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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.

Dave Graham: Well, hello there. Welcome to the show with a focus on the people and stories of Mid Vancouver Island. Although we are flexible on that, perhaps more accurately, we could think of it as the people and stories of interest to mid Vancouver Islanders. Uh, we're flexible there too, though we welcome listeners from all over, including the East Coast and all the friends and family of your co-host today, Mr. Peter McCully.

Peter McCully: And that voice is one recognizable through years in radio and theater and tens of thousands of commercials, and he even had his voice used in a movie once, not a good movie. He'd rather not talk about it, but it was still a real movie. It's Dave Graham. 

Dave Graham: Yeah, in movies, it's called the looping, providing voices in post-production, or as we say in the biz, in post, no, I'm not in the biz. That was back in my days in Toronto now, many years ago. So moving on, Peter, what's on tap this time? 

Peter McCully: Well, Dave, on this edition we chat with Ken Neden of the Arrowsmith Search and Rescue. They have begun fundraising for a state-of-the-art drone that will aid in their efforts in multiple ways. 

Ken Neden: We're finding a lot more uses for them as we start training with them more and more. We have a couple of the tiny drones that can be used. They can go in a member's pack, and when they're on a task, if they come to say a dangerous area or cliff or ravine or there's a small lake, they wanna look and quick check. They can pull it out, launch it, have a look around. And we have one slightly larger drone that has thermal and zoom cameras on it as well. We can search at night with that one. And then with one, we're looking at buying is about double the size and more than double the the capabilities as well. Right now with the one we have, we're doing searching at night if we see kind of a blob from the thermal. The new one will be able to look at it and say, okay, you know, that's a person or that's a deer, or, you know, that's a bear to, to have a look as whereas now, we have to send people to look at everything that could be the person we're looking for.

Dave Graham: I gotta say, we are fortunate to have the kind of personnel and equipment in the form of Arrowsmith Search and Rescue. We are the envy of other comparable communities. Also, this week we get to chat with Canada's folk singer Valdy. He has a number of dates on Vancouver Island in the near future. Yes, the road beckons for this musician known for having played his way across this country many, many times. 

Valdy: I make a little bit of money traveling a lot. I could have gone and done a much more restricted tour in major centers and continued to grow. But I like to play and I don't want to just do 15 shows a year. I wanna play 200 gigs a year. It's not only a therapy for me, but music is meant to be shared. It's not a singular or isolated event. It shapes the atoms around us and sound waves bounce off of everything, so it's supposed to be heard.

Peter McCully: Congratulations to another King Charles's III Coronation Medal recipient in the mid island area. Former MLA and Paralympic Champ Michelle Stilwell joined a group of 40 trailblazers, accessibility champions and community builders. Recently, Michelle accepted the award from her longtime friend and mentor Rick Hansen for her time with the Rick Hansen Foundation. As she said, so many beneficial conversations have led to policy changes that have removed barriers, increased accessibility and inclusion. 

Dave Graham: Oh, that is wonderful news. I've known Michelle for quite a few years now and she's just such an exceptional person. I believe it's in 2016 after her double gold, Paralympic performance in Rio. I was DJ’ing a welcome home party for her and at one point we stopped the music so she could play a video of her races and as it played, she. She did a running commentary about all that was going on in her mind and body in that moment of the race, and it was, I have to say it was fascinating to have that insider's look at performance at that level. Anyway, a hardy congratulations to Michelle for another, another award-winning effort. 

Peter McCully: Well, we're outta medals, but we do have tickets. Here's the deal. Send us an email with your name and where you're from. That's it. That's all it takes under the draw for what will be one of the biggest events in the Parksville Community Park. This summer, we're talking tickets to Chilliwak on their farewell tour and another contest coming up. We'll feature a double pass giveaway to “Rock the Park”. 

Dave Graham: We have another winner thanks to Thrifty Foods with our tickle trunk contest. This is the virtual game that we play to give away a $25 smile card, and we are pleased to announce that Judi Ramsden of Parksville won a gift card for identifying Horne Lake Caves. As the last hiding spot. After all, Vancouver Island boasts the highest concentration of caves in North America. A fact that some people would rather not think about personally, I highly recommend a visit to Horne Lake Caves. I'm not a paid spokesperson. It's just a different kind of experience compared to anything else, and it's stuff like that that makes life interesting in my humble opinion.

