Words of Wisdom For 2023 From Erin O Toole

Erin O’Toole, former leader of Canada’s Conservative party has a podcast called Blue Skies. A recent blog post associated with it featured an excellent opinion piece bemoaning the way Canadians have become accepting and complacent about the aggressive often violent language in current political discourse and the tone of division and distrust which seems to permeate it.  

Freedom Convoy in Ottawa

O’Toole expresses the hope that in 2023 he will see fewer profanity-laden flags and placards and signs about Justin Trudeau. According to O’Toole, they are a symbol of a kind of hyper-aggressive rhetoric he fears is normalizing rage and damaging democracy. 

O’Toole is dismayed at the way extremists on both the political left and right are treating one another like enemies. They refuse to even listen to opposing perspectives. They make no effort to persuade people to change their minds in a reasoned fashion. Instead, they resort to pandering to the views of those who already support them with attention-grabbing insults. This only leads to greater polarization. 

O’Toole suggests some sources of this polarization – the amplification of angry voices by social media, the influence of the American political scene and the frustration brought on by the pandemic. 

Mr O’Toole’s remarks reminded me of a Steinbach friend who was driving his grandson home from school one day during the convoy protests. The child saw an expletive referring to Justin Trudeau on a sign and asked his grandfather why adults were allowed to say things about the prime minister he had been taught were impolite and disrespectful. I remember going for a walk in the nearby community of Mitchell with a friend around the same time and seeing a similar profanity about the prime minister on a building there and thinking children see that every day. 

Erin O’Toole

Mr O’Toole says he made it very clear to his own children during the last election that the Prime Minister was “not his enemy” but his political opponent.

Ironically the former Conservative Party leader is a prime example of just how easy it is to forget one’s laudable goals of sticking to policy critiques rather than personal ones. It took only a minute to find a news article online from the last federal election campaign where Mr O’Toole slammed Justin Trudeau as “privileged, entitled and only looking out for number one.”

I give him credit for suggesting in his recent podcast he is having second thoughts about that kind of rhetoric.

Although Mr O’Toole says both politicians on the left and right have been extremists in their actions and words conservative politicians have an even greater responsibility to affect change because seeding division and disorder is contrary to the very foundational principles of modern conservatism. 

Edmund Burke

Mr O’Toole references the philosopher and economist Edmund Burke who he suggests provided the framework for the modern conservative movement. Burke warned that rash actions and disorderly conduct were not the hallmarks of true conservatives and that rage could quickly tear down things prudence and deliberation had spent centuries building. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre greet each other as they gather in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill to pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022.  SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Although anyone who reads my column regularly knows I have never been a Conservative Party supporter I find Mr O’Toole’s advice both wise and timely and something I personally need to take to heart when I write about politics.

In the coming year instead of treating other Canadians who we may disagree with as enemies, and becoming outraged with them, we need to try our best to refrain from personal attacks and engage in reasoned debate and respectful interaction. 

Other posts………

Overheard While Standing in Line to Vote

Single Young Women Are the Problem

Mandatory Voting

Using Newspapers to Create Art of Exquisite Beauty

Canadian artist Myriam Dion recycles old newspapers into intricate works of art that simply take your breath away. She makes tiny precise cuts in the pages of newspapers to create meaningful masterpieces. You can find some on display now in the Headlines exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

The name and date of the newspaper Myriam uses for each artwork are hidden somewhere in every piece. If you look carefully at the top of this photo you can see this one was from an August 2020 issue of the Wall Street Journal.

The page in the newspaper that inspired this artwork was describing the wildfires in California. Myriam often tries to pick appropriate colours and designs that convey something of the story. Here she has used the reds and oranges of the fire and the edge of the artwork looks sooty and singed.

Myriam usually includes some images that relate to the story on the page she uses for her artwork. Here you can see people in their cars trying to escape the fires.

Myriam works with an Exacto knife. With bigger works, she sometimes makes a stencil but most of the time, she doesn’t have a pattern figured out ahead of time before she begins cutting. She just improvises and lets the image and the content of the news story guide her hand. Dion says she has been influenced by handicraft arts like weaving, embroidery, lacework and other traditional handicrafts.

