Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2016

The AIH Transcript for August 11, 2017

Hosts: Rosemary Barton and Robert Doane

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

ROSEMARY BARTON: Hello, I'm Rosemary Barton.

ROBERT DOAN: Good evening, I'm Robert Doane. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

RD: Tonight:

RB: “Locked and Loaded.” U.S. President Donald Trump's shots at North Korea have not been what you'd call “diplomatic”. And former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry worries less diplomatic language means fewer diplomatic solutions.

RD: It took patience, but he's finally taking patients. When he was a year from becoming a doctor, Tirej Brimo was forced to flee Syria. And now, six years later, the refugee has finished his degree in England.

RB: Slow and steady saves the species. After a deadly summer for right whales, Ottawa orders ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to reduce their speeds, which our guest hopes will give the stressed population a reprieve.

RD: Fading away then burning out. Le Studio outside Montreal was the place to record for musicians in the ‘70s and ‘80s. But it shut down years ago, and today, a fire destroyed it completely.

RB: A new leaf you really don't want to turn over. An invasive plant called “giant hogweed” looks beautiful, with its white flowers in clusters. But those clusters hide a sinister monster that will foster a disaster of blisters.

RD: And… Operation Dessert Storm. Revenge is sweet and creamy for the Italian region of Friuli, when the federal government declares it the official home of tiramisu. But the governor of the neighboring region thinks that's a bit rich. As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that guesses it's fed up with the whole dog-and-mascarpone show.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Part 1: Former Defense Secretary William Perry on North Korea, right wales order, Le Studio fire

Former Defense Secretary William Perry on North Korea

Guest: William Perry

RD: Earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump warned he would respond to threats from North Korea with “fire and fury”. And then this morning, he tweeted that American weapons are “locked and loaded”. North Korea seems unintimidated by the president's pugnacity. Yesterday, it shared details of its plans to launch ballistic missiles towards the U.S. territory of Guam. This ongoing hostility has experts worried that diplomatic options are less viable than ever. William Perry was the U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1997. In 1999, he was sent to Korea as an envoy by President Bill Clinton, on a rare mission to negotiate an agreement requiring the country to stop its nuclear development. We reached William Perry in Palo Alto.

RB: Mr. Perry, I'm going to get you would start by responding to the president's comments today, when he said that the United States is quote “locked and loaded”. What do you make of the president and this very hot rhetoric that he continues to make in relation to North Korea?

WILLIAM PERRY: I'm not a fan of hot rhetoric when it comes to the use of a nuclear weapon. I would much prefer a calm, sober dialogue on the issue. What he probably means by that is that we are prepared to go to war if necessary. His statements were meant really to deter such a conflict. I questioned whether it was the right way of doing it, but I think that was probably the intent of the state by warning North Korea that the consequences would be very bad to them. So this is a sort of verbal deterrence approach. So I'm not questioning the value of deterrence, I'm just saying I think this is probably not a very good way to achieving it. What the consequences would be of a military conflict with North Korea would be very, very bad, especially for South Korea and possibly for Japan as well and to a lesser extent the United States. In any war with North Korea, North Korea would surely lose. Of course, they know that. So they're not seeking a war. But we could blunder into a war and this kind of loose rhetoric probably makes that more likely rather than less likely.

RB: What would a war look like then?

WP: Well it could start off with a military conflict, a relatively minor military conflict, but it could very easily escalate into a much bigger military conflict. And if escalated into a war, in other words if we had another Korean War, even with conventional weapons, it could be at least as bad as the first Korean War, in which will more than a million people died. So it's a very, very serious consideration. Beyond that, unlike the first Korean War, this one always has the potential of escalating into a nuclear war. And as the North Koreans lost the war, which actually would, they maybe then decide to use their nuclear weapons as a last desperate move. I do not believe that North Korea would initiate any attacks with nuclear weapons because I do not believe the leadership is suicidal. They're not seeking martyrdom; they’re seeking to preserve the regime in power. They're playing a very dangerous game by the way they’re trying to achieve that.

RB: So what do you think then the posturing by North Korea is actually about if it's not to incite a military conflict, one that you think that they would not win. What is he trying to do here?

