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The Current Transcript for July 24, 2019

Host: Anthony Germain

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We're asking for the public if you spot Bryer or Kam, consider them dangerous. Do not approach. Take no action and call immediately 9-1-1.

ANTHONY GERMAIN: The RCMP issues an urgent warning and pleads for help. The police named two suspects in the deaths of three people in northern British Columbia. We'll take you to the hunt for two teenagers wanted for homicide. That's up first. We'll also talk to a protester in Puerto Rico where hundreds of thousands of people have been in the streets calling for the governor to resign. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: As the light dimmed I could still view them in the moonbeam and they stayed directly centred in the moonbeam even as it moved across the water.I definitely felt it was a circle of family, love and devotion.

AG: A tragic scene in the ocean off the coast of British Columbia as orcas unite in sympathy around a grieving mother whale and her dead calf. Today a B.C. family of killer whales is swimming in dangerous waters thanks in part to all of us, the humans who love them. Orcas on the brink. That's in 30 minutes. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I pulled the trigger and it went pop. Like boom.

VOICE 2: You could just hear the noise that just went off and he just stood there looking at me.

VOICE 1: Holy crap Clint. You just shot yourself.

AG: A former NHL goalie recalls how he tried to kill himself using a firearm. Our One Bullet series continues with a look at suicide and the gun. That story in an hour. I'm Anthony Germain. You're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

As manhunt for 2 men rocks Northern B.C. community, some are 'thinking twice' about hiking, camping trips

Guests: Andrew Kurjata

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The RCMP are now considering Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky as suspects in the Dease Lake suspicious death and the double homicide of Lucas Fowler and Chynna Deese.

AG: An RCMP news conference yesterday about a series of suspicious deaths in northern British Columbia. The tragic series of events started last week and that's when Australian, Lucas Fowler and American, Chynna Deese, both in their early 20s, were found dead south of Liard Hot Springs, B.C. Now adding to this mystery was the disappearance of two Port Alberni teenagers named Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky. Now they were said to be driving to the Yukon from Vancouver Island when their burnt out vehicle was found near Dease Lake just under 500 kilometres from the first crime scene. And at this scene an unidentified body of a man found nearby. But now the teenagers are suspects in three deaths that have had people in the region on edge. Marie Quock is chief of the Iskut Band Council and that community is about 80 kilometres south of Dease lake.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It was scary. It made our people really uneasy here. Not knowing what was really going on was really hard. People have been posting on Facebook that there's a serial killer on the loose. We're right on Highway 37 and we don't have RCMP detachments here. We also have no cell phone service here and especially with the RCMP really busy with the investigation a lot of our members weren't sleeping very well, especially women who were alone with their children because their spouses are out working. For the last two nights we had a couple of our young men out patrolling just for the community to feel safer to know there's somebody who's up making sure that there's nobody coming into town without our knowledge. I'm hoping that they find them for one thing. You know it's probably scary for other people now having been there out on the loose.

AG: The manhunt has now reached much further afield. The two suspects believed to have since been spotted in northern Saskatchewan and near Gillam in Northeast Manitoba. Andrew Kurjata is a reporter for CBC in Prince George and that's where we have reached him this morning. Hello Andrew.

ANDREW KURJATA: Good morning.

AG: Now we just heard from one person about the impact on her community, but what are you hearing about the events of the past week and how it affected people in northern BC?

ANDREW KURJATA: Well I think today and starting with the news yesterday about these two young men now being suspects say it was a couple of emotions relief and maybe a bit of wariness. The relief comes from simply having a sense of knowing what's going on. Because prior to yesterday's RCMP news conference all the public had was word that two tourists had been shot and killed. There is two missing teenagers. Their van abandoned burning on the side of a highway and there was another unidentified body found nearby. And so as as shocking as it was to learn that these two teenagers are now considered suspects in those three deaths it's also a step towards closure. Nobody's been caught and of course nobody's been found guilty in these killings. But police now have a sense and they've shared that with the public that they believe they know who these suspects are and they believe that those suspects are no longer in northern B.C.. And so some of that fear that someone might still be out there along the highways in northern B.C. is gone. But this whole thing also serves as a reminder that when you're in this part of the province in this part of the country you are often isolated in just your day to day life. Lots of people drive along these long Northern highways for work or to visit family. Expectant mothers who live in Fort Nelson south of the art have to make the trek several hours away to get maternity care in hospitals further south. And when you're on these roads there's no 9 1 1 service cell service is sparse or nonexistent for huge chunks of it and the road stops are few and far between many of them just pullouts along the highway rather than a gas station or a restaurant where you might talk to another person. So it is serving as a reminder to people to have travel plans to have chickens to have emergency kits and people have been more cautious.

AG: Now Andrew given the way the RCMP addressed people yesterday did any stories to go for you about the lengths to which people are trying to stay safe?

ANTHONY GERMAIN: Yeah. Well we are speaking to people all week here since this news broke. One person I spoke with regularly drives the Alaska Highway for work and yesterday he was headed up north from Fort Nelson in B.C. to Yukon and this is different his wife came along with him. She didn't want him on the road alone and she didn't want to stay home alone in Iskut the community that we just heard from in that clip off the top. Volunteers were setting up on Nightwatch because people were having trouble sleeping not knowing what was going on out there. There was a community meeting with RCMP at the elementary school in Dease Lake yesterday and peop people kept saying that this sort of thing the killings don't happen there that they had felt up safe in an area where a huge part of the appeal is access to the outdoors. I've spoken to people who are thinking twice about their hiking plans or their weekend camping trips while these investigations were still underway but again today with news that the people believed responsible for these deaths are now are out of the province. There is a sense of relief and a hope that things will return to normal for northern British Columbia.

AG: You mentioned they're out of your province. What do we know about the path that these two suspects have taken since the deaths were first discovered?

