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Rocking Rhonda & the Uptown Blues Band: Here come Peter. Here comes Dave. Oh listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing spinning tails in the podcast cave. So sweet. Laughs in the inside everywhere. What else? Sweet. Peter and Dave, they're on the mics. Alright, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.

Dave Graham: And away we go. Welcome to the Pulse Community Podcast. It's hosted by a couple of guys with backgrounds in broadcasting and print. You could say we are multimediasts. Is that a word? Multimediasts? I suppose not, but you get the idea. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to introduce my co-host Peter McCully.

Peter McCully: As a former newspaper publisher, I generally discouraged the use of made up words, but I do appreciate the effort by well-meaning friend, otherwise known as former radio host Dave Graham.

Dave Graham: Thanks Peter. Super grateful to be here. That's my theme this weekend. And you know, it was prompted by my underwear. I have an idea, let's not go there. Yes, underwear. And underwear. You see my clothes washer went on the fritz recently. For a while I was taking my clothes to a laundromat. It's not something I've done in decades. Now I have a new washer and I'm super mega grateful for the simple convenience of being able to wash my own clothes in my own home. You know, that got me thinking about gratitude and not taking things for granted. The couch I'm sitting on right now, it's really nicely cushioned. You know, my butt is really pleased by this.

Peter McCully: That's nice. Dave, could we get back to business? On this edition, we'll be chatting with Chris Denford, president of Berwick Retirement Communities. Berwick Qualicum Beach has been honored as a top senior living community in North America for the third time.

Chris Denford: We've had many people move in over the years who have said, I wish I'd done this five years earlier, because I have so many new friends. In fact, we've had a few people recently say, you know, I've actually gained more new friends in the last year I've moved in than I have in the past 20 years. It's all about remaining engaged in your community. You're not there to pass time. You're there to remain connected and engaged, and our residents do that. They are still passionate about politics, about still learning, and we give them every opportunity to do that.

Dave Graham: Also on the program, Sam Wiebe of New Westminster, an award-winning and bestselling author. He's won a couple of Crime Writers of Canada Awards. Wiebe joins the podcast to talk about the Last Exile. It's the latest Wakeland novel set in Vancouver.

Sam Wiebe: False Creek and the Granville Island market and the houseboats there play a big part in the book. You know, that's a really interesting area to meet because when I was growing up, that was a real, you know, Bohemian working class, artsy district, and now it is the center of gentrification and a wealth in Vancouver, and that waterfront is being developed as we speak. Just the history at play there is very interesting to write about.

Dave Graham: Hey, Dave, have you heard the latest dirt? I'm so glad you asked. Now that I have a new clothes washer, I'm ready for all kinds of soiled things. Bring on the dirt.

Peter McCully: Well, I'm talking about the Meadowood Store's garden center, and it's not just dirt, it's manure and fertilizers as well.

Dave Graham: Mm, just checking the instructions from a washer. They don't specifically mention manure, but I'm sure that won't be a problem.

Peter McCully: This is dirt for gardening, Dave, not for you to roll in. And besides, they also have a fabulous selection of starter plants and veggies.

Dave Graham: Now that's what I need. I'm no green thumb, so starter plants would probably be the way to go for me.

Peter McCully: Chris Burger is pretty serious about his dirt and he says he'll match sale prices just about anywhere.

Dave Graham: Isn't this where you say he won't be under soiled? No, but seriously, it's such a great drive to Meadowood and the bargains are tariff free. The bargains are big. Bigfoot big. And our thanks to the Meadowood Store Garden Center, a sponsor of the Pulse Podcast, the Meadowood Store Garden Center. They dig what you plant. Make sure you have your picture taken with Bigfoot While you're there.

Peter McCully: If you would like a weekly email reminder of the latest pulse podcasts and contests, just head over to the pulse community.ca. That's where you'll also find the links for submitting our feedback. You can send us a voicemail, email, or text.

Dave Graham: We'd be delighted to hear from you. Speaking of gratitude, I was in a minor car crash a few weeks ago. Nobody was hurt and I wasn't at fault, but I'm actually glad that it happened. My aging car was written off, and now I drive a newer, nicer vehicle, and I'm grateful that it happened when it did before this whole tariff business sparked up. I tell you, I'm lucky. Lucky. Lucky. Oh, I also had the pleasure of sitting down recently for a chat with Ken Schley of Qualicum Beach. Ken is the owner of the SS Minnow, the Iconic Boat from the Gilligan's Island Television series. That conversation will be featured in an upcoming edition of The Pulse Podcast.

