Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

After completing the Cabot trail, we headed back towards southern Nova Scotia. Peggy's Cove is a popular tourist area, featuring a tall lighthouse overlooking a rugged coastline of granite boulders. Lunenburg is a historic fishing town with some very colourful architecture. It is said to be one of the best examples of British colonial settlement in Canada and is a designated World Heritage site.

Cape Breton Highlands, Nova Scotia

Our next stop was Cape Breton in north eastern Nova Scotia. We drove clockwise around the Cabot Trail, which is a scenic loop about 300km in length. The rugged natural beauty of this coastline was very different to anything we've seen in Canada so far.

Prince Edward Island

After leaving New Brunswick, we drove north east along the enormous 13km Confederation bridge that links Nova Scotia to Prince Edward Island. The capital Charlottetown is a sweet little city with some lovely shops and restaurants. We had a fantastic dinner at Terre Rouge Bistro, which features fresh, local produce from the island's many farms.

PEI's size is a little deceptive. Looking at a map, you'd assume you could travel the entire island in a day, however at 224km long and 64km at it's widest point, it can take some time to cover. We spent a beautiful sunny day driving across the sprawling countryside and taking in the spectacular scenery. With rolling green hills, wild purple and pink lupin flowers, freshly ploughed fields of red earth and sandy dunes lining the coast, it's such a uniquely beautiful landscape.

It's not surprising that this picturesque environment inspired LM Montgomery to write the highly popular Anne of Green Gables series.We visited the famous Green Gables house in Cavendish, which was thoughtfully decorated with period furniture and surrounded by a beautiful flower garden.

Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick

From Halifax we drove north to New Brunswick. We took a rainy trail walk through the leafy green Fundy National Park and had an authentic lobster supper in the small fishing village of Alma. Locals prefer to eat their cooked lobster cold, with a dish of melted butter for dipping.

In addition to delicious fresh seafood, this region has the highest tidal range in the world, with 160 billion tonnes of water flowing in and out of the Bay of Fundy every day. The photos below show the Hopewell Rocks at low and high tide. It was a strange feeling to walk around the muddy base of the rocks at low tide, only to see them submerged when we returned again after lunch. The photo of the boats which appear to have run aground was taken at low tide in Alma.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Our Spring vacation began in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This peaceful city lies along a beautiful stretch of waterfront leading out to the Atlantic ocean. I visited the stunning public gardens, learnt about Canada's immigration history at the Pier 21 museum and took a tour through the historic Citadel overlooking the harbour. There are some great restaurants along the boardwalk and a busy farmer's market at the seaport where I enjoyed the most amazing lobster roll. Seafood is certainly the thing to eat here, even McDonald's serves lobster!

Mennonites of St Jacobs

Last weekend we visited St. Jacobs, a charming country town surrounded by sprawling farmland that is home to a community of over 4000 Mennonites. The first Swiss-Germanic Mennonites settled in St Jacobs in the early 1800s, with many more coming to the area in the 1920s and later during the Second World War. The Mennonite culture shares some similarities with the Amish and Quakers. Mennonites practice Christianity as Anabaptists, meaning that they are baptised as adults, under their own free will. Church buildings are unadorned by religious decorations or iconography, and this simplicity and humility are cornerstones of the Mennonite culture. There are three main orders, the 'Old Order', 'New Order' and 'Progressive' Mennonites.

The Old Order Mennonites are the most traditional, shunning all technology and choosing to live and work without the aid of electricity. The women wear long black dresses and bonnets and the men wear long sleeved shirts, pants, suspenders and wide-brimmed straw hats. The Old Order Mennonites get around via horse and buggy and tend to their farms with horse-drawn plows. Most farms in the area are quite small, just enough for one family to manage. Agricultural produce is sold within the Mennonite community and at the local St Jacobs Farmer's market, which is open to the public. The farming is not intended to be commercial, but rather to provide food for the family and maintain a simple way of life.

The New Order and Progressive Mennonites are less extreme. They utilize some technology in their lives and dress in more modern clothing (although it is often plain). They may own cars (although they must be black) and they often live in the town instead of on a farm.

In the morning, we walked around the huge outdoor farmer's market and bought some lovely local produce (jams, apricots, nectarines, cherries) and sampled some apple fritters, perogies and a freshly-baked pretzel. Afterwards we drove through the nearby farmland. The fields were all so incredibly green and full of life, it's hard to believe winter only ended a couple of months ago. As if on cue, a flock of fuzzy lambs appeared and romped around playfully in the grass for our enjoyment. It was refreshing to get a brief glimpse of a more simple, peaceful and wholesome life, only to return to busy, noisy downtown Toronto..

