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Rockin Rhonda & The Blues Band: Here comes Peter. Here comes Dave. Oh listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave. So much laughs and insights everywhere. Peter and Dave, they're on the mics. Alright, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.

Peter McCully: It's time for the big show. There's the house band warming up the audience. And here we go with another look at the people and their stories from mid Vancouver Island. This ladies and gentlemen is the Pulse Community Podcast. Here comes your co host, a man who says he doesn't believe in astrology because he says he's a Virgo and Virgos are too logically minded for such things.

Dave Graham: It's Dave Graham. Oh yeah. Shout out to the Virgos. We're the best. Well, certainly in the top 12, welcome to the program and to my co host, he's a man who always wanted to be somebody, but now he realizes he should have been more specific. It's Peter McCully.

Peter McCully: One of the more popular true crime podcasts in Canada is hosted and produced by Laura Palmer in Port Alberni. The podcast has covered the disappearances of Michael Dunahee and Amber Manthorne and the Whiskey Creek murders, to name a few. We had a chance to chat with Laura as she releases Season 7 of Island Crime. 

Laura Palmer: There is some frustration and A kind of unresolved grief, I would say, for the families who are dealing with these things. And so in terms of patterns, that's what I'm really seeing. You know, the impact of all of these cases that aren't solved or missing persons who haven't been found, the impact on the families and the friends. I think I would have thought before doing this that this was a really uncommon. Experience that people who were in these circumstances. It was so rare, but it's actually not. The more I report on these things, the more I realized that.

Dave Graham: You don't have to be a coffee snob to appreciate what's coming out of the award winning French press cafe in Parksville and Qualicum Beach. Jeremy Perkins talks all things coffee. 

Jeremy Perkins: It's interesting to enter competitions, but the biggest interest for me is it's almost getting somebody to check my homework. So I've got industry pros from all over the world blind tasting coffee and if they see your coffee's pretty decent then you feel as though you're on the right track and you're doing a good job. Essentially that's why we do competitions. 

Dave Graham: Jeremy Perkins. I marvel at the depth of specialist knowledge that people can acquire, and Jeremy knows a thing or two about coffee. Honestly, sitting down with him, sipping away at a couple specialty brews, well, it was like a Shangri La moment. Passing through an archway into a secret paradise, discovering a whole new world. Okay, well, maybe I'm Overstating my case a bit. Allow me to rephrase. Coffee good. Me like. Thanks, Jeremy. 

Peter McCully: Just give it to me hot and decaffeinated and I'm good to go.

Dave Graham: Hey, we put another pin on the map to indicate the last place we hid the tickle drugs. This is the virtual contest with clues to our hiding spots. Prizes being $25 smile cards from Thrifty Foods. 

Peter McCully: The clue last time was that this is a research and education facility operated by Vancouver Island University in Lighthouse Country. It's a place of aquaculture research and marine science education. This is where you can interact with sea stars and sea cucumbers. The answer was the Deep Bay Marine Field Station. The public's invited to drop in to check out the facility. They'll be open from the May long weekend until the Labor Day weekend.

Dave Graham: Congratulations to Els Schutte for being the randomly chosen winner for knowing the answer, the correct answer that is, to the drunk's location. I emphasize randomly. I'm not associated in any way with the process of drawing winner's names. Actually, that's Marilyn's job. But I am familiar with Else and her husband Michael from my radio days. They are artists and they operate the Academy of Music and Art in Colicum Beach. They teach visual art and scrapbooking, also music, drums, keyboards, guitar, everything you need to be a one person band. 

Peter McCully: Here's the next clue for the Tickle Trunk contest. By chance, this one also has a connection with Vancouver Island University, although at the time the location was known as Malaspina University College. This is the location of the Tickle Trunk, the former campus of VIU. This place was also the site of Pass Woodwinds Alternate School. It now serves as a hub to many community interests. There's church services there, puppies get trained there, ProBus and Weight Watchers meet there, or here. If you can tell us what this place is, you might have your name picked for our next winner thanks to Thrifty Foods. Send your entries with your name and please add the community in which you live to contest at thepulsecommunity. ca. 

Ian Lindsay * Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX, Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network since 1996. Marketing and selling residential, rural, strata, recreational, investment and project development real estate. Ian has received several awards recognizing his exceptional community commitment locally. As well as awards for outstanding performance and achievement from both RE/MAX International and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. You'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay. ca. 

Dave Graham: Pulse Community Podcast is made possible by our sponsors and we thank them for their support. We have room for more. Keep the Pulse going strong by sponsoring our stories from Mid Vancouver Island. Feel free to reach out anytime through our links.

That includes email. Try this one, heater at thepulsecommunity. ca. I see you mentioned just my email address there, Dave. Peter, Peter, Peter. You ought to know by now that I hardly ever check my email. Come to think of it, I also rarely answer my phone. Maybe that's why I have no social life. But I did get out to speak to some folks lately, and the resulting conversations will be featured on future episodes of the Pulse Community Podcast, including the President.

Peter McCully: Which president are we talking about? Not the one that, not the one that's on the news every day. 

Dave Graham: No comment. The president of the Parksville Beach Festival Society, Cheryl Dill. She's so much easier to get along with. She'll be on to talk about the festival and the new site for the sand sculpting event coming back this summer. Plus, fellow Beach Fest board member and entertainment director, Lloyd Derry, is going to join us to preview upcoming events at the magnificent outdoor stage, including A headline show by one of Canada's preeminent legacy rock bands, Chilliwack. Peter, you got to talk with the group's leader, Bill Henderson.

