SPEND A NIGHT IN JAIL
On a personal list of dubious achievements, being incarcerated for something silly does have a certain appeal. Perhaps it shows that even honourable, noble lives have roguish moments. Perhaps it’s because one night of prison reaffirms the benefits of freedom. Perhaps it’s just something interesting to say at a dinner party, provided the words “misunderstanding,” “no criminal record” and “that was an adventure!” are used in the story. Of course, the reality of prison is entirely devoid of charm. There’s nothing fun about being locked away in an institutional cell, denied the joys of modern life, surrounded by people who actually deserve to be there. Still, the Great Canadian Bucket List demands adventurous transgressions, and fortunately, I found a prison cell where I could leave with my reputation, and criminal record, healthily intact.
“When they chained up the naked prisoners on the cement floor in pure darkness, were they on their backs?” This is the kind of detail that arrests my curiosity as I stand outside the “Hole” cells in the basement of the HI-Ottawa Jail Youth Hostel. For 110 years, the thick-stoned building on Nicholas Street was known as the Carleton County Gaol, an imposing hell designed to imprison the city’s most notorious offenders. Built in 1862 as a “model” British prison, the reality was far less respectable: tiny cells crammed with both men and boys (as young as five years old), reeking of excrement, the floor crawling with bugs and rats. The Gaol was eventually shut down in 1972 due to inhumane living conditions, but it reopened the following year as a refurbished youth hostel. The new owners clearly knew the lengths backpackers will go to save a buck. Today, budget travellers spend the night bunking in the original cells, drink beer in the canteen that once fed prisoners slop and wake in fear with blood-drained ghosts hovering over their beds.
Okay, I made the ghosts part up, but just barely. Ghost Walks Ottawa holds nightly prison tours in the old jail, guiding the public and hostel guests to some of the original, unrestored sections of the prison, recounting trials and tales, and revealing why this has been called one of the world’s most haunted buildings. After touring the punishment cells, my Ghost Walks guide, Adriane, leads me to the eighth floor, still in its original state. The cells are punishingly small. She paints a vivid picture of life for a nineteenth-century prisoner and explains the sad, short life of Patrick J. Whelan, the man who murdered Thomas D’Arcy McGee, one of the Fathers of Confederation. Whelan met his maker at the jail during the last public execution in Canada. I’m led to the actual gallows, thoughtfully decorated with a hangman’s rope. Five thousand people desperate for entertainment watched Whelan squirm for ten minutes. Even though Adriane has been guiding tours in the old jail for over a year, she’s edgy and freaked out as we wander through Death Row. She nervously tells me about doors slamming, disembodied voices, guests reporting ghosts at the edge of their bunks. Seriously!
Canada’s Best Hostels
Hostels are fun, cheap, sociable and not always haunted. Corbin Fraser runs a popular blog called www.ibackpackcanada.com. I asked him to weigh in on Canada’s best hostels.
I bid her adieu, retire to my cell, slam the iron bars shut and make sure it’s locked from the inside. Lying in my bed, I try not to think about the poor, miserable bastards who rotted away in Cell 4. It’s deathly quiet, save for the snoring of someone in an adjacent cell. Although the walls are thick, the vaulted ceilings were designed to carry sound so guards could hear even the faintest of whispers. I somehow fall asleep, but wake up in a cold sweat at four a.m. Worse, I need to pee, which means I have to leave the safety of my cell and walk down the long dark hallway. At the point of bursting, I muster up the courage to rise and walk to the bathroom, but decide to film the whole thing, just in case I become the first guy to catch a ghost on camera. Relieved, I return to my cell, toss and turn for hours, and thank God, Jesus, Buddha, Allah and Elvis that I’m a free man, condemned to spend but one night in Canada’s only prison hotel.
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/jail
VISIT THE HOCKEY HALL OF FAME
“Please, for the love of God, can someone explain to me what’s going on?”
It’s my first week as an immigrant in Canada, and I’m staring at a TV set broadcasting twelve millionaires on ice skates. My older brother, who moved to Canada a few years before I did, has already forgotten our childhood sports of cricket, rugby and soccer, and is now wearing a Vancouver Canucks hockey vest. His conversion to Canada’s national religion took less than a year, but my love for cricket bats and rugby balls will not allow me to yield quite as easily. Firstly, how can anyone take seriously a team called the Canucks? Blackhawks, Predators, Sharks, Devils, Flames—those are some badass-sounding teams. But Canucks? Canadiens? Senators? Maple Leafs? Oooh, I’m trembling. Secondly, hockey to the uninitiated is too fast to watch, too difficult to understand and too painful to listen to, especially when a guy named Don Cherry gets on his soapbox. Further, the fact that I skate like an ostrich on Rollerblades clouds my understanding of the skills and talent needed to distinguish oneself in the National Hockey League. I’m not proud of it, but when I arrived in Canada, Puck was a character from Shakespeare.
During the regular season, when it felt as if the Canucks played a game twice a day, I never quite got what all the hubbub was about . . . until I visited the Hockey Hall of Fame. Standing on the corner of Yonge and Front in downtown Toronto, the HHOF is located in what was once a Bank of Montreal office, a grand-looking building sculpted with gravity and pomp. To get inside, you have to walk through a shopping mall, which may be symbolic of the commercialization of the sport, or a practical way to control the daily crowds. And they come from far and wide, these worshippers of the vulcanized rubber puck, ready to open their wallets and drop their jaws at exhibits of the game’s great knights, and stand before the Holy Grail itself: Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Canada’s Official Sports
The unusual contradiction that Canada’s most wildly popular sport wasn’t its official national pastime was finally laid to rest in 1994. Up until that point, a game originating with Algonquin tribes along the St. Lawrence Valley was Canada’s official game. In fact, lacrosse was the country’s most popular sport until hockey usurped it around 1900. When politicians sought to resolve the situation, they agreed on a compromise whereby lacrosse became Canada’s national summer game and hockey its national winter game. Any attempt to play either sport typically leaves me sprawled out in a bloody pulp.
With sixteen different exhibits, I’m not sure where to start, so I head to the Hartland Molson Theatre to watch an introductory movie. If you edited the most stirring scenes from Rocky, Hoosiers and The Natural with Gladiator and Braveheart, you might approach the spirit of this sweeping, epic journey through Canada’s great game. A frozen pond, wooden sticks, men with pencil-thin moustaches and the recipe for legends. The film explains the development of the game, the teams, the rules, culminating in the quest for the Stanley Cup.
