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(UNLOCKED) Episode 23 - A Canadian Pirate and the Queen
59 Plays15 days ago
(Originally released on April 30, 2025)
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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Transcript
Show's Return & Changes
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello! You may have noticed that we've been absent for the past few months. We've been busy with our personal lives and needed to take a break. We've been working on what to do with the show and have decided to rework it slight bit just to make something that we think that you'll find a bit better and works better for the both of us.
00:00:19
Speaker
In the meantime, please enjoy some of our bonus content we're making available for free, and we will see you soon.
Climate & Crop Viability
00:00:27
Speaker
Oh, so anyway, going back to the bananas. 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. and 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 and they them fruit by um September of 2022.
00:00:56
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.
00:01:07
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.
00:01:18
Speaker
The problem is coffee is a absolute bastard of a plant. It has a growing season and a harvesting season that overlap.
00:01:30
Speaker
And are months long each. So, and it's not like, it's not like a nice plant, like a grape where all in 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.
00:01:48
Speaker
They ripen randomly. 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.
Introductions & News
00:02:02
Speaker
i still advocate growing them on Ganymede. I mean, grown we're going to grow and wherever. coffee oh yeah coffee's important 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.
00:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, but there's no money for that, so it's going to be coffee on the moon, no free pharmacare.
00:02:51
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.
00:03:02
Speaker
We're starting the show, though. All right.
00:03:10
Speaker
I see we haven't changed the drop.
00:03:14
Speaker
What was our drop? What? You're going to change the intro. um 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.
00:03:26
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 she's being gross. being By being gross as in she's putting her tongue in places that I would not I mean, if you were a cat, you probably would. I'm not a cat, though, and i very much... Anyway, yeah don and that's going to be... Yeah, don't hold animals to human standards. You'll always find yourself disappointed.
Catholicism & Politics
00:03:54
Speaker
So normally you don't do the news on bonus episodes, but hey, the fucking Pope is dead. Yeah, Pope's dead. But hey. Did JD Vance kill them?
00:04:05
Speaker
Honestly, a visit a visit from like a Trump official giving you COVID is kind of like a visit from the Grim Reaper. i 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 it's kind of like one or the other he has two looks
00:04:40
Speaker
So for the people in 2300, we have these people called like newly converted tradcasts. 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.
00:04:52
Speaker
You know, he known to kind fuck a couch and um plays Warhammer 40K. That's basically like your Marines today. um We have these ah fake Marines that are made out of like plastic and metal.
00:05:04
Speaker
So he like converted to Catholicism like seven years ago. And honest to goodness, there are three of Catholics. We're still making a heathen. I just want to be clear. You you don't actually get saved.
00:05:15
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.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, you end know 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.
00:05:39
Speaker
Or you end up like still going to hell. Yeah, something like that. Helping their neighbors. And then you end up with the don'ate Protestants that want to the Protestants that want to reenact the Reformation.
00:05:52
Speaker
Yep. like here's here's the kicker on the subject of the reformation right so 1529 the English referation 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 gonna create my own church with like um blackjack and hookers yeah and then except for like blackjack or hookers I Yeah.
00:06:19
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.
00:06:42
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 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.
00:07:17
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
00:07:31
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.
00:07:45
Speaker
For like a double knockout? So J.D. Vance put out like a tweet saying that after visiting the Pope, he said, I'll pray for him and all that. And then Pope dies. like my My next joke for that is like you know Trump will finally kill over. Because Trump is like 79. 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.
00:08:10
Speaker
But J.D. Vance will be like... Let's pray for the Trump family. And then everybody in the Trump family keels over because anytime J.D. Vance prays for someone, they die. Yeah, you know, actually, I think i think I'm pro-Catholic convert.
00:08:25
Speaker
Seeing is God seems to hate them so much that anyone they play for they pray for gets, like,
Switch to Personal Topics
00:08:32
Speaker
fucking divine smite. Oh my god.
00:08:36
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. Well, yeah. well What are you talking about? the We got all these people denying this.
00:08:50
Speaker
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. But like the the residential school denial stuff is like where fists is the fucking where this have come out. like but them's Them's fighting terms. like Don't even fuck around with that.
00:09:12
Speaker
Anyway, um the cool Pope is now cool. Yeah, cool cool to the touch cool Pope is now room temperature.
00:09:23
Speaker
oh 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.
Exploring Nanaimo
00:09:39
Speaker
We actually 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.
00:09:51
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.
00:10:02
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.
00:10:16
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.
00:10:29
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...
00:10:47
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 ah it's a it's a fantastic ferry terminal with a town attached.
00:11:02
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. because it's got the hollow. barr Yeah, I've never had the time to or a chance to use it, excuse me.
00:11:15
Speaker
no no no is all right nanaimo is like what if you took small town like smallish bc towns uh but you then compress them geographically to the point where they're nanaimo and powell river are basically the same in my books power rivers is obviously less population but it's like they're so small that the north american brain car brain rot uh urban design still Still somehow ends up almost being lockable.
00:11:45
Speaker
But for the lack of sidewalks. Anywhere. yeah Anywhere. Like, oh my god. Powell River especially. 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.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yes, it's by far my favorite dessert to make. 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.
00:12:16
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.
00:12:29
Speaker
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. 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.
00:12:46
Speaker
Yeah. um there's There is a lot of ways to fuck up a Nanaimo bar, but when they're good, they're great. 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.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah. Well, the city itself is fairly small and unremarkable. Otherwise, the metropolitan area is over 100,000 people. 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.
00:13:23
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...
00:13:43
Speaker
most of Most of like mainland British Columbia is a post-war invention. Yes. Yeah, basically Vancouver started growing and they needed coal so Nanaimo had somewhere to send it.
