Quebec

Echoes of the past

/ Greg / Leave a comment

It has been a year since I lost both my mom and dad in a span of 20 days. I think, like a lot of people, I underestimated the effect grief would have on me. After the difficult process of cleaning out and selling their house all while trying to stay engaged with work from New Brunswick, I was exhausted. In hindsight, I should have taken some time off to recover, but the first break I gave myself was a short trip to Montreal to get away from everything and unplug.

I wasn’t thoughtful about choosing Montreal. I had decided on Vancouver for an escape, but the hotels were so expensive that I ended up booking my trip to this city that has been so much a part of my life over the years. I was so tired in organizing all of this that it didn’t even occur to me that I’d be away for what would have been my dad’s 85th birthday. More on that in a bit. But I was “with it” enough to book a seat on the left side of the plane for this view. Olympic Stadium on the final approach brought a tear to my eye.

Flying over Olympic Stadium in Montreal
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Childhood to today

/ Greg / Leave a comment

Much like what I just wrote about Quebec City, Montreal holds a very special place in my heart. In the early 1980s, childhood trips to the city with my dad were the first experiences I had visiting a big city. Those trips by train to Montreal to take in a few Expos games make me smile to this day and every time I get back to the city it feels like some happy ghosts from those days follow me on my current day explorations.

Montreal trips as an adult usually have a series of touchstones for me that have connections to the memories from my childhood trips. Having amazing meals in the city these days makes me think of getting to eat all kinds of food with dad that I didn’t normally get to have as a child. Touring craft breweries makes me think of dad letting me have a sip of his Budweiser as a kid while we got ready to head to Olympic Stadium. Wandering aimlessly around the old town takes me back to chasing pigeons with dad looking on and laughing at my childhood exploits. And exploring the city in search of public art takes me back to seeing Alexander Calder’s “Trois Disques” and having my mind blown as a seven year old as dad toured me around Île Sainte-Hélène.

Public art along Saint Laurent Boulevard
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A walk down memory lane

/ Greg / 1 Comment

Quebec City has a very special place in my heart. Any time I get back to that city a flood of childhood memories bring a smile to my face and feel like they are a constant companion as I explore the city anew. Last year a conference returned me to this beautiful city and gave me the opportunity to combine some new experiences with a collection of personal touchpoints that now date back almost forty years.

Quebec City
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Guys weekend in Montreal

/ Greg / Leave a comment

The idea for a guys weekend in Montreal with my dad started with a desire to relive some old times in the city. Aside from family road trips to visit my mom and dad’s relatives in New Brunswick, my first real travel experiences were with dad visiting Montreal to take in Expos games in the early 1980s. Those trips were fun times and the memories of them still float around in my mind from time to time. The excited feelings I had when I first arrived in Montreal as a child on the train on those trips are pretty much the same feelings I have today when I visit a place for the first time.

So with nostalgia sparking the idea, and a couple of Blue Jays preseason games in Montreal this past March forming the cornerstone of a trip, I invited my dad on a guys weekend in a city we both love. I flew in from Saskatoon, him from Halifax, and we met in the Montreal airport ready to relive some good old times and to see what kind of trouble we could get into. Trouble is all relative of course, and 40-somthing me and 70-something dad were both up for some unhealthy but delicious eating. First order of business was a smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz’s.

At Schwartz's Deli

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What might someday be

/ Greg / Leave a comment

Note: I’ve transcribed something I wrote in a notebook last year on August 12th in Minneapolis during a trip I took to watch some baseball games. Re-reading it, I like it, so I’m offering it to the world here. It’s about baseball. It’s about the Montreal Expos. It’s about what my baseball trip in the summer of 2016 got me thinking about. As I head to Montreal with my Dad to take in some preseason baseball, this is also about what I hope will happen one day.

August 12, 2016 – Minneapolis, MN USA

Two games and a rainout later, I can’t shake the feeling of what might be. A smallish downtown ballpark, a small market almost contracted into oblivion like what threatened my Expos. A northern city. A second sport city. It’s striking really. In between innings here, if I squint just enough and let my mind wander, I can almost imagine the same scene in Montreal.

