9 Canadian daredevils
By Blog of Lists - Saturday, December 29, 2012 - 0 Comments
Clifford Calverly. (Get Stock)
Staid? Risk-averse? Not on your life. Canada has produced some of the world’s greatest daredevils, “stunters” and all-round thrill-seekers. Some lived to tell their stories; others weren’t so lucky:
1. Jay Cochrane, Saint John, N.B.: His list of death-defying high-wire feats is long, but his record-smash- ing, 1995 crossing of China’s Qutang Gorge—636 m across, 400 m above the Yangtze River—is surely his masterpiece.
2. Ken Carter, Montreal: Known as the “Mad Canadian,” this car jumper set a record in 1974 piloting a Chevy 34 m through the air above 13 Subarus. In 1979, he was five seconds from attempting a two-kilometre jump over the St. Lawrence in a rocket-propelled Lincoln when he aborted. He died in 1983 trying to jump a pond.
3. Dean Gunnarson, Winnipeg: Perhaps the greatest “escapologist” since Houdini. He’s escaped beer tanks, car crushers and sub- merged coffins. Two years ago, on the anniversary of Houdini’s death, Gunnarson had himself buried in a grave and dug his way out, emerging two days later.
4. Clifford Calverly, Clarksburg, Ont.: In 1887, the young tight- rope artist stunned tourists at Niagara Falls by performing a series of tricks while balancing on a high wire, including hanging by one arm and skipping a rope. He even pushed a wheelbarrow across the wire.
5. Mandy-Rae Cruickshank, Vancouver: A star of the so-called “freediving” movement, where divers go as deep as possible without the benefit of oxygen tanks, she sank using ballast to a depth of 88 m in 2007, setting a women’s world record.
6. Anna Chevalier, Red Deer, Alta.: During the Roaring Twenties in Chicago, she and her trusty horse Johnny would mount a 15-m tower on the Steel Pier, then hurl themselves into a vat of water only three metres deep. Horse diving, it goes without saying, is a lost art.
7. Karel Soucek, Hamilton: In 1984 he rode over the Horseshoe Falls in a barrel and lived. A year later, he was killed performing a fall off the roof of the Astrodome in Houston. As 35,000 people looked on, his barrel hit the rim of a water tank placed below.
8. Lonnie Bissonnette, St. Cathar- ines, Ont.: Perhaps the greatest of Canada’s BASE jumpers, he has parachuted off the famous KL Tower in Malaysia and Angel Falls in Venezuela. He was left a paraplegic after a 2004 bridge jump in Twin Falls, Iowa, went awry, yet continues to jump.
9. Carol Pilon, Masham, Que.: Canada’s pre-eminent wing-walker is the only woman to have ventured onto the wings of a jet-propelled aircraft—or to have performed her act in winter.
Source: Personal websites, news reports
Have you ever wondered which cities have the most bars, smokers, absentee workers and people searching for love? What about how Canada compares to the world in terms of the size of its military, the size of our houses and the number of cars we own? The answers to all those questions, and many more, can be found in the first ever Maclean’s Book of Lists.
Buy your copy of the Maclean’s Book of Lists at the newsstand or order online now.
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11 ghost towns to see before they’re completely gone
By Blog of Lists - Friday, December 28, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
Ireland's Eye. (Pete Ryan/Getty)
From coast to coast to coast, Canada is dotted by ghost towns, vacant testimony to our pioneering spirit and to dashed dreams. Many of their structures still stand, though in derelict condition, offering visitors haunting, often picturesque glimpses of the Canadian past.
1. Giant Mine Town Site, located four kilometres north of Yellowknife, once housed the workers from the Giant Mine gold mine, which ceased operation in 2004. It was the site of a deadly bombing during a labour dispute that killed nine replacement workers in 1992, and is currently an environmental concern due to arsenic tailings. Visitors (who must seek permission to explore the site) can walk among abandoned houses, barracks and disused playgrounds. UPDATE: The Giant Mine townsite has been closed to the public since 2005. The buildings in the townsite are in various states of disrepair and therefore due to health and safety concerns, public access is not permitted.