I leave the theatre inspired to learn more, to meet the heroes of the game: Cyclone Taylor, Ken Dryden, Gordie Howe, Bobbie Orr, Mario Lemieux and a goal machine they call simply The Great One. After the exhibits in the NHL Zone, I wander over to the scale replica of the Canadiens’ dressing room from the Montreal Forum. It’s the first time I hold a stick and feel the weight of a puck in my palm. In the Dynasties exhibit, I learn about the dominance and great rivalry of the Canadiens and the Maple Leafs from the 1950s to the late 1970s, the emergence of the Oilers, and the dearth of Canadian domination ever since. In a large section called the World of Hockey, I’m amazed to see that the game extends beyond just northern countries to teams in Australia, Turkey, Mongolia and, yes, even my old South Africa. Women play hockey, kids play hockey . . . I leave the exhibits knowing the world is hockey mad, with Canadians the maddest of all.
The Great Hall of NHL trophies is approached with reverence. Here are the game’s most sought-after pieces of silverware, including the original bowl donated by Governor General Lord Stanley, and the Stanley Cup itself. I’m told it’s the hardest trophy to win in world sports, but fortunately, it’s easy enough to stand next to and get someone to take a snapshot. Finally, I’m drawn to the interactive section of the HHOF. The Be-A-Player Zone allows me to put on some kit and play the goalie in a life-sized net. In the Slapshot Zone, I learn that shooting is difficult enough, never mind scoring. In the Broadcast Zone, I give a live play-by-play of a recorded game, then convince a kid to play some table hockey.
By the time I leave the Hall of Fame, my conversion to Canada’s national religion is complete. It’s game night, and the Habs are playing the Canucks. I head over to a bar, order a pint and, for the first time, anticipate where the puck will go, understand how the rules work and thrill at just how big the hits can be. A tourist innocently wanders in front of me.
“For the love of God, move outta the way, I’m trying to watch the game!”
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/hhof
AVOID NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen just how close we all came to dying. About thirty kilometres outside Ottawa is a bone-chilling, fascinating and entirely unique glimpse into a time when geopolitics tightroped along a knife’s edge. Two superpowers were headlocked in a Cold War, armed with atomic and hydrogen bombs capable of wiping entire cities off the map, and poisoning anyone lucky enough to survive the nuclear Armageddon. Canada recognized that the end might indeed be nigh and set to work on a top-secret military bunker that would ensure the survival of its government. Commissioned by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, 9,300 square metres of Ontario countryside were excavated to make room for a four-storey-deep underground fortress, using 5,000 tons of steel, 25,000 cubic metres of concrete and $22 million of 1960’s taxpayer dollars.
The Diefenbunker, as it became known, was a full-service facility in which 535 lucky bureaucrats would have the task of somehow rebuilding whatever was left of Canada. These appointees were selected based on their profession, not their qualifications. No family members were included, and rather naively, no psychological considerations were taken into account. A large group of mostly men would emerge weeks later into a world of ashes and radioactive zombies. These, apparently, would be the lucky ones.
How I Learned to Worry and Fear the Bomb
A visit to the Diefenbunker wasn’t my first exposure to the highly niche world of atomic tourism. In Ukraine, I visited a former top-secret nuclear missile base and was given a tour of its underground control station by a former Soviet general who once had his finger on the button. Men like him were trained and carefully monitored to destroy the entire planet on an order. Several times in history, that order was almost given, typically as the result of a computer glitch. In Canada, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker authorized the construction of fifty Emergency Government Headquarters around the country. Smaller regional “Diefenbunkers” were built in Nanaimo (BC), Penhold (AB), Shilo (MB), Borden (ON), Valcartier (QC) and Debert (NS), along with other communication sites. While some are still active military installations, most were sold off or destroyed.
Fortunately, none of this happened. Despite several near misses (you know about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and you might want to google Able Archer), the Iron Curtain smelted, the world evolved, and children no longer have to memorize how to duck and cover under a fireball. The Diefenbunker functioned as a military telecommunications base until the 1990s, at which time it was decommissioned and turned into a Cold War Museum. Due to the increasing sophistication of nuclear weapons, there simply wouldn’t be time today to relocate government to the base, and at no time was the Diefenbunker used for its intended purpose. The only PM to actually visit the base was Pierre Trudeau, who promptly cut its operating budget.
Today, anyone can enter the 115-metre-long blast tunnel, cross through intimidating 36-centimetre-thick bank vault doors and explore the fully equipped world below. I’m greeted by Mike Braham, the former director of Emergency Preparedness Canada and now an enthusiastic volunteer at the museum. Mike was one of those chosen to survive in the Emergency Government Situation Centre. Shaking his head in disbelief, he reckons the real victims would have been the ones trapped inside the bunker. “With no psychological preparedness, these people would have gone nuts,” he tells me.
The bunker was designed to withstand a five-megaton blast up to a couple of kilometres away. That’s 250 times more powerful than Hiroshima. Its air would be triple filtered and, in theory at least, supplies would last up to thirty days. “People couldn’t see beyond thirty days of nuclear war,” explains Mike.
He leads me through the decontamination area and the medical and dental centres that have been transformed into excellent Cold War exhibitions. School kids might giggle at relics such as rotary phones and 1.5-metre-high computers. Adults have an entirely different reaction. “We came close, but we felt, we hoped, that common sense would prevail,” says Mike.
I sit at the prime minister’s desk, peering at his mounted toilet, and learn about the escape hatch, canteen and Bank of Canada vault. Today, the Diefenbunker hosts parties, spy programs for kids, even spy-era movies in a theatre. Hollywood has used its facilities, and the nearby small town of Carp has benefited from the tourism. Other bunkers around Canada have been destroyed, but much larger and still-operational facilities exist in the U.S.A. and Russia. We may live in a safer world, but as long as we possess the tools of our own destruction, the threat of Armageddon will always exist. For its unfiltered, radiation-free fresh air of much-needed perspective, the Diefenbunker is one for the bucket list.
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/diefenbunker
ICEWINE AND DINE IN NIAGARA
Canadians didn’t invent icewine, but we sure perfected it. A notable achievement, considering this sweet elixir is one of the riskiest, toughest and most labour-intensive wines to make. Healthy grapes must be frozen on the vine, hand-picked and pressed within a matter of hours, squeezing out those sweet, valuable and industry-scrutinized drops.
