Announcing the first Bruce Trail Marathon

There's a Wikipedia page gives you the lowdown on folks who have the fastest times end-to-end on the Bruce Trail. What the think tank at Falling Downs is proposing is a flat-out 26 mile race over some of the roughest terrain. How about a Tobermorey to Lions Head ultra-marathon? If we rustle up enough prize money, this could be quite a spectacle. I'll pitch in the first $1000, just to get things off the ground, but it should draw big league sponsorship in no time. The Red Bull Bruce Trail Marathon kinda has a ring to it, no? Then they'll be hiking for millions! That's when you'll see them elbow one another off the cliffs on those "difficult" sections. Ratings will go through the roof!

Juicy Ass

Get your mind out of the gutter. I was talking about Flying Monkey Juicy Ass IPA. That's a beer. Of course, you'd only call a beer "Juicy Ass" if it had nothing to recommend it other than a catchy name. "Hey waiter, give me a Juicy Ass!" See what I mean? I'm surprised they've got Juicy Ass on display at the local Foodland. I can see the inquisitive four year old, at her mother's side in the beer aisle on the weekly grocery shop. "Mommy, do monkey's fly? Does that make their ass juicy?"

Surviving the Bruce Trail

Got home in one piece from our Bruce Trail adventure, which is more than can be said for my shoes. The trail is littered with markers reminding me of the frailty of my elderly digestive tract. There's "Big Dump," "Half-a-Dump,"and, my favorite, "Wish-You-Had-a-Dump-Yesterday." Also, beware of the two-storey outhouses conveniently located about every eight hours along the trail. I played it safe and stuck to the upstairs units. These back-woods loos are notable for lacking two features commonly associated with the modern bathroom - running water and electricity. When is the last time you visited a bathroom that didn't have a sink? Perhaps for budgetary reasons, the folks responsible for the trail haven't got around to fitting their outhouses with bug screens. As a result, hordes of hungry mosquitoes descend on you just when you drop your drawers. If nothing else, this ensures no one lingers in the loo longer than absolutely necessary. Sleeping accomodations along the trail are somewhat spartan. Rest your weary head on a randon piece of driftwood found on the beach, and you're good to go. Thanks to my old pal Tom for organizing this adventure. It's been in the planning stages since we met at the University of Guelph 40 years ago. Now that we're crowding 70, we figured the time was right. After all, like so many things in life, wilderness hikes are mostly wasted on the young. By my calculations, I've now completed about 8% of the Bruce Trail. At that rate, I should have the whole enchilada under my belt sometime in the next 400 years or so. It's good to have goals!

Deathbed confession confirms Fidel Castro is Justin Trudeau's daddy

Junita Gomez spent her last years in a nursing home on Vancouver Island. Suffering vararious terminal maladies in recent years, she and her family finally made the decision to arrange a medically assisted death, legal in Canada since 2016. Junita had enjoyed a long and satisfying career as a midwife in her home country of Cuba. She moved to Canada in 1971 where she was soon hired by Margaret and Pierre Trudeau as a nanny. On the appointed day, the doctor, the priest, and a few close family members gathered around her in the sun-dappled courtyard of the Paradise View nursing home in Naniamo. After each family member had bade their goodbyes, Junita, weakened and frail, whispered some stunning last words. According to her recollection, Margaret had given birth to Justin not on Christmas day 1971, in Canada, but in Havana Military Hospital almost two months before. Fidel had taken a keen interest in Margaret's prenatal care, for reasons that, at the time, were obvious to all; Margaret was having his baby. Junita was part of the elite medical team who brought Justin into this world. For diplomatic reasons, mother, newborn, and midwife were then whisked to Canada in time for the miraculous Christmas day "birth" of Justin. Seems like a tall tale, but the more you ponder it, the more it explains about what has happened to Canada.

Leader of Free World falls off bike

Better to fall off a Schwinn than a Harley, I guess. But he got right back up! Wasn’t that inspirational? Uncle Sam’s been falling off his bike quite a lot these past few decades. That fact has yet to impact the bellicose rhetoric emanating from the self-appointed boss of the world. The Americans still believe that they are the light on a hill that illuminates the path to freedom, democracy, a partridge in a pear tree, and goodness knows what else for the rest of humanity. The trail of destruction left in the wake of America’s mission to remake the world in its image has been successfully erased by the narrative managers. But how much longer can this go on? The US and her obedient satraps in the collective West have been winning the propaganda war in Ukraine. Unfortunately for them, the actual war on the ground has been going in the opposite direction. PR is about to succumb to reality. That’s not the leader of the Free World… That’s just a senile old man falling off his bike.

