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Rockin' Rhonda & The Uptown Blues Band: Peter and Dave, they're on the mics. Alright, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.

Peter McCully: Welcome back to the Pulse Community Podcast. I'm Peter McCully, and we're here to track the flow of life on mid-Vancouver Island.

Dave Graham: I'm Dave Graham, and we are watching the leaves turn and we are slowing down again while driving through school zones. Yes, the kids are back to their studies. And suddenly, I'm remembering those September mornings of long ago when my biggest worry was whether or not I packed my lunch.

Peter McCully: Well, it's funny how time softens memories. I bet you had other things on your mind way back then, Dave.

Dave Graham: Oh, let me see. Oh, like whether or not I'd finished my homework, worrying about the new pimple on my chin, wondering if the girl three rows over liked me or not—that was a big one—whether or not I was gonna be among the last to be picked for a team during phys ed, or worrying about a test coming up and thinking my shirt looks stupid, and how I might never understand math. And wow, yes, lunch was the least of my worries.

Peter McCully: Take a moment. Think about clouds or puppies or something else for a moment—you'll be fine. We're going to feature a conversation on the podcast today that may put those daily common concerns of many folks in a completely different perspective. Darrell MacKay of Campbell River will speak to us from Ukraine. He is on his seventh trip there as a fundraiser and volunteer.

Darrell MacKay: This little old lady who was moving these bags, walking 10 feet, moving five bags, walking 10 feet, moving five bags, and I'm thinking like, what the heck is she doing? But when I realised that was everything she owned—now that's all she had left was those five bags—so you have to respect that is her whole life in those five plastic bags.

Dave Graham: Author JP McLean of Denman Island will soon be in the mid-island area to talk about her new book, The Never Witch.

JP McLean: I have always wanted to do a Bewitched on steroids type of story, but for me, if I was gonna write about witches and warlocks and magic, I had to come up with a new approach to the old trope. It took a while to come up with it, but when I did, it was the idea that there are male and female witches and male and female warlocks, and they live, of course, in the Pacific Northwest, and they have had a longstanding—like a Hatfields and McCoys type of conflict between them.

Peter McCully: We have a new contest for you here at The Pulse Podcast. We're giving away new music from 54-40.

Dave Graham: Oh yeah, the new 54-40 album Porto drops in October. Enter to win a prize pack that contains Porto, the signed album on vinyl, as well as The Different, uh, History Unplugged, the band-signed CD, and a 54-40 T-shirt.

Peter McCully: To enter to win, go to our website, thepulsecommunity.ca, or our Facebook page, The Pulse Community, and tell us your favourite 54-40 tune. Two draws will be made for two prize packs, October the ninth.

Dave Graham: Vinyl album signed by 54-40—that's doubly cool. We encourage you to enter soon if you haven't already. The draw date will be here before you know it, and we encourage you to reach out to us whenever you have something to share. Follow the contact link on our website to send us an email or a text, or to leave us a message with your actual voice.

Parksville Qualicum Foundation: Hi, Peter and Dave, and hello to everyone tuning in to the Pulse. I'm Charlene Smith, the executive director of the Parksville Qualicum Community Foundation, and I'm here with a reminder that the fall 2025 neighbourhood small grants are now open from September 15th until October 31st. These grants are for everyday residents of the Parksville, Qualicum Beach, and surrounding Oceanside communities. Anyone who's looking to make their neighbourhood stronger—you don't need to be part of a nonprofit or have any special experience. All you need is an idea to help people connect. Some examples of past projects include things like community meals, block parties, emergency preparedness, art workshops, cultural celebrations, neighbourhood gardens, and skill-sharing events. If it brings people together, helps neighbours get to know each other, builds belonging, then it's a great fit for neighbourhood small grants. You can apply now for up to $500 for your project, and the process is simple. Just head to parksvillequalicumfoundation.com, click on neighbourhood small grants, and create an account to fill out a short online form. And don't forget that we're here to help along the way. Please reach out if you have any trouble. Applications close on October 31st, so now is the time to share your idea. We can't wait to see the creative community-building projects that our Oceanside community members come forward with this fall. Thanks again to the Pulse for helping us spread the word.

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 recognising 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.

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 5. 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 5. 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.

Peter McCully: Future guests to The Pulse Community Podcast include author Rod Mickleburgh, who co-authored John Horgan's memoir.

Dave Graham: Roy Henry Vickers joins us to chat about his new colouring book for colourists of all ages and contains some of Vickers' most popular images.

Peter McCully: Also on a future podcast, Shannon Sinn, author of The Haunting of Vancouver Island, will tell us about the wild people of the woods, otherwise known as the Sasquatch.

Dave Graham: Now it's time for our first guest. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Award-winning author JP McLean has written 11 supernatural thrillers and urban fantasy novels across three acclaimed series. An Eric Hoffer Award winner and three-time Literary Titan medallist, she writes from beautiful Denman Island. She will be in Parksville promoting her new book, The Never Witch.

