Travel – Page 2 – Nicolas Demers

I felt like a tourist in my home town

I went back to Ottawa to visit my family for the holidays and it struck me—not for the first time—that I was a tourist in my home town. Gone for almost 15 years, coming back once a year on average, gradually lost touch with most of my friends there—but this time, I decided to roll with it, and actually do the touristy thing. Well, it was either that or stay indoors and cower from the winter cold.

First stop, Parliament Hill. I’ve only gone a couple of times, including one school trip, and at least one student protest. Was kind of hoping I could get in, but no, only staff or tour groups were allowed inside. Oh well, I still snapped some photos, then wandered around the Byward Market, the Art Gallery, and Notre Dame Cathedral.

Next day, I hit the Experimental Farm. The weather was fine and clear, though still bloody cold.

And on the flight back, I managed to get some more pictures from the plane. Picking a window seat on the starboard side was a long shot because I didn’t know how good the weather would be, but it paid off. Skies were clear for big chunks of northern Ontario, and bits of Manitoba and Alberta, as well as the Lower Mainland. Score! And once back, I got some experience fiddling with colour levels to remove the atmospheric haze. On the whole, I’m pretty happy with the results.

Ghosts of Old Victoria

As I said in my previous post, during my recent trip to Victoria I went on a ghost walking tour. It was fairly entertaining (our guide was quite a good storyteller), and I learned quite a bit about the history of Victoria, though of course it didn’t convince me that ghosts are real.

The Empress Hotel
Burial Boxes and Floating Heads
Haunted Kitcken
Waiting for the Flood
The Steamship Valencia
Cradles and Ley Lines
The Hanging Judge
Helmcken Alley

Starting Out

We started out near the harbour. Our guide—an older gentleman with a nice hat and a cane topped by a silver skull–got the ball rolling by asking, “What are ghosts?” He went on for a bit about how ghosts are energy, and the law of conservation of energy says they never go away, so we’re surrounded by ghostly energy all the time. Sometimes we see ghosts, sometimes we hear them, or feel a cold breeze, or something. And anytime you don’t know exactly where some random sensation comes from, you should ditch logic and consider the supernatural. Seriously, this was a textbook Argument from Ignorance.

Sigh. I guess I expected the bullshit pseudoscience and broken logic, but this wasn’t really getting me in the mood. I wanted gory tales of death and dismemberment and ghostly torment, dammit! Everybody else seemed to be eating it up, though, especially once he gave us instructions on sensing ghostly energy with the palm of our hands. The trick is to rub the thumb on the opposite palm quickly (do this with both hands), then sort of feel around, or slowly put both hands together, and if you feel a tingling or prickling it’s totally that you’re sensing your own energy. No other possible explanation!

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The Empress Hotel

Anyway, on to the ghost stories! Our first stop was on the harbour, in front of the Empress Hotel. The Empress, dontcha know, is one seriously haunted hotel.

Apparently almost every room and corridor has a story attached to it, but our guide focused on two. First, the eighth (and topmost) floor of the West tower is haunted. Apparently, in the 60’s when that whole wing was under construction, a workman was up in the unfinished 8th floor and saw weird moving shadows, of a body swinging back and forth, but there was nobody there! The man was scared out of his gourd, and immediately quit. Further investigation revealed that a worker had hanged himself there about a year (I think) previously, but management had hushed up the whole thing so as not to scare away employees or guests.

Our guide claims to have worked at the Empress during the 60’s, but got the story second-hand through another employee; he never spoke to the worker who saw (or claimed to see) the apparition. Maybe there never was such a worker. Maybe the whole story is just urban legend. Who knows? This happened 45 years ago, and the top floor (supposedly) remained vacant or unfinished since then. 10 years ago they converted the floor to luxury suites. I don’t remember if those suites are said to be particularly haunted. But they probably are.

He also told us about a ghostly old woman who haunts the 6th floor of the same wing. You’ll hear a knock at the door, and open to an old lady in pajamas, who seems lost and confused. You try to help her find her room, and she leads you to the elevator. Then about that point, she vanishes. The story goes that she was a winter guest at the hotel many years ago, who simply died of natural causes. Her spirit stayed in the room, but got brutally evicted when that room was torn out to make room for the elevators. Now she wanders around lost, unable to rest because ghosts don’t like change.

