A WALK AROUND BECHTEL PARK WITH EMILY URQHART

It was author Emily Urquhart’s pup June that brought us out to the Bechtel Dog Park on a grey Saturday afternoon. We were greeted by a well-dressed poodle in boots and an orange jacket, and June and her new friend ran off while Urquhart and I opted for a slower pace.

“Walking is one hundred per cent part of my writing process,” Urquhart said as we followed the path on a loop around a cluster of trees. “[O]ften, when I’m walking, I’m working something out…something about the movement of walking forwards can sometimes shake things out in a way that, if I was sitting at a desk and trying to write, it just doesn’t work.”

Urquhart was born in Kitchener and lived in Waterloo until she was seven, when her family moved to Wellesley. After high school she studied art history and journalism, then ended up at Memorial University in Newfoundland where she completed a PhD in Folklore Studies and also met her future husband. It was his job at the University of Waterloo that brought them back to Ontario to settle with their family in Kitchener.

“I was always interested in folklore,” Urquhart said. “I had this huge Brothers Grimm silver-coloured book that I used to read as a kid a lot. And I was interested in my Irish culture and heritage, and that kind of naturally coincides with folklore.”

Urquhart’s understanding and exploration of folklore goes beyond the written stories of her youth, and includes visual art, gossip, rumours and even home decor and bumper stickers.

“[Folklore is] the way you’re signifying who you are to the world and the story you’re telling about yourself and your place in it,” Urquhart said. “Once you’ve got [folklore] under your belt, it kind of changes your worldview.”

Urquhart explored folklore in her third book, Ordinary Wonder Tales, published in 2022 and shortlisted for the 2023 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. She drew on her journalism background for her second book, The Age Of Creativity, published in 2020, in which she examined late-in-life creativity using her father, acclaimed painter Tony Urquhart, as the subject and inspiration.

Her mother, award-winning novelist and poet Jane Urquhart, is also an artistic presence in Urquhart’s life. She was in high school when her mother gained wide-spread notoriety for her novel Away, and people became interested in her last name and family.

“There was a rumour at university that my mom was Jan Arden because there was a broken telephone situation…someone said ‘Jane Urquhart,’ but [someone else] heard Jan Arden,” Urquhart said. “So, I’ve always had a kind of kinship with Jan Arden.”

From an early age, Urquhart was an avid reader and was also drawn to writing.

“I had teachers who [said] ‘oh, you’re such a good writer’…But I’d feel like, is that because my mom’s a writer, or is it coming from an authentic place?” she said. “But I knew I liked to do it, and I also knew that it didn’t pay any money.”

Pursuing a PhD allowed Urquhart to continue reading and writing, and also to have some security in the form of teaching. In addition to being a published author and a non-fiction editor at The New Quarterly, Urquhart is also a Professor of Creative Writing at Laurier where she coordinates the Edna Staebler Awards.

It was through The New Quarterly that Urquhart connected with other writers in the area. At the Wild Writers’ Festival in 2019, Urquhart was approached by novelist Carrie Snyder about forming a writer’s group along with author Tasneem Jamal. Urquhart agreed, and they have been writing and workshopping ever since.

“It’s so wonderful to have that community,” Urquhart said. “We write together, which I’d never done…I’ve been through two books with them now.”

Urquhart’s experience of community is one done directly with other people as she is not on any social media. In 2016 she made the decision to leave Facebook when she found the platform to be full of vitriol and in-fighting. She left Twitter not long after.

“It was getting me down,” Urquhart said. “Finally, I was like, no one’s inviting you to this party. You have to stop showing up.”

While she reads poetry daily and cites short stories as a favourite genre, Urquhart is also drawn to some less-expected media.

“I like to watch really trashy documentaries,” Urquhart said. “When I say documentary, people think, ‘Oh, that sounds smart.’ No, I like anything to do with catfishing…I’m really into cults. I just find it fascinating.”

Urquhart’s dog June came over to say a quick hello before going to greet a new arrival. Before adopting June from the Humane Society a year ago, Urquhart and her family rescued a dog from another agency; however, they were unable to keep him because of an aggressive response to walks.