ANDREW KURJATA: So police confirmed yesterday that pair had been spotted in North Meadow, Saskatchewan on Sunday. That is about three a kilometres north west of Saskatoon between Saskatoon and Edmonton on backroads and then RCMP in Manitoba put out a public safety alert saying that Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky may be in that province and that they had reason to believe they were recently in the Gilham area. Now Gillam is really getting up there in terms of remoteness is about 11 hours driving distance away from Winnipeg it's 300 kilometres northeast of Thompson, Manitoba. The mayor of Gillam, Duane Forman described it as the end of the road with only one way in and one way out. He said he wouldn't go there if he was on the run. We haven't had any updates from RCMP yet, but Fox Lake Cree Nation Chief Walter Spence has said that police are conducting patrols as a precaution. One thing police have said though is that the pair have changed their vehicle at least once they can do that again. They can change their hair they can change their clothes. And so what they're really asking the public to focus on is across Canada is to get familiar with the faces of this dup and if anyone believes they see McLeod or Schmegelsky, don't approach them, immediately call 9-1-1 or local police.

AG: Right. And which if you go to the CBC website you can see photos of these two men and that's where you can find more information. So what do we actually know about these two people, Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky?

ANDREW KURJATA: Well before they were considered spies as suspects when they were considered missing people, Bryer's father Alex Schmegelsky described the pair as at best friends who met in elementary school he said they'd recently graduate from high school. They'd both gotten jobs at Wal-Mart they spent about five weeks working there, but they found it disappointing, so they decided to head to Whitehorse to look for work and they had been in touch regularly by text until around the time all these events happened. Following the news yesterday that the pair were believed to be responsible for these killings by police, Al told the local TV station Check News that he is heartbroken. He never saw any red flags in his son and that he feels like no matter how this ends, he has lost his only child.

AG: And also adding to this horrific story there is this element, this burnt out truck that was found around Dease Lake with an unidentified body. What do we know about that?

ANDREW KURJATA: Yeah. Well there was this burnt out truck and there's also these other two killings. So I'll just take us back to last Monday just over a week ago that's when RCMP were called out to the yard and that's where they discovered the bodies of these two people, 23-year-old Lucas Fowler of Australia, his American girlfriend Chynna Deese. They had been shot and killed sometime between Sunday and Monday morning. Later that week, Friday morning, that is when police were called out to this burning vehicle that had been being driven by these two teens. While they were investigating this vehicle that's when they found another body about two kilometres away. Police still haven't identified who this body is. They say it is a man between 40 and 50-years-old. They've released a sketch of what he looks like in the hopes that they might get more information about who he is. And as of yesterday at least police were still out investigating the crime scene and doing searches in order to get all the information they can about what happened here just south of Dease Lake.

AG: Obviously this manhunt is covering the considerable amount of geography. Big country, big provinces here. What are you watching for today Andrew?

ANDREW KURJATA: Well today eyes do seem to be on Manitoba. That is the last place police say that the pair may have been spotted. So that that is where a lot of people are looking but again it's just that reminder from police that these two are on the move. They're changing what they look like they're changing what they're driving. And so they are just looking for vigilance all across the country.

AG: All right. It say it's quite the story no doubt they'll be developments Andrew appreciate your time.

ANDREW KURJATA: Thank you.

AG: Now that's Andrew Kurjata, a CBC reporter in Prince George, British Columbia and he was mentioning there of course that there's always a chance these two men who are subject to this manhunt, they may change their appearance. You can go to our national website cbc.ca and see photographs of these two people.

Puerto Ricans are 'tired of corruption,' activist says amid reports Gov. Ricardo Rossello set to resign

Guests: Tayna Fernandez

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: This is about we being tired of the same stuff happening over and over again. The corruption of this government.

VOICE 2: It's about dignity. It's about people. It's about family. It's about everything.

AG: Voices of protesters caught by CNN in Puerto Rico. It's now been 11 straight days of demonstrations on that island. On Monday more than 500,000 people, half a million, rallied in San Juan to demand the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rossello. The governor has so far resisted the calls though he has said he isn't going to run again in 2020. That's not satisfying the protesters though they were into their protest once again into the night yesterday. Now on the surface, what sparked the political firestorm was the publication of chat messages in which the governor and his aides made sexist and homophobic comments. They also joked about the deaths caused by Hurricane Maria back in 2017. So you take that and you throw in the charges of high level systemic corruption and the build up of anger was just ready to explode. Tayna Fernandez is among the hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans who say they won't back down until Governor Rossello steps aside and reforms are introduced. She's in Naguabo, on the east coast of Puerto Rico. Hello.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Hello. Good morning.

AG: Tayna, some media reports say that Rossello may resign later today. What's your take on that?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Well right now there are negotiations for him to resign as mentioned this morning by one of our political analyst Jason. Right now we do not have a secretary of state. Therefore we would be appointing the secretary of justice Wanda Vasquez because that's the order. But she has been also splattered with this scandal and has taken a long time to file charges against the people of the telegram chat scandal and the people don't trust her either.

AG: All right. So obviously some problems the leadership at the top. What's it been like to be part of these protests? Maybe you can paint a picture for me of what it's like to be out there in the streets with so many, hundreds of thousands of others. What's it like?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Well the demonstrations have been very creative. Puerto Ricans are very creative and there have been horseback riding, cyclists, yoga, people paddle boarding, skydiving, using motorcycles and ATVs, pots and pans, dancing. The truckers yesterday on Monday they blocked the streets and people all over the world have been expressing themselves. Also people from the artistic area like Benito, Ricky Martin and Manuel Miranda, Marc Anthony all have joined our claim for the for the governor to resign. It has been a very intense 11 days.

AG: I guess yoga backs up your claims that these protests are peaceful.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Yes because people think this is about I don't know a revolution. No, we are just tired of corruption and the way these politicians think they are above the law. Almost every one of that telegram chat has resigned except for the governor.

