"The Third Eye Guy"
My Past
Table of Contents
My Upbringing
Out On My Own
My Inheritance & First House
A Witness to Murder
Moving to Banff National Park
Hitting Rock Bottom
Moving to Whistler
The Fairy Creek Protest
Making EPIC Changes in Whistler
Life on Beach Ave
TTPP is Born
A Call For Help
1. My Upbringing
I was raised on a farm in ON where we raised beef cattle, chickens & had teams of mostly Belgian draft horses. We would selective-log & heat our home with & sell firewood that we pulled out with the horses, which helped to instill my love of working with traditional methods. My father was always quite abusive, & in 2002 he had a tree falling accident, which seemed to worsen the physical abuse. Eventually, my mother worked tirelessly to become a nurse & had separated from him & we moved in with her after gaining primary custody, and things seemed really great now that we were away from my father.
On Christmas day in 2005, I remember that I hadn’t received the gift that I had wanted, or so I thought - & I was being a brat & I was shouting at my mother and throwing a tantrum, so she sent me to my room to calm myself down. I remember vividly going onto my knees and praying to God that he would take her away from me, because well, kids are kids and I was a brat… The next day, we went to visit my father from Boxing day until New Years & it was in this period that I remember the moment where he & I were watching the news, & a report came on covering a report about a car accident, and unfortunately they were not able to save one of the passengers. I heard my mothers name being mentioned, and for a moment, I remember being proud that she, being a nurse - had tried to save this person’s life. I was puzzled when I looked at my father to see a much different reaction on his face, of astonishment - and he shouted for my siblings to run downstairs quickly. It was my mother that had been struck, in an accident caused by a distracted driver & slippery conditions. Because of the old farm house we were in, I assume nobody was able to get a hold of us - and so, it was the news that told me about losing my mother, and that ungrateful Christmas day had been the last day that I was able to spend with her. What a way to learn a hard lesson about gratitude & appreciation, eh!
2. On My Own
Inevitably, we had to move back in with my father, but things were different now, and no matter what, I always stood up and fought for myself. My mother had made the decision that this man wasn’t safe for us, and not fit to be a caretaker in our life - and she was right. As he once told, he only wanted to have children to have extra hands to help him on the farm. And so, it would take enduring a lot of abuse, neglect, & ultimately - fighting. Until one day, years later - I overpowered him in a fight, as I got behind him and put him into a choke hold, and held it while I felt him struggle to try to get out of my grip until we were lying on the floor. He would never hit me again, but just a few days later, he told me that he was going to put me into foster care. I obviously didn’t understand as a kid that he couldn’t put me in foster care for defending myself from abuse - but I didn’t understand the legal system & I certainly didn’t want to go into the foster care system.
And so, ever since I was 15 (almost 16) - I have lived on my own. I was thankful to have a friend & her mother to move in with, an old coworker of my mom’s - & I promptly moved out with the promise that I would pay rent as soon as I could go onto student welfare, & then look for a room of my own. I always stayed in school, never dropping out, and despite being able to sign myself out as my own legal guardian, I rarely missed my classes, and found myself part time work at a car dealership, working upwards of 30 hours per week. I finished high school with the rest of my peers, in the academic level with fairly decent grades. I was even astounded when in my graduation, I was awarded two separate awards for my resilience & triumphing through adversity.
3. My Inheritance & First House
Because it was a car accident, there was a lawsuit and a legal battle - and for almost 9 years, I knew that I would receive a part of that settlement when I turned 18. I saw my older siblings fly through their money, & so I wanted to do things differently, and buying a house always seemed like the smart thing to do. I had many years to plan this out, always thinking for the long term, and when I turned 18, after building up credit like a madman by putting any of my friend’s expenses through my visa card, I was able to get approved for a mortgage to buy my first house.
Throughout highschool, I originally wanted to become a realtor, and had even enrolled in OREA (ON Real Estate Association), but by the time I had bought the house, I had began to realize that this was only rooted in financial gain, thanks to Alan Watts videos - as the thought of commision & profit tempted me. And so I lived in the 5’ tall, semi dirt floor basement of the house and mostly just had my friends live in the 3 bedrooms upstairs. It made me feel good that I could help offer rooms to people that needed it, and so I also had an Indian fellow, a British mutual friend, and a young girl from my high school live in the rooms at times. At this time, prior to buying the house, I got caught up in a multi-level marketing company called Vemma and was manipulated and deceived by the thought of residual income, and fortunately was able to get out of it with minimal losses. I’m glad I learned that lesson early! I took a 12 month stock trading & pattern recognition course with Jeff Kohler, which is now an exclusive access course, and I’ve gone on to make a $16k profit with trades & investments, and I’ve even learned (afterwards) the moral importance of ethical trading & investments. I’d like to get back into stocks one day, when I have the portfolio to do so.