Peter McCully: I'll also be chatting with Gord Johns member of Parliament for Courtney Alberni. Sean McCann, formerly of Great Big Sea, and Michelle Stillwell, former MLA, and one of Canada's most decorated athletes. She'll be joining us in advance of accessibility week.

Dave Graham: Have you heard we're giving away tickets to see Chilliwack? Have you entered even more important? They're bringing their farewell tour to Parksville July 12th. To enter the draw, just navigate your browser to the pulse community.ca. Follow the link. We'll be making a draw at the end of the month.

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.

SOSD69: For 57 years, SOS has helped ease social isolation and strengthen our community by connecting people of all ages to programs that support their well being. For many years, the SOS bus has helped facilitate reliable and safe access to programs. Unfortunately, the bus has reached the end of the road. The SOS Connecting Community Campaign aims to raise $200,000 to help purchase a new, safe, reliable bus that is essential in providing transportation to a variety of SOS programs. Seniors are taken on grocery shopping trips. Children are picked up from school, so they may enjoy enriching, supportive programs, and families and youth are taken on exciting outings. Social connections can decrease anxiety and depression, enhance self-esteem, and improve overall health for more information or to donate to the SOS Connecting Community campaign. Visit SOSD69.com.

Dave Graham: Ah, the SOS something else to be grateful about. What an amazing resource they are in our region. Thanks to the SOS for their sponsorship of the Pulse podcast. You know, we have limited opportunities to join in on the action. It's easy to get in touch through our website, or you could always try emailing Peter. His address is peter@thepulsecommunity.ca.

Peter McCully: We're ready to bring on our first guest, and Marilyn is here to do the honors.

Marilyn: In the Green Room is Chris Denford, president of Berwick Communities. Berwick Qualicum Beach has been honored as a top senior living community in North America for the third time.

Peter McCully: Chris, thanks for joining us on the podcast today. Well, it was my pleasure. Let's start at the start. Your dad, Gordon Denford, who is the founder of Berwick Retirement Communities, has been a builder in the Greater Victoria area for many years.

Chris Denford: He has, but I'll actually start a bit earlier than that because I think it's a bit of an interesting story. Dad was evacuated from England in 1940 as a 13-year-old. He didn't find out until the night before he was leaving that he was being evacuated. And in fact, he thought it was probably to the English countryside. He was sent to Canada. He didn't see his parents for eight years. He had a lot of time on his own to kind of grow up on his own and become independent.

That was sort of the start of dad's really quite unique independence streak in him. The war ended, but he was so far into university. He declined the invitation to go back to England because he was already here in studies and had friends, so he opted to stay. So eventually he moved out to Victoria and he was one of the first guys to bring in electric baseboard heat to homes on the island. He would catch a bus and go up to various job sites and propose that they think about electric baseboard heating. He would do that and he would hire an electrician and eventually became a very large company. It was the largest contractor on the island and distributing baseboard heat as well.

As time went by, he started to really diversify into other trades as well. He did Denford Metals, a lot of mechanical stuff, structural steel, even building aluminum fish boats, and that morphed into Road Construction Capital. City Construction did curbs and gutters, and they did the first stage of gastown in Vancouver.

They built a lot of roads and curbs and gutters all over Vancouver and Victoria. As he was a trade for all these years, eventually that led into trading his own projects, so he would build apartment buildings subdivisions. In fact, back in the mid sixties, he created the first strata development on Vancouver Island.

It was actually strata plan number four in the province, townhouse development in Victoria. The Royal Bank actually sent out a rep from Toronto to take a look at this newfangled idea of ownership within one building, like sectional ownership. It was quite new to them, so he's always been kind of on the cutting edge of new things back in the mid seventies when he teamed up with a friend of his to plan and develop a plan community.

Called Summer Gate Village, which is near the Victoria Airport. It was a planned community of prefabricated homes, 240 with its own rec center it, it had a pool, it had a dance hall. It had all sorts of places for the community to come together. What he thought would be a project that would sell to empty nesters, that would maybe buy a Florida house as well.