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Burial Boxes and Floating Heads

Moving a little bit up the harbour, the guide pointed out the Inn at Laurel Point, clearly visible across the bay at night with its green neon “L” sign. This is the setting of the next story. The Songhees people (the Nation whose traditional territory includes the Victoria area) have a custom of burying important people in boxes either placed high up in trees, or buried in the ground. One such burial site was at Laurel Point, but was torn up by an evil enterpreneur who built his house and shop on the desecrated site. Soon after, the shop went up in flames. The owner’s wife is said to have seen something emerge from the flames, but it’s not clear what. She got sick and died a few weeks later; the coroner’s verdict was that she “died of fright”.

The land was sold to William Pendray (one of the biggest industrialists in Victoria then) and a factory was built on the site. But a string of weird accidents and occurrences kept happening; Pendray’s son died when his horse spooked and threw him off and somehow his head was cut off by a cart wheel. Four years later, Pendray himself died while inspecting his factory when a pipe fell on his head. Pendray’s house is now part of Gatsby Mansion, an upscale little hotel right by Laurel Point. The spirits don’t try to kill people anymore, but it’s supposedly still haunted. If you stay in room #5, you will see two ghostly heads emerge from the walls and sort of circle each other. They may try to talk, but their words are impossible to make out. These heads are Pendray and son, haunting the places of their untimely deaths.

PS: the deaths of the Pendrays are documented fact, though I suspect details in the guide’s story are exaggerated. For example, all the sources on the Net mention only that Pendray Jr. was thrown from his horse.

PPS: there’s a simple way to disprove the haunting story. The guide said that anybody, even skeptics, will see these heads if they stay the night in room #5.

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Haunted Kitchen

Next stop: Nautical Nellie’s. The kitchen is said to be haunted, with various poltergeist-y activities: rattling cookware, occasionally thrown objects, that sort of thing. What’s odd is that there are no records of murders or violent deaths in that spot, which is usually an indicator of restless spirits.

The real (for certain values of “real”) story is this: back in the 1850’s, the spot was part of Fort Victoria, with the palisades, fur storehouses… and cannons. In 1846 those cannons were used to shoot at a chief’s house across the bay, whose subjects were hostile and needed to be intimidated; thankfully, nobody was home and nobody died. In 1853, Governor Douglas was coming into the harbour; as he rounded Laurel Point, the fort fired its cannons to greet him. Some guy (I forget his function, either a junior officer or civilian) was leaning too close to the cannon and didn’t hear the warning, and got his hand shot off. The story goes that Douglas saw this hand fly overhead, and the crew of his ship unsuccessfully tried to retrieve it.

It is apparently this hand that’s haunting Nautical Nellie’s kitchen.

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Waiting for the Flood

Right next door to Nautical Nellie’s is Red Fish Blue Fish, another fine seafood restaurant. It is also the former old Customs House, built in 1875 and still standing to this day. At the time, the customs house was generally hated by Victoria’s population because it was a symbol of broken promises. When BC joined Confederation in 1871 Victoria was promised a railway, but the terminus ended up in Vancouver instead. I’m not really clear how politicians expected the train to cross the water, but hey. Worse, the customs house took a cut from all the commerce coming into Victoria—and there was a lot—and sent it out to faraway Ottawa.

That’s not the ghost story, that was just a bit of history to put us in the mood. And honestly, as a tourist I do appreciate all these little tidbits of Victoria history. But here’s the ghost story:

Emily Carr (yes, that Emily Carr) was born in 1871, the same year BC became part of Canada, not far from where the customs house would be built. As a young child (it’s said) she hung out on the docks in this very spot by the customs house, listening to tall tales from an… uncle? family friend? I don’t remember and my notes aren’t clear. Anyway, there was one particular story she loved, of a great wave coming in from the sea and washing over the buildings. She’d spend hours at the window (of the customs house, apparently) watching out for this fantasy tidal wave. It’s said she’s there to this day. The guide pointed out one window on the ground floor of the customs house, where a ghostly image of the child Emily may sometimes be seen.

Carr died on March 2^nd 1945, at the James Bay Inn, which at the time was operated as a hospital. It is said she still haunts room 115, where she died. I don’t remember what the guide said about apparitions in that rooms, but they’re probably not frightening. Incidentally, this means that Carr is haunting two places at the same time. This makes sense if you think of ghosts as echoes, projections, as opposed to disembodied consciousnesses, but the guide never brought that up—maybe hoping the group wouldn’t pick up on the apparent contradiction. I guess ghosts can be whatever you want them to be, and the more stories the better.