00:13:56
Speaker
Not too long before Hudson's Bay left Nanaimo, the city received its name in 1858 the Sunema, First Nations. 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, Sunema. Basically an anglicization of that name.
00:14:14
Speaker
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.
00:14:26
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 they $22,000.
00:14:42
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.
00:14:56
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 there there are precious few places in this province where technically you don't have to make the land acknowledgement because...
00:15:15
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, ah the town largely shifted from being mining-driven to lumber-driven.
00:15:42
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.
00:15:58
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.
00:16:15
Speaker
Whereas that in time never came for BC coal. Like one of the main coal like resources that exist in British Columbia is metallurgical coal, which is used for smelting steel.
00:16:27
Speaker
It is the stuff that is like always going to be needed because we're always going to need steel. 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 of coalex coal production.
Bathtub History & Culture
00:16:56
Speaker
But it's so fancy. The chemistry is so interesting. Yeah. Well, 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.
00:17:14
Speaker
that's That's how it ended up in the ground and got crushed. And also they're 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.
00:17:30
Speaker
Some notable people from in and around Nanaimo include former Premier British Columbia, Glenn Clark. Barf. and
00:17:39
Speaker
That's a man that's worth an episode. Probably never happening, but you know. Get me really drunk, and then. And one of the first baseball players to break the color barrier in the United States, Jimmy Claxton.
00:17:53
Speaker
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 so that's fine 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 It's apart from the apart from what I said about it's a normal BC town compressed to the point of almost walkability.
00:18:25
Speaker
It probably has a normal amount of Cybertrucks. I don't want to think about that. 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.
00:18:43
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.
00:18:57
Speaker
i'm going to 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.
00:19:09
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 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 and the mountain range that's on vancouver island would be ah similar to the mountain range that's in taiwan
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's pretty wild. It's almost like similar formations due to like inverted like geological for or geological stresses. They are on different latitudes. I don't think they've ever made physical contact with each other. No, no, no, no, no.
00:20:14
Speaker
The Pacific Plate is a groan. Yeah. And it's a groan and groan and groan. 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 taai like half of Taiwan's basically a mountain range.
00:20:32
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 is not very arable.
00:20:45
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 Nanaimo is kind of on a slope.
00:21:01
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.
00:21:16
Speaker
ah maybe would hesitate to 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.
00:21:27
Speaker
Tam, what do you think about taking a bath? ah like baths. Do you? I like baths too. I, in fact, mostly take baths as a bit of weird trend Tam trivia. You never shower?
00:21:39
Speaker
do shower. 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.
00:21:51
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.
00:22:08
Speaker
The bathtub, as we know it, didn't really exist until the mid 1700s when in the Netherlands, the sort of cloth foot design began to exist. That's the sort of bathtub I personally think of when I'm drawing one.
00:22:20
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.
00:22:33
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.
00:22:45
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.
00:22:56
Speaker
I was more making a joke about like post-war automobiles, but been I don't get it. Big old buckets. 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.
00:23:11
Speaker
And today tubs are considered a luxury in the Vancouver housing market. ah You have the like shower tub combo. I think that's fairly common still. Well, yeah, but like, okay, 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.
00:23:33
Speaker
They have walk and showers, but they do not have tubs. i think that I think that's an architectural choice of like ah like walk-in showers. where like a a They were like a thing in the early in the early odds.
00:23:47
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.
00:24:12
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 um Ireland as well as the UK.
00:24:29
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.
00:24:42
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.
00:24:55
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.
00:25:07
Speaker
It's so good. 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 and and 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.
00:25:31
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? I think you're mostly just revealing that you don't know how to fucking or relax.
00:25:44
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, yes, I'm super relaxed. Look at all this work we're getting done.
00:25:58
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 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 is totally aside I don't care.
Canada's Centennial & Frank Ney
00:26:19
Speaker
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. 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, i had a distillery on the island.
00:26:42
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 know, and bought the whiskey tasting set that they had and drank through it.
00:26:58
Speaker
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.
00:27:27
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.
00:27:40
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. 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.
00:27:58
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.
00:28:12
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.
00:28:28
Speaker
no No, its it was a very small town. I don't have the population figures for the name at that point, but it was certainly a five digit number. Probably like half that half its current population tops.
00:28:42
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.
00:28:52
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.
00:29:04
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.
00:29:21
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.
00:29:32
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?
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. 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?
00:29:58
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.
00:30:09
Speaker
Bathtub Society and its racing of motor powered bathtubs across to and from Vancouver. Yeah. Yeah, and it's not wild to me that they used to do Nanaimo Bay to fucking Kits Beach.
00:30:22
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.
00:30:50
Speaker
Of those 200, only 47 completed the course. it was considered a fun competition and yet also a choppy, confusing race.
00:31:00
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.
00:31:21
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.
00:31:37
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.
00:31:48
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.
00:32:01
Speaker
Ah, Russell, young man here. yeah How was your swim? Your swim was beautiful. Warm water. That's why I came down here to live here in Nanaimo, due to the West, and Portia Canada, in the bathtub capital of the world. Because I knew down here, government, we have sound administration, low taxes, and honest government. We've got good guys, good ladies running the country. It's a beautiful place to live. A toast to British Columbia.
00:32:30
Speaker
hole in a bottle of rum. Cheers, cheers. I'll be in the next bathtub race, too. Thank you, Mr. Knight. So like narrator, he won't be. So like if if Donald Trump was born in small town, British Columbia, this is who he would be.
00:32:48
Speaker
OK, you say that and there's a lot of parallels between those two. So oh there there are Yes. So this so one person pivotal to this race was chairman of the Nanaimo Centennial Committee, Frank May.