And so, ever since I was 15 (almost 16) - I have lived on my own. I was thankful to have a friend & her mother to move in with, an old coworker of my mom’s - & I promptly moved out with the promise that I would pay rent as soon as I could go onto student welfare, & then look for a room of my own. I always stayed in school, never dropping out, and despite being able to sign myself out as my own legal guardian, I rarely missed my classes, and found myself part time work at a car dealership, working upwards of 30 hours per week. I finished high school with the rest of my peers, in the academic level with fairly decent grades. I was even astounded when in my graduation, I was awarded two separate awards for my resilience & triumphing through adversity.
4. A Witness To Murder
After over a year in the house, I decided to clear out the bedrooms and have some more peace & quiet, as it was often overrun with all my friends, people even coming in without an invitation or knocking. I actually quite miss this now, but I remember it really weighing on me at the time. The house was also in a terrible neighborhood, and I would often find needles lying around, and remember my neighbour finding a bloody knife, and each week news would report break-ins, and I could see the houses that were being broken into, and it seemed it was getting closer and closer to me.
Then, one night as I was sleeping, I woke up to police sirens going off, my walls lit up with blue & red lights, & police surrounding the area around my house, the whole intersection being barricaded and blocked off. I looked out the window and saw multiple cruisers, but no officers, so I put on my robe and went out my front door, and still couldn’t see any officers. I went back upstairs and I looked out the back window at the street in the back, & I saw a man running away, with an officer chasing after him. All of a sudden, the man who had caused an assault in the week prior, had stopped & turned on a dime and stabbed the officer in the armpit with a knife, & the officer pulled out his firearm and fired a couple of rounds into the man, killing him.
I knew that I had to get out of that area, and despite thinking I should rent the house out, I decided to sell it, as I didn’t want to feel weighed down thinking about the break ins, & I listed & sold the house immediately. I made about $20k, with that house being worth more than double its original price now, just 10 years later - but that’s okay, because I truly believe that housing shouldn’t be an investment to flip - maybe as an income to rent it out for locals, sure - but not buying housing simply to renovate and flip them - as that truly only worsens a housing crisis, something that seems all too common these days.
5. Moving To Banff National Park
With the house being sold, I decided to quit my job & I took a 10 day trip to Smithers, BC and Banff, Alberta, where I eventually decided to stay in Banff indefinitely. I found a room, spent 2 months enjoying all the activities I could, and then started working at the Fairmont Banff Springs. I remember the first time I climbed a mountain, and my first really big mountain, and thinking that it was so surreal! Mountain climbers were incredibly privileged people, who were living the dream, and only a select few people - is what I thought my whole life. But it was then that I realized, that life can be anything that you make it, I didn’t have to limit my thinking anymore, I could go out and do whatever I really felt like doing. What a powerful feeling!
I bought new hiking & camping gear, thousands of dollars worth, snowboarding equipment and a Big 3 ski pass, and other gear I obviously needed, like a GoPro & a nice bike. It was at this point that my long term thinking took a 360, and I was now thinking only for the short term. I reasoned that I have had enough of my friends & family die too young already, so I might as well enjoy it before I die too. But I didn’t want my money to run out too quickly, so I applied to the Banff Springs Hotel where my friends worked and I got hired as a Glass Runner in housekeeping. I was never too keen on going out before, but I have always loved to celebrate, and there was always lots to celebrate. I worked with 1400 other people after all, and that means that on average, there were 3 birthdays each day, or it was someone's first day in town, or last day in town, or a friend had their family visiting etc…
One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had become an alcoholic, and every night was celebrated at the Rose & Crown Pub, dancing with friends and being overly generous with my money, and often eating frivolous meals in town. I bought a van & I converted it into a home as I’ve always wanted to do & went on road trips a few times, living in it for a total of 11 months, both voluntarily and involuntarily - as I inevitably drained the rest of my money, eventually leading me to selling the van to try to have money to continue that lifestyle a little longer.