Peter McCully: And since I've lost 30 pounds, maybe I could squeeze into one of those caves. Now here's how to enter our next draw. Identify the location of the Tickle trunk only. This time it's less location and more event. It involves the return of some winged friends to our region. These little creatures stop here each year on their way to the breeding grounds in the high Arctic Tundra, and we've got a festival named after them. You'll find still another clue in our series of Skookum Kid’s stories as Captain Dave and the crew helped them out in the most recent episode of Captain Dave in the Meow Submarine. Correct answers, go on a draw for $25 Thrifty Food Smile card. Send us your entry with your name and the community in which you live. contest@thepulsecommunity.ca. 

Dave Graham: Since you mentioned Captain Dave, it's only fair I plug the other series of kids stories, Peter and Gracie. Gracie is Peter's Eskimo dog and they are in for some adventure when they visit Buckerfields's to see the chicks. Yes. Chick Day. On the next story about Peter and Gracie It'll be Chick Day at Buckerfields's. 

Peter McCully: Okay, Dave, back to business. Marilyn, who is in the green room. 

Marilyn: Ken Neden of Arrowsmith Search and Rescue is waiting in the green room. The organization recently began a fundraising campaign to purchase a state-of-the-art thermal drone. This new equipment training and software will be used not just in the PQB area, but will be available to any search and rescue team on the island.

Dave Graham: Ken, good to see you again. Thanks for joining us today. No problem. Good to see you again, Dave. With the help of volunteers, donations and grants, Aerosmith Search and Rescue opened these new headquarters right next to the Qualcom Beach Airport. How has this new building helped the organization's ability to function?

Ken Neden: It's been pretty phenomenal actually, to be able to have all this equipment, all the gear, vehicles, everything right next to the airport and the, the amenities facilities inside here are so much nicer than what we had. It helps the group respond. It helps with recruitment and everything as well. 

Dave Graham: You gave me a tour of the facility just before we started this conversation, and I have to admit, I'm terribly impressed. I imagine everybody is, frankly, you casually mentioned. How far you've come. 30 years ago you were meeting in your own basement. I love that. 

Ken Neden: Yeah. And it was an unfinished basement at that time, but what a difference. That old bus we had, that was our combination command and equipment vehicle sat in my driveway. Our meetings were in the basement and even before we got the old bus, the equipment was in my basement as well. And when there was a call, we had to load it into my pickup and then, then take off to the call.

Dave Graham: Do you just shake your head and wonder sometimes how far you've come? 

Ken Neden: Oh yeah. I know my dad would be amazed at what, 'cause he was of course started the organization and that, and with technology we use WhatsApp, different features on the phones. A call is coming in, we send a text to our drivers and they can just start arriving at the building and be ready to go in a matter of minutes. So how many volunteers do you have these days for search and rescue? Right now we're sitting at 60. That includes all the ground search and rescue people. We have a support team of, I think about 10, that handle all the logistics and everything. So yeah, it's pretty good numbers right now. Nice to hear. 

Dave Graham: And looking back on the past year in terms of stats, what can you say in terms of the number of calls, kind of calls you attend? 

Ken Neden: Last year, it actually turned out to be our busiest year ever. We had 85 operational periods last year, 85 different days of being out, doing searching. A lot of it was searching for lost people, and it could be just someone off in the woods, a number of injured people. We have a helicopter hoist team now. They've been called out mutual aid to different places on the island a few times as well. 

Dave Graham: Just to touch back on the volunteers for a sec, what kind of demands are made of them in terms of time?

Ken Neden: It's got to be quite a bit right now actually. We do have, for our ground search volunteers, the initial course they take is about an 80 or 90 hour course. There's first aid on top of that. That's run over about six months, and as they become members, then it opens up Rope swift water hoist training tracking. We have an advanced first aid team. There's quite a bit of time on that. Even for just the ground search and rescue. We like them to have 50 hours of training a year and then tasks and everything on top of that, and then specialty teams on top of that. 

Dave Graham: Arrowsmith Search and Rescue has a couple of drones currently for use in searches. You mentioned the number one reason for calls primarily being tracking people. That's the primary use for the drones. Am I right? 