WP: He's trying to preserve his regime in power. We have to reflect that North Korea is the last Stalinist regime in the world. Dictators all over the world have been toppled in the last few decades, but North Korea has held firm. And they’ve held firm from both by ruthless control of their own people and by a very aggressive military posture. For many decades, they were supported by the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 90s, they're on their own. They understand that their conventional military forces are no match for those of South Korea and the United States, and so they’re trying to augment those with nuclear weapons.

RB: Do you think as some have suggested there would be any consideration or benefit to an American preemptive strike?

WP: I think that would be exceedingly dangerous. It would almost certainly lead to a North Korean military response in South Korea. And aside from the serious consequences to South Korea and the casualties in South Korea, that could very well escalate into a general Korean War.

RB: We have learned today according to an Associated Press report that the Trump administration has had some back channel diplomacy with North Korea for a number of months with that Joseph Yun, the U.S. envoy for North Korea. What does that tell you? And as someone that did that kind of thing previously, how does that unfold?

WP: Well, it's a very encouraging report because I would certainly hope it were true that besides dealing with this bluster, we're dealing with a sober, cautious attempt to enter into a dialogue with the North Koreans to see if we can resolve this crisis through diplomacy, instead of through a military conflict.

RB: And yet, you did this yourself back in 1999, and it seems as though all kinds of things have been attempted to negotiate with North Korea. What would it take to bring something that is more lasting, given what you did back in the late ‘90s?

WP: Well, what I did in the late ‘90s actually resulted in an agreement, but again the agreement was never made formal because about the time we reached that agreement, there was a change in administration. The George W. Bush administration dropped the discussion and never consummated the agreement. I think what we can learn from the negotiations I had was how it was then possible to reach an agreement on North Korea has to deal with a weapon. And indeed it might be possible still today to do that, although it’s much more difficult negotiation today because, in 1999, all I had to do is get them to agree not to develop nuclear weapons. But today, we had to get them to agree to give up nuclear weapons they’ve already produced. That's a much harder job to accomplish.

RB: And what would be what would be the negotiating position for the United States to try and get them to give up the nuclear weapons? What would be the leverage I guess?

WP: I think would require China to be a part of the negotiating team because China brings very considerable diplomatic tools with this. We and South Korea and Japan have very substantial what are called carrots or incentives that offer North Korea disincentives, which you need in a good diplomatic agreement. Those must come from China. So it would require cooperation with China to make this happen. And to do that, China would have to be convinced that our goal is not to overthrow the regime because they do not want the regime overthrown.

RB: But when you see the rhetoric that is being exchanged between Kim Jong un and the American president is this a different level of provocation. How are you reading it?

WP: It is a diffrent level of provocation and I think it's very dangerous because, as I've indicated before, I think the danger is not that North Korea will start a war or the United States would start a war deliberately and consciously. But that we would simply blunder into one and this kind of rhetoric simply creates an environment in which a blundering act is much more likely.

RB: What would you be advising the president right now?

WP: I would be advising him to quietly and softly explore diplomatic solutions with North Korea. I think that probably would involve having a diplomatic negotiator go both to Beijing to talk to the Chinese government and to Pyongyang to talk with the North Korean government. Obviously, it would involve continuing coordination discussions with our allies: Japan and South Korea. The importance is to try to get North Korea and China and ourselves on a common page about what we need to do here to resolve this problem.

RB: And are you hopeful that might happen?

WP: I don't know what would happen? Your comment about Joseph Yun being involved as an envoy is a hopeful sign in that direction.

RB: William Perry, thank you for your time today, sir. I appreciate it very much.

WP: You’re very welcome. Thank you.

RD: William Perry was the U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1997. He also led negotiations with North Korea back in 1999, under President Bill Clinton. He joined us from Palo Alto.

[Music: Ambient]

Right whales

Guest: Kim Davies

RD: The federal government is ordering ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to slow down for whales. Ships of 20 meters or more we'll have to reduce their bees to a maximum of 10 knots as they passed by an area frequented by a population of North Atlantic right whales. The order comes after the deaths of at least 10 of the mammals since the beginning of June. Kim Davies is a researcher who studies this group of whales. Ms. Davies is based at Dalhousie University. She's in Halifax.

