In the past few years Quinn has written more than 1,000 news articles on topics ranging from spot news and political affairs to community features and Hollywood premiers. In years prior, he contributed dozens of feature articles to some of the larger magazines and newspapers in the US and Canada. His reporting is concise and relevant, while his features are more literary in both scope and tone. The samples on this page are not current news items -- please do not repost them on other sites. 

Writing credits include:

The Globe And Mail	Audubon Magazine	Black Press:
National Post	Report on Business Mag.	The Interior News
Toronto Star	Wildlife Magazine	Terrace Standard
North Shore News	Cats Magazine	Lakes District News
Vancouver Courier	movieset.com	Houston Today

A Chill in the Tropics

In a small mosquito infested Malaysian port the dengue is angry, and one man who thinks he is impervious, isn't

By Quinn Bender
Special to The Globe and Mail

Within a lining of emerald grasses, fists of sewage clot the stream that lies along my path. It's a fetid path, wrought with litter, but in my nine months of living in Port Klang, Malaysia, it has never produced the surprises that travellers fear -- such as snakes, predators, or worse, a tropical virus.

Barrels of salt-dried squid sit on the porch of Mrs. Lee's grocery. A woman enlightened by the words of Confucius and Bon Jovi, she sells the hard-found Chinese tobacco I'm after. It's smoke, thick and black, slides down my throat like hot pudding. She holds the tobacco pouch above my hand. "My son has the dengue fever -- many others too. Be careful, we might have an outbreak."

The Swahili called it ka denga pepo, sudden seizure, or evil spirit, and they revered it from afar. The Spanish mocked it, calling it dengue, prudery or fastidiousness, and it hit them ruthlessly. Recently, outbreaks of sudden seizures have hit the world in epidemic proportions, as evil today as ever before.

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Blood-spatter expert cleared of wrongdoing

Edmonton cop who testified against RCMP at Ian Bush inquest to receive Exemplary Service Medal

By Quinn Bender
Black Press

The two insubordination convictions blocking blood-spatter expert Const. Joe Slemko from receiving his 20-year Exemplary Police Service Medal have been expunged from his record.

"Sometimes in my career I’ve felt that I’ve been standing out in the field all by myself, with my beliefs. But this has vindicated me," Slemko said. "What I’ve believed in all along is what the public expects of police officers. To seek the truth.”

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Cops threaten Hwy of Tears P.I. with charges

Ray Michalko ordered to cease investigation into one case

By Quinn Bender
Black Press

Highway of Tears investigator Ray Michalko has shut down a portion of his investigation and is reconsidering what future role -- if any -- he will play in solving the murders and disappearances along Hwy 16.

On April 25, the Surrey-based private investigator was presented with a formal letter from the RCMP's "E" Division Major Crime Section, Unsolved Homicide Unit. It advised him to "reconsider" his investigations into the death of one of the Hwy 16 victims, because she is the subject of an ongoing RCMP investigation.

A copy of the letter obtained by The Interior News does not directly threaten Michalko with charges, but suggests he review Section 139 of the Criminal Code. That section deals with willfully obstructing justice, and is punishable with up to 10 years in prison.

As a result, Michalko has shelved the case.

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Couple killed in Granville Island hit and run

Teen suspect caught after failed attempt to swim across False Creek 

The suspect's vehicle sliced through a street lamp post after striking pedestrians.

By Quinn Bender

Two pedestrians are dead and one man is in police custody following a dramatic hit and run near Granville island late Saturday night.

Friends of the deceased believe the couple were returning home from dinner where Aneez Mohamed, a 31-year-old cardiologist, had proposed marriage to his long-time girlfriend, Chanelle Morgan, 25.

At approximately 12 a.m., a black Buick sedan travelling westbound along 4th Avenue rounded a sharp bend just before the Anderson Street entrance to Granville Island, then veered into the crosswalk, striking the couple from behind.