AG: Tayna give me your personal motivation here. What's bringing you out into the streets. Obviously corruption is big, but what makes you get up and say hey I want to be a part of this?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Being a community leader, I'm a community leader. We've seen how our funds have been cut off. We've seen how our schools have been closed because there's no money and it's the mismanagement. We saw that in those 889 pages how they conspire against the people to empty our pockets and fill theirs. And those of their political advisors and those of the political who helped them get where they're at. How they rig auctions. How they conspire. You can still see in Puerto Rico people with blue tarps and saying there's not any money.

AG: Right so you mean there's still blue tarps left over from Maria?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Yes. Yes right now where I live at, there are over 20 homes that still have blue tarp.

AG: How big, apparently these jokes actually made people dying during Maria. Was that one of the sparks for all this?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Well people do think this is about the foul language and the dark humour because it was like a dark humour joke like do we have any bodies to sow through our clothes. Like their political rival. And these yes they hurt. The homophobic slurs they do hurt, but is is more about that. It is the corruption. It is the conspiracy to commit crimes that's even more unbearable. Yes. What he said did hurt women, the gay community of the people who died., it does hurt, but it is more. There is more to this.

AG: Well it seems as though that's been the pivot point to actually get to to focus the people's anger on the corruption that you've talked about. Tell me about this Junta and these austerity measures. You mentioned that your funding has been cut off. What's the impact of these austerity measures been?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Well there have been so many austerity measures on education, on health. InI think it was June 2017, they signed a new labour reform that affected me directly. I was kicked out of my job two weeks ago with no excuse whatsoever because right now with this labour reform they are not obligated to give you why they are letting you go. And I could not even get my vacation hours given to me because the new labour reform act passed by the Junta cut off a whole bunch of our rights as workers and they have keep on closing schools. There is so much and it's so much that because it's an oversight board. They are there to to oversight our budget and how we spend it and they have not been doing their job also.

AG: Right, is there suspicion they're lining their own pockets while they're cutting back for ordinary people?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Yes. Yes because they are affiliated to the party in power right now.

AG: Let me ask you this Donald Trump.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: The president.

AG: The current president. I want to ask a question about Donald Trump and his troubled relationship with Puerto Rico. As you know, the president United States has refused to give more aid to Puerto Rico saying that the government there misuses the funds. Is Trump right in this? I mean how much of this scandal play into those kinds of remarks?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: I am so sorry to say this, but he is right. Even though he is not the perfect person to talk about corruption, but he is right. We do have a problem of corruption and has been happening for years. But not like it's happening right now like so like open up. And this came, this chat came out because of the secretary of the IRS was fired from his job and his son they had nepotism in the Department of Treasury and here in Puerto Rico and they were angry and they were the ones who put out these pages. And that's why we know what's happening right now is because of somebody who was angry and they put out all these messages. And it's true, we do have a corrupt government right now.

AG: Just a final question for you. We started with media reports claiming that Governor Roicardo Rossello may step down and his chief of staff, I noticed he walked the plank. If Governor Rossello does resign, what do you want to see happen next?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: I just want to see a clean government. That to get to where they're supposed to be right now. There was this big concert that was called in Puerto Rico, they made millions of dollars for our people and we do not know where that money is right now. They have not been able to give us a straight answer where the money was put in and where it was used. We just want the next breed of politicians that come in we are telling them right now this is over.

AG: You want a clean government?

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Yeah we want a clean government.

AG: Tayna

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Yes.

AG: I have to end things there, but I want to thank you very much for your thoughts this morning and we'll definitely keep our eyes on what happens in Puerto Rico. Thank you very much.

TAYNA FERNANDEZ: Oh thank you for the opportunity Anthony.

AG: Tayna Fernandez has been protesting against Puerto Rican governor Ricardo Rossello. She was in Naguabo. We requested an interview or a statement with the government, particularly from Governor Rossello. We didn't hear back.

Killers: J pod on the brink

Guests: Gloria Macarenko

AG: Hello. I'm Anthony Germain and you are listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AG: Still to come injury and death at our own hands. The gun violence that we just don't talk about. But first, how human love may be killing the killer whale.

[Music]

AG: A new podcast out this month from our colleagues at CBC British Columbia delves into the mystery of what's killing the southern resident killer whale population. It's called Killers: J pod on the brink and it begins with a story that I'm pretty sure you remember.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Later that same summer evening San Juan Island resident Lodi Gilbert saw J pod approach Eagle Cove, just across the water from Victoria and she could see J 35 still pushing her dead calf.

VOICE 2: At about 8:30 that evening, just prior to sunset, a group of five or six whales, I believe they were all females gathered at the mouth of the cove with J 35 and her calf. They were in a very close tight knit circle and I hadn't witnessed behaviour like this before. They were staying at the surface and they were swimming in a harmonious circular motion round and round and they stayed at the surface like this for at least two hours. As the light dimmed I could still view them in the moonbeam and they stayed directly centred in the moonbeam even as it moved across the water. I definitely felt it was a circle of familym love and devotion.

VOICE 1: Jay 35 continues to keep her baby afloat. You probably saw the pictures. The shiny black head of the mother spilling spray nosing the dead calf. The calf's jaws slightly open as if to grab at something.

VOICE 3: July 25th, 2018. The team confirmed that J 35 was still carrying her neonate and proceeded to get more identification shots of.

VOICE 4: On July 27, 2018.

[More news reports]

VOICE 5: July 29, 2018 a bit south of lime kill, the team encountered a group composed of the J 16s and J 17s, including J 35 who was still carrying her deceased calf.

VOICE 6: And as the days go on the world starts to pay attention.

VOICE 7: A momma orca is swimming with the body of her dead newborn calf off the coast of Victoria, British Columbia. Experts with the Whale Museum on San Juan Island have been monitoring the 20 year old whale.

For hundreds of kilometres over more than 10 days a mother orca just cannot let go still carrying her lifeless calf.

[News reports].

VOICE 8: This weekend the Centre for Whale Watching reported J35 finally stopped carrying the calf which was the first born into this endangered pod in three years.

VOICE 1: For 17 days and a thousand miles, J35 keeps the corpse of her baby afloat before the calf disappears.

