Facts about Canada

A Few Facts About Canada

Earl Cameron. Sarah Edmonson. Customs in Pre-historic Canada. Tobacco Smoking Among the Indians. Boris Karloff. Daniel Harmon. Mareen Godson. Kerosene. Padded Baseball Glove. McYntire Mine. George Brown,. Wilfred Greenfell

C.B.C. announcer Earl Cameron, once, while reading the National radio news, found himself in darkness because a blown fuse had doused the lights. Unruffled as always, Cameron simply pulled out his cigarette lighter, flicked it on and continued to read.

The soldier who was a woman, Sarah Edmonson. Raised in York County, New Brunswick, Sarah enlisted in a regiment of the Union army using the alias Franklin Thompson. During the American civil war, she served for two years and closely escaped death many times. She was the first woman to receive a pension from the U.S. army and when she died she was buried in a military cemetery with full military honors.

Fort Stewart in Montreal. Photo by Elena

Customs in pre-historic Canada: In pre-historic Canada, about 1000 years AD, the innovation of horticulture profoundly affected the social structure of the indian societies, which become matrilineal. The changes can be seen even in cooking utensils. Indeed, the small and slender vessel encountered by archaeologists in the previous period, suited to the slow cooking of meat, are replaced by large spherical vessels adapted to cooking corn soup. Women are responsible for crop cultivation, and they supervise all stage, from seeding to harvesting. In addition, women prepare pottery, clothing, basketwork, rope, stone scrapers to prepare animal skins. They make as well harpoon points. Both women and men fish, but only men hunt. Women harvest corn, squash and different other beans. As a rule, the camps and the villages are protected by a palisade

Tobacco smoking and Indians: A very interesting characteristic of the Iroquoians is their habit of smoking tobacco. They cultivated a rustic variety for this purpose, different from our tobacco and smoked it in fired clay pipes. Pottery and pipes were decorated, sometimes with nice effigies modelled on the bowl. Fragments of Indian pipes have been found on different sites in Quebec.

William Pratt (Boris Karloff): A young English immigrant named William Pratt joined a touring stage company in 1910 at Kamloops, British Columbia. He invented the name Boris Karloff for himself and went on to become famous as the Frankenstein Monster.

Daniel Harmon in 1811 started the first farm west of the Rocky Mountains. Near Fort St. James. Good yields of potatoes, turnips and barley were obtained.

Maureen Godson of Edmonton started learning how to fly in 1953, when she was 9 years old. By the time she was 10 she was a proficient flyer, Canada’s youngest pilot.

Kerosene: In 1846 Dr. Abraham Gesner at Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, developed a process for distilling Kerosene, as he called it, from a coal-like mineral, Albertite. Later it was to be popularly called coal-oil.

Monument to Canadian Soldiers in Toronto, the Queen Park. Photograph by Elena

The padded baseball glove was invented by Arthur Irwin, a Toronto player, in 1884. He showed up one day with a makeshift pad in a glove. Despite the fact he was kidded as a sissy, it wasn’t long before everybody copied his idea. Irwin wasn’t really a sissy. He just couldn’t figure out another way to play nine innings with two broken fingers.

McIntyre Mine: During the Early days of Northern Ontario’s Gold Rush (1909), Sandy McIntyre found what is now the famous mine bearing his name. He sold out for $25 in order to buy some liquor. Years later, he still passed his time crying in beverage rooms while the mine he discovered produced gold worth 230 million dolalrs.

George Brown: The Honorable George Brown, the founder of the Globe (now Globe and Mail) newspaper was the political arch-enemy of the first Prime Minister Sir. John A. Macdonald, who sometimes over-indulged his habit of drinking. Whenever Macdonald had a bout with the bottle, Brown printed a “sick” notice in the Globe.

Sir Wilfred Grenfell: A plaque erected at St. Anthony, Newfoundland, by the great humanitarian Sir Wilfred Grenfell, after a harrowing experience on a drifting ice pan. Grenfell had to use their bloody fur for warmth until he was rescued: “To the memory of three noble dogs, Moody, Watch and Spy, whose lives were given for mine on the ice. April 21st 1903. Wilfred Grenfell, St. Anthony.