00:32:59
Speaker
Born in 1918 in London, England, he served as a pilot in both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War before settling in Nanaimo in 1946. See our aviation episode part two, I believe, for how that actually is pretty common.
00:33:15
Speaker
He was elected as mayor to the city in 1968, a year after the Canadian centennial, and for a brief period was also the MLA for Nanaimo from 1969 to 1972, having lost in 1972, but also 1966, I should add. So he's lost two elections and somehow managed to get in on one of them.
00:33:34
Speaker
um He was also part of, I believe was Bill Bennett's government, the Socrates. Yes. Well, he was he wasn't part of Bill Bennett's government. He was just a SoCred mayor during like this weird period of social credit domination. oh No, he was in MLA.
00:33:51
Speaker
He was in MLA? Yeah, he was in MLA for, i believe, Bill Bennett's government while he was mayor of Manimo. He just held both positions? It looks like it. The timelines suggest as much because he was elected as mayor in 1968 and he was mayor until 1984.
00:34:06
Speaker
and he was mayor until nineteen eighty four god yeah oh yeah uh did you look at the name of his predecessor and successor as as an mla uh no i know ah person that i know from canadian from like bc history just because of his name his name is david stupick Prior to his role in politics, he started a notary practice in 1956. And then in 1964, alongside his brother, Bill, formed the Great National Land and Investment Corporation, which developed much of the land in and around Nanaimo plus beyond Vancouver, like plus into Vancouver Island, I should say. Mm-hmm.
00:34:42
Speaker
The thing about Ney that made him rather unique was that in 1960, before the Investment Corporation was formed, he purchased and then subdo subdivided Douglas Island, which was then renamed to Protection Island.
00:34:54
Speaker
This island is the smaller of the three islands off the coast of Nanaimo. The kicker of this was that he marketed the island with a pirate theme, which garnered him a lot of notoriety.
00:35:07
Speaker
Now, on this island, which has a population of just 350, it has several parks named Pirates Park, Captain in Flint Park, Captain Morgan Park, Captain Hook Park, Ben Gunn Park, Blackbeard Park, Hidden Treasure Park, Long John Silver Park, and Gallows Point Light Park, the latter of which I will talk about in a moment.
00:35:32
Speaker
Oh, joy. Yes, this is going into a bad place. And given that there's already people living there, this place already had a fucking name. Yes.
00:35:43
Speaker
So it also boasts having the only floating pub known in Canada, the Dinghy Dock Pub. It's a fairly typical pub. The pub fair is what I expect from some random pub. Again, even be select the dream could have been alive.
00:36:01
Speaker
That was a plan for it. um But i went and looked at the TripAdvisor reviews for this place and they were less than stellar. In all honesty, there's no sort boats that go across there. There's no real way to get over there. And like it's meant to serve the 350 inhabitants of that island. Plus, whoever the hell is like coming out of Naimo Harbor.
00:36:23
Speaker
That's what it's there for. People who wash up because of the bathtub race probably do little bit. Yeah, sometimes. or like you know Or the feet that wash up, I guess, too. um so the foot The foot story. You know what set you know it sucks, though? I would love to do an episode on all the feet that wash up on the shores.
00:36:39
Speaker
but um there's actually a swedish youtuber that did a whole episode on it a while back and i was just kind of like oh okay i don't want to touch this somebody's done a much better job than i would we have a healthy ecosystem of ah scavenger critters and also a lot of rip currents it's the problem is it's always like i think it's always right feet it's not left uh yeah those go across specific Fuck you.
00:37:06
Speaker
Oh, well you need to have like a count for the number of times I tell you to go screw off. Um...
00:37:14
Speaker
the part does let's Let's bring ourselves back to reality. The pirate theme has some iffy leanings, I must admit, as one aspect of the island, Gallows Point, was formerly known as Execution Point prior to the renaming of the island.
00:37:30
Speaker
This was due to the death of a Scotsman sometime in the winter of 1852 1853, suggested to be by two people the local First Nations. suggested to be by two people from the local first nations Upon their capture near Chase River on January 17th, 1853, which is located in downtown Nanaimo, they were immediately executed on the same very same day at that location.
00:37:54
Speaker
Joy. Yeah. So, hey, we just renamed it. You don't have to think about the bad things. Yeah. ah Barely. Yes.
00:38:05
Speaker
Let me play a clip showing off Frank Ney.
00:38:11
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, the mayor of Nanaimo, Mr. Frank Ney. I'm Frank Ney, mayor of Nanaimo. Frank Ney, song stylist.
00:38:22
Speaker
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, 15 men on a dead man's chest. You hold a bottle of rum.
00:38:35
Speaker
Blow the man down, oh blow the man down. Blow, blow, blow the man down. Frank Ney, consumer advocate.
00:38:46
Speaker
This is the biggest bathtub in captivity, folks. One bath in this will last you a lifetime. And if we could sell you the soap, we'd be able to buy a battleship. The Articulate, Mr. Ney.
00:38:58
Speaker
Okay, now, let me do my own. Okay, now, will you let me do my... Everyone's welcome, folks. Everyone's welcome to Nanaimo, folks.
00:39:09
Speaker
Everyone's welcome. Anytime I want to start, what does it say? We got... How did that last one come? Frank Nay, sports enthusiast. I'm going to catch a whale, folks, and it's going to pull me from Nanaimo to Vancouver.
00:39:24
Speaker
and the saga Moby Dick will become even more famous. Whoa! You think riding a Bronco's tough? You should try a bathtub. You think riding a bathtub is easy? Try it.
00:39:39
Speaker
ah You think riding a Bronco's tough? You try a bathtub. Never one to be bogged down by fancy rhetoric. Eight bells and all is well. I'm Frank Nane. A bathtub is a bathtub, folks. Bring your own bathtub soap.
