Blogs from Canada, North America - page 1227

It's wonderful to be somewhere hot and humid again. I'm sure I'll come to hate it, but I associate humidity with holidays so sweating like a pig gets me excited. Aside from this, arriving in Toronto felt much like England with unfriendly immigration and customs staff and baggage delays. After a brief chat to an Indian man, a nationality who are always pleasing to talk to because with a little prompting they will tell you their whole life story and that of most of their extended family, Rob rolled up in a monster truck and drove me back to the motel. My first impression of Toronto was not a great one. Its further flung suburbs seem to consist overwhelmingly of tatty apartment blocks interspersed with expanses of half dead grass and little else. Arriving at the ... read more

Whitehorse Beringia Interpretive Center had great exhibits. We watched some movies, participated in some spear throwing instructions and toured the exhibits. It’s a great place to spend an afternoon. Their website is: www.beringia.com. McBride Museum had a lot of displays on the gold rush. They also had Sam McGee’s cabin. He knew Robert Service and that is how his name was used in one of the poems. It was interesting to learn about his life rather than the life that was associated with the name in the poem. We’ll be passing through Whitehorse on our way home, so we deferred some things until that time. Lake Laberge It’s north of Whitehorse and of course we visited it. I’ve learned more about Robert Service, his life and his poems since being in this area. George did a ... read more

Took an “on-foot” day Saturday, 7 July 2007 This morning dawned rainy, and I really wanted a day off, but my plan had been to take the day off on Monday, not today, so we tried to be “useful”. Part of the problem was that I had to book accommodations for the next three towns we’ll visit, and that obviously required my sitting & phoning people, not one of my favorite “jobs”, just ask my friends. Also, Bob had to call Telus to deal with a problem with his cell phone that had not seemed to be affecting mine, and between being on hold for quite a long time & the technician’s spending a fair bit of time with him - and it’s still not working properly - it was already noon. There’s a Subway restaurant ... read more

UntitledAfter breakfast we took a tour of Old Montreal where we learned the history of a very and architecture of the city. We then had lunch and headed straight to a meeting with local teachers. The meeting was great and a lot of information was shared about the school systems in Montreal. Since Montreal is in the Province of Quebec the school system is the same as Quebec City with the French school system and the English school system. After dinner we had dinner headed straight for the Montreal Jazz Festival. The Jazz Festival is an incredible music event which has mulitple concert stages set up around the city and play live music for free. I went to at least four different stages and heard classical jazz, hip hop jazz and flamenco. Its great to see ... read more

It's hard to say where the St Lawrence River ends, and the ocean, in the form of the Gulf of St Lawrence, begins. In the whole world, this may be the river for which this question is the most contentious. We're told the water becomes noticeably salty as far inland as Ile d'Orleans but many locals will tell you they consider it a river all the way to Cap-Gaspe, right at the end of the peninsula. Presumably it is even more difficult to decide on a precise spot on the North Shore as there is no convenient and arbitrary peninsula on that side. The children did not worry about the semantics. As soon as they could smell the salt air they were convinced the water in front of them was ocean. This occurred at Riviere-du-Loup. We ... read more