Then, one night as I was sleeping, I woke up to police sirens going off, my walls lit up with blue & red lights, & police surrounding the area around my house, the whole intersection being barricaded and blocked off. I looked out the window and saw multiple cruisers, but no officers, so I put on my robe and went out my front door, and still couldn’t see any officers. I went back upstairs and I looked out the back window at the street in the back, & I saw a man running away, with an officer chasing after him. All of a sudden, the man who had caused an assault in the week prior, had stopped & turned on a dime and stabbed the officer in the armpit with a knife, & the officer pulled out his firearm and fired a couple of rounds into the man, killing him.
I knew that I had to get out of that area, and despite thinking I should rent the house out, I decided to sell it, as I didn’t want to feel weighed down thinking about the break ins, & I listed & sold the house immediately. I made about $20k, with that house being worth more than double its original price now, just 10 years later - but that’s okay, because I truly believe that housing shouldn’t be an investment to flip - maybe as an income to rent it out for locals, sure - but not buying housing simply to renovate and flip them - as that truly only worsens a housing crisis, something that seems all too common these days.
6. Hitting Rock Bottom
Then one day, I woke up, & I realized that I had almost $7k worth of debt on my visa card, and I realized that I didn’t know what to do. Sure, I had thousands of dollars worth of stuff, but ‘stuff’ wasn’t going to pay the rent on my apartment in Banff, and it was february and about -30 outside. A friend had told me that she was traveling to Vancouver, and seeing the opportunity - I asked her for a lift, & I stuffed most of my belongings into her car & I sold/donated the excess. With my last few dollars of credit, I got a storage unit in Vancouver secured for 2 months and 5 days in a cheap hostel. My plan was to get my stuff stored away, then sleep in Stanley Park while finding work until I could afford a room, as the weather in Vancouver looked tropical vs. Banff.
After a week of sleeping in parks, I had a friend from Banff who was also in Vancouver at that time, who was then in a homeless shelter, and he told me to swallow my pride and just to try to get into a shelter as it was the safest thing to do and at the least I’d get a breakfast voucher every morning at a soup kitchen. I did this for a few days, sleeping on the floor of the homeless shelter when I realized that I was only 24 at the time, and this made me considered a“youth” in the eyes of the shelters. And so I looked up, found and entered the Covenant House - which is a youth homeless shelter, now considered a sort of “youth program”. They fed the youth like kings & queens and they had so many trips and opportunities for us to embark on. It truly is an incredible spot, if only it didn’t have very power hungry/toxic staff running it. It was also then that I did my taxes finally, for the first time ever - & as I've been working since I was 16, that meant that I had 7 years of tax returns, which paid off just about exactly my whole Visa card debt. When it came in, I was at zero dollars again and I had a fresh, clean start!
7. Moving To Whistler
While in the youth shelter, I had applied to The Zero Ceiling program, a program in Whistler that helps connect homeless youth to adventure & work in Whistler. I was originally not accepted, but then one of the applicants had pissed on one of the females in the program and ultimately was kicked out… So I was called up & accepted, but was told that they were currently busy and told me to wait for a few weeks, and this led to me ultimately having to wait almost 6 months to start that program with constant delays and false hopes. It happened so often that the shelter staff started to not believe me and I even had to get them to make contact with each other to vouch for me and say that I really was just waiting to get into this program.
Then, one day, returning to the homeless shelter in the evening, I was falsely accused of being drunk, which meant that they had to put me into a separate room to separate me from the rest of the youth as a safety precaution. I was absolutely furious, and felt humiliated being in this isolated room, and that next day I decided that I no longer wanted to be there amongst the toxic staff, and now with no debt, I could once again support myself, albeit with my credit card funds.I grabbed my camping gear from my storage unit I still had, & blindly went to Victoria - as I wanted that feeling of traveling again, & I had been really longing to return to Vancouver Island.
I slept in Beacon hill park for 4 nights as I lined up multiple job interviews and on the 5th day, I met up with a friend at a bar and her friend had an empty basement bedroom that he rented out to me, as he knew I only needed housing for about 3 months when I’d for sure be able to move to Whistler. So I chose which job offer I wanted, & I worked retail full-time & I just enjoyed having a normal life again until I eventually made it up to Whistler. Zero Ceiling had set me up with work at Whistler Blackcomb and in their staff accommodations for 12 months, which was the only support that I really needed from them. After the year, I continued my employment at the ski hill, while truly thriving again, being in a resort town and being able to use all of my stuff!