AG: Such a sad story at the time. That's a sample of Killers: J pod on the brink, a new podcast from CBC British Columbia. Now the much loved family of resident orcas has scientists and First Nations in both B.C. and Washington state worried for its very survival and with good reason. Today a number of individual members including J35 are showing signs of starvation and one whale, a female, is missing. This new podcast looks at just what has brought this family to the edge of extinction when many others are actually thriving right now. And it asks the question Is our love of the killer whale part of the problem? Gloria Macarenko hosts the podcast and she joins us now from our studio in Vancouver. Hello.

GLORIA MACARENKO: Hello there, Anthony.

AG: Now we're going to get to the big question at the heart of all of this work that you've been part of shortly but the podcast starts with that drama that unfolded over 17 days. I got shivers just listening that here in the studio. Everybody in the world is watching that. Could you just take us back though and tell us in a bit more detail what happened.

GLORIA MACARENKO: It is dramatic, isn't it? And I had those same shivers believe me just again and again every time Ig hear it. So you mean we point out that this was really a big deal that a baby orca is spotted in this particular pod because it had been three years since this population has had a calf that survived. So just off the coast of Victoria on Vancouver Island it was the crew on a whale watching vessel that that spotted this new killer whale calf. And the word got out the researchers made their way to the site. And by the time they arrived there they realized that the calf was dead and the mother was just propping it up. Now it's not unusual for a mother orca to do this. But the fact that this stretched on for 17 days that's the first time this has ever been recorded. It was amazing to see this.

AG: No it was remarkable at the time and even talking about it now, it remains so. And now a number of the people you spoke with were profoundly moved by J 35's act of carrying her her dead calf around for as long as she did as you just put it. What did they tell you about what they believe was actually going on there?

GLORIA MACARENKO: Well you heard from Lodi Gilbert. She lives in the San Juan Islands. She works with the Centre for Whale Research. To her it looked like a ritual some kind of a a ceremony Mami a demonstration of family love and devotion. We've heard some describe it as a display of grief. I did chat with the whale scientists he's the pre-eminent expert, John Ford on on this particular pod and on Orcas along the West Coast he's been watching these whales for decades. So he as a scientist he says he's still not sure. Is it grief that we would compare with human grief. Is it just a very strong instinct to support this calf no matter what. So again not totally unheard of for a mother to do that, but 17 days is really extreme.

AG: I guess it's always dangerous Gloria to personify things too much, but putting grief aside for a moment, some people went even further saying that that there was a message in what they saw. If so, what was that message?

GLORIA MACARENKO: Well interesting we heard this from several indigenous groups here along the west coast. The sleigh with tooth nation in North Vancouver the Lummi Nation in Washington state. Jay Julius, he's with the Lummi Nation and he says that we've created this situation that we're in right now, that the whales are in right now, whether or not we want to take responsibility. In his view the whales message is we've had enough. We can't survive any longer.

AG: It's pretty strong when you hear it put that way right. Like take a look at what you've done.

GLORIA MACARENKO: Exactly.

AG: Gloria let's take a step back now. What can you tell me about this family of southern resident killer whales?

GLORIA MACARENKO: They're a pretty special pod. They are the most studied, the most famous whale pod in the world really. They are centred around the matriarch. She is known as J 17. And as you pointed out just in the past few weeks we've received the news that Ja 17 has disappeared. It is feared that she's dead. It's believed she's about 42 years old. So the average lifespan of females in the wild is 50 years, but some have been known to live much much longer than that. So we're we're watching for news on the matriarch J 17 and J pod is one of three pods. There's a J, K and L pods and they form the clan that we call the southern resident killer whales. They're called residents because they spend their summers in the waters around southern B.C. and Washington state and that's why they're so well-known they have you know they're not just black and white whales that all look alike. They all have their specific markings and that's how the whale watchers and the marine biologists that they're able to spot them and know them by those identifying marks. So sometimes J, K and L, those three pods,sSometimes they hang out together. They form super pods. And I mean these are like families. These offspring they stick with their mother and their immediate family for their entire lives.

AG: So what sets this southern resident killer whale population apart from the other orca population because a lot of populations appearing right now are doing pretty well.

GLORIA MACARENKO: Well you're absolutely right. So the southern residents that have that I've just described they are dependent on salmon. Can we call them picky eaters? I mean chinook salmon in particular, but chinook salmon stocks right now are waning here in the Pacific. And yet the northern resident killer whale population so that territory extends from basically Lower Mainland Vancouver Island right up to Alaska. The northern residents where that the southern residents will be from about mid coast and British Columbia down to California. So the northern resident killer whale population also eats Chinook primarily and other salmon the northern residents are thriving right now. Their territories do overlap. There is some worry maybe the northern residents are stronger maybe they're getting to the Chinook before the weaker weaker southern residents. Chinook stalks are stronger in the north right now. Does it have to do with changing water's temperature that type of thing. And then there are the transient whales the Biggs Killer. Killer whales you've likely heard Anthony the news earlier this summer the sightings of the biggest killer whales in Vancouver's inner harbour right even in False Creek. Now False Creek is just this teeny little area there it's surrounded by high rises it's very densely populated and then you have a pod of killer whales in there. Of course they're hunting for seals and sea lions. And right now the seals and sea lion populations are thriving. So the transient killer whale populations are thriving too.

AG: But the health of the family we're talking about it's not about fish. And so I'd like to get to another excerpt from the podcast. Now this one Gloria we're going play is from Episode 2 in which you take a look at sound. Let's have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound of whales]

VOICE 1: Then I started working with southern residents in Georgia Strait and as soon as I turned on the underwater microphone and speaker in my boat I realized these animals sound completely different. It was pretty exciting.

[Sound of whales]

VOICE 1: That kind of scared the next what five years of my graduate school existence to try and find all 19 pods resident pods on the B.C. coast and record them all on their own away from other pods which is challenging because they are so social they like to spend time together and then also with the transients the bigger killer whales. Try and record them of course. They're very different in that they're they hunt in silence most of the time and it was very frustrating. But when they start making a kill on it or have done it have made a kill of a seal or a sea lion, they tend to loosen up and they become quite vocal and they're absolutely completely different acoustically than the residents.

