The Walrus Magazine

Editor’s Note by John Macfarlane

2009-11-03T11:32+00:00

Introducing the December 2009 issue of The Walrus

Terry Fox has been dead for twenty-eight years, but his legacy, the Terry Fox Run, endures. The brainchild of Four Seasons founder Isadore Sharp, it has raised millions of dollars for cancer research...

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Letters by The Walrus Readers

2009-11-03T22:44+00:00

Hot Water Chris Turner’s “The Age of Breathing Underwater”...

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Birthright by Katie Addleman

2009-11-03T22:20+00:00

Is giving young Jews a taste of the homeland the best way to save Judaism?

The sun had not yet risen when we filed off the bus and stood in the frigid Judean desert, awaiting instruction on our first “values classification exercise.” Guy Bar-Yosef, an Israeli...

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Mind Over Matter by Alex Hutchinson

2009-11-03T23:19+00:00

Keeping a place for thought experiments in an empirical age

For centuries, the seat of highest learning for philosophers has been the armchair, from which a highly trained mind can deduce essential truths about the world with no need for empirical...

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Dogfight by Alex Halperin

2009-11-03T23:55+00:00

Reckoning with the RCMP’s involvement in the demise of the Inuit sled dog

Between 1950 and 1970, as the Arctic was attracting settlers from the south, the Inuit sled dog population plummeted from roughly 10,000 to fewer than 2,000. Many Inuit believe the Royal Canadian...

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The Obstecritic by Pasha Malla

2009-11-03T23:07+00:00

Some babies of 2009, reviewed

“Liam” (by Martha and Kevin)Demonstrating an unassailable grip on the thumbs, eyeglasses, and/or hair of any adult who attempts to engage him, Liam seems destined for a career as an...

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Kawabata by André Alexis

2009-11-04T85:25+00:00

In late april, Bernard Crowe volunteered to lead a few men north to survey the brush around Nagagami Lake. He left for Hornepayne days before the others, to see about lodgings and transportation....

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Dances with Werewolves by Jessica Johnson

2009-11-04T91:81+00:00

Kelley Armstrong celebrates the animal within

Books Discussed in this Essay: Bitten by Kelley Armstrong Random House (2001), 576 pp. Stolen by Kelley Armstrong Random House (2003), 576...

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Green Giants by Tim McKeough

2009-11-04T91:31+00:00

How urban planners are turning industrial eyesores into popular public spaces

The most impressive thing about the High Line, the former elevated industrial rail track running along the west side of Manhattan, is how quickly it transports you to a different place. Climb a...

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The Museum of Sound by Adam Sol

2009-11-04T91:94+00:00

On the ground floor, near the gift shop, is the mechanical wing, with sections for vehicles, factories, heavy equipment, and office machinery. A rare recording of fdr’s typist is the prize of...

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The Maestro by John Keillor

2009-11-04T93:14+00:00

Montreal’s young classical superstar, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, takes his place on the world stage

“Sexy!” he says, advising the orchestra’s first violin section from the podium as they rehearse in Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall. Wearing a blue polo shirt, baton up high in his...

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December 2009 Image Gallery by The Walrus Contributors

2009-11-04T14:40+00:00

Photographs and illustrations from the magazine

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A Sorry State by Mitch Miyagawa

2009-11-04T00:21+00:00

Canada is becoming a world leader in official apologies. Do they benefit anyone but the people offering them up?

The government of Canada gave my family our first apology, for the internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II, in 1988. I was seventeen, and I don’t remember any of it. I had other...

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Castro’s Favourite Capitalist by Rachel Pulfer

2009-11-04T00:22+00:00

Will Sherritt International come to regret dealing with Communist Cuba? CEO Ian Delaney doesn’t think so

The sun is rising over Old Havana, but the man standing at the balcony rail is in the shade. He gazes out over the city’s crumbling rooftops but seems oblivious to the sun-washed beauty of the...

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Walking the Way by Timothy Taylor

2009-11-04T01:93+00:00

A tale of endurance, remonstrance, and remembrance on the pilgrim’s trail in Spain

1. I can’t explain the feeling I’m having here, standing on the beach in Comillas, a little seaside resort on the Cantabrian coast of Spain. I’m wading in the water, actually,...

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Zero Sum by Mary Rogan

2009-11-04T85:83+00:00

In implementing zero tolerance for sexual abuse, has the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario become a source of harm to the patients it’s trying to protect?

“So, how did you and your partner, Barbara, meet?” people sometimes ask me. If I’m feeling particularly perverse, I’ll say we met at the doctor’s office, which is true...

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