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The Steamship Valencia

We walked over to the north end of the wharf, and the guide related the sorry tale of the SS Valencia.

On January 22^nd, 1906, the Valencia was coming in from San Francisco when she got lost in the fog, hit a reef near Pachena Point and ran aground. Though they were in sight of land, the waves and cold meant that few of the crew made it to shore to signal for help. Rescue ships could not approach the wreck but managed to pick up some survivors in lifeboats. On January 24^th a large wave washed the wreck off the rocks, killing all remaining passengers on board. In all, out of the approximately 150 passengers and crew, only 37 men survived (and no women or children).

Since then, there have been a number of rumours and ghosts sightings of the Valencia or her dead crew. Sometimes the ship itself is seen reenacting its destruction; one time, a lifeboat is claimed to be found with skeletons on board but always disappears before an investigation can be mounted. According to the guide the Valencia “wants to be remembered”.

PS: interesting factoid, it seems the Valencia is the only ghost ship in the area.

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Cradles and Ley Lines

The supernatural isn’t all about suicides and tragic deaths. Some of it is positive. Songhees Point (opposite Laurel Point, and together with it forming the entrance to Victoria’s inner harbour) was known to the local people as “Place of the Cradle” or “Cradle-board.” This name came from the tradition of leaving infants’ cradles in that place as soon as they were old enough to walk, to give them luck and long life.

Then the guide went off on a tangent about Stonehenge; why is it there, out in the middle of nowhere? Turns out it aligns perfectly with other special landmarks, all the better to carry energy or something. Oh crap, I thought, he’s talking about ley lines.

Yes indeed. Did you know there’s a ley line in Victoria? It’s several city blocks wide (really) and about 5km long, stretching from Place-of-the-Cradle through Bastion Square, St. Andrew’s Cathedral, and ending at the 7th fairway of the Victoria Golf Course. No, really. Naturally, that fairway is haunted—by a woman who was murdered there, though my notes don’t have any juicy details.

I know what you’re thinking: do these places actually line up? Well, sure… as long as you accept that the ley line is “several blocks wide”. Songhees Point is almost exactly due west of Bastion Square. That might or might not be a problem, since the Square isn’t exactly aligned east-west, pointing more towards the Delta Victoria Inn. Likewise, St. Andrew’s is pretty much due east of Bastion Square, so those line up okay. But the golf course, and especially the 7th fairway (which I believe is at the southern end of the course, hugging the coastline), is way off. You’d really need to stretch to align that with the other 3 landmarks. The Oak Bay Marina is a much better fit, but I guess there aren’t any murder stories associated with it.

And really, in a city with such a rich history that kind of mystical math isn’t hard to do. Take a halfway regular street grid, a good mix of Native and colonial landmarks, give yourself enough leeway, and you’re good to go.

At this point we got away from the harbour and crossed into Bastion Square. The guide pointed out the Commerce Canoe, a recently-commissioned piece of art. It definitely looked like a reference to the old Songhees custom of burying their dead in canoes up in trees, but the guide hinted that there was more than that. The canoe, he said, pointed towards Laurel Point.

Part of another ley line? Did he get it confused with Songhees Point? Because the Commerce Canoe most definitely does not point towards Laurel Point, that’s too far south. As I remember it, and as my photo suggests, it’s pretty well aligned with the street, which means it points a bit north of due west.

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The Hanging Judge

The website advertised “narrow streets and back alleys of Old Town”, but up to that point, there hadn’t been any back alleys. Now that was about to change! Our guide first pointed out the BC Maritime Museum, which is—you guessed it—haunted. Many people have reported feeling pressure (not just slight, but a strong shove), seeing a strange “burly man”… sorry, my notes aren’t too clear on this. Bottom line: haunted. He took us on a side alley, turning only a couple times but that was enough to completely lose me. We ended up in a little courtyard behind the museum (I think), and there we went inside.

It was a little side room, with a dozen or so chairs, and some weird decor I’ll get to in a moment. We sat down and he regaled us with some old tales of the museum from when it was a courthouse and gallows. There was a particularly nasty judge, lots of hangings, and since we’re talking criminals here, a lot of them didn’t have anyone to claim their body, so they were buried on the premises.

The room we were in was either designed to play up the “ghost” theme, or else it was co-rented by a coven of cheap gothy Wiccans. The only illumination came from a couple windows and a couple lamps with very dark lampshades. In one corner was a sort of Hallowe’en graveyard display, with cardboard tombstones and a sad plastic skeleton with a missing leg.