[Sound of whales]

VOICE 2: While we all are so familiar with those iconic orca vocalizations, what are we hearing?

VOICE 1: Each pod has on average about a dozen calls which are less than two seconds long. They're very strident some. Some times are called screams. They're very kind of metallic sounding shrill sounds but they're very stereotyped in structure and they have up sweeps and found sweeps and that can be very complicated. So these stereotype calls are learned by individuals growing up in the group and they become part of the behaviour tradition of the group and in code the identity of that individual. By using the pods repertoire calls it means that it is a member of that lineage, that group and it recognizes other groups as being different and so on.

VOICE 2: So the killer whales calls are learned and each pod has its own distinct dialect that signifies its identity the way members talk makes J pod a family. And John says these distinct vocalizations can even help prevent inbreeding, a real concern in such a small population.

VOICE 1: Now the whales somehow get around this by using the dialect we think in that the dialect is attractive in a way to other whales so that they mate with whales in the community that have a foreign accent if you like it. It's an indicator that they're not closely related and that they're suitable mating partners.

VOICE 2: Okay so that's all very fascinating from a scientific perspective, but John's decades of eavesdropping on whales celebrations and flirtations is politically relevant as debates rage about increasing vessel traffic.

VOICE 3: And if the people say no, the people say no. And we say no.

AG: Now that's an excerpt from the podcast that we're talking about with the host Gloria Macarenko who you heard there in the recording of the podcast, but we're lucky we have her live with us. So Gloria does want to clarify one thing. You're saying they have dialects?

GLORIA: They have dialect. So John Ford who I had mentioned earlier he has been studying these pods for 40 years and he has put down hydrophones and has has sampled he said you know the most challenging was getting the pods on their own where they're not interacting with other pods. But it was very very clear to him that they're you know of 19 different groups and he studied the northern residents. He was even able to record some of the transient killer whales as well. And they they don't speak a different language but they do have different dialects within each of those pods. But I just find it fascinating that we have you know samples of this going back 60 70 years in fact to show that the dialects have stayed intact over those decades.

AG: It's a cultural preservation of their language. Now that exhibit ended with the sounds of protests maybe you could talk a bit about the battle around marine traffic in British Columbia today and the effect that that might be having on J pod. Tell me about that.

GLORIA MACARENKO: Oh yes this is definitely a prickly issue, isn't it? The fact that the southern residents there they're the poster child in many environmental debates. So of course the concerns about expanding marine traffic here on the West Coast are top of mind. The noise that those vessels produce can interfere with that killer whale communication while they're searching for their food.

AG: There's something I understand called a voluntary slowdown. What's that?

GLORIA MACARENKO: This has been going on for the last couple of years. It's part of the Echo program. This was spearheaded by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. That's the federal agency that oversees Canada's busiest ports. So echo it stands for enhancing cetacean habitat and observation. So the Echo program has been working with the shipping industry and other stakeholders to reduce the vessel noise. So they do things like offer discounts on the harbour dues to the ships that are quieter. And this voluntary slowdown program is through Harrow strait. So this is the stretch of water between Victoria and the San Juan Islands. It's a very very busy shipping route. It's also a key feeding area for the southern residents during the summer months and during the summer of 2018. And the echo program reports that 88 percent of the commercial piloted vessels reported slowing their vessels in the strait. And now that slowdown area is expanding. So how do we know it's working well to track it. The Echo program officials they've sunk the hydrophones into Haro strait. They have been measuring the sound they report about a 20 to 30 percent total noise reduction so far.

AG: That's good.

GLORIA MACARENKO: Yeah. It's a start.

AG: Yeah it certainly is and it's good that it's actually being monitored. Also on the issue of the environment and the situation their habitat. How does all this fit in with the fight over the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, if at all?

GLORIA MACARENKO: Well the National Energy Board produced a reconsideration report particularly on the Trans Mountain Project and the any B does acknowledge the impact on the killer whales in particular. In fact the southern resident killer whales are mentioned. Listen to this 399 times in that reconsideration report. Do you want me to read you a little bit of the details of that? I've got some other report right here.

AG: Oh why not.

GLORIA MACARENKO: OK. Well the board finds that the routine operation of project related marine vessels are likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects on southern resident killer whales. They call the S.R. kW southern resident killer whales that that population has crossed crossed a threshold where any additional adverse environmental effects would be considered significant and project related marine shipping would overlap the SRKW critical habitat along the shipping route and add to both the underwater noise and the risk of strikes throughout that route. So sound glory is if that would completely undermine the voluntary slowdown success that you just mentioned there are still so many details to be worked out on whether slowing down a vessel always reduces a noise reduction. There are also ships that are being built that are much much quieter to start out with so they've been asking the port OK do we have to slow down because our ships are way quieter already. So it isn't a simple matter of making them slower and it isn't just the Trans Mountain pipeline as I said there are several projects underway here on the West Coast that would result in an increase to the vessel traffic here.

AG: Now you say in the podcasts a whale is not just a whale when it comes to this particular family that we're talking about. Why do you think these creatures hold such such personal connections for people who live on the coast?

GLORIA MACARENKO: Oh we could hear it with everyone that we interviewed. The reverence, the you know the love, the admiration because we have ,we've studied them. We know them by name, by their special markings. These killer whales are intelligent they're social they stay with their families for life and there's nothing better than being out on the water here in the Pacific whether you're on a BC ferry or on a private craft or something and be treated with a surprise killer whale sighting. You know they really are part of our seascape.

AG: And to get personal for moment. Gloria, you grew up in coastal B.C. When did the personal attachment to killer whales get to you?

