Jelly Invasion Arrives at Vancouver Aquarium Featuring Thousands of Jellies

Mastigias papua. Photo courtesy of Vancouver Aquarium.

A new exhibition opened this week at the Vancouver Aquarium, running through November 12, 2013. Simply called Jelly Invasion, the jellies number in the thousands, including more than 15 species of jellies from around the world -- each corner of the Aquarium will showcase a different species. They're mesmerizing to watch, so it's no surprise the Vancouver Aquarium Jelly Cam is getting plenty of traffic.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, we called them jellyfish, and had fights on the beach with the white ones (the red ones we feared most, as they could sting). And it's true that some box jellyfishes can cause cardiac arrests in humans within minutes of being stung. The term jellies refer to all gelatinous drifting animals (zooplankton), while jellyfish is used to describe the umbrella-shaped jellies with stinging cells that belong to the group of animals (phylum) called Cnidaria.

Jelly Neil Fisher. Vancouver Aquarium photo.

Highlights of the exhibit include such jellies as the lion's mane, a jellyfish whose tentacles can grow to the length of five city buses parked end to end (60 meters long); the upside-down jellyfish, which care for the algae growing in their tissues by always flipping upside down; the blubber and spotted jellyfishes from the warm waters of the Indo-Pacific that have no tentacles, but still sting; and the translucent comb jelly, a fierce predator of other comb jellies found in the cooler waters of the Pacific Northwest. 

There's also an explanation of the phenomenon of jelly blooms, which are unusually huge congregations of jellyfishes and comb jellies. The jelly blooms can decimate fisheries, tip over fishing boats and shut down power plants. Here are some other fun facts about jellies:

• A jellyfish's body is comprised of about 95% water
• Despite their delicate appearance, jellies poop out of their mouths
• The most popular jellyfish is the edible jellyfish that's commercially sold as red, sand or China jellyfish. They are cut into strips, marinated with a soy-sesame dressing and served as a salad with vegetable or chicken slices
• Urinating on a jellyfish sting makes it worse. Use a credit card to gently scrape the remaining tentacle and/or stinging cells off your skas as soon as possible
• Caribbean box jellyfish have sophisticated eyes, stalking its prey with four clusters of 24 eyes

Spotted Jell. Photo courtesy of Vancouver Aquarium.

Black Ice: David Blackwood's Prints of Newfoundland on exhibit in Victoria, BC

Fire Down on the Labrador
Etching and aquatine on wove paper
Gift of David and Anita Blackwood, Port Hope, Ontario - 1999

Newfoundland and Labrador are on my Canadian bucket list, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen in 2013. But I will be in Victoria this summer, and am looking forward to seeing the work of Newfoundlander David Blackwood, one of Canada's leading printmakers and most popular artists. Here's a short film about Blackwood from the National Film Board of Canada (1976). 

Black Ice: David Blackwood's Prints of Newfoundland is a new exhibition that opened May 3 at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Telling the story of Newfoundland's history and the people who settled there, this will be the first opportunity to view it in Western Canada. The exhibition drew large crowds at both the AGO in Toronto in 2011 and last year at The Rooms in St. John's. 

Black Ice showcases some of Blackwood's iconic works for the first time. The artist has been sharing his visual stories of Newfoundland for more than 40 years, exploring the struggle for survival between humans and nature in Newfoundland's harsh climate. 

David Blackwood's etchings are rooted in the artist's home town of Wesleyville, a small Protestant outport in Bonavista Bay on the Cape Freels Peninsula. That's where the son and grandson of fishermen discovered his love of art, both at the local library and in etchings in his family Bible. Blackwood left his hometown at in 1959 at the age of 18, heading west for Toronto and the Ontario College of Art. 

The exhibition features more than 70 prints along with letters, photographs, nautical artifacts, flags and historical maps from the artist's collection. It also provides an in-depth view of Blackwood's 1980 masterpiece, Fire Down on the Labrador (above), which includes preparatory drawings, the original etched copper plate, trial proofs and final impressions. 

Black Ice: David Blackwood's Prints of Newfoundland runs through September 8, 2013 at the AGGV. On July 4 at 7 PM is Blackwood's Visual Narrative Talk with William Gough. The novelist, screenwriter and fellow Newfoundlander will share his poetic insights about the culture and landscape that inspired David Blackwood's prints.

May at Vancouver's VanDusen Botanical Garden: Classic British Car Show and Bloomin' Laburnum

Laburnum Walk at VanDusen Botanical Garden. Photo by Nancy Wong.

