Peter McCully: This is The PULSE Community Podcast. Welcome back. I'm Peter McCully. The leaves are turning, Thanksgiving is approaching, and the days are getting noticeably shorter.

Dave Graham: I'm Dave Graham, and, well, I have to say I'm not pleased. Not at all. I was really looking forward to changing the clocks to fall back an hour. No more time changes, really.

Peter McCully: That's right, Dave. BC is on Pacific Time now. No more changing clocks.

Dave Graham: I do not recall being asked. Hmm. I had plans for that hour, Peter. I have been waiting for it since, well, the last time change. Now the hour we were promised back in March is just being left on the table. I want my hour back.

Peter McCully: Well, we're all in the same boat, my friend.

Dave Graham: Oh, I had such good plans, too. 20-minute nap, 15 minutes spent eating something with chocolate, and then the rest of the hour lying on the couch with a good chance of circling back to napping. Oh, it was the perfect plan.

Peter McCully: I imagine you'll find a way to make it work, Dave. Today's podcast is brought to you in part by Ian Lindsay and Associates, serving the mid-Vancouver Island area.

Dave Graham: You'll find real estate professionals at ianlindsay.ca.

Peter McCully: Ann Vriend leads the all-female group AV & the Inner City, and is bringing that sound to Vancouver Island, along with solo performances.

Ann Vriend: I just started playing on my front porch. And I live in the inner city in Edmonton. There's a lot of foot traffic past my front porch, so I kind of had a built-in audience. And then singers started joining me. We could be socially, physically distanced enough to safely sing together in the front yard, basically, for passersby. And then people started hearing that it was going on, and people from all over the city started coming for these weekly concerts on Sunday afternoons.

Dave Graham: Ken Neden has spent close to five decades volunteering with Arrowsmith Search and Rescue, helping people through some of the most difficult moments of their lives. Ken has watched the organization grow into one of Vancouver Island's most respected search and rescue teams.

Ken Neden: Last year, we had 82 operational periods throughout 2025, and we put something like over 4,700 hours involved in that. That's anything from dementia walkaways. I always say our worst-case scenario is we're looking for a grey-haired gentleman in Qualicum, which opens up possibilities, especially when some of us on the command vehicle are grey-haired as well. But anyway, we have that. We have lost hikers, runaway children, that sort of thing. But more and more, we seem to be doing a lot more rescues than searches.

Dave Graham: On a future edition of the podcast, master gardener Debora Gurrad returns to the podcast to help with fall gardening. Oh, the timing on this is good. My yard has moved from looking rustic to appearing abandoned.

Peter McCully: And award-winning swimmer Melanie Buggey chats with us. The 33-year-old marathon swimmer crossed the Strait of Georgia from Sechelt to Schooner Cove in record time.

Dave Graham: Author Sam Wiebe is here to talk about his new book, Shot in Vancouver: Adventures in Hollywood North. It is a genre-by-genre history of movies and TV shot in this province.

Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay & 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.

Duende Libre: Hey everyone, my name is Alex Chadsey and I'm the pianist and bandleader with award-winning trio Duende Libre. Get ready for a musical journey without borders when we come to Char's Landing on October third. Our music celebrates the connections between jazz and rhythms from Cuba, Brazil, and the Mediterranean. What sets us apart, aside from our eclectic sonic palette, is our emphatic onstage chemistry formed by a decade of performing, touring, and recording together. So get your tickets and we'll see you on October third at Char's Landing.

Peter McCully: We have a new contest. This time you could win a $100 Thrifty Foods Smile card.

Dave Graham: To enter to win, fill out the form at the contest link and tell us your go-to budget meal.

Peter McCully: Do you have a go-to budget recipe, Dave?

Dave Graham: Oh, sure. It's called the day after Thanksgiving Dagwood. All the leftovers represented, oh, jammed into one sandwich, and well, everything's paid for, which makes it practically free. That may not be entirely logical, but I can make that work. People know who Dagwood is, right?

Peter McCully: Well, we're about to hear from a guy who probably does. He's a senior member of a team that is vital to our community. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Ken Neden has spent close to five decades volunteering with Arrowsmith Search and Rescue, helping people through some of the most difficult moments of their lives. From mountainside rescues to coordinating with emergency crews across the island, Ken has watched the organization grow into one of Vancouver Island's most respected search and rescue teams.

Dave Graham: Thank you for joining us today, Ken. It is always a pleasure to see you.

Ken Neden: Thanks very much. It's good to see you again.