Peter McCully: Thanks for being with us on the podcast today, Joanne.

JP McLean: Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it.

Peter McCully: You've made your home in British Columbia after growing up in Ontario, I understand.

JP McLean: Yes, much to my parents' dismay. When I moved out here to attend UBC, I absolutely loved BC. From the moment I landed, I remember thinking, "Wow, that's a lot of green." I remember my first early days here walking down to Granville Island and the scent of the laurel bushes—it was springtime. I was just absolutely captivated by it, and I knew I would not be going back.

Peter McCully: You've lived in some fascinating places like Mexico, Baja, Arizona, and of course now Denman Island.

JP McLean: Yes, just in the last couple of years of my husband's career, I decided to do some travelling with him. He was in mining as an engineer, and so his work took him all over the world, and so when we had the opportunity to go and live in Mexico—we actually didn't live on the Baja; we lived in a state called Zacatecas, and it was in the northeast, and we lived there for a year.

The Baja was a separate trip, but all of those experiences have really opened my eyes to the differences between where I live and where I visit. And a good example of that is I miss the mountains when I'm gone. I miss the ocean when I'm away in those places. But it highlights for me what's so special about it.

And the differences—like when we're in California or the Baja and there's these giant stretches of sand, which we don't really get a lot of here. The waves come in and they are thunderous. If you're standing close to them, it actually will shake your chest, so that's that thunderous roll of the waves.

Whereas here, there's sandstone on the beach and lots of rocks, and the land is uneven. So when the breakers come in, they get broken up quite a bit more and it's a softer sound. And it's those little details that I think I notice having been away and seeing other beaches and other mountain ranges, that when I come back I can bring those details—the scent, the sound—more lifelike into my story.

So definitely the Pacific Northwest becomes a character in my books in that sense.

Peter McCully: You create urban fantasy and supernatural thrillers. And if someone has never read urban fantasy or supernatural thrillers before, which of your books would you recommend as an entry point? And what would you want them to know about that genre?

JP McLean: I think going in, a reader has to be aware that they're going to have to suspend their disbelief. That's the most important thing. And I see that a lot when people come up—if I'm doing a sale or a book signing and people will scrunch up their nose, "Ooh, urban fantasy," they're not familiar with it, they're not comfortable with it.

And so if they can make themselves comfortable with suspending their disbelief—and we do it all the time. You think about romance in fiction, in particular romance novels like billionaire novels and such—like how often are there happily-ever-afters? Really, it's not every single time; there's a lot of times it doesn't.

I'm listening to right now the Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny, and she sets them in a fictional town in Quebec called Three Pines. Well, Three Pines has the highest murder rate in the entire world, so I have to suspend that disbelief in order to enjoy the stories. But I do.

And having said that, I think the story to begin with would be Blood Mark, 'cause my job as a writer, I think when it comes to suspending disbelief, is helping people do that. And in that particular story, the only thing you really have to suspend in terms of disbelief is that a birthmark can disappear—it can fade—and if you can believe that, then I can slip in all those other elements ever so slightly just to bring you along.

And I think if you can do that, you'll really enjoy the genre and you'll get a lot out of the stories.

Peter McCully: You've written 11 novels across three different series. Let's start with the first series, The Gift Legacy. What inspired you to write about a woman who can fly?

JP McLean: That one is very close to my heart. The first book in that series is called Secret Sky, and that is the book that got me into the habit of writing.

This was the result of me trying to explain in words the sensation that I feel when I am dreaming about flying. Now dreaming of flying is a recurring dream I've had since I was a little kid and used to run down the street into the wind with my arms flapping in the breeze, thinking for sure this time I'm gonna take off and fly.

So when I wrote that book, it was that dream of mine that I tried to put into words and share with the world.

Peter McCully: There's an Elizabeth Montgomery joke in there somewhere, but I'm not sure where.

JP McLean: Oh, that's coming.

Peter McCully: The Dark Dream series features Jane Walker with, as you mentioned, blood-red birthmarks and nightmares that show the past. Where did that visual and supernatural element come from?

JP McLean: Directly from an NBC series called Blindspot. And the opening scene in that series has stuck with me since the day I saw it. The opening scene in that series happens at night in Times Square, and there's an abandoned duffel bag that a bomb tech is kneeling beside in his puffy gear and his face shield, and as he leans over to unzip, the duffel bag itself starts unzipping from the inside and out emerges Jaimie Alexander and her character.

Her character's name is Jane, by the way—Jane Doe—and she's covered in tattoos from the neck down, buck naked, covered in tattoos. She has no idea how she got the tattoos, why she has them, what they mean, and that really stuck with me. It got me thinking about how on earth a person would cope with permanent markings that weren't of their choosing.

So that was the nugget that started me thinking about how I was gonna turn that into a story, and that's where Blood Mark came from.