RB: So Kim Davies, what do you make of the science behind why the federal government ordered these ships to slow down?

KIM DAVIES: So 10 knot speed limit is based on scientific information — scientific studies — that show that below 10 knots, the likelihood of a right whale dying from a ship strike quickly goes from 30 per cent and lower. But at about 12 knots, it’s about 50 per cent and up. Towards 20 knots, it quickly increases to 100 per cent. So the 10 knot speed limit is to reduce the probability that if a collision occurs that the whale will die.

RB: These right whales. They're slow moving, right?

KD: That's a relative term I guess. They are slow moving. Do you mean they don't get out of the way of ships?

RB: That's right.

KD: Yeah. So they are habituated to ships, they're habituated to ship noise and there have been studies that show that they will not get out of the way of ship noise. There's also been studies on that have tested different kinds of alerting stimuli. For example, to test whether you could put in some kind of alarm on the front of a ship that would help the right whale get out of the way. But right whales have responded to those alerting stimuli by moving to the surface, which actually increases their risk of strikes. So they're not behaviorally adapted to get out of the way when a ship comes. And that means that the onus is really on the humans changing our behavior to help reduce the ship strikes.

RB: Why is this happening so much in the past number of months? It just seems like it's been happening all the time since the beginning of June. What has changed in the conditions?

KD: So the first eight whales that were found were found over a relatively short time period in June and early July, and in a relatively small area. Three of the necropsied animals had signs of blunt force trauma consistent with a ship strike. One of them was chronically entangled in fishing gear. And then there were three live animals that were entangled in fishing gear. And so these are right whales across their migratory range and have been at risk from ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements for many years. About 80 per cent of the population has entanglements scars from entanglement and fishing gear ship strikes. And entanglements account for almost all of the known mortalities of these animals. And one of the reasons why they've been so at risk in the Gulf this year is because they've been aggregated in an area between the Magdalen Islands and they've been feeding in that area, which means they've been aggregating in that area. And there was a snow crab fishery going on in that area, so I mean we've seen this this many times before in in the history of studies of the right whales. They make their habitats in areas where industrial activities occur. And it puts them at risk.

RB: Is it that they are, now forgive me because I know you like them, but is it that they are not smart enough to avoid the ships? Or why have they not evolved enough to move out of the way?

KD: I'll just give you an example, so there are clicking marine mammals like dolphins. They send out acoustic clicks and they can sense their environment using those clicks. And so those kinds of animals: dolphin, killer whales, things like that, they can see their environment with sound. But whales don't do that. They don't click; they don't use sound to sense their environment. And so they weren't evolved to have the kind of spatial awareness that that clicking whales have.

RB: Because they never expected to be in the water with ships or so many ships. Can you tell us a bit about right whales and the sort of the shape they're in and what makes them special or important to you?

KD: So right whales are a critically endangered species, they're protected under the Canadian Species at Risk Act. There are about 500 of them left. As I said, they are at risk from fishing gear entanglements and ship strikes across their migratory range. They come into Canadian waters in summertime, kind of June to October, to feed on a particular species of zooplankton. And they're very specialist feeders on this one type of food. And that's the reason why they're in the southern gulf. There's a lot of this zooplankton in that area, as well as other habitats in the Bay of Fundy and on the Southwest ocean shelf. So they really are mobile animals. They're moving around in Atlantic Canada to find this food. But what's happened over the last several years is that sightings, for example in the Bay of Fundy and in the Gulf of Maine, have declined. Calving rates have declined in the population. The population has stopped growing. It was growing over a number of years and it’s stopped growing. So this year really comes after a number of poor years in a row for the population.

RB: Kim Davies, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

KD: Thanks. Bye bye.

RB: Nice to talk to you. Bye bye.

KD: Nice to talk to you. Bye bye.

RD: Kim Davies is a researcher at Dalhousie University's Fisheries Oceanography Lab. We reached her in Halifax.

[Music: Instrumental]

Le Studio fire

Guest: Andre Perry

RD: David Bowie, Keith Richards, Cat Stevens and, of course, Rush. These are just a few of the artists who made records at Le Studio, the iconic recording studio founded by Andre Perry, just north of Montreal. This morning, that piece of music history burned to the ground. It had fallen into disrepair over the last few years. Firefighters say the building is now a total loss. Andre Perry was the sound engineer and producer who founded the studio and ran it for years. We reached him in Sainte-Saveur, Quebec.