Dave Graham: For those who are unfamiliar, can you describe what the Arrowsmith Search and Rescue does and the area that you are responsible for?

Ken Neden: We're responsible for ground and inland water search and rescue. So not marine, but anything inland. We cover all the way up to the Cook Creek interchange on the highway, south to the overpass right near Lantzville, and we go inland to the sites of Arrowsmith, Cokely and Moriarty, and then we also cover Lasqueti and Jedediah Islands.

Dave Graham: How many people are involved in this at this stage?

Ken Neden: Right now, we have about 56 members on our roster. That includes our support people and ground pounders and all the specialty team people as well. So it's a good group. We keep very active, so.

Dave Graham: That leads me perfectly to the next question, which is what last year was like for you. How many calls, and is there a typical call, or is that just an ignorant question?

Ken Neden: There's no such thing as it seems like a typical. There's maybe some you get more than others. Last year, we had 82 operational periods throughout 2025, and we put something like over 4,700 hours involved in that. That's anything from dementia walkaways. I always say our worst case scenario is we're looking for a grey-haired gentleman in Qualicum, which opens up possibilities, especially when some of us on the command vehicle are grey-haired as well. But anyway, we have that. We have lost hikers, runaway children, that sort of thing. But more and more we seem to be doing a lot more rescues than searches, and it's been ever since COVID, for whatever reason. People are going back into the woods a lot more, and unfortunately, when statistically you have more people back there, there's higher likelihood of injury and needing rescue. Some of them have been quite serious injuries in the back country, so we've really been upgrading the training for that.

Dave Graham: I guess it's safe to assume the warmer months mean more people are outside. Summer gets busier. Do you ever find your resources stretched during that time?

Ken Neden: There are times. It's interesting, the start of the year through to June, we were sort of average or maybe even a bit slower than normal, and two weeks in July kind of went crazy. There was three days we had two calls, some simultaneous. I know we had a call to assist Port Alberni at Stamp River, and when I got there, we got called for a rope rescue in Nanoose, and we had to spread out. But that's where mutual aid with search and rescue teams comes out, and for that, we're able to call Nanaimo Search and Rescue, give us a hand. And we all have the same training and same equipment, so we do work together quite well. That helps the really busy times.

Dave Graham: So a call comes in. Can you talk about the procedure from there?

Ken Neden: The way our group's set up, we have a system that we use called Volunteer Rescue. It was actually developed by a search and rescue person in Fernie, BC. And it's a web-based application, so if the RCMP or Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, their emergency coordination center, they call a number, put a code in, and they are talking to all seven search managers at the same time, which works really well for getting things done quickly 'cause we all hear the same details. And then from there we can say, "Okay, I'm gonna go here. You're gonna do the call-out," or do we need more information? We may have to call RCMP or ambulance back to get more details, and we can get things rolling quite quickly. So with the Volunteer Rescue, when we do the call-out, we have our whole roster is on there, and we have it set up into different groups. Usually it's just a local call that we call everybody. Mutual aid, we may not call everybody out, but I can go onto my computer or even on my phone, pull up the call-out, type in the details, and click it through, and it'll call all 56 people within just two to three minutes. Far better than the old telephone trees we used to have where you had to call a top person and go down. So it makes it quite efficient to get people, to get us going.

Dave Graham: Isn't the technology exciting?

Ken Neden: It is that. There's always people don't like the technology and whatever, and there's downsides to everything. But when you look at when I first joined decades ago, you wouldn't recognize it now. What we can do, we can track people. Like, everybody has apps on their phone. If they're in cell coverage, we can track them live on the map. We can send them pictures, can do lots of stuff we never would have imagined. We can track our drones where they're flying. We can put pictures on and it'll put a marker on the map where some say we find a person lost in the woods, they can take a picture with the drone. It'll mark it on the map exactly where that person is. We've had in the past with the drones have found somebody in the dark by Cameron Lake, and then they're able to mark it on the map, plus take the drone over, turn a strobe light on over top of the person. So the ground teams just had to look up and follow the flashing light in the sky to get to them. So pretty neat. Yeah.

Dave Graham: Let's talk of, well, I'll let you do the talking in terms of your support team and what roles they fulfill.

