The days after Lisa Korthals died, the weather was crazy. I pulled wood in from the woodshed, and felt as if the erratic moodiness in the air, the sudden graupel, the return of the sun, the swirl of snow, was caused by her raging spirit, unsettled, unwilling to let go, to leave her life, her…
Author: Lisa Richardson
The Life Advice John Long Gave Me Before He Forgot My Name
We were drying off from a quick poached swim in my neighbour’s pool, when my 4 year old eyed their slackline, stretched at about three feet off the ground, between two trees. It’s a rock-climbers’ version of the tight-rope. The boy immediately picked up the ski poles lying beside it, and stepped onto the inch-wide…
Allowing yourself to be seen
Post-cancer, Anastasia Chomlack uses her camera to empower women to land more wholeheartedly in their lives. Almost two years ago, in June, Anastasia Chomlack jumped into the hotel shower, on her way to photograph a wedding in Arizona. The then-39-year-old founder of the Whistler Wedding Collective, Gather Creatives and Anastasia Photography had been shooting destination weddings…
Inside the Carver’s Tent
Ryan Scoular is in the final stretch of creating a six metre totem pole for Whistler home. I had the chance to peek in on his process this February, and wrote about it for the Pique newsmagazine. Photos by Ed Witwicki. Ryan Scoular stomps through the snow and zips the tent closed behind us, against…
Pemberton’s Grown Up Dilemma
This story appeared in Kicking Horse Coffee’s Full Press Journal, issue 2, in the fall of 2017 at https://www.kickinghorsecoffee.com/en/fullpress/pembertons-grown-up-dilemma with photos by Jordan Manley Growing your own food might be the greatest equal-opportunity gig, but it can’t happen without access to a bit of dirt. Stories of self-sufficient success in the rich (and increasingly rich…
The Imperfect Table
Scruffy hospitality, Cook Book Clubs and reclaiming the table I hate owing someone a dinner invitation. It’s so high-pressure. I always thought “imperfectionism” was the character flaw until Brene Brown, the vulnerability guru, outed perfectionism as a tactic people use to protect themselves from getting hurt. Ha! I exhaled smugly, I knew there was…
Adapt or Die: how a small town library offers clues to navigating velocity in an accelerating world
There’s a little white board in the corner of Emma Gillis’ office, with a wish list scrawled down it in black marker. Most of the items have been steadily crossed off over the five years since Gillis took the helm of the Pemberton & District Public Library and tried to conjure a future-proof facility. The…
Success, in spite of myself
My local newspaper has folded. And its sister publication, The Pique, which already absorbed the Question’s editorial staff, found space for me, and my column, too, starting February 8. In the editorial yesterday, Clare Ogilvie announced the changes. “Lisa Richardson and her Velocity Project will find a home in the Pique. Pemberton’s favourite writer for…
Think like an ancestor – a parting column for the Whistler Question
“Late Capitalism is as good an excuse of any for not getting out of bed, but huddling under the covers worrying about Donald Trump is a very inefficient way of sticking it to the man.”~ Laurie Penny I found a note from my brother while rummaging around in my office the other day – a…
Put a Word on it: picking a word for 2018
I love the annual word of the year from the various dictionary-makers – for what it reveals about our Zeitgeist. Feminism, youthquake and complicit are 2017’s, from the Merriam Webster, Oxford, and Dictionary.com. But we don’t just have to backcast. We can forecast too. And call down the power of a word, to focus or…
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