GLORIA MACARENKO: I was born and raised in Prince Rupert on the north coast and we had a small family boat and we take it out on on weekend trips around the area. And we did take a trip up to Ketchikan, Alaska, one week in the summer and on the way back to Prince Rupert it was a really violent storm and we had to take shelter in a bay and I was about nine or ten at the time. And myself and another young friend from a family we were travelling with, we got into a little rubber dinghy. I mean it was small, imagine you know two 9-year-olds in this little rubber dinghy and now we're you know taking shelter from the storm and just paddling around near the boats and a pod of killer whales came and circled us and were around us. And at that time it was just magical, you know awe inspiring.

AG: So you weren't scared?

GLORIA MACARENKO: I don't remember being afraid. They're so beautiful. They're not coming at you aggressively, but they are surfacing around you. I mean probably checking you out. Now knowing what I know now, thinking about the size of that dinghy and the size of me and my friend at the time, we probably looked like lunch.

AG: Well it's funny you say that. I was in a Zodiac and the Atlantic my stomping grounds just off the coast of St. Pier with my wife and two kids in a zodiac, a little you know a step up from a dinghy and a pod surface there and it's something you never ever forget.

GLORIA MACARENKO: No it is magical. There's a there's a stillness and a beauty in just observing them. I love it.

AG: Now as you've examined the fate and life of this particular pod J Pod do you find any reason to be optimistic that the southern resident killer whales are going to survive the various pressures that you outlined in the podcast?

GLORIA MACARENKO: Well it's tough isn't it. I want to be optimistic and one can certainly hope it is encouraging to hear from the shipping industry from the whale watching sector from government about some real tangible efforts that are underway right now to to help protect the southern residents. There are two new southern resident camps right now that we're monitoring one of them is in L Pod. I'm not sure about the gender of that one and there's a female calf in J Pod as well females are very very important to the survival of the pod so that's definitely encouraging.

AG: One of the things I found striking and in your podcast there are those who argue that maybe it's not worth the effort to save J Pod. Hard to believe, but on the other hand there's some sense to it. You want to explain that?

GLORIA MACARENKO: Well we did ask most of the people that we included in this podcast you know why should we care? Why should we care about the future of 74-75 killer whales off the coast of the Pacific? This one pod of endangered killer whales. There are several other pods here on the west coast that are thriving at maybe government resources industry resources could be directed elsewhere but really when it came down to it most people agreed that yes it's worth the effort to try to save them. And one of the strongest arguments we've had is that we have created this environment that they're living in. It's our responsibility to ensure their survival.

AG: Well Gloria, always good to talk to you and congratulations to you and the CBC team in BC for coming up with this podcast. And I know a lot of people will enjoy it. Thank you very much.

GLORIA MACARENKO: Anthony, thank you very much.

AG: Gloria Macarenko is the host of Killers: J Pod on the brink, a new podcast from CBC British Columbia. And the first two episodes you can actually get those right now. Just subscribe to wherever it is that you get your podcasts.

One Bullet: The Cowboy, the Gun and the Trigger

AG: By far, the most likely way a Canadian will die by a fire arm is from a self-inflicted wound. About 75 percent of gun deaths in Canada are suicides. And yet despite the fact that between 2000 and 2016 nearly 10000 people died this way. Suicide doesn't often get talked about when we discuss gun violence. Well today we continue our series, One Bullet, a CBC investigation into the impact of gun violence in our country, one bullet, one person at a time. This first aired in January. The story is about a former NHL player from Alberta named Clint Malarchuk. And he's best known for surviving a horrific on ice accident in 1989 during a televised game. I remember watching that game in Quebec. Probably the worst sports injury I've ever seen. Lot of blood. You're going to hear about that in this story. He was lucky to survive, which makes this all the more remarkable because few people know that he would later try to shoot himself. The Current's Joan Weber brings us his story in her documentary, The Cowboy, the Gun and the Trigger. And just a warning, some of the details are disturbing.

SOUNDCLIP

CLINT MALARCHUK: I grew up in northern Alberta, Grand Prairie, then Edmonton, then Calgary. Played for, I was drafted by the Quebec Nordiques then traded to the Washington Capitals and then traded to the Buffalo Sabres. My name is Clint Malarchuk. I am a former NHL goaltender.

JOAN MALARCHUK: When I first met Clint-- Well we met in an ice rink. So I was a figure skater from refigured skate and I was coaching so it was. I used to always joke around that I will never get to meet anybody, they must walk into an ice rink and sweep me off my feet. There he was. My name is Joan Malarchuk and I never really paid attention much to hockey. I work with a few hockey players. I didn't know anything about him, who he was, and then you know people in the rink said, "Oh yeah this guy is famous for this accident".

CLINT MALARCHUK: The accident in an NHL game in Buffalo where I sliced my Jugular vein.

JOAN MALARCHUK: I never even thought that something like that could even happen and then how it could affect somebody for that long and that bad afterwards.

CLINT MALARCHUK: Looking back in reflection on all that changed my life, oh man. It as vivid, still vivid in my memory. The play is clear, the puck comes from the corner across, where resupplies coming and gets hold up the skates kind of flipped up and clicked me on the neck .

COMMENTATOR: Oh Wow.

CLINT MALARCHUK: And then I saw the blood.

COMMENTATOR: Oh God! Please take the camera off. Oh my God.

CLINT MALARCHUK: I was like oh my God, I cut a major artery or vein.

COMMENTATOR: Oh my God. What happened?

CLINT MALARCHUK: In I'm in trouble here. I'm in big trouble. I think I'm going to die in two or three minutes. My first thought was to get off the ice, because my mom was watching on TV up in Canada. And I didn't want her to go through that, to see her son die on the ice. Plus, being a cow boy, you die with your boots on. You don't lay on the ice. And my mindset is preparing for death.

COMMENTATOR: You can't pay a person enough money to go through what I just watched. Wow. I mean the blood in the...

CLINT MALARCHUK: The most calm probably was our trainer who is a former Vietnam medic and you know he came out and put the pressure on, and did everything by the book and saved my life. Not just saved my life, but in front of 18,000 people and a TV series.

COMMENTATOR: It happened so fast. It was just a matter of seconds.