Mennonite Church and cemetery

May 2-4 Weekend

On Monday the 19th of May we had the Victoria Day public holiday, which celebrates Queen Victoria's birthday. Her actual birthday was the 24th of May, so the holiday is often referred to as "May 2-4", which just happens to be Canadian slang for a case of beer (i.e. a 24 pack). The traditional Canadian way to celebrate this holiday to is to go to "the cottage" for the weekend and consume said 2-4 while soaking up some sunshine after the bitterly cold winter.

Having no cottage, we went on an Ontario road trip for the day. We had an impromptu picnic in the sun at Guelph (a university town), walked around Elora gorge and had an ice-cream in a park before driving home again. I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it is to just Sit. Outside. In. The. Sun. It's amazing to feel warm again after so many months of sub-zero temperatures!

Climbing the CN Tower

This morning I climbed one of the seven modern wonders of the world, the tallest free-standing structure in the western hemisphere and the tallest metal staircase on earth - the CN Tower!

It took me just 20 minutes and 15 seconds to ascend all 1776 steps and 144 floors. The climb gave me a new-found appreciation of just how tall the CN tower really is (plus a free souvenir t-shirt).

The CN Tower was built between 1973 - 1976 by the Canadian National railway company (hence the 'CN' Tower). At the time, it was the world's tallest tower and was designed to transmit communication, radio and TV signals across Toronto. It has become an iconic feature of the city's skyline and a major tourism attraction, hosting over 2 million visitors annually to the glass-floor observation deck and the revolving restaurant (aptly named 360°).

From now on, whenever I gaze upon Toronto's skyline, I'll be proud to think to myself: "I climbed that!".

  

Curling

On Tuesday night we tried curling for the first time. The best description I can give you is 'lawn bowls on ice, plus sweeping up', but that doesn't really do the sport justice. The truth is, curling is surprisingly challenging, somewhat dangerous and a whole lot of fun!

The basic premise of the game is that two teams of four players take turns sliding 20kg granite curling stones down a narrow sheet of ice, aiming to finish with more stones in the centre of a target than the other team. The handle of the stone is turned slightly as it's released, which makes it 'curl' in an arc as it travels down the ice. After you let go of the stone, two of your teammates use special brooms to sweep the ice directly ahead of it, which allows the stone to travel faster.

The surface of the ice has a 'pebbled' texture, so it's not quite as slippery as a skating rink. Nevertheless, our group had some spectacular falls while curling and sweeping, which must have provided great entertainment to the more experienced players nearby.

We were lucky to have a seasoned curler on hand to show us the ropes (rocks?). Parker was very encouraging of our efforts, despite our complete lack of technique. He also hinted at the complex strategic nature of the game, which is nicknamed 'chess on ice'. Unfortunately even our best attempts resulted in little to no control of where the stone actually ended up, so strategy didn't really get a look in.

If you ever find yourself in the unique situation where someone invites you to go curling, I would thoroughly recommend the experience. I think it only appropriate that I end with the curling community's favourite saying, intended to convey a spirit of excellent sportsmanship: Good curling!

 

The Yonge and the Restless

Yonge Street (pronounced 'young') is (debatably) the longest street in the world, running 1896km from Lake Simcoe (about an hour's drive north of Toronto) all the way south to Lake Ontario.

It's considered to be the centre of the city, quite literally, as it divides all the perpendicular streets in downtown Toronto into east and west (e.g. Queen Street West, King Street East etc). Yonge street is also seen as as a major cultural hub, containing famous landmarks such as the Eaton Centre, Yonge-Dundas Square, the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre, the Sony Centre and the Hockey Hall of Fame. Many large festivals and parades are held down Yonge street including Buskerfest, Pride Parade,  Celebrate Yonge, Live Green Toronto, Zombie Walk and the St Patrick's Day Parade. It's also home to the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line, which celebrates it's 60th birthday this year as Canada's first subway.

Yesterday (as well as last year), I had the pleasure of running down this famous street at the Toronto Yonge Street 10km run. It's a great event, as the gentle downhill slope and generally cooler temperatures in April make for a very fast race. I was happy to cross the finish line in 55:37, over a minute faster than last year! There was a fantastic atmosphere in the crowd, partly due to the thrill of running down the middle of what is usually a very busy street, but mainly because it feels so good to get outside again after such a long, cold winter!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

That's an actual saying apparently, I'm not making this up. I think I prefer T.S. Elliot's bleaker reflection that "April is the cruellest month".