Peter McCully: I seem to recall that, and I didn't watch the whole thing because it scared me to death.

JP McLean: I really enjoyed how they could identify on her body a piece of the tattoo that told the story of what happened in that episode. It was very fascinating.

Peter McCully: Now, your newest series, Thorne Witch, begins with The Never Witch. Tell us about Adeline Thorne and the concept of a witch who never inherited her magic until it was actually forced upon her.

JP McLean: Yes, this is where Bewitched comes in, because I have always wanted to do a Bewitched on steroids type of story, but for me, if I was gonna write about witches and warlocks and magic, I had to come up with a new approach to the old trope.

It took a while to come up with it, but when I did, it was the idea that there are male and female witches and male and female warlocks, and they live, of course, in the Pacific Northwest, and they have had a longstanding—like a Hatfields and McCoys type of conflict between them—and they're at a point now where there's peace.

So where Adeline Thorne comes into my thinking in terms of how I'm gonna get this to work is there has to be a conflict. So what I've done is I've made Adeline Thorne be the wick in this bomb that's gonna blow up these two factions, 'cause that's my job—is to make tension and to make it as tense as I can.

I have to have this thing happen. So she can't have any power. If she has power, she'll be able to stop the warlock. So she has no power, and that whole premise of her not having power is really rich background for me in terms of her, 'cause I can make her angsty and angry and it makes her a more interesting character.

And so then when the warlock attacks her, that's the explosion that starts The Never Witch down its path of inevitability. Although all of my first books have no cliffhangers, including this one, it does spark ideas for the next book. And I've already started tweaking that.

Peter McCully: All of your series feature strong women coming into power or discovering hidden power or different aspects of themselves. Is this intentional or just something that you've noticed as you reflect back on what you've written?

JP McLean: It's quite intentional. I think strong women are simply more interesting. They take more risks, they're not afraid to put themselves out there, to expect more of their friends and family, and they challenge the status quo, and I love that about characters that I read about. And I like to think that it's inspirational—it's certainly inspirational for me when I read about those characters. So that's what I wanna instil in people who are reading my characters. I want 'em to be inspired.

Peter McCully: You mentioned that you write best when you're within sight and sound of water, even if it's just a fountain. What's your ideal writing environment, and is there a process—like a daily process—or how do you approach your writing of your novels?

JP McLean: Process changes daily depending on what stage of the writing project I'm at. So at the very beginning of the project, I'm not sitting down in front of my computer every day putting in six hours.

I'm wandering around the house, looking out to the ocean, coming up with ideas. I'm gardening, I'm thinking, I'm walking, I'm thinking, and I carry a notebook with me and/or my phone and I'll make notes. And then eventually one or two months in, I will sit down and organise all that information into a very rough outline.

But I need to have the beginning, the middle, and the end—like the climactic moment and the end—before I start writing. And then once I start writing, I'm at it every day. I don't take time off because I don't like to break up my flow and I enjoy doing it. So it's not a hardship. So I usually do it first thing in the morning.

I don't read the headlines before I do, 'cause that just sucks the life outta me. Same with social media. I don't tend to get onto it. I will sometimes peek at my emails just to see if there's anything I need to deal with that day. But I'll sit down with my coffee after my breakfast and I use a laptop.

I like the stand up or sit down, and I usually try to write a scene a day. That's my goal—one scene. Uh, if it's a big scene, I'll try to write that big scene. If it's a little one, same thing. I like to try to get the bridge into the next scene if I can, and the notes for the next day. And then every day I start by reading that information.

Writing isn't just fingers on keyboards. There are moments when you're writing and you're pausing, and I'm sure you've had this, when you're doing your writing, you're pausing and you're thinking of the perfect word, or "How do I get from this sentence to that?" Or you notice you're using too many "I, I, I" or "he, he's," and you're trying to figure out how you're gonna rework that so that it sounds more appealing.

And in those moments, that's when writing by the ocean really helps me because when I look out at that vast water, when I hear that relentless surf, I realise how insignificant my words are, and somehow that's freeing for me. It just releases the tension in me and lets me get back to the business of getting words down on paper.

Peter McCully: Let's talk about that for a second. Getting words down on paper. I heard you mention that you weren't reading a book, you were listening to a book.

JP McLean: I am. This is new and I could never listen to books before. I think my expectation was related to paper books, and sometimes if you're reading and then you find yourself reading and you know, not getting it, you can flip back, find where you left off really paying attention and repeat it. When I'm doing the listening, I'm often in the dirt, my hands are in the mud or I am cutting apart chicken or something, so I can't just reach over to my phone and hit the back button. So I think it was just becoming comfortable with missing little bits, knowing that you will pick those bits up later in the story.

And if you completely lose it, then you're just gonna have to wash your hands and go back. And then when I finished my Dark Dream series—that's a series of three books—I decided I was going to do the audiobooks for it. I took a course, I downloaded some software, I got a mic, and I recorded those three books as audiobooks, and ever since then I have been listening to far more audio, I think, than I have been doing reading of books because I can do it while I'm doing these other chores that I have to do anyway.