I came to Minneapolis, in part, because of early days visits to Montreal. The thrill of the event in the Big O left an imprint on me. Growing up, baseball was everything. Ask me Al Oliver’s stats from 1983 and I can quote them to you. Between early life fanaticism, then growling older and wiser, baseball was always floating around in my mind. It’s something my dad and I have in common, and I love it for that alone.

Then 1994 happened. I was in college and studying hard, had a girlfriend, and an Expos season for the ages stopped. Bitter, my focus left baseball for a while. The Expos were terrible for a long stretch. But still, every time in Montreal I would head to a game or two, and that feeling would return. Even as I was disengaging from baseball, every time I was back in the Big O, beer in hand, there was something magical dancing inside me.

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Retracing steps in Quebec City

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When I’m traveling solo, one of my favourite past times is simply wandering around the city I’m visiting. In Canada, I can’t think of a better city in which to walk around aimlessly than Quebec City.  I’ve been there often and think I’ve walked every street in the old city many times over. But seeing the architecture, the art and the people never gets old.  On my most recent visit in June, although my time was limited as this was a work trip, I managed to put a few kilometres of wear and tear on my shoes retracing some of my favourite steps. Seen many times over by my eyes, Quebec City will always hold a special place for me.  It is a uniquely beautiful city.

Porte Dauphine
Old Quebec
Place d’Armes
Église Notre-Dame-des-Victoires
rue du Trésor

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Summer beers in Quebec City

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My recent trip to Quebec City didn’t have a lot of time for sightseeing and exploring, but I did manage to squeeze in some craft beer samplings around the work and networking that goes hand in hand with a conference trip. Shortly after arriving in one of the most beautiful cities in Canada, I was in need of a quick lunch, and the craft beer bar Le Projet was a short walk from my hotel. The delicious Horreum Beta, a session saison from Microbrasserie Pit Caribou, was a wonderful match for a truly outstanding poutine. Solid start to the trip.

Le Projet: Horreum Beta by Pit Caribou

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Across Canada, Chewy’s last trip

/ Greg / 1 Comment

After moving myself to Saskatoon to take a new job in early April, I returned to the Maritimes to pick up my wife and our dog for a 4,000km, seven day car trek from her family’s home outside of Fredericton, NB to Saskatchewan. I had missed my wife and dog something fierce for the six weeks. When I left them in Halifax at the end of March, before leaving our home to catch an early morning flight, I made sure to say a special goodbye to Chewy. He was suffering with some health issues, and I wasn’t sure I would ever see him again. Fast forward six weeks and a number of vet trips later, Chewy was there for me in New Brunswick.

The night I surprised him with my return, he jumped on the sofa beside me and laid down on top of me.  Our dog likes to be close, but not too close, so I could tell he really missed me. And the next morning, he wouldn’t let me out of his sight, even camping outside a bathroom up a steep flight of stairs to make sure he could be close. On this early morning, he had no idea the adventure he was in for…

Chewy in Nackawic, NB

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Parc Jean-Drapeau public art

/ Greg / 2 Comments

One of my earliest travel memories is an afternoon I spent with my dad in Parc Jean-Drapeau in Montreal in 1981. I was seven years old, and on what was to be my first trip to see my Montreal Expos, a major league baseball strike killed those games (why I still love this sport is beyond me – strikes took away my first games as a child and then my team for good as an adult), leaving us with some extra time to explore the city. We used some of that extra time to tour the park, and the memory of first seeing Alexander Calder’s sculpture “L’Homme” still exists in my mind.

When I was in Montreal for work back in April, I used the little time around the edges of the conference I was attending to visit some old favourites, including wandering around Parc Jean-Drapeau to visit a number of pieces of public art. One of the first pieces on my tour was “L’Arc” by Michel de Broin. Up close, this sculpture looks like it’s made of organic materials and has the appearance of a real tree. Interestingly, it’s made of high performance concrete.  It was a mind-bender when I touched this piece.

L'Arc by Michel de Broin

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