Past Features
Panama rediscovered
BOCAS DEL TORO, PANAMA -- After pounding a coconut against the sharp end of a rock for about half an hour, the husk finally gives way. Tearing off the sinewy layers, I smash the exposed shell repeatedly until it cracks. As I drink the sweet milk, I realize that this flurry of activity has been the most physical work I've done since arriving in Panama two weeks ago.
The modern Grand Tour
It wasn't too long ago when the Grand Tour was considered the crucial element for every gentleman's and lady's education. The standard prescriptive visit to the Continent's museums to meditate quietly with Michelangelo or gaze Sphinx-like on antiquities would unleash the spirit within, and transform the previously callow bumpkin into an urbane sophisticate. (The urbane sophisticate would turn into a fez-wearing romantic.)
Under the Great Bear's spell
KLEMTU, B.C. -- Flying into the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest, I felt like I was in a scene from Out of Africa:A lone airplane glides above the ground, signalling the ease with which human beings can know the remotest locations -- at least from high above. But as soon as our six-seater seaplane passed through the mist and splash-landed by the small town of Klemtu, B.C., in the middle of the world's largest intact temperate rain forest, there were no more celluloid references to draw on. There was no glossy brochure to read, and no Robert Redford to take charge of the wild.
Backpacking boomers
If you always reckoned that backpacking overseas for months at a stretch was a Gen X luxury, think again. Fifty-four-year-old Marion Blake, who runs a bed and breakfast in Kelowna, B.C., and her husband, Wayne, a 56-year-old teacher, embarked upon a five-month trip to Europe this month with a knapsack apiece as their only luggage.
Fall Tour
Ontario is known for the beauty of its autumn season, when the province's hardwood forests drape themselves in brilliant colours, summer crowds have thinned, and while days are still warm, nights are refreshingly cool. It's a perfect time to drive through some of the most colourful regions, hike nature trails, visit fall fairs and artists' studios, or pamper yourself at an inn or a spa while enjoying the fiery spectacle.
San Francisco's lush back yard
MILL VALLEY, CALIF. -- The trail map for Mt. Tamal-pais in Marin County, Calif., looks like a bowl of spaghetti, dense with a century's worth of hiking trails and fire roads.
Ten holes to remember
From the moment people began slamming on their car brakes and sneaking onto the course, as if spellbound, to play their 14th hole, the managers of British Columbia's Furry Creek Golf and Country Club knew that they had won golf's version of the lottery.
Memories of matadors and Morocco
SEVILLE, SPAIN -- I have seen horses dance and bulls die. Throughout both, I sat engrossed, as the animal surrendered to the will of man. Throughout both, the rings were filled with sand and sweat, but only one ran rich with blood.
On the road again
There are no innocent bystanders. What were they doing there in the first place?
William S. Burroughs I had just strolled past a village on Weno Island in Chuuk, Micronesia, when two men burst from the trees. My first thought was that they were coming for me. The man ahead looked scared, the second was shirtless, their sprinting feet strangely in step. The one other detail I caught was the machete brandished in the second man's fist. Even as I swung my gaze to follow, they vanished through a break in the foliage. Their footfalls faded in seconds.
Keeping up with New York
NEW YORK -- Last month, if anything in New York was new, hip and vaguely artsy, chances are it was happening just across the East River in Brooklyn. Downtown was over: Too many expensive restaurants, too much pressure, and who could afford the rents? Anyone who knew what was what was hanging out in Brooklyn's Williamsburg.
Ten holes to remember
From the moment people began slamming on their car brakes and sneaking onto the course, as if spellbound, to play their 14th hole, the managers of British Columbia's Furry Creek Golf and Country Club knew that they had won golf's version of the lottery.
Memories of matadors and Morocco
SEVILLE, SPAIN -- I have seen horses dance and bulls die. Throughout both, I sat engrossed, as the animal surrendered to the will of man. Throughout both, the rings were filled with sand and sweat, but only one ran rich with blood.
On the road again
There are no innocent bystanders. What were they doing there in the first place?
William S. Burroughs I had just strolled past a village on Weno Island in Chuuk, Micronesia, when two men burst from the trees. My first thought was that they were coming for me. The man ahead looked scared, the second was shirtless, their sprinting feet strangely in step. The one other detail I caught was the machete brandished in the second man's fist. Even as I swung my gaze to follow, they vanished through a break in the foliage. Their footfalls faded in seconds.
Keeping up with New York
NEW YORK -- Last month, if anything in New York was new, hip and vaguely artsy, chances are it was happening just across the East River in Brooklyn. Downtown was over: Too many expensive restaurants, too much pressure, and who could afford the rents? Anyone who knew what was what was hanging out in Brooklyn's Williamsburg.