Really the market was much older. People that. A lot of single ladies who had lost their husbands who were living in condos decided that they were kinda lonely. They didn't even know the person down the hall. And the idea of living in a community with its own rec center really appealed to them so that got dad thinking there must be a better way to do something more efficiently in a purpose-built project that would cater to people who have loneliness and want to remain engaged and connected.

So that led to dad forming a committee of some experts in the field of seniors housing back in the mid eighties, and we planned Berwick house. So Berwick House was our first project. I was just outta university, so I wasn't much help. We opened Berwick house in 1989 and, and what's funny is, you know, it's been a long journey since then, but when you look back, a lot of people when they were thinking about retiring, they're thinking about retiring when they hit 60, sometimes 55, or they start slowing down and, and they have a target date that they're gonna slow down at 60 and be out of it by 63. Well, dad founded Berwick Retirement communities when he was 62. That often surprises people. Our largest business that we have, our main focus is Berwick and Dad founded that when he was 62, so I'm only 61, so I guess there's hope for me.

Peter McCully: And your dad is now 97.

Chris Denford: 97 in a major fall a few years back, but he's still very active and you know, he comes into the office as much as he can and he wants to remain engaged. He is spending a lot of time at Berwick Royal Oak. He has an apartment there that has lots of supports for him. I know there's an expression, don't get high on your own supply, but Dad is really enjoying living in a Berwick.

Peter McCully: How many Berwick locations are there now?

Chris Denford: We have eight now. The last one that we opened was in Parksville seven on the island, and we have one in Kamloops as well.

Peter McCully: What inspired you to create Berwick Qualicum Beach. And how did you identify Qualicum Beach as the ideal location?

Chris Denford: As we started developing on the island, we hit some of the major centers first.

After Victoria, Nanaimo was the logical next step. As we went through Nanaimo, we built another one in Victoria. You know, we built one in Comox. We always knew that Qualicum Beach and Parksville, where beautiful retirement locations. After we built Berwick the Lake in 1999. The mayor of Qualicum Beach, Teunis approached dad and said, I just took a look at Berwick the Lake.

You need to build something like that in Qualicum Beach. And that planted the initial seed. At the time we were already occupied in other projects, and the other aspect was that Qualicum Beach wasn't quite large enough in terms of population to really go in there and do what we do because we have to rely on a certain level of economies of scale.

We kind of put that on the back burner, but we always knew that one day we wanted to go back and build something in Qualicum. So fast forward to 2017, 18, and a friend of dad's Wayne Strand owned a site in Qualicum Beach and had a condo project planned, but his partner passed away suddenly. So Wayne wanted to not proceed because he lost his partner.

So he approached dad and said, did Dad, do you want our site? Dad was always intrigued with Qualicum. This is just one example. It's funny. I was in a retreat that weekend when he met with Wayne. And by the time I got outta the retreat, dad called me and said, I just bought a site in Qualicum Beach. So I was like, wow, that was fast.

Our site that we managed to purchase is right on center ice, if you wanna call it that. It's right in the town core. We felt that to really benefit from everything that Qualicum Beach has to offer, especially the walkability of it and being connected, we really wanted to be in the course, so we had the site.

Then it became how do we plan and propose something in that community that will really have a good success, not just long range, long-term success, but to be able to get past the municipal process.

Peter McCully: Are there any specific design principles or maybe a philosophy that guides the development of Berwick Qualicum Beach?

Chris Denford: I've always been a big fan of the English arts and crafts movement, and looking at the town of Qualicum Beach, some of the early buildings were designed by an architect named Carl Spurgeon, who was an Englishman that retired in Victoria, but he had a major impact on Qualicum Beach and what made it more personal for us was that our family home that my wife and I raised our four kids in is a Carl Spurgeon designed house.

That got me thinking that really to pay homage to the history of Qualicum Beach I think that approach to design made a lot of sense. So we focused on the English and Arts and crafts movement, but with a Canadian twist, of course, because it's always a bit morphed. The site that we have is an acre, so it's by far our smallest site.

So we had to really, really plan carefully in order to get all of the things that we need to have in that building for our seniors to enjoy. It really required a lot of in-depth planning and figuring, and how do we hit this big puzzle into this one acre site. Part of the other issue was because we needed a certain height, we needed to convince the community that what we were proposing had merit.

