I confess that I am not a big hockey person. However, I did grow up watching my brother play hockey and occasionally watched a game on TV with my father (a former hockey player himself). So even I have an understanding of and respect for the iconic Stanley Cup, the silver trophy awarded to the …
The Enoch Turner Schoolhouse Foundation, a not-for-profit charity established in 1971, held their annual fund-raising Founders’ Dinner last night, and I was honoured to be invited to represent the Ontario Historical Society. As a bonus, it gave me the chance to have a look inside the museum, which is owned and operated by the Ontario …
On a grey November Sunday afternoon in Toronto, it was a pleasure to venture inside Spadina Museum, one of the 10 City of Toronto Museums. My visit began with this video, Spadina and Toronto in the 1920s: An Introduction, which was very helpful in setting the home and Austin family in context. I enjoyed an …
As I’ve mentioned before, one of the joys of this 100 Museums Challenge is discovering new places I hadn’t known about before. One such is The Japan Foundation in Toronto at Yonge & Bloor. The Foundation’s facilities include a wonderful library and a gallery with changing exhibits, the current one being Fans Onstage. The exhibit …
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 …
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. …
The Design Exchange has been located in the old Toronto Stock Exchange at 234 Bay Street, designated a heritage property in 1978, since 1994. The signage says: While the Design Exchange did have one current exhibition on (The Futurists: Young Canada Transforms Tomorrow), I was more interested in the historic building, for an odd personal reason. …
