Opinion

Contemplating a Caribbean vacation to escape Whistler's uninspiring winter? You might want to add a crash course on chikungunya (chicken- goon -ya) to that list of pre-trip preparations.

With oil prices plunging from more than $100 a barrel last summer to below $50 now, the consequences of a petro-fuelled economy are hitting home — especially in Alberta, where experts forecast a recession.

When future generations excavate, what will they find from our era? Old pop cans, new atomic isotopes, old cars, and plastic, so much plastic.

Staying and playing safe In the spirit of making the pursuit of the backcountry safer here's a few things that came to light over 40 years for me.

In case you have forgotten, or never even knew, the reason mountain resorts got started in the first place was not for skiing, climbing, or even hiking. It was for spa-ing.

What's in a name Thanks Dan Redford for the clarification on the origin of D.O.A. ( Pique , Jan 8). I have been trying to tell anyone who would listen about it for years. I remember a day or two after Dan and Trevor Petersen first skied it, D.O.

It was late September of 1992 when I arrived at the shores of Carpenter Lake.

After Ahmed Merabet, a French policeman, was killed outside the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris last week, his brother Malek said: "My brother was Muslim and he was killed by two terrorists, by two false Muslims. Islam is a religion of peace and love.

"People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out." - Warren G. Bennis He's the newly elected mayor of Tofino.

If there is one thing each of us knows it is that Mother Nature can never be taken for granted.