And a lot of my travels, we love traveling in England and quite often a town or a village will have a manor house that's a significant home in the community. That becomes a little bit of a pride of the community. Sometimes they have functions or events happen in these manor houses. So what I suggested to the town council was that what we are proposing is actually the manor house for the town of Qualicum Beach, even though it's not a two story building, three, it's five stories, but it is the manor house where it could be the social hub of the community.

So a lot of the elements of the English arts and crafts movement that really screams Manor House and not big apartment building. That was sort of the guiding principles that went into the design and we built it and we've never looked back. It's been a huge success.

Peter McCully: Well, Chris, I've had the pleasure of meandering through four of your locations, Nanaimo, Comox, Parksville, and Qualicum Beach. And Berwick Qualicum Beach has received recognition three times as one of North America's best retirement communities. What features or aspects do you believe contributed most of those accolades that you've been awarded.

Chris Denford: It's a combination of design and people at Berwick Qualicum Beach. Every square inch of that building is designed to maximize the resident experience.

This is just one example. I've been into some very high end projects where a pub is a room with drywall walls and a couple of tables, and that's their pub. When we do a pub, it's designed with wood, wainscotting beams, stained glass windows that are built the old school way. They're filled with antiques.

We have 19th century oil paintings throughout, so you really feel like you're actually walking out of the building and walking into an authentic English pub all over the building. For every space that we do, it's meant to maximize the ability for people to have social connections of a fitness center goes well beyond the fitness center.

It's all the other spaces that really tackle wellness in a holistic way. It's not just being physically active, it's being mentally active. The whole building is designed to really create opportunities for staying very active, engaged, and maximizing wellness. And in the flip side of that is of course our active living program.

And Laurel, who is the head of the Active Living program, is very innovative. It's not a question of Tuesday is cheer yoga, and then the next day it's bingo. There's a lot more innovative programming that goes into it that offers something for everyone. We have paddle boarding, we've had pole dancing. We have relationships with the University of Alberta for more learning opportunities.

So it's that. Plus it's a seven day program where most offer maybe a five day program. So it's all about the right facilities that have all the opportunities for staying engaged and really interested in what's going on and the active living program that we offer.

Peter McCully: So Chris, it sounds like you've created a real sense of community for your residents. What feedback from the residents has perhaps surprised you most? And how have you adapted based on that resident input along the way?

Chris Denford: As we designed our buildings and built them, and we had residents live in them and give us feedback. Berwick Qualicum Beach was our sixth community. It allowed us to take the best of what we learned from the previous six.

It's all about flow of spaces. It's the right spaces, where they're located, how they're designed, what functions can happen in those spaces, whether it be Happy Hour or maybe a special dining event that happens on the Rooftop Lounge. You have to plan to be able to accommodate that. The other aspect that's been kind of interesting is we've learned that over the years that a lot of our residents, when they move in, they discover hidden talents that they didn't even know they had.

Whether it be they're an artist or they're an orator, or they can act in a play and be a convincing actress or actor. These are things that have emerged because they've moved in and because of that feedback too, we're able to really design the next spaces to really cater to people with hidden talents.

Just one example is with Parksville, because art is something that a lot of our residents have really expressed an interest in and discovered talents they didn't have. We actually built a purpose-built art pavilion in the gardens of Berwick Parksville, so we're always learning new things and we try to incorporate some really neat spaces that can really capitalize on that in anything we do.

Peter McCully: I must say I was very impressed with the artwork in all of the locations that I had the chance to drop into, and it seems like the artwork is based on the area

Chris Denford: It is in Parksville and Qualicum. We took the approach to decorate the hallways for the suites with locally commissioned photographs of interesting landmarks or spaces or places within the community itself.

So we have it in Qualicum Beach. Probably a good 250 large three foot by three foot commission photographs of various places within Qualicum Beach itself and its surroundings. And it's kind of a fun thing for our residents to be able to pass by and say, oh, I remember that place, or, that's one of my favorite spots in the community.

So we did that in both Qualicum and Parksville. We have probably about 700 pieces of art in Qualicum Beach, that are framed pieces of art. And whenever we're creating a new Berwick, I usually stockpile three or four years in advance.

Peter McCully: You've been at this a while now. How have you seen the retirement living industry evolve since you began creating Berwick?

