Birdwatching in (and out of) Toronto

One of the many thing I like about going to Canada is the chance to see birds I wouldn't see at home. A glance outside can be rewarded not by Blue Tits and Blackbirds but by Cardinals, House Finches and American Robins. Those last ones, by the way, are different from Robins back home in that they are in fact thrushes which are so named on account of their red breasts. Similar, but different.

I was in Toronto very recently, and one day while I was there I went for a walk through parks and along a stream that winds its way between the back gardens of Toronto's western suburbs - just to see what I could see (much like going for a walk in a London park). Bird life was pleasingly abundant - mainly in the form of those American Robins. Also spotted were Black-capped Chickadees, Common Grackles, House Sparrows (the same as the ones back home, this species having been introduced to North America in the nineteenth century), Yellow-rumped Warblers and the unmistakeable Cardinals.

On a lake in one of the parks, I spotted Mallards and smaller black-and-white diving ducks that I initially took to be Tufted Ducks although they were in fact Ring-necked Ducks (although not unheard-of in North America, Tufted Ducks are very rare over here, unlike Mallards which were introduced from Europe and are very common) - similar, but different. Beside the lake were more American Robins, some Red-winged Blackbirds and some small thrushes with red-ish tails (idenitified as Hermit Thrushes which, like the Ring-necked Ducks, were a 'first' for me). There were also some thrush-like birds which I couldn't for the life of me identify, until I re-checked my field guide and realised that they were female Red-winged Blackbirds.

A few days later, I went to High Park where I've had some good sightings on previous trips. In the wooded ravine on the western side, I quickly notched up not one but two species of woodpecker - the Hairy Woodpecker and its smaller Downy cousin. There were more American Robins, Red-winged Blackbirds, Hermit Thrushes and House Sparrows (which are really common in Toronto - more so than in London, I reckon), as well as White-throated Sparrows and bright yellow American Goldfinches.

On Grenadier Pond (so-called, apparently, because a group of British Grenadiers from the garrison at Fort York fell through thin ice while crossing the pond to fight the Americans in the War of 1812) I saw several types of ducks, including the Mallards and Shovelers that we get in Britain as well as the colourful Wood Duck; a Great Egret was spotted waiting silently for fish, while a Double-Breasted Cormorant flew overhead.

Not far from the café, I spotted a third species of woodpecker although this one wasn't black and white - it had brown and black wings, a beige tummy with black spots and a black 'bib'. It acted a lot like the Green Woodpecker, on checking the field guide I noted that I had seen my first Northern Flicker. Overhead I saw a Red-tailed Hawk.

As I walked on the park's eastern side I was accosted by a jogger who, presumably because I was carrying binoculars, deduced that I was a birdwatcher. "There's a pair of blah-blah-blah over there, by that yellow tree", he said, indicating a tree some fifty yards away. "I saw them there the other day." I thanked him and walked over to where he'd indicated, realising as I did so that I had no idea what bird he had mentioned. The tree in question had a hole some thirty feet up, which I suppose may have been a woodpecker nest, but I didn't see anything there.

After seeing a few Tree Swallows catching flies over a pond in the park's south-eastern corner, I left the park and headed for the shoreline of Lake Ontario, where I was rewarded by two more species of duck, neither of which I'd seen before; the Long-tailed Duck and the impressive-looking Bufflehead.

The most impressive sighting of the trip, though, didn't occur in Toronto and nor did it concern a bird I'd never seen before. By the shores of Lake Simcoe, we spotted an Osprey hunting for fish. Now I've seen an Osprey before - over twenty years ago, when we visited the RSPB reserve at Loch Garten on a family holiday in Scotland. But that was different - Loch Garten, after all, exists as a reserve because of the Ospreys and when people go there they're disappointed if they don't see them. While staying with family friends in Orillia, I did get to see plenty of bird activity on the garden bird-feeder (plus a Northern Flicker in said garden, along with plenty of American Robins) but we hadn't expected to see an Osprey. Yet there we were, treated to the sight of one hovering over the lake, gradually dropping down ("looks like he's seen something...") and then splashing into the lake, to emerge carrying a large fish.

The most sought-after item in Canada

"Is that..."

I didn't need to say anything else. I knew what it was that I was asking about, as did the half-a-dozen or so other customers who'd also noticed it, plus the store attendant who'd noticed that we'd noticed it.

