By Nils Ling

If you’re an Islander ‘through and through’ it’s a good bet you know Nils Ling or have heard his name. Mr Ling, who ran for the Green Party in 2015 in the federal riding of Egmont, is an author, playwright, actor, filmmaker, syndicated newspaper columnist and former broadcaster who has served as president of Film PEI.

I miss my grandkids.

I miss seeing them face to face. Tousling my grandson’s hair. Digging my fingers into another’s ribs and tickling. Catching them off guard with a particularly groan-worthy dad (grand-dad?) joke.

And sure, technology helps. FaceTime and the like. But there’s no way to hug or tickle or tousle over the phone.

So sure, I miss them in this dark time of isolation. But I’m as okay with that as I can be. Because the alternative is so much more frightening.

I don’t like being scared. I mean, I know nobody does. But this is a particularly insidious form of anxiety. Waking up every morning and doing an inventory: is the room warm or is that a fever? Is that tickle in my throat something to pay attention to or is it because I yelled so loudly at that idiot of a president they have? I need bread – do I need it enough to risk going to the store? Did that cashier just hand me a toonie crawling with something? (She seems like a lovely person, so of course she wouldn’t do it on purpose but all the danger in the world is invisible now).

And I’m not comforted by people saying “Look, we have it easy: all we have to do is sit in front of our TVs for a few weeks. Think about Ann Frank or the Chilean miners or …”. Yeah, I know. Privilege. I do have it easy.

But it’s hard.

I’m not in physical discomfort. I’m warm and probably too well-fed and I can usually stave off boredom with Netflix or a book or YouTube makeup tutorials (“It’s easy to get that perfect smoky eye look …”). I’m acutely aware that I’ve got it better than 99% of the world’s population and have no right to feel miserable but … here we are.

What keeps me going is the sure and certain knowledge that things will get better. That when we are backed into a corner human beings come out kicking and flailing and doing whatever we need to in order to right the ship. Someone who I might have teased in high school is in a lab right now and they’re discovering this nasty, sub-microscopic splash of protein molecules has an Achilles heel, and they’re on the verge of figuring out how to fight back against it and stomp it out of existence.

These are the worst of times but they will bring out the best in us.

Whenever something bad happened to me as a kid my mom would say, “Look, I know it’s hard right now. But damn, it’s going to be a great story some day.” And she was always – always – right.

So, we’re all in this together. We all feel the same way about it. We hate it. We’re hurting.

But damn, it’s going to be a great story. Someday.

Someday.

By Jim Brown

Latest statistics from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show a staggering 14.3 per cent decline in sales across the country, from February to March.

Virtual home tours are replacing actual showings and gloves and masks and hand sanitizer are now a common part of a real estate agent’s tool kit.

“This is definitely something we’ve never seen before,” said realtor Greg Lipton, president of the PEI Real Estate Association, who has been through the Great Recession of 2008.

Still, there are some silver linings in the grim toll. PEI, for instance, only recorded a 4.8 per cent decline in home sales and the average price a home fetched was actually 19 per cent higher on the Island in March.

“It’s going to hurt us…but we’re not ready to push the panic button,” said Mr Lipton.

In the business for 16 years, Mr Lipton said real estate agents earn their living in an uncertain environment at the best of times, so many are prepared for the worst, though probably no one saw a dystopic pandemic coming.

Many have enough in the bank to get through a few bad months, he said.

If the pandemic is resolved by the the end of June there is a decent chance of a “pretty good recovery.”

A lot of sales are done in July, said Mr Lipton.

He went on to say listings are picking up and people are still buying and selling properties. But there have been changes, such as showings normally done over three to four weeks “are not going to happen.” Instead they are going to stretch out over three to four months.

From the CREA news release: “March 2020 will be remembered around the planet for a long time. Canadian home sales and listings were increasing heading into what was expected to be a busy spring for Canadian REALTORS®,” said Jason Stephen, president of CREA. “After Friday the 13th, everything went sideways. REALTORS® are complying with government directives and advice, all the while adopting virtual technologies allowing them to continue showing properties to clients already in the market, and completing all necessary documents. They remain your best source for information and guidance when negotiating the sale or purchase of a home in these unprecedented times.”

By Jim Brown

So far, I haven’t read anything about plans to cancel one of the biggest events of the spring in this country, an event that brings millions of people together in the same week. It’s the opening of trout season, which on PEI starts April 15.

On PEI there are hundreds of places to drop a worm on the opening day of the recreational fishery, but it seems anglers gather at a few favoured hotspots. There is something magical about that first day of the season. Many anglers only fish a few days a year and opening day of trout season is the mother of all festivals. Everyone wants to be out opening day. You only have to drive a few minutes in the Stanley Bridge, Trout River Road and North Granville area to find dozens of anglers clustered together seeking warmth and sharing stories about the big one that got away. It would be like cancelling Christmas Day, but I believe scraping the start of the recreational fishery is essential to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Not worried yet? Angling licenses can be purchased online but there are many fishermen who will still go to grocery and bait and tackle stores to buy them. They’ve always done that and always will. So that means more people lining up at checkout counters as April 15 nears and how many of those will be standing two metres apart?

