August 13, 2001

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Life

UFOs. . . Seriously

To the first-time tourist, St. Paul, Alta., could easily pass for a set from The X-Files. The billboard at the edge of the small farming community about 200 km northeast of Edmonton welcomes visitors to the world’s first UFO landing pad—a circular cement deck attached to the chamber of commerce.

COVER

Voices from the Outports

Fifty years ago, there were about 1,200 settlements in Newfoundland. Most were small villages where residents built their houses as close to fishing grounds as possible. Nearly half had fewer than 100 residents; eight in 10 had fewer than 500. By JOHN GUSHUE8 min

Health

Mistakes That Kill

Uncounted thousands of Canadians die each year because of avoidable medical errors. A program is just beginning to monitor the errors and eliminate the causes. By DIANA WILEY6 min

The Mail

Thank you for such a touching article about the military dependants of Lahr Senior High School (“Love stories from the Cold War,” Cover, July 30). In just five days, your magazine brought many of our lost military brats back home to their old friends.

Overture

THE WEEK THAT WAS

Wearing blue coveralls and a miner’s helmet, Health Minister Allan Rock travelled deep underground into an old copper mine in Hin Hon, Man., to tour Canada’s only legal potgrowing operation. Hundreds of plants—nicknamed the “Rock Garden”—are growing in a large chamber beneath powerful bulbs.

COVER

‘A Time and Place Apart’

About an hour outside of St. John's, Roaches Line frays off the Trans-Canada, connecting to a small two lane highway along the north coast of Conception Bay that ravels through tiny outport communities built on granite headlands or set alongside fields of scrub trees and barrens and marsh: Spaniard's Bay, Blackhead, Broad Cove, Burnt Point, Caplin Cove. By MICHAEL CRUMMEY6 min

Overture

The bison may grace Manitoba’s provincial flag, but that hasn’t stopped an Edmonton group from staking its claim to the mighty beast-part of a quest to give Alberta’s capital an edgier image. “Edmonton is known for what? Wayne Gretzky, the Oilers and West Edmonton Mall,” scoffs Ric Dolphin, a reporter for The Edmonton Journal and chairman of The Buffalo Project.

Business

Banking on Comepetition

Even before HSBC Bank Canada opened the doors of a branch near Toronto's ritzy Bridle Path neighbourhood, the hot comThe reason the HSBC boxes were in such hot demand is that those in the local branches of the established Big Five Canadian chartered banks sold out long ago. By KATHERINE MACKLEM6 min

Health

Could she have lived?

I DON’T KNOW IF THERE’S A GOOD WAYTO DIE. I JUST know the way my mother died was awful. And I’m not the only one who feels that way. A coroner investigating her death concluded that staff at the Montreal General Hospital badly botched my mother’s care after her accident.

August 62001