'It' had not been what any of us had expected to see in a liquor store in small-town Manitoba three days before Christmas. 'It' is currently the most desired alcoholic beverage in all of Canada - and, for all I know, in the world right now. 'It' has caused queues to form outside liquor stores before they open and has sold out within an hour of going on sale in any such store, whatever the province (the staff in this particular one hadn't even expected to have any delivered this side of the New Year). 'It' has caused employees of such establishments to remind friends and neighbours that they are not allowed to hold or reserve items.

'It', the most sought-after product in Canada at the moment, is a bottle of Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye, a whisky that was propelled into the limelight recently after being proclaimed as the World Whisky of the Year by no less an authority than Jim Murray, author of the highly influential Whisky Bible which is published annually. He apparently tasted more than a thousand whiskies before reaching his decision, and proclaimed this one to be a "masterpiece". Many Canadians would agree, if they could get hold of a bottle. Across the country, people are divided between those who have managed to get hold of some and try it, and the have-nots. The latter are in the majority.

For several seconds after I saw the almost-empty case of it in the Beausejour branch of the MLCC Liquor Mart, where I'd gone to get a miniature of something with which to ignite the Christmas pudding, a few thoughts rushed through my head. Would my British credit card work in small-town Manitoba? Of course it would, don't be silly. Were I to buy a bottle, would I be able to open it and sample the contents, then take the rest back home to London? No, that's not how it works.

Sadly, such thoughts were merely academic as the man in front of me grabbed the last three and, with a look on his face usually reserved for those who've backed the right horse or won the lottery, proceeded to the till. The rest of us were left staring at the empty case. Someone said something about how he'd heard that a store in another town nearby had had a delivery; someone else observed that by the time they got there it would be sold out.

"That didn't take long," said the attendant as he cleared away the case. I asked him how much they were charging for a bottle of this most elusive of spirits, and he showed me the price-card: $32.95, not including sales tax. On the current exchange rates, that's easily south of twenty quid.

"You know, you could double that," I replied. Hell, they could just add a number '1' to the beginning of the price and people would still buy it. "That guy," he said, referring to the afore-mentioned Mr Murray, "doesn't go for the really expensive stuff. He picks a whisky that ordinary people can buy." He clearly knew his whiskies - he told me his personal favourite was Lagavulin, as he showed me to the corner of the store that displayed some of Scotland's finest exports. But I wasn't after Scotch in Manitoba. If I was going to buy or try any sort of whisky, it would be the local stuff.

Crown Royal is indeed a product of Manitoba. Whisky - in Canada, it's spelt without the 'e' - has been distilled in Gimli, on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, since 1939 (the brand was named in honour of that year's Royal visit, the first by a reigning sovereign). In Canada, whisky tends to mean a blend of barley, corn and rye, unlike in Scotland where they can only use malted barley. What makes the Northern Harvest Rye so special is that it's 90% rye.

For a Canadian whisky to be given such an accolade as World Whisky of the Year is unheard-of. Perhaps this is yet more evidence of how Canadians are gradually taking over the world!

As of yesterday morning, the Winnipeg Free Press was reporting that Northern Harvest Rye had sold out across the province, with no more expected in liquor stores until January; "Manitobans looking to get someone a bottle of the world's best whisky for Christmas are out of luck." If you can't get hold of a bottle in the province where it's made, what hope is there for the rest of the country?

Those who've tried it say that it's very good. I would like to be able to agree with them, but I just can't get hold of any.

Help for returning veterans

The parades, poppies and silences of Remembrance Sunday are a sombre means of reflecting upon the sacrifice of those who died in war, but what of those who survived and came home? “Remember the dead, but don’t forget the living” is a familiar refrain. Returning veterans have historically encountered problems adjusting to civilian life even if they have not been physically scarred by their experiences. Recent wars in places like Afghanistan and Iraq have created a new generation of veterans trying to cope, and as a consequence new ways of trying to help them have been and are being developed.

There are a variety of schemes and projects that have been established to help these brave men and women, and a particularly innovative example of such a project originated on the west coast of Canada. Last Friday I went to see an art installation at Canada House which is the work of the Man/Art/Action Project which is linked to the Veterans Transition Network (VTN). This has helped veterans to recover from what are referred to as the ‘invisible wounds’ of war (such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and survivor guilt) by having them work on art projects with artists, actors, counsellors – such as Dr Marv Westwood, Professor in Counselling Psychology at the University of British Columbia, who has been internationally recognised for his work with VTN – and even Native wood-carvers. The installation is in fact in three parts – two works of art and a theatre piece.