Peter McCully: Interesting. So as an independent author, you wear many hats. Now you are voicing books, but you're a writer, a marketer, a business person. Which hat do you find most challenging, and which one do you secretly enjoy more than you thought you might?

JP McLean: The most challenging is for sure the promoting part of the book, the marketing.

I don't mind—I like interacting with the people that are creating the book covers and I don't mind doing the bookmarks and the little half-sheets that you send off to people, so they know what you're about. But the putting yourself out there, pitching people your story, pitching your book, I find that very difficult.

It makes me nervous. I forget names and I sweat. Oh no, sorry, I glow. That's the part I like the least. What surprises me is how much I enjoyed the writing, because I didn't set out to be an author of 11 books, let alone one. So for me, the fact that I love it so much surprises me. I use it like my carrot.

Okay, after a long day of gardening and weeding and such, that's my reward. After vacuuming, that's my reward. When I wanna be self-indulgent, I sneak off and that's my reward. So that was a really pleasant surprise for me.

Peter McCully: Am I to understand that you met Margaret Atwood on Denman Island?

JP McLean: Oh God. So speaking of being nervous and sweating, yes I did.

Oh my goodness. What a powerhouse. If she's five foot, I would be shocked. I had to bend down quite a bit to get a picture in the frame with her when she was here, but I especially liked listening to her in conversation with Des Kennedy when they were interviewed on the stage. And that woman is smart and witty and no one is ever going to bulldoze her over. She's amazing. Yeah.

Peter McCully: She's proven that time and time again, that's for sure. Joanne, what advice would you offer to aspiring writers looking to find their way?

JP McLean: I certainly had a lot of advice when I started out, but I think if a writer is new, sometimes they hesitate or they find they can't quite make it to the computer to type because they're overwhelmed by the idea that they have to have the whole story in their head, or they have to have an outline to start, and I think that wasn't the case when I started.

When I started, I had one scene that I wrote—that was it. That scene turned into a much larger story as I started asking myself questions about, "Oh, so why did this happen? And then what happened? And what happened before that? And in order for that to happen, what background did they have to make that happen?"

So just sit down and write because the act of writing will inspire other ideas, and other ideas will inspire a chain reaction. And before you know it, you will have that story. It may not happen the way you thought it would, especially the first time, but at least you've got something to work with.

Peter McCully: Joanne, I've enjoyed our chat today. Thanks very much for joining us on the podcast.

JP McLean: I've enjoyed it too, Peter. Thank you for having me on.

Dave Graham: Our thanks to JP McLean for joining the Pulse Community. She will be in Parksville at Fireside Books promoting her new book, The Never Witch, on October 11th, and then at Mulberry Bush Books in Qualicum Beach on October 17th.

Light the Night: Hi, Peter and Dave. This is a reminder about Parksville's first annual Light the Night benefiting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada on October 11th from 5:30 to 8:00 PM. We'll meet at the covered picnic area at the Community Park and do an under-two-kilometre walk that will be lit up with battery-operated crepe paper lanterns.

Participants will also carry these—there are three different colours of lanterns. Gold will be carried by individuals walking in memory. Red will be carried by individuals walking in support of those affected by blood cancer. White will be carried by individuals who have been personally diagnosed and are living with blood cancer—survivors and those in remission.

When you light the night, you are fuelling research, providing support, and making a different cancer experience possible. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada is dedicated to changing the blood cancer experience for Canadians. This past year, we have provided services and support to over 4,000 individuals and assisted 17 healthcare professionals, and invested $5 million in research.

This is the first of what we're hoping will be many Light the Nights in Parksville. To register, go to lightthenight.ca and choose Parksville as the city you want to walk at, and we'll see you there on October 11th from 5:30 to eight at the Community Park.

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Peter McCully: Thanks to Windsor Plywood for being a supporter of the Pulse Community Podcast. Sponsorship opportunities remain available. Check out thepulsecommunity.ca to begin that journey.

Dave Graham: Of course, we are worldwide on the web, being available on Amazon, iHeart, Apple, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. But our focus is on mid-Vancouver Island and we provide a platform for people who need to reach this region. We have our next guest ready. He is showing us that one person can make a big difference. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Darrell MacKay of Campbell River is on his seventh trip as a volunteer to Ukraine and has raised money to send stretchers overseas to help transport the wounded, essentials, and medical supplies.

Peter McCully: Thanks for joining us on the podcast from Ukraine, Darrell.

Darrell MacKay: Thanks for having me on again, Peter. It means a lot.

Peter McCully: We want to talk to you about your book that you have coming out soon about your trips to volunteer in Ukraine over the past three years or so. But first, exactly where are you in Ukraine as we're speaking?