In this piece, Myriam has not only cut but has also folded the newspaper as well to create a collar.

If you look closely you can see an image of American Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, well known for her rulings that were instrumental in gaining equal rights for women in the United States.

Myriam used a copy of a page from the New York Times June 15th, 1993 issue, the day President Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsberg to the Supreme Court.

Myriam used a collar shape for her artwork because Ruth Bader Ginsberg was known for the unique collars she wore with her judicial robes.

There are other pieces by Myriam on display in the current Headlines The Art of the News Cycle exhibit at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, each as intriguing as these two. You will want to check them out.

Other posts…………

The Wheat Oracle Who Wore Pants

Perfect Companions

I’m Back At Work

The Best Way To Spend I Read Canadian Day

Did you know that exactly one week ago, November 2 was I Read Canadian Day? It’s a special day set aside to raise awareness of Canadian books for children and celebrate their richness, diversity and breadth.

I got to spend I Read Canadian Day in the best way possible. I was invited to make an author visit to John Pritchard School in Winnipeg to talk about my novel Lost on the Prairie which the grade six kids in Allison Caldwell’s room had just finished reading!

What a delight! Those students knew my novel inside and out! They had come up with twenty questions about Lost on the Prairie that really got me thinking and brought to mind all kinds of stories I could tell them about the writing of the book and my family members who inspired it.

They were so interested in the family artefacts I had brought along and when it was time to go out for recess many stayed behind to ask me MORE questions and to get my autograph.

I felt like a celebrity!

A Canadian author, visiting Canadian kids, in a Canadian classroom, in a Canadian school! What better way to celebrate I Read Canadian Day?

This week I made a pile of middle-grade fiction books by Canadians currently on my bookshelves but it really doesn’t do justice to all the amazing work by Canadian authors I’ve read over the last while.

That’s because I give away so many of the books immediately after reading them. Some go to my grandson who is ten or to my son who teaches a grade six languages arts class. I take them to our church to put in the library there so more kids will have a chance to read them. Many of the books in the stack pictured here will soon find their way to those destinations as well.

The next time you are buying a book for children why not be deliberate about buying Canadian? There are so many FANTASTIC titles out there for Canadian kids by Canadian authors.

I’m proud to say I WRITE CANADIAN and I READ CANADIAN!

Here are the most recent blog posts I’ve done about AMAZING books by Canadian authors!

Harvey Takes The Lead by Colleen Nelson

The U-nique Lou Fox by Jodi Carmichael

Elvis, Me and the Lemonade Stand Summer by Leslie Gentile

Sorry for Your Loss by Joanne Levy

The Undercover Book List by Colleen Nelson

Rescue At Lake Wild by Terry Lynne Johnson

Tainted Amber by Gabriele Goldstone

The Girl Who Loved Giraffes by Kathy Stinson

Show Us Where You Live Humpback by Beryl Young

The Vegetable Museum by Michelle Mulder and Peter Lee’s Notes From the Field by Angela Ahn

The Fabulous Zed Watson by Basil and Kevin Silvester

All Those Famous Canadian Writers

During our time on Pelee Island we visited the Pelee Island Heritage Centre founded in 1988 by none other than our intrepid biking tour guide Ron Tiessen.

Ron served as the museum’s curator for more than twenty years and is now recognized as its curator emeritus. The museum Ron founded is truly an eclectic place with …………

The old telephone system that an operator once used to keep folks on the island connected

A huge wasp nest found in the vicinity.

Fossils and stones that document the geologic history of Pelee Island.

A hand painted map of shipwrecks in the Pelee Island area.

A photo showing an aerial view of the island.

A painting of one of the steamer ferries that brought visitors out to the island in the 1930s.

Stuffed versions of some of the animals and birds found on the island.

But what really fascinated me were these posters advertising Spring Song an annual celebration held each May on Pelee Island. The literary guests for this event read like a who’s who of Canadian literature- Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Louise Penny, Farley Mowat, Lawrence Hill, David Suzuki, Miriam Toews, Elizabeth Hay, Vincent Lam, Joseph Boyden, Nino Ricci, Madeline Thien, Lorna Crozier and Jane Urquhart . 