RB: Mr. Perry, Le Studio was standing for 43 years and now it's gone.

ANDRE PERRY: Yup.

RB: What did you think when you heard that news, sir?

AP: Well, my grieving I did like quite many years ago because at the beginning, I don't know about 10-15 years ago, it was abandoned — totally abandoned — and God knows why? We used to have a lot of people come you know and just bring their instruments and do small videos in front and in the back. It was very sweet. But then it started to get really deteriorating, people breaking in and there was a grand piano there that they stole and sold everything. And now, it got to the point where it was so ridiculous. I saw it three weeks ago because I had a friend from L.A. that came over. So we drove there and I said that's incredible. There was graffiti and ugly stuff. People breaking tiles and selling them on the Internet, you know? It got to that point and for me four years ago, I did my grieving. Today is not necessarily as terrible as it would be perhaps for people that saw the studio as a magical place.

RB: What was it like when it was when it was that magical place? Try and describe to people what was so magical about it?

AP: What made it different is many aspects and we can talk for a long time about what the reasons were, but I’m trying to minimize some of them. One of the things that was unique about the studio was it like an international place, where the staff came from all over the world: from England, from Toronto, from New York, from Nashville, name it. We had people from France. It was a community like and like a united nation and that community — that staffing — which I always researched the best. I went to England to get the best engineers and technical people from Toronto in those days and so on. What made it happen also was that they were giving to each other. It wasn't like somebody was bringing a culture and we all were going to just fall into that pocket. It was like everybody got enriched by the other person and the Quebec aspect also. Then, came the philosophy whereby all the studios in those days were associated with a sound, everybody had a sound. You went to Nashville you got a sound. You went to England you got a sound. And me, I didn't believe in that. I believed that was possible that if you listen to a 150 albums we’d done, none of them sound the same. You listen to the Bee Gee’s “Night Fever” and then you listen to Rush and then you listen to Chicago. You know it was impossible for studios to offer this kind of thing.

RB: You mentioned some of the people there that had been in the studio and did the recording. Do you have a favorite memory? That must be a hard question.

AP: Well, it's a hard question in the sense that each experience was different. But there were people that came very often like Cat Stevens came for three albums and he was like a brother. He wrote a song for me and my wife called “Two Fine People”. It varied a great deal because like in the case of Rush for instance, Rush came seven times or eight times and did all their finest work here. And when they came it was like the fun we had together and the quality of life of these guys because these guys are really so human and they love each other. So you know all of that are souvenirs. Working with Phil Ramone is incredible, even though Phil is deceased now.

RB: David Bowie.

AP David Bowie was more difficult because David Bowie, at the period that he recorded at Le Studio, was a bit stressed. I think it was a question of trying to experiment. David Bowie is one of the rare questions whereby I could not say that it was as terrific as others. One day calls me in a rage and says that somebody stole his wallet and I said that is impossible. And about four hours later, the cleaner called and says you left your wallet in your pants. So I told him welcome to Quebec. Then I went downtown, I went to an art gallery and I picked up a really nice piece of art and offered it to him.

RB: Wow.

AP: It was Quebecker and it was Canadian also. We were different.

RB: You talked about the really decrepit state Le Studio was in by the end. Do you wish that someone had purchased it and preserved it or made it a museum or something where the all of those memories would have been protected?

AP: Absolutely. And there was a time that it could have been done, but I didn't own it at that time and I was a bit far away and it was running at the studio. What should have happened is it should have been tied with a university I felt. That it would be a part of the music faculties and that the studio itself, being vintage, could have and still could have been a studio that made enough money to pay for itself. And, at the same time, be active as a living thing in the education side of music. And that's a very sad thing. But it was too late and nobody had the vision. I mean my last artist when I left was Keith Richards, so it sounds like the studio was dying or anything. On the contrary, it lived for 20 years on the reputation.

RB: It was a magical part of your life though.

AP: Without a doubt. Without a doubt. Yes, absolutely.

