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The letter to the editor responds to a recent paper by Armstrong et al. that discussed pre-colonial land use by Indigenous peoples in northwestern British Columbia. The authors of the letter reject the characterization of their own scholarship as racist and argue that Armstrong et al. misrepresented their findings. They emphasize that Indigenous peoples in southern New England did have ecological impacts on the landscape, but these impacts were primarily local in scale. The authors also highlight the importance of understanding the scale and variability of Indigenous peoples' ecological impacts for conservation and land management strategies. [Extracted from the article]

Background: A surgical readiness assessment is a major step in the medical journey of trans people seeking gender-affirming surgery. Much of the peer-reviewed literature surrounding surgical readiness assessments emphasizes the perspectives of academics and clinicians, leaving the voices of trans and gender diverse patients largely unheard. Aims: This paper foregrounds patient experiences with surgery readiness assessments to discuss the tensions, challenges and opportunities they generate. Methods: We conducted a thematic analysis of 35 in-depth interviews with trans people who accessed or were seeking to access gender-affirming surgery in British Columbia. Results: We developed three main themes to capture participants' narratives of their surgical assessment experiences. The first, assessments as gatekeeping, explores the stories of people who described their assessments as outdated and even discriminatory processes. The second, assessments as a barrier to care, discusses the informational missteps, bureaucratic regulations, economic issues, and geographic concerns that made assessments difficult to access. The third, assessments as useful, includes positive stories about assessments that often involved feeling supported by an assessor and feeling prepared for the next steps. Discussion: These narratives demonstrate how much variation exists among people's experiences of readiness assessments for gender-affirming surgery. No matter how their actual assessment turned out, many participants approached their appointments with a great deal of anxiety and trepidation. We attributed this stress was to challenges ranging from lengthy wait times, arbitrary medical gatekeeping, a lack of access to knowledgeable and supportive providers, unclear or changing administrative processes, and insufficient communication. To address these challenges, it is crucial for the medical system to create more accessible pathways with centralized, up-to-date information for people trying to access assessments. Patients are best served by multi-disciplinary gender-affirming teams that provide individualized care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consideration of climate change in environmental assessment (EA) in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, British Columbia, Canada. Based on an analysis of recent EA applications, results show that climate change is considered, to some extent, in all phases of EA for most LNG projects. However, stakeholders indicate a dissatisfaction with practice – often based on expectations about EA that exceed what it can deliver as a project-based tool, and sometimes based on an incomplete understanding of existing climate change legislation and targets. Results also indicate inconsistent application of existing climate change requirements across project EAs. Notwithstanding proponents often addressing climate change in their EA applications, climate change tends to receive little attention in project decision and approval conditions. The paper concludes with recommendations for better practice climate change consideration in EA that is commensurate with the scope and scale of project-level issues, complemented by more strategic EA and economic instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moss samples were collected from trees and rocks in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada, and examined for the presence of tardigrades. Specimens from 24 taxa were found in 17 out of the 22 examined samples. New species records for British Columbia are provided and undescribed Grevenius and Crenubiotus species were found; a division in four morphogroups of Grevenius, based on number and presence of placoids, is provided to aid in the future identification. In addition, three specimens of a new species belonging to a potential new undescribed Diploechiniscus species were identified. The finding of Macrobiotus occidentalis occidentalis also provides the occasion to transfer the latter one to the genus Diaforobiotus, for which a new dichotomous key for the identification of its species is given and to redefine the family Richtersiusidae. The DNA sequences of selected taxa are also provided. The high number of tardigrade species collected from a relatively low number of samples highlight how still unexplored is tardigrade diversity, particularly in still-largely insular island systems like Haida Gwaii. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines state power and cultural marginalisation among Aboriginal women in a relatively remote area of north-western British Columbia, Canada. In this paper, I argue that intersecting state powers explain intra-generational ‘ethnic mobility’, that is, shifts in individual ethnic identity among Aboriginal women in this area. In order to understand these shifting identities I have used the idea of ‘structural violence’ (Farmer 2003, 8) to describe how power inequalities between people and the state affect impoverished and marginalised people in different ways, and how decisions made by others constrain their survival strategies . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011, New Zealanders decided by referendum to retain the mixed member proportional representation voting system. This article investigates the benefits of including a deliberative, participatory process in electoral reform to encourage collective debate and an informed choice by voters. In the last decade, Canada and the Netherlands have used citizens' assemblies, a form of participatory democracy, for electoral reform. This paper argues that a similar process would have been appropriate and valuable for New Zealand. Moreover, the discussion highlights the value of citizens' assemblies for minorities who can be outvoted in a referendum. This is considered with specific reference to voters in the Māori seats who had much at stake in the electoral reform. In addition to the general benefit of citizens' assemblies for electoral reform, a New Zealand assembly would have allowed for collective deliberation that ensured the inclusion of the perspectives of voters in the Māori seats. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recognizing that older adults are among the biggest consumers of medication, and the demographic group most likely to suffer an adverse drug reaction (ADR), this paper details the findings from a recent study on how older adults come to understand medication and its related use. Using a qualitative content analysis method, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 individuals from British Columbia, Canada. Study participants ranged in age from 65 to 89 years (male=9, female=11). Using NVIVO† 7 software, data were subjected to comparative thematic content analysis in an effort to capture the role of medication use in the context of everyday living as understood by older adults. While there was variability in how older adults come to understand their medication use, an overarching theme was revealed whereby most participants identified their prescription medications as being life-sustaining and prolonging. Deeper thematic content analysis of participant narratives drew attention to three key areas: (A) medications are viewed as a necessary, often unquestioned, aspect of day-to-day life (B) a relationship is perceived to exist between the amount of medications taken and ones current state of health (C) the overall medication experience is positively or negatively influenced by the doctor patient relationship and the assumption that it is the physicians role to communicate medication information that will support everyday living. The article concludes that medical authority and the complexities surrounding medication use need to undergo significant revision if community dwelling older adults are to experience greater success in safely managing their health and medication-related needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents research findings from an ethnographic study carried out with 24 low-income youths (ages 14-16) living on the economic fringes of urban inner-city Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Our primary aims are: to expose the stratified subcultural articulations of citizenship as they are expressed, through language and symbol, by the young people within our study; and to demonstrate how critiques of (neo-)liberalism in political thought, when combined with a cultural sociology of youth, might alter our subcultural reading of young people's conceptions of citizenship under the dynamics of radical social change. Our ultimate goal is to develop a more nuanced sociological examination of the ways in which young people deploy and utilize the language of citizenship as part of their own cultural struggles, exacerbated in times of state retrenchment, to classify themselves and others as one method of achieving visibility and legitimacy in urban concentrations of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares single-site and multisite calibration methods with upscaled parameters for thermal modelling. Multisite calibration and parameter upscaling are novel for calibrating a hydrological–thermal model. To this end, model calibration and simulations are carried out using a semi-distributed hydrological–thermal model (CEQUEAU). First, a hydrological calibration is carried out. The same calibrated hydrological model outputs are used for all thermal calibrations. The covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy (CMA-ES) single-objective optimization algorithm is applied to calibrate the thermal module using observed water temperatures at seven monitoring sites within the Nechako Watershed in British Columbia, Canada. Single-site calibration provided the best performance for individual sites, but these sets of parameters performed poorly when applied to the other sites. The multisite calibration and the upscaled methods perform adequately for all sites with overall Root Mean Square Error (RMSE)<2°C as an acceptable threshold. However, the multisite method resulted in the best performance metrics and shortest computing time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents results from research into the perspectives on environmental assessments of Canadian indigenous peoples, in particular British Columbia's West Moberly First Nations, the Halfway River First Nation and the Treaty 8 Tribal Association. This collaborative project included interviews with First Nation government officials and staff as well as community members to determine their analyses of what worked and, more significantly, what did not work in engaging and consulting indigenous people. Based upon this research, six key recommendations, derived from First Nations' experiences, are made; these recommendations would facilitate First Nations' future participation in environmental assessment processes in British Columbia and Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the results of six seasons of archaeological fieldwork conducted at the Scowlitz site located at the confluence of the Harrison and Fraser Rivers in SW British Columbia, Canada. Research beginning in 1992 has revealed a complex sequence of site use beginning with a residential occupation about 3000 years ago. After some 1500 years the site became a cemetery, featuring some of the best preserved examples of the burial mound and cairn complex remaining on the Northwest Coast. Then, 1000 years ago, the site added seasonal use for resource processing while continuing as a cemetery. In the protohistoric and historical periods the site was used as a fishing camp and, still, as a cemetery. We discuss the implications of the Scowlitz site for understanding the development of complex hunting-fishing-gathering societies on the Northwest Coast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the cultural biography of a ceremonial mask in the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. History and original context of the Nuxalk mask; Influence of two different cultures on the perception of masks; Examination of the Alk'unta'm mask; Impact of Alk'unta'm's collection on Native and non-Native perceptions of masks.

