Hong Kong is recovering from one of its most severe typhoon in years, and Glory Wang BED 1998 is spending a quiet day in the head office of Atelier Pacific in North Point district. In her role as its managing director, the architect shuttles between Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore to oversee 73 designers, architects and support staff. Unlike most firms, Atelier Pacific expanded rapidly during the pandemic, opening its Shanghai office in April 2021 followed by Singapore in 2023. Wang takes it all in stride as clients including Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Salvatore Ferragamo keep coming back for more.

Unlike a stereotypical luxury brand designer, Wang is far from dripping head to toe in European labels. Instead, she opens the door to Atelier Pacific comfortably attired in running shoes, jeans and t-shirts. She is always ready for a good laugh, often at herself or to join in the fun. It is no wonder that she has fond memories of fierce ditchball games in the mid-90s when she was working towards her Bachelor of Environmental Design (Architecture) at UM.

“Ditchball was a big thing,” she recalls, settling into her chair in the studio’s boardroom overlooking Victoria Harbour. “Everyone had to participate. What I remember more was Sketch Camp at Gimli—a real eye opener. I had always been self-conscious about my hand drawing skills. At Sketch Camp, I learned that it was not about doing nice drawings; it was about the approach. Drawing was a means towards expression. So was photography, which I got into while at Gimli. And we stayed in a Viking settlement population 500. The mayor was also the high school principal. I had a really good time.”

Born in Hong Kong, Wang’s family emigrated to Vancouver when she was 11 years old. “I originally wanted to go to culinary school,” she confesses. “Although fairly liberal, my parents balked at what traditional Chinese families assumed would be a tough job in a greasy kitchen slinging out chow mein. They encouraged me to consider something else. I was pretty ignorant and thought that architecture would be easy: drawing and model making without any need to study. Since at the time, UBC only had a master program for architecture, the next closest university was UM. It was crazy! I applied with my portfolio, got accepted and moved to Winnipeg without knowing anything about it. After staying with family friends for a few nights when I first arrived, I moved into Mary Speechly Hall.”

Being from milder climes, Wang was unprepared for snow in October. Yet being part of the Mary Speechly community for her entire stay in Winnipeg gave her a sense of grounding and yen for pierogi. History lessons with Robert Madill gave her a fresh look at dusty days of yore. “Bob always walked in with Ray Bans,” she laughs. “He had them on the entire time we looked at slides in a dark room! I don’t know why he always wore shades—maybe he was trying too hard to look cool. Let’s face it: history is boring. But the way he shared his knowledge made it very memorable. He was a good teacher.”

Another professor she remembers fondly is Leon Feduniw, though she is much less enamoured at being pried out of bed for his 8:30 am tech class three days per week. “My friends and I were always late and we would always get stuck sitting in the front row where Leon could see we slept through most of his lectures,” she grins. Feduniw suggested that she enter an American student housing competition; Wang and her team won second prize and a trip ensued to accept the award in San Francisco. “It was my first time to San Francisco,” she recalls. “It was fun. Along with visiting one of the competition judges’ studios—my dream work place—we went sightseeing.”

After graduating in 1998, Wang worked for a couple of years in Hong Kong before returning to Canada to study in Ottawa. “UM gave me a good foundation for my master at Carleton,” she says, noting that she immediately returned to Hong Kong following graduation in 2004. “My brother was working here and we’re close,” Wang notes. “And frankly, Hong Kong salaries are better than Canadian ones.” She started at Wong Ouyang, one of the biggest architectural firms in the city at the time. Although she gained enough experience for her Hong Kong Institute of Architects license, she found herself oscillating between gratitude for being employed during the 2008 financial crisis and frustration at the government-like culture of working for a practice with hundreds of staff members.

“I messaged Nic one particularly annoying day and asked if he was hiring,” Wang remembers. She had previously interned for Nic Banks, a transplanted Brit who founded Atelier Pacific in 1996. By then, she knew she preferred working within a more intimate studio that espoused an architectural approach to interiors. “I think that’s the difference between education in Canada versus Hong Kong,” she posits. “In Canada, interior design is part of architecture and architects see interiors as part of their job—everything we do is about solving a client’s needs.”

One of her first and favourite projects was the extensive adaptive re-use of Hong Kong Fringe Club; she worked closely with clients Benny Chia and Catherine Lau to get the listed heritage building structurally sound and up to contemporary building codes. “It is an iconic building,” Wang states. “At the time, it was a hub for the local arts scene. I learned a lot about its history as Dairy Farm’s storage when it was first opened in 1845. The painful part was our very tight budget and dealing with a lot of changes as the project progressed. It was like helping a patient recover from cancer with the minimal amount of financial support. There was a lot of reinstatement to its original glory. A nice surprise was the discovery of floor tiles from the 1960s in the Fringe Dairy part of the building that were in good enough condition for us to leave in situ after some cleaning.”

Atelier Pacific is the preferred interior architect for luxury brands in greater China, and Wang particularly appreciates the firm’s longstanding relationship with Hermes. “Its attention to detail is hats off,” she shares. “It likes to explore materials and push boundaries.” Another niche area for the studio is signage and wayfinding, with Hong Kong Museum of Art a stand out project: “The museum today compared to prior its 2019 intervention is like night and day. It’s a fresh idea executed well, and our signage design complements the building.”

Wang was promoted to managing director four years ago after Banks relocated part-time to Europe. She admits that she designs much less these days, though she still gets excited about new projects. “I was the last man standing,” she smiles, referring to the constant poaching of colleagues by fashion houses for them to work in-house. “I am the designer remaining with the longest history,” she reveals. “As both a manager and the front person for our studio, I give clients faith and trust in what we do to return for their next project.”

