The 105-Year-Old Blogger

What Vancouver looked like in 1980, from HMCS Discovery Late in 1979, my Katimavik group left its friendly little Quebec village near the New Brunswick border. We had spent the previous three months getting to know the people there, working on community service projects, singing by guitar all evening, eating bean stew and whole wheat bread, and taking care of the environment.   We boarded an airplane (if the guitar had been out, we might have been singing some John Denver ) and headed for the west coast. In Victoria, we were met by a military bus. Katimavikers know what to do with a bus; on a bus, Katimavikers sing! And that’s what we were doing as we entered the gates of the Esquimalt military base for our three-month military option rotation. Our group leaders (military officers) were there to meet us. We were slow getting off the bus, and they yelled at us! This was a big shock to us sensitive granola-crunching tree huggers. But we got used to it. Katimavik is, after all

In four short years, my sister Mary and I went from being the smallest children in the family hiking trip to being the only children in the family hiking trip . By 1978, my two older siblings had other things to do with their summers. These four years transformed us from foot-dragging children into teenagers that charged on ahead of their parents. This was probably the same year as that other famous reversal in our family…in which it was my eager parents dragging their sleepy teenagers out of bed on Christmas morning.     We decided not to pick the trail up where we left off four years ago. We had found out how long it takes to get anywhere on foot, and it would have been impossible to leave the heavily populated regions of the trail. Instead, we started our hiking trip at the other end of the Bruce Trail . Driving up the Bruce Peninsula in a rented car, we parked in a municipal lot in Tobermory and set off.   At this end of the trail, we enjoyed the same splendid

My family’s 1974 summer vacation happened because of a geography book that was lying around the house. Our book about Ontario included several pages on the Bruce Trail , and we decided to give it a try.   We had done lots of camping already but had never attempted a long hike. My siblings and I pored over the book, estimating speed and distance, coming to the optimistic conclusion that we could get close to the end of the trail at Tobermory . We even equipped ourselves with a snake-bite kit, in case we made it to the Bruce Peninsula and encountered one of those fearsome Massasauga Rattlers . This just goes to show how little non-hikers really know about distance. It’s just as well that we weren’t really determined to finish the trail. In our three-week vacation, we barely made it off the Niagara Peninsula.   My family and I set off on this adventure in our usual fashion, which was by walking to the Longueuil Metro station. Fully equipped with knapsacks and hiking boots, we ro

On April 29, 1967, my family took its first expedition to the newly opened Expo 67.   Soon after, my mom wrote an account of the day.   Here is that account.   I was five years old.   My grandparents weren’t there that day.   This photo was taken some other year (not sure which) when they came to visit.  My grandmother must have taken the picture.   Left to right: me, Mom, Mary, Grandpa, Murray (behind Grandpa), Kathleen, Dad     High excitement and a few howls at breakfast and dressing and leaving activities. But we got away bright and early for us--9:15. Drove over Victoria Bridge with dire warnings from Murray and Kathleen that you can't get to Expo from Victoria Bridge. They proved right—they and the map. We had to first get into Montreal and pretend we didn't come from the South Shore, and get ourselves onto the new express highway that rolls down beside Expo and under the Victoria Bridge. There, we kept getting waved on because we weren't a taxi or

When my family went to the west coast in 1975, we spent a day at the Pacific National Exhibition.   There were rides, cows, and a demolition derby…all in the pouring rain. I was in heaven.   These big-city events are one way for urbanites to get a taste of the county fair: the exhibitions, the rides, and maybe a circus.   As a Canadian, I got to enjoy all of these on a national level.   But I had to wait. The Exhibition When my siblings and I were very small, my parents took the family on short expeditions after church every Sunday.   I clearly remember hanging out at the St. Lambert locks, watching ships rise and fall.   One Sunday we ended up on a hill beside the Saint Lawrence river, looking at a pair of islands.   They were crawling with machinery.   Even though I was only five, I must have been listening to my parents’ conversation, because I know, all these years later, that these were the Expo islands.   We had fun at Expo 67.   But first we had to wait for the islands