Canadiana Backpackers Blog

It’s England’s National Day and it isn’t even an official holiday.

But here at the Canadiana Hostel in Toronto, it’s an excuse for a party! But what the heck, around here, Thursday is an excuse for a party.

So signs went up around the hostel announcing a plate of curry (the English National Dish) for three dollars, followed by a visit to a traditional English Pub.

Thirty celebrants signed up for the curry dinner, prepared by Doughy, an Irish hostel resident and professional chef. Even more opted for the English Pub Night and retired to the Scotland Yard Pub down on Toronto’s Esplanade.

It’s typical of what happens to travelers in hostels - any excuse for a party! With the number of people from the United Kingdom staying in hostels while visiting Toronto, it’s a small wonder that St. George’s Day was a roaring success!

We’ve just had an annual event here at the hostel that’s a sure a sign that winter is finally over. It’s a harbinger of spring as sure and accurate as the return of the robin from it’s southern migration.

Eight work/travel visa backpackers were picked up at our hostels door for transport north from Toronto to Orillia, Ontario just a few hours north of the city. They are going to prepare a kid’s summer camp for the arrival of campers who are still in school until the end of June.

Camp Wahonowin is located on the shores of Lake Couchiching in close proximity to the Rama Native Reserve and Casino complex where big stars perform year round. This summers lineup includes Gloria Estafan, Don Rickles and Diana Ross.

The Camp has been closed and boarded up all winter so there is a lot to do to prepare the camp for opening. Painting, cleaning, repairs, landscaping - you name it!

A lot of summer camps in North America like to hire foreign backpacker’s with work visa’s as camp counselors as they are just as interested in the country/wilderness experience as the campers and wil work for room and board and a small stipend paid at the end of the summer.

They will spend a little over a month making the camp spic and span and read to receive Summer campers at the end of June or early August.

In the last few days, cooler weather has returned after a week of temperatures in the range of more than 20C! But not to worry, the departure of summer camp workers is a sure sign that summer is just around the corner.

..

“Happy Campers” checking out of the hostel.

About to board their luxury transport bus across the street from the hostels front door.

Denise is a young lady from New Zealand who came traveling across Canada in 1999 and got no further than Camrose, Alberta, a town just outside of Edmonton.

She grew up in a agricultural family (dairy/beef) on a farm north of Auckland on New Zealand’s North Island. Almost a decade ago during her travels, Denise came upon an opportunity and purchased a 370 acre farm in Western Canada where she now raises pigs - 500 of them, in fact!

She’s visiting Toronto to complete part of a journey planned ten years ago. She wanted to see the famous Niagara Falls. She did that yesterday!

At the hostel, she is asked by a traveler from the Netherlands, “Do you have a gun on your farm?”

Her answer is, “Of course, I do!” On a Canadian ranch or farm, a firearm is an essential piece of equipment. In fact, I can’t actually recall a farm where there wasn’t a rifle or shotgun handy.

So Denise has raised pigs for ten years tending to 500 beasts on her own with her nearest neighbour a half mile down the road. But now she has decided to pack it in; sell the farm and go home to New Zealand.

It’s not that she hasn’t enjoyed her time ranching in Canada. It’s just that last winter was the last straw. We had a severe winter here at our hostel in Toronto; in fact, the second worst winter for snowfall in history.

But it is nothing like the winter they had out west! Out Denise’s way, last winter was positively savage! The temperatures reached more than -40C! And with a “windchill” factored in, the temperature reached as low as -67C last winter; temperatures as low as she’s ever experienced. Denise avers that she is not keen to spend another winter like the last one.

Last Wednesday as Denise left for the airport and her long delayed sojourn to Niagara, there was still more than a foot of snow on the ground while Toronto basked in the sunshine with temperatures in the mid 20’sC!

When all is said and done Denise, we can’t blame you for pulling up stakes. But at least the land has been a pretty good investment over the past ten years! Best of luck back home and we doubt you’ll ever complain about the cold in New Zealand again!.