RB: Well thank you for sharing some of the memories with us today.

AP: Oh, please! It was a pleasure talking with you.

RB: Thank you, Mr Perry. Merci beaucoup

AP: Au revoir

RD: We reached sound engineer and producer Andre Perry in Sainte-Saveur, Quebec.

Back To Top »

Part 2: Syrian doctor, hogweed warning

Syrian doctor

Guest: Tirej Brimo

RD: was in his last year of medical school when the war in Syria became unbearable. He left the country, and left behind an unfinished degree. He became a refugee, he fled from Syria to Lebanon, from Lebanon to Egypt and finally, from Egypt to England. And last week, 11 years after he started studying medicine, Tirej Brimo graduated with a medical degree from St. George’s University of London. Mr. Brimo is now a junior doctor with the National Health Service in Stafford. And that's where we reached him.

RB: Tirej Brimo, congratulations. I guess I should call you Dr. Brimo now. How does that feel that title Doctor?

TIREJ BRIMO: It's something I've been waiting for 11 years of my life, so it feels great.

RB: Well, it's not just 11 years of your life to become a doctor. It's the struggle you went through to become a doctor. Tell me about the moment when you realized that you were going to have to leave medical school and you were going to have to leave your home country of Syria?

TB: That was in 2012. It was the most difficult thing in my life ever. No one chooses to leave everything at once. The streets where you grew up. The coffee shop or you have your coffee. The bakery where you get your bread from. The smiles you see around every morning. The friends that you love to hang out with. Your family, the house you want to buy, the job you wanted to apply to. Everything in your life to lose at once, it wasn’t a decision. It was a reality that we had to accept as Syrians with broken hearts.

RB: So you left, and you went first to Lebanon and then on to Egypt. Did you at any point say to yourself I won't be able to be a doctor, this isn't going to happen?

TB: I've always believed that one day I would get there. I always believed that through hard work and believing in yourself you will get to your dreams, regardless of how difficult they are.

RB: And when you got to the U.K., how long did it take before knowing that you'd been accepted to study medicine there?

TB: It took me a year. Through all of that year, I applied to all the schools and I worked really hard on my English until I got accepted by St George’s University of London.

RB: And before you got to the United Kingdom, did you try in Lebanon or Egypt to get into medical school?

TB: Yes, I applied to 11 medical schools in Egypt. And I aligned myself with two of them in Egypt. But, unfortunately, the circumstances in Egypt weren’t stable time, so I had to leave there and come to the UK.

RB: And throughout all that, you still felt that this was what you wanted to do. What was driving it?

TB: It was simply a rejection of the unfairness of life. I didn't want to give up on who I am. I didn’t want to give up on my dreams. Wars are very difficult, but I've always said to myself that one day I would get there.

RB: When you left, it was early on in the war. What have you seen or what have you heard from friends about what is left of what was your life in Aleppo?

TB: I left after a year-and-a-half of the war. So things were pretty bad at the time when I left. I've seen many stuff myself. I lost my friend and war in difficult. Wars are ugly.

RB: Did you lose your family?

TB: No, my family came with me to the UK.

RB: And when you kept saying to them I still want to be a doctor, as you were struggling to learn English and to set up a new life. Did they think you were a little bit crazy?

TB: The people around me supported. They believed in me. There are great people I met in the U.K. as well. They felt my pain and they supported me. I was lucky to have them in my life.

RB: When you were finally accepted to St Georges University of London, what was that like? Tell me what that moment was?

TB: It's amazing. I always describe it as the world was smiling at me again and a flower of hope grew back into my life. I still remember how euphoric I used to get every time I received an email from admissions. I used to call it an email from heaven.

RB: And when you started, you were obviously different than the other students because of what you had been through during the war and then as a refugee. How did that inform your training or how will it make you a different kind of doctor?

TB: Our experiences shape who we are. For me now whenever I see a patient, I see him as dad. I see him as a brother, as a son, as daughter, a mother of someone. I don't see them as just a patient; I see them as someone who has a life outside the hospital. Someone that I need to be there for, so that I can help them get back to their life.

RB: What kind of medicine do you want to practice, Dr. Brimo?

