OUR TEAM
FAITHFUL REGULARS
JACQUI BIRCHALL
Stanley Park Notebook
Retired Vancouver educator, longtime Vancouver Folk Music, Film, and Jazz Festival volunteer, and seasonal resident in Mexico, Jacqui first moved to the West End in 1969, raised her daughter here, and settled permanently 18 years ago.
She is a happy West of Denman resident and living within steps of Stanley Park and English Bay says she feels like she lives in paradise!
“My favourite thing to do is to walk around Lost Lagoon early in the morning and of course at beaver sighting time! My ambition is to see the owls fishing there at dusk.”
NATE LEWIS
Reporter & Associate Editor
Nate is a community journalist and editor in Vancouver, writing about parks and ecology, housing, public infrastructure, and City Hall for The West End Journal since 2021. He’s worked with the National Observer, CBC, Canucks Army, The Mainlander, BCIT’s The Crow, and was an inaugural fellow with The Athletic’s Botchford Project. Nate currently reports on civic issues and the arts for Vancity Lookout.
Nate assists with editorial responsibilities for The West End Journal and subs for “Stanley Park Notebook” columnist during the winter months.
For tips, story leads, and feedback you can reach out to Nate at nate@vancitylookout.com “
HENRY MacDOUGALL
The Dragon’s Pen
Born and raised in the west end, Henry has lived in downtown Vancouver all his life. His hobbies include music, programming, and creative writing.
He loves traveling, snowboarding, and (of course), the west end. He attends King George Secondary School, and loves to relax and read books in his free time.
Henry is excited to bring his voice to The West End Journal and have some fun while he's at it.
JAKE McGRAIL
Contributor
Jake is a writer and broadcaster born and raised here in Vancouver.
He’s a student in the BCIT journalism program after previously graduating with a Bachelor’s in English from UBC, Jake has been writing for about as long as he can remember.
He’s a big sports fan and has worked as a volunteer at outlets like AFTN and CiTR Radio, and is the main play-by-play voice for UBC Thunderbirds volleyball for Canada West TV.
Jake is excited to have the chance to cover local, community stories at The West End Journal and get to the know area a little better.
KEVIN DALE McKEOWN
Editor & Publisher
Kevin has been a West End resident for most of the past 55 years. A couple of years in Montréal, a couple of years in Williams Lake, but he always came home to the West End. He began his journalism career in 1969 with contributions to the old West Ender weekly, and served as that paper’s managing editor in the early ‘80s.
If you want to know more about The West End Journal’s editor, publisher, and chief cook and bottle washer, you’ll find a far too long bio here.
JOY METCALFE
Joy’s Journal
Joy has been involved in every facet of the entertainment business in Vancouver, as an actress, a producer, a promoter and as a broadcast/journalist. She was the unpaid publicist for Vancouver Little Theatre for 15 years at the York Theatre and appeared in several television shows including CBC-TV’s Sister Balonika. Along with Artistic Director John Parker, she helped to establish Actors Contemporary Theatre (ACT) in the old Colonial Magic Theatre on Granville and was involved in promotion of The Boys in The Band, The Fantasticks and Arthur Miller’s The Prize. Joy also served as the publicity director for the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre the Cave Theatre Night Club, The Ritz Dinner Theatre, SkyStage in Richmond, and the Georgia Hotel’s dinner theatre.
Joy covered the entertainment scene in her columns and photographs in the Vancouver Courier, The Province, The North Shore News, and Hospitality Today and for 16 years was the most-read columnist in Vancouver Lifestyles Magazine. Her broadcasting career of her twice-a-day live Joy’s Journal began on CKNW in 1987 and ran through to 2013, with scoops, rumours, stories and items becoming a daily fixture on the radio station and on cknw.com.
Her coverage of the high-society scene and her frequent tag-line prompted her to be dubbed “the gala-gala-do gal” and her enthusiasm for her subjects prompted the late Province columnist Lorne Parton to remark “Joy gets excited over the sight of grass growing!”
Joy has won numerous awards including The Canadian Consumer’s Woman of the Year, The Child Foundation’s Inspiration Award, Tourism Vancouver’s Lifetime Achievement Award, The B.C. Restaurant Hall of Fame Award, Variety Club’s Tent 47 Media Award and the International Variety Club’s Special Award, the first time ever presented in Canada.
JAMES OAKES
Photo Journalist & Editor at Large
Long-time Vancouverite James Oakes is a semi-retired journalist who loves to document West End scenes through the lens of his handy smartphone. After studying journalism at Langara College in the early 80s, he was hired as a cub reporter for The West Ender newspaper, under the editorship of Kevin McKeown. Over the next two decades, he reported for CBC television and radio in Vancouver and Toronto, including a two-year stint as a broadcaster in Québec City.
Returning to the west coast he worked as a freelancer for Canada Wide Magazines, and publicist for McKeown and Associates, whose clients included the Vancouver International Writers Festival. He also worked in corporate communications for the Loewen Group, Coast Mountain Bus Company and Langara College.