Chris Denford: When we first opened Berwick House, the emphasis on amenity spaces and social spaces was not as developed as it is today. And of course, as we're approaching the boomers, they're expecting a lot more. But when we opened Berwick house, we had one option for meals, and that was in the main dining room with three choices over the years.

The major evolution in retirement housing has really been around choice. And a big part of that is choice in food services. As we've built more and learned more, we've added more in terms of choice. So now we're offering three choices of dining options, the main dining room, and then we have a bistro, which has its own menu with choices in most cases.

We have a pub with its own menu as well. That's been one of the biggest evolutions in seniors housing, and that's not just for us, that's across the board.

Peter McCully: What misconceptions do people often have about retirement communities that you are working to address with Berwick?

Chris Denford: Well, I think traditionally, and I think this hearkens back to the dark days of the sixties and seventies where a retirement residence was a place to spend your remaining days.

Just counting the clicks of the clock is the farthest thing from the truth because we've had many people move in over the years who have said, I wish I'd done this five years earlier, because I have so many new friends. In fact, we've had a few people recently say, you know, I've actually gained more new friends in the last year I've moved in than I have in the past 20 years.

It's all about remaining engaged in your community. You're not there to pass time. You're there to remain connected and engaged, and our residents do that. They are still passionate about politics, about still learning, and we give them every opportunity to do that because we create the right environment, we have the right programs.

We bring in people from outside the community to offer talks or to get performances so people are engaged and they're more engaged in many cases they have been in years.

Peter McCully: Are there any emerging trends that you see in senior living that you're excited about or planning to incorporate into the Berwick plan?

Chris Denford: Yeah, and some of it's beyond my area of expertise, but I know that our team is looking at constructive AI opportunities. A lot of it is also involving apps that are perhaps really, really useful for our residents to be able to utilize to either book a car or book the private dining room. It's all about making things easier and more at their fingertips so that they can do that from the privacy and comfort with their own suite.

They can set things up very easily. So there's a lot of tech things that are being implemented fairly soon that I think is gonna be great.

Peter McCully: AI is wonderful. We're not really chatting right now. This is the AI version of me. I'm at Dave's with my feet up watching the hockey game. Okay. Chris, what's been the most rewarding aspect of creating and operating Berwick Qualicum Beach?

Chris Denford: Well, there's a number of different aspects to that. That's a good question because in the one sense, and I'll share this because I think it's interesting, Berwick Qualicum Beach doesn't really hit the right criteria for a slam dunk development because of its size. It really should be 50% larger in terms of suites, because after all, we have the same amenity spaces.

We have a hundred and usually a hundred five, a hundred ten, a hundred fifty residents at any time, and we have around 75 staff members with a much larger building. That wouldn't be 150 staff. It would be somewhat less, so it doesn't hit the economies of scale, but for us, that really didn't matter. We love Qualicum Beach.

We felt it was a chance for us to create something special there that didn't exist and cater to people that didn't really have that niche option that we offer. So that was part of the fun, and creating an English arts and crafts manor house is right up my alley. So that's one aspect of it. I know that we have become a major important member of the community in terms of being able to host events.

We have a lot of community groups come in, utilize our amenities, our spaces. We have a lot of fundraising events happening in the building. We are an engaged and connected and happy participant in the success of the community. So that's been really a rewarding thing. We had a few skeptics, I guess, when we were planning and proposing, and even in the early stages of building, but I think most people have come around to realize that what we're offering is something special and it's a vital part of the community.

And from my own personal standpoint is whenever I walk into most of our buildings. I often have people come up and say, thank you so much for building Berwick in our community, because I'm so happy here and my family's happy here. My family loves to visit and spend time with us here because of all the great spaces.

Grandchildren love to go and have a pint with their grandfather in the pub. Just to even look at the artwork. There's so many great opportunities for our residents to stay connected with the community, but also their families. So when they tell me that, and they say that to my dad as well, his dad is still roaming the halls and he gets stopped all the time.

People are genuinely thankful that we've created a Berwick community, and that's really rewarding.

Peter McCully: Chris, thanks for your time today, and again, congratulations on being honored as a top senior living community in North America for the third time. Thanks, Peter. It was fun talking to you.

Dave Graham: Our thanks to Chris Denford and Berwick Retirement Communities.

