colder temperatures can help you
think more clearly. A 2017 study from
Stanford University found that people
perform some cognitive tasks, such
as making decisions and staying calm,
with more control when the thermo-
stat drops—essentially, they become
less impulsive. Research has also
shown that people are less inclined
to tackle complex tasks in the summer
than in the winter—and for good rea-
son. The brain requires glucose to
function, but the body uses more of
temperature down, leaving less fuel
for reasoning and recall.
BURNS CALORIES
When it’s cold, your body works
harder to maintain your core temper-
ature, which is typically about 37 C.
“Our bodies use a considerable
amount of energy to keep us warm
and to humidify the air we breathe
when we’re out in the cold,” explains
Stacy Tucker, a registered nurse and
co-founder of Almeda Labs in Kansas

22 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

City, Mo. So lace up your boots: A
2017 American study of 53 people
showed that participants burned 34
per cent more calories while hiking
when the temperature hovered
between -5 C and -10 C, than they
did while hiking on 10 C days.
FIGHTS DIABETES
Exposure to mild cold weather can
help diabetic people by activating
their “brown fat”—tissue used to pro-
duce heat. This, in turn, helps absorb
excess glucose in the blood. “Repeated
cold exposure will lead to improved
insulin sensitivity, even for people
who aren’t diabetic,” says Denis
Blondin, a researcher at the Centre
Hospitalier Universitaire de Sher-
brooke in Quebec. A 2017 study from
the University of Toronto showed that
pregnant women exposed to cold out-
door air temperatures were less likely
to develop gestational diabetes than
those in warmer climates.
ALLEVIATES ALLERGIES
“Some allergies can decrease in the
winter—those triggered by tree, grass
and weed pollen, for example—as
there’s less pollination in colder
temperatures,” says Angel Waldron,
a spokesperson for the Asthma and
Allergy Foundation of America.
“However, if a person is allergic to
mould, their allergies can worsen
in cold temperatures since there is
more of it.”
ENCOURAGES BETTER SLEEP
Your body’s core temperature drops
when you’re trying to sleep. This pro-
cess can take up to two hours in the
summer, but it’s much faster in win-
ter, says Tucker. Plus, with darker
mornings, you naturally sleep later.
HELPS PREVENT INFECTIONS
Yes, you might fall victim to more
viruses during the winter. However,
studies have shown that the immune
system can be activated by more frigid
temperatures, which enhances our
ability to stave off infections, explains
Tucker. That said, the flu thrives in
cold, dry air. Plus, time spent indoors,
among others who are infected, can
increase your chance of catching an
illness. To reduce that risk, get your
annual flu shot, wash your hands
frequently and get outside.
STRENGTHENS YOUR HEART
In cold weather, the heart works
harder during periods of physical
exertion to pump blood and main-
tain the body’s temperature. That’s
a good thing. “Exercising outdoors
in the winter makes heart muscles
stronger,” says Tucker. Once you
warm up, you may be able to go far-
ther than when it’s hot outside. But
if you’re at risk for heart disease, be
careful when exercising outdoors in
the cold. It can raise blood pressure,
and decrease oxygen to the brain,
putting stress on your heart.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 23
 Points to Ponder
BY C H R I ST I N A PA L A S S I O

P H OTO : ( B R A N D) JA S O N C H OW/ R A N D O M H O U S E C A N A DA . Q U OT E S : (G A R D N E R ) S E P T. 24, 2 018 ; ( D U TC H E R ) C B C N E WS

The Internet has turned into some- It wasn’t malicious, but you’d hear,
thing that is kind of a combination “What are your chances?” There

( S E P T. 18, 2018); ( B R A N D) S E P T. 13, 2018; (C R O N E N B E R G ) N AT I O N A L P O ST ( S E P T. 4, 2 018 ); ( I G I N L A ) 2018 .

of a shopping mall and a panopticon. aren’t any Black players in the NHL.
We wish that it was being used to
make ordinary people’s lives better, Fo r m e r N H L e r JAROME IGINLA
but that’s not how it’s played out. on the challenges he faced as an
up-and-comer, to Sportsnet

Canadian journalist and author

SUE GARDNER, in The Globe and Mail
Canada, you are in the midst of an
Indigenous renaissance. Are you
ready to hear the truths that need
to be told? Are you ready to see the
things that need to be seen?
Every person has an emotional
response to love ending and it’s not
always negative, it’s not always cry-
ing. [There’s] relief, exuberance,
devastation—these are all the things
you can experience with a relation-
ship ending.

JEREMY DUTCHER, a r t i s t a n d P h o t o g ra p h e r CAITLIN

c o m p o s e r f r o m t h e To b i q u e Fi r s t Na t i o n , CRONENBERG, co-author of The Endings, which
after winning the Polaris Music Prize explores the conclusion of relationships

Poetry is
pressure on
the page,
on space,
on time.
P o e t DIONNE BRAND, in Quill and Quire

24 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca


P H OTO : ( T R U D E AU ) A L P H A P H OTO/A L A M Y STO C K P H OTO. Q U OT E S : ( D I M A L I N E ) J U N E 2 0, 2 01 8; ( R OZ E M A ) S E P T. 6 , 2 018 ;
( F I E L D I N G ) A P R I L 16, 2015; ( L I T T L E ) C B C N E WS ( S E P T. 18, 2018); ( N U R S E ) 2 01 8; ( T R U D E AU ) M AY 31, 2018.
The best thing was hearing from Indig-
enous youth and Two-Spirited people
saying that it was a hopeful, empower-
ing book. Certainly, there are difficult
parts, but this is history. All I did was
move it into the future so people could
understand that we all have a part to
play in making sure what happened
in the past doesn’t happen again.
CHERIE DIMALINE discussing her book
The Marrow Thieves, in Quill and Quire
Now, suddenly, I know what it feels
like to be among the in crowd. I go
into a meeting, and before I have said
a word, people want to like me. Not,
Okay, what woman-y thing is she
going to want to do? I feel this wish
to embrace, which is thrilling!
Fi l m d i r e c t o r PATRICIA ROZEMA, in
The Globe and Mail
He had a lot to teach
me. Perhaps I was more
of a daughter than a
wife. He was more of a
priest than a husband.
He was abstracted
from real life.
MARGARET TRUDEAU on her relationship
with Pierre Elliott Trudeau, in Zoomer
If I can help one girl decide she wants
to play basketball and learn the life
skills that I’ve learned from it, I feel
like my job is done.
B a s k e t b a l l p h e n o m KIA NURSE,
to Sportsnet
What do you say when you’re going to
be on something that monumental?
S t . Jo h n’s n a t i v e CASSIDY LITTLE on
his new role as a character on Coronation Street
We live in this society now where
literally someone is always watch-
ing. You know that if you do some-
thing in public, there is going to
be someone, somewhere, taking
a video of it.
N o v e l i s t JOY FIELDING,
in Zoomer
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 25
HEALTH
How to manage when
your body attacks itself
Living With Lupus
BY SA M A N T H A R I D E O U T
! LATIN FOR “WOLF,” lupus
allegedly takes its name from skin
lesions that once reminded people
of wolf bites. It’s a systemic autoim-
mune disease: “systemic” because it
can affect any or all of the body and
“autoimmune” because it’s caused
by an overzealous immune system
targeting normal, healthy tissues.
Lupus’s widely varied effects
depend upon the immune system’s
targets. One of its most distinctive
indicators is a butterfly-shaped rash
that covers the cheeks and the bridge
of the nose, but this happens in only
about a third of sufferers. Other signs
can include disc-shaped skin lesions,
sores in the mouth or nose, fever,
fatigue, arthritis, muscle pain, short-
ness of breath and dry eyes. Most
26 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
people see their symptoms come
and go in periods of active disease
(“flares”) and remissions.
A predisposition for lupus runs in
families, although it often seems to
take external factors to bring on the
disease and set off flares. These trig-
gers range from ultraviolet rays to
stress to infections (such as shingles
or the common cold) to certain pre-
scriptions (like sulpha antibiotics).
Some cases, known as “drug-induced
I STO C K .CO M / M I C H E L L E G I B S O N
lupus,” clear up once you stop the
medication. Most other cases must be
managed over a lifetime. For reasons
that may involve hormones and sex
chromosomes, women are affected
nine times more often than men.
If you’ve been diagnosed with
lupus, try to lower your exposure
to your triggers. When flares do arise, That said, drugs can bring adverse
drugs such as NSAIDs and corticoste- effects of their own—digestive prob-
roids can control them, which is para- lems from long-term NSAID use,
mount for preventing inflammation osteoporosis from steroids—so your
caused by the immune rheumatologist will
system from perma- need to tailor a regi-
nently scarring organs men with a good
Up to
such as your kidneys, protection-to-harm

25%
lungs or heart. “Active ratio. They should
lupus is like the winds also schedule regular
of a tropical storm,” checkups so that any
says Dr. David Isen- complications that do
berg, the senior of new lupus cases arise can be treated
author of the lupus- promptly. Lupus
show up in seniors.
management guide- needs to be taken
lines published by the seriously, but with
British Society for Rheumatology. regular monitoring, adherence to
“We need to calm them quickly to your prescriptions, emotional sup-
minimize the chances they’ll cause port and a healthy lifestyle, the odds
damage that can’t easily be undone.” of surviving it are in your favour.

TEST YOUR MEDICAL IQ

Relative fat mass (RFM) is...

A. when obesity runs in a family for C. the proportion of a food’s mass
genetic reasons. that consists of fat.
B. a method for monitoring changes D. an equation for estimating body-
in body weight. fat percentage.

Answer: D. Relative fat mass is a new way of estimating the percentage

of your body that is made up of fat. Based on the ratio between your
height and the circumference of your waist, RFM has been shown to be
more accurate than body mass index (BMI) for making this estimation
and ascribing the right obesity category.

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 27

 NEWS FROM THE

World of Medicine
BY SA M A N T H A R I D E O U T

Alcohol Impairment May of viruses in half of the samples they

Persist Into Hangover
Having alcohol in your system ham-
pers your ability to think straight. But
even after it’s left your bloodstream,
your mental performance might
remain subpar for a while, according
to a review of 19 studies. The authors,
from the University of Bath in Eng-
land, collected evidence that concen-
tration, reaction times, memory and
driving ability continue to be poorer
the day after a heavy drinking ses-
sion. Hangovers involve fatigue and
changes to levels of hormones and
cytokines (molecules that help regu-
late immune responses), any of
which might explain these effects.
Airport Security
a Germ Hotspot
A group of Finnish and
British scientists took a
trip to Helsinki Airport to
see how many respiratory
viruses (flu, for example)
they could find on vari-
took from the trays in the security
area. Noting that these trays are han-
dled by nearly all embarking passen-
gers and that they aren’t routinely
disinfected at every airport, they
recommended using hand sanitizer
before and after passing through.
Veggies Lower Breast-
Cancer Risk
In two large observational studies
analyzed by Harvard health scien-
tists, eating 5.5 or more servings of
fruit and veggies each day was asso-
ciated with an 11 per cent reduced
likelihood of getting breast cancer,
compared to 2.5 servings or less.
The effect was even more
pronounced for aggres-
sive forms of breast can-
cer such as ER-negative
and HER2-enriched
tumours. Cruciferous
vegetables (such as broc-
coli, cauliflower and
kale) and orange/
T H E VO O R H E S

ous surfaces. While yellow ones (carrots,

they found no sign of squash) appeared
these germs in the toi- to pack the greatest
lets, there were traces preventive punch.

28 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

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HEALTH
What’s Wrong
With Me?
BY L IS A B EN DA LL
I LL U ST R A T I O N BY V ICT OR WO NG
THE PATIENT: Kelly*, a nine-year-
old girl
THE SYMPTOMS: Uncontrollable
muscle contractions
THE DOCTOR: Dr. Mary King, pediat-
ric neurologist at Temple Street
Children’s University Hospital in
Dublin, Ireland
! KELLY WAS A BRIGHT, busy
toddler. But in 2011, when one of the
then 18-month-old’s feet began to
turn inwards, her parents became
alarmed enough to consult a doctor,
especially as the condition slowly
spread. Over the next couple of years,
both Kelly’s legs twisted painfully
and she needed support to walk.
When the muscle contractions
spread to her hands, they tightened
into fists and she could no longer
pick up her toys or hold a spoon.
*Biographical details have been changed.
30 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
Throughout that time, specialists in
England, where the family lived, had
few answers. They told Kelly’s parents
she had dystonia, which meant her
muscles were continually going into
spasms, but they couldn’t pinpoint the
cause. Repeated brain scans, lumbar
punctures, blood tests, urine tests and
genetic tests all came back normal,
and yet Kelly was clearly getting worse.
Progressive dystonia is practically
unheard of in a healthy child. It can
be caused by a physical abnormality
in the part of the brain that controls
movements, but the tests ruled that
out. Meanwhile, drugs that often
help dystonia symptoms, such as
levodopa and baclofen, did nothing;
all Kelly’s medical team could do was
treat her discomfort with painkillers
and muscle relaxants.
By age four, Kelly’s condition had
spread to her neck and facial muscles,
and she could no longer speak.
 Dr. Mary King works with Irish DBS isn’t typically tried with chil-
patients who have very rare genetic dren, but it was Kelly’s best chance
diseases. Since Kelly has Irish herit- for recovery. King immediately called
age and was coming to Dublin to visit Kelly’s doctors in England—and was
relatives, King was consulted on the shocked to learn the young patient
case. She decided to analyze the was in the hospital’s intensive care
child’s genome as part of a Genomics unit in a state of constant severe
Medicine Ireland project she was muscle contractions. She was being
involved in, which aims to get insights fed through a tube in her stomach
for better treatments by studying peo- and using a ventilator to breathe.
ple’s genetic material. King enrolled “Her parents were desperate, won-
Kelly and had her blood drawn. dering if she was going to survive,”
An analysis was says King. Without a
ready within a few moment to lose, the
months. It was King’s British team put her
colleague who spotted Kelly was in the into surgery for DBS.
the anomaly in Kelly’s hospital in a In the days following
profile—she had a the procedure, the
mutation in a gene state of constant change in Kelly was
known as KMT2B. severe muscle dramatic. “Within a
“When I looked at it, I couple of weeks, she
knew that was probably
contractions. was out of bed, sitting
the answer,” says King. up,” says King. The posi-
The mutation, which is tive progress continued
not inherited, had been identified as Kelly’s brain cells formed recon-
by other researchers less than a year nections and she gradually regained
earlier, and had been shown to cause her ability to move. In November of
progressive dystonia. 2017, Kelly said her first word in four
Even better news for Kelly was that years: “Mama.”
a number of patients with the same Today, Kelly can eat and ride a tri-
mutation had responded well to cycle. The nine-year-old has regular
deep brain stimulation (DBS). In this physiotherapy and it may take up to
surgical procedure, electrodes are two years to see the maximum bene-
implanted into the brain to stimulate fits of DBS, but her doctors hope
neurons that aren’t firing normally. she’ll have few, if any, symptoms by
“It’s like a pacemaker. It’s almost a then. There’s no question the high-
rebooting of the neuro surface of the tech surgery has rescued the future
brain,” King explains. of this lively little girl.

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 31

COVER STORY

50 WAYS
TO
PROTECT
YOUR
HEART
LIKE CARDIOLOGISTS DO
BY L I SA B E N DA L L
I L LU ST R AT I O N S BY J E F F KU L A K

32 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

READER’S DIGEST
CARDIOLOGISTS HAVE
HEALTHY DIETS
I SHOP FOR LOCAL FOOD.
1  “Local fruits and vegetables are
fresher and have fewer preservatives.
They also taste better, so you’re more
likely to eat them and get more of the
nutrients—dietary fibre and vitamins
C and A—that have been proven
necessary for cardiovascular wellness.”
Dr. Andrea Lavoie,
Regina Cardiology Associates
I EAT RAW VEGGIES
2
  WHILE MAKING DINNER.
“It gets me part of my daily require-
ment. While preparing dinner is when
you’re hungry. An apple for dessert,
when you’re full, doesn’t really work.”
Dr. Alex MacLean, Queen Elizabeth
Hospital, Charlottetown
I READ LABELS.
3
  “There’s a lot of sugar in our food,
including virtually every cereal. Same
with granola bars for kids—you might
as well give them candy bars. We have
an epidemic of type 2 diabetes directly
related to the level of obesity in the
population. More fat tissue requires
more insulin, and at some point your
pancreas cannot secrete enough of it
to compensate for the elevated blood
glucose. That’s when diabetes devel-
ops. Diabetics have a higher incidence
of hypertension, high cholesterol and
kidney disease, all of which accelerate
hardening of arteries.”
Dr. David Bewick, New Brunswick
Heart Centre, Saint John, N.B.
I TRACK CALORIES.
4
  “I was a bit overweight a few years
ago. I used a smartphone app to track
all my calories, which taught me what I
was doing to myself. You wouldn’t real-
ize that a small cookie has 400 calories!
My patients say to me, ‘I don’t eat
much.’ But it’s not the amount that mat-
ters. It’s what’s inside.”
Dr. Imad Nadra, Royal Jubilee
Hospital, Victoria
I FOLLOW A
5
  MEDITERRANEAN-STYLE DIET.
“I enjoy lots of fish, we only use olive
oil for our cooking, and I have a hand-
ful of nuts for snacking.”
Dr. Jiao Yang, Live Well
Exercise Clinic, Surrey, B.C.
 I AVOID SATURATED FATS. bake them. You can add whatever sea-
6
  “Saturated fat, like that in desserts
and red meat, accumulates as plaque
sonings you want, like garlic and cay-
enne pepper.”
in the arteries, which is a cause of heart Dr. Catherine Kells, Halifax Infirmary
attacks and stroke. I use healthy oils,
like grapeseed, which is higher in poly- I STAY AWAY FROM
unsaturated fats.”
Dr. Amin Aminbakhsh, Royal Columbian
1 0 FRIED FOODS.
“Recycled cooking oil converts into
Hospital, New Westminster, B.C. trans fat, which is a heart-clogging fat.”
Dr. Anmol Kapoor, Advanced Cardiology
I EAT COMPLEX
7
  CARBOHYDRATES.
“I try to make meals that include whole
Consultants and Diagnostics Inc., Calgary