Spring Song is traditionally held on Mother’s Day Weekend and began in 2002 as a fundraiser for the Pelee Island Heritage Centre. It is a joint project of the Pelee Island Bird Observatory and Canadian author Margaret Atwood who has a home on Pelee Island.

Each year a different birding expert comes out to the island as a Spring Song guest to lead a 24 hour competition to spot the most species of birds from the nearly 400 species that inhabit the island. Margaret Atwood hosts a banquet later where the winning birding team is announced and a well-known guest Canadian author gives a talk.

Spring Song it is definitely an event that could draw me back to Pelee Island in the future, perhaps with one of the birding aficionados in my family in tow.

Other posts…………

Ron the Storyteller

The Last Winery on Our Tour

Back to Pelee Island

No Trespassing and No Hunting

Meet Ron Tiessen a walking encyclopedia about Pelee Island.  Ron has made his home on the island since 1979 when he began a farming operation there with my husband Dave’s brother John. 

Ron served for many years as the curator and director of the Pelee Island Heritage Centre. We were lucky enough to have him spend two mornings with us cycling around the island and introducing us to so many interesting things. 

Dave walking up to the beautiful home built in 1911 which Ron shares with his wife Lynne a descendant of one of the first families to make their home on the island in the early 1830s. 

I took some pleasure as a woman posing with the sign of a club that had an exclusively male membership for over a century.

One of the places Ron took us to was the Pelee Club. It is an exclusive fishing and hunting club founded in 1883. Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert Todd Lincoln was a member, as was George Pullman the inventor of the Pullman railway car. Other members were Presidents Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland and William Taft.

Photo from the Pelee Club website

The club is still in operation today for those who can afford the fees.

The signs on the driveway of the Pelee Club said No Trespassing. Did we silently walk through the woods anyway to get a glimpse of this exclusive haven for the rich and famous? You won’t find out from me.

We definitely weren’t trespassing at the cemetery where Ron showed us the tombstones for the multiple victims of a tragic Pelee Island boating accident in 1888.

We also saw the graves of William and Mary McCormick who are considered the founders of the first permanent settlement on Pelee Island. They moved their family to the island in 1834. An Indigenous presence on the island can be dated to some 10,000 years before that.

There are many sad stories recorded in the cemetery, including the one about these two brothers from the Island who were both shot down while flying bombers during World War II.

We stopped at the island’s schoolhouse built in 1918 and still in use today. This is where Dave’s Dad and his aunts and uncles were once students during the time they lived as sharecroppers on the island after immigrating to Canada from Ukraine.

Dave was delighted when we visited the island’s museum later to find a school register with the names of some of his aunts and uncles in it.

The No Hunting sign on the schoolyard was probably placed there for the hunters who descend on the island every fall for the annual pheasant hunt.

We saw this photo of pheasant hunters in the island’s museum. The hunt has been going on since 1932. The pheasants are especially raised on a farm on the island and then released for the hunt. Dave’s brother John and his wife Linda supplemented their farming income by offering room and board to groups of pheasant hunters when they lived on Pelee Island.

Ron is not only an expert on the history of Pelee Island but also has wealth of knowledge about the island’s flora and fauna. Pelee Island is home to thousands of unique species of birds, plants, insects and wildlife not to be found elsewhere in Canada. Here Ron shows us the leaves of a Kentucky Coffee Tree, a species that is a rare find in southern Ontario.

When you are on a tour with Ron you do lots of LISTENING as he spins fascinating tales of an attempt by American Mafia members to take over the island, huge community hockey games his three sons participated in on a quarry pond, author Margaret Atwood’s long association with the island and the story of Huldah’s Rock a memorial stone that marks the spot where an Indigenous maiden plunged to her death in sorrow over her English’s husband broken vow to return to her.

Log house built by the Fox family in 1837

There are so many heritage homes on the island and Ron can tell you stories about them all and the families who owned them.