Peter McCully: Right, you are. We're tight. He lets me call him Mr. Henderson. And we clear up the do's and don'ts when it comes to the pop up recycling events in Parksville this year. Dwayne Round will be on the podcast to talk about some of the ways we can work together. To divert materials from entering landfills or the environment. Spoiler alert, you no longer have to worry about separating plastic packaging. You know, the crinkly one versus the other kind. They take them all at once now, plus styrofoam and glass and cardboard details coming on the Pulse podcast soon. Right now we have our first guest ready to be introduced. 

Marilyn: Waiting in the green room is Jeremy Perkins of the award winning French Press Coffee Roasters that now has two locations, Qualicum and Parksville. Jeremy moved to Qualicum Beach in 2017, emigrating from Yorkshire in the United Kingdom. 

Dave Graham: There was a career before coffee. Tell me about it. 

Jeremy Perkins: Yeah, well, years ago when I first went to university, I studied music. Academic music as well, and the viola. And I left Huddersfield, which is where I was from, and went to London, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music. I'd studied there for years. Studied at various other places, including the Brussels Conservatoire. Then I moved back to London, and had a career as a viola player. Mainly chamber music, but orchestral stuff, and pop sessions occasionally to pay the bills, and wedding gigs occasionally to pay the bills. But generally, largely, I was a musician. I played on a few of the West End shows, like Phantom of the Opera, and so on. Originally, that was my first career. 

Dave Graham: You left because of Brexit. Got here in 2017. How and why here? 

Jeremy Perkins: My mother in law lives on Denman Island. And my wife wanted to be closer to her mum. We wanted to be closer to her mum. So we moved, we were looking for somewhere here, and the Brexit vote, we were actually at a 70th birthday party on Denman Island, the night that the Brexit vote was cast. And because we are eight hours behind the UK, I could see the results coming in live. And we were sat around a table, and 20 people around this table, ex pat Brits, ex pat US citizens, Canadians, bona fide Canadian citizens, and I said, I think We're going to vote to leave Europe. And it was dismissed at the table.

They won't be so stupid as to do that. And of course then I said, You wait, they'll vote Donald Trump in next. And we all laughed. So a year later we decided that night the Brexit vote was cast and at that night I said to my wife, let's bring our travel plans to go to Canada forward. Three years. We had a house in the UK, we had a small house in France. It's amazing what you can buy for 40, 000 Euros in Europe in 2015. In a business, the coffee roasters and coffee shops in the uk and we sold it all arrived to take over what was French Press Cafe in Qualcom Beach on the 1st of September, 2017. 

Dave Graham: We're doing this at your roastery. Yes. And I'm wondering if you could chat a little bit about the, the process. Have you gone to visit where the beans are grown? Do you know the growers? What are the arrangements? 

Jeremy Perkins: In some cases, yes. Origins wise, I've been to Ethiopia, Guatemala. I went to Honduras last year. We went on a TRO with a group of roasters from Canada to represent, to find strength and trade ties between Honduras and here.

So I've been to a few places. Getting to know farmers, often when you meet these people, they are often representing a group of 50, 60, 150 farmers in a particular area. So you do meet representatives, and I have met coffee farmers, regularly. Is it as clear as we'd like it to be? Is it as simple as we would like it to be to buy coffee?

No, it isn't. There's often intermediaries. Whether you've got huge companies like Sucafina, doing the legwork of getting coffee from Honduras or Brazil or wherever, to bring it into Canada for you, warehousing it for you, and you're taking coffee from it. Or using people, like we use a company in the US, he's Ethiopian.

He's a second generation coffee farmer, so we get all our Ethiopians through him, which is a great system. He's got a place in Addis Ababa, he's got a place here, he's got a cupping lab in both places, a tasting lab in both places, so yes, we try our best. It is very difficult to do. To really represent and often it's the farmers that have Greater finances are in a position to meet the coffee roasters from the US from Canada from Europe We try our best we try to visit and when we visit You feel in a difficult position because you feel like some financial hope has arrived in Honduras and quite frankly It's the big guys the likes of Nestle that could really make a dent It was interesting, I went to Guatemala a few years ago, and a lady came up to me and said, Can I speak to you for a moment?

And I said, Yes, yeah, absolutely. And she was a farmer from Nicaragua. And she said, Isn't it interesting, anytime we get coffee roasters from the US, from Canada, coming to visit our farm, they take lots of photos of coffee plants and coffee trees, and the processing. And lots of pictures of the surrounding and the mountains.

But they don't often ask, Where do your workers live? How much are they paid? Do the children go to school? Is there any health care for them? But, that brought it home to me. I thought, whenever I go to a coffee farm, I need to be finding out what is being paid. Is there schooling? Because if there isn't schooling for the children, people are picking coffee in the midday sun.

That child is stuck with his father or mother. Stuck in the sun. It's a fairly terrible life. So these questions do need to be asked. And the answers to it are not simple. Our coffee from Ethiopia, the guy that gets our coffee pays a premium above fair trade. Now coffee is at an all time high at the moment.

But we pay a premium above fair trade. And the same for our other coffees. And when we're buying higher quality coffees, especially these anaerobics and so on, we're paying lots of money for these by comparison. We are paying a premium, but at the lower end of the scale, entry level, Arabica's the entry level into specialty grade coffee.