Dead duck (and two ducklings) walking

We were approaching the easternmost reaches of Toronto this morning, in a torrential downpour. The 401 is six lanes each way, with a concrete divider in the middle. Traffic was moving pretty good, so I only had a second to notice Mama Duck, walking along the right-side shoulder, make a couple of feints towards the roadway, looking for the right moment to cross twelve lanes of traffic with a concrete divider in the middle. The ducklings were tight behind her. We know how that story ends. Sometimes bad shit happens and there's not a thing you can do about it.

Mexican dance party

The Farm Manager is in charge of booking the hotels for this trip. Her modus operandi is to call ahead to a pet-friendly Comfort Inn in whatever town we're staying in, and ask for their cheapest room. That tends to land us in the itinerant construction worker wing. Tonight there seems to be a Mexican dance party going on a few doors over. I'm waiting for a quartet of guitar-strumming troubadours to show up at the door with some tasteful narco-corridos. The FM is in a foul mood because when she haggled with management about the room rate, they forgot to mention the fifty bucks extra they stuck on the bill for Big-lips Bruno. Guess they got the last laugh. Little do they realize that Bruno leaves at least half a gallon of drool on the floor every time he takes a drink. Looks like the joint has been recently renovated, including new "engineered hardwood" floors. Engineered hardwood is another way of saying fake hardwood. What makes me laugh is at least half the consumer public imagines engineered hardwood is superior to the real thing. The power of marketing! Anyway, the several gallons Bruno will dribble on their fake hardwood shouldn't begin to destroy the floor till we're long gone. Maybe we'll get the last laugh after all.

From Acadien Nova Scotia to the Republic of Irvingstan by boat

Had a pleasant drive through Acadien Nova Scotia today, all the way from Pubnico to Digby. Those folks have a history that goes back almost 400 years. In spite of lacking any sort of state cohersion of the sort we see in Quebec, and in spite of armed persecution intended to strangle it in its crib, Acadien culture seems to be thriving. The Acadien flag is everywhere. The locals remain fluent in their unique dialect, distinct from that of both France and Quebec. Like much of rural Nova Scotia, once you escape the gravity of the black hole that is Halifax, it largely hews to traditional ways. Farming and fishing and their support industries dominate the economy. There are fish plants all along the Acadien coast. Had lunch in a non-touristy joint in Digby. Digby sports a wiff of the poison that's destroying Halifax; pandering to the tourist dollar. The main problem with the "tourism-as-economic-engine" strategy is it kills what made a place worthwhile to begin with. I've seen it happen in Banff, Muskoka, and now Halifax. The only thing you're gonna see in Halifax these days is friggin' tourists. Our waitress was a gal well into her 60's, sporting a Nirvana T-shirt and various tattoos and piercings. I'm guessing when she got her first Nirvana album she wasn't dreaming of slinging hash in a roadside diner at 60. Life creeps up on ya, don't it honey. Took the Fundy Rose from Digby to Saint John. She's named after Rose Fortune, a woman of Black Loyalist stock to whom we were introduced at the Black Loyalist Museum near Shelburne earlier in the week. One hell of a gal. Had a whole lot of firsts in her life, and it could be said she smashed many of the glass ceilings of her day, as well as a whole lot of "colour barriers." The inveterate whiners and professional victims of the modern era would do well to study her life. "I never saw anybody who looked like me..." has become a catch-all excuse for losers who can't be bothered to make an effort. Among other things, it betrays a truly abysmal lack of imagination. The first thing that catches the eye on the approach to Saint John Harbour is the Irving tank farm out past the Irving oil refinery, Canada's largest. Then you see the smoke-stacks at the NB Power generating station across from what used to be the Irving Shipyard,which is now the Irving Wallboard plant. Rumour has it Jim Irving used to barge into the control room at the power plant to personally monitor the hydro consumption at the shipyard. That's how he found out the welders never really got things going till after morning break, and generally shut 'er down after the afternoon break. Happy to report that Saint John, like most of New Brunswick, seems to be enjoying an uptick in fortune. Irving companies are hiring all over the place. Somebody should tell the dudes who stand at intersections asking for money... Then again, getting a job might require more effort than panhandling.