Ken Neden: Yeah, that's the primary use there. Actually, we're finding a lot more uses for them as we start training with them. More and more. We have a couple of the tiny drones that can be used. They can go in a member's pack and when they're on a task, if they come to say a dangerous area or cliff or ravine or there's a small lake, they want to look 'em, quick check. They can pull it out, launch it, have a look around, and we have one slightly larger drone that has thermal and zoom cameras on it as well. We can search at night with that one, and then with one, we're looking at buying is about double the size and more than double the, the capabilities as well.

Dave Graham: The capabilities of this larger drone you currently have. The next drone just sounds, well, obviously bigger as you say, but better in all respects.

Ken Neden: The capabilities of both the thermal and the zoom camera are, are more than double the clarity. Right now, with the one we have, we're doing searching at night, if we see kind of a blob from the thermal, the new one will be able to look at it and say, okay, you know, that's a person or that's a deer, or, you know, that's a bear to, to have a look as. Whereas now we, we have to send people to look at everything. That could be the person we're looking for. 

Dave Graham: This is a pricey bit of gear. I don't imagine every search and rescue team can have one. Will this be available for use elsewhere? 

Ken Neden: Yeah. Actually, even the one we had, we had a search engine that I more recently, that it was used on that, and it'll be available to any teams on the island, even beyond the island. We, we do mutual aid occasionally onto the mainland for, for large searches, so it'll be available island and province wide.

Dave Graham:  I've been struck, aside from the technology and this building and the structure and all that contains. We're in the, where are we?

Ken Neden: We call this our operations room. It's set up with, radios, computers. We can run tasks and occasionally do for tasks that are close by the airport. We run them out of here. 

Dave Graham: Is this where the action is centered? When you work on a big project, so to speak, with that involves government agencies, 

Ken Neden: This could be used for that. The drones, they have a capability of that as well.

Talking with the emergency program coordinators. The systems we've set up, we use a starlink Mini, it's called with a generator. We can have a laptop if there's say a flooding somewhere in the Englishman River, we can be flying the drone and feeding the signal to the regional office in Nanaimo or Parksville or wherever they want to be to see, so they get a live look at what's happening.

Dave Graham: You mentioned that you were able to tap into the recent search in Nanaimo. From your home, and that's more eyes on, right?

Ken Neden:  Correct. The same feature. We would put a feed, say to an emergency operation center. I was sitting in the comfort of my home while two people, Nick and Jennifer, were now flying it and have a laptop watching there. And it's an extra set of eyes looking through for any detections. We use a software called Eagle Eyes, which is AI developed in BC. It picks up, uh, color motion looking through and, and it picks up things you can't even see on the screen and it alerts you to, what could be something there?  

Dave Graham: Now youmentioned you're learning and more of the capabilities of these aircraft. As you begin to get to know them, are there other aspects to their operations and capabilities that you've learned you can speak of?

Ken Neden:  Going through, basically getting in and out of tight places. One thing we've discovered with the drone too, with a spotlight, the new drone we're getting, we'll be able to put a spotlight directly down. This one doesn't have that capability. But they say we're doing a rope rescue in the middle of the night on Little Mountain. If we wanna light up the cliff side, we can just leave the drone hover just a few feet off and out of the way up in the air with a spotlight lighting up the whole sea. Right now we have spotlights that sort of point down and get in the attendance eyes.

Dave Graham: What are the most common misconceptions the public might have about search and rescue work? And do these misconceptions impact your operations at all? 

Ken Neden: We're getting our word out there better, but a lot of people still think that we're a paid staff just sitting and wait to go out and to do nothing but search and rescue. And you know, some of us, like me, we're finally now retired in that and we do work full-time basically at search and rescue, but people have jobs and everything else, they have to go to families, that sort of thing. We don't get paid for being on task. So people assume that there's maybe, you know, a stipend or something. Our expenses are covered on a task, but we still have to do fundraising for a lot of the training and equipment and everything. We have to do fundraising for that.  

Dave Graham: You have your own safety protective gear you need to put on for various different events that you need to pay for.

Ken Neden: Basic clothing, that sort of thing we provide, the team, through fundraising, we provide jackets, helmets, any of the specialty teams like Rope Swift Water for every person that a suit is $2,500 and that's one of the things they need. Yeah, those sort of things the group provides, but personally, you know, convince your wife that you'd have to have a four wheel drive and then that gets expensive and then boots, clothing, that kind of thing. It all adds up. It actually costs money to be in search and rescue. 