I DON’T KEEP UNHEALTHY

wheat, hummus, quinoa, seven-grain
rice, black beans or kidney beans. Com-
1  1 FOOD IN THE HOUSE.
“I avoid bringing home junk food
plex carbs are absorbed more slowly in from the grocery store. If it’s around,
the small intestine and don’t cause sig- I’ll probably eat it. If I’m out for din-
nificant fluctuations in glucose levels.” ner I may indulge as a treat, but not on
Dr. David Bewick a daily basis.”
Dr. Christopher Labos, Co-host of the
I STICK TO LOW-FAT DAIRY.
8
  “This provides calcium, vitamin D
and protein with no or minimal satur-
Body of Evidence podcast, Montreal

I DON’T SKIP BREAKFAST.

ated fat. In large population studies,
low-fat dairy has been associated
with optimal weight maintenance and
reduced cardiovascular disease. I eat
Greek yogourt, always plain, and have
skim milk, mainly in lattes. At bedtime,
I have hot skim milk with a teaspoon
of Ovaltine, which helps me sleep!”
Dr. Sharon Mulvagh, Maritime Heart
Centre Women’s Heart Health Clinic, Halifax
I GET MY FRIES FIX IN A
9
  HEALTHIER WAY.
“I cut potatoes, toss them into a bag
with olive oil, salt and pepper, and
1 2 “If you don’t start the day off
with breakfast and you get hungry,
you may have unhealthy snacks or a
bigger lunch.”
Dr. Colin Yeung, Saskatchewan
Health Authority, Regina
I AVOID HIGH-SALT
1 3 PRODUCTS.
“In Canada, our bodies don’t need a
lot of salt, because we don’t sweat a lot
here. So we have to watch how much
of it we’re consuming, especially if we
have borderline high blood pressure.
Salt causes fluid retention and raises

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 35

READER’S DIGEST
blood pressure, which increases the
risk of cardiovascular disease.”
Dr. Haissam Haddad, Head of Medicine,
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon
I CONTROL MY
1 4 RED MEAT INTAKE.
“I choose lean cuts of red meat, and I
don’t eat a lot of any of it. If I’m having
a steak, I’ll only eat four or five ounces.”
Dr. Catherine Kells
I SHUN PROCESSED FOOD.
1 5 “Processed red meats and sand-
wich meats are high in salt, so they’re a
cardiovascular risk. Cooking a chicken
and eating sandwiches made with it
tastes the same. Processed sauces have
a lot of hidden sodium, too.”
Dr. Alex MacLean
I MAKE HOMEMADE
1  6 ENERGY SNACKS.
“I don’t like the sugary, packaged
energy snacks, so I make balls out of
granola and nut butter with fruit stuffed
inside. I stash these in my lab coat, my
commuter backpack, my office and the
fridge in the lunch room, so there’s
never an excuse for me to have an
unhealthy snack.”
Dr. Helen Bishop, Maritime Heart Centre
Women’s Heart Health Clinic, Halifax
I NEVER BUY FRUIT JUICES.
1 7 “Juice from fruit is high in sugar.
And when we make juice, the fibre—
which is the good stuff—is thrown
36 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
away. Soluble fibre helps to keep the
heart healthy, particularly by acting like
a sponge that absorbs LDL—the ‘bad’
cholesterol—and then moves it out of
the body.” Dr. Anmol Kapoor
1 8 I AVOID
TRANS-FATTY ACIDS.
“Even though I love potato chips,
they’re deadly. I tell patients, if your
fingers look shiny or feel slippery
after eating something, that means it
is trans fatty or has saturated fats.”
Dr. David Bewick
I TOOK A NUTRITION
1 9 COURSE.
“Some doctors in my hospital actually
joined the same cardiac nutrition
classes that the patients took. We did it
with our spouses. It was fun and we got
some useful tips; one is to stock your
workplace fridge with healthy snacks
from home instead of going to the cof-
fee shop and buying a muffin.”
Dr. Catherine Kells
THEY EXERCISE
EVERY DAY
I RUN AS OFTEN AS I CAN.
2
 0 “Physical activity reduces
blood pressure and increases the health
of the cells that line the blood vessels.
It also lowers bad cholesterol and is one
of the only interventions that increases
good cholesterol. I usually like to run in
the morning and see the sun rise. When
it’s very cold or icy, I use a treadmill.”
Dr. Paula Harvey, Women’s College
Hospital Cardiovascular Research
Program, Toronto
days are quite unpredictable and busy,
and I’m often too exhausted in the
evening to even think about exercise.”
Dr. Sayeh Zielke, Author,
One Heart, Five Habits, Lethbridge, Alta.

I WEAR A FITNESS
2
 1 TRACKER.
“I aim for over 10,000 steps a day, which
burns 500 calories, and 12 hours of
standing. When I’m travelling for work
and will be sitting in meetings all day,
I visit the exercise room.”
Dr. Sharon Mulvagh

I TRY TO GET IN
2
 2 MORE STEPS.
“I take stairs instead of the elevator,
or I park a little farther away from
where I’m going and walk. When I’m
doing rounds, I don’t sit; I stay on my
feet. When you’re sedentary, there’s a
greater chance of developing risk fac-
tors for cardiovascular disease.” I GOT A DOG.
Dr. Colin Yeung 2
 5 “Walking him gives me extra
steps! He gets me out in the morning
I HIRED A PERSONAL and evening.”
2
 3 TRAINER.
“He pushes me to do more than I would
Dr. Anmol Kapoor

I MAKE BEING ACTIVE

do otherwise. He also helps me try new
exercises and keeps it fresh.”
Dr. John Vyselaar, North Shore Heart
Function Clinic, North Vancouver, B.C.
I EXERCISE FIRST THING
2
 4 IN THE MORNING.
“It’s a good way to start the day, and it
helps me focus once I get to work. My
2
 6 AS EASY AS POSSIBLE.
“A simple walk, preferably a brisk one,
is good for the heart. Or you can set up
a stationary bicycle or treadmill in front
of the TV. The less onerous the activity,
the more likely you are to do it.”
Dr. Michael Froeschl, Director, Adult
Cardiology Postgraduate Training
Programs, University of Ottawa

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 37

READER’S DIGEST
I OFTEN EXERCISE
2
 7 IN SHORT BURSTS.
“I tell my patients, if you don’t have the
time to do continuous moderate exer-
cise, just try getting 10 minutes here
and there. Try to do at least 150 min-
utes a week this way; it’s shown to pre-
vent heart disease.” Dr. Colin Yeung
I DRINK WATER.
2
 8 “Beginning a workout dehy-
drated will mean you start with an
elevated resting heart rate. The exer-
cise doesn’t go as well, and the mus-
cles don’t feel good, either. That said,
it’s also important to avoid overhydra-
tion, which can be dangerous, as well,
due to a shift in sodium levels.”
Dr. Helen Bishop
I BIKE TO WORK.
2
 9 “My office is about four kilome-
tres away, so it’s far enough to get my
heart rate up. It’s a great way to incor-
porate exercise into your day, because
you have to go to work. I treated myself
to a nice bicycle.” Dr. Imad Nadra
I FIND PEOPLE TO
3
 0 MOTIVATE ME.
“I’ve always tried to stay active, but
I’m not a person who loves exercise.
I used to take group classes. These
days, I do things with family and friends,
like skiing, hiking and dog walking.
I’ll even do activities I don’t particu-
larly enjoy, like running, if it’s with
other people!” Dr. Catherine Kells
38 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
THEY OPTIMIZE
THEIR LIFESTYLES
I DISTANCE MYSELF
3
 1 FROM TOXIC PEOPLE.
“Negative discussions make your heart
rate and blood pressure go up, and the
stress causes a greater secretion of hor-
mones—cortisol, norepinephrine and
adrenalin—that damage your cardio-
vascular system. When you’re happy,
your vessels relax, so it’s good to be
around positive people as much as
possible.” Dr. Haissam Haddad
I MEDITATE.
3
 2 “As a doctor, you’re pulled in a
lot of different directions, and it’s easy
to get overwhelmed. I find that doing
even 10 minutes of guided meditation
in the morning helps to calm the mind.”
Dr. John Vyselaar
I READ TO UNWIND.
3
 3 “I started reading biographies
of famous people. It brings me a dif-
ferent perspective, and it’s quite inter-
esting to read about those who have
made an impression on the world. I
find that relaxing.” Dr. David Bewick
I HIT THE LINKS.
3
 4 “Stress is a silent killer. I find
golfing is a good treatment for it
because you forget about everything
except your game, no matter what level
you’re at. And I walk when I play.”
Dr. Haissam Haddad
 I LOOK FOR HUMOUR.
3
 5 “I work around a lot of funny
people. In fact, one of my surgeons
happens to be a stand-up comedian!
(I’m more of a straight man.) Laughter
improves overall heart health because
it lowers stress and improves blood
flow by dilating the vessels.”
Dr. Peter Fong, New Brunswick
Heart Centre, Saint John, N.B.
I SPEND TIME IN
3
 6 THE WOODS.
“My husband and I have property on
the Niagara Escarpment. It’s our sanc-
tuary. There, we connect with nature
and get away from pollution, which
has been shown to have adverse effects
on the health of the cells along our
blood vessels. In fact, the World
Health Organization has shown that
even small green spaces in cities are
good for cardiovascular health and
reduced mortality.” Dr. Paula Harvey
I GET A FULL
3
 7 NIGHT’S SLEEP.
“There appears to be a higher inflam-
matory state caused if you don’t get
enough reparative sleep. Between six
and eight hours seems to be the
sweet spot in terms of cutting down on
that problem and repairing oxidative
stress—the disturbance in our balance
of free radicals and antioxidants.”
Dr. Andrea Lavoie
I PRACTISE
3
 8 SLEEP HYGIENE.
“I don’t have a television in my bed-
room and never keep my phone there,
either. I don’t drink caffeine at night
and I minimize alcohol. To wind down,
I’ll step out onto the back deck with an
herbal tea and look at the stars for a
few minutes. And always, I read a book
before I sleep.” Dr. Paula Harvey
I GO HIKING.
3
 9 “Instead of sitting around with
our electronics, my kids and I go for a
hike together. Recent studies show that
you have improved mood and overall
wellness when you spend more time
in an oxygen-rich environment.”
Dr. Andrea Lavoie
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 39
READER’S DIGEST
I STAY IN THE MOMENT.
4
 0 “I realized that sometimes I
was with my wife and kids but my
mind was on work. Not paying atten-
tion to the family at important times
can create stressful situations, which
increases the risk of cardiovascular
events. Leave work behind sometimes
and focus on family and friends.”
Dr. Laurent Macle,
Montreal Heart Institute
I MONITOR MY MOOD.
4
 1 “Depression and anxiety have
a huge impact on cardiovascular
wellness—they can cause constricted
blood vessels and an elevated heart
rate, among other things. Any time
we can improve our mental health, it
has a counter-effect on our cardio-
vascular risk.” Dr. Andrea Lavoie
I DON’T SMOKE.
4
 2 “A Swedish study of over 20,000
men looked at five low-risk health fac-
tors, including not smoking, regular
exercise and healthy diet. Accomplish-
ing all of them led to a relative 86 per
cent lower risk of heart attack. Another
study found that the behaviours that
decreased the likelihood of coronary
heart disease the most were regular
exercise and quitting smoking.”
Dr. Colin Yeung
I LIMIT MY DRINKING.
4
 3 “There’s evidence that alco-
hol, in moderation, can be beneficial
40 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
to the heart. But if you have too much,
it can be harmful. When a patient
comes in with atrial defibrillation, we
always screen for alcohol overuse. If
it turns out they consume more than
what is recommended in Canada’s
Low-Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines,
I suggest they cut back. I personally
enjoy a drink with supper, but I don’t
have more than that.”
Dr. Colin Yeung
I HELP OTHERS.
4
 4 “When you help someone,
you can see the appreciation in their
eyes. It’s a huge de-stressor. When
someone says you’re fantastic and
gives you a hug, that’s a magic pill. It’s
juice for the soul!” Dr. Anmol Kapoor
THEY GET SCREENED
AND TREATED
I’M GETTING A
4
 5 HEART SCAN.
“The value of screening for coronary
calcium in the general population is
still up for debate. (There is evidence
that it’s useful for people who have
already had a heart attack, but those
patients should still discuss this with
their family doctor.) It’s a quick CT
scan, it involves a low dose of radiation
and it’s predictive of premature coro-
nary artery disease. I’m 41 and plan to
get this test in the next couple of years.”
Dr. John Vyselaar

I’M SEEING MY PHYSICIAN.
4
 6 “Sometimes you can have high
sugar or high blood pressure and not
know it. If you visit your primary-care
physician regularly, you can get these
things checked. If you have an eleva-
tion in your blood sugar, you may be
able to make changes to your lifestyle
and normalize it before it becomes
diabetes.”
Dr. Sayeh Zielke
I PAY ATTENTION TO RISK
4
 7 FACTORS FOR WOMEN.
“Women have unique risk factors
because of our reproductive life stages
and because certain conditions, like
autoimmune disorders, are more prev-
alent in women. Also, when we transi-
tion into menopause, we lose the
beneficial effects of estrogen on blood
vessels—including a better cholesterol
profile. If you’re in perimenopause and
haven’t already discussed risk factors
with your doctor, this is a critical time
to start.” Dr. Paula Harvey
I LOOK AT MY
4
 8 FAMILY HISTORY.
“More than 80 per cent of North Amer-
icans will develop high blood pressure
in their lifetime, but if one or both of
your parents had it, you’re likely to
develop it earlier. By adjusting your
lifestyle, you can delay the onset of
hypertension by decades or make it a
much more manageable disease.”
Dr. Eugene Crystal, Sunnybrook Hospital
Schulich Heart Centre, Toronto
4
 9 I TAKE A STATIN.
“My cholesterol is high because
my father’s, mother’s and grandmoth-
er’s was high. I have a strong family hist-
ory of heart disease, so I take medica-
tion that lowers my cholesterol levels.”
Dr. David Bewick
I GET A FLU SHOT.
5
 0 “The wave of seasonal flu in
society actually goes in parallel with,
and slightly in front of, an increase in
acute cardiovascular events. The cor-
relation is not extraordinarily strong,
but it does make sense: if your body is
trying to fight the flu and you have a
pre-existing heart condition—whether
known to you or not—there’s a risk that
it will surface.” Dr. Eugene Crystal
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 41
DEPARTMENT OF WIT

The search for a

uniquely qualified
personal assistant

BY MA RY C EL LA
FR OM T H E NEW Y O R K T I ME S
I LL U ST R A T I O N BY JOA NA A VI LL EZ

I’M A VERY BUSY WOMAN looking for an assistant to help me with

certain important responsibilities. This is not your average assistant
job. What I’m looking for is someone to take care of some of my more
personal business so I can focus on my true passion: grocery shopping.
Please apply if, and only if, you are willing and able to accomplish
the following tasks:

42 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

■ WORK. I would love to have a nine-
to-five job. However, I find sitting in
a cubicle all day unbearable. An ideal
assistant would secure a high-paying
office job and excel in that setting,
even going so far as to eagerly accept
every invitation to after-work drinks.
■ VISIT THE DOCTOR. I’m looking for
someone to not only set up but also
attend all medical appointments for
me. As I realize this may be illegal, I
would consider a candidate who is
willing to get weighed in my stead,
then I’d proceed with the rest of the
experience myself.
■ GO ON FAMILY VACATIONS. I love
my family, especially when I don’t
have to spend time with them. Thus, I
will require my employee to attend all
vacations in my place. Since I’ll miss
out on seeing my nephews, a good
assistant will live-stream them for me
the entire time while discreetly muting
the feed whenever they start fighting.
■ EXERCISE. I am determined to get
in better shape but find working out
strenuous and tiring. The right candi-
date will exercise for a minimum of an
hour every day and allow me to reap
the benefits of their vigorous activity.
■ EAT. Just kidding—I love eating!
NEW YORK TIMES (FEBRUARY 24, 2018), © 2018 BY NEW YORK TIMES CO., NYTIMES.COM
■ MAINTAIN FRIENDSHIPS. As a bad
planner who’s often too lazy to get off
her couch when she has a function
to attend, I’m looking for someone
who’s able to not only spend time
with my friends but also nurture
those very important relationships.
That means my employee must be a
phenomenal listener who can with-
hold their opinions about said friends’
significant others.
■ DATE. I’m looking for love but think
that dating is tedious and intimidating.
Ideally, my employee will get a drink
with a potential mate and do the tire-
some work of getting to know some-
one, then deciding whether he’s worth
the trouble. If the romantic candidate
advances past a third date, I’d be will-
ing to step in and proceed with the
relationship from there.
■ HAVE A BABY. I’m eager to have a
child, but being pregnant and giving
birth seem hard. Likewise, raising a
child. I’d prefer to spend an hour or
two with my child each day while
someone else tackles the great
responsibility of child-rearing. Once
my kid turns 18, I will happily assume
all parenting duties, excluding any
financial obligations.
■ DIE. I just don’t think it’s for me.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 43
RD CLASSIC

An Australian spear fisherman

battles a dreaded great white
BY R ODN EY FOX
F R O M R E AD E R ’S DIG ES T , AUG U ST 19 6 5
IL L US T R A T I O N B Y D OMI NI C B UGAT TO