On April 15, if the season goes ahead, thousands of anglers, from toddlers to doting parents and grandparents, will be gathering at streams, rivers and ponds. And despite pleas from public health authorities they will be drawn to places others are casting a line. Many will be sorely tempted to throw off the shackles of isolation.

It’s just a bad idea to continue this rite of spring in 2020, when a deadly pandemic is stalking the land. Do we want to vastly increase the chances of community spread?

Why did the provincial government close so many non-essential businesses and even threaten to fine Islanders who gathered in numbers that are fewer than what can be found at traditional fishing haunts all across the Island?

There is an urgency to make the announcement as soon as possible, since many grocery stores will likely start stocking worms and tackle. Do we want them spending money they can’t afford to, if a late cancellation to the season means they lose the customers they were counting on?

Fortunately there will be a silver lining or two to cancelling the opening. Perhaps the biggest one is that there will be far fewer cigarette butts, foam coffee cups and beer and liquor bottles near stream beds and far fewer nests of tangled fishing line to ensnare helpless birds and other wildlife. Trout populations could also see a welcome boost in numbers, which could lead to better luck for many anglers next season.

By Jim Brown

It’s been epic adventure for a two-year-old German Shepherd, who has been on the loose for nine days, as of March 19. Gucci was one of dozens of dogs seized from a puppy mill before finding a loving owner, Tawnya Thompson.

Unfortunately, her forever home didn’t hold Gucci for very long.

“She was spooked by a horse in the pasture next door, pawing at the ground,” said Tawnya, who lives in Suffolk, near the Winter River hiking trail.
Gucci filled a void in her life after the death of another beloved dog.

“I had a rotweiller who had passed away a year ago from cancer,” said Tawnya, who is originally from Ontario and has a background in animal psychology.

Since her great escape Gucci’s been seen many times, only to elude her searchers each time. A more recent sighting was in Hunter River.
Tawnya says she is overwhelmed with the support she’s received from Islanders, including many on the PEI Lost Pet Network Facebook page. Tawnya has also created a FB page dedicated to finding her dog called Come Home Gucci.

Her dog travels fast and far, said Tawnya, adding she’s been seen in Brackley, Covehead, Oyster Bed, Hunter River, Winsloe and elsewhere.
“We may have to trap her,” she said. Live traps provided by the PEI Humane Society and the Canadian Kennel Club have been used to catch other skittish dogs on the Island.

Tawnya advises anyone who spots Gucci not to engage her because she will likely run again. She suggests they get a photo of the dog they think is Gucci on a cell phone and sent it to her, so she can confirm it is her dog.

There have been multiple sightings since Gucci’s escape, but she has always managed to slip away.

Tawnya said a neighbour even offered the use of his drone locating her.

In a recent post on Facebook Tawnya wrote:

“Today is Day 9 in our search for Gucci and we had no new sightings since yesterday, in the Darlington/Johnson Road area. You have shown us just how quick you can move and easy you can hide. Please, we ask to spread the word about Gucci to Hunter River and all surrounding communities. Please watch fields, roads and barns. Please remember, do not approach/follow or call out to her. We need eyes out there to help us track where she is.”

Anyone with any information that could help reunite Tawnya with Gucci is asked to call 1-902-316-0939 or 1-902-393-0553. Tawnya says the calls should be made after recent sightings, preferably right after she is spotted. Gucci can cover large distances in a short period of time, so if someone saw her a couple of days earlier she may have long left that area.

By Rachel Beck Colwill

Rachel Beck Colwill is a PEI singer-songwriter, now living in Stratford, who was nominated for many music awards. Her single, Reckless Heart, reached No. 1 in the CBC Top 20 Music chart. The video for another chart-topping tune, Hearts on Fire, was filmed in Stanley Bridge.

These are uncertain times to make your living travelling and playing music at public gatherings. These are uncertain times for many. Let’s do our best to stay calm and support each other however we can.

My newsfeed is filled with artist friends around the globe who are having shows and festivals cancel with little warning. Public health is, of course, the number one priority — but these cancelations mean the income my friends were counting on has disappeared. Moreover, many of them have already spent money on travel arrangements, purchasing merch to sell on tour, marketing, publicity, and a host of other things, all with the expectation of income on the road. They can’t get refunds on those investments.

Please, if you can, choose some of your favourite independent artists and go to their websites. Purchase a CD or vinyl or a shirt or whatever sweet original merch they have. Purchase directly from the artists. Let’s make sure our creators can continue creating.

On another note, if you are based in or around Charlottetown and you are self-quarantined for health reasons, I am happy to help you out if you need grocery or pharmacy runs or anything at all. I have a van, I have flexible work hours, and I’m a pro shopper. Please just reach out.