Dave Graham: How do the teams break down in terms of the sexes? I'm throwing one at you out of the blue here. Men versus women, so to speak. 

Ken Neden: We do have quite a few women on our team. I don't know what the percentage is. If I were to guess, I would say 40%. On our rope team, we have, I think five or six women out of the 12 or 14 that are on the rope teams. Your dad started this all, when did you join in with this? Uh, I joined in fairly young. I always tell people I was five, but I was actually 15 because I've got just over 50 years doing this. Now it's sort of part of who you are in your way of life, but I know growing up and my dad was in the fire department and search and rescue there kind of combined at the time and I'd be watching him go out on calls and when I was almost old enough. I was able to join up and then start in.  

Dave Graham: It is definitely part of you after this many decades, but early on, what was the attraction for you? 

Ken Neden: I just really like getting out to sort of the teamwork and, and I was interested in the ropes and stuff fairly early, but just getting out in the woods and learning the skills like. Learning how to use map and compass is, is always a good thing and, and being able to help people and help the community out. 

Dave Graham: You mentioned earlier you seem to have a fairly good numbers in terms of the volunteers, but when it's time to look for more, what kind of people do you like to have around? 

Ken Neden: We have different teams, so we do have the support team and there may be people who want to support the community but aren't interested in tromping through the woods at two o'clock in the morning. Basically, people who want to help out the community, like the outdoors and work well as a team. Are you planning a volunteer drive anytime? Are you at that stage or what? Where do you stand? We're probably looking late in the fall, early 2026. We'll do another member intake, so that'd be on our website.

Dave Graham: Again, I want to thank you for your time showing me around this magnificent facility and perhaps most of all, thank you for your service. 

Ken Neden: Oh, thanks very much for coming out. It's great and uh, good to see you again. 

Peter McCully: If you would like to contribute to the fundraising campaign named Rescue Ready 2025 for the new drone for Search and Rescue, go to their website at arrowsmithsar.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@ianlindsay.ca. 

Thrifty Foods Parksville: At Thrifty Foods We love to help nonprofits, charities, and schools. Our Thrifty Foods Smile Card bulk program allows organizations to immediately save up to 6% on the purchase of Smile Cards in bulk, allowing you to keep more money in your organization's pockets. Ask for details at Thrifty Foods in Parksville, A proud sponsor of The Pulse podcast with Peter and Dave.

Dave Graham: Last time out we threw around some potential names for Parkville’s Outdoor Theater. Yeah, I decided I wanna make it my mission to have a name more befitting of this world class facility. Unless they say no. I mean, if the powers that be are happy with the all too literal, generic, beige blandness of outdoor theater, then fine. But I have to try. We need a name with a little more oomph or maybe even pizazz. I might even go so far as to suggest we aim for a little moxie. What do you say? Agree, disagree. Maybe you have a better idea.

Peter McCully:  Share your thoughts, questions, comments, and gently worded criticisms. From our home website, the Pulse community.ca, we've got links to contact us by email, by text, you can even leave us a voice message. We'd also be open to discussing some sponsorship opportunities. We present a unique focus on mid Vancouver Island. We have links to contact us by email and by text. You could even leave us a voice message as Jen Bate did from the Apollos. They were feeling very patriotic. 

Jennifer Bate: Hi everybody. This is Jennifer Bate from the Apollos. Hope you're all doing well and oh, Canada. This particular version of O Canada came about because we felt like doing a little bit of a rock and roll version of it. It all started during those crazy times of COVID. The Apollos were contracted to do the Canada Day celebration that year down at that beautiful Parksville outdoor stage, and instead of the ceremonies which were canceled, the city of Parksville was very generous in giving all of the participating bands some money towards doing some recording that year. The O Canada celebrations were all done digitally. Not the whole song of course, but I hope you enjoy. We also did a version of Canadian girl, so enjoy. Oh, Canada. So important these times of our world as it is now. We hope to see you again soon at another Apollo's gig.

The Apollos: O Canada.

Dave Graham: Thanks to Jen Bate and the Apollos for their take on our Anthem. Yay, Canada. See what I did there? Yay. All right. Okay. It's time to get to our next guest. Here's Marilyn. 