Lest We Forget Canada is a mural that was created to raise awareness of the impact that Canadian involvement in Afghanistan had on the 40,000 soldiers who served there and their families. It consists of 162 panels, each of which commemorates one of the Canadian soldiers who died there. Made from the pages of old military training pamphlets, it’s the brainchild of the Vancouver-based multimedia artist Foster Eastman and it was made by veterans. The idea for this came from the notion that men have a tendency to share more information when working with their hands, and many veterans involved found the project therapeutic as they began to talk about their experiences – with counsellors as well as with each other – while taking part. For many, talking about their experiences can be an important first step.

The mural has toured Canada and the backs of each panel have been signed by the people who made it and the families of the soldiers commemorated on it. The idea of families signing it was not an intention until the mural was shown to (then) Prime Minister Harper and a group of bereaved families, and some of the children found the panels with their fathers’ names on them and went round the back to write messages. When HRH Prince Harry – himself an Afghanistan veteran who has done much work with veterans of recent wars through events such as the Invictus Games – went to see the mural at Canada House, he made a point of finding the eight panels bearing the names of Canadian soldiers who had died while serving with his regiment and signing them as ‘Harry, Capt. Wales’.

Alongside the mural is the Veterans Tribute Pole which was Fraser’s next project. It is made of two coffins, symbolising “the men who came home in a box, literally and mentally”, Fraser explained when I went to visit. Like the mural, it was made by veterans but with this they went through the traditional Native process of carving totem poles, beginning with a healing song. The varnish was stripped from the coffins, which were covered with satellite images of Kandahar and Kabul along with the names of Canadian Army ranks which were carved into the wood. It too has toured Canada.

The third part of the exhibit was Contact! Unloaded, a theatre piece performed by four veterans alongside two actors. It was a moving and at times emotionally-charged piece in which the veterans spoke of and acted out their experiences around an attempt to recite the St Crispin’s Day Speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V – proud rhetoric of honour and brotherhood interspersed with first-hand accounts of the grim realities of modern war. For those involved, the project has – like the mural and the pole – proved therapeutic, especially when performed in front of their families. In the question-and-answer session that followed, it was noted that veterans who have seen the piece have often come forward afterwards and asked how they can become involved with VTN. Fraser commented that he has even been approached by veterans of the Second World War; “they told us we were sixty years too late,” he explained.

What people like Fraser and Marv are doing is truly impressive, and I was glad that I had the chance to go and see it. Friday, alas, marked the final performance of Contact! Unload at Canada House, although both the Lest We Forget Canada mural and the Veterans Tribute Pole will be on display at Canada House until 25^th November (all visitors are required to register in advance).

London Canadian

Following on from my spotting evidence of a Canadian presence in the City, I was inspired to track down more about London’s Canadian heritage. My findings can be read on Londonist via this link:

http://londonist.com/2015/08/uncovering-bits-of-canada-in-london

A little piece of Canada in the City

Strolling down Bishopsgate a few weeks ago, I happened to look up, and in doing so I noticed something unusual. One of the buildings was topped by a weather vane; nothing unusual there, but what was unusual was that the animal depicted on said weather vane was a beaver.

The beaver is the national animal of Canada (and is as such depicted on the five-cent coin), and that set me wondering about whether the building in question had a Canadian connection. Naturally I went over to have a look.

The gateway on the ground floor of the building under which the beaver weather vane stood led into a courtyard, but before I got that far I looked up again and saw yet more evidence of a Canadian link; a coat-of-arms depicting a Cross of St George with a beaver in each corner. This I knew to be the cost-of-arms of the Hudson's Bay Company, set up in 1670 to capitalise on the fur trade in North America. 

At its height, it more or less controlled the fur trade in English (and later British)-controlled North America and was actually the world's largest landowner, having been granted control over the Hudson Bay watershed. Today it is one of Canada's largest department store chains which also owns stores in Germany and the USA.

But what is its coat-of-arms doing on a building in the City of London? Turns out that the building in question used to be the HBC's London headquarters; it was in fact a London-based company until 1970, although it moved out of this particular building in 1948.

Through the gateway is St Helen's Place, which is owned by the Leathersellers' Company, one of the City's Livery Companies which was founded in 1444 to regulate the leather trade. The link between these two historic companies can be seen in the HBC's motto, pro pelle cutem ('skin for leather').

Canadian pie

Last weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving (which is more a celebration of the harvest than its American equivalent), and in accordance with tradition we had some relatives over for a turkey dinner followed by pumpkin pie.

