I'm an awards junkie. My OCD side loves the fussy way you have to put together entries — often cutting and pasting a story into a new document and stripping out your name and publication. It's always a thrill to…
I live on the Danforth in Toronto near one of the city's main Ethiopian restaurant strips, but my favourite Ethiopian restaurant in Canada is actually in Yellowknife. That's right — Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, population 20,000 has an excellent, diverse food scene.…
Two things I learned last summer in Newfoundland: Baby puffins are called pufflings, and pufflings are relatively cute but don't yet have that distinctive orange striped beak that makes us fall so hard for them. I spent a day with the…
Muskoka—Deep in the heart of Ontario’s maple syrup country, we wrap ourselves in lumberjack fleece blankets and join Bill Statten and his horse Eddie for a wagon ride through the forest. If only there had been more snow, we could…
With my 50th birthday looming last December, I was a little spun out and craving drama — so I bought a house on Fogo Island. Fogo is an island off an island (Newfoundland and Labrador) that's about two days from Toronto.…
Pinch me and then pour me a drink — I just won three writing awards from the North American Travel Journalists Association. A package of my Canada 150 stories in the Toronto Star won Gold in the Travel Series category for print…
Giant roadside attractions compel you jump out of your car for a selfie. This guy's in Gladstone, Manitoba, not far from Winnipeg. Glad stone. Happy rock. Get it? I'm slow. I passed by Happy Rock on my way to Riding…
Mummers. I first heard that strange and alluring word in 2017 and it alone made me go to St. John’s, Newfoundland to find out more. Mummering is an ancient custom of disguise and house visits at Christmas, but it's a tradition that's…