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Twenty-one Grade 10 and 11 students from Gleneagle secondary's COAST program were participating in an annual paddle and portage trip through the Bowron Lakes Chain, about 120 km east of [Quesnel], in which the students break into two groups and meet at various rendezvous points along the route. Monday evening, two canoes overturned on the Cariboo River after hitting a submerged log, forcing one group of 10 students to set up camp with teacher Krista Bogen. When that group failed to meet with the first group at a rendezvous point, Quesnel RCMP was called.

[Aaron Watkin] graduated from the National Ballet School of Canada in 1988, winning the Erik Bruhn Award, awarded to the most promising student, and has also attended the School of American Ballet, where he studied intensely with Stanley Williams.

The staging was well done by the Semper Oper Ballet, and at its heart was Natalya Sologub. I fell in love with this Mariinsky ballerina, with her delicacy, her emotional clarity, her exquisite and intelligent feet, when I first saw her as the heroine of Ratmansky's Cinderella in St Petersburg. In London a few years later she gave a first performance as Aurora, noble, radiant. In this debut as Nikiya, the eponymous bayadere, she has the vulnerability, the dramatic grace and the academic elegance the role demands - and she is superb. (The great confrontation with the Rajah's daughter had a fine frenzy, and Britt Juleen was properly haughty and distraught as the imperious Hamzatti.) Jiri Bubenicek was a bounding Solor, his turban proving something of a candle-snuffer to emotion. From the ensemble, serious playing, serious dancing (the Shades very well mannered).

For when the Kirov's London season opens on Monday, among such traditional favourites as Swan Lake, La Bayadere and Romeo and Juliet will be a programme of works by William Forsythe which famously rip apart both the conventions of classical ballet steps and the way classical ballet is performed. The Kirov has already added works to its repertory by the St Petersburg-born George Balanchine, who died in 1983, but Forsythe's work, with its conscious deconstruction of the ballet conventions held so sacred at the Kirov, is a much wilder departure. Aaron Watkin, currently Forsythe's choreographic assistant and ballet director-designate at the Dresden Ballet, taught Forsythe's works to the Kirov dancers.

It's a heady time for [Aaron Watkin]. At 35, he's just been hired as the new artistic director of Ballet Dresden. Even though he doesn't start his new job for more than a year -- his appointment takes effect on Aug. 1, 2006 -- Watkin arrived in Dresden two days before our interview for his first official visit. Watkin, who was born and raised in [Duncan] on Vancouver Island, joked that he'll been in meetings 24 hours a day during the remainder of his 10-day stay. Not only was Watkin a former soloist with the legendary William Forsythe at Ballet Frankfurt, he's also been travelling throughout Europe for the past few years as Forsythe's personal choreographic assistant. Dancers and administrative staff in Dresden know him from a stint last fall when he did the preparatory legwork for two of Forsythe's contemporary ballets. There's also the telling detail about one of the reasons Watkin got the Dresden job: Forsythe personally recommended him. At the Ballet Dresden, Watkin will be working out of the Sachsische Staatsoper Dresden Semperoper, one of the most impressive opera houses in Europe. Located in central Dresden on the banks of the Elbe River, the opera house was designed by Gottfried Semper in 1841 but was rebuilt by Semper in High Renaissance style in 1878 after a fire.

Aaron Watkins, 20, of Newport News recently finished a productive junior season with the Barton College baseball team in Wilson, N.C. Watkins, a 6-foot, 200-pound infielder, played 44 games, starting 41, for the Bulldogs. He batted .315 (47-of-149) with seven doubles and tied for the team lead with six home runs. He drove in 31 runs and scored 25, posted a .483 slugging percentage, drew six walks and struck out just 12 times.

The state is challenging the city's land-use change of 117 acres along the St. Johns River near Fort Florida Road. Planners at the Department of Community Affairs have no problem with the proposed 250-home subdivision called Country Estates at River Bend on 107 acres. However, they say a proposed 10-acre commercial site for a possible 50-wet-slip marina, 200-boat dry storage warehouse and a 15,000-square-foot commercial center violates state and county regulations that protect the river, threatened species and wildlife habitat. The amendment is a very intense land-use designation,\" department attorney Leslie Bryson said in her opening statements before Administrative Law Judge D.R. Alexander. \"Based upon data and analysis of the Wekiva River Aquatic Preserve, Outstanding Florida Waters designation and the Volusia County Manatee Protection Plan, this is not a suitable use for this area.\"