Niagara is Canada’s largest wine region, famed for its Riesling and Chardonnay. As in B.C.’s Okanagan and Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, the seductive allure of life among vines has led to a boom in wineries and first-class restaurants. Niagara, blessed with ideal climatic conditions created by Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment, feels like a fat grape bursting with goodness. No wonder other varietals are making their mark: Merlot, Pinot Noir, Baco Noir, Sauvignon Blanc.
My Segway rolls gently along rows of Cabernet Franc as Daniel Speck, one of three brothers behind Henry of Pelham Estate, explains the magic. Warm wind rolls off the lake and gets trapped by the Escarpment, circulating to allow grapes to reach their full potential. Among some of the healthiest vines I’ve ever seen, he points out the wind machines that have revolutionized wine in the region. Essentially stationary helicopter turbines, the blades suck in warm air from higher altitudes, rotating it across the vines in emergencies to prevent devastating frost. It all helps with the consistency needed to produce quality product, and to further Canada’s claim as a major winemaking country.
Canada’s Best Wine
After a humble start, Canadian wines now compete on the world stage for quality and taste. Natalie MacLean, editor of Canada’s largest wine site (www.nataliemaclean.com) and author of Unquenchable, raises a glass to her Top 10:
Segways tours, offered at the estate, scoot between vines as I learn about Henry of Pelham’s long history and the brothers’ devotion to their craft. It makes the icewine tasting back in the dark, cool cellars all the more enjoyable. Niagara introduced the world to a Cabernet Franc icewine—light ruby-red heaven. The first drops on my tongue explode with notes of sweet strawberry jam. The Riesling is more complex, departing with a citrus aftertaste. Vidal, a sturdy grape that is the most popular icewine variety in Niagara, is a pounder, a deliriously delicious full-frontal assault of velvet.
Karen’s Ice House Slushy Recipe
Icewine is magical to share, and here’s a fantastic recipe to spread the love around. Since I discovered it, it’s become my go-to at dinner parties.
6 to 10 ice cubes
200 mL Vidal icewine
Blend, adding ice cubes until frothy.
Toasts 8 to 10
“We need to think of icewine as a condiment, a side dish,” explains Daniel. “It should be enjoyed at the start of the meal, paired with spicy and salty dishes, or just enjoyed as dessert on its own.” Drinking icewine after a rich, sweet dessert can throw your appetite a life vest made of concrete. Icewine before lunch, on the other hand, is rather decadent, so I head off to Beamsville’s Good Earth Restaurant and Cooking School, driving past rows of grapes basking in the sun. My wine philosophy is simple: the bottle is never as important as whom you’re sharing it with—in this case, Good Earth’s firecracker owner-operator, Nicolette Novak.
Having grown up on the farm before chasing adventure in the city, she moved back to open the region’s first cooking school, creating an intimate space in which to pair her favourite things, food and wine. Today, her restaurant packs in locals and visitors drawn to exceptional dishes (house-smoked salmon with homegrown asparagus on flatbread, lobster and shrimp burger), with an orange-hued romantic ambience under the summer umbrellas, terrific service, smells wafting from the open-plan outdoor kitchen, and great music performed by local artists. Good Earth’s wit, candour and laughs dispense with wine’s traditional haughtiness, a reminder of the importance of soul on any plate, and in any glass.
After stopping off at Inniskillin, Canada’s most famous icewine producer and its earliest pioneer, I pull into a small operation called Ice House, run by one of the world’s most experienced icewine makers, Jamie Macfarlane. Life is too short for cheap wine reads a sign hanging at the door, a reminder that the cost and difficulty of making icewine justify its expense. I’m greeted by Jamie’s wife, Karen, beaming with pride at her products. She pairs my tastings with wasabi peas, lime-chili chips from Australia and dark chocolate. The rich flavour of Macfarlane’s icewine explodes on my tongue, revealing complex flavours, a dazzling meal for my senses. “Icewine is the sweetest kiss,” muses Karen, who sealed her own wedding to Jamie with a mouthful of icewine. “It asks you: are you special enough to enjoy this?”
I leave Ice House refreshing myself with an icewine slushy, the perfect accompaniment to a hot summer day, and wonder how far I can take it. At Peller Estates, one of Niagara’s largest wineries, you can take it very, very far indeed. In the award-winning, family-run estate’s restaurant, I start with an icewine cosmopolitan. The meal begins: foie gras, tuna tartare spiced with Cabernet Franc icewine. Green bean salad with truffles, paired with Ice Cuvée Classic, Peller’s sparkling wine, topped with icewine for sweetness. Icewine-poached lobster-stuffed ravioli, heritage beef served with quinoa and dried berries (rehydrated with icewine, of course). Each course is paired with an excellent Peller wine, building up to the finale, a glass of Signature Series Vidal Icewine. I hold the smooth liquid on my tongue, letting its acidity bloom.
Icewine’s freezing origins somehow warm the soul. For its distinctly Canadian flavour—encompassing its food, wine and people—visiting Niagara’s wine region is easily one for the bucket list.
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/niagara
SKATE THE RIDEAU
I’m having coffee with some local friends in Ottawa, and one of the guys at the table starts talking about the Rideau Canal. He’s not harping on the fact that it is the “best-preserved slack-water canal in North America, demonstrating the use of European technology on a large scale.” We both don’t know exactly what that means, but that’s the quote from UNESCO’s website recognizing the canal as a World Heritage Site. It’s way cooler to think of this 202-kilometre-long waterway as the very reason Canada is not part of the United States, since this military-built engineering achievement allowed the British to defend the country against attacking Americans. Some historians believe that if the canal didn’t exist, neither might Canada.
Cooler still is the fact that every winter the Rideau turns into the world’s largest outdoor skating rink. At 7.8 kilometres, the skateable section that cuts through Ottawa is equivalent to ninety Olympic-sized hockey rinks. The Rideau used to be the world’s longest skateable rink, until Winnipeg took the title with its 8.54-kilometre-long Assiniboine River Trail. Now there’s an upstart in Invermere, British Columbia, hoping to usurp both with its Whiteways Trail system on Lake Windermere. Ottawa’s wide, Winnipeg’s long. When it comes to the ego of a city, size does matter.