She helped steer the firm’s expansion from a studio with 20 people in Hong Kong to almost quadruple in size with three studios across the region. “We are intentionally getting more architects on board to work on a wider range of projects. When I first joined, we did exhibitions, proposals for houses and smaller scaled projects. Now people know us for much more. For our 25th anniversary—which we couldn’t properly celebrate as it was the height of the pandemic closures—we wrapped a tram in colourful graphic renderings of our best projects. Everyone loved it.”

Looking back at her time in Winnipeg, Wang feels she owes UM a big thank you: “My architectural education helps me think outside the box. I encourage anyone and everyone who wants to make a difference to consider studying architecture at UM.”

www.atelierpacific.com.hk

The UM and SJC alum studied environmental design during his undergraduate degree, spending countless hours at St John’s studying for exams and eating food with friends in the Daily Bread Cafe. He also received several SJC scholarships and bursaries to support his education.

Since moving to Belgium to pursue his master’s in architecture, Max has relied on the knowledge and skills he accrued during his studies at SJC and UM. He recognizes that his unique approach to his master’s research comes from his time at UM in the architecture faculty.

“I find that with my experience, I bring new ideas that are different from those of my colleagues out here. I learned many of them in my Bachelor of Environmental Design, which has helped me get to where I am today.”

Max is grateful for the experience he’s had so far, including the new ideas, techniques, and connections he’s made in Belgium.

“It’s fun to study out here. Everyone comes in with different perspectives worldwide, which has helped me learn new ideas and techniques.”

Max will complete his thesis this June and is then excited to stay in Belgium to continue his work with the various opportunities he has found in his graduate experience.

The SJC and UM alum is currently pursuing her pharmacological work in Belgium, where she has expressed her appreciation for the diversity in Europe she learned from her college experience.

“Many of the lessons I have learned came from St John’s College when I was a resident. The diversity of students there and the friendliness of everyone made me feel at home, and it’s stuck with me in my experience here in Europe.”

The lifer St John’s resident attending UM for seven years worked towards her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Science, where she now applies her studies and hopes to grow into her own business over the years to come.

As a former Don in the St John’s Residence, Viridiana has fond memories of her time at the College, which she now reflects on and lives out in her time in Europe.

“The movie nights, spirit cup days, and connecting with students were some of my favourite times in the College. It made my university days fly by too fast, but I loved every moment.”

Continuing her work in Belgium over the coming years, Viri hopes to turn her work into her own business, where she can work from anywhere, visit her family back home, and experience the world.

For decades, the Holocaust educator has made it her life’s work to bolster curriculums and contribute to international resources so that the genocide of the Second World War is never forgotten or repeated.

January 27 marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1945 – a day set aside by the United Nations to commemorate the Holocaust.

UM Today spoke to Jarniewski [BEd/93, CertTrad/02] from her office in Winnipeg about the importance of honouring this day in the face of growing acts of intolerance around the world.

UM TODAY: YOUR PARENTS WERE BOTH HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS, WHICH CLEARLY GAVE YOU AN INTIMATE PERSPECTIVE ON THIS HISTORICAL EVENT. WHEN DID YOU DECIDE TO MAKE IT YOUR MISSION TO HELP EDUCATE OTHERS?

JARNIEWSKI: My undergraduate degree at the U of M was in Education with a minor in Judaic Studies. As I began to work with students, it became very apparent to me that many of them knew very little, if anything, about the Holocaust. In fact, some had never met a Jewish person before encountering me as their teacher. I quickly realized how important it was to promote and engage in Holocaust education.

IS THERE A PARTICULAR LESSON THAT YOU THINK IS CRITICAL FOR PEOPLE TO LEARN?

The most important thing in my opinion is that indifference or silence is equivalent to complicity. Unless we speak out, especially given the rise of extremism and hate today, we risk having history repeat itself. Sadly, “never again” rings hollow.           

THERE’S BEEN A MARKED RISE IN ANTI-IMMIGRANT, ANTISEMITIC, AND NATIONALIST SENTIMENTS AROUND THE WORLD. IT MUST BE PARTICULARLY DISTRESSING FOR HISTORIANS LIKE YOU TO WATCH, KNOWING WHAT SUCH MOVEMENTS HAVE LED TO IN THE PAST.

The rise of populism, nationalism, and hate are very worrisome. Scholars (and even graduate students) in some countries are being harassed and/or threatened for writing or speaking about the complicity of their countries during the Holocaust. Holocaust distortion is becoming as much or more of a problem than Holocaust denial. The intense anti-immigrant sentiment in some countries and the hatred for and false characterisations of certain groups bear chilling parallels to the situation in the 1930s and 1940s. Therefore, it is more important than ever to remind people of what happened in the not-so-distant past and of the importance of speaking out on these issues.

YOU ARE DOING THAT NOW, AS PART OF THE CANADIAN DELEGATION TO THE INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE ALLIANCE. CAN YOU TALK A BIT ABOUT WHAT YOU DO?

I serve on the Academic Working Group (AWG) and the Committee on anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denial. Both groups are working very hard to preserve the historical narrative and to fight against attempts to distort it. The Committee on anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denial elaborated and adopted the first intergovernmental definition of anti-Semitism, which has now been adopted by several countries and institutions within those countries. Recently, Western University became the first Canadian campus to adopt the definition. The definition is very important as it provides examples of what anti-Semitism is, and what it isn’t. 

IS THERE A PROJECT THAT YOU’RE ESPECIALLY PROUD TO HAVE BEEN A PART OF?

The adoption by the Plenary in Bucharest in 2016 was a particularly important moment for me – I felt history was being made. This year, the AWG asked its members to participate in a project which outlines anti-Semitic measures and legislation in our 31-member countries since the beginning of the 20th century.  I completed and submitted the research on behalf of Canada, which included the quota system for Jewish students at the School of Medicine in the 1930s and 40s.