Northern British Columbia was repeatedly covered by the Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) during the glacial periods. However, its mountainous terrain and remote location have thus far impeded our understanding of the central sector of the ice sheet. The improved resolution of remotely sensed data provides new opportunities to unravel the glacial history of this inaccessible location. Here, we present a comprehensive map of glacial landforms for the central sector of the CIS (55° to 60° N). Seven landform categories were mapped: ice flow parallel lineations, moraines (CIS outlet glacier moraines, Late Glacial moraines and moraines of unknown origin), meltwater channels (lateral and submarginal, subglacial, proglacial, and meltwater channels of unknown origin), kame terraces, eskers (single ridges and esker complexes), perched deltas and subglacial ribs. Collectively, these landforms provide a record of the extent, thickness and behaviour of the CIS, the direction of its movement and pattern of ice retreat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the characteristics most frequently ascribed to slow learners is low self-esteem. This paper reports the findings of a study designed to increase the self-esteem of slow learners in social studies classes in a number of secondary schools in British Columbia, Canada. Two research designs, the nonequivalent control group design and the one-group, pretest-posttest design, were used. Students in the experimental classes and in the classes included in the one-group, pretest-posttest design employed an inquiry model to investigate a contemporary societal problem in their communities. Students in the control classes followed the prescribed social studies program. Aspects of the student investigations intended to affect self-esteem were a) the suitability of this approach with slow learners; b) the intellectually challenging materials and activities; and c) the anticipated positive feedback from significant others. A statistically significant difference in favor of the experimental group was found between the adjusted mean post test scores of the experimental and control groups on the Self-Esteem Inventory. The difference between the pretest and post test mean scores on this instrument was statistically significant for the students in the one-group, pretest-posttest design. Geographic location and the sex of the students were not significant factors in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the effects of temperature and salt concentration on growth of the freshwater oomycete Saprolegnia parasitica that has recently (since 2013) been found to infect an important subsistence fish (in Iñupiaq, Aanaakłiq; broad whitefish, Coregonus nasus) on the Colville River in Nuiqsut, Alaska. Using two confirmed isolates (one from the Colville River and another from a southern British Columbia aquaculture facility), we tested the following hypotheses: (1) the isolate from Alaska will grow at a greater rate than the isolate from British Columbia at lower temperatures, (2) the isolate from British Columbia will grow at a greater rate at higher temperatures than the Alaska isolate, and (3) increasing salinity will reduce the growth rate of both isolates similarly at all temperatures. In addition, we used local observations—subsistence fishers and observations associated with scientific monitoring—to assist in interpreting the potential implications of our experimental results in the context of these environmental observations. In the habitat relevant to this study, water temperature ranges between <0°C and 18°C, and salinity ranges between 0 and 30 parts per thousand due to a seasonal (and occasional west wind-driven) saltwater intrusions. No statistically significant differences were detected in growth rate or salt tolerance between the two isolates at the temperatures and salinities tested; high temperature (24°C) and low salt concentration are associated with the highest growth rate for both isolates. From our lab study, one might conclude that the peak host colonization would occur during the seasonal period of warmest water temperature; however, the observations by local fishers and biologists show this not to be the case. We conclude that, at this time, we do not have evidence that peak warm water is the primary cause of an increased incidence of infection by this freshwater mold. Although indirect and lag analysis of temperature and timing of infection were not part of this study, we note that there is a greater role of complex interactions among biotic and abiotic factors (including temperature) that may predispose some individuals in the population to become infected during spawning season. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important economic debates surrounding the feasibility of government efforts to redistribute income is the extent to which economic integration leads to policy convergence. The convergence hypothesis argues that when trade and finance flow freely between political jurisdictions, economic policies will tend to converge. This article uses two Canadian provinces, Manitoba and British Columbia, to conduct a comparative analysis of redistributive policy convergence. We do find observable differences in the redistributive policies of the two provinces. The extent to which this translated into measurable improvements in economic and social outcomes is less pronounced, but will be of interest to scholars of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses energy transition in relation to capitalism. Topics include the notion of fossil capital in relation to the fossil fuel industry, social aspects of energy industries, and anti-fossil fuel activism such as blockades against oil pipelines on First Nations land at the Unist'ot'en camp in British Columbia and fossil fuel divestment campaigns.