8. The Fairy Creek Protest
Then one day, during the shoulder season (a short period in-between the ski season/biking season, with no work with the resort closed) I was sitting at a lake in Whistler, tanning in the sun while laying on the forest floor - I read on my phone about the Fairy Creek protest and I saw a video of elder Bill Jones of the Pacheedaht First Nation, inviting people to the territory to witness the destruction of the old-growth forest & ecosystems. I've always loved and felt connected to the forest and with the next couple of weeks without any work, I reasoned that it would be irrational for me not to make a trip out there to see it all for myself.
I was mind blown at the mismanagement & greed within our forestry industry, And it truly opened my eyes to how fast these at-risk, sensitive & endangered ecosystems were being depleted and seeing first-hand the disregard for & manipulation of Indigenous communities. I don't like to get into the specifics of my involvement out there, at least while there are still some unlawful lawsuits in action, but I sure learned a lot in my time there. Most importantly, it inspired me to dedicate more of my life to standing up for corruption.
9. Making EPIC Changes In Whistler
As things were winding down at the protest that year and I was burning myself out, I decided to return to Whistler Blackcomb right before the winter season was about to start so that I could make some money again. It was a strange feeling moving back indoors after 212 days living in the forest, but life seemed mostly back to normal. One thing that was different now though, was that I was no longer going to sit by and watch while I witnessed greed and seeing Vail Resorts (the owner) underpaying & taking advantage of their staff, including myself & others, & I knew that I had to do something to make a difference.
Over the course of 3 months, I looked into workplace unions, called several of them up for guidance and looked at what was required to make a union of my own. I know that in the United States, some of their biggest resorts, such as Park City, especially with the ski patrollers, have been battling for many years trying to get reasonable wages and fair conditions for their workers. Whistler is the biggest of all North American ski resorts, and Vail’s only Canadian resort, so I was always surprised that we had never done anything before to show our solidarity with our US counterparts. At the same time that I was developing a plan, the bus transit service in Whistler went on strike, leaving many of us to hitchhike to & from work, which myself & many locals did not support.
With all things considered, I decided that the most effective thing to do was to create an unofficial, mock-up union which I dubbed “The EPIC Union of Whistler Blackcomb” & to organize a 1-day walkout of sorts, to shut the mountain down for just for 1 day (as I didn't want to affect the ski season) to put pressure on Vail Resorts. I had widespread support among staff, and many people told me they were taking the day off of work - but when word got out around town, management had advised their departments that anybody who did not show up to work on that specific day would lose out on the end of the year pandemic bonus. Long story short, not very many of us took the day off of work, & operations mostly ran as usual, with most of the managers being called in that day to fill any rolls that had been missed by staffing shortages.
I was ultimately fired, after a week long investigation, but 2 weeks later - there was a company-wide announcement that was made to raise the minimum wage at every single one of the North American ski resort that Vail owned, raising the minimum wage from $15.65 CAD at the time to $0 per hour, for every single employee, and at the US resorts, it was raised to $20USD/hour, which was approx. $25 CAD/hour, which is obviously a significant pay increase. Vail Resorts made no public mention of the EPIC Whistler Walkout, and they claimed to be proactively trying to look for their staff and trying to offer them a living wage, I believe is what they said officially… What a load of BS!
But I didn't care about losing my job or about getting recognition. I had anticipated that I would lose my housing from the start - I was just thrilled to be able to create a sense of justice, even if it didn't completely solve all the issues. It was a great increase and it was my first time doing something so impactful, especially all on my own, after previously learning so many leadership skills in chapters previously.
I was mind blown at the mismanagement & greed within our forestry industry, And it truly opened my eyes to how fast these at-risk, sensitive & endangered ecosystems were being depleted and seeing first-hand the disregard for & manipulation of Indigenous communities. I don't like to get into the specifics of my involvement out there, at least while there are still some unlawful lawsuits in action, but I sure learned a lot in my time there. Most importantly, it inspired me to dedicate more of my life to standing up for corruption.