Allison had to specially order a turkey breast from the butcher – it’s not something they usually sell in October, although as we’ve ordered from the same butcher for several years now, they are well aware that any order for turkey at this time of year will probably come from Canadians! I made the pie.

The recipe I used was originally clipped from one of Allison’s Canadian cookery magazines – from an advert for Robin Hood flour to be precise. This meant that the recipe for the crust simply called for Robin Hood Flaky Pie Crust Mix; without this to hand, I just used the short crust pastry recipe from my Mum’s old lemon meringue pie recipe. This meant that I was seriously mixing my weights and measures, as the pie crust recipe (being a British recipe) calls for the ingredients to be measured by weight, while the rest of the pumpkin pie recipe (being Canadian) has the measurements by volume (even for the butter). As I have learned from previous recipes, a cup in Canadian baking terms is a specific measurement (250 ml) – you can’t just use any mug to measure things out. This is a mistake most people only make once.

I also found that I didn’t have to blind-bake the pie crust (as I would’ve done for the lemon meringue pie), as the filling itself needs to get baked before the topping is added.

Ah, the filling. Just about everyone who makes pumpkin pie uses tinned pumpkin purée, mainly for the sake of convenience (apparently it takes many hours to render the raw ingredient down to the required consistency). However, there are two types of tinned pumpkin in Canadian supermarkets, pumpkin pie filler and pumpkin purée. Filler is the ready-made stuff that you pour straight from the tin onto the pie crust and bake, while purée is the one you have to mix with other things to make the pie filling.

I’ve been told that no self-respecting Canadian uses the pre-mixed filler, so I combined the puree with a few extra ingredients – brown sugar, evaporated milk, eggs, vanilla extract, cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg and salt – before pouring it over the crust and sticking it in the oven (15 minutes at 220°C, then 45 minutes at 180).

The topping, which also needed to be mixed, was a combination of oats, brown sugar, chopped pecan nuts, flour, cinnamon and melted butter. With the topping added, the pie is baked for a further 20 minutes. 

We served it up with whipped cream that had had some icing sugar mixed in.

Pumpkin pie: our annual autumnal treat!

Swimming with a loon

The air was warm, the sky blue, the water refreshingly cold. Not the coldest Canadian lake I’ve swum in, but my third of the summer. We were at Lake Rosseau on a glorious autumnal day with, interspersed among the evergreens, The Colours running riot – glorious riot; thousands of maple leaves turning yellow, then amber, then as red as the one on the Canadian flag – by the shoreline. This is the heart of Cottage Country, and we were staying with Allison’s aunt and uncle who own a cottage mere yards from the shore of the lake. Before we’d headed north, I’d declared that I would swim in every lake we stayed by, and by diving into Lake Rosseau I’d made it three out of a possible three.

I swam out from the dock with a powerful front-crawl, which quickly turned into a leisurely front-crawl as my generally sedentary lifestyle kicked in. I switched to back-stroke, my strongest stroke, and then the breast-stroke, my weakest. I tried to see how long I could hold my breath under water, and lasted around five seconds at a generous estimate. I was on holiday – swimming in a lake somewhere in Ontario, without a care in the world.

As I made my way back to the dock, I could vaguely make out the shapes of Allison and Uncle Bill standing on the dock. I assumed that they were watching me, the only one who’d wanted to swim in the lake in late September. I was wrong.

Allison called out: “Nick, there’s a loon!”

I know, I thought. We’d seen two of them, one in striking summer plumage with black head, striped neck and chequered back, the other in drab winter dark grey and white. Probably a pair, given that, like swans, loons mate for life. They were a hundred or so yards away from us as I’d taken a running dive off the dock. It may have been autumn, but these summer visitors were going nowhere fast; loons are among the last birds to fly south for the winter. “There’s two loons out on the lake,” Uncle Bill had quipped, “and a third one’s about to join them.”

While I tried to splutter a response, Allison called out again: “He’s right behind you!”

Eh?

Turning around, I beheld through my myopia a dark-coloured, duck-like object heading straight for me. As it came closer, its dagger-like beak and large head identified itself to me as one of the loons; the winter-plumaged one, who’d evidently decided to see who else was swimming in the lake.

There I was. Getting very close to nature – just a few feet from one of the great symbols of the Canadian wilderness. Swimming alongside a bird for whom swimming is a way of life.

It didn’t end there. As I got out of the lake, the loon continued along by the side of the dock. Mike, Uncle Bill’s neighbour, caught sight of him as he sauntered over to wish us good morning. He too was taken aback.