Darrell MacKay: We just arrived back in Kyiv last night, about 10 o'clock. Spent a week and a half down in, um, Pavlograd and Dnipro—two places that have been hit really hard and heavy most nights.

Peter McCully: And you say "we"—who are you travelling with?

Darrell MacKay: I'm travelling with my girlfriend, Olga Buhai.

Olga Buhai: Yeah, we have met in Canada, but I left Ukraine in 2022. This is my second trip back to Ukraine to visit my family because I came to Canada only with my son. All my family still in Ukraine, in Dnipro and Pavlograd.

Darrell MacKay: And how did you two meet? We met at the third anniversary of the war in Comox by a person that we both knew and respected. We became friends and we just started dating a while ago and now travelling back to Ukraine, so we have a lot in common.

Peter McCully: Olga, you are a resident on Vancouver Island?

Olga Buhai: Yes, I lived in Chilliwack and worked in Abbotsford, and my organisation has North Island office in Campbell River, and I moved to Campbell River last summer. I'm enjoying Island very much right now.

Peter McCully: Darrell, tell me what you're doing on this trip to Ukraine.

Darrell MacKay: There's a few different points of my trip. This time was to vet a couple organisations that I've been in touch with that need support.

I met up with Ukrainian Patriots again—they're a really good organisation. We bought some stuff, actually. I had a couple requests to buy $500 worth of pet feed for them and donate a little bit of money, so that's what we did—some shopping. And then there's another group called Swallows Organisation, and it's an NGO set up by a couple young girls here that worked with a doctor from Germany.

His name's Peter Barr. What the doctor does is he equips the soldiers with tools and coping mechanisms to deal with some of the horrible stuff they see, so they don't go home with PTSD or other head troubles.

Olga Buhai: Then I worked as a journalist in Ukraine. I worked with director of regional TV company, and then war started, she became part of evacuation team and they're focusing on evacuation—seniors, people with disabilities, people who are single, people who have difficult medical conditions and need special equipment to be moved from frontline, and they're always looking for help and they're lucky to get Darrell to help them.

Darrell MacKay: Finally, after three and a half years, my goal to begin with was to work frontline on evacuation crews. And this trip here, I worked with an evacuation crew, not on frontline. It was a stabilisation point. And then we get people onto buses or trains to, um, safer areas—Lviv, even Dnipro, whatever. But there's a lot of different groups of people coming through, children and then seniors. This was trying again, emotionally, because you're dealing directly with the people and that's a tough go.

Peter McCully: How far are you from the front, from the fighting?

Olga Buhai: It's from 80 to 150 kilometres, but usually people don't really count on distance because there's no distance for ballistic missiles or cruise missiles, and there's no safe place, but people, they can be targeted by shooting, by shelling, by short-distance drones. The stabilisation point, it's like probably 60 kilometres to frontline. Darrell actually was in dangerous conditions because sometimes people on the ground, they can see what is coming if it's drones or ballistic missiles, and unfortunately, Ukraine doesn't have enough equipment to stop ballistic missiles, so it's pretty dangerous.

Darrell MacKay: I have photographs just for this trip of a couple people that are evacuated and above them there's a drone shot outta the sky and another drone flying behind it. It's been a noisy trip.

Peter McCully: And that's the type of warfare we're seeing on the news every evening—is mostly shelling and drones it seems.

Darrell MacKay: Yeah, it's the Shahed drones, Kinzhal missiles, and Iskander missiles. So that's what they're shooting to cities a hundred kilometres away from the front line. When you're close to the front line, it's the FPV drones that scare the hell out of everybody because they can chase you. They're now hardwired, they're on fibre optic cable that can go 30 kilometres. They've got like a plugin cable that goes 30 kilometres.

They put nets up on the roads to stop the drones. If the drone gets in the tunnel, they can chase your car. It's absolutely like science fiction. It's scary. So the front line is FPV drones, and then further back it's the Shahed drones and the ballistic missiles. I've heard multiple missiles come in as Olga has, and it is the most frightening sound in the world.

They go three times, four times the speed of sound, and you hear 'em whistling over your head, and then a building gets hit. Sounds like it's falling over.

Peter McCully: Speaking of buildings, how are things in the towns and cities now compared with some of your earlier visits? Is there sufficient infrastructure for people to live, like electricity, water, transportation, food at the grocery stores?

Darrell MacKay: There seems to be, there's a lot of businesses around here still with generators set up. We saw a woman that was working out of a business, and she had batteries for her nail studio that Olga went to. There's a lot of places that are without water. These seniors that we are helping evacuate—their towns are probably without electricity and water, and that's the final step, right? You can't get water, you can't get electricity, you have to move. So these people were probably hanging on hoping that the Russians wouldn't get that close, and they're inching forward every day.

Olga Buhai: In general, infrastructure is pretty stable, so everything is working and grocery store full of produce, and it got more expensive like 300% since full-scale invasion begins.

