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Episode 23 - (PREVIEW) A Canadian Pirate and the Queen
42 Plays8 days ago
(Did you know this Patreon preview has been out for a month and that I forgot to hit "publish"?)
Frank Ney. That name is infamous in British Columbia politics not because of his real estate efforts but because of how he as mayor put on a pirate persona and ruled over the lands of Nanaimo for over two decades. His terror led to forcing people to race boats made out of bathtubs with meagre engines between Vancouver Island and the City of Vancouver.
In this episode, we're talking about the world famous bathtub races. That's right. Bathtub racing. It's real, it's a thing, and despite this being a spoiler, nobody has ever died doing it.
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Shawinigan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Stó:lō (Stolo), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) first nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.
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Transcript
Introduction and Patreon Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, please enjoy this preview of this Patreon-exclusive episode. If you're interested in hearing the episode now, please consider subscribing to us by visiting patreon.com slash shewinniganmoments.
00:00:12
Speaker
We aim to have a bonus episode on Canadian-related topics each month, and we'll use the money we raise to help support the show and our work. Thanks.
Banana Cultivation in Cold Climates
00:00:20
Speaker
Oh, so anyway, going back to the bananas.
00:00:22
Speaker
Yeah. So this was in Fort Nelson, not the Yukon, but whatever. It's close enough. They managed to grow 200 bananas in their greenhouse. Mm hmm. These things looked healthy, too. Like, they originally were doing things like growing, like, cucumbers and such. And, like, oh, we can just do bananas. And apparently they so bought the bananas in 2021. Mm-hmm. And they had them fruit by um September of 2022. Yeah.
Impact of Climate Change on Coffee Production
00:00:49
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's a commercial crop. It's kind of like that. It's the same reason why, like, people who are dooming and gloomy about, like, oh climate change is going to be the end of coffee.
00:01:00
Speaker
Nah, that commodity is valuable enough. That shit's going in greenhouses. Well, being that I'm reading the Expanse book series, you can probably grow coffee on Ganymede.
00:01:11
Speaker
The problem is coffee is a absolute bastard of a plant. It has a growing season and a harvesting season that overlap.
00:01:23
Speaker
And are months long each. So, and it's not like, it's not like a nice plant, like a grape where all the grapes along that kind of like all the grapes along the little vine ah ripen at the same time. No, no, no, no, no. no no no no Coffee cherries, they ripen randomly.
00:01:43
Speaker
Hmm. But they're on big, long ropes, too. So it's like you have to basically just keep going over your field like almost every day for like half of the fucking year.
00:01:55
Speaker
i still advocate growing them on Ganymede. I mean, grown we're going to grow and wherever. coffee oh
Importance of Coffee vs. ADHD Medication
00:02:02
Speaker
yeah coffee's important yeah what powers our brains because how else do we uh deal with not being able to get adhd medication yeah exactly like i fully believe that we will have coffee growing on the moon before we have like universal for all people who need it adhd medication No, you know what? I'm of the opinion that by then, somebody will concoct a way to actually like do something stupid that gives us all the homegrown Adderall we'll ever need.
00:02:34
Speaker
Yeah, but there's no money for that, so it's going to be coffee on the moon, no free pharmacare.
00:02:44
Speaker
That's so depressing. I want to start the show. We might have free pharmacare before coffee on and around another star. Maybe. Maybe. Okay. I'll agree with that.
00:02:55
Speaker
We're starting the show, though. All right.
Show Introduction and Host Banter
00:03:03
Speaker
I see we haven't changed the drop.
00:03:07
Speaker
What was our drop? What? You're going to change the intro. i haven't done it yet. Anyway, welcome to Shawinikin Moments. My name Heather and I use she or they pronouns. I'm Tamarack. You know who I am.
00:03:19
Speaker
That's Looper over there. You can't see her, but whatever. We both have our pets with each other in our own respective homes. Like Luna's off to my right and and she's being gross. being By being gross as in she's putting her tongue in places that I would not.
00:03:37
Speaker
I mean, if you were a cat, you probably would. I'm not a cat, though, and I very much... Anyway. Yeah, don't that's going they don't hold animals to human standards. You'll always find yourself disappointed.