Back to the coffee table in Ottawa. It’s a frosty -12°C outside, and the beans taste particularly good. “You know, the Rideau, it’s a magical place,” says my friend. “Sometimes, at midnight, I put on my speed skates, crank some music on my iPod, and I just go for it. I mean, I just skate fast and smooth, and it feels like I’m flying. Nothing beats that feeling—nothing.”
He tells it the way he feels it, with deep respect and awe. His experience Axel-jumps over the historical significance of the Rideau. It spirals around the quirky fact that Ottawans skate to work, briefcases in hand. It makes my hair stand up and my heart quicken. I want to know that feeling.
That evening, I walk to Kilometre Zero, not far from the steps of Parliament. I only have one night to chase the experience, but there are some challenges to overcome. The fragrance of fresh-fried Beaver Tails wafts in the air, demanding a detour. Exquisite ice sculptures on display from the annual Winterlude Festival prove an additional distraction. I don’t even have skates, but to the rescue are skate rental booths on the skateway. Everything is set, when the final two hurdles present themselves:
Ottawa has enjoyed an unseasonably warm winter, and the result is a skateway cracked and scarred, pockmarked and as uneven as a politician’s ethics. The locals know when to steer clear, but poor tourists are discovering that ice is very hard, and that an outdoor canal differs greatly from a smooth indoor skating rink. An ambulance flashes and some helpful volunteers cart off a skater. On the way, they tell me I’m mad even to think about being on the ice. The fact that I can barely stand up on ice skates (cut the immigrant a break!) isn’t helping.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath and imagine myself skating at speed, under the bright stars, perhaps an artist like Ottawa’s Kathleen Edwards dreamily cooing away on my headphones. Then I slip, land hard on my butt and quickly decide the only sane place for a tourist in Ottawa right now is a warm pub in the ByWard Market district. Which is exactly where I go.
So I never did quite get to skate the Rideau in all its glory. But that shouldn’t stop us from adding it to the Great Canadian Bucket List.
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/rideau
LEAN OFF THE CN TOWER EDGEWALK
Over the years, I’ve built a reputation as something of a thrill-seeker. Trust me, I never set out to run with bulls, jump out of planes, swing from bridges and dive with sharks. Yet one thing led to another, and a former desk-jobber morphed into the travel guy with a regular magazine column called Thrillseeker. So you’re probably thinking: “Of course Esrock would choose to walk outside on one of the world’s tallest free-standing structures. It’s probably something he does every day.” Not quite, but I have walked around the edge of Macau’s 233-metre Skytower, shortly before I bungee jumped off the damn thing.
The EdgeWalk is over 100 metres higher than that, and the view over Lake Ontario and the city beats anything Macau, much less anywhere else, has to offer. To balance the Scale of Nerves, I decide to bring along the editor of this book, the wonderful but decidedly less Thrillseekerish Janice Zawerbny, and join a group of tourists ranging in age from 23 to 68. Janice is afraid of heights but feels inexplicably drawn to the EdgeWalk, the way ambitious business students and musicians from around the country are drawn to the CN Tower vortex. Piercing the sky, head and shoulders above anything else, Canada’s most iconic building landmark was declared a Wonder of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It is a true engineering marvel, 553.33 metres at almost pure vertical, beautifully illuminated at night to become more than just an observation deck and communications tower. The CN Tower is construction as art, Canadian ingenuity at scale, a soaring symbol of Toronto and beyond. Why wouldn’t you want to step outside on its rim, put your toes over the edge and place the world at your feet?
Danger? Come on, people, this is one of Canada’s busiest tourist attractions. Even though we sign the customary waiver, the emphasis on safety is miles ahead of similar attractions I’ve encountered in Asia and New Zealand. After all, this is the world’s highest full-circle, hands-free walk, and we will be walking on a 1.5-metre ledge 356 metres aboveground on the Tower’s main pod.
After taking a Breathalyzer test for alcohol and drugs, we are asked to lock up all loose items—watches, earrings, wallets, necklaces—and slip on a red-rocket walksuit. Our harnesses are checked and quadruple-checked, shoes tightened (twice), glasses attached with string, hair tied up. I see a familiar nervous look in the eye of Janice. The look of: I don’t know why I’m doing this, but I must do it all the same.
You can see every one of the CN Tower’s 116 storeys in the elevator as you ascend the external glass-faced shaft. Suddenly the height becomes real. Suddenly the only illustrious CN Tower record I can remember is that 360, the restaurant located 351 metres up, holds the Guinness World Record for the World’s Highest Wine Cellar.
In a small control centre, alongside a monitor recording wind speeds and weather, we get clipped in (twice, with additional zip ties) to a steel overhead track. You’ve more chance of spontaneously combusting than of slipping out of this contraption. Our affable guide, Christian, tells me that although he’s undergone extensive training, his only qualification for the job was his healthy fear of heights. Empathy with clients is a natural asset.
He leads us onto the metal walkway and invites us to walk right up to the edge, our toes hanging over. Even though I know we’re safer up here than the folks in the Hot Wheels–sized cars stuck in traffic below, my mind does its best to convince me that leaning over the edge of the CN Tower is not something my body should do. Fortunately, I stopped listening to myself years ago, so I follow my fellow EdgeWalkers pushing their limits and shuffle up to the edge. We applaud our efforts, swap high-fives and breathe in the sweeping view below.
As the walk continues around the Tower, we hit the windy side, with 53-kilometre-an-hour gusts of warm air instantly pickling our adrenal glands. Christian has to holler to point out landmarks. This time he encourages us to lean forward over the edge, on our tiptoes. Each challenge is ably met, so by the time the group returns to the sheltered side, facing the sea that is Lake Ontario on a day so clear I can make out the buildings at Niagara Falls, everyone is comfortable enough to lean back and smile for the photos. Arms outstretched, her heels balanced on the edge, the formerly afraid-of-heights Janice embraces the sky with a huge smile on her face. See, you don’t have to be a thrill-seeker to benefit from a little edge.
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/edgewalk
MOTORBIKE AROUND LAKE SUPERIOR
Lake Superior doesn’t give up her dead. The water of the world’s largest lake by area is so cold, bodies sink to its depths. Mortality was on my mind as I nervously tucked into pancakes in the crowded Hoito Finnish Diner in Thunder Bay.