“He was sweet, actually, in the house, but…he wouldn’t go in our yard, so he had to be walked…whenever I walked him, he attacked me,” Urquhart said. “I had leather gloves, they were split open, my parka was split open. I was on the ground trying to shield my face and he had my hand and he didn’t let go.”

The experience did not deter Urquhart from dogs, however. 

“I just got obsessed or something after that,” Urquhart said. “I was thinking about dogs, I only watched things about dogs, and then I started writing about it.”

Part of that writing process included painting a watercolour of the destroyed gloves and using visual art as research. What started as memoir turned into a fairy tale.

“I don’t know if the stories I’ve been writing connect as one piece or if they’re connected stories,” Urquhart said. 

“But they all have some sort of supernatural…element threaded through them.”

While the move to writing fiction might be new for Urquhart, her background in folklore and careful powers of observation honed through journalism will no doubt mean she is right at home navigating these creative waters.

A Walk Around Grand River Collegiate with Rochelle Williams 

Rochelle Williams, aka The Dessert Artist, laid the foundation for her career in blending the science of baking with the artistry of design while attending Grand River Collegiate Institute (GRCI) in Kitchener. To tap into those memories, she chose the school grounds for our walk, where her high school art classes inspired her to explore different creative mediums, including food.  

“[I]f I had a different upbringing, if society was different, I probably would have [gone] to school for visual art,” Williams said. “I’ve always had a passion for drawing and sculpting.”  

After high school, Williams studied pastry and confectionery artistry at Humber College. There she learned fundamentals, but her classes lacked the advanced decorating that Williams was drawn to. So, she called on her visual arts background to take her work to the next level.  

“My biggest passion is just making things look pretty, and I also just happen to love eating,” Williams said. “[G]ive me a medium and I’ll figure out how to make it work in my way.”  

Our walk takes us around the fields where Williams played rugby while attending GRCI. We pass the gardens behind the portable classrooms and walk by the new building, added after Williams graduated.  

While Williams takes great care and pride in her food artistry, she has no concerns about watching her works of art be consumed.   

“I do want you to eat it, because it also tastes delicious. So, if you don’t eat it, I’m actually more offended,” Williams said. “To me, the taste is more important than the artistry.”  

Williams never uses fondant in her designs, instead opting to sculpt with buttercream icing and explore the sculpting possibilities of modeling chocolate. She does all her decorating by hand, turning the repetition needed for large orders into a game to keep herself engaged and striving for the highest  quality of presentation.  

Since 2020, Williams has been investing in herself and her own business, first as The Painting Pastry Chef before rebranding in 2022 as The Dessert Artist. She continues to push her boundaries, introducing new products to her line like her Petite Patties, a spin on Jamaican patties.  

“When I get an idea, I have a hard time not doing it if I think it’s a good one,” Williams said. “[O]ne day [I thought] it’d be cool to have a dessert Jamaican patty.”  

Williams plays with traditional Jamaican flavours for her patties, including mango as a nod to her mother, who loves the fruit. She also offers a plantain patty and a rum-raisin patty in addition to the more traditional savoury offerings.  

The expansion into patties is not just a business decision for Williams. It is also a celebration of her heritage and the importance of creating representation in her Black-centric designs.  

“I saw a lack in the community that just needed to be addressed,” Williams said. “As a kid, I would have loved to see Black Santa, seen myself on a cookie…I can’t be the only one who wishes they had seen those things.”  

The decision to create representation in her work came with some uncertainty for Williams, so she started by making both a Black and a White Santa cookie.   

“I wasn’t sure how Black Santa was going to be perceived,” Williams said. “I quickly realized that if [the customer wasn’t] Black, people actually just weren’t sure if they were allowed to buy the Black one.”  

To address these concerns, Williams has included on her website that customers “don’t need to be Black to enjoy a Black Santa cookie.” She now only creates Black Santa cookies to ensure representation in the market.  

And while most customers appreciate the diversity in Williams’ work, she has received some negative responses, including people calling her work blasphemous, and White parents strongly preferring their children not choose a Black Santa cookie. When she asked a local business mentoring group how to market her culturally specific products to White customers, she was told to make products that would appeal to a mass market rather than focus on narrow cultural flavours.  