One girl sitting by herself at the very back seemed… kind of spaced out. She looked either still cold or really nervous about the whole ghost thing, and I kept waiting for her to scream that she saw a ghost. Honestly, I couldn’t help wondering if she was a plant, there to ramp up the spooked-out atmosphere and thus make everybody else more likely to “see” something.

Nobody did, unfortunately, even those that went into the very dark corner that was lousy with ghost energy—or so the guide said. You’d be likely to feel physical pressure or strong tingling on the palms of your hands that you just rubbed with your thumbs. Unfortunately, that was kind of a bust too.

We went back out into the (comparatively better-lit) night for the last leg of our trip.

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Helmcken Alley

The big attraction here was the haunted well. It seems that in the spring of 1858, during the Gold Rush, a group of miners were camping out in what’s now Helmcken Alley, just outside the site of Fort Victoria. One of them lost a ladle (according to my notes) down the well, and bribed a boy to retrieve it, but the boy fell and died. The well remained, but was eventually covered by subsequent buildings until 1975, when it was rediscovered, then nicely bricked up and made the focal point of the lobby. This apparently ticked off the boy’s spirit and now he causes… actually, I’m not sure what, my notes don’t say. But it’s not good. Apparently if you look at night, or take pictures without a flash, you see… something. Which I thought was very silly, because what you’re seeing is reflections on the glass outside the lobby.

The alley just outside the building is also said to be haunted. Long ago, chain gangs used to march back and forth down this alley. One of them was murdered by the guards. Some say you can hear the clang of chains. Sometimes.

In Conclusion

Okay, so that was pretty entertaining, a nice way to spend an hour and a half in a city you’re not too familiar with. And aside from the supernatural stuff it was quite educational—gotta say, Victoria packed a lot of history in a mere century and a half. But for me, all the pseudo-scientific babble actually worked against suspending my disbelief, because I could spot the faulty logic. If it had been a straightforward “here’s what people are saying, here’s what they believe” tour, or a bunch of way over-the-top tales of tragic deaths and vengeful spirits, it would have been easier to swallow. Oh, well. So when I get another chance, I doubt I’ll go on another tour to try different routes.

Skeptics in Victoria

It was totally a last-minute thing. Some of the the Skeptics in the Pub crowd had been talking about a weekend trip to Victoria, but that had been scheduled for mid-July, then rescheduled to… later. Then, at New Bright Lights on Friday I heard that it had indeed been rescheduled, for that weekend. Well, fortunately my plans for the weekend had fallen through, so it was an easy decision. Rides, a place to stay, a clean pair of underwear in my bag, and I was good to go.

I figured I had to be back in Vancouver by noon because I was taking care of grass dropin volleyball and I couldn’t find someone else on such short notice. Then again, it would probably be raining, which let me off the hook. Then again again, what if it didn’t? Then again again again, you only live once.

So I was up early on a grey Saturday morning, off to take the ferry to Victoria. A few other skeptics were on board, so we hung out and—well, honestly, half the time we were all playing with our respective iPhones / iPads. But in a hanging-out sort of way.

Plans for the day were left deliberately vague. We had talked about going up to the Observatory, but that wasn’t happening in this weather. So, first order of business: lunch. Then, the Royal BC Museum. I’d only been there twice, and not for a long time. When was the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit? I think I was even still in school back then. So yes, a long time.

I went through all the exhibits: Natural History, First Nations, Century Hall, and took hundreds of pictures of the fossils, the skeletons, the bugs on pins, the sculptures, everything. I drank everything in, recording (or attempting to record) every single detail of my visit. Of course, most of my pictures didn’t turn out so great, and some just weren’t that interesting the day after. Why on earth did I take pictures of rows of dragonfly specimens—pretty though they were—and the signs identifying their species and sex? I mean, points for completeness, but I think I crossed a line somewhere.

Though if I did, I think the museum crossed it too. Now that I think about it, that exhibit is called “Behind the Scenes”, and all those shelves full of specimens and fossils and snakes in jars are supposed to give us a glimpse of science as it is actually practiced. Good job!

After a couple hours of this, a few of us went to see the IMAX movie on the Hubble space telescope. Frankly I was a bit scared of motion sickness—I’d had bad experiences in IMAX theatre—but everything was fine. And the movie itself? Awesome beyond words. I don’t know what impresses me more: the guts of the people who strap themselves to a giant controlled fireball to lift themselves out into the blackness of space, the ingenuity of the people who designed said fireball, the Hubble, and all the instruments to maintain it, or the breathtaking beauty of the universe as revealed through the telescope.

