Or so says Christopher Hume, writing in the Toronto Star: “Toronto’s accidental treasure“
I love the Spit: it’s a bird sanctuary, wilder than most city parks, looks a bit like Scotland with its hills and fjords, I mean lochs. It’s a good place for a walk or a bike ride. Who cares that the park exists only on weekends or that it’s built out of landfill?
Here’s a link to some British Columbia webcams: BC highway cams.
Revelstoke, B.C., is entirely surrounded by mountains except for a couple of passes. It’s an inland rain forest, humid in summer and snowy in winter. They had at least 12 feet (3.5 m) of snow this year. There’s still snow in drifts here and there, waterfalls coming off the mountain, and stretches of road marked “Avalanche Area: do not stop.” The mountains are amazing and beautiful - sometimes like solid clouds, sometimes hidden in fog, sometimes monumental and brooding.
I’m having a mini-vacation at South River, visiting Chocpaw Expeditions. I’ll be back Friday night.
June Callwood, who has been fighting cancer for four years, has died. She will long be remembered for her sense of justice. Callwood was the author of thirty books and started fifty social organizations. Callwood once said,
“If you see an injustice being committed, you aren’t an observer, you are a participant.”
Canada’s June Callwood has been a noted feminist and author, and a very gracious human being, for many years. I had the privilege of being introduced to her, years ago, by Margaret Fraser, the subject of Callwood’s book, Twelve Weeks in Spring.
She was interviewed by George Stromboulopoulos of CBC TV’s The Hour. Over the last three years she has been battling cancer. It’s mysterious, with secondary cancers all over the place when they can’t find the primary one. They gave her six months to live–three years ago. But now it’s on the move again and she’s saying goodbye to friends and family. She wants no fuss and no memorial service.
When George asked he what she thought came after this, she said, “Nothing. There’s nothing after this. We get a life, now, here.” Her point is that it’s up to us to make that life count.
And she’s giving her family and admirers the final gift that is ours to give–she is facing death with courage and without complaint.
February 2007 — by Jack Saunders, Communications Advisor
C-c-c-cold enough for you?
TORONTO, ONTARIO–(CCNMatthews - March 1, 2007) - The above-normal temperatures that have been reported since November of last year have now been replaced with exceptionally cold temperatures. Across the province, the mean temperatures for the month have now dropped in a range of two to five degrees below normal.
Snowfall was also noteworthy this month. The Great Lakes, with most of the surface as open water in the early part of the month, was responsible for high snow reports in some areas. The typical snowbelt areas, and atypically Hamilton, had high accumulations - in the case of Wiarton, it was record breaking. Locations outside these snowbelt areas had near-normal or below-normal amounts.
Overall, the trend of precipitation was drier than normal across the province. The colder temperatures reduced the amount of available moisture in these cases.
Severe Weather
Lake-effect snows were the big story to start off the month. On February 1 and 2, a very cold flow of air from the southwest caused snow bands to set up off of Georgian Bay. These bands ended up dumping approximately 40 centimetres of snow in the North Bay area during these two days. On February 2, a series of snow bands from the southwest moved onshore near the Cobourg area and caused near-whiteout conditions that may have been an important factor in a fatal crash on Highway 401.
From February 4-7, the winds shifted and blew the cold air in from the northwest. This shifted snowsquall activity to the more traditional snowbelt areas to the lee of Lake Superior, Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. During this four-day period, Sault Ste Marie received a little more than 70 centimetres of snow and the Barrie area almost 60 centimetres. As well, in less than 12 hours during this timeframe, the Owen Sound area picked up approximately 50 centimetres of fresh snow.
St. Valentine’s Day turned out to be more for shovelers than for lovers, especially around the western end of Lake Ontario. A well-developed storm system that moved south of the lower Great Lakes combined with strong lake-effect snow bands generated with a wind from the northeast to give the Hamilton area an official 46 centimetres. This all occurred just between the evening of February 13 and the morning of February 14. However, unofficial estimates of the snow in areas around Hamilton and Burlington were upwards of 60 centimetres, with drifts well over a metre in height. Other parts of Southern Ontario which were not impacted by the off-lake snow received amounts between 10 and 15 centimetres.
(… more at link.)
The Clear Language and Design, or CLAD, Web site is a plain language resource and the gateway to a plain-language editing service. Plain language provides clear, simple language that makes technical content or Web sites accessible to the average reader. It’s an important goal.
The Web site includes a very useful readability evaluation tool.
The consultants on the CLAD team contribute most of their fees to support Toronto’s East End Literacy project.
Percy Saltzman, who brought the idea of dynamic weather reporting to television and made it happen, died at age 91 after a brief illness. Mr. Saltzman received the Order of Canada in 2003. He was an interesting character. Read about him.
Larry Moran at Sandwalk reminds us that it’s the birthday of our first Prime Minister:
In typical Canadian fashion, we honour our most famous Canadian (he’s on the $10 bill) by going off to work. There’s no holiday for Canadians on January 11th. You celebrate by raising a glass of scotch when you get home in the evening, or maybe at lunch.