St. Lawrence River

St. Lawrence River

One of the most important rivers in North America, the Saint Lawrence River offers you great scenery and a wonderful sense of history. Called fleuve Saint-Laurent in French, it originates at the outflow of Lake Ontario between Kingston, Ontario, on the north bank; Wolfe Island in mid-stream; and Cape Vincent, New York. It flows from southwest to northeast connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Named The river that walks by the Aboriginal peoples, the Saint Lawrence River crosses Quebec and Ontario and serves as a natural frontier between Ontario, Canada, and the U.S. state of New York for approximately 200 km (124 mi).

In Canada, the navigation route runs along its entire length, forming the famous Saint Lawrence Seaway that allows the Great Lakes to have an opening on the Maritimes. Sailing on the Saint Lawrence River is a unique experience of being on a nautical super-highway. Home to two of North America’s most exciting boating destinations, Montreal and Quebec City, it varies between 1 and 2.5 miles wide for most of its distance between these two cities. Downstream from Quebec City, it expands rapidly in width and at Gaspe, as it enters the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, it is 87 miles from the shore to shore.

The largest estuary in the world, the Saint Lawrence River runs 3,058 kilometres (1,900 mi) from the farthest headwater, the North River in Minnesota. Its drainage area, including the Great Lakes—the world’s largest fresh water reservoir, is 1.03 million km² (390,000 sq mi) with the average discharge at the mouth of 10,400 m³/s (367,000 cu ft/s).

St.Lawrence River. Photo by Elena

The river includes Lake Saint-Louis south of Montreal, Lac Saint-François at Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, and Lac Saint-Pierre east of Montreal. It embraces three archipelagoes: the Thousand Islands chain near Kingston, Ontario; the Hochelaga Archipelago, including the Island of Montreal and Ile Jesus (Laval); and the smaller Mingan Archipelago. Other islands include Ile d’Orleans near Quebec City and Anticosti Island north of the Gaspe. Lake Champlain and the Ottawa, Richelieu, and Saguenay rivers all drain into the St. Lawrence.

The first known European explorer to sail the inland part of the Saint Lawrence River was Jacques Cartier, during his second trip to Canada in 1535. Because he arrived in the estuary on St. Lawrence’s feast day, Cartier decided to name it the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Until the early 1600s, the French used the name Riviere du Canada for the Saint Lawrence upstream to Montreal, and the river used to be called the Ottawa River after Montreal. The Saint Lawrence River served as the main route for European exploration of the North American interior, first pioneered by French explorer Samuel de Champlain.

Because of the impassable Lachine Rapids, the Saint Lawrence River used to be navigable only as far as Montreal. In 1825, the Lachine Canal was opened to allow ships to pass the rapids. The Saint Lawrence Seaway, a vast system of canals and locks, was officially opened on 26 June 1959 by Queen Elizabeth II (representing Canada) and President Dwight D. Eisenhower (representing the United States of America). From then on, ocean-going vessels can pass all the way to Lake Superior.

The St. Lawrence River is at the centre of artwork in Quebec: in the novels Kamouraska by Anne Hebert and L’avalee des avales by Rejean Ducharme; poems by Pierre Morency and Bernard Pozier; and songs Suzanne by Leonard Cohen’s and L’oubli by Michel Rivard. The river has also been portrayed in paintings by the famous Group of Seven.

Currently, many efforts are being made by the Federal Government of Canada to reduce the pollution within the Saint Lawrence River waters to save threatened species, such as the Beluga, white whale living in arctic waters, from extinction.

Toronto - The City where Dreams Come True

Toronto – The City Where Dreams Come True

Do you dream? I don’t mean in the sleeping way, I mean in having a dream and trying to see it come to fruition despite all the hurdles, hassles and obstacles the pretty lady called life throws at you? Dreams are important, whiteout dreams how would we ever get around to achieving our goals? Dreams can motivate is, and anyone who ever wanted to jog during the cold winter times knows that.