00:03:47
Speaker
So normally you don't do the news on bonus episodes, but hey, the fucking Pope
Catholicism and Politics
00:03:51
Speaker
is dead. Yeah, Pope's dead. But hey. Did JD Vance kill them? yeah honestly Honestly, a visit a visit from like a Trump official giving you COVID is kind of like a visit from the Grim Reaper. Like...
00:04:08
Speaker
and like okay died of a stroke i just want to note jd vance for for future listeners in the year 2300 when this is uncovered in on some random as our drive uh jd vance looks like he is about to die he's halfway through his like glam rock makeup i don't know the thing and it's kind of like one or the other he has two looks So for the people in 2300, we have these people called like newly converted tradcast. This guy, J.D. Vance, vice president of the United States of America, the greatest country to ever exist on this planet and ever will.
00:04:45
Speaker
You know, he known to catch fuck a couch and um plays Warhammer 40K. That's basically like your Marines today. We have these ah fake Marines that are made out of like plastic and metal.
00:04:57
Speaker
So he like converted to Catholicism like seven years ago. And honest to goodness, there are three types of Catholics. Which makes a heathen. I just want to be clear. You don't actually get saved.
00:05:08
Speaker
There's three types of Catholics, Tam. They're the people who are born into Catholicism, like you and i So we end up being like cultural Catholics and actually learning our religion and then becoming leftists as a result of it.
00:05:20
Speaker
Yeah, you end up Jesus was a communist. They even fucking killed him for it. Exactly. And then you end up or you end up like a social conservative Catholic who's vaguely normal.
00:05:32
Speaker
Or you end up like going to hell. Yeah, something
Historical Catholicism in Britain and Canada
00:05:36
Speaker
like that. Helping their neighbors. And then you end up with the don'tate mean Protestants that want to the Protestants that want to reenact the Reformation.
00:05:45
Speaker
Yep. like here's here's the kicker on the subject of the reformation right so 1529 the English referee reformation begins because you know uh King Henry wanted to divorce Catherine and the Pope was like uh no and then he's like well fine I'm just going to create my own church with like um blackjack and hookers yeah and then except for like blackjack or hookers I Yeah.
00:06:11
Speaker
And then for like 300 years until 1829, Catholicism was illegal in certain aspects in in England. And then in 2013, the royals were finally allowed to, you know, convert have Catholics marry into them, but they cannot be the monarch. And then in 2025, the fucking Buckingham Palace is having the flag at half massed.
00:06:35
Speaker
for the fucking pope yeah so what is going to happen in 2029 is like they're going to like you know what church of england bad idea we're just going to go back to roman catholicism i mean like with the 2013 allowing them allowing them to marry catholics and like converting back to catholicism makes a ton of sense considering like there's already a bunch of pedophiles in the royal family so ah Prince Andrew will be right at home. Yeah, Prince Andrew will be right at home in the Vatican with all the other like suspiciously relocated ministers from Canada.
00:07:10
Speaker
So yeah, the Pope is dead. Jeb will probably be the next Pope because all the archdioceses will vote in favor of him because that's what the map says. And ah
00:07:24
Speaker
J.D. Vance will go and kill some other head of state. you know Who it'll be? Who knows? i'm I'm holding out hope for Victor Orban and like either Vance or Trump giving each other COVID and dying.
00:07:38
Speaker
For like a double knockout? So JD Vance put out like a tweet saying that, you know, after visiting the Pope, he said, I'll pray for him and all that. And then pop Pope dies. Like my my next joke for that is like, you know, Trump will finally kill over because Trump is like 79. He's a he can't he does have dementia. Like there's no way in fuck he doesn't have dementia. And I'm pretty certain he's going to die of his like Big Mac addiction.
00:08:02
Speaker
But like JD Vance like will be like, let's pray for the Trump family. And then everybody in the Trump family keels over because anytime JD Vance prays for someone, they die. Yeah, you know, actually, I think i think I'm pro-Catholic convert.
00:08:19
Speaker
Seeing as God seems to hate them so much that anyone they play for they pray for gets, like, fucking divine smite. Oh, my God.
Episode Structure and Show Topics
00:08:29
Speaker
Catholicism is, like, I feel bad because we constantly shit on Catholicism on this show. like Well, because they killed a bunch of indigenous kids. Yeah.
