Nasha Kasha reporter Stefan Andrusiak is vacationing in Europe. And this week he files this on-the-road report.

The landscape around Vernon is among the prettiest in Canada. But lean in closer. You’re about to hear of an ugly time past in this part of British Columbia. And about two women, who are helping to honour the forgotten.

Zirka is Ukrainian for a heavenly body.  The one you are about to encounter was smelted in a Sudbury Inco mine.   That’s where a foreman named Slawko Hucal worked for 36 years.  Slawko and his wife Sonia raised four musicians.  The Inco mine is now called Vale.  And Slawko died in 2011.  But the band he inspired flies high and shines on.

In Kamloops British Columbia, sculpted by nature, you will find sandstone pillars towering 5 meters.  That’s over 16 feet. They are called "hoo-doos".   Hoodoos rest on a thick base of shale and are capped by a large stone.  Around them the wind blows tumble weeds … twirling in a Ukrainian dance.

Here are three stories from three cities about searching, believing and becoming closer after centuries apart.

Over the next few months Nasha Kasha will be presenting eight full episodes from British Columbia.  This is the first, and it's from the city they call the Raspberry Capital of Canada:  Abbotsford.

Around the time of the Second World War hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians united around an independence movement.  The military arm of that drive was the Ukrainian Insurgent Army known as the UPA.  This week, Nasha Kasha tells the story of these partisans through the recollections of an old freedom fighter, who was there.

This week Nasha Kasha explores fusion and harmony in Ukrainian music.  We begin in Ottawa with a project that blends reggae with Ukraine’s most traditional instrument-  the bandura.  Then to Montreal, where we'll meet 2 members of the vocal trio Rossa.

Headliners are drawing crowds to festivals across Canada this summer.  But in among them, merchants also deliver on expectations.  Today on Nasha Kasha- stories about two sellers- one past, one present.

It is rare. Only a few hear it. Fewer still answer. This week in our 120th episode of Nasha Kasha- we meet three remarkable people, who have heard a calling.