Find My Country

Tomorrow (Today?) is Fete Nationale – and I happen to be smack dab in the middle of Montreal. I will have full pictures / videos / etc.. of the party to share with you tomorrow.

I managed to find a picture that I took (today) which expresses how I feel perfectly.

It is with a profound feeling of loss that I sit here, virtually useless.

At night, Whitehorse is a bit strange. A group of wanna-be rappers wander the “hood”, something I could never understand. I always thought the Rap phenomena was an attempt at inner-city thugs to take on the airs of being tough – the urban cowboys, so to speak. The unspoken reality is that we all know Urban-dwellers are wimps compared to those who live in Rural areas – and our urban cowboys are weaklings who hide behind bad fashion. Considering that Whitehorse is right next to the wild, and that it produced much tougher people than we would ever see performing on stage, why wouldn’t someone show off hunting duds instead of rapper attire?

If you want to know the dark side of living in a city, this is pretty much it.

At the corner of Front Street and Bay Street lies the crown of Toronto’s public transportation system – Union Station. A major transportation hub, with connections to Toronto’s Subway, GO Transit, VIA Rail, Streetcars and Buses, Union Station is the busiest transportation hub in Canada.

A fire destroyed much of downtown Toronto in 1904. This catastrophic event did, however, create enough space for the construction of a major train hub in the downtown area. After a difficult war-time construction period which lasted almost 7 years (1914-1921), and the bankrupcy of one of the train companies (the Grand Trunk Railway), the station was complete. However, the particulars, in a show of true Canadian spirit, spent 3 years fighting over grade seperations. (This is the method by which railway tracks are seperated from roadways through bridges, different track routes, etc..). Finally in 1927, the station was open to the public.

At the opening ceremony, the Prince Edward, the Prince of Whales remarked that we Canadians built our railway stations like how the British built their cathedrals. One can easily understand why. The beautiful structure is from the “Beaux-Art” style of archetecture, which emphasizes symmetry and a multitude of archtectural influences. A first-time visitor to Union Station can’t help but be taken aback by its opulence and the beauty. Everything, from the roof to the floor, is adorned with, what to me is, ceremic art. I have never seen a more beautiful station in Canada or Japan.

Toronto is the polar opposite of Montreal in some respects. Montreal is a town teeming with nightlife, but dead for most of the day. Toronto is filled with activity, from dawn until dusk.

Toronto is the biggest city in Canada – and has a skyline to prove it.

Birds can fly in huge formations, as I saw here in Toronto. Click the picture to see the full version.