Canadian Scene becomes Canscene
Canadian Scene was a good idea, strong enough to last half a century, but eventually it starved for funding and could not be sustained. Ben Viccari was the last managing editor and he kept it going as long as was humanly possible.
Translation and mailing costs were killers. Printed issues of Canadian Scene became impossible and Ben looked to the internet as a possible way of continuing the service.
“Ma and Pa” ethnic publications were usually not sophisticated enough to access internet content, though. Translation wasn’t affordable either. Early web browsers weren’t very good at reproducing foreign alphabets, anyway.
Ben decided he could at least continue to make content free, if only in English. All on his own (with a little tech support from yours truly), Ben launched Canscene as an online monthly. That was about 10 years ago, well before blogging became as popular as it is today.
— BA
[Note: Bill Andersen is too modest. He was my mentor in the skills I possess today and I cannot thank him enough for being able to offer these few thoughts today. — Ben Viccari]