But Russians, especially in the fall, target power and heat infrastructure, especially before winter, because winter in Ukraine, they're not so mild like on the island. They're more like in Alberta. It's not minus 55, but it could be minus 13. So they're really intentional now to target heating power infrastructure if it's about buildings.

If I would compare my previous three-plus year, many buildings rebuilt, uh, some buildings, they are preserved to rebuild later and people are trying to live their life.

Darrell MacKay: Yeah. While they're alive, they're living it to the fullest. The town Dnipro is very industrialised. There's a rocket plant there and there's a lot of industry.

That's why Russia is hitting them. The other town, Pavlograd, it's got a lot of industry there too, and that's why they're focusing on high-value missiles, ballistic missiles coming in, trying to take out the industry. There's one thing that I didn't really understand until now about the thermal plants.

Thermal plants, they pump heat throughout the city through big pipes. So these pipes are all over the place. They're insulated and they run above ground, and they go to the big buildings to keep them heated. So each building doesn't have its own boiler room. It's a shared heating system. Yeah. And I didn't understand that until this trip here that it's easy to hit.

Peter McCully: Olga. You mentioned this is your second trip back since 2022 when you moved to Canada. Yeah. And how is your family doing?

Olga Buhai: My family is doing much worse. And not only my family, but I definitely noticed, uh, shift in mindset. People much more tired than last year, I would say. Time is playing against us.

Because people have huge sleep deprivation. All their chronic diseases, they're just blooming. It's difficult to imagine how it's possible to live when you're not sleeping properly for three and a half years. We noticed that here being two weeks in Ukraine, we have heightened sensitivity to sounds because we heard sound of drones and sound of missiles and sometimes vehicle on the gravel can sound like drone and we are looking around—is it drone coming? For us, it was two weeks and we understand for us it's temporary because we will be back in Canada, but people are living here in that conditions for three and a half years. So I would say it's difficult situation. I see huge shift in health conditions and it's painful to witness that.

And definitely it's a lot of feeling of own guilt because we have it so good. Yeah.

Peter McCully: Darrell, you've managed to reconnect with some of the volunteers that you've met over your six previous visits to Ukraine.

Darrell MacKay: Yeah, I met up with the Ukrainian Patriots. I met up with them, which was really good. I've not met up with many of the local people that I met in like Kharkiv, but I met up with Magnus again, and he's a Swedish instructor.

He's a real hero. This guy's been here since the start of the war. He's got a sidekick now that helps him. He's a guy that works in Sweden named Mattias, and he flies out here whenever he's got time off, and he drives ambulances from the front line. There's a lot of amazing people here. Some of the seniors that I knew before, I didn't get a chance to see them—they're in Krematorsk.

They were probably moved now. People are being displaced all over the place still.

Peter McCully: I'd like to talk a little bit about the book that you have coming out in a relatively short period of time. The book is called My Time With Heroes. You write in the book that hope was the most important thing that you could bring to Ukraine.

Can you share a story or two where you really felt that hope in action?

Darrell MacKay: One of the things that I've seen on my trips here is the reality that heroes exist. And that could be Sasha, the guy with his legs blown off, 'cause he's a hero. He is overcoming his challenge. Magnus, that's putting his neck on the front line, helping train soldiers, how to fire missiles, grenades, tanks. He's a hero. But also just the people here. They're not giving up. They're going about their daily business. They're doing their job. They're baking bread, they're working at the market, they're supplying food, they're carrying on. Lovers walking down the street, hand in hand, missiles flying over. Honest to God, missiles are flying over and an hour later people are walking out, hand in hand, sitting in a coffee shop and just loving life.

It's the Ukrainian people here. They're tough and they're not giving up. They're the true heroes. There's so many—to tell you the truth, two that stick out right now is I worked with a guy named Bogdan. He's a youth advisor for the City of Zaporizhzhia. Amazing guy. When I met up with him, he just put his hands together, says, "Thank you very much for helping."

And you can see that there's hope in his eyes that this ends soon. They're preparing for the invasion. They're preparing that Russia might get closer. They hope it doesn't, but the strength in these people, I know it's said a million times, resiliency, the strength, but I've not heard one person complain.

There's a psychologist came up to me, she said, "What do you think of our situation, Darrell?" And I said, "It's crazy and I don't know how you guys do it. How do you feel?" And she goes, "We deal with it." There's another fella, one of my first days in Kyiv, I was walking along where they have the memorial for the thousands and thousands of soldiers killed.

And it's just heartbreaking to see. And as I'm walking by there, right, there's a fellow sitting down next to the, uh, memorial and he's got two prosthetic legs and he's wearing military garb. So I walked over there and I sat next to him and I asked him, I said, "Do you speak English? And can you talk?" And he goes, "Yeah."