Ken Neden: Our group kind of spearheaded this a number of years ago, and there's other groups in the area. I know Alberni is just starting one up, and there's other groups who have inquired. Mainly, they're probably people that don't wanna be ground pounding out in the woods anymore, or in some people, they just don't wanna do that, but they wanna contribute. We call them our support team, but they basically look after logistics. They look after equipment, keep things cleaned up here. When we get a call, they're trained as drivers. They can come to the building here, so we can go directly there. And once at base, years ago, we had to get our ground searchers to get everything ready and set up the command post. Whereas now, the ground pound can go right away, get out in the woods, and these people are looking after it, issuing equipment, doing that. And then after the call, they come back here and make sure everything is cleaned up and restocked and ready to go for the next call.

Dave Graham: The last time we chatted, you were raising money for that state-of-the-art drone. I'm wondering if you could give us an update on that device, how it works, and its successes.

Ken Neden: Yeah. The community really got behind us on that. The fundraising went really well. It's called an M350. It has a camera on it, which is another attachment. We even put other attachments like strobe lights, that kind of thing as well. It's a phenomenal device. The camera will do four hundred times digital zoom, and it can zoom in, and there's things like there's laser range finders on it, so we can measure distance, and that's how it calculates where to plot that person. I showed you our drone vehicle earlier. 100 Women Who Care donated the funds a while ago to allow us to purchase that. So the community support, especially this past year, has just been amazing, and it's really helping us keeping going and then advancing with all this new technology. And it's been a steep learning curve, I must say. When you first get it, you think, "Oh, this is gonna be fun. We'll fly some drones." But between regulations and then all the different attachments, options, interpreting the thermal images, and putting in the sort of pre-planned flights where it'll search and take pictures, it's been really good.

Dave Graham: And AI's creeping into this?

Ken Neden: Much as some people, and I know myself, I haven't used it a lot lately, but we've got a program called Eagle Eyes, and that hooks in. It's a software we put on our controllers for the drones. It goes through, and it interprets any changes in colour. It looks for anomalies. It'll fly over it. It'll take and record the pictures. It'll circle. See something red, it'll put a red circle around it, and it picks up things that, especially on a small screen, you just don't see. We can record them afterwards and do a sort of a post-mission check of it as well. It flies the machine. We can set in pre-programmed flight. Basically, we get a program, pick an area, put in the parameters, and watch it take off, go away, do the search, and come back. It's pretty amazing. So yeah.

Dave Graham: Arrowsmith Search and Rescue is taking over the lease on the radio repeater from Island Communications. Can you talk about why this is significant?

Ken Neden: Island Communication's been really good to us. They have a repeater site on Mount Cokely, which is right next to Arrowsmith. We've had it up there, I think, a couple years, and it's just a VHF repeater. Previous to that, any call, say we were at the building here, we would only have direct line of sight even to the vehicles. We wouldn't have very good communication. Whereas having this repeater up on the hill gives us tremendous coverage. We had people going to a search on the West Coast Trail, and they were picking up the repeater on the Bamfield Road. It's no longer economically viable for them. They're not really getting anything out of this costing them money, but we've been working with them. We're gonna take over the lease. It's a lease through the Crown. Being a volunteer search and rescue group, it will be free for us, whereas it's a bunch of money for a business to do. And so we've been going through taking out all the old equipment and buildings. We were up there. People were wondering why a helicopter was going up and down the hill to Whiskey Creek, but that was, we were clearing a bunch of stuff out of there and preparing a foundation for a new, smaller structure, which is gonna house our repeater and the Mid Island Radio Club repeater as well, so.

Dave Graham: On our tour previous to this chat, you showed me the command vehicle, which is getting on in age. If I recall correctly, you said it cost at the time about a hundred and twenty thousand, and a replacement would be 10 times that. What's the plan?

Ken Neden: That was a bit of a shock to us when we found out how much more that was gonna cost now, and that's even before tariffs or whatever kick in 'cause we wanna avoid that. We looked at that. That's just not feasible. That's pretty much what we spent putting this building up, and that was a major task. But we've found that taking the sort of the box that's on there now, taking it to a fabrication spot and getting them to remove it and renovate it, add a little bit of length to it, is gonna be probably twenty to twenty-five percent of the cost of getting a whole new one, and that would include a new chassis underneath it. 'Cause this vehicle, very low mileage, but of course it is 20 years old, and we don't wanna put it off until things are falling apart, and we kinda wanna be proactive and have something in the works to get it replaced

Dave Graham: Will the renovated vehicle have capabilities other than what it now has?

