In one month the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Fifty years ago, Canada gave a birthday gift to the United States, a glossy coffee table book of high quality photographs that was at the time the “longest undefended border” in the world. It was called Between Friends/Entre Amis. […]
The El Santuario de Chimayó in Chimayo, New Mexico, is a sacred piligrimmage site considered one of the most important Catholic shrines in the United States, sometimes called the “Lourdes of the Americas,” since dirt at the sanctuary has a reputation for healing. It is a National Historic Landmark in the United States, part of […]
I was shocked to read in the New York Times this week in Margret Renkl’s column that the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia, is in danger of being destroyed by, of all things, a strip mine. She reports that there is wide spread opposition to the mine from across the political spectrum in generally […]
It was forty years ago, in August, 1980, that a friend and I drove from Vancouver, BC, where I was living at the time, to spend a weekend at Florence, Oregon, which inspired Frank Herbert to write the famous novel Dune. Like many at the time, I was entranced by Dune as soon as I […]
Boston, like Kitimat, is buried in snow. I was in Boston, staying in Cambridge for a conference, when the region was hit by a blizzard in December, 2003. According to the Boston Globe, the area has received 196 centimetres of snow so far this winter (77.3 inches). Kitimat got about 180 centimetres (70.80) inches during […]