Liquid gold

Chuck Childress likes to tell people his Texada Island home is protected by three moats: Howe Sound, Jervis Inlet and Malaspina Strait – the three bodies of water that need to be crossed to get there from Vancouver. Like many of the 1,100 residents who call the biggest Gulf Island home, he enjoys the isolation of life on an island that’s a ferry ride away from Powell River and has only a couple of restaurants, a gas station and little else. more...

Treasure island

Its security system is what also makes it a refuge for U.S. draft dodgers, pot growers and escapists: isolation. It is here, in this unlikely location, that Tolling Jennings and Ray Lipovsky are literally minting money.

“What we originally wanted to do was get precious metals into the hands of people in the Gulf Islands to support the economy and to get precious metals back into the currency,” Jennings explains. more...