The marathon tourist
CALGARY -- Jim and Ruth Ralston know what they want in a holiday -- and they'll do their legwork to make sure they get it right. The Niagara Falls, Ont., runners plan all of their vacations around their passion -- the 42-kilometre endurance race known as the marathon.
In bed with the stars
When early September rolls around in Toronto, the one thing that is more valuable than gold in this town is hotel rooms, good hotel rooms. With the Toronto International Film Festival set to launch Thursday, stars and filmmakers from all over the world have been pouring into town placing eccentric demands on the city's concierges and hotel managers.
First-rate Paris
Mention Paris's Latin Quarter and instantly one is negotiating its narrow, winding streets with its crouching medieval buildings and legions of Greek fast-food joints. Bring up the Champs Elysées and it conjures up images of the Arc de Triomphe and a broad avenue populated by luxury boutiques. St. Germain des Près? Arty, bohemian (and overpriced) cafés such as Aux Deux Magots and Café Flore, where Simone and Jean-Paul used to hang out.
May I have this dance?
Help wanted: Single gentlemen aged 45 to 72 with polished social skills, high moral standards, volunteer spirit. Experienced dancers only; must be proficient in all ballroom steps. Need to curb any emotional attachments formed on job. Motion sickness a detriment.
Bermuda's hidden depths
BERMUDA -- Mrs. Tucker won't stand for swearing on her property. Ditto for drinking, smoking and male and female bare asses. And don't expect to go cave diving in her back yard on the Sabbath. But given the opportunity to explore underwater caves that few have penetrated before, most scuba divers would agree to dive in tux and tails just to experience this little-known attraction of the underwater world.
Berlin's bohemian paradise
Berliners -- young Berliners, anyway, which means most Berliners -- like to say that things are all over now. You should have been here in the eighties, when the punks' squats of Kreuzberg were really subcultural; you should have been here in the nineties, when the east was just opening up and there were no shops and no signs anywhere and entire apartment blocks were being given away free to artists' collectives. You missed it. They try to outdo each other with reminiscences of how underground everything was: There was that one guy in Prenzlauer Berg who put a dance floor in his bedroom and paid $56 a month in rent; or the jazz musician whose rent was $14.
Siena's blazing saddles
SIENA, ITALY-- More thrilling than soccer, more theatrical than opera, the Palio ranks among the great Italian spectacles. It offers up a crush of humanity, music and colour, euphoria and tears. And that's just the horse race. Behind the scenes, this centuries-old pageant is laced with subterfuge that would make Machiavelli blush.
Edinburgh: Culture capital
EDINBURGH -- The curtains have once again opened on Edinburgh's fringe festival, transforming Scotland's storied capital into one gargantuan theatre.
The river's edge
For me, rivers have always evoked a sense of mystery. As a child in my hometown of Port Alberni, B.C., I would stare at the silent, brooding waters of the Somass River and wonder where the water had come from. In the winter, I would look down from the town's Orange Bridge at the river, a metamorphosing design of hissing boils, mist and bubbles, and ponder what secrets it harboured. In my young mind, its murky depths seemed to possess a soul, a life force that was connected to all creatures within its drainage basin.
Get outta town!
It's summertime and the living can be stressful -- at least in Ontario's big cities. This year, sweltering heat, strikes and more than the usual number of special events have piled on top of the seasonal smog alerts, ubiquitous road construction and traffic congestion. It's enough to make even the most dedicated urbanite pine for an escape.
Bear essentials
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were visiting some friends who live in an isolated log cabin not far from the eastern entrance to Ontario's Algonquin Park, in prime bear country. Our hosts showed us fresh bear tracks outside their door and on the window panes along the front of their cabin, where some time during the previous night a bear had stood on its hind legs, pressed its muddy forepaws against the glass and peered inside.
Yukon speed rush
CARCROSS, YUKON -- On Montana Mountain deep in the vast wilderness of the Yukon, with a grizzly on one side and a herd of caribou on the other, driving sleet chills us to the marrow.
Manchester cool
These are glamorous times for grimy old Manchester. The town that is best known for its humble history of metal bashing, being bombed and giving birth to the rave scene will play host to the Commonwealth Games, which start on Thursday. It's a big event for a mid-sized blue-collar city whose insubstantial tourism revenues in the past decade have been generated, to a large degree, from blissed-out ravers looking for the next DJ party. Hey world, welcome to Madchesta.
Texas blues
AUSTIN, TEX. -- The battle cry on a T-shirt in the window of Austin's Local Flavor record shop screams a blunt manifesto: Keep Austin Weird.