Background. The project, Injury in British Columbia's Aboriginal Communities: Building Capacity while Developing Knowledge, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), aims to expand knowledge on injury rates among First Nations communities in British Columbia (BC), Canada. Objective. The purpose is to improve understanding of community differences and to identify communitylevel risk and protective factors. Generally, injury incidence rates in the Aboriginal population in Canada greatly exceed those found in the non-Aboriginal population; however, variability exists between Aboriginal communities, which have important implications for prevention. Design. This study uses administrative records of deaths, hospitalizations, ambulatory care episodes, and workers' compensation claims due to injuries to identify communities that have been especially successful in maintaining low rates of injury. Results. The analysis of risk and protective factors extends the work of Chandler and Lalonde who observed that community efforts to preserve and promote Aboriginal culture and to maintain local control over community life are strongly associated with lower suicide rates. Conclusion. The discussion on psychological and cultural considerations on healing and reducing the rates of injury expands the work of McCormick on substance use in Aboriginal communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments around the world face external and internal pressures to adopt climate change mitigation strategies. Provincial legislation in the Canadian province of British Columbia has recently mandated that all municipalities adopt targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Lack of specificity in the legislation gives rise to the possibility that even if compliance with the legislation is universal it could nonetheless result in minimal reductions in emissions releases. This article examines the response to the legislation of twenty municipalities in British Columbia's most populous regions. We hypothesized that noncompliance would be rampant and that cities with large populations, high residential densities, lower growth rates, and prior climate change planning work would set more ambitious targets. However, findings indicate that municipal targets vary widely in terms of intensity, target year, and type of reduction and have little or no relationship to population, residential density, or growth rate. We found 90% compliance and some correlation between prior planning activities related to climate change and target intensity. Findings also indicate that despite the wide range of emissions targets by each municipality, provincial per capita targets would be met if each municipality were to achieve the targets that they have set by the 2050 target year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Cariboo Mountains form the northern extension of the Columbia Mountains, spanning a distance of about 300 km in central British Columbia (BC), Canada. Cool air temperatures, abundant snowfall, and strong winds (especially above treeline and along exposed ridges) would suggest frequent and intense blowing snow events. The occurrence of intense blowing snow episodes is confirmed by automated wind and snow depth measurements at several sites in the area. Simulations conducted with a numerical model forced by meteorological observations recorded from 2006 to 2009 reveal a high frequency of blowing snow episodes at three high-elevation sites in the Cariboo Mountains. This process is especially prominent on the exposed ridge of Browntop Mountain (elevation of 2031 m a.s.l.) where snow transport by wind is calculated to occur as much as two-thirds of the time during some winter months. Simulated blowing snow fluxes remain high at this site with monthly transport and sublimation rates reaching 5301 Mg m-1 and 31 mm snow water equivalent (SWE), respectively. Blowing snow is also shown to be a dominant process in snow accumulation at the upper Castle Creek Glacier site (elevation of 2105 m a.s.l.), with strong winds generating sharp declines in snow depth and the erosion of more than 200 cm of snow depth during two successive winters. The results presented in this study suggest that blowing snow contributes significantly to snow accumulation and the mass balance of glaciers in BC's Cariboo Mountains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of prevailing wage legislation on the efficiency of school construction. Specifically, stochastic frontier regression and British Columbian construction data are used to measure the effect of the introduction and expansion of prevailing wage requirements on technical efficiency, or the ability of builders to obtain maximum output from available resources. Results indicate that average technical efficiency for all construction projects in the sample is 94.6%. Average efficiency for projects covered by the introductory stage of British Columbia's construction wage legislation is 86.6%. By the time of the expansion of the wage policy 17 months later, the average efficiency of covered projects increased to 99.8%. These findings suggest that the introduction of prevailing wage laws disrupted construction efficiency. However, in a relatively short period, the construction industry adjusted to wage requirements by increasing overall efficiency. A short-term decrease in construction efficiency, followed by a sharp and durable increase, supports that view that prevailing wage laws are not associated with higher, long-term construction costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, there are about 13,000 persons of Doukhobor descent living in the Province of British Columbia (mainly in the West Kootenay area). Roughly 60% still speak Doukhobor Russian. Ritual activities among the Doukhobors depend largely on orally transmitted prayers, psalms, and hymns that are based on Russian Church Slavonic; home life in those homes where Russian is still used is conducted in a 19th century South Russian dialect with both Ukrainian and English admixtures. The effort at preventing a full-scale language shift to English is an example of a communal decision to maintain and revive a language in terms of given needs; there are many spokesmen in the Doukhobor community, however, who advocate an emphasis on shifting to world languages (English, Standard Russian). The percentage of Doukhobors, especially in the generation born after 1970, subscribing to this view is increasing, thus raising the much-debated question whether the decline of a language or of a functional style necessarily entails the loss of a culture and of the disappearance of ritual practices. Many First Nations communities, e.g., Cree in Alberta, are engaged in an active endeavour of reversing language shift partly as a necessary healing process. It seems that their efforts serve at least as partial support for maintaining the Doukhobor ritual style, perhaps in a "reconfigured" form allowing code- switching between cognitive structures (in English) and contextual-mnemonic devices (in Russian/Church Slavonic). