Category: Community
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Marie Watt: Piecing Together A Story
It was my first community sewing circle. I couldn’t have chosen a better introduction than the one I received from Marie Watt, a Portland, Oregon-based artist whose storied circles bring creative ideas to life. A half-dozen tables bisected the Great Hall of the National Galley of Canada, arranged beneath the canopy of glass and steel that frames the finest views in Ottawa. … Read more
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So You Want to Lead a Community Project?
You have a ‘good idea’ and want to start a community project. Good for you. Or maybe not. Here are ten things you need to know to keep the ‘unity’ in ‘community.’ I’m going to assume that you already know that leading a project in your neighbourhood is a yin-yang experience: equal parts pleasure and pain, cooperating with strangers and… Read more
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LeBreton Flats: An Acre of Time
Dear Phil: It was my pleasure to meet you for coffee and finally put my hands on An Acre of Time, a history of LeBreton Flats. I wasn’t kidding when I said I discovered you in the most random of ways, a mention buried in the comments section of a review of a book of historical maps of… Read more
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Food Hub: Wendy’s Country Market
Wendy Banks, Rick Trudeau and their daughter Leigha are sixth- and seventh-generation farmers on their family property in Lyndhurst, Ontario. Wendy and her siblings grew up steeped in the value of land and food, her father, Neil, believing that one day there would be a shortage of both. While his hands worked the soil in the present, he and his wife, Gail, amassed a thousand… Read more
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William H. Whyte, People-Watcher
William H. Whyte (October 1, 1917 — January 12, 1999) was an American urbanist, organizational analyst, journalist and people-watcher. ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Whyte)) While working with the New York City Planning Commission in 1969, Whyte began to use direct observation to describe behavior in urban settings. Employing still cameras, movie cameras, and notebooks, Whyte described the substance of urban public life in an… Read more
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Walking the Carleton Place Labyrinth
We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us – the labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to… Read more
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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
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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
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Winnipeg: Stuck in the Middle
A couple of days ago I posted a piece trumpeting Winnipeg’s virtues and shortly after this appeared: https://twitter.com/HolmesDoug/status/525013976028311552 Of course I dove into winnipeglovehate.com, and discovered the book Stuck in the Middle: Dissenting Views of Winnipeg, photographed and written by the dynamic duo of Bryan Scott and Bartley Kives. Thanks to the miracle of strangers on the internet… Read more
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Winnipeg is the Most Interesting City
Over dinner last week in Manhattan I declared to our three local hosts that Winnipeg is The Most Interesting City in Canada. They appeared politely skeptical as I tried to explain. I’ve written about the city before here, here, here, here, and here, praising it up one side and down the other. I can easily list the qualities I… Read more