I heard her on a podcast the other day, reading from her novel, Polar Vortex, which had just been shortlisted for the Booker prize.  It reminded me of the very first thing that struck me about Shani Mootoo ... her rich and wonderful Trinidadian accent.  It’s much diminished now, an echo of what it was all those years ago, but still evocative. 

I had just finished the Revelstoke Dam project and found myself in Vancouver looking for a new adventure.  I saw an ad looking for people to sign up homeowners for…

My friend Don Vockeroth is a pioneer in Canadian mountain climbing and anyone who climbs in the Rockies is standing on Don’s shoulders.  Don has an impressive list of first ascents, but always did it humbly and quietly, and always for the adventure, never for the glory.  He also had a wicked sense of humour in his climbing, but I’ll get to that later. 

In the early 1960s Don was instrumental in the first alpine helicopter rescue (this is the story behind the song “Fearless”).  In those days helicopters…

I recently discovered a podcast by Peter Mansbridge called “The Bridge”.  This episode was about Justin Bieber renting the Stratford arena on Boxing Day to play some shinny with some friends, including some Toronto Maple Leafs.  It inspired me on many levels and I wrote him a letter.  It was rather long and at times rambling.  He read parts of it on his next podcast as his letter of the week.  I must confess it was really gratifying to hear that voice reading my words.  It was also impressive the way he…

My dear friend Alfie was born in 1909.  He remembered the first car in town ... the honey wagon that used to empty the outhouses at night ... he took violin lessons 1400 feet underground in the mine.  He could put a vivid picture in your mind of what life was like 100 years ago.  As a young boy he used to go up to the mine on Saturdays and collect the powder boxes for kindling ... his dad was in charge of the powder and would put them aside for him.  One day the skip tender asked him what he was doing. 

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Many years ago I was listening to Peter Gzowski on Morningside talk to an Inuit fellow from the Arctic who had just fought a polar bear, hand-to-hand.  He and his wife were out checking their trapline, and arrived at one of their cabins.  He was outside getting some more wood while she was inside starting the fire, when a polar bear attacked him.  She heard the commotion and came outside to find her husband and the polar bear standing face-to-face grappling.  She went back inside and got the rifle but she…

I've never blogged before but the website comes with the ability, so I thought I'd give it a try.  I don't know if I'll keep it up, or how often, but I thought I'd start with this : A Lebanese doctor living in Tennessee treats Dolly Parton after an accident in Nashville.  They become good friends.  His son, who is a podcaster and thinks he might get a podcast out of it, asks his father to introduce him to her.  He quickly realizes that he's going down so many rabbit holes that the podcast becomes a series…