Ken Neden: The one we have now does have Starlink on it. It has computers and a lot of radio communications and that, but the newer one we will, when it's renovated, will also have for whatever is out there in 10, 15, 20 years, who knows these days, have to be able to sort of pivot and be able to mount it in there. But the idea is to keep that a mobile command center with the latest technology and communications that can be anywhere and run not only searches, but if there's a disaster, it could be a command post for that as well.

Dave Graham: There's an impressive amount of equipment and training and everything else involved in all of this, and how's it paid for?

Ken Neden: Basically about fundraising. Like the town of Qualicum is great. They've given us a lease here on the airport lands, and they've been quite supportive of other initiatives we had as well. The regional district recently upped our annual stipend to 80,000 a year, which is a big help, and that's above what we get through the provincial government funding. Beyond that, our budget this year is actually a half million dollars, which blows my mind when you think of what it was 20 years ago. But the rest we make up through provincial gaming grants are a big source of income, and then it's community support, which is quite grateful how well the community supported us.

Dave Graham: As far as fundraising campaigns go, I guess you make it as easy as possible. People just need to check out a website or something if they wish to donate in some fashion.

Ken Neden: Yeah. We have a website, arrowsmithsar.ca, and on there's donate buttons. There's different ways you can donate other than credit cards, going through a PayPal. You can even donate a vehicle if you want. That's on there. There's a number of different ways or just the direct deposit. Anything over 25 bucks gets a tax receipt. We've also just started, we've got to work it into our website somehow, we have an endowment fund that we just were able to start up with a large donation we had. So that'll be another place if somebody wants to contribute to that. That'll be an ongoing where the principal doesn't get spent, but having steady income is a big part of this 'cause we do spend a lot of time working on grants and fundraising.

Dave Graham: And as far as personnel go, volunteers, do you have room for more or is that a constant state?

Ken Neden: Actually, right now our support team is recruiting, so anybody interested in that can go on our website or call the building here. For the ground search and rescue intake, we're looking at probably early 2027. So if somebody's interested in that, it's quite an intensive course. It's like a 90-hour course, plus you have first aid and it's quite a bit of work for the instructors to put on, so sometimes you do it every year. Usually every couple years we have it, depending on what the needs are. Once you're ground search and rescue, you can go into if you want to rope rescue, swift water or any of the specialty teams.

Dave Graham: Can you speak at all to perhaps in general some of the common qualities you find in people who are successful as volunteers with Arrowsmith Search and Rescue?

Ken Neden: It's quite a wide variety of people here. It's basically people that wanna contribute to the community or they have a skill. They like, people like to get out in the woods and hike around, and some people doing that figure this is our way of giving back, and they never wanna need search and rescue, but if they're doing their bit to contribute. And a lot of the training we do, we supply most of the training. Obviously, someone comes already trained, that's beneficial too, but someone willing to put the time and effort in. And usually when people sign up, we ask for a commitment of five years 'cause it is time-consuming and a bit of expense to get people trained, especially get into specialty teams 'cause then there's all these external courses we have to get for that, and then specialized equipment, which is quite expensive

Dave Graham: The nature of this kind of operation, there's always the potential for something traumatic, and I'm wondering how you support volunteers who go through an experience that shakes them.

Ken Neden: We'd like every day to be rainbows and sunshine, but there are instances where things do not go well, where someone may unfortunately lose their life or have a serious injury, or maybe we have a close call somewhere. So the team leaders, the search managers, and we check in on everybody. And through the BC Search and Rescue Association, they have a critical incident stress management program, and that's a group of peers that are trained. They're not psychologists, but they are trained. Actually, one of our members is actually part of that team. If someone has a stressful or traumatic call, we search managers, or any member, can ask for it, and they'll come in here and talk it over. And if members are having serious issues and that, the government will cover professional help if needed. Before it gets too far, we'd encourage people not to bottle it up inside, just to get it out there and get it taken care of, 'cause it could affect their life quite negatively if it's not dealt with.

Dave Graham: Are there any misconceptions people have about what you do here?

Ken Neden: Sometimes people seem to think that there's a bunch of paid professionals just sitting here waiting for the phone to ring, and that we're gonna rush off with helicopters and everything else and be there in ten minutes in the backcountry, which doesn't happen. There's other people I talk to, they say, "Oh, you guys risk your life every day," and not really. We do a lot of training and do a lot of work, a lot of equipment to make that safe, mitigate any risks you can. There are times when we've had serious call where sometimes the envelope gets pushed a bit, but anything we do, we look at, we try and mitigate any risk that's out there and deal with it in a safe manner. Sometimes that means holding back and waiting for the specialty resource if we don't have it readily available. Most times we are able to deal with it on the spot.