It is part of these reactions that Williams understands the importance of community in the work that she does.   

“I’m always like ‘community over competition’,” Williams said. “I want to help people. I want to build them up…I don’t want you to experience the same hardships. I want you to experience new hardships that we never experienced before, and we’ll manage those.”  

Working out of the Cafe Clementina kitchen, Williams has strong connections with other local bakeries. She is interested in collaborating and enjoys following the journeys of other local bakers in person and on social media.  

As we walked beyond the high school grounds, through Tecumseh Park and around the neighbourhood, Williams reflected on the role that nature plays in her life and work.  

“I think the biggest thing I hate about my job is that I’m inside so much,” Williams said. “[N]ature doesn’t necessarily influence my work, but it definitely influences my mood.”  

Williams enjoys working with clients to create fun, cool custom designs, and she is also thinking big when it comes to future challenges.  

“I would love to make a full-body cake,” Williams said. “Life-sized and accurate to a tee.”  

While Williams makes plans to create her dream full-size person cake, she will continue to blend artistry with pastry, seek out community, and ensure representation is present in the Region’s baked-good offerings.   

#aWalkInThePark #amyNeufeld #blackSanta #column #craigBecker #dessertArtist #grandRiverCollegiateInstitute #humberCollege #petitePatties #tecumsehPark #theDessertArtist #thePaintingPastryChef

UW AND GOOGLE PARTNER TO FURTHER RESEARCH ON AI

The University of Waterloo is partnering with Google to explore the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on education in a new workshop.  

Google has invested $1 million into the partnership, which will have a mandate to research and educate the public on how humans interact with AI.   

The chair will be held by Edith Law, professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo and executive director of the Future of Work Institute.  

“The partnership will enable a number of research and education initiatives at the intersection of technology design and pedagogical innovation, including hands-on learning labs for students to envision technologies for the future of work and learning through prototyping,” the University of Waterloo stated in a press release.   

The partnership is one piece of a larger mandate from the Future of Work Institute, which is funded by a $450,000 grant from the University of Waterloo’s Global Futures Fund.  

The research being conducted through the partnership has three main pillars.  

The first is a set of research projects looking at AI-facilitated learning technologies.  

“This is really just understanding and developing novel education tools and understanding how students might use it,” Law said.  

“One of the research topics is learning by teaching. So instead of having AI be the information provider, we’re turning it on its head and having AI act as a less knowledgeable peer that can be taught by students, and the students learn by teaching such an agent.”  

Another aspect of the partnership is to investigate new paradigms of learning and teaching through  an eight-week program that began in early October.   

Law said the labs allow technical and non-technical students across campus to work together to envision what learning tools could look like using AI-supported prototyping tools.  

For example, students will use Gemini Canvas and Google AI studio, where they can create a whole app just by prompting AI.   

The third main piece of the partnership is to understand how technology can co-evolve with learning environments and policy.   

“This is something I think is needed for learning technology to actually work in real-world learning environments,” Law said.   

Law noted that learning technology is complex to incorporate into learning environments. When AI and learning technology enter classrooms, Law said educators must consider the role of the technology, the role of instructors, and the role of peers and how the technology may evolve in these roles.  

Additionally, policy can help guide students and educators to understand how learning technology can be used, how to assess the quality of the work produced, and more.   

For Law, this research is coming at an important time.  

“There’s no question that students have access [to AI],” Law said.  

“I think that there’s definitely an evolution going on where students have access to these tools and then instructors are adapting the way they deliver their courses and do the evaluation. I’ve heard of lots of interesting ways in which instructors have done that,” she said.  

In this way, Law is also thinking about the impact AI will have on career readiness.  

“I think it is important for the next generation to have just a basic level of AI literacy,” Law said.   

“Understanding ways of thinking about AI and understanding the context of use…Being able to operate in this kind of environment and understanding how to get around an AI-rich environment is something that all students should be trained to do,” she said. 

#AI #artificialIntelligence #computerScience #CraigBecker #edithLaw #Environment #FutureOfWorkInstitute #GlobalFuturesFund #SafinaJennah #tech #technology #universityOfWaterloo #universityOfWaterlooSGlobalFuturesFund

A WALK ON HEALTH VALLEY TRAIL WITH SARAH THOMPSON

When pandemic restrictions began to lift, Sarah Thompson, founder and host of Lavender Fizz Comedy, realized her world had gotten too small and took action to create new experiences for herself.  