In recent years, James has been enjoying work as a landscape gardener, and since the summer of 2021 has been pitching in as assistant & assignment editor at The West End Journal.
AMANDA PETERS
Design & Production
Amanda is a Vancouver-based arts administrator, designer, visual artist, and otherwise wearer-of-many-hats. She provides consulting services in the areas of arts and cultural project management and communications, and also offers web and print design services as well as website administration.
Over the years she has had the pleasure of working with a number of arts organizations, including the BC Alliance for Arts + Culture (alongside Kevin Dale McKeown), and currently works primarily with the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance (GVPTA) as Associate Executive Director. Connect with her at amandapeters.ca.
LUCAS PILLERI
Contributor
Born in Montpellier, France, near the Mediterranean Sea, Lucas started his Canadian journey in 2013 in Edmonton, Alberta, where he completed a Master’s Degree at the University of Alberta. With the beautiful Rockies in his background, he worked for Le Franco, Alberta’s French newspaper, as well as Francopresse, Canada’s francophone news website outside of Québec.
After enduring a few endless winters, he finally left the Wild Rose County in 2017 to settle in Beautiful British Columbia. In Vancouver, he was the editor of The Source, a bilingual publication, and has been working for Radio-Canada, CBC’s French section, since 2019. He is also the editor in chief of L’Eau vive, Saskatchewan’s French bimonthly newspaper.
Curious and open-minded, Lucas writes about various topics, always on the lookout for good stories – whether that’s in French or in English.
JOHN STREIT
A Closer Look
John Streit has 20 years experience in journalism and is a former writer and producer with CityNews in Vancouver. Prior to this role, John was a producer and anchor with NEWS1130 radio and an anchor and reporter with CJIB in Vernon.
He was born and raised in the West End where he continues to live with his young family, including The West End Journal’s King George Secondary School correspondent Milan Streit.
John is currently a news anchor for Radio 980 CKNW.
AND OTHER FRIENDS AS WELL
The West End Journal owes a big shout-out and thank-you to a number of West Enders whose photos and posts often appear on our Facebook page, newsletter, and website. We salute their generosity and community spirit.
GLENDA BARTOSH
Contributor
Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning journalist who loves the intersection of art, science, and culture. She’s been writing about the climate crisis and ways to tackle it since the early 1990s. When he was a teenager, her dad ran away from home in Edmonton and landed in the West End. He passed along his love of Vancouver, and she first hit the West End in 1970. A ground-level suite in a 1910 house on Haro called El Rancho was a favorite. Later, Glenda bought the Whistler newspaper, started the Whistler arts council, then spent years traveling Asia before returning home to the West End. You can learn more of her story at glendabartosh.ca.
MIKUL CULVER
Photo Journalist
My name is Mikul (pronounced: Michael) Culver.
I started my interest in photography back in the 1970’s.
I learned some tricks from many professional photographers along the way.
I moved to Vancouver in 1989 from Toronto. My birthplace.
I have never looked back and give my time to my community when it is possible.
I mostly focus on sunsets for a book I want to put together of English bay sunsets.
The journey continues, and thanks for being a part of it.
IAN FORSYTH
Photo Journalist
Ian worked in the arts and culture industries for almost 40 years, starting as an actor, before being held captive by the joys of theatre management. That vocation allowed him to work all over the province, opening and running the North Peace Cultural Centre in Fort St John, being the first theatre manager for the Kelowna Community Theatre, taking on the Shadbolt Centre in Burnaby, and creating the first bi-municipal office of cultural affairs for the City and District of North Vancouver. Ian has taught workshops in acting, directing, and arts admin in all four corners of the province.
Ian started his independent life in a $199 a month studio apartment west of Denman on Nelson Street in 1978, and 12 moves, two cats, two dogs, three children, one wife, ten cars and motor scooters, and seven jobs later finds him back in the West End, single, semi-retired in a one bedroom apartment, that costs a whole lot more than his studio. It’s like he never left.
He does finally have the time to pursue his other passions of photography, singing, design, and puttering, and is finding much inspiration for all of them back living in the West End.
DIANNE MAGUIRE
Hidden Treasures
Arriving in Vancouver, Dianne soon entered UBC for a Masters in creative writing. Her thesis of short stories set in Jamaica, Dry Land Tourist, draws on family stories and memories of the island. Her second collection, Obeah Women, is currently available on Amazon.
Having realized her MFA wouldn’t get her a job, Dianne took Teaching English as a Second Language at VCC: She applied this skill by writing articles for ESL publications, creating writing activities and short novels for ESL readers.
In 1995, Dianne developed an online magazine: Teensizzle, and four years later, she started Cultureglobe, for ESL readers. In recent years, she has gained a reputation as an editor, working on collections of short stories, novels, children’s books, poetry, articles, and essays. Dianne wrote articles and took photographs for “Hidden Treasures”, The West End Journal’s column about water features, murals, and sculptures found in the West End and Coal Harbour. “Hidden Treasures” concluded after a two-year run, and we look forward to Dianne returning to our pages in the future with more fascinating West End stories.