TB: Emergency medicine or trauma surgeries are what I want to do. At the moment, I can't wait to start contributing to the community — the British community — and I can't wait to start working in the NHS. In the U.K., I was loved, I was believed in and I was welcomed, so I cannot wait to start contributing to the community. But one day, I think I will go back to the frontline. Wherever pain is, I’ll be there. And because I understand how difficult it is to lose everything at once and how important it is to have someone compassionate to you. One day, I'll get back to the frontline.

RB: Do you think there will be peace in Syria one day?

TB: I hope there will be. I really wish there would be. The horrors in Syria that the public have been through are beyond our imagination. We lost everything that meant everything to us. It breaks my heart every single day to see the images my country. I mean all my friends and all the people I know are trying to have a life again. They went to new communities, to new societies, where there is a language difficulty and a lot of challenges. So they are trying their best. So communities are supporting them and helping them to get back into their life and that is helping a lot for refugees to have life again.

RB: And you know there's something like 40,000 Syrian refugees in Canada, in this country, some of them struggling in the same way that you did. What would you say to them?

TB: To my fellow refugees and my fellow Syrians, don’t give up on yourselves. You are not a number and you will never be a number. When it comes to all societies, I think the main thing they can help refugees with is language. I think the linguistic value is the main challenge for refugees. Sometimes everyone is nice to you, but because you don't know the language, you get isolated and you have no one to spend the evening with. So you go back to your room, staring at the walls again, questioning everything you believed in about life. So please teach refugees the language. Without the language, they will never have life again. Without the language, they will never be successful again. And without language, as they might be isolated, their broken heart will never heal again.

RB: Dr. Brimo, congratulations and good luck.

TB: Thank you.

RB: Bye bye.

TB: Bye.

RD: We reached Dr. Tirej Brimo in Stafford, England.

[Music: Ambient]

Swedish hostage

RD: He was held hostage by al-Qaeda for almost six years in Mali. And nearly two months after he was released, Johan Gustafsson says he's trying to readjust to normal life. The Swedish traveler was kidnapped by militants in Mali in November 2011. He's one of three hostages known as the “Timbuktu Three”, another of whom is Stephen McGowan, whom we heard on last night's program. All three have since been freed. A fourth man, a German tourist, was killed during the kidnapping. Yesterday, Johan Gustafsson described his ordeal to reporters for the first time.

SOUNDCLIP

JOHAN GUSTAFSSON: The really daunting thing is that my life has been on hold for so many years. And. Really even now, six weeks afterwards, I mean I have a bunch of bags with clothes in the corner in the apartment and this is my life right now. At some point, I have to start sorting out things and just get a job, you know? It's quite daunting when you think about. What they say is that Sweden has a policy of not paying ransom. And I hope and wish that that's the case. I think it's wrong. It just puts other people in danger. I mean so much money that we're talking about here has a tremendous effect for the war. They can use this money in their war machinery.

RD: That was Johan Gustafsson, a Swedish man who was released in June, after being held hostage by al-Qaeda for six years. Militants in Mali have made a fortune over the last decade from the enormous ransoms they've received in exchange for abducted foreigners. Mr. Gustavsson says he's not clear whether the Swedish government did pay a ransom for his release?

[Music: Ambient]

B.C. premier graves

RD: Stephen Harrison has an unusual passion: digging into the graves of British Columbia’s deceased premiers. Now let me be clear, he's not physically digging into the graves, that would be weird… not to mention criminal. The University of Victoria history student is trying to find out everything he can about the history of where the former provincial leaders are buried. And as he told the Gloria Macarenko, guest host of CBC Radio's “On The Coast”, So far, he's managed to unearth a great deal.

SOUNDCLIP

STEPHEN HARRISON: A few years ago, I was doing a history masters at UVic, actually looking at B.C political history. And shortly after that time, I was walking through one of our local cemetery here in Victoria. And I saw a few names that I recognized from my research, so I got to wondering where are all our premiers’ buried? Things kind of took off from there, so I was looking around online and found that lots had been documented in photographs, but there were a few standouts, including like our first premier for example. There was no record I could find anywhere of where he was actually buried. I know exactly where he died, but there's nothing out there about where he was buried. So I kind of took this on as a little project of the last few years.