“I made the conscious choice to meet more people and get myself out there,” Thompson said. “So, I just started taking classes in anything I was interested in.”  

The decision to try new things led Thompson to the Pinch Cabaret, a local monthly variety show, after a friend gave her tickets. That decision profoundly shaped Thompson’s artistic pursuits, introducing her to a community of performers and collaborators and setting her on the path of standup and improv comedy.  

“Comedy is the way that I process all of my varied…particularly awkward social interactions,” Thompson said. “I love to make people laugh, and I love making people happy…I am reconnecting with the part of me that is really light and fun and funny.”  

It was also during the pandemic that Thompson discovered the Health Valley Trail where we met for our walk. The trail connects North Waterloo to St. Jacobs, and in 2021, with limited options available for activities, Thompson began exploring the space. She was immediately drawn to the trail’s playful elements, such as the carved Wise Old Oak tree, and the potential to see cows and horses.  

“Sometimes I need to get out and quite literally touch dirt or touch grass,” Thompson said. “And I think it’s really important to have accessibility to spaces and trails…to inspire art.”  

Thompson approaches standup comedy through storytelling and mining the humour from her lived experiences. It was at a comedy show at TWB, also hosted by Pinch Arts, that Thompson first discovered her inner comic when the host invited stories from the audience, and, after watching only men take the mic, she decided to jump in.  

“I feel like a lot of what I do is inspired by ‘well, fuck, if men can do it, then…I can probably do it better than they can’,” Thompson said. “[After the story] someone told me that I was really funny…and it was almost like this moment in my head where I [thought], ‘my God, I’m a standup comic!’”  

She began performing at mics locally and in Los Angeles while visiting, but struggled to find her people in the existing structures that were dominated by cis-het white male comics. A year after she started performing standup, Thompson created Lavender Fizz Comedy, Kitchener-Waterloo’s first and only open mic for 2SLGBTQIA+, women and non-binary comics. She hosts the monthly pay-what-you-can event that found a home at TWB Brewing in Kitchener, a space that prioritizes community and inclusion.  

“[Lavender Fizz] was born out of just wanting to find community, but also offer community and that kind of safe space,” Thompson said. “Success to me is just the laughter in the space, and seeing other people thrive…it’s such a beautiful, vibrant diverse community.”  

We passed through farmers’ fields and along well-worn paths under the tree canopy. Stopping on a newly constructed bridge, we peered down at the water before continuing on to a set of gates where horses greeted us in the idyllic trail setting.   

Thompson credits her parents with instilling in her a sense of creativity and the importance of community. Growing up, she watched her mother problem-solve and craft, and her father volunteer.  

“My dad [would] walk into a space and know everyone [there] through some kind of volunteerism,” Thompson said. “I was like, I want to be like that. I want to know the movers and shakers.”  

Not content to maintain the status quo, Thompson has plans for the future of Lavender Fizz. She is looking to move into more booked shows and wants to get a camera to record sets and provide that footage to comics so they can build their careers. And she has found great happiness in her hosting duties.  

“I love riffing, and hosting has really brought that quickness to the forefront and put it on display,” Thompson said. “I love setting people up for success and being the kind of host that I wanted [to have].”  

Only a year after launching the inclusive open-mic, Thompson was recognized with a nomination for Oktoberfest Woman of the year in the Arts and Culture category. And while getting a chance to perform and make people laugh remains important, Thompson’s love of building community is at the heart of her efforts.  

“There’s so much hate in the world and so much anger and so much hurt, and to be able to turn that off for a couple of hours once a month and to have people share their stories and just come together in laughter…is really beautiful,” Thompson said. “I love that people are willing to do that in a space that I created.”   