Some of the Hubble images, like the Pillars of Creation, are pretty common nowadays. Others, like Saturn’s Aurora Australis, a little less common. But what this movie showed us was beyond anything I’d ever seen, beyond the wildest sci-fi because it’s not just beautiful and awesome, it’s also true. That faraway stellar nursery (whose name I forget, could have been the Orion Nebula) whose newborn stars have carved out a deep canyon in the surrounding gas with their fierce solar winds; the faraway galaxies, pretty spirals or weird distorted shapes; a fantastic assortment of light and colour, all in 3D.

And then the gift shop had to spoil it for us by selling healing crystals to realign your chakras and increase your spiritual energy or whatever else. I notice they don’t have any stone to cure your gullibility.

After that we went out to hang with Daniel Loxton (author of the excellent children’s book Evolution and editor of Junior Skeptic magazine) in his cluttered and awesome studio, where Transformers posters competed with dinosaur models and old UFOlogy books. After dinner I and a friend decided to go on a ghost walking tour of downtown Victoria—hey, I’d never been on one, and they promised “narrow streets and back alleys” and a bunch of ghosts. Sounds like fun even if you don’t believe in ghosts.

UPDATE: And here it is

Purple Mountain Majesties

Sometimes things have a way of working out. Not for the “best” (this isn’t Candide, after all) but for the pretty good.

My flight home from Ottawa was supposed to take place Sunday night, connecting in Calgary. Nothing too special, I’d done it before. Except, what with the Christmas Day terrorist attempt, all airlines were in complete and utter chaos. I was warned that my flight to Calgary would be 2 hours late, so I could (a) stay in Ottawa and fly in the morning, or (b) … hey, there’s another flight going through Toronto, leaving right now.

That’s when the fun began. Long story short, my original flight was canceled, I was put on another flight (also to Toronto) which left a little later. Not a problem, I should still make it in plenty of time. Except I ended up leaving Ottawa over three hours late. Everybody on board missed their connecting flight, and had to be put up in a hotel.

I reached the Westin Bristol Place at about 11:30PM, one of over a hundred cranky fliers. Over two hours later, I was checked into my really quite awesome room. Too bad I had to get up in three hours to catch my rescheduled flight.

And that’s where you could say things worked out. Because my flight from Toronto was pretty smooth. Checkin was easy, security seemed a little more alert but not that paranoid. It even left on time! How about that! Even better: apparently to avoid the jet stream, our plane took a southerly route, heading straight across the Great Lakes as far as South Dakota, then angling up more or less in a straight line to Vancouver. That meant I got to see some scenery I’d never seen before, except in photos and that gay cowboy movie. Too bad there was too much cloud cover for most of the flight except over Montana and part of South Dakota.

Enjoy the rest!

That Last Step’s a Doozy

“Do one thing that scares you every day,” the bumper sticker says. In that case, I think I’ve saved up enough terror for the next couple of months. Because this weekend, some friends and I went to Whistler for zip-lining. Sound familiar? Yes. But this was a brand new tour, way more intense, with longer and steeper lines. Plus a really hot guide, though that wasn’t advertised.

The ziplining was hella fun, though my fear of heights really kicked up. I mean, yes, I kind of expected it, being a hundred feet up and all, but I’ve already been through this! Shouldn’t I have become desensitized to gliding through the air, just a little? Hmph. Well, the first line wasn’t bad. I went through it with nary a flutter in my stomach. The second and third, though? Flying over Fitzsimmons Creek? Not so easy.

The fourth was hardest, because I could see exactly how long it was, and how far down to the ground. Hell, the station was above the tops of some of the trees, and the next one was waay down in the valley (about 2000 feet away and 20 storeys down, so the guides said)! So, just like four years ago, I had to force myself forward until gravity took over.

The stations on this trek had four or five steps, down which you walked until your harness picked you up. On the fourth station I inched down those steps, taking advantage of every distraction, using my camera as a shield against the terrifying heights. Hey, that’s some lovely scenery! (it really was, too) *click* Oh, look, lichen! How interesting, I must take a picture this second!

I made it down—and across—eventually, but it was a hell of a chore. The last line wasn’t so hard, though I chickened out of trying to zip upside down.