CLINT MALARCHUK: I'd only been traded to Buffalo about three weeks or four. I didn't know a lot of people. So I used my manager - who I was fond of at the time - because bullies tend to bond with them. And Rick came back and I said, "Rick hold my hand while I die". That is called trauma.

COMMENTATOR: I don't even want to take a look at the replay.

GERRY CHEEVERS: Back here at the [unintelligible] intermission is Clint Malarchuk. Before we go any further I like to tell you last Wednesday a very frightening thing happened here at the auditorium...

CLINT MALARCHUK: Two or three days after my throat was cut I was back around the team. I did a TV interviews between periods.

GERRY CHEEVERS: It was very frightening situation. Glad to see that everything's very good with you and you are going to be back. Let's talk a little bit about that night when the incident happened.

CLINT MALARCHUK: Gerry Cheevers was interviewing me injury. Cheever's a former goalie, kind of my idol and here he is interviewing me between periods. I got a bandage on my neck. He said Clinton you grew up in a ranch.

GERRY CHEEVERS: You know you grew up on a farm in Edmonton, Alberta, around the outskirts of Edmonton, Alberta. You've watched cattle being slaughtered I'm sure. Did this help you at all?

CLINT MALARCHUK: Did that help you at all? [Laughs]

CLINT MALARCHUK: [To Cheevers] That's funny you talk about that. The first thing you do when you slaughter a cow or something... I was ready to move out there.

CLINT MALARCHUK: I looked back on that whole time. I think I was in shock for months. Cowboy guy you know. You get bucked off a hourse and in the first thing you do is get right back on. It was very emotional because they stopped the game at a whistle. And they opened the doors and I walked out. Because in Buffalo the whole stadium is just interrupted in a huge standing ovation. [Stadium noises] I was back on the ice with no counselling. I didn't think of it back then, nor did they. I got my jugular vein cut in 89, and so it was next season when I started to really digress into depression, anxiety, panic attacks. The nightmares were becoming every night where I couldn't sleep. And I would sit up in a chair. Like you know on an airplane and it is really hard to get into a deep sleep but you kind of doze off a little bit. So I'd sit straight up in a chair, so I wouldn't go into deep sleep so I wouldn't visualize in a dream the flashback of that skate coming up and cutting my jugular vein.

JOAN MALARCHUK: The first time I ever watched it was after we had gotten together and people that would come over to our house wanted to see it. And he had it on a DVD. It was like a couple would come and then they would want to see the video. Then the next time they'd come over they would bring a friend of theirs and their friend would want to see it. But then that friend the next time would bring another friend. It would get to be too much from me and I just couldn't watch it anymore. People used to say 'doesn't it bother you to watch it' and he would say 'no it doesn't bother me'. He actually did a show called Sport Science and it kind of would go over myths of sports and science stuff. Like is a goalie as quick as a cat. And the one they did on Clint was how quick can a body lose this much blood.

ANCHOR: For the first time ever, we'll show you how he survived.

JOAN MALARCHUK: And they hooked him up to these electrodes for heart rate and everything and they showed him a video of...

ANCHOR: The following contains graphic footage.

JOAN MALARCHUK: Like goals and saves and then they were throwing in accidents like good and bad stuff in these short clips. And they threw his accident in there and they wanted to see how it would affect him, like his heart rate and everything. And he told them and I told everybody, I said I don't think you're going to get any reading and that EKG thing because he watches this thing all the time and he says it doesn't bother. It was interesting because I was watching the reading and as the clip, it just showed the outside of the ring. And when you've seen that clip even a few times you know the sound of it when it's coming. Here is the heart rate just baked but he said she couldn't sense it. You know everybody that was standing behind and looking at the reading was like, 'you don't feel that?' I did think for a long time, how can you not notice that. There must be some huge disconnection between what you're feeling and what you're seeing and maybe that's not a really good thing. Maybe we should work on this. We were married in 2006 so between 2006 and October of 2008 is where things just gradually got from good to just- he didn't want to live in his head anymore.

CLINT MALARCHUK: A lot of tears, a lot of self-doubt. I'm not in a good place at all. And I hid it, I hid it, I hid it. I was always the clown.

JOAN MALARCHUK: At this time too he was coaching [unintelligible]. They called him a part time goalie coach. And I noticed that when he would get home and he'd started to drink. He used to occasionally have a beer here and there. And then the friends that he had met that also roped and rode horses, they would come over as soon as he got harm, with their horse trailers 30 packs of beer. After drinking all day long, everybody would leave. Anywhere between 10:30 and11:30, he wanted to talk. And that was his-- I didn't know it at the time, but that was his OCD kicking in where he just felt unsure about our relationship. And he would just ask the same questions every night. It was like Groundhog Day.

CLINT MALARCHUK: Well leading up to that day, I was drinking a lot, just trying to cope with anxiety, I couldn't turn my head off.

JOAN MALARCHUK: Like I knew stuff was going off. He was getting more erratic and more erratic. It was draining. I had stayed at a hotel. I just needed to get a good night's sleep. And it was the next day where I'd gotten up and I went to my very very first Al Anon meeting. It was October 7th, 2008. It was probably exactly 2:30 in the afternoon.

CLINT MALARCHUK: It was 2:30 in the afternoon when she finally came home.

JOAN MALARCHUK: It was a Tuesday.

CLINT MALARCHUK: I'm sitting behind the barn.

JOAN MALARCHUK: And when I came home he was nowhere to be found. I thought that's really weird as he's calling me 100 times a day. And I remember both his phones were sitting there. And I just got this-- The quietness of it was just kind of eerie. And that's when I walked outside and I started calling for him.

CLINT MALARCHUK: Joanie came up. Then she said what are you doing?

JOAN MALARCHUK: What are you doing up here? He said...

CLINT MALARCHUK: Hitting targets, rabbits, whatever, with a 22.

JOAN MALARCHUK: I said, Oh. And he had a beer. He had some beer sit beside him and I said you're drinking and he goes, yes.

CLINT MALARCHUK: She you could see I was in just total pain, in my face, everything.

