Editor John Gleeson’s May 4 column about the night he saw a sea serpent prompted an interesting conversation on our last Coast Beat podcast.
The column reminded me of a story I’d read about the time poet Hubert Evans saw the creature known around various parts of the Salish Sea as Cadborosaurus off Roberts Creek.
It didn’t take long for a search of the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives online newspaper collection to turn up the story in the old Coast News, which was a reprint of a piece Howard White wrote for Raincoast Chronicles Six/Ten. I also turned up other stories about Caddy sightings.
John’s column also brought back memories of the two haunted houses I lived in as a kid in Roberts Creek in the ’70s. Let’s just say I saw things that I can’t explain, but I know I saw them. However, if you want the rest of the story you’ll have to check out Coast Beat Episode 99 on our website.
Speaking of the podcast, a journalism student from these parts, Evan Hagedorn, came by the Coast Reporter offices a while back to interview me about Coast Beat as part of a video segment for the Langara Journalism Review.
Like any good reporter, he made sure to ask the toughest of journalism’s classic Five Ws – why?
When I first came to Coast Reporter after decades in radio, I pitched the podcast idea because I wanted to keep telling stories with audio and I thought readers would welcome engaging conversations like the one we had about sea serpents, hauntings and lake monsters.
I also thought, and this is what I told Evan, that in a climate where journalism is often on the defensive, an outlet like a podcast gives us a chance to talk to readers about some of the decisions we make as we sort through issues, especially with controversial stories.
And, of course, it’s also a way to offer a bit of opinion and analysis that might not work in the confines of a straight-up news story.
I still believe all those things. I also believe a good idea can always be improved upon.
The combination of some upcoming vacation time and hitting the 100-episode mark offers a perfect opportunity for a hiatus to think about what to do for our next 100 episodes.
We had a lot of good feedback to our feature interviews with the candidates during last year’s provincial election and we’re planning to do the same in the upcoming municipal elections, but other than that, we’ve got a clean slate.
That’s where you come in, especially if you’ve never listened to the podcast. I’m going to throw another of the Five Ws at you – what?
What will draw you in as listener or, if you’re already listening, keep you listening? More feature interviews? Documentary-style stories? More opinion and analysis? Less? What do we need to do to make the podcast easier to find, download and play?
Email your ideas, and any good stories of sea serpent sightings or local hauntings, to [email protected]