There's another reason for gratitude that we should have a nationally recognized facility within our region. I want to take a moment to acknowledge my thanks to Jeremy Humpherville and the crew at Coastal Carvings Fine Art Gallery in Coombs. I happened to drop in this past weekend too. Offer my congratulations and support for their 20th anniversary celebration. I'm grateful for the gallery and the inspiring creations featured within on the APTN Film crew was on hand as well to cover the event. Jeremy told me that this marked the end of filming for the second season. The first season will debut this fall.

Peter McCully: We've added a new kid story to our growing collection of tales in our Skookum Kid story series. The kids will want to check out the latest adventure of the Mellow Submarine as Captain Dave and his crew of marine creatures visit Miracle Beach. Be listening for Captain Dave and the mystery of the Missing sand dollars. Narrated by Dave Graham.

Dave Graham: And then there's Peter and Gracie, the Eskimo dog. Their latest exploits involve a visit to a place where veggies grow, and Bigfoot roams what to find out just what happened. Go to the pulse community.ca for that and all the other stories. They're also available at Skookumkids.com and the usual spots. Apple, YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, and Amazon.

Fireside Books: There's exciting news for book lovers fireside books in Parksville now has a second location in Port Alberni. The bookwyrm used books are just $5 each, and be sure to ask about their volume discounts. The bookwyrm on the corner of Redford and Anderson open seven days a week from 10 to five fireside books at 464 Island Highway East in Parksville is a book Dragon's Dream come true. Browse their extensive collection weekdays from nine to six and weekends 10 to five. Both locations make growing your personal library easier than ever. New books, used books, activity books, puzzle books, and much more. Order online at firesidebooks.ca and your books will be waiting when you arrive. Ask about returning books for a book, credit Fireside books and the bookwyrm. Two locations. One amazing adventure in browsing.

Meadowood Store Garden Centre: The Meadowood Store's Garden Center is jammed packed with starter plants and veggies, bag soils, manure and fertilizers. Chris Berger says he won't be under soiled. The folks at the Meadowood Store Garden Center will match sales prices just about anywhere, kids coming at a painted rock to make rocky the rock snake grow longer. Enjoy the relaxing drive to Meadowood, where the bargains are tariff free and are big. Bigfoot big. The Meadowood General Store in Dashwood is the home of Bigfoot. It's a convenient spot for beer, wine, and spirits, groceries, deli, propane, and lotto. Come in and have your picture taken with Bigfoot inside or outside the store at 1221 Meadowood Way in Dashwood.

Dave Graham: Got an attitude of gratitude going this week. Just happy to be here doing this podcast from one of the best places on earth. I was down in the community park the other day, saw that a big area next to the volleyball courts had been fenced off, and I'm guessing it marks the outline of what will become the site of the Parksville Beach Festival Sand Sculpting Event.

Oh, I can't wait. Opening day Friday, July 11th. I'm grateful that I'll be there through the weekend, cranking other tunes. Oh, please drop by, say hello if you happen to be visiting the fest. By the way, on the topic of music, we are planning a special edition of The Pulse Podcast to mark summertime here in Paradise.

We're going to do a music special featuring a specially curated collection of the finest summer songs ever made. It's a little something, something we're working on and looking forward to, but right now it's time for another guest. Marilyn do tell.

Marilyn: In the Green Room is award-winning author Sam Wiebe of New Westminster, who is an award-winning and bestselling author of Pacific Northwest Crime Fiction. He's won the Kobo Emerging Writers Prize and two Crime Writers of Canada Awards. Wiebe joins the podcast to talk about "the Last Exile" Wakeland novel set in Vancouver.

Peter McCully: Thanks for joining us today, Sam. My pleasure. Perhaps you could give us an overview about your book, the Last Exile. It's your latest in a series of novels about private investigator Dave Wakeland, and I think it's fair to say you've created a complex character with a troubled past.

Sam Wiebe: Thank you so much, Peter. The Last Exile is Dave Wakeland's return to Vancouver. So at the end of the fourth book, he has to make a choice of whether to stay or go. And spoiler alert, he goes. The Last Exile is his return. I tried to think of a case that would be large enough and significant enough to bring him back, but also might contain something that would make him want to stay.

He ends up working to get an east van woman named Maggie Zito out of prison. She has been arrested and falsely accused with the murder of a retired gangster and his wife. Every moment she's in custody, she is liable to be murdered by that gangster's buddies. So Wakeland has to get her out as soon as he can and will go to any lengths to do that.