Dave Graham: Have you ever had a close call?

Ken Neden: Not too much that I can think of. There's maybe the odd time you go through, but nothing that really stands out. I'm sure there's a few things along, especially when you're younger, that maybe you didn't think too much of, but I've been fortunate in that way. And the team, we always try to look out for each other as well.

Dave Graham: And how long have you been at this, Ken?

Ken Neden: Only since nineteen seventy-four. So I tell people I'm twenty-five in my mind, so I'm not quite sure how the math works out to that being nearly fifty-two years, but it's been a little while. My dad was one of these first sort of coordinators and search managers. I tagged along with him from the time I was in my mid-teens and then just continued on from there.

Dave Graham: And this may seem like an obvious question, but what is your answer to what keeps you at this for so long?

Ken Neden: I don't know. Some people accuse me of insanity or whatever, but I think it's just a way of life. I know I always say I had two careers. I had the career with BC Tel and Telus, where they paid me to go do stuff, and then I also had this one where I went out and did stuff when I wasn't working and didn't get paid. I still really enjoy it. I enjoy the people. I enjoy the challenge. I'm avoiding the old guy who can't handle technology and that 'cause I am working with the latest with the drones and everything, and, like, my career was in-depth into technology, so it led me into that. But yeah, I just really enjoy doing it, helping out, and enjoy the people that we're with, too.

Dave Graham: Thank you for this, and thank you for your service.

Ken Neden: Thanks very much for having me on.

Peter McCully: Ken Neden, close to 50 years with Arrowsmith Search and Rescue, 82 operational periods last year, and more than 4,700 hours, all from volunteers who drop everything when the call comes in. And as the days get shorter and the trails get darker, that work matters even more. You'll find a link to Arrowsmith Search and Rescue in our story notes.

Dave Graham: I wanna thank Ken for his time once again. We can all be confident in this group of highly trained people and a giant garage full of high-tech gear. I got to see the biggest drone I've ever seen. It's called a cargo drone. Even folded up, it barely squeezes into the back of a pickup truck. It all goes to say we are fortunate to have this level of quality and expertise to call on when we need help.

Peter McCully: We've added some helpful and interesting links to our website, including an assortment of other Vancouver Island podcasts for you to check out, plus Vancouver Island webcams at thepulsecommunity.ca.

Dave Graham: Just last night, I was enjoying watching the moonlight on the water at Craig Bay from the comfort of my couch, which is nowhere near Craig Bay. The PULSE Podcast is available on a variety of platforms, including Apple, Amazon, iHeart, Spotify, TikTok, and YouTube. We're also on Facebook and Instagram.

Peter McCully: If you have someone in mind that you think we should be talking to, then please speak to us. You can reach us and leave a voice or text message. Head to our website and click on the contact link.

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

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

Peter McCully: Our next guest has found a way to bring people together through music at a time when everyone was being kept apart.

Dave Graham: Oh, yes, front porch concerts. What a great concept, if you know what you are doing. I tried to put on a show from my porch once, just me and a kazoo and my neighbours, and then the police. Oh, but let's not talk about that right now. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Ann Vriend is a multi-award-winning singer-songwriter who's spent over two decades blending soul, gospel, and roots music into something distinctly her own. She leads the all-female group AV & the Inner City, and is bringing that sound to Vancouver Island, along with solo performances.

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

Ann Vriend: Thank you, Peter.

Peter McCully: Where and when did you remember discovering music?

Ann Vriend: I think I was only three when I kind of figured out how to play some of the songs that I knew on the Fisher-Price xylophone. You know those xylophones that had the rainbow colours that you could pull on a little string? C was purple. I think I even have one somewhere here in my studio still. My parents were like, "Oh, you're picking out all these songs on there. Maybe you're musical." And so I started violin lessons when I was four. I think even before that, they took me to some music classes.

Peter McCully: If your mom and dad were not surprised at your age of three or four to be musical, they must have been musical themselves?

Ann Vriend: Yes, neither of them were as silly as me to try to make a living out of it, but my mom played piano. She accompanied people at our church on piano. She's a good sight reader. My dad doesn't play an instrument, but he comes from a family where there's a lot of people that play music. Neither of them are super serious about it.

Peter McCully: What was the type of music, and who were the artists that were influencing you when you were younger? I listen to you, and I hear a wide swath of styles and influences.