00:39:53
Speaker
Bring your exotic perfumes. 1981's gonna be a big year. Ducks take to water. I'm Frank Nane. That'll take the smiles off your faces. Frank Nane, humanitarian.
00:40:04
Speaker
Now throw your bubble gum and chocolate bars into my bathtub, children, or I'll cut your scrimmy little heads off. Ha! And, of course, Mayor Frank Ney. Way to get your tax notices, folks. That'll take the smiles off your faces. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
00:40:20
Speaker
Eight bells and all is well. are Frank Ney, the people's choice. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
00:40:32
Speaker
are
00:40:37
Speaker
His kids should have put him in a retirement home like way sooner. You know, it's it's really funny. So this again is from, I'm assuming 1981, maybe 1980. Yeah. um Which, you know, lots of things happened that year. i think Reagan got elected, that sort of thing. um So, but yeah, i um this this is a man who dresses like a pirate.
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah. like In his latter years. Yeah. No, he was, no, no, no. He started doing this fairly early. And it's, it's incredible to think that this man, it was mayor of Nanaimo for two decades, ah mostly interrupted, like interrupted for a little brief period.
00:41:17
Speaker
But it's, the clip is really interesting because even then he was like, yeah, you know, you all are going to get your tax bill and you're just going to live with it. And he's willing to say that no politician would say that today.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah, ah especially considering like if you're not familiar with the social, the platform of the British Columbia Social Credit Party, they're basically they were thankfully they're gone, but they were a friggin political dynasty and their political platform was basically tax cuts for the rich and cat like federal like infrastructure grants for their buddies.
00:41:57
Speaker
Like, I shit you not, these these people were, like, they were the modern-day Republican Party before the modern-day Republican Party, because they were also incredibly, like, against any sort of queer rights.
00:42:09
Speaker
Like, that everyone is welcome in Nanaimo has a lot of fucking asterisks on that. Yeah. Yeah, like there's Bill Vanderzam, who my grandfather knew personally. He but spoke out heavily against the gay games being hosted in Vancouver. Like Socrates are like praying for God to smite them and that sort of thing. Like the Socrates are fucking lunatics. Yeah.
00:42:32
Speaker
And also like... a lot of a lot of the so cred like early leadership's names are on a lot of dams and bridges which were just all horrendously over budget because they again they were lying in their buddies pockets but like van der zam the last one who actually like no rita johnson was the last premier that was uh so good okay but like yeah van der zam went down for being too corrupt for even the fucking so creds wasn't in like fantasy can't remember it's like fantasy gardens that took him down but like that's a whole different topic and like we're not yeah yeah yeah had a yet a get a conflict of interest thing i if listeners are interested i would like to do a tam beefs with the socret movement and fucking socrates across the whole country we could easily do it so yeah and fucking billy bennett in particular yeah
00:43:25
Speaker
I might just censor it out.
Bathtub Racing Mechanics
00:43:26
Speaker
yeah, he remained mayor, this crazy kook, until 1984. That's when was born. But then lost to a car dealership owner, Graham Roberts. i might just censor it out so yeah he remained mayor of this this crazy co until nineteen eightyf four that's when i was born but then lost to a car dealership owner graham roberts This is Nanaimo only to win back the mayoral ship.
00:43:48
Speaker
I just realized I wrote that as mayoral ship in 1986, only to once again lose in 1990 to Joy Leach, Nanaimo's first woman mayor. And she was only mayor for four years and then whatever.
00:44:01
Speaker
And but Frank Nye kept his involvement with the loyal Nanaimo bathtub society. I'm assuming I'm saying the name correctly. Of course, because all these motherfuckers just need a retirement project.
00:44:13
Speaker
And to be fair, this is the least worst thing they could have done. But he died in 1992. The clip that I played the start when we introduced him, it was the last video to have of him being recorded. I can't remember when Ney died specifically that year, but he did not get to see the bathtub race that particular summer.
00:44:31
Speaker
So what the fuck is a bathtub race? It's like soapbox car racing, but on the water with a bathtub or other improvised personal watercraft.
00:44:44
Speaker
It is how it sounds, but it's kind of gone a little bit more streamlined over the years. So I'm going to read this from the bathtubbing.com website, which is the official domain of the loyal Nanaimo bathtub society.
00:44:58
Speaker
And I'm going to read this verbatim. Over the years, many materials have been used to construct a racing bathtub. Early tub holes were predominantly wood with a molded fiberglass tub attached.
00:45:09
Speaker
There have also been very innovative designs built on top of aluminum and other metals. As bathtub boat technology advanced... What the fuck? Bathtub boat technology...
00:45:19
Speaker
Fiberglass has become the material of choice for all tubbers. With its ease of being formed into any shapes, inherent strength, lightness, and a relatively low cost, it has dominated the scene when it comes to building a competitive racing tub.
00:45:35
Speaker
With this in mind, here are a few ideas and hits that will get you on your way to ruling the waves on the outside of your bathtub. have a couple of suggestions here, but we'll talk about the construction of the hull here because this is what I find interesting.
00:45:49
Speaker
The tub hole can be made by several different methods. By far the easiest is to get on the phone and borrow one of the many molds lying around in and around backyards in Nanaimo.
00:46:02
Speaker
For the industrious individual, designing your own mold is the answer. Wood and filler are used to develop the shape. After you have the mold, laying the hole uses the same materials and techniques as the tub itself.
00:46:13
Speaker
Remember to cover all the corners and make sure no air bubbles are present to prevent weakness in the structure. After the mold is built or ah procured, the same layout process as the tub portion ensues.
00:46:25
Speaker
I went looking on both Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist to see if anyone was selling a bathtub or a mold, and I failed to find anyone who did. who I also went and contacted a company they recommended, and I have not risk received a reply back. I just wanted a ballpark figure of how many people have actually bothered them to make a brand new tub for them.