44 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

READER’S DIGEST

MY WIFE, KAY, looked quite miserable standing

there as I said goodbye at 6:30 a.m. that Sunday
morning in December 1963. She was expecting
our first child, and the doctor had firmly told her
not to go. Kay was experiencing complications,
and travelling would have made her pregnancy
riskier. I wish now that the doctor’s advice had
applied to me, as well.
Two hours later, however, I was returning as the reigning champion.
standing on the cliff at Aldinga Beach, I had promised Kay that this would be
55 kilometres south of our home in my last competition. I meant to clinch
Adelaide, South Australia. This was why the title and then retire in glory, diving
I’d set out so early. Now I had time to only for fun from then on—hopefully
carefully study the dark patterns of bot- joined by Kay. I was 23 and in peak
tom growth on the reef under the com- shape after months of training. All the
ing blue-green swells. Aldinga reef is a contestants were “free divers,” with no
paradise, a happy hunting ground for artificial breathing aids. I’d trained
underwater spear fishermen like me. myself to dive safely to just over 30
Forty of us—each with black rubber metres and to hold my breath for more
suits and flippers, glass-windowed than a minute without discomfort.
face masks, snorkels, lead-weighted
belts and spearfishing guns—were AT THE WHISTLE BLAST we waded
waiting for the referee’s 9:00 a.m. whis- into the surf. Each man towed a float
tle to announce that the annual South behind him, attached to his lead-
Australian Spearfishing Champion- weight belt. We would attach our fish
ship competition had begun. We all to these floats immediately on spear-
had five hours to bring the judges a ing them, hoping their blood wouldn’t
bag of fish. The winner would be attract the always hungry and curious
determined both by total weight and predatory sharks that prowl the deeper
by number of different species. water off the South Australian coast.
I was confident I’d do well. I’d taken Lesser sharks—like the bronze
the 1961–62 competition and was whaler and grey nurse—are familiar

46 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

to skin divers and aren’t aggressive.
Fortunately, great white, or “white
death” sharks, caught by professional
fishermen in the open ocean, are rarely
seen by skin divers. Still, as a precau-
tion, a patrol boat criss-crossed our
hunting area, keeping a lookout.
The day was bright and hot. An off-
shore breeze flattened the wave tops,
but it disturbed the water on the reef.
Visibility under the surface would be
poor because of the previous day’s
strong winds. This makes life difficult
for spear fishermen. In murky water, a
diver is often too close to a fish once he
realizes it’s there—and scares it away
before he can get set for a shot.
By 12:30, when I towed a heavy catch
of parrot-fish, snapper, snook, boarfish
and magpie perch to the beach, I could
see from the other piles that I must be
well up in the competition. I had 27
kilograms of fish on shore, comprising
14 species. It was now 12:35, and the
contest closed at 2:00 p.m. As fish
naturally grew scarcer in the inshore
areas, I had wandered just over a kilo-
metre out for bigger and better game.
On my last swim in from the section
of the reef where it plunges from
about seven metres to 18 metres in
depth, I had spotted quite a few large
fish near a big, triangular-shaped rock
I was sure I could find again.
Two of these fish were dusky mor-
wongs, or “strongfish.” Either of these
would be large enough to tip the scales
in my favour, and one or two more fish
of another variety would sew things up
for me, I decided. I swam out to the
spot I’d picked, then rested face down,
breathing through my snorkel as I
studied through my mask the best
approach to the two fish sheltering
behind the rock. After several deep
breaths, I held one, swallowed to lock
it in, turned over and dived.
Swimming down and forward, so
as not to spook my quarry, I quickly
rounded the large rock. Not five metres
away, the bigger dusky morwong, a
beauty of at least nine kilograms, was
browsing in a clump of brown weed.
THE SHARK
WAS PUSHING ME
THROUGH THE
WATER WITH WILD
SPEED. I BECAME
INSTANTLY NAUSEOUS.
I glided forward, hoping for a close-
in shot. My arms were extended in
front of me—my left for balance, my
right holding the gun, which was
loaded with a stainless steel shaft and
barb. I drifted easily over the short
weeds and lined up for a perfect head-
and-gill shot, but...
How can I describe the sudden
silence? It was a perceptible hush, even
in that quiet world, a motionlessness
that was somehow communicable
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 47
READER’S DIGEST
deep below the surface of the sea. Then
something huge hit me with tremen-
dous force on my left side and heaved
me through the water.
Now the “thing” was pushing me
forward with wild speed. I became
immediately nauseous. The pressure
on my back and chest was immense,
and I felt as if my insides on my left
were being squeezed over to my right
side. I had lost my face mask and
couldn’t see in the blur. My spear gun
was violently knocked out of my hand.
THERE WAS
NO SENSATION AT ALL
EXCEPT FOR THE
CRUSHING PRESSURE
ON MY BACK
AND CHEST.
The pressure on my body seemed to
actually be choking me. I tried to shake
myself loose but found that I was
clamped as if in a vise. When my mind
came into focus, I realized my predica-
ment: a shark had me in its jaws.
I couldn’t see the creature, but it
had to be huge. Its teeth had closed
around my chest and back, with my
left arm over its head. I was being
thrust face down ahead of it as we
raced through the water.
Although dazed with the horror,
I still felt no pain. In fact, there was no
48 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
sharp feeling at all except for the
crushing pressure on my back and
chest. I stretched my arms out behind
and groped for the monster’s head.
Suddenly, miraculously, the pressure
was gone. The creature had relaxed its
jaws. I thrust backward to push myself
away, but my right arm went straight
into the shark’s mouth.
As I wrenched my arm loose from
the shark’s jagged teeth, I felt pain I
could have never imagined. But I had
succeeded in freeing myself.
I knew the shark would come back for
me. A fin brushed my flippers and then
my knees touched its side. I wrapped
my legs and arms around the monster,
hoping wildly that this manoeuvre
would keep me out of its jaws.
I scraped the rocks on the bottom.
Now I was shaken violently from side
to side. I pushed away with all my
remaining strength. I had to get back
to the surface.
When I reached it, the water was
crimson with my blood. The shark
breached a few metres away. Its body
was like a great rolling tree trunk, but
rust coloured, with huge pectoral fins.
The great conical head belonged
unmistakably to a great white. Here
was the white death itself!
THE SHARK BEGAN moving toward
me, and terror surged through my
body. I was alone in the fearful mon-
ster’s domain; here the shark made the
rules. I was no longer an Adelaide
 insurance salesman. I was simply a
squirming something-to-eat.
As the shark prepared to attack
again, I worried I would die in agony
when it struck. I could only wait.
I breathed a hurried little prayer for
Kay and the baby and prepared to kick
at the monster’s head.
But, strangely, the creature veered
away the moment before it reached
me, the slanted dorsal fin curving off,
just above the surface. Then my fish
and float began moving rapidly across
the water.
The slack line tightened at my belt,
and I was being pulled forward and
under the water again. At the last
instant, the shark had swallowed the
fish and the float instead of me and
somehow got tangled in the line.
I tried to release my weight belt, to
which the line was attached, but I
couldn’t find the buckle. I was being
towed very fast now, about 10 metres
below the surface, and my left hand
fumbled helplessly at the release catch.
Surely I’m not going to drown now, Rodney Fox at Aldinga Beach, one year
I  thought. Then the final miracle before the attack.
occurred: the line suddenly broke, and
I was free once more. All I could scream The men in the patrol boat were
when my head reached the surface horrified at the extent of my injuries.
C OU RT E S Y OF R OD N E Y F O X

was: “Shark! Shark!” My right hand and arm were so badly

It was enough. Now there were
voices, familiar noises, then the boat
that I’d been praying would come.
I gave up trying to move and relied on
them to help me. Somebody kept say-
ing, “Hang on, mate. It’s over. Hang on.”
slashed that the bones lay bare in sev-
eral places. My chest, back, left shoul-
der and side were deeply gashed.
Large pieces of flesh had been torn
aside, exposing my rib cage, lungs and
upper stomach.

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 49

READER’S DIGEST

Police manning the highway inter-
sections for 54 kilometres got our
ambulance through in record time.
The surgeons at Royal Adelaide Hos-
pital were scrubbed and ready. When
I arrived on the operating table, I
remember watching the huge silver
light overhead grow dimmer. The next
thing I recall is opening my eyes and
seeing Kay and my mother alongside
my hospital bed.
I said, “It hurts.” Kay was crying. The
doctor walked over and said, “He’ll
make it now.”
RODNEY FOX RECEIVED a total of 462
stitches in his chest and 92 in his right
arm. After a year of intense rehabilita-
tion, he eventually returned to the sea.
Fox continued to skin dive, though not
competitively.
Despite fearing sharks, Fox did not
want to see them be senselessly killed.
His attack inspired him to learn more
about the creatures and to help others
do the same. During a trip to the
Adelaide Zoo in 1964, while watching
the caged lions, he developed the idea
for a protective steel cage that could be
lowered into the water over the side of
a boat. Divers could float inside the
cage, he thought, allowing them to get
close to sharks while remaining safe
from attack.
Fox eventually designed the cage and
had it built. In 1965 he led the first-ever
“shark cage” diving expedition, foot-
age from which was used to make the
film Attacked By a Killer Shark. Nearly
a decade later, he was approached by
the producers of Jaws, who requested
help filming live underwater footage
of great whites.
Today Fox is 78 and continues to
dive both recreationally and profes-
sionally. The attack ultimately gave
him a view into another world. He has
consulted on more than 80 films and
has travelled the globe giving lectures
about sharks and his relationship to
them—meeting many wonderful peo-
ple along the way.

PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE

It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile,

so stop being so lazy, happy people.
@O HN OSH E T WI T N T

You know you’re lazy when your computer prompts, “The

file asfsyegdjf already exists, would you like to replace it?”
@SM I LEI S PE AC E

50 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

 Laughter
THE BEST MEDICINE
THE BEST JOKE I EVER TOLD
BY COURTNEY GILMOUR
As an arm amputee
people always ask me
if I wish I had hands.
Honestly I mostly just
wish you guys didn’t
have hands.
Courtney Gilmour is the winner
of the 2017 Homegrown Comics
Competition at Just for Laughs.
You can catch her performing
with Yuk Yuk’s across Canada.
FRIEND: Okay, when does a joke
become a dad joke?
ME, WITH NO HESITATION: When
it becomes apparent.
@TADDMIKE
THEORY OF EVOLUTION
Personally I think giraffes grew those
necks because they really wanted to
be alone.
SANDRA NEWMAN, a u t h o r
GIVE A MAN A FISH and he eats for
a day. But teach a man to fish and
he’ll be like, “Um, actually, I know
how to fish, I’ll show you.” And you’ll
wish you had your old fish so you
could throw it at him.
APARNA NANCHERLA, c o m e d i a n
DREAM TEAM
If Natalie Portman dated Jacques
Cousteau, they would win celebrity-
couple nicknaming forever with
“Portmanteau.”
BRYAN DONALDSON, T V w r i t e r
Send us your original jokes! You could
earn $50 and be featured in the magazine.
See page 8 or rd.ca/joke for details.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 51
PERSPECTIVE

Former NHL hockey player Nick Boynton

has struggled with injuries, addiction and
depression that resulted from his time on
the ice. And he’s done keeping quiet about it.

“Everything’s Not
F R O M T H E P L AY E R S ’ T R I B U N E

52 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

Okay”
READER’S DIGEST

I’VE THOUGHT A LOT about death over the past

few years. Since I retired from hockey in 2011,
I’ve struggled and faced personal demons. And
recently I’ve been unable to shake thoughts of
the NHL players we’ve lost: Steve Montador,
Wade Belak, Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien. They
played the same game I did. They struggled with
depression, anxiety, substance abuse and pain,
just like I have. And now they’re gone.
The more I think about them, the I didn’t enjoy it, though. That’s for
more worried I get, because I see a lot sure. In truth, I absolutely hated to
of myself in those guys. And I often fight. I was scared to death of fighting.
wonder if I might be next. I’ve gotten On the nights before we played,
so tired of telling people that every- I wouldn’t be able to get any rest. I’d lie
thing’s okay. I’ve lied for too long. on a bed in a hotel room in Buffalo or
I can’t do it anymore. Everything’s not Calgary or wherever, worried about

okay. And I’m tired of keeping quiet.
THE STORY OF my hockey career isn’t
pretty. It’s not filled with highlight-
reel goals or big-game hat tricks. Dur-
ing the 11 seasons I played in the NHL,
I was mainly known as a tough guy.
But let me be more specific: I tried to
hurt people. That’s what I was there for,
and I was always ready to oblige. I’d do
it for my team and, as weird as it sounds,
for the game. Because, as best I could
tell, tough guys had always been part
of our sport. I had it in my head that
there was honour in kicking some ass.
( P R E V I O U S S P R E A D) C H R I STO P H E R S Z AG O L A / I CO N S M I
what was going to happen to me out
on the ice the next day. By game time
I’d usually be a total mess.
My approach was always to pick
fights with guys who were bigger than
me, because I felt like I’d have noth-
ing to lose. My thinking was, If I get
lucky and win one, I look good. And if
I get beat up, I still look good because
I’m the smaller guy—the underdog
punching up.
Looking back on it now, that plan
probably wasn’t the best. I got my ass
kicked a lot—for years and years. I did
some ass-kicking, for sure, but I also

54 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

took my lumps. And I can tell you for
a fact that all those punches definitely
took their toll on me. But there was so
much more to it than that.
It was the everyday hits during the
course of the game—little blind-side
shots and other knocks you wouldn’t
even notice if you were watching on
TV—that did the most damage over
time. All those hits to the head add up.
I had eight or 10 confirmed concus-
sions during my time in the NHL, but
who knows how many others I simply
I GOT PUNCHED IN THE HEAD AND SMASHED
IN THE FACE AND DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING
ABOUT ALL THE PAIN I WAS FEELING.
played through? I’d bet I actually had
more like 20 or 30 of them altogether,
and even that might be a bit low. I just
toughed it out every time.
In the last two seasons of my career,
I started blacking out any time I took a
big hit to the head. I’d wake up in the
trainer’s chair with no recollection of
what had happened. Then I’d watch
the game tape and see myself doing
all sorts of stuff out on the ice that I
couldn’t remember. It was like watch-
ing someone else play in my body.
By that point, I honestly didn’t even
care anymore. I didn’t feel anything. My
last few seasons, I was flat-out killing
myself for a paycheque. I was hurting
all the time and I had to mask that pain.
Trainers always had painkillers, so I
took them—often. And things escal-
ated from there. Eventually I couldn’t
get as many as I wanted, so I started
buying painkillers from people on the
street. Just more and more.
AFTER A WHILE, for days and even
entire chunks of the season, I was in a
daze. I was so medicated it was fright-
ening. I decided that I needed to do
something. I got my courage up and
found a way to tell some people with
my team that I had a problem. It took
everything I had in me to do that, but
the response I received was really
uplifting. Everyone I talked to was
understanding. They said they were
there for me and that they wanted to
get me the help I needed.
A few weeks later, after the season
had ended, I was back home in Noble-
ton, Ont., at the old town hall, helping
my folks set up for my sister’s buck-and-
doe party before her wedding, when my
cellphone rang. One of my buddies had
seen my name on the ESPN news ticker.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 55
READER’S DIGEST
“Nick, what the hell, man? I can’t
believe it.”
I didn’t have a clue what he was
talking about.
It turns out that less than a month
after I’d gone to my team and asked for
help, I got traded away to another city.
I took the hint. No matter how bad
it got, I kept my mouth shut about
any problems I was having off the ice.
I went back to getting punched in the
face and smashed in the head and
not saying anything about what it was
I WAS SAD ALL THE TIME, CONSTANTLY
ON EDGE AND HAVING PANIC ATTACKS.
MY LIFE AFTER HOCKEY WAS A LIVING HELL.
like to deal with all the pain I was
feeling. I was self-medicating, drink-
ing and doing drugs non-stop. I was
a zombie.
ONE NIGHT, at the tail end of my career
in 2011, I had stayed up late doing an
obscene amount of cocaine, and my
heart felt like it was going to burst out
of my chest. I couldn’t get it to slow
down. I thought I was going to die.
I was playing for the Philadelphia
Flyers at the time, and we had a morn-
ing skate in a few hours. It was either
keep putting on an act or come clean.
Maybe you think that would be an easy
56 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
choice. Like, You were about to die. Get
help. Stop living like this. But I can tell
you that it was one of the hardest deci-
sions I’d ever had to make.
Somehow I landed on the right call.
The Flyers and Paul Holmgren, who
was the general manager at the time,
didn’t judge me. They sent me to
rehab and pledged their support.
They looked out for me, even though
I hadn’t been looking out for myself.
I honestly believe Paul saved my life.
It was just a few months before
I retired at age 32, and I got off the
painkillers and stopped using drugs.
And eventually I even stopped drink-
ing, too. But things were deteriorating
in other ways.
A year and a half after I left the NHL
and got sober, I was experiencing pro-
found depression and anxiety. I was sad
all the time and felt constantly on
edge—sweating, shaking, nervous,
having panic attacks. It was like being
unable to breathe. I was clean and look-
ing healthy again, yet I was such a mess
that I couldn’t even leave the house.
Depression, mental-health issues
and anxiety may not be visible to
those on the outside, but they’re
worse than anything else I’ve ever
dealt with. They can make you unbe-
lievably sad, to the point where you’re
crying your eyes out. And then, the
next day, you’ll just be so angry that
you’re almost out of control. There
have been times when my anger has
been so bad that I legitimately wor-
ried that I might hurt someone, or
that I’d injure myself. But when fam-
ily members, people I truly love and
care about, would ask me what was
MY FOUR-YEAR-OLD SON WANTS TO
BE LIKE HIS DAD. BUT I CAN’T LET HIM PLAY
HOCKEY UNTIL SOMETHING CHANGES.
going on, or why I was so mad, I
wouldn’t be able to tell them. I wasn’t
even sure myself.
In so many ways, my life after hockey
has been a living hell.
FROM THE TIME I was a little kid, just
trying to keep my balance out on the
frozen pond in the backyard in Noble-
ton, all I wanted to do in life was play
in the NHL. Today, all I can think
about is whether it was worth it. I usu-
ally come to the conclusion that hockey
hasn’t been a good thing for me.
The money? Well, that can only get
you so far. It certainly can’t fix your
brain. And it can’t bring back lost
time with your children or make you
stop yelling at people you love or stop
you from feeling like you want to cry
all the time.
Life for me is now a constant strug-
gle. Last year, for instance, I was
depressed for two months straight. It
just got worse and worse. In December
2017, I was supposed to visit my two
older daughters—Emmerson, 13, and
Bryar, 11—in California for the holi-
days, but I couldn’t leave the house.
I didn’t get there. I was home in Ari-
zona with my two little ones—my four-
year-old son, Russell, and my five-year-
old daughter, Harland—and it was
impossible to shield them from the
pain I was experiencing. I began to feel
like having me around wasn’t good for
them. And it’s at times like that when
thoughts of death creep in.
AFTER THAT really rough patch in 2017,
I finally said enough is enough and went
to see a psychologist. I wasn’t sure
what to expect, but it has turned out to
be wonderful. He is the first doctor
who I feel has ever listened to me. And
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 57
READER’S DIGEST
he seems like a true partner for me in
my efforts to heal. He doesn’t pre-
scribe any drugs or tell me to enter a
12-step program. He just wants to talk
and listen and help.
Last April, on the recommendation
of my good friend, former Chicago
Blackhawks player Daniel Carcillo, I
enrolled in a program at the Plasticity
Brain Center in Orlando, Fla. They
pinpoint the areas of the brain and
body that may be causing problems
and create a focused, individualized
THE NHL IS REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE
THE TRUTH ABOUT LONG-TERM BRAIN
INJURIES. I HAVE NO PATIENCE FOR THAT.
plan to address them. They figured
out that my right eye was three times
slower than my left and also identified
a problem with my inner ear. I was
prescribed a bunch of exercises to help
treat those issues.
Being able to talk to a therapist with
an open mind, and then find some
treatment options that were better
suited to my physical issues, have
allowed me to finally see some light at
the end of the tunnel. I feel like I can
get better now.
MY SON, RUSSELL, just turned four in
December. And let me tell you, does
58 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
that kid ever love hockey. He loves
watching it, talking about it and tak-
ing the mini-stick out and whacking
away at some pucks. He wants to be
like his dad.
But I cannot, in good conscience,
let him play hockey until something
changes and we start looking out for
our players. We need to take head hits
and concussions—and their potential
long-term effects—more seriously.
I believe the NHL is refusing to
acknowledge the truth about long-term
brain injuries for the simple reason
that they think it’s going to hurt the
game. Well, I have no patience for
that s**t anymore. Guys are suffering.
In some cases, people are dying. And
it doesn’t have to be like that.
Yes, ours is a physical, violent sport.
And we may not be able to rid hockey
of that violence altogether, but at the
very least let’s deal with the issues that
arise as a result. Instead of ignoring
the damage that occurs to the brain
when you have your bell rung, let’s
own up to it and get guys the help they
need—not just after they retire but
while they’re playing the game.
 Let’s start addressing the problem.
I believe it needs to be the hockey
superstars driving things. When they
speak out, that’s when something will
change. Leadership from our game’s
most talented players would have the
potential to move the needle. I know
it’s not easy to take on a controversial
topic. But with each day that goes by
without any decisive action, the NHL’s
legacy gets worse and worse.
Look, I’m no angel. I’ve done some
monumentally stupid things in my life,
and I’ve not been the best person on
many occasions. But that doesn’t mean
that my story should be swept aside. I
need to speak up about what’s been
happening to me and lend support to
others who are struggling.
I’ve still got lots of issues to try to
fight through, and every day presents
new challenges. But one thing I know
for certain is that I’m done lying and
pretending that everything’s okay.
Those days are over for me. Sharing my
story is just the beginning. I have a mis-
sion now. I’m telling you, my life will
not end up being a waste.
Last November, the NHL reached a ten-
tative US$18.9 million settlement in a
lawsuit filed by 318 former players. The
claimants alleged negligent mishan-
dling of concussions and brain injuries
and a failure to disclose information
about the risks of playing hockey. The
league agreed to pay for the claimants’
medical tests and treatments and up to
$22,000 each; as it has for years, the
NHL did not acknowledge any liability
for concussions. At press time, it was
unclear whether the settlement would
be accepted. A recent concussion settle-
ment by the NFL is expected to pay out
more than US$1 billion to more than
20,000 retired players.