#2SLGBTQIA_ #AWalkInThePark #AmyNeufeld #artsAndCulture #Column #CraigBecker #HealthValleyTrail #lavendarFizzComedy #lavenderFizz #oktoberfestWoman #pinchCaberet #sarahThompson

A SMASHIN’ GOOD TIME: IMPACT MOTORSPORTS HOSTS DEMOLITION DERBY AT NEW HAMBURG FAIR

Impact Motorsports hosted another action-packed demolition derby on Sept. 13 and 14. The derby run on the Saturday and Sunday of the New Hamburg Fair every year since 2007 and is the highlight of the weekend for many.   

The Wilmot Agricultural Society awarded nearly $10,000 in prizes to the derby drivers, including $50 to every registered contestant.     

The town’s first fair was held in 1853. Devon and Kristi Germain acquired Impact Motorsports in 2020. Although the cost to enter the derby is minimal, the cost of cars and modifications can run drivers up to $30,000 for a single build. David Webster, a derby driver from Appin, Ontario, has been driving for 25 years and is affected by the rising cost of cars. He buys most of his cars in the U.S. and competes in the eight-cylinder category.  

“I don’t get to run much anymore. Maybe three, four a year for me anymore, where at one point it was 30-plus shows a year. I go down to Georgia and with the tariffs, I’m getting hit 25 per cent coming home,” Webster said.  

Some drivers find cars cheaper, sourcing them on forums like Facebook Marketplace, Kijiji, or through word of mouth, and, if the driver is lucky, they might break even. Nick Burgess, a long-time derby driver from New Hamburg, purchased his truck for $1,000 plus repairs and upgrades.   

“You can find good deals still, but it’s hard. I’m up more than I lose. This is my home track and, when it comes to trucks, I get the most wins out of them, so I’m doing alright,” Burgess said.   

Money and time are not the only risks in demolition derbies—smashing cars and trucks into each other can be dangerous. There are safety regulations in place like reinforced doors, heavy bumpers and the relocation of batteries, but there are many hazards like flying debris, fires and unexpected crashes.   

Burgess has been lucky but stresses the fact that safety is a risk that drivers must take.  

“You’re never guaranteed safety. There’s rules and regulations we put in place to make sure something doesn’t go wrong, but you can have a fuel rupture, a battery rupture, it’s all right inside, beside you,” Burgess said.  

Burgess placed second in the truck category after a long battle. His truck got hung up on the third-place truck and, as a result, took them both out of the derby. The competition was tough, and he was happy with his second-place finish.  

Demolition derbies are fun for audiences of all ages and almost anyone can join. The drivers have lots of respect for each other and their fans.  

“[I]f you want to get involved, talk to some of the veteran drivers. I’m sure they are more than willing to help. I help guys out all the time to get into the sport, with safety issues and point them in the right direction on how to get to the top,” Webster said.  

The derby consists of several categories ranging from trucks all the way down to Power Wheels for children. A lawn mower category was added last year and is attracting new drivers to the sport due to its low startup cost. Travis Van Wieren, a riding mower driver, started driving this year.   

Mowers are open-bodied, slow-moving machines and must be modified for speed, safety and power to qualify for the derby.   

“So, basically, you need side rails to keep you safe, a rollover bar, front and rear bumper and some frame reinforcement to make it stronger. I’ve done a pulley swap on mine so it goes faster, about 25 kilometers per hour,” Van Wieren said.  

The once broken-down cars are given a new life in the derby. The vehicles get absolutely smashed up and look like crushed cans by the end of the match. After each match, the drivers tow their cars back to the shop, hammer them out, repair and replace the broken parts and send them back into battle.   

Burgess’s truck got smashed up with the radiator spraying water and fluids running down the front end and wheel well. He was otherwise unscathed and looks forward to his next derby.   

“We’re gonna take it [the truck] back to the shop, pull it out and send it down to Lindsay for the Fall Brawl in mid-October,” Burgess said.  

#community #CraigBecker #davidWebster #demolitionDerby #devonGermain #facebookMarketplace #impactMotorsports #kijiji #kitchener #kristiGermain #nickBurgess #powerWheels #waterloo #waterlooRegion #wilmotAgriculturalSociety

A WALK IN THE PARK WITH WILLA COWARD

The ground at Huron Natural Area was slippery with a coating of late-March snow when I met musician and concert photographer Willa Coward for a walk. Despite wearing footwear better suited for dry conditions, we ventured onto the trails to experience the beauty of the area and talk about the local arts scene.

