People
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.
Iconic Places
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…
Cities
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…
Cities
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…
Malaysia
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…
Cities
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…
Iconic Places
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…
Iconic Places
Petronas Towers
The twin Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur were the tallest buildings in the world until Taipei 101 was completed in 2004. When they were completed in 1998, the 451-metre tall towers surpassed World Trade Centres 1 and 2 in New York City as the tallest twin towers in the world. Read more…
Articles
What I learned from driving with a cat
Want to be a calmer driver? Drive with a variety of things in the car. Carrying fragile objects like crystalware and animals as well as loading the car up to the brim with heavy boxes makes you more careful. The first time I realized this was when I picked up Read more…
Cities
Amherst Island, ON
A half-hourly ferry connects Amherst Island to Millhaven, Ontario, near Kingston. The gravel roads are a lot of fun to drive on, so much fun that I saw an elderly man skilled around corners in a small Honda hatchback. There isn’t much commerce on the island, so many of the Read more…