© 2018, NICK BOYNTON. FROM “EVERYTHING’S NOT O.K.,” THE PLAYERS’ TRIBUNE (JUNE 13, 2018), PLAYERSTRIBUNE.COM

ESSENTIAL ABBREVIATIONS FOR WORK EMAILS

TL;DR—Too long; didn’t read

RS;TD—Read some; then deleted
SS;IC—Saw subject; ignored completely
SU;SDR—Saw urgent; still didn’t read
OV;SE—On vacation; stop emailing
SOV;SSE—Still on vacation; seriously, stop emailing
From mc s w e en eys . ne t

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 59

HEART

After moving to the suburbs,

I felt forlorn and friendless.
That’s when I spotted her across
the street, cool and confident,
taking out the recycling.

Won’t You Be
My Neighbour—
and
BFF?
B Y M EG AN M U RP HY | I L LU ST R ATI O N B Y CÉ C ILE G A RI É P Y

60 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

READER’S DIGEST
A FEW YEARS AGO, I moved from
Toronto to Aurora, Ont., about an
hour’s drive away. I’d been happy as
a condo-renting city girl, but my boy-
friend was a homeowner in the sub-
urbs; to take the relationship to the
next level, I had to uproot.
At the time, I was a radio DJ and,
thanks to the power of technology,
working from home. I didn’t have the
company of colleagues, so I was hope-
ful that I’d make friends in my new
neighbourhood. Shortly after settling
in, however, I found myself feeling
lonelier than I’d ever been.
Where we lived the houses were
jammed together so tightly that, from
our backyard, I could see into the win-
dows of at least eight other homes. But
the irony of living in such close prox-
imity is that no one actually talks to
each other; as in an open-concept
office, they pretend they can’t hear or
see each other to maintain at least an
illusion of privacy. I found myself des-
perate to make a friend.
At the grocery store, I held up the
checkout line while I asked the cashier
what she was serving her family for
dinner that night and whether she had
any thoughts on the upcoming elec-
tion. When filling my gas tank, I
stopped paying at the pump because
going inside meant interacting with
another human. I even bought new
running shoes so I could jog past the
park where moms and their kids played
after school. (Turns out it’s considered
62 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
weird to hang out in a playground if
you’re childless.)
It was so easy to make friends as a
kid. We were all thrown together with
the assumption that we’d figure out
how to get along, because we had
something as basic as childhood in
common. But somehow that same
thing doesn’t work in adulthood.
I was perilously close to throwing in
the towel, resigning myself to a future
where I had to wear both halves of a
“best friends forever” pendant.
But then I saw her.
FROM OUR SECOND-FLOOR window,
while I was sorting laundry, I caught
sight of a beautiful, tall blonde taking
out her recycling. She wore a plaid
shirt tied around her waist and horn-
rimmed glasses that made her look like
a cool librarian. She walked with confi-
dence—even her ponytail bounced.
I gasped, “I recycle too! We have so
much in common!”
The question was, how would we
meet? I couldn’t just knock on her
door. What would I say? “Hi, I’m the
new girl, can you come out and play?”
So I thought, “What if I just happened
to be jogging by?” I put on those run-
ning shoes again, but after a few times
around the block, dripping sweat,
snot and expletives, I hadn’t seen her
(though I did remember how much
I hate running).
I tried gardening outside, long
enough to get an opportunity to say
hello. But I know nothing about horti-
culture and I don’t like dirt, worms or
anything that calls itself “mulch.”
I decided I needed to seize on the
one thing I already knew about her—
she takes out her blue bin. I would wait
for garbage day and stage a meet-cute.
THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY, I woke
up a little earlier than usual and put
on a touch of concealer and some lip
gloss, careful not to look like I was try-
ing too hard. After separating the card-
board and the plastics, I waited.
A little after 8 a.m., I began losing
my nerve. What if it’s her husband’s
day to do the chores? I thought. What
if she doesn’t like me?
Before I could bail, though, I saw
movement. The garage door retracted
and the blonde emerged. I grabbed a
bin and made my way to the end of my
driveway. “Just act natural, Murphy,”
I told myself.
“Good morning. How are ya?” I said,
cool as a cucumber.
“Good. And you?” she replied.
“Doing well. It’s supposed to be
pretty warm today, so that’ll be nice.”
(Good one, Murphy.)
“Yeah, I heard that on the radio.”
“You listen to the radio? I actually
work in radio. It’s my job to tell people
the weather. I’m not a meteorologist,
just a DJ. I talk for a living. Clearly!”
The blonde cocked an eyebrow,
looking slightly confused (and hope-
fully intrigued?). “Interesting,” she said.
“Well, I’d better get my son loaded into
the car for school.”
“Nice. I don’t have kids, but I have
nieces. They’re like surrogate children
but they go home at the end of the day
and they didn’t give me stretch marks.
So that’s a positive! Have a great day!”
I’d taken the cool cucumber and
mashed it to a pulp.
I DECIDED IT WAS
TIME TO TAKE THINGS
TO THE NEXT LEVEL,
SO I ASKED HER TO
COME WATCH THE
BACHELOR WITH ME.
As we both walked away, I turned
and called out, “Oh, and by the way,
I’m Megan.”
“Michelle,” she replied.
I walked back inside, wearing a
giant grin.
OUR “COINCIDENTAL” recycling
meet-ups continued for a few weeks
until I gathered my courage to walk
across the street and engage in an actual
conversation. It lasted about a half hour,
during which we compared upbring-
ings, our siblings’ names and where
we fit in the birth order. We liked each
other. There was a spark. I could tell.
I decided that it was time to take
things to the next level and invited her
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 63
READER’S DIGEST
over—not for coffee or for dinner, but
for something far riskier. I asked her to
come watch The Bachelor with me. I
told her to wear pyjama pants and,
without blinking, she said she would
be there at 8.
That night, while my boyfriend was
out at his league basketball game, I
cleaned the house, showered and put
on my best flannel. I went overboard
on refreshments. We were new to each
other so I didn’t know her preferences
yet. I bought red and white wine, pop-
corn, two types of chips, along with
some veggies and dip, so she wouldn’t
judge my junk food habits. I lit a
vanilla-scented candle.
I was ready.
Michelle arrived at the door wearing
the requisite sleeper pants and a com-
fortable hoodie. She had also brought
licorice—my favourite.
As the show started, we settled on
the couch and proceeded to drink
wine, binge from our buffet, dissect
doomed television relationships, tell
stories about our own and laugh our
faces off. It was arguably the best first
date I’ve ever been on.
COMMON ROOTS
When we plant trees,
we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.
WAN GAR I MA AT H AI
64 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
When it was time for Michelle to
go, we hugged at the door and I said,
“Get home safe.” She laughed and, 15
seconds later, from across the road,
yelled, “The commute wasn’t too bad!”
LIKE ANY GOOD DATE, you don’t call
the next day. I figured I should wait
until garbage day to make my next
move, but then I saw her from my win-
dow, unloading groceries, and I ran
outside. “Hey! Need some help over
there?” I called.
“Hello! That would be awesome,”
she beamed.
“I had a really good time the other
night,” I said, blushing.
“Me too,” she said. “I got home and
told my husband ‘I think I made a
friend.’” Then she paused and sheep-
ishly admitted, “I asked him if I could
call you and he told me not to come on
too strong.”
From then on, we were like contest-
ants on The Bachelor—we really “put
ourselves out there”; we were “there for
the right reasons”; and we “found what
we’d been looking for”: a new friend to
fall platonically in love with.
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rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 65

HEALTH

These days, many Canadians

are avoiding meat, dairy or
gluten. Their challenge: getting
the nutrients they need while
eliminating the foods they don’t.

How to
Keep a
Special Diet
Balanced BY J I L L B U C H N E R
I L LU ST R AT I O N BY T R AC Y WA L K E R

66 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

READER’S DIGEST
ABOUT EIGHT YEARS AGO, I got the
call from a doctor telling me I had
celiac disease. I had struggled with ane-
mia for a long time, and a blood test
indicated that my immune system was
overreacting to the gluten in my diet by
attacking my digestive system—being
unable to absorb iron was one of the
side effects. The doctor explained that
the only treatment for celiac is cutting
out all foods that contain gluten, a pro-
tein found in wheat, barley and rye.
CUTTING OUT
ANIMAL PRODUCTS
WON’T LEAD TO
WEIGHT LOSS, SAYS
REGISTERED DIETITIAN
ROSIE SCHWARTZ.
It set in that I might never eat bread,
pasta or baked goods again, but within
just a few weeks of changing my diet,
I was pleasantly surprised to discover
that gluten-free versions of these foods
are everywhere. As I scoured nutrition
labels, I also realized I would need to
pay as much attention to what I was
eating as to what I was cutting out.
In fact, that’s true of all dietary restric-
tions, says Rosie Schwartz, a Toronto-
based registered dietitian and the
author of The Enlightened Eater’s Whole
Foods Guide. “When you cut out a food,
you have to be more aware of getting all
68 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
your nutrients from your other food,”
she says. Whether you’re gluten-free,
vegan, vegetarian, lactose-free or dairy-
free, it’s important to be strategic about
what you put on your plate.
GLUTEN-FREE
Why do people go
gluten-free?
Individuals who have been officially
diagnosed with celiac—an autoimmune
disease that damages the small intestine
in response to ingesting gluten—must
avoid the protein entirely, because even
tiny amounts can do harm. Though
most people think of celiac as a digest-
ive disorder, many sufferers have no
such symptoms and instead experience
fatigue, joint pain, migraines or even
depression. In the long run, the intes-
tinal damage can also lead to nutrient
deficiencies, anemia, osteoporosis,
infertility and gastrointestinal cancers.
Only about one per cent of the
North American population suffers
from celiac disease. But the Canadian
Celiac Association reported that in
2013 an additional 22 per cent avoided
gluten because they perceived gluten-
free products to be healthier or they
had a family member with a medical
reason to steer clear of the protein.
Another six per cent’s avoidance was
because of a gluten sensitivity.
Also known as non-celiac gluten
intolerance, sensitivity can bring on
symptoms like bloating, headaches,
joint pain, brain fog or diarrhea.
Sufferers don’t experience long-term
damage from eating gluten, so while
they often cut out the protein, they
don’t need to be as careful about cross-
contamination, says Schwartz. Other
people have gone gluten-free thinking
it will help them lose weight or because
they’re under the impression that glu-
ten is unhealthy—neither of which is
true, according to Schwartz.
Is it healthy?
For those who have celiac disease, a
gluten-free diet is imperative to ward
off long-term health complications.
And it can be nutritious, too. “If you
look at most of the whole foods that
make up a balanced diet, they are natu-
rally gluten-free,” says Andrea Falcone,
a registered dietitian and certified
fitness professional in Mississauga,
explaining that fruits, vegetables and
unprocessed meats are all naturally free
of gluten. Both she and Schwartz warn
that pre-packaged gluten-free foods are
often lacking in nutrients and instead
are full of extra salt, sugar and other
unwanted ingredients in order to make
them more palatable.
How to plan for
a balanced diet
The first step to going gluten-free is
learning what to eliminate. “Gluten
is right through our food supply,” says
Schwartz. “There are just so many
sources of gluten that people need to
be aware of.”
In addition to avoiding anything
that contains barley, rye and wheat
(and all of its varieties, such as spelt
and farro), you’ll also need to watch
out for ingredient lists that include the
word “malt” or foods that might be
contaminated with gluten-containing
ingredients (such as those that “may
contain wheat” or are prepared in res-
taurants where cross-contamination
is likely).
But by cutting out those foods, you’re
eliminating major sources of fibre and
B vitamins. You may also get less iron,
since foods like pasta and cereal are
often fortified with the mineral, says
Falcone. Schwartz recommends replac-
ing gluten-containing grains with
whole grains like quinoa, buckwheat
and amaranth in order to get fibre and
B vitamins. Most people should be able
to absorb their nutrients from their diet
without needing a supplement, assures
Falcone. Eating a variety of whole
foods, including leafy greens, meat and
eggs, can also help prevent deficiencies
in iron and B vitamins.
VEGETARIAN
OR VEGAN
Why do people go
vegetarian or vegan?
Meat is one of the most common foods
people cut from their diets. According
to a 2018 survey from Dalhousie Uni-
versity in Halifax, 7.1 per cent of Cana-
dians are vegetarian and 2.3 per cent
are vegan.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 69
READER’S DIGEST
Because more than half of them are
under age 35, experts believe that
meatless lifestyles are on the rise. How
these terms are defined depends on
the individual. For instance, some self-
identified vegetarians follow a pesca-
tarian diet and still eat fish, while oth-
ers shun any animal-based ingredient,
including gelatin. Vegans typically
eliminate all animal products, includ-
ing eggs, dairy and even honey. The
decision is often an ethical one: want-
ing to spare animals or ease the burden
on the environment, since livestock
farming requires tremendous amounts
of water and feed, and releases green-
house gases. Some people believe cut-
ting out animal products will help
them lose weight, but that’s untrue,
says Schwartz.
Is it healthy?
“It depends on what they’re substitut-
ing in,” says Schwartz. “If they’re not
focusing on balancing their meals,
then it can have a negative effect, even
on weight.”
For example, if vegetarians and veg-
ans don’t make a concerted effort to
get enough protein, they won’t be sati-
ated and will have trouble maintaining
their muscle mass, which keeps their
metabolism running strong. And, as
with gluten-free items, many conven-
ience foods tailored to vegan and
vegetarian diets are short on nutrition
and high in sodium. Consuming a
wide variety of whole foods is key.
70 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
How to plan for
a balanced diet
Schwartz suggests spreading out pro-
tein sources—like beans, lentils, nuts,
seeds, tofu (and eggs and dairy, if you
eat them)—over the day. Otherwise,
“Your blood-sugar levels can fluctuate
and you may become tired,” she says.
Shellfish and red meat, some of the
richest sources of iron, are off the table,
so getting enough of the mineral can be
difficult. While eggs, legumes, nuts,
seeds, leafy greens and whole grains all
contain iron, our bodies don’t absorb
plant-based iron as well as the one from
meat. Fortunately, vitamin C can help
with that; try pairing these foods with
peppers, tomatoes, berries and other
foods rich in vitamin C.
Zinc, largely found in oysters and red
meat, can also be in short supply, so
make an effort to consume nuts and
legumes, and cook them with onions
and garlic to encourage absorption,
says Schwartz. If you’re vegan, you’ll
also need to seek out non-dairy sources
of calcium, like seeds, almonds and
leafy greens. And if you’re not partaking
in fish, get omega-3 fats from foods like
walnuts and flaxseed.
Certain vitamins remain a concern
even when eating a balanced diet and
may require a different approach.
Vitamin B12 is naturally found only in
animal foods like meat, milk and eggs.
Cereals, plant-based milks and nutri-
tional yeast are often fortified with B12,
but if you aren’t consuming many of
those, it’s a good idea to talk to a doctor
or dietitian about whether you need a
supplement. And while Health Canada
recommends getting 600 IU (interna-
tional units) of vitamin D a day—or 800
IU if you’re over 70—it’s particularly
important for vegans because they
aren’t drinking fortified milk.
LACTOSE-FREE
OR DAIRY-FREE
Why do people go lactose-
free/dairy-free?
More than seven million Canadians
are lactose intolerant, meaning they
lack the enzyme needed to break
down a sugar called lactose, found in
milk products. Side effects can include
bloating, diarrhea and cramping. The
severity of someone’s symptoms will
likely influence whether they cut out
all lactose or still eat dairy in minimal
amounts. For example, many lactose-
intolerant individuals can tolerate
yogourt because the bacterial cultures
help break down the sugar.
A dairy allergy is much more seri-
ous. It occurs when your immune sys-
tem overreacts to a protein found in
dairy products, the consequence being
anything from a rash to digestive
symptoms or even anaphylaxis. Suffer-
ers must read labels diligently to avoid
ingredients such as casein and whey.
Is it healthy?
Going lactose-free isn’t likely to
change your nutritional intake much.
But if you’re cutting out dairy alto-
gether, you’ll be eliminating many
key nutrients—like protein, calcium,
magnesium and vitamin D—and it’s
important to replace those. While
there are many dairy-free options on
store shelves, they’re not always
nutritious. “There are some milk sub-
stitutes out there that are low in pro-
tein and have lots of sugar added,”
says Schwartz.
How to plan for
a balanced diet
If you’re lactose intolerant, you can
still consume lactose-free milk and
cheese, which have an enzyme added
to break down the sugar. If you’re
dairy-free, however, you’ll be making
more drastic changes. There are a
growing number of plant-based milks
available (soy, almond, coconut, oat,
pea), but only some are naturally rich
in protein or fortified with vitamins
and minerals. Schwartz recommends
checking the label to find an option
that’s comparable to cow’s milk in
terms of protein, calcium, magnesium,
B12 and vitamin D content.
Other sources of calcium include
almonds, tofu, tahini and leafy greens;
taking a vitamin D supplement will
allow you to better absorb the calcium.
Meanwhile, avocados, nuts and
legumes can help with magnesium
needs, and if you eat meat and eggs,
you’ll be covered for protein as well as
vitamin B12.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 71
HUMAN INTEREST