Coward has been playing drums for most of her life, and is a member of the bands Body Nest, One More Lane and A Horse Named Friday. She has training and experience on the saxophone as well, but despite engaging in vocal exercises, Coward does not consider herself a singer.

“I know how to scream pretty well,” she said. “I can go really loud.”

Her talent for large vocal production led Coward to join a screamo band, a punk style which she describes as cathartic, emotional and hardcore. Not content to stick with one style, Coward also plays chamber folk, power violence, psych rock and shoegaze post rock. 

“[I]t really is…all types of music that I’m drawn to,” Coward said. “There’s nothing that really deters me.” 

With such a diverse range of styles in her repertoire, Coward lets the music dictate what she brings to her performance, focusing on the needs of the piece to guide her contribution. 

“I basically come at it with whatever feels right, whatever is adding to the song,” she said.

Originally from Caledon, Coward came to Waterloo to pursue music studies at Laurier and was in her second year when the pandemic hit. Burn-out and the challenges of lockdown meant that she chose to leave the program halfway through. 

“It had been the longest time since I played for the sake of playing, or just for the love of it,” Coward said. “[S]chool and I just didn’t really work well together.”

Coward turned her attention to practice and performance but also invested in building the local music community. As we walked along the boardwalk surrounding the pond before heading up another slippery trail, Coward talked about the importance of bringing people together to experience shows, and the emotions that can accompany music.

“I just wanted there to be more music, more things for people to go to, because…they’re pretty necessary,” Coward said. “COVID hit, and everything just became so scattered and dispersed. There wasn’t really that core…to tie people together.”

The community in the region felt welcoming to Coward, which is why she wanted to invest in building local shows. She described people showing up for the love of the scene, and relationships growing from those connections. 

“I feel like…we have a very good community based here, especially in terms of music,” she said.

Community and music connect through photography, another artistic outlet that Coward pursues. She brought her camera when she went to music venues, and began shooting the shows that she was attending, learning through trial and error.

“I didn’t know what I was doing at all. I was winging it!” Coward said. “It was just something I hold really close to heart. It’s nice to have that documentation…to say that it happened, and it was important to a lot of people.”

Coward shoots music shows on a film camera, preferring that medium to digital. Film facilitates other connections; people will approach her at shows to talk about her technique and process. Coward told me about finding a local store to develop film.

“[It’s] run by the sweetest older couple who I would trust with my life,” she said.

We left the trail area and returned to the covered shelter by the natural playground with a view of the art murals to finish our conversation. For Coward, coming to Huron Natural Area meant a return to a site of fond memories. Two years ago, she spent part of her birthday on a hike here at a time of year when the landscape was green and lush.

“I remember being so taken aback by it…I could have walked for hours,” she said.

For Coward, green spaces are where she can focus on herself and be solitary while appreciating nature. Being outside allows her to connect to the sensory experience and helps her when dealing with difficult situations.

“It’s very calming,” she said. “It puts you back into your body.”

We finish our interview by discussing movies. Coward enjoys films that show a quiet reflection of daily life, as well as off-beat cult comedy classics, a further example of the variety of art that she surrounds herself with.  

With a handful of new movie recommendations each, we ended our discussion and parted ways, and Willa Coward returned to her life and work in the community of local artists 

#AWalkInThePark #AmyNeufeld #artisticOutlet #boardwalk #Caledon #Column #COVID #CraigBecker #HuronNaturalArea #localMusic #Love #musicStudies #performance #photography #relationships #scene #waterloo #willaCoward

A WALK IN THE PARK WITH AASHAY DALVI

“I don’t usually go to parks,” Aashay Dalvi said. “I go to coffee shops, I go to bookshops.”

It is why we started our outing at Whoopsie Daisy on the corner of King St. and Victoria St. in Kitchener. With lattes in hand, we looked out the windows from the second floor of the coffee shop and spotted the Cherry Park Trail. Part urban, part green space, fluid and ever-changing— it was the perfect destination for our walk.

Dalvi immigrated from Mumbai to Toronto in 2017, then moved to Kitchener in the early days of the pandemic, quickly establishing themself as an artist and community builder.

