WELCOME!!
to this week's meeting of
The Rotary E-Club of Canada One
For the week beginning April 14, 2025
Scroll down to enjoy the content!
Complete the form for a make-up!
Please leave a donation to assist our club to do Rotary's good works!
to this week's meeting of
The Rotary E-Club of Canada One
For the week beginning April 14, 2025
Scroll down to enjoy the content!
Complete the form for a make-up!
Rotary International President – Stephanie Urchik
And for our clubs -
***
Greeter this week
Rotarian Jim
***
Inspirational moment
***
Canadiana
The Tunnels of Moose Jaw are a network of underground tunnels in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, with a fascinating and somewhat mysterious history. They have become a popular tourist attraction, offering interactive theatrical tours that bring their past to life.
The Two Main Stories of the Moose Jaw Tunnels
The tunnels have been linked to two significant historical narratives:
1. The Early Chinese Immigrant Experience
• In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Canada imposed the Chinese Head Tax, making it costly for Chinese immigrants to come to Canada.
• Chinese laborers, many of whom helped build the Canadian Pacific Railway, were subjected to intense discrimination and dangerous working conditions.
• It is believed that some Chinese immigrants lived and worked in the tunnels beneath Moose Jaw to avoid persecution, deportation, and head taxes.
• The tunnels provided shelter and a hidden workforce for laundries, businesses, and other enterprises.
2. Prohibition-Era Bootlegging & Al Capone Connection
• During the 1920s and early 1930s, Prohibition laws in the United States led to a booming illegal liquor trade.
• Moose Jaw, being a key railway hub, was allegedly a major bootlegging center, smuggling alcohol south to the U.S.
• Rumors suggest that Al Capone, the infamous Chicago gangster, had connections to the tunnels, using them to smuggle booze, hide from authorities, and conduct business with local bootleggers.
• Though no definitive proof ties Capone directly to Moose Jaw, the legend remains strong and fuels much of the attraction's intrigue.
Modern-Day Attractions
The Tunnels of Moose Jaw have been transformed into interactive historical tours, where costumed guides play roles to immerse visitors in the stories. The two main tours are:
The Two Main Stories of the Moose Jaw Tunnels
The tunnels have been linked to two significant historical narratives:
1. The Early Chinese Immigrant Experience
• In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Canada imposed the Chinese Head Tax, making it costly for Chinese immigrants to come to Canada.
• Chinese laborers, many of whom helped build the Canadian Pacific Railway, were subjected to intense discrimination and dangerous working conditions.
• It is believed that some Chinese immigrants lived and worked in the tunnels beneath Moose Jaw to avoid persecution, deportation, and head taxes.
• The tunnels provided shelter and a hidden workforce for laundries, businesses, and other enterprises.
2. Prohibition-Era Bootlegging & Al Capone Connection
• During the 1920s and early 1930s, Prohibition laws in the United States led to a booming illegal liquor trade.
• Moose Jaw, being a key railway hub, was allegedly a major bootlegging center, smuggling alcohol south to the U.S.
• Rumors suggest that Al Capone, the infamous Chicago gangster, had connections to the tunnels, using them to smuggle booze, hide from authorities, and conduct business with local bootleggers.
• Though no definitive proof ties Capone directly to Moose Jaw, the legend remains strong and fuels much of the attraction's intrigue.
Modern-Day Attractions
The Tunnels of Moose Jaw have been transformed into interactive historical tours, where costumed guides play roles to immerse visitors in the stories. The two main tours are:
“Passage to Fortune” – Focuses on the Chinese immigrant experience and the hardships they faced.
“The Chicago Connection” – A gangster-themed tour that explores the bootlegging era and the legend of Al Capone.
These tours blend history with entertainment, making them a unique way to experience Moose Jaw’s hidden past.
Are the Tunnels Authentic?
• The tunnels themselves are real, and there is historical evidence that people lived and worked in them.
• The connection to Al Capone remains largely speculative, though Moose Jaw was known for its rum-running operations.
• The interactive tours are dramatized but based on historical research and local lore.
Enjoy this video –
“The Chicago Connection” – A gangster-themed tour that explores the bootlegging era and the legend of Al Capone.
These tours blend history with entertainment, making them a unique way to experience Moose Jaw’s hidden past.
Are the Tunnels Authentic?
• The tunnels themselves are real, and there is historical evidence that people lived and worked in them.
• The connection to Al Capone remains largely speculative, though Moose Jaw was known for its rum-running operations.