SOME HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS ATTENDED THE U OF M, AS STUDENTS AND PROFESSORS, WHICH YOU CAPTURE IN YOUR BOOK VOICES OF WINNIPEG HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS. WHAT MOTIVATED YOU TO TELL THEIR STORIES?

A local survivor felt strongly that their stories should be preserved in a format that would be widely accessible, especially to local students. We felt that reading about men and women who live or had lived in Winnipeg would make history more “real” to them.

As I was writing the book, it made me so sad to think about the suffering these wonderful people had endured. In many cases I had known them for years. Some provided me with old family photographs and seeing these photos which portrayed what they had lost were in many ways as upsetting as the horrific photos we see of the suffering and destruction.

IN YOUR OPINION, WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO HAVE AN INTERNATIONAL DAY OF REMEMBRANCE FOR THE HOLOCAUST?

In the Jewish community, we have Yom Hashoah (in the spring) which commemorates the Holocaust. However, an internationally acknowledged day encourages more than just commemoration and reaches a broader audience. Resolution 60/7 of the United Nations, which established International Holocaust Remembrance Day, encourages the development of educational programs to help prevent future acts of genocide. The resolution also condemns “without reserve” all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, whenever they occur.

While many of the UN member countries continue to engage in Holocaust denial and distortion as well as promoting anti-Semitic rhetoric, the day is observed solemnly and respectfully in many countries. I see this as an important weapon in the fight against Holocaust denial and distortion and a means of preserving the historical record. 

WHAT ARE SOME PRACTICAL WAYS PEOPLE CAN HONOUR THIS DAY?

The Freeman Family Foundation Holocaust Education Centre partners with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and this year’s theme is “the music of remembrance”. There are free events on January 27 and 28 (visit FFFHEC’s website for more information).  If you can’t get out to an event, I would suggest going online to the Visual History Archive and viewing one of the more than 52,000 testimonies.

The Canadian National Vimy Memorial and the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial are the only two National Historic Sites of Canada located outside our country’s borders.

Elvina Mukhamedshina [BSc/16], a student in the Faculty of Education, was stationed at both sites over the past two years working as a student guide for Veteran’s Affairs Canada.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, UM Today spoke to Mukhamedshina about experiencing an important part of Canada’s war story.

MOST CANADIANS ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE BATTLE OF VIMY RIDGE, AND OUR SOLDIERS’ SUCCESS THERE. BEAUMONT-HAMEL REPRESENTS A DARK MOMENT IN OUR HISTORY. WHAT HAPPENED THERE?

July 1, 1916 is one of the bloodiest days in Commonwealth history; we lost over 60,000 men in one day. Along the front line, the Newfoundland Regiment suffered the second-highest casualty rate: 87 per cent of the Regiment was destroyed within half an hour. Beaumont-Hamel is a memorial to that Regiment’s sacrifice.
 
There were a lot of logistical problems. The Hawthorne Ridge mine exploded at the wrong time and ended up giving the Germans a warning of the impending attack. The range of the machine guns was too short so they didn’t hit the German line. Forty per cent of the shells never exploded, so that’s why a hundred years later you still find shells out in the fields.

The ‘danger tree’ at Beaumont-Hamel. // Photo by Elvina Mukhamedshina

There’s a tree that’s called the “danger tree” because a lot of bodies were recovered from there. It was the only tree out in the field, and for the Newfoundlanders it served as a landmark. When things were exploding and the visibility was so poor, they gravitated towards the tree to catch a breath and recover. They didn’t realize that for the Germans it was also a landmark: machine gunners cross-fired towards it so there was a high casualty rate around the tree.
 
At that point, many survivors would’ve been turning back, but not everyone made it because they carried these huge backpacks. On their backpacks they had little metal triangles that reflected the sun because their back lines wanted to see who their men were. But the problem is when you’re turning back, you become a target for your enemies. For Newfoundlanders it was a very, very tragic day.

IS THERE A PARTICULAR SOLDIER WHOSE STORY HAS STUCK WITH YOU?

I always mention Tommy Ricketts. He was only 15 when he joined the Newfoundland Regiment and he received the Victoria Cross at age 17. When they were fighting in Ledeghem, Belgium, there was a moment when the Newfoundland Regiment was almost destroyed and Tommy decided to take it upon himself to outflank the machine gun that was in the field firing on them. He ran alone across the field and was able to take down the machine gun and by doing so he was able to rescue his platoon and capture some German prisoners. He won the Victoria Cross for that. After the war, he went back to Newfoundland and became a pharmacist but he never ever talked about the war; it was a topic he never wanted to discuss again.
 
I share that story because he survived and he was so young but he never wanted to talk about it. Everyone is out there celebrating but for him it’s not a victory, it’s not a celebration. It shows you that dark side of war.

WHEN YOU TELL VISITORS THESE STORIES, HOW DO THEY RESPOND?
 
A lot of people leave with tears in their eyes. There was one soldier from Denmark who came to Beaumont-Hamel with his friends and at one point he couldn’t go further. He was so emotional. He was telling me how these are his brothers – they’re different ethnicities and nationalities and culture but they’re his brothers because they fought for peace. He fought in Afghanistan and he was saying how awful it is that we’re still fighting, that we still haven’t found a balance in the world where we can solve these issues with diplomacy, without having to shed blood. At the end, he gave me his regiment badge which I have now in one of my diaries.
 
It’s such an amazing experience giving tours. You’re suddenly connecting all these people from different corners of the world with different experiences. Because it was a world war, we were all affected.

ONE OF THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TODAY’S SOLDIERS AND THOSE FROM 100 YEARS AGO IS THEIR AGE. YOU MENTIONED TOMMY RICKETTS WAS 15 WHEN HE JOINED. WAS THAT TYPICAL?

