Old Montreal in Montreal

12 March 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

Notre-Dame Basilica © Diego Delso/cc-by-sa-4.0

Notre-Dame Basilica © Diego Delso/cc-by-sa-4.0

Old Montreal (French: Vieux-Montréal) is a historic neighbourhood within the municipality of Montreal in the province of Quebec, Canada. Home to the Old Port of Montreal, the neighbourhood is bordered on the west by McGill Street, on the north by Ruelle des Fortifications, on the east by rue Saint-André, and on the south by the Saint Lawrence River. Following recent amendments, the neighbourhood has expanded to include the Rue des Soeurs Grises in the west, Saint Antoine Street in the north, and Saint Hubert Street in the east.   read more…

Florenceville-Bristol in Canada, the French Fry Capital of the World

8 February 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Truffle oil french fries © flickr.com - Tony Webster/cc-by-sa-2.0

Truffle oil french fries © flickr.com – Tony Webster/cc-by-sa-2.0

Florenceville-Bristol is an unincorporated community in the northwestern part of Carleton County, New Brunswick, Canada along the Saint John River. It held town status prior to 2023. On 1 January 2023, Florenceville-Bristol amalgamated with Bath, Centreville and all or part of nine local service districts to form the new town of Carleton North. The community’s name remains in official use.   read more…

Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel in Montreal

16 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  6 minutes

© DXR/cc-by-sa-4.0

© DXR/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel (chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, “Our Lady of Good Help”) is a church in the district of Old Montreal in Montreal, Quebec. One of the oldest churches in Montreal, it was built in 1771 over the ruins of an earlier chapel. The church is located at 400 Saint Paul Street East at Bonsecours Street, just north of the Bonsecours Market in the borough of Ville-Marie (Champ-de-Mars metro station).   read more…

Bonsecours Market in Montreal

5 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Gribeco/cc-by-2.5

© Gribeco/cc-by-2.5

Bonsecours Market (French: Marché Bonsecours), at 350 rue Saint-Paul in Old Montreal, is a two-story domed public market. For more than 100 years, it was the main public market in the Montreal area. It also briefly accommodated the Parliament of United Canada for one session in 1849. Named for the adjacent Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel, it opened in 1847. During 1849 the building was used for the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada. The market’s design was influenced by Dublin‘s Customs House. Bonsecours Market was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1984.   read more…

Toronto in Ontario

18 November 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  28 minutes

Toronto skyline from Snake Island © Jchmrt/cc-by-sa-4.0

Toronto skyline from Snake Island © Jchmrt/cc-by-sa-4.0

Toronto is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration of 9,765,188 people (as of 2021) surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario, while the Greater Toronto Area proper had a 2021 population of 6,712,341. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, sports and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.   read more…

University of Toronto

6 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Universities, Colleges, Academies Reading Time:  5 minutes

Hart House and Soldier's Tower © Taxiarchos228/cc-by-sa-3.0

Hart House and Soldier’s Tower © Taxiarchos228/cc-by-sa-3.0

The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen’s Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King’s College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada. Originally controlled by the Church of England, the university assumed its present name in 1850 upon becoming a secular institution. As a collegiate university, it comprises eleven colleges each with substantial autonomy on financial and institutional affairs and significant differences in character and history. The St. George campus is the main campus of the University of Toronto tri-campus system, the other two being satellite campuses located in Scarborough and Mississauga.   read more…

Portage la Prairie in Manitoba

24 September 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  17 minutes

Municipal Building National Historic Site © Amqui/cc-by-sa-3.0

Municipal Building National Historic Site © Amqui/cc-by-sa-3.0

Portage la Prairie is a small city in the Central Plains Region of Manitoba, Canada. As of 2016, the population was 13,304 and the land area of the city was 24.68 square kilometres (9.53 sq mi). Portage la Prairie is approximately 75 kilometres (47 mi) west of Winnipeg, along the Trans-Canada Highway (exactly halfway between the provincial boundaries of Saskatchewan and Ontario). The community sits on the Assiniboine River, which flooded the town persistently until a diversion channel north to Lake Manitoba (the Portage Diversion) was built to divert the flood waters. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie. According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, Portage la Prairie has the most sunny days during the warm months in Canada. It is the administrative headquarters of the Dakota Tipi First Nations reserve.   read more…

St. John’s in Newfoundland

22 September 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  16 minutes

Cabot Tower on Signal Hill © flickr.com - Michel Rathwell/cc-by-2.0

Cabot Tower on Signal Hill © flickr.com – Michel Rathwell/cc-by-2.0

St. John’s is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. The city spans 446.04 km² (172.22 sq mi) and is the easternmost city in North America (excluding Greenland). Its name has been attributed to the belief that John Cabot sailed into the harbour on the Nativity of John the Baptist in 1497, although it is most likely a legend that came with British settlement. A more realistic possibility is that a fishing village with the same name existed without a permanent settlement for most of the 16th century. Indicated as São João on a Portuguese map from 1519, it is one of the oldest cities in North America. It was officially incorporated as a city in 1888. With a metropolitan population of approximately 212,579 (as of February 9, 2022), the St. John’s Metropolitan Area is Canada’s 20th-largest metropolitan area and the second-largest Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in Atlantic Canada, after Halifax. The city has a rich history, having played a role in the Seven Years’ War, the American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in St. John’s. Its history and culture have made it into an important tourist destination. St. John’s was referred to in Irish as Baile Sheáin (Johnstown), in the poetry of Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara (1715–1810), and among speakers of the Irish language in Newfoundland.   read more…

Kitchener in Ontario

13 September 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

Water Street © flickr.com - Allie_Caulfield/cc-by-2.0

Water Street © flickr.com – Allie_Caulfield/cc-by-2.0

Kitchener is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario, about 100 km (62 mi) west of Toronto. It is one of three cities that make up the Regional Municipality of Waterloo and is the regional seat. Kitchener was known as Berlin until a 1916 referendum changed its name. The city covers an area of 136.86 km², and had a population of 256,885 at the time of the 2021 Canadian census. The Regional Municipality of Waterloo has 575,847 people, making it the 10th-largest census metropolitan area (CMA) in Canada and the fourth-largest CMA in Ontario. Kitchener and Waterloo are considered “twin cities”, which are often referred to jointly as “Kitchener–Waterloo” (K–W), although they have separate municipal governments.   read more…

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