Marilyn: Standing by in the green room is singer songwriter Valdy, who is earned four gold records, 22 singles. Won two Juno Awards and been named the Order of Canada. Valdy will be playing dates on Vancouver Island in the coming months, including Port Alberni and Parksville. 

Peter McCully: Welcome to the podcast Valdy. Thanks for your time today. 

Valdy: Thank you very much. It's an honor to be on with you, Peter. 

Peter McCully: Last time we sat down and chatted, it was probably about three years ago, and at that time you told me that you estimated you had crossed the country a total of 20 times.

Have you put all the mileage together with airplane flights and car drives and everything? Are you still keeping track? Do you think you've made it a few more times across the country? Yes. 

Valdy: I'll revise my math on that. I have been touring since 1972, which is 52 years of touring, and I've gone across the country every year, sometimes twice, not every year, but almost every year. So I would have to say I'm over 50 times. 

Peter McCully: Wow. 

Valdy: That's a slight adjustment, isn't it? 

Peter McCully: I remember seeing you on the BC ferries between the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island quite a bit with that little Subaru you had for so many years. I. That must have seen a lot of asphalt. 

Valdy: Yes, it did. I retired it at 575,000. It was a good car. Usually they don't last that long, but it was one driver and I also worked it hard, which you liked. It was good for a car to work hard, especially that one.

Peter McCully: I am surprised that Subaru didn't call you up and ask you to do a TV commercial for them. 

Valdy: I've asked a couple of card companies for the endorsement and they just say, no, sir, but here's our new model.

Peter McCully: During COVID, you started a a live show on Facebook so you could kind of connect with everyone called Live at five, and it's still going. Lots of great stories. Live music, 

Valdy: Yes. In order to keep my jobs during the pandemic. I had to play and everything had gone dark. So, I had to create some place to play.

So I, I started doing it two times a week, and after two weeks I realized it was redundant. So I did it once a week from then on. And that was in April of 2020. I kept doing it and I built up somewhat of a global audience, not a huge audience, but you know, a couple of thousand people around the globe, and I thought it takes a long time to build that.

I'm not gonna quit just 'cause I can go back and giging in live venues. So I keep it going and it's somewhat of a challenge because I'm on the road a lot and sometimes doing afternoon shows on Sunday. So it's a challenge to get on at five o'clock Pacific, which turns out to be nine 30 Newfoundland time.

And I was playing in Sydney, Cape Breton Island one Sunday night, and so I started at  7:30 and I did a long first set and then I did my live at five live from the stage at the hat. In Sydney. So I accommodate the show with whatever I'm doing in my life. And it's lovely to keep that audience around the world, not audience more friends by now, you know?

Peter McCully: And so where can folks follow you at Live At Five. It's a Facebook page. Yes? 

Valdy: Yes it is. It's a group on Facebook called Valdy Fan page. And people are allowed to send in pictures about their interaction with my career and dissertations and whatnot, and it's a way of me gleaning a lot of information and ultimately having data for a vlog or a book, which I plan to do. I see all of the vanity press when I go into Tanner's in Sidney, which is a local bookstore. They have a standup starting little store on autobiography, so it's my turn. 

Peter McCully: I used to go into Tanner's when Clive still ran the bookstore. He was quite a character. 

Valdy: He was a character and he represented us very well as an MLA and the BC legislature. And he was in for a couple of terms. He did a good job of it. 

Peter McCully: On your Valdy fan pages, has anybody written in and said, thank goodness you don't play the Boogie Woogie piano anymore because I'd like to sleep at night. 

Valdy: I didn't have a piano in an apartment. They wouldn't let me. It was in my house. But however, my family couldn't speak very well and I learned Boogie Woogie piano from Mead Lux Lewis records, and Jimmy Yy and a lot of these players that were around in the twenties and early thirties, and it's not the real boogie will give, it's the walking baseline, but doing octaves on eighth notes as opposed to just straight quarter note base notes and it kind of a, a blues baseline and, and then my right hand learned how to play.

And so Boogie Woogie was a great entrance to it and really pissed off. My teachers really got them mad because I would spend my whole time becoming ambidextrous on the piano, which they liked, but not doing the sight reading and, and the ingraining of how to read music properly. And that really made them mad.