00:46:49
Speaker
Now, transom. I think transom says like where you mount i the ah outboard motor. Transoms can be made out of wood, foam, aluminum, or other materials. Wood and fiberglass are the easiest to work with.
00:47:00
Speaker
Engine heights may vary between 15 and 25 inches depending on propeller design, so remember it's easier to reduce the weight than add it on later. This is a critical area. Be sure that it's well built and strong. Quarter inch plywood uprights and two pieces of laminated half inch plywood engine supports covered in matte fiberglass work well and are easy to build.
00:47:19
Speaker
Some helpful hints when handling fiberglass. It's on the same page. it will fuck you up if you breathe it i i do not want to handle fiberglass it terrifies me yeah fumes and dust are toxic and irritating so work in a well ventilated area and wear a dust mask when grinding polyester resins are easier to work with and much cheaper my my advice for anyone working with polyester resins is if you don't like exo i think they're exothermic don't touch them they're fucking annoying to work with and they smell like ass
00:47:50
Speaker
yeah epoxy resins poly resins on wood is like a wood sealer you you got to be careful with the cloths lay them down flat because if you get them in too much contact with each other they'll they will just combust yeah and i i've <unk> ruined many projects because of this i really hate working a polyester resin i straight up started fires in my garage or my parents garage I'm not surprised. That stuff does get hot fast.
00:48:17
Speaker
Epoxy resins have low fumes and are much stronger, but they're more expensive. They also lot take a lot longer to cure. And you can't cure them when it's fucking cold. And guess what? Nanaimo in the winter is like, what, five degrees? like Yeah, and if you do it in the summer, you're missing out on bathtub racing time. Exactly.
00:48:36
Speaker
So if you have a little bit of FOMO, just start building your fucking boat. If in doubt, the friendly staff at Industrial Plastics and Nanaimo can always answer your fiberglass questions, supply all the materials and tools.
00:48:49
Speaker
ah like I have to wonder how many people have reached out to me. I did contact them. like I did reach out to them and ask them um for like, you know, who's contacted you about this and all that sort of thing.
00:49:02
Speaker
So other things to note, I went and looked into the motors that are required for that are permitted in this. And no motor can be greater than 10 horsepower. Fuels can only be automotive or marine.
00:49:15
Speaker
So you can't use racing fuels. But there's no rule that says you can't use electric motors. You have a maximum weight of or rather a minimum weight of 350 pounds. now The batteries really help with your weight.
00:49:28
Speaker
Yeah, like if you're like a skinny motherfucker and and you and it's either you just convert to electric. like The other problem is is like the course is also fairly long, so you may not want to do electric.
00:49:39
Speaker
um Additives are not permitted with the exception of methyl hydrate for the sole reason of removing water from the fuel and any oils used for like lubrication. So I guess you can't put nitrous oxide into your fucking boat.
00:49:53
Speaker
To be fair, these things are sketchy. Yeah, I don't I don't like the idea of somebody like running an extremely like high octane fuel through their through their bathtub for racing boat motor.
00:50:08
Speaker
i don't I don't know. Yeah, well you're not even allowed to modify the motors like it. All replace this says here all replacement parts must be factory OEM parts only no aftermarket parts are allowed unless proven discontinued.
00:50:21
Speaker
So you you have to, like, if you have make like a change to your motor, or like have to fix something, it has to be the same part to allow for engine rebuilds. Engines may be rebuilt with oversized pistons provided they within the specification.
00:50:36
Speaker
ah You're not allowed to like shave the head unless um ah to a allow for engine warping. And was like a whole bunch of other things. The propellers also must be stock. So like factory supply for that particular model.
00:50:50
Speaker
So you're like you're not allowed to go and like grab the motor from my or the sorry the propeller from one motor and stick on the other with the hopes that you get like you know extra performance. like I don't fucking know the physics of ah propellers. Oh, surprise, surprise. This is basically just a can-you-buy-an-expensive-engine contest.
00:51:09
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. That can only do 10 horsepower at at most. Oh, 10 horsepower. Yeah, there's there's a little... It's kind of F1, like... I see. Yeah.
00:51:19
Speaker
There's safety. All tub pilots must show proof of their safe boating certificate. but it's just like honestly that's fair because that's probably contributing to a lot of people who actually get their goddamn certificate they have family member who i'm referring to you know who you fucking are they have to go around with like a whistle and three flares okay standard safety equipment yeah fine you also have to have like lnbs uh the loyal nanaimo bathtub society displayed on the tub so i guess it's sort of like to identify that you know this is where it came from also the tubs and hulls must be a light or bright color so you're not allowed dark colors in the race which i guess makes it easier to track easier find corpse
00:52:06
Speaker
The minimum age for racing is 14 years old, and anyone under the age of 19 must have a parent or guardian sign the entry race form. Okay, that's fair. I think 14, you can get a boating license, so...
00:52:19
Speaker
I like the idea that, you know, like somebody's 16 kid like decides like I'm going to go race a a top like a bathtub around the Nimo Harbor. See, you never grew up in a in a small enough town to have like a healthy redneck population.
00:52:38
Speaker
no i grew up in Surrey. yeah exactly know i 100 believe that this is a thing yeah so like the idea is like you start from like from like a certain starting point you race around a specific course once you get to the finish line whoever whatever however that's determined the boat has to still be in the water when you get out and you have to run onto the beach and then hit a bell i'm going to play a clip that is from 1988 that basically describes the mayhem that it is also in anticipation is a large network of military and civilian volunteers manning communication centers and rescue operations the stage is set as the tubbers begin their warm-ups in a final preparation for the 11 a.m m flying start thousands of spectators line swale on a lagoon for the start and watch the great flotilla of tubs brave the chop
00:53:29
Speaker
A bit of a disappointment for the loyal Nanaimo Bathtub Society with only 57 tubbers entering the 22nd annual great race this year. However, the start was the usual picturesque chaos with only two tubbers jumping the gun.