Peter McCully: It could be said that the main character Wakeland makes a number of questionable moral decisions. He might even be a little reckless.

Sam Wiebe: Well, I think after the pandemic, everyone's reckless, aren't they? I think the thing about Wakeland is that he looks at this woman, Maggie Zito, who's been falsely accused of murder and she's in prison and it's really a ticking clock of can I get her out of prison before the biker gang can have her killed?

But she also starts to represent something to him, which is the kind of working class heart of Vancouver which I think was something that he was very discouraged and broken up about in the last book. So it's kind of like finding something to fight for and to stay in the city, even though gentrification and all these other social evils are going on.

Peter McCully: And as you say, the book is set in Vancouver and those novels, the Wakeland series, tackle very serious social issues like missing women, drug addiction and wealth inequality, as you mentioned. So how do you approach those topics?

Sam Wiebe: Invisible Dead, the very first book took on the topic of murdered and missing women, and because that was such a huge topic and I didn't feel right addressing it, I just focused on the disappearance of one woman and had Wakeland searching for her and trying to find out what happened to cause her to disappear, and sort of using that to interrogate all the systems in the city.

By this book, it's more about trying to catch, you know, a snapshot of Vancouver in 2025. What is it like to live here? What are the forces that are making it so difficult for people? And a lot of that is, you know, just the grinding inequality. It's also some of the choices that we've made as a society of what to care about and who to listen to.

Peter McCully: Sam, one of the things I enjoy about the Wakeland series being set in Vancouver is that I can identify with some of these geographical locations that you described. For instance, in this book, I can see Granville Island when you're talking about it.

Sam Wiebe: I think that that's something that people who visited Vancouver or who've read or heard about it or just seen it as the background of a bunch of American TV shows can kind of get behind.

False Creek and the Granville Island market and the houseboats there play a big part in the book. You know, that's a really interesting area to me because when I was growing up, that was a real, you know, Bohemian working class, artsy district, and now it is the center of gentrification and a wealth in Vancouver, and that waterfront is being developed as we speak. Just the history at play there is very interesting to write about.

Peter McCully: How do you balance showcasing Vancouver's appeal while also highlighting those social problems?

Sam Wiebe: I think that the tension between those things is what's really cool. It's not showing Vancouver as a beautiful tourist place, and it's not showing it as a cesspool. It's showing the way that it feels to live here. That involves some really ugly parts that we might like to overlook, but also the sort of everyday beauties that maybe people from out of town don't quite get to see.

Peter McCully: Did you grow up in and around Vancouver?

Sam Wiebe: Yes. Born here. Grew up here. Live here, and I've tried to move away several times, but it, you know, it keeps holding me.

Peter McCully: So your own relationship with the city has influenced how your character Wakeland experiences and navigates it.

Sam Wiebe: Oh, definitely. When I was writing the fourth book, Sunset and Jericho, I was very upset at the state of Vancouver and just walking home past these real estate billboards that say, you know, you don't need a million dollars to buy a home here. You only need 850 grand and going to my teaching job. And you know, that definitely influenced it. And in the new one, there's a lot of that too. You know, it's still very tough and very politically divided. But I also did want to focus on some of the things that I like about it and some of the sort of hidden spots. So I do try to show people, you know how I see Vancouver.

Peter McCully: Beyond the Wakeland series, are there other aspects of Vancouver or types of characters that you're interested in exploring in future books?

Sam Wiebe: I wrote a standalone that came out last year called Ocean Drive, which is set in the small town of White Rock.

It's right on the border, and it was looking at transnational crime and you know, things moving across the border. I have a series under a pen name about a chief of Police in Blaine, Washington, which is also along the border. You know, they're just different aspects of the mystery novel. One's a little bit more of a straight crime novel. And then the Nolan Chase series is a kind of a small town mystery in the vein of Longmire.

Peter McCully: So your writing has been described as gritty and noir. Can you tell us how you developed that writing style and what drew you to the genre?

Sam Wiebe: Well, I think what drew me to the genre was that it was very entertaining, but it also seemed to contain an element of truth.

So unlike some genres that are kind of set in like imaginary worlds, there's an aspect of noir and crime fiction that's palpably part of our everyday life that we don't see. And I just loved that. Going back to the old Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and all the way up through Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Dennis Lehane.