Ann Vriend: Yeah, there is a wide swath because, I think because the artists that I was listening to listened to a wide swath of music. I listened a lot to Raffi, the children's artist. Later in life, I met the producer of all his records and some of his kids, who are, like, contemporaries of me. The producer is Ken Whiteley. They're really well-produced records. They're songs that happen to be for kids, but they're songs that, folky, rootsy songs. But he borrowed from a lot of different backgrounds of genres to produce the records, so there'd be something that was, like, Greek and something else that would be African American and something else that would be more swing and jazz, and sometimes it'd be more gospel. I think when I was really young, too, like maybe three, the kids were not allowed to watch the TV. So we had a record player, and my parents did a lot of classical, and I wasn't super interested in classical at all as a kid. But they had some '70s songwriter records, like Paul Simon, and Cat Stevens, and Gordon Lightfoot, a little bit of Bob Dylan. If you especially listen to Paul Simon or Simon & Garfunkel, he's always borrowing from all sorts of genres of music from around the world, and has been for a long time. And Cat Stevens, too. He's from a Greek background and, but from the UK, and you, you can hear it in the music. I didn't know that one as a kid really, but looking back on it now, I'm like, "Oh, yeah." So I think I realized that I just ended up with a cross-section of influences based on who I was listening to. And then later I got into gospel, 'cause my mom came home with a record, a Mahalia Jackson record, and it blew my mind.

Peter McCully: Now, you were born in Vancouver, and at a young age, moved to Edmonton. I understand you've been back and forth to BC over the years.

Ann Vriend: That's where our family would take family vacations even after we moved, 'cause my parents lived in BC for a long time, and they met there, and got married there, and had the first two kids there. Actually, I have a family friend whose grandparents were Quakers, and they had a Quaker cabin just south of the border outside of Anacortes, Washington. So that's where we would often meet a bunch of families. So I have a lot of nostalgic memories from that part of the world.

Peter McCully: And you're gonna be back on the island. But first I wanted to ask you about the group that you lead, AV & the Inner City. As well as having a busy solo career, am I to understand that you also play in an '80s cover band on the side?

Ann Vriend: I formed a group back in 2008 with some really great jazz musicians from here in Edmonton, and we made a record of '80s pop tunes, but very redone in a jazz style. But then they were busy and I was busy, and we haven't gigged with that in ages and ages. But we do have one album. It's called The Valiant Thieves.

Peter McCully: Now, you've moved through soul, pop, indie, Americana, and you've travelled extensively with your solo career. Europe, Australia.

Ann Vriend: Japan even. The AV & the Inner City group formed 'cause all my tours were of course cancelled and postponed in the pandemic, like everyone else's. I live in Edmonton, but I would go on the road a lot, so it's my place to just regroup and get organized for the next tour. But then all of a sudden, I was home, like we all were. That's when, just out of boredom, of missing performing live for people, I just started playing on my front porch. And I live in the inner city in Edmonton, where there's a lot of foot traffic past my front porch, so I kind of had a built-in audience. And then singers started joining me. We could be socially, physically distanced enough to safely sing together in the front yard, basically, for passersby, and then people started hearing that it was going on, and people from all over the city started coming for these weekly concerts on Sunday afternoons.

Peter McCully: Did any of those people who sang with you on the porch end up being in the group?

Ann Vriend: Yes, actually, for sure. It's been a little bit of a revolving door 'cause the group's six years old now. We sang together very informally. It was kind of like just a very jammy, like, "What are we doing in this pandemic? Does anybody know week to week what's happening?" And then in 2021 was the first summer that things opened enough up that we were allowed to have concerts, but they had to be really small, like 50 people or less, only outdoors. By then I was really enjoying having harmonies and singing with me, and so I just said, "Do you guys wanna come to this gate with me and sing harmonies outside of the porch, like off porch?" And then they said, "What's your group called?" And we're like, "Oh, I don't have a name." None of this was thought out. I think the first person who asked us to play was like, "Do you have a name?" And I said, "No." And he said, "What about AV & the Inner City?" And I said, "Okay," and there we go.

Peter McCully: It's an all-female soul mini choir?

Ann Vriend: Yeah. It's me singing lead and playing piano, and then some percussion, hand percussion, and a kick drum. It's very vocal-driven, the harmonies.

Peter McCully: What's it like leading a group after 20-plus years as a solo artist? Did you have to learn new things and unlearn others?