In previous postings we have told you of the (at least) five marriages that have taken place between couples who met right here in Toronto within the hostel’s walls.

There is actually a sixth marriage that was right under our noses but we somehow failed to notice. Perhaps it was just too close and, thus, escaped our attention.

Christiano is a Brazilian immigrant to Canada who met Cecilia, - a lovely young Scottish lass from Edinburgh. They met here about three years ago when Christiano was working at the hostel and Cecilia was on vacation.

The two of them are still together and recently got married. They are now living and working in the United Kingdom.

But Christiano is returning to Canada next month for the swearing in ceremony in order to obtain his Canadian citizenship.

Of all of the hostels in Toronto, the Canadiana is the place where enduring friendships (and more) often begin.

I’m going to just come out and say it! Alina is a living doll!

She’s a young lady from Germany who stayed with us for about four months last year. Then she left for western Canada shortly before the new year and lived in Vancouver and the scenic Lake Louise for the winter.

Alina was in Canada on a working/holiday visa. Being out west working in a hotel as a housekeeper allowed her to enjoy a season on the slopes snowboarding in the majestic Canadian Rockies.

Alina has arrived back at our Toronto Hostel for her final days in Canada. Her flight back home to Germany leaves this Saturday and we will all be very sad to see her go.

But she’s going home to begin her University studies after an adventurous gap year in Canada. Now that she is back, we can see just how much she has contributed to the social fabric of our hostel.

Best of luck in your studies Alina, we hope you’ve enjoyed your stay s much as we’ve enjoyed having you.

Alina with Mike from Australia.

We’ve just heard from an old friend of the hostel. A veteran of five visits to our backpacker’s hostel over the years.

Tony (a.k.a. “The Tiger”) has been the subject of two previous blog entries because he qualifies as one of the gutsiest travelers this hostel has ever hosted. (See: “Tony the Tiger is Back!“)

Tony is an all-purpose adventurer who has traveled the world for more than a decade seeking adventure in spite of the fact that he is totally blind and 80% deaf. He was always an inspiration because in spite of such overwhelming challenges, Tony always seemed unstoppable.

He has visited all 50 states and Canada from Pacific to the Yukon to the Atlantic Ocean. And he has set foot in more than 40 countries on every continent.

In a bitter twist of fate, our “unstoppable” Tony has been forced to face yet another challenge. And (as usual) it’s a pretty big challenge. Nothing, it seems is ever simple with Tony the Tiger. But we’re confident that he is well-equipped to handle it!

Tony’s kidneys are letting him down. He will require a transplant as soon as possible. So he’s home in the UK awaiting a suitable donor.

The purpose of this entry is an attempt to reach as many of the people as possible who have met him here at the Canadiana Backpackers Hostel. What I’d like all of you who see this entry to do is to attach a comment to let Tony know that we are all with him and pulling for him during this most trying time.

The beauty of writing this blog is that my comment will get to go first! “We’ll see you back here soon Tony! Only, next time, try to come in the warm weather!”

Some psychologists claim that we should (ideally) change careers every ten years for our own mental health. But for the majority - dare I say all of us - that is a totally impractical option.

So what career options does a person in the highly specialized field of Geophysics have? Quite a few if you think about it.

You must first consider what a Geophysicist brings to the table. A strong science background for one thing; obviously a curious mind; and an innate fascination with natural phenomena.

We have a guest named Mark in the hostel who lived and worked the arduous profession and lived the solitary life of a Geophysicist until six years ago. He studied most of the west coast of the Canadian wilderness until he finally tired of living in the bush with the Grizzly Bears, Wolves and Cougars.

He first considered becoming a pedagogue and teach sciences but that would require his return to college to gain a teaching certification. And what if he didn’t like it?