Springtime is in full bloom at Vancouver's VanDusen Botanical Garden. On Saturday, May 18, the ABFM (All British Field Meet) of more than 600 classic British vehicles (both cars and motorcycles) will be on display on the Great Lawn from 10-4. Tickets are available online at Western Driver or at the VanDusen.

On the flora side of things, it's the annual Laburnum Alert. Keep an eye on VanDusen's website beginning May 13 for updates on the Laburnum Walk. It only blooms for three weeks a year, usually the last two weeks of May and the first week of June. If things warm up again this month, it could be earlier.

VanDusen Botanical Garden is located in the Shaughnessy neighborhood of Vancouver. The 55-acre garden, named for local lumberman and philanthropist Whitford Julian VanDusen, opened in 1975 and is jointly managed by the Vancouver Park Board and the non-profit VanDusen Botanical Garden Association.

Trans-Canada Air Lines: Air Canada Predecessor at Seattle's Museum of Flight

Tran-Canada Air Lines Super G at the Museum of Flight
Photo by Sue Frause

I finally made my debut at the Museum of Flight, located near Seattle's Boeing Field. What a wonderful collection, both inside and out. One of the 150 planes in the museum's Airpark is a Trans-Canada Airlines Lockheed 1049G Super Constellation. Simply known as the Super G, it was the most successful version of the Lockheed Super Constellations and one of the last great piston-engine airliners. 

This particular airplane was delivered to Trans-Canada Airlines in 1954. After a career flying passengers and later cargo, the aircraft was converted into a cocktail lounge and lunch delicatessen in Toronto. You can see more of its history at this Constellation Survivors Website.

Trans-Canada Airlines (TCA) flew from 1937-1965, founded on April 10, 1937 with $5 million and three airplanes: a tiny Stearman (crop dusting plane) and two Lockheed Electras. The latter is on view at the Western Canada Aviation Museum in Winnipeg. 

Phillip Gustav Johnson, who was President of Seattle's Boeing Airplane Company at the young age 31, was VP of Operations for Trans-Canada Airlines, headquartered in Montreal. Coincidentally, TCA's first flight in 1954 was between Vancouver and Seattle. TCA eventually morphed into Air Canada.

TCA airstairs at Museum of Flight's Restoration Center at Paine Field
Photo by Sue Frause

'A Postcard from Victoria' and 'Wish You Were Here' | Two Celebrations of the Picture Postcard

The Empress Hotel pictured on a popular postcard prior to its opening
 Courtesy Empress Hotel Archives

A number of years ago I picked up Peter Grant's Wish You Were Here: Life on Vancouver Island in Historical Postcards. The 2002 TouchWood Editions book includes images that Grant collected, most of them previously unpublished. They trace the social history of Vancouver Island from 1904-1918, capturing the life and times on the island. Many of the photographs were created by artistic photographers, often amateurs, who wandered the streets or the backcountry looking for business. Chapter Two of the book, Postcard Pioneers, includes profiles of 19 Vancouver Island photographers who made real-photo postcards. 

Opening on May 2 at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria's LAB gallery is A Postcard from Victoria, running through July 7, 2013. The exhibit is based on a 16-minute docudrama of the same name produced in 1983 by Quebec artists Robert Morin and Lorraine Dufour. A Western Front Media Residency production, the video is the "eerie" story of an English visitor interviewed for a job as a tour guide at Anne Hathaway's Cottage, a now-closed tourist attraction in nearby Esquimalt. As with most of their video work, the narrative is loosely constructed and straddles the line between reality and fiction. But at the core of the work are questions of place, class, authenticity and belonging.

In addition to the video, the exhibition includes a table, chair and place setting from The Fairmont Empress Hotel's Tea Room, where the tour guide in the video enjoyed high tea after a day's work. There are also numerous historic postcards of the Empress Hotel from the 1900's -1940's, collected by Philip Francis. Specially commissioned postcards inspired by the video were created by three BC artists for the exhibition: Raymond Boisjoly of Langley; Geoffrey Farmer of Vancouver; and Julia Feyrer of Victoria. They are available for purchase in the AGGV Gallery shop. 

The exhibition also examines technology, travel and the practice of sending postcards in the 21st century. Guest Curator Michael Turner, a Vancouver-based musician and writer, gives this explanation: "Today, the speed and relative affordability of travel is matched by technologies that allow us to take a picture with our phone, add a text message and send it in an instant -- making the postcard less a redundancy than something twee and endearing, like the city of Victoria is said to be by those who visit." Turner will speak about the exhibition at the opening reception on May 16 at 7:30 PM.