And he was a really friendly guy and we talked for probably an hour, but one of the questions I asked him was, "What happened to your legs?" And he said, he lost his legs in Izyum. I says, "And how are you with that?" And he looked at me and he smiled and he lit a cigarette and it was just really tough hearing this.

But he goes, "It's just another challenge." I don't know if I could react the same. I don't know if I'd be pulling the victim card or poor me, but it was nothing like that from this kid. He just smiled and he says, "It's just another challenge."

Olga Buhai: And he's professional soccer player and coach and he's still coaching kids with two prosthetic legs and he is very good.

Darrell MacKay: So he's overcome another damn challenge. Every time I come here, it's humbling to see how tough these people are and the stuff that they're fighting through. And again, there was never the victim card played.

Peter McCully: You've worked alongside many people on your seven trips to Ukraine—doctors, students, ex-soldiers. That's a real diversity of volunteers.

Darrell MacKay: Yeah, it seems that the people that show up are some pretty amazing people. I've met some pretty crazy people too. I won't get into that, but for the most part, the people that are working with recognised NGOs are very good people. Very strong people, big hearts and very competent.

Peter McCully: Photography runs pretty deep through your journeys. I follow you on social media and see some of the short clips and the photos that you post. Will there be a selection of photos in the new book?

Darrell MacKay: The new book covers my first five trips, and there's quite a good selection of photos from the first five trips. It became such hard work getting the words out. I had a really good guy helping me with it to put the next few trips in—it would've been too much for me. The sixth trip, I don't know if I talked to you about the train got shot—there was a missile came through the train right in front of me and just rattled me. That's not in the book, and I think it would be just too much for people and, and especially this trip here too, there's just been some hell.

Peter McCully: I don't believe you told me that story.

Darrell MacKay: I was on a train heading into Kyiv, totally safe place going through probably Irpin or Bucha, which was hit hard by the Russians in the beginning of the war. I was just sitting there and there was an explosion on our train—hole, torn in the sides, smoke and shrapnel, and it was like 20 feet away from where we're sitting and I didn't know what the heck it was. I thought a grenade had gone off or something. I had no idea. And then when people collected the parts, there was a bullet head. I talked to a military guy. I showed him photographs of what had happened, the hole in the train, and he said it was a 7.62 millimetre bullet that Russia used in World War II that just wreaks havoc on the soldiers.

So it's a bullet. It shoots from a rifle, and it'll hit a soft target—like it won't hit a tank, but it'll hit a train or a car and it tears through, then explodes and it takes people out. So that hit just in front of me, and the first couple days I was pretty glib about it. It didn't seem to bother me. I guess when I processed it and I thought of what could have happened, I reassessed and had a shorter trip.

I was hoping to spend 40 days, but I spent 20 days last trip. But when I processed it, I realised how close it was to losing a leg or dying.

Peter McCully: Darrell, in the book you talk about air raid sirens, and I understand they're pretty loud. You can't miss them.

Darrell MacKay: Yeah, you're exactly right. They're loud and you do hear them from miles and miles away.

Our hotel here is probably a hundred feet away from one, and it was loud last night, and they're effective. When you go home, you hear a motorbike start up or whatever, and the whirring sound, it just puts you on edge because it sounds like an air raid. I think I'm programmed now to be a little scared of them.

Olga Buhai: People have apps and notifications if for some reason, if they can't hear, there are many other tools to let people know dangerous coming.

Peter McCully: And for our listeners, this is what they sound like.

[Sound of air raid siren]

You've been fundraising on your Facebook page. Originally, I believe you started with portable stretchers for wounded, and what has that parlayed into?

Darrell MacKay: I am amazed at the people on Facebook—my friends and friends of friends. I'm totally transparent with the money and the trust has been unreal. Like I was trying to raise money before this trip and in five or six days, I had $14,000.

I think I've raised about $140,000 now. The stretchers, that's where I started off, so it was 535 stretchers on the front line. Then all kinds of medical kits we've bought, vehicles, a backhoe to dig trenches, night vision goggles, all kinds of tourniquets, chest seals, all kinds of medical equipment, pet food.

The shopping list was on and on, and I'm really proud to say that every penny that I've raised has gone to the Ukrainian people.

Peter McCully: From your perspective and Olga's perspective, what can folks outside Ukraine do that truly makes a difference to some of these people that need it?

Olga Buhai: I think it could be two main perspectives, and one of them, people outside of Ukraine can advocate for, help Ukraine, talk to local politicians because big decisions and big challenges like war in Ukraine, uh, they could be resolved on a global level or international level.

And we know politicians, they're following voters. So if local people will be supporting Ukraine with politicians, it would help. And we've seen it before because it definitely helps. And another perspective, people still can help in the way they consider the most comfortable for them. They can find trustworthy funds and donate money, and there's so many different directions.

Some people don't want to donate for drones or weapons, but humanitarian need is huge. Medical supplies, food, even gas for evacuation team—it's long distances and even vehicles because vehicles, they're just disposable here. People are driving fast because they have to bring people fast to hospital to evacuate them.