00:08:38
Speaker
Well, yeah. well What are you talking about? the We got all these people denying this. Oh my fucking God. like this is the like This is the thing that actually gets... A lot of shit that I put up with with conservative family members doesn't really bother me.
00:08:53
Speaker
But like the the residential school denial stuff is like where fists the fucking where this have come out. like that them's Them's fighting terms. like Don't even fuck around with that.
00:09:05
Speaker
Anyway, um the cool Pope is now cool. Yeah, cool cool to the touch cool Pope is now room temperature.
00:09:16
Speaker
ah Well, but anyway, we all really warmed up to him. Or maybe he warmed up. Yeah, that's that's the news we're going to give today. We're going to dive right in because we have a fun episode today.
00:09:32
Speaker
We actually
Nanaimo: Culture and Culinary Critique
00:09:33
Speaker
are going to talk about one of my least favorite modes of transportation. What do you think that is besides flying, Tam? ah Would that be going on a boat? Yeah, I fucking hate boats.
00:09:44
Speaker
So no no no to canoeing. I have canoed. I have kayaked. I probably would consider kayaking, but um I am not a fan of being on a boat.
00:09:55
Speaker
And I say that as someone who has several times in the past year ridden on a boat. you know writtenden I rode on a boat to Dublin ah because I didn't feel like flying. Again, i hate flying more than I hate being on a boat.
00:10:09
Speaker
I have taken a ferry to Vancouver Island numerous times in the past six months. ah The ferries are fine, though. Okay, there's an episode about roll-on, roll-off fairies from, well, there's your problem.
00:10:22
Speaker
They'll demonstrate the problem with fairies. Yeah, but you see, the strait has all these shallows in it, you see. Okay, so i'm going to be talking about this in a moment here, about the Strait of Georgia or the Salish Sea, because a couple of things are to come up, but...
00:10:40
Speaker
Tam, what do you think of the city of Nanaimo? I think it's pretty great, actually. ah Some of my favorite people live there. it's Yeah, we have we have mutual friends in Nanaimo. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a fantastic ferry terminal with a town attached.
00:10:55
Speaker
You know what? That's more or less like, no, no, no, no. no Two ferry terminals. Remember, it has two. Actually, three, technically, because you got that new hub. yeah, because it's got the hollow. barry Yeah, I've never had the time to or a chance to use it. Excuse me.
00:11:08
Speaker
No, Nanaimo's all right. Nanaimo is like, what if you took small town, like small-ish BC towns, ah but you then compress them geographically to the point where they're... Nanaimo and Powell River are basically the same in my books. Powell River is obviously less population, but it's like they're so small that the North American brain car brain rot ah urban design still...
00:11:35
Speaker
Still somehow ends up almost being lockable. But for the lack of sidewalks. Anywhere. yeah Anywhere. Like, oh my god. Powell River especially.
00:11:47
Speaker
Well, if you live in Canada, you undoubtedly know Nanaimo as the birthplace of the delicious bar-shaped treat which bears its name. Yes, Nanaimo Bars. Yes, it's by far my
Nanaimo's Historical Transition and Coal Industry
00:11:57
Speaker
favorite dessert to make.
00:11:58
Speaker
I have gone so far to stream on Twitch, making it because the New York Times like published a recipe for Nanaimo Bars like back in 2022 that was so offensive to me.
00:12:09
Speaker
that I had to make it myself on camera and be like no these are the correct ratios like it's the chocolate is actually the smallest of them yeah you have two two and one just a like tiny little sheet of chocolate on top the little basically yeah it's basically a delivery mechanism for custard Yeah, the the chocolate is there to basically prevent the custard from getting like a little bit weird.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yes, exactly. And I'm going to be making some this weekend for ah some relatives of mine who are visiting from Ireland um this coming week. Yeah, um there's there is a lot of ways to fuck up a Nanaimo bar, but when they're good, they're great.
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah, just ask the New York Times to publish an article on the Nanaimo bar. I mean, I'm still sore about this one. and It's been three years. American media was a mistake. Yeah. Well, the city itself is fairly small and unremarkable. Otherwise, the metropolitan area is over 100,000 people.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yes. It's an hour and a bit by ferry from Vancouver. And while it does have an airport, it only serves destinations in like southern British Columbia with occasional service to Toronto.