Peter McCully: Well, most of the musicians I've interviewed over the years can't read music.  

Valdy: That's true. It's an odd thing isn't it? To be not literate in one's craft or profession. It doesn't make any sense. I can write music faster than I can read it, but I can read it slowly. 

Peter McCully: And now, of course, you can write music through ai. Just, tell it what you want or you play it and it writes the score. 

Valdy: Next I could say to AI, Make me a podcast like Peter McCully would, and it'll do it. It'll search you out, it'll get your content and develop the style of your show. Obviously you have a format that you follow and it would crack that and it would build it in seconds. 

Peter McCully: I know it's scary. You're just back from Mesa, Arizona. I was asking Siri to pull up some pictures of Valdy and I see people lined up to get into a show called The Snowbird Show that you play in Mesa. 

Valdy: It's called the Canadian Snowbird Extravaganza, and it is a trade fair with concert for seniors and for Canadian snowbirds. Not many Americans attend because they're not notified of it. Oh yeah. Huge crowd. Thousands of people. And you do this every year. I do it with a group of other artists and meeting those people, meeting Canadians down there and getting their opinion on what it's like stateside. I am going back again on Sunday and I'm gonna go look for property in a town called Kathleen, Florida.

I wonder why. There you go. And there's a place in Ontario called VoldDeMar. So I'm thinking we can have a place in Canada for the summers and down there for the winter. One in Kathleen and one in Vold DeMar. 

Peter McCully: It could be called your Signature Tune. I'm sure it is called Your Signature Tune. Play me a rock and roll song. You wrote that quite famously about tension between folk and rock music while you were playing live in the seventies. How do you view the relationship between the two genres today, folk and rock music? 50 years later, 

Valdy: Folk music is no longer just dared in banjo or you know, women in rubber boots playing zithers. It is the world, as we know it today, is featured in folk music and in folk music. I say just rock and roll. There's des, there's hip hop. There's protest songs, there's union songs. All of these different genres belong to folk music, as far as I'm concerned. So it's an umbrella and no longer a term that you add to a bowl and stir it to make a new genre of music.

Peter McCully: Throughout your career, you've been known for storytelling through music. Which story or song, if you like from your repertoire, has resonated the most with your audiences over the years, do you think? 

Valdy: Same song Play Me a Rock and Roll song, which was written about playing at a rock festival as a folk singer and getting a poor reception. This is when the, uh, genres were completely split. Now you got a rock band at folk festivals and folk singers at rock festivals. I. They did back then too. Although Woodstock wasn't a rock festival. It was Woodstock music festival. John Sebastian got up and played solo there. Taj Mahal played solo. Richie Havens played solo. It was a very forgiving and accepting stage. And please, let's have more of those. 

Peter McCully: You've been living on Salt Spring for a long time. Has living on Salt Spring influenced your songwriting and perspective as an artist? 

Valdy: Yes, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and probably spiritually, but who knows? Being on an island means that the access is tough. The life of being on the road is separated from life on the island. So they do become two distinct environments and distinct existences. Life on the island is a whole different thing for me because I'm a maintenance man here. When I'm on the road, I do what I do. I know how to travel and make it work, and I'm good with sound. I give the audiences the best show I can within the hours that I'm allowed to.

And so that's the whole focus of being on the road. But being at home, I have to look after something and it's something I'm not very skilled at. It's a frustrating thing at home, and I'm probably a grumpy, old bugger because we don't have roadways or train tracks going by. We allow the refuse and the accompanying a materialistic mold to grow on everything.

I just got a, a sticker from my guitar case, said more fun, less stuff. Yeah. So that's where I'm headed right now. So island life to me, is completely different than being on the road. When I do gigs in the island, it's somewhat disconcerting because I have to blend the two of them together. Very good question. Thank you. 

Peter McCully: That bumper sticker sounds like a George Carlin routine. That's right. Less stuff, more fun. 

Valdy: Yeah. A guy in uh, Lanark Ontario gave me that sticker. A dedicated downsize here. 

Peter McCully: Valdy. Over the years you've collaborated with many artists. Which musical partnerships have you enjoyed the most and perhaps taught you something unexpected about yourself?