They were supposed to be 18 to join the army though many of them weren’t. There was this whole propaganda “you’re going to go to war; you’re going to do great things; you’re going to see the world; you’re going to kill the enemy and then come back home a hero”. Many of them fell into that. If they saw their friends or brothers going they all went. It was this big adventure. I always tell the teenagers on my tours “you guys always want to travel and go to Europe, to backpack and see the world and for them it was that same deal.” It was that kind of opportunity so they went and they didn’t realize what they were getting themselves into.

Mass graves at the Langemark German Military Cemetery in Belgium. Photo by Elvina Mukhamedshina

AS A GUIDE, WAS THERE ANYTHING YOU LEARNED ABOUT THE WAR THAT PEOPLE DON’T NORMALLY THINK ABOUT?

We took tours to Belgium as part of our training which included visits to the German cemeteries which is a whole other story … you walk in and each headstone marks a mass grave with nine to 18 soldiers buried there. It makes you feel so, so sorry for those men because even on our tours we’re encouraged not to use the word “enemy”. You don’t get to choose when you’re just born into country. They wanted to help, to live up to their motherland’s expectations. They had families at home, and they wanted to come back to marry or travel or become a doctor – but they never had a chance. It’s just unfortunate that they were in that situation. 
 

We’re all people and we all want to live in peace. Nobody wanted this war and I don’t think people realized where it was going to lead. They didn’t realize the consequences of what they’re getting themselves into. A lot of these people were pawns and just victims of bigger political ideas.

YOU GOT INVOLVED WITH VETERANS AFFAIRS AS SOON AS YOU GRADUATED. WAS THERE ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR U OF M EXPERIENCE THAT HELPED YOU BE A GREAT GUIDE?

I was always involved in leadership opportunities on campus. I volunteered at Student Life and in my second year I was captain for Orientation. As a captain you’re kind of taking people around, giving them a tour of the university, so I guess that was my first guide experience.  I was also one of the co-chairs for a Canadian conference in student leadership and worked with Mini U for a long time. The communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills that I gained through those experiences allowed me to take the leap.

Trenches at Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial.

THIS REMEMBRANCE DAY MARKS 100 YEARS SINCE THE FIRST WORLD WAR ENDED. HOW DO WE KEEP ALL OF THIS IN PERSPECTIVE A CENTURY LATER?

I think it’s so important for people to one day visit these memorials and see it for themselves. Being there, living the history, connects you from past to present. It’s a reminder to remember those men that fought for our future. If we don’t have Remembrance Day – if we don’t have people wondering and asking questions – then it’s almost like they died in vain. What did they fight for? Why did they sacrifice their lives? They decided to fight, they stepped up. The least that we can do is remember. The least that we can do is to study the history and take away the lessons from those conflicts so that we don’t repeat them in the future.
 
Being a student guide really reinforced my desire to go into education, to work with people and share my passion. As cheesy as it sounds, I tell my guide family we’re kind of little messengers of peace. We carry pieces of that experience with us no matter where we go. We will always be promoting remembrance.
 
Of the 1,119 graduates and undergraduates from the U of M who served in the First World War, 140 died in action and as a direct consequence of the war. Military honours were awarded to 267.

Decades later, Campbell [LLB/08] has turned this schoolyard discovery into a legal career which has taken her from Robson Hall to Oxford. Now, as a lecturer in law at the University of Birmingham, she is exploring how the international human rights system can best respond to gender inequality and poverty.

To mark Canada’s inaugural Gender Equality Week, UM Today spoke to Campbell from across the pond.

UM TODAY: WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO ENGLAND TO STUDY AND THEN TEACH?

CAMPBELL: When I graduated from Robson Hall, I worked as a lawyer for the Province of Manitoba. Then I started to get intellectual itchy feet. As a lawyer, you have to play by the rules—and this can require a lot of ingenuity and creativity—but as an academic lawyer you can think deeply about the rules are constructed and propose new rules. 

I decided to do an LLM at the University of Edinburgh for the adventure of studying overseas. I really enjoyed taking a comparative perspective on gender equality and wanted to continue with my studies. I decided to apply to University of Oxford, so that on my death-bed, I would know that at least I had tried to go to one of the foremost universities. I was incredibly fortunate to be accepted to do a DPhil at the University of Oxford under the supervision of professor Sandra Fredman.   

Meghan Campbell.

HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN GENDER EQUALITY?
 
My interest started early when my parents encouraged me to do well in math and other subjects at school and only in reading did I realize that the world was deeply structured around gender power imbalances.
 
At law school, we were taught Gosselin v Quebec, where the Supreme Court of Canada held that drastically reducing social assistance benefits to those under 30 was not in violation of the right to equality in The Charter. This seemed intuitively wrong. Human rights are for everyone, not only the wealthy and the privileged. The interpretation and understanding of human rights needs to account for different experiences, including how poverty acts as obstacle to equality. The professors at Robson Hall were incredibly supportive and encouraged me to follow this intuition into legally sophisticated arguments.   
 
I initially wanted my doctoral studies to focus on the role of the right to equality in redressing poverty. Professor Fredman channelled this idea to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. And this sparked my career in studying gender equality and international human rights law.
 
THOSE ARE BOTH VERY BROAD AREAS. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE ADVANTAGES OF HAVING ONE INFLUENCE THE OTHER?
 
A good example is the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). A majority of the world’s states have committed CEDAW so at the international level, states have a legal obligation to eliminate discrimination and achieve women’s equality in broad areas of life including civil, political, economic, social and cultural. The UN human rights accountability system develops the legal obligations and provides best practice guidance to the world’s state. The Committee that monitors CEDAW has been influential. It’s guidance on gender-based violence has been adopted by apex courts all over the world including India and the European Court of Human Rights.
 