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6 Canadian places whose original names were more interesting
By Blog of Lists - Thursday, December 27, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
Windsor, Ont., the city formerly known as Sandwich. (Brent Foster)
Sure, Regina and Windsor are okay names, but they’re kind of dull compared to what those places used to be called.
1. Regina was Pile of Bones
2. Kenora, Ont. was Rat Portage Continue…
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9 places in Saskatchewan named after body parts
By Blog of Lists - Wednesday, December 26, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
Moose Jaw (Troy Fleece/CP)
1. Big Arm Bay
2. Eyebrow
3. Elbow
4. Knee Lake Continue…
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9 of Canada’s oldest buildings that are still in use
By Blog of Lists - Tuesday, December 25, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
Her Majesty's Royal Chapel of the Mohawks in Brantford, Ont. (SF Photo/Shutterstock)
1. Le Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice, Montreal (1684): Built in what is now downtown Montreal, the seminary still houses active and retired Sulpicians.
2. Notre-Dames-des-Victoires Church, Quebec City (1688): This functioning Roman Catholic church was a film location for the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can.
3. St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Halifax (1750): The oldest Anglican church in North America is still an active place of worship. It’s seen rough days—a wooden sill is embedded in a wall, flung there during the Halifax Explosion of 1917—but it’s also hosted royals, including Queen Victoria’s father. Continue…
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Seven coolest dinosaur discoveries in Canada
By Blog of Lists - Monday, December 24, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
Hadrosaur (Shutterstock)
1. Albertosaurus sarcophagus: In 1884, George B. Tyrrell discovered the first major dinosaur in Canada. The skull he dug up turned out to be a meat-eating dinosaur and an earlier, close relative of Tyrannosaurus rex.
2. Thescelosaurus assiniboiensis: Discovered in Saskatchewan in 1968, it took 40 years to determine the partial skeleton was a new species of plant-eating dinosaur 66 million years old.
3. Eotriceratops xerinsularis: In 2001, Glen Guthrie, a camp cook at Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park, discovered a nasal horn core belonging to a ceratopsian dinosaur. It is believed famed U.S fossil hunter Barnum Brown passed over this discovery in 1910 in search of more impressive discoveries. Continue…
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The 10 countries that should be happiest
By Blog of Lists - Sunday, December 23, 2012 at 5:30 AM - 0 Comments
According to the United Nations, when measured by factors such as life expectancy, income and education, here are the countries that have the most reason to be happy:
1. Norway
2. Australia
3. Netherlands
4. United States Continue…
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Five American broadcast personalities who are Canadian
By Blog of Lists - Friday, December 21, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
Ali Velshi (CNN, Mark Hill/AP)
1. Kevin Tibbles: Now a prominent NBC News correspondent based in Chicago, Tibbles cut his journalistic teeth in Toronto, where he studied the craft at Ryerson University. Later, he worked with the CBC, covering the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first Gulf War. Continue…
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5 Canadian-born American religious figures
By Blog of Lists - Wednesday, December 19, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
Oil, lumber, autos, hockey players, comedians: all well-known Canadian exports to the U.S. But preachers? From Catholic missionaries to evangelical pastors, Canada has supplied American Christianity with many notable figures.
1. Aimee Semple McPherson (1890 to 1944): A Pentecostal founder of the Foursquare Gospel Church in Los Angeles, pioneer in the religious exploitation of mass media (especially radio) and media celebrity in the 1920s and ’30s, she was born on a farm near Salford, Ont. McPherson’s month-long disappearance in 1926, the same year in which the equally famous Agatha Christie later disappeared for 11 days, sparked the same press frenzy in both cases. (McPherson claimed to have been kidnapped, but the evidence points to a love affair.) The church she founded still claims 8.7 million adherents worldwide.
2. Francis Patrick Duffy (1871 to 1932): A distinguished theologian and the most decorated cleric in the history of the U.S. Army—including the Distinguished Service Cross and the Croix de Guerre—Duffy was a Catholic priest born in Cobourg, Ont. As chaplain to the 69th New York regiment, drawn mainly from first- and second-generation Irish immigrants, Duffy constantly accompanied stretcher-bearers during Great War battles, and was usually in the thick of the action. Duffy Square, the northern half of Times Square, is named after him; Pat O’Brien played him in a 1940 biopic.