But I digress… Thus, Toronto is a beautiful city in Ontario, Canada. A cosmopolitan jewel, by far the biggest and most populated city in the country, it could be described as a mix between New York and Moscow, an one example among many, simply to compare the large metropolitan to other large cities. Thus, Restaurants, hotels in all price ranges and amazing shopping malls abound; aside from all the other exciting things to do… 

I went to Toronto many times and it never ceases to amaze me. Toronto reminds of New York, with a downtown largely reminiscent of New York city’s famous Time Square, the local counterpart called the Dundas Square. Every year, I religiously celebrate the countdown watching Anderson Cooper and the drop of the ball on the Times Square in New York City!

A ship in Toronto, perhaps sailing towards an even more dreamlike city. Image: Elena

Furthermore, Toronto is marvelous for a tourist, since it has many facilities for the adventurous soul. For instance, laundromats, dry cleaners and 24/7 Internet specialty coffee shops are present throughout the metropolitan. Also, many stores are open well past “curfew”, even clothing stores, not to mention specialty or love shops.

Love shops are counterparts of Montreal’s sex shops, that’s what adult entertainment stores are called in Toronto. Further, places to stay include hotels and motels, for all kinds of budgets, although all in all Toronto is a fairly expensive city, at least by the standards of the present avid traveler. However, attractions are countless, including the spectacular CN Tower, the adjacent Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada, museums, a gorgeous waterfront, called Queen’s Quay Harbourfront and at the time of writing undergoing profound refurbishing in terms of construction work, magnificent and numerous shopping malls, including designer boutiques in the high end district. 

Naturally, living in Toronto, as with most cities in the world, is quite different from merely vacationing. Rent is very pricy, as compared to other Canadian cities, such as Montreal, Quebec, and getting around may seem more difficult due to several factors, such as the TTC subway opening later on Saturday’s compared to some other major Canadian cities. Nonetheless, the city is a vibrant and lively one, and presents many challenges, but also opportunities, for those who can afford it.

Travel Reviews: Montreal

Travel Reviews: Montreal

Fortunately, last summer I had the chance to visit Montreal, the largest and most populated city in the French province of Canada, Quebec. Montreal is a beautiful, cosmopolitan and bilingual city with a lot to offer; from a gazillion art galleries and museums, to fine dining and a booming nightlife. Suburbs include Laval, Longueuil and Brossard.

While certainly not devoid of upscale shopping malls, the avid high fashion shopper might prefer New York to fill their designer brand needs, with only one retailer (Holt Renfrew) carrying the coveted red soles. However, the city certainly impresses by its panoply of festivals, from the famous Jazz Fest to Just for Laughs and international movie venues. Many shows are public and free, held outside, downtown, for example on Place-des-Arts.

Notre Dame de Montreal Cathedral (Our Lady of Montreal). Photo by Elena

Montreal seems to be a very liberal city, which adds to its blend of European and North American charm. Walking trough the somewhat crowded streets of the centre-ville, a blushing tourist notices many adverts for adult entertainment, such as sex shops, strip clubs and even erotic massage parlors. However, beautiful Montreal girls may be less willing to go topless than their Toronto counterparts, the Ontario city in which a woman famously went to court for the right to bare her breasts in public…

On a more practical, and completely unrelated note, public transportation is easily available and getting around is pretty simple, due to the city’s straightforward design. Perhaps the most impressive architecture is found in the Old Port, which reminds one of Europe, and maybe somewhat of Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Hôtel de ville de Montréal, façade latérale. Montreal City Hall. Image: Elena

Hotels in Toronto

Travel Reviews: Hotels in Toronto

A few members of the GrandQuebec team went to the beautiful, cosmopolitan city of Toronto, Ontario. Well, actually, it was a few team members of the ProvinceQuebec team effort, the English version of the best Website on Quebec history, culture, architecture, fashion, celebrity gossip and so on. Luckily, they were friendly enough to share their travel insights with us…

A well known fact in academia, is that theory fails to predict practice perfectly, and sometimes, at all. In other words, while scholars heavily rely on theoretical constructs, the mutual understanding one shares with one’s peers cannot guarantee one’s completion of an actual doctorate degree in psychology (an actual requirement to become a licensed psychologist in some jurisdictions). A similar question arises when one contemplates educational paths, while social psychology may seem more interesting, perhaps a career in accounting looks more promising in terms of securing gainful employment in a shorter time period.