Their bodies were thrown several meters from the site of impact. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

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Director Ang Lee forced to defend his art

Reporter ambushes 'Brokeback Mountain' director with anti-gay diatribe at Cannes conference 

By Quinn Bender
Ang Lee, right, with 'Taking Woodstock' stars Demetri Martin, centre, and Emile Hirsch in the Cannes Film Festival press conference room. movieset.com

Ang Lee, the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain director, received a sharp tongue-lashing at the Cannes Film Festival Saturday. 

During a press conference for the director's latest offering, Taking Woodstock, a comedy-drama based on a true story that features a closet homosexual in the lead role, a Brazilian reporter derailed the conference with a minutes-long diatribe of how Brazilians, he said, will find the character "repulsive."  He went on to decry Lee for pushing homosexual themes onto his audience.

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Gun clubs demand end to moose slaughter

Conservationists claim CN trains killed up to 1,000 of the animals last winter

By Quinn Bender Northern conservation groups estimate up to 1,000 moose are killed on CN rail lines every year.
Black Press

Northwest conservation groups are demanding CN Rail take immediate steps to curtail what they call the largest animal slaughter ever perpetuated by a single company in British Columbian history.

Last year an aerial survey counted 169 moose carcases along a 250-kilometre stretch of the CN Rail line between Smithers and Endako. A committee of 19 northern rod and gun clubs and outfitters associations estimate the total kill along the entire Hwy 16 corridor exceeded 1,000.

“The moose are being slaughtered,” said committee chair, Bulkley Valley Rod and Gun Club president Clint Walker. “We can’t conduct business, or a way of life, if we’re just wasting these animals.”

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Highway death toll an "epidemic"

Health authority, victims' families call carnage a preventable disease

By Quinn BenderCindy Glaim shows a picture of her husband Randy, who was recently killed in a head-on collision on Hungry Hill.
Black Press

Northern B.C.’s top doctor is calling the carnage on northern roads an epidemic, saying it's time the public starts treating it as a health crisis like they would any other preventable death.

“Traditionally, you have the RCMP and certain government agencies... that people look to about road safety. For some reason health has not been at the table and has not really taken this on as a major public health issue,” said Northern Health’s chief public health officer Dr. David Bowering.

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In the recovery lane

Updated on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 1:24PM by Quinn Bender

Triathlete defying doctors' prognosis, competing against tremendous odds

By Quinn BenderSix months after a near-fatal training accident, Jody Hollenberg hopes to compete in Ironman competitions within five years.
Black Press

Last November, while training for the Long Distance Triathlon World Championships in Australia, Jody Hollenberg lost control of her bicycle on a busy Melbourne highway. The 42-year-old mother of five crashed to the ground and slid beneath the tires of an oncoming car. She escaped with her life, but her right arm was a horrific mess. The three major bones were broken and would require six metal pins and multiple surgeries. A large slice of her forearm had also been sheered off, but by grafting skin and muscle from her back and thigh, surgeons narrowly avoided amputating the limb.

It’s been six months since the accident, but Hollenberg still has no no flexibility in her elbow. Her arm, essentially, is a dead weight. Nonetheless, earlier this month she marked the anniversary of her accident by participating in the McBike and Sport Mothers Day five-kilometre run.

“I really laughed at myself afterward, because I still have this strong desire to do well. I’ve gone from January where I thought I’d never compete in triathlon again to now where I’m saying “maybe in five years I’ll compete again in another Ironman. Who knows?”

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Lost to history no more

Native WW2 soldier excelled abroad in a life that at home he was denied

By Quinn Bender
Black Press

Since the death of Lillian Morris' adoring uncle, it’s been a 34-year wait for the envelope to arrive. It lays torn open on the kitchen table before her. Against hope, it's contents — John Morris' military records once thought lost forever — will fail to explain his time in the Second World War. But what they will do is expose him as a contradiction to what the military expected of a Native Canadian soldier.

“My dad used to tell me how close his [five] brothers were, but my uncle never did say much about the war,” said Lillian. “So after my his death, my father wanted to know where he’d been and what he did. But then my dad passed away in 1993. I started thinking: he didn’t get any of the information he always wanted. So I picked it up. It’s been 14 years. I finally have it.”