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines contemporary political movements among Dakelh First Nations in British Columbia that have challenged Western modernity's fixation with a future achieved through industrial progress. Aboriginal people have been especially assertive in politicizing the connections between time and place through the display and performance of memory in forms as diverse as life history narratives, the cultural landscape, media and grass-roots development projects. Such constructions suggest that future developments in traditional lands must come through an engagement with the past - its meanings, practices, and significance in the particular places of cultural and economic production. I explore how Dakelh territories serve as sites for imagining and enacting alternative political and development agendas. I argue that these territories have increasingly become spaces forged in the margins of modernity's binary oppositions of self-other, nature-culture and future-past. This finding is not meant to marginalize indigenous territories conceptually or politically, but rather to recognize their centrality to contemporary provincial politics where margins - both geographic and discursive - have become central locations for pursuing sovereignty over land and nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for community forestry on public forests grew in strength in both British Columbia and the United States during the 1990s, as part of a global movement touting the advantages of community control over centralized state administration of forests. Despite structural similarities, the trajectories of community forestry in the two locations diverged sharply, with community forests rapidly becoming a reality in British Columbia while similar proposals in the United States were blocked. This article explains these divergent trajectories by examining the differences in property relations, state institutions, stakeholder interests, and environmental social-movement strategies that led to nearly opposite outcomes in initially similar situations. It also analyzes community forestry in British Columbia relative to current debates over neoliberalism and alternative economies, arguing that detailed examination of such empirical examples demonstrates the utility of neoliberalism as an analytical concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research into social movement framing activity has been based on qualitative case-study analysis of specific movements. These analyses are limited in that are they unable to systematically track any long-term relationships that might exist among a variety of social movement framing strategies. A series of hypotheses were developed that deal with the frequency and prevalence of environmental activists framing tactics over time, Which include the frame alignment processes of transformation and amplification, as well as core framing activities of diagnosis, prognosis, and motivation. A quantitative content analysis of news media stories about the protection of temperate rainforests in British Columbia, Canada, over a seven-year period was conducted to test the hypotheses. Findings show that amplification frames are more prevalent than transformation frames, and diagnostic frames are more prevalent than prognostic or motivational frames. In the discussion, several areas for future quantitative research into social movement framing are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emphasis on culture in studies of colonialism tends to obscure other forms of colonial power while making it impossible to contextualize the cultural argument and assess its salience. Rather than focusing on texts, systems of signification, and procedures of knowledge generation, as the colonial discourse literature is wont to do, a fuller understanding of colonial powers is achieved by explaining colonialism's basic geographical dispossessions of the colonized. In so doing, the issue of power is not prejudged and the particular roles of different modes and theories of colonial power come into focus. I explore these propositions by considering the powers underlying the reserve (reservation) system in British Columbia, a system that, by allocating a tiny fraction of the land to native people and opening the rest for development, facilitated the geographical reorganization of the province. My conclusions are these: the initial ability to dispossess rested primarily on physical power and the supporting infrastructure of the state; the momentum to dispossess derived from the interest of capital in profit and of settlers in forging new livelihoods; the legitimation of and moral justification for dispossession lay in a cultural discourse that located civilization and savagery and identified the land uses associated with each; and the management of dispossession rested with a set of disciplinary technologies of which maps, numbers, law, and the geography of resettlement itself were the most important. Although no one body of theory explains colonial power, several theoretical perspectives yield crucial insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource peripheries that are geographically remote from “core economies” are also peripheral to contemporary theorizing in economic geography, and requires higher profile within economic geography's research agenda. The restructuring qua remapping of resource peripheries is collectively shaped by institutional forces unleashed by post-Fordism and globalization that are fundamentally different from the restructuring of cores. As industrial regions, resource peripheries must negotiate the imperatives of flexibility and neoliberalism from vulnerable, dependent positions on geographic margins. For many resource peripheries, neoliberalism has been perversely associated with trade protectionism. As resource regions, the restructuring of resource peripheries has been further complicated by resource-cycle dynamics and radically new social attitudes toward the exploitation of resources that have helped spawn the politics of environmentalism and aboriginalism. Trade, environmental, and aboriginal politics have clashed around the world to contest vested industrial interests and remap resource peripheries in terms of their value systems. British Columbia's forest economy illustrates this contested remapping. For two decades, the powerful forces of neoliberalism, environmentalism, and aboriginalism have institutionalized a “war in the woods” of British Columbia that is sustained by shared criticism of provincial policy and disagreement over how remapping should proceed. The authority of the provincial government, which controls British Columbia's forests, has been undermined, but it remains vital to socially acceptable remapping. Meanwhile, the enduring war in the woods testifies that geography matters on the periphery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the concept of trade featuring the export of houses from British Columbia for consumption in Japan. Implications for local development in British Columbia; Connection of exporting market intelligence with production intelligence; Benefits of the house exports.