I mean, there's so many great writers who've used that as a way to look at cities, to look at, you know, families and interpersonal relationships and what happens with the environment. I just think it's a way to be incredibly entertaining, but also talk about real things.

Peter McCully: Will Dave Wakeland make it to a little screen or a big screen near us?

Sam Wiebe: The Wakeland series has been optioned twice now. The rights just reverted to me. There's a big strike about a year and a half ago over some of the fears around AI, which are very real. By the time we came back from the strike, the production company that was interested had closed. All the executives had been laid off.

So I don't know. I think that there is a real appeal to a show like this, and I look at the British TV shows like Luther and Thera, and I just think, you know, somebody could do that with Wakeland very easily, especially with, you know, such a lush locale as Vancouver. But I might be the only one. It might just be me.

Peter McCully: Well, Sam, you won the Kobo Emerging Writer's Prize probably 10 years ago. How many books have you written since then?

Sam Wiebe: Enough that I'm no longer emerging.

Peter McCully: Can you talk a little bit about your writing process and how you approach writing a novel?

Sam Wiebe: Yeah, I write by hand. I wake up really early in the morning. I help get my wife ready for work. She's an electrician, so we're up at like four thirty and I feed the cat, make the coffee, make her lunch, and then I just sit down and work and then I'll, I'll type things up as I go and then revise it. It takes about a year to write a book, you know, with a period of writing the draft and then revising it a couple times.

I try to approach it like a real job, which, you know, to me it is. And the writers that I loved growing up were like the pulp writers who basically looked at it as I don't come from money. I don't have a great safety net. So either I get something done today or I go and work in, you know, my father-in-law's Saab dealership, like there's no third choice. So I'm just trying to approach it like a real job and put in the hours.

Peter McCully: And what about those little bits of ideas? When do they hit? They don't hit like nine to five. You could be out driving around and look for the post-it notes or send yourself an email.

Sam Wiebe: Oh, absolutely. Just reading the newspaper, you get ideas and there's all sorts of stuff that just comes in. So, yeah, I mean that part is just working all the time.

Peter McCully: Yeah, and you have to keep that organized I guess.

Sam Wiebe: One would hope, but I tend to fill up notebooks and then never look at them. You know, if an idea's really good, it kind of percolates and then insists upon coming out.

Peter McCully: What do you like to do when you're not writing Sam?

Sam Wiebe: Walk around pet, the cats. My wife and I are big movie buffs, so you know, we like to watch old films. Just been watching a ton of Gene Hackman films since he died recently. Not very exciting, but writing is really sort of the glue that holds that together.

Peter McCully: Do you see writing for the rest of your life?

Sam Wiebe: I don't know how long I'm gonna live, but I don't see a reason not to. I love doing it, and it's just this beautiful thing where you get to have a routine, but you also get to experience something new every day and I just love that, that combination.

Peter McCully: Sam, thank you very much for your time today. I'm a fan of the Wakeland series. I'm waiting for another.

Sam Wiebe: Me too. I'm gonna be working on it soon. Thank you so much, Peter.

Dave Graham: Our thanks to Sam Wiebe for joining the Pulse podcast and for representing the West Coast in such a bestselling award-winning way. Fans of the Wakeland series are welcoming Book five. The Last Exile. Wow. Look at the time. We're into our last moments of this podcast. Thanks Peter, for another successful production. You know, I really appreciate you. Thanks for all that you do to make this series possible. I love you, man.

Peter McCully: Okay, Dave, let's head to the cafeteria and I'll buy you a coffee. I know you're grateful for me, right? So, hey, could you buy me lunch?

Peter McCully: Well, let me check my allowance here, just a second.

Dave Graham: Okay. Coffee and dessert Then.

Peter McCully: Oh, if you stop talking, I might buy you a cookie.

Dave Graham: I'd be very grateful for a cookie. Maybe I get a mocha with that. Could that be part of the deal? Or maybe an espresso? Can I have my choice of cookie? Oh, maybe two. Can I have two cookies? No. I'd like to trade those two in for a brownie. How about that? No, a piece of pie cake. Yes. Cake would be so good right now.

Rocking Rhonda & the Uptown Blues Band: Here come Peter. Here comes Dave. Oh listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing spinning tales in the podcast cave. Having laughs and insights everywhere. What a treat, Peter & Dave.