Canadiana Backpackers Blog

Our Canadiana T-Shirts are becoming more and more ubiquitous in backpacker’s circles. Tim Kennedy, a truly peripatetic young man who was a guest here a few summers ago has just sent us a report on a recent adventure occasioned by his shirt.

Our shirts carry the distinctive Maple Leaf with an “Inukshuk” at its’ center.

Inukshuks are the little statues of piled flat stones made to resemble a person and are erected by the Inuit in the featureless rocky barrens above the treeline in the Canadian Arctic.

Tim is now working as a bartender in a popular little pub on an island in the Mediterranean.

He was wearing his Canadiana Shirt at work one night and was “almost tackled” by a young lady who noted our motto on the back that says, “It feels like home!”

It turns out that she too had stayed with us and fully agreed with the sentiment expressed by our slogan.

Tim and his new found friend spent a good part of the evening exchanging stories of their stay in Toronto, in general, and at our hostel, in particular.

From time to time we receive photos of past guests wearing our shirts in exotic locales.

We’ve attached a few of them below this blog entry.

“Alaska John”, in Thailand

La Belle Sabine, before heading home to Paris.

Mitch from Scotland and Matt from Oz at the Grand canyon

Lesley fishing near Te Puke, New Zealand.

“Dingo Dan”, at the U.S. Capitol.

“Alright now, nobody mention Borat!”

We have a group of language students who have come to Toronto all the way from Kazakhstan in Central Asia to study English. “To make benefit their English skills”, you might say.

Or not.

It’s rather strange that for a country so vast that we have so little understanding of it. it has a landmass greater than Western Europe and is the world’s largest landlocked nation. And it is still trying to work out how to employ democratic principles such as free and fair elections.

It has only been independent since 1991. Khazakhstan’s Independence accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union and the country has been in a headlong rush towards modernization ever since.

The desire to learn English is part and parcel of their recognition of the importance of learning the international language of commerce.

But why did they chose to come to Canada to learn English when the United Kingdom is much closer to home?

To understand why, all you must do is remember that Pamela Anderson is, after all, a Canadian!

Martin is a young man from County Louth, Ireland who is on his second visit to Canada. He was here four years ago; but this is his first visit to the Canadiana.

He stayed at a budget hotel located nearby and when we asked him why, he said that “he didn’t know about us, at the time.” His loss! Even a budget hotel will cost a lot more than our hostel.

This trip, he also booked into a low-cost hotel but he had some friends who were staying with us. One visit to them here convinced him to change his accommodations and book with us to save some money!

According to Martin, he wouldn’t stay anywhere else now. (We get a lot of that here!)

Martin has returned to Toronto on a year long working holiday visa and has just found a flat in the city. He is still a regular visitor to the hostel because he enjoys the camaraderie ad convivial atmosphere of the Canadiana Hostel.

(We get a lot of that too!)

Martin chose to spend his working/holiday year in Canada because he is a fanatic for our National sport. He is a Hockey fanatic! According to Martin there is but a single ice area in all of the Irish Republic and it is in his hometown.

He discovered the game and plays in a local league filled with Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Czechs etc., thanks to the European Union. Perhaps there are even a few expatriate Canadians.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Irish have taken to our national sport. After all, hockey is well known for the number of fights in an average game!

Martin wants to be in Toronto until after the New Year and plans to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve with us at the hostel. He has had reports of our famous Christmas turkey dinner and our festive New Year’s Eve Party.

As are all of our former guests who are still staying in the city, the will be most welcome! That’s because we want it to “feel like home” here!

We had a “new event” thanks to the re-opening of the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) which is a superb, world-class gallery considering it is a Provincial Institution.

It has been extensively renovated and re-designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry (a Toronto native) who is best known for his futuristic design of the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in California.

The AGO also boasts the world’s largest collection of sculptures by the late British Master Sir Henry Moore. The artist willed his personal collection to the AGO because of his fondness for Toronto.

Gehry’s innovative futuristic designs have been compared with Sydney’s landmark Opera House but Gehry’s projects are known also for his efficiency. His commissions are known to be brought in on time and on budget. Whereas Sydney’s Opera house was years late and 1,400% over budget.

The problem is that a trip to the AGO is not inexpensive. Situated just three blocks from the hostel’s doors, an adult admission is $19 and students with I.D. is $10.

Our initial trip to the gallery took advantage of the free grand re-opening. The price of admission was a wait in line of over and hour; however, those in attendance averred it was well worth the wait.
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They call this tall girl Bea, for short. She’s a young Fraulein with a magnetic personality. She’s just beginning her year-long Canadian work/travel experience and has been staying with us since her arrival.

Bea easily found work here in Toronto and already holds down two jobs in her busy schedule. She works as a waitress at a restaurant called Savory Flavors and also works for Canada’s venerable Hudson’s Bay company as a sales associate.

This attractive young German miss is missing her boyfriend Eike. A year seems like a long spearation that could strain any relationship.

But Eike has solved that problem. He too, has obtained a working/holiday visa and is due to arrive in Toronto in two weeks! Bea can’t wait for November 25th to arrive.

The couple )plan to travel Canada together working their way from coast to coast. Their first planned stop (after Toronto) are the ski hills in the magnificent Rocky Mountains of western Alberta.

There are some people you just know are going to have a good year in Canada and we’re pretty certain that Bea is among them.

We had another visit by another school group this week. The John F. Ross Secondary School in Guelph, Ontario arrived with 21 students (12 females and 9 males) from an 11th grade course they call the DaVinci Program.