Des Kappel
is in charge
of assigning
monikers to
Manitoba’s land
features—a job
that involves
history, politics
and even the
occasional
bruised ego
BY B I LL R ED E KO P F ROM TH E WINNI PE G F REE PRE SS
P H OTO GR AP H B Y D A VID LI PNO WSK I

72 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

READER’S DIGEST
DES KAPPEL, the provincial toponymist
in charge of naming Manitoba’s land
features, gets some unusual requests.
When Valentine’s Day approaches,
young men will call asking how to get
a lake named for their sweethearts. He
breaks their hearts gently, telling them
it doesn’t work that way.
Naming lakes and other provincial
land features is a complex—and vital—
endeavour. There are approximately
100,000 lakes in Manitoba, according
to a provincial survey from the 1970s.
About 10,000 have been named to date,
so there are 90,000 to go.
Kappel is making progress. Now
50, he was part of a team that in 1995
completed the naming of lakes, islands
and bays after the more than 4,000
Manitoba casualties from the Second
World War. The majority of the land
features were northern Manitoba lakes.
His current task is to match features
with the names of casualties from the
First World War.
A toponymist is someone who stud-
ies place names—Kappel was hired as
an assistant toponymist in 1994 and
became Manitoba’s official one in 2006.
He also sits on the Geographic Names
Board of Canada, established in 1897
to ensure uniform standards.
“It was so you didn’t get three Por-
tage la Prairies,” he says. But it was
also to impose strict guidelines so the
naming process isn’t cheapened.
Ottawa had final say on naming until
1961. Manitoba was represented on
74 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
the board from the inception, but it
was only in 1971 that it created the
position of toponymist devoted solely
to geographical names.
So why does everything have to have
a name?
One reason is to assist emergency
services. One year, at Rossman Lake,
south of Riding Mountain National
Park, an ambulance went to the wrong
address. Fortunately, the emergency
ended well, but at the request of the
council of the rural municipality of
Rossburn, the populated areas sur-
rounding the lake have now been split
into three: Rossman Lake West, Ross-
man Lake South and Rossman Lake
Sunset Point.
Another reason is to assist the
resource sectors, such as mining and
logging, as well as building, where
landmarks and names are crucial to the
proper and easy identification of sites.
There is also the matter of simply
being accurate. “I’ll get a call from
someone who’s caught a Master Angler
fish,” Kappel says. “It would be good
if they could recognize where they
caught the fish instead of saying,
‘I caught it at the lake that’s two miles
north of Smith Falls.’”
Some map names, such as Portage
la Prairie, romanticize the fur trade.
Some names represent the nationality
of an immigrating community, such as
Selkirk, Brandon, Steinbach, Schan-
zenfeld, Zhoda, Prawda, St. Pierre-
Jolys and Letellier. Other names reflect
the province’s Indigenous roots, such
as Waywayseecappo or Manigotagan.
They are all historically instructive.
THERE ARE about 16,600 named fea-
tures in Manitoba’s database, from cities
and towns to lowly landforms such
as Young Hill, north of Flin Flon, com-
memoratively named for a fallen sol-
dier. Cartographers can’t put every
name on the road map in your vehi-
cle’s glove compartment or it would
become unreadable, so only the most
prominent names wind up on them.
WILKIE LAKE IS
NAMED IN HONOUR OF
A NURSING SISTER
WHO DIED AFTER HER
SHIP WAS TORPEDOED
BY THE GERMANS.
Obviously, major places were named
before Kappel started his job. Most
land features crossed by a road or rail-
way had already been christened. But
when asked if he’s ever named any-
thing people would recognize, Kappel
mentions Patricia Beach.
Wait—wasn’t Patricia Beach named
Patricia Beach long before Kappel was
born? Not exactly, he says.
There has been a Patricia Beach
Provincial Park, on the southeast tip of
Lake Winnipeg. But the name Patricia
Beach has never been recorded in the
province’s databank.
A request was made by someone
familiar with the local heritage to
ensure the historic knowledge wasn’t
lost. The request was supported by
local residents and elected officials,
which is usually required.
Patricia Beach has been used both
publicly and privately for recreation
since 1925, when George Allen built a
private hunting lodge at the site. Over
time, the area developed into a popular
public retreat. It was absorbed by the
provincial park and named after George
and Olive Allen’s daughter, Patricia.
The fact that residents and local
government had referred for a long
time to the former hunting lodge site
as Patricia Beach was good enough to
warrant an official naming. If Mani-
toba’s highways department chooses
to erect a road sign marking Patricia
Beach, it would be at the site of the
former hunting lodge.
Even though the easily accessed land
features in Manitoba have been named,
that still leaves vast numbers of remote
ones anonymous. There are 12 land
features that come up for naming in
the province’s commemorative pro-
gram: lakes, rivers, islands, bays, points,
peninsulas, rapids, creeks, hills, nar-
rows, eskers and waterfalls. According
to Kappel, there are at least half a mil-
lion such features still unnamed.
Kappel might name seven features
one year and hundreds the next,
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 75
READER’S DIGEST
depending on the projects underway.
For example, extra staff were brought
in to speed up the commemorative
naming of Second World War casual-
ties, and 2,000 features received mon-
ikers in one year. Each feature has to
be researched to ensure there isn’t a
local name or local history that should
take priority.
The commemorative project com-
pleted in 1995 was about more than
just naming. The province also asked
for photographs, biographical infor-
mation and any other documentation
from families who suffered war casual-
ties. These are included in a database.
Kappel communicated with many of
the families during the process.
“Even after 50 years, some families
will talk about their family member
and still shed tears,” he says. “For some
people, [the commemorative naming]
is closure because the person died
overseas, or right in the sea, and are
buried overseas, if formally buried at
all. We have families go up to the com-
memorative lakes and build cairns or
put down plaques.”
IN 2005, the province published A
Place of Honour, a book containing
information about the fallen soldiers.
(It’s now out of print but is available to
download through the Manitoba Geo-
graphical Names Program website.)
The book includes names, photos,
biographies and the geographical fea-
tures commemorated in their name,
76 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
as well as personal information that
included their letters home.
Take the example of Private Ralph
Aandal, from the Winnipeg neigh-
bourhood of St. Vital. “I had a nice
trip out here. We rode on the train for
quite a ways. Then we got off and
rode on camels for miles and miles.”
Aandal was joking. He had arrived in
the Carberry Desert, in southwest-
ern Manitoba, to train at the nearby
Shilo military base.
He moved to Debert, N.S., for addi-
tional training before reaching Brit-
ain, where, he wrote, he had “quite a
bit of fun.... I saw all the big art gal-
leries and the wax museum.” He also
complained about the European ciga-
rettes and asked his parents to send
him Players Mild.
His last letter was postmarked the
day he died: “We are still on the Ger-
man border,” he wrote. “I haven’t been
sick at all out here. It’s funny we all
haven’t gone to the hospital. We are
lying in water day and night.... Love,
Ralph (14 December, 1944).”
Aandal Lake in northern Manitoba
is named after him.
“Since we have not a gravesite here
in Manitoba, [Aandal Lake] is so very
meaningful to us, his family,” his sister
wrote in the book.
Another commemorative name is
Wilkie Lake, in honour of Nursing Sis-
ter and Lieutenant Agnes W. Wilkie of
Carman. On October 14, 1942, Wilkie,
aged 30, was aboard the SS Caribou,

a transport ship, when it was tor-
pedoed by a German submarine.
The ship went down in four min-
utes, and Wilkie and her friend, a diet-
itian named Margaret Brooke, were
sucked into the water with the ship.
“I thought we would never come up
but we did eventually,” Brooke later
told authorities.
They clung to the ropes of an over-
turned lifeboat in the icy waters. About
10 people were hanging on, but waves
kept crashing over the lifeboat and
sweeping them away. They struggled
to get back. At one point, Sister Wilkie
lost consciousness and let go. Brooke
saved her. Another wave crashed over
them and Wilkie went with it again.
All of the names on
Manitoba’s maps are
historically instructive.
This time she didn’t get back. When a
minesweeper found the boat at day-
break, only three people remained.
The stories continue.
In the biographies, families were
asked to name something the deceased
loved to do most. Their passions ranged
from the outdoors to sports, from paint-
ing in watercolours to dancing Strauss
waltzes, to practical jokes and “teasing
his sisters,” as was the case of Trooper
Cecil E. Switzer of Fisher Branch, who
died at age 23. Switzer Lake, south of
Caribou River, is named after him.
Trooper Steve Michlosky, who grew
up on a farm southeast of Lake Winni-
peg, died at age 21. He sent many let-
ters home to family and friends. In one,
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 77
READER’S DIGEST
he wrote: “I feel miserable and down
for some reason. There is a girl in Por-
tage la Prairie who writes me often,
about every three days. I guess I told
you about her when I was back in Can-
ada. She’s beautiful and good and she’s
in love with me very much.... I hon-
estly don’t know how I’ll ever repay
her for all her kindness and loyalty to
a soldier who is not worth any of it.”
Michlosky Lake, northeast of Lac
Brochet, is named for him.
“The commemoration of these men
and women through the naming of geo-
graphical features is more than a polite
gesture to their families,” wrote Anthony
Buchner, who was employed as the
toponymic projects officer at the time,
in the book’s introduction.
For example, the sister of Frank
Foord, who went missing in action,
wrote that “With no known grave, he
has always just been ‘Missing in
Hong Kong.’ Now, with a spot at last
in Canada in his name, he will finally
have a resting place.”
ACROSS MANITOBA, there are 22 Vic-
toria Cross recipients honoured. Oth-
ers commemorated include 37 casual-
ties from the Korean War, seven from
the Afghanistan War and one United
Nations peacekeeper. The province has
recently begun naming land features
for slain police officers and other first
responders who died in the line of duty.
Among those is Dennis Strongquill,
an RCMP constable gunned down
78 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
after he made a traffic stop in 2001.
Strongquill Lake is north of Flin Flon.
Landforms are matched with the
deceased randomly, so a general
doesn’t get a bigger lake than a private,
except by coincidence.
When Kappel’s First World War
project started on January 14, 2016, the
province had a list of about 1,000 cas-
ualties in its archives. It was estimated
the project might take five years.
However, the casualty list was incom-
plete. The federal government keeps a
registry of those killed in the First World
War but it doesn’t say where they are
from in Canada. Kappel put out the
call for families who lost a loved one in
the Great War to contact the province.
About 100 responded.
Then schoolteacher Darryl R. Toews,
a volunteer with the Manitoba His-
torical Society, got on the case. Toews
researched war monuments across the
province, as well as newspaper archives,
and came up with nearly 7,000 more
names. The databank for Manitobans
killed in the First World War now tal-
lies about 8,200.
The names date back another gen-
eration compared to the Second World
War, so information is harder to obtain.
Currently, there is no timeline to com-
plete the project.
ANOTHER COMMON CALL to the prov-
ince’s toponymy office is from a family
that has a cottage on an island, creek
or small lake or has some other feature
on their property. They want to name
the feature after themselves.
“Uh-huh,” Kappel will say, listening.
“Uh-uh,” he will reply in the end.
First of all, he explains, ownership
isn’t a factor in naming. Secondly, you
have to be dead to have something
named after you.
A rare exception was made when
then premier Greg Selinger leap-
frogged the process in July 2010 and
named a northern lake after Jonathan
Toews, the very-much-alive star of the
Chicago Blackhawks of the National
Hockey League.
The Winnipegger had just won an
Olympic gold medal with Team Cana-
da’s hockey team in 2010, then cap-
tained the Blackhawks to a Stanley
Cup, for which he was named the most
valuable player.
The city planned to fete Toews with
various honours, including a parade
and the naming of Dakota Community
Centre’s hockey rink the Jonathan
Toews Sportsplex. Selinger, mean-
while, decided the province would
name a lake after Toews, who was 22 at
FROM “WHERE THE LAKES HAVE NO NAMES,” BY BILL REDEKOP, WINNIPEG FREE PRESS (FEBRUARY 24, 2017),
WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM
the time. Toews Lake is 95 kilometres
north of Flin Flon.
A small uproar ensued, with claims
that Toews was being prioritized ahead
of Afghanistan War casualties and
first responders who lost their lives in
the line of duty.
Kappel doesn’t want to get into
the politics behind the naming but
acknowledges that virtually all com-
memorative naming is done posthu-
mously, not just in Manitoba but
across Canada.
That said, he believes Toews wasn’t
a bad choice if an exception was to be
made. The hockey player is a tremen-
dous ambassador for Manitoba and
is heavily involved in charity work,
including his Jonathan Toews Founda-
tion. In 2016, he donated $1 million to
the Dakota Community Centre.
Have there been any other excep-
tions in Canada of naming land fea-
tures after a living person?
“That’s the only one I’m aware of,”
Kappel says. “I still get teased about
that by the other provinces when we
get together.”

ISN’T IT ROMANTIC?

You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because
reality is finally better than your dreams.
DR . SE U S S