00:13:16
Speaker
Now, it was formed as a coal mining town, as with the discovery of coal in 1849. um Starting 1852, the Hudson's Bay Company, Rust and Piss, ah began operations and initially sold most of the coal to San Francisco until around the 1860s, when an upstart region across the strait desired for coal. Because again, most of most of like mainland British Columbia is a post-war invention.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, basically, Vancouver started growing, and they needed coal, so Nanaimo had somewhere to send it. Not too long before Hudson's Bay left Nanaimo, the city received its name in 1858 the so name ah First Nations.
00:13:57
Speaker
Excuse me for saying that incorrectly. If I did there, it's a little bit of a mouthful for me, but that is how it's said. It's the name of basically an anglicization of that name. These people, of course, arrived long before European colonizers starting around 1500 BCE and are one of the few First Nations who initially had a treaty with the crown before the province joined confederation.
00:14:19
Speaker
It's hard to know what was actually paid for the land, but considering the payouts I've seen, it was anywhere between 27 and 83,000 pounds. um Assuming those are British pounds, that's somewhere between 3,700 and $22,000.
00:14:35
Speaker
today so at most they got twenty two thousand dollars Now, for a comparison, the Alaska purchased by the United States, which was roughly around the same time, that was around $120 for every square kilometer, and that's adjusted for inflation.
00:14:49
Speaker
And the NIMO, which was at minimum about $76 per square minimum, but could have been as high as $240. So something just to kind of keep in mind what land actually cost at the time. Yeah, there are there there are precious few places in this province where technically you don't have to make the land acknowledgement because...
00:15:08
Speaker
you are not on unceded land but that is scarce in this province yeah i must make it clear it doesn't really excuse any of this per se i don't all of this is gross yeah uh be not being on unceded land is quite literally the least we could do yeah So around the Second World War, and ah the town largely shifted from being mining-driven to lumber-driven.
00:15:35
Speaker
ah like yeah There are coal mines littered all over Nanaimo. Many housing developments have been built on top of it. But overall... BC coal is a resource driven. Yeah. BC coal is a tale of getting in a little bit too late and being a little bit too expensive.
00:15:50
Speaker
Very much similar to like tar sands before the big like oil crisis with, uh, with like the Iraq war and things like that, where oil prices were finally high enough that, all right, well now we need to, now this is like profitable to expand massively. Yeah.
00:16:08
Speaker
Whereas that in time never came for BC coal. Like one of the main coal like resources that exists in British Columbia is metallurgical coal, which is used for smelting steel. It is the stuff that is like always going to be needed because we're always going to need steel.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So like, and the thing is, I think down the line, like electric smelting is going to be more prevalent. Like they're still building um thermal coal plant ah facilities for the purposes of smelting. But a lot of ah pure electric steel operations are coming online. So the days are numbered for for that sort of coal coal production.
00:16:49
Speaker
But it's so fancy. The chemistry is so interesting. Yeah. Well, you just crush a whole bunch of plat matter and then all of a sudden you make coal. Well, I mean, the the chemistry of like steel manufacturing. Yeah, just get your carbon from the air and maybe you can use that to produce carbon on the planet. Well, the carbon's already gone from the air.
00:17:07
Speaker
That's yeah's how it ended up in the ground and got crushed. And also they're
Geography and Appeal of Vancouver Island
00:17:11
Speaker
not making any more coal because it doesn't form anymore. Yeah, well, it does, but it's very slow. I think the the bacteria figured out how to break down plant matter, so you just get oil now.
00:17:23
Speaker
Some notable people from in and around Nanaimo include former Premier British Columbia, Glenn Clark. Barf. and That's a man that's worth an episode. Probably never happening, but you know. ah in Get me really drunk, and then.
00:17:40
Speaker
And one of the first baseball players to break the color barrier in the United States, Jimmy Claxton. hey i think he came up in the jackie robinson video he might have i was i wish i went back and checked the notes but i wrote that down saying to myself oh do this before we do the episode and as i read that line i forgot to actually do anything with that note i think i literally mentioned his name and the very least he was in the notes tim would you agree me if i said that nanaimo is overall a fairly unremarkable place
00:18:11
Speaker
It's apart from the apart from what I said about it's a normal BC town compressed to the point of almost walkability. It probably has a normal amount of Cybertrucks. I don't want to think about that.
