Countries – nation states recognised by the UN. Culture and people groups lay on a spectrum that changes gradually across geographies, borders just don’t do people justice. When I was a kid I’d tag along on family trips to sunny resorts and theme parks, but as I grew older I Read more…
While technically a part of Quebec City, Charlesbourg has a larger role to play than just being a suburb to the provincial capital. Jacques Cartier, the first European to arrive spent the winter of 1535 here, but it wasn’t until over a century later before the town was founded in Read more…
A blockhouse built in the town during the War of 1812 is now a National Historic Site. I used to protect the town from American privateers, but Atlantic Canada also profited handsomely from privateering during the war. Similar Blockhouses were built in Lunenburg and Saint John, three such blockhouses with Read more…
Although originally settled by the Germans, a good chunk of the city’s residents speak French, and many are bilingual. It’s not just home to Atlantic Canada’s only French-language university, the University of Moncton, it’s also host to Acadian food. The city was named after Colonel Robert Monckton, but the ‘K’ Read more…
I imagine myself being Mayberry as I walked through the small town of Wolfville where everyone knows everyone else and there are no secrets beyond the first day of telling them. The two main banks in the town are still in their original 19th century buildings and the commercial area Read more…
Dartmouth is the opposite of Halifax. It’s on the opposite shore of Halifax, the architecture makes no sense, it’s inconvenient to live on the schedule of a half-hourly ferry, and it’s expensive to cross on the two toll bridges to Halifax. If they put Province House in Dartmouth, it would Read more…
The last remaining blockhouse in Nova Scotia is in Windsor, NS at Fort Edward National Historic Site. New Brunswick also has its own last blockhouse at St. Andrews, so there are very few of these left. Major Charles Lawrence ordered it built in 1750. In 1779, Flora MacDonald spent a Read more…
Allentown in the Lehigh Valley was named after its founder William Allen. His son, James Allen, built Trout Hall that stands as the site of the county’s historical museum. Its baseball team is called the Iron Pigs, named after the city’s early steel industry that began in the 1850s, the Read more…
The stench of diesel wafts through the air of the industrial centre of the Pocono Mountains. Diesel locomotives transit through carrying hundreds of cars of assorted goods and commodities, they idle and stink. But not all of the trains in Scranton ran on diesel, it’s electric trolleys that were ripped Read more…
I have never been so disappointed in a new city in my life. The place was foggy from dawn to dusk and then it got dark when the fog cleared. I was told that Saint John is always foggy from the Atlantic mist, but I’ve seen clearer pictures of the Read more…
The biggest draw to Saint-Jérôme is its massive cathedral which is the largest in the Laurentians. The three-spired cathedral was constructed beginning in 1897 and opened in 1900. The church square has a skating rink in winter that circles a statue of Antoine Labelle, the priest who created this and Read more…