He knew he couldn’t keep up with the fastest cohort, so he fell back into the next group. “It would’ve been easy to quit,” he says, “to throw in the towel when it didn’t go as planned.” But he didn’t. Riding alongside 175 other riders, he was on track to do that, in sync with the top dozen riders for the first 40 km. Although it wasn’t a race, he says, “I like to push myself and really go for it.” This meant bettering his previous time – 55 km in as close to two hours as he could. He remembers this year’s YANA ride as a particularly challenging experience. The difference between struggling to be “the best” (a near impossible feat) and simply “doing your best” is critical it’s something Craig practices. The names of Craig’s last three boats have been the same: Aristos, a Greek word that translates to “do the best you can.” It’s a philosophy that has been paramount to his life – whether he’s guiding the student teachers he works with or applying it to each new task he faces. “I’m much fitter at 70 than I was at 50,” he says. Since living on the Island, he has lost 20 pounds. Once he incorporated activity that challenged his body, he began to see a difference. Despite his younger days spent at the helm of a sailboat, he recognizes that despite the wellness being outside provides, it wasn’t great exercise. Seymour to ski the fresh snow, he doesn’t characterize himself as inherently athletic most of the activities he now pursues he took up after moving to Vancouver Island.Īs Craig has gotten older, he says his perception of physical activity has changed he’s realized how important it is to link it to health. Although Craig grew up with the occasional afternoon spent fishing and taking trips to Mt. He leads the kayak section of Probus, despite only stepping into one a few years ago.Ĭraig’s nickname is “salty dog”– the “dog” is a reference to his last name, and “salty,” an allusion to his love of the ocean. When speaking about the water he says, “I’m either on it or in it or under it.” That love of the sea was cultivated in childhood by Craig’s father who had a penchant for fishing. He downhill skies, sails, rides motorcycles, scuba dives, and now even kayaks in his own backyard (or, in the water that lines his property).
He’s the president of his area’s Probus chapter, a social and activity club for retired and semi-retired residents, which has branches across Canada. “When people here ask, ‘what do you do?’ they aren’t referring to whether you’re a doctor or a postal worker, they’re asking what you do as in what activities you take part in.” For Craig, the answer is as long as a weekly grocery list. However, he says that retirement on the Island has rendered those career stats irrelevant. For the past 14 years, he has worked part-time as a faculty associate in UBC’s Department of Education, something he’s still able to do from across the Strait of Georgia. Raised in Vancouver, Craig worked as a teacher, counsellor, and mediator in Burnaby for 34 years. For someone who didn’t start riding until after 65, the adage that you’re never too old to try something new is a theory he’s tested. After his photo was used in promotional posters for Simon’s Cycle YANA ride (a charitable event that raises money for local families who seek medical treatment for their children), his friends jokingly referred to him as “poster boy.” One day, Craig rode from his home in the Comox Valley to Campbell River and back, a trip that’s approximately 110 km. In the years since (and a few higher quality bikes later), Craig is at the front lines of numerous cycling events. I’m going to need to work at it if I want to get any better,” he says. Upon tackling the incline, he was embarrassed to discover he couldn’t make it halfway up. Not having ridden since childhood, he bought an old bike from a neighbour. He watched as his Island neighbours vigorously pedaled uphill to a coffee shop perched at the crown when he was invited along. Directed by Olivier Award-nominee Stafford Arima with movement by Danny Mefford, this provocative and moving new musical lays bare the complexity of protecting our privacy, identity and humanity in the digital era.When Craig Bassett and his wife retired to the Comox Valley from North Vancouver six years ago, he had never been in a kayak and didn’t own a bike. A community of gay men in an online chat room come together to discover what drove one of their own to take his life. Inspired by actual events surrounding the 2010 suicide of Tyler Clementi, a college student who brought national attention to cyber-bullying, Poster Boy is a new American musical by Tony Award-nominated composer Craig Carnelia and playwright Joe Tracz. (2016 Artwork by Ligature Creative Group) Originally produced at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Williamstown, MA