There’s a slight chop on the water as the stubby, little ferry Spirit Three glides into the dock on Vancouver’s Granville Island. Three passengers disembark while another four wait patiently to climb aboard. “Hi, where are you off to?’ asks the skipper ready to take on another troupe. The boat pulls away and heads east on False Creek to David Lam Park, Yaletown, and Science World. “Are you going one-way or round trip?’ she asks. After processing everyone’s charge card, Lolly opens up the throttle to start the journey. Spirit Three is one of 17 boats in the False Creek Ferries fleet, the older of two companies that carry tourists and commuters up and down Vancouver’s inland waterway. Lolly Bennett, originally from Manchester, England, has taken to skippering, well, like a duck takes to water.

“I’ve worked on this poetry book for seven years now. It’s finally ready,” says former Guess Who lead singer Burton Cummings about his book of poetry entitled The Writings of B.L. Cummings. The collection of 52 stories in rhyme and free verse is available at www.burtoncummings.com “If it’s on any shelves, it’ll be next to e.e. cummings,” he laughs, pondering a release to book stores. “Then alphabetically, you’ll be first,” I say. “I guess that’s right,” he replies.

Los Angeles is a city where the buzz never stops. It’s a hot and happening place. Sure, the soaring mercury and continuing drought have led to wildfires in the hills around town, but the art scene is equally ablaze. For artists hoping to make it big, it’s increasingly a place to be. And that includes a significant roster of Canadian artists. Megan Abrahams, the editor of Fabrik, a leading Los Angeles art and design magazine, is one of those artists. “The art scene here is thriving,” she says. “

It may be 20 years old, but the cult classic The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert continues to inspire visitors to set out into the outback in search of Priscilla-related sites and shrines.

Low hanging clouds envelop the Maplewood mud flats, a tidal plain that skirts Burrard Inlet east of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge. Sam Clemens steps gingerly around the washed-up logs, trying to get abetter view of the western sandpipers that normally reside here. The mud flats are a conservation area now, home to dozens of birds, but Clemens has been here before - decades ago when he was a toddler and the flats were a hippie haven to about 25 artisans, their partners and their children.

It's hard to imagine Canada's chat queen, the princess of gab and arguably British Columbia's favorite broadcaster was a bit of a stinker but there it is. I`m a show-off. I can`t help it,`admits Vicki Gaberaeu, the former host of Gabereau on CBC Radio for 12 years and CTV`s Gabereau Live for eight, and the more wild the situation gets, the wilder I get. It used to drive my mother crazy. `Don`t be so wild, Vicki, she would tell me. Now when I look back on these things, the chances I took and the perilous situations I put myself in, I mean you gotta be a crazy person, but it all ended up quite well.