Maritime real estate cheap; everything else expensive

We were settling into our hotel in New Brunswick the other day. Stopped off at the Al Cool shop for supplies. Al Cool is the name of the government liquor chain out here. Cool name, eh? Sounds way more user-friendly than "LCBO." The gin coolers the Farm Manager prefers run three bucks a pop in Ontario. In New Brunswick, the same pop sets you back $4.50. We're in Nova Scotia now. My favorite red wine that's twelve bucks there is half that again here. In fact, pretty much all of your consumer goods are noticeably more expensive here. On the other hand, if you're acclimatized to Ontario real estate prices, you'll be gobsmacked by what goes on out here. We're staying with some old friends who sold their modest North York bungalow and relocated to the south shore of Nova Scotia. They traded that bungalow for thirty acres, 1,000 feet of ocean frontage, and a five bed six bath almost-new home. That's way more house than we'll ever need. A more modest two bath oceanfront place with open Atlantic ocean views can be had for $2-300k. Sell your Ontario house for a million, retire here, you can absorb an extra couple hundred bucks on the monthly budget in perpetuity, and still come out half a million to the good. And if you do run short, the local lobster plant is always hiring.

Discover New Brunswick at 200 mph

This afternoon I traversed the province of New Brunswick via the Trans Canada Highway. It's been twenty years since I drove out here, and some noteworthy improvements have been made. Firstly, the entire route is now four lanes. Secondly, the east and west roadways have such a generous buffer between them, often you can't even see the oncoming traffic. Makes for a more relaxing drive. Finally, police presence is much lighter than it used to be. Must have been defunded. Thank you BLM! As a bonus, there is very little traffic. I was able to cruise from border to border at 140 kph plus, and at times found the Rav tooling along quite comfortably at over 160. New Brunswick is the ideal place to visit if you want to explore the true capabilities of that 200 mph supercar you've been thinking about spending the kids' inheritance on. Not only have New Brunswick taxpayers provided a track worthy of a modern day Mille Miglia, the scenery is second to none, lodgings are plentiful and reasonably priced, and if you weary of local sea-food, all the usual US chains are well represented. Highly recommended!

60 years at Harnischfeger and all he got was a gold watch

Back in the day, I did some time at Lackie Brothers, the Kitchener-based mill-wrighting and heavy-haul contractor that enjoyed its heyday when southern Ontario had a booming industrial economy. Then NAFTA came in, and it wasn’t long before they went tits up. But that’s another story. Our crew was dispatched to a mini-mill under construction out in Courtice, on the other side of Toronto. Steel mini-mills were a coming attraction at the time; they would allegedly produce steel at a lower cost than the big guys like Stelco and Dofasco. Our assignment was to install the overhead crane that serviced the main bay of the mill. The crane itself came from Harnischfeger in Milwaukee. That was one of the big names in American industrial equipment at the time. But then NAFTA came in, and it wasn’t long before they went tits up. Who needs industrial equipment in a country de-industrializing? But that’s another story. So Milwaukee sent this old dude to supervise the install. He wasn’t the kind of project supervisor who sat in an air-conditioned trailer all day. No sir, this was a hands-on guy! In fact, he told us he’d been with Harnischfeger for 60 years! He’d recently come back to work after a quadruple by-pass, and apologized profusely for having to “go easy.” Not sure what he meant by that. He was up and down the ladders and clambering across the structural beams like everybody else. When we’re swinging various parts into place he’s hanging onto a rope like everybody else. When we’re sitting in the middle of the bridge part of the bridge-and-trolley crane having a smoke break, he’s flicking his cigarette ashes to the shop floor, forty feet below, like everybody else. I find myself remembering this guy more, now that I’m retired. Obviously, he could have been retired, but he chose to keep working. If you like what you do and you’re good at it, why stop when you’re 65?

Canada still recognizes Juan Guaido as President of Venezuela

Remember him? Uncle Sam didn't have any use for Maduro, on account of his independent attitude, so the Americans decided they'd recognize Random Guy-doh as president instead. A few of the usuall suck-ups bought in, with Canada taking the lead role. Hence Chrystia Freeland's glorious tenure as leader of the "Lima Group." That concept never really caught fire, although for a brief period of time, the same "free world" that now joins American sanctions on Russia, were willing to give it a chance. Alas, the 27 nations of the EU soon enough realized which way the wind was blowing, and have long since given up pretending Guaido is anything other than a US puppet. Eventually they'll come to the same conclusion about the hero-du-jour, the Ukrainian comedian Zelensky. Unfortunately, given the American determination to drag this war out as long as possible, many more Ukrainians will die for nothing before the craven US acolytes in the "free world" get a firm sense of the current wind direction.