You have to admit, a writer getting killed in a motorcycle accident while researching a book about things to do before you die has just the sort of ironic twist you’d find in a newspaper story. Granted, I’d already walked face-first off a cliff, scuba dived wrecks and driven many a long moose-trapped highway, but the challenge ahead was particularly and personally daunting. My wife and mother were in full fret mode over my plan to research one of the great motorcycle trips of Canada: the north shore of Lake Superior. So what if I’d never been on a bike trip before? So what if my saddle hours, including my licence training, could be counted on two fingers? So what if the most powerful bike I’d ever ridden was 125 cc? And so what if a car did T-bone my scooter, breaking my knee and cracking my helmet? That accident kick-started my grand adventure, my rebirth as an adventurer!
I’ve faced so many limit-pushing challenges in the many years since then that I’ve learned the secret to getting through just about anything. Douglas Adams boldly put it in his futuristic travel book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. When Larry Lage, owner of Thunder Bay’s Excalibur Motorcycle Works, hands me a jacket and gloves, he doesn’t notice that under my thin-lipped smile I’m muttering my most powerful mantra:
Don’t Panic.
Riding a motorcycle on the shores of mighty Lake Superior, as I was quick to discover, is one part exhilaration, one part speed, a dash of freedom, a lime wedge of danger, topped off with camaraderie and natural beauty to make a cocktail of mobile magic. No wonder this 700-kilometre stretch of the Trans-Canada from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie has such an amazing reputation with bikers. Wavy S-curves on smooth blacktop cutting through forest and rock, always close to sparkling blue lake, the north shore attracts riders from across the continent, some of whom complete the 2,100-kilometre loop around Superior on scenic roads in the United States.
One Week
In the 2008 film One Week, Joshua Jackson plays a mild Torontonian named Ben who discovers he has terminal cancer. He promptly buys a 1973 Norton Commando motorcycle and decides to ride to Vancouver Island, a road trip so intrinsically Canadian even the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie shows up in a cameo. On his journey, Ben encounters the world’s biggest nickel in Sudbury, ponders Terry Fox outside Thunder Bay and takes snaps of the world’s biggest camel, tipi, hockey stick and muskie. Ben would have liked this book.
Larry had loaned me his Kawasaki KWR 650 dual-sport bike, its odometer a third of the way through its second (or third) rotation. The bike is reliable and experienced, much like my biking buddy Steve Kristjanson. A semi-retired jack-of-all-trades, Steve has seen thousands of kilometres in the saddle, having ridden to the Soo and back in one stretch, a 1,400-kilometre sitting. Our goal is half that in double the time, two days on the road, stopping at viewpoints and attractions along the way.
We start by paying homage to Terry Fox at his memorial just outside Thunder Bay. Here was a boy who was running across Canada, racked with cancer, on one leg. His legacy—hundreds of millions of dollars raised for cancer research—is an inspiration and further steel to arm my own courage for the incomparably lighter challenge ahead.
Still, it doesn’t stop me from stalling my bike at a highway intersection, right next to Larry and his bike-instructor girlfriend Diane, who are accompanying us to the Ouimet Canyon. I expect Larry to point me right back to his shop, but he gamely encourages me instead. “Keep your head up, and look where you want to go, not at whatever you’re going to hit,” adds Diane, like a supportive parent. These guys live and breathe their bikes, a world apart from the annoying twits on decibel-shattering cruises, content to just parade them. I’m told the biggest danger is moose and deer, which can run out of the ditches straight into your path. Warning signs line the highway, and I spot the occasional cross in the ground commemorating those who didn’t heed them. Steve hit a deer a couple of years ago going sixty, broke his knee and killed the animal. He knows he got off lightly.
Visor down, I smooth into the groove of the road. The slightest movement of my hand on the throttle has an instant effect, slowing me down, hurling me forward. We pass through the glowing ridge at Red Rocks, stopping to admire magnificent views of this sea-lake. With a surface area of 82,100 square kilometres, Lake Superior contains a whopping 10 percent of all the surface freshwater on the planet. It creates its own weather system, supports fisheries and tourism, and each winter generates waves up to 2.5 metres high, to the delight of some truly hard-core and well-insulated surfers.
After dinner in Rossport, we check out the Aguasabon River Gorge before stopping for the night in the small mill town of Terrace Bay. We ride in on a newly tarred stretch of highway candy, as smooth and black as licorice. Steve lubes the chains, checks the tires and oil, a picture of Zen with his art of motorcycle maintenance. It’s a relief to get out of my sweat-soaked biker gear, a relief that my only crash today is in the soft bed of the Imperial Motel.
Thick fog blows in ominously the following morning. Moose had crashed into my anxious dreams. Come on, Esrock, get a grip! Yes, motorcycles are more likely to lead to accidents, and having felt the wind slam against my chest at a hundred kilometres an hour, I know there’s little room for error. Yet the highway is wide and forgiving, traffic relatively light, overtaking lanes frequent.
We ride into the spooky fog in staggered formation, brights on, speed down. Droplets of moisture cling to my visor, so I use my gloved hand to wipe it clean. The roar of the engine, the blur of green forest, the steam rising off lakes in the shadows: even in the fog, the adventure is . . . superior! Gradually, visibility improves, the clouds providing some welcome shelter from the unusually hot sun. I take a photo in White River, where Winnie, the bear that inspired the children’s books, was born. When we reach the landmark Wawa Goose overlooking the valley, I’m still wondering what a Pooh is. The sandy beach and overlooking cliffs at Old Women’s Bay are gorgeous, as is the view of the lake islands from Alona Bay.
A Wild Goose Chase
Among the roadside attractions you’ll encounter, look out for Wawa’s famous Canada goose. It’s the largest statue of its kind and claims to be one of Canada’s most photographed landmarks. Dating back to the early 1960s, the 8.5-metre steel bird was built to encourage passing traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway to come into Wawa. Today, Wawa’s goose even has its own webcam.
I’m getting comfortable on the bike, accustomed to the speed, the wind, the vibration beneath me. Next time you find yourself behind a bike on the highway, watch what happens when it passes another bike going in the opposite direction. The left hand points out, wrist slightly twisted, for the friendly biker “wave.” Everybody does it, like the secret handshake of some exclusive club. Everyone except three riders on Harleys, whom Steve, riding a rare Suzuki DR800, dismisses as posers anyway.
By the time we reach Batchawana Bay, stopping to enjoy a cold reward beer at Voyageurs, I feel as if I’ve overcome my own poser problems. Other than three deer crossing the road, the risk was benign. Whatever ghosts were haunting my nerves had been winterized in the garage. Lake Superior, with waters that never give up her dead, energized me with a rush of life.
