The Big Smoke

Clever name for a Torontario BBQ restaurant. The food was pretty good too.

Most Canadian City

Sometimes you visit a place that truly makes you feel Canadian, in fact it oozes Canadiana like maple syrup. During this Eastern swing of business meetings, I was lucky enough to visit a city that oozed just like that.

It is the birthplace of Confederation and the site of the first organized hockey game.

It was (and is because he’s buried here) the home of our beloved drunken forefather Sir John A MacDonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada. The man who after throwing up during a debate, uttered the famous words “ I get sick sometimes not because of drink or any other cause, except that I am forced to listen to the ranting of my honorable opponent."

It is where Canadian National Rock & Roll Anthem writing The Tragically Hip hail from.

It was the first city to be named the Capital of Canada and is the location of prestigious Queens University.

The famous ice skating canal Rideau has its mouth here.

It is the location of Fort Frontenac which survived a 2 month Iroquois seige in 1688 during the Iroquois War and was later captured by 3000 British Troops in 1758 during the Seven Years War. Destroyed and rebuilt both times, the fort is still occupied by the Canadian military to this day.

Put it all together and Ottawa comes to mind, but it isn't. Quebec City? Non.

This most Canadian of Cities is Kingston, Ontario.

First Flight

It went pretty well. She was easily entertained by all the people moving about on the plane, but all the action also kept her from one of her naps. By the time we landed she was exhausted and since all those distracting passengers and flight attendants were in their seats, I laid her across my lap while the plane taxied. She fell asleep just before the "seat belt" light went off and everyone jumped up to exit the plane. I guess a 5 second nap is better than none.

Who Knew There Were Caribou?

Who knew there were caribou this far south?

On our way to Banff we drove through the mountains between Salmo and Creston, and at the top of the mountain pass we briefly entered caribou territory. We didn't see a caribou, but we did see a yellow sign with a silhouette of a caribou reminding us not to run over a caribou.

Grizzly in My Parking Spot

The wife was swimming at the Nelson Community Center one evening. When she came home there was a grizzly standing in the spot where we park the car. It was mightily startled by the headlights and ran up the road, back to the forest.

We decided rather than stay in a hotel, we would rent a house in an area of Nelson called Mountain Station. It is a beautifully renovated 100 year old farmhouse on a half acre of land high above the City. The view from the kitchen window is spectacular and there are fantastic walking and biking trails right out the front door. Although there are a few houses above ours, there isn't much between here and the Selkirk Mountains, and we had heard on the radio earlier in the week about a grizzly sighted in our area.

When she finally got up enough courage to come inside after scaring away the great silver-tipped bear, the wife somewhat testily asked me if I received her text message. I guess she didn't want to phone and wake the baby, and apparently I was supposed to rush out there to rescue her, but I hadn't noticed the text which simply stated "Grizzly".

Placenta Descenta

Days off in Nelson are for mountain biking, and Nelson delivers with more than 80 trails including Placenta Descenta.


Nothing like ripping down a steep, jagged rock-strewn trail through a bear infested forest to help one forget how many times Van-Kam Freightways has screwed up a simple materials delivery.

Nelson

Nelson B.C. has somehow packed in all the good things you might find in the downtown core of a large city yet still kept the feel of a small town. How are they able to sustain 4 or 5 high-end restaurants, independent coffee shops, and organic bakeries & grocers in a town with a population of about 10,000 with no major industry? They even have their own police force.

Two answers to the question come to mind. The first is City council fights tooth and nail to keep franchise restaurants out of Nelson, which gives the independent shops an advantage over the Burger Kings, Tim Hortons, and McDonald’s, none of which are in Nelson. A few unfortunate slip ups have occurred; the Subway, A&W and Starbucks (you can’t stop the evil empire), but for the most part Nelson is refreshingly original. The second is the people of Nelson have money, and it isn’t from working in a mine or cutting down a forest, it’s from growing marijuana.

All of a sudden the Nelson Police Force makes sense. A town that thrives on the profits of the Devil’s Lettuce, and collects taxes from the influx of money generated by growers of the Giggle Bush, and furtherly uses that tax money to pay civil servants, has a police force that is technically being paid by Jungle Juice. To me, a guy who does not partake in the Mary Potter but is otherwise not opposed to it, this is sheer genius. Stage a few phony busts to make the squares think the fuzz are on their game and otherwise leave the urban farmers and the City of Nelson to prosper.

Apparently, Nelson was one of the few places in North American that wasn't hit at all by the economic disaster that crippled the U.S. I guess even when people are short on green, they still buy Green.

So was Nancy Reagan wrong when she told us to “just say no”? I think the people of Nelson might just say yes.