“What’s this? You got a pet loon now, Bill?”

His surprise was understandable. Most birds, and this includes loons, have a healthy wariness of people, an ancestral memory that even from a distance these are predators, to be avoided at all costs. This loon, however, didn’t seem that bothered. He (or she) continued to swim around in the shallows for a few minutes before doing the unthinkable. It got out of the water.

Collectively, we gasped.

                                                                                                                                    

Unless they’re nesting (and even then they’re very close to the water’s edge), the only time loons get out of the water is when they’re taking off. They don’t wander onto the land – their legs are so far back that they can only walk with difficulty; indeed, the bird’s very name is a reference to this fact. Yet here was a loon getting out of the water, and in very close proximity to four people. Two of whom have spent many summers by the shores of Canadian lakes and seen countless loons, but never out of the water.

We concluded that it had to be ill, but close-up it looked fairly alert, shuffling itself around so it could face the water as the rest of the family came out to have a look while Uncle Bill went to report a sick loon to the animal protection people.

The loon, who in close proximity appeared to be going through the moulting process, was still there, not minding the cars whizzing past on the nearby road, when we went out for a boat-ride several hours later. When we came back, though, it had gone – according to Mike, the animal protection people had not showed up, so it must have simply swum away.

PS: This blog-post was subsequently re-posted on the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s ‘Land Lines’ blog, which has some incredible stories about the natural world in Canada.

 

The bird of the North

Travelling through ‘Cottage Country’, that belt of land north of Toronto where many Canadians (and, indeed, quite a few Americans) own holiday-cottages by the shore of the region’s many lakes, I have not only experienced wonderful hospitality and the truly breathtaking sight of The Colours (it’s that time of year), but also the opportunity to see birds which I would never see back home.

There are chickadees, cardinals, blue herons, turkey-vultures and American black ducks. No North American bird, though, is as fascinating as the loon.

I refer in particular to the common loon (gavia immer, also known as the great northern diver); the four other species of loon listed in my field guide do not tend to be found in Ontario (preferring, as they do, to summer in the far north or on the west coast).

Loons, which spend most of their lives on or under water (they can dive deeper and for longer than all other birds) require near-pristine conditions to nest, so their presence on any given body of water is often seen as a sign of the good condition of said lake; their numbers declined heavily in the Sixties and Seventies but since then, conservation efforts (such as the banning of lead weights for fishing in addition to restrictions on hunting) have led to a revival in loon numbers – even on lakes which have a lot of cottages.

This is very significant, as the loon is highly symbolic of the wilderness – or, as it is known in these parts, the North. You know you’re in the North when you hear the call of the loon emanating from somewhere out on the lake.

There have always been links between loons and native folklore; for example, the loon is said to be the messenger of Kuloshap, the creator-god of the Algonquin people. Indeed, no bird – with the exception of the eagle – features so prominently in folk tales and legends. Central to this place in legend is the bird’s call, usually described as ‘haunting’ or ‘eerie’. The loons actually has four calls: “Wails, tremolos, yodels and hoots ... together, the four calls add an air of magic to the often silent world of the wild. Together, they are the sound of the North.”

The loon’s high status continues to this day, for it is both the provincial bird of Ontario and the state bird of Minnesota, and even features on Canadian money – which is why the one-dollar coin is popularly known as the ‘loonie’.

No trip to Cottage Country is complete without getting to see and hear the loon.

Sources:

Fred J. Alsop III, Birds of Canada (Dorling Kindersley, 2005)

Doug Bennet & Tim Tiner, Up North: A Guide to Ontario’s Wilderness from Blackflies to the Northern Lights (McClelland & Stewart, 1993)

Robert H. Busch, Loons (Whitecap Books, 1999)

A tale of two statues

In the course of my wanderings around Toronto, I have come across two very different statues with British connections, both of which have graced this fair city since the Sixties and which were installed amid some controversy.

Toronto’s civic authorities are housed in the very striking building that is City Hall, which was built in the Sixties and consists of two curved towers surrounding a council chamber that looks like a flying saucer (despite being almost fifty years old, it still looks really modern in a cool kind of way that most Sixties tower-blocks never achieved; these towers, by the way, are depicted on the city flag). In front of this is a large bronze sculpture that is unmistakably the work of Henry Moore (1898-1986). Three Way Piece No. 2 (The Archer), better known simply as The Archer, weighs 2½ tons and is in Toronto thanks to Viljo Revell, the architect of City Hall, who had won the international competition to design the new building and who in the early Sixties approached Moore with the suggestion that one of his works would complement the new building.

