A grave undertaking

By James Rubec

I took a hike and found a project.

Halloween is coming and I need to find some ghosts. Graveyards are interesting places, the older the better. Yellowknife, NWT, only has two. On Oct.16, I checked out one of them.

A friend of mine and I hiked from the Yellowknife Cross Country Ski Club’s parking lot, over some Canadian shield into Back Bay’s Old Cemetery.

Yellowknife was first settled about 75 years ago. Sparsely populated by prospectors and bush pilots, many died young because of the work environment that is the North. Some who died were buried in a valley between what is now a highway, and Back Bay.  The terrain of the Northwest Territories is unforgiving, with little in the way of flat ground, and much in the way of cliffs, crags and mossy stone.

In the cemetery there are no more than 30 graves, tombstones or crosses, many of which are broken, or partially grown over. The sign identifying the space as a graveyard has been shattered and left in pieces rotting.

Many of the graves are marked by white crosses, the smallest, saddest crosses I’ve ever seen, some aren’t standing, others aren’t there at all. The tombstones are few, but ornate. A pair marked the graves of newborns that didn’t make it to eight weeks old, another had a defaced picture of a 25-year-old (Peter Gene Hendrick).

Peter’s grave has an etching on its top right-hand corner, and down its side. It almost seems like the etching was done at some point after the epitaph.

Graveyards are full of stories waiting to be unearthed… who were these people? How did they die? What were their lives like? The graveyard was small, unkempt and forgotten.  The most recent addition was a bridge that crossed over a small stream.

The bridge wobbled. Winter is tough in Yellowknife, and this was not considered in the bridge’s design. Evidence of previous bridges was rotting and broken under and beside the current bridge, a graveyard of shoddy planning.

One of the graves was marked for a man from Grand Prairie, Alberta. Clayton Merrit McAusland, born June 30, 1911. He died in Yellowknife, on October 4, 1939. I’m going to call Grand Prairie and try to figure out who this guy was.

View the full gallery of images here.

Muscle loss, lies and lunacy

Guest writer: Lauren Shorser. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

Lies, lies, lies, it’s all lies. The Internet is full of myths and misinformation about fitness and nutrition. One of the most pervasive fitness myths is that aerobic or cardiovascular exercise, like jogging, can cause muscle loss. This is nonsense, for the vast majority of athletes of all levels.

But like any good story, this claim has a kernel of truth to it. Three factors have contributed to this preposterous fallacy.

1. Aerobic workouts send a different message to our muscles than resistance workouts do. Aerobic workouts try to tell your muscles that what we really need is endurance. We need the muscles to be able to work for a long time. Resistance workouts focus on getting our muscles to work as hard as they can, for a short amount of time.  Doing both can confuse our bodies, slowing out muscle growth, but this is a far cry from causing actual muscle loss.

2. After a long run, swim or any aerobic exercise, our bodies can be stressed. We feel tired, and some people believe that this exhaustion means we’ve taken something out of our bodies. Really, it’s nothing more than sugars and water. When our bodies are stressed, we produce a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is released into our bloodstream, and helps make sure we have enough sugar in our blood to ensure we can perform activities that we’re asking our bodies to do.  In extreme situations, cortisol calls on the proteins in our muscles to become sugar.  But unless you plan on running an ultra-marathon in Dubai, or competing on Survivor, this isn’t something you should concern yourself with.

3. The last contributing factor to this myth is that, for the ill-prepared, it’s true. If you’re asking bodies to perform at a high level, and you aren’t eating or drinking, your body will cannibalize your muscles. This process is called muscle catabolism. Trick to avoiding it: eat food, drink water, keep your glucose levels up. This isn’t rocket science, it’s shop class. Your body is an engine, it needs oil and fuel. If it isn’t fueled properly it starts to wear down.

So, what’s the moral of the story?

The first one is that aerobic exercise does not cause muscle loss, and should not be avoided for fear of wasting away.  The second lesson is that if you want to be healthy, you need to do more than just work out – proper nutrition is critical, both for general health but also to ensure that your exercises have the desired effect on your body and fitness levels.

Futurama (6X15): Benderama – Review

Guest writer: Aquib Azim. Connect with him on Twitter.