It's those, I think, where it's become not worth growing coffee. Somebody asked me just the other day, sent me an email and said, what's your policy about sourcing coffee? I felt like saying the short answer to make you feel better is, It's great, we pay the farmers lots of money. The longer answer is, it's very complicated.

If we wanted to pay $20 for a drip coffee in Canada, then everybody could be paid the same as we're paid in Canada. People are not prepared to pay that. It's not a luxury item, it's a commodity. And people don't want to pay it. And you've got to be okay to accept the fact that your children in Canada have better school and better health care than poorer people in other countries that pick your coffee because you don't want to pay more for a cup of coffee. And that is the truth. 

Dave Graham: You tell me that the competitions are reaching a level of exceptional quality. You recently won a gold medal at the golden bean competition. What do you attribute to that level of success?

Jeremy Perkins: In any competition, there's an element of luck. You've got to have a high quality coffee. You've got to have a fair judge. You've got to have somebody who's judging and knows what they're doing. We meticulously test everything, taste everything. We dance around the machine, fiddling with all sorts of knobs, getting airflow and drum speed and everything.

Do we get enough acidity? Do we get too much acidity? Is there enough development in the bean? Is there too much development in the bean? So it's a real mix of things. We're doing Golden Bean again, which is going to be a World Series in Guatemala next month. And that will be all these silver and gold medal winners from Australasia and the Americas will be meeting for this competition.

It's interesting to enter competitions, but the biggest interest for me is, it's almost getting somebody to check my homework. So I've got industry pros from all over the world, blind tasting coffee. And if they say your coffee's pretty decent, then you feel as though you're on the right track and you're doing a good job.

Essentially, that's why we do competitions and it's the same with anything else with a barista competition now some of it may seem farcical when You've got people bringing centrifuges onto stage and using dry ice. It is, but, it's like anything else. Unlike trickle down economics, which clearly doesn't work, trickle down World Barista Championships do, insomuch that we are seeing people push the envelope and getting better at the things that they are doing.

And it is affecting the high street, albeit slowly, but affecting coffee on the high street. 

Dave Graham: I have to admit, I've long been a coffee drinker, I consider myself something of a fan, and I have the machines at home, and dabble, and grind my beans, and all of that. But I got here, and you served me a couple of different cups of some of your higher end stuff, and I realized, I know nothing. How much does the role of education, educating people play for you in the business? 

Jeremy Perkins: Massive. One of the biggest things we have. to contend with is traditionally everywhere in Italy. A darker roast of coffee has been prevalent. That's what I refer to as the West Coast trend here is super dark coffee.

It's possibly not by accident that the double is king. I've nothing against the double. It's a fantastic drink. And I'm nothing against Tim Hortons and McDonald's. And I'll, quite frankly, a lot of the time I would take a coffee from Tim Hortons or McDonald's over one from Starbucks. Absolute fact. You put two sugars and two cream in anything, it makes anything that wasn't as tasty before slightly tasty.

And the other idea is that we try and roast our coffee less so that you can taste the origin of each coffee. Today, these are extreme examples, but I could put in front of you a medium roasted Sumatra, and probably an Ethiopian natural, lighter roasted, and most people would be able to tell. that the earthy, maybe spicy, chocolatey notes that you're getting from the Sumatra are different from the gentle acidity, stone fruit, maybe floral notes that you might get from an Ethiopian coffee.

Now if I'd roasted those so that they were dark and shiny, there is a market for that. I just don't do it. There are people doing it in this area very well. Creekmores have been doing it for years. We just offer something different. There's no value judgments here. There is a difference between the two coffees and we go to a stage where we're buying Anaerobic coffees where they're being deprived of oxygen so they can control this fermentation process more and then beyond even that There's also the anaerobic process where they've added fruit fermentation We've just tasted earlier on a coffee that has had dehydrated berries added to the anaerobic fermentation process And the idea that the farmer's having here is obviously affecting his bottom line.

He can charge quite a bit more per pound than he was charging before. But his object is to enhance the inherent flute flavours that he's already got in the coffee. And it works. It's fantastic. And when you're drinking coffees like this, they almost become tea like. You don't want to put any sugar in them.

Now, the trouble that you have is with roasting lighter coffee. You have acidity in coffee. Acidity is quite often good in lots of foods because it brings out flavor. When you're having your pickles and you're having vinegars, they enhance all sorts of flavors and acidity is good. The trouble is if you're not used to acidity And coffee's been roasted so there is no acidity, or very little acidity.

You quite often get a remark that might say, I think your cream is, is off. Yes, we've heard this before, that's okay. No, it's the acidity in the coffee. We then ask, would you like a slightly darker roast? And the acidity is muted in the darker, it's a darker medium but it's still darker, is muted and it's more approachable to that coffee.

And then they realise that it wasn't the milk that was off, it was the coffee. If you're not used to it, even in the UK, people took months sometimes for people to get used to it. Now, when they taste that coffee, they don't want to go back to anything that they've drunk before, but it is a different approach.

Now, it's an approach that is used in specialty coffee now, and that is essentially prevalent. If anybody that is roasting in major competitions and so on, it's all a lighter roasted coffee. Sometimes that doesn't work and the benefit of roasting coffee darker is that it punches through milk and cream and it's not by accident that the largest selling beverage that we have and probably every coffee shop on Vancouver Island has is a latte.

