Serendipity hooked us up with Jean-François and Lelia yet again. They met us early at Trois-Rivières and we began our venture to Toronto, first stop Montréal.
We got a coffee and walked around Villeray, a neighbourhood in the north-central part of the Island of Montreal. The architecture here, as you will see in the photos, is typical of Montreal with three-storey apartments whereby access to the second and third floors is via external stairs that go only to the second floor. As far as major cities in North America goes, Montreal is still moderately priced.
Our next stop was lunch at Cornwall, Ontario’s easternmost city. Located on the Saint Laurence River, it was originally home to the Mohawk and Iroquois people. French Canadians began inhabiting the area during the 16th Century and in the 17th Century the French and British fought over the waterway, often using and being used by native allies in highly complex economic competition. However the first documented European settlement wasn’t established until 1784 by ‘United Empire Loyalists’, the American Loyalists who re-settled in British North America during or after the American Revolution. Refugees, primarily from the former British Colony of New York. During the War of 1812 Cornwall became a battleground between Americans and the people who would become today’s Canadians.
From Cornwall we drove through the Thousand Islands and past a Kraft factory on our way to Toronto. We shared a Thai meal before saying au revoir to JF and Lelia, who unexpectedly had become compelling figures in our grand adventure. It’s strange to imagine that we very nearly didn’t meet them at all because our holiday wouldn’t have been the same without them.
Now it just so happened that on the night we stayed in Toronto, Canada’s one-and-only NBA team, the Toronto Raptors, who had never won a championship, were playing the last game in a six-series finals against the San Francisco-based Golden State Warriors, a founding BAA/NBA team that holds several NBA records. The game was being played a few city blocks from our motel so Heidi and I decided to venture out and see what was happening.
There were a few people out and about on the streets, we passed a fabulous jazz bar, a few pubs were overflowing with people watching the game on screens, but when we got to ‘Jurassic Park’, an area that covers about two city blocks, it was packed! We finally found a place to stand at the last of several big screens and Heidi was able to watch the game from my shoulders. I admit I saw more of the play when I was sitting in our motel room, but the atmosphere at Jurassic Park was amazing. We were in the city of the underdog team winning a championship, but even more than that, the “We the North” campaign had galvanised Canadians who were revelling in their sense of ‘unbelonging’, and that had culminated in this history-making moment.
Our walk back was nothing like our walk to Jurassic Park. There were people everywhere and they were all walking against us like a jubilant apocalypse towards the Raptors’ home stadium near Jurassic Park. Endless throngs, in the middle of roads and on pavements, letting off fire-crackers, singing, chanting, honking horns, standing on car bonnets, hanging out of car windows and sunroofs. Not only were Heidi and I walking against the tide, we were wearing U.S.A. branded clothes, Heidi’s hoody red, white and blue with stars and stripes, she got a few friendly High-5s!
Next day we discovered Toronto. We were going to go up the CN Tower but you know what, (I’ve done it before but besides that) we’re a family of five nearing the end of a long holiday so paying a small fortune to ascend a lift, see another cityscape, look 346m down to the pavement (if you can stomach it) and walk around for ten minutes didn’t make the cut this time. Instead we did a Hop-on Hop-off bus tour. Matilda lost her Metung cap in a gust of wind but as the bus returned from Casa Loma (it’s not a castle because royalty has never lived there) she saw it on the road so she and Andrew got off the bus to get it. Andrew took the tickets with him so when the bus stopped for a 15 minute break, they wouldn’t let me, Heidi and Ruebs back on!
Toronto is a lovely city with a beautiful skyline and lots of mirrored glass high rises which is so different to the other major cities we’ve visited. Many old buildings have been lost over the years. During the War of 1812 (which went for nearly three years) the Americans burnt and plundered much of Toronto (named York at the time – the Battle of York). In 1849 the Cathedral Fire a.k.a. Great Fire of 1849 destroyed the market block, then much of downtown was destroyed in the Great Fire of Toronto of 1904. The floodplain lands were cleared of buildings after Hurricane Hazel swept through the city and caused severe flooding in 1954. Toronto seemed like a fun, dynamic city.
The last couple of photos are of the Welland Canal (I think), a ship canal that connects Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. It forms a key section of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes Waterway. Traversing the Niagara Peninsula from Port Weller to Port Colborne, it enables ships to ascend and descend the Niagara Escarpment and bypass Niagara Falls.
Five for the Road 