With a background and practice in film creation and production, Dalvi also performs stand-up comedy and is the founder of Rad Riot Books.

“I had experienced racism, but I hadn’t experienced racism until I was in KW,” Dalvi said.

“I realized that a lot of the oppression stems from fear and ignorance. So, I could either get all up in arms…or I could use this opportunity to enlighten and educate,” they said.

The second path is the one Dalvi chose.

“We started encouraging folks to read anti-racist literature, translated literature, books about immigrants who have chosen to move to different continents, books about characters learning about their queer identity,” Dalvi said.

The Rad Riot Books platform on Instagram is a place of curation and community with book club meetings, recommendations and a chance for Dalvi to spotlight diverse stories and authors, expanding the conversation around literature, identity and what it means to be Canadian.

We reached Cherry Park and passed children playing on the swings and slides as a ladybug joined us for some of the walk. We kept going beyond the park, seeing where the trails and residential streets took us as our conversation turned to the meaning of home.

“I did not grow up having easy access to wide green spaces,” Dalvi said.

“To me it’s something that I only started doing after moving to this country… I feel solace in the noise of the hustle and bustle of city life.”

Home is not a concept that Dalvi defines easily or traditionally.

“I see home as a place where you are constantly learning and you are constantly learning to love yourself,” Dalvi said.

“Wherever I get to be with people or in spaces where it is normalized for you to be your authentic self…that is home,” they said. “Home is fluid. Home is non-binary.”

Dalvi has contributed to building the home they want through their community engagement. They got involved with the demonstrations to remove the Prime Minister statues in Baden just after moving to the area.

They also founded Ground Up WR, a platform for local activists to influence progressive political change.

We reached Raddatz Park, then transitioned onto the Iron Horse Trail and walked towards Victoria Ave. before looping back towards Cherry Park Trail.

We spotted a little free library and paused to look at the contents. Our conversation came back to literature and the arts, something Dalvi is passionate about.

They moved to Toronto to attend Humber College for television writing and producing and were inspired to come to Canada after connecting with Schitt’s Creek.

“I even wrote that in my statement of purpose,” Dalvi said.

They spoke about Canadian content with admiration and respect, citing Being Erica, Orphan Black and Ginger Snaps as favorites.

In addition to consuming content, Dalvi is also a creator. They started performing stand-up in 2019 in Toronto.

Dalvi found people receptive to their style of comedy at open mics in bars like Tammy’s in Toronto.

“It felt so good and validating because it was the first time that people were laughing at what I had to say and not at who I was,” Dalvi said.

“The best part about comedy is you can mold it to who you’re sharing it with,” they said.

We were back on the Cherry Park Trail when I asked Dalvi about their creative hopes for the future.

“I would love to make long-form content,” Dalvi said. “I want to make a version of Schitt’s Creek with people that look like me…so kids who feel othered don’t feel like they have to end their lives.”

We ended our walk where we began, back at Whoopsie Daisy for a cold drink, before it was time for Dalvi to return to their work of community strengthening, connection and creation.

#AashayDalvi #AmyNeufeld #CherryPark #Column #CraigBecker #LGBTQ2_ #queer #racism #RadRiotBooks

KPL AND SANGUEN HEALTH CENTRE SCREEN HAVEN, HOST PANEL ON SAFER SUPPLY

https://communityedition.ca/kpl-and-sanguen-health-centre-screen-haven-host-panel-on-safer-supply/

#AndrewScottEntwistle #CarolynShafer #CraigBecker #CrosstownClinic #DanielTower #drugPoisoningCrisis #HarleenKaurDhillon #Haven #JennaeRobins #MichaelParkinson #opioidCrisis #pain #painManagement #saferSupply #Vancouver

WILMOT RESIDENTS FIGHT FOR FARMLAND IN FACE OF POTENTIAL GOVERNMENT EXPROPRIATION  

https://communityedition.ca/wilmot-residents-fight-for-farmland-in-face-of-potential-government-expropriation/

#2022CanadianAgricultureAtAGlance #AdrianQuijano #Canacre #country #CraigBecker #DougFord #Farmers #farms #FightForFarmland #KevinThomason #Rural #waterlooRegion #Wilmot #WilmotTownship