• The interactive tours are dramatized but based on historical research and local lore.
Enjoy this video –
***
Comments from our guests and members
Members and guests attending our weekly meetings are very important to us. Based on your comments we are able to produce many more educational, inspiring, and entertaining weekly meetings.
Following are some of the comments we have received. Would you please send us your comments?
February 16. I can't say enough how I love the diversity of the topics presented for our edification and entertainment. When doing your research for the piece on plastics, did you find any info on if you must use plastics, which ones are the better choices? Keep up the good work.
-- Lois Hannam, E-Club of Canada One, District 5370
***
|
Archived Meetings
- For meetings prior to November 4, 2024, please click here.
- All meetings are archived.
- For meetings starting November 11, 2024, please scroll to the very bottom of this page.
***
Announcements
is the Rotary International president-elect (for 2025–2026).
He will be the fourth Brazilian to hold the office.
***
***
First Earth Day - April 22, 1970
***
April is the month of "Microfinance"
Join the Rotary E-Club of Canada One as we support the
development and expansion of small stakeholder businesses
in underdeveloped countries.
Visit www.kiva.org to see how it's done
Open your own Kiva account?
Join the E-Canada One lending team?
You have questions?
Contact Patrick Gibson: gibson55@gmail.com
(happy to answer any questions you have)
***
E-Club Foundation Newsletter for April
***
In case you missed this last week - for sports fans
***
Material Suggestions and Greeter Messages Always Needed!
Please feel free to forward an approx. 150 - 200 word message or any material suggestions in an e-mail, or in a Word document, along with a JPeg picture or two, to E-Club Administration Chair, Kitty Bucsko.
We'd love to hear from you!
***
***
Just so you're aware -
Our Club's Ongoing Projects -
We provide ongoing support for the following projects:
And we're doing great!
Ask for more information if you'd like to be involved!
***
Real-time meetings
Each 3rd Thursday of the month is our Fellowship Assembly, and we often invite interesting speakers or Rotary Leaders for this entertaining, educational fun event. Plan to join us.
The time is 9:00 a.m. (Mountain Time) in lieu of the weekly Coffee Chat except for July and August when there are no FA’s. Here is the zoom link:
Everyone is welcome to attend and we encourage your participation.
Please click our Event Calendar for details and access Link.
For further inquiries or suggestions please contact: info@rotaryeclubcanada.ca
All our videos can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
***
How do you support our club?
- The Paypal button on our ClubRunner Home Page
- The donation button on the attendance form, or
- Make an Interac transfer to rotaryeclubcanada1@gmail.com
- Send a cheque to:
The Rotary E-Club of Canada One
10430 135 Street NW
Edmonton, AB
Canada T5N 2C6
(780) 267 4547
***
New members' corner
Manuel Muñoz and Homer W. Wood were instrumental figures in the early expansion of Rotary International.
Manuel Muñoz: After becoming a member of the Chicago Rotary Club, Muñoz, a salesman for the Sperry and Hutchinson Company, was encouraged by Rotary founder Paul Harris to promote Rotary's ideals during his travels. In 1908, while in San Francisco for work, Muñoz shared the concept of Rotary with local businessmen, contributing to the establishment of the city's Rotary club. rghf.org.
Homer W. Wood: An attorney and member of San Francisco's Union League Club, Wood learned about Rotary through Muñoz. Inspired, he organized the second Rotary club in San Francisco in 1908. Wood's efforts didn't stop there; he played a pivotal role in expanding Rotary by founding clubs in Oakland, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Later, as editor and publisher of the Petaluma Courier, he established the Petaluma Rotary Club in 1923 and served as its first president. portal.clubrunner.ca.
Their combined efforts significantly contributed to Rotary's growth from a single club in Chicago to a global service organization. .
Manuel Muñoz: After becoming a member of the Chicago Rotary Club, Muñoz, a salesman for the Sperry and Hutchinson Company, was encouraged by Rotary founder Paul Harris to promote Rotary's ideals during his travels. In 1908, while in San Francisco for work, Muñoz shared the concept of Rotary with local businessmen, contributing to the establishment of the city's Rotary club. rghf.org.
Homer W. Wood: An attorney and member of San Francisco's Union League Club, Wood learned about Rotary through Muñoz. Inspired, he organized the second Rotary club in San Francisco in 1908. Wood's efforts didn't stop there; he played a pivotal role in expanding Rotary by founding clubs in Oakland, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Later, as editor and publisher of the Petaluma Courier, he established the Petaluma Rotary Club in 1923 and served as its first president. portal.clubrunner.ca.