Bike stored outside the hotel in Sault Ste. Marie, I text a biker friend back home to let him know I made it safely. He replies in seconds. “Makes you appreciate your life knowing you can die at any moment hey?”
No, it makes you appreciate life knowing you can conquer your fears.
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/superior
EXPLORE THE GREAT MUSEUMS
The word museum sounds awfully like mausoleum—a place where artifacts go to die. Fortunately, Canada’s great museums are anything but, having been revitalized into living temples of knowledge where one can interact with, discover and journey to far-off places, without ever leaving the building.
Let’s begin our brief guided tour in Ottawa, home to a half-dozen national museums, where locals and visitors learn all about Canada and beyond. We start in the National Gallery, housing the country’s largest collection of Canadian art. The brainchild of renowned Canadian architect Moshe Safdie, the Great Hall is entered via a long ramp, designed to put visitors in the right frame of mind to experience the art to come. The Great Hall uses windows and skylights to create an exceptionally light space, cleverly avoiding direct contact with the art itself while offering famous views of the Parliament Buildings. Safdie was inspired by the Library of Parliament, so much so that the Great Hall has a volume identical to that of Parliament’s stone library that sits across the Ottawa River. Besides iconic works from Canadian greats throughout history, the museum also features works by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Warhol and Pollock. You can’t miss the gallery’s distinctive glass entrance, or Louise Bourgeois’s creepy spider outside.
We’ll walk across the Ottawa River along the Alexandra Bridge and into Gatineau, Quebec. It takes just twenty minutes to reach the beautifully designed Canadian Museum of History, the most-visited museum in the country. Over the next few years, the former Canadian Museum of Civilization will be renovating half of its permanent space, introducing new galleries to complement old favourites. We enter through the Grand Hall, with its view of the river and Parliament Hill, under towering totem poles (the largest display in the world), to Haida artist Bill Reid’s original plaster of his masterpiece Spirit of Haida Gwaii. It’s a fitting introduction to the first level, the First People’s Hall, tracing twenty thousand years of Aboriginal history in Canada. With the renovation, the former Canada Hall, Canadian Personalities Hall and Canadian Postal Museum have been combined to create the largest exhibition of Canadian history ever assembled. Unaffected by the refurbishment is the Canadian Children’s Museum, where kids will continue to embed themselves in new worlds, literally getting passports as they learn how people live around the world.
Ottawa’s other national museums are well worth investigating: the Museum of Nature, the Canadian Agriculture Museum, the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum, the Canadian Science and Technology Museum and the haunting Canadian War Museum, with its jarring structural angles and captivating human stories.
Still in Ontario, let’s Porter (verb: to fly affordably) to Toronto and gander at T-Dot’s prize museums. The Royal Ontario Museum, or ROM, is the largest cultural and natural history museum in Canada, and the most popular and visited museum in the city. Star architect Daniel Libeskind’s futuristic Crystal looks as if a Transformer crashed into a heritage building—which works to attract more than one million visitors annually to the museum’s forty galleries. With over six million items, the ROM has something for everybody, and plenty left over. I love the Dinosaur Gallery, the giant totem pole and the creepy Gallery of Birds, forever flying nowhere.
Not far away, on Dundas Street, is the Art Gallery of Ontario, one of the largest gallery spaces in North America, with a collection of over eighty thousand works from the first century to the present. Residing in its Georgian manor premises since 1910, the AGO continues to host some of the world’s most important art exhibitions, introducing visitors to the Old Masters, King Tut and the Pharoahs, along with priceless works from the Hermitage and India’s Royal Courts.
Yes, Canada’s great museums are very much alive, prized and treasured by anyone interested in culture, history, art and science. Prized and appreciated, therefore, by anyone ticking off the Great Canadian Bucket List.
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/museums
SUPPORT THE BLUE JAYS
I’m entering the big leagues, ready to play hardball and cover my bases so I can knock this one out of the park. Although it might come out of left field, I’m going to say this right off the bat: I’ve never been to a baseball game, never so much as watched a baseball game on TV, and other than reading the book Moneyball, I can’t tell the singles from the shutouts. “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” but it’s the truth. I grew up watching cricket, which bowls out North Americans the way baseball throws a curveball at cricket fans. Still, I can appreciate that the Toronto Blue Jays are no grandstanding bush-league team. They’re the only Canadian team in the major leagues, the only other part of the World that currently qualifies for the World Series, and as such, supporting them at home deserves a spot on the Great Canadian Bucket List.
My first impression, as I enjoy the view inside the stadium from the Renaissance Hotel’s Arriba Restaurant, is that these guys can throw. How their arms stay in their sockets is a mystery, as the Blue Jays warm up for their opening match in a series against the Los Angeles Angels. The retractable roof of the Rogers Centre is open to allow the ballpark to bask in the glorious late June sun. Satiated with beer from Arriba (at considerably less than what you might pay for it in the stadium), I hop over to the stadium and take my seat in the modest crowd a dozen rows up to the left of home base. It’s been decades since the Blue Jays’ glory days of 1992–93, when they won back-to-back World Series, Canada’s first World Series titles. Since then, at the time of writing, they hadn’t made the playoffs. Poor Toronto sport fans, forever supporting their underdog hockey, basketball and baseball teams.
Still, this is the big league, and the atmosphere is festive, especially with the year’s star player, Jose Bautista, smashing home runs out of the park. When he steps up to bat, the stadium simmers with anticipation, and the pitcher throws more balls than usual. I explain to my wife, poorly, that a ball is a pitch that does not qualify for a strike. She tells me I should just stick to cricket, since the only balls she can see are those being thrown, and possibly the ones on the fielder with the too-tight pants.
We watch as a foul hit ricochets into the crowd, causing a mosh pit frenzy to claim the ball. Not only is it perfectly acceptable for a whizzing baseball to scalp the inattentive fan, but it’s expected that surrounding fans will trample them to hell in hopes of leaving with a souvenir. In cricket, I might add, the ball is tossed back into the field of play.