The first documents in Lillian’s record cache reveal only elemental facts about John’s life: He had a grade two education. He had a swarthy complexion. He spoke Indian.

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Mystery of Manzanita's Mountain

Stones on the Oregon coast point to a vast hidden treasure, if it really exists

Story and Photos by Quinn Bender
Special to the National Post

There's something unusual about Manzanita, Oregon. For any visitor who swims in a place called Smuggler's Cove, or walks down roads with names like Windward, Spyglass and Treasure Cove Lane, the bearings in this town read like the preface to a fantastic novel. Perhaps they should. Manzanita likes at the foot of Neahkahnie Mountain, the setting for a mysterious ancient legend.

For more than a century, hundreds of men and women have descended on Manzanita, some 160 kilometres west of Portland, spending their fortunes, and sometimes their lives, trying to decode the mountain's ambiguous history that begins with a "giant winged canoe." It was sometime between the 16th and 18th centuries when the Clatsop natives watched the strange craft smash its hull in the shallow waters of Nehalem Bay. As Oregon pioneers settled the area, the Clatsop relayed their story, saying 30 crewmen had deserted the vessel. They carried a large chest to one of Neahkahnie's terraces and, before burying it, deposited heavy sacks of treasure. They then walked away. Some north, some south. None returned.

So began the Legend of Neahkahnie Mountain.

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Needle exchange sees exploding drug culture

Users getting younger, discarding needles in public areas

By Quinn Bender
Black Press

Enough hypodermic needles were exchanged in Smithers last year to supply every man, woman and child in the town with the hardware for 10 narcotics injections each.

Sixty-thousand needles. Numbers released from the Positive Living Northwest Society’s (PLNS) needle-exchange program, have uncovered a disproportionately high intravenous drug-use problem in the Bulkley Valley. 

“It is a surprisingly high number,” said Northern Health chief medical health officer, Dr. David Bowering. “There is obviously a lot more use of drugs and needles than people would readily expect... But it’s impossible to correlate with how many people are using; [NH also has] no idea what percentage of users use the exchange."

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Neglected boarders ready for Olympics

Rising star in adaptive sports, Emily Cavallin, targets 2010 inclusion

By Quinn Bender
Black Press

For would-be paralympic snowboarders, it’s not a question of if, but when.

Snowboarding is rivaling skiing as the predominate alpine sport in the world, but in the sphere of adaptive, or paralympic competition, it has long been pushed to the fringe and forgotten. Even as athletes like Smithers’ Emily Cavallin, 18, devote their downtime to camps, clinics and world competition, they cannot contend for Olympic gold.

“It’s crazy,” said Cavallin. “You’d think the programs and processes would be in place to support an Olympic team, but it’s still really new.”

The problem isn’t lack of support for paralympic sports in general, but the overwhelming success of other paralympic sports that buries new ones.

“If someone has an accident and is interested in becoming active again, you’re more likely to put them in a program where they can be fully supported," said Cavallin. "Adaptive skiing has been around for a long time. So they have the coaches and the instructors and all the infrastructure in place to move that person along.”

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On a Lonely Atoll with Tony Wheeler

Lonely Planet founder speaks about his role in why we travel and how we see the world -- by Quinn Bender

Deep in the South Seas, on the edge of the Great Atoll Valley, a peculiar archipelago known as the constitutional monarchy of Tuvalu rise just a few meters above the lapping waves. At low tide the tiny island nation ranks fourth among the world’s smallest countries.  At high tide it falls to third. So removed is Tuvalu from ocean traffic that until a century ago even the London Missionary Society ignored the islands repeatedly, until the islanders themselves demanded inclusion to an otherwise thorough Christian conversion of Pacific peoples. The mixed Polynesian and Micronesian enclave hangs on the mind not unlike an image of Timbuktu in a watery desert; a bastion of civilization thriving amid the wave swells and marauding weather systems.

