Granby, QC

It’s not a terrible town, I just chose a terrible day to go – I kept telling myself. Granby is in the middle of Montreal and Sherbrooke. Its majestic fountains were dry, the streets were quiet, and lollipop ladies only had frowns on their faces. I’ve read in travel guides Read more…

Bishop’s University

Lennoxville was an independent city until 2002 when it was incorporated into Sherbrooke, Quebec. During French occupation, Lennoxville was known as Les Petite Fourches, little forks, while Sherbrooke was known as Les Grands Fourches, big forks. It was incorporated long after the British took over Quebec and renamed after Charles Read more…

Jay Johnson

The Haskell Free Library and Opera straddles the Canada-US border at Stanstead, Quebec. When the border closed, Canadian patrons couldn’t access the main door in Vermont, so a volunteer delivers books to communities in Quebec.

Rue Canusa

Near Stanstead, Quebec and Derby Line, Vermont, Rue Canusa is formed by the combination of Canada and USA. Different from 0th Avenue in Surrey, the surveyors played a trick by splitting the border right down the middle of the road. The eastbound lane is in Canada while the westbound lane Read more…

Coaticook, QC

Almost halfway between Stanstead on the Canada-US border and Sherbrooke, Coaticook is a typical sleepy town with the rustic charm of the days of the horse and buggy. The landscape resembles that of southeastern French pre-Alps with the isolation of the Appalachian mountains. About one in five of the remaining Read more…

Mono, ON

The township of Mono is a trapezoid-shaped administrative division in Dufferin County about 40 km northwest of Toronto. If you zoom in on Mono in Google Maps you’ll quickly realize that it has no significant population clusters. The nearest town, Orangeville, looks like it was carved out of Mono because Read more…

Tunku Zain Al-‘Abidin

The circumstances that led to me taking a photograph with the son of the reigning monarch of a Malaysian state were peculiar. He’s also the libertarian Malaysian think tank Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs. I was having dinner with the other delegates at the 2018 Harvard Project for Asian Read more…

Seattle, WA

I used to have a few friends that lived in Seattle, but by the time I actually got to visit Seattle they’d already moved out to nicer towns with less construction, fewer crazy people, and safer roads. There’s really not too much to do that’s unique in Seattle. Perhaps its Read more…

Devil’s Tower

Theodore Roosevelt was a champion of the conservation of geologically important sites so Devil’s Tower became America’s first national park site. This odd collection of stone pillars were once the core of a volcano formed my molten magma pushing up over 800 feet in the crater of the volcano. Over Read more…