Somewhere in the middle of the game, Bautista hits a huge home run with the bases loaded, and I’m on my feet with the rest of them, cheering the four players running around the diamond. That’s the moment I was looking for, right there, an instant of support and momentary triumph with the shadow of the CN Tower looming overhead. We follow the game as best we can, understanding that it appears to be coming right down to the bottom of the ninth, in which the bases are loaded and a Blue Jays home run would sneak a victory right out from under the mitts of the Angels. Strike one. Strike two. Then, before I can fully build up my excitement, the batter hits the ball directly to an outfielder, the Blue Jays hang their heads and slump their shoulders, the Angels jump up and down, and fans begin to stream out of their seats. As the Blue Jays’ newest fans, we look around and notice nobody’s too hung up about it. It’s the Blue Jays. They’re used to this sort of thing. But it won’t stop the fans from coming back—not one iota. And it won’t stop those of us ticking off bucket lists either.
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/bluejays
GIVE A STANDING OVATION IN STRATFORD
“We all hope that in your lives you have just the right amount of sitting quietly at home, and just the right amount of adventure.”
—Barnaby Tucker in Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker
When a small town falls on hard times, it needs to reinvent itself. Once a railway junction and manufacturing centre for locomotives, Stratford found itself in an economic pickle until a local journalist named Tom Patterson realized that a town named after Stratford-upon-Avon, sitting on its own Avon River, with a neighbouring town called Shakespeare, should have its own Shakespeare Festival. In the summer of 1953, Alec Guinness uttered the first lines of the first play (in a tent, no less), and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival was born.
By the time I visit, sixty years later, Stratford has grown to host one of the largest and most renowned theatre festivals in the world. During its lengthy April-to-November engagement, it attracts some of the world’s best actors, directors, designers and theatre talent. The tent has been replaced by four major theatres, pioneering the thrust stage that allows the audience to surround the actors on three sides, as they would have in Shakespeare’s day. Enthusiastic audiences arrive from around the world, with the theatre boom resulting in significant economic aftershocks.
10 Famous Actors Who Have Performed at the Festival
Stratford boasts one of the best culinary schools in the country; an impressive selection of restaurants, hotels and theatre schools; and the third-largest costume warehouse in the world. It’s a town where kids grow up knowing they can make a living in the arts—as actors, stage designers, lighting technicians or musicians. A fact acknowledged by its most recent celebrity resident, a kid who used to busk outside the Avon Theatre on Downie Street and goes by the name of Justin Bieber. The week before I arrive, Bieber humbly returned to the same spot on the same stairs, guitar in hand, to play a couple of songs. Today, as I enjoy poutine at the Downie Street Burger across the street, a violinist sends his classical notes soaring into the warm summer breeze. Spotless, small downtown Stratford hums with coffee shops, chocolatiers, boutiques, bistros and bookstores—the kind of place that leaves a whimsical impression and envy for the thirty-two thousand people who live in a small town with more culture than most major cities.
Live trumpets at the tent-inspired Festival Theatre signal that it’s time for the two p.m. matinee of this year’s popular farce, The Matchmaker. Non-Shakespearean works were introduced as early as the festival’s second year, and today include musicals, comedies, Broadway hits and classic works of world theatre. Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker was the Broadway hit that inspired Hello, Dolly! and contained some of the sharpest wit and most crackling situational comedy ever seen onstage. There are several interweaving storylines, but I’m particularly drawn to the tale of two shop clerks, trapped in their work, determined, for one day at least, to have “an adventure.” It all leads to love, danger, fear and shenanigans, reflected in blistering one-liners, split-second escapes and an endearing happy ending. The performances are fantastic, the stage design stupendous, and two hours later the cast graciously receives a standing ovation from the crowd. On top of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s many accomplishments, it’s this moment of appreciation that bows its way onto the Great Canadian Bucket List.
Later, I tour the fascinating costume and prop warehouse, and walk down to the Avon River. Opposite colourful artists displaying their work in the park, swans glide under the scenic arched bridge to Patterson Island. I wonder if Patterson had any notion of the impact his idea would have on the town, its people and Canada’s cultural legacy. Regardless, we can all appreciate the power of reinvention and the special magic that brews when we wake up and decide to chase our own adventures.
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/shakespeare
GET SPRAYED IN NIAGARA FALLS
Visiting the tourist zone in the town of Niagara Falls on Canada Day is a classy dream, and by classy I mean tacky, and by dream I mean nightmare. Vegas without the spectacle, the tourist zone is designed for sugar-saturated, overstimulated kids dragging along bludgeoned parents with their bruised wallets. Theme rides, water parks, lineups, burger, ice cream and hot dog joints—on a scorching July 1, it can all seem a bit much. Then I opened the drapes of the honeymooners’ suite on the twenty-first floor of the Sheraton to see what had attracted all this madness in the first place.
Never underestimate the impact of seeing Niagara Falls for the first time. This from a guy who’s swum in rock pools atop Victoria Falls, speedboated up the tropical canyons of South America’s stunning Iguazu Falls and showered in the cascades of some of the most beautiful waterfalls on six continents. Once I got past the family holiday madness, the crowds, the crawling traffic and the fifteen-minute wait for the Sheraton’s elevators, I could see Niagara Falls for what it is: Canada’s most spectacular natural wonder, worthy of its draw as one of the world’s great tourist attractions.
Draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, the American, Bridal and Horseshoe falls combine to produce the highest flow rate of any waterfall in the world, a volume of water that famously sends mist mushrooming into the sky. It’s even more impressive when you consider that massive hydroelectric projects upriver redirect much of the flow before it reaches the 21- to 30-metre drop of the American Falls and the 53-metre plummet at the Horseshoe-shaped crest that separates Canada from the United States.
On the Wire
June 15, 2012, saw the first tightrope walk across Niagara Falls in 116 years. A seventh-generation tightrope walker, Nik Wallenda walked 550 metres near the base of Horseshoe Falls, watched by millions on television and huge crowds on both sides of the border. Getting permission for the stunt was no easy task, as Canadian authorities in Niagara were worried the stunt would encourage amateurs. Just a few months earlier, an unidentified man scaled a railing and jumped into Horseshoe Falls, becoming the third person to survive an unprotected fall into the Falls.
Given the hyper-commercialization of the town, I enjoyed simply strolling along the promenade on a warm night, watching spotlights illuminate the water, feeling the refreshing spray as I got closer to the thunderous whirlpool beneath Horseshoe Falls. Before the lake waters disappear over the edge, the Falls seem to challenge each visitor with a thought experiment: if I went over the edge, would I survive? Three people have survived after going over unprotected, including a seven-year-old boy, while others have used barrels and protective devices to increase their chances of emerging unscathed. Over the years some have succeeded, others not. Nik Wallenda’s tightrope walk in 2012, the first successful attempt in over a century, becomes even more impressive at the scene of his accomplishment. Illegal as it is to attempt it, people will continue to test the might of North America’s mightiest falls, on purpose and by accident.
