Toronto the Funky! October Canucks love hating Toronto. It s called Toronto the Staid, Good, Snotty, Clean. The Boring.

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Oswald Casey
5 years ago
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1 Toronto the Funky! October 2016 Canucks love hating Toronto. It s called Toronto the Staid, Good, Snotty, Clean. The Boring.

2 Then, someone put something in the water. The Big Crab-apple suddenly got interesting!

3 The tsunami of colourful immigrants from around the world in the last decade swatting the W.A.S.Ps. into Lake Ontario had a lot to do with it. Funky shops, restaurants and neighbourhoods sprang up. Toronto actually has become a neat place!

4 There s even Japanese grocery stores. Saskatchewan has only 645 Japanese (not kidding). But that s why I got me one. I collect rarities. The closest Japanese store is Calgary. Southern Alberta is where the government shipped them too after Pearl Harbor and after stealing their property.

5 I haven t found a museum to acquire her yet, but a few years more should lay on a nice patina, I expect they ll be clamoring for her and I should get a good price.

6 We stayed initially with friends Myron and Shirley Zabol. She s a naturopathic doctor, and Myron s a top photographer. This is a lousy shot of them, dammit, but it captures their fabulous home. I ve always loved Ontario s character-rich brick homes. That s daughter Nevada behind visiting from Montreal.

7 He s shot several album covers.

8 Shooting People of the Dancing Sky was a nine-year project and an important work. On this basis we ve offered to sponsor him into The Explorers Club.

9 Needless to say, their extensive library contains examples of the finest literature.

10 We had dim sum with Lady Danger Jessica Phillips of Treasure Trader, Four Walls and Mantracker fame.

We planned the documentary we ll be shooting next early summer with Tyrannosaur phil Phil Currie around the ceratopsian Wayne Sawchuk Northern Dancer discovered on our Explorers Club expedition on

11 We planned the documentary we ll be shooting next early summer with Tyrannosaur phil Phil Currie around the ceratopsian Wayne Sawchuk Northern Dancer discovered on our Explorers Club expedition on the Red Deer last June. She s coordinating the shoot with an LA crew; I ll be team leader as usual. Phil, of course, will be field leader with wife Eva Koppelhus, the Danish Delight. That ll be fun. (Here he points at the KT Boundary along Alberta s Red Deer River.)

12 Then down the dreaded 401 to Brooklin east of Toronto an hour.

13 And to the home of Su s brother Gene, and Judee for a week of good food and company. Gene s a helluva cook.

15 Gene s also a helluva photog, like the Rideau Hall book he was commissioned to shoot. Rideau Hall is the Governor-General s mansion in Ottawa.

16 The book is given to visiting dignitaries.

17 They toured us around, including to the McLaughlin mansion in Oshawa, the home of General Motors in Canada. (Oshawa: say it sober you still sound drunk.)

Interestingly, it has a connection to our place. It was built as the dream home by the local McLaughlin-Buick dealer in 1931.

18 Interestingly, it has a connection to our place. It was built as the dream home by the local McLaughlin-Buick dealer in It s extremely well constructed, solid as the Canadian Shield. The house isn t wide but it goes a good way back. Picture taken in September after a freak 10-inch snowfall that set a record and smashed our lilac.

We also linked up with the always lovely and vivacious Bow Buba artist Candace Wilson with whom we had the pleasure of guesting in 2013 at the 2200-square-foot, century old, family cottage on

19 We also linked up with the always lovely and vivacious Bow Buba artist Candace Wilson with whom we had the pleasure of guesting in 2013 at the 2200-square-foot, century old, family cottage on Georgian Bay where she has her studio. See my Blog for that year, In Search of the Group of Seven. A fellow adventurer, Explorers Club member and one-time commercial helicopter pilot, she earned her river name when she paddled bow for me on the Churchill River and wore a blue babushka to protect her Scandanavianesque light skin.

20 She s my favorite abstract artist. This series was part of a permanent healing display at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre. See Candy s website at

21 Two of her originals decorate our walls. This is one.

22 We actually met up at Peterborough s Canadian Canoe Museum on my bucket list for decades.

23 Director Jim Raffan, a fellow author, adventurer and Explorers Club member, wasn t there, unfortunately. The museum exceeded even my expectations. Outstanding.

Canada is custom designed for the canoe. Astonishingly, one can paddle coast-to-coast and the longest portage encountered will be only 12 miles in length!

24 Canada is custom designed for the canoe. Astonishingly, one can paddle coast-to-coast and the longest portage encountered will be only 12 miles in length! That s the Methye in Saskatchewan. Writer Pierre Berton wrote you can tell a true Canadian because that s somebody who knows how to make love in a canoe.

26 Pierre Trudeau s famous buckskin jacket. He was a major canoeist and behind the establishment of Yukon s Nahanni National Park. The late Bill Mason was Canada s canoeing guru. Like many, I learned how to paddle from his brilliant instruction videos.

27 In the same manner that I can admire a well woven Southeast Asian basket with the same rapture as standing before a favorite Van Gogh or a Brueghel, this beautiful 1960-built birchbark canoe grabbed my attention.

28 Detail.

29 And with this we ll paddle off into the mist. How s that? Actually a short Blah Blah for a change!

Imagine that you are. The Story of Etienne Brûlé Adventurer - Coureur des Bois

Imagine that you are. The Story of Etienne Brûlé Adventurer - Coureur des Bois The Story of Etienne Brûlé Adventurer - Coureur des Bois your family and friends for a long time. The ship you will travel on is made of wood and has no engines. It depends on the wind to blow it to its