GLORIA MACARENKO: OK, so what did you find?

SH: So I was able to track down most of our premiers, for example, our first premier after I did a bit of research there and contacted local cemeteries in the U.K., I was able to find where he was buried and visit his final resting place last year.

GM: And where was that?

SH: Oh, excuse me. It was in Hastings, U.K. So one of the reasons this project has taken a few years is I'm a B.C. history nerd, but I'm not enough of a nerd just to go fly to the United Kingdom to look for our premieres’ graves. So I was able to tie it in with a trip with my partner to visit her family. So we went down to Hastings and were able to able to track down his grave, which is great.

GM: And who was our first premier?

SH: it was John Foster Mccreight, he was premier from 1871 to 1872. And what’s kind of interesting is that one of the reasons I think that nobody knew where he was because he didn't die until 40 years after he was premier, when he went back to U.K. There was no media coverage in Victoria or Vancouver that I could see about his death. So there was seemingly no evidence of where he was buried. Or even in Hastings newspapers for that matter.

GM: Were you able to track most of the rest of them down?

SH: Most of the rest. So we have 25 late premiers here in B.C. and I've documented the graves of 24 of them. We are missing one, who is W.J. Bowser, he was premier back in the teens — a Conservative premier here in B.C. He is a bit of an enduring mystery there. So when I first started this project, I read an obituary which said that he had been cremated and his remains had been sent from Vancouver to Victoria to lie next to his wife. I thought alright, very good. Maybe they were scattered to the winds, I don't know. But then, of course, many people who are cremated choose to have their remains, or their family members choose, to have their remains interred in a cemetery. So I decided to follow up when I was wrapping up this project this year. And I looked for the obituary of his wife, which said kind of the opposite. That she died in Victoria I was sent to Vancouver. So I'm like alright, we`ve got a mystery on our hands here. Had no success so far, but certainly if any listeners out there know what happened to Mr. Bowser, I would be very interested to hear.

RD: That's UVic history student Stephen Harrison, speaking with guest host Gloria Macarenko on CBC Radio's “On The Coast”, out of Vancouver.

[Music: Ambient]

Hogweed warning

Guest: Dan Kraus

RD: It sure looks pretty. Its scientific name sounds pretty, too: “Heracleum mantegazzianum”. But when you hear it's more common name is “giant hogweed” it becomes less appealing. And when you touch it… Well, actually, don’t! Just don't… ever. Giant hogweed was brought to Canada by someone who thought it was a nice decorative plant. But it's not nice at all. It’s dangerous to humans and to other plants. And it's spreading. Dan Kraus is a biologist with the Nature Conservancy of Canada. He's in Guelph, Ontario.

RB: OK Dan, give us a sense of what giant hogweed looks like?

DAN KRAUS: It looks a little bit like Queen Anne’s lace, if people are familiar with that plant. The two things that people can look for when they're trying to identify giant hogweed is it has a cluster of white flowers that grow in an umbrella shape at the top of the plant. And it's actually so big that it can be the size of an umbrella. The other thing is that it is giant. Plants are usually like a couple of metres tall, but I've seen plants up to four-meters in hight.

RB: Wow!

DK: So really it really is a big plant that has a giant cluster of white flowers at the top.

RB: And where is it grown or growing mostly in this country?

DK: So in Canada, it's spread to several provinces. It's definitely in Ontario and British Columbia. More recently, it has spread to the Maritimes and to Quebec. And you can usually find it growing in wet areas, so it can be quite common along the shores of rivers or streams or sometimes along the edges of a forest that the soil is damp.

RB: OK. So why are you putting out this warning? It's not just because they're big. What are you warning people about here?

DK: Well, the timing is good now because this plant is really starting to flower right now. So it makes it very easy for people to identify. So what we'd really like people to do is to make sure, first of all, they are not growing it in their yard. And the other thing is to start looking for it in some of the natural places that they're visiting and report it.

RB: OK. And it's not just, again, it's not just because it's a weed. It's because it's potentially dangerous, is that right? It could it could hurt you?