Examines representations of the `rainforest' and `nature' in British Columbia including `buried epistemologies' through which neocolonial relations are asserted in the region. Comparison of nature and culture; Positive aspect of colonialist practices and rhetorics of Canadian history; Fate of temperate rainforests.

An objective synoptic climatology of daily 500mb pressure patterns for the International Hydrological Decade (1965–1974) for southwestern Canada is presented. The climatological characteristics of the synoptic types are examined in terms of the natural glacier seasons of Sentinel Glacier, British Columbia. Although the number of years available for analysis is limited, a significant statistical relationship between the mass balance of Sentinel Glacier and the small-scale synoptic types is present. Glacier accumulation appears to be controlled mainly by the number of synoptic types associated with heavy precipitation that occur during the fall, winter, and spring. Summer melt is largely a function of the frequency of those synoptic-scale patterns bringing high temperatures and clear skies to the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral tradition states that the first Chinese cemetery in Victoria, Canada, was possibly west of Swan Lake, but its precise location and history are unknown. The application of an ideal Feng Shui topographic model and the use of aerial photographs, cadastral and topographic maps, material in Chinese archives, and records of the Land Registry Office, show that the Chinese Association in Victoria purchased a plot of land north of Swan Lake in 1891. The site could not be used as a cemetery because of objection by residents in the vicinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the activities of school superintendents in several school districts in British Columbia. Comparison between the activities of superintendents in a group of high-performing districts and the activities of superintendents in other districts; Ways by which the work of the superintendency contributes to the development and maintenance of a school district.

Reconstructs the Great Northern Railway's promotional imagery of Glacier National Park through an assessment of photographs used by the company to publicize park landscapes and activities. Seven themes of the photographs which reveal how the park was marketed; Dominant images of the park.

Canada has been home to comparatively extreme developments in prescription opioid (PO) availability and related harms (e.g. morbidity, mortality) post-2000. Following persistent pan-Canadian increases in PO use, select control measures were implemented and PO dispensing levels—while only inconsistently by province—inverted, and began to plateau or decrease post-2012. We examined annual PO dispensing levels in Canada up until 2018, based on representative prescription sample data from community-based retail pharmacies. Annual prescription-based dispensing data were converted into defined daily doses/1000 population/day by province, and mainly categorized into 'weak' and 'strong' opioids. All provinces indicated decreasing trends in strong PO levels in most recent years, yet with inter-provincial differences of up to one magnitude in 2018; in about half the provinces, dispensing fell to below-2005 levels. British Columbia had the largest decline in strong PO dispensing from its peak rate (− 48.5%) in 2011. Weak opioid dispensing trends remained more inconsistent and bifurcated across Canada. The distinct effects of individual—including many provincially initiated and governed—PO control measures urgently need to be evaluated. In the meantime, recent reductions in general PO availability across Canada appear to have contributed to shortages in opioid supply for existent, sizable (including non-medical) user populations and may have contributed to recent marked increases in illicit opioid use and harms (including rising deaths). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eighty kindergarten children were tested to determine the influence of letter-similarity (similar versus distinctive), discrimination format (matching-to-sample versus non-matching-to-sample), and discrimination mode (simultaneous versus successive) on initial visual discrimination learning and a paired-associate transfer task. Analysis of data revealed no significant differences between discrimination formats or discrimination modes on either pretraining or transfer. Contrary to the findings of two recent studies, similar letter (d / h) discriminations were significantly more difficult (p < .0001) than distinctive letter (s' / b) discriminations, irrespective of training format or discrimination mode on both initial training and the paired-associate task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]