After 11 years of bringing you local reporting, the team behind the Vancouver Observer has moved on to Canada's National Observer. You can follow Vancouver culture reporting over there from now on. Thank you for all your support over the years!

Emilee Gilpin

Emilee Gilpin, a multimedia reporter, will be the lead journalist and storyteller on National Observer's series First Nations Forward. She is committed to sharing stories of success and sovereignty and investigating responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. She is Saulteaux Cree and Métis. She has been awarded the Susan Carson bursary award, a Fullbright Canada scholarship and was recently Journalist for Human Rights' "Emerging Indigenous Intern" at The Tyee. She earned a graduate diploma in journalism from Concordia University.

Hummingbirds brighten a dark alley in the Downtown Eastside

When asked to create a design for a blank wall of a highly active alley in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Charlene Johnny Wadsworth immediately thought of hummingbirds.