00:53:46
Speaker
Weather conditions are ideal this year with a strong westerly really only affecting the challenging start in Nanaimo's harbor. Once the tubs hit open water, the chances of good times are imminent. First out of the harbor is tub 044 with pilot Brian Whiteley determined to be the first tubber to take the task three times.
00:54:03
Speaker
Other contenders are Steve Fagan, Craig Bunch and Greg Norman. Whiteley's escort boat and tub hit off some big waves by heading on a northerly Bering to the mainland.
00:54:16
Speaker
Steve Pagan in tub 747 chooses to navigate the straight on a more southerly route. Meanwhile, back in Nanaimo's harbor, local favorite Lenny Thompson was seriously injured when approaching the start. His tub collided with tub 024 and pilot Tom Mackey of Vancouver.
00:54:31
Speaker
Thompson's leg was caught by a whirling prop and jam between prop and motor shaft, sustaining serious lacerations to his leg and foot. Rescue boats were on the scene within minutes, and soon Thompson was transported to Nanaimo Hospital and later transferred to Vancouver General for microsurgery.
00:54:48
Speaker
This marks the first serious injury in the history of the Great Race. Isn't that an insane injury? I mean, makeshift boat. like she's Again, these are boats made out of fucking fiberglass that are just... Okay, that's all boats these days, first and foremost. sure That's true, but these are also like ma like held together with hope and prayers.
00:55:12
Speaker
so Okay, that's all boats these days, to be real. A boat is a hole in an ocean you pour money into. In 1971, four years after the centennial, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited Nanaimo and bore witness to the race.
Royal Visit & Race Evolution
00:55:30
Speaker
That year, they had the Queens played up for grabs and 22 racers raced around Nanaimo Harbor. i i I am in favor of this. I think we need to torment royalty more with bizarre small town traditions. We need to start making them up. like Can we get like get like a fucking cheese chasing thing in some... like in like A Canadian won it last year. let's get cheese chasing in Nelson. It has a geography for it. Next time there's a royal visit, we'll fucking didnt make them go up to Nelson to just watch people chase some cheese.
00:56:07
Speaker
Nelson would do this that's up at Nelson's alley Nelson is that sort of crazy town um yeah Nelson's a little too hippie Nelson has two like nelson house two kinds of people hippies and welders the thing that I want to ask is have you seen the statue of Frank Ney that's in Anaimo yes I have okay so the statue of queen elizabeth that stands outside of parliament in ottawa was sculpted by jack harvin the same man who sculpted that statue oh that's funny i also will confess i have seen that statue i did not connect that to frank damn like okay weird fucking pirate guy just that isn't i just moved on with my life not knowing that weird fucking pirate guy was actually how you describe frank he dressed like a fucking pirate all the time like that was the whole thing i like
00:56:52
Speaker
knew that but i didn't like internalize it the the other kicker about this let's put this into context jen sorry jack harman died in like 1981 or 82 when he was 42 years old he sculpted both those statues yeah which tells you that frank may was alive when that statue was unveiled that same year john wayne was also made honorary governor of the society that hosts the race and of course there's a lot of weirdness about this event have any fucking connection to it like he must have just found out about it thought it was insane and was like yeah i'm gonna yeah i'm going to go and visit i can't do a john wade impression but yeah he went and visited nanaimo and beat was made an honorary governor so in 1973 frank nay almost killed himself during the event you have any guesses on how
00:57:44
Speaker
Uh, you said you have to, you have to push it. You have to pull it out of the water, right? Oh, no. Frank Day wasn't racing. Oh.
00:57:55
Speaker
So he was on his yacht and apparently his starter pistol like in unintentionally went off.
00:58:04
Speaker
Okay. To be fair, those blanks probably wouldn't be fatal, but they'd really fuck you up. Yeah, I wouldn't want to find out personally. I have a healthy fear of firearms, regardless of what ammunition they have.
00:58:17
Speaker
In 1975, a riot broke out.
00:58:21
Speaker
um Some property was damaged, including a including a liquor store that was pelted with rocks. This ended up resulting in like a lot of liquor regulations in the province being changed.
00:58:33
Speaker
Yeah, there was a similar event in Kelowna that killed the regatta. Sometime in the 1980s, I wasn't able to get full details on this. like Some of the information is a little scarce to get hold of, and I wasn't feeling like digging up ah books for this one.
00:58:46
Speaker
There was supposedly a race where 58 people started, and the results ended up being seven failed to exit Nanaimo Harbor, 28 outright sunk not far from Nanaimo, and 18 never reached the shores of Vancouver. So basically five people completed the whole fucking race.
00:59:04
Speaker
Yeah, because, okay, like... The journey between Departure Bay and Vancouver, like either Horseshoe Bay or or fucking Kids Beach, which is where they're going, which is further and way worse.
00:59:22
Speaker
This is a sea route that purpose-built ships, like large vessels, often fail to traverse. Like, these are not good waters, right?
00:59:34
Speaker
The funny thing is shipwrecks are uncommon in this part of the country. There's only a handful. Well, yeah, because we map the ever-loving bejesus out of it. And the reason we cancel sailings is we don't want to put you out on the water when you might shipwreck.
00:59:47
Speaker
Like the Queen of the North, I think, was ah north of Vancouver Island at that point. um I was just trying to think of like any shipwrecks that were common. And like and also had a litany of other problems leading up to it. yeah with The Queen of the North is a topic that would be fun to do as a bonus episode, but also um upsetting.