So vehicles, they are really disposable. So there's so many different needs and everybody can find something or somebody to help with.

Darrell MacKay: And if they talk to somebody that's been on site in the country, I can recommend all kinds of different groups. It's cash though. If people can send money. And if they send it to the small groups, the money gets used.

The group I was working with for the evacuation crew, they were supported by USAID—Trump shut that down. So these people are not getting money now, so a lot of their finances have been dried up, and I'm putting $5,000 toward them to help out with a few different things like fuel, accommodations, paying hydro bills on the stabilisation centres.

World Central Kitchen supplying food. Another group is EastSOS, and that's who I was working with. And they're really amazing people. And these are frontline people to stabilisation centres, to train stations. And the care they showed was amazing. I was dealing with this little old lady, and I think in a different circumstance, she might've been irritating, but she was moving these bags, walking 10 feet, moving five bags, walking 10 feet, moving five bags, and I'm thinking like, "What the heck is she doing?"

But when I realised that was everything she owned—now that's all she had left was those five bags—so you have to respect that is her whole life in those five plastic bags. And these guys I worked with, they just showed love. They showed care. They're amazing people. So EastSOS, that's a good group.

Ukrainian Patriots, that's a really good group. swallows.org is a really good group.

Peter McCully: Darrell, after all your time in Ukraine, what has changed most in you and what do you hope listeners take away from the story?

Darrell MacKay: That's a tough one, Peter. I think there's one thing that I've been talking about and everybody has an opinion. Everybody can spout their opinion off, but I think people should defer to, um, experience and education. And these people that are arguing about the propaganda saying, "Russia's doing good"—Russia's not doing good. Russia's doing horrible things. I know that one thing that's changing me is the first couple trips I'm thinking there might be some good Russians.

I'm hating Russians. I really am. I'm seeing these villages that are just pummelled. I'm seeing missiles come in that miss their targets and take out a rec centre. The rec centre in Pavlograd? Yeah, community centre. The community centre where she grew up and played is just levelled. I've seen countless civilian targets.

I've seen apartment buildings cut in half. I've seen churches knocked over, rec centres knocked over.

Peter McCully: And I'll ask Olga the same question. What's changed most in you, and what do you hope listeners take away from this story today?

Olga Buhai: I think probably the biggest lesson of this time, it's clarity, because for us, Ukrainians, it's so clear now what is good and what is bad, who is wrong, and who is right.

It's not like we have to ask for second opinion or third opinion. Everything is clear and war brings clarity in values, in perspective, and we can understand what is really worth to live for—family and friends and helping each other. Most people here, they're saying we have never felt so much love like in these times because it's only important thing, actually not anything else. All building that we can rebuild them.

People here, they just want to live and raise their kids and take care of their parents, and that's it. And Russians, they're only obstacle for that.

Peter McCully: Darrell, Olga, thanks for your time today. Please stay safe. We'll look forward, Darrell, to the release of your new book, My Time With Heroes.

Darrell MacKay: Thank you very much, Peter.

Olga Buhai: Thank you, Peter.

Dave Graham: If you would like to help Darrell as he continues to fundraise for Ukraine, head to his Facebook page. You'll find the link in our show notes, and we thank him for being part of the Pulse Community and for taking action, for making a difference. That's one heck of a story. And we here at the Pulse are all about stories.

Oh, we have them for kids too.

Peter McCully: Yes. We have two series of stories for kids. There's Captain Dave and the Mellow Submarine, and there's Gracie, the Eskimo Dog. The stories feature local and familiar places and events. You'll find them at thepulsecommunity.ca, skookumkids.com, Apple, Amazon, Spotify, iHeart, and YouTube.

Dave Graham: Well, you know, in Gracie's latest story, she and her pal Peter visit Uncle Joe's Apple Orchard in Coombs, where they learn a little bit about teamwork, sustainable farming, and the joy of creating something together.

Peter McCully: And the latest Mellow Submarine story involves a race, an underwater race, no less, and the value of participation and helping others.

Dave Graham: You know, I find that story appealing and that the focus is not on winning. As a kid, I gotta be honest here—as a kid, I was more of a participant than a race leader.

Peter McCully: Dave. The story reminds us that it isn't necessarily the finish line that matters, it's the journey to get there.

Dave Graham: Well right now, Peter, I would like to journey to the cafeteria so that I might eat and finish a nice piece of cake.

Peter McCully: You're ready for cake again after the last time?

Dave Graham: Oh, you see, that's why friends are so important so they can warn you when you're about to do something stupid. Thanks for that.

Peter McCully: Well, I can barely keep up sometimes.

Dave Graham: I could use some pie.

Peter McCully: How about a nice healthy salad?

Dave Graham: Okay, now you're just being silly.

Rockin' Rhonda & The Uptown 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. Peter and Dave. They're on the mics alright. Join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.