DK: It is and it impacts nature. But this plant produces a toxic sap. And when you come in contact with that sap and you get it on your skin and then you go into sunshine, it actually can start to form rashes and blisters and even leave permanent scasr. So there's is a very dangerous plant and because you don't feel it right away, you can get quite a bit of sap on you until it's activated by the sunlight and you actually start to feel the intense blistering starting to happen on your skin.

RB: That doesn't even sound believable!

DK: It probably is Canada's most dangerous plant. And you know we're certainly concerned about the health impacts on people, but it's also impacting nature as well. And at the Nature Conservancy of Canada, what we're concerned about is that it's because it's non-native, there's nothing that really controls it. And it can take over large areas along rivers and streams. And because it's so tall, it can shade out all of our native vegetation and actually nothing can grow under it sometimes. So there's exposed soil, which can result in erosion along rivers and streams.

RB: OK. So if people see it then what should they do? Not touch it I guess, but what do you want them to do?

DK: Definitely don't take a specimen! What would be great is if people can report it.

RB: Right.

DK: And across Canada, a lot of health departments and regional weed inspectors are very interested in knowing where this plant is. Most provinces have invasive species councils that can take records of it. Or what I'm starting to use now is an app on my phone called iNaturalist. And with iNaturalist, I can take a picture of any species and there's a whole community out there that will help me to identify it. And the picture will automatically map it as well.

RB: Wow!

DK: And I find that really useful because I can go on to that app and see where people are starting to find this plant. And you know I think that's one of the really exciting things about conservation right now is that we can all play this role in trying to identify where these invasive plants are showing up so that scientists and land managers can have that information and use it to try to get in there quickly before they get a foothold and control them. Before they impact nature and before they impact people.

RB: So I guess I should ask you what the goal is. Do you want to kill this plant off because that doesn't seem like something biologists would want to do, or you just want to contain it?

DK: Well, you know we'd be happy if it was struck from the list of the flora of Canada. It’s non-native. It's originally from the Caspian area in Russia. It was brought over here as an ornamental. It would be great if we could get rid of it. Realistically, there are some places where we may never get rid of it, but we may be able to manage it. Ideally, if we can get the word out and we can have people across Canada looking for that plant and mapping it, we can identify where it's moving into new natural areas and where we can get rid of it.

RB: OK. Well, I might just stay inside from now on. So I might not be the one to map it for you.

DK: Well, we don't want you to stay inside. But everybody should learn a little botany and learn how to identify some of these plants and be able to distinguish some of our wonderful native Canadian species from plants like giant hogweed, which are really plants that we don't want on our landscape.

RB: Dan Kraus, thank you.

RD: That was conservation biologist Dan Kraus, talking about the invasive plant species giant hogweed. And we reached him in Guelph, Ontario.

[Music: Ambient]

Tiramisu

RD: It's a crushing blow to the region of Veneto in Italy, and a huge boost to the region of Friuli. As Il Giornale puts it, quote, “The sweet derby verdict of the most consumed and controversial Italian spoon has been proclaimed by the Ministry of Forestry Policies.” Unquote. That's not exactly how Il Giornale put it. The translation I read, from Google Translate, was admittedly confusing. But that's fitting because the articles about tiramisu, which itself is available in dozens of confusing translations. As you know, tiramisu is a dessert made with ladyfingers, mascarpone, eggs, coffee, sugar, chocolate. Some people throw in almonds, dessert wine, orange zest, whipped cream, chocolate syrup or good ole Cool Whip. These are all translations of a single dish. But the question is what's the original version and where did it come from? Well, as the translated Il Giornale article says, quote, “The birth of tiramisu is a shrewd mystery.” Unquote. To be clear, the region of Veneto, Italy has long claimed the desert was born there in the ‘60s. It’s neighboring region, Friuli, has insisted it was born there in the ‘50s. Now, a breakthrough! Citing a recent book on the subject of tiramisu as a key piece of evidence, one of the regions has convinced the federal government to issue a decree officially designating tiramisu as a traditional dish of Friuli. The governor of Veneto is not pleased. Luca Zaia, said, “I'm literally thunderstruck.” And swears he'll fight back… possibly in court. Incidentally, the name tiramisu translates, accurately I should point out, to “lift me up” in English, so it's no wonder Veneto is raising objections, while Friuli expects a major boost.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

August 11, 2017 episode transcript

More Stories Like This