01:00:05
Speaker
um But the only shipwrecks I was able to find details on in the Strait of Georgia and all that ah largely happened around um the Sunshine Coast.
01:00:17
Speaker
And that's it. There was some one that was off the coast of Bowen Island. And the last shipwreck I was able to find was an intentional one where they made a barrier reef in House Outland. oh yeah we do that yeah apparently relate but yeah but that's the only one that's documented like the sea the the seas can get really bad in the strait oh yeah i've been on a bad ferry and yeah like you're you're on a large like a large ferry that's able to kind of weather these things and it's still deeply uncomfortable Yeah, I've been seasick on a BC ferry because it left as the storm was rolling in and I was on the last boat from Schwartz Bay to Sawasin.
01:00:56
Speaker
So yeah, going to back to that whole do not finish. so Even last year in 2024, there was ah the race was largely in and around Nanaimo Harbor and only a third of the bathtubs that raced out of 41 completed.
01:01:11
Speaker
completed Yeah, like that's not even leaving Departure Bay. Yeah, like that this is how... Last year was just shit for conditions, apparently. Yeah, and like what kind of struck me about it is how long it took them to just be like, all right, we're not going to we're not goingnna cross the Salish Sea.
01:01:27
Speaker
like that's Well, that's the thing. They don't anymore. So um sometime around the 1990s, when the Vancouver Marine Festival ceased to be, And the organization itself dissolved in the early 2000s due to bankruptcy. They stopped actually sending the boats across um across the water.
01:01:46
Speaker
um So now they just do a course that's in and around Nanaimo, which fair enough. It probably is a logistics nightmare. And there's also no event to receive it on the other end. Yeah. And they also probably didn't have like a good place to to have the boats land and more and stuff like that.
01:02:03
Speaker
The other thing is, is like the Salish Sea, Wanda Fuca, Vancouver Harbor, English Bay, they've all gotten much busier since then. Like overseas shipping is a lot more intense now, like the Port of Vancouver.
01:02:17
Speaker
you know, they have so numerous operations in and around Metro Vancouver. You have the one that's in Vancouver Harbor, the one that's in Surrey, the one that's off Point Roberts. Yeah. The or not Point, but yeah, the Roberts Bank, whatever the hell they call it.
01:02:31
Speaker
Those are all like super busy in contrast is when 1967 when they all started off and even in the 1980s, it's busier than that. Yeah, I get it because most of mainland British Columbia is a post-war invention.
01:02:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And that's and that and that and it's it's a different environment now as a result, right? Yeah. So. But like, so even if you wanted to do the sensible crossing of like going north of Horseshoe Bay, like that weird little area before you go to Port-A-Cove and things become nice again and harass a bunch of rich people with your bathtubs, like even that crossing across the Salish Sea is...
01:03:08
Speaker
sketchy on a good day. Yeah. So like I do know for a fact that I did get to go to the Marine Festival at least once. um My mom wasn't able to tell me if it was with you know my parents, with her and all them, or my grandparents, but I do know that I have been born witness uh or bore witness glory of the bathtub race but like again like around 1995 96 was the last of the bathtub races across the water and then um the like sea fest was like the thing that happened afterward but they didn't do anything with it and then the organization that ran it just went bankrupt and they like owed hundreds of thousands dollars hundreds of thousands of dollars so it turns out like boating sports are really fucking expensive
01:03:51
Speaker
Owning a boat is a bad idea. I've learned from friends. Don't own a boat. I'd rather have friends own a boat. And I don't like being on a boat. so Hey, did you know that boat is actually an acronym? What does boat stand for, Tam? stands for bust out another thousand.
01:04:04
Speaker
Yeah, sounds about right. Is that also about what it means for your car? ah No. cars I'm sorry, that was mean. This is on more of a scale of hundreds. like So it did make its return to Vancouver in 2018 with a small race in and around Kitsilano Beach. This was for Kits Fest Kitsilano Fest.
01:04:25
Speaker
This largely stayed near Kits Beach. Yeah, illegal doing this in English Bay. Totally sensible idea. Yeah, it's fairly sheltered again for the Salish Sea. The Salish Sea actually really kind of sucks for this.
01:04:40
Speaker
There's a reason there's a lot of water sport in False Creek and even that gets kind of nightmarish sometimes. who but i don't think it's happened kayak i've ever had so and i don't believe it's happened since 2018 the i believe for a couple of reasons covet probably and also i just don't see any details on the um baptist society's website they have they do have details about which boats one they actually only give the numbers not the people um
01:05:11
Speaker
So that was the last time it ever made, you saw like these bathtub races in and around Vancouver. But bathtub races have been done in places as far as New Zealand.
01:05:24
Speaker
ah But the one in Nanaimo remains the largest one. I believe it's Auckland that has a bathtub race. I believe there's also Washington State has done it. And I seem to believe that somewhere in Germany has done it.
01:05:39
Speaker
What is Nanaimo's sister city's? I think one of them is like ah like ah somewhere like in northern Japan. Oh, it's Haiko in China. But yeah, that's that's the bathtub races, and that's Frank Ney.
Reflections on Nanaimo & Events
01:05:53
Speaker
I believe that you know we could have done like a much more extensive deep dive into Frank Ney and all that. But honestly, the clips that we played, in fact, the long long clip that we played of Frank Ney, gives you the whole picture of what Nanaimo had as a mare for you know like two decades, and the craziness that happens in Nanaimo in the summertime.
01:06:13
Speaker
ah Small town mayor, like the thing you have to understand about BC is that there basically are two cities and a bunch of small ass towns.