It seemed to us that it was a rather forward thinking program devised undoubtedly, by some forward thinking pedagogues. We are not certain of the details of the program but it seems to be a cultural experience combining both Arts and Sciences.

They first had a tour of the Bata Shoe Museum then attended a University of Toronto Hart House production of the Shakespearean tragedy “Macbeth”.

Their whirlwind (2 day, 1 night) tour of our city ended with a visit to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair an annual event held at Exhibition Place on Toronto’s waterfront. The “Royal” is the world’s largest combined indoor agricultural show and international equestrian competition.

Guelph is a neighbouring city with a University renowned for its’ Agricultural and Veterinary schools. One student from John F. Ross H.S. avers that the Royal Winter Fair was formerly held in Guelph.

We couldn’t confirm that bit of trivia; however, if it is true, it would have to have been prior to 1922 when the fair was first held in Toronto. Nonetheless, it is possible given the Guelph connection with Agricultural studies.

As close as we were able to ascertain, there was a heated debate (and considerable animus) between Hamilton, Ontario (located near Guelph) and Toronto over hosting of the initial event.

Anyhow, we sincerely hope that the John F. Ross students return to our hostel next year because the students were extremely polite, well-behaved and a pleasure to host.
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November 5th was a memorable day here at the hostel for two reasons. Firstly, a new American President was elected in an astounding victory most believed unthinkable!

The other is that Pearcey our events coordinator remained sober on the night of the 4th and arrived in Scotland after a drink befuddled year supporting our local pub, the Fox and Fiddle and a large assortment of nightclubs.

We are a little worried that our “local”, and some clubs, may not survive his departure. It must cause a severe strain on their revenues.

Pearcey organized a lot of “special events” here at the hostel during his one-year tenure as our events planner. A lot of his events (most actually) involved locating sources of lower cost alcoholic beverages. So it is no exaggeration to say that he altered the Zeitgeist of the hostel.

Nonetheless, participants in his events aver that the drinking events were a lot of fun. Still, those antics only appeal to a younger crowd for whom drinking is a rite of passage.

Lovely Diana our ever smiling German Fraulein has taken over the task of organizing events. In an attempt to appeal to a wider demographic, she has mixed in a few cultural evenings with the pub crawls and nightclub tours.

She has begun taking backpackers to the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto Art Gallery and live taping of the C.B.C. TV Hit Comedy, “Royal Canadian Air Farce”. This is, in addition, to the Circa and Republik Nightclubs and Karaoke singing at the Fox and Fiddle.

Not to worry, there will still be plenty of “Pub and Club” events, especially on weekends. Diana’s aim is to provide something for all tastes and all ages.

Matt is a big bear of a man from Western Oz. A Teddy Bear actually. He arrived in the winter of 2007 and quickly gained a reputation as a mild-mannered, even-tempered gentleman.

He left before Christmas for a job in Timmins, Northern, Ontario, where he conducted seismic exploration traveling the northern bush alone, in the dead of winter using snowshoes working in temperatures of -40C! He literally dropped of our radar.

He had gone to the remote Timmins area of northern Ontario known only for Black Flies, Black Bears and the fact that it is the home town of Shania Twain. An easy place to get lost in!

He had accepted the job along with Thiago, a Brazilian who arrived back at the hostel within three weeks on crutches having been injured in the bush and rescued by snowmobile! We lost touch with Matt for almost a year!

He returned on Halloween 2008 (dressed as Batman) as he made his way east to Halifax. When he completes that journey he will be able to say safely, that he has covered Canada from coast to coast.

” Here’s your Bear Spray and some Bear Bangers” (big firecrackers) he was told before setting off in to the wilderness. He must have been comforted by the information that the last employee mauled to death by an enraged Grizzly had happened more than two years previously. But the job paid quite well as one might expect.

His work brought him to Calgary in the west; north to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories to Whitehorse in the Yukon and on to the high Arctic (Polar Bear country; bigger, stronger, meaner and even more dangerous than Grizzly’s) still conducting surveys for mining exploration companies.

Matt’s plans are to visit Ottawa, our nation’s capital and head to Montreal, Quebec City then on to the Maritimes. And by then he will have seen Canada from north to south, east to west.

Big Matt with friends on the patio (just before Christmas 2007) before disappearing into the bush of northern Canada.

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Halloween ‘08. He returns to the hostel as the “Caped Crusader”! (So that’s what he’s been doing!)

Halloween is the number two occasion (or excuse) for a party second only to New New Year’s Eve. But it is far and away the number one occasion for fancy dress.

This years hostel party was a roaring success. Superheros Batman, Superman and Captain America attended along with the mandatory Mummys, Witches, Ghost, Goblins, Hobos and He-Men.

This is also the time to ogle some of the hottest and sexiest dressed females ever to grace our premises! Whoop! Whoop!

Some of our guests elected to go to the city’s Gay District to witness what has become a annual spectacle. Nowhere in the city are the costumes more outrageous. the revelry more intense and the parties more festive.

In keeping with Toronto’s reputation for tolerance both gay and straight people join the festivities. But it is a busy night and would-be celebrants must contend with long lineups at local bars and clubs.

Nonetheless, the street spectacle is well worth the trip to Church and Wellesly Streets in the heart of the Gay Village.

Meanwhile, the party at the hostel continued until the early hours of the morning so those who chose to visit “The Church Street Gay Village” were still able to join the party on their return.

October 31st! It’s a wild and crazy time in the city!

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