A stade in Victoria Park, in Toronto. Photo by Elena

In theory, Toronto is a city with all work and no play, which can make Jack a dull boy (Shining, Stephen King), but in practice, this vibrant, magnificent city, is as lively as can be. Similarly, in theory (and in practice!) Websites like Expedia and TripAdvisor may come in handy in planning an escapade to a distant destination, but a detailed personal experience account may likewise enlighten one on places top visit, where to stay and how to eat and stay healthy in a new environment.

Where to stay in Toronto, Ontario

Like most North American cities, Toronto has hotels and motels for almost all budges. Most places will require a valid credit card to book a room, and absolutely all accommodations demand to see some form of ID (from the ones we visited).

The Sheraton hotel chain hardly needs any introduction. An established luxury line of hotels and resorts, the Sheraton is a worldwide elite place to stay in, as long as you can afford it. Popular among businesspeople and couples celebrating their honeymoon, Sheraton hotels exist all over the world, being present in Canadian cities such as Montreal and Toronto, as well as exotic tropical islands such as Bora Bora. The Toronto Sheraton hotel is no different, containing all the amenities necessary for a more than pleasant stay, with more than 40 floors in altitude, splendid rooms and a high perched lounge overseeing the metropolitan. Rates vary from standard rooms to upscale, high end suites, but usually Sheraton hotels are considered in the pricier continuum of the temporary accommodation spectrum, although quite affordable if you consider the number of stars and services available (i.e. price and quality trade off).

Toronto City Center. Photo by Elena

The Fairmont Royal York hotel of Toronto is right in front of the train (Union station subway) downtown. The spectacular VIP hotel may be seen as a counterpart to the famous Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montreal, of international fame due to Yoko Ono’s and John Lennon’s sleep in for world peace. Naturally, Toronto likewise has the Hilton, Omni, Soho, Marriott and Ritz Carlton (list by far non extensive). For hotels in the middle price range, there are places like the Comfort Inn (several locations), the Ramada (double suite extremely comfortable, with ‘at home’ apartment feel’), the Best Western (Primrose) downtown and the Radisson Admiral Harbourfront on the new and refurbished Queen’s Quay.

Other hotels include the Econo Lodge (quite affordable hotel on Jarvis Street, close to Carlton intersection). Finally, for those without a credit card and on more modest budgets, the Weaverly, on the corner of College and Spadina may come in handy. With Toronto’s Chinatown’s attractions, a colorful market, countless laundromats and dry cleaners nearby, the inn may come in handy for a traveler looking for their next adventure. Finally, last but not least, the Shangri-La hotel is rumored to be among the best the city has to offer, with out-of-this-world suites commanding several thousands per night! Goes without saying, we had to pass…

On a more general note, the main streets of Toronto include Bloor (Yorkville), York, Yonge and Bay. With multiple Holt Renfrews (classy, exclusive shopping malls) and various designer and jewelry boutiques (Rolex, Cartier, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Chanel, Gucci, Fendi, Burberry, Hermes, Dior, Agent Provocateur – the sultry British lingerie brand endorsed by sexy actress Penelope Cruz – and countless others), the city (which at time of writing, just underwent mayoral elections on October 27, 2014, replacing celebrity mayor Rob Ford with John Tory) is one of the most popular cities in the world to visit, well, at least as far as we’re concerned. Also, obviously, don’t forget the breathtaking CN Tower and the adjacent aquarium (Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada).