May 28, 2001

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Canada Special Report

THE LANDRY DILEMMA

Jean-François Joly used to be a believer. In the 1970s, as a young optometrist building up his business in his home town of Joliette, Que., he was swayed by former premier René Lévesque’s charisma and supported sovereignty as a way of saving Quebec’s language and culture. By BRENDA BRANSWELL9 min

COVER

Paradise Lost

Thinking of an idyllic summer retreat? Dream on. Peace and privacy are fantasies. Overcrowding and sky-high prices— not to mention noise —are the new realities By JOHN DEMONT7 min

Sports History

REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT

Bernice Beals still has a few memories of the one time she met her great-uncle back in the early 1930s. The great boxer Sam Langford was essentially blind when he made one of his final visits to Weymouth Falls, N.S. He was nearly 50 then, and spoke with his usual Mike Tyson-like lisp, which made his name sound like “Tham.” By JOHN DEMONT7 min

Health

Hope & Despair

On Christmas Day, 1956, a baby girl was born without ears in Stolberg, West Germany, the home base of an aggressive new pharmaceutical company called Chemie Grünenthal. Her birth was only the first of what historian Rock Brynner calls the “relendess ironies” of the story of thalidomide, one of the most powerful drugs—for good or ill—ever developed. By Brian Bethune6 min

Automotive Marketplace

tire safety

The recent Firestone tire tread separation problems have thrust tire safety to the forefront of public attention. To the credit of Firestone and Ford — on whose cars most of the tires were sold — the suspect tires were recalled and replaced free of charge. By Dennis DesRosiers6 min

Films

ARCTIQUE MAGIQUE

Zacharias Kunuk tends to notice things. Born in a sod house on Baffin Island, he grew up surrounded by ice and tundra, and learned to see the world with the clarity of arctic light and epic horizons. It’s hard to imagine a world further removed from the madness of the Cannes International Film Festival. By Brian D. Johnson6 min