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6 outrageously expensive hotel rooms in Canada
By Blog of Lists - Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise Marquis de Lorne Suite. (Paul Warchol/Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise)
You’ll need deep pockets if you plan to spend a night or more in these luxurious hotel suites. (Prices vary according to season. High-season prices listed.)
1. Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alta.: $12,000 per night in the Marquis de Lorne Suite. Overlooking Lake Louise, this sprawling suite is named after the fourth governor general of Canada, husband of Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Louise. Kelly Ripa and her husband were the most recent in a string of celebrities to vacation there. Continue…
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Five important Canadians you probably didn’t learn about in school
By Blog of Lists - Monday, December 17, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
William Barker. (Pat Hewitt/CP)
1. Cornelia De Grassi: The original De Grassi kid, Cornelia was still a teenager when she helped save Toronto from a rebel uprising led by William Lyon Mackenzie in 1837. The daughter of Phillipe De Grassi, a British officer, she rode up Yonge Street to spy on the rebel forces gathered near Montgom- ery’s Tavern. After being captured by the rebels, she escaped on horseback, dodging bullets as she rode back to report that the rebel forces were weak. This embold- ened loyalists, under lieutenant- governor Sir Francis Bond Head, to launch a surprise attack and end the rebellion.
2. John Norton: A crucial native ally to the British during the War of 1812, Norton was born in Scotland to a Cherokee father and Scottish mother, then returned to Canada, first as a soldier then as a schoolmaster in a Mohawk area near Ontario’s Bay of Quinte before becoming Joseph Brant’s deputy. While he and his warriors fought at numerous battles against the Americans, he played a key role at the Battle of Queens- ton Heights. Not only did the war cries of the natives terrify many American troops into refusing to cross the Niagara River, but after Maj. Gen. Isaac Brock was killed, Norton’s warriors fought back the Americans until more help arrived.
3. Viola Desmond: Nine years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Alabama, Halifax’s Viola Desmond was thrown out of a Nova Scotia movie theatre for sitting in the whites-only section. Desmond was fined $20 and was convicted of tax evasion for not paying the one-cent tax on seats sold to white customers. She paid the fine but fought the charge in court, ultimately losing after several appeals. On April 14, 2010, the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia granted Desmond a posthumous pardon, and she was immortalized by Canada Post with a commemorative stamp.
4. William Barker: Canada’s most decorated serviceman and air combat pilot is not Billy Bishop, but William Barker. Born in Dauphin, Man., Barker fought during the First World War and was credited with shooting down 50 enemy aircraft. He received 12 awards for valour, including the Victoria Cross. On Christmas Day, 1917, Barker and his wingman, Harold Hudson, led an unauthor- ized attack on a German airfield, later fictionalized by Ernest Hemmingway in the short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” When his military career was cut short due to battle injuries, Barker returned to Canada and started several businesses with Bishop, married Bishop’s cousin, and became the first president of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1927.
5. Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg: In the same way Norman Bethune is revered in China, Guggisberg, a native of Galt, Ont., is remembered in Ghana for his time as governor of what was then the Gold Coast colony in the 1920s. Guggisberg is remembered for constructing a deep-water port, extending the country’s railways, establishing what remains one of the most advanced teaching hospitals on the continent, and reforming the country’s education system, all while advocating for a bigger role for traditional rulers. After Ghana achieved independ- ence in 1957, Michael Dei-Anang, a Ghanaian poet and diplomat, described Guggisberg as “that conscientious Canadian,” while a giant statue of Guggisberg was erected in the 1970s.
Sources: Library and archives Canada; Dictionary of Canadian Biography; news sources; Hammond Museum of Radio; Canada Post.
Have you ever wondered which cities have the most bars, smokers, absentee workers and people searching for love? What about how Canada compares to the world in terms of the size of its military, the size of our houses and the number of cars we own? The nswers to all those questions, and many more, can be found in the first ever Maclean’s Book of Lists.Buy your copy of the Maclean’s Book of Lists at the newsstand or order online now.