Moore agreed, and a suitable design was chosen from among his maquettes (the small models that he made before starting work on the big sculptures), but the proposal to purchase the work with public money became hugely controversial and was vetoed by the city council; the money was eventually raised by private subscription and it was unveiled in 1966. Touched by this gesture of public support, Moore donated over 200 sculptures and drawings to the Art Gallery of Ontario; these formed the basis of the AGO’s Henry Moore Sculpture Centre, the largest public collection of Moore’s work in the world.

Over in Queen’s Park, by contrast, is something a little more traditional – an equestrian statue of King Edward VII. This feature, which is located in the northern section of the park and constantly seems to attract the attention of passers-by wondering who the guy on the horse is, was never intended for Toronto and is in fact there almost by an historical accident – even though it depicts the man who (when he was the Prince of Wales) opened the park, Toronto’s first, in 1860.

The work of Sir Thomas Brock (1847-1922; his most famous work is the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace), this 1919 five-ton masterpiece of imperial pomp was originally unveiled in Delhi to commemorate the 1911 Delhi Durbar at which his son, George V, was officially proclaimed Emperor of India (in return, he announced that Delhi would henceforth replace Calcutta as the capital of India).

It survived Indian independence for almost two decades – presumably while the Indian government figured out what to do with it – before being taken down in 1967 and given to the City of Toronto. The man behind this move was the then Governor General of Canada, who had previously been the Canadian High Commissioner to India, although a private art collector had to come up with the money to have it shipped to Toronto, where the same city authorities who’d had to deal with the controversy over the Moore sculpture now had to decide where they were going to put what must be one of the most impressive re-gifts in history. This was not without its own controversy due to the the statue’s rather obvious colonial overtones; some said that the money that would need to be spent on installing it would be better spent on melting it down and commissioning a local artist to use the bronze to make something a bit more emblematic of modern Canada, while one wag suggested it could be made into a climbing-frame.

After both the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario turned it down, the well-travelled statue was re-erected in the park to the north of the Provincial Legislature in 1969, over a century after the man it depicts had opened the park.

St Lawrence Market

We’re in Toronto, and on our first morning we went to the centre of town to visit the St Lawrence Market. This old-fashioned covered market and local landmark is not only a mecca for food-lovers of Toronto but has been hailed by National Geographic as the top food market in the world. Not in North America. The world. (Borough Market, by the way, came tenth.)

Located in the part of town known as Old York (York having been the name of the settlement established here by Governor Simcoe in the 1790s; it was renamed Toronto in 1834), the market has been running for over 200 years.

The items on offer on the lower level are a fair reflection of modern Toronto’s diversity; as well as coffee from just about anywhere in the world (they’ll even grind it for you should you so wish) and many varieties of rice, you can get perogies, crêpes, souvlaki, spices, meat pies, Chinese food, more preserves than you’d care to name and all sorts of other tasty treats here. Up on the main level butchers, bakers, fishmongers and cheesemongers (who do a good line in cheeses imported from places like England, France and Italy as well as Canadian cheeses) co-exist side by side in St Lawrence, where the only problems appear to be people who suddenly stop to look at things, as well as the perennial dilemma of what to buy, and who to buy it from.

We found a wine merchant who seemed very happy to talk about the various Ontario wines he had on offer; a few samples later and we were walking away with a bottle of ’13 Riesling (Ontario Riesling being somewhat less sickly-sweet than its German counterpart) and a ’12 Trius Red (a blend of Cab Sauv, Cab Franc and Merlot; it’s superb, and surprisingly mature-tasting for a two year-old wine).

For lunch, the crowds seem to know that the Carousel Bakery is the stall to head to; this is the one that is best-known for serving up the Torontonian take on the bacon roll that is the peameal bacon bun (“Experience this Toronto tradition, eh!”). Cut much thicker than a regular rasher of bacon, peameal bacon is made from boneless pork loins rolled in ground yellow cornmeal (originally, ground yellow peas were used, hence the name), and it is a Toronto speciality which harks back to the time when the city was nicknamed ‘Hogtown’ due to the large number of pork processing facilities that existed here in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  It’s delicious and filling, but don’t just take my word for it; when Anthony Bourdain came here for The Layover, it’s what he had for breakfast.

The wares on the various seafood stalls looked fantastic –live lobsters, sushi-quality tuna steaks, wild salmon from British Columbia, scallops, oysters … we went for the mussels (from Prince Edward Island) which were on display in a large tank of water, from which our order was scooped out.