So he took a different option. He qualified as a ESL (English as a second language) Teacher and has been teaching in Korea for the past six years. It has been long enough for him to become quite fluent in the Korean language, both oral and written.

He saw this as the best way to test the waters and get a chance to see how he liked teaching; furthermore, he felt that practical teaching experience would add to his chances of acceptance to a teachers college.

Was Mark’s decision to give up his former career the right one? Has he decided to become a teacher full time? We’ll have to see if he will post a response to this entry and tell us how he feels about it now.

This day had to come, I suppose. Even though we’ve been expecting it, it’s still a little painful. Sabine and Tamara our two popular and lovely German students left here yesterday. All good things must come to an end.

In the few months that they were with us these two lovely ladies fast became two of the most popular guests at the hostel. They were in Toronto studying at local hospitals for a credit towards their master’s degree in Psychology which they are both near completing.

They studied long and hard but still managed to find time for a lively social life and participated in many of the hostel’s organized events. (You can find a complete listing of of daily events on our website.)

As I have said, virtually everyone at the hostel was sad to see them leave; but, we all got the impression that these two lovely frauliens were just as sad to bid the hostel goodbye. We hope they stay in touch!
..

Sabine and Tamara

Sabine and Tamara with Masahito from Japan just before leaving.

Her name is Davia and there hasn’t been a week in the past decade when we haven’t seen her smiling face in the early morning at the hostel about five days a week.

Davia is the owner of JoJo Tours one of the operators who picked up at our hostel for a tour of the “must see” Niagara Falls.

There are a lot of tours who leave from Toronto every day for Niagara just 70 miles down the road. To put it bluntly, JoJo (Davia’s) trip was, quite simply, the very best!

Davia ran a bus with a maximum of 14 clients per trip which made for a far more “personal” tour of the spectacular (and kitschy) Niagara Falls.

Over the past ten-years, she has made the Niagara run more than 3000 times so it’s no surprise that she knows the area like the back of her hand.

But this morning was a little sad. It was Davia’s last tour to Niagara Falls.

She has been made an offer she simply couldn’t refuse and will now be working in Toronto; but, still in the hospitality/travel industry.

Over the years she has carved a unique niche in the Niagara tour market and has thousands of satisfied customers behind her.

We hope that someone will step in and try to fill her shoes with a quality, small-scale, personalized Niagara tour that we will be sure to offer to our guests.

Best of luck Davia! You’re always welcome at the hostel. So don’t be a stranger!

Do you like Irish rebel songs? They can be catchy, stirring, inspiring and downright militant. That’s to say they are controversial as hell.

Toronto has a huge number of people who claim Irish heritage. In fact, it is well known that there are more “Irish” people outside of Ireland than there are in Ireland itself.

Toronto has a lot of Irish pubs with Irish motifs; Irish bartenders; and Guinness on tap . They have names like “Finn McCool’s:; “O’Grady’s”; “The Old Sod”; “Scallywags”; “Grace O’Malley’s”; etc.

But the one thing that virtually all of the pubs avoid is the singing of popular old Rebel Ballads. We have people of Irish descent who are on both sides of the old equation so pub entertainment takes care not to offend any sensitivities.

Except for “McVeigh’s”, that is!

McVeigh’s is a rather “politically incorrect” Irish Pub. They play foot-stomping, blood-boiling rebel songs, railing against centuries old transgressions - good old fashioned in-your-face Irish ballads.

It’s a fifteen or twenty minute walk to McVeigh’s located on Church Street south of Toronto’s gay village among pawn shops and camera shops. Quite a colourful area actually.

Tonight (Saturday) in lieu of our usual five establishment “Pub Crawl” it has been decided to walk to McVeigh’s because of the warmer weather.

If I weren’t working tonight, I’d sign up for the excursion. Hang on to your hats folks; it won’t be boring!

“…death to every foe and traitor; whistle up the marching tune; with your pike upon your shoulder; by the rising of the moon!”

Erin Go Bragh!