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The 10 best Canadian cities to raise kids in
By Blog of Lists - Sunday, December 16, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
Calgary skyline. (Dolce Vita/Shutterstock)
To figure out the ideal places for raising your brood, MoneySense magazine evaluated everything from house prices and health professionals to child care spaces and the size of the population aged 14 and under. Continue…
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6 of Canada’s most bizarre murders
By Blog of Lists - Saturday, December 15, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
Mark Twitchell in an undated photo from his MySpace.com page. (CP)
1. The last fatal duel: On June 13, 1833, John Wilson, a weaver’s son, shot Robert Lyon, a law student, in a field outside Perth, Ont. According to contemporary accounts, Lyon had disparaged the honour of Eliza- beth Hughes, a young teacher Wilson was hoping to court. The two agreed to a duel with pistols to settle the matter. Wilson hit Lyon in the chest with his second shot. A jury acquitted Wilson of murder and he later went on to marry Hughes and have a career in federal politics.
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8 best imaginary boyfriends from Canada
By Blog of Lists - Friday, December 14, 2012 at 9:48 AM - 0 Comments
Canadians make the best (imaginary) boyfriends. Proof? These eight guys:
1. Ryan Gosling
Why: Street fight breaker-upper, real-life good Samaritan (he saved a woman from being hit by a taxi in New York),he has two MTV award nominations for best kiss to his name. Lips. Whatever.2. Ryan Reynolds
Why: In possession of a distractingly well-muscled torso, he holds his own when acting opposite Denzel Washington and avian-marine hybrid aliens. He seems like he’d be fun to hang out with in real life.3. Will Arnett
Why: Devoted Leafs and Jays fan (clearly a glass-half-full kind of guy), he has spot-on deadpan humour, very pretty eyes.
Continue… -
9 over-the-top warnings from Americans about Canada’s health care
By Blog of Lists - Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 12:12 PM - 0 Comments
Commentator Glenn Beck arrives at the 45th Country Music Association Awards in Nashville, Tennessee on Nov. 9, 2011. (Harrison McClary/Reuters)
American pundits, publications and politicians have been kind enough to warn us that our socialized health care system is the filthiest, most evil and dangerous system on the planet.
1. “Dear Canadian: You make socialized medicine sound ideal. But whenever private enterprise is replaced by a government institution, incentive is thwarted and the quality of services usually deteriorates.” – Dear Abby, April 25, 1977
2. “To receive major health care in two weeks would be only a dream for most Canadians.” — Susan Riggs,
Knight-Ridder, June 22, 19943. “People come here from every country . . . including Canadians fleeing from the substandard quality, cruel rationing and long waiting lists of their ‘free’ socialized medicine.” – Paul Craig Roberts, Scripps Howard News Service, June 23, 1994
4. “Did the fact that Canada has a socialist, government-run health care system — similar to the kind that President Obama wants to ram down the throats of Americans—kill acclaimed actress Natasha Richardson?” — Matthew Vadum, The American Spectator, March 21, 2009
5. “Canada’s disastrous health care system survives because of . . . the widespread fear that any reform might constitute ‘Americanization.’ ” — Jonah Goldberg, National Review, Nov. 25, 2002
6. “For cardiac bypass surgery, patients in Ontario are told they may have to wait six months for a surgery that Americans can often get right away.” – Sen. Mitch McConnell, June 8, 2009
7. “Canada needs to reform its health care system and let the private sector take over some of what the government has absorbed.” – Sarah Palin, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, November 25, 2009
8. “In Canada,they have a lottery. They have a lottery system. Who gets to go see a doctor this month in Canada?” – Glenn Beck, The Glenn Beck Program, July 15, 2009
9. “Is government-run health care in Canada taking away parents’ rights?” — Steve Doocy, Fox & Friends, February 23, 2011
Have you ever wondered which cities have the most bars, smokers, absentee workers and people searching for love? What about how Canada compares to the world in terms of the size of its military, the size of our houses and the number of cars we own? The answers to all those questions, and many more, can be found in the first ever Maclean’s Book of Lists.Buy your copy of the Maclean’s Book of Lists at the newsstand or order online now.