The butchers are masters of their trade who are happy to guide customers in the ways of all the different cuts and varieties that can be had. Should you want some mustard to go with your newly-purchased meat, there’s a stall for that where you can sample dozens of different types; I even found a couple that I rather liked (and I speak as someone who, as a rule, doesn’t particularly like mustard).

Elsewhere, two fruit-and-veg stalls compete for trade side by side, under a sign reminding customers that “We’re two separate stores”. One can only imagine the arguments that occurred before that went up! We purchased a few items from one of these places which, later that day, joined the mussels in a delicious moules marinieres.

St Lawrence Market: Gourmet’s paradise. A Toronto must-visit.

Going for a coffee, Toronto-style

I thought that the British talked about the weather a lot – and then I went to Toronto. Granted, the weather changed a lot in the 12 days that we spent there earlier this year, but I did not expect it to be the hot topic of conversation that it was. Maybe it was just because the weather changed so much – it was May after all, and it varied from being warm enough to sit in the garden to heaving rain – but I had not expected to find everyone talking about it.

As well as talking about the weather a lot, Torontonians are also – to quote Jan Morris – ‘almost incoherently polite’ (I think she meant this in a good way, although much of what she has had to say about Toronto over the years comes across as a backhanded compliment). This is a city where you will receive an apology if you tread on someone’s foot while travelling on the TTC. These two traits combine when the visitor to Toronto receives apologies for the state of the weather. I call this the ‘colonial legacy gone wrong’.

One aspect of Toronto that was certainly not inherited from the old country – although given the multicultural plurality of modern Toronto you may need to specify which one you’re talking about – is the citizens’ love of coffee. There are many places where you can go for a coffee in Toronto, but this love is best symbolised by one fast-food chain which stands above all others.

If you were to catch the TTC out to Kipling Station and, on leaving it, walk west along Dundas Street (not that many people do), you’d come to a road junction that emphasises the point I’m working towards. On one side of the road is a branch of Starbucks that looks, well, just like you would expect any suburban branch of Starbucks to look like. Apart, that is, from the fact that it’s far from busy and the surrounding car park is empty. The reason for this lies opposite, where the car park at Tim Hortons is always full and there are usually at least half-a-dozen cars queuing for the drive-thru.

According to the Internet, in Canada Tim Hortons is bigger than McDonald’s, and is responsible for 62% of the Canadian coffee market (Starbucks, which is in second place, accounts for a mere 7%).

Why is Tim Hortons so popular?

The coffee is cheaper for a start, and there’s no messing around with frapachinos and skinny lattés. If you just want your coffee with milk and sugar, you go to Tim Hortons (although Canadians are more likely to ask for cream). 

Although it is starting to make inroads into the USA, you can’t get more Canadian than Tim Hortons. It’s even named after an ice-hockey player, for heaven’s sake (and not just any player; a defenceman whose playing career spanned 24 years, he won four Stanley Cups with the Leafs in the 1960s).

Now I am usually a tea drinker by choice, but when travelling abroad I adopt a ‘when in Rome’ approach which means that I tend to switch to coffee when in Toronto. My preferred option in Tim Hortons is a ‘regular’ (one sugar, one shot of cream), although for a real hit there’s always the option of the ‘double double’ (two sugars, two creams). I have heard people ask for a ‘triple triple’ on occasions, although one does wonder if there’s any room for the coffee in such a drink.

One morning during our visit back in May, Allison and I were driving into the city to meet some friends when we stopped off for a coffee at Tim Hortons, as you do. We joined the queue for the drive-thru purely because it was also the queue to get into the car park (that’s how popular it is). After a few minutes sitting in the car, though, I started to wonder: What would be quicker – the drive-thru, or going in to get the coffee?

I left Allison in the car and joined an even larger queue inside. Things were not looking good until someone behind the counter shouted out that there was an express checkout for customers who only wanted to buy coffee. Most, it seems, were after some food as well (doughnuts, probably) – so I was able to get our coffees in double-quick time and thus prove that going into the place is quicker than the drive-thru.

An express checkout for coffee? No wonder it’s popular.

Take me out to the ball game

Many years ago my university tutor, who happened to be American, made a comment about how, despite having lived in England for many years, he couldn’t understand cricket. As a tail-end batsman in the university’s second XI, I couldn’t resist responding by pointing out that none of us Brits had a clue about baseball.

