the write stuff

Jul 26

The boy whose breath deserts him when he sleeps

It’s a busy Wednesday night at the Fergus swimming pool. Babies as young as a few month’s old are being introduced to the water in the small, warm pool.

Sea to sea on two wheels

WE’D RIDDEN WELL into the evening and it was nearly dark, so we threw our bikes over a farmer’s fence at the side of the highway, gobbled a quick pasta dinner chased by a Mars bar dessert, then opted to camp on the open prairie without a tent. Our gear was strewn everywhere as we fell asleep under the stars, oblivious to the tiny flashes of lightning on the distant western horizon.

Who stole Church of Our Lady from Starkey Hill?

I’ve hiked the Starkey Hill trail many times since I moved to Guelph a decade ago. At first, I was astonished by the sudden appearance of Church of Our Lady on the western horizon as I reached “the summit” of the trail in the last quarter of the 4K loop. (It’s now “Basilica” of Our Lady, but I like the older term.) Read more

May 12

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Every breath you take

At this time of the year Vancouver is verdant, warm and blooming. And well it should be: spring has already been on the go for two months, or sometimes even four. Read more

Feb 26

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Miss you Sarah, now and forever

Ten years ago my wife and I spotted deer in the woods below our house in Elora, for the first time ever. There was also a lot of noisy activity from the crows in the cedars, which seemed odd because it was still late winter. Read more

Feb 24

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Who killed Ontario’s Himalayas? There’s a smoking gun …

One of the favourite day trips from our summer cottage on Georgian Bay is to a lakeside patch of granite everyone calls “Painted Rocks,” even though it has no such name on the map. It’s a spectacular place, where the mysterious forces of deep nature are hard at work, on a time scale you can scarcely imagine. Read more