00:18:24
Speaker
I was in Nanaimo three weeks ago, very briefly, because I was I was aimlessly driving through Victoria. And then all of a sudden I was going through Goldstein. and it's like, oh, whatever, I'll just drive for a bit and then I'll turn around.
00:18:36
Speaker
And then all of a sudden i realized I was more or less halfway to Nanaimo. And it's like, well, I guess I'm going to Duke Point. Yeah, it's not far. No, it's such a short drive. like Vancouver Island is a fairly tiny place. It's half the size of Ireland.
00:18:50
Speaker
i'm going I realize I often talk about Ireland, but like Ireland's my my only metric for island countries. like Iceland is like three times the size of Ireland, I think. It's like things like that.
00:19:02
Speaker
Are you looking up the size of Vancouver Island in contrast to Ireland? ah No, i another uh point of reference that i use is taiwan's taiwan's a small country exactly like it's not it's not it's it's smaller no it's the same size as vancouver island i believe they're like weirdly mirrored too Like Vancouver Island is almost one metric Taiwan.
00:19:33
Speaker
You know, it's funny when you um because the geography of Taiwan and Vancouver Island is kind of similar because like if you flip the country by 180 degrees, right?
00:19:44
Speaker
And the mountain range that's on Vancouver Island would be as similar to the mountain range that's in Taiwan. Yeah, it's it's pretty wild. It's almost like similar formations due to like inverted like geological for or geological stresses.
00:20:00
Speaker
They are on different latitudes. I don't think they've ever made physical contact with other. No, no, no, no, no. no i'm i'm just The Pacific Plate is a groan. Yeah. And it's a groan and groan and groan.
00:20:12
Speaker
But, like... More Pacific Ocean is shrinking. So like, well, kind of give you some ideas here with Taiwan and why I'm making this comparison. So like half of Taiwan is basically a mountain range.
00:20:25
Speaker
And there isn't really all that much in the way of arable and settlable land in its east. And then with Vancouver Island is kind of the inverse, whereas it's West is kind of hard to settle on. And it's not very arable.
00:20:38
Speaker
Whereas the East side of the Island is fairly, fairly reasonable terrain and you can grow things on it. Like Victoria is like dead South and is probably on like the largest flat landmass the entire Island has to offer. And then the NIMO is kind of on a slope.
00:20:54
Speaker
So that kind of gives an idea. but It's the whole Vancouver Island in general is a really pretty place. And, Usually when ah people ask me about Vancouver to visit, I'm like, you should consider going to Victoria because I think you'll have a better time, um mainly because you can walk around.
00:21:10
Speaker
maybe would hesitate to
Bathtubs: History, Culture, and Racing
00:21:11
Speaker
suggest visiting Nanaimo, but you know it might be worth checking out something, which we're going to bring up in a moment. I'm going to go and side sidetrack this. Tam, what do you think about taking a bath?
00:21:22
Speaker
I like baths. Do you? I like baths too. I, in fact, mostly take baths as a bit of weird tre Tam trivia. You never shower? do shower.
00:21:33
Speaker
i just take baths whenever I can because they're nice. Bathtubs with plumbing made out of pottery have been recorded to exist since 3300 BCE.
00:21:44
Speaker
Actually, they invented by God when he made rivers. All right, JD Vance. ah No, I was born into this. However, they were just historically half barrels or sometimes whole that were hand filled with buckets and then were used to cleanse bodies.
00:22:01
Speaker
The bathtub, as we know it, didn't really exist until the mid 1700s when in the Netherlands, the sort of clawfoot design began to exist. That's the sort of bathtub I personally think of when I'm drawing one.
00:22:13
Speaker
um The use of like porcelain coated cast iron tubs that we usually see these days, although some of them are made out of like plastic and fiberglass these days. And I don't. um Those were invented.
00:22:26
Speaker
Those were invented by Scottish born David Buick. And yes, he is the same man who founded the Buick Motor Company, which would become one of the largest to to become part of General Motors.
00:22:38
Speaker
So the guy who invented modern bathtubs also did cars. That were vaguely bathtub coated. That's fine. And the glazing probably is about the same. So, yeah, I was more making a joke about like post-war automobiles, but I don't get it. Big old buckets.
