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Sour grapes

On one level, Naramata’s disappearing fruit trees are a symptom of the community’s new-found prosperity, driven by the burgeoning wine industry and the large amounts of outside investment it has attracted in recent years.

When I was a kid in the late ’70s, locally made wine came in four-litre screw-top jugs, and there wasn’t a single cottage winery in Naramata. Now more than two dozen wineries dot the benchlands north of Penticton, most of them built in the last decade. more...

Winner: Natural resources/energy

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The ring cycles

You don’t have to look far in the Lower Mainland these days for evidence that the 2010 Olympics are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into B.C.’s economy. Take, for instance, the $315-million athletes village currently under construction along Southeast False Creek. Check out the $82.2-million Hillcrest curling centre, the catalyst for an Olympics-driven makeover of Nat Bailey Stadium Park.

Out at UBC, there’s a $48-million winter sports centre, where most of the 2010 Olympic ice hockey games will take place. more...

Clothes fit for the King

How much does an Elvis suit go for these days, anyway? more...

The King's seamstress

On the surface, Eleanor Von Boetticher’s basement workshop in Nanaimo looks no different than any other home-based tailoring operation in Canada. The 4½-by-nine-metre section of a half-finished rumpus room is dominated by a huge plywood cutting table scattered with pincushions, button trays, oversized scissors and other tools of the tailoring trade.

But a closer look reveals the 39-year-old stay-at-home mom is more than just your average suburban seamstress. more...