If you have something that's super light and super fruity, it doesn't always get through. So we've got to be cognizant of that and when we're roasting coffee we need something that is more developed, which is why a darker roasted coffee is going to be better in 16 ounces of milk. Which is why Starbucks have built their trade on doing exactly that.

Two shots of coffee in 16, 24 ounces of milk. You're going to need that coffee to be able to get through there. And if it's super light roasted and fruity, it gets lost in all that milk. So, you've got to know your market and roast accordingly. 

Dave Graham: Did I read that you've taught university students about specialty coffees?

Jeremy Perkins: Yeah, occasionally we got asked. I think because when I was doing my PhD, one of the things I had to do, so I didn't have to pay any fees. Worse to teach in university anyway. So marking undergraduates work and lecturing a little bit in music. But because I got coffee shops, occasionally I got to go and talk to students or to staff.

They had staff days sometimes where they thought it was fun to get any staff, not necessarily academic, kitchen staff, library staff, anybody and they'd choose whatever they wanted to do and one of the things might be an introduction to coffee tasting. They'd often come along and I'd give a talk and we'd do a coffee tasting and we'd talk about extraction and so on and grinding and so on and so forth.

So yeah, quite often I got asked to do stuff in university in the UK. 

Dave Graham: Do you do a similar kind of approach here with groups of people, and teaching them what flavors and aromas to be on the lookout for, or whatever the case may be? 

Jeremy Perkins: Yeah, absolutely. We run something here a few times a year called Make Coffee Better at Home. And that is something where, selfishly, we want to do it because when we sell somebody some coffee, we don't want people to think this coffee's terrible at home. So essentially, we do exactly that. I liken it to baking. If you're making a cake, and you don't have any eggs at home, and you think, let me be okay without eggs, and I don't really have any baking powder or baking soda, so I'll miss that out as well.

I've only got half the sugar on. Your cake's gonna be terrible. So we say the same. Enjoy the process. Everything has become automatic these days. When you put a record on a turntable, you're listening to that record on purpose. And it's the same with brewing coffee. I say, measure your coffee. There's no way you measure your coffee and get your water at a certain temperature.

But certainly measuring and grinding the same. Once you understand what's going on, you think this coffee's too strong. So I'll either make my grind slightly coarser, use less coffee. I'm just making sure it's extracted properly. So we try and take people through. So we usually have people all crowded around the espresso machine and the grinder.

We've got a ten foot table here that we get people around and we do a coffee taste. Sometimes we'll have some of the staff doing AeroPress and explaining how that works. Or Filter, V60, Chemex, all these different methods. And answer any questions that people have. Last time we did one of these, I'd just come back from Honduras, so I talk about Honduran coffee.

This time we're going to do one. We're going to show a coffee cunningly titled, A Film About Coffee. So we're going to show that, which is going to show a little bit about coffee growing, and exporting, and so on and so forth. So yeah, we try and do it, and people often spend vast amounts of money on equipment at home, and I often say the most important thing is a coffee grinder.

If you've got a coffee grinder, you can literally grind the beans fresh and brew. That's going to be the best cup of, the freshest cup of coffee you're going to have in your house. And also when you're talking about fresh, coffee needs to be rested after it's roasted. Lots of people think we're gonna get it from the roastery.

He's roasted it this morning. It's still warm. That's great. It is great I have just roasted it, but you'd be better to leave that coffee for at least a week or ten days Because it needs to degas and it needs to rest. You'll find that coffee tastes better in ten days Than it did the minute after I'd roasted it.

Just simple fact So much to learn. Absolutely. How many different kinds of coffees do you serve here? At the moment, we've probably got 12. Some we just a smaller bags and we're doing it bring like the geisha we have is a super expensive coffee. It's always been an expensive variety. We don't sell a vast amount of it because it's expensive.

But we eat the cost and we just put it through as a guest espresso in the other cafe. Just so people have this experience. We've all become more interested in food. Where's it grown? Where's the farmer? Is it local to Vancouver Island? How is it processed? You know, if you think about the things we sleep along, we eat a fair amount.

So it's fairly important how we sleep and what we eat, where we eat it. I'm also grateful when people spend any money with us at all. We have very little power in this world. The power that we do have is where we spend them. Our dollars. Our hard earned dollars. I'm grateful when people decide to spend their money in our place.

I'm like, man, it's, it's not easy to cut my money and you decide to think that our coffee is good enough and our food and baking is good enough. I'm appreciative of anybody that spends their money with us. I think it's interesting and people are more interested in food and where it comes from these days.

Can you speak at all to the future of French press? We always try to get better than we are now. So we always examine how we're roasting coffee. Can we get more out of this coffee? Can we make it better than it is? I do believe that things can be better, things can always be better. So we always try and look to try and get things better than they were. I think it's my answer. To get a few more wholesale customers would be great. To open another cafe at some point would be great. 

Dave Graham: Jeremy, I want to thank you very much, not only for your time and the education, but for opening my eyes literally with a couple of cups of different kinds of coffee that you have here. Without speaking At all, hyperbolically, you have changed my world. Thank you. 

Jeremy Perkins: Thank you. 

Peter McCully: Dave, they tell me after all that coffee that you had, you were auditioning for a job as a barista. 

Dave Graham: Two words, my friend, staff discount. I'll tell you, Peter, though, it wasn't just the caffeine that opened my eyes during that conversation. I have new knowledge about and appreciation for the coffee bean. My thanks to Jeremy for the visit and the education. 