00:22:56
Speaker
Big old buckets. Okay, fair enough. but Materials like fiberglass began to be seen around the mid 1900s. So we're talking about 50s and 60s. And today tubs are considered a luxury in the Vancouver housing market.
00:23:09
Speaker
ah You have to like shower tub combo. i think that's fairly common still. Well, yeah, but like, OK, so I have gone house hunting in the past and here in Vancouver, and I have run across many newer build condos that do not know what a tub is.
00:23:26
Speaker
They have walk and showers, but they do not have tubs. i think that been I think that's an architectural choice of like walk-in showers. where like a a They were like a thing in the early in the early odds.
00:23:40
Speaker
Right. But the thing is, is like I've also known a landlord specials having just showers. Yeah, but sometimes landlords don't renovate because they're because it's like them cheaping out. Sometimes it's like they watch a little bit too much home and garden television and think themselves ah like it's some sort of like property flipper or whatever.
00:24:05
Speaker
yeah, yeah. yeah Well, in my case, I do have a tub shower combo, which I'm fine with. I don't give a shit. As long as the wall is tall enough for good bath. Okay, on the side of the tall walls, this is going to be a little beef about of Ireland as well as the UK.
00:24:22
Speaker
What the fuck is with their bathtubs? Okay, so here in North America, every bathtub I've ever been in has like a wall that's maybe 30, maybe 40 centimeters high.
00:24:35
Speaker
I go to the fucking UK or I visit my family in Dublin. And my mike for example, my cousin and his husband, who are ah lovely people, they have had in both of their homes a tub that I have used.
00:24:48
Speaker
A tub that is like half a meter high for the fucking walls. And like every time I try and step into it, I feel like I'm I'm like climbing into an attic. But you can you get that deep soak. It's so good.
00:25:01
Speaker
i have never taken a bath in their homes or in the UK. Well, there's your problem. um Well, no. Okay. i am I am the sort of person that goes in the shower, likes to stand up and do in in not be sitting in my own filth every day. I understand that some people like it. That's fine. I'm not like that. Well, you give yourself a rinse first and like do your hair.
00:25:24
Speaker
only do my hair like once or twice a week. but like I'm probably revealing gross things about me. Somebody who's listening to this is like, what the fuck do you mean she only does her hair once or week? think you're mostly just revealing that you don't know how to fucking or relax. ha ha!
00:25:37
Speaker
fuck you I'm having a drink right now. I'm totally relaxing. I'm totally relaxed here. Do you hear me? I'm fucking relaxed here. Heather being over here like, oh yes, I'm super relaxed. Look at all this work we're getting done.
00:25:51
Speaker
I've got my spreadsheets over on one monitor and I've got my Google Docs over here. And we're going to like read through this history material. Very much unwinding. oh I do I will.
00:26:03
Speaker
I will admit that I am terrible but relaxing sometimes even when I'm on vacation like when I was off a few weeks ago I was on and this isn't as totally aside and don't care. um I went to Granville Island and it was an interesting day because i did pretty much all modes of transport in Vancouver that wasn't a car.
00:26:21
Speaker
After I voted, I cycled over to Granville Island. I just took one of the Moby bikes and got lunch and had a really good meal. And then I saw like had one of those, um what you call it, it had a distillery on the island.
00:26:35
Speaker
And it was like, oh, I need to get a bottle of something for my brother's birthday. Right. And I went in there and it's three thirty in the afternoon, I must note, and bought the whiskey tasting set that they had. hmm.
00:26:49
Speaker
and drank through it oh yeah and then all of a sudden like four tens rolling around and i've already bought my brother a bottle of whiskey and i'm like hey i'm actually drunk and it's like four o'clock hey and i just realized i when i relax i forget those things i mean i was about to suggest you just need to get yourself some good scented candles bottle wine and i don't really drink that much wine well it's it's You don't need to drink a lot when you're in a hot bath because then like the alcohol really gets you.
00:27:20
Speaker
This is not an episode about about self-care, by the way. It's a bonus episode. People can learn about my weird habits, such as finding out I only like wash my hair once or twice a week.