Spring officially started over two weeks ago, yet today it's been raining non-stop with a high of 8 (feels like 4) and a low of -4 degrees. This seems like such a let down after surviving the bitterly cold winter. For some reason I feel the need to tell everyone I come across that "this isn't Spring where I come from!".

I so desperately want it to be warm again! I want to see colourful flowers and fresh grass and leafy green trees! I eagerly await the day that I can leave the apartment wearing just a t-shirt and jeans! Or a lovely dress. A DRESS! Imagine!

Sugar Bush

On Sunday we had a very stereotypically Canadian experience. We visited a sugar bush, which is a plantation of maple trees that are harvested for their sap to make maple syrup.

It was very peaceful walking through the field of tall trees, each dotted with a blue bucket to collect sap from the metal spout drilled into its core. It was a very cold day, so the clear sap in the bottom of the buckets was frozen solid. Once enough sap has been collected, it is boiled down to make maple syrup. It can also be turned into maple sugar, taffy or butter.

We were lucky enough to see the very first syrup of the season being produced in the boiler room. The thick scent of maple syrup that hung in the air was intoxicating! We made our way to the pancake hut immediately to enjoy the sticky sweet deliciousness firsthand.

It's All Downhill From Here

Over the past three months we've been lucky enough to go skiing nearly every weekend! We made two days trips to Mont St Anne in Quebec over Christmas, spent a week at Whistler Blackcomb in early March and have made several day trips with the North Toronto Ski Club to Blue Mountain and Mount St Louis - Moonstone.

Sadly, the ski season is all but over now. There has barely been any new snow lately, and yesterday marked the first official day of Spring. I've been reflecting on all my fond ski memories and realising just how much I've learned from the experience:


I learned to embrace fear

Fear was the biggest hurdle to overcome, and I had to face it at the steepest part of my learning curve. When presented with the completely foreign task of sliding down a slippery hill on two long planks attached to your feet, your natural, self-protecting reaction is to lean backwards so that your weight is positioned uphill. You quickly learn that this is the easiest way to fall over and that counter-intuitively, you have much better control when leaning downhill. As a fairly passive, cautious and gentle person, this aggressive approach went against every fiber of my being. Learning to ski has made me more comfortable being out of my comfort zone and has taught me that the best way to overcome fear is often to attack it head-on!

I found confidence in myself

I have never considered myself a 'sporty' kind of person. I didn't play much sport growing up, and my main physical activities in adulthood have consisted of sporadic bursts of running (including a half marathon last year) and some infrequent yoga classes. I feel very out of my depth when faced with physical challenges and this quickly leads to negative thinking, comparing my abilities with others, embarrassment, and generally giving myself a hard time. This was all very apparent in the first few ski lessons we took. This self doubt held me back and made my performance even worse, which only served to reinforced my initial judgements. Over time I realised that I needed to believe in my abilities and spend less time 'in my head', over-analyzing the situation. The more that I was able to let go of the negative thoughts, the more focus I had on the task at hand and I quickly began to see improvements.

I mastered a new skill

It's been very satisfying to master a completely new skill from scratch, and I had so much fun learning to ski with Shane - it's very helpful to have someone to compare notes with and to congratulate/commiserate at the end of a run. I estimate we've had about 90 hours total skiing time over the past 2 years which has taken us to a level of comfortable, confident skiing. Some of my proud accomplishments include skiing the men's olympic downhill run at Whistler (a black run), getting down a double black diamond run at Blue Mountain and graduating to level 5 of the ski school with the North Toronto Ski Club.

I picked up a little physics along the way

The dynamics of 'sliding sports' such as skiing, skating and snowboarding were of course totally new to me. We had a bit of catching up to do on our knowledge of ice and snow! Shane found this really helpful website which tells you all about the science behind skiing. It describes how the skis are designed to turn, and what you need to do to use this to your advantage.

I can talk the talk

Edging, pole-planting, skiing in the back-seat, inside/outside ski, fall line, short turns, carving, off piste, hockey stop, yard sale, snow sandwich, they're all part of my vocabulary now! I've had to stop and pinch myself a couple of times when I realise how 'normal' skiing feels now. The first time I saw snow, I did a little dance in the street, but now I'll be skiing down a mountain and thinking about what to have for lunch and when my tax return is due.

Lastly, here is some video evidence of my new-found skills (spot me in the aqua ski jacket, pink gloves and white helmet):

Tales of Ice and Snow

Toronto woke up to another 5 centimetres of white, fluffy snow on Tuesday morning, bringing the total snowfall for this winter to around 90 centimetres. This is a lot more than last year, which got me thinking about the logistics of it all...