If this is the edge of the world, it is the most befitting place to have bumped into Tony Wheeler. Zigzagging a moped towards me, he wore a baseball cap with the image of a world map, and although he hadn’t visited all the counties pictured on it he could recite a list from A to Z as easily as introduce himself, the founder of Lonely Planet.

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Roger Ebert emerges for Cannes ceremony

Friend Martin Scorsese announces renaming of press room after legendary film critic

By Quinn Bender
Roger Ebert, left, is honoured at the Cannes Film Festival by friend Martin Scorsese.movieset.com 

Roger Ebert made a rare public appearance today for a ceremony at the Cannes Film Festival to rename the American Pavillion press conference room in his honour. The ribbon cutting ceremony for what's now the Roger Ebert Conference Center was presided over by US Consulate delegates and Oscar-winning director and and long-time friend of Ebert's, Martin Scorsese.

“I can’t think of anyone else who deserves it as much,” Scorsese said. “Your name has become synonymous with the love of cinema… which you shared with the world and continue to share.

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Senior denied tests for deadly condition

Incident sparks renewed demand for local dialysis treatment facilities

By Quinn Bender
Black Press

Medical officials blame miscommunication for reasons why a renal patient was denied a monthly blood test for his potentially life-threatening liver condition.

The matter has stumped both the B.C. Renal Agency and the Northern Health Authority, who insist no policy exists that could explain why a patient was denied testing.

“There seems to be some confusion as why that would happen,” said Eryn Collins, a Northern Health communications officer. “I’ve made a couple of inquiries and nobody knows why.”

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Sixty years of hockey

Oldtimers hockey player Ron Lister, 70, has participated in every evolution of Canada's game through an amateur career that spans six decades.

By Quinn Bender
Black Press

Oldtimers hockey player, Ron Lister, at his home in the Bulkley ValleyThe game of hockey follows a curve. It starts early in life and is characterized by camaraderie, sportsmanship and fun. Further along it’s a steep incline where competitiveness and victory rule the agenda. Few make it over the peak, and the game ends forever at the player’s athletic climax. But a rare few keep playing. They crest the peak and free-ride back down to the essential beginnings of the game: camaraderie, sportsmanship and fun.

Players like the Drillers’ Ron Lister. He’s been facing off since 1947, experiencing every evolution of the game first hand, loving every stride forward.

Lister is a bull. Broad-shouldered and robust with a stalwart enthusiasm for hockey, he is a free-standing contradiction of the notion that 70-years-old, is old.

“No. It’s all up here,” he said, tapping his skull. “This is where you decide how old you are.”

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Telkwa fire water: fact or fiction?

Residents demand MLA appologise for false claims about toxic gas

By Quinn Bender
Black Press

Telkwa homeowners are demanding an apology from MLA Dennis MacKay over what they say are false statements he made in the Legislature, claiming flammable methane gas is seeping out of their water taps.

Kelly Stokes, the spokesperson for more than 30 Telkwa property owners on the Telkwa coalbed field, said MacKay's implication only serves to devalue their property.

“He painted a very poor and inaccurate picture of our homes on the coal field,” said Stokes. “[I feel] he used this fabricated statement in the Legislature to support his position for coalbed methane gas exploration in Northwestern B.C.”

Speaking with The Interior News the Bulkley Valley-Stikine MLA denied the statement was fabricated. An apology will not be forthcoming.

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Winterland Sports fire bombed

Business owner, RCMP dumbfounded over Smithers' first known molotov cocktail attack

by Quinn BenderWinterland Sports owner, Jos Konst, at the impact site of a Molotov cocktail.
Black Press

A perplexed business owner is appealing for a potential witness to the bizarre fire bombing of his store to come forward and speak with police.

“Someone took the time to actually make a bomb and try to throw it through my window. It’s pretty malicious,” said Winterland Sports owner Jos Konst. “Thirty-two years in business, I’ve never seen a fire bombing. You heard of this kind of thing in Belfast. But a Molotov cocktail in Smithers? It’s crazy.”

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