Their combined efforts significantly contributed to Rotary's growth from a single club in Chicago to a global service organization. .
Homer Wood - photo courtesy of RGHF.org
***
Rotary minute
Friendship Trees: Paul Harris’ Lasting Symbol of Goodwill
As Rotary’s president emeritus, Paul Harris traveled extensively during the 1920s and 1930s, often accompanied by his wife, Jean. During these trips, the nature-loving Harris planted trees to symbolize goodwill and friendship.
Paul Harris and members of the Rotary Club of Tallinn, Estonia, at a tree planting in 1932. In the fall of 1932, Harris embarked on a five-week tour of European Rotary clubs and planted trees along the way.
Ever since, Rotarians have planted trees in the name of fellowship, friendship, and community service. These trees, which can be found worldwide, have grown into enduring monuments of Rotary’s ideals.
Later in his tour of Europe, Harris also planted trees in Estonia, Norway, and Sweden.
Other Rotary presidents also observed the tradition. In 1931-32, then-RI president Sydney W. Pascall planted trees at the sites of Rotary clubs he visited, reportedly at Paul Harris’ suggestion. Not all of the trees were planted outside the United States. The Harrises often entertained visiting Rotarians and dignitaries in their Chicago home and planted trees with their guests to mark the occasion. They called the garden their Friendship Garden.
Rotarians continue to plant trees to symbolize enduring friendships and fellowship, to beautify parks and communities, and to contribute to a greener world.
Click here to view a short silent video.
Click here to read the full article online.
***
Food for thought
Canada’s water governance and management systems threaten the country’s water supply
Story by Tricia Stadnyk, University of Calgary
Canadians are among some of the most water-rich people globally, with access to about 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater supply and seven per cent of the world’s renewable freshwater supply.
As a result, Canadians are among the most water-greedy nations in the world, with per-capita water use in the average Canadian household coming in at more than 220 litres a day.
Canadians consume double the United Nations’ recommended consumption limit. Canada was the second largest consumer of water in 2017, dropping only to the eighth largest consumer per capita in the world in 2022.
Canada has been largely immune to the issues of water scarcity, quality and accessibility affecting billions around the globe — issues that are only growing in severity, as the Los Angeles wildfires are so vividly illustrating.
But Canada’s privileged position will not last forever. Unless properly managed, even Canada’s water supplies will eventually run out.
It’s time to challenge our wasteful ways and accept that even in Canada, water must be managed effectively to sustain economic development and societal growth under increasing climate pressures.
Draining the well
Water in Canada is managed primarily at the provincial and territorial level. What this means is that the exploitation of water from rivers, lakes and groundwater reservoirs is largely a provincial and territorial responsibility. In some cases, this governance is subject to agreements with other provinces or other countries.
There is no federal authority over water decision-making in Canada. This lack of oversight complicates data collection, data access and overall water management — though the soon-to-launch Canada Water Agency does aim to address some of these issues.
The Canadian water cycle is highly complex. Water supply in Canada is dependent upon seasonal changes and weather patterns, permafrost, glaciers, snow and snowmelt, wetlands and a range of other factors. What’s more, water flows in most of Canada are under-monitored relative to the World Meteorological Organization standards.
Compounding these issues is the regulation and fragmentation of Canadian rivers primarily for energy and resource extraction. These uses, coupled with a lack of transparency around reporting changes in river flows, have left flow rates in most of Canada’s rivers largely unknown and difficult to predict.
The impact of global warming
Climate change further complicates this picture.
The warming already being experienced has resulted in unusually extreme events ranging from catastrophic wildfires — such as the ones that recently destroyed much of Jasper, similar to those currently decimating Los Angeles — to drought across the Prairies.
Most of Canada will have to adapt to longer dry periods and increasing water stress with competing demands for the limited supply.
Read more: The 2024 Jasper Fire is a grim reminder of the urgency of adopting a Canadian national wildfire strategy
The Palliser’s Triangle covering southern Alberta and Saskatchewan is the driest region of Canada and was once thought uninhabitable. Modern engineering has turned this region into Canada’s bread basket, contributing $1.3 billion annually to the Canadian gross domestic product. This engineering, however, is heavily reliant on water supply.
The agriculture industry in Alberta is responsible for around 45 per cent of Alberta’s overall water use. A staggering 70 per cent of the water in the Saskatchewan River basin is allocated to agriculture.