Unlocking the potential of CEDAW to redress women’s poverty therefore provides a blue print that can influence states all over the world and marks a path forward for using human rights to tackle women’s poverty.  
 
YOUR RECENT RESEARCH HAS FOCUSED A LOT ON THIS AREA; CAN YOU TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE AVENUES YOU’RE EXPLORING ON THE ISSUE OF WOMEN’S POVERTY?
 
I just finished an article advocating that rural and northern life should be included as a ground of discrimination under The Charter. This could have a significant impact on women in Canada and around the world, as the empirical evidence shows that rural women are more disadvantaged than urban women and urban and rural men. Including rural and northern life as a ground of discrimination can empower rural women to hold the government to account for laws and policies that perpetuate rural disadvantage.
 
My next research project is focusing on how the duty of cooperation contained in core UN human rights treaties can redress the extraterritorial aspects of poverty. The acts and omissions of states can perpetuate poverty far beyond their borders. There is very little accountability for this cause of poverty. States have agreed to cooperate to realize socio-economic rights but this legal obligation has been overlooked in the evolution of human rights law. As women disproportionately rely on socio-economic rights, understanding how the duty of cooperation can strengthen their protection, this project has strong implications for the future protection of women’s rights.
 
GIVEN CANADA’S HISTORICAL TIES TO ENGLAND, HAVE YOU FOUND THAT THERE ARE SIMILARITIES IN THE WAY GENDER INEQUALITY IS BEING ADDRESSED BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES? ARE THERE DIFFERENCES?
 
There are marked similarities between the two countries as both are grappling with women’s disproportionate amount of unpaid care work, unequal pay, gender-based violence and high rates of poverty. Both countries have an active civil society committed to improving women’s lives and the governments in both countries are pursuing innovative methods to redress these inequalities including mandatory pay transparency and inquiries into violence against women.
  
The biggest differences between the U.K. and Canada in protecting women’s rights are due to the different constitutional structure.  The U.K. does not have a codified constitution. The constitution is spread among different pieces of legislation and constitutional conventions. As a result, the courts do not have the power to strike down legislation. Instead, the UK courts declare that the legislation is incompatible with the human rights legislation and the impetus then shifts to Parliament to correct this incompatibility. In Canada, the right to equality is entrenched in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and courts can strike down laws that violate women’s rights to equality. So the biggest differences are more in terms of legal structure and judicial review of women’s rights than the substantive content of gender equality. 

Such is the norm during the summer months in Rankin Inlet, where Brown [BA/10, MNRM/16] works for the Government of Nunavut as Acting Director of Nunavut Parks and Special Places.

After falling in love with Inuit culture and the lifestyle of Northern Canada during her undergrad, Brown moved to Nunavut once her masters was complete.

In anticipation of Canada’s Parks Day on July 21, we’re featuring alumni like Brown who live and work in our nation’s parks, historical sites and special places; alumni who get to call these Canadian treasures their “office”.

UM TODAY spoke to Brown about the challenges and the beauty of living in Canada’s North from her office facing the northern edge of Hudson Bay.

UM TODAY: WHEN WE FIRST CONTACTED YOU IN MAY IT WAS -1 AND SNOWING IN RANKIN INLET. NOW, IT’S 17 DEGREES. THAT SEEMS PRETTY WARM FOR THE NORTH!

Yes, people think that it’s always a vast frozen wasteland up here. Things thaw! And the landscape here is so diverse. At certain times of the year you can be walking along and see flowers of all colours: hot pink, bright yellow, crisp white, and then a little bit further along everything is covered in berries and you can just eat blueberries to your heart’s content. The landscape changes so quickly; you just round the next hill and you’re in a completely different kind of space.

There are no trees here except one area in Katannilik Territorial Park, which is near Iqaluit. There’s this little microclimate where they have willows growing and they’re about seven or eight feet tall. You’re like “what, why is this here?!” But that’s the Soper Valley – it’s beautiful!

DO YOU GET TO EXPLORE A LOT OF NUNAVUT, AS PART OF YOUR JOB?

Everything in Nunavut is dictated by the season and the weather. The winter is planning season so I’m in the office, but summer is completely different. Last year, for example, I had the opportunity to visit Qaummaarviit Territorial Park.  In order to get there we had to take a boat across Frobisher Bay and when you’re out there you might see pods of narwhals and belugas go by and all the shorebirds are flying overhead. It’s so beautiful, everything is rock and beautiful water and this big beautiful blue sky.  Qaummaarviit is an island so when you eventually make it out you’re stranded for a time when the tide goes out so you get to explore. My friends tease me and say my job is just picnics and boat rides!

SO WHAT EXACTLY DOES YOUR JOB INVOLVE, OTHER THAN ISLAND HOPPING?

In Qaummaarviit, we were there to do a cultural landscape resource inventory. We were looking at what the cultural resources are: archeological sites, wildlife areas, or harvesting areas where Inuit or people living in Nunavut might go and fish or hunt. We map what the resources are and that helps us define our master plans. What the boundaries of the park should be or the zoning. 

Exploring Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park. // Image from AMY BROWN @rock.water.sky (Instagram)

DO YOU DO THIS FOR ALL THE PARKS IN NUNAVUT?

There are 22 communities in Nunavut and our long-term goal is to have one park adjacent to each community across the entire territory. We work very closely with the Regional Inuit Organizations, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the park advisory committees, and the public to develop parks in a way that makes sense to the communities that we serve.  Sometimes there’s a strong preference for a wilderness park with very few amenities. Or maybe they want a park more closely associated with the community where there’s a day-use area or a lake to go swimming in. Another option is a historical park which would showcase some of the archaeological or historical features associated with the different regions.