Peter McCully: And we want to thank Captain Canada for joining us during a recent opinion poll that we conducted in the rain. We certainly had lots of folks stop by to say hi, mostly to Captain Canada though. There were a few supporters of our friends south of the border and President Trump's policies, but overwhelmingly shoppers were supporting Canada with their wallets. 

Dave Graham: Really Peter, Captain Kennedy was a great way to just get people's attention when we were out there. I wish we could get him to come out with us every time. And I wish to add my thanks to Rudi and Trish Widdershoven for their support on that wet and windy day. So we extend the same question we did that day. What are you doing? If anything, to show your patriotism, are you spending maybe a little bit more time to source Canadian goods? Let us know. Bookmark thepulsecommunity.ca and you can add to the conversation. Plus, it makes it easier to keep with the latest podcast from Peter and Dave, as well as contests, municipal notices, and community events. 

Oceanside Cweed: Oceanside Cweed, that little pot shop, is Parksville's first licensed cannabis store. Since April 2022, Cweed is under new ownership. With a product expert at the helm, that includes two decades of retail mastery and seven years in the cannabis industry, Cweed is a legacy in the making, with cannabis products regulated by Health Canada. Community minded Cweed is a member of the Parksville Chamber of Commerce, the Parksville Downtown Business Association, and the Retail Cannabis Council of British Columbia. Those 19 plus can drop by the store at 154 Middleton Avenue next to Tablet Pharmacy. Open Monday to Friday, 9 a. m. to 8 p. m. Weekends and holidays, 9 a. m. to 7 p. m. Visit the online store at cweedoceanside. ca 

Peter McCully: Recently, we had a couple of mild earthquakes on the island, and that had a lot of people talking about what the experience was like for them.

And it's interesting to hear how varied the experiences were, from barely imperceptible, just a gentle motion, to a rocking that people were thinking of vehicles hitting their building. Also, some conversations ventured into talking about the Big One, but the experts are quick to point out that this little earthquake was in a location that makes it unrelated to any fault system that might be associated with a significant quake.

Dave Graham: We'll take this opportunity to remind you of Episode 8 of the Pulse Community Podcast, in which Peter talks with Taimi Mulder, an earthquake seismologist, and yes, they talk about the big one. I mean, there's no use in ignoring it. We're numerically overdue for a significant shake. You know, I've attended a preparedness course.

I've gone for a ride on the earthquake simulator and I have invested in emergency supplies. I still somehow feel underprepared. Maybe it's my inner Cub Scout talking, but at least I have something together. For those needing to start a kit, finding out more information is a web search away. But one of the best bits of advice I've heard is in order to get prepared, just start a list of the things you need and chip away at it as time and money allow, and then at least you'll have something.

Peter McCully: For many years, we had a go bag in the garage and a big bottle of water, so I think it's time we restocked it just in case. How do you prepare for the kind of scenario presented in the new season of the Island Crime Podcast, Season 7? Picture this. The man of the house makes some eggs in the morning, plays with his dog, And then walks out of the house and completely disappears. His wife is left living a mystery. Marilyn is here to introduce our next guest. 

Marilyn: Former CBC producer Laura Palmer of Port Alberni is the host of the podcast Island Crime, a true crime podcast for listeners who love in depth, victim focused storytelling. She has just launched her seventh season of the highly rated true crime series.

Peter McCully: Thanks for joining us on the podcast today, Laura. 

Laura Palmer: Oh, thank you for asking me. It's nice to talk to you again. 

Peter McCully: Your Island Crime podcast continues to gain popularity in the podcast world. Your listeners have pushed the podcast into the Apple Top 10 list in Canada on a pretty regular basis. That must be very satisfying.

Laura Palmer: It is. I am a little bit in awe of the possibility that a little podcast created in Port Alberni. Can go shoulder to shoulder with all the big networks with Wondery and the BBC and CBC. It's quite something, you know, because I worked at the CBC for 25 plus years. How much goes into the storytelling there?

You know, all of the research and the editors, the sound people and the communication people. There's just a lot that goes into making those shows a success and they are great. But it is still a little amazing to me that a show with basically no resources can find an audience given all of the resources that go into some of these big shows.

I have a small office, but when I record, I have a lovely little soundproof space that my husband actually built for me under the stairs. Which is a perfectly great use of the space, I figure. There are people in my family who joke about me being Harry Potter. 

Peter McCully: There's a picture on your website that shows your podcast being advertised on this huge billboard in Times Square in New York City. Tell us what you were thinking when you first found out about that. 

Laura Palmer: I was thinking I wish I'd gone to New York so I could have seen it in person because it's not the kind of thing that you ever expect to happen really and it's kind of amazing. I wish I had made that decision, but still Happily, there were people who took that picture of that amazing billboard and sent it my way. That happened because Amazon Music chose to highlight some Canadian podcasts around Canada Day week promotion they were doing. And so they happened to pick my podcast as one of the ones to highlight. So it was amazing. And again, it's just that kind of surreal feeling that a little. I keep calling it little. I shouldn't call it little because it really has an outsized impact. Because it's mostly me, almost entirely me, and independently done in my small space, I still think of it as kind of the, you know, the little guy up against the big guys. 

Peter McCully: Well, the show is very well produced, covers tons of detail on each and every story. What podcast specifically on crime stories? And how do you decide Which stories are you going to pursue? 