Ron talked about the island’s agricultural history. As this fascinating 1946 article in Macleans magazine by Gordon Sinclair points out at one time 80% of the islands 11,000 acres was cultivated. Many different crops have been grown there- tobacco, grapes, wheat, soybeans, peanuts, onions, corn, beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, cauliflower, hemp, sunflowers, peaches, apricots and cotton.

Our last stop on our Sunday morning tour was at a stone quarry. The island has a number of them. The first stones were quarried in 1821. Besides being used for construction on the island stone from these quarries was used to build the Welland Canal, a church in Colchester, sidewalks in Toronto, docks in Hamilton, a post office in Sarnia, streets in Chatham and many other projects.

This is just a smattering of things we learned from Ron about Pelee Island during our first morning with him. As I said Ron Tiessen is the walking Pelee Island encyclopedia.

Other posts…………

The Driedger Bike Boblo Island

A Winnipeg Island Full of History

Ageing

Down to the Point

Today we decided not to visit a winery but to cycle instead to Point Pelee national park and make our way to the southern most point of mainland Canada.

It was an ambitious 60 kilometre round trip!

We stopped at our niece Hannah’s house just on the outskirts of the national park. She and her husband Justin were most welcoming.

They even took a group photo of us on their lovely deck looking out over Lake Erie.

Waiting our turn to get into Point Pelee National Park

After entering the park we cycled all the way down to the tip, a sandpit that runs out into the lake. If you walk to the end of it you have reached the southern most point in mainland Canada.

We walked down to the tip and I captured this romantic shot of one of the couples in our group trekking in the sand.

My sister and her husband at the southern tip of Canada.

We all stopped to have our photos taken at the tip of Canada.

Dave had stayed behind to fix something on his bike so my sister kindly agreed to step in for my photo at the tip.

Later we stopped at Freddies for lunch. They are famous for having the best perch in the area.

Pelee Island National Park is simply gorgeous and we really enjoyed cycling there.

Our supper last night was so amazing that I will have to write a whole separate blog post about it. So you can look forward to that in the future.

We are heading to Pelee Island today for four days and from what I can gather they do not have wifi there so I may not be able to post again till Wednesday.

Other posts…………..

Exploring Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park

Zion National Park

Canada- A Country For All Seasons

Cycling and Sipping

For many years my husband Dave has dreamed of doing a cycling adventure in Essex County the beautiful area of southern Ontario where he grew up. In the decades since Dave was a kid the area has become home to eighteen different wineries.

Dave figured a combination wine tasting and cycling tour would be fun. We started the tour yesterday and were joined by two other couples.

We passed many vineyards as we cycled. Because Essex county is located on the 42 parallel, grapes grow in a climate similar to Bordeaux, France and the wine regions of California.

We headed out yesterday morning on the old Highway 18 now Highway 50 along Lake Erie. After a 25 kilometre ride we arrived at the Viewpointe Winery.

I had to have a photo at the winery entrance. I have written a regular column for The Carillon a regional newspaper for the last 35 years. My column is called Viewpoint. It shares a name (minus the e) with the winery.

I think the winery is called Viewpointe because its grounds provide a spectacular point from which to view Lake Erie. Here Dave points out some of the large ships plying the lake waters.

Interestingly three of the wines we tasted at the Viewpointe winery had labels featuring scenes from the highway we had just cycled down as we made our way to the winery.

As we drove I collected mental photos of the memorable things we saw- grand colonial style homes, family graveyards with tilted tombstones, old barns decorated with painted images of Amish quilt designs, speed limit signs crawling with vines, fields of rustling corn stalks, colourful flower and fruit farms and ancient trees with huge trunks.

At Viewpointe we picked out tasting flights that included four different kinds of wines they make on the premises and ordered some lunch. We enjoyed our wine and food while watching the sunshine dance on the waves of Lake Erie .

One of the wines several of us tried in our flights was called The Real McCoy. The story associated with it was so interesting.

The wine is named after Elijah McCoy. His parents were fugitive slaves from Kentucky who escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad. McCoy was born in Colchester county and went to Scotland at age 15 to study engineering.

He invented a new product for lubricating steam engines. Train engineers found it so effective they were known to ask for ‘the real McCoy’ to prevent being disappointed by inferior copies. I had heard the idiom ‘the real McCoy’ many times before but never knew its origins.