Despite growing water efficiencies, agricultural users still remove water from the system for longer periods of time than municipal or residential users, resulting in a greater impact on the environment. Indeed, factoring in per-capita use across all sectors shoots the litres of water used per day across Canada up from 220 to more than 400 litres.
These are unsustainable levels of water use and Alberta in particular is challenged by diminishing water supply and increasing drought.
Mismanagement
Complicating the water management landscape are transboundary water agreements designed to equitably share water across jurisdictional boundaries.
Alberta’s water is shared with Manitoba and Saskatchewan through the Master Agreement on Apportionment, and a further agreement governs the Mackenzie River that flows through Alberta and the Northwest Territories. At the same time, the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty between the United States and Canada governs the transboundary St. Mary/Milk River system.
These water agreements are designed to avoid inequalities and ensure that all those within the basin have equal access. However, the dual threat of climate change and increasing demand pressures may stretch many to the breaking point.
Looking back to nature for how best to effectively and sustainably manage water resources for all Canadians and the ecosystem is perhaps our best option. Canada’s current political and water governance system is, however, not designed to effectively support this.
Water governance is fragmented across many jurisdictions with little care for overall basin health and the ubiquitous first-in-time, first-right water license system prioritizes agricultural and industrial users. Such management principles do not promote sustainability, nor do they provision for ecosystem services or unlicensed users (such as Indigenous communities).
Wider repercussions
Access to water is intrinsically linked to human health. Meanwhile access to water is itself dependent upon healthy and stable ecosystems. Our current system of fragmented oversight and privileged licences is not an effective means to ensure Canada’s long-term water security.
The Alberta government has made it clear it’s more concerned with the rights of individual licence holders than the rights of citizens, the ecosystem and Canada’s Indigenous Peoples. Transformative adaptation of water policy is required to secure Canada’s water future. Canada urgently needs a federally enacted co-operative governance model to oversee water information, protection, licensing and allocation.
Addressing these grand water challenges requires an ambitious investment in environmental prediction at a scale never before undertaken in Canada, simulating whole-system pressures and ecosystem feedbacks to understand the socioeconomic impacts imposed by climate change. In every challenge, however, there lies great opportunity.
The choices we make today will impact our children and their children and will literally mean the difference between them thriving or surviving as a society. Ultimately, it is us and our way of being that must adapt to new extremes — not the other way around.
Tricia Stadnyk receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).
Rotary Jukebox
For a small donation, your favorite musician will be featured on one of our next e-meetings for everyone to enjoy.
Every week we'll have a draw and the lucky person will see their song featured!
THIS WEEK -
***
The Four-way Test
To close the meeting, Rotarian Doug recites the Four-Way Test of the things that Rotarians think, say, or do.
Thank you for joining us. We appreciate your feedback and hope you will return and invite a guest.
Please Click HERE to leave us a comment or send a message.
Scroll down for Program Donations and Attendance links.
***
Our Facebook page. Please remember to check out our posts on the Rotary E-Club’s Facebook page. We work hard to post something every second day, sometimes more often.
Invite friends to Like our page and enjoy our posts. Also, please take the time to Share our posts on your Facebook Page.
***
Attendance Links
Complete the attendance/donation form to have your attendance recognized.
- CLICK HERE to return to our ClubRunner Home Page.
- Visiting Rotarians and guests - Click HERE.
- Members of Rotary E-Club of Canada One - Click HERE.
- e-Satellite Attendance - Click HERE.
Confirmation of your attendance will be sent to your e-mail address promptly.
Please support our club!
Donate For the Meeting You Have Attended.
Please consider making a small donation in lieu of a meal
to help us help those in need.
As you have not had to buy lunch or travel to attend this program, please consider a donation of a minimum of $10.00 in appreciation for the experience you have enjoyed.
We thank you very much!
Program Donations
Our E-Club is a dynamic club comprised of ordinary working and retired people who acknowledge that Rotarians are people who are generous with their time and their resources.
Our club and the program you have just enjoyed, either as a member or a visitor, is funded only by donations.
We are developing ideas for fundraising with our members who are scattered across Canada, USA, Central America, and Europe, but we do need your help.
As you have not had to buy lunch or travel to attend this program, please make a donation of a minimum of $10.00, considering you're saving in time and cost in appreciation for the experience you have enjoyed.
Interested in providing Rotary Service? Unable to attend terra club meetings?
Contact our membership chair for information or
or HERE to learn about Associate Membership
