Since the first discovery of 215 unmarked graves at a former residential school in Kamloops B.C., Deborah Young has collected over 300 baby vamps, the beaded design atop a moccasin, to commemorate the children who never came home from Canada's residential schools. Vamps were received from across North America and as far as the U.K.

These two cards, vamps, and medicines (in the felt package) were sent to Deborah Young from a mother and daughter as part of her project commemorating children lost to residential schools. "The number one came to me one night," wrote the mother of her red vamp, "the number keeps rising. It’s a number we have known for a long time and it’s a number we were told…the number one is for the first child. There should never have been a number one." The Canadian government estimates that approximately 150,000 children attended residential schools in Canada.

Many of the vamps came with personal letters explaining how meaningful it was to contribute to the collection and detailing the intent and emotion that went into each bead.

Young hasn't decided the best way to honour the letters she received over the project. One option could be burning them, she said.

Young surveys the tape on her living room floor mapping out the final framed collection. It will be 12 feet long and unveiled in Carleton's school of social work on the next National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in 2022.. The vamps will be arranged in flowing streams with four circles curving through the pattern.

Young asked for participants to make one lone vamp instead of a matching pair.

Maija Ellis, 29, started vaping to quit smoking tobacco, but was quickly pulled in by the novel flavour element to vaping. "I love nicotine, I also love fruit. Can't go wrong," says Ellis. StatCan reports that regular vape users over twenty-five generally vape to quit smoking, while those under tend to vape for other reasons such as flavouring, to perform tricks with the vapour, etc.

This Carleton student vaped for fun in her first year, but took it up again in her fourth to quit smoking poppers, where tobacco from a cigarette is combined with weed and smoked out of a bong. Prior to vaping, she smoked up to ten poppers a day.

Ellis tries her best to use other people's devices instead of having one of her own around to tempt her, she says. Still, disposable vapes (which have a limited amount of puffs before the battery dies) and Juul brand devices litter her coffee table.

This litter was collected from only three households. Across all brands, each nicotine pod (to be inserted into a rechargeable device) comes packaged individually in plastic and contained in a cardboard box.

The city of Toronto and municipality of Peel require vape products to be safely disposed of at a waste centre, whereas Calgary asks they be thrown in with the household garbage. Ottawa has no by-law addressing vape disposal. The popular e-cigarette brand STLTH recently started a recycling program where used pods can be returned to drop off locations to be sorted and shipped to a recycler.

Ellis lights up a cigarette while a disposable vape sits on the patio table in front of her. "I started because I was trying to quit cigarettes," she says with a shrug, "now I do both".

Pandemic life: Kiahna Burman’s favourite coffee shop, Little Victories, has set up a shipping container to sell from during the pandemic.

After a month of take-out and pick-up orders during Omicron restrictions, the staff at Happy Goat Coffee Company are happy to see their regulars able to sit down for a drink once again.

Seeing Burman without jewelry is an indicator something has gone seriously wrong. She wears fewer rings now upon hearing the advice that they can trap the COVID-19 virus, and her hands are glaringly bare.

Rock/blues band MonkeyJunk kicked off the final night of Ottawa Bluesfest 2021. Lead guitarist Tony D strums his guitar as the band takes the spotlight.

Lead vocalist of MonkeyJunk Steve Marriner told the crowd they were happy to be performing in Ottawa, where the band got their start. They have been unable to play live in their hometown since the start of the pandemic.

Tony D and Steve Marriner meet centre stage for a lighthearted moment as they riff off each other.

MonkeyJunk has released five albums and hopes to release a sixth in late 2021.

In the days leading up to Canada’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30th, 2021, Ottawans turned the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill into a memorial for the victims of Canada’s residential school system.

As they walk past rows of children’s shoes memorializing those who never returned home from residential schools, a father remarks, “Yes, they do look like your shoes,” to his young son.

Inuit throat singers perform "The Lovesong" at Confederation Park as part of the day of activities organized by The Indigenous Arts Collective of Canada.

A volunteer hands out tobacco ties to participants in a Kairos Blanket Exercise on the lawn of Parliament Hill. The exercise explores the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.