01:06:24
Speaker
And those two cities are Vancouver and Surrey. well you're You're excluding Victoria and Kelowna and Kamloops Victoria is 300,000 people Is like three small towns in a trench coat With a parliament in the middle of it That is what makes it nice to visit Oh I wouldn't want to live there, no Yeah, that's a great it's a great place to visit, but it's like, and particularly it's downtown, has a very, like, nobody lives here feel to it.
01:06:52
Speaker
That's true. And, like, that this is just the thing with capital cities. Like, a thing that young folk will often ponder is why... like capital cities of like a province or a country tend to not be the largest cities is because all that government infrastructure is like a bunch of like people who don't live there occupying a lot of space with exception is toronto well toronto is like 10 very large cities that got ah fucking stitched together in some we're repeating this conversation from the last fucking episode
01:07:30
Speaker
And it's still true. It's still true. Do you want me to also add that it might get a little bit smaller governmentally because ah apparently fucking Ford is just said that last episode governed from the provincial legislature. Yes, I did.
01:07:45
Speaker
Yes, I did. Your mic now.
01:07:49
Speaker
And it's still true. yeah yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. This is like a thing that comes up every now and then in Vancouver politics is like, well, we have the Council of Mayors. Have we ever considered amalgamation? I just want to stab anyone who says it yeah that's a whole different topic yeah i don't even want to talk about toronto's amalgamation it'd be an interesting topic but i think it'd be a frustrating one how could i make municipal politics the the only like really democratic politics that exists in this country even less democratic also fucking go sean or yeah sucks to suck abc
01:08:29
Speaker
So, Taryn, what did you learn today about bathtub racing, bathtubs, and Frank Ney? Nanaimo, I guess, for that matter. Redneck culture is alive and well in Nanaimo, which is good.
01:08:42
Speaker
Build Do know what they need to bring back? you know I was just thinking, you I completely ignored this for this episode, but ah they need to bring back ah the speedboat racing across Lake Okanagan.
01:08:54
Speaker
No! God, fuck no. I knew you would say this. God. You know what was the nicest that Kelowna and City Park has ever been? When that period of time when the new bridge was being constructed, where they just stopped letting boats through and everybody's fucking speedboat was basically like captive.
01:09:18
Speaker
Or they pulled them out of the water and moved them to Kalamalka Lake and made it Lake Country's problem, which sucks because Kalamalka Lake is also really beautiful. Not Shoeswap?
01:09:29
Speaker
Shoeswap's way too far. Kalamalka... Kelowna City Park was like entirely tolerable for a good few years in 2006, 2007 ways.
01:09:42
Speaker
like right Like you just didn't hear the roaring of fucking motorboat engines constantly with people getting drunk and or high. We probably didn't even have a fucking license from the yacht club because that's what the know that's what the rich assholes in Kelowna keep fucking doing. Well, the event that I'm glad that no longer exists in Vancouver is the fucking Indy.
Urban Development & Politics
01:10:04
Speaker
Yeah, that was a wild that it was a thing that was allowed to exist. Yeah, well, they talked about bringing um Formula E to Vancouver, which part of me was interested in watching, but also kind of glad it didn't happen.
01:10:16
Speaker
No group or nothing. the For those you don't know, so they used to have an Indy card circuit in Vancouver that had a really wild course. It actually went underneath BC Play Stadium.
01:10:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's you can actually drive over there a portion of the seats. Yeah, and it's a really cool section of Need for Speed as well. the And burnout Burnout has that track too.
01:10:39
Speaker
But it became rather unpopular because, well, the land was beginning slowly developed. And as a result, people were moving in and they were starting to dislike the noise that was being brought in every August, which fair enough. But like they also moved in the car race would happen once a year. So it's like, I get it. But you'll you in you couldn't really ignore the fact that this exists. Yeah. OK. But like the people who live near BC Place kind of.
01:11:07
Speaker
They grumble about it. Nobody lived near BC place at that time. It was all industrial land. And the Indy car happened before all of that. I mean, yeah, it preateated it predated any sort of residential going in. But like there there was some around Beattie Street and stuff like that at that time. Oh, yeah.
01:11:23
Speaker
but Not to the extent it is today. Like you couldn't get away with having the and the real thing. held crazy The real thing that killed it is the thing that drove much of like Vancouver's politics up until like the 2010s, which was it was an impediment to the flow of traffic.
01:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, fuck car culture. Yeah. I learned that Nanaimo's mare is crazy. And part of me is sad that he didn't live another 10 years. So at least part of my adult life, I would have experienced him.
01:11:55
Speaker
No, the sooner the Socrates croak, the better. The Socrates still... The best thing that happened to Billy Bennett was Alzheimer's. Yeah.
01:12:07
Speaker
Because then he could forget what a piece of shit he was. So our next episode is part two of the railway series. I hope you enjoy getting the whole country railed. I think it's going to fun little series. Coast to coast, but not to coast. Getting railed from coast to coast, but not the other coast. There's no... The closest they've ever gone on a railway up there is while they ran them into the Yukon, but like there's no railway that goes further north than Churchill right now. Well, yeah, right now, because we... we we In much the same way that we've forgotten how to build curbs.
01:12:37
Speaker
We can't build new rails, so they just die. tam do you have anything to say before we close this off? Pay attention to local politics as we slip deeper and deeper into fascism because yeah look local politics is where you can actually impact things.
01:12:53
Speaker
Organize if you're not organized. ah Join an org if you are not part of an org. I recommend looking up your local democratic socialists, your local industrial workers of the world. If you find that they're just not really doing anything, start your own org. You don't need anyone's permission.
01:13:10
Speaker
All right. And I don't have much else to add. So I'm going to say that that's a podcast. That is indeed one metric podcast. Goodbye, everybody. by
01:13:33
Speaker
Shawinigan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, Stolo, and Sewatuth First Nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.