Ann Vriend: Yes, I did, 'cause in the past I would just hire professional touring musicians to accompany me, whoever. You often repeat people because you don't wanna have to rehearse new people all the time, and if you have good vibe on the road. Just the way it worked out, it was always men that I would hire. This was not that. It was, like, all the singers, they all had a very diverse experience in music, but none of them were doing it for a full-time job, and none of them were especially doing backup singing, which is a very distinct and technical job really compared to singing lead, for example, or a community choir or something. There was a lot more rehearsal. This was more like, "You're not singing the right note. That's someone else's note. You have to sing this note," and be a choir director. Like, I started writing arrangements and then actually being like, "This is your part and that is your part. Don't sing that part. Sing this one." But that, to answer your question, really made me think about the technical aspects of singing, but also arranging and teaching in a way that I had not really thought of before because I'd just been doing it on the road, and I really strengthened my own skills as a musician, for sure. Absolutely.

Peter McCully: I was going through your discography and looking at some of your YouTube videos, and I ran across A Dollar & A Suitcase, which I understand tells your grandmother's story of immigrating from the Netherlands in the '50s. What was it like taking a family story like that and turning it into a song that the whole group performs?

Ann Vriend: That song actually I wrote as a birthday present for my mother, and it was never in my mind meant to be anything more than just a present for her. And so I remember her telling me this story of my grandmother. I didn't know this, but they actually came in 1947, like, right after World War II was over. The story is that my grandma, like so many people in the war in Europe, were quite devastated by World War not just II, but also World War I and the Depression, and so a lot of trauma, and immigration was actually a reaction to the devastation of the war. My grandmother, like so many people who are immigrants and refugees, come to Canada with sort of this grit and bury it, bloom where you're planted, just kind of survival mode, trying to make things work economically with family, and she had seven kids in 10 years, and they moved into a barn that didn't have running water, and it was a hard life. Her reaction to that, and maybe just also her background, was that emotions were frivolous and for people who didn't work hard. You should just put them aside and ignore them. And my mother, who was born a year after the family did immigrate, she's born in Canada, she's definitely of that ilk herself, too, but she has this thing where she's very emotional also and shows it more, and she is prone to crying easily. So my grandmother said to my mom when she left for university for the first time, "If you don't cry when you leave, I'll give you a dollar." And so my mom tried hard not to cry, but then did, and later as she was reaching into her pocket to find a Kleenex, found a dollar bill from my grandmother. That was a story that my mom told us kids a whole bunch of times when we were growing up, was the story about the dollar in her pocket for trying not to cry but then still crying. My mom wanted me to put it on my next album. She thought it was a good song. I said, "Oh, Mom, I'd have to tell this story every time, 'cause it won't make sense otherwise. It's just a stranger who doesn't know this family story." And my mom cried. People started requesting it at my concerts, and so I started doing it as an encore song at a lot of my concerts, especially in Europe. People loved it. They would request it a lot, especially mothers, as you can imagine. So when it came to putting an album together for this all-female group, many of whom are mothers and have lost mothers and had challenges as mothers, and this just seemed like the most obvious song of all to do. And so we recorded it. And a little aside, which is my mom herself passed away in July, quite suddenly actually. She was so proud of it, that our group recorded an official version of this song, and we presented that to her on her birthday last year. And then we did a music video, and her community choir's in the video. That was a pretty emotional rollercoaster for all of us to be part of that.

SONG: A Dollar & A Suitcase - AV & the Inner City

Peter McCully: How about a speed round of questions then?

Ann Vriend: Sure. Let's do it.

Peter McCully: Vinyl or streaming?

Ann Vriend: Vinyl, for sure. Absolutely.

Peter McCully: Piano or guitar?

Ann Vriend: I have to say piano. I don't play guitar at all. I can only play piano.

Peter McCully: Edmonton or Vancouver Island? Careful.

Ann Vriend: Oh, that's a tie. Obviously, we know which one's a little bit more beautiful, but I do live here.

Peter McCully: Mountains or the ocean?

Ann Vriend: I say ocean.

Peter McCully: A ride on BC Ferries or a flight from the airport?

Ann Vriend: Oh, BC Ferries, for sure. I love ferries.

Peter McCully: Studio or stage?

Ann Vriend: Ooh, don't. That's too hard. It's like picking between your children.

Peter McCully: Porch concert or a festival main stage?

Ann Vriend: I'm gonna pick festival main stage 'cause we did over 60 concerts on the porch, so we wanna reach more people

Peter McCully: Soul or gospel?

Ann Vriend: I say soul.

Peter McCully: Morning writer or a night writer?

