stories about family, outdoors, travel and running
June 8, 2021
THE DAY STARTS very early for Bernie LePage from late April to early December. He leaves his home in Nobel, Ontario at 3:45 am, then drives 90 minutes south to Thunder Beach, on the tip of the Penetanguishene peninsula.
June 3, 2018
I RAN THE Ragnar Relay Niagara race on the weekend, my third time doing this particular event and my sixth crack at this type of two-day, team relay race.
April 27, 2017
When my buddy and I biked across the country in 1976, the only book we carried with us was “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig. I’m not sure why.The dense monster of a novel was about philosophy, reason and mental illness – although it was also a sort of travelogue. Maybe that’s what possessed us to bring it along for our own adventure.
August 10, 2016
When I would visit my friend Neal Evans’s house as a teenager, it was always full of his mother Lee’s presence. This included artistic vigour, lots of projects, and a strong dose of social activism in the air. Lee and her husband Sam led the youth group at the United Church where my father was the minister. Although it was very uncool to be attending a youth group at a church that was, unfortunately, across the street from my high school, Lee and Sam actually made it fun and relevant.
July 7, 2016
WE’D RIDDEN WELL into the evening and it was nearly dark, so we threw our bikes over a farmer’s fence at the side of the highway, gobbled a quick pasta dinner chased by a Mars bar dessert, then opted to camp on the open prairie without a tent. Our gear was strewn everywhere as we fell asleep under the stars, oblivious to the tiny flashes of lightning on the distant western horizon.
May 18, 2016
I’ve hiked the Starkey Hill trail many times since I moved to Guelph a decade ago. At first, I was astonished by the sudden appearance of Church of Our Lady on the western horizon as I reached “the summit” of the trail in the last quarter of the 4K loop. (It’s now “Basilica” of Our Lady, but I like the older term.)
February 24, 2016
One of the favourite day trips from our summer cottage on Georgian Bay is to a lakeside patch of granite everyone calls “Painted Rocks,” even though it has no such name on the map. It’s a spectacular place, where the mysterious forces of deep nature are hard at work, on a time scale you can scarcely imagine.
February 9, 2016
Once upon a time there was a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a good old time. She was enjoying the wind and the fresh air. She had her friends around her.
January 30, 2015
I’m all buckled into my buoyancy vest, air tank, weights, and I’ve donned my fins, mask and snorkel. I put the regulator in my mouth, breath air from my tank, shuffle awkwardly to the stern of the boat, then take a giant stride into the water. I’m floating instantly. I test out my gear, check my gauges and a few minutes later I’m descending with a group of six other divers and our leader. Our destination is a shipwreck called the St. Anthony, 70 feet below us, off the south shore of Maui.
January 2, 2015
Running – just like life itself – has its ups and downs, its ebbs and flows, its highs and lows.
October 23, 2014
Two gripping news stories reached me via Facebook yesterday. Both involved violent, shocking deaths. And I had a personal, family connection to each one.
August 3, 2014
It’s late in the day. Our friend Jessica is sautéing shrimp in the cottage kitchen. Her husband and daughter are playing a leisurely card game nearby. It’s the dénouement of a long sunny day that’s been chock-full of activity and adventure. I don’t think we can possibly cram another highlight into this 12 hours. It began with a warm run followed by a cold swim, and has seemed to stretch on forever from there.
December 5, 2013
It’s dark. And cold. A winter wind blows from the north. My watch reads 6 pm. I should be home enjoying a drink or a meal, right? Yeah, but it’s Tuesday night. That means group tempo run with my club, the Guelph Victors.
September 29, 2013
I just returned from a four-week vacation in southern France. I know, I know – poor me, having to switch from cheap-as-dirt baguettes, pastries and wine (plus clear blue skies, dry air, and a 20 degree ocean), to falling leaves, near freezing nights, 7 pm darkness and public adoration of … the pumpkin? … in one short weekend. Oh well.
October 9, 2012
THERE WAS a girl. Twenty-four years old. By all accounts, a luminous human being from the very beginning – the sort of girl whose sparks of brilliance and warmth of personality ignited everyone she met.
April 4, 2011
TERRY AND KYLE MOORE are ecstatic. After learning the ropes of maple syrup production each spring for five years, they’re finally cashing in. The sap has been flowing briskly all weekend. Their assortment of high- and low-tech gear is working perfectly. And they’ve got the boiling technique down pat. They started at 9 am this Monday morning and by 7:30 pm they’re pouring off jar after jar of rich, amber syrup. It’s a bumper year, more than double the production of any previous spring. Neither guy can stop grinning at their magical good fortune.
January 13, 2011
THREE YEARS AGO, my wife Nichola and I visited Paris and Marseille while our son Thomas was in France on an exchange. It amazed me how we can pick up the language once every few years, and even improve. We were better than we’d been in Belgium five years earlier, and way beyond the high school French we’d both started with so many decades ago.
November 26, 2010
I LEARNED TO SAIL small boats as a teenager, in the frigid salt waters of Georgia Straight near Vancouver. Learning to manage a dinghy in heavy wind was thrilling, but also cold, salty and uncomfortable. My hands always hurt, and when you capsized it was nearly life-threatening!