For example, Iqalugaarjuup Nunanga Territorial Park was established to showcase the connection between Inuit and migrating caribou herds. Last year, during our Parks Day event, a passing caribou herd (roughly 100,000 animals), changed course and passed directly through the park.  Community members were concerned that vehicle traffic and public activities in the park would startle and potentially harm the animals. So the road leading into and out of the park was closed to allow the herd to pass by safely. In some cases this stranded park visitors in the park for several hours, but it was generally accepted that this was the best course of action to safeguard the herd, which is a food source for so many families that practice traditional subsistence hunting.  We now have plans in place to shift the Parks Day event to either before or after the herd migrate close to the park, to ensure the herd’s safety.

WHEN YOU WERE A U OF M STUDENT, DID YOU EVER IMAGINE YOU’D BE NAVIGATING CARIBOU HERDS IN YOUR CAREER? HOW DID YOU DECIDE TO MOVE UP NORTH?

Not really! When I did my undergrad, there was a travel study course offered by the Department of Native Studies and the Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources. They took a group of students to Pangnirtung, on Baffin Island, and we spent six weeks immersed in an Inuit community. We camped behind the town; met with elders almost daily for language classes; they took us hunting; we learned how to sew seal skin.

It completely opened my eyes to a Canadian experience that I knew nothing about. It resonated with how I wanted to live my life, so after I graduated and saw there wasn’t much resource development happening in southern Canada, I looked north. There was a position available so I said to my husband, “What do you think? Are you up for an adventure?” And he said yes. We moved up here in October 2016. 

LET’S TALK ABOUT LIFE UP NORTH. IT MUST BE VERY DIFFERENT THAN WHAT WE’RE ACCUSTOMED TO DOWN SOUTH.

Every community is a fly-in community. The Government of Nunavut provides staff housing for most positions so I live in a row house that’s connected to five other units that have teachers and nurses and other government workers living there. Our house is about six feet off the ground with fencing around the bottom to keep polar bears out. I’ve actually never seen a polar bear in town but I know they’re around so it’s just a precaution so you don’t step off the front step and feel an arm reach out and grab you.

In the winter time my husband and I walk wherever we go but there are roads here, lots of trucks. Rather than using a vehicle in the summer, we bought a quad because it’s much more versatile. The landscape in Rankin is very flat so we can drive on the roads in our quad but also go inland to see the caribou migrate, or go fishing, or out to people’s cabins.

There’s a lot of subsistence hunting here so when you walk through town it’s not uncommon to see caribou or even polar bear hides being stretched out on wood frames outside of people’s homes. Or caribou antlers left out for the dogs. Something I find quite interesting is to be walking along and seeing an entire muskox head with the horns and everything just waiting to be cleaned!

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR FOOD?

Amy with Arrow the husky pulling home a sled full of food mail. // Image from AMY BROWN @rock.water.sky (Instagram)

We have three grocery stores up here but typically me and my husband order online from certain companies in the south, and they ship it up to us. There’s a separate section at the airport here where food mail comes in. We load up our sled, and we’ve taught our husky to pull it home on his harness. Food mail is more for fresh produce. For dried goods, we organize a sea lift. It’s like doing a big Costco run – you buy for the year – and certain companies will put it in a crate and make arrangements to go by train to Montreal, then by ship up to us. As long as you have some forethought you can get almost anything up here.

A lot of people pursue subsistence hunting. My husband and I don’t have the skills but we have been very blessed to receive traditional foods from our friends, neighbours and colleagues: muskox roast, ground caribou meat, or freshly caught geese.  We have learned to fish, and have been rewarded with some very tasty lake trout and arctic char.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE NEW FOOD THAT YOU’VE DISCOVERED?

The catch of the day after mussel picking. // Image from AMY BROWN @rock.water.sky (Instagram)

One of the most rewarding experiences of my life was learning when, where, and how to mussel pick with some of my Inuit coworkers. The Government of Nunavut encourages offices to have a cultural day on the land. The idea is to promote Inuit culture and traditions and share those with people who aren’t necessarily from here.  

We travelled to the coast and spent the day plucking mussels off rocks hidden underneath kelp, racing the tide to select the largest ones only exposed at the lowest of tides. I felt so proud of myself for collecting all these mussels, learning how to spill the sand out and clean them. Taking them home and making a beautiful meal out of something I harvested myself was a really rewarding experience.

DO YOU FEEL ISOLATED?

Life in Nunavut is different that it is in southern Canada. There aren’t the same amenities as those I used to take for granted.  We only have a handful of restaurants in town. Do I miss being able to sit in a café and chat with my friends? Of course. But living in the north makes you resilient. You adapt to thrive. There’s no sense dwelling on things that are out of reach. Instead, you need to make your own opportunities. What me and a group of friends do is have a themed dinner party once a month. If one of us says, “oh I really wish we could go for a falafel tonight” we might do a falafel-themed dinner, or Chinese, or Thai.

Some women I know missed their regular yoga practice. So they rented the school gym three nights a week and started their own ‘yoga studio’. The isolation provides opportunities to be more creative.

JULY 21^ST IS CANADA’S PARKS DAY. WHAT DO YOU WISH CANADIANS KNEW ABOUT OUR NORTHERN PARKS?

How accessible Nunavut’s Territorial Parks are!  Many of our parks are located within proximity to one of Nunavut’s communities.  In some cases, visitors can rent a truck or ATV and travel by road or maintained trail to the parks, where they will find amenities such as emergency shelters, tent platforms, outhouses, fire pits, and picnic tables.  Iqalugaarjuup Nunanga Territorial Park, located on the outskirts of Rankin Inlet, can be accessed by road between May and October. Visitors are often surprised to find a sandy swimming lake filled with children, interpretive walking trails, and a pavilion equipped with a wood stove and BBQ.