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 79

 As Kids See It
“Mom, can you e-transfer my allowance?”
BEFORE HAVING KIDS: “I am
NEVER making separate meals for
my children.”
FOUR YEARS LATER: “Let me
repeat your order: tricolour pasta
(al dente) with butter and cheese on
a bed of string cheese on a fairy plate,
cup of water with star-shaped ice
cubes, yogourt two ways, Cheez-Its.”
@BRETJTURNER
WHOEVER CAME UP WITH the term
“terrible twos” must have felt very
foolish after their kid turned three.
C o m e d i a n JIM GAFFIAN
80 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
ONE DAY, when my daughter was
about two years old, she asked for
a drink. I prompted her to use her
manners by saying, “Kayleigh, what
are you forgetting to say?”
She quickly replied, “Cookie too?”
TANYA IRONSIDE, G ra n d P ra i r i e , A l t a .
SON: What’s for dinner?
ME: Fish.
[He screams, starts hyperventilating,
D A V I D WE I GHA M
begins to break from reality.]
SON: [suddenly stops] Wait. Have
I ever had fish?
@DADANDBURIED
RECENTLY, A LITTLE BOY politely
said hi to my nephew. He responded,
“Hi! I am Alligator” and pretended to
eat the other kid with his arms. I have
never been prouder.
@KARENCHEEE
MY FOUR-YEAR-OLD is insisting
he’ll only eat “monster food,” and
whatever that is, it’s definitely not the
grilled cheese my wife just made.
@DADPRESSION
MY FRIEND LUKE didn’t realize until
he was an adult that lukewarm was a
real temperature. He thought it was
just a term his mom used to describe
his bathwater.
@ADAM__MELIA
IN MY EXPERIENCE, when one door
closes it reopens and closes 13 more
times by a small child.
@MOMMAJESSIEC
AFTER BUYING OUR FIRST HOME,
we discovered a compost bin made of
logs in the backyard. It was an eyesore,
so one day my husband went out to
remove it, our three-year-old son in
tow. As they pulled the structure apart,
they found some leftover compost,
including several eggs. My son looked
up at my husband and exclaimed,
“Dad! That’s the biggest chicken nest
I ever saw!” BELINDA HIEBERT
AS I WAS DRIVING with my five-
year-old one evening, she pointed
to a tall tower and asked why it had a
red light on top. To get her thinking,
I said, “That’s a cellphone tower. Now
you tell me what would happen if a
plane were flying low to the ground
at night and that tower didn’t have
a light up top.”
My daughter immediately replied,
“The pilot wouldn’t know he could
make a phone call!”
FAITH ASHFIELD, Ha m p t o n , N. B .
MY TWO KIDS and I were visiting
our neighbour who had just had a
baby. I turned to look at my boys and
teased, “How come you’re not as
cute as he is anymore?”
Evan, my eldest, replied, “We’ve
evolved, Mom.”
GILLIAN BRONDYKE
FOUR-YEAR-OLD: Daddy, I spilled
some milk.
ME: A little or a lot?
FOUR-YEAR-OLD: A tiny bit.
ME: Okay.
FOUR-YEAR-OLD: But that tiny bit
went everywhere.
@DISTRACTED_DAD
Are the children you know more than
a tiny bit funny? Tell us about them! A
story could earn you $50. For details on
how to submit an anecdote, see page 8
or visit rd.ca/joke.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 81
LIFE LESSON
Pay
Attention BY SA RA H B AR MA K
I LLU S T RA TI ON B Y JE AN N IE P HA N
JENNIFER LEE NEVER USED to have
a problem staying focused. The
43-year-old senior communications
strategist in Mimico, Ont., has been
feeling far more scatterbrained, how-
ever, since she welcomed a new baby
into her family two years ago.
“I’m saying something to my hus-
band and halfway through, I’ve forgot-
ten what it was,” she says. With her
toddler, a 10-year-old, a full-time job
82 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
Smart strategies for
bringing more focus
to your daily life
and aging parents, she says her powers
of concentration feel stretched to the
breaking point.
Like Lee, many of us feel pulled in
every direction, whether we’re being
interrupted at work by the ping of our
smartphones or we’re retired and man-
aging a calendar of family obligations
and appointments. While we may
glorify multi-tasking, some research-
ers suggest that constant switching
READER’S DIGEST
between activities takes a toll on the
area of our brains responsible for
emotional and cognitive regulation—
and has also been associated with
depression and anxiety.
But how do we reduce demands on
our lives and boost our ability to focus
on what matters? It’s easier said than
done, but it’s not impossible.
Declutter Your Life
Although Lee wishes she could take
tasks off her plate, she finds it hard to
ignore a request for help when it
comes from a loved one. For instance,
her elderly father occasionally asks her
to write or copy-edit documents for his
seniors’ club. She squeezes the work
in during her lunch hour, and then her
day is more harried.
“It just makes me stressed,” she
admits. “I would have guilt if I told
my dad I didn’t have time to help, but
I end up feeling at wits’ end.”
We’re better off restricting ourselves
to doing a few things that really matter
rather than doing it all, says Sarri Gil-
man, a psychotherapist on Whidbey
Island, Wash. But we may balk at
reducing our load if it conflicts with
our self-image as a good person.
“Helping, supporting and caring—
those words sound really positive, don’t
they?” says Gilman, author of the 2014
book Transform Your Boundaries. “You
say no, and there’s nothing loving about
that word.” She counsels her clients to
tune in to what she calls their inner
84 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
compass, a voice that alerts them when
a boundary is being crossed.
Then, if they find it socially scary to
turn someone down, she encourages
them to work that fear into their
response. “I say, ‘I know this may dis-
appoint you’ before declining,” she
explains. In addition to taking some of
the power away from the fears, Gilman
says the statement allows the person
listening to feel considered.
Gilman counsels people to be pro-
active, looking at the month ahead in
their calendar and cancelling every-
thing that is a “no”— and then making
sure also that “yes” activities are pres-
ent. “Once you’ve cut ties with distrac-
tions and prioritized things you really
desire, you start feeling more comfort-
able in your skin.”
Nourish Your
Concentration
We’re used to drinking coffee to
heighten alertness, but too much caf-
feine can lead to counterproductive
side effects, including anxiety, irrit-
ability and insomnia. There are other,
better fuels that help the brain focus,
says Dr. Afsoun Khalili, a naturopathic
doctor in Toronto and associate pro-
fessor at the Canadian College of
Naturopathic Medicine.
Healthy fats are a powerful tool.
While Khalili recommends consulting
a health-care provider before taking
new supplements, she says studies
have shown that consuming omega-3
fatty acids—essential components
found in the membranes of our brain’s
neurons—can improve cognition and
memory. These nutrients can be found
in fish, such as mackerel, sardines,
herring and trout, or in capsule form.
Avocados, nuts and seeds, which all
contain vitamin E, are also helpful for
improving concentration.
Additionally, as we age, our brains
become vulnerable to oxidative stress,
which plays a role in cognitive decline.
To combat this, Khalili suggests includ-
ing darkly coloured fruits and vegeta-
bles in your diet. “The antioxidants
found in blueberries specifically can
cross the blood-brain barrier, which
helps boost focus,” she says. Indeed,
one 2018 study of adults with mild
cognitive impairment who consumed
blueberries every day for 16 weeks
showed elevated neural activity in key
areas of their brains.
All that said, for the approximately
four per cent of adults worldwide who
will be affected by an attention deficit
disorder in their lifetime, a diet adjust-
ment may not be enough. If you regu-
larly have trouble finishing tasks that
demand your sustained focus, or are so
easily distracted that it adversely affects
your life, ask your doctor about a diag-
nosis. Medications such as Adderall or
Concerta can help shore up your focus.
Step Away
When it comes to productivity, we’ve
long held the notion that we must
keep our noses to the grindstone to
get more done, but recent research
shows that we’re actually better off
taking frequent breaks.
According to a 2011 study by
researchers at the University of Illinois,
brief diversions from a task boost our
ability to focus on that task. DeskTime,
a time-tracking software firm, analyzed
the work habits of the top 10 per cent
of employees who use their product,
based on productivity, and found they
regularly took breaks—17 minutes of
rest for every 52 minutes of hard work.
The catch is that a break has to be
restful: that means no checking Face-
book or email, according to the Desk-
Time study. Take a walk outside, shut
your eyes and mindfully follow your
breath, or just daydream. Because our
brain gradually stops registering stimuli
when it focuses for too long on any
one thing—a sight, sound or bit of
information—a restorative respite
renews our ability to focus when we
come back.
Lee says she now takes walks after
dinner to relax, and she’s planning
some day-long mini-vacations during
which she won’t be responsible for
anyone. She also recently made a big
decision: she turned down a higher-
paying job offer from a company whose
location would have added at least an
hour to her daily commute. “I knew I
would be more scattered and tired,” she
says. “They were really understanding,
and I felt a lot better.”
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 85
PROFILE

86 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

 AT 95, FATHER
CHARLES BRANDT HAS
DEDICATED DECADES OF
HIS LIFE TO PROTECTING
THE NATURAL WORLD.
HE’S NOT DONE YET.
THE HERMIT PRIEST
OF VANCOUVER
ISLAND
B Y B R IA N P AY TO N FR OM HAKA I
READER’S DIGEST
SLOW DOWN. Take a breath. Insight
takes time.
Charles Brandt has been meditating
and praying on the east coast of British
Columbia’s Vancouver Island since
1965. Over that time, he has come to
some elegant conclusions about our
place in the natural world. He gath-
ered them slowly, through solitude,
study and quiet contemplation. He has
acted upon them.
Brandt, 95, is a Catholic hermit,
priest, ornithologist, flight navigator,
book conservator and naturalist. His
solitary path can be seen as both a rad-
ical departure from and a return to first
principles—the basic, fundamental
reasons for believing or doing anything.
His hermitage, Merton House, lies
at the end of an old logging road near
the Oyster River. Surrounded by coastal
temperate rainforest, it is a simple,
two-storey home made of shiplap
cedar planks. It has plenty of win-
dows, indoor plumbing, electricity
and Internet access. Brandt built it him-
self and named it in honour of theolo-
gian Thomas Merton.
Brandt is a calming presence, with
bright eyes reflective of having reached
both advanced age and wisdom. He
seems perfectly present as he holds you
in his gaze. He is tall and poised. He
wears a loose-fitting sweater and old
running shoes. He appears not unlike
other healthy people his age. And yet he
is one in many millions—an ordained
Roman Catholic hermit-priest.
88 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
“I was called to this life,” Brandt
explains from his snug study, looking
out on the trunks of towering trees.
“You don’t see anybody or hear any-
body. My hermitage is just ideal for
this kind of life.”
For over half a century, Brandt has
walked the quiet road leading to his her-
mitage, his “road to nowhere.” As rev-
elations of abuse and cover-ups eroded
the moral authority of the Catholic
Church around the world, he contin-
ued to meditate, pray and observe the
natural world around him.
OVER TIME, he has evolved—not into
a theologian but an ecologian. Now, as
he approaches the end of his journey,
he’s taking steps to ensure that this
land and hermitage are preserved
in perpetuity. He also hopes the insights
of his generation of ecological think-
ers—humility, empathy and compas-
sion for the natural world—will live
on beyond him.
Brandt was 13 when he fell under the
spell of Henry David Thoreau,
renowned 19th-century American
( P R E V I O US S P RE A D ) D A VE C A L L E GAR I
essayist, naturalist, abolitionist and
philosopher. Growing up on a farm
near Kansas City, Missouri, Brandt
was himself already a budding natur-
alist and avid birder in 1936, when he
first got his hands on a copy of Tho-
reau’s masterwork, Walden. He was
particularly taken with Thoreau’s
attempt to develop awareness and
empathy for the natural world.
 “He was my childhood hero,” Brandt
says. “He went to the woods to find
out what life was all about so that he
would not have lived in vain.”
After high school and college,
Brandt studied general science and
biology at the University of Missouri
and soon realized that his true inter-
est lay in natural history. The Second
World War interrupted his post-
secondary studies. Brandt was drafted
into the United States Air Force and
trained as a navigator flying bombers.
He did not declare himself a conscien-
tious objector, but became deeply
conflicted about his upcoming role in
the war and sought the counsel of an
Air Force chaplain. Then the atomic
bombs were dropped on Japan and the
war came to an end. Brandt never saw
active duty overseas.
“I WAS THE FIRST
HERMIT ORDAINED
TO THE PRIESTHOOD
IN SOMETHING LIKE
200 YEARS,” SAYS
CHARLES BRANDT.
Following his discharge, he con-
tinued to seek spiritual guidance. He
also followed his interest in the nat-
ural world to Cornell University, where
he studied ornithology, was awarded
a fellowship to work on a birdsong
recording project and earned a bach-
elor of science degree.
Over the following years, Brandt’s
spiritual quest led him to several reli-
gious communities. He was ordained
an Anglican priest in England in 1952.
Increasingly, he found himself drawn to
Catholicism, the works of Thomas Mer-
ton and the possibility of a contempla-
tive life, so much so that he went to
Kentucky to visit an abbey where Mer-
ton would later live as that monastic
community’s first hermit. But Merton—
who found the monastery too crowded,
regimented and noisy—urged Brandt to
look elsewhere if he was serious about
pursuing a solitary, contemplative life.
Brandt took his advice. Ten years
later, at the age of 42, after having
spent eight years as a Trappist monk,
Brandt arrived on Vancouver Island,
where the local Catholic bishop had a
reputation for being receptive to those
who wished to pursue the hermit’s life.
“I was the first hermit ordained to
the priesthood in something like 200
years,” Brandt says.
IN GREEK, the word for hermit is ere-
mite, which means “of the desert.”
Catholic hermits by definition lead
solitary lives, but tend to live near one
another in colonies to have some level
of support. When Brandt took up resi-
dence on Vancouver Island, there were
eight men attempting to exist as her-
mits on the banks of the Tsolum River.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 89
READER’S DIGEST
They lived within walking distance of
one another and 23 kilometres from
the town of Courtenay.
But Brandt yearned for even more
solitude. With the bishop’s permission,
he purchased 5.6 hectares of second-
growth forest on the Oyster River for
$9,000. In 1970, he moved his hermit-
age 12 kilometres north to this new
location. Over the years, the other
hermits on the Tsolum River drifted
away—some got married, some left
for other religious communities. Only
Brandt remained on Vancouver Island,
alone in the woods, praying, reading.
In that hermit’s life, Brandt found
his thinking about the natural world
and the spiritual life converging. He
was drawn to the philosophy of deep
ecology, which attempts to broaden
the focus of religion from individual
salvation to care for the earth. He sums
it up this way: the universe is a com-
munity of subjects to be communed
with, not objects to be exploited. The
earth is a one-time endowment; we
don’t get a second chance. The earth
is primary; humans and all other
beings are derivative.
For those from a Judeo-Christian
tradition, which decrees human domin-
ion over “all the earth and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon
the earth” (Genesis 1:26), this calls
for nothing short of another Coperni-
can revolution—the idea that creation
exists independent of human wants
and needs.
90 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
“DEAR MR. PELTON: The Tsolum River
is dead!” So began an open letter by
Brandt to British Columbia’s minister
of the environment in 1985. According
to Chris Hilliar, who was working for
Canada’s Department of Fisheries
and Oceans at the time, that letter
reignited what appeared to be a lost
environmental cause.
The Tsolum River, where Brandt
began his life as a hermit, was poisoned
by a nearby copper mine that oper-
ated between 1964 and 1966 and con-
tinued to leach toxic metals into the
water, destroying a thriving salmon
habitat. The knowledge that a “commu-
nity of beings” living in the river was
under attack led Brandt from contem-
plation and prayer to action. In 2016,
on the 50th-anniversary celebration of
Brandt’s ordination, Hilliar paid tribute
to his long-time friend for his tireless
work to resurrect the Tsolum River.
“As a strategic environmentalist,
Father Charles knew that to restore the
Tsolum River we would have to force
government to act,” Hilliar said. “And
his ‘Tsolum River is dead’ letter did
just that. It gave newspapers all the
facts they needed. Suddenly the Tso-
lum River was in the spotlight and gov-
ernment had their feet to the fire.”
Brandt was instrumental in estab-
lishing the Tsolum River Restoration
Society and the campaign that resulted
in the reclamation of the old copper
mine (at a cost of more than $6 mil-
lion), which led to the rapid return of
salmon. Only nine pink salmon were
counted in 1983; in 2016, their num-
bers had reached 130,000.
“Thirty years later,” Hilliar said in his
address to honour Brandt, “the Tso-
lum River is on the road to recovery.
Salmon runs are on the rise and peo-
ple living in the watershed are active
in stewardship programs and in resto-
ration work. And it all started with a
simple letter from a hermit-priest.”
“I THINK EVERYBODY
HAS SOME SORT
OF LOVE FOR THE
NATURAL WORLD,”
SAYS BRANDT.
“IT MOVES THEM.”
In addition to Brandt’s efforts to
restore the Tsolum, he went on to advo-
cate for the protection of parks, forests
and the surrounding sea—work that has
been honoured with numerous awards.
“Immersed in the beauty of earth,”
Brandt says, “I had taken rather bold
stands against several logging and
mining companies that seemed bound
to destroy all that I had come to the
rainforest for.”
It was his life of contemplation and
communion with the natural world that
led to a deep love of it. It is that love, he
says, that led him to act in its defence.
IF A BIOGRAPHY is ever written on
the life of Charles Brandt, hermit-
priest, it should be bound by hand.
While the insight, wisdom and spirit-
ual sustenance found in texts have
undoubtedly enriched his life, it is
the work of preserving and restoring
books that has provided him a means
to make his living.
Although his hermitage would
remain his primary residence and
place of work, he spent time away to
study bookbinding and archival paper
conservation in the United States and
Europe. He worked for the Canadian
Conservation Institute in Ottawa, as
well as in Manitoba. In all, he was
away from his hermitage for 10 years,
studying and working at his craft.
Brandt still occasionally works as a
book and paper conservator, but his
focus has now turned to the question:
what happens after I’m gone?
The old logging road near the Oyster
River was made to haul away timber
when the land was cleared around
1930. Today it’s surrounded by rainfor-
est towering up to 28 metres high. The
hermit-priest still at work here is older
than all of these trees. Recently, Brandt
enlisted the help of the Comox Valley
Land Trust to help him save this forest
as a place where people can come to
commune with the natural world. He
has also established the Hermitage
Advisory Committee to ensure that
Merton House remains a refuge for oth-
ers in need of solitude for their work.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 91
READER’S DIGEST

While it’s easy to see how declaring environmental destruction that is

the land a sanctuary could benefit the
natural world and those who might
visit it, what is perhaps less clear is the
value to the wider world of having
someone think, study or meditate
there. Over 700 years ago, St. Thomas
Aquinas said, “It is necessary for the
perfection of human society that there
should be men who devote their lives
to contemplation.”
Bruce Wood, current member of
the Hermitage Advisory Committee,
agrees. He says it’s still important for
the rest of us to see contemplatives
leading by example and, like Brandt,
turning thought into action. “There
are alternative ways besides just pur-
suing the material world,” Wood says.
Contemplatives “give us something
to ponder.”
In his 2000 book, Self and Environ-
ment, Brandt writes, “This rainforest
is not my property but God’s cre-
ation.… To realize our unity with all
beings, and so to leave the world of
duality is perhaps the most import-
ant step we take towards halting the
taking place on the earth.”
“We really have to fall in love with the
natural world”—this is Brandt’s refrain.
To save something, you need to love it;
to love something, you need to con-
sider it sacred, he says. “Your wife or
your children or the natural world. Only
the sense of the sacred will save us.”
By “sacred,” Brandt means holy,
“from the hands of God.” But for those
who have difficulty with those religious
concepts, sacred also means some-
thing that’s held in the highest respect,
something so precious it must never
be taken for granted or squandered.
“I think everybody has some sort of
love for the natural world,” Brandt
explains. “They may not call it sacred,
but somehow they relate to it. It moti-
vates them and it moves them.”
Brandt continues to step out of
Merton House to open himself to the
wonder of the natural world. Although
he doesn’t travel as far down the old
logging road as he once did, he still
makes his way toward the same desti-
nation: communion.

© 2018, BRIAN PAYTON. FROM HAKAI MAGAZINE (SEPTEMBER 11, 2018), HAKAIMAGAZINE.COM

LIKE A BOSS

Live your life with the enthusiasm of

Bruce Springsteen counting to four.
J IL L K R A JEWS KI , wr it e r a nd so ci a l me d i a p ro du c er

92 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

 @ Work
“I wonder if I can expense the coconuts.”
WHEN TREATING PATIENTS at the
physiotherapy clinic where I work,
staff always ask patients if they require
any equipment to do their exercises.
One day, I heard the assistant asking
a client if she needed anything. The
S U S A N C A M I L LE RI KO N A R
reply: “Only willpower.”
WAI CHAN, To r o n t o
PET PEEVE
“Can I make a suggestion?” is my
least favourite question ever.
@JENNYJRUBIN
AREN’T YOU COLD?
During these dark and trying times,
nothing remains as controversial as
the office thermostat.
C o m e d i a n Ve n e s s a P e r u d a
PERFORMANCE REVIEW in five
words: Excels at naps and lunch.
@SHEABROWNING
Are you in need of some professional
motivation? Send us a work anecdote,
and you could receive $50. To submit
your stories, visit rd.ca/joke.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 93
EDITORS’ CHOICE

A team of White
Helmets at the site of
a collapsed building
in Aleppo, Syria, on
October 17, 2016.