The iconic experience, the must-do no matter how long the lineup, is a gorge cruise. Since 1846, the Maid of the Mist has soaked the passengers on its decks in the steam shower beneath Horseshoe Falls. There are several boats running every fifteen minutes on both sides of the border, taking up to six hundred passengers at a time, doing a blistering trade on the summer’s busiest long weekend. Joining the Canada Day mayhem, I expected to be waiting for hours, but the lineup moved quickly and smoothly. Passengers are given blue plastic ponchos and are herded like cattle through various checkpoints before entering the boat, squeezing onto the upper and lower decks. As we motor along upriver, squeals from the kids greet the first sheet of spray. By the time we retreat from the choppy rapids several minutes later, everyone’s head is soaked. From the boat, Niagara Falls looks and sounds like the wild and raging natural wonder it is.
With cash in hand, you can take Niagara Parks’ Journey Behind the Falls, or take to the skies with Niagara Helicopter’s nine-minute ride, or cross the canyon farther downriver in an old-fashioned air tram, or watch a 4-D movie (the extra D means you’ll get sprayed with water in the theatre). That’s a lot of waterfall action. I was content to enjoy the exceptional view from my hotel room and watch the nightly fireworks. Could I live without the kitsch attractions and loud, wet kids bouncing around in the elevators? Definitely. Is Niagara Falls something to see before you die? Absolutely.
In early 2012, it was announced that Maid of the Mist had lost its contract to print money, i.e., to be the exclusive operator of boat tours into the gorge. As of 2014, the Maid of the Mist will continue to run on the American side, but new vessels will run on the Canadian side, operated by Hornblower, the same company behind Statue of Liberty and Alcatraz cruises.
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/falls
WATCH THE MAPLE LEAFS vs. THE HABS
The Great Canadian Bucket List does not deal in hypotheticals. It doesn’t include items such as Play Hoops with Steve Nash, or Go Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel, as thrilling as they both sound. So while I’d love to list Watch Your Team Win Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals, the painful reality is that you might never get the opportunity to do so. Most of us will battle to find a ticket if our team actually gets to Game Seven in the first place. That being said, after an exhausting and bruising season, chances are at least two Canadian teams will make it to the annual playoffs, and you just might find yourself in the stands whooping like a crane when they do so.
I cheer for any Canadian team in the playoffs, which I understand violates several hockey codes. I’m told Montreal Canadiens fans would simply never cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Calgary Flames would sooner be extinguished than support the slick Edmonton Oilers. Everyone east of B.C. hates the Canucks, but differences can be put aside for the Winnipeg Jets because their logo is so damn cool. All of that being said, whether you’re a hockey supporter or not, the Great Canadian Bucket List demands that you experience true hockey fever at least once, and thus I find myself at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, watching the oldest rivalry in Canadian hockey.
Canada’s Ultimate Hockey Matchup
Toronto and Montreal have faced each other in fifteen playoff series, the last one being in 1979. The Habs have won 8 to the Leafs’ 7. Score: Canadiens 1
Forbes places the Toronto Maple Leafs as the NHL’s Most Valuable Team. The Montreal Canadiens slot in at Number 3, behind the New York Rangers. Score: Maple Leafs 1
All-time leading scorer for the Maple Leafs is Mats Sundin (981 games, 420 goals, 987 points). All-time leading scorer for the Habs is Maurice “The Rocket” Richard (1,111 games, 626 goals, 1,091 points). Score: Canadiens 1
Number of Stanley Cups: Maple Leafs 13, Canadiens 24. Score: Canadiens 1
Final Score: In a closely contested series, I have to give it to the Winnipeg Jets.
I knew this was more than a game when, earlier, I stood on the subway platform in Toronto’s College station. Facing me was a mural of Leafs hockey players, and against my back was a mural of Habs players. After quickly checking why the Canadiens are known as the Habs (it’s short for habitants, the name given to French settlers in New France), I concluded that anything immortalized in subway station art must be important. Since the 1940s, these two teams have come to represent more than just hockey. Each time the skates hit the ice, a national scar gets scratched. The blue Toronto Maple Leafs are a symbol of Canada’s British heritage, the English elite that have brokered the financial power among the tall buildings in Canada’s biggest city. The red Habs are passionate warriors of the French-Canadian heritage, where emotions run deep and a distinct culture is celebrated. It’s the yin-yang dichotomy of Canada, a cultural clash, a historical mash-up, a tale of the country’s two biggest cities.
I’ve always believed there’s a connection between the growth of commercial sport and the relatively peaceful times in which we now live. When two nations can vent their frustrations on a soccer pitch or a hockey rink, what need is there to take up axes and spill unnecessary blood? Points can be proven, boasts can be sung and losers can walk away knowing there is always a next time. Considering that many of the players are actually from the United States, Scandinavia, Russia or other parts of Canada, hockey is mostly a fan’s battle anyway.
Now, if you mix red and blue together, you get purple, the right colour for the bruising matchup I expected at Air Canada Centre. I’m told there’s no other game in the NHL where you’ll hear so many fans cheering for the opposing team. Indeed, there’s no shortage of Habs shirts walking about in hostile territory. If this were an English football game, that might be dangerous, but as it stands, I bump into two brothers wearing opposing team sweaters. “How is this possible?” I ask. They explain that they grew up in Montreal, and one brother relocated to Toronto fifteen years ago, adopting his city’s team just as surely as I’ve adopted Canada’s national sport.
The mood is festive, a little tense. I head up to the nosebleed bleachers and meet more Montreal fans, engaged in conversation with Leafs regulars the next row up. Perhaps if this were Game Seven (there go the hypotheticals again), or if the light beer wasn’t so expensive, there might be some real danger.
The teams come onto the ice, the fans cheer, and Montreal proceeds to give the long-suffering Leafs a 5–0 drubbing. Months later, the Maple Leafs will have their revenge. It’s all good fun until someone gets hurt, which strapping young millionaires on ice skates are very well paid to do on our behalf.
Wherever you are in Canada, cheering at a live hockey game that matters is something to do before you’re sent to the Great Big Penalty Box in the Sky.
START HERE: canadianbucketlist.com/nhl