Valdy: I've done partnerships in writing music, and I've done partnerships in playing music and then partnerships in doing workshops at festivals and whatnot. Of those, the touring with an artist is the most intense and the most informing where we have to know each other well, to know how we'll react when it counts, which is after the downbeat.

If one of us is all worried out about something, it can affect that. So we have to know what's going on. We know each other well when we tour together. That's not as much true as bands as it is with working in the duo because in the duo. You share the audience. Whereas in a band, one person is usually the front person, so that probably is the most direct and informed relationships I have.

Then the next one would be people I write music with or perform occasionally with for fun gigs or Jams. That is a musical relationship, but it's informal and it usually goes places that are quite unexpected. Because there's no agenda or path to it, and then there's meeting people who I hear play and they just get gob smarted and have to stop 'em attraction and listen to them.

Mostly buskers. Just hearing these. Unbelievably talented people who are just spearheading something totally weird and new. And I really appreciate that because it could kick off Adams and me that, that haven't been circulating in particular ways before, you know, and I develop habits or at least initiate stuff from hearing them.

So my inspiration comes from that and from jamming. And I suppose inspiration from seeing too, but mostly I'm doing something that's already been written, so it's not a creative process up there as much as it is the presentation. 

Peter McCully: Well, let's talk about that for a second. How do you decide which stories from your life and observations become songs? Is there a deliberate process that works for you for that? 

Valdy: Yes. I try a bunch of stories and I stick to the ones that hang on the wall.

Peter McCully: and keep the shoebox somewhere else with all the little notes in it. 

Valdy: All those notes, God, all those yellow pieces of paper, you imagine how many comedians would have in in boxes and boxes of stories. I've heard comedians that are so good at what they do, they can do the same jokes year after year after year, and people still laugh and roar. I still sing songs that I've been singing all those years, but I suppose I changed the nature of the song by inflecting it differently, and I'm sure that they're telling their stories and jokes with additions and extra wall hangings that weren't there the year before.

So I'm as guilty as jokesters are for doing that. But rotating a a repertoire is an important thing too, to keep me fresh. As well as to present something fresh for audiences. 

Peter McCully: What's the most valuable lesson you've learned about sustaining a long-term career in the music industry? 

Valdy: Just one rule. Be there at at the downbeat and be as good as you can be. And then try to get better until the show's over.

Peter McCully: during the seventies when things were really starting to roll. For Valdy, you chose to stay primarily in Canada rather than pursuing a broader International fame. What influenced that decision? 

Valdy: Touring internationally. I got a taste of it. I didn't like the taste, so I make a little bit of money traveling a lot. I could have gone and done a much more restricted tour in major centers and continued to grow, but I like to play and I don't want to just do 15 shows a year. I wanna play 200 gigs a year. It's not only a therapy for me, but music is meant to be shared. It's not a singular or isolated event. It's shapes the atoms around us and sound was bounce off of everything, so it's supposed to be heard.

Peter McCully: Your daughter, Cehla Horsdal has a very successful acting career. As a matter of fact, she's joined the Star Trek universe. 

Valdy: She's the president of the Federation of Planets. I guess you'd have to be universal to get past that, but she's doing well. Her roles are starting to alter a bit. Once we offered her is altering, so it's an expansive thing for her as well.

And she did her first Trekee convention. Quite remarkabley a lot of people came dressed as her. She's doing well. Thank you. She is, she's doing auditions quite regularly. People are interested in her for parts because she's a known factor now and she's an accepted actor and people know her strengths and they cast her.

She is able to adapt to scripts very quickly and to characters and is getting glowing results. She's a remaining a beautiful human being in the midst of all of it as well. She came into the hospital on Salt Spring. I had a sliver in my hand. I warn your listeners to never sand plywood without gloves. I went really deep and dock, you know, cut it out and then stitch it up and she came into the hospital when I was in there having it done.

And she looked at and said, Ooh, that must hurt. I looked at my doc and said I was a doctor yesterday. Ron came back with right away. He said, did you feel like God, she knows how to live a mobile life? Well she didn't learn that from me. I have a whole different thing going on. She's good at it. Thanks for asking. 

Peter McCully: Valdy, you've been awarded the Order of Canada. You've won multiple Juno awards. I'm sure you don't do this often, but when you sit back and put your feet up, how do you feel about those recognitions in relation to the goals you might have had as a musician when you started out?

