My first night in Ireland, after 18 years away, I had a hotel room in Ennis, County Clare, with a window facing directly onto Ennis Friary. The sight of this 13th century Franciscan friary that had seen so much history was a perfect introduction to how Ireland’s preserved heritage structures are OLD old, compared to …
The Art Gallery of Northumberland, a non-profit organziation, is located on the third floor of Victoria Hall in Cobourg, Ontario. Last year at this time, just before Remembrance Day, I visited their exhibition of the intriguing paintings of Canadian contemporary artist Charles Pachter (perhaps most famous for his 1972 portrait of Queen Elizabeth astride a moose). …
For five years in the early ’90s I lived in Kingston, Ontario, and must have gone by Kingston Penitentiary hundreds of times. It was a fully functioning maximum security prison for men then, housing many of Canada’s most dangerous criminals, including sex offenders. This was a forbidding place to look on with dread and pass …
I expect I’ll be reflecting on the powerful Mandela exhibition at Meridian Arts Centre Gallery for quite some time. In Toronto through January 5, 2020, the traveling exhibition is a collaboration between the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg (which I have yet to visit) and the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa (ditto). Here …
Is Toronto’s Mackenzie House haunted? One of the ten City of Toronto museums, Mackenzie House (built c. 1858) is the former home of William Lyon Mackenzie, Toronto’s first mayor, and has a reputation for being one of the most haunted buildings in Toronto. As a fan of Victorian funerary practices, I couldn’t pass up this …
I was very impressed by The 48th Highlanders Museum, located in St. Andrew’s Church at King St. W & Simcoe St. in Toronto (next to Roy Thompson Hall). Upon hearing “it’s a small museum in a church basement,” you’d be forgiven for raising an eyebrow. However, the museum, staffed by knowledgeable volunteers, presents and interprets …
I have so many thoughts about Niagara Wax Museum of History in Niagara Falls, New York, which I visited for over two hours on a rainy September evening, that I hardly know where to start. This brochure gives you a pretty good idea of what I saw. And this sign outside will help. Who knew …
It was a privilege to visit the Salem Chapel British Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Catharines, Ontario, on a day tour led by Lezlie Harper Wells of Niagara Bound Tours. I apologize that I do not know the names of the volunteers who gave us a wonderful tour of the inside of the church. The …
On the third floor of Casa Loma is a completely separate museum, the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum and Archives. My visit to the museum answered two questions I’d had. 1) What was the story behind “Our Absent Hero: Poems in Loving Memory of Captain William Arthur Peel Durie, 58th Battalion, C.E.F.” by …
Osgoode Hall, one of the oldest buildings in Toronto (opened 1832), is the home of the Law Society of Ontario as well as the highest courts of the province. As I was sitting on the grassy lawn outside, reading about the architecture, I was startled when a large clump of leaves fell on my papers. …