Facing a long cancellation, airing four movies in an attempt to revive the series, changing networks, and now coming back from nearly a year-long break, Futurama and its sixth season has been a very interesting one for them.

The episode starts off with Professor Farnsworth introducing, like always, a unique and utterly useless device to aid him. The device looks like one of those old lamp projectors you would have at school. It allows you to insert any item and have it return that same item but 60 per cent smaller. However, this can only be accomplished if you input any sort of matter as a trade-off.

Bender, the king of laziness, takes advantage of this item and duplicates two miniature sizes of him in order to avoid folding sweaters. If you thought one Bender was obnoxious, irresponsible, and rude, imagine how three of them would be to the Planet Express team. After many antics, the mini-Benders start becoming lazy and create mini duplicates of themselves. Thus begins a very menacing cycle. Within days, there are several Benders swarming around the PE headquarters. Their duplications start getting smaller to the point where one can fit through a mouse hole. Professor Farnsworth realizes that at this growth rate, the Benders shall consume all of the matter in the world. They realize that they have to find all the Benders (except the actual one) and destroy them before this happens.

Aside from the main plot, the side story for the episode was about a delivery made to a very huge and ugly alien. The alien shows great patience and understanding whenever he is ridiculed, something the Benders take advantage of, but can create disaster once he reaches his boiling point.

Apart from a few good moments, there were flaws that really threw off the episode. Firstly, the pacing was off. It would jump from one conflict and then avoid it until nearly the end of the episode. However, it did allow the episode to be entertaining and unpredictable. One of the show’s great qualities is its ability to add cultural references into its futuristic setting. But other than a Twilight Zone parody, they really didn’t try this episode. There were a few nods here and there, but they were all dry or weak in humour. Also, the message was unclear at the end. I’m not sure if it was a social commentary or just one of those filler episodes because it did not contain any character development or story-line movement. The ugly alien was an amusing character, but it would have been better if he was more reflected upon by the main characters at the end.

When it came to creativity, some instances were not executed very well. In one scene, they destroyed a Bender by tying him up as a piñata and getting smashed by the real Bender, dropping metallic scraps instead of candy. Then they took its scraps, placed them in a bag, heated them up in a microwave, and made popcorn. Isn’t this a bit sick? They are eating pieces of Bender. Is he 30 per cent kernel? It is as if they ruined continuity just for an awkward joke.

This episode had its ups and downs. If it is just 30 minutes of entertainment that you are looking for, then this will surely do that. However, it doesn’t have anything else to offer. I am a bit surprised that they didn’t address Amy and Kip’s long-distance marriage or what happens to Cubert Farnsworth on a daily basis, or even Fry and Leila’s relationship.

______________________________

Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J. Fry, who, after being unwittingly cryogenically frozen for a thousand years, finds employment at Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery company in the retro-futuristic 31st century.

Krispy Kreme to have healthier options

By Anum Khan

Krispy Kreme, a company that is primarily based on warm, sugary, glazed doughnuts, has just announced that they will soon be offering nutritious options for health-conscious consumers.

CEO James Morgan has been trying to figure out ways to increase sales and boost business since taking over this position in 2008. He believes that creating a healthier alternative for those who don’t or can’t eat sugar can turn to items such as yogurt, oatmeal, and fruit juice instead.

At the same time, Krispy Kreme is currently testing doughnut milkshakes in a few stores in the U.S., with flavours such as Original Glazed, Chocolate Cake and Raspberry Filled, to choose from.

Does any of this make sense to you?

Frankly, I’ve never been a fan of Krispy Kreme and wouldn’t touch it’s disgusting, over-glazed, sugarfilled doughnut if someone paid me to, but this is a very sad attempt on Morgan’s part to try and bring in more customers.

If a company is known to produce quality doughnuts and pastries for more than 100 years, then that is what it should stick to. Even with this change of menu, customers still won’t see Krispy Kreme as a healthy breakfast destination and will continue on with their regular routine.

At the same time, while this doughnut factory is making an effort to push and persuade consumers into looking at their nutritious options, Krispy Kreme is advertising fatty-filled milkshakes, too?

Well, I am one confused consumer.