The design of the Viewpointe Winery was inspired by Mettawas a luxury hotel and casino built in the late 1800s in Kingsville by Hiram Walker the creator and founder of Canadian Club Whiskey.

The original Mettawas Hotel built in 1889

Trying some breezy summer wines at North 42.

After a second stop to do some sipping at the North 42 winery we cycled home down the Chrysler Canada Greenway.

You can see the greenway cycling path behind me.

The greenway is this lovely cycling path created along an old railroad line built by Hiram Walker in the 1880s to transport whiskey for his distillery in Windsor down to Kingsville and Leamington.

In the 1980s the then abandoned rail line was give to the Essex Region Conservation Authority and Chrysler Canada made a substantial donation to turn the railroad line into a bicycle path. It goes by fields and farms and through forests.

We stopped by an apple orchard and tried out some of the apples that had fallen from the trees.

It was a perfect day for cycling, warm and breezy with a beautiful blue sky.

We followed the greenway back to The Grove the cute little boutique hotel where we are staying in Kingsville.

Later in the evening we went to a restaurant called Mettawas for dinner. It is right along the Chrysler Canada Greenway where we cycled. It used to be a train station and was built by Hiram Walker. Guests coming to Walker’s casino and hotel called Mettawas alighted from the train at this station in Kingsville.

Hiram Walker who founded The Hiram Walker and Sons Distillery in Windsor Ontario in 1858. It became famous for its Canadian Club Whiskey.

I realized later we’d had a bit of a Hiram Walker day. We visited a winery designed to look like the casino and hotel he built, cycled along the bed of a railroad he built, and had dinner in a train station he built.

The food at Mettawas was delicious as you can see from our clean plates.

After supper we were ready to head to bed after a 50 km cycle, some great wine, great conversation and great food.

Other posts……….

A Fascinating Conversation in A Tiny Wine Shop in Lisbon

Biking in Bali

I Drank a Beer in Austria

An Art Gallery Between Two Cities

My husband Dave walks along the riverfront in Windsor Ontario. The buildings of downtown Detroit are in the background.

Yesterday we went for a lovely breezy walk along the riverfront in Windsor Ontario. As you stroll on the Canadian side of the Detroit River you can look across its waters and see the skyline of the city of Detroit, Michigan. The riverwalk in Windsor features all this amazing public art

Chicken and the Egg by Morton Katz

The classic riddle about what comes first the chicken or the egg is the inspiration for this funky sculpture. Morton Katz created the outline of the bird using some five hundred sprocket links to make a gigantic bicycle chain. The egg is made of marble.

Don’t you just love the way a building in the city of Detroit across the river from Windsor is framed by the bird?

Eve’s Apple by Edwina Sandys

Some Canada geese were checking out this steel sculpture at the same time as I was. The artist says it represents the moment in the Biblical story about Eve when she has just taken a bite from the apple, a turning point where Eve gains knowledge but loses her innocence. Eve holds the bitten apple with a sense of pride.

Morning Flight by Gerald Gladstone

I liked the way all these unique birds were interconnected to create a diverse and colourful flock. From this angle you can see the Detroit Skyline.

Photographing Morning Flight from this angle showcases The Ambassador Bridge which we crossed as we made our way from Michigan to southern Ontario.

Flying Men by Elisabeth Frink

Who am I holding hands with? It’s one of the people freely flying down a hill along the Windsor Riverwalk.

Are they chasing after something or someone?

Tohawah by Anne Harris

I admired the sleek elegance of this pair of swans. Tohawah is the word for swan in an Alaskan Indigenous language.

Tembo by Derrick Hudson

I marvelled at the wonderfully wrinkled skin of this elephant. Tembo is the Swahili word for the African elephant whose ears are sometimes said to resemble the shape of the continent of Africa. Note again the Ambassador Bridge which connects Detroit and Windsor in the background.

Consolation by Joe Rosenthal

This sculpture of someone being comforted warmed my heart. One person whispers words of consolation into the ear of the other, their hand resting reassuringly on the grieving person’s shoulder.