JOAN MALARCHUK: He says you don't know what it's like to live inside my head.

CLINT MALARCHUK: I was mean, angry. [Unintelligible] I blamed her for everything. I'm a very sick man right now.

JOAN MALARCHUK: And he just kept talking about how he couldn't turn his head off. And we had this table it kind of looked like a big spool of yarn with no yarn on it. And he had a rifle shot gun sitting there.

CLINT MALARCHUK: And not knowing if the gun is loaded or not loaded, because I've been shooting.

JOAN MALARCHUK: He picked it up and he said, I just wish my head would stop. This is what I wish would happen. And he just shoved it under his chin.

CLINT MALARCHUK: And I pulled the trigger and it went pop, like boom.

JOAN MALARCHUK: You could just hear the noise. It just went off. He just stood there looking at me.

CLINT MALARCHUK: Holy crap, Clint. You just shot yourself.

JOAN MALARCHUK: And I remember thinking did that-- Did it really go of? Did it really happen? Because I didn't see a bullet go anywhere. I didn't see anything happen to him.

CLINT MALARCHUK: I didn't lose consciousness which is amazing. I should have been dead, you know.

JOAN MALARCHUK: And then all the sudden I remember his nose started bleeding and there was like blood coming out of his chin.

CLINT MALARCHUK: Then I blamed her for that.

JOAN MALARCHUK: And he looked at me and said, see what you made me do?

CLINT MALARCHUK: I said see what you made me do? Now am crying and distraught.

JOAN MALARCHUK: Okay you're intact. You're in one piece. Where is my phone? Call 311. That's all I thought of.

CLINT MALARCHUK: And I was like in shock.

JOAN MALARCHUK: Clint actually started walking round. He got up and went around to the side of the barn, pick up a towel to put under your chin. And he, at this whole time, kept looking at me saying I can fix this, I can fix this.

CLINT MALARCHUK: They took me from the rich to town in an ambulance, then they are trying to get me on this life flight helicopter. And I'm staying. And the whole town showed up. Because of dog catcher. We're in a small rural area and dog catcher got on a radio, my friends with a dog catcher. And she started putting out the word that Clinton is in distress and big trouble.

JOAN MALARCHUK: They were going to take him into surgery. The surgeon came out and said that it had gone through the roof of his mouth. The only damage that he has is he's got a hole under his chin. It knocked a tooth out. He's [unintelligible]. He's got a hole in the roof of his mouth. But it went, it followed I guess you sinus pathway and it lodged right into the sinus pathway. So it did no damage at all to anything in his head, in his brain, in his eye, in nothing.

CLINT MALARCHUK: It's stuck in my forehead. Just another goalie I guess.

JOAN MALARCHUK: He actually has an X-ray of it. We have a friend who is a large animal veterinarian. We were at the clinic one day talking to him and he said hey let's take an X-ray. And see what that bullets is doing in there.

CLINT MALARCHUK: It's amazing that that happen. I should be dead. You know I did a lot of I guess recollecting you know my thoughts, when I got out of intensive care and had my fights in order, thinking you know what? God spared me for those that are still suffering. I am not a preachy religious- I'm spiritual but God spared me for those that are still struggling. Now I'm a mental health advocate, and out there trying to help people. Don't do what I did because you might not be as lucky.

JOAN MALARCHUK: And people say well, you know there is nothing you could do. And you know that logically in your head, but there's still that feeling that 'yes but what if?' What if I had come home a little sooner? What if I'd said something different the day before? Would if I hadn't stayed away the night before? I want to catch it so it doesn't happen again. For me, I don't think that thought and that feeling will ever go away. You learn to live with it.

CLINT MALARCHUK: Yes yes. I feel a lot of guilt on that deal. I'll tell quick story. I was speak in Red Deer, Red Deer college, and a guy named Jesse Wallan spoke. He was told his story. He was 14 years old. The second he walked in the room his dad did-- and Jesse went on to say 'I know it wasn't my dad. I know it was the illness.' Well I, I just knelt down and cried. I knew how sick I was and everything but I still carried so much guilt.

JOAN MALARCHUK: It wasn't until after he had shot himself that- He was in rehab. It was two months after he was in there where they were telling him that he had PTSD from that accident. And that accident is what set him on the edge.

CLINT MALARCHUK: I went 20 years with undiagnosed PTSD that almost ended my life 20 years later. Boy, did I want to die? No. No I didn't. But I want to kill that pain, and I think more suicides survivors will tell you the same thing. They don't want to die. They don't want to. When I did it I wasn't thinking of Joanie. I wasn't thinking of my kids. I wasn't thinking of my mother who went through so much with me and support with me. None of those things.

JOAN MALARCHUK: Making it more of a common topic I think is what Clint and I are doing. You know everybody talks about having diabetes. Everybody talks about you know if they get cancer, their bosses give them off work. They go on they get chemo and they do therapy or if you get a knee replacement. But if you have a mental illness just don't talk about it.

CLINT MALARCHUK: I am at a high school. I get emotional because there is a kid out there who's in so much pain and just let me forward my message to you. You are not alone. You're not alone. That's the first step I think. And the second step I think would be get help. Don't suffer in silence. Because we think we're weak and were not. We're sick. But with any illness or sickness you can get well.

[Music]

AG: We've been listening to the documentary, The Cowboy, the Gun and the Trigger. It was produced by The Current's Documentary Editor Joan Weber. Now I just want to say that if anyone who's listening right now is thinking of suicide or maybe you know somebody who's contemplating taking their own life or you think there may be someone in your family like that, please listen to what Clint had to say. Help is available right across the country. You can call this toll free number 1-833-456-4566. That's 1-833-456-4566. You can also text 45645. That's 45645 or chat online with Crisis Services Canada. Joan Weber and The Current's Jessica Linzey were the co-producers of our One Bullet series, a CBC investigation into the impact of gun violence in our country, one bullet, one person at a time. And that first aired back in January. I'm Anthony Germain. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

July 24, 2019 episode transcript

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