00:27:33
Speaker
Going back on track, enough about like me my inability to apparently fucking relax around here. 1967 was a pivotal year for Canada as it marked Canada's centennial. and There were like so many events across the whole country. Military, like one of the largest military tattoos to ever be performed occurred in Canada.
00:27:51
Speaker
Many civic spaces we still use today were built. A giant flotilla was done down the Yukon River from Whitehorse to Dawson City. Montreal hosted the World's Fair, dubbed Expo 67.
00:28:05
Speaker
ah That's a topic I would love to talk about in the future. And of course, Nanaimo, the big city it was, wanted in on the action. Now, this is 1967. It did not have a population of 100,000 at that point.
00:28:21
Speaker
no No, it's it was a very small town. I don't have the population figures for the name am at that point, but it was certainly a five digit number. Probably like half that half its current population tops.
00:28:35
Speaker
yeah Pretty much. It didn't really have that big of a population. So famously, as we were talking about bathtubs earlier, they hold water. Did you know that? They hold water. Sometimes booze.
00:28:45
Speaker
um During a house party once, I decided that I didn't want to have everything in the fridge. So I went and bought like, i don't know, 20 bags of ice and dumped it in the tub. And then we threw all our booze in there.
00:28:57
Speaker
So people would be shitting right next to the booze. So that works more when when somebody's vomiting. But but yeah. Yeah. The thing is, if it's made out of metal, like if it's a cast iron tub, it's good. of It's a good insulator. It's going to stay cold for a while. There's a lot of thermal mass.
00:29:14
Speaker
Well, what's great about bathtubs is they hold water. But what happens if you inverse like that whole process? What happens to the tub? The water's on the outside, right? Yeah, it turns out that being watertight works in both directions.
00:29:25
Speaker
See, when you get a leak and then all the black mold and everything. i too, have lived in shitty landlord specials. So if you like leave that drain clogged and didn't fill up with water, it would turn into a boat. Did you know that?
00:29:40
Speaker
Yeah. Not a very stable one, but a boat. Well, what happens if you stick an outboard outboard motor on the back of it and then place it in the water?
00:29:51
Speaker
ah You get a red green episode. That's right. I can race the damn thing by turning it into a boat. So let's talk about the Loyal Nanaimo. I said Loyal.
00:30:02
Speaker
Bathtub Society and its racing of motor powered bathtubs across to and from Vancouver. Yeah, and it's not wild to me that they used to do Nanaimo Bay to fucking Kits Beach.
00:30:15
Speaker
That I didn't know until I like looked at the wiki page before this episode as I want to do. Like, oh Jesus Christ. In the summer of 1967, 200 tubbers yep entered a race in what was described as every type of craft imaginable in a fun competition to race 58 kilometers from West Vancouver's Fisherman's Cove just south of Horseshoe Bay ah across the Salish Sea to Departure Bay in Nanaimo.
00:30:43
Speaker
Of those 200, only 47 completed the course. it was considered a fun competition and yet also a choppy, confusing race.
00:30:53
Speaker
A fun competition for them. A stressful day for search and rescue. Yes. So due to the success of the event, it continued into the years that followed as part of the great International World Championship bathtub race and four-day Marine Festival. That's the whole name.
00:31:14
Speaker
Yeah. So landlubbers could enjoy the festivities in addition to watching these boats go through a great race. These tubbers would then have support from nearly 800 boats in the water alongside them just to ensure that they were all safe.
00:31:30
Speaker
Which, like, this is an inherently unsafe activity, so, like, you're unsafe the moment you enter the water in your friggin' bathtub. So, Tim. Yes.
00:31:41
Speaker
Do you know who Frank Ney is? I do know who Frank Ney is. let's Let's play his last recorded interview, and then I have a couple of other little clips about him, so let me just play this right here.
00:31:54
Speaker
Ah, Russell, young man here. is your How was your swim? The swim was beautiful. Warm water. That's why I came down here to live here in Nanaimo, Julie the West, and Portia Canada in the bathtub capital world. Because I knew down here, government, we have sound administration, low taxes, and honest government.
00:32:15
Speaker
We've got good guys, good ladies running the country. It's a beautiful place to live. A toast to British Columbia. hole in a bottle of rum. Cheers, cheers. be in the next bathtub race, too. Thank you, Mr. Knight.
00:32:29
Speaker
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