Tag Archives: Canada

Day 1: Vancouver Northbound, August 2012

  Our little group of three assembled with other intrepid cruise travelers at the Seattle airport to begin our Alaskan cruise odyssey: It would be 10 days up the Inside Passage to Seward (near Anchorage), a road trip to Denali National Park and then a flight via Anchorage back to Seattle. The much-anticipated trip was finally about to begin, albeit in a bus to Vancouver where we would catch up with Holland America’s ms Zandam. My daughter, Piper; her friend, John; and I were off to see the wilderness of Alaska. My previous trip to Alaska was in the early 60s as copilot of my family’s Aero ... [Read More]

Niagara Falls — coming soon to a town near you?

    Why is water beautiful? That human beings find water almost hypnotically alluring is something we all just seem to accept without question. People across the globe, from disparate countries, religions and ethnic groups, all find the substance covering 70% of our planet's surface irresistible. We want to live near it, vacation in it and will travel great distances just to admire it. Being no different than the rest of humanity, Soo and I happily traveled a great distance to admire the 5.7 million liters of water cascading every second over the limestone cliffs at Niagara Falls. We set off from Toronto for the two-hour train ride to Niagara, ... [Read More]

That’s Loonie, ay

  Toronto is a clean, vibrant, exciting city, a city that appears to do things right. It’s the largest city in Canada, a beautiful, exciting country that also appears to do things right. Except that they call their currency the “loonie,” which seems sort of, well, loony. The last time I visited Toronto, 10 years ago, 70 cents US bought you one Loonie. Today it takes $1.02US to buy a Canadian dollar. I believe it signifies a new low in American economic history that we’re now officially being bested by loonies. Woe unto us. (The Canadian dollar is called the “loonie,” by the way, not because Canadians are crazy, ... [Read More]

In Toronto, it’s nice weather for a water summit

Before heading to Toronto for this week’s Ontario water leadership summit, I noted that my hotel was on Blue Jays Way, and joked to my wife that maybe I’d be staying in that hotel where some rooms overlook the Skydome baseball field (called Rogers Centre since 2005). Sure enough, I am: The Renaissance is a great hotel, with solicitous staff, a freshly printed Globe and Mail at your door every morning and Aveda products in the bath. The Blue Jays are on a road trip right now, so there’s some major artificial turf replacement going on … I can report that this process is exactly ... [Read More]

Great weather in Halifax

It was mid-winter and we were returning home from Paris on a Pan American flight. Our ticket called for a stop in New York and a connecting flight to Atlanta where a warm bed awaited. But that was not to be. About 8 hours out the pilot announced that due to blizzard conditions in New York all airports were closed and we would be making an unscheduled stop at Halifax, Nova Scotia. However, he assured us that there was no reason for anxiety and, in fact, that the Halifax weather was fine. After landing we were told that we could get off the airplane if we ... [Read More]

Paddling across the Atlantic

Some years ago my daughter Laura and I undertook to fly our single-engine Mooney across the Atlantic via Canada, Greenland, Iceland and Scotland. To get a permit to depart Canada we were required to fly to Monkton, New Brunswick and pass an inspection of our airplane, emergency gear and flying experience. They carefully checked a list of required equipment, including a life raft and, believe it or not, a paddle. In flight we discussed this. Around Greenland the waters were filled with ice bergs. If the engine quit and we had to go down there our biggest fear was that we would smash into a berg. No ... [Read More]