Laura Palmer: I've always had an interest in crime stories and mysteries. In my work as a journalist when I was in the mainstream media at the CBC, I was in the daily news and current affairs business. And that meant I never really had the opportunity, outside of a few kind of special projects here and there over my career, to really dig into any stories.

So when I moved to the island and decided to take early retirement from the CBC, I wanted to keep doing some form of journalism. I had a background in audio and had done some podcast work, so that seemed like a good fit for me. I had a friend of a friend. who had alerted me to Lisa Marie Young's disappearance many years ago.

So I was familiar with that case, although I would say now, five or six years on, I would say I really knew nothing. But, you know, I was aware of the case. So that was where I decided to start my first season. And I'll be honest, I really didn't know what I was doing in the sense that the back end of podcasting and doing all of that on my own.

It was a steep learning curve. I had to learn all of that. You know, I knew the journalism part, but I didn't know the podcasting part very well because at the CBC, although I've been in podcasting, there were lots of people to do the back end part for me. So that's kind of how it started and that was almost six years ago now.

Peter McCully: And as you mentioned, season one explored the disappearance of Lisa Marie Young, who was 21 years of age at that time. Perhaps you could bring us up to date briefly on some of the past seasons. 

Laura Palmer: Lisa Marie Young's case is my first case, my first season. One of the things I learned right away that for me, although I had planned to tell one story each season, and in that case planned for six episodes that first season, because there isn't yet an answer for Lisa's friends and family, the season isn't over for me.

So right now, as I said, almost six years on, I'm still working on that season. I'm actually planning three new episodes on Lisa's case because I keep learning new things and talking to different people and finding ways to kind of push things forward. Just that little bit where I can. So yeah, there are seven seasons out now, but all of those seasons are still in play for me.

You know, I'm still working on them, some more than others, and some of that just has to do with what information I can find. All seven seasons, I'm not working on them all at the same time, but every day, something new comes into my inbox, or I make a call that may push something forward. Seasons two through six all dig into missing persons and unsolved murder cases on the island.

I choose them in part in a few different ways. Quite often I have family or friends of the victims or the missing persons get in touch with me and say, Hey, can you help? Not because, you know, I'm not a private detective. They're not hiring me or anything, but because people feel a bit helpless, I would say, and frustrated at times with the investigations.

And really, they're just looking for anyone to listen and see what, if anything, they can do with the cases. So, that's. partly how I choose which case I'm going to take on. I also try and look at the case and see is there a likelihood that I can shed any light on this? You know, is there anything there for me to try and dig into?

And where possible, I look for some kind of social context or issue that I can explore a little bit as well. I'll give you an example. In season two, Gone Boys, which focuses on missing men on Vancouver Island, what I found was the men whose stories I told were all guys who were living on the margins in some way they were wrestling with addiction or homelessness or Tom.

brain injury. There was some criminality there as well. For those families, they really got the sense that because these guys weren't, I guess, what you would call perfect victims, that their stories had gone under reported and really felt like they didn't get a fair shake in terms of how their stories were told.

There were lots of issues that I could dig into around exploring those stories. Season three is about Michael Dennehy's abduction, a story which I think most people on the island, probably most people in Western Canada are familiar with. Michael is four years old when he vanishes from a playground not far from where his parents and his baby sister are.

I of course had known about that story forever since it happened, and I wondered, is there anything I can do to advance this story? Because it did get a lot of publicity. But in the end, what I found was almost all the stories I'd ever heard basically told the same pieces of information over and over and over again, without talking to the many, many people whose lives have been touched by this, including the many people who were there the day that it happened.

That season for me really taught me a lesson in Even though something has been widely reported, how there can still be a lot to uncover. And that's what I did in season three. I'm actually updating that season as well. I've got some new information on that story as well. Season four kind of landed on me unexpectedly, I would say.

For the most part, I focus on stories that are several years old, because I take six months to a year on each season. If a story is freshly in the news, I feel that's better to leave for my daily news colleagues, because it can change so quickly. So for the most part, I don't do breaking news in island crime.

But I came home one summer to the news that a woman had gone missing in Port Alberni here. And one of the friends of that missing woman, Amber Manthorne, contacted me and said, like, can you do anything? And I was just kind of overwhelmed by how deeply the community was impacted by Amber's case. So, just about a week after she went missing, I jumped into that.

That was season four. Season five was one where I was contacted by the mom of one of the victims at the Whiskey Creek shootout. Again, this was a story that was a horrific thing on our doorstep here. Three people murdered, four dogs, another man. shot and left for dead, like really a horrible, horrible circumstance and yet very little information out in the public.

So that's one that I focused on for season five and season six was one that I came upon because I was interviewing a retired detective for my research on Michael Dennehy's abduction. One of the things he said when I was talking to him was that at the time Michael is abducted in March of 1991, they were really busy.

Their resources were stretched thin because a number of young women, women who were working in the sex trade had been murdered, and I had never heard that before. So I kind of put that in my back pocket then and thought at some point I'm going to go back and look at who these young women were and try and tell their stories.

And so that was season six, Sweethearts, which brings us to the season that has rolled out early in this year, 2025, which is Evaporated, Ian Indredsen's Disappearance. Indredsen is one of those last names that doesn't actually come off the tongue easily. And it ends up being. Part of the story as well that I get into a little bit in the series.

Peter McCully: Have you noticed any patterns or unique challenges specific to investigating crimes in Vancouver Island communities? 

Laura Palmer: The cases I'm looking at are all unsolved or longer term missing person cases. And as you can imagine, when that happens, there is some frustration and a kind of unresolved grief I would say for the families who are dealing with these things.

And so in terms of patterns. That's what I'm really seeing, you know, the impact of all of these cases that aren't solved or missing persons who haven't been found, the impact on the families and the friends, I think I would have thought before doing this, that this was a really uncommon. experience that people who were in these circumstances, it was so rare, but it's actually not.

The more I report on these things, the more I realized that. I had an email yesterday from a woman who was writing to me because she'd heard Ian Indredsen's story, but she was also writing to say, Her grandmother had gone missing and she remembered as a child, you know, holding her mom's hand and walking around the streets in Vancouver, handing out posters, you know, just trying to do anything they could to find her grandmother.

Then learning years later that her grandmother had actually just picked up and started a new life and was living under a different name in Montreal and. What the impact of that kind of thing is on that family is just a story told over and over and over again for all of these families, not having answers. It's just horrible. 

Peter McCully: Is there a particular story or interaction with a listener that stands out to you? 

Laura Palmer: That is one of the things that is really amazing to me about working on Island Crime. When I worked at the CBC, you know, we got a lot of feedback from listeners. People would call or talk back lines or send emails. But it wasn't the kind of, I would say, intimate, personal connection. I get from my listeners. People just contact me with these very personal stories and reasons that they connect with the various seasons of violent crime. That's been true for all of the seasons. I would say it's probably particularly true for Michael Dennehy's season.

Were you on the island when Michael was taken? 

Peter McCully: No. 

Laura Palmer: For people who were on the island then, it was life changing. Whether they were a parent or a child, it kind of has this intergenerational impact in the sense that people who were parents remember like everything changes. They just parent differently because of that fear that this horrible thing could happen to them.

And for kids, they remember it like night and day, you know. One day they're allowed to roam freely around the streets and the next day their parents are kind of helicopter parenting. We're like really worried about them all the time. So I hear a lot from people. With both of those kinds of perspectives, I guess that's the thing with true crime.

It does have an audience with both younger people and older people. So I hear from a wide swath of the population and the response in particular, I would say to Michael Dennehy being taken was really profound, I'd say. Asking about specific listeners getting in touch. One of the things that I would say is the best for me as a storyteller is when I hear from a listener who has a personal connection to the story and they feel like It's been worthwhile or helpful in some way, and I'll give you an example.

I had a woman who was very close friends with one of the young women who was murdered, whose story I told in season six, the Sweetheart series. After that series aired, a woman got in touch with me. And at first, she was quite angry. Angry because she was making an assumption, I think, that I was telling these stories in a way that the media had done at the time, which really focused on the fact that these young women, teenagers, were sex workers.

When I told their stories, I tried to move beyond that and really look at who these young girls were in life. And the fact is, they were Young women, 14, 15 years old, being sex trafficked. They were just ordinary girls. Some of them, you know, still in high school at the time they start being sex trafficked on the streets of Victoria.

And so this friend of one of these girls later gets in touch and really feels like having listened to it. She thought that it was helpful. And that I had been able to tell the story in a more meaningful way. Getting that kind of feedback from listeners is huge for me. 

Would there also be an unexpected impact of a podcast on some of those cases you've covered?

The short answer is yes. I know that in certain cases the podcast has helped push the investigations forward. Other cases Because the police won't talk to me about certain things. I just don't know if they have taken any of this information on board and done anything with it. An example of that would be in Michael Dennehy's series, I do identify a suspect, although not by name in the series.

And I did bring that forward to the Victoria Police. I don't know right now what, if anything, they've done with that information. I'd like to think there's something happening behind the scenes, but I just don't know. 

Peter McCully: Laura, you mentioned it takes six months to a year for you to cover the individual stories and produce a season's worth of violent crime. It's a deep dive into disturbing crimes. How does all of that impact you personally? 

Laura Palmer: As long as I feel like I'm being truthful and fair to everyone I'm talking to, I'm okay, you know, I can sleep at night, it's just fine. I would say for people who haven't listened to Island Crime, I don't get into really any kind of disturbing detail.

That's not to say sometimes I don't hear those things in interviews with people. I don't share them in the series just because I think, you know, there's enough trauma out there in the world and people don't need to have some of these things in their minds. For me, I'm fine. You know, I have a really good healthy life.

I have a big dog, big husband. I'm okay. Every once in a while. Something will get to me and I'll just kind of sit with it, take some time, but for now I'm okay. 

Peter McCully: Laura, I was going through some of the various seasons and episodes, and as you mentioned, there's follow ups and updates, and I ran across an episode A standalone episode on investigative genetic genealogy, which you say has been hailed as the biggest breakthrough in investigations since the fingerprint.

Laura Palmer: Yes. So I briefly considered, should I stop doing the podcast and just try to learn everything I can about IGG or FGG, depending on. Who you are or what you're calling it because it really does seem to be what solving cold cases now. I haven't done that yet, but I might still at some point because it is.

Unbelievably impactful, I would say, and the somewhat frustrating thing I would say at this point is that I don't feel like it's really being used to its full potential in Canada yet. I do understand all of the reasons why that's so, but I'm hopeful in the near future there will be some kind of national strategy so that police right across the country can understand the possibilities here and make use of them.

The Toronto police are kind of leading the way, although there have been some successes from other police forces as well, the Calgary police, and a few other cases here and there, but for now, at least in the States, there have been hundreds of cases now solved, at least a case a day being solved. through the use of forensic genetic genealogy.

And for your listeners who aren't familiar with that, although I think a lot of people will have seen the headlines around some cases, if the police find DNA in a piece of old cold case evidence, but they don't get a hit in the criminal databases, that used to be kind of it. But now they can go outside of that and tap into the consumer databases and find a third, fourth, fifth cousin.

And then do the work to track it back and see if any of that matches someone who maybe that was already on the radar or wasn't, but could now be. I'm obviously simplifying it, but this is what they do. They go and they use genealogists to make those connections and then they do the police work to actually try and find out if they found the right person. It's incredible, really. 

Peter McCully: Laura, are there any particular island crime cases or topics you're eager to explore in coming seasons? 

Laura Palmer: I have a long, long, long list. I had someone recently ask me if, you know, seven seasons on, I was going to run out of stories here on Vancouver Island. And the sad fact is there is no shortage of unsolved murders and missing person cases on Vancouver Island.

I'm a middle aged woman and I could do this until I'm hopefully dead at a hundred. And not run out of cases. So, all that to say, right now I'm trying to narrow down the field of possibilities for Season 8, and what I always do is get a shortlist and then start doing the research to see which one, at this point in time, makes most sense for me to try and push forward on. But before I do that, I will be updating Seasons 1 through 3 early on in 2025. 

Peter McCully: Well, 100 sounds like a good number for me because I Plan to chat with you at least once a year. Thanks for your time today, Laura. Really appreciate it. 

Laura Palmer: Oh, you're welcome. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I appreciate it.

Dave Graham: No wonder the podcast is so popular. Those unsolved cold case stories are such good storytelling and very well produced. Peter, I heard that we were contacted by some people who wanted to share their stories, their bigfoot stories. But we haven't heard back yet. Maybe they got big coldfoot. That's okay. I'm glad at least they reached out. 

Peter McCully: We welcome input of all kinds. That includes stories and story ideas, comments and questions, type an email, text a message or speak to us using your own voice. Follow the contact link at thepulsecommunity.ca 

Dave Graham: Oh Peter, I got some unexpected feedback the other day. Someone came to me and mentioned how they had heard podcast of ours. In which you, Peter, spoke of my experience rescuing Justin Trudeau from drowning. I quickly advise this person who came to me, this was a humorous device we used for the record. This was not an actual event. I have not met, nor have I ever received a letter from Justin Trudeau. At least not yet. Mr. Trudeau, try this one. Dave at ThePulseCommunity.ca. I might even read it. 

Windsor Plywood French Creek: The PULSE Community Podcast is brought to you in part by Windsor Plywood in French Creek, specializing in hard to source interior and exterior home finishing products, including flooring, doors and moldings, and exterior project materials such as yellow cedar. Windsor Plywood French Creek carries high quality, responsibly sourced products and are committed to providing outstanding value and personalized, one on one service to all of our customers. Homeowners, do it yourselfers, renovators. Builders, designers, craftsmen, and contractors. Regardless of the type or size of your project, Windsor can help you bring your vision to life, from start to finish. Let Windsor Plywood and French Creek help you with your renovation, new build, or building project. Visit them online or call 752 3122. 

Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX, Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network since 1996, marketing and selling residential, rural, strata, recreational, investment and project development real estate. Ian has received several awards recognizing his exceptional community commitment locally. As well as awards for outstanding performance and achievement from both RE/MAX International and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. You'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay.ca. 

Peter McCully: The Pulse Community Podcast caters to the people of mid Vancouver Island, but we also offer stories for younger people with our Skookum Kid Stories. This includes Captain Dave and the Mellow Submarine. Beast in the waters off Vancouver Island, Dave and his crew, including first mate Larry the Lobster, meet some interesting situations along with some talented ocean dwellers. In the next installment, the crew of the Mellow Submarine help fix a problem for the people on Lasqueti Island.

Dave Graham: Then there are the tales of Peter and Gracie, the Eskimo dog. The latest story involves lost treasures, soapy surprises, and one very fluffy cleaning assistant. Hang on, let me get this straight here. Lost treasures, soapy surprises, very fl Oh man, I'm gonna have to check out that story. As narrated by Peter McCully. Peter and Gracie and the Man Cleaning Adventure is available now. 

Peter McCully: We've added another option to have a story customized. You could have a story that includes your kids or your pets or whatever adventure you can think up. We should 

Dave Graham: add that some restrictions may apply. I'm not sure why I want to add that. It just seems like the right thing to say. 

Peter McCully: I agree, Dave. So send us your stories suitable for family listening. Send us your comments, suggestions, ideas, whatever they may be. Again, follow the links to contact us through the website, thepulsecommunity.ca 

Dave Graham: Peter, we gotta go. I hear Mabel has jumped on board with the bi Canadian movement for her cafeteria menus, and hey, if that means Canadian bacon, I need to get in line.

Peter McCully: Oh, you mean the maple bacon ice cream? 

Dave Graham: I'm sorry, maple bacon what now? 

Peter McCully: Yeah, she's She's in one of her experimental moods. 

Dave Graham: Do I even want to know what she's done with the poutine? 

Rockin Rhonda & The Blues Band: Here comes Peter, here comes Dave, oh listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave. So to speak. Laughs and insights everywhere. What a treat. Peer and Dave. They're on the mics all right. Join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.