Canadiana Backpackers Blog

North Bay? It must be something in the water.

For several years now, we have been hosting school groups from North Bay, Ontario. It’s a small city of more than 50,000 people located about five hours drive due north of Toronto.

A West Ferris High teacher, John Hetherington has been escorting groups to our hostel in order to allow students from a culturally homogenous region to experience the cultual diversity of Toronto.

(See our previous entries: “A Prescient Pedagogue” (June, 2008) and “Cultural and Religious Understanding” (July, 2007).)

When we say “it must be something in the water” we are alluding to the forward thinking that is apparent in North Bay  schools.

Quite independently, we had a second H.S. group arrive at our hostel. This much smaller group of only five “special needs” students was accompanied by no less than three “special education” teachers Chris, Sheila and Bill.

The five students were from Chippewa High School are high-functioning autistics which accounts for the high ratio of teacher/chaperones to students.

The small group came on a two-day excursion to Toronto which involved visits to the CN Tower and  the Ontario Science Centre.

We see and host a lot of diverse “youth groups” and “school groups” here at our Toronto hostel. We have had groups from the Manchester Boy’s Choir to students from Scandanavia and Scout and Guide Troops from several nations.

Both schools mentioned above (West Ferris High and Chippewa Intermediate and Secondary School are part of the Near North District School Board system that services the Nipissing and Parry Sound regions.

This is an organization with some pretty progressive programs and the Canadiana hostel is proud to have been chosen to host them here in Toronto.

Just when you thought it was safe to go into the woods again….

What follows was taken verbatim from today’s Toronto Star, Canada’s largest and well-respected newspaper:

The Canadian Press

STRATFORD, Ont. – The Ministry of Natural Resources has issued a warning after several bear sightings in southwestern Ontario.

Residents of northeast Oxford County and part of the Waterloo region are being warned to keep an eye out for bears.

The ministry is also reminding people to take steps to avoid attracting the animals.

Those measures include securely storing garbage, removing grease and food residue from outdoor grills after each use, and removing bird feeders.

There have been recent incidents in an area near Orillia where people have been attacked and charged by black bears.

One man attacked by a bear ended up in hospital.

Recently, here at the hostel we have been asked about bear hazards by backpackers planning to camp there way across Canada. We tell them (as we always do) that bear attacks are very, very rare (because they are) and common sense is about the best precaution (which it is.)

So the best advice we can give to you would-be campers/hikers is go out and enjoy Canada’s wonderful wilderness heritage.

As to what to do about our ursine friends, we will refer you to the experts once again. Below is a link to what Parks Canada has to say about what precautions to take in bear country:

http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/nt/nahanni/visit/visit8.aspx

Mark Donnelly is one of our longest term residents here at our Toronto Hostel. He’s from Northern Ireland and was training to qualify as a solicitor before the economic downturn of last year.

He hasn’t done too badly working for Canadian law firms and had become a minor hostel celebrity thanks to CBC interviews discussing the latest Irish diaspora.

Mark has been with us for some months and had become a pretty good friend as well as a hostel fixture.

That is, until we read his latest Facebook entry:

“Move into the new gaff, the World Cup starts and the A-Team is out…all in the same day! This has the potential to be the best day ever!”

Looks like Mark has tired of our company. Well, same-to-you Donnelly.

The truth is we will allmiss having him around.  Mark has made a lot of friends here with his good sense of humour and outgoing (and irreverant) personality.

Still, this is the Canadiana, a home-away-from-home. Virtually everybody who has stayed here and moves out on their own eventually comes back to visit.

We are certain Mark will never be a stranger.

Mattia and Alex are two young adventuers from Turin, Italy. They arrived at our Toronto hostel with plans of purchasing a servicable vehicle to drive across and around Canada.

Little did they know that Ontario is a very difficult place to plan such an enterprise. If it isn’t the most difficult juristiction to accomplish this plan, it is right up there near the top.

The two young travelers are no strangers to long-term, long-distance travel. After spending two years exploring Australia and a year on the road in New Zealand, they decided to give Canadian backroads a try.

They had planned to drive and camp their way across this vast land but had dome concerns about bears. Our efforts to explain how rare bear attacks are were thwarted by front page coverage of a severe mauling of a hiker just an hour north of Toronto.

Anyhow, insurance and licencing concerns obviated the plan to purchase a vehicle in Ontario. The two intrepid travelers boarded a bus for a grueling two-and-a-half day ride to Calgary.

We trust they will have better luck finding a vehicle in Alberta and be able to fulfil their plan to drive from the Yukon to Costa Rica.

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Mattia, and Alex

Bonnie Couchie is a young folk singer from Pic River, Ontario. It is a booming metropolis of 350 souls about a thousand miles north and west of Toronto. It is an area of breathtaking scenery situated on the north shore of Lake Superior.

In fact, Pic River is a First Nation’s Native Reserve and Bonnie is what is known as a “Status Indian” (a slightly pejorative term and a misnomer in more ways than one); but there are certain advantages to having such “status” – taxation being chief among them.

Bonnie is an acomplished singer/guitar player and came all the way to Toronto to play a gig at Free Times Cafe – a local Folk Music venue on College Street close to the hostel.

Bonnie has released a CD of her own compositions titled “Feather for an Elephant”. We played it in the hostel’s common area and it was very well received by our backpacker guests.

Our First Nation’s people have produced some terrific folk singers such as Buffy Sainte-Marie, Susan Aglukark and Kashtin to name only a few.

And like a lot of aspiring singers that pass through our hostel hers is a name you might do well to remember. She’s liable to become a big name someday soon.

For a sample of her music go to:

http://www.myspace.com/bonniecouchie

People planning to travel to Toronto often pose questions on our “Facebook” site. This site was begun by a former backpacker a year or so ago and already has close to a thousand members.

A common question is what the weather will be like. This is an important question, especially for backpackers as they all want to travel as lightly as possible.

But it is rapidly becoming a question hostel staff can’t answer with any degree of certainty or accuracy.

It has just turned June here in the city. And May, nearly always cool, temperate and springlike is usually one of the most pleasant times of the year. (Usually, long pants and light jackets will suffice.)

But we have already had Toronto’s first “Heat Alert” with temperatures approaching 30C. That may not sound very high; however, Toronto’s notorious humidity makes things brutally unpleasant.

Our summer solstice does not arrive for almost 3 weeks so to say the hot weather is unusual is a major understatement.

Canadians, especially Toronto residents, are typical of residents in “developed” nations. They complain a lot even when they have little to complain about.

Taxes, for instance; yes, they are high. but we have safe, clean streets; universal free healthcare; pretty good infrastructure (i.e. our roads are not potholed and our bridges don’t fall down.)

But do we complain about climate change? Well, not really.

We’ve always known and expected cold winters in Canada and we’ve adapted our lifestyle to accommodate the weather extremes. But we are spared the annual hurricane/tornado season that our neighbors to the south endure.

A Tornado occurs near Toronto once every few decades and the last Hurricane to strike Toronto was almost sixty years ago.

We mostly think this is going to be a hot (very hot) but festive summer. Toronto has already implemented a program to deal with the impact of climate change.

You can find some information here:

http://www.cleanairpartnership.org/pdf/adapting_cc_brochure.pdf

So join us here in Toronto for some hot times in the old town this summer.