Geoff Lister/The Ubyssey

For Grace McRae-Okine, the plan was always simple: get out of Edmonton.

“I’d been dreaming about it since I was yay-high,” she said, measuring inches above the news desk at CiTR radio’s office. For a self-described liberal arts girl, the resistant attitude of the most conservative province in Canada held little appeal.

“The arts scene is actually fantastic. But it’s also small and you’re fighting a huge conservative majority. So eventually you kind of give up.”

Grace came to UBC to escape the cold and to study some kind of journalism. But as much as she prefers the warm and liberal climes of Vancouver, Grace still thanks one of the icons of Albertan conservatism for setting her on the path to CiTR, where she is now president.

“I worked at the HMV in West Edmonton Mall, and before I moved here the former music director at the [radio] station in Victoria told me that the one thing I had to do when I got to UBC was go to CiTR, so I did.”

All it took was a few hours hanging around CiTR characters and she was hooked.

“The Friday of the first week I was here, I got to meet Nardwuar, which blew my skull,” she said. Soon, she started tabling at shows and now enjoys the perks of being involved in an important facet of the Vancouver music scene.

“I’m a night owl, so I don’t sleep much,” she said.

“I probably go to a show once a week. I feel a little bit spoiled, because writing for Discorder or tabling for CiTR, through volunteer opportunities that don’t involve much work, I pretty much go for free.”

Still, Grace said the same problems that plague the Edmonton arts scene are alive and well in Vancouver. But these problems are what makes the scene stronger.

“People have to work really hard to put on a show, or find a venue to put on a show that won’t cost them up the butt or have to have it licensed.”

But there’s still a community here, she said.

“I like to call Vancouver the ‘City of Misfits.’ Everybody fits in somewhere and if you just find your niche and wiggle your way in a little bit, you’ll do just fine.”

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