Well, that’s okay. There’s always next time. I shouldn’t be too hard on myself, because after all it’s been four years since I did anything like this. And I wonder if maybe my fear of heights has gotten worse since my little ATV accident. I think I was a little twitchier than normal on my flight back East—not the parts where I took awesome pictures of the Prairies and lakes and whatnot, but the parts where we landed in Toronto and Ottawa amidst bad weather and a little turbulence. And I was very twitchy on the flight to Victoria a couple weeks ago, though that could have just been a healthy survival instinct. It’s hard to be objective about your own phobias, am I right?

But here’s the thing about fears: you have to face them. So what I’m doing now is studying for the NAGVA referee certification exam. Queen Vicki is coming up soon. Though I’m the most experienced ref on my team, I haven’t reffed in a major tournament in ages, and frankly I’m pretty intimidated. But hey, it’ll be an experience. As far as experiences go, maybe as much of a rush as zooming over the treetops above Whistler at a hundred kph.

The rest of the photos are right here!

Flying to Victoria

So this weekend, a few friends and I decided to take a day trip to Victoria. The twist was that we’d fly there. It’d be quick and pretty cheap, and (to me) a new experience. Plus, I hadn’t been to Victoria in a while. The upside: it really was quick, just around half an hour from downtown Vancouver to downtown Victoria, and I got to take some killer photos on the way. The downside: those little planes felt really rickety, and we hit a bit of turbulence over the Gulf Islands. Not a lot—I didn’t get sick, though I made sure an air sickness bag was available—but enough to make me nervous. Did I mention I’m afraid of heights? Because I am.

We spent the afternoon wandering around downtown Victoria, and then we took the ferry back like normal people. Oh, and on the way back I used the Canada Line SkyTrain for the first time (from 49^th Ave Station to downtown).

Relics

Quebec (the province and the city) has a lot of history. In Vancouver, “old” just means turn of the century (Gastown, some of Strathcona and New Westminster). But Vieux-Québec? Try turn of the eighteenth century, then we’ll talk. Everything just feels old, every street corner has a hundred stories to tell.

Most of that history is Catholic. Half the streets are named after saints, many of the historical buildings are churches, convents, presbyteries and so on. Every aspect of French-Canadian history is soaked in religious tradition. I don’t especially mind, when I see it purely as history. As much as I despise organised religion in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, it has inspired some beautiful art and architecture.

Mind you, Quebec’s not as religious as it used to be. A lot of these traditions are dying off, and so are the communities. Just as an example, Île-d’Orléans used to contain six parishes, one for each village, each with its own church and presbytery (where the religious folks lived). And maybe school, too, although I’m not sure about that. About twenty years ago, those six parishes were merged into two. Nowadays, there’s only one priest to serve the entire island, assisted by one other priest from the mainland to hold services at all the churches on the weekend. Which, let’s face it, is not a big trek, but still. It’s a hell of a change in just a couple of generations.

Many cash-strapped religious orders have also sold off buildings and property, which have been converted to other uses. Just as a for instance, the former presbytery of Sainte-Famille, Île-d’Orléans, is now a genealogy museum. Not to mention that Anglican church in Strathcona, converted to an art studio. A big improvement in both cases, I think.

We had dinner with a family friend, a parish priest in downtown Quebec who used to be assigned to our parish in Ottawa. He had some fun stories about the Dominican order’s internal politics, at the local and provincial level. But also stories of shrinking, and aging, flocks as well as priest communities themselves. Part of me felt a little sad for him. It can’t be easy to see your community and your whole way of life implode like that in his lifetime. As much as I believe the world is better off with less oppressive tradition, dogma and blind faith, it’s nothing personal. This friend of ours, he’s good people, and though I don’t respect his beliefs I respect the fact that they’re important to him.

One of the upsides is that nowadays, and especially for children, religious differences are not such a big deal anymore. As the bonds of faith are breaking down, so have the walls between faiths. We visited an Anglican church in Vieux-Québec: Holy Trinity Cathedral (the first Anglican cathedral built outside the British Isles, dating from 1804). There happened to be a gaggle of schoolkids on a field trip, and a guide (or the teacher, maybe) was explaining to these presumably Catholic children some differences between Catholicism and Anglicanism. For one thing, Anglicans display the Ten Commandments in the church. For another, they arrange them a little differently.

I’ve got a hard time imagining many pre-Vatican II Catholics willingly setting foot inside a hell-bound Protestant church, let alone having their children be educated on the finer points of Anglican worship and maybe learn that—gasp!—they really aren’t so different after all. Plus, Holy Trinity is supposed to be haunted. Those kids will go home thinking Anglicans churches are wicked cool.