94 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

Saving the
White
Helmets
Inside the daring
international operation
to bring the volunteers
of the Syria Civil
Defense to safety
BY SA L LY A R M ST R O N G
P O R T R A I T P H OTO G R A P H S BY P E T E R B R E G G

P U B L I S H E D I N CO - O P E R AT I O N W I T H
TH E UNIT ED C HUR C H O BS ER VE R
READER’S DIGEST

IT WAS BLACK AS PITCH on the Syrian

side of the border and floodlit on the
Israeli side when the curtain rose on
a dramatic rescue. Out of the darkness

in the Golan Heights they came—the
famed White Helmets—the bankers and
barbers and ordinary citizens known
across the world for their courage.
Over the course of Syria’s seven-year
civil war, these volunteer rescue work-
ers had braved barrel bombings and
chemical attacks to save more than
114,000 citizens who dared oppose
President Bashar al-Assad. Singled out
for torture and death by the regime,
they came—exhausted and frightened,
walking with their families up the grassy
slope of Syria toward the forbidden
border with Israel.
Shortly after 9 p.m. on July 21,
2018, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)
( P R E V I O U S S P R E A D) I B R A H I M E B U L E YS /A N A D O LU AG E N C Y/G E T T Y I M AG E S
gave the order: “Now.” The metal gate
separating the two enemy countries
cranked open. Four hundred and
twenty-two lives were saved that night.
“CANADA PLAYED the leading role in
an absolutely extraordinary inter-
national rescue operation that came
together in a frenetic three-week
period,” says James Le Mesurier, the
founder of Mayday Rescue. (A not-for-
profit foundation based in Jordan and
Turkey, it assists the White Helmets,

96 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

officially known as Syria Civil Defense,
with training and development.)
For one exemplary initiative, leaders
from half a dozen countries set egos and
differences aside. “We witnessed the
heart and core of Canada,” says Debo-
rah Lyons, Canada’s ambassador to
Israel. Her counterpart in Jordan, Peter
MacDougall, believes that of all the files
he’s covered, “This is number 1.” Major
Efi Ribner of the IDF agrees: “This is
one of the most significant things I’ve
done in my military career. I’m very,
very proud to have been part of it.”
But first, the background. In the fall
of 2012, Assad’s government began
attacking villages, towns and cities that
were against his regime. His claim: any
opposition to his autocratic rule was an
act of terrorism. He withdrew all ambu-
lance, fire and rescue services from
areas not under government control,
leaving citizens helpless. As bombs fell,
there was no one to put out fires or
help people trapped in the rubble. And
when the attacks ended, there was no
one to restart the electricity, reconnect
water services or repair bridges.
That’s when groups of ordinary Syr-
ians, first in Aleppo and Idlib and later
throughout the rebel-held areas,
united to respond. They gained experi-
ence in firefighting, rescue, trauma care
and crisis management and learned
how to restore services and rebuild
bridges. They became known as the
White Helmets, named for the colour
of their hard hats.
After receiving training help from
Mayday Rescue and funding from Can-
ada, the United Kingdom, Germany,
the United States, Japan and the Neth-
erlands, what began as a high-octane
neighbourhood watch had, by 2014,
morphed into a movement of 4,200
volunteers working in approximately
150 rebel towns, villages and cities.
One volunteer who escaped Assad’s
regime is Jihad Mahameed, 51. A for-
mer accounts manager at a bank in
Daraa, he has a friendly smile and a
bitter understanding of the tactics
used against his community. “I was
the first employee dismissed from the
bank because I was against the gov-
ernment,” he says.
He remembers the night in January
2013 that he became a White Helmet:
“Our neighbourhood was hit with
bombs. A woman was crying. She was
injured and sure her baby was dead
under the rubble.” Mahameed and his
friends took the woman to the hospital
and ran back to the site of the bombing
to begin digging. “We found the baby,
covered in dust and sitting in a corner
of the building, looking like she didn’t
know what had happened.” Maha-
meed tucked her into his arms, and
the child clung to him until he was
able to return her to her mother.
His colleague Farouq Habib, 37, is
the White Helmets’ support-unit direc-
tor and liaises between the group and
Mayday Rescue. Before the bloodbath
by Assad’s forces left almost 18,000 dead
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 97
READER’S DIGEST
across the country, he was an invest-
ment banker in Homs. Like Mahameed,
he was arrested, jailed and tortured for
months by the regime. Like Mahameed,
he doesn’t talk about that. Instead, he
talks about rescue: “When the bombs
explode, some people run to escape.
Others run to help.”
Habib saw his house destroyed and
his family displaced. After leaving
prison, he was told to get out of Syria.
From his temporary home in Amman,
he thinks back on the evacuation of the
White Helmets at the Golan Heights.
“We didn’t aim to be refugees and
leave our country,” he says. “We were
looking to live in peace and dignity in
our hometowns.”
Whenever danger struck, the White
Helmets headed toward it—armed with
stretchers, not guns. They became
heroes. They also became the public
enemy of Bashar al-Assad, in part
because they were keeping people alive
despite his bombardments, but also
because they attached cameras to their
helmets to record the chemical attacks
and barrel bombings, gathering evi-
dence of his war crimes. In retaliation,
as areas fell to the regime, amnesty was
offered to all but the White Helmets.
“All flavours of armed groups were
eligible for reconciliation and for move-
ment to other parts of [government-
controlled] Syria,” Le Mesurier says, but
not the White Helmets. “They were
singled out, taken off buses, put into
regime detention facilities. They were
98 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
tortured, terrorized and forced to
make video confessions alleging that
they had been responsible for con-
ducting atrocities. Some White Hel-
mets were referred to as vermin that
should be eradicated.”
They were also subjected to “double
tap” operations: the regime would
bomb an area, and when the White
Helmets rushed in, a second bombard-
ment would target the rescuers. But
the worst assault came after the fall
of the rebel-held areas in the south.
Residents were told they had to fill
out reconciliation forms, pledge alle-
giance to Assad and identify terrorists,
mass graves and White Helmets. The
first responders feared they would be
arrested, tortured and disappeared.
With 255 of their numbers already dead
and more than 700 wounded, the risk
was extraordinary.
That’s when Canada got involved.
JUNE 28, AMMAN, JORDAN: Nadera
Al-Sukkar, Syrian country manager for
Mayday Rescue, went to update Peter
MacDougall, the Canadian ambassa-
dor, on the situation in southern Syria.
She said they needed assistance in
evacuating some of the White Helmets.
“I could see in her face the look of
despair, even panic,” remembers Mac-
Dougall. He immediately phoned his
colleagues in Ottawa who are respon-
sible for Syria.
In the beginning, the rescue opera-
tion was driven by people in the field,
Our neighbour-
hood was hit.
A woman was
crying—she was
sure her baby
was dead.”
–Jihad Mahameed,
White Helmet
When the bombs
explode, some
people run to
escape. Others
run to help.”
–Farouq Habib, support-unit
director for the White Helmets
such as Robin Wettlaufer, the head of
political affairs for Syria. She became
Canada’s face in that country in March
2014, when she was appointed as
special envoy. Located in Istanbul,
she’s been working with the White
Helmets—arranging funding, training
and support—for over four years.
JULY 3, ISTANBUL, TURKEY: “Is there
anything Canada can do to help us?”
Ra’ed Saleh, the leader of the White
Helmets, was meeting with Wettlaufer
to let her know that the regime was
advancing faster than anticipated and
that his people were in trouble. He had
thought the targeted men and women
would have months to organize an
escape route. In reality, they had weeks,
maybe even days. Wettlaufer shared
his concern—she understood well the
trajectory of the Assad government and
how it pursues territory.
And so Wettlaufer began working
with Saleh and Mayday Rescue to draw
up a list of White Helmets most in dan-
ger: the leaders, the female members
and the ones featured prominently in
the media. Those names were marked
for evacuation.
Wettlaufer dispatched an urgent
report to Global Affairs Canada in
Ottawa, stating that there was a very
real risk that those White Helmets
could be detained or killed—it had
happened before in Eastern Ghouta
and in Aleppo. She felt that Canada was
required to keep them safe: “We had
funded them; we had worked closely
with them; and we knew just how
incredible their work had been. We
knew how much Syrians rely on them.”
The response to her message was
swift: yes, there was a responsibility
to help.
In the meantime, the threatened
White Helmets were on the run, find-
ing safe routes to the borders, where a
rescue might happen, concealing their
identities, counting on strangers for
clandestine help and staying in touch
with Mayday Rescue through coded
WhatsApp and text messages.
JULY 11, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM: At the
NATO foreign ministers’ summit in
Brussels, Canada’s minister of foreign
affairs, Chrystia Freeland, stood up at
a dinner event and allegedly pounded
the table when she made an impas-
sioned plea to the foreign ministers,
saying, “We have to do something.
We cannot leave the White Helmets
behind. We have a moral obligation
to these people.”
If a deal was struck, it also had to
include resettlement. The United King-
dom, Germany and France responded
positively to Freeland’s plea.
While the Brussels meeting galvan-
ized the diplomats, politicians and aid
workers involved, time was running out.
The tempo picked up, and the May-
day Rescue staff started preparing
operations for the plan that would fol-
low. There was still much to sort out,
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 101
READER’S DIGEST
says Wettlaufer. “How are we going to
do this? Which countries are on
board? What do we need them to do?
High-level diplomacy on the part of the
Canadian government and the Amer-
ican State Department was essential in
reaching out to people in the region
and engaging the UN in discussions.”
Phone calls, WhatsApp messages and
coded emails were connecting the dots
of the rescue plan, 24 hours a day. The
regime’s advancing army had closed off
the border to Jordan, leaving the Golan
Heights as the only crossing point avail-
able, which meant Israel had to agree
to let them in. Jordan had to sign off
on receiving the rescued men, women
and children from Israel, even if only
for a short stay. Buses to take the White
Helmets from Israel to Jordan had to be
organized. Meanwhile, Assad’s regime
was closing off access routes from the
south to the Israeli border. To further
complicate matters, ISIS had started
its own scrap for a piece of land that
also cut off entry from the south.
According to Anthony Hinton, the
deputy head of mission at the Cana-
dian Embassy in Tel Aviv, the next steps
to secure the crossing included engag-
ing with the Israelis at a number of
different levels. Then Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau asked Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu for direct assist-
ance. “This is a pretty sensitive issue,”
says Hinton. “There was willingness to
help right away. The first thing the Israe-
lis needed to know was the immense
102 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
scope of the problem. Once that was
established, they went to work brain-
storming different options. Israel was
absolutely indispensable.”
Deborah Lyons adds, “To their credit,
the Israeli government and military
put human life ahead of politics and
said, ‘We are there to help the White
Helmets and to work with the rest of
the coalition to get them out safely.’”
Now they were in a race against
the clock.
JULY 19, AMMAN, JORDAN: Mayday
Rescue sent a coded message by text
and WhatsApp to the White Helmets:
“Head to the border with Israel.” The
instruction seemed counterintuitive—
Israel was an enemy border. But it was
the only option available, so the first
responders began moving from dozens
of locations toward the Golan Heights.
Canadian and Israeli officials then
worked to get identification documents
for each of the vulnerable White Hel-
mets from the Mayday Rescue office in
Amman and to finish the vetting so the
evacuation would go off without a hitch.
JULY 21, THE GOLAN HEIGHTS: Occu-
pied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day
War and tucked between two moun-
tain ranges in the Valley of Tears, the
Golan Heights is the de facto border
between Israel and Syria. Here, neigh-
bours who have become enemies
watch each other from vantage points
scattered about the hills.
Until the last
person was safe,
I didn’t relax
for a second.
No one did.”
–Robin Wettlaufer, Canada’s
head of political affairs for
Syria (with James Le Mesurier,
founder of Mayday Rescue)
READER’S DIGEST
But on this night, the border would
open briefly.
The plan was to unlock the gate,
receive the White Helmets, process
them and load them onto buses bound
for Jordan. Representatives of the Jor-
danian government were there to
observe the evacuation, as were UN
officials. Mayday Rescue had sent two
White Helmet members: Farouq Habib
and Jihad Mahameed.
The anxiety level at the Mayday Res-
cue office in Amman, the Canadian
Embassy in Tel Aviv and the foreign
affairs office in Ottawa was palpable.
So many things could go wrong. The
regime’s military could catch wind of
the top-secret rescue, charge the bor-
der and attack. Assad could call for an
airstrike. Syrian citizens living nearby
could seize the opportunity to cross
the border when it opened, prompting
a military response from the Israelis.
“Any one of those things would have
meant we had to stop the operation,”
says Wettlaufer. “This was our only
shot. We had one last day to make it
happen. We were incredibly worried,
incredibly stressed.” The worst part
was knowing that “something bad
could happen to the White Helmets
in the course of the evacuation.”
The IDF’s Major Efi Ribner says,
“We take our security very seriously;
there are many different terrorist
organizations on the other side who
are not particularly fond of the state
of Israel, who could take advantage
104 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
of the situation to attack us or the Syr-
ians trying to come across.”
The IDF had coordinated the time
and place where the White Helmets
would come across the border with
the Canadian Embassy and the May-
day Rescue team. Just before sun-
down, the IDF deployed in full battle
gear, machine guns shouldered. They
set up a table where each evacuee
would be identified. When the sky was
dark, the order was given to open the
gate; as it cranked slowly to a position
that exposed the Syrian hills, every-
one stared into the night. Then Ribner
called the White Helmets to come
forward as families—one group at a
time. If people were on their own, they
were to approach as individuals. The
control was tight.
Except for gunfire in the distance
(likely the sound of ISIS grabbing ter-
ritory), the night was eerily quiet. The
White Helmets moved toward the gate.
“I saw frightened people approach
the Israeli-Syrian border carefully, not
really knowing where to go or how to
conduct themselves,” remembers Rib-
ner. “We had people who speak Arabic
to give them a sense of security.”
Habib and Mahameed were the
first familiar faces the White Helmets
saw. “When the first family crossed, it
was an exceptional moment,” Habib
recalls. “I had mixed feelings—sadness
because this family was forced to leave
their homeland but happy because we
rescued them. I hugged their baby.
This is one
of the most
significant
things I’ve
done in my
military
career.”
–Major Efi Ribner,
Israeli Defense Forces
READER’S DIGEST
It made me think of my own son. I felt
that all those children out there waiting
with their parents were like my son.
The mother was crying, so was the
father. Then all three of us were crying.”
The families were in miserable
condition—some sick, some barefoot.
A pregnant woman had broken her
leg at one of the crossing points. One
mother asked if Habib could get milk
for her child. A man begged Habib to
negotiate safe passage for his wife and
children, left behind. There was a new-
born baby, delivered two days earlier.
The rescued families rushed to
Mahameed, embracing him, asking
questions, seeking answers. He hugged
them back but discouraged lingering.
“I just wanted them safely on the
bus,” he says.
Weeks later, Ribner was asked to
share the story behind a photo of him
holding one of the White Helmets’
swaddled infants. “The baby’s mother
had left her ID at the checkpoint. She
put the baby on the registration table
and rushed back to retrieve her docu-
ments. The baby was crying, so I carried
the child until the mother came back.”
As each family cleared security,
they were moved to buses where blan-
kets, food, baby formula and water
awaited them. When all 10 buses
were filled, they left in a convoy for
the Jordanian border.
In Amman, the Mayday Rescue office
was crowded with envoys, ambassa-
dors, aid workers and UN refugee staff,
106 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
all of them working the phones, check-
ing WhatsApp, maintaining contact
with their offices and waiting for news
from Habib and Mahameed. The room
was powered by cigarettes, coffee and
anxiety. Shortly after 9 p.m.—half an
hour later than anticipated—came the
call from Habib. The White Helmets
had started to cross.
“As the night progressed, it became
clear—this just might work,” says Wett-
laufer. “But until we found out that
the last person was safe, I didn’t relax
for a second. No one in that operation
centre did.”
Nadera Al-Sukkar of Mayday Rescue
felt the pressure keenly. “We lost touch
with Farouq and Jihad at some points,
so the stress escalated. We also lost
contact with the [White Helmets].
Morale was collapsing. All of us were
worried that it’s not going to happen,
that it’s too complicated, too difficult.”
At the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv,
Hinton and his colleagues were receiv-
ing updates from the IDF. Some of the
Syrians, such as children born after the
civil war began, lacked documentation.
Others had lost passports in the fracas
of war. But each case was worked out
and no one was turned away.
However, out of the approximately
800 White Helmets and family mem-
bers expected to escape, just slightly
more than half made it to the Golan
Heights—many couldn’t get past the
various checkpoints across Syria and
went into hiding. “We were hoping to
save many more, but it was a war
zone,” says Hinton, “a dynamic situa-
tion unfolding literally as the regime
was working to retake the territory.”
It was 5 a.m. when the last buses
arrived in Jordan.
AUGUST 28, AMMAN, JORDAN:
Reflecting on the operation, Wettlaufer
says, “It had about a two per cent
chance of success. It was mission
impossible. They were pinned between
an advancing regime and ISIS forces,
against two sealed international bor-
ders in one of the most politically sen-
sitive regions of the world. There was
no way this should have worked. And
yet it did. It did because of a commit-
ted minister, Chrystia Freeland, pre-
pared to make a tough decision and
do the right thing. It did because of a
range of officials in the field and in
Ottawa who were seized by the matter
and wanted to do the right thing. And
it worked because of incredible, coor-
dinated international diplomacy.”
When Al-Sukkar caught up with the
White Helmets at the undisclosed loca-
tion in Jordan where they were being
processed for resettlement, she began
to realize the enormity of what had
been accomplished. Their first words
to her were “Thank you for the mir-
acle.” They expressed sadness and
concern for the teams left behind, but
they also said that for the first time in
a long time, they felt safe.
One man told her that when he woke
up after falling asleep in a chair, he
noticed that someone had put a blan-
ket over him. Another said, “The night-
mares have stopped.”
The rescuers had been rescued.
Journalist Sally Armstrong and
photojournalist Peter Bregg travelled
to Jordan and Israel in August 2018.
This story is a co-operative venture
between Reader’s Digest and The
United Church Observer and will
also appear in The Observer’s Janu-
ary 2019 issue and on ucobserver.org.