By Jim Brown

On March 14 I drove to Summerside to stock up for the inevitable day when I will have isolate myself from others, and I saw many shoppers flashing bright smiles at the grocery stories I visited. But others couldn’t hide their disappointment and frustration when they couldn’t find toilet paper or hand sanitizer, or other items on their list.

Later I read PEI had recorded its first case.

COVID-19. The coronavirus. The gravest threat we have faced as a country and as a civilization since the great flu pandemic of 1918.

Only in 1918 the world was much bigger. There were no transatlantic flights. No commercial flights at all across vast oceans. Travel between continents took weeks, not hours. Supply chains for everyday products didn’t extend thousands of kilometres.

We have an economy based on our mobility. What if we can’t fly, drive or move around freely? What if we were told we have to isolate ourselves from others so that our elderly and most vulnerable can live?

What happens when our entire world is disrupted, when everything that connects us to each other is suddenly taken away?

Parliament has been shut down for five weeks, schools are closing, professional sports venues have gone dark – and so have universities, colleges, art galleries, libraries, concert halls, churches, public offices – and the list gets longer by the day.

It’s humanity’s vanishing act. We are disappearing from public spaces, leaving a haunting emptiness behind.

Even the poorest Canadians have Internet access and cable television, but there are no sports or live entertainment shows to watch. Only a 24/7 stream of frightening news about a virus that is devouring our way of life.

It looks and feels like the death of hope.

We, humans, are a fiercely optimistic species. We are resilient, we fight back, we expect things will get better, because there have been dark times before, an entire dark age when the black death culled much of humanity.

Yes, humanity has been through worse.

I believe we will come through this, but we won’t go back to the way things were before.

Whether it’s two years or two months, when the virus fades away we will emerge into a transformed landscape.

Many bedrock assumptions will fall away like dry leaves from an autumn tree.

It’s hard to imagine a scenario where demand for consumer goods, for services, for other trappings of civilized society in the 21st century will be fully restored. Jobs we took for granted and thought would be around forever will be gone.

Our world will have shrunk dramatically – to the dimensions of a city or a county or even a village. We will have learned to look after our neighbours, families and friends – watch over and care for them without actually being physically close to them.

When the great tribulation eases the world we rejoin will be a poorer one in many ways, and perhaps a better one in a few others.

I can’t imagine living in America and not watching the scaffolding of a universal health care system take shape. So many Americans will have died in a patchwork system that buckled and broke despite the heroic efforts of besieged health care workers, many of them sacrificing their lives so that others may live.

The long con has run its course, bringing civilization to its knees.

Even the most tribal of partisans in America will have been forced to confront an ugly truth – they were lied to and made complicit in one of the largest heists in history – the looting of their country.

They will have seen grandparents, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters and sons, struggle to breathe and then die.

I think the world’s industrialized nations will turn their backs on a predatory ideology that maims and kills so many for the sake of a very few. They will demand a much more compassionate system of government that blends the best of capitalism and socialism – a form of communalism that ensures everyone’s basic needs are met.

Consumerism will become a dirty word since we will know, after the pandemic, there are more important things in life than material goods.

No, we won’t go back.

We won’t let one tenth of one per cent of the population control nearly all of the world’s dwindling resources, and our lives.

Corporations won’t be allowed to continue poisoning the commons we all own – oceans, lakes, rivers, meadows, rainforests, the blue skies above.

Industrial activity will have declined sharply during the coronavirus pandemic. Pollution and greenhouse gases will have been slashed.

I believe corporate culture will have changed forever.

We will no longer live and die by the value of our gross domestic product.

It’s a mug’s game predicting the future, but I feel this in my bones.

Will it happen? I honestly don’t see how it doesn’t.

By Jim Brown

Lobsters and oysters harvested in the New London area will soon have a new home – a storage building capable of holding 150,000 to 200,000 pounds of lobster and more than a million oysters.

Workers were busy in early March working on the roof of the Raspberry Point Oyster Company building.

Manager James Power said the building should be finished no later than May.

It would hold oysters from Dec 1 to May 1 and lobsters from May 1 to Sept. 1.

Mr Power said the building would serve an important purpose in providing convenient storage for oysters during a time of the year, in the depths of winter, when ice conditions are often not suitable for harvesting the highly prized molluscs.

In the past the company relied on oysters harvested under ice and that has proved tricky at times since conditions, including slushy or deep ice, make it hard to reach the oysters.

One of the worst winters on record, in 2015, saw Raspberry Point unable to sell any product for weeks because workers could not easily get through the ice.

That shouldn’t be as much of a problem now, said Mr Power.

Passerby will notice the building isn’t a typical industrial structure. It was constructed to look like it’s part of a fishing village, to blend in with other marine-themed businesses in the area. It’s nestled in the same general location as the Lighthouse Cafe, Blue Mussel Cafe, Outside Expeditions and Seagull’s Nest Gift Shop.

“It’s not just a flat steel building,” said Mr Power.

He went on to say the owner, Scott Linkletter, wanted the image, the “aesthetics”, to be just right – right down to the white cedar shingles with red trim.