Pray for Peace

I really liked the idea I saw expressed in this sculpture called Pray for Peace which was located in amongst many memorials to military men and women who had died in various wars.

The way the family is juxtapositioned with the globe reminded me of how peace begins in each of our hearts, then it spreads to our families and finally the world. Peace begins at home.

We only saw a small portion of the many wonderful works of art located along the Windsor waterfront. In all of our years traveling to southern Ontario to visit family we had somehow never done this walk before. It is good to remember that there are always new things to discover in Canada’s cities even ones we have visited many times before.

Other posts………….

Living in an Art Gallery

The Heidelberg Project

The Poignancy of Art

Cool Stuff Outside an Art Gallery

At the Southern Tip of Canada

We went on a hike down to the southern most tip of mainland Canada.

Dave and our great nephew point to the tip of mainland Canada which juts out into Lake Erie in Point Pelee National Park.

When Dave was a kid growing up just a short distance away from Point Pelee National Park this spit out into the lake was sometimes up to a mile long. It was also the stop over place for millions of monarch butterflies on their migration journey. Sadly their numbers have dwindled.

Although the 49th parallel serves as a natural border between Canada and the United States Point Pelee National Park is located at the 42nd parallel as far south as Rome and Barcelona.

Our niece and her family have a lovely home near the entrance to Point Pelee National Park. In 1918 Point Pelee National Park became the first national park established in Canada.

You can hike or bike down to the tip but there is also a handy trolley service that will take you there for free.

Although we’d had some rain earlier in the day the weather was sunny and warm for our hike down to the tip. The sun danced on the lake waters and the sand was warm on our feet.

Dave and our niece are trying to decide in which direction Pelee Island lies. Pelee Island is where our niece spent her childhood and where Dave’s father’s family lived when they first immigrated to Canada. We will visit the island by ferry next week.

Some members of our hiking group spent time skipping stones out into Lake Erie.

Our last hike down to the tip in the park was in 2014. Eight years later many things in our family have changed but not the beauty of the lake or the pleasure of spending time at the southern most point in mainland Canada.

Other posts…………

A Tipped Caboose A Black Eye and a Wedding

A Slightly Tipsy Bullfighter

Tipping the Bagger

An Interesting Plot Line in Harvey Takes The Lead

Although there are many things I like about middle grade author Colleen Nelson’s series of Harvey books I particularly enjoy their references to historical events.

Author Colleen Nelson has a terrier of her own. – photo from Colleen Nelson’s website

Harvey is a West Highland Terrier and he and the young people in his life Maggie and Austin are regular visitors at a retirement home where the residents’ stories bring the past alive.

In Harvey Takes the Lead Colleen’s latest novel in the series, Austin is worried about Mr. Bob Kowalski whose wife of sixty years is in the hospital. He checks in on Mr. Kowalski regularly and Bob tells Austin about how he met his wife during World War II.

Her name was Alice Schmidt and Bob quickly developed a soft spot for her only to discover that his gang of friends suspected she was a Nazi because of her German last name and the fact she knew some German words.

As the story unfolds we learn how people of German descent who had been in Canada for generations were considered suspicious during World War II. Alice’s family owned a store in Winnipeg and people stopped patronizing it because of the family’s German lineage.

Bob will win Alice’s heart when he stands up to the people who are falsely accusing her of being a German sympathizer and boldly acknowledges his affection for her.

My mother’s maiden name was also Schmidt and she told me about something similar happening in the Saskatchewan prairie town where she lived as a girl. Her family had been in North America since the 1870s but because of their last name and the fact they spoke German they were also under suspicion.

My grandparents Peter and Annie Schmidt with their four children

My mom clearly remembers her Dad telling her not to speak German when they went into the shops in town or were on the street. Mom went to a country school where most of the other kids were also from families of German descent and one morning they came to school to find vandals had been there and destroyed many of their books and papers and left their schoolroom a mess.

There are many interesting plot lines in Colleen Nelson’s Harvey Takes the Lead and readers will enjoy following them all but the one about Alice and Bob and World War II was particularly meaningful for me.

Other posts………..

Don’t Speak German

Learning About Winnipeg History From Books for Kids

The Undercover Book List