To see more photos about work and life in Nunavut, check out @umanitoba on Instagram on Friday, July 20. Amy will be taking over the U of M’s account for the day to celebrate Canada’s Parks Day.

Surrounded by snow-capped Rockies and catching the occasional glimpse of bears (with frequent sightings of elk), Dupuis [BSc/02] makes this picturesque drive every day as Visitor Experience Manager for the Lake Louise, Yoho, Kootenay Field Unit.

It’s one of many roles he’s held over a 20-year career with Parks Canada, taking care (as he describes his responsibilities) of Canadian treasures.

In anticipation of Canada’s Parks Day on July 21, we’re featuring alumni like Dupuis who live and work in our nation’s parks, historical sites and special places; alumni who get to call these Canadian treasures their “office”.

UM Today spoke to Dupuis from his office overlooking the tallest mountain in Lake Louise: Mount Temple.

UM TODAY: WHAT DO YOU DO, AS A VISITOR EXPERIENCE MANAGER?

DUPUIS: Visitor experience in national parks is basically the public-facing staff who you see in uniform serving Canadians and visitors from abroad in all of our locations. That includes campgrounds, gates, visitor centres, call centres, and some of the shuttles we’ve been running here in Lake Louise.

It’s a big team. It kind of sounds like I’m out there greeting people but I’m not, I have a team of just over 200 people who work for the Visitor Experience team in Lake Louise, Yoho, and Kootenay. I do my job by making sure the teams have the tools and resources to serve visitors. I also work with my colleagues in other functions to make sure the front of house is in good shape and visitors respect the environment when they come to the parks

HOW DO YOU DEFINE A GOOD VISITOR EXPERIENCE?

It’s kind of difficult to define because every experience is unique. Everybody comes with their own values and perceptions of things. One of the things we learn at Parks Canada is to really understand visitors and the science behind their behaviours. Why they choose to come to parks and how we get them to care about these places so much that they want to protect them for future generations.

As staff in Parks Canada, we’re pretty much all passionate about the outdoors and comfortable outdoors but when you look at the general public as a whole – it is often not the case.

LOTS OF HIKING IN FLIP-FLOPS, THAT SORT OF THING?

We see that all the time here in the Lake Louise area. Flip-flops or regular street footwear are appropriate for a leisurely stroll along the Lake Louise lakeshore, but proper hiking footwear is advised for any hikes in the area.

The phenomenon of Instagram and sharing photos on social media is something that we’re definitely seeing increasing, too. People want to get to certain locations but they’re maybe not as prepared as they should be. The beauty is really attractive, “We gotta go there!” but they don’t know what tools they need to get there. Sometimes it’s not the right footwear or not enough water, or not knowing how far the actual hike is and being well prepared. That’s one of our main messages for people: plan ahead. Some of these places are beautiful, but be ready for it.

Dupuis skating on Two Jack Lake in Banff National Park, with Cascade Mountain in the background.

HAVE YOU ALWAYS BEEN SOMEONE WHO LIKES TO BE OUTDOORS EXPLORING NATURE?

Yes, I love the outdoors and I get that from my father. I grew up in St. Pierre Jolys, just south of Winnipeg and almost every weekend in the spring and summer my dad would take us fishing to Nopiming and various places in the backcountry. That’s where I got my love for the outdoors.

SO IT WAS NATURAL TO GO INTO ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE, BUT WHY PARKS IN PARTICULAR?

The first course I took at the U of M was Environmental Science 101 with Gordon Goldsborough. Just seeing his passion for two things: the environment (taking care of it and being conscious of everything you do) and his passion for history. Parks Canada doesn’t just protect nature but also our cultural heritage and he really represented that. In my every day work I often think of how he approached things.

I’m lucky enough to take care of Canadian treasures for Canadians. That’s how I see my job. Canadians own these places, or have them in trust, and I’m entrusted to make sure they’ll be here forever.

ARE THERE CERTAIN THINGS YOU FOCUS ON?

Visiting and connecting to a place is very important to people. If you visit a place, you’re way more likely to want to protect that place. If I just say “do you want to protect such-and-such National Park?” you’re like “Well, I have no idea what that is, I have no connection to it.” But if you’ve been there, you understand this is worth protecting and you become an ambassador and an advocate for those special places.

The other thing I’m interested in is how we work with Indigenous peoples and present their stories in our various places. I’m a Métis from just south of Winnipeg; it’s something I’m very proud of. At Parks Canada, we are leaders in developing important relationships with our Indigenous partners to better protect and present our heritage places.

Elk in Canmore.

YOU MUST SEE A LOT OF BEAUTIFUL PLACES ON THE JOB – WHAT’S ONE OF THEM?

Last year we started our daily traffic program. There’s a lot of congestion in Lake Louise, so we have traffic flaggers plus a shuttle. The key thing that we didn’t have was a dedicated channel for them to communicate. I was fortunate enough to go on top of Mount Hector in a helicopter to help install the antennae for the new radio channel.

The helicopter dropped me and the radio tech off and then it went away so it was just us and the quiet … besides the cordless drill drilling the antennae into the side of the building. Mount Hector in Banff National Park overlooks the whole Lake Louise area and the Icefields Parkway and it’s just amazing. That was my job and I was like “really, I’m getting paid to do this?!”

HOW ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO VISIT THE PARKS, WHAT KINDS OF EXPERIENCES HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO GIVE THEM?

My favourite was when I worked as a Park Interpreter and I was guiding a group on the Boreal Trail in Riding Mountain National Park. The father was in a wheelchair – it was a wheelchair accessible hike but it had grown in and the grass was getting long so I helped push the gentleman so he could access the trail. We got to the far bridge and we saw a moose eating in the marsh not too far away from us. It was amazing to be able to have him out there on the trail, but seeing him and his family enjoy that moment will stay with me forever.

