Doc Projectwith Acey Rowe
Latest
40 years ago, this family set off from Winnipeg to the Amazon — in a canoe
In 1980, Don Starkell and his teenaged sons, Dana and Jeff, embarked on an epic record-setting journey that would span 13 countries and nearly 20,000 kilometres.
'It was a joke': Students describe lax standards, easy high marks at private schools known as 'credit mills'
Universities have raised concerns about students at public schools taking some of their courses at unaffiliated private schools, where for a fee they can have a better chance at the marks needed to get into the post-secondary institution of their choice.
Personal Essay
My mom died and my family never discussed it, until I broke the silence
Julie Arounlasy's mother died suddenly three years ago, but she, her father and her siblings never talked about it. Now she is breaking the silence, and trying to get to the bottom of why they never talked.
Canada declared the Sinixt extinct. But the Sinixt say they are alive and well
The Canadian government declared the Sinixt First Nation extinct and struck it from the Indian Act in 1956. The group is still fighting today for recognition to prove that they are, indeed, living.
Personal Essay
I'm a bookaholic... and a bad library patron. But I'm ready to finally face my late fees
There is an unspoken promise made when entering the library: I’ll lend you my books. And you’ll return them — on time and basically in the same shape as they were given to you. Catherine Cole has a hard time keeping that promise.
Personal Essay
My mother worked for Britain's spy agency in the 1960s. Can I get her to reveal her secrets?
Author Camilla Gibb has always known her mother worked for MI5 during the 1960s. But she's never known much more than that.
Personal Essay
My grandma sang her way to Canada at a time when Chinese people were barred entry
Gar Yin Hune travelled with her Cantonese opera troupe when the Chinese Exclusion Act was in place, and never left.
She was being raised as a white child in Texas while her Haitian father was fighting racism in Montreal
Rhonda Fils-Aimé was adopted by a white family as a baby, and her biological father, Philippe, had no idea. But now, 50 years later, they're making up for lost time.
Is a secret gold mine hidden in the B.C. mountains? This treasure hunter says so
Adam Palmer has spent 10 years chasing the tantalizing legend of Slumach's gold — even though it comes with a curse.
Her family lived in Vancouver's Stanley Park until they were forced out in 1931
Rennie Smith is fighting to have her Squamish-Portuguese ancestors recognized as part of park's history.
Can you picture things in your head? Well, this guy can't
Tom Ebeyer has aphantasia, the inability to visualize images in the mind. And for the first two decades of his life, he had no idea his brain was different in any way.
'Strong, capable Hutterite runner' takes on the trail — and tradition
"If I am a healthier Elaine, then I am a healthier Hutterite," says Elaine Hofer, even though she struggles with taking time away from her traditional Anabaptist community.
Any child in immigration detention is one too many, says psychiatrist
Three researchers were given rare access to an immigration holding centre to study the effects of detention on adults and children. They encountered a system that stripped everyone of the agency to help.
Personal Essay
My adoptive parents tried to erase my Indigenous identity. They failed.
Kim Wheeler was adopted into a white family during the Sixties Scoop. After years of abuse, she lived to tell the tale of finding her way back to her culture.
How Montrealer Beryl Dickinson-Dash made history as McGill's first Black queen of Carnival
In 2020, Black women hold four of the world’s biggest beauty pageant titles. But first, in 1949, there was Beryl Dickinson-Dash — the Montreal-born daughter of a railway porter who became queen of Winter Carnival at one of Canada's most elite university campuses.
The pandemic has forced youth climate activists to get creative
The pandemic has put a stop to large-scale climate rallies and is forcing youth activists, like Miyawata Dion Stout (pictured) and Sunny Enkin Lewis, to get creative in how they organize.
Personal Essay
I've been 'sheltering in place' long before COVID-19 — here are some tips on how to make it easier
Sean Towgood is used to long periods of isolation. The combination of Canadian winters and electric wheelchairs have forced him to frequently “shelter-in-place” over his lifetime. Along the way he has developed some helpful tips while waiting out any storm.
Personal Essay
How selling my parents' house made me reconsider what truly defines us
Richard Kemick pressured his parents ages ago to sell their family home — a split-level bungalow they owned for three decades. With the house now up for sale, Kemick wants to understand the place that they, as a family, constructed and how that place, in turn, constructed them.
Personal Essay
When hiding it became exhausting, I decided to finally step out of the disability closet
Kent Hoffman was diagnosed with Becker muscular dystrophy when he was a high school senior. Watching daylong telethons to raise money for the condition in the 1970s reinforced a damaging view of disability for him. After years of hiding his condition, he is now trying to figure out what it really means to identify as someone who's disabled.
A home ready for isolation and a home ready for sale
In this week's episode we bring you two stories — about our homes, how we shape them and in turn how they shape us. Sean Towgood has some helpful tips on setting up your home to weather the shelter-in-place order. And Richard Kemick reminisces about his family house from the confines of his own home.
'I have a deaf heart': An artist caught between two worlds finds a balance
Ever since she was little, Jodee Mundy has moved between the Deaf community and mainstream society, feeling a little out of place in both. In this documentary, we explore what it was like for Mundy to be the constant interpreter, to witness her parents and brothers negotiate a world that is not set up to accommodate them, and what happened when she finally snapped.
An Ontario man's fight to get out of jail before COVID-19 gets in
As COVID-19 spreads in prisons, a lot of the conversation has focused on releasing non-violent offenders. But according to Ontario's Auditor General, 71 per cent of people in Ontario jails aren’t necessarily offenders at all. They are pretrial — detained, but presumed innocent — like 21-year-old "T" who was held at the Toronto East Detention Centre.
As a brown guy, I knew hiking the U.S. border would be risky. But it also made me face my trauma
Amiththan Sebarajah is a through hiker who's clocked over 10,000 km of long-distance hiking. As a person of colour, he's always been an anomaly on the trail. But his most recent hike brought his trauma as a child in Sri Lanka to the surface.
'I like who I am and I like all the mess that came with it': living with multiple identities
Rachel has dissociative identity disorder, formerly called multiple personality disorder. There are 11 personalities — or alters — within her system. Rachel is the main personality of this system, the long term host, as she describes it.
Personal Essay
My mom died and my family never discussed it, until I broke the silence
Julie Arounlasy's mother died suddenly three years ago, but she, her father and her siblings never talked about it. Now she is breaking the silence, and trying to get to the bottom of why they never talked.
