I found myself once, at the edge of a frozen pond near my childhood town, watching a small silhouette busily rearrange the shoreline. It was late afternoon; the light was thin and soft. I remember thinking — in the way children do — that this animal was quietly running the country. It felt oddly comforting….
The first winter I spent in a small cabin on the edge of a boreal forest, I remember scraping frost from the window and watching a dark shape across the clearing vanish into a mound of snow. I assumed the bear inside had “gone to sleep” until spring — a single long nap. Over the…
I remember landing in Toronto on a rainy afternoon and stepping into a café where the barista knew my name and the neighborhood felt — inexplicably — like permission. That same quiet permission is often what drives famous people north: a place that feels less like a stage and more like a living room. For…
I still remember standing on a January sidewalk, mittened hands wrapped around a paper cup from the corner Tim Hortons, watching steam rise into a sky the colour of pewter. The bus was late. Two strangers apologized to each other for the delay. A woman across the street offered me the last seat on a…
The first time I went looking for “weird” museums in Canada, I expected a handful of kitschy roadside stops and one or two charming oddities. What I found instead was a string of places that felt like tiny, earnest universes — towns that made a decision to preserve a particular sense of humor, curiosity, or…
I remember the night my partner and I sat at a small kitchen table covered in moving boxes and a chipped mug of cold tea. A sticky note on the table read, “Where do we belong?” — and the question felt huge, private, and heavy. We weighed schools, doctor access, where our friends might find…