Fraser Valley Current Practicum - Week 5

October 24, 2022

Monday morning started with a meeting with Tyler Olsen to learn how he creates the daily newsletters. Tyler explained how the layout process goes, what information they include, the distribution process, and why these dailies are important. Following the meeting with Tyler, I sent a follow-up email to Lolehawk to see if they're still open to an interview for the Good Medicine Singers group, and I sent an email to Tiffany Francis at Project AIM to interview about their project that brings non-profit free menstrual and incontinence products to people in the Fraser Valley. Tiffany connected me with co-founder, Miel, and we spent some time corresponding to figure out a time I could come out for an interview. 

October 27, 2022

This morning I drove out to Agassiz to meet with Miel Bernstein, the co-founder of Project AIM. The drive from Vancouver to Agassiz typically takes me about 1.5 hours, but on this day (due to weather, shut down sections on the highway from fallen powerlines), it took just over 2 hours each way. When I arrived at the barn Miel and her team welcomed me, and we spent 1.5 hours discussing the project, followed by a photo shoot of Miel and the products. I felt pretty inspired by the work that Project AIM is doing and am looking forward to sitting down to write the piece. 

I saw that Project AIM posted this on their Facebook after my interview with them, and it felt pretty good to be seen in this way. I spent a lot of time developing my reporting/interviewing/people skills for this exact reason.

Here is the photo I took of Miel at the interview: 

Fraser Valley Current Practicum - Week 4

This week started strong with a photo assignment out at sea for The Narwhal. I was nervous about going out for a second shoot with them because the first one didn't turn out the best. I reached out to a journalist friend Gavin to discuss how he goes about a photo assignment. He discussed his process of introducing himself, thinking of a shot list and what equipment to bring, and shared stories of imposter syndrome and mess-ups. I appreciated this advice and thought it would be helpful for more people to share their stories of "failure." Because of this, I wrote a tweet asking the journalism community to share some of their stories with me. This experience has taught me a lot that I think I can bring forward to my work at this practicum. 

While I was out at sea, I had the thought to message Tyler to discuss the practicum and joining in on their morning and design meetings. When I returned home to my email, I had a message in my inbox from Tyler. Great minds! We touched base on how things were going, and he discussed bringing me in on the newsletter process next week. I explained how I still hadn't heard back from any of the people I reached out to for the salmon story, and we decided to move on from that story. The next day he sent me an email with another story about an Agassiz-based non-profit bringing free menstrual and incontinence products to people in need in the valley. 

Starting Monday, I'll be learning the layout process, and things will be picking up storywise. I am really looking forward to what the next month brings. 

Fraser Valley Current Practicum - Week 3

I must admit, week three was on the slower end when it came to my practicum. Because I had been working and volunteering so much, my schoolwork across all classes fell behind, and I spent this week catching up. I did send out an email to Grace Kennedy at Fraser Valley Current and Dr. Lolehawk Laura Buker who is a professor at UFV who has been working with us on a number of Halq'emeylem stories, and a singer in the Good Medicine Singers group. They are currently working to create new songs in Halq'emeylem, and Grace pitched them as a story for me to write. I researched the group and am looking forward to hearing back from Lolehawk to share a conversation on the topic. 

As with previous weeks, my struggles with time and project management continued. I had to reach out to all the writers of the pieces I am editing for SAD Magazine, have meetings with Tracy and my partner for the Climate Disaster Project, do research for my Narwhal photo assignment, send out invoices for previous freelancing contracts, and catch up on my communications and creative writing class work. 

A big part of this week included research to get organized. I watched some videos by a Youtuber named Nathaniel Drew, who inspired me to start using my Notion project board again. Here is a previous snip of how I organized projects and how I will continue to organize them moving forward. 

Fraser Valley Current Practicum - Week 2

 

September 23rd, 2022

Today I drove out to Weaver Creek Spawning Channel in Agassiz to check out the progress of the spawning season and see which nations were in the area. It's quite a long drive each way, about 1.5 hours from my place in Vancouver, but the drive is peaceful and provides lots of thinking time. When I got to the creek, I saw it was dry and temporarily closed. I drove by Sts'ailes First Nation and made a note to contact them when I got home. Because Weaver Creek was dry, I took a little stroll down at Kilby Park, which is situated on the confluence of the Harrison and Fraser rivers, where I found this salmon (photographed above) decomposing back into the beach. I called Sts'ailes First Nation to try and talk to someone, but the person wasn't available so I put a note to call back.

On October 03rd, I emailed Tyrone McNeil at Sto:Lo Tribal Council, Kelsey Charlie with  Sts'ailes First Nation, and spoke on the phone with Sts'ailes administration about alternative ways to contact Kelsey. I tried calling his cell phone, but the calls did not go through. Later this day, I emailed Tyler and Grace about struggles contacting either, and Tyler provided some other contacts, so I reached out to Ralph Leon on Facebook. Tyler also met with me over Zoom as I asked him if he had any tips for navigating multiple stories at once. Outside of this practicum, I was writing a story for Chatelaine Magazine and doing a photo assignment for The Narwhal and found it challenging to take my mind out of a story and put it into another out of fear of losing the inspiration. Tyler was very helpful with tips and opened up about how many journalists have a tough time navigating this, but in the end, I took a lot out of this conversation and continue to work toward being better at project and time management. 

Fraser Valley Current Practicum - Week 1

September 20th, 2022

Today was my first meeting with Tyler Olsen at Fraser Valley Current. Tyler was friendly and approachable and had lots of information to share. I asked any question that came to mind, like how the practicum would work, if I could be a part of the layout process meetings to learn and how many stories I would likely manage throughout my practicum. 

In the meeting, I explained how much I loved the story Sumas Lake, the Nooksack River, and the historic roots of a 21st Century disaster that they produced last year due to the flooding in Sumas Prairie. I went into great detail about how much I respect and admire such in-depth, local-forward reporting, especially with how they included stories from Indigenous perspectives and sourced the Stó꞉lō-Coast Salish Historical Atlas. This type of reporting is so important to me, especially as an Indigenous person. 

Following this conversation, I pitched my idea of a story on the yearly salmon spawning season up at Weaver Creek and surrounding areas and how the creek and many creeks in British Columbia are dry due to the drought due to long-term persistent climate change. Tyler explained the process of creating the Sumas prairie story, which inspired me to go forward with the salmon story. Tyler then reached out to me with some contacts to connect with and move forward. 

Another one of my classes this semester is the Climate Disaster Project with Tracy Sherlock and Sean Holeman.  I've found that some of the content that we are learning in this class to be benefical when it comes to working with vulnerable/historically marginalized communities, and on topics such as the climate crisis. We watched a lecture named A deep dive into June-November 2021 weather in B.C. - Is this a new normal? by KPU Geography instructor Joe Koch, which provided valuable research on the changing weather in British Coulmbia. We also read an article called The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison, where she examines acts of intimacy through a variety of experiences in the medical world. Some of my favourite quotes that I wrote down to take with me forward as a journalist are: 

"Empathy requires inquiry." 

"Empathy requires knowing you know nothing. Empathy means acknowledging a horizon of context that extends perpetually beyond what you can see." 

"Empathy means realizing no trauma has discreate edges."

"Empathy isn't just something that happens to us—a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain—it's also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves." 

A goal that I have for this practicum moving forward is to expand on my skills in time and project management. As someone who is in a full-time course load, working, volunteering, and more, I have found prioritizing and managing projects to be a struggle. I went out and bought myself a day planner called RoteRunner, which has so many spaces for project and life planning that I suspect it will help me keep things in better order.