Lord of the dragonflies
In mid-December, I visited Micronesia for the second time to research a novel set on the island of Pohnpei. In the main town of Kolonia, light strings blinked on palm trunks and sakau bars (sakau being the island's kava-like intoxicant), and there were two national emergencies in two weeks: the first when a typhoon spiralled within 160 kilometres of the coast, the second when a Second World War Japanese munitions dump was discovered one metre beneath the high-school soccer pitch.
Bigger, faster, higher
This is going to be sooo awesome!" 12-year-old Jodie Smith says excitedly as she and her friend edge closer to the front of the line for the Mighty Canadian Minebuster. The giant wooden roller coaster in Paramount Canada's Wonderland, just north of Toronto, was one of the park's first major attractions and was built eight years before she was born. It remains one of the most formidable "woodies" in the country and still attracts coaster groupies from all over the world.
On the Quebec cheese trail
ST-JEAN-SUR-RICHELIEU, QUE.Sure, we've got spectacular scenery and untamed wilderness, but with the country's burgeoning wine regions and regional cuisines drawing international accolades, Canada has a lot to offer the travelling gourmand.
Sand and the city
REVERE, MASS. -- It's a sunny Sunday morning and Bob Upton, 51, is leaning against the low seawall at Revere Beach, Mass., savouring childhood memories of countless hours spent at America's first public beach.
A Canadian Odyssey: Part Three
Story and photo by Bruce Kirkby
Saturday, May 18, 2002
In the final chapter of a three-part series chronicling his 1,500-kilometre expedition around British Columbia's Coast Mountains, adventurer Bruce Kirkby tackles the exploding whitewater of Hell's Gate.
Exclusive to the web: photos and video
Part 1 - Paddling the Inside Passage
Exclusive to the web: photos and video
Part 2 - The mountain ascent
Exclusive to the web: photos and video
New Montreal
Montreal - It's a Saturday morning in June in Old Montreal: Tourists wander the pretty streets lined with heritage buildings, and horse-drawn carriages saunter by with families in the back wearing this-is-taking-too-long expressions. At Place Royale near the southwest corner of the Old City, on the spot where Montreal was founded in 1642, a memorial is imbedded in stone, a copy of a 1701 peace treaty between the French settlers and native tribes. It's all very historical, familiar.
Welcome to K-Country
CANMORE, ALTA. -- With thousands of armed soldiers in the underbrush, a military base camp at the ski resort and CF-18 fighter jets screaming overhead before breakfast, Alberta's Kananaskis Country doesn't seem like the friendliest place to take a vacation right now
Getting into the swing
From the mountain fairways of Banff to the oceanside links at New Brunswick's St. Andrews-by-the-Sea, the courses built alongside our grand hotels have always been the showpieces of Canadian golf.
A Welsh playground
ST. DAVIDS, WALES -- With each swell of the sea, my kayak rises and falls. In front of me is a nar-row gap of white water rushing between the rock walls of two small islets. Behind me is a five-kilometre channel of open water and the red-brown sea cliffs of mainland Wales.
A taste of South Korea
Even when you don't know the language, it's hard to imagine being frightened of eating out. But eating is taken extremely seriously in South Korea. People picnic everywhere, unwrapping bowls onto mats at the side of the road, between parked cars. Markets burst with fresh produce. Delivery guys zip up the sidewalks on motorbikes, carrying dinner in steel cases; women deliver lunch on foot, trays balanced on their heads. More lively than the bars are "soju tents," orange plastic awnings set up on streets throughout the city where you can eat fresh-cooked food and drink soju, the national firewater, all night.
Europe: Plan B
Woe is the well-heeled traveller who has "done" Europe so many times that not a destination remains with enough panache to titillate the senses. So many rely on European bulwarks such as Paris, Berlin and Barcelona for their fix of cultural stimulation that come June, the European capital city crawl is exactly that, a crawl. Long lines at the Tate Modern, hyperbolic prices at Les Deux Magot, elbow scuffles at the Ponte di Rialto - it ends up having more to do with survival than it does with an idyllic outing.
New York's ragtag chic
NEW YORK -- The Lower East Side is Manhattan's Cinderella tale. Once it was touched by the magic wand of New York's boho cognoscenti, this work-worn quarter began getting gussied up for the ball. In the past year, hot chefs and high-energy clubs bloomed on her tired streets, young designers transformed dingy storefronts into showrooms, and preening jewellery shops replaced noisy bodegas. The F train clattered into Delancey Street station for after-hours soirees, and this modest precinct started to develop a serious case of attitude.
Canada's hidden treasures
Canada has plenty of wilderness locations that aren't swamped by summer hordes. Some are just off our main highways, passed over by travellers hurrying to more famous destinations. Others are at the end of a tough paddle or a long trek. Here are six places in the great outdoors from coast to coast that you'll want to keep to yourself
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