JULY 21^ST IS CANADA’S PARKS DAY. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO CANADIANS TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO EXPLORE OUR PARKS?

Explore your backyard. As a Canadian, it’s everybody’s place to enjoy and get closer to their heritage. From history to nature, the more you know about it, the better position as a society we will be to protect these places for generations.

She has star power, undoubtedly, and uses it, as a media executive and television producer, to push for social change.

While the Cannes Film Festival made headlines last week for putting the spotlight on gender equality, Michalchyshyn [BA/89] has spent her 25-year career championing for women and other underrepresented talent in the film industry.

“As a producer I ask who are the lead and supporting roles,” she recently told a panel at IFF Panama on gender parity. “If women are attached to minor roles or demeaning roles without substance, I throw it in the trash.”

UM Today caught up with Michalchyshyn at home in New York to talk about the part she plays in driving change within the film industry.

UM TODAY: HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH FILM IN THE FIRST PLACE?
 
MICHALCHYSHYN: My first big job was launching a women’s film and video festival in Winnipeg called RE:VISIONS through the Winnipeg Film Group. It was true even then that women’s films were hardly being seen, but we showed Orlando, this amazing Sally Potter film with Tilda Swinton, and people were buzzing. That really gave me a taste of “oh I love programming”. I loved being a curator; I loved working with artists and filmmakers; I loved organizing people and their work.
 
It was a great foray into working for the Women’s Television Network (WTN), my first programming job when I was 25. Within a year I was given a pretty senior level of responsibility for programming a network which I’d never done! Kind of winging it! I did that for seven years.

I got to produce a series of short films for women called Shameless Shorts. It was a half hour weekly of curated shorts from all over the world – animation, documentary, scripted, sometimes a little bit of experimental. Programming that series introduced me to a lot of inspiring female filmmakers, producers, writers and directors.
 
SO RIGHT OFF THE BAT, YOU WERE PROMOTING WOMEN IN FILM. HAS THAT ALWAYS BEEN AN INTEREST OF YOURS?

It has. I’m a lifelong feminist; I’ve always been interested in the women’s art movement, the film movement,  and I’m very involved in progressive art advocacy and action in the sense of advocating for talent that just needs some support. That’s why you’ll see a lot of my projects have women as producers, writers, directors, at least in some capacity.

I grew up in a very progressive liberal household and we have many socially-oriented family members on the Michalchyshyn side – one’s a theologian. Although there is a bit of a joke in my family that I’m the one in the private sector who’s going to make money and build the house everyone is going to retire in in the south of France … while everyone else is working in civil and social justice type positions!

BUT YOU’RE USING YOUR POSITION TO CREATE CONTENT THAT INSPIRES SOCIAL CHANGE – THAT’S WHAT YOUR NETFLIX SERIES, BOBBY KENNEDY FOR PRESIDENT, IS ABOUT, RIGHT?

There’s this story that’s intriguing about Robert Kennedy. The Kennedys are a very special family in history, obviously; in America, beloved, and the most studied. But there has never been an exploration of Robert Kennedy’s political life and his transformation into social justice and civil rights. This documentary follows his transformation and what could have been – imagine if he had not been tragically killed. I believe that he would have won the nomination and gone on to win the presidency. We might have a very different political situation today, had that happened.

This project helped open my eyes to the importance of being involved; democracy is not a spectator sport. I became a U.S. citizen. It was motivated by trying to vote in the 2016 election, which I did, and then also by this work I was doing.

BOBBY KENNEDY IS ALSO IMPORTANT FOR ANOTHER REASON: THE NUMBER OF WOMEN INVOLVED IN MAKING IT. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR QUEST TO MAKE YOUR DIRECTORS, WRITERS AND TALENT LIST 50/50?

I really believe in this and I have for a long time. I love working with progressive men, don’t get me wrong, but I’m a big supporter of the inclusion rider.  You need it in every position and all departments like camera and grip. It’s hard work to bring women into these positions because traditionally it’s very male but it’s really important.

In my business we’re creating master lists we can share with other producers. It’s a very collaborative exercise. So if I’m looking for a grip, or a lighting person – I ask for the list of women in New York, or L.A., wherever. Dawn Porter and I did that on Bobby Kennedy. We would just consciously say “OK, women. Let’s look at the list.” We got very, very, strong women in key creative positions like story editors, DoP, producers, and camera. Sometimes you just have to reach a little further and do a little more work.
 
THIS 50/50 PRINCIPLE HAS EXTENDED TO YOU, THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, AS WELL. FOR YOUR NEW CBC SERIES, CRAWFORD, YOU WENT 50/50 WITH CREATOR MIKE CLATTENBURG. CAN YOU DESCRIBE HOW THAT CAME ABOUT AND THE REACTION?

It was kind of breakthrough. I think everyone was shocked because Mike’s the creator, showrunner, director, producer and I’m the EP. There was no negotiation, no back-room-agent-managing, we would just sit down and go: “whatever you make, I make”. We share everything – decision-making, transparency – and I think, if you talk to him, it’s been a refreshing experience because we are very equal. You don’t exert energy on the negative side, which is battling and negotiating, but energy on the positive, which is creating.

I don’t think it’s that crazy but in the producing world, there are codes and silos and often producers don’t reveal stuff with directors and vice-versa. People were surprised, especially the lawyers, managers and agents who are used to lots of negotiating. All I would have to say is: “Mike and I are 50/50 – go talk to him” And he would say “yep, we’re 50/50”. It’s unconventional, but he’s been a great partner. We had a blast and fingers crossed Crawford does well!