11. The Teaching Peace Project Is Born
At this time, there was a COFI (Council of Forestry Industries) conference about to happen,and so I knew that the executives of the largest forestry corporations in Canada would be there. I made a sign up, grabbed my empty laptop bag, put on one of my suits & my “bodyguard” & I managed to walk past the security & right inside the conference hall so that I could get a great video to share on social media to bring attention to some of the issues. But on the same day that I had been executing this, a group of activists had decided to glue their hands to 3 of the many outdoor entrances to the building and they deployed smoke grenades, which obviously caused the police to have to come in heavy handed, thus ending the conference early.
I was stunned at their good intentioned but unstrategic tactics to make a difference & I had told Vince that I really should create a group to teach people how to best protest. He has been involved in forming good initiatives in the past & he told me that if I really felt like creating a legitimate organization, that I should do exactly that. The teaching peace project was officially born that day, and now I had yet another ambitious project on my hands.
10. Life On Beach Ave
This now meant that I was losing my housing, which is something that I'm certainly no stranger to. There was a rocks & gem show happening that I’ve always wanted to check out, so I took a quick trip to Vancouver. Usually I would travel with my ultralight tent, and just set up somewhere in Stanley Park, but I felt like I knew enough people in the city, so I asked on Instagram if anybody had a couch to stay on for a night, & I had a friend tell me that she was staying with her friend, and I was free to sleep on the couch.
I met up with her & I was connected with her friend, a man named Vince Belerose, who lived in my favorite area in all of Vancouver - on Beach Avenue, nestled right in-between Stanley Park & English Bay beach. Conveniently for me, he had a spare room that was empty & with the offer to help him out looking after taking care of the property, I was able to move in with him. Vince really is an incredible person & we seemed to really connect with each other right off the bat. Not that we never got into any disagreements, because there certainly were a couple of heated ones, as both of us were quite opinionated, for most of the duration living with him, we got along incredibly. And so this marked the start of a whole new chapter, one that had some of my favourite moments, but it would also be one that was often filled with loneliness & depression - to say that it was a rollercoaster, would be putting it very lightly.
Just prior to the move, I have read a post about BC Timber Sales Pest Management Plan, with their plan to spray the lower mainland with tons & tons of glyphosate/roundup, which helps to ensure the growth of their typically monoculture “tree farms”. So I now began to invest my time in trying to stop this pest management plan, making several posts online on Reddit, Facebook & Instagram to garner attention to it and I got connected with James from StopTheSprayBC & I promptly began helping him spread the word as best that I can.
This was actually the main reason that I wanted to move back to Vancouver, as I knew that there would be many more people to try to educate & get involved with the organization. But this was going to open my eyes up to my greatest issue in the whole Vancouver chapter - finding community. I began developing strategies on how I could organize people to begin direct action to physically or legally stop the spray, such as with physical occupations, such as the ones that would eventually begin to happen on the East Coast later that year by the group “Don’t Spray Us! Nova Scotia.” But I was having a hard time finding people to get together with and I began thinking about what I needed in order to set up educational campaigns in the downtown core.
12. Asking For Help
But now, the lack of community in my personal life was starting to really weigh on me, & I was burning myself out with few friends to hang out with to “recharge my batteries” so to speak. Month after month I began neglecting my mental health more and more as I would go to work, then get home & spend my time alone, then on my days off spending all my days alone in my hammock. I'm truly grateful that I had that beach view, Stanley park and my hammock, put out between the palm trees - to keep me somewhat sane, as it meant that I was somewhat in nature every day.
But one day while I was taking a walk down the seawall to Third Beach, I had a breakdown & I decided at that moment that I needed to change my life in a big way again, or I might not have any life left at all. And so, I posted out to my friends on Instagram with a literal call for help, asking if anyone I knew in a smaller community had a piece of land for me to even just set up my tent on while I focussed on my mental health.
I'm so fortunate to have been offered help to move to several small communities of my choice, such as Mill Bay, Canmore & Ucluelet, thanks to some wonderful people that I know. While all would be great, Ucluelet - next to Tofino - had made the most sense to me, as it sat right beside the ocean, but was still a tourist/destination town, meaning that it was a vibe that I’m used to & it would have many job opportunities. And so with the invitation from a friend to stay with them for a while, I made the move to Ucluelet, ready to build a new little setup of my own.