Valdy: I've never had a goal other than play, 'cause I enjoy playing and it changes the world around me. I've always just enjoyed doing that and not projected into a career. And the career therefore has been going forward or slightly backwards in progressive or regressive steps according to what come across my bow.

And sometimes they've made bad decisions and not taken tours when they should have. And sometimes I've done tours when I shouldn't have, so it's not been a perfect career. As I said, it's my favorite, so that's why I keep it going. That doesn't really answer your question, but it was a nice answer and I wanted to ask you a question before we're gone because you work for a newspaper here in the Alan called The Driftwood, Hans Driftwood, which we still get today, and it's still a wonderful paper.

And they have letters from the editor in there, which become a, a boxing ring for the community and quite strong. It's good to see. When you were here, you were doing print media, and I believe you then went on to be a publisher of various papers here and there, and you have now retired and you've moved over to an audio format.

And I'm wondering is that something that changes your approach to your subjects or just your approach to how you present them? 

Peter McCully: That's a great question. I started out as a broadcaster and, uh, started out actually in cable television. Went to radio, went to print, became a publisher, and then, as you say, moved back to audio with podcasting.

I think it's all complimentary, but the written word has really changed the way that I approach questions for folks in podcasts. I prefer a more structured format so that I do a lot of reading on the subject. Rather than, uh, you know, do the easy questions and the more popular stuff, I prefer to dig around a little bit and find out things that maybe perhaps the general public isn't aware of, like the Boogie Woogie piano.

Valdy: So in other words, going to the press, going to the written word, was the deviation for you. Now you're back into broadcasting. 

Peter McCully: Yes. 

Valdy: Well, thank you for your time today.

Peter McCully: Thank You. I always appreciate it. 

Dave Graham: Valdy on the Pulse Community Podcast. There was a time when the phrase the Man with a thousand Friends was used in reference of Valdy because the man makes friends wherever he goes, and boy has he been around almost 40 years of touring, doing up to 200 shows a year. He puts on a wonderful show and we get to see him in our community May 24th when he plays Parksville. I actually enjoyed having dinner with Vault. He wants, you know, really stop dropping names from your precious life of glamor and tell us the story. It actually came as a complete surprise. This was a few years ago now. He was married at the time. The plan was to go to a friend's place for dinner, and then the three of us were going to go off and see Valdy play, except as we're sitting down to dinner, the doorbell rings and in walks, Valdy, he sits down, joins us for a meal. Before leaving a little early to get ready for the show.

As it turned out, he and our dinner host had been friends for years, and then of course we got to see the show and it was terrific. What a treat. So I get to count myself as one of Valdy's thousands of friends, and we thank him for being on our Pulse Community podcast. 

Peter McCully: I've got a quick Valdy story for you. I was invited to his 65th birthday party, along with 800 of his closest friends. Lots of laughs and good music. 

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.

Peter McCully:  Our thanks to Windsor Plywood for their support of the Pulse Community Podcast. The store is going through some changes right now. Renovations are about to start and some exciting changes will be coming to the Parksville store, also known as Windsor Plywood, French Creek, because the creek is also nearby.

Dave Graham: Also nearby is the French Creek Pollution Control Center, which is also the scene of changes as they have started on the expansion truck. Traffic around that area has increased dramatically as a result, and construction will not be completed until 2027, but by then, the center will be updated and upgraded with increased capacity and reduced odors, eh, considering the amount of waste they treat, I'm impressed. They can keep a lid on the smell as well as they do, but there is always room for improvement. You know, they do have a 24 hour odor reporting line that you can call and sometimes when you have a complaint, they can even do something about it. 

Peter McCully: Speaking of odors. 

Dave Graham: Yeah. Are you catching that?

Peter McCully: Is that from the cafeteria? 

Dave Graham: Well, it isn't me Mabel's cooking up something. It kind of smells good, but then there's this hint of, I don't know, some kind of exotic spice or something burning and it just makes me wanna run away. 

Peter McCully: Well, we've gotta find out what it is. It kind of smells like seafood. 

Dave Graham: I don't know. I'm getting cornbread. Well wait. It's licorice.

Peter McCully:  Well, with morbid curiosity, we advance into the unknown and the lineup. Grab your tray and plate. Dave, here we go. 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.