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magazine / ja05
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July/August 2005 issue |
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EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
Shades of jade
Rain opens a window on vibrant splashes of green
concealed within the boulders stored in a mining company yard near
Vancouver. Two or three times a year, artist Deborah Wilson makes
a five-hour drive from her home in Vernon, B.C., to pick through
those rocks. A day with a steady drizzle, she says, is ideal for
such work. Clear skies mean dragging a water hose and bucket around
to wash the stones in search of the intense green, basketball-
sized chunks of jade that will yield a polished work of art.
Although British Columbia has quietly become the world's largest
exporter of the type of jade that the Chinese have been carving
into the most exquisite forms for 5,000 years, Wilson is one of
only a handful of Canadian artists who consider the rock their
medium. Jade is considered a gem, but is properly called a rock
because it is not one mineral but a matrix of minerals. It has
felted, interlocking fibres, which makes it the world's toughest
stone. For Wilson, that means every bracelet or bowl she creates
must be extracted from a boulder with diamond saws. She has been
sculpting jade since the early 1970s and is captivated by its unyielding
hardness.
"I teach soapstone carving, but I don't carve it myself," she
says. "It's too soft for me."
For our cover story on jade mining in British Columbia, writer
Chris Tenove and photographer Brooke McDonald hiked the hills with
a hard-luck prospector, talked to the Jade Queen, met the man whose
company controls three of the province's four operating mines and
watched Wilson work her saws. Their words and photos reveal an
industry built on the passion for a stone whose lustre never fades.
Science underpins many of the public-policy issues of our time:
the BSE crisis, climate change, the West Nile virus. Whether you
are helping your daughter with her homework or assessing the relative
risks of applying bug repellent, check out the Science Voyageur
en sciences CD we've included with this issue. The internet is
the most important source of information most of us have in our
homes, yet it can be such a mishmash of unreliable facts. This
CD, which we developed in collaboration with the Government of
Canada's Science
and Technology Cluster, links directly to a list of websites,
in English and French, that feature helpful scientific information.
It's organized by user need. There is a homework helper for students,
contacts for those seeking careers in science and useful sites
for anyone interested in science. It works on both PC and Apple
computers. Pop it in, and let us know what you think.
Congratulations to my colleagues and to the writers and photographers whose work for
Canadian Geographic in 2004 received nominations for National Magazine Awards this spring.
Terry Glavin's story "Cougar attack!"
(May/June) and
Wayne Grady's "Stone diaries"
(Jan/Feb) were nominated in
the Science, Technology & the Environment category. Bob Kull's account of his year on an island off the Chilean
coast, "My year alone in the wilderness"
(May/June), was nominated in
the Travel category. Our 75th anniversary theme issue, "Global citizen"
(Nov/Dec), was nominated in the
Editorial Package category. In the Words & Pictures category, Nance Ackerman and Drew Hayden Taylor were nominated for
their feature on powwows, "Rhythm of nations"
(Jul/Aug). J. Kevin Dunn's photo essay
"Walking the line" (Mar/Apr),
which recounted his journey along rail lines in Saskatchewan, received nominations for both Words & Pictures and
Photojournalism. And Lana Slezic's arresting portrait of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, "Operation Kabul"
(Nov/Dec), was also nominated in
Photojournalism. The gold and silver winners were announced on June 10, after we went to press with this issue.
See the results.
— Rick Boychuk
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