“But baseball’s easy!” countered Professor Wheeler. The short discussion that followed, which naturally had nothing to do with the lecture topic, ended with us agreeing to disagree about which country has the best bat-and-ball game. If you’re brought up on one of them, your chances of understanding the other are slim. Just about the only thing we were able to establish is that both sports have a great appeal to fans who are interested in a lot of statistics.

For years, most of what I knew about baseball came from Ed Smith’s book Playing Hard Ball, which is a great read for people who’ve been brought up on cricket and want to try to understand this other summer game that keeps getting talked about in American movies and sitcoms. A professional cricketer-turned-writer, Ed Smith is one of few people to have attempted to bridge this cultural gap in either direction without resorting to feeble jokes at the other sport’s expense (case in point: Bill Bryson).

What surprises me is how much baseball terminology has crept into the language, even in a country that doesn’t understand the sport. Stepping up to the plate, ballpark figures, three strikes, covering all your bases, switch-hitting (a baseball thing long before Kevin Pietersen tried it on the cricket pitch) and coming out of left field are all baseball phrases. Plus, of course, there’s the baseball cap.

I started watching baseball on the TV when I started going to Canada during the summer months, and although it puzzled me at first I did manage to pick up a few things. Until my last visit in May of this year, though, I had never been to a game. On previous visits to Toronto, I had been to BMO Fields (home of Toronto FC) and the Air Canada Centre (where the Leafs play) but I had not been to see the Blue Jays.

They play at the SkyDome (a.k.a. the Rogers Centre) which is located right in the centre of Toronto – not so much in the shadow of the CN Tower but right next to it. Built in the 1980s, it is the first sports stadium to have a fully retractable roof, although as it wasn’t raining when we went this was open to the elements. It seats around 45,000 – although for most Jays games it’s barely half full. At one side is a hotel where some of the rooms have a view out onto the field – although it’s something of a standing joke that if you want to watch a baseball game in your hotel, it’s much cheaper to just get a room that has a TV.

Outside, touts mingled with the guys manning the hotdog stands and somehow managed to evade the attention of the cops who appeared to be more interested in buying hotdogs than anything else.

Inside, the ground was half-full as the Jays took on the Atlanta Braves, a team whose fans are well-known for their ‘tomahawk chop’ celebratory gesture. Years ago, a Jays player used this gesture when they beat the Braves, which caused a bit of friction between the two teams.

In baseball, both teams have nine innings, each one ending after three batters (not batsmen) are out. So there’s quite the turnaround, and the first-time matchgoer is advised to stay alert if he wants to follow the game properly.

Throughout the game, attendants wandered the stands selling cans of beer, although it is in fact cheaper if you get up and go to the bar yourself. It really is just a question of whether or not you want to pay the extra money to not miss anything! Other vendors sold peanuts and Cracker Jack. One guy tried to boost sales by balancing his tray on his head. He got some applause but little extra trade. “Oh come on, guys,” he shouted at us, “I’m trying to pay for college here!” We opted to get some fries instead.

On the pitch, there appeared to be a lot of fly-balls (hits that go behind and so aren’t scoring shots – same sort of thing as dot-balls, I guess), and the fielding was generally excellent. Part of the scoreboard told me that the pitcher was pitching at speeds of over 80 mph.

Of the players, the only one who really stood out (albeit for the wrong reasons) was Toronto’s Brett Lawrie, who distinguished himself by pulling a hamstring muscle while stealing a base when he didn’t really need to do so (he got blasted by the baseball correspondent of the Globe & Mail the following day).

A break of sorts came with the seventh innings stretch, when crowd are encouraged to, well, stretch – the cheerleaders put on a dance routine which resembled a work-out video, and quite a few of the spectators joined in. Quite a few people got up to get food, and it was at this point that sales of beer ended.

By the time Edwin Encarnacion hit a three-run homer at the bottom of the seventh (for the uninitiated, that constitutes a Very Good Thing), it was obvious that the Jays were going to win convincingly. But a ‘never say never’ attitude pervaded among the crowd, most probably because of the way the Leafs had managed to crash out of the NHL play-offs the previous week (losing the deciding game after being 4-1 up with ten minutes to go). Even when they’re in a seemingly unassailable lead, supporting sports teams from Toronto is no easy task.

I am pleased to report that lightning did not strike twice, and in the end the Jays won 9-3 without having to bat the last innings. I am also happy to report that this cricket fan really enjoyed his trip to see the other bat-and-ball game.

Back home, I found that ESPN America shows baseball games, so when summer comes round again I have the option of continuing to learn more about the old ball game.