Category: Geography
-
Capital Building: A View from Washington – Part 2
Click here for Capital Building: A View from Washington – Part 1 Having finally seen Washington, DC for myself this summer, it was great to connect with this presentation by Marcel Acosta, Executive Director of the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), the Federal Planning Agency for America’s Capital. In it he discusses how the city came to be shaped,… Read more
-
Would You Let This Man Sell Your House?
I’m guessing that someone somewhere at sometime told this fellow that he looks like Owen Wilson’s male model in Zoolander. It’s the only reasonable reason I can imagine he would slap his ‘Blue Steel’ face on gigantic posters around White Rock, B.C., to push his unique brand of real estate sales in Greater Vancouver’s steaming… Read more
-
The Pilgrimage to Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs was a noted urbanist, writer and activist whose book The Death and Life of Great American Cities has become the go-to tome for community planning and urban development. ********** Like the Camino de Santiago, there are prescribed stops on the pilgrimage to Jane Jacobs, including her two former residences in Toronto and New York… Read more
-
Fogo Island: Strange and Familiar
Not long after Newfoundland began to impress itself upon me through its stories, the epic story of Fogo Island and Zita Cobb emerged. Read more
-
On the Waterfront
While on the Canada Line from Vancouver to Richmond, B.C. I spied a sculpture on the skyline. One right and a quick left from our hotel and an old-school waterfront appeared, featuring a walking path and imaginative art installations. The photographic conditions were spectacular: warm, morning light, a fierce hoar frost embalming the rocks and vegetation, and not a breath of wind. I… Read more
-
Jane’s Walk Burritt’s Rapids May 2 & 3, 2015
Click here for the complete schedule of events & activities Please note the change: The car collection will only be in the village on Saturday ******* The title and tagline of our press release reads: Rural Burritt’s Rapids Joins Jane’s Walk Ottawa ~ Why should urbanites have all the fun? I point this out not… Read more
-
Everything Changes: Shooting the Domtar Lands
Since mid-winter, I’ve had the pleasure of photographing the Domtar lands with a team of volunteers from the Workers History Museum in Ottawa. Windmill Development Group, Inc. is poised to re-develop the land which has been home to pulp and paper giants E.B. Eddy and Domtar since 1891. Because of the placement of the buildings, there isn’t much… Read more
-
Ellis Island: JR and the Art of Immigration
The United States, like Canada, is a country of immigrants. Between 1892 and 1954, twelve million citizens of other nations landed at Ellis Island seeking asylum in their new homeland. Close to 40% of Americans can trace their genealogy through these early immigrants. ((http://www.history.com/topics/ellis-island)) There are two kinds of Ellis Island tours available. The first is a free… Read more
-
Three Days, Two Skates and One Big Apple
In my rural village of a hundred souls we wait for a deep spell of cold, with little snowfall, to produce sturdy, pristine ice on the canal. Our natural rinks, spontaneously cleared by locals, last a few hours or a few days, eventually kiboshed by fluctuating temperatures, freezing rain or heavy snowpack. But while they last, those… Read more
-
Arrested Developments
So there I was watching Arrested Development reruns when the Bluth family model home flashed up on screen. It’s the running gag where the turreted McMansion sits alone in desert-like surroundings, where the family lives amongst the staged bowls of plastic fruit waiting for prospective buyers who never come. And I laugh, of course, because it’s… Read more