But never fear, true believers. They say the heart of hardcore Catholicism is still beating, and from what I’ve seen I believe ’em.

Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, a little ways from Quebec City, has been a major pilgrimage site for over 300 years. The faithful—who these days are more likely to come in coach buses than on foot—can enjoy the Jerusalem Cyclorama (IIRC, a big diorama of the Passion, with some multimedia thrown in), visit the Museum to Sainte-Anne (gawd knows what’s there, the woman only appears in apocryphal tales and Catholic tradition), browse the gift shop for that perfect tacky plaster Virgin Mary or whatever, and even get their swag blessed by a priest.

No, I’m not kidding. A priest was actually sitting in a little glass-enclosed booth near the gift shop, in full priestly gear, waiting to bless things (for a modest donation, I’ll bet). I just hope that booth was air-conditioned, because it was really hot, and those clothes looked heavy.

But then you’ve got all the really traditional stuff: the Stations of the Cross behind the church, as well as a couple of small shrines whose purpose wasn’t too clear to me. And the church itself, a huge newly-renovated monster of a cathedral hiding, amongst the pretty architecture and frankly fascinating artwork, some pretty creepy shit.

Exhibit A: genuine holy relic of Sainte-Anne. Yeah. Never seen a relic before, and frankly I could have gone longer without seeing one. It’s a fucking arm, people! Who goes around putting parts of dead people literally on a pedestal? And who accepts on faith that these bits, the earliest dating back to 1670, are really from a woman who was said to exist 2,000 years ago?

Exhibit B: Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, as you may or may not be aware, is reputed to be a site of healing and other miracles. The front pillars of the main church are covered with dozens of crutches presumably left there by people who were healed. Not everybody was so lucky, though. We visited a smaller chapel in the basement, housing another tiny little shrine to Sainte-Anne. Most disturbingly, this one had a couple of photos of children propped up against the statue, and a few folded pieces of paper wedged under the statue’s base. Not hard to guess what that’s about.

I’ll never know how those kids are doing, or if those parents’ prayers were answered. I hope they’re doing better than these other pilgrims from a hundred years ago.

I’ll tell you this, though: at least Catholic faith healing is dressed up with nicer ritual than modern televangelists. Maybe that’s just me, though.

If I had to pick one word to sum up Sainte-Anne, it would be: horrifying. The whole complex, basilica and sideshows, is a monument to blind faith, superstition, and the fleecing of the sheep. It is a scary, scary look at old-school Catholic belief and I for one am so very glad I’m living in a time when the Church’s power is shrinking.

A Mari Usque Ad Mare

A week ago I came back from a trip back east to visit family. It was tons of fun—flitting back and forth between Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City—and I got to see some relatives I hadn’t seen in years. Plus, I hadn’t been back east in the summertime in ages. As much as I enjoy a white Christmas, going outside without freezing my tail off is nice too.

Our mountains are very pointy
Our prairies are not
The rest is kinda bumpy
But man do we have a lot!

—The Arrogant Worms, Canada’s Really Big

The best part about my flight? I had a window seat, and since the weather was excellent for the most part I got to take pictures of this fair land of mine, from the Rockies all the way to Toronto. After that the weather got too bad, with too much turbulence. And I’ve got to admit: it’s not nearly as boring as I used to think. Sure, the Prairies are flat as anything, but they contain some interesting lakes, rivers and towns. Towns I’d never heard of and probably will never visit, but that’s what makes them interesting. Manitoba and Western Ontario, for their part, are a chaotic maze of lakes and rivers that, well, got a bit boring after a while though I never stopped taking pictures.

I felt like I was exploring Canada with Google Earth, except I couldn’t control where I was going. On the bright side, there was no server lag and the landscape was clear as a bell. The real fun came later, when I looked up my photos on Google Maps. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you spent hours desperately hunting for weird lake formations in western Ontario.

Doing the tourist thing in Quebec City was awesome. I hadn’t been there since that trip I took shortly after coming out almost seventeen years ago (gawd, time flies), and I’d forgotten how beautiful the city was, from the ancient stone buildings of Vieux-Québec to the bucolic Île-d’Orléans… and Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré. Which will be the subject of another blog post soon.

Meantime, enjoy some more photos!