CLIMATE REPORT

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair

weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.
ROBERT FROST

Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They’re

always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.
J.D. SALINGER

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 107

 77th NATIONAL SWEEPSTAKES 2018

ANNOUNCING OUR MOST

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ALMOST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

That’s what many of our sweepstakes winners thought when they first received their
congratulatory letter from Marisa Orsini, Reader’s Digest Canada Administrator and
spokesperson. However that feeling didn’t last very long.
After correctly answering a skill-testing question they were quickly confirmed as an
official Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes prize winner. Soon after, arrangements were made to
have their cash prize sent straight to their home. It could happen to you too!

ENTERING MADE SIMPLE

To enter the Reader’s Digest National Sweepstakes you need only return your
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must be a Canadian resident, 18 years of age or older. Each entry has a fair and equal
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 Talk About Winning Smiles!

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 GET SMART!

13 Things
Your Veterinarian
Wishes You Knew
BY A N N A- KA I SA WA L K E R
I L LU ST R AT I O N BY C L AY TO N H A N M E R

1 Your pet eats too much. About

half of all cats and dogs are over-
weight or obese, according to the
treats, Jeun recommends including
them in the total calories you feed
your pet in a day and only giving
Canadian Animal Health Institute. these rewards if they’ve been earned.
Excess weight is linked to joint and
heart disease, as well as diabetes and
cancer. Sometimes love means saying
no to those pleading eyes.
3 Chocolate isn’t the sole food
that’s lethal to dogs. Xylitol (an
artificial sweetener), bread dough,
grapes and macadamia nuts can also

2 Use a kitchen scale to portion

food in grams, not scoops, to get
cause severe illness or death.

a better idea of how much you’re giv-

ing Fluffy, says Dr. Gwen Jeun, a vet-
erinarian in Windsor, Ont. As for
4 Ideally you’d brush your pet’s
teeth every day, but most vets
know that’s not easy. “I understand

110 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

that people are busy,” says Jeun.
“I recommend annual dental clean-
ings, under anaesthesia, to remove
tartar and polish the teeth.” Doing so
can stave off periodontal disease and
bacteria, which can be harmful to the
heart, lungs, kidneys and liver.
5 Vets aren’t just for shots—annual
exams can make the difference
between catching a problem early
and making a diagnosis too late.
6 Don’t declaw your cat. The Cana-
dian Veterinary Medical Associa-
tion views the procedure, which is
banned in some provinces, as uneth-
ical. “There are so many alternatives,
like nail trimming, nail covers and
teaching your cat where to scratch,”
says Jeun.
7 Don’t trust a clinic that isn’t
staffed overnight. Post-surgical
complications in the wee hours will
require a licensed vet. Since there are
no laws mandating this level of care
at non-emergency clinics, be sure to
ask about it before booking.
8 Some pet medications, like insu-
lin and antibiotics, can be pur-
chased cheaper at your local
(human) pharmacy. All your vet
needs to do is write you a prescrip-
tion, an option the College of Veter-
inarians of Ontario, for example,
requires them to offer.
9 Stop using retractable leashes.
You’ll never be able to get your
dog out of harm’s way in time, and
getting tangled in the thin cord can
lead to burns, cuts and even finger
amputations for humans.
10 Vet fees may seem high, but
consider that clinics are often
stocked with the same state-of-the-
art equipment used on humans. Vets
are full-fledged MDs, requiring a
minimum of six years of university
education—more for specialists.
11 Saying goodbye is difficult, but
euthanasia is part of a vet’s job.
The hardest aspect can be the agon-
izing discussions. “It’s hard not to be
affected by the owners’ grief,” Jeun
says. You’ll know it’s time when your
pet’s bad days outnumber the good.
12 Pet insurance can save you a
lot. “An emergency surgery—
can cost several thousand dollars,
and insurance can cover up to 80 per
cent of that,” says Jeun. What might
not be covered: routine visits, shots
and pre-existing medical conditions.
13 Word of mouth is the tried-
and-true way of finding a good
vet—but do your homework. Look
up prospects on the website of your
provincial licensing body to find out
if your vet has a history of disciplin-
ary actions against them.
rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 111
 That’s Outrageous!
DID YOU HEAR THAT?
B Y NA T HANIE L BA SE N
CREEPY CHORUS
For about a year, res-
idents of the British
town of Ipswich suf-
fered from what
seemed to be a collec-
tive nightmare. They
were awoken at night by the
sound of a child singing “It’s Raining,
It’s Pouring.” Last September, the
cause of the vocals was revealed to
be freakier than the disembodied
lullaby itself: spiders had been trig-
gering a motion sensor on a prop-
erty, activating an audio clip set up
as a theft deterrent. The song is no
longer in use, allowing the town’s
old men to snore in peace again.
RINGING REMINDER
In 2004, Pennsylvanian Jerry Lynn
wanted to run TV cable through his
walls but wasn’t sure where to drill
the hole. He tied an alarm clock to a
makeshift harness, set it to go off in
10 minutes and lowered it behind a
wall from a second-floor vent, so the
sound would guide him to the ideal
location. His plan, however, went off
track when the clock fell inside the
112 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
wall—where it stayed,
ringing every day
around 7 p.m. for 13
years. After his story
was reported on the
news last year, a local
HVAC employee removed
the device for free, making dinner-
time significantly less alarming.
A WHALE OF A TALE
Nevada resident Paul Gilman, a self-
proclaimed sound-wave expert and
whale whisperer, once promised
investors that a technology he called
“sonication” could revolutionize the
oil and gas industry. For three years,
Gilman, who produced a documen-
tary in which he used the “universal
language” of music to speak to whales,
claimed to use “sound-wave” tech-
nology to lower the viscosity of oil,
and hasten the water-purification
process. Now he’s being sued on the
basis that his claims were nothing
P I E RR E L OR A N GE R
but white noise. Gilman is accused
of using the $3.3 million US dollars
he received on, among other things,
hotels and designer clothes—leaving
investors lost at sea.
 Brainteasers
Challenge yourself by solving these puzzles and mind stretchers,
then check your answers on page 116.

PARTY AT CHARLIE’S (Difficult)

You’ve been invited to a party at Charlie’s house. As part of the fun, you’ve
agreed to solve a puzzle to figure out where he lives. He has seven friends who
live nearby. They’ve given you a map showing all of their houses and Charlie’s
house, along with the following information:
( P A R T Y A T C HA RL I E ’ S ) RO D E RI C K K IM B A LL ; ( NU T CR AC K ER ) IS T OC K .C O M/R ED KO ALA D ES IGN

DANIEL: I can’t see Benita’s house because

N Greta’s house is in the way.
AMRIT: I live directly (not diagonally)
across the street from Daniel.
BENITA: Elena lives due west of me.
ELENA: I have to cross three streets to walk
to Franco’s house.
HAO: Amrit lives as far from me as he does
from Benita.
Where does Charlie live?

TOY WORKSHOP (Easy)

You own an artisanal toy-making studio with two employees.
■ Carving a toy takes two hours. Painting one takes one hour.
Packaging one takes one hour.
■ You can’t paint a toy until it’s been carved. Similarly, you
can’t package one until it’s been painted.
■ Both of your employees are capable of doing any of the three
tasks, but they can’t both work on the same task for the same
toy at the same time.
What would be the lowest possible number of hours during
which your employees could carve, paint and package three toys?

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 113

READER’S DIGEST

TOP DRAWER (Easy)

You need to empty the contents of two of the
five boxes listed below into a bag. Which two
will give you the best chance at drawing a red
ball at random from the bag?

BOX A: 3 red balls, 5 white balls

BOX B: 5 red, 6 white
BOX C: 7 red, 9 white
BOX D: 1 red
BOX E: 4 red, 7 white

( T O P D RA W E R) DA RR E N RI G BY ; ( FI RS T IN ) FR ASE R S I MP SO N; ( S T AR S E ARC H) F RA S ER SI M PS ON
FIRST IN (Difficult)
Place the letters A, B and C into this
grid so that each letter appears
exactly once in each row and col-
umn, with two cells in each row and
column left blank. Each letter out-
side the grid indicates the letter that
must appear first in its respective
row or column (reading inward from
the edge of the grid closest to the let-
ter and skipping any blank cells).

A C
C
STAR SEARCH
(Moderately difficult)
Place stars in seven cells of this grid
B so that every row, every column
and every outlined region contains
C exactly one star. Stars must never
be located in adjacent cells, not
even diagonally.
C B

114 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

 Trivia Quiz
BY PAU L PAQ U E T

1. Which is the only continent in all 8. “Tellenlied,” a song composed in

four of the earth’s hemispheres? the 15th century, tells of what Swiss
folk hero?
2. What Canadian politician has a
tattoo of a Haida raven on his arm? 9. The last time we rang in a new year
represented by a prime number was
3. What is Israel’s oldest and most
2017. When will the next time be?
successful soccer team?
10. What Caribbean location is the
4. What French city and past Olym-
smallest inhabited island in the
pic host now features a power plant
world shared by two nations?
that runs on whey left over from
making Beaufort cheese? 11. What Italian luxury brand makes
Bamboo bags, and in 2015 started
5. If a river cruise were to start in
making a Bamboo fragrance?
Amsterdam, stop in Cologne and end
in Basel, what river would it be on? 12. What’s the only G-rated
movie to have won the Best
6. In 1855, a still-extant London
Picture Oscar?
newspaper was named for a
communications technology 13. The Zone of Alienation
that was quite new at the sequesters approximately
time. Which one? 2,600 square kilometres
15. In 2015, sculptor around what site?
7. What sharing-economy
Alexander Milov made
app did Travis Kalanick over a statue in Odessa 14. A prehistoric giant
I STO C K .CO M / B R E N DA N H U N T E R

and Garrett Camp start so that it looked less whale species is named
after they were unable like what subject and Livyatan melvillei in
to find a cab in Paris? more like Darth Vader? honour of whom?

power plant. 14. Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick. 15. Vladimir Lenin.
France and the Netherlands. 11. Gucci. 12. Oliver! (in 1969). 13. The Chernobyl nuclear
graph. 7. Uber. 8. William Tell. 9. 2027. 10. Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten. It’s shared by
Club. 4. Albertville. 5. The Rhine. 6. The telegraph. The newspaper is The Daily Tele-
ANSWERS: 1. Africa. 2. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 3. The Maccabi Tel Aviv Football

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 115

 Brainteasers:

Sudoku Answers
(from page 113)

B Y I AN R IE NS CH E PARTY AT CHARLIE’S

E B N

G C H

5 1 D A

7 9 5 F

8 9 5 3 TOY WORKSHOP
SIX HOURS.
1 9 6 TOP DRAWER
BOXES B AND D, which
3 7 1 8 5 give you a probability of
6/12 (50 per cent) of
9 4 1 getting a red ball.

FIRST IN
1 4 2 7
C A B
2 3 5 A B C
7 9 B C A
A B C
TO SOLVE THIS PUZZLE…
C A B
You have to put a number from
1 to 9 in each square so that: STAR SEARCH
( S UD OK U ) S U D O KU P U Z ZL E R. C O M

■ every horizontal row SOLUTION

5 3 9 2 8 1 7 6 4
and vertical column 1 6 4 7 5 3 2 8 9
contains all nine numerals 7 2 8 4 6 9 3 5 1
(1-9) without repeating 8 1 3 5 4 6 9 7 2
9 5 2 8 1 7 4 3 6
any of them;
4 7 6 3 9 2 8 1 5
■ each of the 3 x 3 boxes 3 4 7 1 2 5 6 9 8
6 8 5 9 7 4 1 2 3
has all nine numerals,
2 9 1 6 3 8 5 4 7
none repeated.

116 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca

 Word Power
If getting a handle on your personal finances was among your New Year’s
resolutions, we’re here to help. Learning these terms will enrich your
vocabulary—and maybe even your wallet.
B Y SAM A NTHA RID E OU T

1. funemployment— 6. acquittance— 11. tax-free savings

A: sarcastic term for the A: debt-settlement account—account
misery of poverty. receipt. B: leaving where A: savings can’t be
B: enjoyment of free school. C: divorce withdrawn until retire-
time resulting from job- agreement. ment. B: the CRA is
lessness. C: apprecia- unlikely to find funds.
7. inflation—A: exagger-
tion for one’s work. C: income earned on
ating one’s income.
2. equity—A: spending contributions isn’t taxed.
B: overspending. C: gen-
everything one earns. eral increase in prices. 12. intestate—
B: value of a property A: of moving expenses.
minus what is owed for 8. opportunity cost— B: without a last will.
it. C: donation matching. A: benefit missed by C: held in trust.
choosing one alterna-
3. smishing—A: text- 13. shorting—A: paying
tive over another.
message scamming. a bill partially. B: earn-
B: job-application fee.
B: not tracking expenses. ing less than expected.
C: bargain price.
C: failing to pay alimony. C: selling something
4. act of God—A: sud- 9. balloon loan—loan borrowed in hopes its
den windfall. B: tax with A: an abnormally price will fall before it
exemption for religious high interest rate. B: no must be replaced.
organizations. C: uncon- collateral. C: a large 14. liquid—A: spent on
trollable natural event. sum due at the end. alcohol. B: easily con-
5. nonrevolver— 10. substitute good— verted into cash.
person who A: is solvent. A: bartered object. C: financially risky.
B: pays their full credit- B: item offered as a 15. returnment—
card balance each bribe. C: product or A: leaving retirement.
month. C: has a stable service that could B: reinvesting. C: return-
employment history. replace another one. ing for more education.

rd.ca | 01/02 • 2019 | 117

READER’S DIGEST
Answers
1. funemployment—B: enjoyment of
free time resulting from joblessness;
as, Winnifred indulged in a month of
funemployment before job hunting.
2. equity—B: value of a property
minus what is owed for it; as, Cars
often lose value faster than they are
paid for, resulting in negative equity.
3. smishing—A: text-message scam-
ming; as, Jakaya smelled a smishing
attempt when he got a text claiming
he’d won a free gift card.
4. act of God—C: uncontrollable
natural event; as, Fatimah wondered
whether she’d be compensated if her
flight got delayed due to an act of
God, such as a tornado.
5. nonrevolver—B: person who pays
their full credit-card balance each
month; as, Marie, a nonrevolver,
never had interest on her Visa bill.
6. acquittance—A: debt-settlement
receipt; as, Nate proudly waved the
acquittance for his mortgage.
7. inflation—C: general increase in
prices; as, Angeliki used inflation as
an excuse to splurge, arguing that her
savings would buy less later on.
8. opportunity cost—A: benefit
missed by choosing one alternative
over another; as, Lottery tickets carry
an opportunity cost, since the same
money could be invested elsewhere.
118 | 01/02 • 2019 | rd.ca
9. balloon loan—C: loan with a
large sum due at the end; as, A pred-
atory lender lured the couple into
taking a balloon loan.
10. substitute good—C: product or
service that could replace another; as,
Dental tourism and Canadian den-
tistry are substitute goods, and the for-
mer can cost less for the uninsured.
11. tax-free savings account—C:
account where income earned on
contributions isn’t taxed; as, Thanks
to his tax-free savings account, Noah
kept every penny of his dividends.
12. intestate—B: without a last will;
as, Aiying died intestate, so her dear
caregiver didn’t inherit anything.
13. shorting—C: selling something
borrowed in hopes its price will fall
before it must be replaced; as, Ed prof-
ited by shorting the company’s stock.
14. liquid—B: easily converted into
cash; as, Krishan had equity in his
house, but it wasn’t liquid enough to
help meet his unexpected expenses.
15. returnment—A: leaving retire-
ment; as, Zwena considered a tem-
porary returnment as a way of finan-
cing her dream vacation.
VOCABULARY RATINGS
7–10: fair
11–12: good
13–15: excellent
 6
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 Quotes
BY C HR IS TI NA PA LA SS IO

TAKE THE
I think that multi-tasking
OPPORTUNITIES
THAT ARE is bulls**t. People aren’t
PRESENTED meant to multi-task
TO YOU AND
because it means that
STAY TRUE
TO YOURSELF. you’re not in the moment
CO R B I N and not being mindful.
TO M A SZ E S K I TR ACI M E LC H O R

WE HAVE TO BE ON
GUARD AGAINST DARKER
THINGS. TO NOT DISCUSS
THEM IS TO OPEN UP THE
POTENTIAL FOR A BLIND
SPOT OR FORGETTING.
E S I E D U GYA N

Everything feels like a surprise when you’re lost. PATR I C K D WIT T

INSTAGRAM IS
GREAT BECAUSE The technical
OTHERWISE I
WOULDN’T KNOW
revolution
HOW MANY PARTIES
I WASN’T BEING
has turned us
INVITED TO. into a virus.
S E TH R O G E N E DWA R D B U R T Y N S K Y

PH OT OS : ( ME L C HO R) WENN L TD /A L AMY STOCK P H O T O; (E D UG YA N) T AMAR A P OPP IT T/ H AR P ER

C OL LIN S C AN A DA ; (BU R TY NSKY ) CC GE O R G E PI M ENT E L / LAK E ON T AR I O WA TE R K EE PE R . QU OT ES :
( T O MAS Z E SK I) Z O OM ER ( MAY 25, 2 01 8) ; (M E LCH O R ) E LL E ( FE B R U AR Y 2 01 8 ) ; (E D U GY AN ) M A C LE A N’ S
( SE PT . 4, 2 01 8) ; ( D E WITT) M AC L EA N ’S (A U GU ST 28 , 2 0 18 ) ; ( R OGAN ) TW I T T ER ( S E PT . 1 6, 2 01 8);
( B UR T YN S KY) C N N ( MA Y 18, 20 18 ).
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