Devon Brown has spent nearly all of his life in eastern Ontario and mostly in the Cornwall area. He’s a young man who has experienced his fair share of struggle, but who now seeks to chart a new, more hopeful course in life. The thread that binds his past, present and future is his passion… Read more »
Thanks to statistics compiled by the Ottawa Public Library, we now know the titles of the most popular reads in Canada’s capital in 2022. According to statistics released by the OPL’s Content Services department, American author Delia Owens 2018 novel Where Crowdads Sing was the most popular English-language adult book checked out from the branches… Read more »
It was around 2am on April 4, 1880, when the first of three false fire alarms occurred. The fire department was busy checking them out, not realizing that the fourth alarm was real and resulted in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on Bank St. being destroyed by fire. At 4am, the Sexton at St. Joseph’s Parish… Read more »
I was perusing books this afternoon at Chapters in Gloucester when a man in a hushed voice asked a clerk behind me if there was a way to purchase a certain memoir by a certain talkative prince (more accurately, by his ghost writer) today — a day in advance of it hitting the shelves in… Read more »
Last night I celebrated Epiphany at my place in Ottawa’s east-end with two friends. They brought a Rosca de Reyes — a Ring of (Three) Kings, a traditional sweet bread in Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese culture, which contains hidden inside a small figurine of the baby Jesus. The person who gets the figurine is… Read more »
For a child, the anticipation of Christmas is a time of excitement and joy as they count down the days for the up coming feast. All of this excitement slows down to a quiet whisper as the child experiences the ‘not yet’ moment. Getting up early on Christmas morning and tiptoeing to the front room… Read more »
On Friday evening, St. Joseph’s Parish, Paroisse Sacré-Coeur across the street from us and the Christian Reformed Chaplaincy held a bilingual and ecumenical Thanksgiving Dinner for students — many of whom were international or away from home for the holiday weekend. Some of the international students celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time. As organizers, we… Read more »
Among the good things about living in eastern Ontario are the country fairs this time of year. I usually visit at least one each year; I’ve been to Russell, Renfrew and this year I’m in Spencerville. As I roamed the vast fair grounds, I snapped a few photos of this spirited country event.
The First Lady of Manawaka is an excellent 1978 documentary on Canadian author Margaret Laurence, available in full on the NFB website. I only discovered it recently — and along the way found the NFB website to be a wonderful collection of documentaries from past decades available to the public. This one was directed by… Read more »
Library and Archives Canada was a good resource years ago when I was conducting research for my PhD dissertation. I could show up without reservation, present my card, order unrestricted library material, buy lunch in the cafeteria and have resources ready for me by the time I finished my meal. I haven’t had to turn… Read more »