Galiano Island

It was kind of a last-minute thing, really. A ferry queen (yes, you read that right) friend of mine wanted to take one last trip on the Queen of Tsawwassen, which was due to retire at the end of the summer. Would I like to go on a day trip to Galiano island? Sure! I’d never been on any of the Gulf Islands, only looking at them from the ferry on my way to Victoria. I wasn’t sure what the weather would be like, since the reports said it might rain, but what the hell. You only live once. As it turned out, the day was absolutely gorgeous. Clouds started rolling in in late in the afternoon, but it never rained and the weather cooled down only a little bit.

Galiano was neat, though. Not quite what expected, though. I’d assumed there’d be some kind of small village around the ferry terminal, but all I saw were a couple of roadside stands and a small cluster of shops. Oh, including one very friendly diner that served delicious salmon burgers. Grand Central Emporium, if you’re ever in the area. You can’t miss it, I think it’s the only eatery around.

Actually, I should count my blessings. From what I hear, some islands don’t have anything near the ferry terminal. You have to drive or walk for miles before you reach civilisation. Come to think of it, that includes Vancouver Island as well.

We didn’t have any plans or vehicles, only an afternoon to kill, so we just wandered around. Our first destination was Bellhouse Park, facing Mayne Island to the east, where we snapped pictures of Active Pass, Bald Eagles, tide pools teeming with life, and some funky-looking rock formations. Then north up Sturdies Bay Road towards Whaler Bay and… whatever else the island had to offer. But aside from some great views and pleasant backwoods hiking, that turned out to be “not much.” Almost all the seaside land was privately owned, so we couldn’t just walk up to the shore to snap pictures, and the real attractions were on the other side of the island—Montague Harbour, say, or hiking up Mount Galiano.

But that’s okay. I had a great time, and a little taste of what the islands have to offer. I’m sure I’ll be back soon.

First post!

…of the year, that is.

Okay, it’s been almost a month. What have I been up to, you ask?

…of the year, that is.

Okay, it’s been almost a month. What have I been up to, you ask?

Well, I spent 10 days in Ottawa and Montreal, visiting family. I saw Mamma Mia! at the National Arts Centre, which was awesome. Yeah, it was a pretty threadbare plot, little more than an excuse to string together two dozen ABBA songs, but that’s exactly what I signed up for, so that’s all right. I visited my brother for New Year’s, as per tradition. I was actually there for a couple of days, and had the chance to explore the city a bit. With a borrowed Metro pass (thanks, Laurie!) I first swung by Île-Sainte-Hélène, then wandered around downtown snapping pictures of churches and interesting buildings. Unfortunately, this being New Year’s Eve, a lot of places were closed. Now I won’t get to see if the Museum of Contemporary Art would have been worth the detour. Boo. On the bright side, I learned something about French-Canadian martyrs.

Oh, and I finished Les Misérables. Yeah, it only took me… what, nine months? But it was worth the effort. To be honest, I’m still in the process of digesting it. I think what I loved best about it was how it made history come alive. All I remember from studying the early 19th century in school is a bunch of dates: Napoleon, Waterloo, Louis XVIII, Charles X, this Republic, that Empire… but Hugo gives context and depth to those numbers, by going on about slang, fashion, popular culture, local history and various fascinating trivia that ties everything together. Les Misérables is the story of Paris as much as that of Jean Valjean, Cosette, Javert and Thénardier. More so, maybe; they’re the lens through which the reader experiences the revolutions and wars and proto-socialism and all the other crazy, exciting events of the era. In fact, they may be no more than symbols of different aspects of French society; the misérable who found a way out, did good, and died well (Valjean); the misérable who was irredeemably bad, kept abusing his fellow human beings in spite of numerous chances to mend his ways, and ended up settling in America to become a slave trader (Thénardier); the incarnation of Law, harsh and absolute, who couldn’t go on when faced with the truth that shades of grey existed.

Yeah. Still digesting.

And it’s a brand new year, with a brand new job. Yes, I was laid off last November. (Which, now that I think about it: it is just me, or are people more likely to be laid off after long weekends? Because I was laid off just after Remembrance Day. The time before that, after Labour Day. And before that, Thanksgiving.) And this new job is Web development, which is something I’ve been wanting to get into for a while.

2008 should be interesting. I’ve… had a lot of stuff happen to me in the last couple of years, a lot of it painful, most of it growthful. Haven’t blogged about it, ain’t gonna. But the point is, though I’m still in a period of transition, I feel that I’ve reached a turning point, and my life is finally on track. Yes, 2008 should definitely be an interesting year.