The city spends a whopping $85.7 million on snow ploughing, road salting and sidewalk clearing each winter. It takes a massive team effort by some 600 snowploughs, 300 sidewalk ploughs, 200 salt trucks and a crew of over 1000 people to keep the streets and sidewalks safe for motorists and pedestrians.

The salt statistics alone are mind-boggling, with over 130,000 tonnes of the stuff spread over the roads every year, costing the city a cool $10 million. Unsurprisingly, a 5-year study conducted by Environment Canada has found road salting to have a negative impact on local plants, animals and marine life. One very visible example of this is that pet dogs are often dressed in little balloon shoes to stop the salt irritating their paws on winter walkies.

So what happens to all the snow that gets ploughed? Sadly, it doesn't stay fluffy and white for very long. Usually within a day or so, the remaining snow on the roads and sidewalks turns to brown slush which flicks up onto the backs of your legs as you walk, leaving salt stains on your pants. If the temperature drops rapidly after the snowfall, the slush will start to re-freeze, creating treacherous icy paths for you to slip over on.

Clean, fluffy white snow

Sad, dirty brown snow

Snow ploughs

Ice salt

XC

We decided to try something new last weekend and went cross-country skiing at nearby Albion Hills. It was a beautiful day for it, not too cold and with plenty of fresh snow on the ground.

I was surprised at how aerobic this sport could be, it didn't take long at all to get our heart rates up! The movement was a little strange, sort of like running on polished floorboards in socks. The skis are much longer and narrower than downhill skis, with tips that curve upwards. The ski poles are also a lot longer, and the boots clip into the skis at the toe only, so it was quite a different feel to downhill skiing.

I'm glad we were able to give cross-country skiing a try. When the Sochi Winter Olympics start I'll have a new found appreciation for the incredible endurance of athletes who can race distances of up to 30km (women) or 50km (men)! We only managed 2.5km at a very leisurely pace before it was time to go inside for a hot drink in the chalet.

Snowcabulary

There's an old cliche about there being hundreds of different eskimo words for 'snow', but as we get through our second Canadian winter I'm starting to think that there may be some truth to this saying after all. Here are some snow and ice related words that I've added to my vocabulary:

Flurry - Very light, brief snowfall with little accumulation on the ground. These conditions are the most likely to produce beautiful, symmetrically-formed little snowflakes.

Blowing snow - Light, dry snow that has fallen on the ground, but is being blown around by the wind.

Snow drift - A bank of fallen snow that has been blown into a sand-dune like shape by the wind.

Rain/snow mix - A mix of rain and partially melted snow. Wet, cold and very unpleasant when it hits you in the face.

Slush - Wet snow that has partially melted on the ground. Feels like walking through a frozen coke/slurpee.

Freezing rain - Super-cooled rain that freezes on impact with the ground creating ice.

Ice storm - A storm of freezing rain that results in significant accumulated ice on surfaces.

Glaze ice - Freezing rain that has coated whatever it fell on with a layer of ice (e.g. trees, plants, cars, telegraph poles). Very pretty but can also cause a lot of damage.

Sleet / Ice pellets - Frozen rain that forms tiny solid ice particles. Closely resembles snow cone ice in texture.

Black ice - A thin coating of ice on the ground which is often invisible to the naked eye. Very easy to slip on and fall over!

Hail - Precipitation that falls as lumps of ice, called hailstones.

Snow storm - A large amount of snowfall.

Blizzard - A severe snowstorm with strong winds lasting for several hours.

Snow squall - A sudden, heavy snow fall with strong winds.

Whiteout - A snowstorm that causes severely reduced visibility. Motorists are cautioned to avoid driving in these dangerous conditions.

Lake effect snowfall - Cold air moving across relatively warm lake water, that causes the wind to pick up water vapor, which falls as snow once it reaches the shore.

Snowbelt - areas that experience lake effect snow, particularly those surrounding the great lakes in the US and Canada.

Packing snow - Slightly wet snow that is the perfect consistency for making snowballs and snowmen.

Corduroy - Freshly groomed snow on a ski-field. The small ridges in the snow resemble corduroy.

Powder - Freshly fallen snow, ideal conditions for skiing. Also known as 'pow-pow', 'pow-town' and many other cool words in snowboarder slang.

Christmas In Quebec

Oh that's right, I have a blog! I guess it's time for an update...

This year we spent Christmas in Quebec City. It was interesting to see the place that we first visited in summer covered in a thick layer of snow! The buildings looked so lovely with their festive decorations and lights, it was the perfect white Christmas. We went skiing for a couple of days at nearby Mont St Anne and spent the rest of the time eating delicious things and wandering around the beautiful cobblestoned streets. It's such a pretty place and one of my favourite parts of Canada that we've seen so far.