Ann Vriend: Night.

Peter McCully: The first album you ever bought?

Ann Vriend: That's a tricky one. I think it was Graceland by Paul Simon.

Peter McCully: That was a great album.

Ann Vriend: It is a great album, yes.

Peter McCully: And if you haven't read his biography, you need to.

Ann Vriend: Oh, yeah? Okay. I'd be very interested in reading that.

Peter McCully: One artist you'd love to duet with?

Ann Vriend: Oh, Bruno Mars.

Peter McCully: Do you have a pre-show ritual?

Ann Vriend: I should develop one. The truth of the matter is there's been so few shows where I wasn't running around like crazy right up to the very last second trying to just get everything together and making sure that my hair was combed and that the merch was set up and that I peed before I went on stage, and I don't have a whole entourage doing all these things. So no, I don't have one. It's, "Oh, crap. Just make sure that you get on stage on time, hopefully."

Peter McCully: Describe AV & the Inner City.

Ann Vriend: In addition to what I've said so far, we're an all-female soul roots vocal group. That's actually the primary reason I'm coming to the island is to showcase at Pacific Contact, which is happening in Nanaimo this year with that group, and then I'm gonna stay a bit longer and do a couple of solo shows, the public one being at Char's Landing, and then I'm doing a private show. And then I'm also gonna try to take some time to actually relax from a pretty crazy summer with the passing of my mom and a really busy tour schedule in Europe.

Peter McCully: I understand the Pacific Contact showcase, it's the first time it's been on Vancouver Island?

Ann Vriend: I've never even heard of it at all before, but yeah, I think you're right. I think another time it's been in Vancouver, but it's cool that it's gonna be on the island.

Peter McCully: I'm interested to know with someone like yourself who has such a wide-ranging catalog and styles of music, what advice you might give to someone who's looking to become a singer-songwriter?

Ann Vriend: I think one of the hardest things is figuring out what to do first and in what order and how to prioritize all the things that everybody tells you you should do, from the administrative side and the booking side and the promotion side and the creation of your music side and the creation of your video side and not getting too overwhelmed and just making a plan for yourself. It's hard, especially with social media being a thing, but to not compare yourself to other people, but compare yourself to your own progress.

Dave Graham: Ann Vriend, from Sunday afternoon concerts on a front porch in Edmonton's inner city to leading AV & the Inner City with soul, gospel, and roots all in the mix. You'll find links to Ann's music and her Vancouver Island dates in our story notes at thepulsecommunity.ca.

Peter McCully: What a great way to create community. A porch and growing group of people gathered to appreciate the experience together.

Dave Graham: That's funny. That's not at all how my kazoo performance went. Our PULSE Community family includes the kids, and so we offer Skookum Kid's Stories featuring Captain Dave and the crew of the Mellow Submarine and Peter and Gracie, the Eskimo dog. And every new story comes with colouring pages.

Peter McCully: In this week's episode of The Mellow Submarine, Captain Dave and his first mate, Larry the Lobster, host a Thanksgiving celebration.

Dave Graham: Then there's our Radio Archaeology series as we take you back to ye olden days of radio and feature some classics, original episodes of Dragnet with Sergeant Joe Friday and Gunsmoke with Marshal Matt Dillon.

Peter McCully: Our PULSE Community podcasts include A Resilience Project with Cindy Thompson of Parksville. In this episode, Frank King, celebrated mental health comedian, provides us with an insightful and frank approach to mental health.

Dave Graham: And we get to welcome back Erin Haluschak, along with Chef Jonathan Frazier of the Comox Valley, as they return for another season with F3: Football, Food & Fantasy Football.

Peter McCully: You'll find these podcasts and more at thepulsecommunity.ca. While you're on the website, sign up for our weekly newsletter. It will keep you up to date on the latest podcasts, guests, and contests.

Dave Graham: Oh, hey, congratulations are in order for the winner of our last contest. Janice Mayville of Parksville won $50 in art supplies from Parks West in Parksville. And with that, sounds like we're just about done here.

Peter McCully: Yes, Dave, that's a wrap on episode four of season three, and we thank you for spending some time with us.

Dave Graham: Yeah, okay, Peter. If we could just finish this up right now, I should be able to take a couple of minutes we're saving and put that toward the hour I'm owed.

Peter McCully: Yeah, Dave, it doesn't really work like that.

Dave Graham: Oh, I know. I have a bunch of chores that I won't do. That'll save me lots of time.

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. All right, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.